1923-04-12

VACANCY-CAPE BRETON NORTH AND VICTORIA

Mr. SPEAKER:: I have the honour to inform the House that I have received notification of a vacancy having occurred in the representation of the electoral district of Cape Breton North and Victoria consequent upon the acceptance of an office of emolument under the Crown by Hon. D. D. McKenzie, the sitting member therefor, I have accordingly issued my warrant to the Chief Electoral Officer to make out a new writ for the election of a member to the said electoral district.



PRIVATE BILLS FIRST READING

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 105, An Act respecting the Canadian Order of the Woodmen of the World- Mr. Gordon.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. DUFF moved, that the recommendation contained in the second report of the select standing committee on Marine and Fisheries be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.

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

Mr. LADNER:: 1.	Has the government received a report with respect to the wreck of the SS. Trader in March, on the rocks dumped off the end of the jetty on the north arm of the Fraser river, British Columbia, built by the government ?
2.	If so, was the wreck due to the failure of the department to provide a proper light at the end of this jetty, and is the vessel a total loss?
3.	Is it a fact that the said jetty has been without any light for three months or any other lesser period and that there is no mark or communication at the end of the said jetty to show the entrance to the channel of the north arm of the Fraser river.
4.	Has the government a report on the wrecking or grounding on or about Thursday, March 15. of three tugs with booms of logs at a point on Sea Island about one mile east of the said jetty?
5.	Has the government taken steps to provide a proper and sufficient light at the end of the said jetty and to otherwise properly protect the entrance to the said channel for navigation ?


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1. The Department of Marine and Fisheries has received a report of the wreck of the Trader.
2.	The vessel was stranded 300 yards west of the jetty at noon on March 16th during what the captain in charge described as a furious W.S.W. gale. Consequently the wreck was not due to the absence of a light.
3.	The edge of the channel is 400 feet from the jetty. The department has maintained since 1905 range lights to mark this channel. The outer light was carried away on January 21st last by the tug Gleeful, the report of which did not reach the department until January 31st. Instructions to rebuild were wired February 2nd.
4.	No.
5.	Yes.	,


WRECK OF STEAMSHIP ALASKAN
Mr. LADNER:: 1.	Has the government received a report regarding the wreck of the SS. Alaskan with the loss of all its crew, near Pachena Point on the Pacific coast, in January last?
2.	Has the government, on acount of economy or otherwise, reduced by 50 per cent or any other amount, the strength of the unwatched lights on that coast or any part of it and thereby reduced the visibility of the said lights?
3.	If such or any other reduction has been made, were the changes published to master mariners, so that they would not be fooled by the changed lights?
4.	Does the government pay to the Pacific Salvage Company $30,000 per year or <ony other amount to keep up steam on board the SS. Algerine?
5.	Is the SS. Algerine a seaworthy vessel, suitable for the purpose for which it is employed by the government ?
6. Did the United States SS. Snohomish rescue the crew of the SS. Tuscan Prince which ran on to the coast of British Columbia?
7.	Is it the intention of the government to provide proper and efficient coast protection for British Columbia by having an ocean-going tug similar to the said SS. Snohomish, or by having any other suitable class of tug, for assisting the mercantile marine in storms or times of peril on the sea?


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1.	Yes.
2.	No.
3.	Answered by No. 2.
4.	The government pays the Pacific Salvage Co. Ltd. the sum of $10,000 per annum to maintain a wrecking plant at Victoria, B.C., for service on the B.C. coast.
5.	Yes.
6.	No. The crew of the Tuscan Prince were rescued by the crew of the government life boat, stationed at Bamfield creek.
7.	See statement by Minister of Marine and Fisheries on Pages 1725 and 1726 Unrevised Hansard.


GRAIN COMMISSION
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. MILLAR:: Can the hon. Minister of
Trade and Commerce (Mr. Robb) inform us

Sup pi y-H a ilwa ys-C .N.R.

when we may expect the announcement of the appointment of the proposed grain commission and whether the trade will be represented on that commission.


Mr. ROBB:: The matter is now under consideration, and all interested in the production and sale of grain will be represented.
Hon. E. M. MACDONALD


MINISTER OF THE CROWN WITHOUT PORTFOLIO
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. MEIGHEN:: I have been waiting expecting an announcement by the Prime Minister, in view of the press statements this morning, of changes in the government- subtractions and possible additions.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: I have much
pleasure in informing the House that the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) was sworn in this afternoon as a member of the Privy Council of Canada, without portfolio.


Arthur Meighen: Has the Prime Minister
no announcement as to any one leaving the government, which he can make also with pleasure?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It would be
with deep regret that I would make any such announcement.


SHORTAGE IN SHIPMENTS OF GRAIN
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. COOTE:: I would like to draw the
attention of the government to a report which has appeared in the press recently to the effect that complaints have been made in England, by importers of grain shipped from the port of Montreal, that the shipments were short in weight, and that a commission is likely to be appointed by the government here to inquire into this matter, and to ask the government whether they have received this complaint, and if so, will a commissioner be appointed to conduct an inquiry?


Mr. LAPOINTE:: The attention of the
department was called in December last to a complaint which had been made by the directors of the Liverpool Corn Trade Association respecting a shortage of grain shipped from the port of Montreal. The matter was taken up with the Harbour Commission of Montreal, and an officer of the department was entrusted with the task of making an investigation. We are convinced that if there is anv shortage, no blame can be laid on the port "of Montreal. We sent the report of the investigation to the High Commissioner of

Canada in London, who transmitted it to the Liverpool Corn Trade Association. The latter are not quite satisfied because that investigation was made by a department of the government. They want a more impartial investigation, so to speak, and that is what the High Commissioner has stated in a letter written to the Department of Marine and Fisheries. We have answered that we regret that this investigation has not satisfied them; but as the matter is very important, we are going to see that another investigation is made under the Inquiries Act. I am actually considering this question in conjunction with the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Let me add that the harbour commissioners of Montreal invite the investigation; they will be only too pleased that it should be made, and, indeed, they were prepared to carry it out themselves. They contend that if anything is wrong, it is not on their end of the transportation process. An announcement will be made shortly.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS
[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee of Supply, Mr. Gordon in the chair:
Railways and Canals-Chargeable to income-To increase the amount of loan authorized by Vote No. 136 Main Estimates, 1922-23-Additional amount required $13,099,493.34.
Mr. MacLAREN:: Mr. Chairman,-
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Acting Minister of Railways and Canals):	Might I oe
allowed just a word? I believe my hon. friend who has just risen to his feet, desires to discuss this item. I would suggest to the committee that after he makes his remarks, we allow the item to stand, as several other hon. gentlemen have told me that they wish to make some observations on it, but they are not prepared to do so to-day.


Murray MacLaren: I am fortunate in having this early opportunity, before speaking directly on the question before the committee, of congratulating the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald). I do so with great satisfaction, because I am aware of the capabilities of the new Minister of the Crown and especially his capacity for work. He has-and this has a direct bearing on the appropriation which we are now considering-an intimate knowledge of the railway question. He knows, in an unusually thorough manner, many of the difficulties which exist in connection with railways. His presence therefore, in the cabinet is additionally satisfactory, because I think he will bring to this question a well-founded knowledge and a sympathetic attitude, which I believe

Supply-Railways-C.N.R.
are not evident in the cabinet at the present time. During the debate on this appropriation, some discussion as regards the question of railway policy and transportation has been raised. The importance of the discussion was increased by the statements of two members of the government. Their statements were of importance, and at the same time their remarks were, I. thought, of a dubious nature and of a disquieting character.
I wish to review, to some extent, the situation as regards the railway system and the railway policy. A few weeks ago the Acting Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham), in the general summary which he presented to parliament, made some very important statements. He informed us that there were 22,646 miles of National railways. He also told us that the value of these 22,646 miles as appearing on the books of the various companies, amounted to $1,892,577,750, and further that the total earnings in the year 1921 amounted to $233,789,000. These are a few of the outstanding features of the very large organization which the country now possesses. This property was handed over to the Canadian National Railway Company by order in council of the 20th of January of this year, and that order in council entrusts the National Railways of Canada with the keeping of the Canadian National Railway Company for its management and operation. The only limitation in this connection is the proviso that it shall be during the pleasure of the Governor in Council. Up to yesterday no further copies of orders in council had been tabled showing that any subsequent instructions haye been issued by the government to the Canadian National Railway Company. In other words, the government has passed over to the company the railways for operation and management without any instructions or any indication of what is to be done, or any general outline to be followed. Nothing of this kind has been done at all. There appears to me to be. a striking lack of policy on the part of the government when it hands over this stupendous system of 22,000 miles to the company for operation and management without some guidance or anything to indicate in a broad way what the views of the government are. I ask, would anyone, in any other form of business outside of government control, contemplate handing over a property of this enormous importance and of such huge wealth to a company's management informing that company simply to go ahead and operate the business, without at the same time laying down some policy that shall be followed? Can anyone think of such a thing in connection
with a matter that affects the financial condition of the country to such a large extent?
The property was entrusted to the company under a statute entitled "An act to incorporate the Canadian National Railway Company, ^and respecting Canadian National Railways." The company took over the railway more especially under section 11, and I shail read this to the House:
.... the management and operation of any lines or railways or parts thereof, and any property or works of whatsoever description, or interests therein, and any powers, rights or privileges over or with respect to any railways, properties or works, or interests therein, which may be from time to time vested in or owned, controlled or occupied by His Majesty, or such parts or part thereof, or rights or interests therein, as may be designated in any order in council, upon such terms and subject to such regulations and conditions as the Governor in Council may from time to time decide; such management and operation to continue during the pleasure of the Governor in Council and to be subject to termination or variation, from time to time in whole or in part by the Governor in Council.
The authority, then is given to the government to invoke such regulations and conditions as they think proper in entrusting the railways to the company. Where are these regulations and conditions? So far as can be ascertained from the orders in council no regulations or conditions have been laid down and passed on from the government to the company. The government have taken no such position in this matter. But while the government have not seen fit to give any general directions to the company in the way of guidance, certain commitments have been made on behalf of the country, and there are. conditions which have existed for some time that bind the government to lay down certain broad and definite principles which the company shall follow. Among these commitments, I might refer first of all to the Intercolonial Railway, which is a matter that is often mentioned in the House. It is mentioned, frequently I think, without any very definite idea of what the British North America Act says on the point, and I therefore propose to read the section of that act, which is not long. Section 145 of the British North America Act says:
Inasmuch as the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, have joined in a* declaration that the construction of the Intercolonial railway is essential to the consolidation of the Union of British North America, and to the assent thereto of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and have consequently agreed that provision should be made for its immediate construction by the government of Canada: Therefore, in order to give effect to that agreement, it shall be the duty of the government and parliament of Canada to provide for the commencement, within six months after the union, of a railway connecting the river St. Lawrence with the city of Halifax in Nova Scotia, and for the construction thereof without intermission, and the completion thereof with all practicable speed.
Supply-Railways-C.N.R.

We are quite aware that different views are held regarding the construction which this section entails, and without taking anything more than a moderate view of the section and what it calls for, I believe that it is fair to assume that it does show that this was to be a public undertaking essentially and that it was not necessarily a financial or commercial enterprise. I would suggest therefore that on the face of it this is a government railway and stands in a different relationship from other railways in the country; and I contend that it is not open to this government or parliament to dispose of it to any private corporation if that were proposed. The other fair deduction, I think, is that the conditions attaching to this railway are such that it is incumbent upon the government to see that trade between the Maritime provinces and the rest of Canada shall move freely and without any undue hindrance. But during the last few years this has not been the case, and this fact has been one of the grievances which have been complained of. So much then for the Intercolonial.	.
Now, how does the country stand in connection with the Canadian Northern railway and the Grand Trunk Pacific? This House and the country generally were given to understand when the measures were before Parliament that these two railroads would be used for the encouragement of Canadian trade from east to west and from west to east. As emphasizing this understanding I shall quote section 13 of the act of 1911 respecting aid towards the construction of the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway. By this section it is declared:
That the aid herein provided for is granted by the government for the express purpose of encouraging the transportation of goods through Canadian channels. Before such aid is granted the Governor in Council shall require the Canadian Northern Railway Company and the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway Company to enter into an agreement undertaking that all freight originating on the line of the Canadian Northern Railway Company or its branches, or on the line of the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway Company or its branches, not specifically routed otherwise bv the shipper, shall, when 'destined to points in Canada be carried over the Canadian Northern Railway, or the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway, or the connections of either of them or over any railway within Canadian territory; and that the through rate on export traffic from the point of origin to the point of destination shall at no time be greater via Canadian ports than via United States ports, and that all such traffic, not specifically routed otherwise by the shipper, shall be carried to Canadian ocean ports; and that the Canadian Northern Railway Company and the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway Company shall not in any matter within their powers directly or indirectiy advise or encourage the transportation of such freight by routes other than those above provided, but shall, in all respects, in good faith, use their utmost endeavours fMr. MacLaren.l
to fulfil the conditions upon which public aid is granted, namely, the development of trade through Canadian channels and Canadian ocean ports.
As further emphasizing this understanding I shall now read three paragraphs-42, 43 and 45-from the act of 1903 respecting the Grand Trunk Pacific. This act will be found as chapter 71 of the statutes of that year, and it is interesting to note that it was signed on behalf of the government by the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). Paragraph 42 is in these words:
It is hereby declared and agreed between the parties to this agreement that the aid herein provided for is granted by the government of Canada for the express purpose of encouraging the development of Canadian trade and the transportation of goods through Canadian channels. The company accepts the aid on these conditions, and agrees that all freight originating on the line of the railway, or its branches, not specifically routed otherwise by the shipper, shall, when destined for poilnts in Canada, be carried entirely on Canadian territory, or between Canadian inland ports, and that the through rate on export traffic from the point of origin to the point of destination shall at no time be greater via Canadian ports than via United States ports, and that all such traffic, not specifically routed otherwise by the shipper, shall be carried to Canadian ocean ports.
Now paragraph 43:
The company further agrees that it shall not. in any matter within its power, directly or indirectly advise or encourage the transportation of such freight by routes other than those above provided, but shall, in all respects, in good faith, use its utmost endeavours to fulfil the conditions upon which public aid is granted, namely,-the development of trade through Canadian channels and Canadian ocean ports.
Then the last paragraph bearing on the point is additional to what I have read in reference to the Canadian Northern. I refer to paragraph 45:
The company shall arrange for and provide, either by purchase, charter or otherwise, shipping connections upon both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans sufficient in tonnage and in number of sailings to take care of and transport all its traffic both inward and outward, at such ocean ports within Canada upon the said line of railway, or upon the line of the Intercolonial railway as may be agreed upon from time to time, and the company shall not divert, or so far as it can lawfully prevent permit to be diverted to ports outside of Canada any traffic which it can lawfully influence or control upon the ground that there is not a sufficient amount of shipping to transport such 1 raffle from or to such Canadian ocean ports.
Now, Mr. Chairman, it may be said that while there is no evidence of the government having drawn these commitments to the attention of the railway board, still the latter are 'supposed to be aware of the legislation.' Personally I do not think this suggestion is satisfactory. The property is too large and valuable and of too much importance to the country for us to depend on mere supposition. The existence of these commitments should be made clear to the country generally and

Supply-Railways-C.N.R.
to the railway board in particular, and that, I conceive, can only be done by order in council.
I need hardly say that these undertakings or agreements were known generally by the public at the time the legislation confirming them was enacted. Indeed, the country was not content to grant such generous aid to these railway companies unless, in return, the railway companies gave these undertakings so that the whole Dominion would be benefited, for the real object of building these railways was, through the encouragement of trade within the country, to ensure national prosperity. These are the commitments, and they must be lived up to. I am not saying that the government do not look upon them as commitments, but we would like to hear something more specific in the matter. In any case, those conditions are there, and as a matter of right, as a matter of good faith, they should be fulfilled.
I wish now to refer to the question of the transportation of Canadian products through United States ports and the transportation of American products through Canadian ports. It has frequently been stated that a large amount of Canadian grain is transported through United States ports, and when you look at the figures furnished by the Bureau of Statistics you cannot help being doubly impressed with the truth of that statement. In the year ending March 31, 1921, there were exported through the United States 58,839,270 bushels of Canadian wheat and principal grains, as compared with 48,401,141 bushels of Canadian grain exported through Canadian ports. In the year ending March 31, 1922. the amount exported through United States ports was 99,301,421. bushels, and through Canadian ports, 69,239,823 bushels. For the period ending January 31, 1923^the March figures are not yet available-the amount exported through United States ports was 160,250,892 bushels as compared with 88,232,899 bushels through Canadian ports.
. Mr. CLARK: How much through the port of Montreal?


Murray MacLaren: I think I have the figures for Montreal and for Vancouver as well, but I would like to follow up this general line for the moment. While the respective amounts exported through American and Canadian ports vary somewhat, the figures show that 65 per cent, or even more, of our Canadian grain is exported to countries beyond the seas through the United States. That, I say, is a very impressive statement, and one that is not calculated, I think, to satisfy the ambitions ol Canadians.	.
I would like to refer briefly to the matter of flour. The amount of Canadian flour exported through United States ports for the year ending March 31, 1921, was 1,546,714 barrels as against 3,282,568 barrels exported through Canadian ports. In 1922 there were exported through United States ports 2,864,699 barrels of Canadian flour, and through Canadian ports, 3,979,016 barrels. For the period ending January 31, 1923, the amount exported through American ports was 3,696,144 barrels, as against 5,496,963 barrels exported through Canadian ports. So that so far as flour goes, while a vast amount is exported from Canada through United States ports, the proportion is less unfavourable than it is in the matter of wheat and grains.
I have heard it stated in this House that while an undue amount of Canadian grain is being exported through American ports, that export is offset by the amount of grain that goes from the United States through Canadian ports. Well, these are the figures: For the year ending March 31, 1922, the amount of Canadian wheat and principal grains exported through United States ports amounted to 99,300,186 bushels as compared with 79,693,438 bushels going from the United States through Canadian ports. This shows a considerable preponderance in grain exported from Canada through United States ports over the amount that is exported from the United States through Canadian ports. It therefore cannot be said to be an offset. It is a partial offset, but it is far from being a complete offset.
I have other figures here. For the 'nine months ending December 31, 1922-the figures for the last three months are not available- Canadian grains passing through United States ports amounted to 146,210,694 bushels, as compared with 91,838,301 bushels of United States grains passing through Canadian ports, showing a very large preponderance for nine months in favour of the American ports.
For the year ending March 31, 1922, there were 2,864,699 barrels of Canadian wheat flour exported through American ports, as compared with 104,385 barrels of American flour exported through Canadian .ports, or something like twenty times more Canadian flour was sent through American ports than American flour through Canadian ports. I have a similar statement for the nine months ending December 31, 1922. For that period there were 2,307,676 barrels of Canadian flour sent through American ports as compared with 12,046 barrels of American flour sent through Canadian ports. Those figures, I think, are very striking. It is hardly
17GS
Sup j)l y-R ail ways-C .N.R.

necessary to emphasize the point that one of the most important articles of production in this country is grain, and that this is very largely exported to a foreign country. These figures show that this country is not sharing in one of our important industries, namely, transportation, to the extent it should. This question of transportation is of the greatest possible importance, not only for the government to consider but the Railway Board as well. It concerns both the government and the railway company and must be considered not only from the general point of view of the transportation of Canadian business over Canadian railways and through Canadian ports, but regard must also be had to the formal agreements that have already been made governing a considerable portion of the railway.
In answer to my hon. friend from Burrard, the amount of Canadian wheat exported via Montreal for the year ending March 31, 1921, was 28,298,040 bushels.


Mr. CLARK:: Was that all wheat?


Murray MacLaren: The figures I have given are headed " Quantity of Canadian Flaxseed, Barley, Oats, Rye, Wheat exported to Overseas countries via Canadian seaports direct." It states that the total of wheat and other grains exported for the year 1921 was 37,008,373 bushels: for the year 1922, 52,320,740 bushels, and for the year 1923, 60,098,995 bushels. Those are the figures given to me by the Statistics Bureau. I have given this information simply in answer to a question and it does not bear quite on the point I was bringing up.
Now we come to that part of the railway question of which we heard a good deal yesterday, and that is that portion of the Grand Trunk which runs from Montreal to Portland, Maine, and as regards the business that is now being done by the Dominion govem-
4 p.m. ment through the port of Portland, Maine. At the present time the difference in distance between Port Arthur and Portland, and Port Arthur and St. John, New Brunswick, is 253 miles in favour of the Portland route, that is, if the route is taken from the short cut at Long lake and the freight carried from McGivney Junction through Fredericton to St. John. One offset to this 253 miles, and there are several offsets, is the difference in grade in favour of the Canadian route. The grade of the Grand Trunk from Montreal to Portland, Maine, is one and one-fourth per cent. The grade from Port Arthur to St. John over the largest portion of the road is four-tenths per cent;

I am advised that that is the case for all except twenty-seven miles, and that is an important offset. It means that a full freight train can be carried from Port Arthur to St. John continuously, whereas if the freight was taken from Port Arthur to Portland, Maine, the freight would have to be divided in Montreal and sent on in two trains. That is an important offset. There is this other factor, and that is that when the wheat goes through St. John or Halifax the money is spent in this country, and surely that is an important offset. The business is there. The railways can do the business. They are not so congested that they cannot carry on until the traffic is forced out via the Grand Trunk to Portland, Maine. Therefore, it is a question with the railway companies and with the government whether they think it advisable to raise a certain amount of money by dividing their business between Portland, Maine and Canadian ports, or concentrate on having the main revenue derived from our own Canadian ports. Difficulties are arising, no doubt, in the situation, but are they sufficient to deter us from making the best arrangement we can, rather than accepting the easier course of least resistance? While one does not wish to appear in any sense as a railway expert, in all railway matters, as in everything else in life, there is a tendency to follow the path of least resistance, the rut so to speak, the custom of doing certain things, is apt to be followed, and it takes a vast amount of determination to follow a newer and a better method.
Some figures were given, in answer to a question not long ago, regarding the business done in Canadian grain through the port of Portland and through the port of St. John, and I wish to have these figures incorporated in Hansard. The amount of Canadian grain carried to Portland, Maine, since October 1, 1922, by the Canadian Government railways, was 14,756,808 bushels. The amount of grain that was carried through St. John by the Canadian Government railways during the same period was 1,706,376-fourteen millions and three quarters to Portland as against one million and three quarters to St. John. The amount of United States grain that was brought to St. John during the same period was 367,282 bushels-a comparatively small amount. The Canadian Pacific railway brought 11,047,981 bushels of Canadian grain and 2,202,121 of United States grain to St. John. The amount taken to Halifax was reported as nil. A certain amount of grain is brought from the United States to St. John but the amount is small in comparison with

Suppl y-R a il xva ys-C .N.R.
these amounts, particularly the amount sent to Portland, Maine, over the Canadian National. Here is a fact that I think the House might well consider: That at the present time the Canadian National Railways are taking to Portland, Maine, over 14,000.000 bushels as compared with one million and three quarter bushels to St. John.
I need hardly say that that matter is not entirely satisfactory to people who live in the Maritime provinces. They are showing very great concern and very much dissatisfaction with the conditions that now exist, and I would impress on the government that it is most desirable, not only in the interest of the prosperity of the country, but also in the interest of the contentment and happiness of the people, that this unsatisfactory condition should be changed. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) made a statement yesterday in reference to the situation. To my mind his remarks were very disturbing. He said in part-
Mv lion. friend has forgotten that by the action of the government of Canada in acquiring the Grand Trunk railway, we have acquired another Maritime port at Portland, Maine.
Let me see if that be the case. The late
government was more successful than were the commissioners in the drawing up of the Ashburton Treaty. They never succeeded in acquiring Portland, Maine-far from it-and yet the Minister of Finance says that the late government acquired another Maritime port in Portland, Maine. I think it is a most important thing. Mr. Chairman, not to confuse the issue. Having a railroad from Montreal to Portland, Maine, does not constitute having a port at Portland, Maine. It is confusing ideas. But the Minister of Finance is not given to confusion of ideas. He is remarkably clear, I do not think he has taken a dispassionate view of the situation or he would hardly advance that proposition.


Mr. PUTNAM:: Is it not correct to say that the late government acquired a railroad to Portland, Maine?


Murray MacLaren: That is what I am saying. My hon. friend is quite right. I said acquiring a railroad was not acquiring a port at the same time-especially a foreign port.


Harold Putnam: Acquiring a railroad in this case implied acquiring a terminus of a railroad, which was Portland.


Murray MacLaren: I think what I said was quite clear and what the Minister of Finance said is also clear. He said a port.


Harold Putnam: I say that too.


Murray MacLaren: And I say that is a confusion of ideas and a confusion of the issue. It is not acquiring a port, and I am pleased to have the opportunity of refuting that statement.


Harold Putnam: Instead of "acquiring," what is the proper word?


Murray MacLaren: I will answer the question of my hon. friend if he will remain quiescent for a little while. The minister stated as reported in Hansard:
We have acquired another Maritime port at Portland, Maine.
Acquiring a railway from Montreal to Portland is, in my judgment, a long way off from acquiring a port; it is also a long way off from compelling the government to make use of that port whether they have a terminus there or whether they have not. There is in the act nothing laid down that I know of compelling the government to maintain that port, or to see that traffic goes through Portland, Maine. The minister went on to say:
The question is an ugly one, and this complicates it. We own the Grank Trunk railway, and Portland is the Grand Trunk railway terminus. This is the problem we are giving to Sir Henry Thornton. We are asking him to make these roads reasonably profitable, remunerative, self-sustaining.
Where is the official record of this request that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) states has been made to the railway board? He stated:
We are asking him to make these roads reasonably profitable, remunerative, self-sustaining.
I have pointed out already that there is no order in council giving any instructions whatever to the railway board, beyond entrusting them with the property and empowering them to operate and manage it. If Sir Henry Thornton has been asked to carry on this road, as the minister stated yesterday, so as to make it reasonably profitable, remunerative, self-sustaining, I should like to have the record. The minister went on to say:
We give him this road to Portland. Is he to let that road be idle, to let the rails get rusty, or to try to send some traffic over the Portland road in order that it may contribute something towards the cost of the system ?
That seems to me a method of conducting an argument that is not convincing, that is not satisfactory to this committee. What is the use of talking about rustv rails? I am afraid we have enough of them in this country already, and I do not know that the minister is exercised about, that. But we know there is trade originating in Chicago, and it is carried to Portland, Maine, over the Grand Trunk. Nobody raises
Supply-Railways-C.N.R.

any dispute over that. Nobody says: "Do not do that." On the contrary, vve agree that it is right and proper to carry that on. There is passenger traffic going on between Montreal and Portland, Maine. Does anyone wish to represent that nothing but wheat is going over that road? We know to the contrary. Wheat, of course, is not going there in the summer. That is not a method of conducting an argument that we might have expected; but in any case, if the railway is there and if the terminus is there, outside of all that I have mentioned, is that any reason why a government or a railway board should wish to keep up a foreign port at the expense of our own port? The business can be done as well, as cheaply, and I believe with more financial benefit to the country by sending the traffic through Canadian ports.
When this matter was discussed prior to the last election, a tremendous hubbub was raised about the taking over of the Grand Trunk.
I do not know that anybody was particularly anxious to take over the Grand Trunk; but something had to be done; you could not give it away; it had to be disposed of in some way or another, and in my view, at any rate, the best thing to do in the interest of the country was to take it over. I saw no alternative. I am in favour of government ownership of railways, and when I say so, I do not want to say it in that drawback sort of tone or way, that I hear from many hon. members in this House and especially members on the other side. I believe in public ownership, and that it is not too much to expect of a railway board to feel hopeful that it can make a success of this project with the greatest benefit to our people. That being the case, why put this view forward that we must export through Portland, Maine? As I stated prior to the last election there was a tremendous disturbance over this question that another port had been originated in Portland, Maine, and that this was to be all corrected-mark you! On the other hand, another view was put forward that a favourable feature of the taking over of the Grand Trunk was that the administration and operation of the road then came within the power of the government, and they were at liberty to favour, or to limit, or to do away with all this business through Portland, Maine. The government are now in the position of saying whether they want this or do not want it. They are in the position of saying: " We will do this ", or " we will not do it." It may be a part of the duties of the railway board, I grant you-they may do this and I hope they will-but I believe it is the duty of the government to come out in a general

way and say: "We want this business for our country."
The Acting Minister of Railways also spoke on this subject yesterday, and there are two phases to his remarks. He gave some vague hopes at the end. I hope they will all be realized. I trust that what he hints at will please the House. In that case it must be something pretty substantial; but he does hint that something is coming of a favourable character. Before he made that statement, he referred in several instances to the railway situation in somewhat similar terms to the remarks made by the Minister of Finance. He said, for instance:
It must not be forgotten that what is good at one end of the line is good at the other-'
I do not know what' that means.
-and the road to Portland is just as much the property of the people of Canada as is the road to Halifax.
Very well. I would ask the people of Canada if they wish the port of Portland, Maine, to be developed and used as a Canadian port at the expense of our own ports? If the government wish to ask that question, I should be only too delighted; but I do not think that any question like that is going to be addressed lay the government to the people. The minister went on to say:
But there is another feature of the matter we must consider. Cut off the traffic going to the Grand Trunk from Chicago and vicinity, etc.
Nobody is objecting to the business that is developed from Chicago and its neighbourhood proceeding to Portland, Maine, over the Grand Trunk. Far from it.
I wish to refer for a moment to something in that connection so far as the Atlantic division is concerned. This is a matter that has been discussed to a considerable extent by the public in the last few months. I recognize that the apportionment of the country into divisions, western, eastern and Atlantic, in accordance with the act, comes within the purview of the railway board. I believe that everyone is content to leave this to the railway board, and if the board makes an error then I presume later on it will be subject to correction and advice. I am in accord with the view that the railway board and the management should be entirely free from politics; and, when I say that, I have reference to the personnel, the general management, general regulations and everything else connected with the board; I believe that in regard to all' this the railway board should have a free hand and be quite untrammelled. But when it came to the assignment of these divisions, the general belief is that the limita-

Suppl y-R ail ways-C.N.R.
tion of the Atlantic division was fixed in a certain place west of Montreal but that political pressure moved it back to Montreal. What happened? That did not seem to be quite enough, and still further political pressure is reported to have forced it back again to Riviere du Loup. So that the western terminus of the Atlantic division is regarded by many people in the country to have been removed, by political pressure, and shifted twice, finally being fixed in the wilderness at Riviere du Loup.
Now, that sort of thing is not what we contemplate as administration without politics, and I trust we shall be able to carry on the railways without such interference. When, however, such a thing is done an hon. member can only rise in this House and bring up the point. As was stated yesterday, I believe that the only proper thing to do is to discuss these railway matters in the House. Hon. members are sent here to represent their constituencies and the country at large, and it is here that we must criticize in a fair way the acts of the railway board and any extra-railway board pressure that has been brought to bear. I can only state many men believe that these are the facts of the case as I have stated them. The ultimate settlement of the Atlantic division limitation at Riviere du Loup has given rise to dissatisfaction generally on the part of business men of the Maritime provinces. I have here a copy of a resolution that was passed at a joint meeting of a number of the boards of trade of the Maritime provinces held a few weeks ago at Amherst in which there was expressed strong disapproval of the western limitation being fixed at Riviere du Loup. They say that Montreal was the limit previously of the Intercolonial railway, and they contend that Montreal is the point where trade originates. They say that it is the point at which traffic coming in may be passed on to the Maritime rails rather than to Portland, Maine. These arguments do not apply to Riviere du Loup, which is a quite unimportant station near New Brunswick. That	is the	position	ofaffairs, and I believe that it has been arranged for representatives of the boards of trade of the Maritime provinces to meet Sir Henry Thornton next week, so great has been the dissatisfaction that	has	been engendered	inconnection with this question. As the House is aware, there is one representative of the railway board on	the	Atlantic	division.	Iasked a question	some	weeks	ago as	to
whether an additional representative on the board was to be appointed for New Brunswick. and this is the answer I received:
After consultation with the president of the Canadian National railways it was decided to begin operations with a comparatively small board representative of districts rather than of provinces. Should experience indicate the necessity for further additions within the limits of the act the government will not hesitate to make these additions.
The statement has appeared in the press on several occasions, and it has not been contradicted, that the representative of the Atlantic division has said that at one meeting of the board the western terminus of the Atlantic division was to be Montreal and that at a subsequent meeting at which he was not present the second push-back to Riviere du Loup took place. Now, the government have assured me that they would not hesitate to make additions if experience should indicate the necessity therefor. Well,
I would ask the government whether there does not appear to be a necessity for further additions to the board in view of the fact that in the absence of the one representative for the Atlantic division the terminus of that division is interfered with. Is that not an experience which would indicate the necessity for a further addition? One can easily figure it out. If there were two members on the board representing that division then the chances of the division being entirely without representation at any meeting would be reduced one-half, or it would be quite possible for them to arrange matters so that if they-were not always both present they could attend meetings alternately, so that there would be no fear of the Atlantic division being shoved further back. I suggest that to the government as being a reason that must appeal to them, in view of their assurance to me, why another man should be appointed on the board.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a word in reference particularly to the future of the Maritime provinces. The satisfactory accomplishment of a suitable railway policy will ensure the future of the Maritime provinces. Some very prominent business men, men whose opinions are well worth care- -ful consideration by this committee, have told me from time to time that in their view the future of the Maritime provinces lies in the development of industries within their borders and the building up of an export business beyond the seas. That is not an imaginary condition. These are practical business men, not men who talk about secession, and they tell me that the prosperity of the Maritime provinces lies in export business beyond the seas rather than domestic business over Canadian rails under present transportation conditions. Therefore I submit that the railway position is one of outstanding importance.
Supply-Defence

There is another factor that might help very materially, and it is directly bound up with the railway situation-that is preferential trade with Great Britain. It is very easy for that preference to be limited to goods coming through Canadian ports. It affects Vancouver, Victoria and Prince Rupert, and it affects our Atlantic coast ports. There does not seem to be any difficulty'' about the adoption of such a limitation, and, with others, I again press on the government their careful consideration of this principle as one of the means of bringing back prosperity to the whole country. I must acknowledge with thankfulness that in the recent French treaty the principle has been recognized and acted upon, that treaty containing a provision that French goods entering Canada must come direct to Canadian ports to benefit from the preference. That is a beginning. It is a very small- matter compared with the British preference, but it is a principle which the government has accepted. If the government will go a step further and apply this principle to the British and all other preferential tariffs, the country will be the better. Curiously enough, I do not see such a provision in the Italian treaty. Presumably this treaty in any case would be of much less importance. Be that as .it may, I think that not only the French treaty, but also the Italian, the British and all other such treaties should contain this clause. It is a clause which is fair in every way, for no one is going to suffer but a great many wnl benefit from its inclusion in our trade treaties.
Item stands.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
[Stage Direction]
National Deft-ncr-Militia Services-Amount required to pay Cost of Living Bonus to employees of the Dominion Arsenal and others at Quebec, discharged without receiving bonus for certain periods for which it was later granted to those similarly employed and not discharged, $26,000.
Hon GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of National Defence): This is the item we discussed yesterday.
Mr. MANION:: Mr. Chairman, when I left the House a few minutes ago the committee were dealing with the railway situation and I did not know that this vote wouIdNbe taken up so soon. I wish to mention a matter relative to this item which we should all be interested in,-the employment of returned men in the various departments of the government, and particularly in the Militia department. When the boys went overseas we, as citizens, all promised to do everything we could for them when they returned, and I submit that in a general way, so far as the country is concerned, from the standpoint of

pensions and ordinary re-establishment we have done very fairly by them. At the same time I do not think that our people generally have given to the boys all that they deserve, and I certainly do not think that some of the departments of the government have.
The reason I mention this is that to-day about noon I was waited upon by a young man whom I have known quite well since coming to Ottawa. He was in the Civil Service for a long time, first of all working in this building and lately in the Militia department. I have formed a very high opinion of him. He won a distinguished conduct medal at the front and is in every way worthy of one's esteem. With a number of others he had been in the Militia department for some time, I think about a year and a half, but recently when the department found it necessary to lessen its staff he, among others, was laid*off. I am not criticizing the cutting down of the staff at all. But he claims-and I am basing my remarks on his claim because I only got his statement signed a few minutes ago and have not had time to investigate it; I have sent a messenger to my room for it and shall lay it before the minister for consideration-he claims that he and, so far as I recollect, something like forty other returned men have been discharged, although in the department there are a number of women retained who do not require to work for a living at all. For example, on the list he, as one of a committee appointed by the men handed me is the name of a lady-of course, I would not think of mentioning it here- who they state rides to her work daily in her automobile. This may or may not be true. But supposing it is true, then certainly, even if she is a permanent employee, to my mind, with all due respect to her, she should be laid off in favour of one of these returned men who risked their lives for their country overseas. I am sure the minister will agree with me in this. On the list are also included a number of young women, some married and some unmarried, and if the facts are as stated. I think they should be replaced by these returned men.
That in brief is the statement .which I wish to make, because I believe it is only just to the returned men that so far as the government is ablp, and particularly the department over which my hon. friend, the Minister of Defence, presides, it is certainly their duty to look after these returned men and especially to see that the affairs of the Militia department be handled by those who have served overseas and are capable of handling this work.

Supply-Defence
I do not say that it would be advisable to put into a responsible position any young man who would not be capable of filling it; but mention is made, for example, of a number of girls doing such work as filing, which practically any intelligent returned man can do. I suggested to this young gentleman that perhaps these women were working at lower wages than any returned man would be willing to accept, and he said that was pos-_ sible. But in any case I suggest that the government in all its departments should make a strong effort to give positions to these returned men. I well remember having pointed out to me, even when the late government was in power, cases where the daughters of well-to-do-men, men earning 15,000 or $6,000 a year, were working in certain government departments. It is possible that returned men could not be found to fill these positions, but I am sure I have the support of every member of the House when I say that positions in the government service filled by young women who do not require to work for a living, whose parents are willing and able to support them, should be given to the boys who served at the front. I am quite certain that that would be the view of the greater proportion of the people of this country. Where a young woman has been for many years in the government service and requires to work for her living, the returned soldier would be the last to suggest that she be replaced by any returned soldier; and the same would apply, perhaps, to a woman who is married and has a family to support. But if there are such cases as are mentioned in this statement, then I ask the minister, on behalf of the returned soldiers represented here, to make a personal investigation of the matter and to see that justice is done.


Mr. GRAHAM:: I agree wholly with what my hon. friend says; in fact, just what he suggests has been done. The history of every person whose name was submitted in connection with the reduction of staff was given. The instructions were that returned soldiers with fatnilies were to be first kept; second, returned soldiers without families; next, those with dependents to support. That principle has been carried out, and the returned soldier has had the benefit of the doubt in every case. I do not know who this young man is; he has not been in the service long, I imagine. But I ask my hon. friend this; if he had charge of a department in which an expert was employed, a woman with a family to support and whose husband had been killed overseas, would he give her position to a returned soldier?


Robert James Manion: I answered that question,
I think, before the minister asked it.


George Perry Graham: These things have all been taken into consideration-how to protect the returned soldier in the weeding out of the staff of the department. In fact, I have given more thought to the matter, perhaps, than I have any other phase of the work of the department. Where the services of women have been retained in the department, it has been due to their special qualifications; none have been kept who have not been in the service for many years. There are some branches in which the returned soldier does not fit; that work has to be done, and we must keep some persons on the staff to do it. It must be remembered that about a thousand have gone out of the department within the last year, and it was inevitable that some of these would be returned soldiers. They went out, however, in the order that I have mentioned. Of those who have been retained, an examination of the list will show that there are not five who have not given the assurance that the3r have a father, a mother, a sister or other dependent to support; and in many cases their sons or husbands were killed overseas. In the last few weeks, owing to the reclassification, some 193 were listed to go; and I spent days and nights in an effort to determine upon the ones that ought to be kept. After it was decided who should go, and they had practically received their notice, I recalled a large number of returned soldiers with families and told them to go on and work a while longer, because, the session being on, there was pressure for questions and that kind of thing involving extra work. Of course, anyone who is let out feels that he has a grievance, and I do not blame him. It is not a pleasure to me to reduce the staff; personally I would rather increase it. I have in mind the case of a very clever young man, a returned soldier, who is putting himself through college. He is in his last year, now, I believe; he is studying theology, if I remember correctly. He is very efficient; he starts to college next autumn, and he will have plenty of opportunity to work all the summer at more remunerative employment than he can get in the Militia department. Now, it was a case of choosing between him and the returned man with a family or with a disability, who could not earn anything anywhere else. So that if my hon. friend will look into the matter closely he will find that the utmost care has been taken in the matter. It is inevitable, of course, that in dealing with a large staff of that kind some errors should be made. I will look into this particular case.
Supply-Defence

Mr. MAN!ON: I do not question for a moment the sincerity of the minister, but this statement does not agree with the result to which he refers. 1 have tom a page from the statement and I am going to take the liberty of sending it across to the minister so that he may examine it-I will not send over the part on which the. signature of the young man appears as that would be hardly fair to him. But the page I have torn out gives a list of 12 girls and 6 men. The 0 men have not had military service, but that is beside the question for the moment. In the case of the 12 girls, he gives reasons why the committee considered they have not the right to the positions which they hold. Among. these 12 is the young lady whom I have mentioned. If the facts are correctly stated-and I am only giving them as represented to me-I hope the minister will have the matter looked into again with a view to doing justice. I know the question involves difficulties; I have been up against the same thing to a certain extent in Fort William ever since I have been a member. We have a large grain staff there. When the boys went overseas a number went from that staff, and on coming back they asked to be reinstated in their positions. But the men who have occupied the positions in question have learned more about the work, and the question becomes a very difficult one. I admit that where a person is more or less of an expert and an expert is needed, it might not be wise to replace him by someone who is not an expert.
I do find this, and in Fort William, that there is a tendency among many of those in charge- I am not speaking of the heads of the department but the sub-heads so to speak-not to give quite justice in some cases. I know that in a number of cases I have looked into I had alterations made by the late government. We even went so 'far on a number of occasions- perhaps it is questionable if we were right- as to keep on a number of men who were put on temporarily, and who otherwise would have been dropped out of their positions in the middle of winter without any work for them to get. We kept them on up to the last year or two, but of course they could not be kept on indefinitely and their services have been discontinued. I think the minister will find on looking into it, even though he may have a report that he feels is correct that in some cases favouritism may be shown and some returned men not be given notice. I am going to send this over to the minister with the request that he look into the list with reference to the facts as therein stated. fMr. Graham.!


George Perry Graham: Yes. I will put it in my pocket in the meantime.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Air Services-Purchase of new flying equipment- $250,000.
George Perry Graham: This item was allowed to stand yesterday. The hon. member for Victoria (Alta.) (Mr. Lucas) had made some comments on it, and it was thought wise that there should be some explanation before the item was passed. If hon. gentlemen will look at Hansard they will find that criticism was made by one of the staff of the air force of men being brought from Vancouver to Camp Borden, and it was suggested in his utterances that there was extravagance and that the men's time was being lost by bringing them over a long distance in order to have repairs made.
The situation is this. Until such time as repair shops can be provided in many more centres, this centralization for purposes of repair work will have to be continued. Camp Borden at the present time is the place best fitted for the performance of this work. The reorganization the flying force comes under military control rather than civil, although both kinds of flying are done. Those who were civil employees have not, of course, had the training that they are now required to have even in the matter of repairs and other work incidental to aviation. These men at the present time when extensive repairs are to be made have to go to Camp Borden, and that practice will have to be continued until such time as we are prepared to vote 5 p.m. sufficient money to establish repair shops in other parts of Canada. An item has been placed in the estimates to establish such a shop, with hangars and so forth in Winnipeg. That will reduce the cause for criticism which my hon. friend made yesterday.
Another point is this. These men who come in to the centre at Camp Borden are also given a traming which they could not otherwise get. In addition to making the repairs to the machine, they are given a certain schooling in aviation which they are required to have in order to qualify under the militia regulations. The department believes that the results are going to be good. True, the military rules are a little more stringent than the civil, and it will take a little time for the men to adjust themselves and feel that they are being given a fair chance, but when the machinery gets working and these men feel they are a part of the militia unit as they are now, it will really be all the better

Supply-D ej e nee
for them. They will be better men for their training in aviation, better at making repairs and all that kind of thing. I repeat, that until such time as we are ready to establish repair centres in different parts of Canada at a cost of a great many hundreds of thousands of dollars, this practice will have to be continued, but the situation will be relieved to some extent next year, I hope, when the centre is established at Winnipeg. That was the explanation, I think, my hon. friend wanted.


Robert James Manion: Who is the officer in charge at Camp Borden?


George Perry Graham: Colonel Barker.


Robert James Manion: How many men are there at Camp Borden at the present time?


George Perry Graham: One wing commander, two squadron leaders, nine flight lieutenants, eight flying officers, seven pilot officers, one warrant officer, ten flight sergeants, twenty-one sergeants, nineteen corporals, and eighty-five air craft men.


Robert James Manion: About one hundred and fifty altogether?


George Perry Graham: About that.


Robert James Manion: I presume there is only one medical officer in charge at Camp Borden?


George Perry Graham: Yes.


Robert James Manion: Would the minister mind telling me if there has been any special amount of sickness there in the past six months?


George Perry Graham: There has been none reported.


Robert James Manion: Has there been any severe epidemic of flu?


George Perry Graham: We have not heard anything about it.


Robert James Manion: What hospital accommodation is there for the men of the'camp?


George Perry Graham: I am informed there is a small hospital for the men at Camp Bordeu with about eight or ten beds.


Robert James Manion: That was my information, but I understood that there *was a rather severe epidemic of illness for some time during the flu outbreak in this country, and that the hospital accommodation was anything but adequate. That, of course, might easily occur, but I was going to suggest to the minister in view of that fact, if the statements made to me are correct, that perhaps it might be well to consider using another hospital building which I believe exists within about a mile of
the camp. I was told at the time of the epidemic the hospital at Camp Borden was crowded, and there were mixed cases in the hospital. That, of course, might easily occur. I do not offer it as a criticism at all, but I suggest that it might be well to look into that condition and see if it could not be arranged to use the other hospital within a mile of the camp under circumstances of that kind in future. The other building is empty at the present time, I understand.


George Perry Graham: I think that is a very proper suggestion.


Robert James Manion: Has the hon. minister any information as to the number of machines at Camp Borden and their general condition of repair in regard to flying uses?


Mr. MacLEAN:: (Prince, P.E.I.): I was wondering whether this air service warrants the expenditure being made on it. Have the aeroplanes been used successfully in carrying mails or in mail service? In Prince Edward Island we were more or less isolated for a time and a request was made for an aeroplane service. We were informed that the machines were mostly tied up or frozen in, that there were none available, that it would take some months before they could be released and put in shape to work and that the expense would be beyond all reason. Therefore, we could not reasonably ask for the expenditure. In view of these conditions, and if the aeroplane cannot be utilized for commercial purposes but can only be used for war, I was wondering whether we were justified in passing the items which are now under consideration.


George Perry Graham: As I pointed out yesterday, we have only performed commercial flying, outside of the forests, to the extent of some $770. With reference to the mail service, there is no doubt in the world that, as flying develops, Canada will do as other countries are doing, and adopt the aviation service for carrying mails, particularly the through mails. Up to date we have not. done that. A request has been made from Prince Edward Island to have an aeroplane sent down there, but it means a lot more than simply sending the aeroplane. You must have your landing place and everything in connection with it. My department figured out the cost and, as my hon. friend stated, it was found that it would be out of all proportion to the necessities. Therefore we hustled up and got the other route opened.
My hon. friend from Port Arthur (Mr. Manion) asks how many aeroplanes are at Camp Borden. The number is about seventy.
Su ppl y-Dej e nee

Mr. MANiON. Are they in a good state of repair?


George Perry Graham: Practically all will be ready for use in a few weeks.


Robert James Manion: I notice this item is for the purpose of supplying equipment. Is that $250,000 to be used at Camp Borden or in other sections of the country?


George Perry Graham: To be used mostly for forestry and survey work. We have not machines suitable, in many instances, for this work. I pointed out one case yesterday. These are amphibian machines. Some of the machines have been used for forestry protection work, and if they drop into a lake or into a forest, they have trouble getting out. We had difficulty with one or two. In addition to that, the flying equipment will be provided for the remote sections. We wish to have the service equipped with wireless, in order that the occupant of the machine can be in constant communication with the ground, so that in case of trouble he can communicate at once. That service and the other equipment will cost about $50,000.


Robert James Manion: In regard to the forestry work being done by the air department, is there co-operation between the department of the hon. minister and, say, some of these private corporations, which are now doing a certain amount of patrol work as well? The Spanish River Pulp and Paper Company do a certain amount of patrol work in the province of Ontario. In Quebec they also perform patrol work. Is co-operation between the government and these corporations carried on?


George Perry Graham: I would not say there was practical co-operation, but there is cooperation and the department is helping them with any information we can give them and everything of that kind. So far as I am concerned

but perhaps I would not have the sympathy of the House on this proposition- I am in favour of commercial aviation being in private hands, as a matter of business, rather than that we should do it, but we are glad to teach them and help them in any way we can.
Speaking of the different provinces, Ontario paid us this year $38,000 for the protection of her forests, and they think it is the best kind of protection they can have. British Columbia paid us a certain amount last year and the Minister of Lands from that province informed me yesterday they were prepared to pay us $20,000 this year. The provinces are working together. We look after forest protection for the Interior department and

we do topographical work. We surveyed the St. Lawrence for the International Joint Commission. We made inspections of the forests with a view to their protection from insects and all that kind of thing. The work this year has been very heavy, and yet we were not able to meet the demands.


Robert James Manion: I presume my hon. friend is as familiar as I am with the work of Frank Barnjum, who, at his own expense, is undertaking to educate the people and make them understand that we have not the forest reserves we thought we had. He is trying to impress us with the fact that the illimitable forest reserves which we used to speak of do not now exist to the extent we formerly believed they did and that the forest wealth still remaining constitutes one of the greatest assets of the country. We exported last year forestry products, paper and pulp, to the value of about $200,000,000. I happened to be looking up the figures recently, apd I found our exports of forest products, including paper and pulp, amounted to almost as much as all the wheat exported from the prairie provinces. That is rather a startling fact, but it is true that these forest products nearly equal the 'wheat products. So that, even if there is a certain amount of overlapping going qn by the department of the minister taking in work which probably could be done by private corporations, I think it is a very good investment for the country at the present time to expend a reasonable amount of money to assist in that work imtil the private corporations are in a position to do it themselves, because if a fire took place on the limits of private corporations, if it were confined to the property of that corporation, it might not matter, but if it should overleap the bounds of those limits and burn up a few thousand square miles of pulpwood or timber belonging to Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, or to the Dominion itself, that would be a loss to the country which the expenditure of a few thousand dollars might obviate.
I wish to take up another matter. What is the course of training given to the men at Camp Borden in regard to their work there? Is it a course of some months, or is it a course of a short period each year for a number of years? What are the terms upon which these young men are engaged?


George Perry Graham: The old scheme of instruction was for rather a limited period, and I might point out to my hon. friend that we are introducing something new' this year, of which I think he will approve. We are providing for the training of thirty young students from the different universities. WTe give them a

Supply-Defence
training; all through the summer at a nominal cost. I believe in that way we shall have added to the flying forces of the country, perhaps, the most intelligent men we can get. 1 hat is a new method; but the universities seem to be pleased with it; I have no doubt we shall have the full thirty, -and we could have more than thirty if we so desired. They will be given the regular instruction on aviation, together with military training, the first year and then progress, because likely the same men will come back another year. We look to evolve a force of very intelligent flying men in that way.


Mr. BOYS:: Owing to the fact that I reside near Camp Borden and have a personal knowledge of the matters under discussion, it would not be amiss if I were to take up just a few moments in referring to this subject. The hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion) asked the minister regarding an outbreak of flu. I, of course, have not been at home since the House opened; but I think I can safely say that had there been anything of a serious nature there, I would have heard of it, and I can only say that I have not heard of it. There were formerly two medical/lnen there; but the numbers at the camp were greatly reduced, and as far as I know there is only one medical man there at the present time. I have made it my business on many trips to Camp Borden to inquire into various things that I felt I should know and that naturally I was interested in, and I have never heard complaints that there has not been sufficient hospital accommodation. If, however, owing to an outbreak, the building now used for that purpose was found to be insufficient, I should like to say to the members of this committee that one of the features of Camp Borden is that at a very nominal cost the department secured these buildings which were originally constructed by the Imperial authorities when the Royal Air Force was in occupation. There are any number of suitable buildings which could be used in case of an outbreak of that kind, and these buildings would hardly require a dollar spent on them. They are well constructed, and are all together, and there could be no serious trouble resulting from insufficient hospital accommodation. I doubt very much whether there is anything in the suggestion that there was a serious outbreak at Camp Borden. If there was, the officers there could easily take the matter in hand, and within a stone's throw, I venture to say, they could find a suitable building of ample accommodation, to which building they could move.
Another feature in connection with, the equipment that has been referred to is this. If the figures we were given in my home town, Barrie, were correct, between eight and ten million dollars worth of equipment was presented to this country by the Imperial authorities after the war. This equipment came to Camp Borden in carload lots, and it did not cost this country a cent of money, except possibly some transportation charges. Hence, the plant is undoubtedly extensive there and also up-to-date, I am led to believe. Apart from assembling, transportation charges and the percentage that was paid by Canada for these extensive buildings constructed by the Imperial authorities, we are getting ail this for nothing. I would think, before the department seriously considers establishing new plants, they would make very sure that they are going to save money by so doing, because there is no question there is ample room for expansion at Camp Borden.
If possible, I would like the minister to verify the figures I have given regarding the equipment which came out from England and which was presented to Canada, and, if it is not amiss, I should be glad to know what was paid. I have heard different figures mentioned. I heard it suggested first that the buildings at Camp Borden were offered to the Canadian Department of Militia at fifty cents on the dollar. I heard later that the figure was reduced to 25 cents on the dollar and that is, as a matter of fact, what was paid. I do not know whether this information is private. If it is, I do not want to pry into it. But if it is not, it might interest the members of this committee to know that these buildings were secured at this small figure. In any event, I am quite certain they were secured at a substantial reduction. When the hon. member for East Hamilton (Mr. Mew-burn) was minister, the matter was then under consideration, and I cannot say whether it was under his regime or that of the hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) that the actual deal was made. If it is proper to get the information, I should be glad to get it now.
I can only say, in conclusion, that if a.ny members of this House have an opportunity of visiting Camp Borden, they should do so. They will find there one of the finest camps in existence. I have heard that from men who have seen the finest camps in the world. There is everything there. The property was acquired by this country at twelve dollars an acre, and I doubt very much if any deal was ever put through by the government of Canada where property was ac-
Supply-Defence

quired at so low a rate as was Camp Borden. You have abundance of opportunity for artillery practice. You have the buildings for anything you want to go into. You have no end of cement pavements. You have a wonderful sewage system. You have the finest water you can get anywhere in this country. Two or three artesian wells, eight inches in diameter, supply this water. There is practically everything that could be wanted at that camp. The only thing I could criticize is the matter I mentioned to the minister yesterday. The approaches there are not what they should be; they are not fair either to the men or to the public who are interested in the camp and who have a right to visit it. The cost of this improvement would be only a nominal matter; these approaches should be made right, and if that is done, we have at Camp Borden as complete a camp as could be wanted by anybody.


George Perry Graham: I am speaking from memory now. Those buildings were acquired at a comparatively small cost to the country. It might be said that they are temporary and that to keep them in a state of repair would cost a good deal of money. The estimated value of the equipment sent across is, I am informed, considerably nearer $5,000,000 than $10,000,000. It must, however, be remembered that one of the difficulties in assembling the machines and engines is that one part may have to be taken from one machine and another from another, and we have reached almost the limit in connection with that.


Mr. KENNEDY (Edmonton):: How much of Canada's forest area is patrolled by the air force?


George Perry Graham: About 300,000 square
miles.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: How many different stations are there in Canada that are doing this kind of work, and where are they located?


George Perry Graham: Vancouver, High River,
Camp Borden. There are three in Manitoba: Victoria Beach, Norway House and The Pas. In Ontario there are stations at Parry Sound, Whitby and Camp Borden. There is a station at Roberval in Quebec, and one at Dartmouth in Nova Scotia.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: Is there any possibility of extending this work to northern Alberta? There is an immense quantity of forest area in northern Alberta as compared with southern Alberta. I do not know whether it is possible or not to patrol the northern
rMr. Boys.]
area from High River; but in any case I would like to know if it is possible to extend this work.


George Perry Graham: The department would be delighted to do this, and as I pointed out yesterday, more money will have to be expended in this branch as it develops. We have been thinking of two or three matters, one of them the very question submitted by my hon. friend. We are hoping that another year we shall be in a position to ask with confidence for a good deal more money so that we can extend the service. Our service has now reached the limit of its capacity.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: What work does this air force do? Does it merely discover fires, or has it some means of fighting them after they are located?


George Perry Graham: In Alberta the service is one of fire detection.
Item agreed to


POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT
[Stage Direction]
Post Office-mail service, $14,740,000.
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Acting Postmaster-General):	This is for the outside service. It will be seen that in this estimate all told there is an apparent increase of $778,641.50. But from that amount there must be deducted $399,932. I will explain this. Last year an item of $485,000 was not included in the Post Office estimates as the Postmaster General understood that the Department of Trade and Commerce carried this service. However, it has been discovered this year that this is not the case, and the Postal department carried the service last year, paying that amount out of the railway vote, the cost of the railway transportation of mails being reduced approximately by that amount. This year the amount is included, but the railway item is not in. So that the real increase is not $778,000 odd but $408,000 practically.
Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: V7hat service is the minister speaking about? There is shown here an increase of some $308,000.


George Perry Graham: We are discussing the ocean mail service.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It is not here.


George Perry Graham: It is called "steamboat service".


Henry Lumley Drayton: I cannot find it.


George Perry Graham: It appears on page 65, "mail service".

Supply-Post Office


Henry Lumley Drayton: Does the minister say that the amount he has referred to was not in last year?


George Perry Graham: The sum of $485,000 was dropped last year and we are including it in the estimates this year. It was dropped because the Postmaster General was under the impression that the service for which the money is needed was carried on by the Department of Trade and Commerce.


Henry Lumley Drayton: But where is it to be found now? Looking at the mail service at page 65 I do not find any item of $485,000. Probably I am not reading the item properly.


George Perry Graham: That amount is included in the item, and I was explaining the difference between the item as it appears this year and as it was in the estimates last year. This amount I have mentioned is only a part of the item. There is an increase in the item "mail service by steamboat" of $508,847.50 this year, and of that increase $485,000, as I have explained, is an amount that was not included in the estimates last year and for which we are asking this year.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Was it in the estimates of 1922?


George Perry Graham: It was in the estimates of 1921-22 but was dropped in 1922-23 and therefore there was a proportionate decrease last year.


Mr. CHURCH:: This is one of the departments of the public service upon which I think the country can congratulate itself. This is the only opportunity afforded hon. members to offer some constructive suggestions in regard to the present postal service, especially the outside service, and I shall take occasion now to refer briefly to some matters which I consider important. In England, in the United States, and in Australia the governments have restored the pre-war postage with the result that there has been a large increase in business. I do not think that there is anything that retards the growth of a country and hinders its trade and commerce more than the imposition of high postal rates. The report of the Postmaster General of Canada discloses the fact that the Canadian people are being taxed through the postal service and that the surplus revenue over expenditure for 1920 was over $3,000,000. The postal rate in Canada was three cents prior to 1897 when deficits were being rolled up every year in the Post Office Department. Sir William Mulock then introduced the two-cont rate, and although
the deficit was not converted into a surplus at once, nevertheless in 1902 a surplus was secured which has increased year by year, unbroken even by the war. I may remark, also, that in the United States the war tax on postage has been dropped and a great increase in the postal service of that country has resulted. The boards of trade and chambers of commerce encouraged the government, and while it was thought that the reduced rate would not be satisfactory there was a huge surplus last year; and I observe from the bulletin of the National City Bank, an important corporation, that this reduction has done more than anything else in the United States to restore confidence in business not only of the retail men but of the wholesalers and of the farming community as well. The same thing has been the experience of the Mother Country. A tax on the postal service of a country is a great discouragement to trade and commerce and the British Postmaster General has brought down an elaborate statement this year in which he reckons upon a surplus of over $46,000,000 for the current year, of which $37,500,000 will be devoted to a reduction of post office charges including postal rates overseas as well as domestic postage particularly. With that surplus they are not only giving the staff higher salaries but they are reducing the postal rates to other parts of the Empire.
In regard to postal receipts, I need not refer to the city which I have the honour to represent, for its pre-eminence in volume of postal and customs business is well known. Yet although the postal receipts reach the huge total of over $5,000,000 we cannot get a new post office. I would commend to the government the example of Sir William Mulock, who with his courage and foresight reduced postal rates and made the Post Office Department a paying institution, converting its recurring deficits into surpluses year after year. It must be remembered that this is a department of government in which the people are very closely interested for they are directly benefited by low rates of postage. It may be said that to reduce our postage rates to the pre-war basis will mean a loss of revenue, but, Mr. Chairman, I predict that as in the United States and England such a great volume of increased business will follow lower rates of postage that still greater surpluses will result.
To-day the Post Office Department is doing splendid work and its officials throughout the country have the confidence of everyone and by their devotion to duty notwithstanding the comparatively small salaries they receive they have given us a demonstration of the success of public ownership. I would urge the gov-

Supply-Post Office

ernment to go further and, like the British Postmaster General, extend the scope of the operations of the post office. Por example, in England the Postmaster General is utilizing some of the surplus on the installation of radio equipment, better rural mail delivery and the reduction of the rates on all kinds of postal matter including drop letters. Undoubtedly the time has come when we too should reduce the rate on such letters.
I have before me a statement of the postal receipts by cities for the past twenty years, and in view of the large receipts from the city of Toronto I would ask the hon. minister if something cannot be done now towards providing a new post office building which is so badly needed. True, we have a post office in the new union station, but a new central postal building is immediately necessary.
By a courageous and foresighted policy on the part of the Post Office Department, such as the reduction of postal rates to the prewar basis, business will be encouraged and stimulated, better wages will be possible for the post office employees, and the Dominion generally will be benefited. Such a policy I am confident will command itself to the wisdom and judgment not only of the three parties in this House but of the country at large.


George Perry Graham: Mr. Chairman, taxes are unwelcome anywhere. In the realm of finance I would not care to trespass without having consultation with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding), and I am not sure that he would, without a good deal of consideration, consent to our dropping this form of taxation-because that is what it is, taxation on behalf of war expenditures. It is quite true, as my hon. friend says, that what was done some years ago led to an increase rather than to a decrease in the revenue of the Post Office Department, but whether a similar course should be adopted now is a matter for consideration.
I can assure my hon. friend that the Postmaster General (Mr. Murphy) has been talking very frankly on many occasions to the Minister of Public Works (Mr. King) to the end of securing further postal buildings in the city of Toronto. Not being Postmaster General, perhaps I can talk more freely on this subject. It does seem to me that a big centre like the city of Toronto in which such a large volume of postal and customs business is conducted should have facilities of the very best for the carrying on of such business. However, that is a matter for discussion. I can assure my hon. friend that I will report what he has

said to the Minister of Public Works and the government for consideration.
My hon. friend referred to the salaries of, I imagine, our letter-earners and so forth. In this connection he will be interested to learn that the Post Office Department has inaugurated a new system which will be of some benefit to the department itself and will give permanent employment to men -who heretofore have had but temporary employment. For instance, taking the city of Toronto, during what I might term rush seasons, or when the permanent employees were absent, quite a number of men were employed to fill their places temporarily, their services of course being dispensed with when the regular employees returned to duty. Under the new system instead of having the employees take their holidays .within a limited period they will now be extended over ten months of the year, so that temporary employees who are looking after the duties of those absent will have constant employment. That is one reason for the increase in the estimates this year.


William Alves Boys: I should like to take this opportunity of saying a word in behalf of, in my opinion, the most underpaid branch of any service of the government, namely, our rural mail carriers. For perhaps four or five years there has been an agitation conducted on behalf of these men. Something has been accomplished for them, but very little. I well remember in 1919 a change was made, and at that time I interested myself to the best of my ability in their behalf, believing that they were absolutely entitled to consideration. At that time it is true that prices were rising, and as many of these men had entered into their contracts when the prices of oats, horseshoeing and other things incidental to their work were not so high, they found themselves in a very awkward position, being bound by contracts on which they were losing money and from which there was no escape for four years. They pressed for improved conditions, and I should like now to put upon Hansard a letter which I then wrote on their behalf and which, while not altogether appropriate at the moment, is so in the main. I still express the hope that the amendment I then urged upon the Postmaster General may still be introduced, together with another change in the system to which I shall refer later. My letter to the Postmaster General bears date the 11th September 1919 and is as follows:
Dear Sir,-Pursuant to our conversation I am writing you on behalf of a numb'er of rural mail carriers who made complaint to me that they cannot make a living on the remuneration they receive, and in my opinion their contention is unanswerable.

Supply-Post Office
Many of them receive from $500 to $700 a year, and for this they have to keep up either one or two horses, buggy, cutter and harness, or motor, and while not working all day are nevertheless on the road every day but. Sunday, rain or shine. I have asked the Superintendent to authorize a reasonable increase but he tells me he cannot; and I understand nothing can be done except cancel the contracts and call for new tenders.
I would like to suggest that the act be amended giving the Postmaster General power to grant a reasonable increase in proper cases. The amendment might provide that no contract should be reconsidered which has not been in force for at least one year. It might further provide that no increase exceeding say $100 or $150 a year, at the outside, should be made without new tenders. In my opinion such an amendment would save the department a large sum of money each year so long as prices continue upward.
It may be argued that the carrier is treated fairly if the contract, which he finds onerous, is cancelled, but that is not so in many cases, for he has his equipment which involves an outlay of from $250 to $500,-
These figures are very moderate; perhaps they should have been a great deal higher.
-and rather than sacrifice it he plugs on dissatisfied and disgruntled, and pours out his woes to all on his route, and they join the shout, knowing beyond question that he has in many cases, just cause to complain.
When one stops to reflect what a street car conductor or city postman receives,-
I would like the minister to understand that I am not offering any criticism of what they do receive; I merely refer to their case for the purposes of comparison.
-or when a comparison is made with the salary or wages paid in almost any line of business, the rural mail carrier is found to be in a class by himself.
I mentioned that the amendment asked for would save the department a large annual outlay. This will be explained by reference to many cases with which the superintendent is familiar, where a reasonable increase of say $75 to $150 has been asked and refused for want of authority, and in the end the new contract price has involved an increase far exceeding the amount which the carrier asked, and the expense of advertising has to be added as well.
I am not directing attention to recent contracts but to those made 18 months or more ago.
I sincerely trust something may be done at this session.
Sincerely yours,
(Sgd.) W. A. Boys.
What I suggest to the minister, and what I press upon him for consideration, is an amendment to give the Postmaster General the power to make increases in the remuneration of rural mail carriers of from $100 to $150, putting upon it whatever limit the minister thinks proper. Let us just consider the question for a moment. We find there is a contract in existence. The carrier has satisfied those on the route. He has his equipment; he has been doing the work for four years; nobody wants a change. So far as I know, the department is willing to renew the contract if the carrier will continue at the same rate, but if he is able to show that he should have some increase, even only to the
113i
extent of $25, the minister now has no power to award the contract on that basis to the man who has been doing the work satisfactorily and who has the equipment for properly carrying it out. It must be readvertised at considerable cost, and I venture to say that in most cases the lowest of the new tenders received far exceeds the old rate plus the small increase that the carrier asked for. It may be objected that to give the minister that power would place upon him or upon his superintendent a responsibility that he should not undertake. If the suggestion involved $500 or $600 per contract, I could give way to that thought, but when it is limited to $100 or $150 it seems to me that that objection is not sufficient to stand in the way.
At the time that letter was written, as I have said, a change was made; the contract was cancelled at the request of a man who claimed he was losing money, and he was let out. That was the extent of the relief he got.
Now, time has not improved matters. The work of the carrier has been increased. He now has to handle registered letters; he has to sell stamps; he has to take care of the parcel post. His responsibility is greater. The public enjoy this service; I believe it is the best thing that was ever done for the farming community and even if an improved system did cost a little more the farmers are entitled to it and should have it. They appreciate it, but as they use it more constantly they naturally become a little more exacting and look for greater efficiency. The demands made upon every carrier are therefore greater, but the remuneration remains practically the same. Let us make a comparison or two. What is the system in vogue in the United States? There they adopt the uniform system of $75 a mile, and the position is a permanent one so long as the work is properly performed. Why should not some such system be adopted here? The only objection I have heard to it is that there is a variation in the routes; one route is harder than another, and for that reason such a basis of remuneration might not work out fairly. Well, it must work out fairly in the United States or they would not have adopted it there. It is true that upon some routes the roads are better than upon others, but as a rule where you have these better roads you have a more congested population and more work for the carrier to do. From there you go to the routes where the roads are not as good and where the carrier has less work to do, so that one condition would counterbalance the other. I suggest, therefore, the consideration of a rate per mile for this service. I am not saying what it

*
Supply-Post Office
should be; that is a matter for the department itself.
Again, comparing what the rural mail carrier gets, with what the city carrier gets I understand that the salary of the city carrier runs from $1,335 and upwards per year. They receive clothes; they get three weeks' holidays; they get ten legal holidays, and they get bonuses. The rural mail carrier works six days in the week, every week in the year, rain or shine. He has to provide himself, I venture to say, with two horses on every route that runs over 15 or 16 miles, and the average length of route, I am told, is 20 miles. I do not think any carrier can cover a route of 20 miles every day in the week except Sunday unless he has two horses; in the summer time, as a rule, he has a motor. He does not get a single holiday. He does not get the three weeks that the city carrier does, or the legal holidays, or the clothes, and no bonus or help of any kind. The average pay of the rural carrier in Ontario is $816 a year, or $2.60 per day; the average in the Dominion is $7o0, or $2.39 per day. So far as I know, the lowest wage of a labouring man, who is even provided with a shovel, is from $3 to $4 per day. But the mail carriers have to provide their own equipment and perform the service from day to day without holidays; and they cannot get people to relieve them. Surely they are entitled to- consideration.
It may be said in reply that if any mail carrier wants to quit or if his contract expires and the position is advertised, you can find somebody who is ready to take his place. I ask: Is there a single office in the gift of the government-and I make no exceptions in respect to which, upon its being vacated and the position advertised, the place of the occupant of that office could not be filled for less money than he is getting? But after all, is that the proper test? I admit that when these contracts are re-advertised, in some cases-by no means in all-you can find men who are ready and willing to perform the service for the same money, in some cases even for less. When they undertake it, they do not know what they are up against; they take a chance on it and as a result the public suffers. I think that in this service as in all other branches of the government departments we want to secure efficiency, if possible, and the reasons given, I think, answer the tender and contract suggestion. I urge, therefore, in all sincerity, that some change should be made.


Thomas Langton Church: Make it the union rate of wages.


William Alves Boys: My hon. friend makes a suggestion about the union rate of wages. Well, we find that method creeping in everywhere. I am not making an appeal on that ground at all. I am making it on the ground of merit, and the gross underpay which, if continued must lead to inefficiency. Why should the work of these men and their responsibilities be increased from year to year and no extra remuneration be given? How can you get men to do the work properly and satisfactorily if they feel they are underpaid, if they feel that another man performing the same service a few miles away from them is getting more? A man may take a contract at forty or fifty dollars for four years supplying bondsmen. He may have taken it too cheap. Perhaps a month or so afterwards he finds a carrier about ten miles distant is getting sixty or seventy dollars. These are not dreams. I know carriers in my own riding where there is a great difference in the renumeration of the men, but no difference in the work they perform, no difference in the routes they travel. Now to satisfy these men I would suggest that they be put upon a par. If the country cannot stand what is being paid in the United States, $75 a mile, perhaps it should be made less. I do not know for certain what the carriers themselves are urging upon the government, but I have heard it placed at $70. It seems to me that that can be gone into, and when it is gone into a reasonable allowance can be made.
I see it is nearly six o'clock and I do not feel that anything can be gained by asking that the House should now rise, because I think I have said concisely all, at all events that I can think of. It does seem to me that the reasons I have advanced are reasons which should commend themselves to the sympathetic consideration of the department. I am glad to know that the matter is in the hands of the Acting Postmaster General, the Minister of Militia. I believe him to be a reasonable man, a man always open to persuasion so long as your arguments are good. How can anyone suggest for a moment that these men should go on doing this work for $2.50 or $2.60 a day when carriers in the city whose hours are no longer, I think, get practically double the pay and do not have a horse or motor to keep up, and in addition are provided with clothes and get the holidays I have referred to? How can you expect efficiency from rural carriers under such circumstances? They have to go out in the morning and break their own roads in the winter quite frequently, and they are criticized if they do not manage to get

Supply-Post Office
through, because the people who are expecting their mail are dissatisfied if the carrier does not arrive on time with the mail. I have no doubt the minister's office is full of letters of criticism when as a matter of fact the carrier could not get through on account of bad roads. Nevertheless some of those living upon the route are dissatisfied and make their complaints.
In conclusion, I would most earnestly urge these matters upon the attention of the department. I know they have been pressed by the carriers themselves, but like everything else I suppose it requires a little extra pressure to make the change. I think the time is now ripe for the consideration of a change which will give these men a rate of pay commensurate with the importance of the work they are doing and with the responsibilities they have to assume.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: How much of the amount voted last year under the heading " Mail service by railway, $7,899 " was earned and paid to the Canadian National system and the Canadian Pacific Railway respectively?


George Perry Graham: I am sorry I have not that information for my hon. friend. I will give the House the general policy of the Post Office Department. As Acting Minister of Railways, I would like to carry all the mails on the Canadian National; as Acting Postmaster General I may say the policy is to use as far as possible the Canadian National lines, but the general policy is to use the most expeditious means of transportation, the getting of the mails to their destination promptly being the chief characteristic of this service.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: Does the
minister know of territory in Canada which is served by both systems where the service is practically the same and where the privately owned railway gets the mail contract?


George Perry Graham: I would not go so far as to say that, but where the Canadian Pacific steamer brings the mail across the ocean, it expedites the service of the Canadian Pacific steamer to give its own mail .train that is waiting there on its own track the carrying of the mail, and this mail would be carried to all parts of Canada on the Canadian Pacific rail wav.


William Findlay Maclean: Has the Canadian Pacific Railway the contract, or is there any contract between the railways and the Post Office Department for the carrying of the mail?


George Perry Graham: There is no contract. The Post Office Department pays the railways for the space used.


William Findlay Maclean: And they can select the trains for them?


George Perry Graham: Yes.


Mr. ELLIOTT (Waterloo):: Just before the recess I was pleased to hear the remarks ot the hon. member on my right (Mr. Boys) with regard to the position of the rural mail service carriers in the Dominion of Canada. I think the remarks which he made fit the situation absolutely. In my constituency I have had numerous complaints from rural mail carriers as to the payments they receive and with regard to other matters, especially dealing with the contract system. That system, as it is carried on is, to my mind, a very vicious one. It gives us a class of public servants that are very poorly paid. In fact it works out very much like this; that the cheap men, or the men who will work for a low wage, irrespective of their ability to do the work, are the men who get the contracts. We find that the average mileage which the rural mail carriers cover in the Dominion is about 19i miles, for which service they receive in the neighbourhood of $42 per mile. I think no one here will argue that that is adequate pay for the work they do. They have great expense to bear. For instance, they have to provide a suitable rig for the purpose, they have to maintain that rig, and we all know that it is a very difficult and costly matter to maintain a rig which is on the road during the summer months and travelling on all kinds of roads. That amounts to a very considerable portion of their work. Then they have a horse to maintain. They have to get blacksmithing done, furnish their harness, and pay for the feed of the horse and it amounts to a very large sum, so that these men do not get a living wage. Making a comparison of the wages of the two classes, the position of the rural mail carriers is very much worse than the position of the city letter carriers. The average wage for the city letter carrier is $1,335 per year. I do not, wish to be understood as saying that these men are getting too much; in fact, I think they are not, but when you compare the compensation, the comparison is not favourable to the rural mail carrier. I think the government should take
Supply-Post Office

this question into consideration. I am satisfied that the poorest paid body of men in the whole government employ are the rural mail carriers. I think the time has arrived when we should improve the postal ^service of the Dominion. I understand the postal department had quite a surplus last year-the only department in the government that showed a surplus-and I think it is up to the postal department to improve the postal facilities as soon as possible. We find there has been practically no money spent for a good many years, owing to the war and other causes on the post offices throughout the Dominion. In view of the fact that we have a surplus on hand at the present time, the government owes it to the public to take steps immediately to introduce a better system of post offices that will meet the needs of the people of Canada in this regard.
Is it the intention of the government to continue the bonus to the letter carriers during the coming year?


George Perry Graham: I think the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance has an estimate now before the House for the continuation of the bonus as it was last year or approximately so. All classes that were covered in the former year will be covered this year.
As regards the wages of the mail carriers in the country, of course they are not paid wages. These are not men working by the day or the month; they are contractors; they are given the rate which they tender for themselves. I am not a great lover of the tender system in many ways. Of course I would probably stand almost alone if I were to get up in this House and state that we should do away with the tender system. I would not go that far because this system is a protection; but in some of our services at least, I know money is not made by adhering rigidly to the tender system. It, however, seems to ensure more than any other system the protection of the public. These men are contractors, and while some of them are pretty poorly paid, that is to a large extent their own fault, because they tender for these services and they sign a contract. Moreover, a contractor has to give a bond to ensure that he will do his work, and if he does not do his work properly, the bond is forfeited. The question is worthy of discussion; but we do not want to get mixed up in our minds mail carriers in the cifies and towns with mail carriers in the country. In the cities mail carriers devote all their time to this work, and they are paid so much as civil servants. In the country many of them are not occupy-

ing all their time in this work; they do other work as well, and they are doing this work at a price fixed by themselves and not by the department at all.
I have a great deal of sympathy in regard to the small rate at which many of these men perform their work; but supposing we took the view of the hon. member for Sim-coe (Mr. Boys). At the present time, as the law stands, any contract, the amount of which is over 8200, can be renewed at that figure; but if it be increased, new tenders must be asked. Supposing it were left to the minister to increase a tender, would not hon. gentlemen detect quite a line of patronage in that? Would not the minister, whoever was in power, be accused of exercising patronage? Bill Smith says: "I will do this work for $700." The minister's friend is carrying the mail, and the. minister would hav? power, if we were to change the act, to give the contract to Tom Jones for $100 more. Thus the question is surrounded with difficulties. This would afford the minister an opportunity to exercise patronage for his friends, and perhaps the House, when it came to consider the matter, would not think it wise to give him that power. How else would you fix this? The hon. member for Simcoe says: "Pay so much a mile." The system in the United States is different from ours, because to begin with they are far advanced over us on the question of good roads, and a mile is a mile in a large portion of the United States because their roads are practically all good. Supposing we took nineteen or twenty miles of road that is clay, and we have a mileage rate of so much for the mail carrier. The man on the clay road will get the worst of the deal, when he has to traverse the route in the fall or spring. Then there are sections of Canada where horses are not used in the winter. In sections that are comparatively small automobiles are used. In the riding that I represent, the mail carriers for the most part use automobiles; the roads are good, and mileage in the greater portion of my riding would be on an equal basis. But where our roads are as they are in the Dominion, some good, some bad, the latter predominating, it would be most difficult to fix a mileage rate that would be applicable to all parts of Canada.
Personally I would like to see the mail carriers better paid; but will somebody tell me just how that can be worked out without giving the government of the day patronage that perhaps hon. gentlemen would not think- they ought to have? Of course at the present time this would be perfectly safe; but there might come a time when it would not be as safe,

Supply-Post Office
17S5
and I want to protect the country for the future, even if it does not need protection for the present. Is there a better way of working this out than the system of asking for tenders? We might make some variation in the act; but any such variation allowing the minister more latitude than he has at present would, as I said before, place in his hands a weapon of patronage. The matter is worth considering; but working it out in detail to the satisfaction of parliament, much less the people, would not, I am afraid, be an easy task.


Mr. EVANS:: Is anything proposed to be done regarding facilities in the city that I represent, namely, Saskatoon? Some years ago work was begun upon the construction of a new building, but that was abandoned. The building they are using at the present time has never been finished. Three years ago an order was given out for that to be completed, two more storeys to be added, and this would have given adequate room for the time. Nothing, however, has yet been done, and it is time that some better facilities were provided for that city. They are trying to find room in other offices throughout the city, while they might get the accommodation in our building if it were completed.


George Perry Graham: We must not forget that these public buildings are all in the hands of the Public Works department. While the fault is not that of the Post Office Department, and I will not say it is that of the Public Works department, the Post Office Department is anxious to have all these buildings completed and in the best shape possible. Owing to financial conditions the Public Works department is frozen up, and we have not been able to get everything done that we would like to have done. The Post Office department, of course, will keep urging all these improvements, and finally, I think, we shall get some of them made. In my riding I have a corner lot in one of the most beautiful towns of the country, and this corner lot, which is owned by the government, is simply asking for a new building. There seems, however, to be no response from the Public Works department. As Acting Postmaster General I have been urging that department to acquiesce in my request, both as the acting minister and as fhe member, to put a long-expected building on that comer. But, to be frank, I must say I have so far failed.


William Alves Boys: I listened with considerable interest to the answer of the minister to the suggestions that have been made and I noted his reference to patronage. I hope he will
not object to the proffered confidence which I was willing to repose in him and his department in this connection. I do not think it would be misplaced; at least, I trust not. Now, I do not think his argument will bear investigation, although to a very slight extent perhaps he is right. I would ask him to bear in mind that in the first instance the contract is let by tender, so that the situation we would have to deal with would arise when the contract expired at the end of the four-year period. The minister or his superintendent would then be confronted with a request on behalf of the particular carrier for an increase, and I have suggested that the increase should be limited. I would say that it should not exceed at the outset $150, or perhaps $100. But with that very slight increase a carrier could be satisfied. It would not be patronage, because he got his contract in the first instance by competition in which he was the successful tenderer. For my part I would be perfectly willing to trust either the acting minister or any minister or superintendent to do what is fair to the extent I mention, and that would obviate the necessity of advertising. The carrier would have to show reasons why there should be an increase and I am satisfied that the country would save money if that course were followed. The only argument advanced by the minister against an even rate per mile for the service as between the United States and Canada is that in the United States the roads are more uniform and are better than in Canada. I do not agree with him there. Perhaps he has seen more of the roads in the United States than I have, but I may observe that I have travelled over a number of them. I am ready to admit that the state roads in many of the states are superior to any rural roads we have, but these routes do not go over the state roads only, they form a very limited part of the mileage of the United States; and on the side roads I want to tell the minister that from the limited experience I have had in travelling in the United States, the side roads there are worse than they are in Canada.


George Perry Graham: I keep off the side roads when I am across the line.


William Alves Boys: That may be, but unfortunately we have a lot of farmers living on the side roads in Canada and if. is on their behalf that I appeal, because they must be served. I had the pleasure of spending a little time in Florida last January and travelled over a good many roads there, and I can say that the roads in my hon. friend's county and in my own are vastly superior to the roads I travelled in that Btate. There are many roads
Supply-Post Office

in other states, too, in which I have been that certainly are not superior to the country roads in Canada, at least so far as I know. Of course, as I say, I am excluding the state roads, which are of cement and are therefore first class. Now, the answer the minister makes in this connection is the only one he offers, and I do not think it will hold water. The minister makes the old suggestion that this work should be done by tender, but that should not be the final test. Suppose a mail carrier in the city should be unable to continue. If you are to adopt that policy-, why not advertise for someone to take his place? You would be flooded with applications from men who would do the work fairly well for a great deal less than the man is getting now. The figure quoted is SI,335 with clothes and the holidays referred to, and it would be the simplest matter to find a number of people to do this work, I venture to say for two-thirds of this amount. But that is not the only consideration. Efficiency must enter into the question; and if you want efficiency in the rural service you must offer the men more money. As I said before, the farming community are entitled to this service; and indeed they are delighted with it; it is the best thing that has been donoi I want to urge the minister therefore to keep up the standard of the service. Do not let it be depreciated by some of the methods that have been followed. We know what those methods are. Now, I am not criticizing the minister at all in saying this, because the idea is to get things done as reasonably as possible. At the same time, I do not approve of the methods. Tenders are called for; they are received and are considered too high. An inspector then goes to the locality and he not only goes to those who have tendered and does his best to bring them down, but having the benefit of the information the tenders disclose, he scours the country to find someone who will do the work for less. Finally he gets some man who really does not realize what is before him, and perhaps in a moment when he is pressed for work he undertakes the service. The carrier who has been doing it before and doing it properly, being fully equipped, and whose son perhaps has been helping him, finds all his equipment left on his hands. If you get down to an even basis per mile you will overcome that trouble, because a man will get the work at a fair price and he understands that he can retain the job if he does his work properly, but not otherwise. Surely under these conditions you would get better results. If what I Bay about the American roads is right, that answers
fMr. Bovs.l
the argument advanced by the minister; and they must find that Bystem satisfactory in the United States or they would not continue it there. If therefore it is satisfactory in the United States I do not see why it should not be satisfactory in Canada.


George Perry Graham: They have a deficit of $60,000,000 there.


William Alves Boys: Well, the United States is a large country. I was going to ask the minister another question but I will not do sc now because I do not want to detain an hon. gentleman who I see desires to speak. I will put the question, and perhaps in the meantime the information could be looked up. I wanted to find out what proportion of the item under consideration is required for rural mail service. The item as it appears in the estimate is "for mail service by ordinary land conveyance, including rural mail delivery." I should like if possible to have these items separated and to ascertain, for the last three or four years at all events, what the rural mail service has cost the country, to what extent the cost is increasing, and whether it is increasing because of higher contract prices or because of the establishment of more routes.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: I asked the minister a little while ago about the contracts given to the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian National and he said he had not the information. Can he give that information now?


George Perry Graham: I am not in a position to give that information at the moment. It would require research into all the mail carrying accounts of the department. The accounts for the last three months are not in yet.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: With regard to the other question, the minister said that the Canadian Pacific Railway had some of the mail contracts-I refer to the steamship lines-and that they gave the mail to their own railway in Canada. Why is that necessary? I do not think a private company owning the Canadian National railways and having mail to carry all over the country would hand the business over to a competing concern, and I do not see why the country should do it.


George Perry Graham: This is a very large question. I might say that the Canadian Pacific Railway is perhaps the biggest taxpayer in Canada, and it is possible to my mind that we could make it embarrassing for the Canadian Pacific if we started out on certain lines. These two great roads are necessary for the building up of the country. Speaking frankly.

Supply-Post Office
we want to treat our Canadian National Railways as a business concern which will get business on its merits from the public of Canada. My hon. friend asks me a question. The Canadian Pacific Railway has its own ships, docks and sidings to its own docks. Its trains back up to its own docks and take cargo from its own ships. That is natural. To transfer that cargo to the Canadian National Railways somewhere else would take time, and if that were done in the case of mails my hon. friend would not perhaps get his mail until forty-eight hours after the time he gets it now, or twenty-four hours to put it at the lowest. While, as Acting Minister of Railways, I should like to get everything for the Canadian National Railways, at the same time we have to deal with the question of mails from the point of view of the interest of all the people of Canada, and with a view to expediting business as well as of endeavouring to get freight for the Canadian National Railways.


Mr. STANSELL:: I should like to add a
word to what has been said on behalf of our rural mail carriers. It is not sufficient to say that this is an old question that crops up every year, or that we have a system of contract which must be the best simply because we have it. The fact that these complaints recur periodically show that the system is not what it should be. And undoubtedly these complaints will continue until the system is put on a better and fairer basis than obtains at the present time.
I represent a rural district and am familiar with the conditions under which these mail carriers work. I have taken considerable pains to go over their rounds with them and to estimate approximately what they are getting for the work performed. In two or three cases a few years ago, with the help of the department here, some of these men were released from their contracts under which they were unable to make a living, and allowed to tender again on a somewhat improved basis. But since the conclusion of the war this practice has not been continued.
I entirely agree with what has been said by the two hon. members who have so ably dealt with this subject, but I want to add my view of why the contract system does not work out satisfactorily as applied to the carrying of our rural mail. This is another case where theory is very beautiful but fails to work out in practice. The reason is that ordinarily any government work done under the contract system appeals to a class of business men who know exactly the conditions under which they are tendering. But our
rural mail service is a comparatively new service and appeals only to a very limited class of people in the country districts owing to the low rate of wages allowed under the contract, and these men, because of lack of education and business training, have no adequate idea of what is involved when they sign the contract. In addition to that, just as has been already stated, departmental officials who are paid a living wage spend their time in many cases drumming up people in the country districts to tender at an extremely low rate in order to save the department the difference between this and a fair rate, although the wages of these officials is costing the country enough to pay the mail carriers a living wage. So it is really not economy to induce men to sign such contracts.
Another unsatisfactory feature is that under this system men are engaged to deliver our rural mails at the lowest possible remuneration without any regard whatever to their ability to discharge the duties required of them. I am not sure that I would entirely condemn the system of handling our rural mails providing the tenderers were required to pass an examination to prove that they possessed the necessary education to enable them distribute the mail. Under the present system we find rural mail carriers who are scarcely able to read, with the result that mistakes are constantly made by them, important mail is delivered to the wrong address, and in some cases serious financial loss occurs. Certainly we should have efficiency. To my mind it is folly to talk of investigating conditions of unemployment and underpaid workmen while the Dominion government in its system of rural mail contracts conducts one of the worst sweatshops in the country. If these carriers had to show certain qualifications, those qualifications in themselves would enable them to determine a fair rate of remun-eratidn under their contract.
If the contract system is so good, why do we not apply it throughout every department of government. I think if we had our cabinet ministers- and all others engaged in the government service paid under contract the evils of the system would be impressed on the people in a very decided manner.
Then again if a rural mail carrier has rendered good service under his contract it should be renewed as it expires and so encourage him to continue to render the most satisfactory service possible. I think it has been stated by at least two hon. members that under the present system a man can retain his contract at the same rate of pay. I do not know what the arrangement is, but I can point out what

Supply-Post Office
has actually happened, which is much more important. On one particular route of about twenty-two miles the contract recently expired. On the last occasion of its renewal, when prices of everything were rather high, the contractor secured the contract at $1,100, which is at the rate of $50 per mile, or $25 a mile less than the American government pay its rural mail carriers. This man is one of the most efficient carriers in the service. He has a wife and family to support and devoted his whole time to his route. His work was eminently satisfactory, being almost entirely free from mistakes. One would think that such an efficient public servant would be retained in the service. When the time came for renewal of his contract he was so fair-minded that he allowed for some reduction of living expenses and actually offered to continue the contract at a reduction of $100, although he had to keep two horses and the necessary equipment to carry out his work; but for some reason or other the contract was advertised and was awarded to another man who may not possess the excellent -qualifications of his predecessor. The new man secured the job at $800. This instance I think clearly indicates that the practice referred to of allowing the tenderer to continue his contract does not always obtain; and I may say that I know of other cases of a similar nature. Why could not an arrangement be made to continue satisfactory men in the service instead of going to the expense of advertising for fresh tenders. I have no doubt that the man who has contracted to deliver the mail at $800 will be a dissatisfied servant and similar cases are what give rise to the continual complaints which we receive with respect to the rural mail service. Surely the government can devise a system under which efficient service can be secured by paying at least a living wage.
This is what it means, that on the average, each rural mail carrier has a twenty-mile route which he has to cover six days in the week, and to do this work it is absolutely necessary for him to keep two horses and the necessary equipment. On the most conservative estimate this cannot be done for less than $300 a year. Assuming the average carrier gets $750 under his contract, this leaves him only $450 to support his wife and family-$450 for working six days in the week throughout the entire year. Can anyone say that this is a credit to the country? And it is only possible to get men to enter into such contracts because they are not sufficiently conversant with business principles to know what rate they should tender at in order to ensure to themselves a fair wage. They only find out their mistake by bitter 
experience. I am convinced that if tenderers were required to pass an examination to test their efficiency the undesirable element would be eliminated and those who passed would be able to command a living wage. If you provide in some way that the man who proves his efficiency is not in danger of losing his job for the sake of a paltry $25 by being underbid by a man who may not be able to show that same efficiency, then you have done away with a good deal of the cause for complaint. As to the flat rate per mile, I am fairly well acquainted with most of our Ontario roads, and after careful consideration I have come to the conclusion that a flat rate would be very fair to all concerned. In almost all cases the better roads have the heavier class of service; there are as many complaints from the mail carriers with regard to obstruction of traffic on the really good roads as there are respecting the back concessions where the' roads are not so good. So that the one balances the other, and the adoption of a flat rate for this service would not be a very serious injustice to anyone. It would, I believe, be entirely satisfactory to the men themselves.


George Perry Graham: Would you give that flat rate without any tender?


John Lawrence Stansell: Well, I am not suggesting that; I am pointing out what is wrong. I say we should either retain the contract system and provide for some examination, or adopt some plan whereby a man who proves himself efficient will not lose his job if he is getting a reasonable rate of pay, say, not less than $50 or $60 a mile. If his contract is not for more than that, surely he is entitled, in view of his good service, to keep his job. The people cannot be contented in the rural districts when they learn that other men working for the same government in the cities are treated differently, in that they receive a bonus-the continuance of which appears to be necessary-are given the benefit of pension provisions, are supplied with clothes, etc. On the other hand, the poor fellow in the country is working at starvation wages and has to provide everything, including the upkeep of two horses, and has left for himself not more than $450. That a man should have to work under those conditions and attempt to support a family should surely appeal to right thinking persons as an injustice that is no credit to this country or to the government, and that ought to be remedied without delay. The present government, I believe, is especially sympathetic to the workingman-or at least, they

Supply-Post Office
17S9
were prior to the last election. Possibly owing to the pressure of business their plans in this respect have been mislaid. But I do hope they can now be utilized on behalf of the rural mail-carriers of Canada.


Mr. McBRIDE:: As one who represents the largest rural constituency in Canada, I would say that I have no sympathy with any person who will tender for a job and then, after he has got the work, start in to whine and ask for a raise in salary. I believe in the contract system. It is the only fair system, it is the only way the taxpayers of Canada will get a square deal. If you put it in the hands of the Postmaster General to the extent of $150, it will simply mean this: A person may tender for a small contract at $150 less than he really wants to get; then he can go to the member representing that section of the country and pester him until he gets the Postmaster General to make that increase of $150. A good deal has been said about starvation wages and cutting the rates to the rural mail carriers. I can call to mind one instance out in my district. During the war a man had a contract for carrying the mail at $1,850. He said he could not make it pay at that rate, and he tried to hold the government up for $2,500. The government called for tenders-that was in 1915-and one man tendered at $1,175. He got the job; he is still carrying on the work and is perfectly satisfied. If tenders had not been called on that occasion the taxpayers of Canada would have been held up for $2,500. It is urged that some of these contracts are very small. Well, I know of one instance where a man had a contract to carry the mail twice a week a distance of six miles, at the rate of $3 a week. That did not look very much, but what did it mean? A little girl of his got on a cayuse in the morning before going to school and went down and brought the mail up. It was simply pocket money for her. If anybody else had tried to get that contract from him, why, there would have been a regular row over it. On the other hand, if it were left to somebody to put a value on the delivery of that mail and somebody came in from outside to deliver it, the cost would probably be $25 a week, and even at that the amount would not be considered too much. As for keeping up a plant to carry this mail, in the rural districts they do not maintain very much of a plant. It is generally carried with a surrey in the summer and an old sleigh in the winter; it is the ordinary plant that they had before they took the contract. I believe in calling for tenders, and I believe that if those who tender have not brains enough to put in a proper price for a job then they
should go under and let their bondsmen go good for the default. That is the only way the taxpayers of this country will ever get a square deal.


Mr. WOODS:: I am of the opinion that no real injustice is done to the rural mail carriers through the contract system. I agree with my hon. friend (Mr. McBride) that if a man wants to make a contract at a low price there should be nothing to prevent him from doing so. On the other hand, a great many of the rural mail carriers are none too well paid- many of them are underpaid-but they are rendering good service. I do not agree with the suggestion presented by one hon. gentleman in regard to holding an examination for the position of rural mail carrier. The position is not one that requires any very high standard of education. It does not require many of the qualifications that other occupations require; nor does it require the upkeep of pure-bred horses. But it does require men of sterling qualities who are not afraid to face storms and bad roads and all that kind of thing. I do not know that there is anything seriously wrong with the contract system, unless, as I have heard it stated, it is that when a man puts in a tender at a figure which is sufficiently low, some of the authorities persistently endeavour to get someone else to take the contract at an even lower price. I do not think that is proper. If a tender is honestly made and the price is not exhorbitant, the contract should be given to the lowest tenderer provided he is able to furnish the necessary securities. But there is another phase of the question that is of great importance; that is, the legal holidays. I think these men should get the legal holidays. As one who is served by the rural mail carriers I think I am safe in saying that the farmers and the rural population generally will not suffer if these men have a holiday now and then. To give them that concession would ease their minds and make them feel that they were getting what other men are getting elsewhere in similar positions. It is hardly fair to ask them to go over all kinds of roads in all kinds of weather every day in the year except Sunday. The government should take that matter into serious consideration. In fact, I have been taking the matter up with the department with a view to bringing about that change. I wrote to the previous Postmaster General on more than one occasion, but the Post Office Department take the ground that a contract is a contract. Truly a contract is a contract, yet I believe these men should be granted the legal holidays or the major portion 'of them at least, so that they could have a little rest
Supply-Post Office

from their daily routine of driving over these hard roads, as many are, in all kinds of weather. I think that would help the situation and make it easier to secure contractors for this work, for the lack of holidays has been a very serious complaint among all the rural mail carriers with whom I have come in contact.


Mr. GARDINER:: Which of the railway
oompanies has the contract for carrying the mail from Saskatoon to Edmonton?


George Perry Graham: No railway company has
a contract. They are paid according to the space the mail occupies, and whichever line is the most expeditious and most convenient gets the mail. I can imagine circumstances under which one line would have it at one time, and another line at another. They are paid for the work they do, and are not under contract.


John Millar: Can the minister give the
committee any information as to the prospects of extending rural mail delivery to the prairie provinces? During the last year I have had several petitions from those who would like to have a rural mail delivery, but up to the present this has been denied. I was thinking as I listened to the discussion and the great anxiety that some have about the small pay the mail carriers are getting, that those of us who come from the prairie provinces or a large part of it, at all events, have not yet reached the stage where we have any mail carriers to worry about. Our anxiety is to get some mail carriers, so that when another session comes round we may be in the position of those here to-day who have been worrying about finding some means to protect these mail carriers from themselves. I have found that some of the carriers that have been spoken of who cannot write their own names know how to charge just as well as those who can write. Their lack of penmanship does not seem an impediment in knowing how to charge. I know the minister is only acting minister of this department and may not have the information that the Postmaster General would have, but he might possibly be able to give us some idea as to when rural mail delivery will be extended to the prairie provinces.


George Perry Graham: That is a question that
has been engaging the attention of the department. While I am not in a position to make any statement I can say that the department has been seriously considering what ways and means it could use to extend the service. The amount that is being asked for here is for services already under contract. The service in

some cases may have been extended a mile or half a mile or something of that kind, but this vote is not for opening up any new territory. The condition in the prairie provinces cannot however, exist very long, and I can readily understand, although it would probably mean quite a deficit, that possibly a portion of the discontent of which we have heard might be allayed if the people of the West
9 p.m. had a rural mail delivery to bring them closer together, and give them closer connection with the outside and with the centres. I am not in a position to make any promises. The department has been giving this matter consideration, and I think the members from the prairie provinces can live not as those without hope. It would mean a very large expenditure of money, but I am inclined to think that before very long the situation will have to be faced, because there is always this to be remembered: railways, roads, and rural mail delivery not only accommodate the people of a community, but they make that community so pleasant to live in that other people outside are attracted to it.


Mr. FORKE:: I think I might interject a
few words right here. I have had several applications for the establishment of rural mail routes, and the reply I got from the department in some cases was that tenders would be asked for and if the amount was sufficiently low the route would be established. I do not know what we are going to do if we are now going to raise the price of carrying the mail along the different routes. I have listened with close attention to the remarks made by hon. members who have spoken in favour of larger pay being given to the mail carriers, and with all due respect to those speakers I must say that I have so far seen no solution of the problem. If you are not going to have the tender and contract system appointments will have to be made, and who is going to make those appointments? Will it be the minister or someone else? Then the charge of favoritism will creep in. Really, Mr. Chairman, I cannot see any solution except to tell these people to be careful and contract for a price at which they can afford to carry the mail


Mr. LUCAS:: The minister told us a moment ago that there was no contract given to the railways for carrying the mail. And we to believe that the railways simply go out and grab the mail whenever they can and are paid according to space? Surely there must be some arrangement made with the railways for carrying the mail, and I should like to know what those arrangements are, and particularly

Supply-Post Office
the arrangement for carrying the mail from Saskatoon to Edmonton in which territory there are competing railways running.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend should not have got that wrong idea. The Post Office Department is responsible for the mails being transferred from the boat to the train, and the Post Office employees handle all the mails and put them on the train. The railways do not go out and grab the mail at all. They take what is given them, and carry it at so much per car, so much for a part car, so much per square foot, and so on.


Robert Gardiner: Could the minister be more specific as to the cost of carrying the mail between Saskatoon and Edmonton? We in western Canada are very interested to know just what that space is costing the Post Office Department.


George Perry Graham: We have a postal car and a baggage car service and the rates effective June 1, 1922, were as follows:
Postal car	Baggage car
Full	Apartment Full Under Side	Part	30 ft.	30 ft. Passage 60 ft.	30 ft.	15 ft.	7 ft . 3 ft.35s.	20c.	7/10c. 20c. for 36c. per 270 sq. linear feet foot	20c.	13c.	6.5c. 4c.


Robert Gardiner: Perhaps the minister could tell us which railway company carried most of the mail from Saskatoon to Edmonton during the last year.


George Perry Graham: I am not in a position to give that information because I have not got it. I would have to look over the various accounts of the railways during the different years in order to locate how much was given to each railway.


Robert Gardiner: Can the minister give us any information as to how much the Canadian National received from the Post Office last year, how. much the Canadian Pacific received and the amount received by any other railroad that may have carried the mails in Canada?


George Perry Graham: I have not that information. The last three months of the year are not made up yet, and the accounts are not jn. I could ge't the information by putting the accountants at work.


Robert Gardiner: Will the minister give us the information he has?


George Perry Graham: I have given my hon. friend all the information I have.


Robert Gardiner: And that is not very much.


George Perry Graham: Not along that line.


Robert Gardiner: I think this a very important question, and I would like to have the information given to the House because I am well satisfied that the people of Canada want to know just exactly what is being done along these lines, and if the minister can obtain that information before this item is carried, I am satisfied the House will be very much obliged to him.


Mr. WARNER:: Going back to the rural routes, I desire to say a few words. In quite a number of localities in my constituency the people want rural routes established. I have tried to obtain some information. I was very glad to hear the minister say to-night that it was likely that we would not have to wait very much longer for the establishment of these routes. It is very unsatisfactory to , those people living in well settled communities to see the mail deliveries in the towns and other communities, when they cannot have the same privilege. When I go to the department I am always told that they are not establishing any new routes in any district. I have taken that as an answer, and have always advised the community interested that no more routes were being established at the present time. Previously we had the compensation voluntarily increased to people who had contracted to carry the mail for a certain price. I think it would look more reasonable if someone else were allowed to take this money, intead of raising the salaries of those who are already carrying the mail. It would look better if the department would allow more routes to be established at rates at which people are willing to carry the mail, rather than to raise the wages of those who have contracted to carry the mail at a certain price. I would not be in favour of raising the remuneration above the amount for which these people are willing to carry the mail, but I am anxious to see more routes established in localities where there is no service now. The cities have the delivery now, and it is not so much trouble for any one living in the city to go to the post office and get his mail, as the families living in the country have to do. I think it would be well for the department to consider the establishment of new mail routes in places where there are sufficient settlers to justify such an expenditure. However, I believe that we must all be tolerant. I believe that we are using too much money in the service not in the Post Office Department alone so much as on all lines of Government service in every way throughout the whole country,
Supply-Post Office

and that we are spending more than we are justified in spending or can afford. However, when others are receiving these services it seems hard on communities who are not able to get them, and, therefore, there is considerable dissatisfaction. As the minister has said, country life would be more tolerable, and I believe it is worth while in Canada to undertake to make the farmers feel that they are getting consideration and service for the part of the taxes they are paying. I think the government is justified in giving all the service to the people however, that we can pay for. It struck me that it would not look well in the eyes of the people in these communities I have been referring to if the wages of the mail carriers were raised above the figure for which the carriers were willing to carry the mail.


Mr. ROSS (Simcoe):: Speaking of the rural mail service, I am not particularly objecting to the contract system. I practically agree in the presentation that my hon. friend and neighbour from South Simcoe (Mr. Boys) made to the House this afternoon and tonight. At the same time the chief objection I make to this contract system has reference to what is often done in connection with it by officials of the department. This feature was illustrated by my hon. friend and I know what he said to be the fact because the practice complained of has been resorted to more than once in my own immediate neighbourhood. I take strong exception to that kind of thing being done by government officials. I refer to the practice of a government official going out after the contract has been sent in, and beating down this one and that one, in order to get the wages to the level at which the contract is finally awarded.
I would like to see the rural mail carriers given the statutory holidays, at least. They should have those holidays, especially Christmas. to themselves. I am willing to do without my Christmas mail, in order that the men who have been carrying my mail to my door for 313 days each year may have a holiday, and I think the people in the rural districts generally would also be willing to dispense with the Christmas mail. I suggest that that matter be taken into account when tenders are being asked for by the department, either for the renewing of old contracts or for making new contracts.
I am not going to argue to-night in regard to the question of raising the price paid to the rural carrier, but I would like to see a little more equality than we have at the present time in the delivery of mail, whether letters or other articles, in rural and city districts. Some

time ago an answer was given to a question asked by the hon. member for South Waterloo (Mr. Elliott) in regard to the salaries paid to the rural carriers and those paid to the city letter carriers. There is a great difference between those salaries, and I took the trouble to figure it out on a per hour basis, because of the answer that was given. The answer was that in the one case it was for service which varies as to time occupied daily, semi-weekly-, etc., and in the other case it was for full time service. I recognize that there is a consideration there. On the other hand, we ought to consider that, while the rural carrier perhaps does not give all day to the service, his day is broken into, and the balance of the day does not amount a great deal to him in the matter of earning. Take our own case; the train comes in some time about ten o'clock and the mail carrier starts out. His forenoon is broken up. He cannot go out and do a half day's work He gets back at five o'clock in the afternoon and his afternoon is gone. It is not fair to put it on that basis. If we figure this out on the per hour basis, we find that what they get per hour is about 35 cents. The city mail carrier gets about 60 cents per hour, and I understand he gets, at least, two uniforms a year. A man who is carrying mail in the rural districts, if you figure out the amount he gets on the same basis, receives a reward, or a salary, or a wage, if you like to call it that, of 38 cents per hour, while he is actually in the service of the government or in our employ. For that 38 cents per hour he also furnishes a horse and rig which are absolutely necessary. Some system should be evolved whereby that inequality could be overcome.
I do not know just why the one should be on the contract system and the other in the Civil Service with the contract system eliminated. The latter is a permanent official, and his salary is, I understand, based on the cost of living. In the other case, the salary is fixed on the basis of what some other fellow who, perhaps, does not know what he is-undertaking, says that he is willing to perform the service for. I know very well that a bond has to be signed or bondsmen procured that the contract will be fulfilled. It is not fair to put the rural mail carriers on that basis. We talk about the merit system in our Civil Service, and this eliminates the merit system. Let me put the question in this way. A man who has filled a four-year contract satisfactorily has an opportunity of renewing that contract, if he so wishes, at the same price. I think that is generally the rule, although an hon. member to my right seems to find that this rule is not always carried out. At the same time, however, there is no recognition of

Supply-Post Office
the faithful service that the man has given. These are some of the disadvantages which we have at present under this system. I am not too sure whether I am prepared to subscribe to the mileage basis or not. There are some very good features in it; but there are other features which I do not think would be in the interest of economy in the service. There is one feature to which I strongly object, namely, that of government officials going out, after tenders are sent in, and beating down, as it were, persons who are offering to do the service. I hope that practice will be discontinued.
There is one little matter that I resent. In talking over this situation with some of those who are interested, I might go so far as to say, with some who are officials of the Post Office Department, I was told that the trouble is that in rural districts too much service is given. As one of those living in rural districts, I thoroughly resent that statement. We get a mail service once a day in our district, and that is quite sufficient for us. The mail service in Ottawa, is, I believe, twice a day, and I am not prepared to accept the statement that we are getting too much service at the present time, particularly when such a statement comes from the department itself.


Mr. PRITCHARD:: I have for some years watched the rural mail carriers on the one hand and the city mail carriers on the other, and I have wondered if some fairer adjustment could not be made regarding the remuneration of these two classes of public servants. I happen to live in the country on a back road where we have had to shovel the mail carrier out time and again. People livting along that route will expect that man to deliver the mail, and they will raise a row because he does not deliver it on days when it is impossible for the people themselves to get along the road. That condition is common in the winter season in that section of the country. When I come to Ottawa, what do I find? I find a man receiving $500 a year more for delivering mail on city streets where he does not do as much work in a day as the rural mail carrier does. The trouble seems to be that in the one case the government can fix the price, but in the other, it must be let by contract.
I happened to have some difficulty last session and I have also had it this session in connection with rural mail carriers in my constituency. The report which I get from these men does not correspond exactly with the statement of the minister to-night. They tell me-and I am almost forced to believe there is a great deal of truth in what they
state-that even where a man who has been doing his work satisfactorily, puts in his tender, the department are not satisfied, but they send out men to beat the price down to a lower figure by almost any means possible. Why cannot the department cut somewhere else and give the rural mail carrier a fair show in the way of remuneration for his services in comparison with what men in the Post Office Department are getting? Why should he be discriminated against, when men in other branches of the Post Office Department are getting something more nearly approximating what they ought to receive? I do not say that any of these gentlemen are getting any more than they ought to get; but the mail carrier in the rural sections is certainly not getting what he ought to get. In these estimates I see a whole column of increases. I do not understand what these increases mean. Why should the salaries of these Post Office officials be increased? Why cannot some of the money be given to the men who carry the mail in rural Ontario, the western prairies, and, perhaps, in the eastern provinces, and let these Post Office officials do with a little less pay, because even if the salaries of the latter are cut down, men can be got who will do the work efficiently?
We were speaking about immigration in this House for several days. We expect a rural mail carrier to carry mail for one-half-* or a little less, I think it is by the report this afternoon-of what men are getting across the line for carrying the mail there Does the government expect to keep men in the rural sections and prevent them from going to the cities and towns, when men in the urban centres are receiving $500 a year more than they do in the country? These are some of the things I cannot understand, and I feel sure, if the department get busy, the}' can give these rural mail carriers a little more money to which they are entitled and also the advantages that were asked for by other hon. gentlemen this afternoon. I meet these men every day; I have to go home and report to them, and I cannot sit quiet in this House while this debate is going an without expressing my opinion on the matter. These men ought to get fairer treatment from the department than they are getting.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: Undoubtedly the
rural mail carriers should receive more than they do. We all know the work these men are doing for a small salary. However, it does not seem to me that we should cut down the salaries of any of the mail carriers, whether of the city or the country; rather there should be a decided increase in the salaries
Supply-Post Office

of all this class of government employees. I wish we could have some assurance from the government tonight that some step could be taken to see that salaries generally would be revised. If I am rightly informed, the Prime Minister gave assurances to the postal employees last year that this would be done. Apparently no action has been taken and so far there has been no intimation that action will be taken. I should like to quote a paragraph from a memorandum sent to me recently by the Winnipeg Local Council of the Canadian Federation of Postal Employees, which comprises railway mail clerks, postal clerks, letter carriers, transfer agents and postal porters. After referring to what they claim was the promise of the Prime Minister, that there would be a general revision of salaries, they plead for the following standard:
Minimum and maximum salaries as requested from the government:
Railway Mail Clerks	
$1,200	to	$1,920Letter Carriers	
1,260	to	1,760Postal Clerks	
1,200	to	1,800Transfer Agents	
1,260	to	1,740
By comparison of the above with the figures as issued by the government in the Labour Gazette, it will be plainly seen that a revision of salaries is very necessary if this large body of public servants are to receive a living wage.
It has often been said that the government should be the model employer, but the remuneration granted to postal employees, has never been adequate to maintain the standard of living which is necessary to good citizenship.
A few months ago we had here in Ottawa a convention of all the postmasters, at which the Postmaster General (Mr. Murphy) paid a most eloquent tribute to the work of the postal carriers. I took from the paper at the time an extract of what he said, and it seems to me that he was only doing justice to the men whose services we all require and appreciate. May I read a paragraph:
Of all those engaged in bringing the postal service into the lives and homes of the Canadian people none fills so large a place as that familiar figure-the letter carrier.
There is something stirring and wonderful about the relation of that faithful figure to the daily lives of millions of our people. He is a part of a vast business which can be tabulated in terms of annual turnover, and number of employees, and curves of profit and loss, like any other business, but which is, nevertheless, the strangest, most human and most romantic business in which men were ever engaged.
Now, we all realize the great service performed by these men and yet I think we mu*t confess that there is a very Slight chance of definite promotion for a large number of them. Very early in life they reach the maximum of their earning capacity. In a great many other walks of life men can proceed to higher salaries and better positions in every

way, but that is impossible for the great majority of the letter carriers. Now that there is a surplus reported in this department of the government service, I think it would be only reasonable for us to increase the salaries of the postal employees all along the line until they are comparable with the salaries paid in other lines of business. As I think I said a year ago, in my own city of Winnipeg last year there were people in the receipt of relief from the city of itself who were receiving more than the employees of the government who were carrying on a very important part of the public service. Again, may I ask that we have some sort of assurance that in the not distant future there shall be a general revision upward of the whole of the salaries of the postal employees?


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend makes a statement but he qualifies it at the end. It was not the same at the end as it was at the the beginning.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Possibly at the end I stated where I stood in the matter and what my hopes were.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend said that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) had stated that in the near future there would be a revision of salaries, but in his remarks he slipped in the word "upward", which might materially alter the meaning of the Prime Minister.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I did not suggest that the Prime Minister had promised a revision of salaries upwards. I was merely expressing the hope that in any revision that might take place these salaries would be increased.


George Perry Graham: I think it not altogether out of the re^lm of probability that there will come a time very shortly when the bonus system shall disappear. That being so, I suppose that the revision of salaries on a permanent basis will be made when that system is discontinued.


Mr. HANSON:: This government has been in power now some fifteen or sixteen months. During that period we have had no direct declaration from the government with respect to the question of the repeal of the Civil Service Act, and I presume that they are waiting upon the report of the special committee which is now investigating the matter. But while they are waiting I make the statement deliberately that in so far as the Post Office Department is concerned they are violating the spirit of the Civil Service Act if not the letter on every occasion that presents itself. On

Supply-Post Office
more than one occasion during this session information has come to me of the creeping of the patronage system into the government service, especially in connection with the Post Office Department; and reports that reach me from different parts of the country are to the effect that the Postmaster General (Mr. Murphy) is the chief sinner among all the sinners in the government ranks in this direction.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Too bad.


Richard Burpee Hanson: When we were soliciting men to go to the front the people were told that there was nothing too good to do for these men. A few years ago parliament laid down the rule that, all other things being equal, returned men would have the preference in appointments to the public service, but this rule has not been lived up to, at least in connection with the Post Office Department. Only the other day I put a question to the Postmaster General with regard to a vacancy at St. Peters, Nova Scotia. I asked:
Has the Civil Service Commission been instructed to advertise for applicants for the position?
And the answer I received was:
The position has been advertised.
The next question I had in reference to this matter was:
If so, will preference be given to a returned soldier?
The answer was:
The vacancy will be filled in the best interests of the public service and consistent with the provisions of the Civil Service Act.
Which answer, of course, entirely ignored the question. Now, I have a case under my hand which I think is a very glaring one and which I desire to bring to the attention of the Acting Postmaster General (Mr. Graham) because I believe that he personally is in sympathy with the policy that in filling any official positions in the public service preference shall be given to returned men. I would call his attention to the fact that about a year ago the office of postmaster at Clementsport in the province of Nova Scotia, which I understand is in the county of Annapolis, or at all events just on the border between Annapolis and Digby, became vacant. When the Civil Service Commission was requested to fill this position in accordance with the law, the acting Superintendent of Postal Service, Mr. W. E. McLellan, was communicated with and asked to report upon three applicants for the position, namely, Mr. Howard G. Potter, Mr. Rawding and Miss Anna E. Robertson. I have a statement from which I read:
In April 1922 the acting district superintendent reported that Mr. Rawding had been the former postii/i
4.X-X
master, and was dismissed on purely political grounds (which Mr. Rawding stated was without just cause and without any investigation). The superintendent strongly recommended that he be reinstated.	[DOT]*
Presume that he was a friend of the present government. The district superintendent made no report on Mr. Potter at all, and I am instructed that he was communicated with by wire by the Civil Service Commission on the 27th April, 1922. On the 10th May following the superintendent reported to the commission that there seemed to be nothing against Mr. Potter's character or his fitness for the position, and being a returned soldier, under the circumstances the commission felt there was no alternative but to give him the appointment. The certificate for his appointment was issued on the 30th May, 1922, but it appears that the Post Office Department has failed to transfer the office to him-for what reason is unknown.
As I have stated, a certificate was issued by the Civil Service Commission appointing Mr. Potter postmaster at Clementsport, but the department has entirely failed to act on that certificate, although there is no good reason I venture to say why they should not have done so. There is, of course, a political reason, to which I have already adverted, that is, that the acting postmaster at that point was the former postmaster but was dismissed for political activity by, I presume, a former government.
Now, I addressed a question in regard to this to the Postmaster General on the 19th March, when I asked:	.
1.	Did the postmaster at Clementsport, Nova Scotia, resign, as such, in or about the year 1922?
The answer is, yes.
2.	If so, did the Civil Service Commission nominate Mr. Howard G. Potter as a fit and suitable person to fill the said position?
The answer is in the affirmative.
3.	Was Mr. Potter notified of his appointment by the commission?
Here again the answer is, yes.
4.	Is the government aware that Mr. Potter is a wounded returned soldier?
This question is also answered in the affirmative.
5.	Why has Mr. Potter's nomination not been confirmed and why is he not postmaster of Clementsport, Nova Scotia, to-day?
The answer is:
(a)	A temporary appointment was necessary on resignation of former postmaster, and an applicant with previous post office experience was placed in charge.
That is, a temporary appointment was made. Now I call the minister's attention to answer (b):



Supply-Post Office
(b)	Mr. Potter was not resident in Clementsport at the time the vacancy occurred.
That presumably is the meritorious reason given for the non-installation of Mr. Potter as postmaster at Clementsport. The answer to question 5 continues:
(c)	Acting district superintendent, Halifax, reporting on various applicants, did not recommend Mr. Potter.
I call the minister's attention to the fact that when the acting district superintendent was asked by wire by the commission he said that there was nothing against Mr. Potter and there was no reason why he should not be appointed. Continuing the answer to question 5:
(d)	Department's duty is to give public service, and while a difference of opinion exists service is being satisfactorily performed by the present temporary incumbent.
That is to say, a difference of opinion between the Civil Service Commission, acting on the second recommendation of the district superintendent, and some official, presumably in the department, who personally cannot know anything about the matter. The concluding paragraph of the answer is:
(e)	When the position is definitely filled it will be filled strictly in accordance with the Civil Service Act.
Now, I call the attention of the minister to paragraph (b) of the answer to question 5, and make the statement on the authority of Mr. Potter that that is not a true answer. It says: "Mr. Potter was not resident in Clementsport at the time the vacancy occurred." Feeling that possibly the department was right and my previous information wrong, I wrote to Mr. Potter and on the 24th March he replied to me as follows:
Your letter of the 23rd to hand, and I thank you very kindly for taking this matter up.
I have always been a resident of this place except while overseas, and I have always voted and paid my taxes here and am a natural born British subject. I was living here at the time this post office was made vacant, also previous to that time and I can give you a certified certificate to that effect if you want one.
I should like to know who said I was not a resident here. It looks rather crooked to me.
Again thanking you very kindly, I remain.
Your humble servant,
Howard G. Potter.
These are the salient features of this case.
I say the Post Office Department is deliber- , ately defying not only the letter but the spirit of the Civil Service Act in withholding the installation of Mr. Potter as the postmaster at Clementsport. I say further that it is violating both the spirit and the letter of the act in order to cater to a local partisan spirit and put into office the former postmaster who was dismissed for political activity by, I presume, a former government. That

is to say, the law is being violated in order to perform an act of partisanship. I would call the attention of the minister to the fact that there is absolutely no reason in the world why this man Potter should not receive the position to which he has been appointed by the Civil Service Commission. Moreover, he is a wounded returned soldier. If he does not receive this appointment I intend to call the attention of the veterans to the case, and they will go right after the government.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I want to tell hon. members opposite that we cannot trifle with the returned soldiers. They are entitled to these positions if they are competent to fill them. ,


George Perry Graham: In my riding our predecessors put in a very strong party man when a returned soldier was anxious for the position.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Then I hope the veterans will go after it again. They did not do it very successfully at that time, but there will be opportunities later. I do not wish to approach this matter in too partisan a spirit, but I do suggest that the minister, as the acting head of the Post Office Department, is not doing justice in this case. But I know I have only to appeal to him and justice will be done. Therefore I confidently appeal to him to appoint this man to the position to which he is entitled in all honour and under the law of this country.


Mr. LOVETT:: Perhaps I may be allowed to make a few corrections in the remarks of my hon. friend for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson). It is true that the postmastership at Clementsport became vacant through the resignation of Mr. Ritchie. He resigned quite suddenly and notified the post office inspector by wire. Thereupon, in order that the service might not be interrupted, Mr. Rawding was appointed as acting postmaster. Mr. Howard Potter had been a resident of New Brunswick for some time, being employed I believe with Mr. Powers, a contractor. When my hon. friend says that Mr. Potter always voted in Clementsport he is not quite correct; in the last election he voted in New Brunswick.


Richard Burpee Hanson: He says he voted there; I did not.


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: He voted in New Brunswick.


Mr. JACOBS:: Perhaps he voted twice.


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: The Post Office inspector, Mr. McLellan, recommended the appointment, and the Civil Service Commission approved the permanent appointment of Mr. APRIL 12, 1923
Supply-Post Office
Rawding. This man, Mr. Potter, was brought home at the instigation of a f,ew of his friends to oust Mr. Rawding from office. Mr. Potter had a satisfactory job at suitable pay, but he threw it to one side and came to Clements-port to dislodge Mr. Rawding. My information is that Mr. Potter was not a resident of the district at the time the vacancy occurred and consequently was not eligible for the position.


Arthur Meighen: From whom did the hon. gentleman get that information?


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: I do not know that it is necessary to say from whom I got the information. I said I had the information.


Arthur Meighen: Would not the man himself be the best judge of where he lived?


George Perry Graham: He was an interested
party.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Does that disqualify him as a witness? Not in this country, I hope.


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: It would not necessarily
disqualify him. But he was not a resident of the village.


Arthur Meighen: Where did he live?


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: He lived in New Brunswick and his family lived there. He voted there in the last election. As I say, the Post Office inspector voluntarily made the recommendation. The hon. member has alluded to the dismissal of Mr. Rawding in 1911. I may say that he was dismissed without just cause or reason, and without any investigation whatever, as many others were. My hon. friend is very much concerned now with the returned soldier; it was not so previous to the election of 1921. Under the former adminis

tration the returned soldier was promised many things that he did not get, and men who had never been overseas were placed in office. I could give instances in my own constituency.


Arthur Meighen: Will my hon. friend give one instance of the Civil Service Commission appointing a returned soldier and the late government not confirming the appointment?


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: I think I could give some instances, but I do not know that I could do it offhand.


Arthur Meighen: I defy the hon. gentleman to do it, and to bring a case this session.


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: I will endeavour to look one up.
114i


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman just got through saying he knew of some.


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: I have some in mind. I do not wish to make any rash statements-


Arthur Meighen: Where is the hon. gentleman's mind? If he has several "in mind", why does he not give them?


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: I do not like to make a statement unless I can back it up.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman has just made one.


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: I like to be sure of what I am doing. These things are' known to almost everybody. I could point to specific cases-


Arthur Meighen: That is the main thing.


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: That can be done.


Arthur Meighen: Now is the time to do it.


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: My right hon. friend need not worry about that. Mr. Raw ling is now filling the office to the satisfaction of the people generally in that village.


Richard Burpee Hanson: My hon. friend entirely ignores the gravamen of the charge, which is that the government are setting at defiance the laws of this country. The Civil Service Commission have given their certificate for the appointment of this man, and no good reason has been urged why the appointment should not be made. The hon. gentleman's information is based entirely upon hearsay. I produce the evidence of the man himself, who says his home has always been in Clementsport. I must take the first-hand evidence rather than the hearsay evidence of the member for Annapolis. If this sort of thing is to go on; if appointments made by the Civil Service Commission are to be ignored, where is the end to be? The government, and especially the Post Office Department, are in many instances setting at defiance the principle underlying the Civil Service Act, and the country might as well know now just where the administration stands in that respect. This is only one case in a great many. I submit that under the law there is nothing for the department to do but to transfer the office to Mr. Potter. I would point out also that the acting district superintendent in his first report made no suggestion pro or con with respect to Mr. Potter;, he reported in favour of the previous official whom the government had put in charge, acting, no doubt, in accordance with the suggestions of my hon. friend-a political ap-

Supply-Post Office
pointment pure and simple. The policy was laid down previous to the last election and I say it on the authority of my right hon. leader-that every appointment of a returned soldier by the Civil Service Commission was confirmed. That is not being done to-day, and that is the serious part of this thing. It is a breach of faith with the returned men, especially with wounded men.


George Perry Graham: This question seems to hang largely on whether or not Mr. Potter was"resident in the locality concerned. The commission may not have had the knowledge that this man was not a resident. In any case, under the act, they are supposed not to appoint a non-resident.
. Mr. MEIGHEN: What is the clause of the act?


George Perry Graham: It is section 43, chapter 10 of the Acts of 1919, dealing with appointments to the civil service-subsection 3:
Except as to appointments to positions in the headquarters of the several departments and other portions of the civil service at Ottawa, the appointments to any local positions in any province shall, so far as practicable, be made from bona fide residents of such locality.


Arthur Meighen: But there is another
clause which says that the priority of returned soldiers shall be absolute.


George Perry Graham: I do not think it overrides that, but I am not going to argue the question. The information given to me by the department was that this man was not resident in the locality.


Mr. MARTELL:: Is it not a fact that the Department of Justice has ruled that the question of geographical residence must override even the returned soldier preference? I have been so advised by the Civil Service Commission.	>.


George Perry Graham: I do not know whether the Department of Justice has so ruled, but I am inclined to think that is the law.


Samuel William Jacobs: In spite of what the Department of Justice says.


George Perry Graham: I think it is quite plainly the law. If the information that comes to me is correct-that this gentleman was not resident and that some friends got him back to that place so that he could qualify after the vacancy occurred-then there is good ground for the acceptance by the department of the recommendation of its own officer that the other man should have the appointment.


Richard Burpee Hanson: But the district superintendent made a second recommendation when his attention was called to the omission to make any reference to Mr. Potter.


George Perry Graham: Well, read it.


Richard Burpee Hanson: As the Acting District Superintendent did not report upon the qualifications of Mr. Howard G. Potter, returned soldier-
Did not make any report upon him in the first place.
-he was communicated with by wire under date of 27th of April. On the 10th of May, 1922, the superintendent reported to the commission that there seemed to be nothing against Mr. Potter's character or his fitness for the position.
Mark those words "or his fitness for the position." Would that not include the personal residence?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Certainly it would. It continues:
Mr. Potter being a returned soldier, under the circumstances the commission felt that there was no alternative but to give him the appointment.
And the certificate was issued on the 30th of May. He is still waiting, while the department endeavours to find some method to evade the law.


George Perry Graham: No. I would not go that far. I would say that if the information as communicated to the department be correct, the department is adhering to the spirit at least of the law. My hon. friend reading what the superintendent said, I think could clearly draw the inference that he was very careful only to say that if Mr. Potter got the job he could fill it. His fitness has not anything to do with his residence. A man in Timbuctoo might be fit to fill the position so far as his qualifications were concerned, if he happened also to reside in the constituency. But if it be true that Mr. Potter was not a resident of that constituency at the time the vacancy occurred, then according to the spirit of the law he was not eligible to make application for that position.


Arthur Meighen: It seems really hard to credit that the government could have this idea of its duty under the Civil Service Act. These directions in the act are directions for the Civil Service Commission. The government has absolutely no power to appoint. The Civil Service Commission alone has that. The Civil Service Commission in exercise of this power is directed by the act to give priority to returned soldiers; that is absolute. The Civil Service Commission is also directed in the case

Supply-Post Office
of a local appointment, that, "if it is practicable," in the words of the act, it shall go to a resident. Now does the government pretend to say that after the Civil Service Commission reviewing the question of whether he is a resident or not, reviewing the question of whether he is a returned soldier, decides that he is and appoints him, that the government can take the word of the member for the constituency that the commission was wrong and refuse to install the man in office? If the government has information that he is not a resident and believes the law therefore debars him, the government can bring that to the attention of the Civil Service Commission. Has it done it? No. The government pretends to sit in review and appeal over the Civil Service Commission, and the minister stands here and pretends to express the opinion to the House that that is the law of the land. The Civil Service Commission, let me repeat, has the sole power of appointment. Those are regulations to govern the Civil Service Commission. Does the government pretend to be in appeal over the Civil Service Commission? The government has a perfect right to lay any facts in its possession before that commission, but to sit there and say: No, the member tells us someone else is qualified, and he justifies keeping him there on the ground that he is told by someone whom he does not name that Mr. Potter was not a resident; therefore, we will not follow the act, and we will keep a man there in defiance of the act. That is what the government is doing, and it is doing it not only in the Clements-port case. The whole country is full of such cases. My mail is full every morning of letters from men who have been dismissed and who have been denied even a statement of why they were dismissed, not only denied an investigation, but denied the privilege of being told why they have been dismissed, and of cases, too, where the commission followed the act and named the appointee and the government refused to install him and placed their partisan appointee there instead. They have done it in Ontario. There will be in the mind of the minister now cases in western Ontario where this has been the regular practice of the administration. That is the method they are adopting day in and day out to evade the act until, forsooth, they succeed if they can by the circuitous method they have adopted this session in getting the act repealed or in some way impaired by legislation.
In the Clementsport case Potter is entitled to the position. If the government can convince the Civil Service Commission that he is not a resident and that that debars him
notwithstanding the fact that he is a returned soldier, if they can convince the Civil Service Commission, all well and good, but that is the court to which they must go. They are not in appeal over the Civil Service Commission, they are not there to see that the commission is carrying out the law in each individual case. If they were, there might as well be no Civil Service Commission. If the government has the power to listen to one of its supporters who says that the Civil Service Commission did not do right because Potter was not a resident, and therefore can put another man in office, that is only another way of repealing the act, and let me repeat, they are repealing it in the Clementsport case, and they are doing it in numerous cases 10 p.m. in Ontario. They are spreading patronage all over this country and doing it very frequently in defiance of the prior rights of the returned soldiers.


Mr. MORRISON:: My experience is very different from that of hon. gentlemen to my right. Since I have been elected a member of this House I have been asked several times by the government to nominate someone for a postmastership where the remuneration would be under $200, and in every notice I got to that effect I was asked to give returned soldiers the preference. I got notice of one postmastership being vacant the appointment for which really came under the commission, and I was a little perplexed to know why I had been notified. The vacancy was at a point fifty miles from where I reside and I only knew one man there. I forwarded the notice to him and told him that evidently the government wanted someone nominated, and for him to choose a fit and proper person. He wrote back and told me that on the very day he got my letter an agent of the Civil Service Commission came to that town and asked him to nominate someone, and a party was chosen who was afterwards appointed. I have had I think, seven vacancies for the position of postmaster in my riding, and as I said before, in every case the Civil Service Commission asked that a returned soldier be given the preference. So far as I could see, everything was done fair and above board.
But I know that when the late government was in office a Liberal who was keeping a post office where the income was over $1,000 took a very active part in an election campaign, and he expected to get his walking papers, and he did. In the West, so far as I know, things have been done pretty straight , in connection with the post office service.


Arthur Meighen: I just wish to say a word as to what my hon. friend says. He says he
Supply-Post Office

has been asked to nominate postmasters where the remuneration is under $200. I do not doubt, that that is correct although I must say I have not received any favours of that kind myself. Evidently hon. friends to my left have a degree of affinity that I do not possess with the government of the day.


Ernest Lapointe: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: What I want to call attention to is this. That does not in the least affect the classes of cases we are speaking of here at all. The Civil Service Commission has nothing to do with that class of case.


John Morrison: I quoted one case where it had.


Arthur Meighen: Was a returned soldier recommended?


John Morrison: The notice said that a returned soldier should get the preference.


Arthur Meighen: That is the act. The Civil Service Commission was doing its duty, and it did the same in the Clementsport case. But the government stands in the way and refuses to let the law take effect. Undoubtedly the commission always does that, and let me say further, in western Canada I do not think there is very serious complaint, and I think I know the reason. In western Canada there is not, and has not been for some time, the same patronage Spirit as to office that there is in other parts ox Canada. Western Canada has been in favour of the Civil Service Act and this system for years, and it is in favour of it to-day, and that applies, I think, to members of all parties in western Canada. It does not apply to individuals by any means, but western Canada almost unanimously is against patronage, and the government will get no support and no encouragement whatever in that country for anything in the way of an invasion of the Civil Service Act. But it is wholly different in Ontario. It is wholly different in the eastern provinces. In those provinces in the case of positions of some value to the returned man, the government has time and again consistently made it the practice and policy to evade and even defy the Civil Service Commission. I do not know what value a $50 position or even a $150 position is to a returned man.


Samuel William Jacobs: The right hon. leader of the Opposition asked the hon. member for Digby and Annapolis (Mr. Lovett) to mention names.


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


Samuel William Jacobs: Will the right hon. gentlemen give us some names.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, I will give you the case of the Wingham post office.


Samuel William Jacobs: Let us have the details of it.


Arthur Meighen: The details have been
published. I will give the hon. gentleman the references. If he will read the press of western Ontario in September last, or the Veteran of that month, he will get the Wingham and the Brussels cases and a great many more, that will harrow his soul, if he has any respect for the Civil Service Commission.


Mr. MARLER:: I have listened with considerable interest to the remarks of my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) with reference to the government evading the Civil Service Act and sitting in judgment on the Civil Service Commission. He has referred to matters occurring in western Canada. I do not know so much about western Canada, but I come from eastern Canada, where the post office authorities employ very many men indeed, and I found, to my sorrow, on many occasions that it was utterly impossible to get the government to evade the Civil Service Commission in any way.


Arthur Meighen: Why is the hon. member so sorry?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Well, I will leave it to my hon. friend himself to make up his mind. He will know why as well as I do.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member wants a government that is a law breaker?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Not entirely. I am only refuting what my right hon. friend said a few minutes ago, and I refute his statement absolutely as regards the city of Montreal. I will also say that the returned soldier, in my experience and to my knowledge, is invariably given the preference when he has an opportunity of filling the position. I have never come across a single case in which I have made application to the Postmaster General, or to any of the authorities in Ottawa, that I have not been referred to the Civil Service Commission, and I have always referred applicants to the Civil Service Commission. I have found it perfectly useless to do anything in any of the departments of the government, excepting through the Civil Service Commission.


Robert Forke: I have been reading the
Mirror, and I am pretty well posted now. However, 1 only want to say a word with regard to western Canada. I have seen no

Supply-Post Office
signs of any of those deeds in regard to which accusation has been made to-night, as far as patronage in western Canada is concerned. I have listened to the remarks made by the right hon. leader of the Opposition. I would be very sorry, indeed, if they were true, and I think the members on this side of the House anyway would like a little more definite and accurate information that the Civil Service Commission has been set aside by any action of the government. I hold no brief for any one, as far as that is concerned, but I would be very sorry indeed if the Civil Service Commission were being ignored by the government in making appointments. I have no knowledge whatever of anything of that sort having taken place, but at the same time I would not condone any offence along that line.


Mr. IRVINE:: An hon. member of the Progressive group has just made a confession that he has been consulted with regard to the appointment of certain postmasters. That, to my mind, is being privileged to handle a certain portion of patronage. I hope that is not a general practice on the part of all the Progressives. If it is, the onus is on them to ray so now, or forever be silent. Personally, I have not had any opportunity, nor am I desirous, of handling any such patronage, and I respectfully hope that all the Progressives are not handling patronage in that way.


Arthur Edward Ross: Perhaps I may come in the class of those who are privileged, but I want to make it clear that I am not here in any way to screen our government. On the other hand a little reference was made to me in my own constituency, where I was asked to recommend a man to take charge of one of those post offices, to come in under the $200 class, and I recommended a man who was a returned soldier. If the committee want to get the actual facts, the man I recommended had originally been, and perhaps was then, as far as I know, a Conservative, but I recommended him to the Postmaster General at that time, and he was appointed postmaster, and is postmaster now.


Arthur Meighen: What was his salary?


Arthur Edward Ross: He was under $200.
But I want to be fair to the government, and I say that in that case they did what was right by the returned man, although he was a Conservative.


Arthur Meighen: What does the poor man do for a living, with a job in which the salary is under $200?


Arthur Edward Ross: He is a blacksmith
and has a good trade.


Arthur Meighen: He would need it.


Robert Gardiner: I am going to enter a
very emphatic protest. It seems to me, so far as the present government are concerned, they are discriminating against me, because I have never been asked to make any recommendation for postmaster or anything else.


Ernest Lapointe: No vacancies.


Robert Gardiner: Yes, lots of vacancies,
I would like to get back to the question we have been dealing with, with regard to the transportation of the mails on the railroads. I have before me the report of 1922, and I ndtice the daily mileage of postal cars in March 1922 was something like 71,928. Now can the minister give us information as to the number of postal car miles for the different railways in Canada?


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend is asking me for some detailed information as to the postal car miles which I am unable to give him. They have never been asked for in the House on any occasion. I never dreamed that any such question as that would enter into the discussion. It is a detail that really has not very much bearing on the question that he is trying to get at. I can readily see that that would be followed by another question. I have not that information. It has never been given in the details in the postal estimates. I sent out for information after the hon. member had spoken. I do not want my statement to be taken as absolutely accurate, but, as far as the official could estimate, he believed the mail canying was divided between the two great systems in the proportion of about 45 per cent to each, and the other systems about 10 per cent. That is what my hon. friend is trying to get at directly, I think.


Robert Gardiner: Yes, that is quite true.
I suppose the minister will bring that information down in order that we may perhaps have some more accurate statement. Could the minister give us any information with regard to the number of rural free mail deliveries in the various provinces of Canada?


George Perry Graham: They are not divided by
provinces, but the rural mail routes in number and operation are 3,742, and the number of boxes erected 200,027. The hon. member for South Simcoe (Mr. Boys) was asking those questions. The approximate cost per year is $2,771,203.54. We do not have them divided
Supply-Post Office

by provinces. I think my hon. friend can take it for granted that the rural mail routes are largely in the East and not in the prairie provinces.


Mr. SPENCER:: Do I understand the minister to say that the rural mail delivery routes are mostly in the East and not in the prairie provinces?


George Perry Graham: I said I thought the larger number of them were in the East and not in the prairie provinces.


Henry Elvins Spencer: I do not know about other constituencies; but I take it that the situation in them is the same as it is in mine. During the last year we have had many requests for rural mail delivery routes, and in every single case, so far as I know, the request has been turned down by the government. Is it the intention of the government next year to let up as regards this matter, and to give the rural people some opportunity of getting their mail delivered?


George Perry Graham: I dealt at quite some
length with this matter earlier in the evening, when my hon. friend was probably not in his seat. To be frank, I may say that there is in this estimate nothing to provide for any new routes. Expressing my own opinion, I believe the time must arrive before very long when the rural mail system will have to be extended. I am speaking particularly of the West and expressing my view in the absence of the Postmaster General (Mr. Murphy), who would be in a better position than I am to discuss this. As I said an hour or so ago, rural mail delivery, rural telephones and roads -all this kind of thing helps to make a contented people in a rural district by bringing them closer to each other as well as into closer touch with the great centres. That is a question of great import, and speaking for myself, I think the time will soon come when the rural mail route of Canada will have to be extended for these purposes, as well as for the accommodation of people living in rural districts. These things all tend to make not only people in sparsely settled districts more contented, but those districts more attractive to other people who might wish to come into them. The United States has extended a somewhat different system, and the deficit there this year is about $60,000,000. The question is altogether one of expense, how much the country can afford and how fast it can go.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Last year when the Post Office estimates were under discussion, I asked the minister for a statement of policy

as to what the department proposed to do in connection with extending the rural mail delivery. He was good enough to say that the time was rapidly approaching; I believe he said that before another year was over the department would take up once more the policy of extending the rural mail routes. I, like a good many other members, indeed, I presume like all members of the House, have received from time to time, under the frank of the Postmaster General, copies of the Ottawa Citizen in which reports of conferences and reports of the position of the Post Office department have appeared periodically. I notice in the ministerial press that the Postmaster General, at all events prior to the time of his departure for the south-I do not know what his attitude is just at present-has been pluming himself upon the great success that has attended his efforts in managing the department, especially with respect to its revenues. I understand that last year the Post Office Department showed a surplus. I, of course, have my opinion as to how that surplus was arrived at. When I am at home, I lick a good many stamps for cheques and other things, and I generally use postage stamps. At the same time all that sort of thing goes to swell the revenue of the Post Office Department. In view of what was said last year, I think the time has arrived when the finances of the country will permit, of ihe extension of the rural mail service in Canada. I said last year, and I say now that that is' practically the only direct benefit that many people living in rural communities in this country receive. If they can get a rural mail service, this is of great benefit, in fact, of almost inestimable benefit to them. I can contrast conditions that exist to-day in my province with what they were twenty-five years ago. When I was a boy, we lived in a country district and I had to walk three times a week six miles to get my father's mail. Today there is a daily rural service established by the late government in that particular community, and I say that all communities in the country have a right to look forward to the immediate future when there will be a rural route on every great road, at all events, in this country. I hope, however, there will be no patronage in the extension of that service.


George Perry Graham: It is by contract.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It is let by contract, and I am not altogether in favour of that system, because my experience is that people in rural communities frequently vie with each other, and the government is getting the service, in many instances, at below cost. I can quote

Supply-Post Office
case after case of this character. I know of a case of a contractor taking a contract immediately before the war who, in the course of the four years his contract ran, went behind one thousand dollars. I know that is a fact, because I had to help him out and I was glad to do so. It was only after the most strenuous efforts that we were able to get that man any increase at all. A contract system in theory is probably quite all right; but in practice it works out that the government gets the service performed by rural mail carriers in this country in many cases at below cost. The time has arrived when the government ought to have a policy and to say that they are going to extend this service to people in rural communities.


Mr. SUTHERLAND:: difficult to get people in the country to do this work. I mention this as one of the many difficulties which we find prevailing in the rural districts to-day.
Many of the things which the farmers are producing they have to market in competition with the whole world, and the climatic conditions of this country are such as to render that competition all the more difficult. In tropical countries produce can be got out of the land with comparatively no difficulty, and when we in Canada have to compete against such conditions it will easily be seen what a handicap we are under. I might mention several articles produced under such favourable conditions that come into this country to the value of millions of dollars. For instance, we hear a great deal of talk about wool, the raw material of the manufactured product, upon which a high tariff is maintained, coming in free of competition. This is the system that prevails, and so long as it does prevail it seems that contracts must be let by tender for the rural mail service. But I cannot see any justification for paying the letter carrier in the city the salary he gets today, together with his uniform-I believe he gets two suits-and giving the rural man the remuneration which he now receives. I should like the minister to justify the difference in these two cases. He might also tell us what is the average amount paid to the rural letter carrier on a twenty or twenty-five mile route and also the average salary paid to the letter carrier in the city. At the same time I would ask whether there have been so far many losses in connection with the dividends paid on war loans which are distributed in the rural districts. The cheques are sent out in an ordinary brown envelope very similar to the envelopes that contain the applications in connection with the Civil Service Commission, and I have often thought that the envelopes containing these cheques should be registered instead of being sent out in the indiscriminate way in which they are delivered at present. Very often they are put into the wrong box, because unfortunately many of the carriers are not very careful; and in many cases there is no choice in the selection of these men on account of the competitive system. So far, have there been many losses in this respect? I know myself of some that have occurred in connection with cheques issued in payment of interest on war loan bonds.


Mr. FIELDING:: I could not tell my hon. friend offhand, but I do not think there have been extensive losses. There may be an exceptional case here and there, but there have been no widespread losses.


Donald Sutherland: Would it involve any difficulty in having these cheques registered? I do not think it would entail any extra cost to the government, and it would make for safety. At all events it would be much more satisfactory than having the cheques distributed in the indiscriminate way in which they are sent out at present. Very often children are sent to the boxes to get mail during stormy weather and it is quite possible that an important bit of mail might be blown away. There is another matter which I would bring to the attention of the minister, and that is with regard to legal holidays on which the rural mail carriers have to deliver mail. Surely it is only fair that they should be given some remuneration for delivering mail on legal holidays. They have to carry the mails in all kinds of weather and they get nothing for their services on these holidays. I think it is only fair that they should be given something for this extra work.


George Perry Graham: The last point raised by my hon. friend is worth consideration, and perhaps an amount might be added to provide remuneration for work clone on holidays. Perhaps something might be provided to enable a man to engage someone else to drive his mail on that day if necessary. But it must be borne in mind that these men know all the terms and conditions when they take the contract. However, it is worth considering whether it would not be just to do something in this regard, as my hon. friend suggests. As to the delivery of war loan cheques, my experience is that one of the reasons why business men use cheques is because they do not have to register them. The cheque is usually payable to order and if it is lost payment can be stopped. We have not heard many complaints in the Post Office Department as to the loss of cheques. Personally I seldom get a cheque, although I send out cheques often enough. Whenever I do so, however, I always make the cheque payable' to order and never register it.


Mr. SPEAKMAN:: I want to put a further question regarding some information that was attempted to be elicited by hon. members from Medicine Hat (Mr. Gardiner) and Victoria, (Alta.) (Mr. Lucas). Does the minister seriously mean that there is no contract of any kind with the railway companies that carry our mail? We have been informed that they do not go out and grab for the nearest mail sack, and we can readily accept this information. We have been further informed that the onus rests on the postal employees. Is there any arrangement made

Supply-Post Office
between the Post Office Department and the railway companies so that the latter know about what amount of mail, when, and between what points they are to carry it? On the other hand, does the Post Office Department know what trains are going to carry mail on certain dates? Surely there must be some arrangement under which the Post Office Department and the railway companies know how the mails are to be handled.


George Perry Graham: There is no agreement with the railway companies as to the mails they shall carry.


Alfred Speakman: Not as to the amount?


George Perry Graham: No, as to the mails they shall carry. There is an agreement as to what they shall get for their services, but they are not guaranteed any particular mail. The Post Office Department in its re-arrangement knows generally what railways are carrying certain mails, but the agreement with the railway companies, as I read it to-night, is that they shall get certain payment for the mails they carry. As for the Post Office Department, it can divert the mails in any way; there is no absolute contract with the railway companies that they shall have an absolute mail route.


Mr. RINFRET:: Is it the intention of the government to appoint very soon a Deputy Minister for the Post Office Department?


George Perry Graham: The minister himself
would have to be consulted on that matter; as Acting Postmaster General I should not like to give an opinion as to what his views may be. There is an Acting Deputy Postmaster General, and there will probably not be any thought of appointing a deputy permanently until the Postmaster General's return.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: My excuse for asking is that I have put the question many times to the Postmaster General himself. While I am on the subject I would suggest that when the government deals with the appointment of the Deputy Postmaster General it give some thought to the present condition in the various departments in Ottawa as to the respective representation of English-speaking and French-speaking deputy ministers. It is a fact that under the old government-I suppose we could not expect anything else from it-the ratio of French-speaking deputy ministers went down practically to nothing. The condition to-day is that there is a Clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Boudreau, who has the rating of a deputy minister-


Arthur Meighen: Before the hon. gentleman proceeds further, will he tell me what reduction was made by the old government of French-speaking deputy ministers?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I have not got the facts before me.


Arthur Meighen: I have the facts before me. It was one in ten years. As I understand, this government has made a similar reduction in one year.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I know that the Deputy Minister of Inland Revenue has disappeared.


Arthur Meighen: For the simple reason that the department was amalgamated with the Customs. That is the only reduction in ten years, but under this government one French-speaking deputy minister has been retired in one year. So why is the hon. gentleman making that statement as to the old government?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I have not the least hesitation to present my case in another way, because the sooner we forget the old government the better.


Arthur Meighen: It is better to forget it than to say the wrong thing about it,


Mr RINFRET:: I might put it this way, that during the ten years of the old regime our representation-because I speak for my compatriots-in the different departments as regards deputy ministers was below the standard I am now asking the new government-which is working very hard to right many of the wrongs of its predecessors-when it appoints a Deputy Postmaster General to give thought to the fact that at present the French-speaking people of this country are only represented in the departments by way of deputy ministers by the clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Boudreau-who has the rank of a deputy minister but without the responsibility of a large department-and by Mr. Des-barats in the Department of National Defence -who is not a deputy minister, I understand, but who since his transfer to that department still retains the salary of a deputy minister. I do not wish to argue the point at length for it speaks for itself. I do not wish even to cast any aspersion on the past; I say again that the sooner we forget the past the better. But when the government of to-day appoints a Deputy Postmaster General I wish it would remember that there are in this country over two and a half million French Canadians who pay their taxes and who should certainly be allowed their proportion of representation in
Supply-Post Office

the departments as anywhere else. That is my proposal.


Robert Gardiner: Would the hon. member be satisfied to have appointed as deputy minister of the department a good Canadian?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I certainly would be
satisfied in a general way; but I think there are good Canadians among the French Canadians; that is my point; and having a bilingual situation we must deal with it as it is. I believe you can find very good Canadians among the French Canadian employees of the Post Office Department. I will not mention any names, although I have brought some names to the attention of the government already. I am perfectly willing to admit the principle that we must have a good Canadian as Deputy Postmaster General, but I wish to protest against any condition where it seems that there are no good Canadians except among the other branch of our people. I strongly urge the government, I would not say exactly to appoint a French Canadian as Deputy Postmaster General, but in a more general and broad way to give the Frenchspeaking people of this country their due representation in that grade of office.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Chairman, before the minister speaks I would like to say a few words anent the remarks of the hon. member for St. James (Mr. Rinfret). Towards the close he became very anxious to forget the subject that he emphasized so pointedly in the first half of his remarks, and begged us all to disregard it. He started to attack the late government and claimed that we had done an injustice to French Canadians in that we had reduced, as he said, almost to the vanishing point the number of French Canadian deputy ministers. He added that the present government was struggling hard to repair the errors of the old government, and he begged them in this particular case to do something to that end. I sought to call his attention to the fact that there was no reduction of French-speaking deputy ministers at all by the late government save in the case of one, and there also we made a reduction of one of the English-speaking deputy ministers, if not two. But the only reason that Mr. Vincent, who was a very competent deputy minister of the Inland Revenue department, was not continued was that the government amalgamated the office with that of the Customs, and very rightly so. I know the hon. member would not say that that was not the proper thing to do. Not only was that the only case, but Mr. Vincent was treated with absolute fairness by

the government, as he himself would admit; I do not think any retiring deputy was ever treated more liberally. Now, the hon. member says that this government is struggling to repair those errors. All this government has done to repair them is to reduce three deputy ministers to two. There were three of French origin when we left office; there are two to-day. Is that not right? There was Sir Eugene Fiset, Deputy Minister of Militia; there was Mr. Desbarats, Deputy Minister of Naval Service; and Mr. Boudreau; there are now only the latter two. So that in the great struggle to repair the errors of the old government, described in such heroic language by my hon. friend, the result has been to diminish-and, as he would view it, to aggravate-the offence of the old government. I know that Bir Eugene Fiset is out not by way of any injustice to him at all-I presume at his own desire; I do not know-but in the amalgamation of the Department of Militia and the Department of Naval Service. All I object to is the continual effort of the hon. member, which, I am sorry to say, he has been guilty of for years, through the paper he edits in Montreal as well as on the floor of this House, to impute to the late government an animosity that never inspired it and that never was in evidence. That was purely a matter of political incitation at the hands of hon. members who sought political advantage by it. I join with the hon. member in the hope that he expresses: I hope that it will be possible to find a French-speaking deputy-minister for the Post Office Department. I know the principal need is to have an efficient man; the hon. member will agree that that should be paramount. But while we are a bilingual country, talk as we will, we cannot get away from the necessity, if we are to have content and good feeling throughout the Dominion, of dividing these important appointments in approximate proportion to the respective populations. We tried to follow that out; we succeeded in almost every respect. I know the contingencies were such that when we went out of office the French Canadians were not getting their fair share in respect to the deputy ministerships. It has to be the practice; no one has more frankly said so year in and year out than myself. Therefore I hope it will be possible in the Post Office Department that a discrepancy that was occasioned in small degree through ten years and in equal degree under this government in one year will be in some respects remedied. The hon. member speaks the whole truth when he says that he has made a recommendation. It is pretty well known through-

Supply-Post Office
out this Dominion that he made a recommendation and that he got a rather curt refusal from the minister.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: Oh, no.


Arthur Meighen: It was not curt? It was a refusal, anyway, and it has not been accepted as entirely satisfactory by the friends of my hon. friend.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: The matter is pending.


Arthur Meighen: Well, it was pending in
an unfortunate and rather harrowing way when that letter was written. Does the hon. member think there is still hope after that letter?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: Well, I hope my hon.
friend's remarks will not do away with that hope.


Arthur Meighen: I hope not too. In fact, I will go further. I have an acquaintance with the gentleman the hon. member recommends. I not only have his personal acquaintance- not in any great degree, because he never was of my political faith; in fact, so far as I know he never was a political friend-but I have heard of him for many years and of his services in the department. For myself I know of no reason why he would not make an excellent deputy minister. I hope that will help my hon. friend.


George Perry Graham: It might.


Arthur Meighen: If it does, I shall be very much pleased. I earnestly hope that the trouble that has arisen over the matter will be patched up and that there will be no serious or permanent schism as a result. I rose only to state what I believed to be the principle that ought to be adopted and to express the earnest hope that something can be done to live up to it in the appointment of a deputy minister of this department.


George Perry Graham: We are not on the civil government estimates, under which I suppose, the matter of the deputy minister might be dealt with. But as the item will probably go through without much discussion when we come to it, perhaps it is just as well that we should deal with it now. I may say that I know of no decision having been arrived at in the matter of the deputy ministership; none has been conveyed to me. My right hon. friend stated a truism in a three-cornered fashion when he intimated that this government had reduced the number of Frenchspeaking deputies. But the fact is that this government did not do that. Sir Eugene Fiset, against my protest until his doctor's certificate was handed to me, insisted upon
resigning. If at the end of his term of leave of absence his health should be sufficiently recovered to enable him to resume his work, nothing would delight me more, because he is one of the ablest deputies there ever was in this country.


Arthur Meighen: If he had not resigned, Mr. Desbarats could not be deputy of the department; so there would have been a reduction anyway.


George Perry Graham: I am not so sure about that.


Arthur Meighen: How could you have one department and two deputies?


George Perry Graham: It was so in the Marine and Fisheries department; there was a Deputy Minister of Naval Defence and a Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries.


Arthur Meighen: But the minister has
made Naval Service and Militia one department. How can he have two deputies in one department?


George Perry Graham: Under one ministerial
head.


Arthur Meighen: No, there were two departments.


George Perry Graham: I beg my right hon. friend's pardon.


Arthur Meighen: I know it, and the minister knows it too.


George Perry Graham: May I say a word? The bill I introduced in this House forming the amalgamation provided for two deputies. The Upper Chamber amended the bill so that that was impossible, but it was provided that Mr. Desbarats should be retained in the new department as controller of the finances with the salary of a deputy minister. When Sir Eugene Fiset insisted on obtaining leave of absence, which I reluctantly gave him on account of his great ability and long experience, Mr. Desbarats remained Deputy Minister of Naval Service and assumed the office of Acting Deputy Minister of the Department of Defence. He is now controller and acting deputy. He cannot be appointed deputy, because two men cannot draw salaries for the same position. Sir Eugene Fiset is still drawing salary. When his leave of absence expires, if he is not able to return to his work, it will be in order to appoint a new deputy. I simply wanted to make it clear that the government was reluctant to part with Sir Eugene Fiset and that it was at his own request he was given leave of absence. Now, I will direct the attention of the Postmaster Gen-
Supply-Post Office

eral to the discussion which has taken place here to-night. I have a great deal of sympathy with the remarks of my hon. friend (Mr. Rinfret). In this country, where we have a bilingual situation, we who are in the majority must see to it that those in the minority have fair play in respect to these larger positions, because only by showing that spirit can we hope to have unity and amity throughout the country.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I do not wish to prolong this debate, but I would like to say this. I did not withdraw at all, as the right hon. leader of the Opposition suggests, from the position I first took, but as that was not my point I simply did not wish to stress it. I could mention very easily many cases both in the service and elsewhere where we claim we did not get justice from the late government, and I would not like the leader of the Opposition to-day to state that after making a mild statement at first, I was quite willing to withdraw. My only idea in not stressing the point was that it had little to do with the case I was presenting to the committee tonight.
The leader of the Opposition claims that when Mr. Vincent was withdrawn, he was well treated. I do not discuss that phase of the question. I will say, though, that when we claim a certain proportion of responsibility for Ffench-Canadians in the service we are not thinking at all of any huge salary that may happen to be paid to one of them, but we are thinking of the responsibility for those under him, and even if Mr. Vincent was well provided for and I suppose he was, at the same time it meant a loss of responsibility and power for the element he was supposed to represent.
As for the present government, my right hon. friend himself will admit that it has only been in power a year and a half, so we cannot very well consider that it has yet had the opportunity to do all that it wanted to do. The reason why I am asking this government to give proportional representation in that sense is that I feel perfectly satisfied that it will in due time, and I am taking the first occasion that offers itself to bring the attention of the government to that point.
There is just another remark I would like to make before I sit down. My right hon. friend has said that in my paper, referring to Le Canada of Montreal, and in my speeches I never lose an opportunity or I often take occasion to raise prejudice and create bad feeling. That was his statement, if I am not mistaken. I am not prepared at all to admit that. I am expressing the views of a certain proportion of the population who do not share

the views of my right hon. friend, but I always try to do it in a very moderate way and in a spirit of good understanding. I am ready to admit, however, that neither my paper nor any of my speeches are intended to please the leader of the Opposition.


Arthur Meighen: I have sent for the statutes because I am afraid the statutes will be necessary to convince the minister that there were two departments. There was a Naval Service department and a Marine and Fisheries department. They were created at different times. They were not one department.


George Perry Graham: They were under one minister.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly. Very frequently a minister has two departments. The Minister of the Interior has three to-day. The Minister of Interior is Minister of Mines; he is Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs, that is another department; he is Minister of the Interior. He is head of three departments with three deputy ministers. But the Minister of Militia made the Department of Militia and Defence and the Department of Naval Service, not two departments under one minister, but one department.


George Perry Graham: It was intended to make them one department with two deputy heads.


Arthur Meighen: That was the anomaly of the whole thing. You cannot have two deputy heads. The minister tried to do that and he was very readily cured. It was only a method of keeping the salary that was all. That was what the minister was after. What the minister objected to in my remarks and in which I was absolutely right is this. I said there were two departments not one. The
11 p.m. Marine and Fisheries department was one and the Naval Service department was wholly different. I have before me the statutes now which I can read to the minister. The Naval Service was created by Chapter 43 9-10 Edward VII, and the first thing the act says is that there shall be a Department of Naval Service. There had been a Department of Marine and Fisheries years before that. It was created by chapter 45 of the statutes of 1906. No, that is the chapter marked by the Library staff, but it is not the one I sent for. The Marine and Fisheries department was created very many years ago, shortly after confederation. There were two departments under one minister, and there were two deputy ministers. The Minister of the Interior has now three deputy ministers, and quite properly, in fact four, for Immigration has been put under him. There are

Supply-Post Office
four different departments. That is a wholly * different thing. But when the Minister of Militia took the responsibility of combining the Naval Service with Militia and Defence by that act he necessarily got rid not of a deputy minister from the service but of the office and salary of a deputy minister, because you can have only one deputy to a department. He did precisely the same as we had done with the Department of Customs and Inland Revenue. That is all I rose to say. I do not say he should not have done it; I do not say that at all, but when one complains of the result of our action in ten years I would point out that the same thing has resulted under this government in one year.
I have nothing further to say in answer to the hon. member (Mr. Rinfret). He was pretty fair in his reply. I certainly cannot dispute his initial statement that he could tell me of many cases where he claimed to be unjustly treated. I know he was continually claiming that almost every day for ten years.


Mr. SHAW:: I do not know what particular item we are discussing, but I think this is perhaps an appropriate time to bring to the attention of the minister a suggestion which appears to me might have some merit in it. Under the law as it stands at present, public libraries I believe are entitled to a special postage rate on books sent out within a radius of fifty miles. That is a very desirable provision. The only point I wish to question is the limitation as to mileage. In eastern Canada I can quite understand that that limitation is very effective and perhaps meets the situation, but in western Canada with our great distances it is not, I think, working as satisfactorily. For instance, we have a public library at Edmonton and another at the city of Calgary, 190 miles away. The result is that with a fifty-mile zone, the libraries are not able to secure the advantage of the lessened postage rates, and consequently the reading public who might otherwise secure the advantage of books from public libraries are not able to secure them owing to the postage rates. My hon. friend from Edmonton reminds me that this is a very serious matter in the northern part of the province. The closest library is Edmonton, and the country to be served extends some three or four hundred miles north from that point. I rose simply for the purpose of suggesting to the minister that the zone be increased perhaps to one hundred miles. In that way no harm would be done in eastern Canada, but it would advantage the West very considerably.


Robert Gardiner: I would like to refer back to a question that has been before the House already to-night. One or two members have made the statement that they have not been approached with regard to the appointments of postmasters where the salary has been under $200. I jokingly remarked that I had not been consulted in the matter, but perhaps I did not give the House a correct impression. I want to say that I have no desire to be consulted in the matter. I just wished to correct a mistaken impression some hon. members may have got from my remark. I would like to deal with that just for a moment. It would seem that the department is asking certain members of this House to make recommendations of the names of persons who, they think, would be capable of occupying these positions. Who is responsible for that? Who is going to be responsible for the appointment of that official in a position with a salary of $200? Does the department hold the member of parliament responsible for his recommendation? Or is the department going to hold itself responsible for that appointment? I maintain that, if they are asking the members of the House of Commons to recommend the names of people for those positions, the system is wrong, and we ought to get away from it as soon as we possibly can. I contend that where positions in small post offices become vacant the department should be responsible for seeing that a proper person is appointed to that particular vacancy, and it is not a question of a member of the House recommending any person for that particular vacancy. We must at all times hold the Post Office Department responsible for the appointments, and I hope and trust the department will get away from the species of petty patronage that has been introduced during the last twelve months.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King, the House adjourned at 11.05 p.m.
Friday, April 13, 1923