1923-05-29

CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS- PARIS OFFICES

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, in the press of yesterday an announcement appears that Sir Henry Thornton, on behalf of the Canadian National Railways, has bought a large block of real estate in the city of Paris, France, at a cost approaching two milion dollars. Has the government any information on the subject?


Hon.   G@: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian
National Railway board is doing something towards securing suitable quarters for the system in Paris, which, I believe, if brought to a conclusion, would afford accommodation for other departments of government as well. I have not the particulars, I will ask for them.


Arthur Meighen: This undoubtedly would be a capital investment, and therefore would require the previous consent of the government. Has the government given its consent to the purchase of real estate in the city of Paris?


Mr. GRAHAM:: No, not up to the present time.



SIR HENRY THORNTON

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Arthur Meighen: Some days ago it was brought to the attention of the government that Sir Henry Thornton was reported to have become a director of Canada Steamship Lines, Limited, and the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) promised an investigation. Has the investigation been made, and is the report correct?


George Perry Graham: The minister did not promise an investigation; no such word was used. Sir Henry Thornton-as did his predecessor-has accepted a place on the board of the Canada Steamship Lines, Limited, for reasons which are apparent to men engaged in the transportation business.


Arthur Meighen: What are they?


George Perry Graham: There are traffic arrangements between Canada Steamship Lines, Limited, and the Canadian National Railways, and it is thought expedient that some member of the Canadian National Railway Board should be on the directorate of Canada Steamship Lines, Limited.


Arthur Meighen: The minister should remember that the fact that the Canada Steamship Company was doing business with the Canadian National was urged very strongly by his Prime Minister as a reason why Mr. Hanna should not be on that board rather than as a reason why he should be.



ST. LAWRENCE WATERWAYS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (North Toronto) Mr. Speaker, some time ago I asked the government if it was its intention to continue negotiations with the United States in regard to the St. Lawrence deep waterways. The reply I got was not very satisfactory; it was simply to the effect that the time was not opportune for dealing with the matter. Would it not be possible during the recess for the government to obtain reports as to the engineering and financial features of the project and continue these negotiations? I should like to know how the matter stands.
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: I would not say, Mr. Speaker, that negotiations have been discontinued. A certain question was asked us by the American government, to which we replied. No further communication has been received from Washington, and that is where

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the matter stands at present. Whenever it is re-opened the government will be pleased to consider any further representations that may be made.


Mr. CHURCH:: Have negotiations been broken off altogether?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think it would be more correct to say they are being continued to the extent I have indicated. That is assuming the term negotiations may be correctly applied to what has already taken place.



BANKRUPTCY ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
House again in committee on Bill No. 139, to amend the Bankruptcy Act, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
On section 13-Composition, extension or scheme of arrangement.
Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: We had a good deal of discussion on this section, and the minister rather agreed with some of the arguments made by the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Clark) as to the advisability of continuing a scheme which enabled businesses to carry on which otherwise would be ruined.


Sir LOMER GOUIN:: The original clause has given rise to more abuses than any other part of the act. Many debtors have made offers of composition which were duly approved by the creditors on the condition that the payment of debt should be made in instalments. The debtors retained possession of their assets and continued their business, but failed to pay the instalments and subsequently assigned when there was nothing left for the creditors. After the first reading of this bill a number of commercial associations met in Toronto and they united in recommending, in effect, that this amendment be adopted. I can mention the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, the Canadian Credit Men's Association, Retail Merchants' Association, Wholesale Grocers' Association, Dominion Loan Companies' Association. In view of these representations we do not see how we could reasonably withdraw an amendment which is of so great importance.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend gives me the names of some very estimable organizations that may or may not have really studied this subject. I would be more concerned in knowing what the real troubles are. This whole matter of a voluntary arrangement rests with the creditors; it is for them to say whether or not it shall be entered into. I realize there may be default in the payment of instalments; there are
broken promises everywhere, and that is why it is necessary to have a bankruptcy law. But after all, is it not a matter for the creditors to say, whether or not it would be a good thing to enable a particular concern to carry on a little longer?


Lomer Gouin: An informal arrangement or composition can at any time be made with creditors. The fact is that this amendment was suggested to meet the wish of the creditors, or of the traders who are the creditors of to-morrow. In England there is no such composition or asignment as we have it; such arrangement can be made only after a receiving order or an assignment. And there is good reason for that. Under the English law, when there is an assignment the debtor does not remain in possession of his assets, but in our case he continues in business, disposes of the goods', and in seventy-five cases out of one hundred subsequently assigns, leaving nothing for his creditors. My hon. friend suggests that the present arrangement may be verj advantageous both td debtor and to creditors. That may have been the case in one or two instances, but our information is that in a great number of cases it has been to the disadvantage of the creditors', and that is why we offer the amendment.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I still do not
see the necessity for the amendment. The creditors, after all, have to agree to the whole thing if any order is made in bankruptcy. And there is this to be remembered: so soon as a bankruptcy order is made, just so soon is the firm or partnership in question put in a very difficult position as to carrying on business again. I really do not see why the creditors should want to have the matter taken out of their hands and have it provided that there must be court proceedings before a binding composition can be made.


Lomer Gouin: The amendment was asked for last year, and we thought we should not immediately adopt it; they have asked for it again this year. I do not see why we should not proceed according to that request.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend hears only from a certain number of them. I would remind him again that he is legislating, that parliament is legislating, not the people who are making these representations. If he has evidence that it is a bad thing to allow people to make these arrangements or to let them have the right to make them, that is another matter.


Lomer Gouin: There have been a great number of abuses. The first objection
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we ever heard to the amendment was made in this House.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 15-Appointment of trustee.
Lomer Gouin: In order to meet the objection offered by the hon. member for St. John City (Mr. Baxter) we might add after the word "creditors" in the third line of subsection 2 the following words: "at which two-thirds of the proved creditors are represented." That is to say, no removal can take place unless two-thirds of the creditors are represented at the meeting where such a proposal is made.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I suppose if my hon. friend takes the same position that he did before, that position being that he has determined upon changing the form of the appointment of the trustees-


Lomer Gouin: That was adopted
by the House, I understand.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I understood that the main question had not been adopted by the House, that the form was to be changed. This is the section which says that the creditors at the first meeting shall appoint by ordinary resolution any person but the official receiver as trustee for the administration of the estate. So we are dealing with that now. I want to reiterate very briefly the position we have taken, so that there shall be no doubt that the House recognizes what we are doing in doing this. I have had only one complaint from Ontario against the present law, and that complaint had to do with the same company of whom complaints were made in the province of Quebec, a credit association making itself too busy and going around practically trying to push people into bankruptcy. Apart from that I have heard no complaints whatever as to the method in which the appointments work out in Ontario. I have heard of nothing from other provinces, and my friend from St. John tells us that it is working very, very well down there. I do not think the hon. minister has heard of many complaints from anywhere except the province of Quebec, where both of us appointed too many people. My plea to . the minister before was this:	Would it not be better,
rather than changing the whole system that is working well in every province of this Dominion except Quebec, to undo what was done wrong in Quebec and start Quebec aright? I again point out that we shall have delays, we are bound to have delays, that we have gentlemen made official receivers who 
know absolutely nothing about ordinary commercial business and are very ill-fitted to discharge those duties. Then we have the custodian. I again point out that we have opportunities for three different sets of costs, that we have opportunities for delay, and so far as I have heard there is only one reason why all these things are to be done, and that is because too many trustees were appointed in the province of Quebec. I do not know whether my hon. friend has reasons other than what we have heard in the House, but if he has not, it does appear to me that a great mistake is being made.


Lomer Gouin: The complaints did not come only from Quebec. Some came from the province of Ontario also. But even supposing that such complaints should come only from one province we are here legislating for the whole country, and we are trying to make this a permanent law. As I have had occasion to say before, we have had many bankruptcy laws and all of them have had to be repealed.
My hon. friend says that all the provinces except Quebec are satisfied with the present system. Now if by changing the mode of appointment of the trustees and adopting the system that is in existence in some other countries in place of this one which is not known anywhere in the world except in Canada, we can satisfy one or two provinces and make it so that there will be no more complaints against the system, and have a law of bankruptcy that will be accepted by the whole Dominion, I think we shall have accomplished something. From what I know of the province of Quebec, even if the number of trustees was less than it is to-day, even if it were reduced by fifty per cent or more, I sincerely believe that the system of to-day would never work, and that we should adopt the system that they have in England and the United States, leaving it to the creditors to choose the trustee. After all, they are the most interested parties, and I cannot understand why we should leave it to the debtor to choose the liquidator. It seems to me the creditor should have that choice. In all sincerity I think that we should adopt the system that we now propose, and if we do so, I trust that not only Quebec but all the provinces will accept permanently this bankruptcy law.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Mr. Chairman,
I do not think the matter stands quite in the way my hon. friend puts it. All that the present Bankruptcy Act did, having regard

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to the point we are now discussing, was to continue what always was the law under assignments. The debtor always made the assignment, and he always made it to whom he wanted to make it.


Lomer Gouin: No.


Mr. JACOBS:: No.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend says, "No." If he will wait a moment I think perhaps he will find that I am stating the fact. The debtor makes the assignment. He has to make it. It has to be the debtor because his assignment is a voluntary act. It is not anything that can be forced, and it is idle to say the debtor did not pick the man to whom he made the assignment. He did pick him and as soon as he had done it the creditors at their first meeting put in any assignee they liked. That is why we had all over the province people dickering for proxies, one group pulling in this direction and another pulling in that. That is why we used to have the carpet-bagger assignee, with his bag packed ready to be picked up at any minute to catch the first train at the first symptom, the very first sniff, of trouble- yes, and lawyers doing the same thing. We had all these abuses, and we can have the same thing here because what we are doing here will bring about a result which will put us exactly in that position. When you have an official trustee he ought to be a man of standing, one whom the creditors will accept. In Ontario they have been men of standing that the creditors have accepted. There have been no undignified fights, that I know of, for the purpose of trying to catch this estate for that man or that estate for the other. But my hon. friend makes it inevitable that these troubles shall take place now in the case of any and every assignment. In the one instance you have a select body of men to any one of whom the debtor may assign his bankruptcy papers, with only a remote chance that the creditors at their meeting will change the trustee-a very remote chance, I am instructed at least from Ontario. But under my hon. friend's plan what happens is this: Perforce there has to be an election by the creditors; perforce there has to be this wire-pulling and log-rolling. We do not think that is a good thing. We thought we had got away from that. We are now perpetuating it. Frankly, Mr. Chairman, we thought it was a good thing that we should not only get away from that but keep away from it.
I quite agree with my hon. friend that we must consider the province of Quebec. We
have every right to consider their troubles, and we ought to consider them just as much as the troubles of any other five or six provinces, but so far I have not heard anything which would give us the idea that there was a constitutional trouble among the business people of Quebec that did not apply to the other provinces. I always got the idea from what has been said that we have appointed altogether too many men in Quebec, that not only were the good men continued but a lot of unqualified men were put on, and there was a scramble for the work. I did think, therefore, that in the absence of some fundamental distinction which does not exist between the business people of Quebec on the one hand and the business people of the Maritime provinces on the other, if my hon. friend would get a list of authorized receivers for Quebec such as he has appointed in other places where this act is working properly, the difficulties in the province of Quebec would be overcome. Therefore, in the absence of some fine distinction, which does not exist, between the business people of Quebec on the one hand and the business people of the Maritime provinces on the other, if my hon. friend got authorized receivers such as are to be found in other places where the act is working properly these difficulties would be overcome. They ought to be overcome in the case of Quebec just as much as in the case of any other province. But, if it can be done in any other way-and I do not see why it cannot-why should it be done at the expense of throwing out the machinery in every other province where it is working all right?


Lomer Gouin: I understand that all the other provinces are willing to accept the change in this respect; they think it is preferable. I cannot add any further argur ;ent to what I have already said. I have given considerable time to the study of these amendments in which I was helped by the officers of my department, and I have acted according to the representations which were sent to us.


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: The hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) suggested a moment ago that this Bankruptcy Act met with general approval throughout Canada except in the province of Quebec. May I suggest that, so far as I can see, neither the amendment proposed by the Minister of Justice nor the Bankruptcy Act itself does suit all the industries in all the provinces. We in the farming industry find neither the act nor these amendments at all adapted to that

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industry. We find, for example, that the first part of. the act dealing with involuntary bankruptcy does not apply to agricultural people; we can only get redress under the voluntary assignment. Then, under the general interpretation that is placed upon the Bankruptcy Act, the intention seems to be that as soon as the debtor makes an assignment in bankruptcy it is possible to secure the documents and the keys, lock up the business, and take care of it in that way. But that cannot be done in the case of a farmer where there are standing crops to be taken care of, stock to be fed, and other matters to be attended to. Another difficulty that arises in connection with insolvent farmers is that practically all the assets of the farmer are already absorbed in the form of mortgages and so on. Usually he will not have anything left. Yet we find the ordinary statement of a trustee in bankruptcy is something to the following effect: "Before we could undertake to handle an assignment in bankruptcy in this matter, we would have to have advanced to us the sum of $50 for the payment of preparation of documents, registration and advertising notices, mailing of notices to creditors, and the drawing of statutory declaration. If you are prepared to forward us this amount we shall, upon hearing from you, send you the papers duly prepared for signature." And may I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the difficulty is that most trustees do not ask $50 but considerably more; I have heard of many cases where they demand as much as $200. I can assure you that there are many hundreds, if not thousands, of the farmers in western Canada who might take advantage of this act but are unable to do so because of this necessary cash payment. I would suggest that perhaps we could get round the difficulty by creating a new part of the act that would apply especially to agriculture. We could introduce a new part to the act without amending the old clauses, a new part intended to meet agricultural conditions, and leave the old clauses applicable to business men. I may say that I have in my hand a letter from Mr. Fream, of Edmonton, Alberta, in which he states:
I would not like to state how many farmers would take advantage of the act if they were able to raise the leposit required by the trustees, but am satisfied that this figure would run well into the hundreds if not * oe thousands. The desire to get a new start by mak'.;g a clean-up through bankruptcy is steadily growing and more requests for information on this question are being received all the time.
I would ask the minister to take into consideration the addition of a new part to the act that would meet agricultural conditions. TMr. E. J Garland.!


Lomer Gouin: It is true that under the present law no one can force a farmer to assign but the farmer has a right to assign; the law is not changed in that regard. It is also a fact that in case of an assignment in future a custodian will be appointed by the receiver who will take charge of the assets of the farm. As to the matter of a deposit, there will be no necessity for such a deposit in future. The farmer will go to the receiver, he will make an assignment, and he will pay for the ordinary stamp which cannot amount to very much. I do not see what more we could do to help the farmer.


Edward Joseph Garland: I would like to ask the minister if there is not a discrimination against the farmer in the act itself to-day. If I am informed correctly a farmer can only get a clearance after he has paid fifty cents on the dollar, but that does not apply to business men.


Lomer Gouin: There is no difference between a farmer and a trader as to that.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The real thing in connection with the farmers is this: I do not think the farmers, as a whole, want to use the act as it now stands and I believe they have a reason for their attitude. In so far as the act itself is concerned, the farmer is in a better position than the trader is because the latter can be forced out of business through bankruptcy proceedings and the former cannot.


Edward Joseph Garland: Some would like to be.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That may be but there is a cheaper way of meeting the situation than that-they can always stop. As the hon. gentleman has said there is no way of forcing them into bankruptcy. There is absolutely no remedy along the lines advanced by the hon. member for Bow River. Still, I am inclined to think that something ought to be done for the farmers on another line under this bankruptcy bill. After all, the farmer is in a different position from that of the ordinary trader. The farmer cannot continue paying anything if he loses his farm and his implements-he cannot do anything at all. If he goes into bankruptcy to-day he loses all equity in his farm, he loses his implements-in fact everything goes. We might well consider the framing of a separate section dealing with farmers which would enable the farmers, on a proper case being made out,

that is a case showing absolute good faith, showing that there was no room for chicanery or anything of that sort-to obtain a dis-

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charge as bankrupts and still hold what they would be entitled to hold under the usual provisions as to exemptions from seizure. It may be that that is a very novel idea. I know it is, but in my opinion it is a good idea although it is a novel one. The farmer, after all, is not usually in the same position, as to asking credits, as the man of business; he is really better off without them half the time. A bankruptcy law of this kind would place the farmers in districts of the country where they are to-day loaded down with debts -debts that I do not believe they will get away from for a good many years-in a position where they could no longer be sued; they could get their discharge; and they would still be left with the modicum of property which the exemptions to-day leave to them under ordinary proceedings. And how are the creditors hurt? I do not think the creditors are hurt at all. The creditors to-day have their hands held by the exemption clauses under the sheriff's sales; they cannot get this property anyway. On the other hand it is helping them, because, after all, it is better to have a man that is functioning in the community, a man who is not tied up with debts and costs, and all that sort of thing, going on ad infinitum. It would enable the farmers to get another start without really hurting their creditors at all, because their creditors cannot sell except to the extefit that the local laws allow. They are held to the exemptions, and those exemptions, in the Northwest, are sufficient to enable a man to continue working his small farm and leave with him his necessary implements and thus enable him to go ahead. I think if we were to make some provision of that kind, it would prevent a tremendous lot of writs that are issued, particularly in the northwest country every year when there is not a good harvest. At such a time men cannot pay, but each creditor thinks the other creditor is going to get ahead of him. No one is getting anything out of it and everybody is losing. It seems to me this would give these farmers a new start and enable them to go ahead with some hope.


Mr. FORKE:: I have no doubt the hon.
member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) has very good intentions, but I would hesitate a long time before I would take advantage of any such legislation. I think perhaps the hon. member is beginning at the wrong end of the business to help the farmer.


Samuel William Jacobs: He wants him to get a
decent burial.


Arthur Meighen: I have not very much
confidence in reviving agriculture by amendments to the Bankruptcy Act, but at the same time I am sorry to see the suggestion of the member for West York received in the way it has been by the leader of the Progressive party (Mr. Forke).


Mr. GAUVREAU:: A bad reward.


Arthur Meighen: A very bad reward. The fact to-day is-and it is worse now than it has ever been in my knowledge-that what the farmer of the country is able to earn and save is absorbed by the almost infinite processes of the law. There is no reason in the world why a succession of law suits, with accompanying costs, should pile up, score by score, on top of the farmer, when there is no immediate chance of realization, and all in the chase for priority. Our jurisdiction comes because of our bankruptcy powers alone. There should certainly be a process by which some official trustee would acquire the custody of such portion of the farmer's assets as go beyond the exemptions allowed by the provincial law, and at the same time enable the farmer to proceed, claims being merely continued with the trustee, without the necessary deed or process, and if accepted by the farmer as right, then no costs at all attach to it. In the meantime, the farmer is proceeding with his work, being faced with the necessity of paying his debts, but not with the necessity of paying mountains of costs besides. That the idea is practical there is no doubt at all. I have heard most fabulous tales of the numbers of writs issuing in our western courts to-day. Even allowing for a measure of exaggeration- though the number is undoubtedly very large -I do not question for one moment that there are lawyers' costs being piled upon the back of farmers in western Canada to the extent of millions which they cannot avoid, which the lawyers are not responsible for, but which the bankruptcy laws in large degree are responsible for.


Samuel William Jacobs: May I suggest that as soon as the assignment is made no writs shall be issued.


Mr MEIGHEN:: How can a farmer proceed after assignment? That is the whole trouble. He cannot do a thing. Once he assigns he is done. It is different with a merchant. When a farmer assigns as the hon member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) says, his farm and his implements and the like are gone.


Samuel William Jacobs: I think the hon. member
is mistaken.


Arthur Meighen: No, when he is in bankruptcy he cannot proceed.
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Samuel William Jacobs: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: He cannot proceed under the present law. I have never seen a case, in the practice of law, under the bankruptcy law of a farmer proceeding to operate his land. He cannot retain his land under the present law and go ahead. That is simply what we are pleading for. I do not say that I have studied the matter as thoroughly as I should have in order to frame legislation, but I have surveyed the field sufficiently to convince myself that there is an opportunity for legislation that will remedy the present condition.


Lomer Gouin: We were discussing the appointment of trustees, and not a change in the law to protect the farmers. My hon. friend from West York speaks of exempting for the farmer all that is exempted under the provincial law under an assignment. We have such a thing in the law now. If the hon. member will read clause 25 of the Bankruptcy Act, he will find the following provision :	'
The property of the debtor divisible amongst his creditors (in this act referred to as the property of the debtor) shall not comprise the following particulars:
(i)	Property held by the debtor in trust for any other person;
(ii)	Any property which as against the debtor is exempt from execution or seizure under legal process in accordance with the laws of the province within which the property is situate and within which the debtor resides.
So that all the provincial exemptions are there.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I think the minister will agree that it would be absolutely idle to expect a discharge to be given, in the way in which the act is administered, which would leave the farmer with his farm, and if the minister knows of any case-


Lomer Gouin: Does the hon. member want to exempt the farm?


Henry Lumley Drayton: I want to have it so that farming operations can be continued.


Samuel William Jacobs: You might as well exempt the trader and leave him in possession of all the merchandise in his warehouse.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not think the hon. member is quite right in that statement. There is the farm, without which the farmer can do nothing. My idea was to leave him with a comparatively small farm so that he could continue farming operations.


Samuel William Jacobs: What is he to assign to his creditors if you are going to leave him his 
farm? There is nothing to assign and no necessity to assign.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It may be it would be idle, as far as the creditors are concerned, but it would not hurt them very much. It may be the farmer is insolvent and unable to pay his debts, he has nothing but land.


Samuel William Jacobs: He may have too much land, and that may be the reason for his trouble.


Henry Lumley Drayton: If he had too much land he would lose the excess land, and be left with just enough to continue farming.


Lomer Gouin: There is no exception in this section 25. It is general. Any property which is exempted in the provincial law is exempted under the Bankruptcy Act. Section agreed to.
On section 26-Priority of claim.


Lomer Gouin: We have to read sections 26 and 27 together. I would ask to be allowed to make a change. The principle is the same, but it is a difference in drafting.


The CRAIRMAN:: Section 26, as it is proposed to amend it, reads:
Subsection 1 of section 51 is amended by inserting after the word "firstly" in the fifth line thereof the following words "costs and expenses of the custodian and".	,
And section 27, as it is proposed to amend it, reads:
Section 52 of the said act is amended as follows: Chapter 17 of the statutes of 1921 is repealed and the following is substituted therefor:
"52. When a receiving order or an assignment is made against or by any lessee under this act, the same consequences shall ensue as to the rights and priorities of his landlord as would have ensued under the laws of the province in which the debtor has his locality for the purposes of this act if the lessee at the time of such receiving order had been a person entitled to make and had made an abandonment or a voluntary assignment of his property for the benefit of his creditors pursuant to the laws of the province; and nothing in this act shall be deemed to suspend, limit or affect the legislative authority of any province to enact any law provided for or regulating the rights and priorities of landlords consequent upon any such abandonment or voluntary assignment; nor shall anything in this act be deemed to interfere or conflict with the operation of any such provincial law heretofore or hereafter enacted in so far as it provides for or regulates the rights and priorities of landlords in such an event."


Samuel William Jacobs: I am not very clear as to the meaning of the last clause:
Nor shall anything in this act be deemed to interfere or conflict with the operation of any such provincial law heretofore or hereafter enacted in so far as it provides for or regulates the rights and priorities of landlords in such an event.

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Lomer Gouin: This means that we wish to have the privileges, which are now enjoyed by landlords in any of the provinces, continued under this legislation. We say that the provinces will be free to amend any of their existing legislation.


Samuel William Jacobs: It does not seek to make that retroactive.


Lomer Gouin: No retroactivity. This is the principle that is to be found in the law of 1875. We have reason to believe that with this last amendment nearly all the provinces will be satisfied.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Some time ago my hon. friend's chief interest was that of the creditors. I am afraid he is turning sharply right about face this time.


Lomer Gouin: How?


Henry Lumley Drayton: His interest is now what the provincial legislature is going to say, not the interest of the creditor at all. This is a clause which is absolutely against the interests of creditors; it is a clause which makes entirely for additional support to landlords, which, in the great majority of cases, they do not require, and in many cases ought not to get.


Lomer Gouin: The landlord is a creditor.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is quite true, but he is a creditor who is so secured that his claim against the estate is not, as a rule, very serious. The trouble with what my hon. friend is doing is that, not only does it secure landlords, but it enables landlords to make extra money, extra penalties, because their tenants go into liquidation. This is going back to the old law of forfeiture, which, I know, is still practised in many countries. It is really taking advantage of the penalties of forfeiture and making them apply to creditors generally. My hon. friend will not try to support this claim on the ground of fairness. On the mere question of equity, we cannot very well contrast the claim of the landlord, who still has his property, with the claim of the creditor, unsecured, who may have 4 p.m. advanced goods or may have personal claims which, to a large extent, he loses. Under this amendment, the landlord holds his own, and he also gets something of somebody else's. It seems to me that we are now running violently back; that it is a retrograde step to extend the powers of these forfeitures and premiums on forfeitures -for this is what this amounts to. The hon. member for George Etienne Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) the other day illustrated how this worked out in Quebec. He showed, in the case of an insolvent in Quebec, that insolvr ency breaking the lease, the landlord had a claim which ran up to something like sixteen months' rent-I think that was what the hon. gentleman said.


Samuel William Jacobs: Twenty-eight months was what I really said.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Past due rent accounted for twelve months of that.


Samuel William Jacobs: Yes.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am not complaining so much about past due rent. There the landlord is not really in a better position than the ordinary creditor. The thing I so strenuously object to is that simply because a man fails, simply because his general creditors are losing money, the landlord receives an extra bonus of sixteen months' rent in advance, to be taken out of the general fund. It is not on the ground of equity that the minister will seek to uphold this clause, there is no equity in it. He will seek to uphold it on the ground that if he does not insert this provision, he will be interfering with provincial rights. Of course, there is an interference, I will not say with provincial rights, because the question is not one of provincial rights when we are dealing with bankruptcy, which is directly given to this House to deal with. We had a question of provincial rights under consideration when we were discussing the Nova Scotia legislation.. This is a question of provincial law, not of provincial rights. It is not only the laws of the province of Quebec that are antagonistic to the bankruptcy sections. Under the Ontario law as to voluntary assignments, the landlord has a prior claim for a year's past rent and for three months' rent to come, and other provinces have practically similar provisions. But the minister will say: "Is it , not very much beter to have a law that no one is going to attack, and this one has been attacked?" You will always have those who may attack any laws. But if he takes the position as minister of the Crown in charge of the law department of the country, that there is any question about this, he ought to withdraw his whole act, for the whole act offends against provincial law; it is worth nothing except when it does interfere with such law. This act does something which ordinary laws do not do and is in conflict with the laws of debtor and creditor as they are expressed in the statute boks of every province. So, if that stand be taken, and my hon. friend's position is to be logical, the

Bankruptcy Act

whole act should go. But he will not take that course because, in so many words, bankruptcy comes within the jurisdiction of this parliament.
Now, over and above that, can my hon. friend point out any distinction under section 92 in favour of the landlord, as against the ordinary creditor, founded on provincial law? He knows just as well as I do-yes, better than I do-that the ordinary law here must apply, that all the rights given under section 92 are subject to those conferred by section 91. One cannot argue to-day with any hope of success that there is merit in giving the landlord a sixteen months' bonus at the expense of the ordinary creditors of the insolvent's estate. Yet that is being done. I would ask my hon. friend really to consider the advisability of dropping this section; it has no merit. It is idle to say that we any more offend provincial law in connection with the one item of real estate than we do in connection with any other property.


Lomer Gouin: I do not suppose my hon. friend is satisfied with the law as we have it to-day giving the trustee power to dispose of the property occupied by the insolvent debtor, to sublet it if he likes, without any remedy being left to the landlord once his claim for three months' rent has been satisfied? My hon. friend says he sees no difference between the claim of a landlord and the claim of a merchant, and he pretends that under this amendment the landlord is left in a better position than the ordinary creditor. Well, in every province a privilege is always given to the landlord. Some provinces make the privilege twelve months, others six months, some three months. In England the privilege is six months. It is admitted that this feature of the bankruptcy law which we propose to amend is not satisfactory to the people of Canada. All the provinces have been complaining about if creditors, landlords and the people generally are all dissatisfied. The provinces have the right to legislate on civil rights in this particular and to say what shall be the privilege allowed to a landlord. We have to amend our law. We have considered the point very carefully and after reading all the representations which came to us we have reached the conclusion that the best suggestion to offer this House is to restore to the landlords the privileges which they enjoyed under provincial laws. This is nothing new; we find it in the law of 1875, as I said before.
If any provincial legislation is not satisfactory the people of the province can amend

it through their representatives in the legislature. If they find that the privilege given to the landlord is too large they can reduce it; if they find it is not sufficient they can enlarge it.
But I really do not understand why my hon. friend from West York (Sir Henry Drayton) should so strongly oppose the amendment that we offer. There is no doubt that such a privilege is a civil right. My hon. friend says, "Well, the Minister of Justice is going to invoke that civil right question to justify the amendment." I do not need to invoke it. I am told that in a case now pending before one of our superior courts the judge will decide that this law is unconstitutional in so far as it affects the rights of landlords. If this is so, when we have at our disposal a means of giving to the landlords their rights and privileges, that is, by accepting the provincial laws in this respect, why not make the necessary amendment? As I say, it was done before and worked very smoothly, while under the present law we have complaints from all over the Dominion.
After all, Mr. Chairman, this is not of such great importance to creditors. My hon. friend mentioned the case of Quebec, where under certain extraordinary circumstances the privilege might extend to twenty-four or twenty-eight months. Well, to find such a case my hon. friend would probably have to go back one hundred years in the history of that province. We have never heard of a case where the landlord had a privilege for twenty-eight months, or for twenty months, or even for twelve months; it is generally six or nine months, never more. Upder the present law the only privilege allowed to. the landlord is three months as an ordinary creditor, with no recourse of any kind against the trustee of the estate. We are told by all the provinces that this is not just, and they ask us to change the law. Therefore we propose to change it as indicated by the amendment, that is, by restoring to landlords their rights under the laws of the various provinces. \\ hat insuperable objection can my hon. friend urge to the acceptation of the provincial laws? Is it because the privilege under them is too large? As I have said, it is very, very seldom that the privilege would extend to more than six months. You have twelve months in Ontario, you have six months in England, and in most of the provinces you have between nine and twelve months. This is the law which was accepted by the provinces. Why should we change it? Why should we limit it to three months and

Bankruptcy Act
say that after that period the landlords are deprived of any further claim against the debtor's estate? I submit that such a limitation is not fair, and that the least my hon. friend could do when opposing this amendment is himself to offer a suggestion to overcome the present difficulty. But on the whole, if my hon. friend had to consider the drafting of a substitutive amendment, I really believe that after due reflection he would come to the same conclusion which I have arrived at myself and accept the provincial law. This was done, I repeat, in 1875, and it worked satisfactorily.


Mr. GUTHRIE:: Mr. Chairman, I have no very good recollection of the law which was passed in 1875, but I have heard that one of the objections to that law, and one which brought about its repeal, was the superior rights which were allowed to the landlord over the other creditors of the insolvent debtor. That ,was one of the statements made in this House when the act to repeal the act of 1875 was up for consideration. The other great charge was in regard to the expense of winding up estates and the lack of responsibility on the part of trustees who were authorized under the act of 1875. When the present act was brought before parliament I happened to be Solicitor General and had a good deal to do with its passage through the House, and I can tell the hon. Minister of Justice that very careful consideration was given to the clauses in respect to landlords and the rights of landlords before the special committee which drafted the Bankruptcy Act felt satisfied that we were on solid ground. One objection to the law prior to 1920 was that in every province of Canada there was a difference in regard to the rights of landlords: Ontario had one law, Quebec had another; the western provinces had different laws to suit the people or the landlords of those parts of the country. _ One object to be achieved by the passage of the Dominion act was to get a uniform law so that creditors seeking to collect their claims would know where they stood no matter whether the debtor lived in Nova Scotia or in British Columbia. We wanted a uniform law, and after much consideration, after hearing representations from members of the bar of the various provinces, from chambers of commerce, from bankers' associations, accountants' associations, retail merchants' associations, we drafted the clause practically as it stands in the statute to-day -I think it has been varied since, but not to any considerable extent. We adopted it as a fair clause as between the landlord, the debtor, and the ordinary creditor. It mu3t be borne in mind in considering the rights
of landlords in this country that in the English-speaking provinces, where the common law of England was adopted, the law in respect to landlord and tenant was a law made by the landlord, in connection with which the tenants had not one word to say. We adopted that law, made as it was by the landlords of England, when we became a confederation, and the common law of England applies in this respect in all the provinces save in the province of Quebec. It was a one-sided law; it is a one-sided law to-day. It has been very much modified in the Imperial parliament during the last forty or fifty years and has been considerably modified by the various legislatures of the provinces of Canada. But why should a landlord be placed on a higher plane than any ordinary creditor? He is, in the act as it now stands: He is entitled to three months' rent in respect of past-due rent, above all other creditors; he can take that no matter what the estate is.	Then he can get three months'
future rent ahead of all other creditors; so that his rights are pretty well protected. But as I say, why should a landlord be on a different plane from any other creditor? His building is there; if his tenant leaves or is closed out by bankruptcy, his property remains and he can re-let it. So he is still protected under the present law, a law which has the advantage of being applied precisely in the same way in every province. When this question was before the House earlier in the present session on the resolution of an hon. member opposite calling for its repeal, I think, the Minister of Justice took occasion then to say he believed that a uniform law was essential respecting bankruptcy in Canada. Well, we have uniformity now, but instead of a single clause applying to landlords, instead of having a clause which' I submit with a good deal of confidence, reasonably protects the landlords of Canada, we propose to have nine laws, so that ordinary people dealing interprovincially will not know what their rights are in the various provinces. Chambers of commerce in Great Britain made representations to the committee of this parliament which sat on the question saying that the differences in the various laws of Canada respecting bankruptcy and insolvency very much hindered international trade. Creditors in Great Britain of debtors residing in Canada did not know just what was to become of their claims, on account of the varying laws respecting insolvency in the different parts of Canada. That was a further reason for having uniform law. Uniformity was what was aimed at-on fair and equitable grounds,
Bankruptcy Act

of course; and we thought we had obtained a reasonably fair and uniform measure. Even before the act was passed intimations came to me as chairman of that committee and as Solicitor General in charge of the bill that the law would not be more than a few months old before it would be held to be unconstitutional in the courts of Quebec and afterwards by the Privy Council. It was not merely on one occasion that these intimations were made to me; two or three times at least the suggestion was offered, and it was always from some source in the province of Quebec that the attack on the Bankruptcy Act came. I have heard this statement repeated since. Now, the Minister of Justice has to-day intimated that a judge in the province of Quebec has held, or is about to hold, that the clause is unconstitutional in respect to the rights of landlords. I doubt very much whether such a judgment would stand; I would like to see it appealed to the highest tribunal in this country and subsequently to the judicial committee of the Privy Council. When we get a final pronouncement on that point it will be time enough to change our law; until then, I submit the present law should stand. It is uniform; it is fair; it is reasonable. Landlords from time immemorial have been noted for grasping everything in sight. The law as between landlord and tenant has never been favourable to the tenant; it has been a onesided law made by the landlords in their own interest. If we are trying to get a little away from that; if we are trying to make a law fairer as between the parties, fairer as between the creditors, I think upon every reasonable ground we should be assisted in doing so. Other provinces may have objections; other provinces may have sent communications to the Department of Justice objecting to the present landlord and tenant clauses in the Bankruptcy Act. But that does not change my opinion of them; my opinion is that they are fair and reasonable on the one hand and uniform on the other, and I for one would be very slow indeed to change them.


Lomer Gouin: My hon. friend
seems to have a very poor opinion of the landlords. He thinks that the law we have to-day in that respect should be continued. It is strange that he has never been scandalized at the law in his own province, where the privilege is given to the landlord to get twelve months' rent.


Hugh Guthrie: I have been scandalized,
and I made representations to the legislative
l Mr. Guthrie.]
assembly in respect to it long before this bankruptcy matter came before the House.


Lomer Gouin: I think we may leave it to the legislative assembly to decide that point. My hon. friend says that we will have nine laws and that there will be no more uniformity in the act. But this does not change the uniformity of the act as a whole. There is no change in any essential part of the law; it is only a question of limiting the amount of the landlord's claim. If the landlord has the privilege for twelve months' rent as against three months, it makes a difference in the amount of his claim, but it involves no change in the law. I repeat, when from all the provinces we have complaints with regard to that clause, when we are told that the landlords should be treated more favourably, that the privileges which they enjoy under provincial legislation should be accepted in this Bankruptcy Act, it seems to me that we should give them under our law what they have under the provincial law. My hon. friend says that we have been told by English traders and manufacturers that the fact that we have had many bankruptcy laws in this country was injurious to trade generally. That is true. But what is more important I think, Mr. Chairman, is that we should make our law such that it would be'satisfactory to the people of Canada; and, if to-day we can satisfy the provinces by giving to the landlords that privilege which they have been claiming, we will make sure that our law which has been in existence now for over three years will be made permanent. Is this point of such importance, that when it is a question of choosing between a permanent law and a certain privilege, which you are not granting to the landlords but simply continuing to them, you should hesitate? For my part I do not think so. I have had a little experience in legislation; I know something of the mentality of the people of my province and perhaps of the other provinces; and I say without any hesitation that we should grant to the provinces or to those who represent the provinces this privilege which the landlords have always enjoyed.
Mr. Chairman, this is the last amendment I have to offer. I have brought down this bill only for the good of trade generally. I wanted to protect the creditors and protect at the same time the debtors. The House has been kind enough to accept nearly all the amendments which I have offered, and I would ask them to accept this last one. If it does not work properly and to the advantage of creditors and debtors it will be

Bankruptcy Act
time, another year, to amend it; but I feel sure that if it is accepted to-day it will be kept on the statute books.


Mr. CLARK:: May I ask a couple of questions? First of all I would like to know the nature of the complaints in regard to the old section received from the province of British Columbia, and the names of any organizations that have submitted these complaints.


Lomer Gouin: I have not the names of any organizations in British Columbia, but from what we heard from traders and manufacturers generally this clause never was satisfactory in any of the provinces.


John Arthur Clark: Do I understand the minister to say that he has received complaints only from individuals in the province of British Columbia, or has he not received any complaints from that province?


Lomer Gouin: I have been given to understand, from representations from all the provinces, that we should amend this clause.


John Arthur Clark: If the amended section is passed will the creditors, in the event of the assignor holding a very valuable lease, receive any advantage from that lease? In other words, will the trustee in any circumstances be able, under this amendment, to enter into possession of the property on behalf of the creditors?


Lomer Gouin: It depends in what province the trustee will be. If it is in the province of Quebec, I know that the trustee will have the right to keep the property and use it to the very end of the lease; there is no doubt about that.


Samuel William Jacobs: Does it not all depend on the terms of the lease?


Lomer Gouin: Certainly.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I think they nearly always call for forfeiture. My hon. friend asked me what I thought would be fair. May I read what a very experienced man in this line of business says on this very point?
Until the Bankructcy Act was put in force and the present sections regarding landlords' rights were made effective a debtor might be the owner of a very valuable lease and the return to be recovered from his assets for the benefit of his creditors very largely depend upon the ability of the estate to retain such lease. Leases between landlords and tenants invariably contain clauses that in the event of an assignment the lease shall terminate, and enforcing these rights landlords were able to cancel valuable leases to the detriment of the creditors of a debtor. When the Bankruptcy Act was passed provisions were inserted
which allowed the trustee to continue and dispose of the lease under terms which protected the landlord but saved the value of the lease to the creditors. No harm was done to the landlord but the creditors' and debtor's interests were protected.
It is now proposed to do away with the provisions of the Bankruptcy Act and place creditors back in the position where with a valuable lease belonging to an estate, the landlord will be permitted to cancel the lease. Thus the landlord will reap a benefit from an assignment to which he would not otherwise be entitled, while the return to creditors will be reduced.
It is difficult to see what good reason can be adduced for granting such an advantage to the landlord at the expense of the other creditors, particularly when the sections presently in force in the Bankruptcy Act do not cause him any monetary or other loss but merely deprive him of an advantage which he would not otherwise be entitled to-except with the making of an assignment by the debtor for the benefit of his creditors.
So my hon. friend will see that it is really a very large question so far as the creditors are concerned. I do not hold with forfeitures. I think one of the chief and best functions of a court is that it can, and generally does, give relief against forfeitures. One of the worst kind of forfeiture is the forfeiture of leases on grounds which are not based on absolute harm and damage to the landlord. This is one of them. We have no room for relief in these proceedings at all. We are relegated to a standing general law, which means that we are relegated to the terms of these leases plus the disabilities of the general law. My hon. friend asks, what do I think is fair? I know there has been trouble with some landlords in Ontario. They were accustomed to have a prior claim for twelve months arrears. That has been cut down to three months and I know cases where these landlords have objected bitterly, and I dare say the minister has received representations on that point. But I do not see why the landlord sleeping on his rights, working up preferred claims against the creditors of an insolvent, should be in a position to demand very much consideration. It does seem to me that the three months of arrears that he now gets is a very reasonable period, and I would leave him just where he is under this act. How is he hurt under the act so long as he acts with, fair promptness? And if he does not act with fair promptness why should his delay affect creditors?-they are not to blame. My hon. friend has made out a splendid case for a very bad section, and he asks the House to pass it. We have passed a whole lot of other amendments, and I think he should be willing to make not a fifty-fifty, but a hundred-to-one break on this, and let us hold this one section, which after all will help the small unsecured creditor, and report the rest of his bill.
Bankruptcy Act


Lomer Gouin: I have great respect for the legislators who will pass this bill. I have also great respect for the provincial legislators. I think we should give some consideration to the legislatures of the different provinces who have given some special privilege to the landlord. I think that by accepting their views, and the laws they have given to the people of each province, we are on the safe side. That is why, if the House is satisfied, I ask for the adoption of this amendment.


The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Marcil, Bonaven-ture):: Shall the clause as amended carry?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Carried on division.
On section 31-Officer to be assigned to duty by Chief Justice.


Charles Marcil: The following is added as section. 65 (a). It is new:
65 (a) There shall be one official receiver in each bankruptcy district or division who shall have and perform such duties and responsibilities as are prescribed by this act and rules and who shall be appointed by the Governor in Council.
Section as amended agreed to.
On the preamble:


Samuel William Jacobs: I should like to move the following amendment to be known as 32 (a):
32 (a) The said act is amended by inserting the following section immediately after section 88 (a) thereof:
88 (b) Any notarial copy of any deed, assignment, transfer, composition or retrocession executed in the province of Quebec before a notary public shall be accepted throughout Canada as prima facie evidence of the original deed without the production of such original deed.


Mr. BAXTER:: Why not make that apply to the*notaries public in all the provinces?


Samuel William Jacobs: The notary public in the other provinces is not the same functionary as a notary public in the province of Quebec. In that province, when he affixes the signature to a document it gives it authenticity, that is, makes it prima facie evidence.


Mr. MARTELL:: It is the same in the other provinces.


John Babington Macaulay Baxter: There is not very much difference between a notary in Quebec and a notary in the Maritime provinces. In my province a notary public certifies to a document and in some cases his certificate is accepted in certain courts in other parts of the Empire although not necessarily in New Brunswick. But his signature is always au-

thenticated by his seal and his act always obtains credit. In marine matters, for example, my hon. friends will realize the efficacy of a notarial protest. There will be no difficulty' if my suggestion is carried out. In the province of New Brunswick notaries must be members of the bar, or are subject to certain training and examination. I think that is also true of the other provinces and there can be no good reason why the certificate of one of these notaries cannot be accepted.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I agree with the hon.
member who has just spoken. It is true that in the province of Quebec the legal profession and the notarial profession are separate, that is to say, a man who is a notary is not necessarily a barrister, but in the province of Nova Scotia every man who is a barrister is a notary. At any rate it is true in ninety cases out of a hundred. My hon. friend is seeking to give to notaries public in the province of Quebec rights that would not be given to notaries public in any other province of the Dominion. He can accomplish the whole effect of what he wants by simply obliterating the idea that this should be confined to any particular province. All that my hon. friend (Mr. Baxter) is asking is that the certificate of the notary in other provinces be accepted in the same way as the certificate of the notary7 public in the province of Quebec. The only difference between us, as I understand it,-although I am not conversant with the law of the province of Quebec -is that a notary in that province is the custodian of the document which he draws, and he gives the certified copy. Now in the province of Nova Scotia-I think the same thing obtains in the province of New Brunswick- we file our documents in the office of the registrar of deeds who records them there. If they have to go outside the province they have to be certified before a notary public. That is all my hon. friend wants as regards the province of Quebec. Why, then, make any exception?


John Arthur Clark: Under the proposed amendment it would be necessary for the notary public in each case to compare the copies with the original. I personally know notaries public, and many of them are not even competent to do that. I would hesitate to see the amendment apply to the provinces generally.


Samuel William Jacobs: As I understand, in the
other provinces outside of Quebec practically any office boy w'ho is twenty-one years of age may be a notary public.


John Arthur Clark: I know provinces where the provincial government has made a habit of

Bankruptcy Act
raising a revenue by charging $2.50, or some such small fee, and authorizing a man to become a notary public. We do not want that class1 of men making evidence for the courts.


Samuel William Jacobs: In Quebec it is entirely
different.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I defy my hon. friend
from Burrard (Mr. Clark) to show me any person in the province of Nova Scotia who has been appointed a notary public and has not qualified.


John Arthur Clark: I said nothing about Nova
Scotia.


Lewis Herbert Martell: In the province of Nova Scotia it has always been urged that a barrister should be made a notary public. Now the whole question of a notarial seal is to make it prima facie evidence in a court of justice. I claim it is grossly unfair to give to any one province of the Dominion the right to have the notarial seal of their notaries public accepted in any court of this Dominion, and so make the status of a notary public in that province superior to that of any other notary public. All that is asked by this amendment and all that we are urging on behalf of the English-speaking provinces, is that the seal of a duly constituted notary public shall be accepted as prima facie evidence. That is fair because we have not a notarial profession in the Maritime provinces separate and distinct from the legal profession as is the case in the province of Quebec. That is no reason, however, why legal men should not be regarded as qualified to give a notarial certificate that certain documents are true copies. Even though you have not a distinct notarial profession, why should not his seal be accepted as prima facie evidence in any court in the land? This profession in the province of Quebec is a distinct profession compared with the other provinces of Canada. It is an old French custom, and it is an ideal custom; I am not criticizing it; I admire everything that pertains to the French custom; but I object absolutely to saying that a French notary public seal in the province of Quebec is superior in the courts of this land to my notaiy public seal as a barrister and notary public in the province of Nova Scotia. If this act is going to be a general act, the minister should be prepared to say that when a notary public, no matter from what province he comes, gives his seal, that seal has a right to the same consideration in every court in this country. That is all I have to say in that regard, and I will oppose the motion of my hon. friend from George Etienne
Cartier (Mr. Jacobs), if his seal is going to be better than mine. I am from the province of Nova Scotia, a notary public of that province, appointed on the recommendation of the government of the day led by Mr. G. H. Murray. When he had sufficient confidence in me to make me a notary public, my seal as a notary public of that province should be accepted as equal to the seal of any notaiy public in the Dominion of Canada.


Lomer Gouin: Perhaps my hon. friend will agree to withdraw his amendment?


Samuel William Jacobs: Yes.


Mr. MORIN:: I wish to say a word in regard to the comparison that has been made between the notaries public of the province of Quebec and those of other provinces. There is considerable difference between the functions of and the work done by, notaries in different parts of the country. In the English provinces any one, even a shoemaker, can become a notary. He does not need to be a lawyer.


Lewis Herbert Martell: We do not appoint them in Nova Scotia.


Louis-Simon-René Morin: In the province of Quebec only persons who have gone through legal studies, graduates from universities, who have gone through the same studies as a lawyer, are entitled to practise the notarial profession. The great difference between the two systems is that under the English law the document is signed by the parties, and, after being attested or authenticated by the notary, is handed to the parties, and is the original document between the parties, and the one that has to be accepted. In the province of Quebec, under the notarial system, the document is drafted and signed by the parties, but not handed to them; it is kept in the hands of a notary and the parties only get certified copies of it. If the original must, according to law, be deposited with the notary and remain in his hands, it is an impossibility that it be handed to the parties to be utilized in the other provinces or anywhere else. Therefore, on account of the fact that only copies of these notarial documents are accepted and can be forwarded to other provinces, it is only just that they should be accepted in the other provinces and have the same force as the original.


Lewis Herbert Martell: That is quite true. I am not objecting to the notarial copy taken in Quebec being accepted. I have every admiration for that system. But why not accept the copy of a notarial document from the

3222	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Hoppe Leases, etc.
other provinces, when it is duly certified with the hand and seal of the notary?


Louis-Simon-René Morin: We have justices of the peace in the province of Quebec who are entitled to certify.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Have they seals?


Louis-Simon-René Morin: They can have seals, but it adds nothing to their capacity.


Lewis Herbert Martell: It is the whole thing.


Louis-Simon-René Morin: It adds nothing to their capacity, and they can attest documents as well as notaries. We do not ask the privilege for a justice of the peace, we simply ask it for the notaries.


Lewis Herbert Martell: With all due deference to what the hon. member has said, I am not advocating that the notary should give up the original. I am not opposing the provision that his copy should be taken as duly certified. Where documents are filed in the province of Nova Scotia they are recorded in the office of the registrar of deeds, and if the notary wishes to give out a copy he certifies to it, and it is accepted in the courts when it is certified by the notary public. Now with respect to the status of a notary public, I admit that in Quebec the profession of notary public is practically on an equality with the legal profession. In the province of Nova Scotia the majority of notaries are lawyers, and all we are asking for is that when the notaries of the province of Quebec are given the right to certify to documents, we should have equal rights to certify to documents in the province of Nova Scotia, or in any other province.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Is it not all really covered by the Canada Evidence Act? That is where it ought to be. We have a whole lot of these provisions there. Now the hon. member is bringing in papers and documents into the discussion. Exemplifications and documents are quite common in other provinces, and I should have thought that when you go to an official in the province of Quebec an exemplification from a pro-thonotary would be the proper thing.
Amendment (Mr. Jacobs) withdrawn.
Bill reported, and read the third time and passed.



WAYS AND MEANS

[Stage Direction]
ISSUANCE OF FIATS: HOPPE LEASES-FRANCHISE-PRIME MINISTER'S PROPOSED VISIT -CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS DIRECTORS' REPORT
On motion of Hon. W. S. Fielding for the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means.
Mr. W. F. MACLEAN (South York):: I desire, on this motion, to call the attention of the House to one or two matters: First, the question of granting fiats in connection with claims against the government, as representing the Crown. The other day, when 1 had opportunity, I asked the Prime Minister to make a statement as to how the public might be made aware of the issuing of these fiats. Sometimes they come to the notice of the public only after a fiat has been issued and the action started in the Exchequer Court. This proceeding is getting rather on the public's nerves, inasmuch as they only hear of the matter incidentally. I think provision should be made for the registration and for a public announcement of the issue of all fiats. It came out the other day-and it took some time to bring it out -that a fiat was issued before the public had heard anything about it in regard to coal leases, the most valuable coal leases in the country. The public should know when a fiat is issued so that parties concerned, individuals or communities, might guard themselves. Fiats are being issued, and the cases go to trial, and the public have no early knowledge of the matter. I think the Min-itser of Justice ought to make some arrangement, not a law but some practice, by which the public would be cognizant of the issuing of these fiats. This practice of granting fiats is a very old one; it has prevailed for years; that you cannot sue the Crown without first getting the consent of the Crown to a trial of the issue raised. That law may be all right; but abuses may grow up, and they have grown up, and it is obvious that a number of other actions of the same kind are likely to occur.


Mr. YIEN:: Supposing my hon. friend had received notice that a fiat had been granted, what remedy would be in his hands against it?


William Findlay Maclean: I want the public to know that a fiat has been issued. At present there is no publicity in the matter.


Thomas Vien: Is the case not then brought before a public court of justice, in the open?


William Findlay Maclean: Yes; but the public is not informed when a fiat is issued, and there is no reason why they should not be informed at once of the issue of a fiat and particularly as to the importance of the interest involved. Take the case of the coal lease, the most valuable coal lease that was ever heard of before in the world, if we can believe the evidence that came out recently. A fiat was issued in that case, and it is now

Ways and Means-Hoppe Leases, etc.
being cancelled by legislation. There is no reason why some record should not be made so as to inform the public thereof.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Suposing the public receive notice that a fiat has been issued, what right have the public to come in unless they are an interested party? It is simply a case of expense.


William Findlay Maclean: The public has a right to know if a fiat is issued especially if it concerns a public right. If anybody is concerned, if a province is concerned, there should be publicity. Also there should be a clearing up of the law and practice in regard to the issuing of fiats.


Charles Marcil: It could be announced in the Canada Gazette.


William Findlay Maclean: Certainly. The moment a fiat is issued, there should be an announcement to that effect in the Canada Gazette. The minister is the custodian of the King's honour, and these fiats are issued so that the claim may be tried in the courts. I should like the Minister of Justice to bring down-not to-day, but as soon as he cana list of the fiats that have been issued within the last ten years, with a memorandum showing what has been done in each case; how many fiats are now outstanding that have not yet been tried; and a little statement from the department clearing up this subject which has come up in our legislation, which is being discussed more or less in public, but of which the public are not fully informed.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Would it not be more in the interest of the public to know why fiats are refused, and to have some way whereby there could be an appeal to some body to say whether the government was right or wrong in issuing a fiat, because if the government does issue a fiat, even if notice is given, who can come in except those parties who are interested in the action?


William Findlay Maclean: My hon. friend is arguing my case that there ought to be publicity to these things. The situation should be cleared up. If the law officers of the Crown would prepare a little memorandum not like a judgment, but giving a good deal of information on the subject, it would be ot value. I know of a case in which a certain portion of the community of this country is very much interested, and yet no announcement of the granting of the fiat has been made. Those who are trying to strengthen their claim and to recover against the government are active all the time, but some of the parties who might be interested have no
notice. They should have that notice, and I leave it to the minister whether he will bring down in a few days a list of the fiats and what has occurred in connection with each.
Another matter which I should like to bring to the attention of the House at this time is this: Will the government inform the House whether they intend to introduce a measure this session dealing with the franchise? We know we are to have a redistribution measure, but the redistribution of seats in this House is not the important thing to the people of this country. They want to know what is to be the franchise under which the next election is to be held. An election may occur any day in this country; we very nearly saw one last week' but we have only a somewhat ancient Franchise Act, and I see no reason why an announcement should not be made to the country at this session whether, and when, we are to have a Franchise Act. Such an announcement might facilitate the conduct of the business of the session.
Before this House closes, I should like to see a debate as to the proposed visit of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) to England some time this year in connection with imperial matters. We ought to have a full discussion in this House whether there can be made at that conference commitments which would bind this parliament in any way. A discussion of some account has already occurred in England as to commitments that were made by visit-5 p.m. ing prime ministers over there that involved enormous expenditures, for instance, the Singapore case, although I am not going into that. With all due respect to the Prime Minister, I think he would be in a much better position if before he went overseas we had a discussion in this House as to the views of the people. He is a young Prime Minister and Shakespeare says something about the temptation of "silken dalliance." There is a silken dalliance in the drawing rooms of the duchesses of London, and a Prime Minister may come within, I will not say that temptation, but that presentation. Again I say that it would be highly desirable that we have a discussion in this House on this very question.
Just one other thing to which I wish to draw attention, and I will conclude. I refer to the excellent report that was presented to this House last night by the new Board of National Railway Directors. It is an excellent report, and it discusses several things that are creditable to the board. For one thing, it shows that they are now trying to consolidate all these different lines and sys-
3224	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Hoppe Leases, etc.
terns into one, and they announce a very much needed connection, between the old Canadian Northern and the Transcontinental, at Long Lake. The same kind of work must and ought to be done immediately in Toronto, where there are some very pressing questions in regard to connecting up the different lines. There has been a discussion and many people in Toronto are interested in having a central ticket office for the Canadian National railways in that city. I find also that Montreal seems to be interested in the Canadian National railways having as good a ticket office as the Canadian Pacific has on the opposite corner in Toronto. Why has the National Railways not as good right to have the same accommodation as the Canadian Pacific?


Mr. CHAPLIN:: What about the office at Paris?
Mr. MACLEAN (York) I leave that where it was left to-day by the leader of the Opposition. There is no reason why the National railways should not have a ticket office in Toronto, and when they build that office, they should build up a fairly good one, so that the company might have general offices in the same building. Of course Toronto has for a time lost the headquarters of the National railways, but I think Toronto and Ontario some day will be so much convinced of the superiority of public ownership as applied to railways that the government will be very glad to recognize Toronto as the centre


Mr. FIELDING:: Of the universe.


William Findlay Maclean: -of that organization. The Board of Railway Directors are making headway; the road is being co-ordinated, straightened out and greatly improved. Nevertheless, some of the newspapers say that "the new railway chief sees a lean year ahead of the Canadian National railways." I do not see any lean year ahead of the National railways. They are working out; they are being co-ordinated, improved and accepted by the country. I wish to take this opportunity of saying that as a friend of public ownership I am very much pleased with this report, and, following up what I said last night, I believe when the next report comes in it will embody a financial and mileage statement covering all the roads. In that way the people will realize that they have a real national system. As the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) said last night- and it cannot be said too often-the shareholders of the Canadian National Railway System to-day are the people of Canada

and are in competition with a company-owned system. And as far as I can gather, the verdict of public opinion in America is that national railways have more in them for service to the people than have the company-owned roads.


Lewis Herbert Martell: As we know, under the practice that now obtains, if a person feels that he has a cause of action against the government he applies for a fiat, his application goes to the Department of Justice, where the law officers of the Crown consider it and advise whether or not a fiat should issue. Now, it seems to me most absurd that any department of government should have Mie right to decide whether or not an action should be permitted to be brought against another department. I am not saying this in derogation of the present government, because I believe it is the best that Canada could have at the present time. And I speak as a partisan; I do not deny that I am a Liberal partisan.


Henry Lumley Drayton: You have to be.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I do not deny it. I am not a Progressive, I am not a Conservative, I am not a hedger; I am a Liberal. I repeat, no department of government should have the right to say whether or not a person who believes he has a cause of action against the government should be permitted to bring it before the courts of the country. I submit, with all deference to the opinion of a great lawyer like my hon. friend, the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton), for whom I have a warm regard, and to the opinion of my other legal friends in this House, that it is only fair and just that a person who has a claim against the government should be allowed to bring an action in the proper courts for the enforcement of his claim. As the law stands to-day, an aggrieved person must first file a petition of right, and the officials of the department are called upon to consider the petition and advise whether or not a fiat should be issued.


William Findlay Maclean: Is it not the
Department of Justice?


Lewis Herbert Martell: That is one of the departments of government which is usually best administered; always the best men are to be found in that department. The department of the government immediately concerned presents its side of the question, and the Department of Justice naturally is inclined to favour another department in reaching a conclusion on the merits. I say that is a wrong principle. If a question of con-

Ways and Means-Hoppe Leases, etc.
gtitutionality arises we do not decide it in this House. For instance, when the Wheat Board legislation was questioned on the ground that it was ultra vires of parliament, it was submitted to the law officers of the Crown for their opinion. If a dispute takes place regarding the relative rights of the federal and the provincial authorities, the dispute is referred to the Supreme Court of Canada under the provisions of the British North America Act, and in case of disagreement we go to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Where a humble citizen of this country wishes to bring an action against the Crown I submit he should have the right to go before an independent body, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, to decide whether or not a fiat should issue in order that right may be done. If we are to have the dispensation of justice beyond suspicion there should be no room for contaminating influences in any shape or form. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that as the law stands at the present time it is absolutely not in accordance with the democratic spirit of this country. I do not think this government is capable of any wrong-doing, being a Liberal government, but on the principle of giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, I think this government could not do better than let the question of issuing fiats go before the highest court of judicature of the Dominion for decision. I am strongly of this opinion because I claim-and it is a claim which I shall always advocate-that where a man feels he has a just cause of action against the federal authority he should be at liberty to go before the Supreme Court of Canada or any other independent tribunal in order that it may be determined whether or not in the circumstances a fiat should issue in order that right may be done.


Lomer Gouin: Mr. Speaker, in
answer to my hon. friend from South York (Mr. Maclean) I may say there is no objection to our giving him the number of fiats granted during the last ten years. If he would be kind enough to put a question on the order paper, he could make it clear to us if he wishes to be informed how many of these fiats were disposed of, how many are still pending, and in what way judgment was given.


William Findlay Maclean: No, I do not
want that information. I will put a question on the order paper. If I may be pardoned, Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend made an argument on somewhat different lines from my
own. I wanted to state that the public should know as to the issue of these fiats and, as my hon. friend from Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil) says, they should be published in the Canada Gazette.


Lomer Gouin: That is another question. There is no mystery about fiats, Mr. Speaker. They are granted for the prosecution of claims against the Crown when it is shown to the satisfaction of the Department of Justice that the person aggrieved has, prima facie, a good cause of action. My hon. friend says that publicity should be given to such fiats. Well, publicity is already given by the fact that every one of these cases has to be tried before the Exchequer Court, one of the supreme tribunals of Canada. I do not see what better publicity we could give than what we have now.


William Findlay Maclean: I would point out that one party has the advantage. He knows that he has the fiat; he prepares his case, but others who may be interested know nothing about it and have no chance to prepare their case. The general public should have knowledge of it, and by mere publication of the fiat, when issued, in the Canada Gazette, such notice would be given.


Lomer Gouin: Anyone who is interested in the case has the right at any stage to intervene, and his rights are always protected. I do not see what would be the advantage of publishing in the Canada Gazette or in any other paper the granting of the fiat, but if it is the wish of the House that a procedure of that nature be followed, I would personally have no objection to it.
Now, as to the question raised by the hon. member for Hants (Mr. Martell) he is of the opinion that if a fiat is refused an appeal should be granted to the applicant. But I may say that very few petitions for fiats are refused. Since I have had the honour of presiding over the Department of Justice I do not think we have refused one. Every time a fiat is refused the government is responsible to the people. The provision to prevent action being taken against the Crown is a necessary protection-


William Findlay Maclean: I do not say it is not.


Lomer Gouin: -otherwise no one could count the number of actions that would be taken against the Crown. But it is only when there is any reasonable doubt, in the matter that a fiat is refused; and it can be said that if a government did refuse it without justification, the people have a method
3226	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Hoppe Leases, etc.
[DOT]of redress. I do not see how we could justify the method proposed by the hon. member for Hants, namely, that decisions of the Governor in Council on petitions for fiat should be submitted to the judgment of the Exchequer Court or of the Supreme Court. If you are to revise or reverse the decisions of the Governor in Council respecting the granting or refusing of petitions of right, my view is that it would be preferable for the good government of this country to say that in future anyone shall be free to take action against the Crown whenever he wishes. I might change that view after further argument, but just now I think it would be preferable to adhere to the practice that we have always followed.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Speaker, I have not heard all the remarks of the Minister of Justice (Sir Lomer Gouin). He will not misunderstand me when I say that I quite approve of the legislation enabling the government to reverse its action of last year and to withdraw the fiat, which, unwittingly or otherwise, it granted to the Hoppe interests. I believe in the fiat system; I do not believe that the Crown should be placed at the mercy of any litigant, foreign or domestic, who merely chooses to enter action and place expense upon the state. The Crown has exercised the right to refuse a fiat in cases where, in the judgment of the law officers of the Crown, there was not a case reasonably actionable, that is to say, where there was not evidence of a reasonable belief of substantial merit; but it has refused also in cases where the applicant's case rested upon purely-not debatable-technical grounds. In the case of the Hoppe application, the fiat never should have been granted, because the grounds were ostensibly and obviously technical. There was a cancellation; they claimed it was not valid because of some technical defect of service or some technical defect of wording. Nothing could have been more purely technical than the whole ground upon which the application rested. In my judgment, the fiat should have been refused from the beginning; indeed, the granting of it was a variation from the established practice in such cases. It appears to have subsequently developed after the fiat was granted-


Lewis Herbert Martell: Will the right hon. gentleman permit a question? Suppose he regards the whole thing as technical; the Crown being one of the parties to the litigation, does he think the Crown should have the right to
fSir Lomer Gouin.]
say whether or not an action should be brought against it?


Arthur Meighen: Undoubtedly; that is just what I have been asserting. I am quite sure that the Department of Justice and the government would get into interminable difficulties if any other course prevailed. In this case, after the fiat had been, in my judgment, wrongly, granted, it developed that the parties granted the fiat had made some agreement with one Murdock whereby Murdock was to litigate the claim and seek to re-establish the Hoppe interests on the flimsy foundation of these technical allegations. An investigation, took place before a Senate committee, where it was brought out that once the interested parties felt sure of the fiat, and after it had been granted-in some instances, indeed before the granting of it-speculative sales took place. Murdock had secured from the Isen-berg interests

another name for the Hoppe interests, the two, Isenberg and Hoppe, having been originally associated in the lease,- some agreement whereby he was to take over the litigation. He was to pay the Isenberg interests a considerable sum of money in the event of success; then, after the success, if the leases were sold he was to pay some more, depending upon the amount he obtained for them, until a maximum of, if I remember correctly, a million dollars was reached, beyond which he was not to pay anything to the Isenberg interests. This was the first agreement-all the outcome of the stand taken by the government last session. Shortly after making it-perhaps before, I do not know; very probably contemporaneously with it-Murdock entered into another agreement for the sale of the entire interests, dependent, of course, upon his success in the litigation. This agreement is to a party in Ottawa, Mr. Church, and the sale price is two millions of dollars. This figure, had the transaction gone on-the agreement was actually made and subsisted-would have netted a million dollars to these speculators all out of the government and out of the lands of this country. But not content with that, negotiations proceeded for a third sale. I do not know how far they succeeded, but I do know that the parties were confident of success of a sale to interests in the Old Land for something in the neighbourhood of three million dollars. This is the speculative structure erected on the champertous agreement entered into by Murdock with the Isenberg estate after the government, having adopted an attitude of sympathy last session, finally yielded, reversed the policy of the former government and

Ways and Means-Hoppe Leases, etc.
granted the fiat. Well, what a structure! Sales at a million, then two million, then sales all but concluded, if not finally concluded indeed, at something beyond thatl The Isenberg-Hoppe interests were originally cancelled because the parties were in default, and as well in the presence of the fact that the holders of those leases were not acting as holders, of leases should act in relation to this country when they were holders of the same, and at a time when we had a right to demand from those in possession of government lands in this country fidelity to the cause of the state. But at all events the legal basis of the cancellations was default, and that default existed there was no doubt whatever. Default had existed in dozens of other cases, and default had been followed by cancellation and by the same form of cancellation as was applied in the case of the Hoppe-Isenberg leases. Default is reported to the minister time after time in the Interior department. Very often, I know, a longer time is given than was given in the Hoppe case, but there is no obligation in the world to give any longer time. It is entirely a question of what is the interest of the state in the circumstances, and the legal basis for cancellation was just as strong in the case of the Iloppe-Isenberg leases as in the case of any of the others.
The government last session brought in legislation to validate the former cancellations, some opinion having been given, based on a court decision, that a cancellation which read that the leases would be cancelled after such a date instead of reading that the leases were cancelled, was not in strict compliance with the technical law, and consequently might be upset on application to the court. The government brought in a bill to validate such cancellations, to validate the services, but through one manoeuvre and another in the Upper House and here a clause was inserted which had the practical effect of enabling the Isenberg interests to escape and of enabling the government to grant a fiat in such a case. Opening the door, of course, led to someone entering, and the Isenberg interests were not slow to enter, and the government granted a fiat. This was followed by the investigation of the Senate with the revelations to which I have just briefly referred, and as a consequence the government comes this session and' asks for power to reverse the stand it took.


Mr. STEWART (Argenteuil):: My right hon. friend has made a statement about the legislation of last session with respect to cancellation. I did not understand that there
was any distinction made as between the Hoppe leases and any other leases.


Arthur Meighen: The history was this, to be more detailed. I have not looked into it recently, but I ask my hon. friend to correct me if I am wrong. The bill was introduced first of all in the Senate. That bill contained two clauses. The first clause provided for the validation of the cancellations, a perfectly proper clause. It was a government bill.
The second clause provided for the saving of the right of action in respect of all cancellations not a year old. There was a great deal to be said for that, and no exception was taken to that because all were treated alike. Where there was not a year-old cancella- . tion the right of application for fiat was reserved. Such was the bill as introduced. In the Senate clause 3 was added on the motion of an hon. member there. Clause 3 provided that notwithstanding anything herein contained certain lands should no longer be leased-and the lands were described; they were the Hoppe lands-by the minister and could not be leased unless parliament subsequently passed an act enabling the minister to do so. Parenthetically I might say that the Hoppe lands on my recommendation had been withdrawn by the late government from the regulations of the department, so they could no longer be leased by the minister. They could have been leased, of course, by the Governor in Council. This clause would have provided that they could not be leased except on the authority of a subsequently enacted statute. Such was clause 3, added in the Senate.
Then clause 4 provided for reports to this House of all cancellations within so many days after the opening of the succeeding session. It was a harmless clause.
Clause 5, however, is the one to which 1 draw special attention. That was the third clause added in the Senate. Clause 5 provided that nothing herein contained should affect any case in which litigation had been commenced, legal proceedings instituted, before, if I remember correctly, the 20th of May, 1922. My date may not be exactly correct. In such form the bill passed the Senate and came to this House. Clauses 1 and 2 passed without question. Clause 3 was supported by hon. gentlemen of the opposition and by, I think, most hon. gentlemen to my left, but was stoutly resisted by the minister on the ground that to subsequently enact that certain lands were without the regulations and beyond the scope of the government's unrestrained power and could only be disposed of by parliament evidenced a lack of trust in himself as minister,
3228	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Hoppe Leases, etc.
and he called on his followers to vote it down. After a tie vote in committee the Chairman gave the casting vote in favour of the minister, and clause 3 was deleted by this House. No objection was taken to clause 4, but a perusal of Hansard will show, and I feel certain this is correct, that it really never was taken up in the committee at all. No words of the members of the committee relate to clause 4, nor does it appear to have been called by the Chair. However, that is immaterial because clause 4 was unobjectionable.
Coming to clause 5, a motion was made by the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) to alter that clause, to strike it out and sub* stitute in its place a much more liberal clause, that is to say, a much more wide-open clause. The motion proposed by the hon. member for Brome provided, not that in cases where litigation had been commenced, legal proceedings instituted, but in cases where application by petition of right had been entered prior to a certain date in July, in such cases the provisions of the act should not apply. Clearly, should the motion proposed by the hon. member have passed both Houses, then anyone at all could have come along before that date in July and by commencing proceedings have saved all his rights as against the bill. This did pass the Commons, and in such form the bill went to the Senate, with clauses 1 and 2 passed, clause 3 deleted, clause 4 ignored but appearing in the bill, and clause 5 as amended by the motion of the hon. member for Brome.
In the Senate objection was taken to the amendments of the House of Commons. Objection was taken to the deletion of clause 3. Objection was taken to clause 5, and very strong objection, and as a consequence ar the close of the session managers of both Houses were appointed, the government refusing to agree to the Senate amendments, and while the House waited here until after midnight these managers wrestled over the problem, and finally the Prime Minister came to parliament and said that it had been decided to drop clauses 3 and 5. He meant, no doubt-at least I am willing to concede that he meant [DOT]-to drop the House's alterations in respect of clause 5. What he meant in respect of clause 3 I really do not know, because we had already dropped clause 3 in this House, and the Senate was objecting to our deletion. I am not worrying about clause 3 now, so I do not debate just where the misunderstanding arose in that regard, but I would draw particular attention to clause 5. The effect of the government intimation to this House in 
respect of clause 5 was that it was to go, there was to be no clause 5 Consequently, I rose in the House myself and complimented the government upon dropping clause 5, fully understanding that the bill was to stand then as introduced by the government in the Senate in the first place. In such form the bill should have passed. Such a bill treated everybody the same, citizens of another country or citizens of our own, and no citizen of another country has any right to ask to be given better access to the courts of this country than we grant the citizens of our own land. Therefore, I complimented the government on its decision to yield to the requisition of the Senate and leave out clauses 3 and 5. But to my amazement when the bill came out clause 5 appeared in the form in which it had originally passed the Senate, not in the form in which it was amended by the motion of the hon. member for Brome. Clause 4 appeared also, and that was inserted in the statutes of last year as one of the laws passed by the parliament of Canada. Coming then under this clause 5, as it appears in the statutes, application was made for the fiat, it evidently being considered that legal proceedings were taken within the time fixed in the original amendment in the Senate, and the fiat was granted by this government.


Thomas Vien: Did I understand my right
hon. friend to say that this fiat was asked under clause 5 of the statute?


Arthur Meighen: No it was not asked
under clause 5, but the power to grant it was reserved by clause 5.


Thomas Vien: I may point out to my right
hon. friend that the statute has no clause 5.


Arthur Meighen: It would not have because clause 3 was omitted and clause 5 I presume, therefore became clause 4. But the number of the clause does not matter although I can carry the House with me better by calling this clause, clause 5. Very well, on the basis of the granting of the fiat and the attitude of the government that led thereto, all this superstructure of speculation arose, but the government then addressing itself to the subject once more discovered champerty in the first agreement. It was not hard to discover it. There was undoubtedly champerty. There was undoubtedly an agreement to foster that litigation in proportion as the litigation succeeded, and having seen champerty in the agreement the government seized upon that as a reason for bringing in legislation empowering them to withdraw the fiat. Well, if the legislation has no other foundation than to enable the govern-

Ways and Means-Excise Tariff
ment to get out of the position it put this country in, that is foundation enough. I am giad to see it. Let that fiat be withdrawn. Let us not draw lines between the methods of treatment of various lessees of our public resources. Treat one class the same as the other. The Hoppe lease was four years old and should have come under the very same form of cancellation as the leases of Canadians that had been cancelled four years ago. On that ground a fiat should have been refused. Why the champerty is a cause for refusing it I am not very clear, but inasmuch as without champerty there was ample ground for refusal, certainly the proper thing to do is to carry through the legislation enabling the government at least to safeguard the interests of the country in this respect.
Now, I believe the Minister of the Interior has repented too, and he came to the House the other day with a bill to re-insert clause 3 in the legislation of this country. I do not know just what has reformed his attitude to clause 3. I never regarded clause 3 as any reflection whatever on the respect or confidence the House had in the Minister of the Interior. I told him so during the discussion of last session. Last session, however, his dignity would not stand the enacting of clause 3 at all. But this session, such is the chastening effect of another year of office that he makes clause 3 his own bill and goes into the Senate and says "Protect me against the foes of the country. I have been weak in the past and I have yielded. Make the law such that I can yield no more."


Charles A. Stewart: Oh, no.


Arthur Meighen: Is not that the effect of the return to clause 3? Surely my hon. friend yielded, when the fiat was granted he was one of the government who yielded. He did not lease the land, it is true. Why? Because he had granted a fiat to enable the old lessee to establish his claim, and while the fiat was out he could not lease the land. Anyway he is right in asking for protection. He is asking for the insertion of clause 3 as a statute of Canada. In that I commend him as well. The only suggestion I have to make to the government is that in future, when excellent suggestions are made from this side of the House, the government accept them in the spirit, in which they are made, and at the time at which they are made, and do not let the country suffer and the hope of the speculator be enlivened by your procrastination and delay.


William Findlay Maclean: I would ask the leader of the Opposition whether he heard the
proposal I suggested that the issuing of all fiats should be made public as soon as they are issued, and the same thing in the case of the denial of fiats, and what his opinion is with respect to it?


Arthur Meighen: I think I can say that I agree with that.


William Findlay Maclean: I also said that if the government would provide for the public being made cognizant of the granting or refusal of a fiat, it would save me moving an amendment to that effect on a subsequent motion to go into Committee of Supply.
Motion agreed to and the House went into Committee of Ways and Means, Mr. Gordon in the chair.




William Stevens Fielding: I direct the attention of the committee to the resolution concerning inland revenue. This resolution repeals the additional cigarette tax of last session and also the tax on beet sugar. These two items which, as announced in the budget, we propose to repeal are covered by this resolution.


Arthur Meighen: Another case of repenting.


William Stevens Fielding: Yes; oh, yes.
1.	Resolved, that it is expedient to amend The Inland Revenue Act, chapter fifty-one of .the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1906, as amended by chapter six of the Statutes of 1914, chapter twenty-eight of the statutes of 1918, and chapter twenty-seven of the statutes of 1922, by repealing paragraphs (g) and (h) of section two hundred and seventy-nine thereof and substituting therefor the following:
(h) On cigarettes made from raw leaf tobacco or any substitute therefor, weighing not more than three pounds per thousand, six dollars per thousand;
(h) On cigarettes made from raw leaf tobacco or any substitute therefor, weighing more than three pounds per thousand, eleven dollars per thousand.
2.	Resolved, that any enactment founded on the preceding resolution shall be deemed to have come into force on the twelfth day of May, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three.
3.	Resolved, that it is expedient to amend The Inland Revenue Act, chapter fifty-one of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1906, as amended by chapter twenty-seven of the statutes of 1922, by repealing section 378 thereof.
4.	Resolved, That any enactment founded on the preceding resolution shall be deemed to have come into force on the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred, and twenty-three.


Henry Lumley Drayton: This is entirely a tobacco section.


William Stevens Fielding: This deals entirely with the cigarette and beet sugar. It repeals the section of last year.
3230	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Excise Tariff


Henry Lumley Drayton: Not only is this not another case of repentance and conversion, as pointed out a moment ago, but it is one of great importance.


William Stevens Fielding: Well, all right.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I think in this connection we should just place a little emphasis on what the right hon. leader of the Opposition was saying as to the fact that sometimes it is well worth while to take counsel and listen to suggestion. Last year, on this very question of cigarettes, he pointed out-and I remember do;ng it myself very distinctly-that great loss would occur and that the limit had been reached. I think 50 per cent of the advice was taken, and the proposed increase of $3, making the rate $9, was cut in half, and the new rate made $7.50. The minister has caused a loss of $1,232,000 to the country, because we were right and he was wrong. I think the net loss of inland revenue on the tobacco section, which largely depends upon this item, was at least $1,250,000. Then again, in connection with the sugar beet question, the minister is doing the right thing this time, because he is doing what we told him last year to do. I do not think it has cost us anything in this particular case, because we were not collecting under it. The only thing that would have happened last year, if this provision had been put into effect, would have been an injury to the sugar beet grower, and I congratulate my hon. friend on his change of heart.


William Stevens Fielding: So long as we agree upon the motion, we are not going to quarrel about the figures. The hon. member is somewhat inaccurate in his statement. We collected in 1922 excise duties on this item of $14,710,869, and in 1923 we collected $14,079,062. The difference is much smaller than he suggested. There is no doubt our judgment in that respect was erroneous. We tell the House so and ask it to make the correction.


Arthur Meighen: The minister does not take into account the harm he has done, much of it to Canadian business. If he takes his increase in the raw leaf tobacco he may reduce his figures to what he says, in so far as our revenue is concerned, but if he takes what we objected to, the increase on cigarettes, he - will find that he has lost over $1,250,000, as I will have the figures very shortly to show. He has had some increased revenue due to the tax on raw leaf tobacco to reduce his losses to the figures he gives, but he is forgetting all about the harm to the business of Canada, and he has reduced the Canadian tobacco business by over

a fifth, just by this provision. What is worse, he has caused a system of bootlegging as between the United States and Canada, an operation which once commenced and got under way, as it has done, will be very hard to stop. That practice is now established, and to stop the practice of bootlegging in regard to cigarettes would be more difficult than in the case of liquor. I think the minister is going to find that the bootlegging business in cigarettes has increased. The current of trade has increased. Men have taken to it as an occupation. They have a return cargo back to this country, after taking no cargo over there. It is going to be hard, if not impossible, to undo the injury the minister did by simply going beyond the limit, destroying or impairing or depleting his revenue, injuring the business and establishing a practice which will be injurious to the whole country for years to come.


William Stevens Fielding: I am afraid there has always been, and always will be, some degree of smuggling in the case of cigarettes, and I have frankly to admit that under the act of last year the amount of smuggling was increased, but I do not think my hon. friend's description of the dreadful conditions is warranted. I have no doubt we encouraged smuggling to a degree and we have tried to correct it.


Arthur Meighen: I have not exaggerated. The minister has stated himself that in our border cities there was a lot of cigarette smuggling going on. The best evidence that can be procured shows that in the border cities, and most of our cities are near the border, just about one-half of the cigarettes consumed are American cigarettes, and unquestionably those cigarettes are smuggled in, to a very great degree, and the impetus given to it last year brought the business to the size it is at present. With regard to what went on before, while there would be smuggling, it would be the same as in other goods, trifling and negligible as compared with the whole. But now smuggling is the substantial part of the whole importation. I have figures before me to show what revenue had been lost, and the aggregate is a trifle over the figures mentioned by the hon. member for West York, a million and a quarter. However, I shall not read the figures because they are of great length. The minister does not dispute the statement, and I think he appreciates the fact that in this respect it has been a very expensive luxury to have the hon. minister in his position and the present government in power.

Ways and Means-Copper Bounties


Robert Forke: Just before the item passes,
1 cannot help making the remark that when the right hon. leader of the Opposition makes a thrust, he cannot help turning it round and round afterwards.


Arthur Meighen: The thrusts I made last year, which I turned round once or twice, did not have any effect. It took twelve months of remorse and of penalty, which we suffered as well as the government, to get the real results. Now I am trying to have a little more prompt action. I am trying, as it were, to drive things home in such form that in some of these matters something will be saved to the country, and I would like very much, and appreciate very highly, the co-operation of the leader of the Progressive party.


Mr. CALDWELL:: It is possible that I have appreciated the remarks of the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) more than my leader has. I appreciate the fact that he realizes that when you make the duty on an article too high, you cut down the revenue and you also encourage smuggling. I hope he will be as frank at all times as he has been on this question.


[Stage Direction]
Resolution agreed to.
William Stevens Fielding: There are one or two other resolutions which we will take up after eight o'clock. We can report them all together.
At six o'cclock the Speaker resumed the chair and the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILL


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 181 (from the Senate), for the relief of James Dunnett.-Mr. Gordon.


[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee of Ways and Means, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
1.	Resolved, that it is expedient to repeal the act respecting Bounties on manufactures from Manila Fibre in Canada, being chapter five of the statutes of 1903, the act to amend the act respecting the manufacture of binder twine in Canada, being chapter five of the statutes of 1907, and regulations made thereunder.
William Stevens Fielding: This bounty, granted some years ago, Mr. Chairman, has now become inoperative, no bounty having been paid under it for some time, and we think it very desirable to repeal the act.


John Arthur Clark: This has no reference to
copper?


William Stevens Fielding: No, it is coming on next. Resolution agreed to.


William Stevens Fielding: Now I desire to direct
the attention of the committee to the resolution respecting copper bounties. It is on page 11 of the Ways and Means Resolution printed to-day. At the proper stage I have an amendment to suggest.
Resolved, that it is expedient to bring in a measure to provide:
1.	That the Governor in Council may authorize the payment out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the following bounties on copper bars or rods manufactured in Canada and sold for consumption therein, from copper produced in Canada from ore mined in Canada, during the periods and at the rates following, that is to say:
From the twelfth day of May, 1923, to the thirtieth day of June, 1924, both inclusive, one and one-half cents per pound;
From the first day of July, 1924, to the thirtieth day of June, 1925, both inclusive, one and one-fourth cents per pound;
From the first day of July, 1925. to the thirtieth day of June, 1926, both inclusive, one cent per pound;
From the first day of July, 1926, to the thirtieth day of June, 1927, both inclusive, three-fourths of one cent per pound;
From the first day of July, 1927, to the thirtieth day of June, 1928, both inclusive, one-half of one cent per pound;
2.	That the sum to be paid as such bounty shall not exceed two hundred thousand dollars in any one of the said periods;
3.	That the said bounty shall not be paid on copper bars or rods exported from Canada;
4.	That the Governor in Council may make regulations to carry out the intention of this resolution; and
5.	That the Minister of Trade and Commerce shall be charged with the administration of the foregoing provisions.


William Stevens Fielding: Mr. Chairman, I should
like to call attention to an amendment which I desire to make to the third section providing:
That the said bounty shall not be paid on copper bars or rods exported from Canada.
I move that the following words be added:
nor on copper rods made from copper bars on which a bounty has already been paid.


John Arthur Clark: While I am in sympathy with the principle of giving this industry encouragement, I have to object to the method by which the encouragement is extended. In the first place, I think it should be by way of protective duty rather than by bounty. I do not propose to enlarge upon that at the moment, but I have another objection; and it is that this particular industry should be singled out while other industries equally deserving are excluded. I brought to the attention of the minister some
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Ways and Means-Copper Bounties
time ago an industry in the city of North Vancouver, namely, the Vancouver Creosot-ing Company, Limited, which produces creo-soted pile for wharves, and railway ties and similar material. Some $500,000 is invested in the plant, which employs large numbers of our citizens, and particularly has made an effort to employ returned men of my province. I do not know what the figures are to-day, but it has had the enviable record of having fifty per cent of its pay-roll consist of returned men. Now, for some reason this industry, which, as I say, requires a plant worth $500,000 to produce its product, has been given no protection. I do not know that there is another plant in this country of just the same nature, but similar plants in Seattle have, at least during the past year, been shipping into British Columbia creosoted pile which has actually been used in the construction of government wharves in our country. One of the reasons why they have been able to do that is, of course, the fact that the goods come in free of customs duty. Another reason is that the Vancouver Creosot-ing Company has had to pay a sales tax of 3| per cent on every gallon of creosote used by it in its industry, whereas the Americans treat their product, ship it into this country free of duty, and do not even pay the sales tax on the creosote. That, I believe, will be cured by the present budget so far as sales tax is concerned, but after all, that phase of it is more or less insignificant and does not affect the future of the industry. Another reason why this company cannot compete with the Americans is that they have imported $200,000 worth of machinery which they are using for the purpose of treating this pile, and on that machinery they have paid an average duty of 18J per cent. Thus the Americans get their plant and equipment very much cheaper than our own people do, and their cost of manufacture is much less. Furthermore, the people to the south have a much larger market. Our industry has been running at cost in order to try to preserve the capital invested, but I am informed that the American plants are underbidding us and just avoiding liability to dumping act penalties. That, of course, is exactly what the Americans, with their tremendous capital reserves, will do to any industry established in Canada that has absolutely no protection. Now, it is a matter of life or death for this company, and what I submit is that on the principle which the minister has applied to the copper industry, he should apply in connection with this industry. He should put this industry in the same category with the silk in-
dustry-which does not exist-with the copper industry, and others on which bounties are to apply; only I say it should be in the way of a reasonable protection. If this is not done our people will continue to flow from British Columbia; our returned soldiers, now employed there, will be thrown out of employment, that plant will have to close its doors, and when it does so our government will pay whatever the Americans demand for the piling they must buy for the piers there. The Americans are now selling it cheaper in our market than they can sell it in their own, and they have this further advantage: the piling is transported from Seattle to Vancouver- a very short distance after all,-on scows which, were it not for this return cargo, would come back from Seattle empty. The transport, therefore, is provided by means of these scows at practically no cost. I note that tht minister says in his budget:
A new industry is promised us for the manufacture of artificial silk. It is represented to us that this industry will employ a large amount of labour and we have every reason to believe that if we can make encouraging terms a great industry will be established.
And I believe a duty of 37J per cent is to be applied on that promised industry. Now here is an industry which is not promised; it is actually in existence, and $500,000 of our peoples' money is invested in it. I have pointed out as well that it is employing our returned soldiers, who, as we all know, need employment. It is proposed to allow that industry to go out of existence, to allow the capital that has thus been invested to become wasted. I note other words used by the minister in his budget speech, in reference to the British preferential tariff. He says:
To these reductions we attach two qualifications, the first of which is that they shall not apply in the case of any article where the duty is not above 15 per cent. A duty of 15 per cent will not be regarded as a high one, and it will hardly be expected that we ought to apply these reductions to items which stand at 15 per cent or less.
I say unhesitatingly that a duty of 15 per cent would be reasonable. I think it would be satisfactory to this industry and would not largely increase the price of the product tc our people.
In addition to that, the minister has laic great emphasis upon the necessity for revenue So far as the copper industry is concerned, the bounty is not going to be a revenue producer. On the other hand, if the minister applied that reasonable 15 per cent duty to this industry, we would have revenue produced. On any imports of that material into this country we would get the 15 per cent duty, but though revenue does appeal to me there is something far

Ways and Means-Copper Bounties
more important than revenue involved in this particular case. A 15 per cent duty would mean that that plant would be enabled to carry on. It would be given an opportunity of attaining success, and it would be enabled to employ our labour and our returned soldiers who need the employment.
Further than that, if the minister is1 looking for revenue, this industry has not paid income tax or any taxes to the Dominion government since its existence, but if it is allowed to earn a reasonable profit it will pay some income tax, and there is an opportunity for revenue. The minister in his budget speech also used words to this effect, that it is an axiom with people of all classes in Canada that it is desirable to develop industries based upon our natural resources. Now I know of no natural resources in the province of British Columbia that are greater than our timber. Why should we not encourage our people to develop those resources? Why should we not give some reasonable encouragement, some reasonable protection to such an enterprise? During the war years this was considered a most essential industry. We shipped large quantities of creosoted railway ties to India and other countries, but as hon. members know, railway construction has fallen off and that market no longer exists. A protection which the industry had during the war and until, I think, about a year ago, was the application of the war revenue tax amounting to 7i per cent. That meant that all American shipments of this material into Canada actually paid in duty 7f per cent, and there were other similar applications of taxes which brought the total protection of the industry up to a point around 10 per cent.
I see that in his budget speech the Minister of Finance also said:
An industry based upon the natural resources of the Dominion which wants a helping hand at the beginning and is prepared later to rely on its own strength and character is worthy of consideration. We propose to afford a measure of help to the copper industry of Canada-
What is the difference between these two industries? The copper industry in British Columbia is just as old as the timber industry and much older than this particular industry, which is a brand-new one, a struggling, infant enterprise that wants a helping hand, and in a country where it is recognized by the two great parties certainly that some protection must exist or otherwise our manufacturers go out of business. Then is it not reasonable to give that protection to this industry in its infancy? Is it not reasonable to place these two industries, both of which are based on our natural resources, upon the same footing?
The minister says that there will be inequalities discovered in the tariff which should be corrected. I sincerely hope that this is one of the inequalities which he will discover exists, and that Jie will take the necessary steps to correct it. I sincerely hope that he will not apply the principle referred to on page 2650 of Hansard, where he says:
I asked a friend who is a careful observer of these things on what he thought the American people found ground for their present activity. His answer was, "By faith in themselves." It really seems that this is the case. It is a sort of "Coueism." They resolve that things are going to get better, and they believed that they are better.
I hope that that industry will not have to apply that principle. I recognize the merit of applying such a principle, or rather I will put it this way: It is a determination to succeed. Now I believe that that company has that determination. It has struggled and is making every effort to succeed, but I am equally convinced that it cannot succeed unless it is given reasonable encouragement, and I ask the minister seriously to consider giving this particular industry the encouragement he has given to the copper and silk and other industries.


William Stevens Fielding: I am afraid that readers of my hon. friend's observations will draw from them an entirely erroneous impression. They will receive the impression that this budget has in some way or other assailed the particular industry to which he refers.


John Arthur Clark: Not at all.


William Stevens Fielding: I say that is the inference to be drawn. I do not say he so intends it, because it is obviously not correct. This industry is not a new one. It is not even an infant industry. It has been in operation for many years.


John Arthur Clark: May I ask the minister in what year it was established?


William Stevens Fielding: If my hon. friend will let me finish-this particular industry of creosoting, or rather this particular item, has been on the free list, for that is what it is, for many years. The particular year in which that industry wTas established I do not know, but it was established evidently, unless it existed before that, when the item was on the free list. Now there are in the tariff a number of items where there is no duty at all, and we have been asked in a number of cases to take them from the free list and make them dutiable. This is one of them. Reluctantly, for we do not want to do any harm to any industry, we have felt disinclined to take the item from the free list that has
3234	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Copper Bounties
been there for many years and now make it dutiable. My hon. friend has given us a statement as to that particular industry which if true shows it to be in a deplorable condition, but I hope it is not correct. This item has been on the free list for many years, and we have not felt able to take it from the free list and put it on the dutiable list. That is the whole story.


John Arthur Clark: I can give my hon. friend the year in which this company' was established. I think it was in 1919. I may be wrong within two years but no more, and when it was established it had protection through special war taxation to the extent of about 10 per cent, 7^ per cent war revenue tax and some other taxes which brought its protection up to approximately 10 per cent. This is a new industry nevertheless, and I maintain that the same principle should be applied to it. No industry in British Columbia can be called an old industry, much less this one. I think my hon. friend will find that it is the only industry of its kind in the whole Dominion of Canada that is actually operating. There is another on the north arm of Burrard Inlet near Vancouver, which has been closed for several years, in which several hundreds of thousands of dollars have also been invested but it cannot carry on because of this continued state of affairs.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not know that I quite appreciate the distinction made by the Minister of Finance. He is anxious that the matter shall be fairly represented. Am I to understand that because this company started doing business under the free list, even although it is handling an output indigenous to the country, it is something he ought not to consider? Because, I think that was the result of his remarks. I do not think this industry is a very old one. The tariff item itself is old. You have the two different classes of tariff. One class covers goods not yet made in the country. But when they are made there is a change from the free list. Why was not the change made in this case? Is this regarded as an industry that cannot be helped, or is the trouble due to the fact that it foolishly continued while the product was in the free list, and cannot now expect help?


William Stevens Fielding: No, I would not like to put it that way. May I pay my hon. friend the compliment of saying that according to the statement of the hon. member for Burrard this industry has been running for some years and my hon. friend, when he had an opportunity of looking after it, did not think it

worthy of taking its products from the free list and putting them on the dutiable list. The result is we can be accused of following, shall I call it, his bad example?-no, following his example.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I should like to say to my hon. friend that I always take for granted that argument and that answer; we have had it so frequently in connection with tariff matters as well as in connection with other matters. When we argue that there should be a change we are told "You did not do it" and it is considered by hon. gentlemen opposite that should end the matter. In all seriousness I would like to know why on earth hon. gentlemen across the aisles are holding office if they are not to do anything that their predecessors did not do. What are we told by hon. gentlemen? One time we did not do a certain thing and therefore it should not be done now. My hon. friend with just as much accuracy could say "Because I put a duty on cigarettes which was all wrong it should be left there." The status quo prevails; there if not to be any change. Surely that cannot be any reasonable ground for my hon. friend's action. If he adopted that policy throughout he would never do anything except what we ask him to do. My hon. friend only assumes that role because he thinks it pays him to assume it. I do not think he should assume it at all. So far as this particular industry is concerned my hon. friend will also recollect there was a war tax of 7J per cent which of course came off about three years ago, I think in 1920. But the industry was fairly well looked after down to that date because that act was in effect the whole time this company was operated.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend asked the question "WTmt are we holding office for?" I am afraid it is chiefly because the people of Canada got tired of another set of gentlemen and made up their minds there ought to be a change. If we had made the particular change which my hon. friend is now discussing I am not sure but that he would again have referred to that platform of 1919 and said "Here is a thing that was free when our government were in power and you have actually put a duty on it." That would have been the cry. However we have not given him that opportunity. These products were free in his day and we leave them free now. We may be all wrong, but it is a wrong iri which he will have to share the responsibility with us.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am not at all afraid of any responsibility but I put this to

Ways and Means-Copper Bounties
my hon. friend: Following what he has already said to the hon. member who brought this matter to his attention, is the reason he has not done anything in this particular case because this industry started operations under a free entry tariff, or is it that it is of such a class that the hon. gentleman thinks it does not merit protection?


William Stevens Fielding: The reason is that we are unwilling to take articles from the free list and put them on the dutiable list unless there be a stronger reason than was presented by my hon. friend when he declined to do it.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend seems to know what wan said to me now when the previous government were in power. I am quite sure he does not.


Mr. HOEY:: Will tfc i minister tell us how many firms are producing copper bars or copper rods in the Dc. minion at the present time?


William Stevens Fielding: None at the moment.


Robert Alexander Hoey: I mean producing the commodities to which this bounty applies?


William Stevens Fielding: The only concern, I
think, contemplating this production in a large way is the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company at Trail. That is the only large concern doing it. To be perfectly accurate, they are not doing it at the moment but they expect to do it.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Would the minister mind giving us the name of the president and the directors of that company?


William Stevens Fielding: The gentleman we know best in the matter is Mr. Warren. I think he is president. I could not give the names of the directors. My impression is that it is an association of Canadian Pacific Railway people.


John Arthur Clark: I am not satisfied that this matter has received the consideration it merits, and I rise again to seriously ask the minister to take it under consideration. I would like to feel that as long as this country is going to have a tariff that tariff will be a scientific one, and that it will be based on sound business principles. I would hate to go away from this House with the impression that no protection will be given this industry, and that no article can be taken from the free list and put on the protective list merely because of the remarkable platform of 1919. I am not interested in that. What I am interested in, though, is in being satisfied that no matter what party is in power so long as the tariff is a recognized principle
in this country it shall be based on scientific grounds and not upon a platform which the minister himself admits is exploded.


Mr. GOULD:: The hon. member for Bur-rard is very anxious to have more protection granted an infant industry. He wants it to have "the helping hand" to quote an expression we heard during the delivery of the budget. It does seem to me that the mind of the protectionist is absolutely inconsistent. Not very long since, during the budget debate the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion) returned thanks for the reduction of the duty on stumping machines. Again, we had the member for East Elgin (Mr. Stansell) thanking the Minister of Finance because he had reduced the duty on tile. Now we have the hon. member for Burrard advocating a higher rate of protection, while we in this comer of the House, are between the nether stone of East and West. If we ask the members from British Columbia for anything, or if we look at them, what do we find? We find they are asking for protection on apples and lumber, we find huge votes being passed for the construction of their wharves, and we are supposed to be the legitimate prey for them. They are again asking for duties on the implements which they manufacture in the East and which we use in the West. I am glad that the deaf ear is being turned to them, and I hope the parliament of Canada in future will be constituted of men who will turn deaf ears to these species of pleas advanced by these men who ask for duties.


John Arthur Clark: Can the hon. member for
Assiniboia (Mr. Gould) see any difference in principle between giving protection to the copper industry and giving protection to the creosoting industry?


Oliver Robert Gould: I am opposed to subsidizing the copper industry, and I am speaking on absolute principle. I think the hon. member mentioned some $200,000 as being the cost of the machinery of this plant of which he spoke. We might also say that we have minor plants on our farms, for instance, and we are sacrificed, because we do not ask for concessions of that kind. We are not making the specious plea the hon. member is making. We do not ask for protection, and we do not want it, but we want everybody else to stand on his own feet as we do. We believe others can do it, and the government should ask them to try.


John Arthur Clark: What about the wheat
board?
3236	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Copper Bounties


Oliver Robert Gould: It will stand absolutely on
its own feet, and it does not propose that it shall cost anyone else one extra cent.


Mr. COOTE:: Would the minister tell us
who it was that made representations to him asking to have protection granted to this particular industry?


William Stevens Fielding: I think my hon. colleague from British Columbia, the Minister of Public Works (Mr. King) had a good deal to do with it, but others drew our attention to it. Members of this House brought our attention to this matter. I do not want to single them all out, but several of the hon. members from British Columbia did me the honour of calling on me and making these representations. Quite a number of people were interested.


Mr. ICING (Kootenay):: In regard to the
bounty on copper, it is well known to the members of this House that British Columbia is a province rich in minerals. We have a great mining industry. We are mining our ores, putting them through the process of concentration and to some extent carrying on a refining process.- That is to say, we make matte copper. Heretofore our matte copper, or our concentrated ores, had been taken to Tacoma, an American refining centre, and refined there, and from that point shipped east, and brought into Canada, for the purpose of manufacturing articles made of copper. All of those articles are on the dutiable list to-day. In order that the manufacture of copper wire, copper rods and so on, may be carried on in Canada a duty has been imposed, but we have heretofore allowed these raw products to go to the large American centres, where copper matte ore is reduced or refined in a larger way than at any other point in the world. We know the value of our copper deposits. We know-at least we are advised by those who are in the industry of mining and producing copper ore-that, with a bonus extended over a period of five years, they will establish a refined copper industry in Canada. That will mean that the people of Canada will use the refined copper from their own ores, and it is also anticipated that we will be able, in the period of four or five years to place our refined copper on the world's markets in competition with American copper. I think the effort is well worth while. Although I have no objection to my hon. friend making his case to-night, it is the first representation I have heard of the situation regarding the creosoting plant. However, the two items are not in the same category at all. They are

entirely different, and the discussion of one does not mean that the other is in the same position. Personally, I am satisfied, from the information I have been able to gain by inquiry, that this bonus on the production of copper will do very much along the same lines as was done for the lead and zinc industry in British Columbia some years ago, when this parliament voted a bonus, which resulted in the establishment of very large lead and zinc works in British Columbia; so much so that to-day British Columbia ores are being made into lead and zinc, are holding their own in the world's markets and are the means of bringing millions of dollars to the Dominion.


Mr. GARDINER:: I take this opportunity to enter a protest against giving any bounties to this particular industry. I would like to ask this House, fairly and squarely, just where we are going to stop. When are you going to stop putting burdens on the shoulders of the people? Are you going to place burdens on our shoulders that we cannot bear and force us but of the country, or are you going to take some of the burdens off our shoulders and give us an opportunity to exist? I would like to call attention to the fact that the farmers of Canada have to compete against the world. It does not matter what market they compete in, they compete against the world on an open competitive basis. The position simply is that if we farmers desire to continue farming we have to put a great deal of backbone into our work in order to exist, and I would suggest that, instead of granting a bonus to these particular industries, the House ask these industries to put a little more backbone into their particular jobs and see if they cannot carry on without bounties.


Mr. SPEAKMAN:: Something I was going to say has been said for me by the last speaker, but I want to add my voice in protest against the granting of bounties by the government. One of the principal reasons has been advanced eloquently by the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Clark) to-night. Once this government starts-I am not referring to past governments with their records of bounties and tariffs-it means that they are opening the door to pleadings such as we have heard to-night. If you start giving bounties, where are you going to stop? We have heard the argument, if you are giving a bounty to this industry, why not to the other industry, to my industry or to some other industry? That kind of argument will be used continually, and is the government going to be able to stand up against it, once it has opened the door? I have sympathy with the

Ways and Means-Copper Bounties
hon. member for Burrard, especially in reference to one of the handicaps which he mentioned as being placed on the industry he is speaking for to-night. One of the handicaps is the high cost of machinery which enters into the work, due to protective tariff. While I sympathize with him, I am perhaps inclined to be a little glad that other people feel the pinch as well as we do. We extend sympathy to him from that point of view also. But I believe, as has been shown by the hon. member for Burrard, that the idea of protecting machinery, thus raising the cost of machinery which is necessary for the development of our natural resources, is the greatest handicap we have in this country. It has been shown by the hon. member himself that that was one of the handicaps, and if he were to make the request that the machinery that that industry used should be admitted free of duty to enable the company to compete with their American rivals, I should be glad to support him.


Mr. MANION:: In regard to the remark which the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gould) applied to me as to stumping machines, I should like to say a word. He pointed out that, though we in this section of the House took a protectionist attitude, I congratulated the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) upon putting stumping machines on a lower basis of customs taxes than heretofore. I repeat my congratulations to the Minister of Finance, and I might point out to the hon. member that stumping machines are, among the farm implements that should be put upon the free list. They are, in fact, among the lines of goods asked to be put upon the free list in the farmers' platform; so at least my hon. friend should have hesitated to criticize me on that account. I am pointing out in general to my hon. friend from Assiniboia, who took such a strong attitude regarding bounties, and to some other hon. gentlemen, that ever since I have come into this House I have noticed in the annual estimates, items amounting to about $6,300,000 to assist agriculture. It is in this year. If that item of $6,300,000 for the Department of Agriculture is not a straight bounty to the agricultural interests of this country, I do not know what it is.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Robert James Manion: My hon. friend from Assiniboia and other hon. gentlemen shake their heads and oppose that view. I know it is of no assistance to me directly; it is certainly of no assistance to the Manufacturers' Association or to any other line of business in 207
this country that I know of, and it is certainly of direct assistance to the agriculturists of this country. Therefore, I would say that it is, if perhaps not a direct, certainly an indirect bounty to the agriculturists, if it does not assist them individually. My hon. friend continues to shake his head. That item deals with the prevention of disease among cattle, with agricultural colleges to educate those who are on the farms, and all the other different items.


Mr. KENNEDY (Edmonton):: Is the prevention of disease amongst cattle, for instance, especially dairy stock, carried on merely in the interest of the farmers, or in the interest of the general health of the people of Canada?


Robert James Manion: I am not criticizing the item in any way; I stand by it; I support it, and I always have supported it. Moreover, in helping the farmer, we are helping the whole of Canada. I agree with the item. But I think my hon. friends are somewhat inconsistent when they criticize the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Clark) when he asks for support for some industry. I am not taking any part in discussing the question of the bounty for which he is asking; but when they criticize him so severely as they do, they are inconsistent in not remembering that amongst the estimates there is an item of $6,300,000 of direct or indirect assistance to the farmers of this country. I do not now hear, and I have never heard any argument to show that that is not a bounty to the farming interests of this country. Before I sit down, I will say further that, with the exception of a few little bounties given by this government and other governments for manufactures, such as the copper industry, I do not know of any other class of people than the farmers who receive a direct bounty of that sort.


Oliver Robert Gould: In reply to the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion), who argues that an item of $6,300,000 is given to the agriculturists of Canada as a direct benefit to them, let us suppose that we admit that. We have in this country about five million people engaged in agriculture, so that this would amount to about $1.10 apiece. On the other hand, will my hon. friend, who is a gallant gentleman in national defence, admit that the item of twelve or fourteen million dollafs for 100,000 men in Canada is a direct gift or money spent directly for the profession of which he is a member? I only point this out to show how erroneous is the basis of his argument.

3238	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Copper Bounties
When the hon. gentleman says that this item of $6,300,000 voted for agriculture is specially beneficial to agriculturists, I do not admit that, because I maintain that every individual in Canada who receives his living or any direct benefit from agriculture, receives his fair proportion of that sum. If the hon. gentleman admits the other argument in connection with the twelve or fourteen million dollars for national defence, I am prepared to admit his argument, because that is not as erroneous an argument as is his.


Robert James Manion: Every country in the world has some form of defence; no country in the world could carry on without having a defence force of some kind, and surely Canada is not to be placed in such a humiliating position as to have no defence force. I deny, however, that any part of the money spent on defence is in the nature of a bonus to any person; it is spent for the benefit of the whole population of Canada. But this item of $6,300,000, so far as I can see-and my hon. friend has not punctured my argument -is a direct bounty to agriculturists, though I take that attitude, I support it.
_ Mr. GARDINER: Is it not a fact that this item of $6,300,000 is granted for the purpose of assisting the farmers to produce more in this country?


Robert James Manion: Certainly. That is what the copper bounty is for too.


Robert Gardiner: In order that the farmers may be exploited on all they produce.


Robert James Manion: I do not agree with that at all. I think too much complaint is being made by my hon. friends that they are being exploited. They are not being exploited in any shape or form by anybody in this country.


Edward Joseph Garland: I would like to ask the hon. member-


The CHAIRMAN:: This debate is getting out of order. The item is in regard to the copper bounty.


Thomas Langton Church: It seems that there is protection for some people in this country and none for others. The farmer is protected on his wheat and dairy products, and many other things.


Edward Joseph Garland: I rise to a point of order.


Thomas Langton Church: I am just coming to the point.


Edward Joseph Garland: The hon. gentleman is as far from the point as I was.


George Newcombe Gordon: Exactly. The Chair agrees with that.


Thomas Langton Church: The resolution before tli? Chair is for a copper bounty. If the government will look over the industries of Canada and every year assist one or two basic struggling industries that need some protection and that are trying to get on their feet, the government will do a great deal towards building up Canada. There has been a great deal of discussion in regard to the
9 p.m. principle on which this bounty is recommended, but it is hard to find an underlying general principle, because the copper industry in Canada is well organized; it is to-day functioning; it is well established and it is already doing a great deal of work in the way of smelting. I think the government is right in its attitude of giving bounties to basic industries that are struggling to get on their feet, and I hope the government will go further in this direction because there are many other industries not included in this particular resolution, which require some direct aid or protection. Copper bars are included. Why not brass? Why not glass, and steel plates? Why not wool? The people of the United States began as Canada did, as an agricultural country and the farmers wanted a home market. The farmer and the city or town man worked together, and the government of the United States encouraged bounties for various industries, with the result that they became the great industrial people they are to-day. I think we could take a leaf out of the book of the United States in that regard. If the government can encourage the farmer and the city man in Canada to work together so as to provide a home market, the government will be doing a great thing, not only for the farmer, but for struggling industries that are trying to get on their feet. For instance, there is the wool industry which is practically not protected at all. There is a 15 per cent duty regulation, but I do not believe it is being enforced. In my opinion, this bounty and direct aid principle should be extended to other basic industries as well as copper and copper bars. If the government will extend this principle to other industries such as those I have mentioned, this will provide work for our workmen and close the doors so that our skilled labourers will not be driven to the United States. What is the use of bringing in immigrants, unskilled labour, whom you have to finance and help until they get on their feet, when you leave the door open for our own skilled labour to go to the United States

Ways and Means-Copper Bounties
because of the absence of adequate protection to basic, struggling industries of various kinds?


Mr. KELLNER:: I understood the minister to say that the company which hoped to benefit from this bounty is a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway. If I am capable of interpreting the ambitions of the people of British Columbia, nothing is more desired by them than a lowering of the freight rates, and in particular the elimination of the mountain rate. Might I suggest to the minister that if he did not give this bounty the Canadian Pacific Railway Company might at least reduce the freight rate on copper in order to enable its subsidiary to compete with copper produced in other countries? I think that would be one way of forcing the Canadian Pacific Railway to meet other countries in open competition.


John Babington Macaulay Baxter: If not by vain repetition common to the heathen, yet by constant repetition it seems to me people after a time come to accept as true that which is absolutely false. Now, it is absolutely false to suppose that you can pay one dollar by expending fifty-five* cents; in other words, if you are going to bonus some industry by reducing the freight rates somebody has got to pay for the cost of running the railways. This parliament, at the instance of some very good friends of ours who did not constitute the government, last year took six and a half million dollars out of the pockets of the rest of the people of this country. It was not a subsidy, it was not a bonus, it was six and a half million dollars that the rest of Canada had to make up, and some of us in parts of the country that are not getting any benefit from such expenditures are becoming a little tired of the whining.


Mr. MILLAR:: I was rather pleased at one stage of this discussion when the hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean) and the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) began to scrap over old times, and I concluded it was all up with the bonus. Being opposed to the bounty on copper and to the increased protection on creosote, I was glad to see the discussion take that course. However, it has veered around several times. Recently I read somewhere what I thought was a very good explanation of the difficulties of Canada at the present time. It was explained in this way: Since confederation we have, by legislation, been interfering with the natural flow of money through normal channels; that is, by giving bonuses and protection we have caused money to flow in other than its
natural channels, consequently we have deprived those basic industries of the capital which normally they would have attracted, and for that reason they have become impoverished. The explanation proceeded to show that after doing that to encourage young industries to get a start, we had continued the encouragement so long that we had allowed the pendulum to swing too far in the wrong direction. This proposal is a move in the same direction. What has taken place during the past forty years once an industry was given protection? It always wanted a little more protection, and appeal after appeal was made to parliament for further assistance.
Let me say a word in reply to the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion). He is usually very fair, and therefore I was somewhat surprised at his statement, that agriculture had been given a bonus of six and a half million dollars. When we consider the destruction that is possible through a great influx of grasshoppers or the other insect pests that attack wheat, I wonder whether the wholesalers, the retailers, and those engaged in other businesses that are not directly interested in agriculture would not in their own protection desire the expenditure of such a sum of money rather than see the crop swept away. It is a very great stretch of the imagination to describe this expenditure as a direct grant to the agriculturists when we bear in mind the amount of money that is expended by various departments	of government in seeking
markets for the manufacturing interests and assisting them in various other ways. If these expenditures were put together it would be seen that in comparison the six and a half million dollars spent in encouraging agriculture was a small sum.
Reference has been made to the wheat board-[DOT]


George Newcombe Gordon: I would draw the hon member's attention to the fact that he is not given the same freedom of discussion in this debate as he would enjoy on the budget. Rule 13 prescribes that addresses in Committee of the Whole must be strictly relevant to the item or clause under consideration. By way of comparison the hon. member may refer to other subject matters, but in treating them in detail he is altogether outside the rule.


John Millar: I submit to your ruling,
Mr. Chairman. I suppose it is quite right to draw the line somewhere. I was just going to say that instead of the wheat board cost-
3240	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Copper Bounties
ing the country anything, a sum of five hundred thousand dollars accrued to the public treasury from the operations of that board. I hope the minister will seriously consider that added protection by way of bonus to copper and a higher duty on creosote is simply another burden placed on the backs of those who are carrying all they can possibly bear-in fact a little more than they should carry. It is easy to see that some benefit would accrue to Canada if a little protection were given to enable these industries to get started, but when it is remembered that other industries are going out of business I think it is only fair that a halt should be called for the present, at least, until agriculture gets on its feet, and then we hope we shall be able to move forward as a solid Canada. I have nothing whatever against the province of British Columbia. I realize that their interests are a little different from ours, but in every case where it seems to me they are entitled to assistance I am as willing to give the subject just as favourable consideration as I would a similar request from Saskatchewan where I live. I quite appreciate that a few provinces cannot prosper unless their sister provinces are given that consideration to which they are entitled. We must move forward together, and for that reason I am against giving further assistance to these industries.


Mr. CAMPBELL:: The minister told us
a few minutes ago that by granting this bounty the industry could in a few years stand on its own feet. That is precisely what Sir John A. Macdonald told this House fifty years ago in regard to all other matters of protection. When I have to choose between two evils I prefer the lesser. If we are to grant protection in a lump sum and so know precisely what we are paying, something may be said in favour of a bounty. In regard to the comparison between this and the so-called bonus to agriculture, I do not consider that one-half of that six million five hundred thousand dollars was of any assistance to agriculture at all. So far as our experimental farms are concerned, I was suggesting to the hon. Minister of Agriculture a few days ago that the only experimental farm of any practical use was that which was made to pay, that is, where you could demonstrate to the farmer that stuff could be grown at a profit. He told me "It is impossible."


George Gibson Coote: How many men are engaged in this particular industry in British Columbia?


William Stevens Fielding: I do not think that in this particular branch of the industry there are any at present, but it is the expectation that there will be a considerable number. Copper bars or rods are not, I think, being made at present, but they expect to make them.


George Gibson Coote: It is an entirely new industry?


William Stevens Fielding: This branch of it is new, but the copper industry itself is there. They are producing copper ingots, but I think I am correct in stating that they are not now producing copper bars or rods.


Mr. LUCAS:: It might be described as a real infant, I presume.


Mr. WARNER:: If it is not out of order I would like to point out that agriculture is an old-established industry, an industry which has itself paid the greater part of the grant that has been given to agriculture, in the products that it has put on the market in Canada. I am willing to be fair and I want everyone else to be fair. We do not want it understood that the copper industry or any other industry which has not been in operation has paid this grant. [DOT]


Robert Forke: I would like to say a word as to what has been said in regard to the bonus to agriculture. Like another hon. member I admit the fairness of the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion), but after all, he is making a mistake when he says that that six and a-half million is a bonus to agriculture. A large amount of that money was paid out for educational purposes-most of it, in fact.


Robert James Manion: To the agriculturists.


Robert Forke: To the people of Canada. I admit that when a specific grant is made to an agricultural fair it is a bonus, but I do not think the Dominion government makes any grant of that description; the municipalities and the provinces do. I do not really know of any case where money paid by the Dominion government for the advancement of agriculture can properly be called a bonus; it is a sum of money paid for educational purposes for the benefit of all the people of Canada, not for the particular benefit of any one calling or class of the people. And for fear I should forget it, I want to compliment the member for Strathcona (Mr. Warner) upon the knowledge he has of agriculture. There is a very old story I read in my youth about a man and a woman who started agriculture a very great many years ago, and ever since that time it has been a much honoured

Ways and Means-Copper Bounties.
occupation. Now, in regard to bonuses, like my friends behind me, I am certainly opposed to protection of any sort. I agree, however, with the statement that has been made that a bonus is, perhaps, the least objectionable of all the methods of protection. There is another item here that will be discussed at length; that item was a kind of temptation to me and I made certain statements in the House regarding it that I will stand by when it comes up for consideration in committee. However, if we admitted that the bonus should be granted in this case we would be admitting a principle that we believe to be wrong, and I cannot see anything for it but to vote against this item if it comes to a vote.


Miss MACPHAIL:: I wish to protest
against the granting of any further bounties. I believe that the granting of bounties is building up industry on a false foundation. When the bounty is subsequently to be taken away the industry in question will come swooping down upon unoffending members howling like wolves, just as industries that have been built up by protection have kicked up a fuss when it was suggested that that protection be taken away. I do not see that there is any use in building more industries on a false foundation; if they cannot get a footing by having free machinery to start with and getting the benefit of all the legitimate aid we can give them, then let them not come into being at all. As to the six and a half millions that was granted to agriculture, most of it, I think, has been spent for officials and what one might call firewood, that is, the bulletins they send out. If we could all afford farms like the experimental farms it would be very fine indeed; the only ideal farms are the experimental farms and the golf links. I was not in the House this year when the grant was passed; had I been here I would have advised the government, instead of granting this nmney to agriculture to teach farmers how to farm, to give it to the manufacturers to teach them how to manufacture without bounties.


George Newcombe Gordon: Shall the resolution
carry?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Edward Joseph Garland: No, it is
not earned. I wish to join in the protest of those who have spoken from this corner of the House against the granting of bounties. Every evil that has been attributed to it will sooner or later be realized if the line is not drawn somewhere.


George Newcombe Gordon: Shall the resolution
carry?	.


Mr. LEADER:: I wish to offer my protest
to the resolution and express my anxiety that the committee shall vote on the question. Let us have the vote.


Oliver Robert Gould: Hon. members stand in their places and say that British Columbia is blessed with a bountiful supply of copper, yet with that bountiful supply and with the factories here in Canada they cannot compete with the United States or any other country which would, of necessity, have to import that product. I would think that an industry having the valuation that is claimed for the copper industry in that province would be ashamed to come to the government asking for this bounty. Either the company is not ashamed, or it believes there is a weakness in the government that would lead it to support their request. That is not a fair condition of things in the public life of Canada, and I do not think it should be tolerated. I do wish to join my protest with those who have objected to the establishing of another industry of this nature at the present time. If the door is opened now, what may we expect next year? We may expect a flood of people coming down-in fact, it has been attempted here to-night-and asking the government for these subsidies and bounties. Who pays these subsidies and bounties? I know who pays them, and there are lots of other members in this corner of the chamber who know only too well who pays them. We shall continue our protest against this procedure, a protest which we will emphasize by all legitimate means.


George Newcombe Gordon: Shall the resolution
carry?


Mr. HUMPHREY:: Before the question is put, in view of the objection that has been raised, I would like to say just a word, as this industry is in my district. I know that hon. members are sincere in the position that they have taken, but possibly they do not realize what the situation is in regard to the copper industry. One or two questions have been asked by hon. members, as a matter of information, in respect to how many men this industry affects and what its progress has been in the past. The actual production of copper is an old industry in Canada; as concerns the converting of the copper into rods and bars it is entirely new industry. An investment of a number of million dollars is involved. Now, let us take the facts as they are, from the point of view of whether it is right or wrong to enable this production of copper bars and rods to be brought about. This industry if established, I know for a fact, would employ in the neighbourhood of
Supply-Interior

at least a thousand more men in the province of British Columbia in refining the copper and turning the copper bars into copper rods and copper wire. Under conditions that have prevailed for the last few years it has been impossible for any industry in this country to produce these copper bars and rods in competition with the United States, and in that period a good many millions of dollars have gone to the United States in consequence. As to the principle of giving protection to the copper industry, I am sure that the people of British Columbia will be only too glad if it is necessary to assist other industries, especially agriculture in the prairie provinces, to look at the question broadly and not from any selfish point of view, and to support the giving of the necessary protection that is asked. Knowing the facts connected with this industry as I do, and knowing how its establishment would affect the province of British Columbia and the whole Dominion, I can wholeheartedly approve and support this resolution.


Mr. EVANS:: I wish to add my voice to the protest against this bounty being given to the copper industry. Although bounties are perhaps the least evil under the whole protective system, I do not see why any industry of this kind should need a bounty to-day in Canada. For many years we gave a bounty to the steel industry which cost this country something over twenty million dollars, and the people did not get their steel any cheaper because of that bounty. In fact, it created a monopoly, and the very steel companies we were bonusing and giving bounties to at that time were delivering rails on the other side of the globe at thirteen dollars a ton cheaper than we were pajdng for them at home. The minister has not told us one word of what he expects this industry to do for this country, and surely there are always two sides to a bargain. Does the company even guarantee that it will employ so many men and make this home market a little bigger than it is? Can the minister show any benefit the people will derive from the giving of this bounty? I just rise to protest as vigourously as I know how against the giving of bounties to any industry.
Resolution agreed to; Yeas, 72; Nays, 48.
Resolution reported.


INLAND REVENUE ACT AMENDMENT
[Stage Direction]
Hon. W. S. FIELDING (Minister of Finance) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 187 to amend the Inland Revenue Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. W. S. FIELDING (Minister of Finance) moved for leave to introduce Bill No.
188,	to repeal the acts respecting bounties on manufactures from manila fibre in Canada.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. W. S. FIELDING (Minister of Finance) moved for leave to introduce Bill No.
189,	respecting the payment of bounties on copper bars or rods.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
House again in Committee of Supply, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
Department of the Interior.-Expenses connected with the Dominion observatory at Ottawa, 158,420.
Expenses connected with the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory at Victoria, B.C., $18,500.
William Thomas Lucas: Will the minister explain the
increase in these two items?


Charles A. Stewart: The increase in connection with the first item is $2,705. It is accounted for by statutory increases in the salaries of the staff. There is an addition of one official to the staff of the observatory at Victoria with a salary of $2,400.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I wonder if the minister would tell us why this vote is still carried in this way. I may be met with the criticism that we allowed it to be so carried, but I do not believe the government is going to assume that as a permanent position because it would be a barrier to all progress. Why is it we cannot get all these permanent officials on the civil list?


Charles A. Stewart: I agree with my hon. friend that permanent officials should be on the civil list. There is no doubt they should all be placed there, but that has not been done. However, I am looking over the whole of the staff of the Department of the Interior with a view to doing that, because there are a number of officials in permanent positions who are not at present on the civil list, but who should be there.


Henry Lumley Drayton: 
William Stevens Fielding: I promise not to use it.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Perhaps the minister will not in this case but I am afraid he will persevere in that argument.


William Stevens Fielding: The occasion arises too often to use it.


Henry Lumley Drayton: We started, when we were in office, trying to get some changes made in connection with the whole of these matters. We began reforms which I think my hon. friend considers were right although they had not been carried out previously. For example, I believe he thinks the balance sheet now prepared is a vast improvement on the previous system. Many other reforms were contemplated in connection with the inquiry we instituted. An investigation of that character takes some time. It has been going on for the last eighteen months, ever since hon. gentlemen opposite have been in office. One of the improvements contemplated was to have the estimates prepared in such a way that they would mean something to anybody that was looking at them. I am mentioning this matter now and I brought it up last session. I am glad to see we have one convert in the person of the minister. It does really seem ridiculous that no one can pick up a copy of Canada's Estimates and form the slightest idea of the cost of civil government in this country. That is the situation we have. I had hoped to see the change made this year. I hope that it will be carried out next year beyond all doubt, and that objection will not be taken to doing it because it was not done before. I am going to ask the minister how much of these items is for salaries which should appear in the details of civil government?


Charles A. Stewart: Out of the $58,420 the sum of $26,685 is for salaries at Ottawa.


Henry Lumley Drayton: And how much of the $18,500 is for the same purpose?


Charles A. Stewart: The sum of $11,400, out of the $18,500 is for salaries at Victoria.


Henry Lumley Drayton: For what purposes is the expenditure which is not for salaries?


Charles A. Stewart: I will read the items:
Astrophysics-
Material, optical parts, etc., for instruments
under construction	 $	500
Repairs and supplies	 500
Geographic positions-
Materials for piers, line connections, express,
instrument repairs, etc	 $1,000
Latitude and longitude determinations by
wire and wireless	 3,000
Gravity survey-
Materials for piers, express, instruments,
etc	 1 >000
Experimental field work with torsion	balance	1,500
Field work with pendulums and torsion
balance	 2,500
Library-
Books, subscriptions to publications, binding,
etc	 600
Magnetic Survey-
Materials, express, instruments,	repairs,	etc.	1,000
Field expenses (two observers in field, with
guides, transportation, etc.)	 3,000
Seismology-
Material, special parts, etc. for mounting of
the new seismographs	 500
Photo and other sheets for instruments at Ottawa, Halifax, Saskatoon and Chebucto;
repairs and supplies	 600
Solar Physics-
Instruments, supplies, etc	 600
Stellar photometry-
Instruments, repairs and supplies	 350
Time service-
Time-signal apparatus and supplies; repairs and maintenance of instruments; time for
whole of Canada	 1,000
Wireless equipment-
Erection of aerial (authorized)	 2,960
Apparatus, repairs and supplies	 400
Total	 $21,010


Henry Lumley Drayton: Does that cover the expenditure for these purposes in connection with both institutions?


Charles A. Stewart: The statement I have already given applies to Ottawa. What I am now going to read has reference to Victoria:
Printing, etc.-
Printing publications	 $1,800
Books, periodicals, binding	 500
Stationery	 400

 $2,70**
Supplies and maintenance-
Instruments and apparatus	 $1,500
Photographic supplies	 400
Machine and instrument work.. ..	600
Hardware and chemicals	 400
Automobile maintenance	 600
Postage, customs, freight, telephone	500
Contingencies	 400

 4,400


Henry Lumley Drayton: It looks as though you had for maintenance charges something like $4,400 and for the purchase of instruments and other things $21,000.


Charles A. Stewart: It is $21,000
in case of the Observatory at Ottawa.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The minister is quite right there. A lot of those things are for purchases which will not have to be made
Supply-Interior

each year. Why do we require so much money for next year? We will not be buying instruments every year. "


Charles A. Stewart: No. Instruments, of course, have to be purchased, but most of these items are repairs to existing im-struments.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Could we not have an understanding that something should be done to save the time of the House, and obviate a lot of questions, by showing just what is to be paid for our Civil Service? I think the minister will agree that we ought to be able to tell just what we are paying for the ordinary salaries and the like, in. connection with our Civil Service, so that the matter will be clear to us. I would only agree to this course being adopted owing to the fact that these estimates have been prepared in this way for many years, and the chances are that it would be bad for everybody if we had a sudden change which would throw away the basis of comparison. If my suggestion were adopted, the House would know what it was doing, and the Finance Minister, when he was checking up the estimates, would be in a position to see what the department was doing. I would not suggest that these salaries should be taken away entirely from these estimates, and put in civil government, but that there should be, in connection with each one of these items, an extra line which would show how much of these items consisted of salaries, so that we would be able to tell the position exactly.


William Stevens Fielding: Does the hon. member mean the separation of salaries from the other matters, so that the salaries would be shown distinctly? Well, I will consider it.


Henry Lumley Drayton: You have already done it. We have done it for many years under civil government. It was never intended that it should be done partially and that the country should be misled. The estimate for civil government was intended to truly represent the cost. I am not blaming anybody. I do not know where it commenced.
I could not blame my hon. friend the Minister of Finance because it was done during his long term of service in this country, but in some way or another, or for some purpose or another, lump votes were treated in such a manner as to cover not only expenses in a business sense, entirely apart from salaries, but were made up in such a way as to cover all the other charges. I think the minister will agree that that is not right, that the civil government estimates ought to be complete,
ISir Henry Drayton.]
and that instead of treating these votes on the wrong basis, which has been adopted in the past, we should carry the totals just as they appear here, with a note explaining that there is included in them a certain amount for salaries and then give the details of the salaries under civil government.


William Stevens Fielding: In order to illustrate the point, take this item in connection with the observatory at Ottawa, $58,420; the hon. member simply wants to divide it into two parts, so much for salaries and the remainder for other services? Is that correct?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes, we go hall the distance there. Of that $58,000, $26,000 is for salaries. That sum ought to appear in the cost of civil government as admitted by the minister.


William Stevens Fielding: It is pretty hard to define what civil government is.


Henry Lumley Drayton: You will find great difficulty in distinguishing between any of these items and other items of civil government. In the department, for example, with which my hon. friend from Argenteuil (Mr. Stewart) is perfectly cognizant, you will have people sitting in the same room, doing the same work, some of them included in the cost of civil government, and others included in some lump charge not shown under civil government at all. Our accounts should start out with being honest and complete, but they are not, unless they show what they are supposed to show. My hon. friend will agree with me that the civil government schedules are intended to show the salary costs of this country.


William Stevens Fielding: The hon. member means that in these items clerical services charged under other heads should hereafter be shown under civil government. I am not saying the hon. member is not right, but the result would be that it would show a large increase in cost of civil government, when in reality there would be no increase at all.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I would have it carried in this item as well so there would be a check on it.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Topographical Surveys-Topographical and general surveys, traverse of northern rivers and lakes, classification of lands for the settlement and development of Canada, plotting and printing of plans, etc, $520,000.
Arthur Meighen: Where is that work being abandoned, to permit of the diminution in the vote?

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Charles A. Stewart: Last year we had a very full discussion upon this question of topographical surveys, and I think in the main I agreed with the trend of the discussion then. One of the complaints was the fact that in three of the departments, at least, topographical work was being carried on, namely the Mines, the Interior and the Defence departments, and it was suggested that it might be well to try to combine the three. We have not succeeded in combining them, but we have a definite understanding that there will no longer be overlapping of work, and I think it would be an admirable thing if we had topographical maps of the whole of Canada, but we have in mind the fact that we must go slowly in this work. I am not prepared to say we could not cut the item still further. We have now no overlapping and uniform work is being carried on all over Canada. However, we have a great deal of pressure from the provinces asking that this work be prosecuted in a much larger way than we are endeavouring to do. I hope to cut it down practically to a minimum. Canada is yet a new country, in comparison with other countries, and topographical work is no doubt valuable. I think it is warranted and we now have the assurance of no overlapping. We are not meeting the demand by any means, but we are giving the survey as fast as we can afford to give it, although perhaps not as fast as they require it.


Arthur Meighen: How much was spent last year?	1


Charles A. Stewart: Last year- $562,000.


John Evans: Was there not some overlapping in the classification of lands for settlement? I understood the provinces were doing that.


Charles A. Stewart: The Dominion survey parties are doing no classification except of Dominion lands. They are doing no classification of natural resources in any of the provinces.
Geodetic Survey of Canada-investigations, reconnaissance, triangulations, precise levelling, geodetic astronomy, etc., $325,000.


Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: Will the minister explain this work?


Charles A. Stewart: I hope the hon. member will not ask for a scientific explanation. I will give a layman's explanation. Again I am afraid I shall be accused of copying; but on looking over some of the remarks made by previous ministers, that made by
my predecessor in this department, now the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) struck me as being very appropriate, when he said that he could not give a better comparison than that of a steel structure for a building. The work of this particular branch of the Department of Surveys is the establishment, at points throughout the country, of permanent centres from which surveys may be carried on. That is one of the duties, combined with many others, of this branch. This is a branch of the surveys that I made some careful inquiry into as well as that of the Topographical Surveys, and I think we are well ahead with this work. WTe cannot anything like meet the requests of the provinces for this particular kind of work. From Nova Scotia, British Columbia, from the other provinces come requests for more of this work in order that definite points may be set up from which precise surveys may commence and be established. I do not feel like expanding this work; I was rather of the opinion that we might curtail in that direction, but I have not suggested that we do that this year. I should like to know a little more about the work than I do at present. This is, undoubtedly, a very important work. Some aspects of it, as I have said before, I am not critical about, but perhaps the branch has expanded more than there has been necessity for in some of its work.


John Evans: This is one branch of the service that I cannot quite see the use of. I have read carefully the report of the Geodetic Survey, and so far as I can find out, it has done nothing yet but test geographical positions as determined by the topographical and hydrographic surveys. A number of steel towers have been built at immense cost in the vicinity of Ottawa and at other points in Ontario particularly. I think the work of this branch is an overlapping of the topographical and hydrographic surveys, and that the work could be conducted by the one department. From this report, the only good that I can see in this branch is that it has helped some cities, only a very few, to get their precise levels. One excuse-and this looks as though the branch was hard put to it to find a justification for its existence-was that steel towers helped to locate forest fires. We surely do not need that now. I should like to know more about the work of this branch. I have no technical knowledge, but having read the report I cannot see any particular use for it.


Arthur Meighen: I do not disagree with all that my hon. friend has said; but if I
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understand the Geodetic Survey, it is not of the character that he describes it as having. It is not an overlapping of topographical survey work; it cannot be. It is the foundation of survey work for all others. The Geodetic Survey seeks to establish pivotal points and establishes them, not in relation to points already found by topographical or other surveys, but from astrono-10 p.m. mical bearings. That is to say, the points established under the geodetic surveys are the points from which triangulation goes out and in relation to which other surveys have their bearings. That is to say, it is basic. Without it the other surveys would not have the certainty that they now possess. I was in hopes that it would not require such a great number of these points to be so ascertained, and that by this time some contraction would be possible. But I believe the points so ascertained by the bearings established by geodetic signs are an essential; they must be found. Otherwise our other surveys would not possess the value that they are intended to possess; indeed, they would be more or less, as I understand the matter, of a confusion. I never heard before that the steel towers erected upon those points became of value for forest protection, and it seems to me that that is pretty far-fetched.


John Evans: That is one of the excuses in the report.


Arthur Meighen: I do not think the service needs an excuse. That is to say, it is a service that we must have, but it should be a contracted service. A great deal has already been done, and I do not think we should look forward to continuing it on the present scale.


Charles A. Stewart: If the points are to be established as close as is suggested by the departmental heads, this would doubtless require to be carried on for a considerable number of years at the present appropriation. But I frankly have some doubts whether they are required as close as they are suggested.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
International boundaries-expenses connected with the survey and demarcation of international boundaries, including $1,000 to J. J. McArthur, as International Boundary Commissioner, $42,940.
Arthur Meighen: This is an appropriation that I cannot understand the continuance of year after year. Are we never going to get through with this international boundary? We have been finding the location of this international boundary ever since we were children. As I remember-I do not like to speak too positively-we were virtually 
through when I was minister, and I have been out of the department now for two years, yes, for three years. I am sure I remember being advised that only a very small amount was required for another year or, at the most, a few months, and we would be through. Now we come back this year with an increase of $7,260 in our efforts to get this international boundary located. Has the boundary been moving? It is getting harder to find all the time.


Charles A. Stewart: All I can say to my right hon. friend is that I have exactly the same promise that this is the last year in which we shall require any considerable amount to be voted for this purpose; that the work is completed with the exception of the re-establishment of some of the monuments that have either moved or been destroyed. I am afraid I shall have to admit that last year I had something of the same statement.


Arthur Meighen: It is taking more money to find lost monuments than it took to locate them there in the first place.


Charles A. Stewart: (reading)
The surveying operations in connection with the demarcation of the international boundary through the different sections from the Arctic ocean to the bay of Fundy, a distance of 4,083 miles, have been completed, and there remain the completion of the reports of the sections, and the engraving and printing of the maps to accompany them. On the reports, two have been submitted to parliament and distributed to the public and 140 maps have been engraved and printed. There remain five reports on all of which a good deal of work has been done, and the completion of 155 maps, all but six of which are ready to be engraved. It is expected that this amount will cover all printing and engraving that can be completed this year. The work of this commission will end when these maps and reports will have been submitted to parliament.
There are two undecided but undisputed points along the boundary which will have to be settled by a convention before this commission can close its operations.
A recommendation from the commissioners is before the two governments for the signing of these conventions and also for the appointment of a permanent commission to maintain an effective boundary.
To provide for repairing and renewing monuments and reference marks and reopening the vistas along the 49th Parallel in British Columbia. $5,000.
An inspection along this section of the boundary showed that many of the monuments had been disturbed and that others had deteriorated, and that the vistas opened seventeen years ago had in places so grown over that there is no indication of the line. The customs and immigration officers strongly urge the reopening of the line, particularly in the vicinity of the customs houses.
To provide for repairing and renewing monuments and reference marks on the Quebec-Maine and New Bruns-wick-Maine boundary lines, $7,500.
On the boundary between the state of Maine and the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick, long stretches of the line are through low and wet land, and many of the monuments have collapsed, and inspection shows *

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that unsuitable material was sometimes used in their construction.
Travelling expenses of the commissioner and engineer, $2,000.
For further investigation of the deeper channel St. Croix river at Milltown, in connection with the undecided nationality of an island, $500.
I do not know what that means particularly.
The commissioners have not succeeded in coming to an agreement as to the deeper channel of the St. Croix river near Milltown, N.B., and the nationality of an island, and further conference and investigations may be necessary.
Allowance to Commissioner J. J. McArthur, $1,000.


Arthur Meighen: My heart is sinking more than ever. This report indicates that the job is likely to be eternal and the expenditure increased. Furthermore, the recommendation is not being dealt with. I remember it being before the government prior to this administration coming into power. It is apparently lying there still. Why is it not disposed of? Surely we do not have to keep hunting away in the bottom of the lakes for these monuments and trying to ascertain the situation of little islands for all time. I think we may have to have a convention and appoint some permanent body to see that the line is constantly ascertainable, but that body should be composed of officials of the department engaged in other work, some engineers for instance. The way things are going now, it would seem from the report read by the minister that there is a constant evolution of new duties with the probability of a continual increase in this vote-that instead of looking towards the end of it we are opening the vista of new expenditures all the time.


Charles A. Stewart: I agree
thoroughly with my hon. friend that one or two engineers of the department might very well act on behalf of Canada, and I presume some arrangement could be made with the United States, because they are interested as much as we are in the demarcation of the line. This is something that I intend to take up actively. I do not think we should require further expenditure upon this line except perhaps in regard to the settlement of the difficulty about the island that is referred to.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Would it not help in carrying forward the policy of the minister to cut out the vote of $1,000 to the present commissioner so it would go to the other engineers?
Mr. STEW'ART (Argenteuil): I should think the matter might very well be closed out before we begin to deal with the present engineers


Henry Lumley Drayton: What is his regular salary? Is not this a bonus for keeping the thing open all the time?


Charles A. Stewart: The information I get is that as Mr. McArthur succeeded Dr. King this additional gratuity was paid him for the work. It has been continued from year to year while the work has been going on. I may say very frankly that I think one salary should be sufficient for any man, but inasmuch as this matter will be cleared up as far as I am concerned, I think we should be hardly warranted in interfering *with what has continued for so many years.


Arthur Meighen: I think I remember dropping this $1,000. It was restored later on after I left the department. I know I instructed that it should be dropped.


Charles A. Stewart: It was not dropped.


Arthur Meighen: I know I gave instructions
for it to be dropped. It may have got squeezed in, but I do not think so. I know it was restored later on.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Did I understand the minister to say that parts of the boundary line between the province of New Brunswick and the state of Maine had become so obscure that the marks had to be renewed?


Charles A. Stewart: I said the marks would have to be renewed.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: On the line between New Brunswick and Maine?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Could the minister tell us when they became so obscure? I know it is only a few years ago since a gang of men was put on that boundary, and where the line ran through any forest country a four-foot strip was cleared and concrete monuments were put up on any height of land, so that in following the line you would '*ome to one monument and then get your bearings by the monument on the next bit of rising land. The monuments are built of concrete with a substantial base. I have been over a good deal of that country and they all appeared to be permanent monuments, marked "United States" on one side and "Canada" on the other. I know that some of our people to their sorrow have found that the boundary is too easily defined when they begin to attempt to smuggle something across.


Charles A. Stewart: It is only in the lower and wet spots apparently that these renewals are to take place. Probably
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my hon. friend has seen only the monuments that are on the hills. "Long stretches of the line are through low and wet land and many of the monuments have collapsed."


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: What are these monuments made of?


Charles A. Stewart: I could not answer that. I have not seen any of them except those in western Canada.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: What part of the line are they on?
Mr. STEW'ART (Argenteuil):	The notes
say between Maine and New Brunswick and Maine and Quebec.


Robert Forke: How is the expense of carrying on this work apportioned? Will the United States be granting a similar amount for the same work?


Charles A. Stewart: The cost of the monuments themselves is' divided between the United States and Canada. Each government pays for its own parties.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: The St. Croix river is
the boundary line on the south, and the St. John river on the north. Only a comparative distance is over land, and most of that is through cleared farm lands. I would not think there would be very much expense involved on that portion of the line between New Brunswick and the state of Maine, and I know the monuments there are of a permanent character.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not think
the minister stated what the salary of the commissioner was.


Charles A. Stewart: It is $4,500.


John Millar: In many departments there are decreases in the amounts appropriated, but here we seem to have more increases than decreases. What inconvenience is involved in the line not being clearly marked? That is, what is the occasion for the urgency which would justify an increase in the vote?


Charles A. Stewart: We have
to have a clearly marked boundary line; if the markings get out of place or become destroyed they have to be re-established. Then, we have a number of people who are desirous of missing the customs officers, some of them anxious to engage in the carrying of liquor back and forth across the line, and it is important that the lines be clearly established.


Robert Forke: I cannot see how you come to any arrangement with the United States as to how much will be required to carry on

this work. There is an amount of $45,000 here; are we figuring on $45,000 from the United States for its share of the cost?


Charles A. Stewart: Each would bear its share of the cost, because both are interested. This is the last year we shall have a substantial expenditure of this character. We have to settle the boundary line in the river, and decide whether this island belongs to Canada or to the United States. My information is that the remainder of the work will be largely completed this year. Of course, there will be some annual expenditure in succeeding years, but it should be comparatively small.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: How long has the question respecting this island in the St. Croix river been a matter of dispute?


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot tell you.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: It is a pretty old river
and a pretty old island.


Edward Joseph Garland: Can the minister give the committee the exact amount paid by the United States for similar work to this?


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot give that.


Edward Joseph Garland: Then we do not know how much is being paid by the United States?


Charles A. Stewart: No, I have not the amount.


Edward Joseph Garland: Have you
an agreement with the United States?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Edward Joseph Garland: What are
the terms of the agreement?


Charles A. Stewart: One-half the cost is contributed by the United States. Of course, they pay their own parties.


Edward Joseph Garland: But if the
minister does not know how much the United States is paying, how does he know they are paying half?


Charles A. Stewart: I said I did not know what they were paying their men. There may be differences in the wage scale; I cannot tell my hon. friend as to that.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Is there really
any such agreement as my hon. friend refers

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to? Is it not a fact that the two countries divide the cost merely of the actual monuments erected?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Henry Lumley Drayton: We cannot look to the United States for any further contribution than that, can we?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes. It would be unfair, for example, for the engineering work to be done by one country. That should be divided proportionately.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Is the minister
quite sure that is done? Have you joint parties doing all the work?


Charles A. Stewart: (Arrangements are made for the work to be performed by each country. The parties do not work together.


Henry Lumley Drayton: So that the division of cost between the two countries has relation only to the actual cost of the monuments themselves, which is a comparatively small thing. Now, does the minister not think it would be better to withdraw this increase, instead of going on, piling up costs? I would think he would consider it wise to force this work to cease by doing away with the vote, excepting, of course, such part of it as would be necessary to keep up the monuments. That would be only a small amount.


Charles A. Stewart: I have gone into this matter fairly thoroughly, and I am told by those who are engaged in the work that this amount is required to complete it so that it will be of value to the people of Canada. When that is done all that remains is just what my hon. friend suggests. A small amount will have to be spent annually to make any necessary repairs, but as these monuments are of a permanent nature the repairs should not require any considerable amount.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Dominion Lands and Parks-salaries of the Dominion Lands outside service, $561,380.
Henry Lumley Drayton: Are the details of these salaries given in the civil government details?


Charles A. Stewart: No.


Henry Lumley Drayton: No reference
at all to them?


Charles A. Stewart: Not under
civil government details.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is the
only place where we can get any details of salaries, is it not?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Then I would
ask my hon. friend for the details of these salaries.


Charles A. Stewart: Does mv
hon. friend want the full list?


Henry Lumley Drayton: I would like
to see it.


Charles A. Stewart: There is
no increase in the number employed. I have the full list here, and it shows there are 417 employees.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am very glad that the Minister of Finance is still in his seat. Here we have permanent employees to the number of 417 in one department and the details of these salaries do not appear at all in the civil government details.. What is the highest salary paid, and what are the ratings generally?


Charles A. Stewart: Mr. Cuttle, Superintendent of Western Land Agencies appears to receive the highest salary, $4,020 a year; his assistant, Mr. Wright, receives $3,090; Mr. Stephenson, Chief Timber Inspector, receives $4,020; Mr. J. W. Martin, Inspector of Agencies, Calgary, $3,300; Mr. Bronsdon, Assistant to the Land Agent Inspector, $2,100.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The minister
says there are no increases.


Charles A. Stewart: There is
no increase in the number of employees, but there are certain statutory salary increases as follows:	Twenty increases of $15, making $300; thirty-five at $30, making $1,050; twenty at $45, making $900; one hundred and seventy at $60, making $10,200; two at $75, making $150; three at $90, making $270; fifteen at $120, making $1,800, and four at S180, making $720, a total of $15,390. Increases due to reclassification amount to $9,053.60. There is a contingency vote for additional help that may be required of $556.40-total $25,000.


Thomas Langton Church: Referring to the item for the preservation of historic sites, I should like to ask what has been done in that connection in the Niagara district.


George Newcombe Gordon: The question is not
in order under this item. We are considering
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the first item under Dominion Lands and Parks, which is the salaries of the Dominion Lands outside service.


Mr. SHAW:: I would like the minister to
give some indication of the work accomplished by the Dominion Lands and Parks branch for which' these salaries are paid, especially with reference to the work done last year as compared with preceding years.


Charles A. Stewart: I am afraid my hon. friend has asked for almost an impossible explanation. This is largely inspee-tional work. So far as the Land branch is concerned, no new offices have been opened. The inspectional work carried on from year to year is much the same with the exception that homestead inspection is on the decrease, and there is no doubt that we shall be able to do with fewer homestead inspectors than we have had in the past unless we have an increase in the applications for homesteads. The work is very similar from year to year. As to the parks, they are constantly growing in importance and will require additional votes, I imagine, from year to year if we are to keep them in anything like the shape of the parks of our competitors to the south. We must make them attractive so that people will come to Canada and spend their money here. With regard to the whole vote, with the single exception of homestead inspection, one cannot look for very much in the way of diminished cost of administration. The land offices will have to be maintained until such time as the system in connection with the Dominion lands is changed. That is, if we were to abandon the homestead principle then we could cut off a considerable number of these offices. But until that is done they will have to be maintained, and the inspection, which is the chief cost in connection with this particular item will also have to be kept up.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: Is it not a fact that the work done by the Dominion Lands department has been rapidly decreasing during the past several years, but that the staff, apparently, continues to increase?


Charles A. Stewart: No, there' is no increase in the staff.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: There certainly is no decrease. What I want to know is, if the work is rapidly decreasing why should not the staff decrease correspondingly ?


Charles A. Stewart: To say that the work is decreasing is scarcely a fair statement. It may be truje of homesteading.

There is no doubt that homesteading is not carried on to the same extent that it was in former years, but there is inspection work to be done in the interest of many of the homesteaders who have not been granted patents. We find that a great deal of the work of the homestead inspector is taken up in connection with disputes as to whether or not the man has done sufficient improvement on his land to earn patent. I do think it is rather an expensive method of dealing with the land; but perhaps more than 50 per cent of the work required of the inspector relates to this very item that I have mentioned, namely, where the patent has not been granted, although the applicant thinks he has earned it four or five years ago, and is yet in dispute.


Arthur Meighen: Is it not a fact that the minister has increased the number of land offices, or sub-land offices, in the West?


Charles A. Stewart: No.


Arthur Meighen: Well, there has been an increase although there was a very substantial diminution five and six years ago, a collecting of them together and a reduction by, I think, about one-half.


Charles A. Stewart: You mean sub-offices?


Arthur Meighen: There are some offices as well as sub-offices. Many sub-offices, and some of the offices, were amalgamated but part of that good work has been undone since.


Charles A. Stewart: I have no knowledge of any office being opened since I took over the department. Medicine Hat has been closed, and one or two other offices. I have no knowledge of any office having been opened. The Wetaskiwin office was moved but it has not resulted in the creation of a new office.


Arthur Meighen: The office at Medicine Hat was closed before there was an amalgamation.


Charles A. Stewart: The office at Medicine Hat was open when I took office.


Arthur Meighen: The offices at Medicine Hat and Lethbridge were amalgamated and the office placed at Medicine Hat.


Charles A. Stewart: No. the
Lethbridge office is open.


Arthur Meighen: Then the Medicine Bat office was closed.

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Charles A. Stewart: I beg to differ with my hon. friend. There was a gentleman in occupation of the office at Medicine Hat when I entered the government.


Arthur Meighen: I will undertake to say one of the two offices was closed, because I closed it.


Charles A. Stewart: They were both open when I took office; that is all I know.


Arthur Meighen: It must have been very shortly before.


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot tell how soon it was. All I can say it was open when I took office.


Arthur Meighen: I think if the minister will look into the matter he will find he is mistaken, because I remember definitely closing the one and putting it into the other, and taking all the abuse that was offered.


Charles A. Stewart: As to that, all I know is that the office was in existence at Medicine Hat when I took office. I happen to know that because I am so familiar with the territory. If it were somewhere else I might be less certain.


Arthur Meighen: I remember now it was the office at Medicine Hat that was closed, it was not the office at Lethbridge. There might have been a building there but the office was closed without any question.


Charles A. Stewart: You mean-


Arthur Meighen: The Dominion Land office.


Charles A. Stewart: That may be true but there was a sub-agency there. Perhaps that is how the disagreement has arisen.


Arthur Meighen: I knew my recollection of it was right. There might be a sub-agency open but the land office was closed. It was merged in the office at Lethbridge.


Charles A. Stewart: That is quite right.


Arthur Meighen: Has not,the minister made that office at Medicine Hat a land office since?


Charles A. Stewart: No it is closed. There is a sub-agent there.


Edward Joseph Garland: How many homestead inspectors are there in the three prairie provinces?
Mr. STEWART (Argenteuil I: Sixty-four.


Edward Joseph Garland: Can you give me the number by provinces?


George Newcombe Gordon: Shall the item carry?


Edward Joseph Garland: No I am waiting for an answer to my question.


Mr. BANCROFT:: 
Leland Payson Bancroft: I might just say that I think the regulations could very well be made so elastic that the homestead inspector could take into consideration any permanent ditches that were constructed. This will only apply to very few districts, but it is a matter of great importance to the people in those districts.
325:
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Edward Joseph Garland: In regard to the 20 inspectors in Saskatchewan, are they paid a straight salary, or paid simply for the number of inspections they make?


Charles A. Stewart: They are
paid a straight salary.


John Millar: It seems strange that twenty inspectors can be employed in Saskatchewan all the time. I do not know how many homesteads there are in that province, but one could travel in the southern part for days and could count on the fingers of one hand all of the homesteads he could see. In the north there are considerably more.


Charles A. Stewart: I am informed that the department had sixty inspectors in the days when a good deal of homesteading was going on. We are endeavouring to cut down the number of homestead inspectors. Some of them were cut off in Alberta. We have not as many in that province this year as we had a year ago.


George Gibson Coote: What other officials are included in that list? Are forest reserve rangers included?


Charles A. Stewart: No, this
simply applies to Dominion lands. Thqre are no forest rangers in this particular vote.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Does this apply also to lease inspectors, or are they separate?


Charles A. Stewart: The range and lease inspectors come under this vote.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: Are all the employees covered by this vote subject to the provisions of the Civil Service Act? Are the provisions of that act applicable to all of them, or are those provisions being evaded in any way?


Charles A. Stewart: No, they
apply to all the officials in the list.


Arthur Meighen: The minister does not appoint them notwithstanding the provisions, the way he does in the Immigration department?


Charles A. Stewart: I think that is a sore point with my hon. friend, but I should like to point out there are occasions when it is necessary to do something of that character. Immigration is more or less of a fluctuating character. For example, we have had the Carlisle and Belfast vacancies in the Old Country since last October. Two men were recently appointed by the Civil Service Commission to fill those vacancies.


Arthur Meighen: When did the minister
apply?


Charles A. Stewart: Last October.


Arthur Meighen: The last time I inquired the minister was wrong. He had not applied to the commission until some time afterwards.


Charles A. Stewart: Where did the right hon. member get that information?


Arthur Meighen: From the commission. I wrote and asked, which I had a right to do.


Charles A. Stewart: I am not disputing the hon. member's right to do that, but I say that at the moment those officials have not gone forward, indeed one of them is just leaving his home in British Columbia to begin to perform his duties. I have no desire to make an appointment, but when you need an official in a hurry some latitude should be permitted. I want to say most emphatically that I have no desire to appoint any civil servant. My experience is all the other way. I am perfectly content to let the Civil Service Commission make all the appointments.


Alfred Speakman: On that point of homestead inspectors, have any requests come from the Hebrideans who went to my constituency of Red Deer a short time ago, or from the provincial government, regarding settling those men upon homesteads in that part of Alberta?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, we had a considerable number of telegrams. I will be very glad to go into the matter with my hon. friend. I have been following the fortunes of the Hebrideans very closely, and they, in common with all other newcomers, got rather bad advice. I think if they had accepted the advice of the Soldiers' Settlement Board and of the Immigration department, no considerable harm would have been done. My recent information is that they are all being settled upon land happily in the vicinity of Red Deer.


Alfred Speakman: I am glad to hear it.


John Evans: I would like to ask regarding the twenty homestead inspectors in Saskatchewan. There cannot be work for more than two at the present time. I do not know what twenty are doing.


Charles A. Stewart: I have not the full knowledge of Saskatchewan that my hon. friend appears to have, but I fancy there is work for more than two. Probably the twenty are not so busily engaged, but I will

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promise my hon. friend I will find out what they are doing.


Alfred Speakman: One more question regarding this matter, which is not absolutely under this item but connected with it very closely indeed; was any part of the grant made for these men applied to settle them on the land, or was the whole sum applied in assisting passages, or to put in proper condition the old school in the vicinity of Red Deer? I have been asked a great many questions with regard to how that money was spent, and if any part of it was being used to settle these people on the land.


Charles A. Stewart: No money was spent in establishing the settlers on the land. Money has been spent in repairing the school buildings on the Indian farms, and in assisting the families.


Edward Joseph Garland: The minister has given the number of homestead inspectors in the three provinces as: Manitoba, six; Saskatchewan, twenty; Alberta, twenty. Can he tell me the number of homesteads filed on in the last year in the three provinces?


Charles A. Stewart: In all probability we will be dealing wth this matter on another occasion, and I shall endeavour to give that information to my hon. friend. I do not have it with me.


Edward Joseph Garland: In the
event of the matter not coming up again, I would ask the minister to send me the information.


Charles A. Stewart: I will be very glad to give it to the committee, if the hon. member will bring it up.


Edward Joseph Garland: I may not be here to bring it up, and I would like the minister to send it to me.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: The minister has given us his assurance that the provisions of the Civil Service Act have been complied with. I want to point out, for his information, that his department appointed a grazing inspector, who was employed for a period of six months at a salary of $250 a month, and no notice was given the Civil Service Commission, despite the fact the regulations required that notice should be given. ,


George Newcombe Gordon: That does not come under this item.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, it does.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: It has already been suggested that it comes under this item. This man was employed approximately for six months at
$250 a month. No notice was given the Civil Service Commission with respect to that appointment at all. I have a fear that there may be other appointments of this character.


Charles A. Stewart: I do not know where my hon. friend got this information. Both my hon. friends got information from the Civil Service Commission with respect to this matter. However, I presume it is Mr. Helmer to whom he refers.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: Yes.


Charles A. Stewart: As far as 1 know, his name was before the Civil Service Commission, at least, for a portion of the time he was employed. He was employed on special work at that time in connection with grazing in the forest reserve, when Mr. Cloakey, the regular range inspector, was not available, to settle a dispute with regard to grazing. It was not anticipated in any way that he should be permanent, or that he should be continued for any considerable length of time.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: The point I want to suggest is this, that the regulations of the Civil Service Act are not being complied with. That is not right. If the act is not satisfactory, then repeal it; but no deputy minister should have the privilege, under any circumstances, of violating the law in that regard.


Charles A. Stewart: All that I can say to my hon. friend is that there is in the Civil Service Act a provision under which you can for temporary periods employ individuals.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: The commission, must be notified.


Charles A. Stewart: If we have gone beyond the provision in that regard, of course we are guilty of an offence; but so far as I know, we have not been sinners in that particular case, that is in doing it without the knowledge of the Civil Service Commission, nor have I any desire to do that.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I quite appreciate that the minister has no desire to infringe the law; but the law is perfectly clear that notification of appointments of this kind, even for temporary purposes, must be made to the Civil Service Commission. In the case I mentioned no notice was given at all. If a person is employed for a period, I think, of thirty days, a communication must be sent to the Civil Service Commission. This man was employed, I think, for approximately six months, and the Civil Service Commission,

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according to a written communication I have received, had no notice at all. What I fear is that, perhaps, there may be other appointments and expenditures of this character, certainly without the minister's knowledge, and this is a matter that should be carefully gone into.


Mr. McBRIDE:: There are a number of disputes out in British Columbia in connection with grazing leases, and I have asked for an investigator to go out there in order to try to straighten them out. This is the gentleman whom the department says they will send out there if they can get him. I understand he is a very capable man and has rendered good service wherever he has gone. If they can get him to go out to British Columbia, it is not likely they will go to the Civil Service Commission to get him; they will appoint him without doing that.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. McBride) is a man after the minister's own heart. Just appoint whom you like! The minister has no power to appoint save under emergency circumstances, and that does not mean that because he wants somebody to inspect ranches, he can appoint a man. That clause was intended to cover, say, cases of destruction of property, property that had to be immediately restored, an emergency of that kind. It is that clause which the minister has abused, not only in the Interior department, but in these other departments, and it has been abused pretty consistently. The other week I had a communication from some party in connection, I am practically sure, with the Geodetic Survey, and I simply transmitted it to the Civil Service Commission. I have the letter in my office, and I find that the department has appointed someone to fill a vacancy in that branch without notice to the commission at all. This sort of thing is going on pretty generally. The minister has some officers who are quite capable of doing this, and' I cannot acquit the minister quite so readily. It is a strange thing to me that the appointee in Manitoba in one case was the former Liberal organizer. On more than one occasion the appointee in Alberta was a former Liberal candidate, and an appointee in Saskatchewan had somewhat similar experience. This man Helmer I have not heard of before. What is his political experience?


Charles A. Stewart: I could not say except that he was ranch inspector prior to the appointment of Mr. Cloakey. I venture that as a correct statement. At all events he had had experience in this work.


Arthur Meighen: What was his political experience?


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot tell my right hon. friend that.


Mr. STEVENS:: It is a secret.


Charles A. Stewart: I do not know what his political affiliation was. We are not such hide-bound partisans in Alberta as, perhaps, people are in some other parts of the country.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. May is a pretty good example.


Charles A. Stewart: Mr. May was a Liberal candidate for East Edmonton. There is no doubt about that. Mr. May has been a lifelong Liberal.


Thomas George McBride: The right hon. gentleman said that I was a man after the minister's own heart. I should like him to mention one instance in which I have suggested an appointment or brought about one in any way.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: With reference to the gentlemen referred to by the minister, I think he is a very competent official. May I say further for the benefit of the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. McBride), that when they wanted that gentleman to go out to British Columbia, they made application to the Civil Service Commission and they were given permission for that purpose. This was after the matter had been brought up in the Civil Service committee. What I object to is 11 p.m. not the appointment of the particular individual. I am sure that he will give satisfactory service. What I object to is the method by which the appointment is made. Some of the officers of that department are apparently not as careful as they should be in seeing to it that the regulations are obeyed. The people of this country have no assurance that patronage has been eliminated unless all the officials comply with the provisions of the Civil Service Act. That was not done in that case, and I think the officers are entitled to a reprimand for their failure to comply with the provisions.


Arthur Meighen: What has been done with respect to the lease for pulp purposes to the Manitoba Pulp and Paper Company in Manitoba? I understand the minister has added by order in council an immense area to the land which the company obtained previously by tender. Is that correct?


Charles A. Stewart: Is that the McArthurs'?

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Arthur Meighen: No, the Manitoba Pulp and Paper Company. Mr. McArthur is, I believe, the owner.


Charles A. Stewart: He has an addition under lease, under the ordinary provisions of granting leases for this purpose, not of a very large area, as my right hon. friend mentions.


Arthur Meighen: About 555,000 acres, I
think, was the addition. What does the minister mean by the *" ordinary provisions? " I venture to say that there has never been an addition to a pulp lease before, for this is the very first pulp lease that has been granted. It was obtained by tender and given to the highest bidder at a very fair price. Then the minister added, without any tender at all, about as much more as the original allotment. What does the minister mean by saying that this was under the ordinary provisions?


Charles A. Stewart: My information is that it was granted under the usual provision by which leases of this character are given to applicants for them. I have no knowledge that anything out of the ordinary, as my right hon. friend speaks of, was done in connection with this particular lease.


Arthur Meighen: I have the order in
council before me. On the 11th November, on the recommendation of the minister, there was added to the Manitoba Pulp and Paper Company's lease a whole series of townships. I think if the minister collects the acreages together, he will find that the quantity is about 555,000 acres, or about the quantity that this company obtained by tender in its original lease. That is to say, he almost doubled the acreage. In the original lease, before there was any advertisement for tender at all, the utmost precautions were taken to see that a sufficient area was given to enable the pulp industry to be financed, to supply pulp for a large mill, for the length of time that the very best authorities stated would be required. Then advertisements were issued and tenders were called for on the basis of 80 cents per cord for spruce, which is the chief wood and, I think, 40 cents per cord for the others. Tenderers were asked to say how much more they would pay above these standard figures of 80 cents and 40 cents, 80 cents for spruce being really the figure that counted. The company that secured the tender had paid a very considerable bonus, indeed, if my memory is correct, at least twice the eighty cents per cord, making the payment altogether about $2.45. I do not think I am very far out in that figure, if I arn out at all. That was a substantial bonus. Now,
208i
under this order in council the minister has granted an addition to that berth of virtually the acreage covered by the original lease, and he has granted it without any bonus whatsoever, merely at the upset rate of eighty cents per cord for spruce and forty cents per cord for pulpwood and other species of timber. It looks as if the timber wolf were abroad again. What is the minister's explanation of losing to the country that immense sum of money?


Charles A. Stewart: Representations were made to the department that a larger area would have to be granted before the project for the establishing of a mill in this particular locality could be financed. Not only that, but the upset price paid at the particular time the berth was offered appears to be very, very high because pulp was then selling at an extraordinary high price. The additional area was granted to enable the company to get the pulp industry started there, but it does not seem that even with the additional area this is going to be possible. I am informed that so far the financing has not been accomplished, and that it is doubtful if, even with the additional area, the industry can be started in that locality, notwithstanding the fact that the company appear to have a lease of a very desirable water power.


Arthur Meighen: The question is not answered yet. The fact is that pulp is at a very high price to-day, as is also paper. I feel pretty sure that this lease was granted in the early part of 1921, and I am not aware that there was any very greatly higher price for pulp then than now. Suffice to say that at the present moment pulp areas are as valuable, if hot more so, as they ever were in this Dominion. I do not think the minister can point to the sale of a pulp area within the last six months that is not at a record price-higher than could have been obtained at the time this lease was made. Now, Mr. McArthur tendered. His tender was accepted. It was the highest and it provided for just three times what the minister has granted in this additional area without tender at all. It may be that he has not got it through yet. I do not know what plan of financing he has adopted. I have nothing to say against him personally, not a word, but the interests of the country are not protected under this order in council. It looks as if we are getting back to the old days again. I protest against adding this immense area, almost an empire. I know I am not appreciably in error when I say it is 550,000 acres.
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Charles A. Stewart: I think my hon. friend will find there is not anything like the amount of pulpwood on this area as shown by the cruise, in fact scarcely half that amount. I am speaking from memory, but I shall be glad to get the information.


Arthur Meighen: The minister will get that much less then even at the eighty cents a cord. But I am not so sure. Certainly there is some excellent pulpwood in this district because the utmost care was taken in determining what would be the amount required. It was not intended to add to that pulp area. If it were added to some means should have been taken to get the actual value of the timber and not fix the value at a third, or less than a third, of what was paid in the open market. What is to hinder this new company so planning its mill as to utilize this area that the minister has added at eighty cents per cord and leave the area tendered on practically untouched? Has not the minister in effect simply taken the price procured by the late government and cut it in three parts, leaving two parts to the lessees and retaining only one part for the country?


Charles A. Stewart: I do not think so, because of necessity a mill will have to be established at a point where the lease is held of the water power.


Arthur Meighen: But they can use only this timber and never touch the other at all now.


Charles A. Stewart: You mean they may use the timber on the leased area first?


Arthur Meighen: No, they will use the cheaper timber off what the minister has given them and leave the rest, so in effect the minister has just cut in three parts what he ought to have got for the timber.


John Millar: I should like to ask another question in regard to the matter.


Arthur Meighen: It is worth a little more attention.


John Millar: It is. In order to get some practical results from this discussion I would ask two questions: What is the salary of one of these inspectors? And have we an assurance from the minister that consideration in the very near future will be given to this matter so that the surplus inspectors will be retired and some economy exercised? This does seem to be a very large number of inspectors for the work they have to do.


Charles A. Stewart: I gave the committee an assurance that these men would be retired just as fast as possible. We commenced that policy in Alberta last year. I cannot say from memory we retired any in Saskatchewan, but undoubtedly some men will be retired this year.


John Millar: Are the inspectors allowed to do other work, or do they devote all their time to inspection?


Charles A. Stewart: The only other work they are engaged in is the investigation and collection of seed grain accounts, which are now of course getting down to a fairly low point.


John Millar: What salaries do they
receive?


Charles A. Stewart: A maximum salary of $1,800.


John Millar: And expenses? _


Charles A. Stewart: Yes. If my hon. friend will let the matter of the lease stand I will get full information for him.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will the minister add to the information a full statement of the amount of pulpwood on this addition covered by the order in council?


Charles A. Stewart: I will bring down all the information I have in connection with it.


Arthur Meighen: Let the item stand.


Charles A. Stewart: It is not necessary that this item should stand.


Arthur Meighen: This is really the item the matter comes under.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Does this pulp have to be manufactured on the land which is leased, or can the lessees ship it off to other points even outside of Canada?


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot give that information now.


Arthur Meighen: The regulations provide that all the timber should be converted into pulp in Canada, and that a certain proportion of the pulp should be made into paper, I think one-half.


Charles A. Stewart: This' is just the salary item we are dealing with. I am willing that the matter should be raised again; I will procure the information.


Mr. BIRD:: I wish to ask the minister a question that really concerns the scope of his

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department. I have in mind two sections of good farming land near the railway that is pretty well settled by a good class of settlers, many of them returned soldiers. I am informed that these settlers will have to get out of there if they cannot get some drainage done. It is low land and in a wet season it is almost impossible to cultivate it. I know that strictly speaking this matter is outside the scope of the department, but these men went in there in more optimistic times thinking they could make good, but under present conditions they will likely have to back out. I know another district in which there is a good class of settlers, most of them returned soldiers, but they are under this difficulty- and I think it is a common one throughout the West: a good many of them have relinquished their holdings, their homesteads have gone back to the government, and the accumulated taxes have been automatically cancelled, leaving a heavy burden upon those remaining there. It seems to me that the department ought to have some policy in. a matter of this kind. In both these cases the settlers are prepared to go on and make good if they can get the help they need. I think it is a legitimate function of the department to take care of these people who, as I say, in more optimistic times, went out to the edge of things and tried to establish themselves, but who in these harder times, will have to pull up and find other fields if they are not afforded relief.


Charles A. Stewart: I do not know whether the Drainage Act of Manitoba is similar to that of Saskatchewan and Alberta, but in cases where Crown lands are affected arrangements are made with both these provinces by the federal authorities for the inclusion of Crown lands in these drainage areas. The problem of drainage, however, is one that is assumed by the provinces. Perhaps my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) could tell me how long it is since the federal authorities ceased their operations in drainage.


Arthur Meighen: We had not ceased when I left the department, in drainage.


Charles A. Stewart: I mean,
commencing new projects.


Arthur Meighen: We had not ceased then. We may have in 1921.


Charles A. Stewart: All I know is that Alberta made an agreement with my right hon. friend when he was minister respecting both irrigation and drainage.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, that is right.


Charles A. Stewart: Clearly both governments cannot be engaged in drainage projects. The federal government will carry out the agreement made with the other two provinces; I am not familiar with the legislation of Manitoba dealing with drainage. The federal government is prepared to treat Manitoba on the same basis as Saskatchewan and Alberta, leaving, however, to the provincial government the responsibility of taking care of drainage. If it is true that soldier settlers were placed on some of these low lying lands, that is a regrettable circumstance, because they are bound to have difficulties in wet years until drainage is undertaken.


Thomas William Bird: In the latter part of my statement I said that in certain districts the land was reverting to the government, the taxes were automatically cancelled and the burden was falling upon the handful of settlers left, wtih the result that they were gradually being forced out.


Charles A. Stewart: Does my hon. friend refer to soldier settlers' land that has reverted to the Dominion?


Thomas William Bird: Yes.


Charles A. Stewart: That is true. I submitted that question to the Justice department and have a report from them in which they point out most emphatically that we cannot pay taxes upon Dominion land and that lands reverting to the Dominion, although they have been in the hands of private individuals, are in the same category as though they had always been Crown lands.


Robert Forke: Did the minister not go so far as to say that it would need an amendment to the British North America Act?


Charles A. Stewart: Well, I cannot say that.


Mr. BEAUBIEN:: In the organized territories the provinces claim they have nothing to do with the matter of drainage, improvements, and so on in the unorganized districts. How, then, is the homesteader to get any of these improvements if he is in an unorganized district? The provincial government really "passes the buck," so that the homesteaders are up against a tough proposition.


Charles A. Stewart: There is no difficulty in Alberta; they have full authority under their act to deal with the matter. My hon. friend says they "passed the buck," but they are the responsible people on the ground, able to give supervision and to know the re-
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quirements much better than the federal authorities at this distance from the scene of operations,


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: The Dominion government still holds the natural resources of the three western provinces and the provincial government does not feel disposed to spend any money in these unorganized districts.


Charles A. Stewart: There would be no cost to the provincial government other than the expense of financing the scheme. The land invariably would pay for the drainage. I can scarcely conceive of drainage being undertaken in an area where the lands would not pay for the tlrainage. If they would not pay for it, it would be a poor proposition to undertake.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: The provinces will not get any taxes until these lands are patented.


Charles A. Stewart: They will get taxes as soon as the lands are occupied.


Mr. WARD:: I think this is a question that should receive serious consideration. There are large areas in western Canada that are unorganized, and in these unorganized areas the question of road building and drainage is a very serious one. Personally I think the responsibility is on the Department of the Interior of this government to see that some measure of relief is given to these districts. I do not think we should pass over this item lightly. These people are doing the best they can to develop these unorganized areas, and it is not their fault that the territory is unorganized. I think this question should be seriously considered by the government.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Referring to the cancellation of taxes on land that reverts to the government, while it is a well-known fact that Dominion lands cannot be taxed for any purpose, 1 submit that not to pay the taxes even on Dominion lands that have been settled by soldier settlers and that have reverted to the government works a very great hardship on the people other than soldier settlers who are living in that district. For instance, the government will settle a number of soldiers in a district where there are other settlers farming on their own hook. It is an organized school district, for people will not go where they cannot get a chance to educate their children. An education is the birthright of every child in Canada these days, but due to the fact that a good many soldier settlers are leaving the land, and I submit that under present conditions a great many more of them will have to leave, the older settlers are unable to keep up the schools.
[Mr. C. A. Stewart.
In my own province this has been working a very great hardship, and even if it should be necessary to amend the British North America Act, there should be some effort made by the government so that the people who have settled in these districts will be able to give their children a common school education. That has been looked upon as a necessity in this country since the days when we replaced the Indians on this North American continent. A good many people are beginning to think that we made a mistake in usurping the rights of the Indians and the bears, and that we should have left the country to them due to this and other causes. I submit that this is working a serious hardship to the school districts. It is a different matter to say that Dominion lands which are wild lands should not be subject to taxes, but it is not wild lands that I am speaking of. The government takes land that has been in organized school districts for years, where people have settled simply because they were organized and where they would have a chance to educate their children, and then when this land reverts to the government these older settlers are unable to maintain the school and a great many schools are closed to-day on this very account. I think it is a more serious situation than the government realizes, and I would like to impress upon them the seriousness of it. Education is one thing we cannot afford to do without, and one thing that the government should not do is to bring about conditions which will prevent people from giving their children an education in this country, and the government's action in this matter is having that effect.


Arthur Meighen: We would not need to amend the British North America Act to enable the minister to pay taxes on soldier settler lands after vacation. We would need to amend the budget, and likely would have to amend the government as well.


Charles A. Stewart: I have not had a legal training, but I may say that this matter has been submitted to the Department of Justice, and I quoted from the advice they gave.


Arthur Meighen: Naturally their advice would be that we could not be taxed with it. No one says we can, but we can pay it without having to do it.


Charles A. Stewart: As a voluntary contribution?


Arthur Meighen: Certainly. We could assume the liability. It could not be forced upon us.

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Thomas Wakem Caldwell: To illustrate: A man goes through bankruptcy and pays his creditor, we will say, twenty cents on the dollar, but if he goes into business again and later on accumulates wealth if he is any sort of honest man he is pretty certain to pay off his debts. You cannot compel him to, but you would not regard him as a good citizen if he evaded payment through some technicality in the law. That looks to me the position the government are in under the circumstances I speak of.


Charles A. Stewart: So far as 1 personally am concerned I have no particular objection, but I wanted to be sure that I was legally right in the matter, because cases of this kind have been occurring in all parts of Canada. True in the aggregate there are not a very large number of soldier holdings vacant, but a few have been given up scattered throughout the Dominion, and a great deal of complaint has been^nade with respect to the condition of affairs. The advice 'I have received is that it was not legally possible for the government to pay claims of this character. I suppose that we could vote a sum of money for this purpose and make a grant to the municipalities in lieu of taxes. There is nothing to prevent that, I suppose, but that is a matter to which I have not given consideration.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I would submit that the ruling is right that there need be no taxes paid on any farm on which a soldier settler is settled to-day, because the government has the deed of that farm absolutely, and they are just as much in possession as if the soldier had not one scratch of the pen to the title. The government are in possession until the loan is fully paid. The term is twenty-one years, I think.


Mr. COPP:: The soldier has an equity in it under his agreement.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: He has no equity until his loan is fully paid off.


Arthur Meighen: The courts have held that the occupational interest is taxable.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I know cases where a soldier settler has deserted the land and the Settlement Board has turned it over to someone else who is now working it, and they refuse to pay taxes. I know cases of that kind where the Board is receiving a higher rent than the yearly return from the soldier settler would amount to, yet the board or the government refuse to pay the taxes although they are getting more revenue than if the soldier was
occupying the land. I submit that that is working a hardship, and a hardship not only in dollars and cents, but in the direction of closing the schools because the other settlers are not able to keep them going. They are not able to get away, or they do not want to abandon their farms, and the result is that it is preventing their children from getting a common school education.


Charles A. Stewart: Does my hon. friend mean to say that lands that are leased are not paying taxes?


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: By the Soldier Settlement Board, yes; and I could give names and the places where the land is located.


Charles A. Stewart: I had not heard of that before.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I know it to be a fact.


Mr. KNOX:: I want to revert for a moment to the drainage area question. Is it not a fact that the lands which are drained carry the expense of that drainage?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Andrew Knox: In the case of the Moose Range drainage area I find that in the years 1919 and 1920 the expense amounts to the sum of $23,000, yet there has been no drainage accomplished there. What about the expenditure which has been made, I think in connection with survey work? If eventually the lands are drained will that expenditure all be charged up against those lands?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Andrew Knox: In the meantime what is it
charged to?


Charles A. Stewart: It will have to be from an appropriation for that purpose, but all expenditure in connection with drainage will be charged to the lands eventually and it will be paid out of the sale of the lands.


Andrew Knox: 1 think there is little likelihood at the present time of the drainage project being carried out.


Charles A. Stewart: In case
the drainage project did not go on, the Reclamation department of this government would have to stand the cost; it would come out of the revenue of Canada.


Thomas William Bird: With regard to the liability
for taxes, I appreciate the minister's explanation. It no doubt is the case that the government is not liable for these taxes, but the fact remains that a good many people
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and very worthy people at that-not only in my constituency, but right through the West -feel they have a grievance, a very keen grievance, against the government, and I think it would bring a good deal of satisfaction to the minds of those settlers if the minister would only indicate that he is going further into this matter. He is up against a negative but then the problem remains, and there is this feeling in the minds of a good many people, and good people. In the case that I have in mind, I do not know anywhere in Manitoba where you could find a group of more promising settlers. If there is a community of promising settlers anywhere in the West it is that community. But they are disheartened and whether they have a grievance against the government or not they feel they have. I think the minister would be doing what we all naturally expect would be the right thing to do if he would indicate that he would go more deeply into this matter and see if some policy could not be formulated whereby these people could be relieved to some extent. It may be that this department has not all the responsibility. It may be that the provincial government might be stimulated to take some interest if this department would. Most of these men are in unorganized territory though, and the provincial government therefore has not that sense of responsibility that would attach to this department here. I know the minister is sympathetic, and I would like him to express himself sympathetically in order that these people might have some satisfaction.


Charles A. Stewart: If it is a
matter of taxation I, personally, am quite prepared to put the matter up to the government-that is the matter of the taxation on land reverting to the Crown held by soldier settlers. If it is a matter of drainage I can say that I am perfectly willing to go the full length so far as the federal government is concerned in assisting; but I must point out to my hon. friend that I think it is the duty of the provincial government to carry out the scheme. That responsibility certainly does not, in my opinion, rest upon the federal authorities; the work would have to be done by the province. Where Crown lands are affected in the area those Crown lands would be made available and no difficulty would be placed in the way of drainage; but that the federal authorities shall step in and take the responsibility for drainage is a recommendation I can hardly make. I will have to be frank and state that fact to my hon. friend.


Robert Forke: I should just like to point
out to the committee that when the right hon. leader of the Opposition was Minister of the Interior he was memorialized quite frequently in regard to this very subject, but we did not get very much satisfaction that I can remember. It is no new subject because, acting for the Manitoba Union of Municipalities, I think I memorialized every member of the House and all the members of the Senate from Manitoba, and the only reply I ever got was from my predecessor, the member for Brandon. I could not even get an answer from the Minister of the Interior at that time. I do not think my right hon. friend is listening?


Mr MEIGHEN:: Yes, I am. I do not
know what the subject is. The hon. member did not say whether it related to the drainage undertaking or had to do with the taxation of soldier settlement lands.


Robert Forke: Taxation.


Arthur Meighen: The taxation of soldier settlement lands? Well, I assure the hon. member that if he wrote the Minister of the Interior, an answer was sent him regardless of whether he ever received it or not. We never arrived really at the time when the question of the payment of taxes on deserted soldier settlement lands came up, not while I was Minister of the Interior-not up to the end of my tenure of office. I can remember that the number of soldiers who had left the lands was virtually nil; these cases have come in since. So I do not think there were representations made to me at that time; I do not remember any being received. I have not argued in this debate that the minister should assume responsibility. 1 know that a great deal can be said for it, but I have not taken the stand that that burden could safely be assumed by the government. I do not know that I have any final opinion on the question. Consequently I have not taken a stand against the attitude the minister has taken. I have only said that while we are not liable we certainly have the right to pay, and all that is needed is an appropriation of parliament for the purpose. I fancy it would be a pretty large appropriation and it might carry the government into responsibilities in other fields that would be much more serious even than this. Those are the thoughts that have been running in my head. I think the hon. member is wrong in stating that representations were made to me in respect of soldier settlement land because the numbers would be so very

Questions
few up to the month of July, 1920, of those who would have left. The soldier settlement plan only went into effect in the summer of 1921, one year before, and there would not be soldiers deserting their land before July, 1920. Therefore what my hon. friend has reference to must have been some subject very closely akin.


George Newcombe Gordon: The first item is carried.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Chairman, we have now transgressed some forty minutes on the quiet of the night as limited by the government at the opening of parliament.


George Perry Graham: We are working on standard time to-night.
Progress reported.



ADJOURNMENT-BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

[Stage Direction]
Mr. MACKENZIE KING moved the adjournment of the House.
Arthur Meighen: May I ask what business will be taken up to-morrow?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is a resolution, No. 33 on to-day's order paper, in the name of the Minister of Railways which will be taken up; the second reading of the bill to amend the Dairy Industry Act, 1914, in the name of the Minister of Agriculture; and the bill to amend the Naturalization Act in the name of the Secretary of State. We propose to take up the estimates of the Department of Customs the first thing to-morrow. If we conclude with them we will continue with the estimates of the Department of the Interior upon which we have been engaged tonight.


Arthur Meighen: The budget resolutions will not be taken up to-morrow?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No, not the budget resolutions. In reference to the observation of my right hon. friend as to the lateness of the sitting, the government has hoped all along that it would not be necessary to extend the hour of sitting at night beyond eleven o'clock, but I think there is a feeling on the part of many members of the House that we should begin now to do so with a view to expediting the conclusion of the business of parliament. For that reason it may become necessary to sit later in the evening if we find we do not make much progress during the day.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 11.45 p.m.
Wednesday, May 30, 1923.