1923-02-22

MOOSE JAW ELECTION

Mr. SPEAKER:: I have the honour to inform the House that I have received the following communication:



SUPREME COURT OF CANADA

[Stage Direction]
Ottawa, February 21, 1923. Hon. Rodolphe Lemietjx, K.C., M.P.,
Speaker of the House of Commons,
Ottawa.
Re Moose Jaw Election
Sir,-I beg to enclose herewith my certificate in the above election case, as required by section 69 of the Dominion Controverted Elections Act.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
E. R. Cameron.
Registrar of Supreme Court of Canada.
[Stage Direction]
Questions
[Stage Direction]
Report of the Board of Pension Commissioners for the year ending March 31, 1922.- Hon. Mr. Beland.

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved:: That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint their Honours that this House has substituted the name of Mr. Beaubien for that of Mr. Lovie on the Joint Committee of both Houses on the Library of Parliament.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

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

Mr. DUNCAN:: 1.	Was P.C. 1053, June 29, . 1922, published in the Canada Gazette? If not, why?


Mr. COPP:: 1.	No.
2.	It has not been customary to Gazette orders in council of this character.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAY TIES
Mr. STEWART (Leeds):: 1.	What quantities of cross ties were purchased from the Canadian Tie and Lumber Company, Limited, during the calendar year 1922, for use on any of the lines now included in the National Railway System?
2.	On what dates were such purchases made?
3.	What quantity of hard wood ties were purchased on each occasion ?
4.	What quantity of soft wood ties were purchased in each case?
5.	What prices were paid in respect of each purchase?
6.	By whom were such purchases made?
7.	What is the official position of the purchaser?
8.	Were tenders invited in connection with any of such purchases?
9.	If so, on what dates, in what manner and in connection with what purchases?
10.	Were any of such purchases made without tender?
11.	If so, on what dates, for what amount of ties, and why were tenders not invited?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	750,000.
2.	October 23, 1922.
3 and 4. Approximately 50 per cent of each.
5.	Hardwood, 35c. to 75c.; cedar, 40c. to 85c., and small quantities of the following: hemlock, 30c. to 70c.; red oak and chestnut, 50c. to $1.00; white oak, 70c. to $1.30.
6.	General Purchasing Department, Grand Trunk Railway system.
7.	General Purchasing Agent.
S.	No.

9.	No.
10.	Yes.	.
11.	Purchase made under contract entered into by the late Grand Trunk management in July, 1917.


COAL IMPORTS
Mr. CHURCH:: 
Hon. Mr. COPP:: Fiscal year ended March 31st, 1922.
1 and 2. Imports bituminous coal from United States entered for consumption in Canada, 12,746,976 tons, value $39,227,495.
3 and 4. Imports anthracite coal from United States entered for consumption in Canada, 4,415,921 tons, value $38,997,455.
5.	Total value bituminous and anthracite entered for consumption in Canada, value $78,258,725.
6.	The total amount of electrical energy generated from Canadian water-power and exported to the United States for the calendar year 1922 was 976,442,339 kilowatt-hours, or 149,431 h.p. years.
7.	The equivalent in anthracite coal would be approximately 114,876 tons, valued at $16.50 per ton. The price paid by Canadian consumers would be $1,895,454.
8.	No information.
9.	Exports Canadian newsprint to United States, 14,106,128 cwt.; value $59,891,120.


CONSUMPTION OF CIGARETTES
Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: 1.	What was the total amount of cigarettes entered for consumption during the present fiscal year down to the end of the last accounting period, and the amount of taxes collected thereon; and, what was the total amount of cigarettes entered for consumption dur-

Questions
ing the corresponding period of the last passed fiscal year, and the amount of taxes collected thereon?
2.	What was the total amount of cigars entered for consumption during the present fiscal year down to the end of the last accounting period, and the amount of taxes collected thereon; and, what was the total amount of cigars entered for consumption during the corresponding period of the last passed fiscal year, and the amount of taxes collected thereon?


Hon. Mr. BUREAU:: 1.	Cigarettes:
Domestic cigarettes taken for consumption and excise duty collected thereon during the periods specified:
Number Excise Duty
April 1st to December 31st,
1921	 1,945,851,276 $11,683,987 90
April 1st to December 31st,
1922	 1,539,486,238 11,244,671 83
Imports of cigarettes entered for consumption and customs duty collected thereon during the periods specified:
Customs Lbs. Duty
April 1st to	December	31st,	1921.. 21,705	$110,721	75April 1st to	December	31st,	1922.. 26,717	146,168	352.	Cigars:
Domestic cigars taken for consumption and excise duty collected thereon during the periods specified:
Number Excise Duty
April 1st to December 31st,
1921		 150,923,165	$905,557	07
April 1st to December 31st,
1922		 150,207,655	514,479	41
Imports of cigars entered for consumption and customs duty collected thereon during the periods specified:
Customs Lbs. Duty
April 1st to December 31st, 1921.. 12,956 $80,301 35 April 1st to December 31st, 1922.. 15,518	88,215 70
Excise taxes on cigars entered for consumption:
May 24th to December 31st, 1922-	Excise Tax
Imported Cigars	 $ 8,633 09
Domestic Cigars	 156,772 04
Sales Tax collections on cigars and cigarettes not available.


TORONTO VIADUCT
Mr. HARRIS:: 1.	Is it the intention of the government to demand that the viaduct order of 1909, as amended and consented to in 1913 by the city of Toronto, the Toronto Harbour Commission, the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Grand Trunk Railway, and validated by an order of the Railway Commission, be proceeded with, and when ?
2.	If not, why?	[DOT]
3.	Has the government had any representations made to them by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company with a view of releasing them from their obligations regarding this order?
4.	If so, when and on what premises are these representations made ?
5.	Does the government consider this work is necessary?
6.	If not, why?
7.	Has the government under consideration any alternative scheme in this connection?
8.	If so, what is it?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	Terminal arrangements at Toronto are not dealt with by the government, but by the parties immediately concerned and the Board of Railway Commissioners.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	No.
4.	Answered by No. 3.
5.	It is hot a matter for the consideration of the government, but of Canadian National Railways, the management of which hopes shortly to deal with the questions at issue.
6.	Answered by No. 5.
7.	No.
8.	Answered by No. 7.


CANADA COLONIZATION ASSOCIATION
Mr. SHAW:: 1.	Have any sums been advanced by the government to the Canada Colonization Association?
2.	If so, what was the total amount advanced, when was same paid, and under what authority was payment made?
3.	Were any stipulations made as to the objects and purposes upon which moneys were to be expended?
4.	If so, what were such stipulations?
5.	Have such stipulations been complied with?


Hon. Mr. FIELDING:: 1.	Yes.
2.	$40,000. By authority of the Immigration .Act.
3 and 4. For advertising in Great Britain and the United States, and to provide information for proposed purchasers of lands in Canada.
5. It is still too early to determine the ultimate results of the work done by the Canada Colonization Association. A great deal of preliminary work has been done in the way of listing lands and in classifying these and also in interesting prospective land purchasers.


VANCOUVER TERMINAL ELEVATOR
Mr. SALES:: In view of the fact that a bill has been passed providing for the erection of an extension to the terminal elevator at Vancouver.
1.	Have plans and specifications for said extension been received by the government?
2.	Have any contracts yet been let in connection with construction? If so, to whom, and for what amounts?


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1.	No.
2.	No.
Questions


WINE AND BEER EXCISE TAXES
Mr. RINFRET:: 1.	What amount was collected from excise taxes, during the fiscal year 1922, on (a) alcohol; (b) wines, (c) beer?
2.	What proportion was paid by each province for each of the above items?
Hon. MR. BUREAU:
Statement of Excise Revenue collected by provinces, on alcohol, wines and beer the fiscal year ended March 31st, 1922.
Excise Duty:
Province	Spirits Malt Liquor
Nova Scotia	
$ 62,633 67	$	10,320 00New Brunswick	
119,821	35	15,926	07Quebec	
2,514,603	99	1,734,655	62Ontario	
3,009,546	45	382,862	64Manitoba	
189,980	50	95,856	78Saskatchewan	
16,640 85Alberta	
100,878	69	115,115	79British Columbia	
224,095	87	167,124	90Total Dominion	
$6,221,560 52	$2,538,502 65
Excise Tax:
Ale, Beer.
Province.	Spirits. Wines. Porter, etc.
Nova Scotia	$	17,881 23	1,947 60	1,732 50
Pr. Edw. Island.. 2,463 50	129 53		
New Brunswick..	..	40,731	47	727	75	3,894	09Quebec	
1,118,906	94	62,210	96	856,074	62Ontario	
464,204	33	120,068	47	192,880	07Manitoba	
23,443	62	1,896	46	15,336	20Saskatchewan ..	..	63,189	33	3	00	186	84Alberta	
35,343	72	78	90	21,267	73British Columbia	..	72,532	00	3,596	16	156,218	54
Total Dominion.. $1,838,696 14 $190,658 83 $1,247,590 59
Sales Tax figures not available.



REGINA PHOTO SUPPLY CO.-SALES TAX


Mr. BLACK (Yukon):: 1.	How many stenographers are there in the members stenographers' branch of the House of Commons?
2.	How are they selected?
3.	Has the Civil Service Commission anything to do with their appointment ?
4.	What are their salaries?
5.	What are their names?
6 How many hours per day do they work?
7. Does the Clerk of the House exercise any supervision over their duties?


Hon. Mr. COPP:: 1.	63 stenographers.
2.	By the chief of the staff, subject to the approval of the Speaker of the House of Commons.
3.	No.

4.	62 at $4 per day and 1 supervisor at $5 per day.
5.	Anderson, Miss Mabel; Bass, George; Bouchard, H. M.; Brankin, Miss H.; Brennan, Miss M.; Cameron, Miss A.; Cameron, Miss C. L.; Carrier, Miss A.; Charette, Miss D.; Charrow, Miss G.; Cook, Miss B.; Cross, I. E. (Capt.); Culross, Miss A.; Demont, Miss F.; Denison, Miss J. E.; Des-champs, Miss J.; Dickner, Miss M. R.; Duff, Miss J.; Fagan, J. E.; Forke, Miss M.; Gagnon, Miss M. J.; Garceau, Mrs. M. E.; Gar-neau, Mrs. S.; Garrow, Miss G.; Gougeon, Miss Y.; Graham, Miss N. J.; Gravelle, Miss
M.	; Halliday, Miss F.; Halliday, Miss J. M.; Jackson, Miss V. M.; Joubert, Miss L.; Kipp. Mrs. Y.; Laperriere, Miss M. R.; Locke, Miss B.; McEwen, Miss M. E.; McKinley Miss J.; Macdonald, Miss 'M. H.; Mac-Ritchie, Miss A.; Mahoney, J. J.; Marcotte, Miss M.; Marriott, Miss I.; Megloughlin, Miss
N.	E.; Miller, Miss M.; Miller, Miss R. R.; Nicholl, Miss L.; O'Regan, O. G.; Ouimet, Miss A.; Parent, Miss O.; Parker, H D.; Patching, Miss H.; Read, Miss E.; Reynolds, Miss B.; Seguin, Miss M.; Sinclair, Miss A.; Soper, Miss K.; Sullivan, Miss M. H.; Theobald, Mrs. C.; Valiquette, Miss C.; Weil-brenner, Miss A. L.; White, Miss B.; Wilson, Miss M. E. D.; Wright, Miss A.; Wright, Mrs. J.
6.	From 7 k to 10 hours per day.
7.	No.


OIL SPRINGS POST OFFICE
Mr. FANSHER:: 1.	Has a postmaster been appointed to the Oil Springs Post Office, to fill the vacancy caused by the death, over a year ago, of the postmaster of said place?
2.	If so, when was the appointment made and who is the appointee?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM (for Postmaster General) :: 1.	No.
2.	Certificate issued by Civil Service Commission in favour of Thomas C. Ward, who refused the appointment.


IMMIGRATION ADVERTISEMENTS
Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: During the present fiscal year and down to the 31st of December, 1922, how much money was paid by or for the Department of Interior and Immigration for advertisements designed to promote immigration (a) for such advertisements published in the United Kingdom (b) for such advertisements in any other country ?	*


Hon. Mr. STEWART:: (a) Great Britain, $69,298.79; (b) other countries, $202,018.78.

The Civil Service


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. BOURASSA:: 1.	What are the names of the postmasters in the county of Levis that were dismissed between July 1, 1911, and January 1, 1922?
2.	What are the names of those dismissed after inquiry ?
3.	What were the reasons for their dismissal?
4.	What are the names of those dismissed without an inquiry ?
5.	What were the reasons for the dismissal of the latter?
6.	What are the names of those who have been reinstated?


CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Hewitt Bostock: I wish to read to the House the following letter which I have received from the chief of the Orders and Notices branch concerning the incident which occurred yesterday with respect to Mr. Irvine's bill to amend the Criminal Code:
February 22nd, 1923.
Honourable Rodolphe Lemieux,
The Speaker,
House of Commons.
Honourable and Dear Sir,	-
The incident regarding Mr. Irvine's bill to amend the Criminal Code seems to be the outcome of some very natural misunderstanding on the part of some person. On the 31st January last I received from Mr. Irvine a written order to place a bill bearing that title upon the Order Paper. I did so; thus far there does not apear to be any difficulty. On the 8th February I received, from the Assistant Clerk, a written order to place upon the Order Paper a bill, also in Mr. Irvine's name, and bearing the same title; that is to say "An Act to amend the Criminal Code." I hold both of the above-mentioned orders. The latter one came out to me from the House, I had no discretion in the matter; all I had to do was to place it on the Order Paper as directed. It might have been a bill to amend some other provision of the Criminal Code, that Mr. Irvine desired to introduce. In any case I could do nothing other than follow my instructions. I did so, as I have always done, to the best of my ability, and I beg to express my regret that any misunderstanding should have arisen.
I have the honour to be, Honourable and Dear Sir, Yours very respectfully,
H. Crossley Sherwood,
Chief of Orders and Notices Branch.


FEDERAL GRANT FOR HIGHWAYS
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. L. P. BANCROFT (Selkirk):: Is it the intention of the government to extend the time during which the federal highways grant is to be available to the provinces?


Hon. G. P. GRAHAM (Acting Minister of Railways):: In reply to my hon. friend I may say that the matter has not yet been fully considered.


PORTFOLIO OF RAILWAYS
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: ' Would the Prime Minister tell the House when he expects to have the vacant portfolio of Railways and Canals filled? I may remind him that it is not long since he was very impatient of "makeshift" arrangements about portfolios, and that the present Acting Minister of Railways is administering three departments.
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING
(Prime Minister): The present acting minister is doing so well that I think I may as well take my time to consider the matter.


Arthur Meighen: Is it the intention to have the portfolio filled?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, at some time, but just when, I cannot say.


THE CIVIL SERVICE
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, February 16, the debate on the motion of Mr. Power (Quebec South).
That in the opinion of this House, it is advisable to repeal chapter 12, 8-9 George V., an Act respecting the Civil Service of Canada.
Mr. JOS. T. SHAW (Calgary West): Before resuming the discussion on the important resolution proposed by the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power), I would like to indicate my appreciation of his courage, and also of his frankness, in presenting this resolution for our consideration. There can be no question in the mind of the hon. member as to what he proposes to do with the Civil Service.
I would also like to say a word or two with regard to the attitude assumed by the seconder of that resolution (Mr. Chevrier). While, apparently, he had in his mind some slight reservation with regard to seconding the proposed resolution, yet upon further consideration, and certainly in view of his arguments, there can be no reason to my mind why he should make any mental reservation whatsoever. I do not wish for a moment to misrepresent the attitude of the seconder of the resolution in any way, but if I understand his position correctly it is simply this: He desires that technical officers in the Civil Service shall be removed entirely from the jurisdiction of the commission. He asks further that those engaged in what he calls "labour" shall be removed from the jurisdiction of that body. In the third place, he asks if I understand
The Civil Service
[Stage Direction]
him'correotly, that the so-called clerical positions shall be removed from the jurisdiction of the commission so far as regards appointment and promotion, and of course, pay. In other words, if the seconder of the resolution had his wish, he would simply permit the Civil Service Commission to hold testing examinations with regard to the clerical staff of the Civil Service. I think, therefore, that upon mature consideration that hon. gentleman should have no difficulty whatever in seconding unreservedly the resolution of the hon. member for Quebec South.
The seconder also dwelt at some length-not only the other day but on the occasion of the debate last year-on, what he was pleased to call the "joke book" consisting, I understand, of some two or three volumes. Now I do not know very much about this joke book, but I do know that the classifications made therein have meant considerable sums of money to those employed in the Civil Service, and quite properly I think, and if I judge the attitude of civil servants correctly I think perhaps they would appreciate another joke book rather than have the one already existing removed.
I would like to say that I have listened with considerable care to the arguments which have been advanced, and I notice that every single argument presented during this debate, and also last year, was made without avail, over fifty years ago at the time the merit system was introduced into the English Civil Service. At that time it was urged that the proposed commission was altogether too expensive, that it was a great patronage bureau, and it was urged at that time* just as it is to-day, that it would take away the responsibility of the ministry. So that even in those days in England, fifty years ago, when civil service reform was in its very swaddling clothes, it was suggested by politicians that the constitution of this commission simply meant the creation of a bureaucracy with a resultant loss of esprit de corps in the service. But the lapse of time and the development of a very sane and alert public opinion in England have freed that service from partisanship and from political control and has made it what it is to-day, a service which is at once the envy and the admiration of every civilized country in the world.
Mr. POWER:: Is it not a fact that for
several years after the passage of the first civil service reform bill in England a large number of amendments thereto were introduced and carried in order to bring it to its present workable condition?


Mr. SHAW:: I think that exactly the same situation developed there as has developed
	,
here. The appointment of that commission was opposed by political influences of various kinds from time to time, and efforts were made every now and then to put it on a somewhat different basis. It was attacked from every possible angle, as the same reform has been attacked in this country. Our Civil Service Commission is going through its testing time just as the Civil Service Commission in England went through its period of trial. Our commission has been established somewhat less than five years and one cannot reasonably expect that you can build a structure which is perfect in every part and develop it to its fullest extent within that time, especially when one realizes that in order to do that you must uproot convictions which have been deeply laid as a result of a spoils system in force for approximately fifty years in Canada. In our country patronage has ever been the mainspring of political parties; and it cannot be expected that party adherents so recently divorced from these accepted privileges should now stand idly by and allow themselves to be permanently deprived of its control and exercise. Until 1908 patronage flourished in this country. Following the advent of every new government there" were hundreds of dismissals for which no reason whatsoever was given except mere political partisanship. Then followed in due course a long series of parliamentary debates, most acrimonious in their character, charges first by one party and then by another-debates which I humbly suggest did not in any way raise the dignity of parliament, but which on the contrary demoralized the Civil Service, because it was dragged through the mire of fierce partisan controversy.
I want to catalogue very shortly some of the admitted abuses which ensued as a result of that system. There was first of all the waste of public money. I believe that one of the auditors general of this country stated on one occasion that if he were given one-third of the money expended on the Civil Service he would be able to create a more efficient service than was then in operation. Not only has there been a waste of public money, however, but there has been a waste in human efficiency, because, owing to the fact that priority was given to political friends largely without consideration of merit, and owing to the insecurity of tenure which necessarily attended appointments, and the necessity, on the part of civil servants, of constantly having a friend at court in order to maintain positions secured, it followed that the Civil Service was bound to be demoralized and inefficient. Then unfortunately-and per-

The Civil Service
haps this is one of the most important incidents of the system-was the fact that the public morals were corrupted. People were debauched largely with their own money, and the promise of the bestowal of public office resulted too frequently in influencing elections held in tins country. Now, I suggest to hon. members that no one escaped the baneful influences of this patronage system, nor did any one in the long run profit by it. Under these circumstances one is not in the least surprised that there was a lowered morale in the public service, that there was a lack of economy, and consequently a lack of efficiency. I am not suggesting that the Liberal party was more to blame than the Conservative party; I think they were equally to blame. Not only that; if any other party had been in power at that time they would have followed in the wake of both old parties and adapted themselves to the then existing evils. But fortunately the public itself began to realize the necessity for reform. Governments, too, were not unmindful of the situation, because they appreciated the fact that this patronage system was the mightiest engine that made for the destruction of governments. Besides, members of parliament, I think, also began to realize that the dispensing of patronage was not the pleasant duty which it was sometimes considered to be. And, as a fact, many more people were disappointed than could possibly have their desires gratified by appointment to the Civil Service. As a result of this combination of forces directed towards reform, in 1908 a merit system was to some slight extent introduced into the Civil Service. That measure of civil service reform applied only to the inside service; it applied only to about 2,200 employees in Ottawa. However, despite the introduction of that partial reform, I do not think it can be urged with entire truth that even in that part of the service to which the reform applied patronage was dispensed with, because the peculiar method that was adopted resulted many times, I understand, in political friends receiving preferment. In 1911, we had another change of government. I glanced casually through the debates that took place in parliament, to see to what extent dismissals had occurred following the advent of the new government; and I found some fifty or sixty pages of Hansard indicating wholesale dismissals from the service. There can be no doubt that after that election, with the change of government it brought, the Civil Service had a distinctly Conservative hue. The war brought in its train many evils, but it also brought many things of very great value, one of which was
the crystallization in the public mind of the necessity for a more complete measure of civil service reform. And so, as a result of a definite mandate from the people in 1917, civil service reform was introduced by the Union government. The Civil Service Act was passed in 1918 and stands to-day subject to the amendments that have been made in the interim. I would point this out particularly, that there has been no mandate from the public of this country asking for a return to the patronage system. Now, the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power), who moved the resolution, suggested with some degree of fervour that the Civil Service Commission, as constituted under the Civil Service Act, in some way thwarted responsible government, and was to that extent at least unconstitutional. The hon. member is a very astute lawyer. He sat in the House during the time the Civil Service Act was constructed; and so far as the record shows he did not suggest at that time this question of unconstitutionality.


Charles Gavan Power: It was his second year as a member and he was very modest.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I realize that the hon. gentleman, can, with some degree of honesty, plead modesty. But I notice he made no reference at that time to the important^ matter of unconstitutionality, and although he has sat in the House for a considerable period since I have failed to notice the slightest intimation from him of this problem of unconstitutionality. In fact, I must express the amazement I felt when I ascertained that in 1921 he actually refused to support a motion then before the House asking for the return of the patronage system. There was no suggestion of unconstitutionality at that time, and surely even my hon. friend would not plead modesty at that late date.
There can be no doubt that this question of unconstitutionality sometimes leads to a most profound argument, sometimes to even the shallowest. Whenever we desire to raise any question, I care not whether it be high freight rates in British Columbia or high freight rates in the Maritime provinces, we plead unconstitutionality-some divergence from our confederation pact. But I would suggest that in respect to our civil service legislation such an argument has little merit, and that the only effect-I will not say the designed effect-of my hon. friend will be to-undermine the confidence of the public in the Civil Service Commission.
In the next place, I should like to ask the House who is asking for a change in the Civil Service Act? Who desires a return to
The Civil Service

the patronage system, either unreservedly or qualifiedly? Do the civil servants ask for the abolition of this commission? I think not. In fact, if I judge the situation correctly, that is the veiy thing they do not want. I notice that at a convention of the civil servants in the Customs department held some months ago-and I do not know of any member of the government who displays more enthusiasm for the abolition of the Civil Service Commission than the hon. Minister of Customs (Mr. Bureau)-they passed this resolution:-
Resolved that this convention of the Dominion Customs and Excise Officers' Association assembled, representing as it does members of the customs and excise service from coast to coast, very strongly resent any attempt to revert to the patronage system, which we feel would be detrimental both as regards the efficiency and the economical administration of the public service, and further that copies of this resolution be forwarded to the Premier, the Hon. Mackenzie King, and the press, urging upon the government in the strongest terms possible the wisdom of giving such matter very careful consideration before allowing the introduction of any legislation which would deprive efficient civil servants the benefits of the merit system as now provided for under the Civil Service Act.
I have no doubt that that expresses to a very large extent the attitude of the Civil Service generally.
Do the public desire a change? Well, I want to read one or two editorials which I think indicate the view of the public on this question, and I would particularly direct the attention of the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) to an editorial appearing in the Winnipeg Free Press of June 16th last, in which it is stated:-
The defeated candidates have not had this privilege to a sufficient extent, however,-
That is, the privilege of patronage.
-and some of them recently met in Calgary under the chairmanship of Hon. Frank Oliver to frame a formal protest to Premier King according to a circumstantial report in the news columns of the Edmonton Journal. It states-
I take it that that means the Edmonton Journal states:-
It states that seven defeated Liberal candidates attended the meeting and passed a resolution reminding Mr. King that they had requested last January that party and patronage matters in Alberta should be dealt with through the defeated candidates acting on the advice of the Liberal executives or patronage committees, and that he had replied that this, the customary practice, would be adhered to and that "no outside channel will be recognized in dealing with party and patronage matters".


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Was not the protest due to the circumstance that something had been asked which apparently the government had not concurred in?


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I am afraid the right hon. Prime Minister has misunderstood the purport of the article. It suggests that the Prime Minister indicated to these defeated candidates that no outside channel would be recognized in dealing with party and patronage matters. Now, I should be very glad indeed to hear the Prime Minister deny that any such assurance was given to the defeated Liberal candidates or to anybody else.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would certainly deny that any such statement was made by me.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I am very gratified to hear that these gentlemen in their unseemly haste to reimpose the patronage system on this country met with short shrift at the hands of the Prime Minister. The editorial proceeds:
As for those Albertan interlopers who insist on putting their fingers in the pie which is supposed to be cut up and distributed by the duly authorized, they really should be reprimanded for their unmannerly haste.
I am glad to be assured that the Prime Minister has given them that reprimand. To indicate further the attitude of the public in connection with this matter I will now quote from an editorial-


Henry Lumley Drayton: May I ask the hon. gentleman who the chairman of that meeting was?


Joseph Tweed Shaw: The newspaper report indicates that it was Hon. Frank Oliver, a former member of this House. I was about to quote, Mr. Speaker, portions of an editorial which appeared in the Calgary Albertan, a newspaper not unfriendly to this government. I have not the date of this editorial at the moment, but my recollection is that it was published about the middle of September last, and certainly a long time before Dr. Grant got into the newspapers. The editorial reads:
Under existing conditions there is only a shadow of patronage left. Despite that, already in this city there have developed certain petty scandals that reflect serious discredit upon the government and all who are
acting in its name.
Leaving out the next paragraph, which does not appear to be material, the editorial continues :
If there is a plain, downright scandal in connection with the distribution of the crumb of patronage in this city now, what would be the result if the flood gates were opened again ?
The party that loses by the patronage system is the party which has the distribution of the patronage. Premier King should be wised up, for surely he does not know of local conditions, and then he should act with some force.

The Civil Service
Now, these are only two editorials garnered from a considerable mass of press opinion on this subject.


Mr. McMASTER:: May I ask the hon.
member a question? I am unfamiliar with the language of the editorial. What does "wised up" mean?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: It is quite apparent, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) has never been initiated into the mysteries of our western language.


Andrew Ross McMaster: The argot.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: It simply means, to be made familiar with, to be given the information. I merely cite these illustrations as an indication, so far as the public press is concerned, that no desire is being manifested for the return of the patronage system.
Now, I have had the privilege of listening to one other debate in this House on supposed defects in the Civil Service Act and alleged shortcomings of the Civil Service Commission. Approximately one year ago we had a debate similar to that now in progress. I regret that I then heard not a single word of appreciation of the services which must have been rendered by that commission, I heard not a single word either on that occasion or the present indicating the slightest confidence in this commission. On the contrary, many of the statements made are such as can have only one effect, even if not so designed, namely, the effect of undermining public confidence in the commission. Now, what does the government propose in connection with this matter? The right hon. Prime Minister suggests that a committee of this House should be appointed for the purpose of investigating the workings of the Civil Service Commission; and I may suggest that his remarks divided themselves into three reasons. The first was that a gentleman called Principal Grant of Upper Canada College had made, as the Prime Minister stated, false representations in connection with the attitude of the government. May I be permitted to deal very shortly with that matter?
I was impressed at the time the Prime Minister was speaking that there seemed to be very little justification indeed for the attack he made upon that gentleman. Not only that, but a reading of the Prime Minister's remarks in Hansard satisfied me that the Prime Minister must have acted hastily in making that attack. What do we find? I should preface what I have to say by stating
that I do not know this gentleman. I know nothing at all about his movement. I have heard the name Grant before, but not in connection with him. What did this gentleman say, and what were the circumstances? It appears that Dr. Roche, Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, was asked to deliver an* address at Toronto. Mr. Grant, who apparently is interested in the proposed organization of a civil service reform league, gave a statement to the press on his own authority. The suggestion was-that the statement was for their information. The press, instead of taking it in the sense that it was intended without having representatives at the meeting addressed by Dr. Roche, certainly put words in his mouth that he never uttered; there can be no qqes-tion about that. I have not the statement before me, but what does Principal Grant say? He does not mention the government in his statement from first to last-not a single word about the government. He says that the Civil Service Commission is being attacked by insidious political influences, and that already ten thousand men have been released from the operation of the act. Is there anything false about that? Is there the slightest lack of truth in that statement?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Is not the
whole purport of the article to which he refers to convey the impression that the ten thousand persons to whom reference was made were released from the operation of the act at the instance of the government or under some pressure from the government, and that as a consequence something was needed in the way of civil service reform?


Arthur Meighen: They were released by
the government.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: At the request of the Civil Service Commission.


Arthur Meighen: No, no.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: On the recommendation
of the Civil Service Commission.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I respectfully submit to the
Prime Minister that there is no suggestion whatever about the government in connection with this matter, unless the Prime Minister is prepared to state that his government is indirectly referred to in the direct statement with regard to the "insidious, unseen and silent manipulations of the adherents of patronage in political life." I cannot for the life of me-although I should be glad to do so, I must say-find justification for the Prime Minister's remarks. That is the statement v'hich Dr. Grant made. Now, I can readily

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understand that Dr. Grant has a very serious complaint against the newspapers, and I can understand that Dr. Roche has also a serious complaint against them and perhaps against Dr. Grant. But I fail to appreciate how the Prime Minister and his government have any serious complaint to make so far as these statements are concerned. The statements, I submit, are true; and the best evidence of their truth is to be found in the debates in this House of last year and the debates so far as they have proceeded this year, although the latter would not have been known to Dr. Grant at the time he made his statement. So I suggest that the Prime Minister is not on solid ground in asking for a committee of the House to investigate the matter from that angle. I would say further that in my opinion the formation of a Civil Service League is highly desirable and that Dr. Grant is to be commended for trying to institute an organization of that kind. No organization has done as much as the Civil Service Reform League in the United States to bring about that measure of freedom from patronage which now characterizes the United States Civil Service.
Then, in the second place, the Prime Minister suggests in his address not only a lack of economy but also a lack of efficiency in the operation of this board. He says that if the government were not manacled it could reduce the number of civil servants. Well, I may be mistaken, but my understanding is that the government controls not only the inlet to the service but the outlet to it also; that it is within the power of the government to decrease the number of persons in any department, to abolish positions and to accept or not to accept on the permanent rota the civil servants offered to them by the Civil Service Commission. How, under these circumstances, a government can complain that the increase in the number of civil servants is due to the Civil Service Commission, is more than I can understand. I may say that in England, if there is any excess in the number of civil servants that is taken as a direct reflection on the government, not on the Civil Service Commission.
The Prime Minister says that if the government wants to get rid of a clerk or a number of clerks, a great deal of correspondence must take place, and that that involves the necessity of employing a number of correspondence clerks. He took that ground when he had to shift from the first ground in regard to economy in the number of civil servants, and I doubt very much whether that argument either is worthy of consideration in this House.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think I made it clear that the statement I made in that connection wras based upon the reports of deputy ministers to the ministers? My suggestion was that a committee of this kind could give the House an opportunity of hearing the deputy ministers and of hearing the commission itself on this very matter. That was the view that the deputy ministers presented to the government.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: It is only fair to say that I
took it for granted that the Prime Minister had adopted the view that had been presented to him by the deputy ministers. I think they are wrong in the view they present. If the law is as I understand it; if the government through its executive departments controls both the inlet and the outlet to the service, then I see no justification for that argument. Let me revert for a moment to the matter of economy. I wish to refer-because it is a matter of some interest-to the estimates for the current year. I find that with the exception of the Labour department-and I hasten to give the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) credit for it-there is practically no department of government which shows a substantial reduction this year under the head of civil government. The Civil Service Commission, so far as salaries and contingencies are concerned, shows the greatest decrease of any department of government in the estimates for the current year.


Arthur Meighen: Is my hon. friend not
aware that even in the Labour department the reduction is due to the absence of a vote for the unemployed?
, Mr. SHAW:	I am simply taking the figures. I cannot go outside the figures.


Mr. MARTELL:: If my hon. friend will
permit me a question, is it not a fact that the great majority of the increases provided are due to statutory increases over which the government has no control?


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I will come to that in a
moment.


Mr. MURDOCK:: My hon. friend will not,
I am sure, mind my drawing his attention to the statement that the reduction in the estimates of the Labour department has something to do with the unemployment vote. It has not.


Arthur Meighen: The unemployment vote came out of my hon. friend's department; there is none now.

The Civil Service


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I expected to draw some fire
myself, but I hardly anticipated kindling it in other quarters.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Would my hon. friend tell us what new positions have been created and what increase there is in the civil government estimates over and above what is provided for by statute?


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I will answer my hon. friend
in a moment. What I want to say is this: that so far as salaries and contingencies are concerned the Civil Service Commission shows the greatest decrease of any department of government for the current year,- a decrease of about $45,000. May I also say that that represents a decrease in the number of clerks employed by the commission, of some seven. The Labour department has a reduction of $34,340, and I was prepared to give the minister full credit for that reduction.
In answer to the hon. member for Hants (Mr. Martell) may I refer him to the estimates of the Minister of Agriculture, who I understand from his remarks is not averse to the complete abolition of the Civil Service Commission. I find an increase in that department, so far as civil government is concerned, of $72,470. If the hon. gentleman can assure me that that is entirely due to statutory increases, I shall be very glad to accept his statement. But that is the situation, and what I do want to say is that the Civil Service Commission is costing this country apparently less and less, while many departments of government are increasing their expenditure all the time.


Lewis Herbert Martell: How many permanent civil servants in the employ of the Civil Service Commission have been dismissed? Is not this reduction simply a case of getting rid of the extra clerks that used to be falling over each other in the old days?


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I think my hon. friend's argument carries its own answer. May I just point out in connection with these figures that the amount, paid through the Civil Service Commission is something like $60,000,000, and the cost of the commission itself for salaries is something like $188,000 for the current year? That means a percentage of 003 if I have figured it correctly, and I would ask any hon. gentleman to indicate what other Civil Service Commission in any part of the world operates on such a small percentage of the total amount of salaries paid.


Mr. PUTNAM:: Does the hon. member accept the suggestion that these so-called
insidious influences were responsible for bringing ten thousand civil servants outside the operation of the act? If so, does he not think it is possible that these same insidious influences may have caused the reduction in the Civil Service Commission vote?


Joseph Tweed Shaw: Of course, I cannot say to what degree these insidious influences were responsible for what took place. Perhaps my hon. friend can inform the House in that regard.


Harold Putnam: No, I cannot, but my hon. friend made the suggestion that insidious influences were at work, and that they were possibly the explanation of ten thousand civil servants being removed from the operation of the act. If so, perhaps they also furnish the explanation for the reduction in the Civil Service Commission estimate, in which case give thanks to whom it is due.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: Now, Mr. Speaker, if what I have already said is not a sufficient indication of economy of the administration of the Civil Service Commission, I would direct the attention of hon. membefs to 4p.m. the report of the commission for the year 1921. I do not know whether a report has been issued for the current year;
I doubt it. On page 6 of this report I find, under the heading of reorganization, these remarks:
At the request of the Deputy Minister of the Department of Militia and Defence, the Commission assigned one of the staff of the Organization branch as a member of a departmental committee on reorganization. This committee's functions were investigational and advisory, and its recommendations subject to the approval of the deputy minister and where necessary, the concurrence of the commission.
The committee has reported on two branches of the department and its recommendations, which have since been put into effect, have resulted in a saving of approximately 120,000 per annum in salaries on the present permanent establishment, and of $18,000 by the release of temporary employees.
It goes on to show how the service in that particular department has been improved, and then says:
A survey of procedure carried on in the commission's own offices had led to a reduction in the clerical staff of twenty-five positions and a consolidation in the methods of handling certain sections of the routine work. This survey is still in progress and it is believed that further reductions in staff and improvements in procedure can be made.
The Civil Service Commission wherever they have been invited to go into a department have saved the public money, and in addition to that they are apparently making a constant effort to save in their own department. That is borne out by the fact that the number of employees in this department,
The Civil Service

according to the estimates, has been reduced I think by six in number.
May I just interject at this point that I do not know a single member of this coinmission; I do not know a single officer of the commission; I have never to my knowledge met a single individual in that department. I therefore speak without any question as to the personnel of the commission.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Who employed these six that were dropped? Does it not show that the commission were experimenting at the public expense in taking these men on?


Joseph Tweed Shaw: Not at all. My hon. friend is just arguing in a circle. I Say that it indicates that the Civil Service Commission are consolidating their work, making it more efficient and effecting reductions even in the limited time they have had so far. I wish to direct particular attention to that part of the Civil Service Commission's report dealing with the Printing Bureau to show how the commission is economizing there.
The report says:
The work of reorganization in the Department of Public Printing and Stationery has been continued by an officer of the commission specially detailed for the purpose.
It goes on to indicate the work of reorganization in the bureau and says:
For the first time in the history of the Printing Bureau so far as can be learned, the Auditor General's Report consisting of three large volumes was this year ready to lay on the Table of the House on the day parliament opened.
Further on I find this:
The commission records with pleasure that no difficulty has been experienced in its dealings with the bureau officials, and all appointments, transfers, and lay-offs have taken place without political or other interference, and it is confidently asserted that the Canadian Department of Public Printing and Stationery,, at the present time, compares most favourably with any institution of its kind in America.
Then I would draw particular attention to this statement:
The number presently employed is 732, as compared rvith 1,150 in 1919, a reduction of 428 in staff with an annual pay-roll saving of 1746.000. It is believed a further reduction in staff can be effected after parliament prorogues.
That is the report of the commission, and I ask hon. gentlemen, can we not give to the members of the commission credit at least for having done some good work on behalf of the public service? And I suggest therefore, that if these facts be any evidence the Prime Minister cannot be entirely justified in stating that there is a lack of economy in connection with that particular bureau.


Lewis Herbert Martell: May I ask my hon. friend a question? WTas he a believer in the Board [Mr. Shaw.J
of Commerce, instituted by the late government, and if so, does he not know that the vice-chairman of the board stated that the autocratic acts of the Civil Service Commission prevented the board functioning, and thus rendered the purposes of the Board of Commerce futile?


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I recollect some squabble of that character, some time ago.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The hon. member from Calgary West (Mr. Shaw) has suggested that I said something about lack of economy in connection with the commission. I have brought no charge of that kind against the commission at all.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: Not the commission, but the administration of the Civil Service under the jurisdiction of the commission. That is the idea I had in my mind.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: To make perfectly clear what I endeavoured to make clear, it is that according to the representations of the deputy ministers to the government and 'l might say also according to some of the representations of the Civil Service Commission itself-there are particulars in which the act might, be amended which would permit of economies that are not possible at the present time. With the act as it stands, the cost of government is being increased in a manner in which it would not be increased if certain amendments to the act were made, which I believe both the members of the commission and the deputy ministers would agree to.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: All I can say is that the address which the Prime Minister gave in the House the other day gives no indication of the details of the manner in which this economy may be effected. I am not suggesting for a moment that out of this system which has developed in the last five years some minor evils may not have developed, but I do deprecate this constant attack on the Civil Service Commission, without, in some way, indicating to the public the confidence which this parliament has or should have in that commission and in the principle involved in that commission. I want to tabulate, if I may be permitted, very shortly, some of the benefits which it seems to me have accrued as a result of the appointment of the Civil Service Commission since May,
I think it was, of 1918. It has given a guarantee that character, physique and mental fitness shall be the means of getting employment in the departments of government, without regard to political belief. It has

The Civil Service
opened opportunities for public employment to the whole public on an equal footing, where merit alone is the only question involved. It has classified the work and it has standardized the salary schedules by the work done and not by the mere question of political influence. It has promoted by efficiency reports the seniority and fitness for positions. It has, as I have suggested already-and I have given some evidence of it-gone a very considerable length indeed, in the matter of creating efficiency in the public service, and, not only that, but minister and members are no longer harassed by personal applications, by interviews and by letters from people who desire some position in the public service. It has largely eliminated the question of politics from the public service. I remember it was reported, in the early stages of the difficulties which subsequently resulted in the American Civil War, that President Lincoln stated that if he had had the opportunity to give his time and attention to the rising troubles in the United- States, instead of having to devote all his time "to the matter of filling the various offices in the States, he probably would have been able to do something to avert that tremendous civil war; and, therefore, I suggest that nobody shpuld be more grateful than the members of the government themselves and the members of this House for the privilege of being released from the difficulties which arise from trying to exercise patronage.
Then, in addition to that, we have no more humiliating-or at least, we should not have any more humiliating-debates in parliament after elections, in regard to political removals. "The dignity of this House, instead of being lowered, as it has been on occasions, has been very much enhanced. Not only that, but elections have, to a very large extent, been purified by the absence now of promises of the spoils of office. The views which I have advanced are in answer to the reasons which have been urged by the Prime Minister for the appointment of a parliamentary committee to go into this matter, and I say perfectly frankly-and I would say it to any government which was in power making a similar proposition-that I fear very much the result if this important matter is committed to a parliamentary committee. I am afraid that, instead of strengthening the hands of the Civil Service Commission, we will find that they are weakened and that patronage will make a further inroad upon our public life.
Now, on the other hand, what can the government do? Is there anything the government can do to make this service more efficient? If I am correct in my statement that the responsibility for the staff rests upon the government, I suggest that they can meet the needs of economy by cutting the staff to the barest necessities. I would suggest that they should ask the Civil Service Commission or its representatives to go into the various departments of government and assist them in putting those departments on an economical and efficient basis. I would suggest also that perhaps the introduction of joint councils, such as is the case, I believe, with England, arbitration courts might assist very materially in securing the confidence and goodwill of the Civil Service themselves. It has been found in England that practically all the suggestions for reform and for greater efficiency in the service come largely from the civil servants themselves. Why not take advantage of that opportunity, get their suggestions and views, and see if, on that basis, something of value cannot be developed. In the next place, I think we should have a permanent superannuation act, and finally I would say that we should secure a report from the Civil Service Commissioners themselves, not a report from two commissioners, not a report from one commissioner, but a report from three commissioners-if they cannot agree, let them give us separate reports,-indicating after a very-careful survey of the situation how, in their opinion, these much desired ends of efficiency and economy can best be secured.
I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the Civil Service Commission themselves, after the experience which they have had, are probably in a better position than even this House to make suggestions of value. They can if necessary traverse this country from one end to the other and make inquiries, not only from the public, not only from the Civil Service, but from every possible source, as to the means by which the purposes of economy can be achieved, and I would suggest that such an investigation as that conducted by that body, should go over the whole question of the Civil Service, the question of subordination, the question of discipline, of organization, of hours, of pay, of appliances, of holidays, pride in the service, esprit de corps, efficiency, retiring allowance, social welfare, and every other factor which will promote in any way economy^ and efficiency.
In conclusion, I want to say that to my mind, there can be no turning back in this matter. I do not believe the people of Canada for a single moment will tolerate any turning back. What parliament must do is to strengthen, to fortify and to consolidate the progress that has already been made in
328
The Civil Service

order to eliminate from the public service the evils of patronage, and in order to make it a service which will not only appeal to young men and young women as in opportunity to give lives of useful service to the public, but will also combine with that the greatest economy and the greatest possible efficiency.


Mr. JOSEPH ARCHAMBAULT (Chambly and Vercheres):: Mr. Speaker, the resolution of the hon. member for Quebec South reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, it is advisable to repeal chapter 12, 8-9 George V, an Act respecting the Civil Service of Canada.
When that hon. member introduced his resolution he intended to move an amendment to the following effect:
and to restore, in so far as circumstances will permit, the Civil Service Amendment Act of 1908.
I am sorry that the hon. member for Quebec South was not allowed to add his amendment, because I am entirely in favour of his proposition with the amendment added.


Arthur Meighen: In that case why does not the hon. gentleman himself move that amendment?


Joseph Archambault: I may do so. I suppose my hon. friend can wait a few moments.	[DOT]


Arthur Meighen: That is good.


Joseph Archambault: I am entirely in favour of the return to the act of 1908, and of removing the outside service from the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission. In advocating that I do not wish you to understand that I am in favour of returning to patronage, because it is physically impossible to return to a thing that has never ceased to exist, but I am anxious that patronage should be taken from the hands of those who are not responsible to the people and restored to the hands of those who are responsible.
I listened to the speech made by the junior member for Ottawa (Mr. Chevrier) with great interest. He delivered a very serious and instructive speech, and I was amazed when the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Mc-Quarrie) referred to him as a joker. I must remind the hon. member for New Westminster that besides a joker there is also a blank card in every pack.
One of the reasons why I am in favour of returning to the act of 1908 is because there has been too much of a tendency, to administer affairs in this country by commissions. We have the Railway Commission, the Purchasing Commission, the Civil Service Commission, and even the Canadian National Railway Company is a commission. I believe that the fMr. Shaw.]
administration of public affairs by commission is detrimental to responsible government. The surest way to get rid of responsibility is to appoint commissions that are not responsible to the people. Under the prevailing system the Civil Service Commissioners in Ottawa can appoint men to different positions all over the country, from the Atlantic coast to British Columbia. How are three gentlemen, living in Ottawa, in a position to know the qualifications of men who make applications for positions in rural constituencies, that are, for example, four hundred miles away from this city? Even the ministers themselves, who are responsible to the people, cannot exercise control over their deputy ministers or their principal clerks. It is a fact that under the Civil Service Commission we have seen principal clerks in departmental offices, and even deputy ministers, criticising the work of the ministers, and there is no possible way of getting rid of them except through the Civil Service Commission. I know what my hon. friends opposite will say in regard to that; they will say that they can be dismissed by an order in council. But who will name the gentlemen to replace them? It will be the Civil Service Commission.


Arthur Meighen: Not in the case-


Joseph Archambault: Not in the case of deputy ministers, but it is true in the case of very important clerks. In cases like this-and there are many instances of the same character-how can the minister at the head of a department have efficiency in that department if he has practically no control over his clerks, if even his orders are disobeyed, and his hands virtually tied by the Civil Service Commission?
The hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Shaw), in advancing reasons for the maintenance of the Civil Service Commission, stated that the act was a guarantee of character, of merit, without political influence, in the civil service. Surely my hon. friend was not serious when he made that statement. It would be very easy for me to cite a great number of instances where the appointments were made not according to character, not because of merit, but by reason of political influence-not of the present government but political influence in the Civil Service Commission itself. I make this statement with a due sense of the responsibility attaching to it. I can give the House the inside history of a few nominations. We have been told, for example, that when a rural postmaster is to be appointed, the Civil Service Commission despatches an inspector to the constituency where the vacancy has occurred.

The Civil Service
This inspector is supposed to interview the principal residents of the locality, generally the clergyman, the doctor-


Andrew Ross McMaster: The lawyer.


Joseph Archambault: The lawyer sometimes, the mayor, in short the most eminent people of the locality; and, after having interviewed these persons he makes a report to the Civil Service Commission declaring who is the best man to be appointed. Well, Sir, there was a case in my own constituency where such an inspector was sent. It is true he interviewed the mayor; that was on a Tuesday morning. He interviewed the priest in the afternoon. There Was no lawyer in the place. He interviewed the principal merchants there, and then returned to Montreal. Everybody thought he was going to report tc the Civil Service Commission in order that they might make the appointment. But the same night a certain person in the locality took charge of the post office. The inspector did not visit the district to take pointers from the people there who knew the conditions so as to be enabled to make a good appointment, he went there to appoint a postmaster, and the postmaster was on the job the same night. And it happened that he was one of the three electors, amongst 355, who voted against me at the election.


Mr. HOCKEN:: That was a qualification.


Joseph Archambault: It might have
been a qualification, but it showed that patronage still existed, but distributed by irresponsible officials.


Leland Payson Bancroft: The hon. member
would have just two more to provide for.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member
should state that the appointment in such a case as that, made in that way, could only be temporary.


Joseph Archambault: It was made permanent.


Arthur Meighen: It might have been, later on.


Joseph Archambault: It was later ona3 many others-just before the government went out of office.


Arthur Meighen: Was the man a returned soldier?


Joseph Archambault: No, he was not a
returned soldier. Now, I believe the House will agree with me that in regard to certain positions, such, for instance, as that of elevator attendant, the member and the people resident in the locality where the appointment is to be filled are in a better position to know of the efficiency and character of the applicant than any one could be, living at a distance from the place. Let me read part of a letter regarding the appointment of an elevator man. I suggested a certain person to the commission and the deputy minister wrote to me as follows:
As for Mr. X and the position of elevator attendant at the customs building, I shall be glad to send his name to the Civil Service Commission with a recommendation for his employment; but, as you will understand, these appointments are made by the commission, and whether my suggesting his name will do any good or not, I am unable to say.


Mr. STEVENS:: I think in fairness to the House the hon. member ought to state where these appointments were made. He might, for instance, name the post office to which he refers, because apparently he makes a very strong case in support of his argument that the act is not being properly administered, and the House is entitled to the name of the postmaster thus appointed.


Joseph Archambault: All these names
could be brought before a committee if it were appointed.


Arthur Meighen: I should like very much
to look into that case but I cannot do so unless I have the name of the office.


Joseph Archambault: I have no objection to giving the name; it was at Boucher-ville. But that is not all. I may say, Mr. Speaker, adverting again to the case of the man whom I recommended for the position of elevator attendant, that he was also recommended by the local superintendent of the public buildings in Montreal, who was in an ideal position to know of the efficiency of the applicant. He was recommended by the deputy minister, who probably based his recommendation on that of the superintendent in Montreal. And the deputy minister himself admits that his recommendation would have practically no influence with the commission. Well, I submit that it is absolutely ridiculous to think that three commissioners living at Ottawa, far away from the place where the vacancy is to be filled, could possibly be acquainted with the efficiency or the qualifications of the applicant. I might refer to another case in a town in my constituency where a position was open of a man whose duties were to signal the transatlantic steamers on the St. Lawrence. After investigation, and consultation with the best informed people in the neighbourhood, I recommended a certain man, who passed his examination successfully. But he was ignored and the commission selected instead the chief organizer

The Civil Service

of the Conservative party in that town. Now, you can see what chance I had of surviving in that town. Why, I have as much chance of surviving there as a snowball in the place where the hon. member fox West Toronto (Mr. Hocken) would like to see the Knights of Columbus.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: And where my hon. friend would like to see the member for West Toronto.


Joseph Archambault: Oh, no.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: My hon. friend might tell the House what was the political persuasion of the gentleman whom he recommended to the Civil Service Commission.


Joseph Archambault: He was a Liberal, I admit, but he took no active part in politics. Now, it amuses me to hear Conservatives raise their voices against patronage and to see them lift up their hands in pious horror, when we know that in 1911 practically every Liberal employee was removed from the service.


Arthur Meighen: Oh.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Practically every
one.


Joseph Archambault: Even in my own constituency, at the Chambly canal, where there are over two hundred employees, nearly every Liberal was removed, from the superintendent down to the charwoman. There was a certain position which entitled its holder to the occupancy of a house. The person having the position was confined to his bed dangerously ill, but he was dismissed and had to be removed on a stretcher, in order to make place for the new appointee. This is why I am surprised to see my hon. friends on the other side of the House raise their voices against the so-called evils of patronage.


Arthur Meighen: Would the hon. member permit me to give an instance which I have just received in a letter from his own province, of a returned soldier-


Joseph Archambault: If my hon. friend wishes to ask me a question, I am perfectly willing to answer him.


Arthur Meighen: I am asking if my hon. friend will let me give that instance.


Joseph Archambault: My right hon.
friend will have occasion to speak.


Arthur Meighen: I cannot.


Joseph Archambault: Oh, yes, you can There will be an amendment.


Arthur Meighen: All right.


Joseph Archambault: One of the best arguments brought forward by my hon. friend from Calgary West (Mr. Shaw) was that of economy, but I believe I can show to the House that it would be economy to abolish the Civil Service Commission. In 1909, when the act of 1908 was in operation, the cost of the Civil Service Commission was 812,531, and its employees numbered nine; in 1910 the cost was $11,000, and there were eight employees. In 1919-20, the year after the amendment of 1918 came into force, the cost rose to $149,399, and the employees had increased to thirty-six permanent and forty-eight temporary; in 1920-21 the figures were $297,999 and two hundred and fifty-five employees; in 1921-22-and my hon. friend will recollect the figures that he himself cited-the cost was $312,395. I have not the number of employees.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: My hon. friend will find the number of employees on page 57, of the Estimates for this year. There is a decrease from a hundred and thirty-four in the last fiscal year to a hundred and twenty-seven.


Joseph Archambault: That may be true, but we are under a Liberal government. We are not getting all we want, but we are proceeding in the right direction. However, there is still a long distance to go-a hundred and thirty-four employees now against only nine in 1909. My hon. friend will admit that, and he will also admit that there is still a big difference between $12,000 in 1909 and $312,000 last year.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I do not want to interrupt my hon. friend, but he will surely admit that the Civil Service Act of 1908 only applied to something like 2,000 employees, whereas according to the figures now presented that number has increased to something like 55,000.
Mr. ARCHAMBAULjT : I do admit that, and that is why I want to revert to the act of 1908.
My hon. friend has also said that public opinion is in favour of the maintenance of the Civil Service Commission. I have in my hand an editorial from a paper which cannot be called a Liberal paper-the Montreal Gazette, which in its issue of February 19, has this to say on the subject:-
The act of 1916 was passed with the avowed purpose of eliminating party patronage as exercised in the making of appointments to the Civil Service, the initial mistake being the assumption that patronage is, psr se, an evil, The principle was condemned, in reality, be-

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cause it had been, or was alleged to have been, abused in the making of appointments that were unnecessary and, in the matter of individual fitness, improper. Parliament thereupon did what is so often done in the name of reform; it went to an extreme, and the result is just what always comes of an action of that kind. The law of 1916 set up a system in which the authority of the government was delegated to a commission, and appointments and promotions have since been made in accordance with a scheme of ironclad regulations devised and controlled by the commission, and the so-called merit system has been exemplified in a series of very extraordinary examinations, often upon subjects ridiculously remote from the requirements of the service. The results have not been satisfactory. The efficiency of the service has not been increased nor has its spirit improved, and there is no evidence that economies have been effected as regards the number of the personnel. There is still patronage, but is is exercised, as pointed out by the Prime Minister, by an irresponsible body, instead of by the government and parliament upon whom rests the responsibility for the conduct of the country's affairs. The thing is wrong, is known to be wrong and yet there exists a timorous
reluctance to alter it	Since then, some sporadic
efforts have been made to render the system less objectionable, but what is necessary is a thorough overhauling of the whole machine and the establishment of another order of things, one in which the responsibility of the government will be recognized and restored.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that I have given sufficiently to the House the reasons why I am in favour of the amendment that the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) intended to move. I am informed, however, that one hon. gentleman on this side of the House will take care of that amendment. I am in favour of a return to the law of 1908, taking away the exterior service from the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission. To sum up I may say that my first reason is that of economy; my second reason is that, patronage still exists under this law, but instead of being in responsible hands it is exercised by those who are not accountable to the people; and my third reason is that although neither the government nor hon. members have anything whatsoever to say about appointments to the Civil Service, they are held responsible by the people for all the appointments made and for the fitness of the appointees, a state of things which is absolutely unjust, unfair, and unconstitutional.


Mr. J. J. HUGHES (King's P.E.I.):: Mr. Speaker, if there is one subject upon which we might expect hon. members would come to practical unanimity it is the one now under consideration. Yet we find a very great divergence of opinion, because the subject involves the efficient and economical working of our parliamentary institutions. But because of that very fact we should as business men be able to arrive at a conclusion without, in my judgment bringing any prejudice or partisan feeling into play.
Now, I shall endeavour to present some of the historical aspects of this question. Previous to 1918 there had grown up a body of opinion in the country which felt that the evils of government patronage had assumed very large proportions. I think that opinion was exaggerated. There were, no doubt, some evils, but my impression is that in trying to cure them we brought in fully as many and perhaps more. In 1918 the matter had been receiving very careful consideration in the press and in parliament, and an effort was then made to remedy the alleged evils by an act of parliament. Acts of parliament do not always remedy the evils they are intended to alleviate. It is to be assumed, however, that the late government, who put the act into operation, were in sympathy with its provisions. The commission was appointed by that government and proceeded to work under that act. But the measure was found to be impracticable and unworkable; and I have the best possible proof for that, because the late government brought in a body of experts from Chicago, known as the Arthur Young Company, to assist the Civil Service Commission, and the government and the Civil Service in bringing order out of the chaos which even then existed under the operation of this act. Well, that body of experts failed to bring about workable conditions, and another bunch of experts were brought in from the United States-I refer to the Griffenhagen concern. At very great expense to the country they worked for a considerable length of time, but they also failed; apparently they made confusion worse confounded, and the conditions became very bad. I will not depend upon newspaper reports with regard to those conditions; I will take the statements made by members of the late government or gentlemen supporting them, to show how impracticable the whole thing was. It was stated by a member of the then government on May 2, 1921-the statement will be found on page 2875 of Hansard of that year-that a certain position had been advertised for; that four hundred applications were received for the position, and that the Civil Service Commission were appalled at the number of applications which came in. They could not examine all these applications, and they did not try. They appointed three men in Ottawa, one of them the editor of the Journal, to go over them. When these gentlemen saw the number of applications that had been received they too were appalled at the magnitude of the task. Well, according to a statement of a minister of the Crown in the government of that day, they threw three hundred of these applications into the waste paper basket without looking at them at all; then they made
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a cursory examination of the remainder and recommended a name to the Civil Service Commission for appointment. I assume that their recommendation was acted upon. Now, I ask hon. members of the House, was that an appointment by the Civil Service Commission? Was that an appointment on a business basis? Was that fair to the three hundred persons whose applications were thrown to one side without any consideration at all? Was that an appointment according to merit? It was a minister of the Crown who made that statement.


Andrew Ross McMaster: What'minister?


James Joseph Hughes: The member representing Frontenac at that time. I do not know what position he held in the government, but he was a minister of the Crown.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: He was not a minister at that time.


James Joseph Hughes: That was in 1921.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: He was not a minister when he made that statement.	.


James Joseph Hughes: Well, he became a minister shortly after.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Yes.


James Joseph Hughes: On the same day, page 2859 of Hansard, the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken) said:
Mr. Speaker, I have never been able to see any merit in the Civil Service Act, because I believe it strikes at the very foundation of responsible government.
I think so, too.
As it has worked out I thihk it might very well have been described as "An Act to Destroy the Discipline of the Civil Service and to Promote Inefficiency."
I will give a statement of another member supporting the late administration, the then member for North Perth. I will not quote his words, but they may be found on page 2280 of Hansard, May 2, 1921, He went on to show that the work the Civil Service Commission had to do was so extensive that they were not attending to it at all, or not attending to it in any proper way. He gave this illustration: A certain position was advertised for, and a certain man sent in his application. Some months passed, and having received no notice in regard to the matter he made inquiry of the commission concerning the paper he had sent in. He received a reply stating that he would have to know the French language before he could be appointed to the position in question. He said, "My application showed that I am familiar with the French language." Apparently the paper had not even been read. He followed the matter up, and later the commis-

sion told him that the position would have to go to a returned soldier. "Why," he said, "my application showed that I was a returned soldier; I went over early in the war and did not come back until after the armistice was signed." Another position became vacant in the post office in Toronto, and a returned soldier who had undergone a double amputation, having had both his legs taken off, applied for the position; it was that of attending the switchboard in the post office. He did not get it; another man was appointed. The position of stamp vendor became vacant, and he applied for that. He was told that that position had been given to another person, and that he had better apply for the position of letter carrier-and that man had both legs off. It may just be possible that the Civil Service Commission has so much work to do that they cannot attend to these things; but in their efforts to control everything they have certainly gone far beyond what I believe was the intention of parliament at the time of the passing of the act of 1918. I have some other cases here, but I do not think I need refer to them.
Some amendments were made to the act in 1921, and the fact that the late government found it advisable to bring in the Spinney Bill to amend the Civil Service Act is the best possible proof that it had come to the decision that the act ought to be amended. I should think that is the best possible proof to convince hon. gentlemen opposite. Then we have the present government stating-and I submit that men in the responsible position of a minister of the Crown when they make a statement in parliament should receive consideration

that they find the system unworkable, impracticable to a very large degree, and expensive. I remember the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) giving a concrete instance last year. He wanted two men for seasonal work and applied to the Civil Service Commission, but before he could get them appointed, the time for doing the work had passed, and it had to remain undone. Is it fair, is it reasonable, is it common sense, that the members of this House and the people of this country should expect efficiency from the government under such conditions? People do not expect it in any other kind of business. If the heads of departments of a large corporation, for instance, told the directors that they simply could not get along properly under their present system of appointments and promotions, what would the directors do? They would certainly allow their managers a very large voice in appointing their clerks and assistants and in making promotions and allotting the work. I do not

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think it is a far-fetched comparison to compare parliament to a business corporation. We, the members of the House, are the directors for the time being, and the members of the government are the managers of the country's business, and we should not in justice look to the managers for proper results unless we give them control in a large measure over their assistants. If their selection and promotion is left to an outside body entirely, we cannot expect good results. I think anybody with an open mind who listened to the speech made by the junior member for Ottawa (Mr. Chevrier) the other night must have come to the conclusion that the Civil Service,Act requires overhauling and amending, or we shall have greater inefficiency and more chaos than we have now.
What should we do under these circumstances? The Prime Minister has made the suggestion that the whole matter be referred to a special committee of the House. Can anybody suggest a better proposition? That proposition was not accepted by the right hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen), and the leader of the Progressives (Mr. Forke) withheld his assent; I do not know whether he was entirely opposed to it or not.
But can either of these members or 5 p.m. any other man suggest a better proposition? The hon. leader of the Progressives did suggest an alternative. He stated that if the present government would study this question in the light of the experience they have had since taking office, and would bring down their proposals to the House, so far as he was concerned he was reads' to give them every reasonable consideration. I would say to the hon. member that that is impossible of fulfilment during this session, I think the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) would be the first to agree with me, if he were in his seat at the moment, that during a session of the House members of the government are so busy with the thousand and one things that come before them daily for adjustment that they have not time to give to a question of this kind the consideration it should receive. Furthermore, if the government brought down such proposals to the House, I fear very much whether it would not be considered that there was partisanship and patronage behind the move. Judging by this debate alone, I believe that the government would be charged with having ulterior and sinister motives in bringing down such proposals. That charge could not very well be made against a report by a committee of this House representing all parties. More than that, such a committee could bring before it the members of the
Civil Service Commission, and if these men have been maligned or in any way misrepresented as the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Shaw) intimated, if the work they have done is not fully appreciated by this House and the country, what better place and what better opportunity could be given them than to present their case before a special committee of this House? The deputy ministers could also appear before the committee, the chief clerks in departments, and anybody who had useful information to give, and if a committee under those circumstances could not bring in a report that would be useful to the House, I can see no other way of dealing with this question. We must approach it in some way. It is too important to make of it a political party question. Parliament should have even more interest in this question than the government, because as the years pass, governments will come and governments will go, but parliamentary institutions, let us hope, will endure forever, and we, the members of this House,who have far more time on our hands than the ministers have should be quite willing to do our part in trying to solve this difficulty, and solve it fairly.
I do not think any man in this House or out of it wants to bring back any of the evils that existed under the patronage system. I think that is admitted on all sides. But what in the world can the objection be to have a special committee representing all parties in this House taking this matter up, considering it carefully, hearing all the evidence they can get upon it, and bringing in a report and letting the House consider it? I think, upon second consideration, that the member from Brandon (Mr. Forke) will see how reasonable that is and a number of the members on that side of the House would probably take the same view. There is another reason that I want to present to this House and to my Progressive friends particularly. They take pretty advanced views, more advanced views than the rest of us, I think, in regard to the amount of control, management and supervision that governments should give to several matters. For instance, I think they are in favour of government ownership, control and management of the merchant marine. If I am wrong in that I want to be corrected. It must be because they think that these things could be governed more efficiently and capably by, governments than by men who have had years of experience in that line of business. I am quite sure my Progressive friends are in favour of government buying and selling and marketing wheat, and for the
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reason that they must consider that governments are more capable and more efficient than men who have been engaged in that work for many years. Furthermore, I believe that my Progressive friends have strong views that the government should take greater oversight, control and management of the banking institutions of the country than they have hitherto taken, because they have greater faith in the honesty, the integrity and the ability of governments than they have in the men who have managed and are managing the banking institutions of the country, and at the same time some of these men think that the government is not honest enough and not capable enough to appoint its own servants, or its own officials, to look after the business that pertains properly to itself-that the government is able to mind everybody else's business and not able to mind its own. I do not think I am overstating the case. I hold a different opinion. I hold the view that the government should be allowed large control over their own work, and they should be very wary and careful in taking the management or control of a business that is operated by people who have given years of experience to it.
Mr. Speaker, I see no other way of solving this difficulty than by carrying out the suggestion of the Prime Minister, and doing it this session. I agree with the hon. member for West Toronto that the Civil Service Commission strikes at the very foundation of responsible government, and responsible government has been purchased at too high a price in this country to be lightly regarded or lightly discarded.
I have presented the matter to the House as~strongly as I could in favour of the appointment of a committee to inquire into this whole question, and I therefore move:
-that the word "repeal" in the motion now before the House be struck out, and the following substituted therefor-appoint a special committee for the purpose of inquiring into the operation of-
In order that hon. members may appreciate the effect of the amendment, the motion would read in this way, if my amendment were adopted:
That in the opinion of this House, it is advisable to appoint a special committee for the purpose of inquiring into the operation of chapter 12, 8-9 George V, an act respecting the Civil Service of Canada.
My motion is seconded by the hon. gentleman for St. James (Mr. Rinfret).


Hewitt Bostock: The question is on the
amendment.


Mr. R. K. ANDERSON (Halton):: I note
the resolution of the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, it is advisable to repeal chap. 12, 8-9 George V, an act respecting the Civil Service of Canada.
I presume from the wording of this resolution that the intention was to repeal the whole act and do away with the Civil Service Commission. The amendment proposes to refer to a parliamentary committee, for investigation, . the question of the abolition of the Civil Service Commission. In 1918, when we first passed the Civil Service Act, it was thought by members on the government side of the House that we had for all time settled the question of political patronage. It was a question that was mentioned during the election of 1919 and was a part of the platform of the Union government at that time. Then the Union government passed that act for the purpose of carrying out and fulfilling its pledge to the people of Canada. We passed the act with the full assurance that the people of this country were demanding it, and that they wished that political patronage, which had been used by various political parties throughout the history of the country should be abolished. I think it was admitted by all parties on both sides of the House that that system was capable of a great deal of abuse and that it probably had been abused by both political parties. I cannot say that I have had any experience in regard to that myself. So far as' I was aware, there was not much abuse in connection with that system. However, in .the larger centres of the Dominion it is realized that there was a good deal of abuse, and that it would be in the best interests of all concerned, and the Civil Service in particular, that political patronage should be done away with. The act passed at that time placed in the hands of the Civil Service Commission the appointment, under a system of merit, of all members of the Civil Service throughout Canada. In 1908 an act had been passed taking the control of civil servants, particularly in the inside service, from the various departments. The act of 1918 went further and brought in the outside service, placing under the control of the Civil Service Commission something like
50,000	civil servants throughout the Dominion.
I believe that since that time the Civil Service Commission have endeavoured, with all their might, to give the best service possible to the people of this country. They have instituted examinations by which applicants foi positions under the government were given

* The Civil Service
the opportunity of showing, to properly constituted persons who were capable of deciding the matter in the public interest, whether or not they possessed the qualifications necessary to entitle them to admission to the public service and discharge their duties in a manner satisfactory to the public. The Civil Service Commission did, I think, in some instances, institute examinations which possibly at certain times did not result in giving the best results to the people. I think that in some instances, particularly in the outside service, where a simple academic examination takes place, a person may pass that examination and obtain 100 per cent of the marks required, and yet be not possessed of the qualifications that go to make up a good public servant. There are certain qualifications needed in a civil servant that cannot be disclosed by an academic examination, for example the qualities of the man himself-qualities of head and of heart-which enable him to deal with the public in a way which is pleasing to them; and after all it is the personal element in the outside service which exercises a very important influence. But taking it all in all, I certainly think that since that time the Civil Service Commission have given very good returns to the country, and I certainly would not like to see that body abolished now, or any time in the future.


Harold Putnam: Would not my hon. friend admit that an academic examination may be misleading in all cases?


Robert King Anderson: That may be true in
certain cases, but I would not feel disposed to admit that it would be a failure' in all, or even the majority, of cases. I think there undoubtedly are certain positions in both the inside and the outside service where an academic examination is absolutely necessary. Without such an examination it would be possible that a person might enter the service who was wholly unfitted for office; I do not think there is any doubt upon that point.


Harold Putnam: The hon. gentleman asserts that my suggestion would be possible, would he not admit that it would be probable?


Robert King Anderson: It might be probable,
in fact I think it has occurred in the past, that persons have been admitted to the public service who lacked the education and the other qualities necessary to render them good public servants.


Mr. LOVETT:: Do you think it fair that
the Civil Service Commission should delegate the power to an officer-for instance a collector of customs, or some other person-at
a distance to practically make an appointment to an office that was vacant?


Robert King Anderson: I do not know that the Civil Service Commission delegate authority to such persons to make appointments.
I believe, however, that it is quite within their jurisdiction to ask someone to give 1hem information with regard to the qualifications of certain candidates, and doubtless it is quite proper for them to do so. Such person probably makes a report and the Civil Service Commission might consider his recommendations; I do not think he makes the appointment. I think that under all the circumstances it could not be expected that the Civil Service Commission, sitting in Ottawa, could decide, without some recommendation from the outside, who was the best man to appoint, for example, in the case of a vacancy in the city of Vancouver. I think they must take recommendations from others. Under the act of 1918 they were not permitted to accept recommendations from members of parliament, and I do not know but that might have been a mistake. The resolution before the House simply asks us to abolish the whole Civil Service Act and do away with the Civil Service Commission. The amendment asks that the subject be referred to a parliamentary committee. My impression was that the subject was referred to a parliamentary committee in 1921, when the Spinney Bill was up for consideration, and the committee at that time reported against taking the outside service from the control the Civil Service Commission. The investigation made at that time was fairly exhaustive. All the deputy ministers in the public service were called before the committee and gave evidence and, if I mistake not, with only two exceptions they declared that the Civil Service Commission was in the best interests of the country and that it would be a deplorable thing if the appointment of civil servants, whether in the outside or the inside service, wer taken away from the Civil Service Commission. I believe that two deputy ministers on that occasion did not agree with that view. I think -the Prime Minister, in the speech he made here only a few days ago, stated that at the present time the deputy ministers of the various departments are in accord with the present resolution to do away with the Civil Service Commission, and I was very much surprised to hear that statement. I was wondering whether the present government have changed their views since 1921. Is it possible that the change of government has had something to do with the change of view on the part of the present Prime Minister?
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Mr. KING (Kootenay):: I do not think the Prime Minister made that statement.


Robert King Anderson: I am not permitted to read from his address.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, you are permitted.


Robert King Anderson: I had supposed that I was not permitted to quote at this time from his address on that occasion, and therefore I did not bring a copy of it with me. 1 do not know that I could turn it up just at the moment. I might read an extract from the Ottawa Citizen, which states:
On page 363 of this Hansard the premier is quoted to the following effect: "The deputy ministers themselves have, in joint conference, gone very carefully into the whole matter, and they are unanimously of the view that the act as it stands at the present time is in some of its aspects embarrassing public service, that it is increasing the cost of the service, and that if it were amended all the good that is in the act might be obtained and very much of the evil eliminated."


John Warwick King: That is different from the statement my hon. friend made.


Robert King Anderson: Now, the Prime Minister was not in the House in 1918 when the act was passed, and I am not sure that he was a member of parliament in 1919 when it was amended. But the mover of the present resolution (Mr. Power) has somewhat changed his attitude on this question. In his speech in opposition to the Spinney amendment, which will be found on page 2780 of Hansard of the year 1921, he said:
Mr. Speaker, before we take up the second reading of this bill I would like to register my opposition to any measure of this nature. . . This bill, if it means anything, means that in certain sendees we are to introduce the old abuses of patronage, and this is all the more irregular and all the more to be condemned since we have before us an election which we all
hope will be held soon...It is our duty to see
that hon. gentlemen opposite are not guilty of any back-sliding, that once having entered on the path of reform and of uplift they shall continue to the end of- their days, which we all believe will be soon.
It is rather strange that in the short space between the time the hon. member for Quebec South was in opposition and the time his party came into power he should so completely have revised his opinions on this subject. It is remarkable that what' he regarded as good while he was in opposition he should declaim against as something bad now that his party has come into power. He must evidently see that the operation of the Civil Service Act does not afford the government any scope for the bestowal of patronage in order to help them to retain their supporters in the various districts throughout the country during an election. The members of both parties that constituted the Union government realised that aspect of the mat-

ter. I realised it myself. But in the interests of the country and of an efficient civil service and in the interests of economy, we were willing to subordinate our own views on the question and to support the Civil Service Act, in the hope and the belief that future governments would see to it that it was duly observed. I venture to say that the present government, even if they were disposed to repeal that act, would not have the courage to do so; they would realise that a strong public sentiment would find expression against such a move when they went to the country, because the great .majority of the people feel strongly on the civil service question and believe that it would be a very reactionary step to abolish the Civil Service Commission and re-institute the political patronage system that has held sway in this country for so many years. Listening to what the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), said in his speech on this subject, I should judge that he is in favour of reverting to the Civil Service Act of 1908. The right hon. gentleman is in his seat and he will correct me if I have misconstrued his remarks.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I did not quite catch what my hon. friend said.
. Mr. ANDERSON: I gathered from the remarks of the Prime Minister in this House on the 16th instant, that he was in favour of going back to the Civil Service Act of 1908.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If the hon. member understood that he is entirely mistaken, because I am not in favour of any such thing. I cannot make that too plain.


Robert King Anderson: I am pleased to hear the Prime Minister make the correction.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am correcting my hon. friend's impression.
.Mr. ANDERSON: Of course the mistake is mine, I am willing to admit that. But I do not think I am alone in the construction I have put on the Prime Minister's remarks. And to show that others understood the right hon. gentleman as I did I will quote from the Ottawa Citizen, which corroborates the view I have taken of the Prime Minister's remarks.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend would be more to the point if he would read my remarks instead of inferences drawn from them by the Ottawa Citizen.


Robert King Anderson: I accept my hon. friend's correction, but I merely want to show, by the quotation, that. I am not alone in my construction of his remarks. Of course, if he says

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that my understanding of what he said is wrong, then the Ottawa Citizen is wrong as well.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It certainly is.


Robert King Anderson: That is the point I was making. The Ottawa Citizen of February 22nd, 1923, makes a certain statement, which perhaps the Prime Minister has read.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, and I should like to know who wrote it. The writer did not append his name, and perhaps my hon. friend can tell me who wrote that article.


Robert King Anderson: I should be pleased to tell the Prime Minister if I knew, but I do not. The Citizen says:
In the first place, on page 362 of the Hansard, February 16, the Premier supports an addition to the Power motion, that the Civil Service Act of 1908 take the place of the act of 1919.
It is apparent from this that the Citizen- which I do not' think is antagonistic to the Prime Minister or his party-also erroneously interpreted my right hon. friend's remarks. Now, with regard to the assertion that the continuance of the Civil Service Commission is not in the interests of economy, I might observe that the various departments of government absolutely control the number of civil servants employed. The Civil Service Commission makes the appointments, but the ministers in the departments can disallow any appointment. They have absolutely in their control the number of civil servants and can reduce that number at any time. It is a mistaken idea that the Civil Service Commission makes the cost of civil government more expensive. The commission has nothing to do with the estimates submitted to the House by the various departments, nor have they anything whatever to do with the number of civil servants that are employed in any department. They make appointments simply at the request of the deputy minister or the minister, and if any appointment is not satisfactory the department can within the space of six months discontinue the service of such appointee and they can reject any one appointed by the Civil Service Commission until they get an appointee who is satisfactory to them. If any department is over-manned, it is entirely within the control of the minister or his deputy to reduce the staff. Consequently if the Civil Service Commission has nothing whatever to do with the cost of administering the various departments or the preparation of their estimates as regards salaries or anything else, it cannot be charged, as is asserted by some hon. members on the
government side, with being in any way responsible for the excessive cost of the Civil Service.
Hon. members will remember that in 1921 there was a re-organization of the Printing Bureau. In that year the government of the day, finding there were too many employees in the bureau, requested the Civil Service Commission to make a reorganization. The commission did so, with the result that the number of employees was reduced from 1,159 to 732, and the more efficient work done by tins smaller staff has effected a saving to the country of some 8746,400 annually. I would suggest to the Prime Minister that he might consider the desirability of requesting the Civil Service Commission to reorganize some of the other departments. I do not pretend that it would be possible to effect a similar economy in every other department, if the minister or his deputy is properly looking after each department and keeping the expense down as low as possible consistent with efficiency; but in view of the excellent results obtained from the reorganization of the Printing Bureau, it is not unreasonable to suppose that equally good results might be obtained in other departments of the Civil Service.
As I stated before, the investigation instituted by the late government in 1921 under the Spinney Bill revealed the fact that the deputy ministers in every department were strongly in favour of the retention of the Civil Service Commission. Probably the right hon. Prime Minister will be able to tell us why it is that there has been such a change of opinion on their part and that they are now in favour of restricting the jurisdiction of the commission to the inside service. It may even be that they claim the commission should be abolished entirely, I do not know.
It has been stated, Mr. Speaker, that the Civil Service Commission is an irresponsible body, accountable neither to the government nor to parliament. I submit that under the Civil Service Act of 190S the commissioners are responsible to the government and to parliament, because although they are appointed for ten years, they can be removed for misconduct by the Governor in Council on an address from the Senate or the House of Commons. If the Civil Service Commission is not giving proper service to the country, if it is not making good appointments to the Civil Service, then it is the duty of the government to take the necessary steps to replace the commissioners by others who may be expected to have a better conception of the obligations of their office. That is one of
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the duties which the government owes to the people. For my part, I am making no charge whatever against the Civil Service Commission. Both the commission and its staff have always treated me with the greatest consideration and courtesy. I have not interfered to any extent with appointments in my constituency, because being in a rural district very few appointments come under the commission, and this legislation has not in any way injuriously affected either me or my constituentss.
Last year on the 29th June a reommenda-tion was brought into the House that certain offices under the Crown should be removed from the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission. The recommendation was acted on, and I believe that quite a number of appointments have since been made by the government itself or by its members individually without taking into consideration any recommendation whatever from the commission. That is one step back, so far as the outside service is concerned, to the conditions which prevailed under the act of 1908. I think the present government has made quite a stride in that direction, and it seems to me that the hon. member for Quebec South might have been well satisfied with the promise already made without introducing this drastic resolution.
The amendment moved by the hon. member for King's, P.E.I. (Mr. Hughes) referring the resolution back to a committee of the House is only another instance of history repeating itself. Under changed conditions it is possible that such a committee might bring in a different recommendation from that presented by its predecessor. As I look across the floor and find so many hon. members in opposition to the Civil Service Act, I have not any doubt that pressure has been brought to bear upon the Civil Service Commission to get appointments made in accordance with their wishes, and that that pressure is also being brought to bear upon the government, and I have no doubt that pressure will be exerted upon the deputy ministers who may give evidence before such a committee. Consequently it is quite likely that the finding of such a committee might be rather more favourable to withdrawing the outside service from the Civil Service Commission than was the case in 1921. Indeed, it is quite possible that with a large majority of the supporters of the government in opposition to the commission a change will be brought about to suit their wishes. I almost expect to see that happen, although I was pleased to hear the right hon. Prime Minister standing solidly behind the 
Civil Service Act of 1918 as amended in 1919.


Arthur Meighen: You must have misunderstood the right hon. gentleman.


Robert King Anderson: I understood that the right hon. Prime Minister was not adverse to the act of 1918 as amended in 1919.


Arthur Meighen: He will not correct you on that point.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: No private conversations. Let us hear what is passing between the hon. members over there.


Robert King Anderson: Perhaps I have misunderstood the right hon. Prime Minister. I understood him to say he was in favour of the act of 1918, that he was not in favour of going back to the act of 1908.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend is quite right.


Robert King Anderson: I am glad to hear the right hon. Prime Minister is in favour of the act of 1918.


Arthur Meighen: Then why a committee?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: To amend it.


Arthur Meighen: To amend what is all right!


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The question that is really of importance is whether hon. members are in favour of a Civil Service Act operated by a Civil Service Commission. I am entirely in favour of a Civil Service Act and the Civil Service Commission. But I think the act as it stands is not as workable as it should be, I think it ought to be amended, and I think the right way to amend it would be to have a committee of this House make recommendations as to what form those amendments should take.


Arthur Meighen: That is what I was calling attention to. If the Prime Minister is not in favour of the act as it stands, he would not want a committee to amend it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is getting pretty fine.


Arthur Meighen: It must be pretty fine, yes.


Robert King Anderson: As the resolution is brought in by a private member, I would suppose that the Prime Minister had nothing to do with the suggested amendment.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It was my suggestion. He moved my suggestion in the form of an amendment.

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Robert King Anderson: I am pleased to hear that it was the suggestion of the Prime Minister that the amendment should be brought in.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It was made in my speech.


Robert King Anderson: I did not notice that in the speech. I have not read the speech.
I was simply quoting from memory what the right hon. Prime Minister had said.
The hon. member for King's P. E. I. (Mr. Hughes) has brought forward the amendment to the resolution, then, in the expectation that the government and its following will be behind it and that there will be quite a change in the act of 1919. It is evidently the intention of the government to take away from that act the control of the outside service by the Civil Service Commission. I am sorry to hear that, Mr. Speaker. I think it will not be in the best interests of the country; it will not be in the best interests of the government itself. I should think that an act passed by a coalition government in which both parties, Liberal and Conservative, were represented-


Mr. TRAHAN:: No.


Robert King Anderson: An hon. gentleman says, " No," but we had a large number of Liberals. It may not have been called a coalition government, but it was a union government in which both parties were represented. That government came to the conclusion that it was in the best interests of this country that the Civil Service Commission should have charge of all appointments both to the inside and to the outside service. The fact that the act was passed in that way ought to be a good indication that it is a proper measure and in the best interests of the country, and I should be sorry indeed to see it changed.


Mr. FERNAND RINFRET (St. James):: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to make a long speech on this motion, but I would like to say a few words by way of qualifying the vote that I intend to give on this matter.
Different opinions are entertained as regards Civil Service appointments. Some claim that they would be better looked after by men independent of immediate political influence; others want to establish a distinction between certain positions and to have different classes established in the Civil Service so far as control by the commission is concerned. Still others support the claim that such appointments should remain with the ministers. In all this array of opinions there is one principle which has always appealed to me stronger than any of the euphemisms with which socalled reformers try to clothe their idealistic proposals. It is a principle of plain, simple good sense, namely, that control should rest where responsibility rests. Call it what you wish, patronage or any other name, what we must first ask of ourselves is merely this:
" Who has been entrusted by the people to administer the affairs of this country?" Is it not clear, Mr. Speaker, that we are endowed not only with legislative but also with executive power, that is, the government has executive power and is responsible to the House, which, through its majority, approves or disapproves of the government's actions. It goes without saying that, believing in this principle,
I am against government by commission. At best a commission is only an expediency; it may serve a temporary purpose, but I claim it should not be resorted to as a permanent institution. I do not believe in a commission-


Mr. MACLEAN (York):: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question? Does he deny the right of parliament, or does he regard it as unconstitutional, to assign to a commission the administration of some of the public affairs of the country.


Mr. BELAND:: He did not say that.


William Findlay Maclean: He practically says that.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Oh, no.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: Does my hon. friend intend to reply to his own question? I do not deny that right, I say we should not exercise it.


William Findlay Maclean: Oh; that is another thing.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I do not believe in a commission to make purchases for the state, and I do not believe in a commission as a permanent body to appoint functionaries or employees for a responsible government. Not that I revel in patronage, Mr. Speaker; not that I wish to feed on it politically or reap the benefits of it; far from it. Of all the functions that a member of parliament has to exercise, none appeals to me less than the dispensation of patronage. I am a man of study There is nothing I would like more than to lock myself in a library and study the respective merits of proportional representation, or the single tax, or indulge in any other speculation of the mind. But if a poor man, one of the many thousands who have placed their trust in me, knocks at my door, I do not feel that I am right in pursuing the phantasy of my study; I consider I must close my book and open the door.
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Others look at patronage as an evil; I look upon it as a duty-a sad and trying one, yet a duty that our constituents expect us to fulfil. It is all very well to uplift our minds to the serene regions of idealism, but it has appeared |to me that often the revulsion against patronage verges on an unconscious desire for idleness or freedom from a very trying and unsavoury obligation.
When a man requires my help-and may I say that in city ridings at least an elector is' a man known to us only by his residence, his political colour we have no means to ascertain-I do not find that I can say to him: "You have appointed me to look after your welfare, but my hands are tied. What you have to do is to write to a group of commissioners appointed by a government long since gone out of office-it is to them that you must apply." If I am to be held responsible, Mr, Speaker, I claim my share of control.
I do not consider, either, that the present system has shown more efficiency than the old one. The system of examinations is an arbitrary one; it never covers the field that is to be later explored by the appointee, and when it is extended to the more modest functions of the service it becomes a mere farce. Imagine holding an examination for the appointment of a sweeper-a competition of sweepers, with delicate instruments to record the quantity of dust removed, should prove of great interest. And I do not believe that a postman needs to know more about geography than that of his immediate vicinity. I submit that at their best, examinations are a very arbitrary way of making appointments.
I am not ready to admit that this method has done away with patronage, as has been said; not at all. It is merely taking patronage from the hands of responsible ministers and placing it in the hands of life-long appointed, irresponsible commissioners. I believe in going to a minister to discuss a matter of this land. When a member is made a minister he still remains a human being, but when he becomes a commissioner he is involved in a new state of mind that may carry him anywhere, and without pointing to any one in particular I may say that if you wish to develop autocracy in this country you are doing it right along by multiplying the number of commissions composed of irresponsible persons carrying out work that should belong to responsible people.
I need not add that I am not a strong believer in the Civil Service Commission. The only argument advanced in favour of it is that it is able to perform a work that we were

elected to accomplish, but that we are unable to do ourselves. I cannot admit that. If we keep going in that direction we may in the early future appoint another commission to adopt legislation and sit in parliament in our stead, and then the claim of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader), that our indemnity is too high, will have been vindicated.
I am willing to vote for an amendment to submit the whole question to a committee, because I understand that it may be imprudent to put a stop abruptly to a system, however disputable, that has obtained for a number of years. It has been suggested that such a committee has sat in previous years. I submit Mr. Speaker, that this is altogether a new parliament, a parliament that has had no occasion to submit its opinions on this matter, and I believe that this is an argument that should appeal especially to the Progressive group. I strongly hope that parliament will see its way clear to appoint such a committee, and I hope that whatever the results may be, they will be in accordance with this principle, which I consider is of high importance, that control and responsibility should go together. I shall vote for the amendment.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. A. E. ROSS (Kingston):: Permit me.
Mr. Speaker, to crave the indulgence of the House for a very few minutes to make a few remarks on this subject. In the first place, I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Shaw) for his calm discussion of the subject, for his reasonable, instructive criticism, and for the valuable suggestions he has made with a view to remedying the defects of the service. He, along with other members of this House, traced the history of the Civil Service Commission, noting its growth for the four short years of its existence, and I would like to draw the attention of the House to the character of these four years. They were years ripe with unrest, full of effort to establish returned men, years of return to a normal condition and years of reduction of abnormal staffs which had been increased by war burdens. In the f ice of these difficulties, Sir, one would naturally expect that we would be asked to be patient with the work of the commission, that we would give it time to reach the years of normal condition before the House could be asked to behead an innocent victim; an innocent offender, and, in common with the hon. member for Calgary West, I should like

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to ask now where comes the demand for this decapitation.
The last speaker gave as his reason the objection to government by commission, and yet a very few months ago this government placed under the administration of a commission the affairs of our National Railway. We heard no objection at that time nor have we since to government by commission. I do not criticize the government for this commission, I rather approve of it, because no government, or no cabinet, either in the past or yet to come, can undertake, with any measure of success the work or the administration of these railways. Neither do I believe that any cabinet or government could carry on with any measure of success the Civil Service of this country.
What then is the cause of this effort to decapitate the commission? I think you will rather find it in the words of the last speaker who expressed a desire to retire to his office where he would study the subjects of proportional representation, the single transferable vote, or rep. by pop. But in the midst of his study, in the midst of his dreams, there came a rapping at the door.
Now, Sir, we are all familiar with the work of the elements of nature. Repeated rap-pings can get upon the nerves -of any man or any body of men. Let me state again that repeated rappings can get upon the nerves of any man. or organization of men, and I have no fear but that these rappings have got upon the nerves of the government. If they continue long enough the air, the atmosphere, the attic, the cellar, the empty rooms, and the walls will all be inhabited by spirits and this rapping will continue. On more than one occasion we have heard of the work of the elements of nature. Two years ago our friends, the farmers of Ontario, had experienced the force of the elements of nature. Winds were constantly taking their words from their mouths and translating them into language they were not acquainted with, words they had never spoken. The wind was given as the cause for all this trouble, and so I think this move has been caused by the rappings. The right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) himself, no doubt has heard these rappings. There came a rapping from Alberta, and when he went to the door the Hon. Frank Oliver was there. Defeated candidates have been affected by these rappings. The members of the government, the elected members, have become affected by these rappings, and I have no doubt the minister in charge of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment- (Mr. Beland) has heard many rappings from my own constituency. Some of them have taken the form of a rifle or a pistol held at his head, and demands have been made upon him. These are the causes of this move, I am afraid, and the rappings upon the door represent the demands of all the members and their supporters, and now comes this unexpected move to decapitate the innocent commission. _
I would like to pass from these rappings and writings and ask the government to pay attention to the voice of independent people, such as the voice of the hon. member for Calgary West, and in addition I would like to call the attention of the Prime Minister, although he is not in his seat to-night, to his words on page 368 of Hansard, where an independent voice spoke in this country and gave warnings of what was going on, and to draw the attention of the House to the occasion on which this voice was heard. The Prime Minister, in speaking, referred to the letter of Dr. Grant, and said:
This civil service reform movement is supposed to be a reform movement, a moral reform. This is a strange kind of morality, to stir up antagonisms by false representations concerning the government, then claim that such a movement is helping along the cause of morality in this country. I say, Mr. Speaker, that when a principal of a college of young men will lend himself to that kind of false representation with respect to any branch of the public service in this country, the time has come-
And so forth.
These words were spoken with regard to a statement issued by Dr. Grant and I would like to draw the attention of the House this evening to the character of the man who made the statement referred to. There were two very celebrated men produced in this country, who were known by their breadth of vision and by their efforts to upbuild the country as a whole. One was Sir John A. Macdonald, the other was Principal Grant. The latter was a son of Nova Scotia, a province which is noted for the numerous talented men it has given to the public life of Canada, men who have become famous from one end of the Dominion to the other, and I know of none of them more celebrated than Principal Grant. Dr. Grant is the son of the celebrated Prinicipal Grant. Now, one would judge from the remarks of the Prime Minister when he spoke the other day that he was referring to a person unfriendly to his government. Those of us who have been college mates of Dr. Grant well know that he is not unfriendly to this government, that he is imbued with the principles of the Liberal party, and therefore the Prime Minister was not speaking of an opponent but of one of his own strong supporters. I do not think such words should have been spoken of any person who holds
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a position such as that of Dr. Grant. What is the effect of such utterances? It is to deter citizens of this country from expressing any opinion in regard to the public administration. Those of us who have, perhaps, taken some interest in public aflairs, municipally and otherwise, know how often we have gone to the place of nomination on the day fixed and found that there were not sufficient electors present to nominate candidates for the different positions We have had occasion to regret that so few take an interest in the public affairs of Canada, and yet as soon as one man shows his interest in the administration of the government, he is immediately spoken of by the Prime Minister of Canada in the language which I have read from Hansard. I think it is only fair to the gentleman in question that the Prime Minister should withdraw any words derogatory to his character.


An hon. MEMBER:: I hope not.


Arthur Edward Ross: 
Mr. A. J. LEWIS (Swift Current):: I have listened with a great deal of attention to this debate on civil service reform. I have paid considerable attention to what members have said on the government side to see if they could show any reason or advance any sound argument why a committee should be appointed to look into the question. I have no serious objection to the appointment of the committee itself, if it is not a camouflage to try to place the onus of the blame upon this
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parliament as a whole. I cannot myself see why ministers who have been in power now for more than one session, and who have become familiar with the working of the Civil Service and with its evils, if there are any, cannot come forward in a manly way, assuming full responsibility, and say to us, as members representing the people of Canada, that the Civil Service Commission, with its intrigue and other evils, which they believe to exist, is not a workable one and that therefore they would ask for power to remedy those evils. But they have not done that. Not the government, but ordinary members on the government side, simply come to the House and make certain statements that seem to suggest that evil is rampant in the Civil Service, and ask us as a body in this House to vote for the appointment of a committee to investigate those evils; and then in some mysterious way this parliament will endeavour to remedy the same.
Now, the only member I have heard on that side who has brought forward any argument at all to show why the committee should be appointed is the hon. member who has just ' sat down (Mr. Marcil). All the other members who have spoken on the other side, far from saying that they want the committee, express the feeling that lies deep down in their hearts that they wish to have the Civil Service Commission removed altogether. They were not afraid to say so; they were quite frank in the matter. For that reason I am glad to know that there are hon. members on the government side of the House who when they were not in power believed sincerely in the Civil Service Commission. Because I believe that I think the Civil Service is safe.
My hon. friend suggested that public opinion is changing. I want to say to the government that it is on the strength of this theory of things changing that they are able to bring forward these various changes, such as they are doing to-day. The reason why they are not lowering the tariff to a greater extent than they are at the present time is evidently because public opinion, according to them, has changed since they got into power. Someone has said that one of the great blessings of humanity is the fact that we are able to forget promises and disagreeable things. But I am glad to say that there are some hon. members in the House, and some people out of the House, who read and remember, and who now recall that when certain ministers who sit on the government side to-day were in opposition they came out strongly for the Civil Service. And in order to remind the government of certain things that may induce 
them to be consistent, and in the hope that their voice may still be heard and that they may know how to vote, I will read some things that were said some time ago. Speaking in regard to the Spinney Bill which to a large extent was the same as the amendment that is proposed to-day, the Prime Minister on May 2, 1921, is thus reported:
The whole purpose of Civil Service reform was to remove altogether the possibility of ministers acting in a partisan way. If a measure of this kind (the Spinney Bill) is permitted to pass it is setting back in a very real and substantial way the efforts of the past few years in the direction of civil service reform.
That is what the present Prime Minister said on May 2nd, 1921. Now, conditions have not changed materially in regard to the Civil Service; they are changed in regard to the government of the day. As far as the Civil Service is concerned, conditions are much the same as existed when that statement was made. Why then, does the Prime Minister to-day say that it is absolutely necessary for the sake of economy and service that the civil service legislation shall be changed?
But I would also like to quote, if it is permissible, the hon. gentleman who was elected to the first place in this House. The Speaker with all his parliamentary experience and ability expressed himself in these words in answer to a question respecting the Civil Service:
My hon. friend knows that my hair turned grey during that regime. I was between the devil and the deep sea all the time.
He is speaking in reference to political patronage. He proceeds:
It is a new departure in Canada. Let us live up to the promises, aye the sacred pledges made by gentlemen on both sides of the House when through the legislation in this respect adopted two years ago, we declared this country virtuous. I believe in the merit system. This bill is opposed, by the commission, by the independent press of Canada, and generally by public opinion. The Minister of Immigration (Mr. Calder) stated, when he introduced the bill the other day, that the commission had had an enormous task to perform. That is true, and it is because of the very extent of the task that there may have been some disappointments in the administration of the act. The reclassification in itself was a tremendous task, and although some mistakes were made, we must give the commission credit for having accomplished it. Is there any hon. member on this side or on that side who wishes to revert to that devilish system of political patronage, especially during election time? Let us get free from that system and give the commission an opportunity to exercise its full authority under the protection of parliament. Let that commission administer the act free from all influences. I was not a political friend of Dr. Roche or of M. Jameson when they sat in this House. They were, however, both personal friends, but as a Liberal, dyed-in-the-wool, I have the utmost confidence in the honour of Dr. Roche and Mr. Jameson; I fully trust their integritjr, and parliament should support them and Mr. LaRochelle as well.

The Civil Service
Here then is the statement of the Speaker of the House when as a private member he was revealing unto us the devilish system of patronage, knowing that all the time he was between the devil and the deep sea, and when he looked upon the Civil Service Commission as something that freed him from the octopus that was throwing its tentacles around members of the government. Is it in order to revive this devilish system that we had this exhibition of camouflage this afternoon whereby certain members on the government side while not supporting the amendment stated quite frankly their belief that they should have the responsibility of making certain appointments to the Civil Service, and indeed that the Civil Service Commission should be abolished altogether.
Now, I want to ask this question: Why does the government wish to get rid of the Civil Service Commission? What earthly object is there in doing that?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May-I ask my hon. friend how he justifies himself in saying that the government wishes to get rid of the commission?


Arthur John Lewis: As far as the government is concerned, I mentioned a moment ago that I had not heard any member of the government speak either for or against the Civil Sendee Commission outside the hon. member for Bona venture (Mr. Marcil).


Lewis Herbert Martell: You are drawing on a vivid imagination.


Arthur John Lewis: I am not drawing on a vivid imagination. I heard various members of the government say this afternoon that they wished to get rid of the commission. They said so quite frankly.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What member of the government?


Arthur John Lewis: The members on the government side, if that is what you wish.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is altogether different.


Joseph Archambault: Might I ask my hon. friend a question? What member on this side said he wanted to get rid of the Civil Service Commission? Did not my hon. friend understand me to say that I wanted to get rid of the Civil Service Commission in respect to the outside service?


Mr. CHEVRIER:: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question? Did I ask for the abolition of the Civil Service Commission in my speech?


Joseph Archambault: Can the hon. member name one speaker on this side who urged the abolition of the Civil Service Commission?


Arthur John Lewis: Well, if I were a spiritual medium and could read into your hearts, I would say that I think the whole bunch of you were in favour of the abolition of the Civil Service Commission.


Joseph Archambault: My hon. friend is a mind reader.


Arthur John Lewis: That is all right, but some of the members who have spoken have failed to realize that very often the wish in the heart is given expression to, even though it be by subterfuge. Now, so far as the hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. Chevrier)' is concerned, he wanted to know whether he said he wanted to get rid of the Civil Service Commission. I have not his speech before me, but I remember quite well that he divided it into about three parts, A, B, and C, or something in that style. Under one proposal he would get rid of the commission; that is to say, he would put into the hands of some other people the lower class appointments-he dwelt a greal while upon the lower class positions-although apparently by order in council, passed at the suggestion of the Civil Service Commission, those very classes have been withdrawn from its control. But at any rate he would place one class outside the jurisdiction of the commission, and he referred to the responsibility of making such appointments. Quite a few hon. members have stressed the point of responsibility in the matter, and one hon. gentleman asked the hon. Minister of Finance whether he would continue the present system if he were in a great business.
Well, there is this to be considered when you are dealing with a great business. As a usual thing the proprietor has been born into the business, he knows all about it from A to Z; but even then in some instances he is not qualified to judge who are the best men to be appointed to certain positions, and so he delegates this duty to one of his managers who is peculiarly qualified to undertake it. I can readily understand that where a new government comes into power every few years it is almost impossible for a minister to acquire such an intimate knowledge of every position in his department as would enable him to select the right man for any vacancy that might occur. For that very reason it would seem to me to be far better to place such appointments in the hands of an independent commission. Why, one hon. member answered the question not very long ago. When we asked him why the government

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did not bring down its recommendations so that we might vote upon their merits, he replied: Why, the ministers of the government are so fully occupied with a hundred and one things concerning the business of the country that they have not time even to think about amendments to the Civil Service Act. Well, Sir, if members of the government are so completely occupied with national affairs, then I say they are certainly not justified in spending any of their precious time on political patronage. Let us take one example, the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell). If there is any man in this House who knows all about agriculture from A to Z I believe it is the hon. minister himself.	*


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Arthur John Lewis: All right. Yet I can readily conceive that the hon. minister would not be qualified to decide on the ability of an applicant for a technical or a scientific position in his department. Undoubtedly he is an N exceptionally qualified gentleman in his own department, but lacking the requisite technical or scientific knowledge, he would not know whether he was appointing an efficient person or not. So for that reason it is readily understood that the commission must depend to a large extent upon somebody who is qualified to speak in respect to the man who is to be chosen. That seems to me to be the only sense in which it can be done.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Is the hon. member in favour of having these technical officers appointed by the Civil Service Commission itself, or through some persons whom the Civil Service Commission asks to act as a board of advisers?


Arthur John Lewis: I would prefer the latter.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Then you have it to-day. That is the way the Civil Service Commission is doing it.


Arthur John Lewis: And I think they are per- ' fectly justified.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: That is where we disagree.


Arthur John Lewis: Most decidedly, if I am placed in a position as Civil Service Commissioner-


Mr. FOURNIER:: What is the use of the Civil Service Commission then?


Arthur John Lewis: Not at all.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Arthur John Lewis: Not at all. I thought I understood my hon. friend to say, "What is the use of the Civil Service Commission"?
[Mr. Lewis.!	, J i


An hon. MEMBER:: That is what it is.


Mr. CALDWELL:: Order.


An hon. MEMBER:: It is order.


Arthur John Lewis: I did not understand what the hon. member said. I was pointing out that if the Civil Service Commission were dealing with technical or scientific appointments, I would not assume they would be qualified to judge in every particular; no government, no minister would be so qualified. Only men qualified to speak under such circumstances-when we consider the business of the country that is at stake and what it means to the country at large-should have a voice in that affair. For that reason I think the Civil Service Commisisoners are pursuing a wise, sane and intelligent policy in going to qualified sources for their information in regard to the application that is before them.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Would the hon. member not be in favour of having these same qualified officers paid by the government to act as a board and be responsible to the government as members of the Civil Service Commission, rather than leaving it to independent people outside the Civil Service Commission and responsible to nobody? That is what I myself have advocated: that these men should be paid; that they should be under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Question.


Arthur John Lewis: The hon. gentleman has a most peculiar way, as some other hon. members have, of asking a question; they almost try to put the answer into one's mouth before giving him time to speak. Now, so far as responsibility is concerned-*


Mr. MICHAUD:: We have not got it yet.


Arthur John Lewis: I believe in a commission
that would be altogether free from political influences.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Hear, hear.


Arthur John Lewis: The hon. member applauds that statement. Probably, then, we shall be able to defeat this amendment and allow the commission to have the "source of power which it has at the present time.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Will my hon. friend permit, a question? Under the present law the Governor in Council appoints judges, men who occupy the highest positions in the land.

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These are the most important appointments that can be made; the judges have more to do with the rights of the people than any other class of citizens in the country.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Question.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Let me preface my remarks, please. Would my hon. friend give to the Civil Service Commission, which consists of a doctor, an ex-town clerk and an ex-lawyer, the right to select judges?


Arthur John Lewis: I should think they would be just as well qualified to select judges as the present administration. If there is one thing I regard as detestable in any country, it is for a government to be able to appoint the highest officials in the land, officials who act in a judicial capacity, and especially when -well, perhaps I had better not say it; but I feel it in my heart. I feel that appointments to positions of the highest judicial capacity should not be made by any government so far as that is concerned.


Mr. JACOBS:: Who should appoint them ?


Arthur John Lewis: Never mind; you know who appoints them at the present time, and if you look at the history of some of the appointments and see what the leanings have been in the years gone by, you will understand why they have been appointed. I am not freeing any party from that. I read a statement only the other day in one of the newspapers in regard to judgeships and other appointments, which showed that in a great many instances these men had been defeated candidates in times past.


Lewis Herbert Martell: That is nothing against them.


Arthur John Lewis: Nothing against them? It i3 nothing for them. When a man fails to get the support of the people in his own community and then the party that attains power turns around and appoints him to the highest position in the land, there is something seriously wrong in our democracy.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Not necessarily.


Arthur John Lewis: I want just to let the government know where they stand on some of these matters. The present Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Lapointe) on March 11, 1921, said this:
I do not believe in political patronage. It has been tried in many countries of the world, and it has been found wanting everywhere.
A man who is enlightened; one of the men who has recently seen light on the Liberal
35+
side, who has made an exhaustive study of the democracies of the world, says that if you revert to any condition of patronage, you are making a retrograde movement. That is where we stand to-day. No country in the world than can claim the name of democracy would go back to the patronage system that we have heard so much about this afternoon. What seems to be the matter with the Civil Service in the minds of some hon. members is that those hon. members have failed to get the people appointed whom they wanted to get appointed.
Now, one hon. member asked certain questions, and I would like to answer them. It was the hon. member who attempted to pour oil on the troubled waters; I think it was the hon. member for King's, P.E.I. (Mr. Hughes).


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Arthur John Lewis: It makes no difference; he has been so near the sea that he knows that when you pour oil on the troubled waters, things will be all right. He spoke to the Progressives in this way: The Progressives, he said, are in favour of a wheat board; therefore they are in favour of government buying, or something to that effect. Now, we are in favour of a wheat board and government control, but we are not in favour of any man in this government exercising any political interference with the wheat board. The hon. gentleman went on to say that we believed in a national bank. Yes, we do believe in a national bank, but we do not believe that every member of this government should have the right to interefere with it. We believe that the government should look after the interests of the common people when they place their money in the bank; and if the people have exercised their franchise in the proper way there might not have been the situation that the country was confronted with some time ago in connection with the Merchants' Bank.


Joseph Archambault: That was the late government.


Arthur John Lewis: All right; I am not speaking of any particular government; I am referring to governments and businesses in general. We believe so far as the Civil Service is concerned that its efficiency can best be maintained by an entire absence of political interference. Give them a free hand; let us have competitive results in regard to these things.
Before I close I wish to refer to the rest of the statements that I have scanned as made by members of the present government. The hon. Postmaster General (Mr. Murphy) must
54S
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have known what he was talking about when on April 12, 1918, he said:
I walked up the street feeling for the first time in about three years I was a free man.
It is a glorious thing to be free. The junior member for Ottawa (Mr. Chevrier) spoke in this debate some time ago about all the volumes that were issued as a result of the classification and the volume of correspondence that passed between the government and the Civil Service Commission. I wonder how much correspondence each minister would have if the patronage system came back to-morrow and the ministers had to answer every applicant for a position in the Civil Service. They would have far more correspondence to answer than they have now. The Postmaster General (Mr. Murphy) says:
The feeling was due to the fact that I realized I was free of the curse of patronage. It is because I see in the bill which has been introduced (the Spinney Bill to restore patronage) the possibility of returning to the conditions which I have eluded that I am opposed to its adoption by this House.
Patronage is such a curse that my continual wonder has been that men on both sides of politics would put up with it for the length of time that it has endured.
Of course, hon. members claim that .they do not wish to have the patronage system come back, and I only hope that their expressions are a true criterion of their real wishes, but in listening to this debate I have failed to hear one member on the opposite side of the House deduce a single argument in favour of the commission. I did hear a great deal along this line: You have given us responsibility, now give us the power; let us work out the administration and select the men, as is our right, and so forth. If the government can show by argument that the appointment of a committee is for the purpose of remedying the alleged evils in the service and removing for all time the atmosphere of suspicion that seems to overhang the dealings of the commission, I am willing to support the motion; but if it is
9 p.m. simply to camouflage the real issue and lay the blame on parliament for the condition that they would bring about, I must protest and vote against it. So far the arguments are lacking in its favour.
Mr. H. A. FORTIER (Labelle) Translation) :	Mr. Speaker, I am in favour of maintaining the Civil Service Commission and I wish it to be so understood. In the course of this debate, I heard, on more than one occasion, statements made by members sitting on your left, Sir, in regard to the stand taken by those who support the government.

According to these utterances, it would seem that we have no faith whatever in the Civil Service Commission and that we would be very willing to abolish it. I wish to state emphatically that I am in favour of retaining the Civil Service Commission.
I think this commission plays a most important part in our administration; therefore, our duty is, not only to uphold it, and, if necessary to amend the act that governs it, but also to co-operate with it in the most loyal and thorough manner.
The reasons set forth against this commission only bear out the more, to my mind, that it should exist. Some of these inferences would tend to discredit the commission by bringing out concrete cases of blundering attributed to it. To my view, Sir, such arguments should convince us the more that if we have an institution that may have erred- and this is somewhat the fate of all human institutions-we should endeavour to amend the act by which it is governed so as to prevent any further wrongs. In other words, if this institution is sound, we should not destroy it, but it behooves us as legislators to do all in our power to enable it to sail clear of such reefs.
This commission is absolutely necessary for the administration of public affairs. It is also necessary when choosing civil servants who are indispensable to the country. During the first years of Confederation, we tolerated what was known as excessive patronage. However, about fifteen years ago, Canada wisely decided, following in the footsteps of other countries, that the time had come to create a Civil Service Commission. The latter was therefore instituted, much to the country's benefit.
Broadly viewed, the commission's aim is to make known the various openings in the Civil Service, also to decide what qualifications should possess those who enter the service. Again I state, that the Civil Service Commission Act, as amended, is to-day indispensable. I do not say that it is perfect, because all institutions after a number of years of trial, necessarily need reforms to keep up with the times. Such changes are certainly needed in order that the carrying out of it; duties be made more effective and to give to the numerous civil servants, in the Capital, in the neighbouring town, in fact all over the country, the greater feeling of security possible, and, so that those who, in the future, enter the service be judiciously chosen. The work accomplished, after all, is a useful one. Do not the civil servants, of this capital and the town opposite, make up one of the most important sections of the community? Do

The Civil Service
they not belong to a select and privileged class? Amongst them are to be found men of letters, others versed in art or science, it can be said that they are a chosen lot and trusted servants of the State. These employees certainly deserve our praise for the devotion to duty in their various occupations, and as a public man, I deem it my duty to acknowledge this class of civil servants who spare no effort in the interest of our country.
I am not willing to admit that the resolution moved by the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) has for effect to destroy confidence in the Civil Service Commission. In the words of the mover and those who supported his motion I find nothing of a nature to bring discredit on the commission. It certainly deserves no blame. A very great task has been confided to them, an enormous undertaking. One little realizes the work that the Civil Service Commissioners and the staff entrusted with the carrying out of this act, are called -upon to perform. This commission certainly deserves praise and on that score I state that I have faith in that body, and, the work which it has accomplished has been for the welfare of the Dominion.
Now, Mr. Speaker, if employees are necessary to the State, it does not follow that all roads must lead to officialdom so that the youth of our country, the flower of the nation, should therein find a safe harbour. I know there are higher, more attractive and more independent callings than those attainable in the public service.
Far be it from me to appeal to the young men of our country and induce them to enter the service. I would rather beg of them to seek more independent, more remunerative positions in which they would be called upon to play a more important part for the welfare of the country. I would rather ask the young men to devote their energies towards the liberal professions, commerce or industry and seek to better serve their country in these broad walks which will be a greater source of happiness than the Civil Service can offer them.
I endorse the amendment moved by the hon. member for King's (Mr. Hughes). I am in favour of this parliamentary committee that should be named to further inquire into the working of this act, so as to avoid the mistakes referred to by the hon. members who preceded me in this debate. I am in favour of appointing this committee so as to amend the act, to make more efficient, if possible, the staff of the commission and to give it the necessary backing in order that the application of this act should become more and more effective. I am again in favour of
appointing this committee, so that the civil servants may have the opportunity to appear before it, make known their aims, claim their rights and expose the difficulties in their path. I< am in favour of appointing this committee so that justice may be done to that numerous class of civil employees who underwent hardships during these last years, at the hands of foreign commissioners appointed by the previous government, to inquire into the administration of the Civil Service Act and who were responsible for hundreds of efficient employees being dismissed without any cause. I want these employees to appear before this committee and explain why, following on the shameful inquiries of Young and Griffenhagen, they were dismissed from the service; I want them to state their case before this committee. After having risen to enviable positions in various departments, many amongst them have become artisans. They had devoted the best of their life to their country and after making a career of the Civil Service, they were dismissed without warning or cause. Perhaps they are at present undergoing hardships in consequence of these shameful inquiries. This committee will afford them the opportunity of making known the wrongs from which they suffered. I have faith again in this committee because it will be a means for the civil servants to establish their claims, for instance, in regard to the bonus, so that it be included in their regular salary and also to revise the scale of salaries. I believe the appointing of this parliamentary committee is certainly justified for the reasons already mentioned by hon. members and those I have put forth. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I shall support the amendment moved by the hon. member for King's (Mr. Hughes) and I will vote against the motion of the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) who is opposed to the Civil Service Commission.


Mr. D. W. WARNER (Strathcona):: I feel that it is my duty to say a word in regard to this matter. I think that the amendments to the Civil Service Commission should be looked at in a reasonable way, if they are of the class of amendments that are needed. I am not acquainted with the conditions well enough to judge of that. From what I hear, I am convinced, at least, that some amendments could be made that would make the Civil Service more satisfactory and give the government a privilege that I believe they do not now possess. I have had rather an active life. Some people say that I have succeeded fairly well. However, I am not going to boast about that at all, but I have been able all my life, with all the business
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that I have ever handled, to say who would take a responsibility that it was impossible for me to take, when it was more than I could handle. If a minister in the government needs a reliable helper, and we hold that minister responsible for that helper, I believe he should have a chance to say who that helper should be. That is my conviction and at the same time, I am in favour of the Civil Service Commission. I believe that there is work that they could do and should do better than aflyone else. I see no harm in appointing a committee, if that committee is fairly chosen, to go into this matter and present a report to this House.
I warn the government, however, that I am not willing to go an unlimited distance in this matter, and I am not willing for the ministers to have more authority than they should have. I am not in a position to say how much more authority they should have than they possess to-day. I would like to hear the report from that committee. If the committee, in my judgment, goes too far, I will vote against their report. I do not wish to look at this matter from any partisan or prejudiced standpoint. I expect the government to be fair and square, and do as they agree to do. Let them appoint that committee as fairly as they can, and see that all parties are represented. Let the committee go into the matter, and when that report comes to the House, we will have something to work on. I believe that my quarter of the House, or my third of the House, as you might say, is going to be divided on the question. I am stating what I conscientiously believe, I am going to stand by it, and I am going to vote for the committee.


George Perry Graham: While in favour of retaining the Civil Service Commission, being one of the men who were responsible for its appointment, I desire to give one reason why I feel, in the first place, that there are some difficulties in the way as the matter stands at present. It is not the fault of the commission, but the fault of the law. I have had the unpleasant experience during the past fourteen months of seeing more than a thousand employees in the Department of Defence retired, not on account of inefficiency, but on account of receding work. These men and women are absolutely efficient, some of them having had five or ten years' experience in the very work of the department. Under the present law, what is their position? They cannot be appointed to any other department, although they possess all the qualifications, except that

they have not passed the examination. Today, every department, I suppose-well several departments at any rate-have advertised for clerks and stenographers, and young men and young women are coming in from all parts of Canada without any experience to accept those positions, while there are thousands of efficient clerks walking the streets of Ottawa, who cannot be appointed.


Arthur Meighen: Those are temporary
employees?


George Perry Graham: Temporary employees in name; some of them have been there as long as ten years. It may be asked, why were they not blanketed in, that is to say, why were they not made permanent en bloc? Well, in the Department of Defence they could not be made permanent for they were going instead of coming. There was not work for them to do, consequently they could not be blanketed in without any reason. There is something wronf with the act there. Now you say, why not bring an amendment? Well, that amendment might prove impossible in some quarters. I am in favour of the Civil Service Commission being retained, but I do believe that if we had a committee fairly selected from different parts of the House, and just such cases as I have cited placed before them, and if we heard the commission and every person interested, we might find several ways in which the law could be amended without creating any difficulty with the commission and in the final result the operations of the commission would be really strengthened rather than weakened.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but express my admiration of the ingenuity of the Minister of Defence in the presentation he has just made. I have been waiting throughout the length of two days to hear some suggestion as to what amendment really was in the mind of the government that required this committee of the House to look into or to draught. I heard none, save attacks on the whole principle of the Civil Service Act, until the minister arose. He, however, has found one now.


George Perry Graham: There are others. I have just given examples.


Arthur Meighen: He says there are temporary employees for example in the Department of Defence and they cannot be transferred to other departments. They are not needed in the Defence department, they are temporary within the meaning, of course, of the Civil Service Act, and some of them

The Civil Service
may have been there for years. They are not needed there, and new ones are required in other departments and these do not get the preference under the law that they ought to get. That is what I understand his argument to be. The Civil Service Commission, of course, can appoint them just as they can appoint anyone else, subject of course to the priority of the returned soldier's claim. The Civil Service Commission can appoint them but there ought to be some preference given them.
. Mr. GRAHAM: How can it appoint them to permanent positions without passing an examination?


Arthur Meighen: Certainly, why should they go without passing an examination?


George Perry Graham: That is one of the difficulties.


Arthur Meighen: If the government thinks they should go without passing an examination there is no amendment in the world easier draughted than that. Surely the government does not want a committee of the House to draught an amendment to enable temporary employees to be transferred without an examination. I question very much the wisdom of it; I question very much the fairness of it; I question very much if this House would pass it. All these things have been considered and reviewed a dozen times. But is what the Minister of Defence has mentioned the real object of this committee? Is there anybody in this House so innocent as to dream that anything of that nature is the object of the committee at all? If there is, then he has not read the speech of the Prime Minister, he has not read any of the speeches delivered up to the deliverance of the Minister of Defence to-night. You cannot read any such object as that into any other speech delivered yet.
Now this comes before the House in very attractive form-I mean the amendment of the hon. member for King's, P.E.I. (Mr. Hughes). All the amendment asks for is a committee to look into this Civil Service Act and see if something cannot be done to make things better. Nothing could appear more innocent than that. One would wonder how anybody could object to it.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: Oh! "Hear, hear," says
the hon. member for Brome. Does he remember his own speech against the same thing two years ago? Now he cannot understand why anybody should object. Two years have altered his attitude entirely. Two years ago
there was a motion for a committee, and the reasons for it were frankly given from the first. They were not delayed for two days, debate taking place in the meantime on something else altogether, and then some technical suggestions made by a minister. No, after the working of the act for three years the government came before parliament and submitted, that in its opinion there were certain classes of appointments-and suggestions were made as to what they would be-that would be better handled outside of the act. First of all, that there were very minor appointments, certain appointments involving fees and no salary, appointments of labourers and the like; and then there were certain other appointments as respects which the machinery of the act was not adapted; for example the appointment of highly skilled technical men. As to the one class the government, while not naming any series of positions, suggested that a committee consider what in the public interest, might go in that schedule, and as to the second what might go there-the second being distinguished from the first by the provision that the imprimatur of the commission should be placed upon the choice of the responsible minister, both to be extremely limited in their application.
The government did not come to parliament and say "We want the power where we have the responsibility;" we did not come to parliament and present one argument after the other against the very existence of the cjominission itself as this government has done against every useful purpose any commission could serve. No, we came to .parliament and said: "We intend to abide by that act and its principle right through;" that the commission could make appointments; except as respects certain classes which we asked the committee to consider. We asked the committee to consider if there were not certain minor classes that ought to be taken out all together, and we asked the committee to consider as well if there were not certain others that ought to come out but be subject to the commission only to the extent of having to secure the commission's approval. We were resisted in this House, resisted by every hon. gentleman who sits opposite to me, who was here then-resisted to the extent that the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) rose and moved the six months' hoist. They would not consent to a committee of inquiry at that time into these definite suggestions, although the government stated that not only should the principle of the abolition of patronage be maintained but the powers of the
The Civil Service

commission should be retained intact as to everything save those suggestions, We simply asked that these suggestions be submitted to a committee.
Now, does the Minister of Defence's speech really expose the position the present government is in in regard to this amendment? Is there anyone so innocent as to think it does? The government came before this House and, by the speech of the Prime Minister intimated that while they did not want the commission abolished, they wanted to be armed with power to appoint whom they wished. Such was the speech of the Prime Minister. I have that speech here. If anyone can read any other meaning into those words, to be found on page 364 of Hansard I would be very glad to hear from him. Just previously, the Prime Minister said that while he could not agree with the motion he "would like to associate himself with the mover of the resolution in much that he said about the importance of maintaining ministerial responsibility, and having government by a responsible ministry and not irresponsible authority." On the next page, 363, he says:
And the government finds itself-I speak now from the knowledge of the difficulties with which the ministers of the different departments have to contend-the government finds itself continually in the position of being obliged to endeavour to carry on the work of the [DOT] country with clerks who are sent to the government by the Civil Service Commission, but who do not possess the qualifications which if the minister himself were free to make the appointment, he would see were possessed by whoever was appointed.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: That is quite right; the Prime* Minister says "hear, hear", endorsing his statement advocating that the ministers be free to make appointments, and asserting that when they are they will make better appointments than the Civil Service Commission makes and obtain more qualified persons.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In certain cases, yes.


Arthur Meighen: No, the Prime Minister did not at all say ."in certain cases". He made his statement as a general principle. He says he knows the difficulties ministers have to face when they are compelled to canyon the work of the country -with clerks sent to the government by the commission who do not possess the qualifications which, if ministers were free to make the appointments themselves, they would see' that the appointees possessed. In a word, the government wants the right to appoint clerks. Now,
I ask:-if you take clerks away from the commission, whom would you leave for the commission to appoint?
I Mr. Meighen.]


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I answer my right hon. friend by asking him a question? When he established the Income Tax branch why did he not place it under the Civil Service Commission?


Arthur Meighen: For the simple reason that the employees, when they were appointed, were intended to be temporary. Does the Prime Minister want the whole service placed on the same basis as the employees and clerks of the Income Tax branch? If he does, then he wants to extrail the very heart of the Civil Service Act. In the thoughtlessness of the moment the real purpose of the government came out. What has the *Prime Minister in mind? Is it the putting of the whole service in the position of the Income Tax branch?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Not at all.


Arthur Meighen: Then what was the significance of the question? Here in this speech he appeals to the House for authority to appoint clerks, and asserts to parliament that if the government gets that authority better clerks will be appointed than those who are sent to the departments by the Civil Service Commission. But that is not all, nor is it the worst. I know that the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Graham) will marvel at the contrast between the virility of this suggestion and the technicality of his own. At page 364 the Prime Minister says:
May I assert, speaking of patronage, that patronagt cannot be abolished by statute. It is impossible to make appointments to the public service unless they are made by some body. The Civil Service Commission as constituted to-day is a body of three or four men. Hundreds of appointments-yes, thousands of appointments-have to be made to the public service. Those who favour appointment by commission must remember that these gentlemen have the determining as to who is to fill particular positions. They have patronage as long as they have to make appointments. But while they have the patronage they are responsible to no one. The government is without patronage, as matters stand at the present time, but is held responsible for appointments with which it has nothing whatever to do. That is not in the interests of the public service.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: The Prime Minister says "hear, hear". He declares in those remarks that it is not in the interests of the public service that the Civil Service Commission should have power to make appointments, and that while they have patronage they are responsible to no one. This he declares, is not in the interest of public service; and yet he asserts that he does not want a return to patronage! No. wonder the Prime Minister sits perplexed.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Does my right hon. friend want me to interrupt him?

The Civil Service


Arthur Meighen: I do, if he thinks I am not stating the facts.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would ask
the right hon. gentleman what about the ten thousand positions so-called, which the commission itself asked to have taken from its jurisdiction? That is a return to patronage [DOT] at the request of the commission.


Arthur Meighen: And the Prime Minister apparently wants that invasion to extend throughout the service.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I did not say
that.


Arthur Meighen: Well, what then is the
meaning of the words I have quoted?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I said that
there were cases where a return to patronage was a distinct advantage.


Arthur Meighen: The Prime Minister did
not say that at all. He said in the language I have quoted that he is opposed to the principle of the commission appointing men, with whose choice the government has nothing to do, but for whose work it is held responsible.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend attributes the word "principle" to me. I would ask him to find that word in any utterance of mine on this subject.


Arthur Meighen: Well. The Prime Minister said he was opposed to the -practice, and I thought he would be opposed to the principle. I will read again what he says:
May I assert, speaking of patronage, that patronage cannot be abolished by statute. It is impossible to make appointments for the public service unless they are made by some body. The Civil Service Commission as constituted to-day is a body of three or four men. Hundreds of appointments-yes, thousands of appoiritments-have to be made to the public service. Those who favour appointment by commission-
In the following sentence he points out *what is wrong.
-must remember that these gentlemen have the determining as to who is to fill particular positions. They have patronage as long as they have to make appointments. But while they have the patronage they are responsible to no one. The government is without patronage, as matters stand at the present time, but is held responsible for appointments with which it has nothing whatever to do. That is not in the interests of the public service.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: Now, I wait for another interruption. If the English language can state antagonism to commission appointment in clearer words than these, then it is beyond my power to find them. It is not in the interests of the public service, he says, that the commission should appoint men for whose work the
government is to be responsible. The moment you come to that stage you are against the commission altogether; or at least, if you are not against the commission, you want a commission that is robbed of all effective power, a commission that is colourless and worthless, a commission that is a mere mummy without any power of appointment. The Prime Minister says he wants a commission-is it to be a commission of that kind? He declares that he is opposed to the power of appointment to the Civil Service resting in the commission and not in the government. But the Prime Minister did not even stop there. He went on to say this:
I think some commission or other body should have the power to see that the members of the Civil Service are duly qualified for their positions before being appointed to them, and that those who are already in the service should secure promotion and salaries in accordance with merit.
I will give the House the significance of this extract in a moment. He continues:
But I do say, Mr. Speaker, if we are to have merit recognised and the measure of justice which we should have for the service, if we are to have that economy and efficiency in the public service which we should have, we shall have to get back to where the government has a larger measure of responsibility for how the public service is carried on where it will have some substantial authority and will not be manacled and, shackled by regulations and rules of a body that is responsible to no one but itself, and that in many cases makes appointments not by itself, but as can be shown if the commission is brought before a .committee of this House, by its own appointees who conduct examinations and make recommendations.
There, again, is an appeal to the House to have the government endowed with power of appointment, not " manacled and shackled " by any body responsible only to itself. I have quoted in three distinct passages from the Prime Minister, the declaration of his belief that the government, in the matter of appointments, should not be shackled by a commission such as he describes, responsible only to itself, and that the government would appoint better men if it had the power under the act to make those appointments. Now, I want to ask again if language could be found that declares more emphatically against the whole principle of the Civil Service Act? I have quoted only from the Prime Minister. But he has been followed by other members on his side who in speech after speech, from that of the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) to that of the hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil), uttered not a single sentence consistent with the retention of the very essence of the Civil Service Act at all.


Mr. MARCIL:: If the right hon. gentleman will allow me a question? Would not he

The Civil Service
and the House be in a better position to give a judgment in this matter after having heard the evidence?


Arthur Meighen: I have heard the evidence. I have heard some witnesses in this debate, and I do not think that witnesses who are imbued with the idea that seems to be behind this amendment will do much to throw any additional light upon the subject. It is all a question-and this House might just as well decide it now-whether we are going to retain a virile Civil Service Commission on its present principle or not. The hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. Chevrier) nods assent. He is perfectly honest and frank about it. Now, that is what we are deciding.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: If the right hon. gentleman will allow me:	When he states that
I am in favour of the retention of a virile Civil Service Commission, he is right. But I say that at present that situation does not exist.


Arthur Meighen: Well, the hon. gentleman nodded assent when I said that what we really had to decide was whether we would retain a virile Civil Service Commission or [DOT]not. He may be quite ready to maintain a virile Civil Service Commission in the physical sense. But what they would have to do, if what he enunciated in his speech becomes law, is a mystery to me. They might have to put their stamp of approval -on some man selected by the government-and I fancy that is what he has in his mind-but to reach that stage is to go back ten years and wipe out ten years of civil service reform. Certain sentences of the Prime Minister's are consistent with that idea too, notably one I quoted but did not comment on a few minutes ago. If such an idea is in the Prime Minister's mind, then he purposes to abolish the reforms- of ten years, he wants to make the Civil Service Commission merely a commission to pass upon the qualifications of appointees of the government-possibly before they are appointed. But I want to warn this House that there is all the difference in the world between giving the government power of appointment subject to the imprimatur of the commission, and giving the commission power of appointment subject to the acceptance or rejection of the government. Therein is all the difference between the act of 1908 and the act of 1918. Evidently what the government has in mind, if the sentence about retaining a commission quoted from the Prime Minister's speech is any indication, and if the interruption of 
the hon. member for Ottarva has any significance, is to reduce the Civil Service Commission to the dimensions or rather to the impotence of the old commission under the 1908 act.
They want to put the power of appointment in the government. That is what the Prime Minister says. They want to do so,. he says, because it is in the interests of the public service. He has made such assertion in his speech, and he cannot escape from his words. If the power of appointment is to be in the government, what is the commission going to have to do beyond what the old commission under the 1908 act had to do? Therefore the question is whether we are ready to go back to the patronage conditions of the 1908 legislation. That is what we must decide on this amendment.
I want to add a word or two more on this question of the Civil Service Commission itself. The words have been loosely used in this debate that the commission is an "irresponsible body." It is not an "irresponsible" body to begin with. The commission, it is true, is not responsible to the government, and is not removable by the government. If you make it so responsible then you merely make it the instrument of the administration, you take it entirely out of the category of a judicial body and make it merely an appointive body-simply an instrument of the government of the day. But the commission is responsible to parliament. Under the terms of the legislation it is answerable to this House, and any member of this commission may be removed on an address of this and the upper House. The standing of the commission in its relation to parliament is similar to that of the Railway Commission, and unless you make it so you have nothing but a camouflage-you might just as well repeal the Civil Service Act altogether. Unless you put the commission in such position you have the government of the day able to exercise patronage to its heart's content.
Now, the hon. member for Strathcona (Mr. Warner) in the course of his address remarked that a man responsible for the conduct of a business-he meant a private business-had the right, and could not succeed unless he exercised the right, of selecting his own employees, and the hon. gentleman intimated that he favoured such a practice in the business of government. He added that he wanted the Civil Service Commission retained. I am not able to see just what he wants it retained for. If his first principle is embodied in the report of this proposed committee he will never have anything to vote against,

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because it cannot go any further than his own conception that is to put the power of appointment in the government. He argued though that because the head of a private business should have such a right, it is better that the government should have it too. I am afraid the hon. member has not reviewed the history of appointments by governments in this or any other democratic country. The relationship of a government to the affairs of a country differ from the relationship of a man to his private business. A government, of course, is responsible, and the government's duty is to conduct the affairs of the nation as it would conduct its private affairs; but a government, no matter to what party it may belong, is subject to influences, arising from the fact that it must submit itself periodically to the electorate, that to that end it must maintain an organization. Because a government is subject to these influences, unknown in private affairs, it has been deemed wise in almost every country in the world to remove from the control of government for the sake of the government itself as well as of the country this power of appointment of the officers and servants of the State. Why, this is done all through the affairs of this and other countries. It is only lately that it has been applied to the ordinary departmental clerks and the like in the inside and the outside service. But just as democratic government has evolved it has been applied in one sphere and another-in the judicial sphere, afterwards in quasi-judicial spheres as regards our railway telegraph controversies, and then in the matter of the management of the National Railways themselves-I only mention these three-also in the matter of appointments to the Civil Service. It is merely a matter of development, of placing a certain portion of what formerly was the function of government in a position where it can be more efficiently performed in the interests of the state as a whole. Consequently words which may argue well as respects a private business, argue not at all as respects a government; if such were not true we would never have had any Civil Service Act, not even the act of 1908, never the act of 1918. Therefore, I think sufficient attention has not been given by the hon. member to the history of this subject. This House and the country have decided that the influence of patronage-


Daniel Webster Warner: May I ask a question? I would like the right hon. leader of the Opposition to tell us the difference between a minister not having full responsibility, or having someone to take responsibility for the work that he cannot do, and a private member in his private business having someone to take responsibility from him? I fail to see the difference.


Arthur Meighen: I have sought to explain it. Of course if the hon. member really is of that conviction he should vote for the repeal of the act. There is no reason for the act at all if it is well that a government should have the same power as have those who manage their own private affairs. Of course, I know what the hon. member has in mind. It is this: though he would like the power of appointments to be in governments, seeing that governments are responsible, he would want them so to exercise it as to give the appointments to those who merited them, not to those merely who had done political favours. Such, I presume, is what he means by saying he is against patronage. But when he states what he does; when he makes an assertion against the whole principle of appointment by a commission, then he has in effect stated he favours a return to the former patronage system.


Daniel Webster Warner: I would like to ask the right hon. gentleman if he feels that the Civil Service Act is perfect as it is.


Arthur Meighen: The Civil Service Act is sufficient for all purposes so far as I know.
I know of no method-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Arthur Meighen: Hon. members who laugh are those who talk day and night about exterminating the practice of commission appointment.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No, no.


Arthur Meighen: They have so talked even to-night.
Now, let us come to what was done under the amendment of two years ago. The amendment simply put it in the power of the Civil Service Commission to make a recommendation to the government that certain classes should be taken away from the operation of the act, and the commission was empowered to make its recommendations, either because it believed that the appointment of that class by the commission was impracticable, or because it regarded such jurisdiction as not in the public interest. These latter words were inserted in order to widen the powers of the commission in the making of their recommendations. Previous to this amendment the commission had power to recommend that any class be taken out if it considered the appointment of members of that class by the commission impracticable.
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Now, following the amendment, classes of a very narrow range, not amounting to any appreciable number, were taken out under the late government on the recommendation of the commission, the government approving of that recommendation by order in council. And the government that approves takes the responsibility ; it cannot hide behind the skirts of a commission. I want to impress that on the Prime Minister. The idea he sought to drive into the minds of hon. members was this: " Oh, we did not take anybody out from the operation of the act; it was the commission." The commission has the power of recommendation, but the power of recommendation does not reduce the responsibility of the government by one iota; the government is responsible for taking every one of these ten thousand men out of the operation of the act. The government can say, " We exercised that responsibility because we had a recommendation; this was the factor causing us to do it." That is all right; that argument is quite reasonable. But the government is responsible for every class and every man that comes out of the operation of the act; for this whole ten thousand the government is responsible. We were responsible for those we approved of-and narrow indeed, almost negligible, was the range of those who were taken out by the late government. As showing that the government of which I was the head had no intention of invading the principle or the operation of the act to any appreciable extent, I would point to the very narrow range of cases that we took the responsibility of taking out while we were in power. Now, this government comes into office and in the month of June, 10,000 are swung away from the operation of the act. Is it any wonder that apprehension surges through the country? Is it any wonder that people come to think that there will probably be further exemptions? Is it any wonder that they think that with twenty per cent of the service gone back to patronage there is danger of more going back as well?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: The right hon. leader of the Opposition mentions 10,000 exemptions. Does he infer that these were taken away under the present administration or under the late administration?


Arthur Meighen: They were taken away under the present administration.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: May I refer the right
hon. gentleman to the order in council of 21st September, 1921, wherein 'it is stated that all labourers, labour foremen, assistant labour foreman and charwomen are exempted from the operation of the statute?
[Mr. Meighea 1


Arthur Meighen: If they are, I do not
know why charwomen are taken out twice, for they appear in this order.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: When that order was
passed the Civil Service Commission simply named in general terms these four classes, and it was not to operate outside the city of Ottawa. But when the order in council of the 29th of June of last year was passed, the Civil Service Commission proceeded to catalogue the positions that came under the category of labourer, labour foreman, assistant labour foreman and charwomen, and extended that to the city of Ottawa. Those
10,000	positions were taken away from the operation of the statute by the late administration, and only those that remained in the city of Ottawa came under the operation of the order of 1922.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know whether the hon. member merely wants to make a second speech or not, but what he says does not in the slightest degree detract from my argument. I used the figure 10,000 in my speech the other night. Those figures had been used by Dr. Grant. I asked the Prime Minister if he objected; if they were not right-because I did not know whether they were or not-as relating to the number of persons exempted under the order in council of the 29th of June. The Prime Minister said he would not say that the figures were not right; consequently I have a right to assume that there were 10,000 taken away by that order in council.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Is the right hon. gentleman prepared to dispute my statement?


Arthur Meighen: I do not know what effect the statement has that is of any importance. He says there were some charwomen taken out under the order in council.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Mr. Speaker-


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman
might possibly give the one who has the floor the right to answer his own question. There were some charwomen, as I understood it, taken out by the order in council of September, 1921, but not all the charwomen; the rest were taken out by the order of the *29th of June. I am not in a position to dispute my hon. friend's authority as to when the charwomen came out, but I know they are mentioned in this order.
This order is an order of vast extent. For the most part I quite agree that it covers minor appointments, but there are important appointments included in it. I do not wish to criticize the Civil Service Commission for making the' recommendation, J say this.

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though: a recommendation that takes out garage men, quarrymen, barbers, blacksmiths, boilermakers, boommasters, cabinetmakers, carpenters, ship construction carpenters, caulkers, coopers, coppersmiths, derrickmen, divers, dynamo tenders, electricians, linemen, and all the rest on this list-there are two or three pages; a recommendation that takes those out invades very seriously the operation of the Civil Service Act, and the government took a very serious responsibility-


Charles Marcil: Would the
right hon. gentleman have competitive examinations in the making of these appointments?


Arthur Meighen: In the case of some of
them, yes. The examination in each case would be made to fit the character of the appointment. It would not necessarily fellow that the examination would be similar to that provided in the case say of a stenographer, the nature of which would be entirely different from an examination that would be applied say to a garage man. For myself, I know of no good reason why scores of these classes included in the order in council of the 29th of June, 1922, were on the government's responsibility exempted from the act.


Charles Marcil: What becomes of the competition if you do not have the competitive examination?


Arthur Meighen: There is an examination, and competitive, too. I say the character of the examination is fitted to the character of the appointment.


Charles Marcil: Does the hon. gentleman think that the commission is going to advertise every time this class of assistance is needed?


Arthur Meighen: Whenever it is necessary, and they do, so far as I know. I receive every day or so advertisements of the commission for appointments similar to these. The commission are men of brains, they are men of honour; the commission, after all are men who from the mouth of the highest dignitary of this House received two years ago when he was in political opposition to the government that appointed the commission as high an encomium as any public servant could ever deserve. They are men who have never been assailed as having acted in a partisan way, never at any time whatever. They are men who are above partisan criticism at the hands of any man in this country.


Charles Marcil: I have not said a word against the commission. I am a supporter of the commission, but I want the law investigated to see if there is anything wrong.


Arthur Meighen: With a commission of that character, is it not likely they will be able to judge of the qualifications of men for appointments such as this as well as, and, being at the work all this time, better than officers or members of a government? It would appear to me that such would be the case. I know that two members of the commission recommended that the long series of classes be excised from the act. I know not the reason why: I have made no inquiry whatever. But the chairman of that commission, whose presence on the commission is a fact of vital consequence to this country, I know, did not sign the recommendation, and for myself I am disposed to give him credit for not doing so. I do not say that confidence in the commission has been impaired because of this recommendation, but I say here and now that if this class of recommendation goes much further there will not only be apprehension throughout this country, but there will be an impairment of confidence. Responsibility of course is on the government, and I am quite ready to concede that confidence in them will be impaired as well, that is, if the narrow margin that is left can further be reduced. But the commission itself is an institution of permanent consequence to this Dominion, and I earnestly hope, and I express the hope now, that there will not be further recommendations going still more seriously into the scope and operation of the Civil Service Act.	,


William Findlay Maclean: Were there some exemptions made on August 14, 1919?


Arthur Meighen: There may have been; I do not remember. There were some narrow exceptions made.


William Findlay Maclean: All under $200 were exempted.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know why they are exempted again if they were exempted then, because all under $200 are exempted by this order of June, 1922. It may be that this is a comprehensive order including all that went before, but I do not think it is so.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think it is.


Arthur Meighen: If so, it would have been better if the fact had been referred to in the order itself. There were some exemptions up to December, 1921, but the whole effect of them was very small indeed compared with the enormous scope of this order of the 29th of June, 1922. In this connection let me say that if the commission feels still that there should be other exceptions not included here to which no objection could be
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taken if they were exempted from the operation of the act-I do not know of any myself, but if the commission feels that there are, they have power now to make recommendation, and the government on its responsibility has power to approve of such exceptions. But what the government want if they intend to narrow the scope of the operation of the act, is to walk into the commissioner's office and against the will and advice of the commission, and against the experience of these years, take whole classes of appointments out of the operation of the act. This must be in the mind of the administration if they intend to contract further the scope of operations, because so far as the commission is concerned, it has ample power at the present time to make recommendations to this end.
Now I want to say it is not a matter to be wondered at, after the government of this country exempts these large numbers from the operation of the act, that men in this country in high positions who are indeed deeply interested in the perpetuation of the merit system as a real merit system, and not a farce, should take alarm. No man should be criticised because he takes alarm or because he attributes some of his fears to the action of the government in approving that recommendation. A man should not even be criticised for doing so, but the Prime Minister comes to this House and charges "false representations" against a respectable and highly gifted citizen of this country, the head of Upper Canada College. Because, forsooth, the head of Upper Canada College declared that political forces were at work to bring back the reign of patronage in this country, and because he pointed to the fact that already ten thousand had been brought back from the operation of the act, the Prime Minister declared that he was guilty of a "false representation," and intimated such 10 p.m. an assertion was inconsistent with Dr. Grant's claim to be engaged in a moral reform. In the first place, Dr. Grant has said nothing about "moral reform." This was merely attributed to him to suit the purpose of the Prime Minister. Now the Prime Minister cannot point to a line, he cannot point to a sentence in Dr. Grant's utterance that is not true, that is not undeniably true, that no person who takes himself seriously could dispute for a moment. Does anyone deny that the forces of political patronage are at work? Has anyone listened to this debate and come to any other conclusion? Is there any other inference frtnn the speech of the hon. member for St. James (Mr. Rinfret), 
or from the speech of the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power)?


Charles Gavan Power: Is there anything insidious in my speech?


Arthur Meighen: I did not say insidious


Charles Gavan Power: The complaint was of insidious influences.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member has lost the point altogether. Does anyone, I say, who has listened to the speech of the hon. member dispute that the forces of political patronage are at work to restore the reign of patronage? That is what Dr. Grant said, and because he said it, he is declared to have been guilty of false representation by the Prime Minister of this country. I think the Prime Minister owes to this House, and owes to Dr. Grant, the duty of standing frankly before parliament before whom he made that declaration and apologizing to Dr. Grant.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Arthur Meighen: What is more, that is the judgment of men of independent thought of this country. Are men outside of parliament to be lampooned in parliament for stating what is manifestly true? There is no inference here that anybody could find fault with or dispute; neither is there any inference beyond the clear meaning of the words themselves. Because 10,000 are gone, that itself, he says, is an argument to show the political forces of patronage are at work. Such is the inference and the only inference that can be drawn from his remarks. The Prime Minister says, "The inference is that we went to the Civil Service Commission and forced them to make the recommendation." Dr. Grant's words admit of no such inference in the world. Whether the fact is true or not, no such inference can be drawn from his remarks. Dr. Grant evidently knew that the government when it passed the order in council aproving the recommendation took upon itself the responsibility of removing 10,000, and the fact, he says, that the government took the responsibility of removing 10,000 goes to prove that the forces of political patronage were at work. And if he wanted confirmation, all he would require to do would be to read the Hansard of two days ago or come and listen to this debate to-night.
Now what this House decides is whether the principle of that act is to remain. Some hon. gentlemen who have spoken have used words consistent only with the determination that the Civil Service Commission shall go altogether. I do not say that all the lan-

The Civil Service
guage of the Prime Minister is consistent only with that view. Some of it is consistent only with such a view, but other language of the Prime Minister is consistent with the opinion that what he wants is the commission to remain but to exist as a mere approving body, a body whose duty it is to examine the qualifications of men and then to leave the government free to make its selection. Some of his language is consistent with such an idea: other of his language is consistent only with an opinion on his part that the real functions of the Civil Service Commission should go altogether.
Now the Prime Minister said at other times "I do not want the commission to go. I do not want patronage to return. I want the commission to remain." But there is not a line in his speech consistent with having the commission remain clothed with any powers which are effective for the purpose of appointments. For this reason I am opposed to any committee. I am opposed to a committee that is launched from this House with the manifesto of the Prime Minister, as spoken the other night. So far as my influence in parliament is effective, I am determined that if this government is powerless to build, it ift least will not be permitted to destroy.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, the right hon. the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) has purported to quote from my remarks in a previous stage of the debate, words which he sought to construe as equivalent to an expression on my part that the Civil Service Act should be repealed, and also that the Civil Service Commission should be abolished. How fairly and how widely he quoted, I will permit the House to judge by reading the sentences immediately preceding the sentences which he quoted.


Arthur Meighen: I read his words when he said the Civil Service Commission should remain, and apply the merit system, and I commented on what he had in mind on that occasion.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: He read part of my words, but not all. He took good care to omit, at the outset of his remarks, the sentence which I shall read, which precedes the paragraph he quoted. He quoted first from page 362 of Hansard. Immediately after referring to the motion introduced by the hon. member for Quebec (Mr. Power) I said:
I think it would be a great mistake to repeal the Civil Service Act.
Those are my words. My right hon. friend never quoted them to the House. I again give them to the House as expressing my view with respect to the Civil Service Act. I think it would be a great mistake to have the Civil Service Act repealed. That refers to the act which is on the statutes at the present time.


Arthur Meighen: I did not say the hon. minister wanted it repealed.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think hon. members will agree that my right hon. friend sought to have it appear that I would like to have the Civil Service Commission-abolished. He did not read the following words, which appear on page 365 of Hansard-
I hope I have made it very clear that I would strongly oppose any move to abolish the Civil Service Commission.
The second statement which I have just read was made when I spoke after recess. The previous statement had been made before recess. Both times I made my position very clear, that I was entirely opposed to the repeal of the Civil Service Act and entirely opposed to the abolition of the Civil Service Commission. But I did make the statement that I thought it was desirable to have the present Civil Service Act amended, and I gave as my reason for it that the government during the period between sessions, in its desire to effect economies and further efficiency in the public service, had had conferences with both the Civil Service Commission and the deputy ministers, and that, as a result of those conferences, as well as of experience gained in the work of administration, the government was persuaded that the Civil Service Act could be amended to the advantage of the public service. It was in that connection that I advocated a reference of the act to a committee of this parliament.
Now, Mr. Speaker, in order that there may be no misunderstanding as to where I stand in this matter, and as to where the government stands, despite all the efforts of hon. members opposite to have it appear to the contrary, may I state emphatically, that we are opposed to the repeal of the Civil Service	Act,	that	we	are opposed	tothe abolition of the Civil Service Commission,	but	that	we	believe it to	be
in the public interest that the Civil Service Act should be looked into by a committee of this House, with power to make recommendations to parliament; and that amendments to the act which may commend themselves to the judgment of this House should be passed. That is the position of the government. I do not think I can make it any plainer.
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Then, my hon. friend said that I had made charges against Dr. Grant, the principal of Upper Canada College, and that I ought publicly to apologize to Dr. Grant in this parliament. May I read to my hon. friend just what I said about Dr. Grant? I think I confined my reference pretty largely to his own words. I drew the attention of the House to the fact that a good deal of the feeling with respect to the Civil Service Commission, and the government's relation thereto was the result of a statement attributed to the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission in an address delivered in the city of Toronto, which was copied by the press of this country from one end to the other. This statement was to the effect that some 10,000 had been withdrawn from under the operation of the Civil Service Commission, and that this was due to the insidious action of politicians, implying the government in power. Let me read the words Dr. Roche was supposed to have uttered which appear in direct quotations in the press reports to which I am referring. I ask hon. members in their own minds to determine what the meaning and purport of these words are. Dr. Roche is reported in the paper in direct quotation as speaking as follows:
The fate of this law however-
That is the Civil Service law-
-"however, is beset with dangers due to the insidious, unseen and silent manipulations of the adherents of patronage in political life," he said. "Slowly, but surely, the politicians will gain back to their own control more and more of the service by the process of exemptions. On June 29 last an order in council was passed exempting from the operation of the merit law a great many positions, which affects in all 10,000 persons out of a total of 50,000 employees, thus placing back into patronage one-fifth of the whole public service.
The effort at present is aimed at the return to patronage of the system of promotions which at present has been so splendidly developed by the Civil Service Commission. Technical positions are also under immediate attack, and there can be no doubt that the whole merit law is in danger unless the strong arm of public opinion is organized to oppose its attack.
These are the words which were publicly read as having been uttered by Dr. Roche, Chairman of the Civil Service Commission. I ask hon. gentlemen of this House, are these words capable of any interpretation in the minds of a reading public, other than that Dr. Roche was protesting against the action of the government in withdrawing 10,000 appointees from under its jurisdiction? Those statements are false. These are not true statements.


Arthur Meighen: What statements?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What I have
just read.


Arthur Meighen: Which ones?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The whole
business is false. In the first place there is no one prepared to say how many persons were withdrawn from under the operation of the provisions of the Civil Service Act in virtue of the order which my hon. friend has read, and which was in reality the recommendation of the commission.


Arthur Meighen: Does he say that the
number 10,000 is wrong?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I say I believe it is wrong. I think the figures are a mere guess. I could not say whether 5,000 or 2,000 is nearer the mark. I say they were used without any knowledge on the part of the person who used them; the numbers were called in question and also the inference. But I am prepared to leave it to the judgment of fairminded members of this House as to whether, reading that statement, at the time it appeared, the reader would not believe that Dr. Roche was protesting against the withdrawing of a number of positions, whatever the number may have been, from the control of the Civil Service Commission and making it appear that they were being withdrawn at the instance of the government, when, as a matter of fact, they were withdrawn at the instance of the Civil Service Commission itself. If my hon. friend will let me have the order to which he has referred, I will quote from it the reason for the commission's action as it appears in the commission's recommendation:
The Civil Service Commission is of opinion that it is not practicable to prescribe a system of competitive examinations or tests as required by the Civil Service Act.
The Civil Service Commission made that statement in the recommendation they sent to council asking that the positions enumerated should be exempted from their control. They stated they did not believe it was practicable to prescribe competitive examinations or tests. My right hon. friend asks about the government assuming responsibility. Certainly we assume responsibility. But, what would our responsibility have been if, after the Civil Service Commission's recommendation of the withdrawal of these classes because it was not practicable to hold examinations, the government had refused to accept the recommendation of the commission and compelled that body to go on with the system of advertising positions and holding examinations? We would have been found guilty, and rightfully guilty of being negligent in the matter of caring for economies in the public service.

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Now what does Dr. Grant say? Here is Dr. Grant's letter to Dr. Roche. I will quote just one paragraph. The letter is dated "Upper Canada College, Toronto, December 21, 1922," and the paragraph in question reads:
The items complained of-
And the passage that I have read contained the items complained of-	[DOT]
-were not in your speech at all,-
This is what Dr. Grant writes to Dr. Roche-
-but in a memorandum circulated by me on my own responsibility,-


An hon. MEMBER:: He is a liar then.


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: (reading):
-and sent to the press on the day before your address, in the hope of stirring up interest in it, and in the possible formation of a National Civil Service Reform League, which I have much at heart. The Globe reporter, who had your speech as an "assignment", evidently acted in a way familiar to all journalists, and wrote his report from my memorandum: the report consequently bears no relation to your speech as actually delivered.
Then Dr. Grant goes on to say:
Your speech contained no reference whatever to the 10,000 civil servants exempted from the operation of the Act. It was a model of good taste and reticence. No human being could have told from it that you had ever belonged to a political party or whether your relations with the present government as chairman of the Civil Service Commission were better or worse than they had been with previous governments. Personally, I had a natural longing for a little more "spice".
There is the statement that Dr. Grant has written to Dr. Roche and my right hon. friend says that I ought to apologize to Dr. Grant!


An hon. MEMBER:: It would be a shame to do it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Well, I only hope my right hon. friend will always be as ready to apologize.
Mr. Speaker, while these various classes have been withdrawn from under the control of the Civil Service Act and the Civil Seivice Commission, they have been withdrawn, as I have already intimated, because of the commission's mention of the following:
The Civil Service Commission is of opinion that it is not practicable to prescribe a system of competitive examinations or tests as required by the Civil Service Act.
However, even with respect to these appointments, the commission goes on to lay down certain requirements by which the government is bound and which forms a part of
the same order. My right hon. friend did not refer to this. Let me read what it says:
The commission is further of opinion that there is good ground for believing that the above classes were among those which parliament had in mind for exemption in amending the Civil Service Act during the Session of 1921-
In pther words the Civil Service Commission assumes there its responsibility to parliament and says that when it recomlnends the withdrawal of these particular classes, it believes it is doing what parliament had in mind. To continue:
-and the Civil Service. Commission therefore, has the honour to report that it is not practicable to apply the Civil Service Act to the classes mentioned above and to recommand that they be excluded from the operation of the Act and dealt with in accordance with the following procedure:
1.	That the selection of employees for the above classes shall be left entirely in the hands of the departments, subject to the following conditions:
(a)	That the appointment is necessary for the efficient carrying on of the work of the department.
(b)	That the preference extended by section 39 of the Civil Service Act 1918, as amended, shall be observed.
(c)	That the person selected shall satisfy the department as to his qualifications.
(d)	That he shall be suitable as to age, character and habits.
2.	That the compensation shall not exceed the salaries provided in the classification schedules, and that where "Prevailing Rates" are provided as the compensation for a class, or where no class schedule exists, the rates of pay shall be such as are recommended by the department and approved by the Governor General in Council, and that the compensation in these cases shall carry no bonus.
Provided that, where any position which is exempted under the provisions of section 38B of the Civil Service Act. 1918, as amended, (with the exception of those in groups 1 and 2) is to be continued for more than six months, the department shall report the duties thereof to the commission in order that the position may be classified and that no further payment of salary in connection with the same shall be authorized until the position shall be so classified.
Provided further that a report shall be made by every department to the Civil Service Commission in the months of January, April, July and October in each year, setting out the name, duties, salary, place of residence and place of employment of each person appointed under the authority of these regulations during the preceding three months, with the date of commencing duty and the probable duration of employment. In each case where the employee has been on military service overseas, the letters "O.A.S." should be added after the name.
Is it not evident that the report which I have just read to the House far from being capable of bearing the inference that the government had sought in any way to return to patronage by carrying out the recommendation of the commission is capable only of bearing the inference that the government in the action that it has taken has sought to carry out the recommendation of the commission in giving expression to the wishes of parliament as the commission itself interpreted them. This

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effort to have it appear that the government is desirous of returning to patronage is well understood. We all understand the purpose of it, we all know the reason of it. I am sure that no hon. member of the House, who has any responsibility, would welcome a return to patronage where it can be avoided. I would like, however, to say this: There are even fewer members of the House who, having positions of responsibility, would like to be held responsible for appointments in the making of which, in many cases, they had absolutely no voice. That is a different situation. There are two sides to the case and I am putting both sides to the House in order that hon. members may understand them.
My right hon. friend has drawn attention to the fact that this recommendation was signed by two members of the commission. Most of the recommendations that come from the commission are signed in that way. I ask my right hon. friend does he repudiate the signatures that are on this recommendation? The signatures are those of the appointees of his own government, they are not the appointees of this government. We have accepted the members of the commission just as we found them. We have made no change whatever in the personnel of the commission. A recommendation comes to us from them and we put it through. This recommendation is from the right hon. gentleman's own appointees. What I have said should be a sufficient answer to the representations made by hon. gentlemen opposite to the effect that we wish to return to patronage.
Now my right hon. friend asks what is the object of the government in asking that the Civil Service Act should be referred to a committee. He asks "Is anyone so innocent as to believe that the motive is that which the government has expressed it to be?"


Arthur Meighen: The signatures to the recommendation of the Civil Service Commission, I understand, are those of Mr. LaRochelle and Mr. Jameson. I was under the impression and I am sure it will be confirmed, that we did not appoint Mr. LaRochelle but that he was appointed by the Laurier government.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Perhaps I
should have intimated that Mr. LaRochelle was appointed years ago, was continued in office by my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen), and was a member of the commission during the time he was in power. To that extent I am prepared to stand corrected.
But now, as to the motive the government had, I thought I had made that clear when

I spoke before. I said that during the recess between sessions the government had given serious attention to the important question of efficiency and economy in the public service. I said that the government had invited, into conference with its members, both the commission and the deputy ministers, and that both the commission and the deputy ministers had expressed the view that the Civil Service Act was capable of amendment in particulars that would make it a better working and more efficient instrument for the purposes for which it was intended. In addition to that, the government imposed on the deputy ministers a special obligation to report to it with respect to the workings of the Civil Serivce Act, and more particularly with respect to economies and efficiency in the different departments of government. Prior to the framing of the Estimates the government sought to have each of the deputy ministers go carefully with the officers of the various branches, into the whole question of the numbers of their staffs with a view of seeing where it would be possible to cut down. Hon. gentlemen ask us to reduce the numbers of the civil service. What would they say if ministers began to make changes in the civil service without consulting with the deputy ministers? The deputy ministers are the permanent heads; they are part of the service itself; and the government is bound to act with respect to the numbers of the service more or less on their advice. Every minister is more or less obliged to take the word of his deputy as to the requirements of his particular staff, and the extent of its personnel. After the conference with the government, the deputy ministers grouped themselves into a body for the purpose of making a joint report to the government. I have in my hand the report which was submitted by a committee of the deputy ministers, and which bears the names of the following gentlemen:
Messrs. W. W. Cory, E. L. Newcombe, R. M. Coulter. Major G. A. Bell, Lt.-Col. N. F. Parkinson, J. H. Grisdale, J. B. Hunter, F. C. T. O'Hara, A. Johnston and F. A. Acland.
I will ask the House to bear with me a few moments while I read extracts from this report, as therein will appear the reason why the government has suggested the advisability of a committee of parliament hearing the deputy ministers before any recommendations are made as to changes in the Civil Service Act. The report reads in part:
The Committee of Deputy Ministers, appointed at a meeting held on the 30tli June, 1922, at the instance of the government to consider matters affecting the Civil Service of Canada, begs respectfully to report that the various departments have been consulted in this connection, that the material gathered has been carefully

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analyzed and that the following is a precis of the recommendations which have been adopted. The scope of the activities of the committee embraced the following subjects, namely:-
(a)	Appointments;
(b)	Promotions;
(c)	Classification of positions;
(d)	Transfers;
(e)	Leave of absence;
(f)	Cost of living bonus;
(g)	Whitley Councils;
(h)	Superannuation;
(i)	Reduction of staff.
Then there are quoted three subsections of section 43 of the Civil Service Act. The report continues:
The effect of this section is to place all appointments of whatever nature they may be, under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission and your Committee is of the opinion that its provisions should be amended in the following direction:-
"That appointments to professional and technical positions, or to those of assistant deputy ministers, heads of branches and all officials in the higher gradeg, say those appointed to positions for which the minimum compensation is $2,400.00 per annum or over, be made by the Governor General in Council on the recommendation of the head of the department based on a report in writing from the deputy head."
Your committee also desires to offer the following recommendation, namely:-
"That there are certain outside services, such as employees in offices outside of Canada, rural postmasters, etc., as to which it is impracticable to apply the provisions of the Civil Service Act reasonably, and these should be removed from the application of the Act, a list of such services to be supplied by the various departments."
Section (b) deals with promotions. It quotes the sections in the Civil Service Act with regard to promotions and then goes on:
Your committee considers that the best interests of the service require that promotion should be departmentally regulated, and recomn^end therefore,
"That the present Civil Service provisions with regard to promotions be repealed and that there be substituted therefor a provision to the effect that promotions shall be made for merit by the Governor General in Council upon the recommendation of the head of the department, based on a report in writing from the deputy head, and accompanied by a certificate of qualification, by the Civil Service Commission.
Section (c) deals with the 'classification of positions: The report reads:
The Civil Service Commission has provided a complicated classification which, besides being a positive hindrance to effective administration, requires special study properly to understand. This is more especially illustrated in the case of clerical assistance which is subdivided into scores of special classes, the qualifications for many of which are practically the same, i.e., the incumbent of any of these might readily perform the duties of the other clerical positions.
Your committee considers,-
"That this complicated classification should be repealed and that the Civil Service be divided into a number of classes on lines similar to those established by the Civil Service Act of 1908 or 1918."
36i
Then there is a part of the report dealing with transfers and yet another with leave of absence. The latter is worded as follows:
The Civil Service Commission should make workable . regulations with regard to leave of absence, but the administration of the same should be left entirely in the hands of the deputy ministers who are in a better position than the commission to pass judgment on the applications submitted to them.
There are also sections dealing with the cost of living bonus, Whitley councils, and superannuation. On the subject of the reduction of staff, the report reads:
The committee has given careful thought to the question of reduced expenditure. This is a matter which lies in a measure within the authority of the deputy ministers with relation of existing governmental services; new legislation, however, frequently entails new services and the most rigid economy may not prevent increased expenditures. It has been sometimes suggested that the government service is at the present time functioning on an abnormal basis, the outcome of an unnatural development of the Great War, and that every effort should be made to return to a normal or pre-war basis. The committee has learned that reports on these matters have been in the case of many departments forwarded by the departmental heads directly to the Prime Minister; also that the views expressed by the Prime Minister in his remarks to the deputy ministers with regard to the desirability of bringing about a substantial reduction in the public expenditure have received careful attention and that much has been already accomplished along the lines indicated. It must not be, however, overlooked that many years have passed since 1914, the date usually accepted as indicating normal conditions, and during these years the growth of the business connected with the permanent and essential services of government has been considerable; and moreover new departments or branches of the service, growing directly out of the war itself, have been established, as, for instance, in the case of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment, Soldier Settlement Board, Pensions Boards, etc., and also many new statutes have been enacted which have to be administered, requiring addition to the staff. Precise comparisons with previous periods therefore become difficult. The committee, however, realises the intent of the Prime Minister's remarks with regard to these matters, and is able to state with some confidence that the departments generally are doing what is possible to secure the largest possible degree of economy in the public administration.
The report eoneludes:
It is obvious that the adoption of the recommendations of the report would eliminate expensive services which are wholly concerned in the making and enforcement of artificial requirements regulating appointments, promotions, transfers and the equipment generally of the staff requisite for the discharge of the essential duties of government, and in the view of the committee this very considerable saving may be effected without in any wise impairing the standard and efficiency of the service, while at the same time avoiding the delays and inconveniences incident to the references to the Civil Service Commission, which the present regulations require.
The committee was appointed on the 30tli of June, 1922. and submitted its report on the 4th day of December, 1922.
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Arthur Meighen: Will the minister state
whether or not the signatures of the deputy-ministers whose names appear on the report are affixed to the report and whether or not they take responsibility for all the deputy ministers?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: This is submitted as a report of a committee of deputy ministers on civil service matters. The names I have mentioned appear on the front page as composing the committee appointed. It is signed by the chairman of the committee. All the deputy minsiters whose names I have mentioned take responsibility for the report.


Arthur Meighen: Do the others?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As far as I am aware this committee embraces all the deputy ministers who were in the city at the time. All were invited to the conference and all were asked to join in the report. There must be a few names omitted. Why, I do not know. Possibly they were not in the city. There may be other reasons for the absence of their names from the committee. They may have authorized others mentioned to act on their behalf.


Arthur Meighen: Maybe I misunderstand
my right hon. friend. Is the committee a committee of all the deputy ministers?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The government asked all the deputy ministers to meet it in conference. The deputy ministers came and conferred with the government in the council chamber. We went very fully into the whole question of the conditions in the service and the possible reduction of the staffs. We asked for a frank expression of views on the part of the deputies as to the working of the civil service regulations. We got very full and free expressions of opinions from the deputy ministers. We then asked them as a body to prepare a report for the government; to constitute themselves a committee for the purpose; to make such recommendations to the government, as in their opinion seemed to be advisable to improve the efficiency of and to effect economies in the public service. This is the document we have received, it purports to be, and I believe is, a report of all the deputy ministers.
Having this report in its hand the government might have proceeded, as some hon. gentlemen have suggested, we might have proposed amendments to the Civil Service Act in accordance with these recommendations. I ask hon. members who have listened to this debate, what would have been the first criticism levelled at the government if it had taken that step? We would have been told,

and the country would have been led to believe, that we were seeking a return to patronage. The country would never believe we were trying to effect economies and to promote efficiency in the public service. This is not a report from the government but a report to the government from the heads of the Civil Service itself, .and it is the class of recommendations contained in this report that, we submit, might reasonably be considered as possible amendments to the Civil Service Act at the present time. Who is to know of the effective working of the act . better than those who are responsible for administering the different departments?
Let me now come to the last point, because I feel I have spoken at too great length already. Why did I suggest to my hon. friend the other day that this matter should be referred to a committee of parliament? Well,
I might answer-although the reason was not in my mind at the time, but it is -suggested by what my right hon. friend has said about the Civil Service Commission-that parliament or a committee of parliament is a body to which the commission should report. He says that the commission is not responsible to the government, but to parliament. Well, all that this amendment asks is that the commission which is responsible to parliament be given an opportunity to appear before a committee of this House and report to its members upon this very matter. Are hon. gentlemen going to vote against that? Is my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen), after he says that . this commission is responsible to parliament, going to refuse a committee of this House the right to hear representations from the deputy ministers and members of the Civil Service Commission with respect to the very act for the working of which they are responsible? That is one of the reasons we ask for a committee-that the Civil Service Commission should be given a chance to appear before a committee of parliament to which my hon. friend says it is responsible.
But there is another reason, and it is the one which governed me in the matter. At the very opening of the session one or two hon. gentlemen opposite referred to the attitude which the government had adopted toward the House. They expressed appreciation of the circumstance that before proposing legislation on many matters that were of concern to the country as a whole we had invited the opinion of parliament, that we had sought to obtain the views of the different groups, that we were in the open and had sought to afford a full knowledge of the circumstances governing recommendations which we were proposing to embody in our legislation.

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They expressed the hope that the government would not depart from that practice.


Mr. HOEY:: Will not the Prime Minister admit that in its initial stages this motion was not introduced by the government but by a private member in a way that was exceedingly antagonistic to hon. members on this side of the House?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am very sorry that my hon. friend feels there was any antagonism in the matter. I do not know that he should feel any more aggrieved than the government [DOT] itself. We were not able to accept the recommendation in the form in which it was introduced. It was not a pleasant duty for me to say to my hon. friend from Quebec South (Mr. Power) that I could not accept his resolution. But I said so openly, and I do not think hon. gentlemen opposite should feel any more aggrieved in that regard. It was I who made the suggestion that the matter should be referred to a committee of the House, and I am giving hon. gentlemen opposite the reason for the suggestion. Let me say with all candor and frankness that either it is in the .interests of the public to proceed in the way that has been suggested, or it is not. HAn. gentlemen opposite feel that they should be taken as much as possible into the confidence of the government. I am anxious to meet them in that regard. I am anxious to have the reasons for the legislation that goes through this House as thoroughly appreciated by every group as is possible consonant with the government assuming its full responsibility for what it introduces. And I say in regard to such a measure as civil service reform, that this is the very class of measure with respect to which the government would not be justified in assuming a high or arbitrary attitude, but is of the kind which should in the first instance be submitted to a committee of the House composed of members of the different groups.	[DOT]
It is because I am anxious that hon. members who will be criticizing the estimates, who will be finding fault with the fact that there are not more reductions in the Civil [DOT] Service-as my hon. friend from West Cal gary (Mr. Shaw) implied there should be this afternoon-should know why those reductions are not greater than as they appear in the estimates. They will find out the reasons if they will bring the commission and the deputy ministers before them. The government is pretty much in the hands of these two bodies, and all we ask in the matter of effecting economies is that hon. gentlemen
opposite shall know and appreciate to the full what our -difficulties are. If they think that it is perhaps on the whole better for the country to pay out a little more money for examinations, for transfers and for promotions, effected as they are by the Civil Service Commission, that it is going to serve some public interest to spend more money and to keep our staffs a little larger than they need be because of the mass of regulations to be complied with, well and good. We will then be in the position at least of knowing that parliament is with us in our inability to make any further change.
1 wish to say emphatically to hon. members that the government is doing the best it possibly can to effect economies in every direction. This is the direction in which we have found the most difficulty, and I submit that it is in the interests of the country that there should be certain amendments to the Civil Service Act-not amendments arbitrarily suggested by the government, but amendments that may recommend themselves to the intelligence of the groups of this House represented on a special committee. For that reason I am supporting the amendment which has been moved, that the Civil Service Act be made the subject of reference to a committee with power to make such recommendations to this House as it may see fit.
And may I say this in conclusion? After those recommendations have been made, before any change can be effected in the existing law, the recommendations themselves will have to be embodied in the form of draft legislation and considered here on the floor of parliament. What is the cause for alarm in that method of procedure? I submit that if the purpose is a sincere one, that if hon. gentlemen are really in earnest in their desire to have full justice done the deputy ministers in their effort to carry on the work of their departments efficiently and effectively, if they are sincere in their contention that we must seek to carry out economies in the public service, then it is their duty to support the amendment which is now before the House.


Mr. ROBERT FORKE (Brandon):: Mr. Speaker, I had not intended taking any further part in this debate, but the Prime Minister has made some remarks that I think perhaps are levelled just a little at myself.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No, no.


Robert Forke: I am not taking any offence. The remarks were perfectly fair and perfectly honest. I know I made recommendations along the line on which he spoke. The
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Prime Minister made a very plausible speech in favour of the amendment. I agree with my deskmate, the member for Springfield (Mr. Hoey), that the tone of this debate at its commencement was very different from the tone of it now, and that had some of the speeches made by hon. members on the other side been in line with the Prime Minister's remarks, we might have been prepared to listen with at least a great deal more sympathy and consideration. But in view of the speeches that have been made by hon. gentlemen on the other side, Mr. Speaker, I have been forced to the conclusion that the idea is to lead to nothing less than the repeal of the Civil Service Act. I may be wrong; quite a number of hon. members on the other side have not spoken. I am dealing only with those who have spoken, the tenor of whose remarks was all along the line of getting the patronage back into the hands of members representing the different constituencies.
I saw to-night quite a large volume of evidence that was taken before a commission two years ago-so large a volume that it was useless for me to attempt to master what it contained. I wonder what has happened during the last two years to make it necessary to hear that evidence all over again? Were the deputy ministers not consulted at that time? Did they not give evidence? Were these difficulties not experienced at that time? I do not know. Of course, I have learned something to-night, I admit, from the statement made by the Prime Minister. However, I cannot but believe that the argument advanced by the right hon. leader of the Opposition is sound in the main. I know very well -I do not want to make any insinuations- that it makes quite a difference from which side of the House you speak. Perhaps there was not much temptation for hon. members to my right, when they were in power, to make very many changes in the Civil Service Act; I do not know. At any rate, the temptation may not have been so great then as it is in the case of the present government.
We realize now what recommendations have been made by the deputy ministers, and perhaps they are reasonable. But in view of the feeling that prevails on the other side, and judging from the speeches to which I have listened, I am a little afraid of any report that might be made to this House by a government majority committee in connection with civil service reform. H we could have a committee representing equally the different parties in this House, I would not be so much afraid. I feel that members are perfectly honest in the views which they express; they

are contending for what they think is right. I believe the majority of the members who have spoken really think that the Civil Service would be improved by their having some power to make appointments. However, while 1 should approve of the idea of a committee to consider many other subjects, I cannot see my way clear to withdraw from the stand I have already taken in this respect. I know very well that a good many hon. members on this side will not vote with me; it is entirely a matter for themselves to judge. I am speaking only on my own behalf, and not on behalf of the party that I have the honour to lead.


Mr. J. L. BROWN (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, I had not the privilege to be in the House during the first two days of this debate. However, I considered the matter of sufficient importance to justify my reading the whole of the discussion as it appeared in Hansard, and I came to certain conclusions. After listening to the debate to-day I see no reason to come to a different conclusion from that which I reached after reading the report of the first two days' debate.
I have noticed more than once since coming to this House evidences of the fact that the government might well pray to be saved from its friends. We noticed that last year when, on the question of the government ownership and operation of railways, certain supporters of the government took occasion to launch out at great length against the principle of government ownership. I felt that if I were a member of the Liberal caucus I would want to discipline the members who made such an exhibition on that occasion. It is not calculated to create confidence on the part of the people in the giving of government ownership a fair chance to have supporters of the government speaking as they did at that time.
I think we have another illustration here to-night: the government might well pray to be saved from its friends. Undoubtedly the member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) expressed what were his own ideas when he moved that resolution. I have no doubt that when it was put upon the order paper it was expressive of his view that the Civil Service Act should be abolished. I think it was somewhat unfortunate that the rules of the House compelled the Speaker to rule that the motion could not be changed as the hon. member suggested. The ruling was no doubt in harmony with precedent, and I make no criticism on that score, except that had it been different the discussion would have been sim-

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plified. However, we know where the member for Quebec South stands.
Then, other members say they do not want to go that far but wish to turn to the act of 1908, which would take the outside service away from the Civil Service Commission. Unfortunately a great deal that has been said in support of the resolution has certainly left upon many hon. members the impression ihat the desire is to go back to patronage as far as it is possible to do so. There is a Scotch expression like this: "We get the meanin' by the mumpin.' " And it seemed to me the "mumpin' " was sufficiently strong in certain quarters to give us an idea of what was in the minds of some hon. members. It cannot be wondered at, therefore, that we in this corner of the House came to the conclusion that hon. members supporting the resolution, including my good friend from King's, P.E.I. (Mr. Hughes), for whom I have learned to entertain a very high respect, wished to go back to the old system. I know they managed to clothe the patronage system in some beautiful garments; undoubtedly they gave to Satan the appearance of an angel of light.
We should remember that this patronage question has two faces. So far we have dealt only with the matter of appointments. The other side of the question was the one that aroused the most abhorrence in the minds of fair men, namely, that of dismissals. Many sordid things took place in the matter of dismissals from office, especially of persons in the outside service. It was not an uncommon thing during an election campaign to have members going around with an appointment in their pockets, and if the time came when the persons making promises of jobs were in a position to implement them, why, good and faithful servants were dismissed from office without very much consideration being shown to them. I do not know that one party was more guilty than another. I can go back as far as 1911, and I have one case in mind-it was some years after 1911 because it hung fire for a long time-where a public servant who had two sons in the army was dismissed while his sons were overseas. Now it is things of that kind which have raised the antagonism of the people of this country to the old system of patronage.


Mr. CARROLL:: Who did that?


John Livingstone Brown: It was done during war
time.


Joseph Archambault: What year?


John Livingstone Brown: Before 1921 anyway. That is only one illustration of the kind of thing
which has made people revolt against any thought of going back to the old patronage system. These dismissals were generally made on the ground of offensive partisanship, and therein in the past we have been guilty of a good [DOT] deal of hypocrisy. I recall one instance under a former administration where, when it was pointed out that certain persons had been guilty of offensive partisanship the reply was made "They are not Offensive to us," and that disposed of the matter. Now if partisanship is an offence, then let us say so. 1 might make complaints of offensive partisanship in the last election. There were some whose partisanship was offensive to me I know, but I have not made any complaints hitherto in the matter.


Joseph Archambault: Is my hon. friend aware that section 32 of the Civil Service Act provides that:
No deputy head, officer, clerk or employee in the Civil Service shall be debarred from voting at any dominion or provincial election if, under the laws governing the said election, he has the right to vote; but no such deputy head, officer, clerk or employee shall engage in partisan work in connection with any such election, or contribute, receive or in any way deal with any money for any party funds.


John Livingstone Brown: That, of course, refers
particularly to the inside service.


Joseph Archambault: It refers to both the inside and the outside.


John Livingstone Brown: Does it refer to postmasters and custom house officers?


Joseph Archambault: Certainly.


John Livingstone Brown: All I know is that I have a postmaster in mind who has taken refuge under what he supposed to be the protection of the Civil Service Act, and I say that his partisanship was somewhat offensive to me, although I have never made any complaint. But here is the point I want to make: If this parliament decides that civil servants shall not take part in political affairs beyond exercising their franchise at the polls, let us say so.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is the law now.


John Livingstone Brown: In that case let it not be considered an act of partisanship justifying dismissal from office until the offender is known to have transgressed the law, and let it not be left to the government that happens to be in power simply to dismiss from the service those whose partisanship has been offensive to itself and not at all those offen-
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sive to the party on the other side. It is on . this question of dismissals that 11 p.m. the ire of the public has been particularly aroused. I understand human nature well enough to realize something of the resentment that hon. gentlemen oppostie, we will say, feel when they know that dismissals have been made and the positions filled by those who were just as truly partisans as the ones dismissed, and in many cases more so. That is a question w'fe might very well consider.
When the question of appointing a committee was suggested, I might say that the suggestion appealed to me, and after reading the speeches that were delivered during two days debate of the subject, my conclusion was that it was a reasonable request to make of this House. The deputy ministers had made certain recommendations, and the commissioners themselves had made certain recommendations, and I came to the conclusion that the request for a committee of this House was a reasonable one, and that we ought to be willing to meet them. To-day's debate has not in any wise altered my opinion upon that point. At the same time I would point out that if in any large degree that committee should be composed of those who have advocated extreme views in regard to the question of patronage, it might very well mean that those of us who hold other views might have to retire from the committee at once in the event of our being appointed. But it does seem to me that the proposition is a reasonable one that we should express a willingness to meet those who are charged with the administration of the act, and whom we might very well suppose to be competent to give some information as to the way in which that act ought to be amended. Personally I am absolutely opposed to any return to patronage in the old form or in any form. At the same time I can quite believe it possible that the present act is not absolutely perfect and that it is capable of amendment. I think the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) put it very pertinently when he asked the hon. member for Calgary "Was not the British Civil Service Act brought to its present state of perfection by a series of amendments?" or something to that effect. Though the act may have been of good service up to the present time, I am quite prepared to believe that it may be capable of rendering better service, and for my part I could not justify myself in taking a position which would seem to indicate that I have no desire for any further information on the subject.
[MY. Brown.]


Mr. GOOD:: Would the government be prepared to have a committee appointed composed of an equal number from all parties?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend suggests an entire change in the procedure of the House. It has always been customary to have the chairman appointed from the government side and for the government to be represented on the committee in proportion to its majority in the House. That has been the procedure for years.
May I also point out that any recommendations the committee may make wall have to be considered by the House. The government has not such a large majority in the House that it will be able to drive anything through; and after the legislation has passed this Chamber it has to go to the Senate, where again the government has not such a majority that it can force any of its measures through.


Charles Gavan Power: I have risen on two or three occasions in order to call attention to the fact that I have a right to reply to some of the observations which have been made in the course of this debate.


An hon. MEMBER:: Too late.


Hewitt Bostock: The hon. gentleman was the mover of the principal motion and he is entitled to reply. I am sorry he did not catch my eye.


Charles Gavan Power: I am informed by an hon. member that, thinking that Mr. Speaker would give the usual warning to the House that if the mover of the resolution were to speak no one else would be entitled to speak after him, he was waiting for this warning, and had not been able to catch the Speaker's eye. The hon. gentleman from Queens, P.E.I. (Mr. McKinnon) wished to say a word.


Hewitt Bostock: In deference to the hon. gentleman, I have asked twice, "Is the House ready for the question," and the answer in the affirmative seemed to be unanimous. However nobody is prevented from speaking if he wishes to.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Question, question.
Mr. SPEAKER,: Is the House ready for the question?


Charles Gavan Power: There has been considerable criticism of the mover of this resolution, some of it, if I were to use the words of the hon. gentleman for Springfield (Mr. Hoey), rather antagonistic, and some of it, perhaps, actuated by the prejudices of the moment. The hon. leader of the Progressive party (Mr. Forke) has stated that he would, per-

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haps, have consented to give a favourable vote on the amendment had it not been for the remarks made by some hon. gentlemen on this side of the House. The hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) a man whom I respect, has almost challenged me to say that I was opposed to the Civil Service Commission. I stated very distinctly that I was.
I do not think he should try to make opposition to the Civil Service Commission a crime. It strikes me that he wishes to add to the considerable number of crimes which are already enacted in our statute books; but to accuse me of the crime of lese majeste because I do not think the Civil Service Commission is a body to administer the affairs of this country is, I think, going a little too far.
I have listened to the debate in vain to hear one solid argument urged against the contention which was made by some hon. members on this side of the House, that it was not good business to have an outside commission name employees to positions of trust and to positions in which executive ability is required. It is true one hon. member stated that there was this distinction between business and the affairs of a political department, that business men were born to the job. The commissioners in charge of the Civil Service must be reborn, because at least two of them took a very active part in politics >
before becoming commissioners of the Civil Service. The right hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) stated that there was this distinction; that after all business was not quite the same as politics, that you could not introduce the same methods in politics that you could in business. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that that is the aim and object of this government, and of the party that supports it,-to introduce business methods in the government of this country, and if the hon leader of the Opposition found it impossible to do that, then let him, at anj rate, give somebody else a chance to do something along that line. I have not heard any real argument to destroy the contention that the present system in many cases is not practicable.
We have heard a great deal from hon. members about the evils of the spoils system, about the electorate of this country being debauched. but we have not heard any hon. member tell us honestly that he thought the Civil Service Commission sitting in Ottawa could efficiently and judiciously make the appointments of labourers in British Columbia or in the far eastern provinces of Canada. We have not heard it urged that we, the members of this parliament, were right in putting out of our own jurisdiction the affairs of the civil servants of. Canada. I pleaded for what I
thought was responsible government, for government that would be responsible to the people, and in reply I heard from the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Shaw) that this same argument was used fifty years ago.
I never claimed that the argument or the idea, was original. Does the hon. gentleman from Calgary not know that fifty or a "hundred years ago people died for the cause of responsible government? If the hon. member has read history-and I know he has, because he is an astute lawyer and he has literary taste- he will know that for many years the politicians of Great Britain and of Canada were agitated by that very question of responsible government, and I am not at all displeased when he tells me that I have returned to the arguments which were used by our forefathers, and for which they are constantly being praised and lauded, even in this House.
Reference was made to the remarks which I made in 1921, when this Civil Service Amendment Act came up for discussion in this House. I do not suppose the hon. member for Calgary West who so charitably referred to my stand at that time, had taken the trouble to read these remarks. For his benefit, if not for the benefit of the other members of the House. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will permit m* to read portions of my remarks on that occasion. I said:
On behalf of certain of my constituents who voted for hon. gentlemen opposite, believing in their promises to carry on the public services in a way in which they had not hitherto been carried on and that thereby the abuses of patronage would be abolished, I think I have a perfect right to register my protest. It is our duty to see that hon. gentlemen opposite are not guilty of any backsliding, that once having entered on the path of reform and of uplift they shall continue to the end of their days, which we all believe will be soon.
I protested on behalf of certain of my constituents who supported the leader of the Opposition. These supporters of the Opposition leader apparently did not think that my work on their behalf was sufficient, because I am sure the great majority of them actually voted against me at the last election. Therefore, I think my hon. friend from Calgary West (Mr. Shaw) will be quite willing to admit that I am freed of any obligation which I might have had towards them at any rate.
To be more serious for a moment after having listened very attentively to the speech of the leader of the Opposition I have come to the conclusion that his reason for opposing a reference of this matter to a committee is very similar to that which I gave some days ago for opposing the amendments to the act which he introduced in 1921. I said then that I did not trust the Tories. After having carefully considered the speech of the leader of the Opposition I have come to the conclu-
The Civil Service

sion that his reason for not supporting the amendment of my hon. friend (Mr. Hughes) is that he does not trust the Grits. He states at great length that it may be very well for us to have a committee, but that behind this demand for the appointment of a committee there is the insidious influence-he did not use those words, but that is what he meant-of those of us here who do not approve of, who do not believe in, the Civil Service Commission. He says "On our side of the House we knew when we brought* down this legislation what we wanted. We merely wanted to amend the act, and nobody on our side of the House attacked the Civil Service Commission." I wonder if he heard, or if he read, the speech of the hon. member of West Toronto (Mr. Hocken) during the debate? His speech was so bitter an attack on the Civil Service Commission that he was constantly called to order. I wonder if he read the speech of the Hon. Mr. Edwards or the speech of Mr. Currie, or the speech of Mr. Fripp during that debate? Surely if he is entitled to doubt our bona fides to-day we are entitled to doubt his motives at that time.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member should permit me to say that I did not state in my speech that there were no members supporting the government opposed to the commission. What I said was that no member of the government, in any speech, intimated the least thought of abolishing the active work of the commission, or of restricting it in any respect whatever.


Charles Gavan Power: I would recommend to the Prime Minister-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No, leader of the Opposition.


Charles Gavan Power: I mean the leader of the Opposition-that he read the speech made at that time by the member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken).


Arthur Meighen: I heard it.


Charles Gavan Power: You heard it? Well, the right hon. gentleman's recollection is not the same as mine and I refreshed my memory by reading that speech not long ago.


Arthur Meighen: I made no statement as to the speech of the member for West Toronto. I referred to the speeches of members of the government.


Charles Gavan Power: If it is quite fair for the leader of the Opposition to make references to the speeches of the members of the government at that time it is quite fair for me to refer to the speeches of those who then sup-
ported the government, and to draw the same inference after reading the speeches of hon. members who supported my right hon. friend.
At the time this resolution was introduced, I, at least, allowed it to be understood that I did not expect to obtain the support of the majority of the members of the House. I stated frankly what my views on the subject were, and some other hon. members have done the same thing. I frankly believe that we cannot get the most efficient service out of the Civil Service Act as at present framed. There may be only a few of us on this side that believe it. There may be more than that number, but I am under the impression there will only be a few. That is no reason for hon. members opposite refusing to the government the opportunity which it asks of obtaining before a committee a full and free discussion of the different situations which have been created by the Civil Service Act as it is at present worded. Some hon. gentlemen opposite have said we do not need a committee because we had one two years ago. Do those hon. gentlemen not know that for five years-more than that, for perhaps seven years-year after year, session after session, we had a committee on Pensions and Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment which revised, reviewed and amended the Pension Act, the act with regard to the re-establishment on the land and several other statutes? Surely it is no worse to amend the Civil Service Act than it was to amend an act which dealt with a far more important matter, that of the welfare and well-being of our soldiers who had fought overseas.
Another view of the situation has been taken by my hon. friend for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) and in order to reassure him I will ask the Prime Minister, or rather the chief Whip not to appoint me on the committee. I do not know, though, why he does not carry his argument to its logical conclusion and retire from the House, or request the electors of Quebec South to ask me to retire. However, for the sake of peace and harmony, I am willing to ask the chief Whip on the government side not to appoint me one of the members of the committee. I hope that will meet the view of the hon. member for Lisgar, that it will answer some of his objections, that he will see to it that he is confirmed in his desire to do the fair thing by the Civil Service Act, by the government, and by this House, and that he will vote in favour, at least, of referring the stud}' of this matter to a committee.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: I was paired with the hon. member for Welland (Mr. German). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. TOLMIE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Hull (Mr. Fontaine). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I was paired with the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. McCrea). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. LAVIGUEUR:: I was paired with the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Sheard). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. MITCHELL:: I was paired with the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Arthur Bliss Copp: I was paired with the hon. member for St. John city (Mr. Baxter). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. McQUARRIE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Queen's, P.E.I. (Mr. Mackinnon). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.
Redistribution



REDISTRIBUTION BILL


[Stage Direction]
The House having reverted to the order, "Motions":
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I wish now to move the committee to which is to be referred the bill for the readjustment of the constituencies. I made mention yesterday to the House that the government were of the opinion that a small committee was advisable rather than a large one; that it should consist of possibly eleven members at the outset, certainly not more than fifteen. However, it has been represented by my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) that some injustice would be done his group if it were not represented by four members on the committee, in which event, following out the proportionate representation in the House, it would be necessary to have a committee as large as nineteen. Now, the government is anxious in this matter of redistribution that there shall not be so much even as the shadow of an impression that anything is being attempted other than what is reasonable and just in all particulars. The government wishes U>
avoid anything in the nature of party controversy if possible, and under the circumstances we propose to 'meet hon. gentlemen opposite and grant a committee of nineteen. I would therefore move:	[DOT]
That Bill No. 15, intituled An Act to readjust the representation of the House of Commons, be referred to a special committee consisting of Messrs. Beland, Boivin, Caldwell, Euler, Hanson, Johnston, Low, Kennedy (Glengarry Stormont), King (Huron), Macdonald (Pictou), Me Murray, McQuarrie, Morrissy, Motherwell, Speakman, Stewart (Argenteuil), Stewart (Leeds), Stork and Sutherland, with instructions, to prepare schedules to contain and describe the several electoral divisions entitled to return members to this House and to report the same and that Rule 11 be suspended in relation thereto.


Hewitt Bostock: This motion, of eourse must have unanimous consent, because under rule 40 two days' notice must be given of a motion for the appointment of any committee.


William Findlay Maclean: Mr. Speaker, I take this occasion to discuss one of the principles that I think should be had in mind in the consideration of this question, namely, representation by population and the distribution of the seats on that basis. The British North America Act, section 51, says:
On the completion of the census in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, and of each subsequent decennial census, the representation of the four provinces shall be readjusted by such authority, in such a manner, and from such time as the parliament of Canada from time to time provides, subject and according to the following rules:-
[M r. McQuarrie.]
(1)	Quebec shall have the fixed number of sixty-five
members;	*
(2)	There shall be assigned to each of the other provinces such a number of members as will bear the same proportion to the number of its population (ascertained at such census) as the number sixty-five bears to the number of the population of Quebec (so ascertained) ;
(3)	In the computation of the number of members for a province a fractional part not exceeding one half of the whole number requisite for entitling the province to a member shall be disregarded; but a fractional part exceeding one half of that number shall be equivalent to the whole number;
(4)	On any such readjustment the number of members for a province shall not be reduced unless the proportion which the number of the population of the province bore to the number of the aggregate population of Canada at the then last preceding readjustment of the number of members for the province is ascertained at the then latest census to be diminished by one twentieth part or upwards:
(5)	Such readjustment shall not take effect until the termination of the then existing parliament.
52. The number of members of the House of Commons may be from time to time increased by the parliament of Canada, provided the proportionate representation of the provinces prescribed by this act is not thereby disturbed.
The point I wish to make, Mr. Speaker, is that population is the basis of readjustment not only as between the provinces but also as to the subdivision of the various seats within the provinces. The constitution of this country, in the provisions that I have read, provides that redistribution shall recognize the principle of representation by population and nothing else. But strangely enough, since this act came into force we have had several redistributions all of which have clearly ignored the law in this respect. Take my own case: according to the last census, the figures of which I have under my hand, I represent a population of over 100.000. At the last redistribution it was a little over thirty thousand. Now as a matter of fact, these one hundred thousand people are out-voted by five other constituencies in this country whose members represent less than twenty thousand people.


Mr. MALCOLM:: Would the hon. member mind informing the House what percentage of that one hundred thousand people turns out to vote?


William Findlay Maclean: (Y'ork): They all turn out.


James Malcolm: The census does not show it.


William Findlay Maclean: (York): They come out and vote just as much as the people in any other portion of this country, and sixty thousand of them have the right to register now, including women. I say that if this is a democratic country, one man's vote is as good as another man's, but as it is now there is an

Redistribution
unfair discrimination against the urban vote in favour of the rural vote. Why that should be I do not know. I could read out a list of twenty-one constituencies to illustrate my point, but here is the fact. Toronto and Montreal together have almost one-fifth the population of this country, but they have not anything like the representation that the rural parts have, or the representation that I say they are entitled to have under the constitution. I therefore take this occasion of insisting in so far as I can upon the recognition of this principle that the value of votes in this country should be absolutely on an equality based on population. I think I am backed in that by the Prime Minister and by the Progressives from the West who absolutely admit this democratic principle, and recognizing that principle, I think the House also must recognize it.
What is the history of this question? I could go back over the thirty years I have been in the House, and still further back to other redistributions. In the first election I ran I was a supporter of Sir John A. Macdonald. I knew Sir John A. Macdonald and at that time'he was trying to cultivate the votes of the cities of this country in favour of his National policy, but he never went the length of telling the people at that time that one man's vote was as good as another's, and that the cities and towns should have equal representation and influence in this House with the rural sections of the countiy. After him came Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and he also for some reason or other refused to recognize the principle of equality of representation, not only as between constituencies, but also as between individual voters, and this principle of equality was ignored. Since then the population of this country has been growing, particularly of Ontario and Quebec, so that to-day the urban population in both these provinces exceeds the rural population, and yet they have not anything like the same representation in this House. In other words, there are twenly-one or twenty-three constituencies where less than twenty thousand voters have the representation that is accorded to my constituency with one hundred thousand people.
As pointed out by the Prime Minister in his address, the unit of representation, which . is based on the population of
12 m. the province of Quebec divided by sixty-five, will be thirty-six thousand under this redistribution according to the last census, and that is the basis upon which the redistribution should be done. That is what I am insisting on here, and so far as any discussion has taken place in this House,
I can claim that I have the acceptance by the Prime Minister of the old principle of representation by population. I am quite sure that the Progressives from the West also, while it may be said that the rural population ought perhaps to be entitled to a little more representation, will admit the absolute correctness of the principle of equality. How can we ever have a democratic government in this country unless we absolutely recognize the principle of equality of representation as between citizens and as between constituencies?
Therefore I make this contention, and I ask the House and the committee to admit this principle in the new distribution, so that this discrimination as against the urban population in favour of the rural population will not be continued. It never should have happened. It does not obtain in any other democratic country in the world. This principle on which I insist absolutely governs the representation in congress in the United States, and there is a much fairer representation in the British parliament to-day where the value of votes in the cities and rural parts is the same, than we have in this country. The same rule obtains in all the British Commonwealths except Canada, where for some reason or other, partly through inadvertence, partly by a mistake in the past, partly because we started wrong, this injustice has not been righted, I stand in my place to-day on behalf of the urban population of this country and ask the committee to recognize the justice of this principle of equality being applied not only to the representation apportioned to provinces but also to the constituencies that will be defined.
I admit, if it has to be admitted-I do not think I should admit it-that it might be unfair at the present time to apply the change too strictly, I would be prepared to still give the rural constituencies some advantage on the understanding that eventually the principle of the equality of values shall be strictly applied to constituencies as it is now applied to the provinces. If there must be and there ought to be in every democratic country this equality, I say now is the time to make the change.
I quoted in this House the other day the attitude of some of our politicians in the past, and pointed out that William Lyon Mackenzie in the old, old days in this country, was in favour of representation by population. The Hon. George Brown was in favour of it also. The Liberal party favoured the principle, and I never heard of the party going back upon it when the question came up. But gradually in the readjustments we have had, and the four or five reconsiderations of this question, we have allowed ourselves to go
Redistribution

wrong, and to be unfair, and to-day we are unfair to a majority of the population; because, if you look up the census you will see that the majority of the population in both Ontario and Quebec is urban, as against rural. If that is the case, now is the time to make a change, and, on behalf of the great cities of Toronto and Montreal, and of the towns and smaller cities in every province in Canada,
I ask that we begin to correct this mistake and to adopt the principle as we have adopted it as between provinces in the creation of constituencies in the respective provinces. I am sure I can appeal, in making this contention, to the fairness of all the parties of this House, Liberals, Conservatives, Progressives and Independents, and I expect that we shall have to-night an expression of opinion from the government and other members of the House as to whether they are of opinion that representation by population from now on should govern in every measure of redistribution that may be brought into this House, and that the constitution be respected and observed. I have read from the British North America Act, and I cannot find in any of the amending acts any alteration in the law set out in the sections I have quoted.
I leave the matter for the present, but will follow it up on some other occasion, perhaps . before the committee, but I ask for some expression to-night from this House as to whether it is not time we should make this change and adopt the great democratic principle that one man's vote is as good as another, and that the value of a vote in one constituency ought to be the same as the value of the vote in any other constituency in the Dominion of Canada.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the House adjourned at 12.05 a.m. (Friday.)
Friday, February 23, 1923