1924-04-07

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 36, respecting the Northern Life Assurance Company of Canada.-Mr. McKay.
Bill No. 37, to change the name of Imperial Underwriters Corporation of Canada to "Imperial Insurance Office."-Mr. Chew.
Bill No. 38, respecting the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway Company.-Mr. Humphrey.

Mr. ARTHUR DENIS (Saint Denis):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to present petitions on behalf of the Rev. Mr. Hamilton, rector of the Shaw Memorial Methodist Church of Montreal, in support of the bill for proposed incorporation of the United Church of Canada.


Mr. MURRAY MacLAREN (St. John City and Counties of St. John and Albert):: I
desire to present petitions from members and adherents of St. David's church, St. John, N. B., St. James Presbyterian church, Andover, N. B., Rothesay Presbyterian church, Rothesay, N. B., and Knoix Presbyterian Church, Shediac, N. B., opposing the United Church of Canada Bill.



REDISTRIBUTION


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: I beg to move, seconded
by Dr. Beland:
That the special committee appointed on Tuesday, March 25, to which was referred Bill No. 2, intituled, "An act to readjust the representation in the House of Commons," with instructions to prepare schedules to jontain and describe the several electoral divisions entitled to return members to this House, be composed of the following members, Messrs. Beland, Boivin, Hanson, Humphrey, Johnston, Low, Kennedy (Glengarry and Stormont), King (Huron), Macdonald (Pictou), Morrissy, McQuarrie, Motherwell, McMurray, Rankin, Speakman, Stewart (Argenteuil), Stewart (Leeds), Stork and Sutherland, and that rule 11 be suspended in relation thereto.


Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (East Calgary):: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to the Prime Minister that he consider putting a representative of the Labour party and of the Independent party on the committee. Though we are a small group in this House Labour in the various cities constitutes a considerable
portion of the electorate, and it is my opinion that it would be advisable to have a Labour representative and an Independent representative on the committee.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker,
the committee to all intents and purposes is the same committee that dealt with this matter last session. It was left to the whips on the two sides of the House to endeavour to arrange a committee that would be satisfactory to all concerned. If there is any desire on the part of gentlemen opposite to change the personnel in any way, the government will be prepared to consider changes.


William Irvine: I am one of the whips on
this side of the House. I was not consulted about the personnel of the committee.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

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

Mr. McQUARRIE:: 1.	What was the average monthly salary paid to full time civil servants in Canada in (a) the Customs department, and (b) the Department of Agriculture, for the month ending February 28, 1914?
2.	What was the average monthly salary, without the cost of living bonus, paid to full time civil servants in Canada in (a) the Department of Customs, (b) the Department of Agriculture, for the month ending February 29, 1924?
3.	What were the percentages of increase?
4.	By what percentage are the cost of living figures for the month of February, 1924, as compiled by the Dominion Department of Labour, greater than those for the month of February, 1914?
5.	Is it not true that the salaries fixed in the reclassifications were based on normal living costs?


Hon. Mr. COPP:: Department of Customs and Excise.
1.	(a) $86.01.
2.	(a) $126.97.
3.	47-62 per cent.
1.	(b)
2.	(b) (Do not refer to this department).
4 and 5.
Department of Agriculture.
1.	$107.29.
2.	$138.94.
3.	29.5 per cent.
4 and 5. Nil.
Department of Labour.
1,	2 and 3. No information.
4.	Fifty-two per cent.
5.	No information.

Questions


D.S.C.R.-STAFF
Mr. MacLAREN:: 1.	What is the number of medical and nursing staff in the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment?
2.	What is the number of other employees in the said department ?


Hon. Mr. RELAND:: 1.	475; consisting of,-247 medical officers, and 228 nurses.
2.	2,447; consisting of dentists, hospital orderlies, mental attendants, ward aides, technical and service staff in hospitals and sanatoria, as well as administrative and clerical services.


D.S.C.R.-PENSIONERS
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	How many pensioners of the Canadian Epedi-tionary Forces have removed to the United States or other foreign countries during the years 1921, 1922, and 1923?
2.	Will such pensioners have to suffer deductions from their pension cheques by reason of the discount on Canadian money there or have Canadian banks in the United States made arrangements with American banks by which such cheques shall be cashed at par?


Hon. Mr. BELAND:: 1.	The following statement shows the number of Canadian Expeditionary Force pensioners resident outside of the Dominion of
Canada:
No. resident in other countries,
Date	No. resident	includingYear ending	in U.S.A.	Great Britain31-3-22	
3,620	7,86831-3-23	
4,103	7,87029-2-24	
5,054	8,0092.	Pensions are payable in Canadian funds. The government has not made arrangements with Canadian banks to relieve pensioners resident in the United States of America of the loss they may sustain by reason of the discount on Canadian funds in that country.
Mr. E. RAYNER


Mr. BANCROFT:: 1.	How much money was paid to E. Rayner of Selkirk by the Public Works Department during the fiscal years 1921-22, 1922-23, 1923-24?
2.	Were contracts called for in every case?
3.	Were contracts called for in any case?
4.	How many tenders were submitted in each case?


Hon. Mr. KING (Kootenay):: 1.	1921-1922	 Nil
1922-1923	 $1,335.10
1922-1923	 1,303.50

1923-1924	 56.84

2.	No.
3.	Yes. In two cases.
4.	First case, two tenders submitted; second case, four tenders submitted; third case, no tenders requested; emergency purchase of seven piles for the Selkirk wharf from Mr. Rayner, who was the only one to have them on hand.


KINGSTON PENITENTIARY-CATHOLIC MISSION
Mr. DOUCET:: 1.	Was there a Catholic mission given for the Catholic prisoners in Kingston penitentiary similar to the Protestant mission for Protestant prisoners, during the past year?
2.	If so, is it reported in the superintendent's report for that year?
3.	If not, why?


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1.	Yes.
2.	On page 11 of the Superintendent's report
is the following:	" Religious missions have
been held at all of the penitentiaries during the year."
3.	Missions were held in all of the penitentiaries in both the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, twelve in all-six Protestant and six Roman Catholic. One Roman Catholic report, that of the mission held in the Roman Catholic chapel of the penitentiary at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and one Protestant report, that of the mission held in the Protestant chapel of the penitentiary at Kingston, Ontario, were published. On account of urgent demands by the government for reduction in volume of annual reports, it has not been customary to publish all twelve reports. Five Protestant and five Roman Catholic were not published.


BRITISH COLUMBIA-POULTRY INDUSTRY
Hon. Mr. STEVENS:: 1.	Is the government aware of the serious condition of the poultry industry in the province of British Columbia at the present time as a result of the unfair competition of the importation of eggs from the United States ?
2.	Is the government aware that eggs known as "culls" or "small" eggs from the state of Washington are being dumped on the British Columbia market by American producers?
3.	Is the government aware that the duty on eggs into Canada is three cents per dozen whilst duty on eggs into the United States is eight cents per dozen?
4.	Will the government undertake to remedy this unfair competition ?


Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL:: causes. The past three years or so have been a period of rapid transition in the poultry business in British Columbia. A few years ago British Columbia was the largest importing province in Canada, from the standpoint of eggs, not only from United States but from the prairies and, earlier, from eastern Canada as well. Latterly, however, production in British Columbia has increased to the point where they not only supply their own requirements but during the winter months practically the total fresh egg requirements of the prairie provinces as well. Further, in addition to shipping to prairie points, British Columbia placed upwards of twenty-five cars of eggs last year in Canada at points east of the Great Lakes.
2.	There is reason to believe that previous to the date imported eggs were included under the egg regulations, (October, 1922) a quantity of small or cull eggs from the states of Washington and Oregon did find their way onto the British Columbia market but since the regulations covering imports became effective, it has been required that the containers of such eggs must be marked with the name of the class and grade when lower than the grade "firsts." The fact that these eggs were marked "seconds" has done a great deal to discourage their import both in British Columbia and in the east.
3.	Yes.
4.	Not by a retaliatory tariff. Some remedy however is now being supplied by more stringent inspection regulations.


EGG GRADING AND MARKETING
Hon. Mr. STEVENS:: 1.	Has the government received a request from the Agricultural department of British Columbia for permission, under the regulations respecting the grading and marketing of eggs, to take legal action against those who are ignoring or breaking the said regulations?
2.	If so, has such permission been granted?
3.	Is the government aware that the regulations are being violated in British Columbia by exposing for sale eggs that are of a mixed grade?
4.	Is the government aware that the poultry men, the producers of eggs, are properly grading under the regulations?


Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL:: 1.	No.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	For the most part the regulations respecting the marketing and sale of eggs for domestic consumption have been well observed in British Columbia, the principle and objective of the regulations having received strong support from the Retail Merchants
	: I I ISl
Association in that province, and just recently the department has been complimented by representatives of this association on the thoroughness and efficiency with which the departmental inspectors in British Columbia have carried on their work. Within the last week or two, however, one or two individuals have shown an inclination to question the authority of the department with respect to these regulations and a request has been received for authority to prosecute one offender who has continued to disregard the regulations, after having been duly warned. Steps to this end are being taken.
4.	The latest advice from British Columbia is to the effect that the producers who come under these regulations are complying with them satisfactorily. There was some difficulty last fall through one producers' organization marketing storage eggs as fresh and the question of prosecuting the offender was under consideration. No action was taken, however, when the parties in question changed their methods and gave assurance that they would abide by the regulations.


INCOME TAX
Mr. WOODSWORTH:: 1.	What is the amount of income tax computable from returns actually made, that is overdue and unpaid for the years 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, respectively?
2.	What proportion of income tax unpaid in each of the above years was derived from incomes of between: $1,000 and $5,000; $5,000 and $10,000; $10,000 and $25,000; $25,000 and $50,000; $50,000 and $100,000?
3.	What means are used by the department for checking the accuracy of income tax returns?
4.	Are the bank accounts of taxable persons open to the inspection of income tax officials?
5.	Do the chartered banks make any returns to the government of the amounts on deposit to the credit of those liable for income tax?
6.	Is the income	tax levied	at	the same	rate onearned income as	on income	derived from	investments? If not, what is the difference?


Hon. Mr. ROBB:: May I ask my hon.
friend if he would withdraw this question? Some of the information asked for might be given, but there	is a part	of	it which	cannotbe given under	the act.	I	understand that
if my hon. friend will go' down to the office of the Commissioner of Taxation he can obtain some of the information referred to here.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: I would like to
know what part of this question cannot be answered under the act. It seems to me a pre-eminently reasonable request that we should know what amounts are due in this

Questions
respect. Statements are being freely circulated that some of the large firms are being carried along while smaller firms or individuals are being forced to pay up their income tax. It would seem to be in the public interest that the House should know just where we stand in this regard.
Question stands.


GEORGE H. ALEXANDER
Mr. ELLIOTT (Waterloo):: 1.	Is George H. Alexander of Galt, Ontario, recognized as an immigration agent by the government?
2.	What is his relation to the Department of Immigration in the matter of Armenian immigration?
3.	Is the Department of Immigration aware of the activities of George H. Alexander in this matter?


Hon. Mr. ROBB:: 1.	No.
2.	None.
3.	Yes, to some extent.
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN-MARKING OF IMPORTS Mr. McKILLOP:
1.	Is the government aware that a shipment of 50,000 pairs of children's shoes have been received in Montreal from Germany, not marked with the name of the country of origin?
2.	Does not the government insist upon the application of the act regarding the stamping of the country of origin upon imported goods, to lead pencils ?
3.	If so, on what grounds does the government extend the provisions of the act regarding the stamping the name of the country of origin on imported goods to lead pencils and not to shoes?


Hon. Mr. BUREAU:: 1.	There is nothing that requires shoes to be marked with the name of the country of origin.
2.	Yes.
3.	By virtue of an order in council, which speaks for itself, and in which shoes are not included.
IMPORTS-BOOTS AND SHOES Mr. RINFRET:
1.	What was the amount of the total imports to Canada, of boots and shoes, from Great Britain, during the last ten months, from May 1, 1923 to March 1, 1924?
2.	What was the amount of the total imports of boots and shoes from the said country during the ten corresponding months of the previous year?


Hon. Mr. ROBB (for the Minister of Trade and Commerce):: 1.	The amount of boots and shoes imported into Canada (entered for consumption) from the United Kingdom from May 1, 1923 to March 1, 1924, was as follows:
69i
Footwear of leather-	Pairs Dollars
Boots and shoes, pegged or wire fastened, with unstitched soles, close edged 2,245	3,982
Boots, shoes and slippers with leather uppers, n.o.p., men's (sizes 5i
and up)	 132,408 419,890
Boots, shoes and slippers with leather uppers, n.o.p., women's (sizes
2\ and up)	 54,862 109,715
Boots, shoes and slippers with leather uppers, n.o.p, children's (all other
sizes)	
24,835	19,802Footwear of rubber-[DOT] Boots and shoes, rubber.. Footwear other than rubber	76,389	42,928and leather- Boots and shoes with	canvas uppers	7,861	10,185Boots, shoes and slippers with felt uppers	
Boots, shoes and slippers of	124,710	82,350all kinds, except canvas, felt, rubber and leather..	39,070Total footwear.. ..	727,922
2. The amount of boots and shoes imported into Canada (entered for consumption) from the United Kingdom from May 1, 1922 to March, 1, 1923, was as follows:
Footwear of leather-	Pairs Dollars
Boots and shoes, pegged or wire fastened, with unstitched soles, close edged.	2,018	3,451Boots, shoes and slippers, with	leather	uppers,n.o.p.,	men's (sizes 5|and up)	
58,862	226,278Boots, shoes and slippers, with	leather	uppers,
n.o.p., women's (sizes 2J
and up)	
17,541	64,168Boots, shoes and slippers, with	leather	uppers,
n.o.p., children's (all
other sizes)	 15,003	16,623
Footwear of rubber-
Boots and shoes, rubber..	1,457	697
Footwear other than rubber and leather-
Boots and shoes with
canvas uppers	 3,355	3,769
Boots, shoes and slippers
with felt uppers	 56,211	36,618
Boots, shoes and slippers of all kinds, except canvas, felt, rubber and leather.	27,209
Total footwear.. ..	378,813
Questions


DEPARTMENT OF LABOUR-EMPLOYEES
Mr. ARTHURS:: 1.	What was the total number of employees in the Department of Labour at Ottawa during the fiscal years 1920, 1921 ^ 1922 and 1923: (a) permanent, (b) temporary?
2. What were the total wages or salaries of such employees for above years, including bonus: (a) permanent, (b) temporary?			
Hon. Mr.	MURDOCK		
1. March 31	(a)	(b)	Total1919-20 .	. 51	123	1741920-21 .	. 59	89	1481921-22 .	. 105	37	142*1922-23 .	. 115	7	1221923-24 .	. 90	5	952.1919-20 .	.$ 84,878.65 $161,936.33 $246,814.98	1920-21 .	. 109,612.40	123,396.18	233,008.581921-22 .	. 186,996.78	49,838.30	236,835.081922-23 .	. 205,624.38	13,064.64	218,689.021923-24 .	. 173,761.69	7,611.80	181,373.49^Including Annuities branch,	twelve employees trans-	
ferred from the Post Office department to the Labour department in May 1922, with annual salaries of $21,680.
ARMENIAN IMMIGRANTS Mr. ELLIOTT (Waterloo):
1.	Is there any special regulation or examination governing Armenian immigrants, that do not apply to those of other nationality?
2.	How many Armenians came to Canada during the years 1921, 1922, 1923 respectively?


Hon. Mr. ROBB:: 1.	Yes, the regulation requiring an Asiatic to be in possession of $250 at the time of landing. This, however, is not applicable to the wife or child under 18 years of age of any person legally in Canada.
2.	1921, 44; 1922, 43; 1923, 404.


MR. THOMAS MULVEY
Mr. HOCKEN:: 1.	Does Thomas Mulvey, Under Secretary of State, draw any salary or remuneration from the government other than his salary as deputy minister?
2.	If so, how much and upon what authority?
3.	How much money has Mr. Mulvey been paid to date in the way of salary or special remuneration other than his salary as deputy minister since 1921?
4.	How much has he drawn in expense account in the years 1921 to 1923 inclusive?


Hon. Mr. COPP:: 1.	Mr. Mulvey draws no salary or other remuneration from the government other than his salary as deputy. Certain payments are, however, made to him by the Custodian of Enemy Property, under the following circumstances :
The question of payment to Mr. Mulvey as Deputy Custodian of Enemy Property, was referred by the Right Honourable A. L. Sifton, then Secretary of State, to Messrs. O. M. Biggar and Christopher C. Robinson, the 
legal members of the Enemy Debts Committee. The following is an extract from their report, dated 17th September, 1920:
Mr. Mulvey's work has extended over a period of about four and a half years, and in our opinion an extra allowance at the rate of $1,500 a year, or a total of $6,750, would be a small recompense for the special services rendered.
Payment of $4,000 was made to Mr. Mulvey by direction of an order in council dated 17th December, 1921, P.C. 4,631. Subsequently the balance of the amount, at the rate aforesaid, was paid to Mr. Mulvey by the Custodian.
2.	Payment has been made at the rate of $125 a month out of commissions earned by the Custodian's Office, upon the direction of the Custodian. The authority to make this payment was under consideration by the Department of Justice, and the following is taken from an opinion of that department, dated 30th January, 1924:
The expense of getting in, liquidating, and otherwise dealing with property, rights and interests, seeing that the government is only required to account for the "net proceeds" of such property, rights and interests, may be defrayed, on the order of the Custodian, out of any profits which may be earned in dealing with the same.
3.	Mr. Mulvey has been paid the balance accruing up to the 1st January, 1922, $4,500 and $125 per month since that time, out of commissions earned by the Custodian's office.
4.	Expense account 1921, including travelling expenses to London, Paris, Brussels and Berlin, and the reception of His Excellency the Governor General, amounted to $2,052.30, paid out of appropriation "Demobilization" and contingencies.
Expense account 1922, including travelling expenses to London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Paris, Metz, Strasbourg and Zurich, amounted to $3,249.38 paid out of appropriation "Adjustment of War Claims." Less $250 paid out of contingencies.
Expense account 1923, including travelling expenses to London, Paris, Brussels and Washington, amounted to $1,914, paid out of commissions earned by Custodian's office.


INSURANCE DEPARTMENT
Mr. HOCKEN:: Wliat is the policy of the government as to the maintenance of the Insurance department, having regard to the recent decision of the Privy Council that insurance is not subject to regulation by the Dominion parliament ?


James Alexander Robb: In the opinion of the government neither the validity of the Insurance Act nor the necessity for the continuance of

Questions
the Department of Insurance is affected by the recent decision of the Privy Council.


POSTAL SERVICE-SALARIES
Mr. WOODSWORTH:: 1.	Has the government definitely instructed the subcommittee Of the cabinet and the Civil Service Commission that it is desirable that the postal service be given an immediate upward increase in their salaries as per salary schedule submitted by postal service organizations?	[DOT]
2.	If not, what alternative does the government propose taking to avoid a strike in the postal service?


Hon. Mr. STEWART:: See statement of
the Prime Minister, page 836, Revised Hansard of March 31, 1924, and also copy of Order in Council P.C. 530, dated the 29th March, 1924, re civil service salary revision, tabled in the House on 1st April, 1924.


RIVERPORT, N.S., DREDGING
Mr. HANSON:: 1.	What amount, if any, was spent for dredging at Riverport, Nova Scotia, in the years 1922 and 1923?
2.	How was the work done and by whom?
3.	Were tenders asked for the said work, who tendered, and what was the amount of each tender?
4.	Where was the material excavated by said dredging deposited?
5.	Was it necessary to build a retaining wall to prevent the said material from going back into the La Have river?
6.	Who built the said retaining wall and what was the amount of the contract price?
7.	What material was used in the construction of this retaining wall?
8.	Is said retaining wall useful for the above purpose?
Hon, Mr. KING (Kootenay):
1.	1922, $54,750.70.
1923, $40,105.80 approximately.
2.	Work done by Dredge No. 5 (Northumberland) operated by Department of Public Works.
3.	Answered by No. 2.
4.	In Parks Island Cove, between Parks island and the Mainland.
5.	Yes.
6.	It was built by the Department of Public Works by day's labour at an expenditure of $29,097.48.
7.	Two rows of piles filled with brush between piles.
8.	Yes.


D.S.C.R.-EMPLOYEES
Mr. McBRIDE:: 1.	What was the number of medical and nursing staff in the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment on (a) 31st December, 1921; and (b) the 31st March, 1924?
2.	What was the number of other employees in the said department on (a) the 31st December, 1921; and
(b)	on the 31st March, 1924?


Hon. Mr. BEL AND:: 1.	Medical and Nursing Staff:	(a) 31st
December, 1921, 651, consisting of 335 medical officers, 316 nurses; (b) 31st March, 1924, 475, consisting of 247 medical officers, 228 nurses.
2.	Number of other employees: (a) 31st December, 1921; 4,235: consisting of dentists, hospital orderlies, mental attendants, ward aides, technical and service staff in hospitals and sanatoria, as well as administrative and clerical services; (b) 31st March, 1924, 2,447.


D.S.C.R-HALIFAX
Mr. BLACK (Halifax):: 1.	Who is now unit dental officer at Halifax, Nova Scotia ?
2.	What is his military service, overseas and otherwise?
3.	What officer or officers did he replace and when?
4.	What was their military service?


Hon. Mr. BELAND:: 1.	Dr. H. E. Mann who combines the duties of unit dental officer with those of dental operator at Nova Scotia Sanatorium and Camp Hill hospital.
2.	Dr. Mann served in the Canadian Army Dental Corps in Canada from 19th January, 1916, until the 30th March, 1920, retiring with the rank of major.
3.	(a) Dr. B. L. Neiley, 1st August, 1923; (b) Dr. Havelock Clay, 30th September, 1923; (c) these retirements reduced salary costs $7,200 per annum. *
4.	(a) Dr. B. L. Neiley was appointed to commissioned rank in the C.A.M.C. on the 12th August, 1914. He served in Canada, England, and France with the C.A.M.C., and the C.A.D.C., was struck off strength on the 7th September, 1919; rank, lieut-colonel; (b) Dr. Clay served in the CA.D.C. in Canada, England, and France from February 19th, 1916, to May 16th, 1919, when he was struck off strength, retiring with rank of captain.


Mr. BLACK (Halifax):: 1.	Who is now chief storekeeper and purchasing agent
for the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment at Halifax, Nova Scotia?	[DOT]
2.	Did he replace a returned man?
3.	If so, who was the returned man and what was his disability?


Hon. Mr. BELAND:: 1.	Mr. H. B. Shore who served in France for more than one year.
2.	The former unit purchasing agent is a returned man. During 1923, the positions of unit storekeeper and unit purchasing agent were combined, Mr. Shore, formerly unit
Questions

storekeeper, assuming the duties of both positions.
3.	Mr. J. E. Delaney; disability,-amputation right leg. Mr. Delaney is still employed having been transferred to another position formerly occupied by a non-disabled man.



PENSIONS UNDER CALDER ACT

William Lyon Mackenzie King: Before you leave Questions, Mr. Speaker, I may say that the hon-member for Temis-couata (Mr. Gauvreau) asked me a question on Friday which I said I would reply to further to-day. It was in reference to a report which appeared in a despatch published in La Patrie, of Montreal, to the effect that after March 31st no civil servant would be granted pension under the Calder Act unless he had resigned before that date. I am unable to find any authority for that report.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. JONES:: 1.	Did the government employ resident and visiting physicians at the Ste. Anne de Bellevue Military Hospital during the years 1921, 1922 and 1923, and if so, what are their names?
2.	What remuneration did each one receive?
3.	Who are the resident and visiting physicians for the year 1924?
4.	Do they receive an annual salary or a fee for each visit, and how much?
CUSTOMS-SEIZURE OF AUTOMOBILES Mr. ARCHAMBAULT:
1.	How many automobiles are now under seizure by the Department of Customs?
2.	How many automobiles smuggled on the Canadian border have been seized by the Department of Customs and are now in possession of said department?
3.	How many of these automobiles have been claimed by insurance companies on the ground that they have been stolen before they cross the border?
4.	Why is the department refusing to deliver such automobiles to the owners after positive proofs of ownership have been made?
5.	Is there any arrangement between the Canadian and American governments regarding the recovery of said automobiles?
6.	If so, what is such arrangement and when was it made?
NARCOTIC DRUGS Mr. BROWN:
1.	What are the relative numbers of convictions for offences against the Opium and Narcotic Drugs Act in the various provinces of Canada in the years 19131914, 1917-1918, 1922-1923?
2.	What numbers of convictions for violations of the Opium and Narcotic Drugs Act are reported in the years 1920, 1921 and 1922 from the following cities: Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Victoria and Vancouver?

3.	What number of inmates in the penitentiaries, if any, of Canada have been classed as drug addicts, during each of the years from 1914 to 1923, inclusive?
4.	What are the official figures as to the quantities of opium, cocaine and morphine imported into Canada for each of the years from 1917 to 1923, inclusive?



UNOPPOSED MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


[Stage Direction]
On the motion of Mr. DESLAURIERS:
For a copy of all letters, telegrams, correspondence and other documents in the possession of the government or any department of the government, regarding the development of the water-power at Carillon and permission to sell such power to the United States.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I suggest that this motion be allowed to stand until the minister in charge of the department concerned has had an opportunity of seeing it, and until the mover also is here.
Motion stands.



PULPWOOD COMMISSION

[Stage Direction]
On the motion of Hon. Mr. STEVENS:
For a copy of all evidence or statements made before the Royal Pulpwood Commission by Mr. Piche and other witnesses, members or officers of the government of Quebec,
James Alexander Robb: I would like to direct the attention of my hon. friend to the fact that the Pulpwood Commission have not yet reported, and I think he will appreciate that this should not be brought- down until the commission has reported, I am told that Mr. Piche is in the employ of the government of Quebec, and that certain part of his evidence was given to the commission in confidence. I would rather consult with the commission before allowing this motion to pass, if my hon. friend would allow it to stand.


Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: In that connection, I
am informed that the commission upon request has given copies of evidence already adduced before the commission, and as to any of it, I do not say that the commission would be bound to until it reports, but I believe it is. As to the minister's suggestion, that some of the evidence is confidential, I would ask him if the commission had power under the order in council appointing it to take evidence of a confidential character?


James Alexander Robb: I think the question of my
right hon. friend is quite fair, and that is why I am asking that this motion be allowed to stand until I have had an opportunity of

Unopposed Motions
consulting the commission, because I have had information similar to that given by my right hon. friend.
Motion stands.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-FREIGHT

[Stage Direction]
On the motion of Mr. MacLAREN:
For a return showing (a) the number of tons of freight handled by the Canadian National Railways in and out of Portland during 1922 and also 1923; (b) the number of tons of freight handled by the same railway company during the same years in and out of St. John, New Brunswick, and in and out of Halifax; (c) the number of tons of freight handled by the Canadian Pacific Railway during the same years in and out of St. John, New Brunswick.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think this might perhaps be allowed to stand until the Minister of Railways is here to say a word in reference to it.
Motion stands.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-PURCHASE OF PROPERTIES

[Stage Direction]
On the motion of Mr. CHAPLIN:
For a copy of all letters, papers, reports and other documents relating to the purchase of railway ties by the Canadian National Railways or any of its officials, including correspondence with the firm or firms from which the said ties were purchased, reports on the price or prices of same, and also returns and vouchers showing the cost of all creosot-ing plants either under construction or completed by the Canadian National Railways, during the year 1923.
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING
(Prime Minister) I would asik that this motion and the following one, be permitted to stand until the Minister of Railways is again in the House.
Motions stands.

[Stage Direction]
On the motion of Sir HENRY DRAYTON:
For a return showing all properties sold by the Canadian National System or any company incorporated therein or operated thereby during the years 1922 and 1923, and showing the dates of such sales, the names and addresses of purchasers and the consideration paid in each case.
Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: Would there be any possible objection to this motion standing in my name, and referred to by the Prime Minister, passing? It is within the declared policy of the Minister of Railways in the House, and is just simply finding out what is going on.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not
think the Minister of Railways is likely to object at all to giving the information, but
unfortunately he has been confined to his home for the last two or three days and has not seen the motion.
Motion stands.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-OFFICIALS

[Stage Direction]
On the motion of Mr. DOUCET:
For a return showing the names of all officials of the Canadian National Railway System, inclusive of superintendents and officials or special employees drawing salaries higher than superintendents, together with the salary of each.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would ask
that this motion stand for the same reason. Motion stands.



VALUE OF FARM PRODUCTS

Mr. STANSELL:: For a return showing: (a) the value of the production in Canada for the latest year for whtch returns are available of wheat, meat, butter, eggs, milk, hay, cheese, fruit, maple syrup, oats, barley, potatoes and other vegetables; (b) the estimated value of these products consumed at home during the same year, and (c) the value of these products exported during the same year.



MILITIA DEPARTMENT-PURCHASE OF PROPERTY

Mr. THURSTON:: For a return showing a list of the properties purchased by or for the Militia Department during the years 1914 to 1921 inclusive, showing in each case from whom purchased, location, price, and for what purpose; also a list of any of these properties which have been sold, showing the price received for same. Also showing revenue received from any of the above properties, the amount in each case and from whom received.



CANADIAN CUSTOMS OFFICE AT NEW YORK

Hon. Mr. STEVENS:: For a copy of order in council providing for the appointment of a Canadian Customs Officer at New York for supervision of Canadian goods shipped from Canada via New York to Canadian points on the Pacific; also, copy of all correspondence, telegrams and other documents, in reference to the matter since the passing of the said order in council.



GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS

Mr. CHARTERS:: For a return showing a list of all publications, blue books, reports, etc., issued in 1923 by each department of the government or otherwise, at the expense of the country, stating in respect of each publication (a) title; (b) whether single issue or issued weekly, monthly or at what other periods;
(c)	approximate circulation; (d) the subject or subjects covered, unless same clearly indicated by title; (e) approximate annual cost of printing and paper.



INCOME TAX

Mr. WILSON:: For a return showing (a) the total amount of income tax collected in each province during each year since the tax has been collected, and (b) the total amount of income tax paid by farmers in each of the provinces during these years.
Unopposed Motions



BUSINESS PROFITS TAX

Gordon Crooks Wilson: For a return showing the total amount collected under the Business Profits tax in the various provinces during each of the years since the tax was introduced.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-HOTELS

Gordon Crooks Wilson: For a return showing a statement of the financial operations of the various hotels operated by the Canadian National Railways during 1923.



DOMINION CANNERS, LIMITED

Mr. WALLACE:: For a copy of all contracts made or entered into between the government of Canada or any department thereof or any person or persons acting for or on behalf of the government or any department thereof and the Dominion Canners, Limited, of Hamilton and Simcoe, Ontario, at any time since the 1st of August, 1914, and the 1st of August, 1919, and of all reports, letters, correspondence and other documents in the possession or under the control of the government, relating to or having any bearing upon any dealings, negotiations, contracts or business transactions of any kind whatsoever between the government and the Dominion Canners, Limited, or any person or persons acting on behalf of said company, and especially, copies of reports made to the government or any department thereof, by the Milton Hersey Company, Limited, Montreal, R. R. McCall, Esq., government inspector, Simcoe, Ontario, and H. H. Holland, government supervising inspector, in reference to, or having any bearing upon contracts, dealings and transactions between the government and the Dominion Canners, Limited, during the period hereinbefore mentioned, and also of all reports made to the government as aforesaid by any commission or commissions or any person or persons whatsoever appointed or authorized by the government to inquire into and report upon the dealings, transactions, and contracts between the government and the Dominion Canners, Limited, or any person or persons acting on their behalf during the period from the 1st of August, 1914, and the 1st of August, 1919.



NORTHWEST TERRITORIES BRANCH OFFICIALS

Mr. BLACK (Yukon):: For a return showing (a) the number of officials employed at Ottawa in the government of Northwest Territories Branch of the Department of the Interior;
(b)	the official classification of each of such officials;
(c)	the aggregate salaries paid said officials; (d) the same information as to officials employed at Ottawa in the Mining Lands and Yukon Branch of the Department of the Interior.



CANADIAN BANK NOTE COMPANY, LIMITED

William Irvine: For a copy of all contracts and agreements entered into by the Canadian government or any department thereof with the American Bank Note Company, Limited, now the Canadian Bank Note Company, Limited, carrying on business in the city of Ottawa.



PICTOU-MAGDALEN ISLANDS SERVICE

Henry Herbert Stevens: For a copy of all subsidy contracts between the government and any or all contractors for steamship service between Pictou, Souris, Prince Edward Island and Magdalen Island, during the years 1910 to 1921.


Henry Herbert Stevens: For a copy of all correspondence, telegrams, letters and other documents, since the 1st of January, 1922, passing between the Honourable Minister of Trade and Commerce, or any other minister of the government, or any official of the Department of Trade and Commerce, and the Magdalen Island Transport Limited, William Fraser of Pictou, the Lovat Steamship Company, Limited, the Eastern Securities Company, Limited, of Halifax; Messrs. Bow, McLaughlin and Company, Limited, of Paisley, Scotland, having reference to a steamship service subsidy between Pictou, Souris, Prince Edward Island and Magdalen Islands; also copy of alleged contract between said William Fraser and the government covering a subsidy of $50,000 payable annually for ten years.



ST. MALO WORKSHOPS INVESTIGATION

Mr. PARENT:: For a copy of the evidence taken by Mr. Henry at the inquiry held during the year 1923, regarding the management of the workshops of St. Malo, in the city of Quebec; also for a copy of the report made and presented by the commissioner in charge of the inquiry.



SALES OF SHIPS BY GOVERNMENT

Mr. MARTELL:: For a return showing the names or numbers of all ships or boats of every class and description, whether naval or merchant or fishing craft, which were sold by the government of Canada or any department thereof, or by any commission acting in behalf of the government, or under the authority of the parliament of Canada since the signing of the Armistice, showing: (a) The prices paid for said ships, vessels or boats on their purchase by the Canadian Authorities, and also the price received for each when sold; (b) the number of ships, vessels or boats on hand which the government of Canada or any department thereof, or any commission acting under the authority of the government or parliament of Canada, have for sale, with their names and numbers and showing where they are at present; (c) the contract price to be paid to the government of Canada, or any department thereof, as the purchase price of any ship, vessel or boat sold as hereinbefore referred to, and how the said payments were made, and also the outstanding sums due on payment, if any, and from whom, the said return to show all purchasers of any and all of the hereinbefore mentioned ships, vessels and boats, and their addresses;
(d)	all other details in anywise relating or appertaining to the foregoing.



CIVIL SERVICE SUPERANNUATION

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. A. ROBB (Acting Minister of Finance) moved that the House go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following proposed resolution:
Resolved, That it is expedient to bring in a measure to provide for the superannuation of civil servants, to provide for contributions by civil servants to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, to provide for payment out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to civil servants and to the widows and children of deceased civil servants of superannuation allowances or gratuities, and to provide for the making of regulations by the Governor in Council to give effect to the terms of the said measure.
He said:	His Excellency the Governor
General, having been made acquainted with

Supply[DOT]-Interior
the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the favourable consideration of the House.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day.
Henry Lumley Drayton: May I ask the
acting Minister of Finance if he can yet state on what day the budget is to be brought down?


James Alexander Robb: I am now able to say to my
genial friend that I hope on Thursday of this week to deliver the budget.



AUDIT BOARD AND CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. JOS T. SHAW (West Calgary):	I
should like to ask the Prime Minister if there is any truth in the report appearing in the newspapers that the Audit Board is failing to co-operate with the Civil Service Commission and the deputy ministers in the matter of salary revision of the civil service, and if such is the case what is the reason?
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not aware of any foundation for the rumour to which my hon. friend has referred.



INDUSTRIAL AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
James Shaver Woodsworth: I notice that on Friday last the personnel of the newly appointed committee on industrial and international relations was announced. It seems to me rather strange that our little group in this corner of the chamber, that is quite interested in industrial affairs, should have been entirely overlooked when that committee was chosen, especially in view of the fact that the Prime Minister was good enough to accept a resolution which I put forward and to enlarge the scope of its work so as to include not only industrial relations but international affairs. In view of our particular interest in these matters it would seem to be only fair that we in this comer of the chamber should have some representation at least on that particular committee.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I must confess that I am somewhat surprised to learn, and for the first time, that my hon. friend's name is not on the list. I certainly think it should be, and I will take immediate steps to see that the hon. gentleman's name is added
to the committee or substituted for that of some other hon. member on the list. The omission of my hon. friend's name would appear to have been an oversight.



DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

[Stage Direction]
The House in Committee of Supply, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
Department of the Interior-Scientific institutions- Expenses connected with the Dominion Observatory Ottawa, $50,000.
Expenses connected with the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory at Victoria, B.C., $18,500.
Mr. SPENCER:: Would the minister explain the particulars of these votes?


Charles A. Stewart: The scientific institutions referred to are the observatories both in Ottawa and in Victoria. They carry on astro-physical and astronomical research work. That is about the extent of the explanation that I can give, except to present a list of the names of the men who are engaged in the work, compiling data for scientific purposes, as well as adjusting the time, taken from observations of the sun, which is now practically the universal time throughout Canada. I confess that as a layman I find it rather difficult to enter into any detailed description of the work carried on at these two institutions.


Henry Elvins Spencer: I notice there is a decrease in the vote for the Ottawa Observatory, but none in the case of the institution at Victoria.


Charles A. Stewart: That is explained by the nature of the work under way in British Columbia. It was felt that to get the full benefit of the investigations which Dr. Plaskett is carrying on at Victoria some further outlay for an addition to the building and the provision of supplies was necessary.


Mr. McQUARRIE:: Can we get some details as to this expenditure at Victoria?


Charles A. Stewart: The service under this head for which money is to be expended is as follows:
Astronomical and research	work	 $11,200
Salaries	 31,755
General Expenses	 7,045

The details of each item are as follows:
Position Astronomy (Meridian Circle)-
Repairs and supplies	$	200
Astrophysics-
Material, optical parts, etc. for instruments.. 500 Repairs and supplies	 300
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Geographic Positions-
Materials for piers, line connections, instrument repairs, etc	 600
Latitude and longitude determinations	 1.000
Gravity Survey-
Materials for piers, repairs and supplies.. ..	500
Field work and expenses	 1,800
Magnetic Survey-
Materials, instruments, repairs and	supplies..	500
Field expenses, guides, etc	 2,000
Seismology-
Photographic sheets, repairs and supplies for Ottawa, Halifax, Saskatoon and	Chebucto.	600
Solar Physics-
Materials, repairs and supplies	 600
Stellar Photometry-
Materials, repairs and supplies	 300
Time service-
Apparatus and supplies, repairs and maintenance	 goo
Wireless Equipment-
Apparatus, repairs and supplies	 800
Library-
Books, subscriptions to publications, binding, etc	 900
Total	$11,200
Then we have the salaries of Messrs. Hodgson, Henroteau, McClenahan, Henderson, Dier, Madill, Sprayson, Walker, O'Connor, Shore, Williams, Dolan, Dickson, Hamel, Hackett, Belanger, Assistant Astronomer, seasonal work, Engineering clerk, Editorial assistant and Assistant astronomer.


William Garland McQuarrie: There is a difference of $8,420, reduction apparently on the first item. The last item is the same. How is that?


Charles A. Stewart: The observatory of British Columbia is exactly the same, and we were able to make a slight cut here.


William Garland McQuarrie: What has been dispensed with? Where is the cut?


Charles A. Stewart: Largely on supplies. Our staff is the same. 'We do not require the same amount of supplies as we did formerly.


William Garland McQuarrie: Can we have the
details of that?


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot
give my hon. friend the cut. It is taken off the supplies. We allow the same amount as last year for Victoria, but in the case of Ottawa it is a cut all along the line of small amounts out of supplies, not off the salary.


William Garland McQuarrie: Is it the general supplies?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


William Garland McQuarrie: Then there is this difference between the amount of supplies

purchased last year and the amount proposed to be purchased this year. Was there an unusual supply purchased last year, or just the ordinary amount?


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot say what the difference would be between last year and the year before.


Arthur Meighen: This vote used to run about $30,000 a year, but I observe that in 1922 it took a sudden increase, and the increase continued, and last year was the highest $58,000. Is the sudden increase for 1922 estimate due to the installation of the observatory at Victoria? If not, why can the amount not be brought back to the original average of about $30,000?


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot
answer that question, I fear. I do not know if there was any increase. My hon. friend has asked why we should not go back to the original vote now that the observatory is established at Victoria. There was no appreciable drop, because the work at Victoria-


Arthur Meighen: My hon. friend missed my point. When was the Victoria observatory established? When was the first increase in the vote due to the establishment of that observatory?


Charles A. Stewart: In 1918.


Arthur Meighen: Then, long after 1918, for example in 1921; the estimate was $31,000, and then there was an estimate of, I think, $40,000 odd for the following year, or perhaps $50,000, and last year $58,000. What I do not understand is why we cannot get back to the estimate that we had even after the Victoria observatory was built?


Charles A. Stewart: I was not aware that there was any increase. I have not looked into the estimates of 1921.


Arthur Meighen: I have them here.


Mr. CARROLL:: Why was this observatory instituted at Victoria, instead of some othet part of Canada? What function did it perform there?


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot
answer my hon. friend in regard to that. That was established before my time.


Arthur Meighen: You can see better from Victoria, I believe, than from any other part of Canada for observatory purposes. I believe for every other purpose you can see pretty well there.

Supply-Interior


William Garland McQuarrie: Will the minister explain how they can run the observatoiy at Victoria for $18,500 when it takes some $50,000 to run the observatory at Ottawa?


Charles A. Stewart: I think that would be very easily answered. It is because they do not attempt anything like the amount of work at Victoria that is being done at Ottawa.


William Garland McQuarrie: Can the minister explain it any' more in detail, I would like to find out the difference. As I understand it, in Victoria they have one of the largest telescopes in the world. They are doing better work and getting more satisfactory results than are obtained almost anywhere on this continent. If the object of the observatory is to look at the stars, and you have the largest telescope in Victoria, why are the results there not to be compared with the results here, and why should the observatory at Ottawa cost so much money?


Charles A. Stewart: The hon.
member is probably quite correct, the best telescope is undoubtedly in the coast, and perhaps the atmospheric conditions lend themselves more acceptably to observation out there. My hon. friend must remember that telescopic observation is not the only work that is being carried on at Ottawa. That is being carried on as well, true not with as strong an instrument, but they are carrying on a great many other scientific observations at Ottawa.


William Garland McQuarrie: That is what I was
asking.


Charles A. Stewart: Namely photographing sun spots with very intricate instruments.


William Garland McQuarrie: That is done with a
telescope.


Charles A. Stewart: No.


William Garland McQuarrie: How is it done?


Charles A. Stewart: Scientifically I cannot explain it. It is done with a telescope, but not the kind of telescope in use at Victoria or Vancouver.


William Garland McQuarrie: They are making
photographs out there?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


William Garland McQuarrie: Playing with the sun
spots all the time.


Charles A. Stewart: If you want all the scientific information, I am afraid you
will hardly get it from me. I do not pretend to be a scientist, but I know they are carrying on a great deal more scientific work, at the parent institution at Ottawa than at Victoria. They are only making a start at Victoria, and undoubtedly, if further work is to be undertaken, a great deal more money will require to be spent there. There is no question about the value of the work Dr. Plaskett is carrying on. Dr. Klotz established in Ottawa instruments for measuring earthquakes. The locality of these earthquakes can be measured almost within a few miles. They have numberless instruments for various scientific purposes, and men competent to handle them. Naturally you will have a greater expense at Ottawa than at Victoria.


William Garland McQuarrie: There is a seismograph at Victoria?


Charles A. Stewart: There is
a small one. We have a very accurate one in Ottawa. Indeed, I think we had the most accurate information registered at Ottawa in regard to the earthquakes in Japan.


William Garland McQuarrie: That would not make up this extra amount.


Charles A. Stewart: I do not
make that claim for a moment. I did not make that assertion.


William Garland McQuarrie: The information we
have from the minister is certainly very general and he must have some further details. So far, we have the photographing of sun spots and the measuring of earthquakes. Those two operating will not make up this difference.


Charles A. Stewart: I would
not say that they would.


William Garland McQuarrie: I think we are entitled to some further information.


Arthur Meighen: The minister may not
know very much about the scientific phase of this matter, but I want to impress upon him the financial phase. In 1918-19, the estimate for this item was $25,000; in 1919-20; $31,000; in 1920-21, $36,000; in 1921-22, $50,715; then the minister's estimate for last year was $58,000, and his estimate for this year is $55,000. The increase, it will be seen, took place some considerable time after the Victoria Observatory 4 p.m. was established. I know good work is being done, that is if you describe good work as excellent work from the scientific standpoint. I do not know any other branch of the Interior de-
Supply-Interior

partment which contains more highly technical men and men more devoted to their task than does the observatory. Some of the best mathematicians of our country are there. At least when Dr. Klotz was head, the enthusiasm of the branch knew no bounds; it certainly would have known no financial bound if he had had his way. What I want to impress upon the minister is this, that, while we must, I think, maintain observatories and do certain work that is supposed to be one of the functions of nationhood, and, while I do not think it would do for Canada to be without such an institution, nevertheless, the highest scientific phases are really for our universities and they would better be done there. I would be sorry to see an extension of the government's functions into all these scientific fields, building them up to an elaborate degree. The minister's face should be turned the other way, and we ought to try to get back to a $30,000 estimate in this matter. We cannot do that in one year, but I do not think the minister should ask parliament for any more than what he asked for t'he year before last. Let him take off last year's increase and go back to the $50,000 estimate. That would be a good start. It is not that I decry the work, I would like to encourage it if I could; but if we take the line of economy, undoubtedly we ought to keep to that line in this case.


William Garland McQuarrie: Is it proposed to reduce the staff at all?


Charles A. Stewart: We are
pressing very hard for reductions all round. As regards scientific institutions of this character, the work of which is undoubtedly very valuable, it is hard to tell just how far we should cut this service. A layman, who may be more familiar with other services, can form a better judgment as to the real necessities of the country in connection with them. While we are all agreed as to the real necessity of this for the country, it is doubtful how far the work should go; but the government is willing, in this and every other expenditure, to cut them as far as it is possible to do so without seriously interfering with the services.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: There is no reduction in the staff.


Charles A. Stewart: Not that I am aware of.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Would it not be possible to reduce the staff?


Charles A. Stewart: There are
a number who are due for retirement. Dr. Klotz died just recently.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Has anybody been put
in his place?


Charles A. Stewart: Not yet.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Is it intended to do so?
Mr. STEWART (Argenteuil) r Yes. There must be a director.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Could someone not be
promoted?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes. It is
not the intention to increase any staff where we can get along without doing so. Where deaths or superannuations occur, vacancies will be filled from positions below them, if at all possible.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: And then some person
appointed below to fill that vacancy?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Then, is that not a position that should not be filled, if it is intended to reduce the staff wherever possible?


Charles A. Stewart: There
would be a reduction of one. There must be a director to take the place of Dr. Klotz, but that would be a promotion.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I observe that
in 1921 there was a vote of $10,200 for the Victoria office. In 1921, supplies were as high, if not higher in some instances, than they are now, and the cost of living was much about the same, so that salaries should be about the same. We have had an increase of a little over eighty per cent in running that one institution in that comparatively short time. The cost has increased from $10,200 in the last three years to $18,500. Is that an increase in number of men on the staff, new machinery, new instruments-or what?


Charles A. Stewart: There have been two additional appointments-an assistant astronomer to Dr. Plaskett at $1,800, and an instrument maker foreman, at $1,860. Those men are also granted house allowances as the observatory is not yet completed.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Do I understand that the appointment of those two men means an additional $8,300?


Charles A. Stewart: No.


Henry Lumley Drayton: How is the increase accounted for? I have only two extra men so far.

Supply-Interior


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot
tell my hon. friend what the increased expenses would be. But I do not think the expenses are high. They include instruments, 31,800; photographic supplies, $500; machine and instrument work, $600; hardware and chemicals, $400:	automobile maintenance,
$500; postage, freight and telephone, $600; contingencies, $400. I understand that these men have to live in Victoria, and have to travel some considerable distance between the observatory and the city.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Does the minister mean the two recent appointees?


Charles A. Stewart: No, the
whole staff-I am wrong. Dr. Plaskett lives there.


Mr. McTAGGART:: To what extent do
unfavourable climatic conditions interfere with the work of the observatory at Victoria?


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot
say that unfavourable climatic conditions prevail at Victoria for work of this character.


Mr. TOLMIE:: Mr. Chairman, I might
say that after a very careful examination of all suggested points in Canada, this site, about eight miles out from Victoria, was selected on account of the clearness of the atmosphere and for other reasons favourable to this particular kind of work.


Neil Haman McTaggart: I spent a couple of
winter months in Victoria three years ago, and during that period I am quite certain there was no time when observations could be carried out. It is my impression that throughout the winter months it would be very difficult to carry on observatory work there.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: The weather has been ideal ever since.


Murray MacLaren: As vacancies occur in
the natural order of things does the minister propose to dimmish the staff by not making further appointments?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, whenever possible there will not be additions made; rather reductions.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What was the
amount spent last year?


Charles A. Stewart: When I first took charge of the department I reduced the vote because I had not a complete return, and I found myself short at the end of the year. If we have a few hundred dollars over it will not be spent. We are doing our best to carry on with the minimum expenditure. I think if any expansion is required anywhere it should
be at Victoria where this new observatory has been started. I am not proposing any expansion, but I am suggesting that we need the $18,000 to carry on this year.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Victoria is some distance away and perhaps my hon. friend's figures in relation to the observatory there are not quite complete. But they must be complete as to Ottawa, as we now close our books sharply on the 31st of March. What were the expenses at Ottawa last year?


Charles A. Stewart: We have not these up to date. As my hon. friend knows, it takes considerable time to close the books of the department. As my hon. friend with his wide experience well knows, large amounts come in just prior to the closing of the fiscal year, and it is rather difficult to make comparisons when you have not the full year's work before you.


Henry Lumley Drayton: But I think my hon. friend will recollect that either last session or the session before we changed the law in connection with the closing of the books. We had had an open period which allowed for adjustments and the like, and it was found that our officials took advantage of this leeway before their books were made up. Therefore the House decided that the books should be closed as of the 31st March. I should think we ought to know what we paid in Ottawa up to the end of the fiscal year.


Charles A. Stewart: I think my hon. friend is quite correct. As to various changes, transfers and so on, the books are not officially closed during the first thirty days of the new fiscal year, but they are closed as to the issuing of cheques.


Mr. GARDINER:: Does this vote include all the salaries of the observatory at Ottawa?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Robert Gardiner: At page 76 of the Estimates there are two votes, one for a director at the Astronomical observatory, $5,100, and another for a director at the Astrophysical observatory, $4,800. Is there any relation between the two?


Charles A. Stewart: There are a number of officials-I gave the list-who are paid out of this vote of $31,000; but there are several in the Civil Government vote as well. I am trying to get the exact number.


Robert Gardiner: Would it not be comparatively easy to put all these under one vote, so we would know exactly what these activities are costing us?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Hear, hear.
10S2
Supply-Interior


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend raised that question last year. I agreed with him then, and I still agree with him. But the Department of the Interior is an old department. I cannot discover that there was very much increase required for war activities, but there hgs been a considerable increase since 1910 and 1911. I have been endeavouring to reorganize the service. I have not added the names of officers who are known to be permanent to the civil list in the hope that I may be able to reduce them by the passing of a Superannuation Act and an amalgamation of the services. When that is done, I agree, all these names should be entered in the civil list under one heading.


Arthur Meighen: Perhaps the minister might recite the record of his reorganization up to date.


Charles A. Stewart: I would prefer to deal with that as we go along. There has been an endeavour to make some change in the Topographical surveys, but we have been working most toward reorganization in the Western Lands branch, and I will deal with that as we come to it.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Scientific Institutions-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., $470,000.
Henry Lumley Drayton: Will the minister tell us how near the North Pole we are getting now in connection with these surveys? How many surveyed areas have we without the slightest occupation? How many have we which would give room for a population of a little more than double that which we now have?


Charles A. Stewart: About 180,000,000 acres, all told, have been subdivided.


Henry Lumley Drayton: How much of that is occupied now?


Charles A. Stewart: About 5,000,000 acres in Saskatchewan, the same amount in Alberta, and about 3,000,000 acres in Manitoba. The work is now base line and boundary work; we are not carrying on subdivision. My hon. friend wants to know if we are getting to the North Pole?


Henry Lumley Drayton: How near the North Pole are we getting? It will be necessary to run right up there some day if this vote is to be kept up.


Charles A. Stewart: There has
been a very considerable reduction in survey work. My hon. friend attacked this vote very vigorously two years ago and suggested that an amalgamation of the branches take place,

the whole of these services being placed under one head. When I came into office an attempt was being made at amalgamation. Topographical survey work is being carried on in the departments of Defence, Mines and Interior, and we have a surveyor in the Department of Indian Affairs. I am thoroughly in accord with the idea of amalgamation. I was not able to bring about complete amalgamation, but we did succeed in getting a board to sit annually on the proposed survey work in order that there should be no overlapping. Geological work has to be preceded by topographical surveys, and geological parties are using topographical information obtained by the Department of the Interior as well as by parties from their own branches and the results of work done in the various provinces. In 1919 a blanketing-in order was made which brought into the Civil Service all surveyors who had formerly been on day's pay. There have been reductions in the staff from time to time. The classification of land for settlement is a fairly important part of the work, and in each of the land offices the prospective settler may obtain fairly accurate information with regard to the kind of land in the quarter sections which are open for homestead. We will confine that work to our Crown lands and will not extend it to privately owned lands, because the latter may very well be undertaken by some other organization than the Topographical Surveys branch. As to settlement in the north, to which my hon. friend refers, I may say that the development in that section demands that at least one or two lines be run into the north country to which you can subsequently tie on. A case in point is that of Fort Smith, and there is the fact of the discovery of iron on Great Slave lake. It is not necessary in such cases to have subdivision, but it is necessary to have lines to which you can tie on when subdivision is necessary.


Henry Lumley Drayton: As my hon.
friend says, two years ago we tried to get co-ordination, tried to do something in the way of economy, but to-day we are just exactly where we were then.


Charles A. Stewart: No my hon. friend will pardon me; there has been a very considerable reduction.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Oh, there is a
slight reduction, but the general principle is the same. This is the place not for a pruning knife, but for an axe. Apparently the country is always spreading.

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Charles A. Stewart: Of course
it is.


Henry Lumley Drayton: There always
seems to be some new reason for making changes in connection with lines. Will the minister tell us exactly what has been done this last year? How many new lines were run? How far north have our lines been placed? Let us get some.idea of when this thing is going to stop.


Charles A. Stewart: We are
down to Fort McPherson, so far as the traversing of the river is concerned. That is within the Arctic circle.


Arthur Meighen: Will the minister tell
us what head this vote came under prior to his regime?


Charles A. Stewart: Under Lands and Parks, I am told.


Arthur Meighen: It is under Lands and Parks yet. There is no way of comparing them. I find in the estimates for 1921-1922 no vote under Topographical Surveys at all, but for 1922-1923, the minister asked1 for $570,000; the next year, $520,000, and this year $470,000. Now, the only vote I can see to which it could be comparable at all prior to that is the Geological Survey vote.


Charles A. Stewart: If I give the amounts yearly it will probably be a guide for my hon. friend. I am told that this vote was under Lands and Parks previously, but the vote itself is in a lump sum annually. For 1913-1914 the vote was $1,051,685.78.


Arthur Meighen: That is for the whole of Lands and Parks?


Charles A. Stewart: No; surveys.


Arthur Meighen: What surveys are included in that?


Charles A. Stewart: Topographical alone. The figures are as follows:
Year
1919-	20	
1558,080	311920-	21	
685,020	451921-	22	
591,353	901922-	23	
562,785	51


Arthur Meighen: The minister must be giving us the money spent. He is not giving us the estimate.


Charles A. Stewart: No, that was the net expenditure.


Arthur Meighen: The Dominion Lands and Parks vote is in one large item, but these figures the minister gives do not appear in
it at all, nor any figures corresponding to the estimates.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon. friend must be mistaken. These figures have been kept intact; they are in one item. The change was made one year ago.


Arthur Meighen: Two years ago. The
minister made the change himself.


Charles A. Stewart: I am sure the items are the same for each year, that is, those we are discussing at the moment.


Mr. MILLAR:: We have in this item a reduction, and in others increases. What is the general plan in making up an estimate? Does the staff suggest a reduction, or where does the suggestion for a reduction originate?


Arthur Meighen: It originates here.


Charles A. Stewart: I am prepared to agree with the staff that this is very valuable work, but nevertheless I think a great portion of it could be delayed. I have always had that opinion, and I have tried to cut down annually on this vote. I think we can reduce this vote very much more next year. A number of these men will go; some of them have been transferred; we have tried to cut this vote down as fast as we could. We could turn all these men out, I suppose-use the axe, as was suggested by my hon. friend-and do nothing. But hon. gentlemen must realize that some of these surveys must be continued. My judgment is that we shall have to continue fifteen or twenty parties throughout the Dominion, at least, as long as we have the natural resources of the three prairie provinces. I do not think it is unreasonable to expect that we shall have to do that work. I have an estimate for the international boundary work. There was a great deal of fuss about it, and I have placed the estimate at what I think will be required annually to carry on that work. Probably I have cut it too low, because there is still some work to be done in that, connection. My hon. friend from West York (Sir Henry Drayton) smiles, but I may tell him that these gentlemen were appointed under an international agreement. This huge stretch of territory along the international boundary from the Atlantic to the Pacific will require work to be done upon it annually. I do not mean that we will need a party of surveyors to do that work, but certainly some expenditure will be required. You will need expenditure on topographical surveys every year, but I think with from fifteen to
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twenty parties we can do the necessary topographical work this year. They will not necessarily do the work to keep ahead of the geological work, which I consider very important, and I shall have something to say about the geological surveys when we reach that item. I am speaking now of the topographical surveys.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The Geodetic
survey does practically the same thing, does it not?


Charles A. Stewart: It is different work, and very important work, as my hon. friend well knows. Simply because the country is surveyed and laid out in blocks, it does not follow that the work is completely done. There is a constant demand upon us for this sort of work. I should like my hon. friend to see the many requests from the provinces and other sources asking for this sort of work to be carried on that we turn down. There are problems arising now in western Canada, where owing to the drought, lake and slough levels have receded and troubles have arisen with respect to ownership. Surveys will have to be made in that connection. You will always have to have in Canada a reasonable number of parties in the field doing this work. But I frankly admit that the time has come when we can reduce, and we are reducing. I have reduced the vote this year by $50,000 as compared with last year, and I do not say that that is the limit of reduction. I think I can make a very great reduction next year.
My hon. friend has suggested that it is an easy matter to organize all these surveys under one head. I have not found it so easy, but I hope that we shall work to that end, and that we shall have this topographical work all under the control of one management. I am able to assure the committee that we have no over-lapping, and that we are not undertaking work except to a very limited degree that could be discontinued at the present moment.	.


John Millar: The minister has not exactly answered my question. For the most part I was not joking at all. Do the men who are actually doing this work in the field, the surveyors, suggest economies? Have suggestions come from those in the outside service as to where economies could be practised? I suppose the suggestions sometimes come from the deputy minister, or do they always originate with the minister?


Charles A. Stewart: I think hon. members will agree that for anyone to suggest that this work is unnecessary would be hardly fair to this staff. There is no unnecessary work being done at the moment, not a particle. Perhaps we are too far ahead, and we can wait a while. But to suggest that there is work being done, or that work has been done, that is unnecessary is beside the mark altogether. There is nothing of the kind.


John Millar: Applying my question to
other votes, are there not times when there is unnecessary work being done?


Charles A. Stewart: In what
way would my hon. friend suggest that any of this work was unnecessary? Surveying is not unnecessary work, it is very necessary work.


John Millar: I say, applying it to other
votes.


Charles A. Stewart: I am not
going to discuss other votes. I am discussing the question of topographical surveys. I will discuss these other votes fully when we come to them, and be prepared to give my hon. friend information.


Mr. HOEY:: Could the minister state how
far these surveys have extended 'beyond the actual geological surveys in the prairie provinces, say in northern Manitoba? Does not the minister think this work, if it is going on at all should be confined to areas in which there 'are mineral resources? To make surveys of land for land settlement in the northern districts when we have hundreds of thousands of acres unsettled around the cities in the prairie territory seems to me to be almost absurd.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend is quite correct, but I have just told the committee we are not doing that class of work, except in certain cases where surveys have to be re-run on account of a dispute of some sort arising with respect to definite boundaries. That is the only work of such a character needing to be done, and that only to a very limited degree. So far as regards the subdivision of agricultural land is concerned it has practically ceased. In the northern stretches of the territory we have to have some surveys, for example where oil discoveries 'and things of that kind are made.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Is the Geological survey
keeping up with this?


Charles A. Stewart: Not by any
means.

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Robert Alexander Hoey: Why not reduce this until
the Geological survey catches up?


Charles A. Stewart: That is
what I have been endeavouring to do. It will be observed there has been a reduction of $50,000 in the vote for this year. It may be that we should only do such topographical work as is required to precede geological parties, but we are not confining the reduction to that. My object is to get the number of parties down to between fifteen and twenty. We now have twenty-four parties on this work and I assure the committee the work done in each case will be very useful.


William Garland McQuarrie: Will the minister
state in what provinces the work has to be done?


Mr. BROWN:: How much of this vote is intended to take surveys into entirely new territory? How far do the meridian lines run, and the several base lines?


Mr. FAFARD:: Last session, Mr. Chairman, a great deal of unmerited criticism was indulged in at the expense of the surveys branch. Of this criticism the most unmerited was directed at the topographical work carried on by that branch of the Dominion Lands department. In my humble opinion, no survey work carried on by any governmental body has a higher economic value than well executed topographical surveys. The amount of misinformation about our country and its resources is directly in proportion to our lack of topographical maps. We have had surveys at a greater cost per head of the population than in almost any other country, this being due to the division of authority between the Dominion and the provinces, and the lack of a properly coordinated scheme of surveys and map making based on scientific principles. At present the geological survey produces magnificent maps as a basis for geological and mineral investigations. Unfortunately their operations are too restricted to be at all adequate. The Department of National Defence is also making increasingly splendid maps which are even more valuable to the civil than to military. authorities. The Topographical Surveys branch of the Interior department has been making maps of what was originally Dominion lands. But Dominion responsibility goes beyond Dominion lands, it extends to all the provinces, and Dominion aid towards mapping should be granted adequately to all of the provinces. The Dominion government has spent nearly thirty millions of dollars in the western provinces since 1900, part of this money being spent not on 70
Dominion lands but on private property. I claim that other provinces have the right to their share of that expenditure. The western provinces have been treated fairly. There have been expended on geodetic surveys $871,581, on topographical surveys $15,717,524, and on base lines, meridian lines, township outlines, and section outlines $11,554,277. As far as I am concerned I see no reason why the money voted for topographical surveys should not be divided in proportion to the area of each province. At present I understand that the topographical surveys branch contemplates extending its work to Quebec and the Maritime provinces. That work is undoubtedly needed, and I would suggest to the minister that it should be undertaken after consulting with the provinces concerned. I would also suggest to the minister that the amount voted for geodetic surveys is not sufficient for provincial requirements. Splendid work is being done for the provinces at the present time, but money now spent in the extension of operation will save millions of dollars to the provinces in the years to come by providing the permanent framework for mapping, without which mudh other survey work would have to be repeated over and over again.
May I add for the information of the minister that the functions for each branch should be more definitely specified, and that a well qualified engineer or land surveyor should be attached to the deputy minister's office in a consulting capacity. This man would see that duplication and overlapping would not occur. I should be sorry if my remarks were considered as an attack upon the land surveyors of the Dominion. They have done their work fairly, and they are entitled to the congratulations of this House for what they have accomplished for the country. I am very sorry to see a decrease in these estimates when the government desires to carry out the development of our natural resources. I also wish to advise the minister that it would be a great mistake to dismiss any of these officials who are trained in practical work, and whose capacity and energy are not surpassed in any other country in the world.


William Garland McQuarrie: I should like to receive an answer to the question I asked a few minutes ago.


Charles A. Stewart: We have seven parties on miscellaneous surveys in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, the work being fairly evenly divided between the provinces. On the interprovincial boundary we have one party at

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work. In the three prairie provinces we have four parties at work on levelling. On topographical surveys we have eight parties. The expenditure for this work is divided as follows: Manitoba, $6,000; Saskatchewan, $9,000; Alberta, $6,000; Quebec, $9,000; and in the Maritime provinces, $18,000. On photo topographical surveys we have one party; classification of lands, four parties. In British Columbia the whole of the topographical surveys are carried on. Four parties are carrying on surveys on lands in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and in the control or exploratory traverse we have four parties working in Saskatchewan and Alberta, the Northwest territories and the Maritime provinces. Supervision and inspection costs us $2,000 in Manitoba, $2,000 in Saskatchewan and $3,000 in Alberta, and " unprovided for " we have appropriations for each province of a small amount. That means 29 parties all told.
In reply to my hon. friend from Lisgar (Mr. Brown), we have ceased projecting surveys. There is no work being done on the meridian and base line.


Mr. SHAW:: The subject of surveys is undoubtedly a very important matter, but, as far as I can observe, in the estimates it has not been overlooked from a financial point of view. I notice in vote No. 97 there is provision for $35,000 for topographic surveys under National Defence department, which represents a reduction from Jast year of some $10,000. Just what the value of a survey of that character, as distinguished from a topographic survey is, I am sure I am at a loss to understand. Then we have vote No. 251, the one under consideration, $470,000; and we have the Geodetic survey, vote No. 252, which represents $275,000. Then I find Geological survey, item 268, representing an amount of $320,000. Then we have another variety of survey shown at page 56 of the estimates under Dominion lands and parks, as follows:
For surveys and investigations of water and power resources, including the Dominion Hydrometric survey for the reclamation of lands by irrigation and drainage and for the administration of the Acts in connection therewith, and so forth, $547,000.
Now these surveys I take it, Mr. Chairman, are all necessarily inter-related, so that one is more or less dependent upon the other, and I certainly think that the minister should make a representation to his department to have this work in some way or other put under one head, who would be responsible for it, thereby I am sure lessening expense. I would suggest also that he should in addition impress upon his colleague of the

National Defence department the necessity for eliminating that survey for militia purposes altogether. In my judgment, so far as I can observe, it is more or less a useless expenditure. It ought to be, it seems to me, a comparatively easy task to, shall I use the word, co-ordinate, this work? Surely it is not beyond the capacity of the officials of the Interior department to get together and prepare that work and relate it, so that a great deal of this expense, considerably over a million dollars, might be saved. If the officials of the Interior department and the officials of the other department are not able to do that, I would suggest that they should call in the services of the Civil Service Commission-and I am sure the minister would have no objection to that-and ask them to undertake the work of trying to make these various organizations work together, and eliminate, I am sure, a very large proportion of the expense involved in these services. It seems to me that it is in this direction that savings can be made. Economy does not consist in simply eliminating a certain percentage of employees here or there, it must be carried on in a scientific and proper manner. I certainly am disappointed that the vote this year for these various services represents such a substantial amount. It seems to me it should be substantially reduced. We can if necessary eliminate much survey work during the next two or three years at least, because after all what we all desire, and what the people of Canada demand, is the strictest possible economy.


Charles A. Stewart: I thought
that I had made it quite clear to the committee that what my hon. friend was complaining about was exactly what we were doing; but what I did not make clear was that while we were not able to amalgamate the service under one department, yet we had a board representative of them all, and the work they undertake is discussed fully, and is allocated to the various departments. I will not argue that that is the best way of handling it. I would much rather have the topographical work under one general head, whether it be for the militia, whether it be in advance of geological work, or for whatever purpose it may be. But we have succeeded in co-ordinating the work to the extent that I can come to the House and say that there is no overlapping. For example, the work being done by the Defence department, which is largely, as I understand it, along the boundary line of Quebec, is being utilized by the Geological Survey; so that wherever geological work is done, and wherever topographical work is done,

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care is being exercised not to have it overlap. I quite agree with the suggestion that we can reduce it, and we are making an honest effort to reduce it.


Neil Haman McTaggart: Would the minister say whether the classification of lands suggested in this vote would extend to those Dominion lands for which entry' has already been made; and, if not, whether any provision will be made for the reclassification of those abandoned lands?


Charles A. Stewart: I think my hon. friend has in mind that it would be better to survey some of the lands now occupied and classified, in order to, in many cases, move people off them; but we are not doing that class of work under this vote. We are rather doing the classification of the Crown lands in order that there may be full information in the Land Titles office or in the Dominion Lands office for the benefit of prospective settlers.


Arthur Meighen: If the western lands were turned over to the provinces, of course there would be a great deal less survey work, eliminating many hundreds of thousands of dollars of expense each year.


Charles A. Stewart: I would not say so.


Arthur Meighen: Subdivision work entirely. Of course wre would do the survey work of these lands-that are under Dominion jurisdiction.


Charles A. Stewart: We are not doing the subdivisions.


Arthur Meighen: But as to the rest of the work, we did not do much of that work in Ontario and in the provinces where the resources belong to those provinces. We would have to do militia work, if that were done at all. I was never much impressed with the wisdom of that militia work; but recalling how close we were two years ago to having the whole question solved,-the minister will remember when the edict of the Prime Minister went forth, even from the housetops, that a key had been found to the whole situation, verily the key of equality and justice; I wonder now, after two years, whatever has been opened with that key. Has the key been lost? Are we no further on?


Charles A. Stewart: I am very dense no doubt, but I do not follow the right hon. leader of the opposition.
70i


Arthur Meighen: I hope all that manifesto was not mere air. Can the minister give us a report of progress?


Mr. McBRIDE:: The present government has cut this estimate almost in half in the last two years. Out our way a large number of people ask to have this work carried on. I think that under the terms of confederation, the Dominion has to carry on a certain amount of this work in the different provinces. Am I not correct?


Charles A. Stewart: Quite correct.


Thomas George McBride: I think this estimate is none too large.


Henry Lumley Drayton: During the last two years this matter has been challenged time and again. Surely the minister can show us what surveys have been made this last year for the sum of $520,000. How much better off are we now than we were before? What have we for the money? That, after all, is the best way of seeing whether there is any value in this work or not.


Mr. MICHAUD:: I understand a survey was made last year on the Quebec side of the Baie des Chaleurs and, I presume, also on the New Brunswick side. That survey was made by an officer of the department, Mr. Pierce. At what particular place was the survey made?


Charles A. Stewart: I think that must be the geodetic survey. I should be glad if my hon. friend would ask that question when we come to the geodetic survey. There were surveyed last year townsites at Jasper and Waterton lake, Banff cemetery, coal lands at Luscar, timber berths in British Columbia, hay lands at Big Hay lake, reclamation lands at Waterhen lake and Sumas lake, agricultural lands withdrawn because of the Beaver Hills forest reserve, lots in the Northwest Territories at Resolution and McPherson.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend quite understands that that list of names means nothing to him. We do not know what we have or what this is. He speaks of a townsite at Jasper. What is the acreage? How many lots are there? What is the demand for lots there? What is the cost?


Charles A. Stewart: I can speak offhand with respect to Jasper because I know the situation. There is a very considerable demand for lots on account of railway building there. The townsite was laid out.
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Henry Lumley Drayton: What is the* acreage and what is the number of lots?


Charles A. Stewart: I oannot give that. I think my hon. friend will realize that the services of the survey party were required to do that work. Waterton lake is in the same category. These are widely removed. Does -my hon. friend expect me to come here with the number of lots surveyed and the number sold in a townsite, and to be able to give details of that character? Surely, my hon. friend is not so particular as that.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I think my hon. friend has been out in the West long enough to know that one of the curses of the whole of the West has been the subdividing of townships and the laying out of vacant lots for sale, real estate speculation instead of land occupation and use. I do not know why anyone should argue in favour of subdividing town-sites at the present time.


Charles A. Stewart: Does my
hon. friend believe that the townsite of Jasper in Jasper park is a subdivision in the sense that a townsite along a railway, on the prairie or otherwise, would be sub-
5 p.m. divided for the purpose of making gain? In the case of Jasper town-site, the prices of the lots are fixed by the government, and no lot is offered unless an individual is anxious to have it and to live on it. Would he suggest the same thing in connection with the Waterton lake townsite, which is in the same category? We are not surveying townsites for gain.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It is our property and we are subdividing it. I suppose we are subdividing it in order to sell it. It may be that that is a very reasonable little thing, dene simply for the purpose of looking after a few sales-and they would be very few-that will be legitimately made.


Charles A. Stewart: No. My
hon. friend will remember that the divisional point is fixed at Jasper, and that a considerable number of employees have moved there.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That may be.
What is it costing to have the subdivision of Jasper?


Charles A. Stewart: It is costing
the services of a survey party, probably five or six or seven thousand dollars. That is the average cost of a party for a season.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Shall we put
down $5,000 as the cost of the Survey of Jasper?


Charles A. Stewart: I do not
know. The party would not be detailed all summer at Jasper.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I take it that
my hon. friend cannot give any real information as to that. Topographical and general surveys,-that represents a class of work by itself. How much of this $470,000 is for topographical and general surveys?


Charles A. Stewart: General
and miscellaneous, $23,450; topographical, $48,000; photo-topographical, $4,500.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What is the
allowance for traverse of northern rivers and lakes?


Charles A. Stewart: $34,000.


Henry Lumley Drayton: How much for
classification of lands for the settlement and development of Canada?


Charles A. Stewart: S20,000.


Henry Lumley Drayton: How much for
plotting and printing of plans?


Charles A. Stewart: $13,600 for
printing and stationery, and lithographing, $12,500.


Henry Lumley Drayton: If I have got
my hon. friend down right he has accounted for $148,000 out of the vote of $470,000. That is right?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Then the whole of the balance is behind the "etc."


Charles A. Stewart: There is
nothing strange about it.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What is it,
though?


Charles A. Stewart: We spent
in Manitoba, $24,450; in Saskatchewan-


Henry Lumley Drayton: What for?


Charles A. Stewart: I beg my
hon. friend's pardon. The salaries for the permanent staff amount to $170,260; office employees at Ottawa, $68,340; interprovincial boundary, $3,000; western levelling, $9,590; soils, $3,100; warehouse, $1,060-making a total of $255,350. Now, if my hon. friend will take the balance: head office printing and Stationery, $13,600; purchase and repair of instruments, $7,000; lithographing, etc., $12,500; equipment, $8,000; western soils, $300; western warehouse, $300-he will get a total of $41,700.

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Henry Lumley Drayton: Why does the
minister ask for more than the total on his own showing?


Charles A. Stewart: Perhaps
my hon. friend will check his first list. Here are details of that expenditure:	Manitoba,
$24,450; Saskatchewan, $40,500; Alberta, $44,500; British Columbia, $8,500; Quebec, $9,000; Maritime provinces, $26,000; Yukon territory, $3,000; Northwest territories, $10,000; Alberta and British Columbia boundary $7,000-making a total of $172,950.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is a different calculation altogether; they cannot both be right.


Charles A. Stewart: I am giving my hon. friend the details. I answered the question in his first item.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes; then I
asked for everything that "etc" covered. The hon. minister gave me that and said it made a total of $41,700. Now he has some [DOT] other particulars.


Charles A. Stewart: No, I have
given my hon. friend the exact figures making up that amount. Those figures which I have given to my hon. friend total $470,000.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am afraid I cannot check the figures, nor do I think any member of this committee has been able to check them. However that may be, does the minister really think that any harm would follow if all the work for the traversing of northern rivers and lakes stopped this year?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What?


Charles A. Stewart: Navigation
has become a very important factor there.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Where?


Charles A. Stewart: On the Mackenzie river. My hon. friend knows that three transportation companies are doing business on that river.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What work is proposed to be done there now?


Charles A. Stewart: Simply traversing the river and doing the necessary work to make it reasonably safe.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Does this apply to one river?


Charles A. Stewart: Part of the work is on the Great Slave lake, but it is all in contiguous territory. I am wrong. There is some work to be done at Le Pas, northern Manitoba, in the mining district.


John Millar: Reference has been made to the disparity between the expenditures in the various provinces. In the case of Saskatchewan, can the minister tell us what part of the expenditure has been on lands forming part of the natural resources which have not been turned over to the province?


Charles A. Stewart: I think the only amount would be $5,500 for the re-establishment of monuments in the areas where they have been obliterated. The balance is all in the areas that are purely and simply Crown lands of the federal government.


John Millar: Are we to understand that if the natural resources had been turned over to the province, the expenditure under this item would be only $5,000?


Charles A. Stewart: It would be $5,500.


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: Mr. Chairman, the vote provides for classification of lands for settlement. I have seen some of the work and I think it is excellent. The information gained by this classification will be very useful if it ever gets to the right quarter; but it will be of very little value if buried in the archives of the department. What efforts are being made by the department to have the information printed on maps in the languages of the various countries from which the minister is soliciting settlers? For example, a Pole goes into an immigration office at Dantzig; he is told a great deal about this country he wants to know from the agent just where he should settle; the agent paints a glowing picture, assisted by Canadian Pacific propaganda and other colonization propaganda, of the great opportunities for farming in Canada; but the man is not quite sure that things are as rosy as the agent paints them; thereupon the agent takes him over to the classification map and directs his attention to the nice colouring. But the Pole cannot be sure that everything is as pictured by the immigration agent, and we know that the latter is not always above suspicion. I suggest the language of the countries from which we expect immigrants be used on maps of this kind, when sent abroad.
I fully support the statements of the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Shaw). I think the expenditures on surveys in all the various departments is very close to a Teapot Dome scandal. Let me add a few more of these surveys that we have discovered in running through the estimates:	Department of
National Defence, topographical surveys, $35,000; then item 251-the one we are now considering-topographical surveys of the Depart-
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ment of the Interior, $470,000; geodetic survey of Canada, item 252, $275,000; geological survey, item 268, $320,000; for surveys and investigations of water and power resources, page 56, $547,000; these sums total about $1,647,000. But in the moment that elapsed between questions and some explanations by the minister we found, on page 53, that Indians are taken care of in the way of surveys-$8,000 for Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, $52,250 for British Columbia and $3,000 for general, or a grand total spent by this government on surveys in Canada of $1,710,250. The intentions of the minister regarding co-ordination and economy may be excellent, but the lower regions, we are told are paved with good intentions.


Charles A. Stewart: It is very kind of my hon. friend to say that the lower regions are paved with good intentions, but so are some of the upper regions.


Edward Joseph Garland: May I conclude before the minister replies to my question? I submit that the minister might take into more serious consideration the recommendations made last year, the year before, and this year with respect to coordination of all those surveys. The public expects that there should be quick action, not next year or the year after, but at once.


Charles A. Stewart: Is my hon.
friend through? I may tell him that the minister has no intention of reducing the geological survey by one party or one dollar. In view of the fact that we are gaining rapidly in mineral production I think this is the most important piece of survey work that can be done in Canada. My hon. friend smiles; let him look at the records and discover how much the mineral production of Canada has increased in the last few years.


Edward Joseph Garland: The minister will surely forgive me; I was not smiling at the suggestion that this vote was important, but rather at the implication that I suggested for a moment he should reduce this particular item. I have pointed out that $1,710,000 odd is to be spent on various surveys, and I submit that the adoption of the recommendation of the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Shaw) that there be amalgamation or coordination-anything you like to call it-of the various survey departments, would indubitably lead to economies that would be effective in reducing the total expenditure under this head.


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, and the expenditure is reduced this year by $100,000;

my hon. friend has missed that small item in his calculations. I repeat what I said a few moments ago, that there is co-ordinated effort. I have said that it was my desire to see the topographical work all under one head; I have repeated that half a dozen times. Now my hon. friend has mentioned that we have suryeys in the Indian department. We have one surveyor in that department. We are trying to complete, with the province of British Columbia, the work in connection with what has been a vexed question ever since confederation, namely, the allocation of Indian reserves. Considerable additions to the reserves have been granted to British Columbia for this purpose, largely the outcome of the work of a commission appointed to deal with the matter. Hon. gentlemen who have been in office will remember that this was a very serious question, and it is not yet settled. When these reserves are properly set apart they will have to be surveyed, and the item appears on these estimates for that particular purpose. So my hon. friend has not discovered any mare's nest or any Teapot Dome. There is not a cent in any of these items the expenditure of which is not justified in the interests of Canada. While we could do without some of the work-quite properly so -I have pointed out that there has been a reduction of $100,000, which I regard as a respectable reduction under this head, and everything we are asking for is required, particularly the items in connection with the work to precede the geological survey. My hon. friend knows that you cannot send a geological survey party out to make a reconnaissance without having the topographical work precede it, and a very large proportion of this item is for work of this character. As to overlapping, I have said repeatedly that there is none. I have been very frank with the committee; I have nothing to hide. But it naturally incenses one when mention is made of Teapot Dome or any other kind of dome in connection with a vote of this character, and I propose to defend the vote somewhat heatedly.


Mr. FORKE:: The hon. minister seemed
to be a little heated over the Teapot Dome allusion, but I do not think he need take that very seriously; I think it just came in as an afterthought on the part of the hon. member who was making the suggestions. But in listening to the discussions in regard to the estimates I am struck with the hopelessness of any attempt to get anything lower than just what stands on the books here. I will guarantee that at this stage of the proceedings every minister who comes before the

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House will defend every item in his estimates as absolutely necessary and will contend that nothing can be done a dollar cheaper. All over this country to-day there is a cry for economy; there is the suggestion that it is costing too much to run the country and that expenditures must be reduced. But it seems almost hopeless for a private member to get up and say anything about the estimates. I cannot see anything else for it but to keep pegging away.


Charles A. Stewart: I have no objection to any questions or any suggestions that may be made, but I do object to references of the character indulged in by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) concerning the men who are in this department or concerning my administration.


Edward Joseph Garland: Will the minister answer my question about what is intended regarding the classification of land and the maps that are sent out based thereon?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, with
pleasure. There are no maps sent abroad of the character he mentions. The information is in our land offices at Prince Albert, Edmonton. Calgary or wherever the work is being carried on, and it is available to the prospective settler. Only a comparatively small area has been covered as yet, but so far as the work has gone I think the results speak for themselves and that they are appreciated by the people. As for sending maps abroad, I had some experience in the Immigration department. My hon. friend has criticized the propaganda sent out to various countries to encourage settlement in Canada. Perhaps those statements are too glowing; I am prepared to agree with my hon. friend. I think also that other organizations outside the control of the government do paint very glowing pictures, at least if one is to judge by the statements made by settlers who have come to Canada. But so far as I am concerned I have warned every officer with whom I came in contact to tell the whole truth; that the truth was good enough; that the facts could be stated with respect to lands and opportunities in Canada and the people concerned could then make up their own minds about it. I am not going to suggest that I would like information of that sort to go abroad. I think it is well to have it in the land offices, available for anyone who goes there-and they must go there in order to secure maps and diagrams of the localities in which they propose to settle. These prospective settlers,
no matter what country they come from, are usually accompanied by a friend who can speak the language and who knows the kind of information that is given out.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) tells us that no matter what is said or done by any private member' the amounts brought down by the minister will go through, and we have a cry of despair from the hon. gentleman because of the impossibility, as he says, of doing anything about it. But I would tell him that it is not at all impossible if members are really serious in their cries for economy, and if they have not only the courage to talk but also the courage to vote accordingly. It is not at all impossible to do, and usefully do, a good deal. We have had votes on the question of economy. We have had votes, for example, on the question of $50,000 for ornamental lighting and the like. We have had loud declamations against extravagance. We have had them here. The hon. gentleman says it is no use. Well, if he has the courage of his convictions-


Robert Forke: I have had the courage of my convictions.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Then I will give the hon. gentleman an opportunity now by moving a reduction in this vote of $65,450, and I point out the grounds on which that motion is absolutely in order, having regard to the statement of the. minister himself. I take the first line "Topographical and general surveys." The alleged justification for this work at the present time is in connection with the all important geological surveys, and we have had the admission this afternoon that this work was well ahead of the geological work and was not necessary for that purpose. I therefore move to reduce the vote by these two items together, one of $46,000, and the other of $23,450, making $69,450.


Charles A. Stewart: Do I understand that my hon. friend is proposing to reduce the vote for topographical surveys to $60,000?


Henry Lumley Drayton: No. I purposely made it a very, very reasonable reduction, following the minister's explanation. I moved to reduce it by the sum of $69,450.


Charles A. Stewart: I do not understand how my hon. friend arrives at his deductions. I may say that we have a large number of requests from various sources for topographical survey work, and I think in fairness to myself and to the committee I should say that these amounts have been cut,
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and very heavily cut, from the appropriations first presented to me. I had felt that I was making a very substantial reduction. After going at the thing, not with the idea of giving all the service that I thought was desired, but rather cutting it as far as I could, almost to the minimum, I have made a cut in the two services of $100,000, which I think is a fairly respectable cut, having in mind the service to be rendered. I am prepared to say that next year I can come with a further substantial reduction. I have reduced every year since I have been minister. I have tried to meet the conditions that I think exist in the country; I have tried to be economical in my department, but my hon. friend is never satisfied, nor would he be satisfied if I cut the vote by $100,000 more. If I cut it down by that amount he would still take the ground he is taking now, that it ought to be cut some more. There has never been a year in which my hon. friend has not treated this vote in the very same way. I have no quarrel with reduction. I am trying to reduce. ' My hon, friend should bear in mind that this service was not inaugurated as a war service. It was part of the general service of the government of which my hon. friend was a member, He thought in his day as minister that it was advisable to carry on this work, but now when another government is in office, and another minister in charge, no matter how big a reduction is made, he wants a still further cut. To be candid with the committee, I felt that I was doing a pretty fair amount of cutting this year. I told the committee last year I would cut, and I have come back this year and kept my promise. I tell the committee again this year that I intend to make a further cut next year. I have told the committee frankly what I think we should get down to in topographical survey work in Canada, and all the other items of survey work.
Let me say one word more with respect to the surveys of the Indian reserves in British Columbia. The matter is not settled at the moment, but we hope that it will be. It has been a very vexatious question, and I think we ought to settle it if it is humanly possible to do so, and have the surveys made, in order that the natives who have spent a great deal of money agitating over this question may settle down upon the reserves allocated to them.
I hope the committee will sustain me in this vote. I think I am safe in saying that I have made a cut in every item in the estimates of the Interior department, and I do not say that I have yet reached the end. I have closed up this year at Saskatoon an office with all the staff. I have made heavy reductions through-

out the department, in order to meet the situation as I see it in Canada at the present time and save some money. I am not administering a department that grew out of war activities.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Will the minister tell us from what sources demands are coming for topographical survey work at this time?


Charles A. Stewart: These requests come from practically all the governments except Ontario. Requests for surveys come frequently to our office. We will not be able to give British Columbia anything like what she wishes for this year, and what I think perhaps she is entitled to. So far as the prairie provinces are concerned, I am bound to admit that some division work is away beyond the necessities of the case. As to the other work, that of land classification, in some of the older settled parts, we have to establish lines that have been obliterated. I may say that thousands of requests have been turned down because I felt that we did not have money enough to go on with this work.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I want to thank the minister for the lecture he has been good enough to read me on my rashness in endeavouring to save a little of the country's money at the present time.


An hon. MEMBER:: Too late.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Of course, that is the cry-too late. This government is so confident of this House that it is too late to challenge a vote when it comes to the House if the government has seen fit to put its imprimatur on it. However, this is absolutely correct. My hon. friend said I was against this vote two years ago. I was. I have always been against it. I think our expenses to-day are ridiculous; they were before, and to the extent that they were higher before they were more ridiculous; but with this difference, unless you are going to go over the lines again you have to come to an end even of surveys. Just imagine anyone seriously objecting to the House trying to bring into effect a little economy at the present time, and yet the minister in charge of this department is running lines up into the arctic circle on the one hand-


Charles A. Stewart: My hon. friend will correct his last statement about running lines to the arctic circle. We are not running lines into the arctic circle but only along the Mackenzie river.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is the line I am referring to, and it is the one that

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has been spoken of this afternoon. And then we have the survey of unnecessary divisions and subdivisions in the prairie provinces. If ever there was an admitted case for economy it is here; if there ever was a situation where the government could exercise economy it is in. the present instance.


Charles A. Stewart: I may tell my hon. friend that no subdivision work in the prairies is provided for in this vote, not to the extent of one acre.


Robert Forke: While compliments are being exchanged across the floor of the House I also wish to thank the hon. member (Sir Henry Drayton) for the lecture he gave me. I think, perhaps, that in doing what he did the hon. member was of opinion he was giving me a " dare." Let me tell my hon. friend that I am not to be influenced in any position I take by any such suggestion. No " dare " of that kind is likely to make any change in the way I shall vote. I can sympathize with the minister in his efforts to get these estimates through.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Robert Forke: Hon. gentlemen to my right say "Hear, hear." They are always looking for trouble.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: We are trying to help the minister.


Robert Forke: That is a good spirit to display, I hope my hon. friends will continue it. In estimating for expenditures it is sometimes a good idea to fix a certain sum and make the provision for your necessities come within that figure. If we simply look at the necessities to be met we shall never accomplish any real economy in public expenditures at the present time. This vote is a pretty large one and, notwithstanding what the minister says, I know it is not absolutely required. I can understand that there are conditions which may seem to make the expenditure necessary, but the country will still go on and do very well if a reduction in the sum asked for is made. I am in favour of a reduction not because any " dare " has been extended to me, but because I believe it would be in the public interest.


An hon. MEMBER:: Think of your conscience.


Robert Forke: The hon. gentleman need
not remind me of my conscience, it is quite clear.


Mr. CAMPBELL:: Did I understand the
minister to say that the classification of land for settlement was all done on lands belonging to the Crown?


Charles A. Stewart: No, some
of it is not done. We could render splendid service to many communities but we cannot afford it. There have been a number of new cornel's arriving in Canada, and the object of this classification work has been with a view to getting information for such persons who must depend upon that information in the selection of their land. I cannot promise that expenditure could be made for carrying out surveys of lands already settled. I think for the time being our efforts will have to be confined to the class of work indicated.


Robert Gardiner: Will the minister
state how far these Crown lands are from railway communication?


Charles A. Stewart: I might
mention one instance where the classification has taken place in a district my hon. friend is well acquainted with, west of Wetaskiwin and where at the moment the settlers are a considerable distance away from railway communication on the Canadian Pacific. But a line is being run from Lacombe into the territory west of Wetaskiwin. A considerable amount of classification has been done in that territory in which many settlers have located. We find settlers squatted all over; a newcomer who has taken up homestead land does not pay very much attention at first to the railway facilities that exist. I am told that practically all our classification has been confined as far as possible to within fifteen miles of an existing railway.


Robert Gardiner: May I suggest to the
minister that it would be advisable not only to keep classification to districts very close to the railroad, but also to have lands made available for settlement within reasonable distance of the railway lines. If we allow settlers to spread all over the territory we will be called upon to provide transportation facilities for them, facilities that at present we cannot afford.


Charles A. Stewart: I think I
can agree thoroughly with my hon. friend because that is a policy I have always advocated. Unfortunately it is a very difficult policy to carry put. For example people went into the Peace river district, hundreds of miles from railway facilities, and it cost the country a very considerable amount to extend the railway communication into that country. It must not be understood that I
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am objecting in any way to the Peace river country itself, it is one of the finest territories that I know of. I simply cited that as a case of a territory into which people were determined to enter and settle. You are not able to prevent settlers from entering certain districts when they conceive a particular fancy for settling there.


Robert Gardiner: I would suggest to the minister the possibility of withdrawing such lands from settlement, because so long as they are made available for that purpose it is natural for people to go there who feel so disposed. I think the time has come when the policy of the government should be to make lands available that are close to transportation facilities, or are in districts that are going to be provided with such facilities in the near future.


Charles A. Stewart: Then we
have this other difficulty: Take Fort Vermilion, or the area down at Fort McKay; squatters have settled there and application has been made to have the land surveyed, but we have not granted it. Still, people go in and squat on the land. In this way you have a very difficult proposition to meet and provide for. Knowing the western situation nobody would be happier than I to prevent the indiscriminate spreading of settlement if it were possible, because I am aware of the difficulties that follow.


Robert Gardiner: I will make another
suggestion to the minister and to the government. Possibly the best way to get over this unfortunate situation is for the Dominion to transfer these natural resources to the provinces which can handle them more easily than we can.


Charles A. Stewart: I am perfectly willing-


Mr. CALDWELL:: "Barkis is willin'".


Charles A. Stewart: -and always have been.


Mr. KENNEDY (Edmonton):: What has been done with regard to the classification of land in the Peace river country?


Charles A. Stewart: I am informed that that work was done two years ago for the Soldier Settlement Board, although it was not all our survey work. We do not want to claim all the credit for everything that has been done in this connection. Because as my hon. friend knows, under the Soldiers' Settlement grant, surveys were made

which are probably just as accurate and reliable as those of our engineers. However, there is undoubtedly a very large unsettled area up there as to which accurate information has been filed.


Milton Neil Campbell: I think.the surveys
extending out into the Peace river country offer a very good example of the system of locating settlers in advance of transportation facilities, and I maintain that if the government surveys the land and throws it open foi settlement they are under an obligation to provide railway facilities for the settlers that come in. Two years ago I pointed out to the minister the danger of surveying land for settlement a long distance from railway facilities. In a short time we shall have settlements grow up in such districts and a demand will be made for branch lines of railway. Then we shall have the same old problem over again that we are now facing of making provision for building these railways. The branch lines that are demanded in the West to-day originated, to a large extent, on account of the oversurvey that was carried out by the government. Wt have a very small population occupying a tremendous tract of territory, and it seems to me that the time has come to stop this reaching out and occupying land beyond transportation facilities.
I was rather surprised to see that the minister intended confining the surveys entirely to crown lands, because from what I know of western Canada there is very little crown land that will be accepted for settlement, unless more railways are built in the West. I live in one of the choicest homestead districts perhaps in western Canada, and yet there is hardly a homestead available there that would be taken up by any settler. Sometimes a man will, in a moment of optimism, and perhaps primed up with colonization literature, file on one of the homesteads, but after a year or two, or possibly in a few months, that man will abandon the homestead pull up stakes and leave, after having done a good deal of hard work and spent considerable money. I think the time has come to stop this practice. We should try and induce settlement near the railways where we have transportation facilities, roads, schools, churches, elevators and all the necessary trade facilities. Let us try and use these. One of the troubles in western Canada is that we are over built. We have too many facilities. Let us try and use what we have before we reach out and demand more.

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Charles A. Stewart: I am sorry
my hon. friend misunderstood me. It was not the survey work; it was the classification work.


Milton Neil Campbell: I understood the hon.
minister to say the classification for settlement was entirely confined to crown lands.


Charles A. Stewart: No, it has
not been in the past; but I made the statement that for the future we are cutting down, and we will have to cut down even more than we are doing now. We cannot promise that we will make surveys of areas in which settlement has already taken place, unless there be crown lands for settlement in that area. Then in every case we would be quite willing to do so; but for the federal government to make a survey of all the lands in the hands of private people would be a pretty large undertaking.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Has the minister
considered any claim for forcing the lands now being held by private individuals into use? Throughout the entire western country there are millions of acres of lands adjacent to the railway that are held out of use. The maintenance of railway facilities, the necessity for general development, municipal administration, schools and so on entails a tremendously heavy burden on the settlers who are there. It seems to me the time has come when the government should devise some means of insisting that lands that were intended for bona fide settlers should in some way be restored to the people and made available for use.


Mr. CAHILL:: Will the hon. member make a suggestion as to how that could be accomplished?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes, very easily, by a system of taxation of land values.


Frank S. Cahill: Which system?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Any system which would take the economic rent of the land. That would mean that lands of that kind should be taxed when they are held out of use. It is the well known principle of the so-called single tax. I do not mean to carry out the full principle of the single tax, but if lands are held out of use, I say they should be more heavily taxed. If lands which are particularly valuable along the lines of railway, are held for speculative purposes, they should be more heavily taxed. The actual
bona fide settler is carrying the load, enhancing the value of these lands, and thus putting money into the pockets of the people who are doing no work on the land.	,


Mr. POWER:: Would we require a special survey branch to find out what lands are in use and what are not in use? And if we carry out the principle the* hon. member suggests, would wTe not require this amount to be voted for the service?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Any real estate office will give the information required; or it could be obtained in the municipal offices.


An hon. MEMBER:: Or from the Canada Colonization. Company.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes. What we need is a new policy.


Frank S. Cahill: Would the hon. member
suggest that the Dominion government should tax the lands in Canada or that the municipal go.vernment should do it?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Under present circumstances, the Dominion might well^ tax them, since they were originally Dominion lands intended for homestead purposes. But the original idea has been frustrated, and in a great many instances these lands that ought to belong to the homesteaders have been appropriated by private interests and are not now available for the real settlers, who have been induced to come here, and if possible to buy lands which ought to be granted freely to the people and which will need to be granted freely to the people if they are going to make a living on them.


Charles A. Stewart: I think in
fairness to myself I should inform my hon. friend that in Alberta we placed a 25 per cent taxation upon unimproved lands, over and 'above the tax on improved lands in the hope of accomplishing just what the hon. gentleman is proposing.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Did you accomplish the
purpose?


Charles A. Stewart: No, not so
far; but I do not know anybody up there who is particularly anxious to hold on to land which he is not using.


Milton Neil Campbell: We have a system of
taxation called the Wild Land tax, under which any land suitable for agriculture or growing purposes has to bear a special tax, and the results have been excellent. The speculator would either have to rent his land or sell it at a reduced price. Conditions are such in the western provinces that the tax
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will compel many people to abandon the lands. If a person wants cheap land all he has to do is to go to the municipal clerk, and he can generally buy a very reasonably priced piece of land in a municipality for the taxes.


Mr. LOVETT:: Has a survey of this kind been made in the province of Nova Scotia, and if so in what part of the province?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, in the New Glasgow district.
Amendment (Sir Henry Drayton), negatived: Yeas, 45; Nays, 53.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Mr. COOTE:: Did I understand the minister to say that the Soldier Settlement Board had made land surveys on their own account?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, land
classification on their own account.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.
Geodetic Survey of Canada-investigations, reconnaissance, triangulation, ' precise levelling, geodetic astronomy, etc., $275,000.


William Garland McQuarrie: Will the minister explain this item and the saving which has been effected?


Charles A. Stewart: This item
has been cut down by $50,000, the same as the other. The geodetic survey is a survey which establishes in a permanent manner a series of points of reference at convenient distant points whose geographical position, latitude and longitude, have been obtained by nets of triangulation and astronomical observation. It also determines accurate points from which other surveys can be made in the principal towns and cities by lines of precise levelling. It thereby forms the basis of survey and mapping work carried on by other departments of the Dominion government, by provincial governments and by municipalities,
corporations and private persons, asking for:	We are
Triangulation		
Base lines		
Geodetic astronomy		
Precise levelling		
City mapping		
Instruments		
Books, charts, etc		
General expenses		
Salaries


William Garland McQuarrie: Would it not be possible to discontinue some of the work for the present?


Charles A. Stewart: We have cut down the work to the extent of $50,000 for this year. This is largely a matter of men. We have laid aside a ship that has been in use by the department along the coast in the gulf of St. Lawrence, and we have made a very considerable cut in the general operations. My hon. friend will observe that this is the basis for all other surveys. There are located on elevations the precise spot from which topographical survey work is carried on as well as work along the streams and lakes for the purpose of assisting navigation.


William Garland McQuarrie: This work, I understand, has been going on for many years. Is it something that will continue for a good many years yet in Canada?


Mr. ROBINSON:: Is the same number of parties being sent out this year as last year?


Charles A. Stewart: There is a
reduction of five parties from last year.


Ernest William Robinson: Can the minister indicate where those five are to be cut out?


Charles A. Stewart: As the bulk of this work is carried on in the East, most of them will be cut off in eastern localities.


Ernest William Robinson: Can the minister indicate where?


Charles A. Stewart: I can give
an indication where it is proposed to do the work. I cannot tell just where these parties will be cut out.


William Garland McQuarrie: Where is the work
to be done?


Charles A. Stewart: Direction
measurement is a continuation of the 1923 operations to extend the triangulation from Cape Breton island to Newfoundland, to serve as a basis for similar work in that country and to co-ordinate the charting of Newfoundland waters with that now being done in Canadian waters and that formerly done by the British Admiralty in the same district. One subparty will complete this work and then move to the Baie des Chaleurs where it will join the other sub-party to continue the St. Lawrence river triangulation along the Baie des Chaleurs and the east coast of New Brunswick.
A tower building party will prepare stations along the east coast of New Brunswick at points -which have been already selected.
. A secondary triangulation party will operate in the Fredericton, N. B. vicinity, establishing control points for the topographical survey mappers.

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Another party is to control charting of that part of the gulf of St. Lawrence at present being charted by the Hydrographic Survey, to serve as a basis for provincial surveys north from the north shore of the gulf. That is the work that is being done in the Maritime provinces for this year.
Another survey is a continuation of the secondary triangulation which in 1922-23 was carried along the Upper Saguenay river, lake St. John and southward towards Three Rivers.
The 1924 operations will continue this work southward to connect with the primary triangulation near Three Rivers.
The statement which I have proceeds:
Ottawa river. This work is a continuation of the triangulation up the Ottawa river to serve as a basis for geographical work by the National Defence department and the Ontario and Quebec governments.
49th Parallel-Party No. 5 .. .. [DOT][DOT]	 $21,500
Continuation of primary triangulation along the international boundary from the 103rd meridian (near Estevan, Sask.) eastward to Lake of the Woods. The section from the 109th meridian to Lake of the Woods is the Canadian share of a co-operative scheme with the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. The western half of the Canadian section has been completed. This net will form the basis of all future triangulation in western Canada.
British Columbia-Alberta Boundary-Party
No. 6	 514,400
The operations in this section are secondary triangulation to control the geographic position and accuracy of the boundary surveys from Yellowhead pass northwest to the intersection of the continental watershed with the 120th meridian.
In 1922 and 1923 the reconnaissance for the selection of stations was completed and almost one quarter of the angle measurement was finished. In 1924 four parties will be able to conclude the angle measurements and measure the base line at the north end of the section, thus completing the work.
British Columbia-Party No. 7	 $18,130
To furnish control for the hydrographic survey of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, the provincial government of British Columia, and to serve as a basis for surveys of all kinds.
Base Lines-Party No. 8	 $7,000
These base lines are measured at intervals in triangulation nets to check the scale of the triangulation so that the effect of the accumulation of angular measurements can be checked and corrected.
Four base lines are required during 1924, one in the northern British Columbia coast net, two on the 49th parallel net and one on the Ottawa river triangulation.
Geodetic Astronomy-Party No. 9	 $4,000
Geodetic astronomy consists of the establishing of Laplace points for the determination of astronomic longitudes and azimuths at triangulation stations of the geodetic survey to improve the accuracy of the work by eliminating the bend or twist that otherwise tends to develop in the triangulation.
The establishing of Laplace points is one of the most important phases of field astronomic work and is one of the most essential parts of the field work of the Geodetic Survey of Canada.	#
Six Laplace stations are required in 1924, two along the B.C.-Alberta boundary, three along the 49th parallel and one on the Ottawa river.
Precise Levelling-Parties No. 10 to 12. $20,000
This work is for the purpose of determining the elevations above mean sea level of points to serve as bases for surveys of all kinds.
Three parties will be sent out, two in Quebec and one in British Columbia.
That covers the work of the parties.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Is part of this vote to be used for building towers? If so, are the towers to be permanent structures?


Charles A. Stewart: These towers are for the purpose of taking very long observations.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: But are they permanent structures?


Charles A. Stewart: They are built of wood and will last the ordinary lifetime of wood.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I ask the question because about seven years ago one of these towers was built on a high hill within four miles of where I live. It was constructed of fir and spruce, the least durable of woods, and fell down a few years later. It must have cost a considerable sum of money as quite a large party was engaged in its construction, which occupied some time. To construct towers of such material is in my opinion simply a waste of money and labour, for they will last at best only three or four years. There is plenty of cedar in that country, and it would be more economical to use it in these towers.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: Cedar is very scarce on
hilltops.
Mr. CAT,DWELL: But at the foot of hills there is cedar.


Charles A. Stewart: I am informed that these towers are now constructed in conjunction with the Forestry branch of the New Brunswick government and are of a much more permanent character.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: The tower of which I am speaking was not built for forestry work, the district being devoted entirely to farming. I understand that to-day the government in New Brunswick is building look-out towers in
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forest areas for fire protection service. My point is that it is a waste of energy and money to build towers of material so entirely lacking in durability.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: Is it not a fact that once the geodetic survey is completed these towers are of no further use and may be taken down?


Charles A. Stewart: That is
correct, except that now in most of the provinces wherever there are forest areas these towers are afterwards utilized for fire protection work, and therefore a little more care is being exercised in their construction. I think the tower in question was in use only two or three months.


James Dew Chaplin: It appears to me that we can save money on this geodetic survey. I notice that in 1918-19 according to the Estimates $112,000 was spent; in 1919-20, $149,000; in 1920-21, $290,000.


Charles A. Stewart: I am informed that when the boundary survey was nearly completed a number of the men came into this department, which, with the returned soldier problem, accounts for the $290,000 voted in 1920-21. In 1922-23 the same condition prevailed. The work has expanded; there is no doubt about that. This year we are trying to get back to the old condition of affairs, and to that end we have cut off $50,000.


James Dew Chaplin: In 1921-22 there was an
item in the estimates of $37,000 for international boundaries, and in 1922-23 an amount of $35,000. They were in separate items, and they did not appear under the geodetic survey. In 1921-22 there was $325,000 for the geodetic survey and in 1922-23 a similar amount. In 1918-19 the amount was $112,000 and in 191920, $149,000. I think it is time we got back to the level,-back to the ground.


Charles A. Stewart: The reclassification of these services added a considerable amount to the expenditure. My hon. friend is referring to years when the service was perhaps at its lowest, following the period of the war. When a man moves out his position is not filled, and we are cutting down services as fast as we can without creating too great hardship. Not that I am asking that the government carry a group of men who are not rendering service; that is not my point at all. If these men had been continued on the day rate basis I do not think they would have had serious complaint to offer had their work been discontinued, but I think it is only fair to those men who were blanketed in in 1919 that we should proceed

as we are doing. Throughout the whole of the Interior department we are reducing the services as fast as we can, and I expect to reduce in the same way next year until we get back to where we were in 1916-17.


James Dew Chaplin: Last year there was no
reduction at all. We asked for a reduction and the minister told us pretty much what he is telling us now. After three or four years of high pressure he now takes off $50,000 That is no reduction at all; we are still double what we were in 1918-19 and 1919-20.


Mr. LEADER:: I notice in the Auditor
General's report that some men engaged in this work get a living allowance of so much per day and at the same time charge so much for board and lodging. I wonder if they can do that.


Charles A. Stewart: I think I have in mind the case my hon. friend mentions. This man was brought here in 1921-


Harry Leader: I did not have that particular case in mind, but as the minister has mentioned it I may be allowed to refer to it. In 1921 the Field Superintendent of Irrigation was brought from Calgary to Ottawa to perform special duties here. An order in council was passed on, I think, the 23rd of July, granting him a living allowance of $6 per day. In January, 1922, an order in council was passed granting him $1,086.50 to bring his family from Calgary to Ottawa. It is now over three years since he was moved from Calgary to Ottawa. He is permanently situated here, drawing his regular salary, and at the same time he is drawing this $6 living allowance. I would like to ask the minister if they can do that.


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, I will have to admit they can do that. The regulations provide that when you move a man from his headquarters you pay his removal expenses if he receives no increase in pay. We had a great many of these last year because we have been closing offices, moving men about and trying to cut down the staff with a view to economy. If there is an increase in pay the removal expenses are not paid. In this case, as I understand it-this happened before I came into the office-Mr. Peters was brought from Calgary in connection with the reorganization of the survey staffs. I am not denying that there have been difficulties in that connection and that things have not been as smooth as we would like in the reorganization work. Subsequent to his arrival here, after a very considerable delay a competition was arranged by the

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Civil Service Commission and Mr. Shanks was given the position. As soon as this was brought to my attention the living allowance to Mr. Peters was stopped; that was some time about the middle of last summer. Mr. Peters is here, but he has drawn no living allowance since then. Mr. Shanks is confirmed in the position by the Civil Service Commission. Mr. Peters was up to the time of his removal here a permanent official of the Surveys branch, attached to the Irrigation branch at Calgary. I did not follow my hon. friend's question about living expenses.


Harry Leader: On page K-179 of the Auditor General's report it is shown that Mr. Rannie is allowed $5 per diem for living expenses while at the same time he charges for lodging and board.


Charles A. Stewart: That is quite correct. There is provision for $5 a day when they are away from Ottawa on their inspection work.


Harry Leader: The minister knows that Mr. Peters was drawing his regular salary and in addition to that drew a living allowance of $6 a day for over two years. Is that in the interests of economy? I think any man in the public service should be satisfied with one salary. One is sufficient, it seems to me, and I am sure the people would think so too. If the custom is otherwise, the quicker we stop it the better.


Charles A. Stewart: I agree
thoroughly with my hon. friend. There have been a good many cases in which delay has occurred, particularly with respect to removals and adjustments of this kind. I know of no case so long as that mentioned by my hon. friend, but I may cite one case of an agent being removed from Moose Jaw to Lethbridge. In that case it was over four months before he was confirmed in his position, and under the regulations we paid during that period a living allowance, just as we do to Mr. Rannie when he leaves his headquarters and goes out on inspectional work. We also pay the moving expenses if there is no increase in salary.


Harry Leader: I would like to read the
last sentence of a letter from Mr. W. W. Cory, the deputy minister, in regard to this question:
In the meantime, however, until this is settled, I don't think he should be called upon to make any refund, on the contrary we should continue to pay the living allowance authorized by Council.


Charles A. Stewart: (Argenteuil):	I stopped
that living allowance at once.


Henry Herbert Stevens: If I caught the minister
correctly he said a moment ago that the living allowance of this gentleman, Mr. Peters, was cut off the middle of last year.


Charles A. Stewart: I have not the exact date, but it was some time last year. It was at the date that Mr. Shanks was confirmed in the position.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am not referring to
that incident, but I am under the impression that in the Auditor General's report there is a letter from the Auditor General to the Treasury Board dated about the end of January of this year in which he objects to the continuance of this allowance being paid to Mr. Peters, but he waived further objection on the distinct understanding that Mr. Peters was immediately to go back to Calgary. It was something to that effect.


Charles A. Stewart: I think I
am right about that.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The minister may be
right. I have not the Auditor General's report under my hand or I could read the letter. In any case a protest was made by the Auditor General on two or three occasions and finally he appealed to the Treasury Board, and the question which I think it is proper to ask the minister to explain is why the department persisted in continuing this man's living allowance in Ottawa when his services were certainly not required here for many, many months, and when it is doubtful if he should have been allowed to stay here for perhaps the last year under the circumstances. I do not wish to embarrass the minister too much. I know he has a lot to look after, the Post Office Department on top of his own, and perhaps it is unfair to expect him to know too much about his own department. It might be well to have a new Postmaster General to help him out in his labours. But I think it is wholly unfair to the country, and absolutely unwise from an administration standpoint to keep expensive officials comparatively idle, and when I say that I think I am speaking very, very kindly about this gentleman, and continuing to pay him a living allowance in addition to a very handsome salary over a period of-I have forgotten just how long but it was quite a long period, a year and a half or thereabouts. Furthermore, I think that when the Auditor General merely drew the minister's attention to the fact it should have been remedied at once, and the Auditor General should not have been forced to go to the Treasury Board and get a further ruling on the matter; and then only at the last
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moment under a strict stipulation that the man should go at once out of the city and back to his former haunts was the payment authorized.


Charles A. Stewart: I am sure
no living allowance has been paid him since October.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The minister is quite
sure of that?


Charles A. Stewart: I am
taking the word of my official.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I do not question the
minister's sincerity, but I am a little doubtful of his accuracy.


Charles A. Stewart: My recollection of the circumstances is quite clear. When Mr. Shanks was confirmed in the position I at once gave instructions that the living allowance for this man was to be discontinued. As a matter of fact, I am not at all in sympathy with that sort of thing.


James Dew Chaplin: Do I understand the
minister to mean that he is continuing this service for the purpose of keeping certain men employed?


Charles A. Stewart: No.


James Dew Chaplin: I took that certainly
from what the minister said a few moments ago.


Charles A. Stewart: After the
period of the war a large addition was made to the staff. I am not for one moment suggesting that this is not a valuable service, because I think it is, for all other survey work must commence from the work done by the geodetic survey. Neither am I making the excuse that we could not get along with perhaps less men, but I do ask the indulgence of the committee to allow me to cut down reasonably in this case as I did in the other. I have cut off $50,000 from this vote this year. I can say to my hon. friend that this is not work that deteriorates in value or is lost; it is very valuable work .
It is pointed out to me that a great many requests come to me for this work, and that is true. We are not able to satisfy perhaps 75 per cent of the requests we get for precise levelling and surveys along the shores for the purposes of navigation and charting. I can only plead with the committee to take a reasonable view of this matter. I am cutting this service just as fast as I think we should be warranted in doing, having in mind the service that has to be performed and the difficulties we have in cutting down the staff. This is not a service that has been inaugurated

since the war. Many of the men in this service enlisted, and when they returned from the war they expected to get their jobs back, and ail credit to the old government that gave them their jobs back. Now we have the responsibility of cutting down this staff, which includes many returned soldiers, and turning them adrift when there is little to do; but it will have to be done.


Harry Leader: This is really a very important matter. A principle is involved. I do not doubt the minister's word for a moment, but it is possible that he is not as conversant with the details of his department as he might be. I think it would be well for me to read the letter of protest from the Acting Auditor General, dated December 13, 1923. He says:
Sir-On July 23rd, 1921, an Order in Council (P.C. 83/2614) was passed granting to Mr. F. H. Peters, Field Superintendent of Irrigation at Calgary, who was called to Ottawa to be temporarily assigned to special duties in the Department of the Interior, a living allowance from March 1st, 1921, of $6.00 a day while on special duty in Ottawa.
On January 31st, 1922 an Order in Council (P.C. 41/200) was passed authorizing the payment to Mr. Peters of the sum of $1,084.50 being the amount of his removal expenses from Calgary to Ottawa. From the accounts rendered in support of this claim Mr. Peters appears to have removed his family from Calgary to Ottawa in the early part of October, 1921.
Although Mr. Peters was paid his removal expenses nearly two years ago the Department of the Interior has continued to pay, and is still paying, the per diem allowance of $6.00 to Mr. Peters, on the grounds that he has not yet been permanently assigned to duties in Ottawa, but that he still holds the position of Field Superintendent of Irrigation with headquarters (nominally) at Calgary.
As the payment of this living allowance has been continued for such an extended period I should like to be informed if it was the intention of the Treasury Board that it should be paid so long as Mr. Peters was retained in Ottawa, notwithstanding the fact that his removal expenses were also paid some two years ago. The last official intimation that I have as to the payments to Mr. Peters makes the total amount of $5,850 paid him on account of living allowance up to October 31st, last, in addition to the $1,084.50 paid as removal expenses.
There is another letter here dated January 10, 1924 from Mr. J. C. Saunders, secretary of Treasury Board, which reads as follows:
Dear Sir,-I beg to acknowledge receipt of your communication of the 13th, ultimo, concerning continuation of per diem living allowance to Mr. F. H. Peters of the Department of Interior.
The Treasury Board, after full consideration of the special circumstances connected with this case, and in view of Mr. Peters' return to Calgary at an early date, are of the opinion that payment of his living allowance may be continued until his departure from Ottawa.
That is over three years ago and he is still drawing his $6 per diem according to this correspondence. I am sure the minister is not cognizant of the real situation.

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Charles A. Stewart: I know that I issued instructions to discontinue this. That is the statement I have to make in respect to this matter.


Harry Leader: When did you issue instructions to have this per diem allowance of $6 stopped?


Charles A. Stewart: I would not like to state.


Harry Leader: The last letter I quoted was dated January 10, 1924.


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Henry Herbert Stevens: There is a letter dated as far back as June, 1923, drawing attention to this very same matter. I agree with the hon. member who has just spoken, there is a principle involved in this. At least those responsible for the payment of this allowance ought to be taken to task.


Charles A. Stewart: If my hon. friend will let the matter stand we can take it up later. In the meantime I will endeavour to be certain of my information. This matter has nothing to do with the particular item under consideration, but I would like to be sure of my facts before discussing it.


James Dew Chaplin: Did I understand the minister to say a few moments ago that as men die or are retired no new appointments are made in this department?


Charles A. Stewart: We have been discontinuing as many appointments as we could, and making transfers to other points.


James Dew Chaplin: Could the minister state
how many new people have been taken on in the last two years?


Charles A. Stewart: I was speaking of last year.


James Dew Chaplin: Well, give the information for last year.


Charles A. Stewart: There were none last year.


Henry Herbert Stevens: How much was spent in this department last year?


Charles A. Stewart: The accounts may not all be in for last year. There was $343,000 the year before last and $315,000 so far for last year.


Mr. HANSON:: How much salary did this field secretary draw in addition to the handsome bonus of $6 a day?



REVISED

Charles A. Stewart: The sum of $4,500.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Does the minister say we will be able to discuss the case of this Mr. Peters?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I gathered from what the minister said that one of the reasons why he was not reducing this vote further this year was because a great many of these men were returned soldiers and he felt the country owed it to them to continue their employment.


Charles A. Stewart: No. I would not like to put it that way.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: How many of the men in this department are returned men?


Charles A. Stewart: About 75 per cent of the field engineers.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: What percentage of the whole force would these field engineers be?


Charles A. Stewart: Almost 75 per cent.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: The more I think it
over the less I like this vote, largely owing to the fact that I think it is not one of the essentials. That may be due to my ignorance of the character of the work that is carried on, or at least some of it. But in view of the fact that we have a big cut of $250,000 in connection with the Health of Animals Act, and another reduction of $50,000 in the estimates for the Health department, a very important one too having reference to combating venereal disease, and numerous others, it looks to me as if we are proposing here to spend too much money in non-essentials. That is my candid opinion as a member of the House. Then it must also be remembered that the grant for agricultural instruction to the provinces has been discontinued. In view of these facts I think the country at large will view expenditure of this kind with a great deal of disfavour. As members of parliament our object should be to cut out all the unnecessary frills at the present time.


Charles A. Stewart: In reply to my hon. friend I would just say that this is a basis for all survey work. It is the charting of our shore line. Most of this work, as hon. gentlemen know, is done in the East, but I am not offering that as any special reason why it should be continued. I agree with my hon. friend that unnecessary expenditure should be cut to the bone; but all survey work of every character, whether it is



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of a municipal or provincial character starts and hinges on these accurate points, and the very best engineers in the service are employed on this work. And indeed it is a most important one. If I had not inherited this work I could probably say to my hon. friend "Yes we can slash right and left." I think that in comparison with the cuts in the other votes I have not been backward. I have tried to cut the estimates of my department from one end to the other, sometimes in a very arbitrary way.
Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Does the minister contend that there is a large part of our coast line in the Maritime provinces that is not yet charted? If so what benefit to the charting of a coast line would the construction of these towers made of fir poles be? These towers are erected on the top of bald hills from which you can see twenty miles in any direction. The erection of such towers is rather a jbke to our people.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend ctoes not, perhaps, realize the full significance of the work done by these men. I confess that when I came into contact with it at first I did not know of its great value to the country. I am bound to say that I believe the work to be of a very considerable value. It results in the establishment of fixed and definite points from which you can hitch on all other surveys. If that is so, surely it is of very material benefit to the districts concerned, and surely the coast line work is of very considerable importance.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Is there much of our eastern coast line that is not charted?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, I am told fully 75 per cent of it is not charted fully and properly.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: That is a surprise to me.


Charles A. Stewart: I have to take the word of the engineer for this.. In my opinion this is more important work perhaps than the money expended even on your agricultural education, valuable and all as it is. I have had some experience in my younger days in Ontario with difficulties over surveys and the cost entailed in lawsuits and litigation because definite and accurate points were not and could not be established. I am not going to argue that it should be carried on at this cost for all time to come. Perhaps it should and perhaps it should not but I am endeavouring to cut it down as fast as I can throughout the department. I have made a very large cut 
in all the surveys of the Department of the Interior, with the single exception of that of forest protection, and there is an increase there which I think I can justify.
Mr) CALDWELL: I think so, too.


John Jabez Thurston: For how many years has this survey been carried on?


Charles A. Stewart: It commenced in 1909.


Arthur Meighen: The minister said that in the past in this branch whenever there had been a vacancy by death, resignation or removal it had not been filled.


Charles A. Stewart: In the past year.


Arthur Meighen: He said he was cutting down in that way. Then he gave the figures showing that he spent all the money voted, which was the highest ever voted for this branch. How does he reconcile the two positions, unless there were no resignations, no deaths, and no removals?


Charles A. Stewart: The answer is that work was carried on for a greater length of time with the same body of men than had ever been done before. There was a longer season of work, but there was no increase in staff.


Arthur Meighen: I did not allege there was, but there was no diminution because there could not have been a diminution when all the money was spent.


Charles A. Stewart: I can point to an anomaly in the case of the Interior department under the heading of civil government. To my astonishment, although we have cut off a very considerable amount, and in spite of the fact that we have some 25 less employees, we are going to ask for more money than ever this year. The statutory increases in a fairly large service amount to a very considerable sum. There was a reduction of sixteen at all events and yet I was faced with a larger expenditure.


Arthur Meighen: And still the minister is a party to the order in council instructing the Civil Service Commission to revise salaries all upwards again.


Charles A. Stewart: No, if the hon. gentleman will look at the order in council closely, the instruction is not to revise them upwards or to revise them downwards.


Arthur Meighen: What kind of revision is wanted?

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Charles A. Stewart: The instruction of the order in council is to discontinue the bonus and to take into consideration the condition in which these civil servants now are and to revise the salaries accordingly. The bonus applies to those receiving up to $2,400 and not beyond.


Arthur Meighen: The minister cannot
escape m that way at all. That is not the way the order in council reads. The government take off a certain part of the bonus. Then, in response to the demand of the civil servants, they pass an order in council saying to the commission, "It is true we took the bonus off, but now you go to work and revise the salaries." They have to be revised either downwards or upwards. I do not know what a level revision would be, I am sure.


Charles A. Stewart: I do not
suggest that.


Arthur Meighen: Is the revision upwards? The minister complains he is helpless in his department because of the statutory increases. Then how does he explain being a party to the order in council?


Charles A. Stewart: I simply
maintain that the order in council does not direct the Civil Service Commis-
9	p.m. sion to increase the salaries or decrease them. It is left to their judgment in the matter. There is no direction to the Civil Service Commission, but the request of the government is to discontinue the bonus.


Arthur Meighen: The government does that. The Civil Service Commission has nothing to do with it. The government have discontinued the bonus, and they say to the Civil Service Commission, " Here, we throw the whole of the salaries right to you, and we tell you we have discontinued the bonus, and now we want you on that account to revise the salaries." Does the minister want to intimate to the committee that that is not a request to revise upwards?


Charles A. Stewart: No.


Arthur Meighen: Why would the government base the request upon the withdrawal of the bonus if it were not to revise upwards? I am objecting to the minister saying " Here we are doing everything on earth to reduce expenses, but there are those statutory increases which we are not responsible for. We find them there and we have to abide by them. They are coming down on our heads like hammers." Then he proceeds
71i
and sends the statutory increases and the whole schedule to the Civil Service Commission, with implied instructions undoubtedly to revise upwards.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon. friend is stating a case which does not exist. There are no implied instructions. The order speaks for itself. It is before the House. The directions of the sub-committee are attached to it. They speak for themselves.


Arthur Meighen: I have read them.


Charles A. Stewart: My right hon.
. friend will admit that there is no instruction given to the Civil Service' Commission as to what they should do. I merely made a statement as to the condition of affairs as I found it. I am not saying who is responsible for it, but I say that is the case.


Arthur Meighen: Why did the minister and his colleagues consider another revision now necessary. What is the reason?


Charles A. Stewart: The only reason is to get rid of the bonus which is a very vexatious thing.


Arthur Meighen: The minister cannot put it in that way. The government can get rid of the bonus, they do not need to go to the Civil Service Commission for that, and they have done it as far as they intend to do it. Why was the matter of the revision put up to the Civil Service Commission? If the minister can give me any explanation that does not require an upward revision I would like to hear it.


Charles A. Stewart: My right hon. friend knows very well that the Civil Service Commission is the body who fix the remuneration as well as the classification. They are the ultimate body who make the recommendation.


Arthur Meighen: No, no.


Charles A. Stewart: They recommend to the government and the government accepts the recommendation but they are the adjusting body.


Arthur Meighen: The working body.


Charles A. Stewart: Whom else
would it be referred to?


Arthur Meighen: I am not paying it is
not the right body, but I want to know why it was referred to anybody unless it was with the implied instructions to revise up. Can the minister give me any other object it could possibly have had, seeing it was based on the fact that the government had withdrawn a part of the bonus?
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Charles A. Stewart: My right
hon. friend is making the deduction.


Arthur Meighen: What deduction?


Charles A. Stewart: The deduction that because the matter is referred to the Civil Service Commission, it means an upward revision. I do not agree to that at all.


Arthur Meighen: What was the purpose?


Charles A. Stewart: The right
hon. member may make that assertion if he likes.	.


Arthur Meighen: What was the purpose?


Charles A. Stewart: The purpose was simply to make an adjustment.


Arthur Meighen: Why was it necessary?


Charles A. Stewart: Having in
mind the discontinuance of the bonus.


Arthur Meighen: Hear, hear.


Charles A. Stewart: That is all, and there may be cases where the salaries will be revised downwards.


Arthur Meighen: On account of the bonus being taken off.


Charles A. Stewart: I am not
speaking of the bonus being taken off. That might happen. That is for the Civil Service Commission.


Arthur Meighen: On account of the bonus being taken off, the government thought it would refer the matter to the Civil Service Commission, to see what revision downwards would take place.


Mr. BUREAU:: Does my right hon. friend object to the revision of salaries?


Arthur Meighen: I object to the ministers, including the one who is moving these estimates, complaining of the statute which compels an upward revision year by year.


Jacques Bureau: That does not answer my question. I did not ask for a speech. I asked the right hon. gentleman:	Does he
object to the revision of salaries?


Arthur Meighen: I want to know first
what the revision is to be, up or down. The minister (fees not seem to know.


Jacques Bureau: I am not going to define " revision " to my right hon. friend, but it is submitted to the commission.


Arthur Meighen: The revision as understood by the minister, to which I object, is neither up nor down. It has no purpose.


Jacques Bureau: It has a purpose.


Arthur Meighen: What is it?


Jacques Bureau: What does one revise the statutes for? What does one revise anything for? If my knowledge of the English language is not deficient, revision is in order to adjust. If there is anything wrong, you are going to make it right, if you can. That is my understanding of it.


Arthur Meighen: What did the government think was wrong?


Jacques Bureau: We do not say that we thought anything was wrong.


Arthur Meighen: Oh, oh.


Jacques Bureau: My right hon. friend need not sidestep. He wants to know why the revision. Is that what it was?


Arthur Meighen: Why it was ordered.


Jacques Bureau: Because the time had come to readjust those salaries. The salaries were not adjusted because during the war certain increases were granted and rightly so. I am not disputing them. Things are now getting normal. The civil servants are dissatisfied and they want revision. We want efficiency, and in order to get efficiency you must show those people that you are human; that you understand their wants. The proper tribunal to do that work was the Civil Service Commission and we referred it to that commission. Whether it will be necessary to raise or to decrease salaries, I do not know; that will be for the Civil Service Commission to say, but my right hon. friend can place any implication he likes on it. That however, has nothing to do with the fact that the matter was referred back to the Civil Service Commission.


Arthur Meighen: I have been considerably assisted by the Minister of Customs and Excise (Mr. Bureau), and I am deeply grateful to him.


Jacques Bureau: That is the first time my right hon. friend has been. I appreciate that.


Arthur Meighen: The civil servants were dissatisfied, and the government being human and desiring to meet their wants, gave a revision. I will take that, with the statement of the Minister of the Interior, as sufficient warrant for the implication that the revision is a revision upwards.


Charles A. Stewart: I do not
want the right hon. gentleman to put me in the position of saying that it is a revision upwards.

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Henry Herbert Stevens: Inasmuch as, according
to the minister's statement of a moment or two ago, the revision is limited to salaries under $2,000, then the minister and the government are limiting their revision up or revision down to the lower-paid services. An examination of salaries paid in this department, as shown in the estimates, indicates, for instance, that for 125 clerks, the total increase is only $2,000. These are the classes whose salaries are to be scrutinised, and scrutinised with care. On the other hand we have a long list of highly paid officials, with salaries running from $8,000 to about $3,000, all of whom are receiving annually an increase approximating very closely to the total increases of thirty or forty of the lower-paid classes. That is the criticism we have of these expenditures. That is why we are criticizing the minister's statement of a moment ago that he finds by reducing his staff by sixteen-and I have the figures here and I am merely using this because the minister introduced it into the discussion- an increase of a considerable sum. But these increases are in the higher-paid grades, and that is the point which we are criticizing. If there is to be a revision, or even a review of civil service salaries, why pick on the postman at $960 or less? I will give my hon. friend some at $937. Forty-four clerks between them get an increase of $600 and they are all low paid officials. They are the ones who are going to be subjected to a review or revision.


Jacques Bureau: No, there is no limit.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am just basing my
argument on the statement made by the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) that this order in council is limited to salaries up to $2,000.


Jacques Bureau: There is no limit.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend will remember very well that when the bonuses were first instituted, they applied, I think, to salaries as high as $4,500. There is no one in the Civil Service who will be refused recognition before the commission, nor does the order in council say that the revision is confined to salaries which are now drawing a bonus, being those amounting to $2,400 and under.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will the order in council take care of the legitimate excuse advanced by the minister a moment ago that the extra cost, in spite of curtailment, was due to statutory increases? Does the order in council empower the Civil Service Commission to correct that in any way or even to make recommendations that will correct it?


Charles A. Stewart: Speaking personally, I should be very glad if some suggestions were made for amendments to the Civil Service Act; but that act, as my hon. friend well knows, provides for regular and statutory increases up to certain maximums in certain classes. No portion of the Civil Service coming under the supervision of the Civil Service Commission will be denied the right to a hearing and scrutiny by the Civil Service Commission in regard to their class.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That right to a hearing would apply only to a revision upwards,-not to a revision downwards. I do not suppose the Civil Service Commission will be deluged with demands for reductions. That is scarcely, to use the minister's term of a moment ago, human; we would not expect that. All the courtesy extended by the government to the Civil Service is more or less of a joke. It really is not a serious matter at all.


Jacques Bureau: The revision?


Henry Herbert Stevens: No, the courtesy extended to the Civil Service to apply to the commission for revision down.


Harry Leader: I have no objection to
sufficient salaries being drawn; in fact, I wish we could all draw sufficient to keep us in luxury; but I object to anyone drawing two salaries and to men being overpaid. I should like to draw the minister's attention to a complaint made by the Auditor General in connection with the geodetic and astronomic surveys. This letter reads:
Audit Office, Ottawa, June 12, 1923.
Sir _in February last, when a number of your officials employed in the Geodetic Survey and the Astronomical branches of your department had the date of their permanency dated back by the Civil Service Commission from April 1, 1921, to April 1, 1919, a paylist was submitted to this office for the adjustment of the arrears. In that paylist the following officials were shown to be still overpaid to the extent of the amount set
after their names:
A. J. Brabazon, overpaid	 $27 50
W. M. Dennis, overpaid	 114 50
E. G. Gerard, overpaid	 7 35
T. C. Dennis, overpaid	 93 00
A. J. Rainboth, overpaid	 58 10
J. F. Dolan, overpaid	 33 07
Thos. Hackett, overpaid	 13 75
As these overpayments or any part of them do not appear as yet to have been recovered, I have to ask what action your department has taken or proposes to take with regard to the same.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
Wm Kearns, Asst. A.G.
What action has been taken in collecting these overpayments? Might I suggest that if
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this should be more convenient for the minister, we might let this rest until he brings us the information regarding F. H. Peters. I repeat, Mr. Chairman, if it is more convenient we might wait for this information.


Charles A. Stewart: I will bring down the full information. This is the first time the matter has come to my notice.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Will the minister also
bring down information regarding the number of increases that have taken place since December 6, 1921?


Arthur Meighen: Increases?


Lewis Herbert Martell: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: Without being statutory increases? Inasmuch as some hon. members may not understand the nature of the statutory increases, I would ask the minister to confirm my statement to the committee that the statutory increases are wholly within his discretion; that is to say, he can withhold them.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Have they ever been
denied at any time?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


Jacques Bureau: Without cause?


Arthur Meighen: They are wholly within the discretion of the minister.


Jacques Bureau: Not without cause.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly not; they never are, under a good minister.


Jacques Bureau: It is all right to say that this is wholly within the discretion of the minister, but he follows a certain well established policy. My right hon. friend does not mean to say that indiscriminately any statutory increase is refused without cause?


Arthur Meighen: No, I do not say it has
been. I say that if the minister or the government felt that owing to different conditions obtaining, either in the treasury or throughout the country-a reduction in the cost of living, for instance-he or they would have that power and would be justified-


Jacques Bureau: I do not know.


Arthur Meighen: -in denying any statutory increases.


Jacques Bureau: He would have the power, but that he would be justified in exercising it

I am not ready to admit, because the refusal of a statutory increase, as my right hon. friend well knows, is a kind of punishment imposed upon a man.


Arthur Meighen: That has been the practice.


Jacques Bureau: That is the policy which
has always been followed. If we were to depart from it, my right hon. friend does not mean to say that we could invoke, for instance stringent times and say to a civil servant, " You shall not have your statutory increase." That was never understood by the civil servant when he came into the service, nor has it been the policy of the departments under any government. Surely if a civil servant knew that his statutory increase would depend on the whim of a minister he would hesitate to enter the service.


Arthur Meighen: The minister's statement of the practice is perfectly correct. The practice has been to let the statutory increases go as a matter of course, unless there were individual reasons for any being withheld. It must also be said that in the past it has never been believed that any general cause existed that would justify the general withdrawal of statutory increases. I would not say that any such general cause exists to-day. I do not think it does; but I say that if the government felt it did, on either of the two grounds I mentioned-


Jacques Bureau: 


Arthur Meighen: -the government has ample power, and I know of no reason why it should not exercise such power.


Jacques Bureau: If the sea were boiling the fish would be cooked.


William Garland McQuarrie: Would the minister
explain the compensation to John Hedin?


Charles A. Stewart: This man
was injured on the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario railway.
John Hedin was a section man in the employ of the T. and N.O. Railway and was injured on October 17, 1921, in a collision between our precise levelling party's motor car and a section motor car on which Hedin was riding. It has not been brought out that the accident was either party's fault-it was apparently an unavoidable occurrence.
The raihvay referred the case to the Workmen's Compensation Board of Ontario in the regular manner and they awarded Hedin the sum of $994.40 for medical and hospital services and loss of time, together with a pension of $20 per month for life for permanent partial disability.
)

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The Department of Justice ruled on July 6, 1923, that our department was not liable under the terms of the agreement with the T. and N. O. Railway covering the operation of motor cars for precise levelling purposes.
Mr. Lee, the chairman of the T. and N. O. Railway Commission, urged however, that this department should reimburse the commission for the full amount of the award on the grounds of moral responsibility, since the accident would not have happened but for the presence of our party on the line. He also intimated that no further geodetic operations along the railway would be permitted until an adjustment of the matter, satisfactory to them, has been made. In view of the moral responsibility which undoubtedly exists and of the hindrance which would be caused to geodetic operations by the railway's refusal to allow same on their property, it has been considered proper that payment of the claim be arranged on other than legal grounds.
So we are paying in all $1,564.40 as compensation.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
International boundaries-Expenses connected with the survey and demarcation of international boundaries, $20,000.
Mr. LEWIS:: Is this the minimum requirement for international boundaries? For the past two sessions the minister has stated that the item voted would be the last required except a small amount annually for repairs.
Mr. STEWART (Argenteuil) My hon. friend is quite correct in his statement, which I based on the information then before me. I am now informed that, in accordance with the treaty under which this work is earned on with the United States, our annual expenditure for keeping up the monuments will be in the neighbourhood of $20,000 a year. I have not investigated further on the point.


William Garland McQuarrie: What are the details of this item?


Arthur John Lewis: Does the United States pay
the same amount annually?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Milton Neil Campbell: Will this be a permanent expenditure?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, approximating $20,000.	The details of the
item are as follows:
J. A. Pounder, Geodetic engineer	 12,520 00
G. T. Prinsep, Geodetic engineer	 2,520 00
T. P. Reilly, Jr., Geodetic engineer.. .. 2,040 00 D. F. Chisholm, Jr. Geodetic engineer.. 2,040 00 J. N. Ingersoll, Jr., Geodetic engineer.. 2,040 00
Florence Swallow, Clerk typist	 1,140 00
J. M. Dwyer, Clerk messenger	 900 00
Those salaries total $13,200. Then we have:
Engraving and printing of maps and printing of reports, $5,000.
To provide for repairing and renewing monuments and reference marks on the Quebec-Maine and New Bruns-wick-Maine boundary lines, $800.


William Garland McQuarrie: Why are maps necessary?


Charles A. Stewart: The maps
are necessaiy to show the markings along the boundary line. Mr. McArthur, who is in charge of this work, has informed me that we have cut his appropriation to such an extent that he fears he will be unable to meet the expenditure required by the American members of the commission. But I have been told quite frequently that this was about the necessary amount, and I have placed it at that.


William Garland McQuarrie: How much was spent
last year?


Charles A. Stewart: $42,940.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Government of the Yukon Territory-
Salaries and expenses connected with the administration of the Territory	 $ 65,000
Grant to Local Council	 45,000
Grant for maintenance and construction of roads	 70,000
George Black: Why is it that the third item in this vote has been reduced from $80,000 to $70,000? It is an appropriation that is absolutely necessary to the development of the country, yet it is reduced while the others are maintained at the same figure.


Charles A. Stewart: We made
a very substantial increase in the road appropriations a year ago, I think, and my information was that that increase largely covered the necessities. Having in mind the Mayo camp and the necessity for maintenance of transportation facilities in that connection I did not feel like cutting the amount more seriously. If I remember correctly, prior to last year the appropriation was $50,000 and it was increased last year for the very purpose of giving access to this mining territory, which is not served by a railway. It is felt that $70,000 will provide the needed improvements and maintenance.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Will the minister explain the second item, grant to local council?


Charles A. Stewart: That is to
pay the running of the local legislature in the Yukon.


Mr. SPEAKMAN:: What is the present
population of the Yukon?
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Charles A. Stewart: Between
three and four thousand whites, with a considerable Indian population.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: What are the salaries included in the item of $65,000?


Charles A. Stewart: The details are as follows:
Amount required for salaries	 $19,400
Amount required for living allowances	 15,900
Insane patients: Expenses connected with transportation to and maintenance in the Insane Hospital, and Provincial Mental Hospital at New Westminster, B.C., also for maintenance
in R.C.M.P. barracks at Dawson and Whitehorse	 15,000
Travelling expenses of outside officials to and
from Dawson	and in	the Territory	 3,000
Printing and stationery	 2,500
Expenses connected with the collection of export tax by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers. They receive 50c per day while on that	special	duty	 500
To pay commission of 10 per cent to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials on sums
collected by them as mining recorders, mining inspectors, and Crown timber and
land agents	 750
Miscellaneous: freight and express charges, telegrams, telephones, postage and unforeseen expenses	 7 950
Total	 $65,000


Alfred Speakman: How many local councillors are there in the Yukon?


Charles A. Stewart: Three.


Alfred Speakman: Are the whole expenses of this council paid by the federal government?


George Black: The grant to the
local council is for the expenditure made by the council. The local councillors are paid an indemnity of $400 each, and out of the grant they maintain hospitals, schools and the other necessary institutions of the country. Part of the $45,000 granted this year-and the same applies to other years-goes into road construction.


Arthur Meighen: There used to be a council of twelve, but under an efficient administration it was reduced to three.


Alfred Speakman: And a diminishing
population.


Arthur Meighen: There were twelve councillors while the population .was what it is now.


William Garland McQuarrie: Is there any truth in
the report which has lately been published in the press that this government has been making overtures to the government of British Columbia to take over the administration of the Yukon Territory?


Charles A. Stewart: I never
heard of it.


George Black: I have noticed
some reports in the press to that effect. The idea is not tenable at all. The Yukon is a federal territory and in no way would it be appropriate for its administration to be undertaken by the government of British Columbia. Whoever advocated the idea did so, I suppose, because the territory happens to be situated nearest to British Columbia, but it would be just as well administered by the government of Ontario or of Quebec as by the government of British Columbia. The idea is not a practical one and is not put forward by anyone who has practical ideas on the subject. In fact, the suggestion is only an evidence of the fact that the person making it knew nothing whatever of the subject.


Alfred Speakman: I asked my questions
not because I have any objection to a population receiving necessary service simply because it is a sparse population scattered over a large country, but viewing all the other items that have been passed, the salaries and expenses in connection with it, the expenses of the council-and I am glad to have heard the explanation of how the expenditure is made up-the grant for roads, salaries for judicial administration, federal board, and all the other expenses that go with it, I was thinking that if this population continues to dwindle it is going to be expensive for us to maintain. But I am not opposing any such vote simply because the population is scanty. They are entitled to all the services that are necessary.


George Black: I would like to
make it quite clear to the hon. member that my remarks were not directed towards his question, but towards the idea that the administration of the Yukon Territory should be undertaken by the government of British Columbia.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Government of the Northwest Territories-salaries and expenses in connection with the administration of the Territories, including the erection of buildings and investigation work, etc. Establishing and operating wireless stations, including buildings, etc. Administration N.W. Game Act, etc. Explorations-salaries and contingencies, alterations and repairs to ships, etc., including $1,000.00 to J. D. Craig as officer in charge of Arctic Expeditions 1924-1925. Compassionate allowance to the widow of the late Wilfrid Caron, who was drowned off "S.S. Arctic". Compassionate allowance to the mother of the late Desmond O'Connell, who was drowned off "S.S. Arctic", $378,000.
Harry Leader: I wish to call the attention of the committee to an item which appears in the Auditor General's report in

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connection with this vote. I am sorry that we find items of this nature to criticize, but I believe it is my duty as a humble representative to bring this fact to the attention not only of the House but of the people of Canada, and I want to register my protest against it. It seems to me an illegal expenditure of public money. The item in the Auditor General's report is as follows:
1,000 Players cigarettes	$17 35
500 7-20-4 cigars	 40 00
500 Benson and Hedges cigars	 75 00


Charles A. Stewart: These supplies were placed on the S. S. Arctic. We leave policemen up in the north country throughout the whole of a very long winter, during which they see no white men till the Arctic returns and relieves them with two other men. We have three posts up there on the eastern coast of Canada. As my hon. friend knows there are exploring parties in there continuously. Indeed, we found a professor representing the Danish government up there who had spent three years on the southern end of Melville island. It might be said that perhaps this territory is not worth holding, but so far we have discovered very valuable deposits of coal up there, there may also be minerals and we thought it well to spend some money to maintain our sovereignty over that particular area. I thought I had a map here showing the posts. At all events, we have three posts up there, one at Pond's Inlet and two others, and we hope to establish two more on the eastern coast of Canada to look after the preservation of the game and enforce law and order among the native tribes to be found up there. These men, two in a company, remain up there during the whole winter season, and can only be visited during a very short time in the midsummer months. A ship will have to be sent there annually for that purpose. Last year, when this vote was under consideration, a judicial party had gone up in that country as far as Cumberland gulf to try a murderer. We had also to send a judicial party to the mouth of the Mackenzie river, to Aklavik, for the very same purpose, and we will have to send another party there this year. This may seem a considerable expenditure, but these are the outposts of civilization, they are expensive to reach, and can be reached only during a very limited time.


Mr LEADER:: I presume the judicial party are drawing their salaries to maintain them?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Harry Leader: Then why furnish them with these cigars and cigarettes? Let them buy their own. It is the already overburdened taxpayers of Canada who have to foot the bill. This is a small item, but there is a principle involved, and it runs all the way through. I think we cannot condemn it too strongly.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend will remember that we are sending up there an official party representing the government of Canada. They meet other parties, representatives of foreign countries, and I do not think in view of the circumstances we have been over-extravagant in putting a few packages of cigarettes and some tobacco on board the ship for that purpose, but if we have I will see that it does not go this year.


Mr. GOULD:: Why not send men there who do not smoke?


Charles A. Stewart: The smokers buy their own tobacco.


Harry Leader: Will the minister say that this is a justifiable expenditure?


Charles A. Stewart: Frankly, I have never heard of it before. I did not know they took these things, but I would not object to a reasonable amount of tobacco going with a party of that kind, officially representing the Canadian government as they do.


Harry Leader: The minister thinks that is in the interests of economy?


Georges Parent: If the cigarettes are good.


Arthur John Lewis: Is there any hope of any people ever living up there, or is there any possibility of ever digging out the coal or any mineral wealth that may be up there? I would not deny these men the pleasure of having a few cigars and cigarettes if they are meeting people in a friendly way, but is this expenditure to be continued year in and year out?


Charles A. Stewart: I think it is wise for us to exercise some oversight over the Canadian tribes, because as my hon. friend knows, if you do not protect them, the traders, who are not particularly anxious about the welfare of the native Eskimo, get in amongst them and debauch them, carry in liquor and exercise an evil influence among the tribes, and then the responsibility is ours. The Eskimo problem is beginning to be a rather serious one for us to handle, and we are establishing police posts at various points along the coast to protect the Eskimo and preserve their game.
Supply-Interior


Arthur John Lewis: My observation is that instead of protecting the Eskimo we seem to be protecting the traders, or those who go in there. We try to enforce law and order among the Eskimos, who have never been trained along that line, and when they come into contact with the law they pay the extreme penalty whereas with their grey matter and mental development they are perhaps not able to appreciate justice in the same way that we do.


Charles A. Stewart: I had the pleasure of chatting with a trader who all last winter had been at Aklavik, where a' police post has been established for some time, and he told me that they carried on pretty much as people do on the outside, although it was dark all the time. They have gramophones, and some of the natives who have come in contact with civilization have their own fishing boats and they generally, according to his report, have a rather jolly time. I believe, and I think it is freely admitted, that the Eskimo lends himself much more rapidly to civilizing influences than do the tribes of Indians to be found north of the Great Slave lake and along the Mackenzie river.


Arthur John Lewis: This work will be continued year in and year out?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes. That is to say the ship will have to visit these coasts. But we have been building houses, carrying in supplies and getting established. That work will not need to be done again.


Mr. LUCAS:: The second item for establishing and operating wireless stations, including the erection of buildings and investigation work, and so forth, shows an increase of $55,000.


Charles A. Stewart: Last year
we established two wireless stations, one at Dawson and the other at Mayo in the Yukon. This brought about I think, a veiy considerable saving, particularly in the upkeep of lines and poles. This year we are establishing other wireless stations in the territories. We shall put in a central distributing station-I think that is decided now-to be located at Edmonton. We shall put in a station at Fort Vermilion, another at Fort Smith, and thus have a means of wireless commuiciation down the McPherson, eventually establishing a complete chain of communication with the far northern posts-with the posts along the Mackenzie river and with Mayo and Dawson, the chief distributing centre being Edmonton. So that throughout the whole of the north country, during the whole period of nine months in which it is shut up by the rigorous winter, the people will have some communication with the outside world.


Arthur John Lewis: Will this item include al!
the stations in the Northwest?


Charles A. Stewart: This includes Edmonton.


Arthur John Lewis: Does it include the whole of the stations?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Henry Herbert Stevens: There is an item in this
vote for pensions?


Charles A. Stewart: I know to
what my hon. friend refers. When the Arctic was descending the St. Lawrence, after she left Quebec, she ran into a severe storm, and two of the seamen were drowned. There is a vote to provide an allowance for the widow and the relatives of the two men who were drowned on that occasion.


William Garland McQuarrie: Will the minister explain what is the situation with respect to Wrangel island?


Charles A. Stewart: There is not very much to explain. We have had a great deal of discussion with Mr. Stefansson with respect to Wrangel island. I cannot recollect just at what period this government informed him that they were not interested in Wrangel island as it lay off the coast of Siberia. But we had received information in a roundabout way that the British Admiralty might be interested in Wrangel island as a flying base. The reports were that British aviators might fly across the northern portion of Canada and on to the Orient. Stefansson went to England and interviewed the authorities there, but apparently the English government is not willing to set up any particular claim to Wrangel island, at least I have not heard that such is their intention. I do not know officially what they propose doing, but so far as Canada is concerned we do not intend to set up any claim to the island.


William Garland McQuarrie: Has the government
made any investigation with respect to the death of the men who were left on the island?


Charles A. Stewart: No, we
were not responsible for the expedition in any way.


Henry Herbert Stevens: This item makes provision for exploration does it not? Does that include the steamer Arctic?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Would the minister state just what the Arctic cost last year and what work was performed?

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mi


Charles A. Stewart: She went
on an expedition from Quebec into the Arctic circle taking a judicial party with her for the purpose of trying an Eskimo at Cumberland gulf, I think, and then on up to try to establish a post at Etah which would be the most northerly post that we have, or just opposite Etah on Melville island. However, the ice conditions did not permit her to land the material for this post and she was forced to return to the post established a year ago on the south of the island. She relieved the post there, visited the post at Pond's Inlet, then returned and picked up the judicial party and came back to Quebec.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Would the minister give
me the total figures with respect to the Arctic?


Charles A. Stewart: Sixty thousand dollars.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is the total cost of the Arctic last year? Does that include all these items for repairs? I see a long list.


Charles A. Stewart: Yes it includes the whole of the expenditure in connection with the Arctic. My hon. friend will remember that last year we purchased a ship from the British Admiralty but it was single plating and it has to be double plating.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It has to have a double bottom?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes a
double bottom. The Arctic is an old ship, a very slow sailer, and. very expensive to send into that territory. But she will carry more supplies that the newer and faster vessel that we intend to put on this service, and we will have her in commission next year when we hope to cheapen the cost of fitting out these northern posts very materially.


Robert Forke: I should like to ask the
minister if Stefansson was in the employ of the Canadian government last year in any way?


Charles A. Stewart: No. He
was granted a small amount to pay his expenses to England. That is all the connection we had with Stefansson.


Arthur John Lewis: Would the minister tell us at what time this expedition started from Quebec, and the probable date when it reached or tried to reach Melville island? I wanted to know what the ice conditions were so that I could understand the nature of the navigation in Hudson straits.


Charles A. Stewart: I think I
mentioned previously that she called at a port in Greenland.


Arthur John Lewis: At about what time?


Charles A. Stewart: If I remember rightly about the middle of July, I think about the 15th, of that month. She returned -I am not exactly sure of the date-about the last week in September.


Arthur John Lewis: During that period she was not able to reach the island on account of ice conditions?


Charles A. Stewart: I have a
very clear map here. If my hon. friend is interested in it we will be able to show what happened. She attempted to reach the most northerly point we contemplated for a post but she was shut out by the ice. I hope my hon. friend is not thinking about the entrance to Hudson bay because that is many hundreds of miles south.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I should like to ask the minister if any other government, besides the Canadian government, have established posts on any of these northern island contiguous to Canada?	.


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: And if they are making a
claim to sovereignty of any of these islands?


Charles A. Stewart: Of course
my hon. friend is aware that international law, in a vague sort of way, creates ownership of unclaimed lands within one hundred miles of any coast, even if possession has not been taken. At least there is a sort of unwritten law in that respect. Of course possession is a very large part of international lqw as well as any other law. But in this particular vicinity, at about the most northerly post we have established at the moment, in north of these islands, a Danish professor has been located for the past three years making investigations-not in any way, I imagine, attempting to establish sovereignty over these particular lands, or anything of that sort, but purely for scientific purposes, and that is the vicinity in which we found coal. In former days coal has been placed upon ships from that district, and it is not uncommon for whalers to be found there every year. That water is filled by ships from many parts of the world on whaling expeditions and trading expeditions as well; so that it is somewhat important that we should be established there.
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Harry Leader: In the Auditor General's
report, page K-240 I find the following letter:
Sir,-On August 22, 1922, cheque No. 3593 was issued against your appropriation for Northwest Territories, Explorations, in favour of V. Stefansson for the amount of $3,000. This cheque was issued under the authority of an order in council of August 21st, 1922 (P.C. 1735) which authorizes "that the sum of $3,000 be advanced to Vilhjalmur Stefansson to assist in providing for the relief of the four men who were left on Wrangel island".
As this payment was made as an advance to Mr. Stefansson, I infer that it was the intention of Council that he should render a statement of his expenditure of the same. No accounts covering this advance have, however, been received in this office, and I understand that no accounts have been received in your department. Kindly take steps to obtain a statement from Mr. Stefansson showing how this money was expended.
That is signed by the Assistant Auditor General, and I would like the minister to explain the details in regard to this advance.


Arthur John Lewis: While the deputy is looking up that information, perhaps the minister would answer me a question. He mentioned the fact that whaling vessels entered into that vicinity where we have outposts. How long were they in that vicinity in the summer time? Has the minister any record at all?
Mr. STEWART. (Argenteuil):	Nothing
but Captain Bernier's reports in which he states that he does not like to stay in these northern waters longer than thirty days at the most.
I may say for the information of my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader), that in 1922 there was an advance of S3,000 to Mr. Stefansson of the Exploration Company and we now have the certified vouchers returned, but they are not in the Auditor General's report which is to hand.


Harry Leader: Everything is in order?


Charles A. Stewart: So I am
informed.


William Garland McQuarrie: Would the minister
correct the answer in which he stated the government was not interested in the Stefansson expedition at all?


Charles A. Stewart: This was before I had anything to do with Mr. Stefansson personally. I did not know this had been done in 1922. I do know of the advance last year.


William Garland McQuarrie: How much was paid
last year?


Charles A. Stewart: Seven hundred dollars.


William Garland McQuarrie: The other matter was without the minister's knowledge, as I understand?


Charles A. Stewart: It so happened that I was not discussing Stefansson in those days. Later on I did have all to do with him, but not at that particula'r time. I just happened not to know of this. I may have been present at the council meeting-I would not say I was not-but the matter had entirely slipped my mind.


William Garland McQuarrie: Why should the government pay any money if it was not interested in any way in the expedition?


Charles A. Stewart: I will have to get that information. I know that Stefansson makes no claim on Canada, because he was here the other day endeavouring to interest the Canadian government in this matter. I spent an hour with him. This expedition was on his own account, organized by his own company.


William Garland McQuarrie: I cannot understand
why we should pay any money at all. It seems to me a strange thing.


Charles A. Stewart: I will be
very glad to get the whole explanation but I imagine what happened was that he came here and pleaded very earnestly for assistance to man a relief expedition in 1922. I would not like to say I was not present, but if I was present, I have no recollection of this particular meeting. But I knew all about what happened last summer because it was felt last year that the Admiralty might be ininterested in this matter. We did not know, but we were willing to contribute something for him to go and place the matter before the Admiralty.


William Garland McQuarrie: Did the minister not
take any part in the controversy between Mr. Stefansson and members of his party about which we saw so much in the press?


Charles A. Stewart: No.


William Garland McQuarrie: Can the minister give us any information as to the venture which was made by Mr. Stefansson in connection with reindeer? I think a lease was granted by the government to Mr. Stefansson, or to a company formed by him, and Mr. Stefansson proposed to raise reindeer in the north.
The CHAIRMAN. That matter hardly comes under this vote at the present time.


Charles A. Stewart: I know that we heard of reindeer down at Gaspe.

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William Garland McQuarrie: No, this is a different matter.


Charles A. Stewart: I have no
recollection of it.


William Garland McQuarrie: Does the minister say he does not know anything about it?


Charles A. Stewart: I have no
recollection of it.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Did not his Superintendent of Parks, and some other officials of the government, together with Mr. Stefansson, form a commission on which about $30,000 was spent, if I recall it correctly, to investigate the value of cariboo and reindeer raising and breeding in the Northwest territories?


Charles A. Stewart: I do not
know anything about this. I did know of a herd down in Gaspe.


William Garland McQuarrie: No, this is up in the
north.


Charles A. Stewart: That is the only one I know of.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman is
right, except for the amount of money. It was an investigating commission that was very economical. It was appointed while I was Minister of the Interior, and was composed of Dr. Rutherford, Mr. J. S. McLean, Mr. Har-kin and Mr. Stefansson, who I think retired, or at least took more part as a witness than as a member of the commission. Dr. Rutherford wrote the report. It was an investigation into the value of northern lands and the practicability of reindeer and muskox raising there; and if the mention of the subject has no better purpose than to induce some members to read that report, I am sure no one will read it without freely acknowledging that the report is worth more than the money spent. It is one of the finest tributes to Dr. Rutherford's ability that I think now exists.


Arthur John Lewis: Will the minister tell us why the discrimination or the differeilce in the compassionate allowance to the mother and to the widow? There may have been children. I never did like this word "compassionate." I never found a government admit any liability where there is any death. I have reference to a death which occurred on the Swift Current agricultural farm. When anything was given out, it was a "compassionate" allowance. If anything happens under anybody else's jurisdiction, it is not a "compassionate" allowance; the verdict is rendered by justice, or justice is satisfied. I should like to know why the difference between these two and why we use the word "compassionate" in this case.


Charles A. Stewart: In one case there was a young widow and family of small children. The other was the case of a young man who was only partially contributing to the support of his mother.


Arthur John Lewis: If $3,500 is the value the minister places on a man's life as a compassionate allowance for the widow of an arctic explorer, that is a very small sum. I should not like it if my wife was left with only $3,500 to live on. There is such a thing as economy, but there is also such a thing as justice.


William Garland McQuarrie: Can the minister give us any further information as to the lease which was granted to Mr. Stefansson and his associates of the southern part of Baffin's land, I think it was?


Charles A. Stewart: There is a lease of the southern end.of Baffin's land. I am informed that Stefansson is not particularly interested in it now, and that he has turned it over to the Hudson's Bay Company. They are carrying on, I do not know with what particular success.


Arthur Meighen: Is the government not getting the rent? That was one of the results that flowed from the investigation. A company undertook to utilise the south half of Baffin's land; the lease went through to Mr. Stefansson. but it was transferred by him to the Hudson's Bay Company who introduced a large number of deer into that area. Quite a substantial rental was provided for, which was to come to the Interior department. I hope the minister has not forgotten all about that. There is no reason that I know of why the Hudson's Bay Company should not pay its debts.
Mr. STEWART (Argenteuil); I am informed that the rental was not to begin in the earlier years of the experiment, and during the first winter 700 deer were placed in that area and one-half of them perished.


Arthur Meighen: I believe they did not
get experienced men to take care of them, but as I understand the matter, they have overcome that difficulty. I know the rental was on an ascending basis, and I am inclined to think it started earlier in the period of the
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lease. I would not like to think all these good things that we started are being forgotten now.


Charles A. Stewart: I will make inquiries. I confess I had not heard of the lease. I knew of the reindeer in that vicinity; I had heard reports of them from time to time, but I did not know that our friend Stefansson had so many ventures in hand in connection with reindeer.


Arthur Meighen: He just turned it over
to the Hudson's Bay Company.


Charles A. Stewart: I will make inquiries and get a report on it.


George Black: How much of this first item of $114,000 will be expended in Ottawa?


Charles A. Stewart: Printing and stationery, $5,500 and salaries, $16,965.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: What buildings is it
proposed to erect and where are they to be erected?


Charles A. Stewart: We have to establish buildings at Fort Smith and Fort Norman. That is where we propose making headquarters at the moment.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: That is for administration purposes.


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Then the next item:
Establishing and operating wireless stations, including buildings.
What are those?


Charles A. Stewart: I explained
that. That is to establish stations down the Mackenzie with a chief distributing station at Edmonton. The increase of $55,000 is due to the establishment and operating of a station, including buildings, at Herschel island, and for capital cost for a station at Fort Smith for operation in 1925. The cost of operating wireless stations at Dawson, Mayo, McMurray and Simpson is estimated at $74,000. It covers the two stations in the Yukon and the construction of one at Herschel and one at Fort Smith, with a complete establishment.


George Black: What are the offices to which the salaries of $16,965 are paid in Ottawa and what are the amounts paid to each?


Charles A. Stewart: They are as
follovps:
1	Assistant engineer	
$2,1001	Sr. engineering clerk	
1.6802	Senior clerks	
2.7601 Account clerk	
1,2601 Engrosser	
1,0803	Clerk stenographers, at $960	
2,8801 Messenger clerk	
1,2001 Office boy	
405
Then we have the salaries of the inspectors in the North:
C. C. Ross, Senior mining inspection	
$3,240	00Vacant, Petroleum engineer	
2,880	00R. J. Lee, Mining inspector	
2,400	00F. M. Steel, Mining engineer	
2,280	00
C. W. Dingman, Petroleum and natural gas
inspector	
2,250	00Miss E. G. Kay, Clerk stenographer.. ..	1,125	00Total	
$14,175 00
Mr. Finnie is in charge of all this work, and for that reason the Calgary office comes under this particular vote.
Item agreed to .
Dominion Lands and Parks, $3,814,634.55.


The CHAIRMAN:: Is it the pleasure of the Committee that this vote be taken item by item?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Yes.
Salaries of the Dominion Lands, outside service, $506,380.


William Garland McQuarrie: How is the decrease
of $55,000 made up?


Charles A. Stewart: It comes
about very largely by the reorganization of the western land service. We closed the offices in Saskatoon, Battleford and Swift Current, concentrating the work at Moose Jaw and Prince Albert. We have not entirely closed the first three offices; we have left a clerk in charge of each. We have also very considerably reduced the staff in the Winnipeg office. The reorganization is not yet completed in the head office here. We are trying to combine all the work of the Land department under one head. The removal of the immigration staff from the Norlite building will enable us to concentrate all bur land activities there, which will effect -a considerable saving. We have reduced the staff in the western service by forty-eight.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Is this a real reduction,
or are those forty-eight merely transferred to some other department?


Charles A. Stewart: No, we
have actually decreased the staff to that extent.

Supply-Interior


Arthur John Lewis: I did not know that this
item was coming up to-night. I observe that the Swift Current office is among those closed. I have not the figures with me, but I understand that the revenue which would naturally come to Swift Current was even greater than the Moose Jaw revenue. It does seem to me that in administering Dominion lands it is of primary importance to give service to the farmers and other people in the vicinity of the office. It is very inconvenient for the people around Swift Current to have to travel to Moose Jaw to transact their business, especially as the revenue from the Swift Current office was equal to, if not greater than, the revenue accruing to the Moose Jaw office, which would indicate that a large number of people in the neighbourhood of Swift Current will be put to extra expense. It seems to me to be neither economical nor opportune to close the Swift Current office.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend will remember that when a similar item was under discussion last session strong exception was taken, particularly to the homestead inspectors. One hon. member from Saskatchewan suggested that two and a half inspectors could do all the work.


Jacques Bureau: Especially the half.


Charles A. Stewart: On that basis I have been trying to economize as much as possible, but I have discovered that two inspectors cannot do the work. It is not our intention to completely close the three offices referred to; that is, any individual desirous of doing business will not have to travel any greater distance except in cases of leasing, as practically all the other work will be continued in those offices. Of course, complete records will be kept only at Moose Jaw and Prince Albert, so that transfers will have to be made at those centres. We will try to make the change operate as little as possible to the inconvenience of people living in the neighbourhood of Swift Current, Saskatoon and Battle-ford.


Henry Elvins Spencer: Are many homesteads
being taken up now? Would it not be*possible to drop this line of work and encourage the settlement of lands near the railways?


Charles A. Stewart: I fear that would be an impossibility. As long as free land is available, if you do not allow settlers to homestead they will squat on the land, and then you have difficulty in getting matters adjusted. In one little district just west of Wetaskiwin, Alberta, 190 homesteads were filed the year before last.


Arthur John Lewis: Has the minister figures
showing the revenue and expenditure for Swift Current and the other offices?


Charles A. Stewart: Not in detail. Item agreed to.
Dominion Lands Contingencies etc., $210,000.


William Garland McQuarrie: Will the minister furnish details?	_


Arthur John Lewis: Perhaps the minister will explain this item.


Charles A. Stewart: These are the details:
Expenses of 26 homestead appraisers, including
purchase, renewals and repairs of travelling
outfits, etc	 $58,000
Expenses of 13 timber inspectors, including as in the above item, purchase, renewals and
repairs of travelling outfits, etc	 17,000
Expenses of 3 inspectors of ranches	 6,000
Expenses of 13 Dominion land and Crown timber agencies and of the offices of the inspectors of Dominion lands and Crown timber agencies. These expenses consist in the payment of telegrams, telephones, commission and postage to sub-agents, clerical assistance of a temporary nature only,
janitor service, etc	 37,000
Travelling expenses of outside officials when away on government business, including superintendent of western land agencies, assistant land agency, inspectors, travelling
auditor, etc	 24,000
Printing and stationery. This item is to cover the cost of printed forms used in transacting public business, the purchase and repairs of typewriters and for all stationery required in the Dominion land offices and subland offices	 48,000
Advertising re sale of timber berths; also to cover accounts in connection with lands
open for entry, etc	 9,000
Miscellaneous:-freight and express charges, telegrams, etc., paid at Ottawa, and for unforeseen expenses during	1924-1925	 11.000

Mr. McTAGGART; What does the department intend to do with those lands which have been withdrawn from entry, those in what is known as the blacklisted area in southern Saskatchewan and Alberta?


Charles A. Stewart: There has been some difficulty in that connection; there is great difference of opinion on the subject. I have had no less than three inspections made in certain localities and I find that opinion is divided on the question whether an entrant could make a livelihood on those lands. We have largely discouraged homesteading on them, believing that it would be in the best interests of settlers to engage in ranching rather than in intensive agriculture. However, in certain parts of the dry or arid area settlers
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have been successful in agricultural pursuits. The whole matter is pending a definite decision as to just what portion, if any, of those lands may be recommended for settlement.


Arthur John Lewis: Did anyone take advantage of the provision made last year whereby the settler might remove to other lands?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, there has been som6 considerable movement. That has been under the control of the Saskatchewan government, we contributing in some cases part of the cost of removal.


Arthur John Lewis: Do the lands thus vacated
revert back to the Crown?


Charles A. Stewart: It is a little difficult to say. In some cases they are under mortgage; in that event they would not revert back to the Crown, and the best disposition is made of the land to clear up the indebtedness. In case where homesteads have not been patented the lands revert to the Crown.


Arthur John Lewis: The fact that a man has a
mortgage on his place does not prevent him from taking advantage of the offer?


Charles A. Stewart: No.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Is any part of this $210,000 spent in connection with the Ottawa staff?


Charles A. Stewart: No.


Henry Herbert Stevens: What was the revenue
received last year from the disposition of these lands?


Charles A. Stewart: The total Dominion lands receipts in 1922-23, were $2,347,715.43, and in 1923-24, April 1 to February 29, $2,103,119.16. There are some returns still to come in.


William Garland McQuarrie: How much was spent last year?


Charles A. Stewart: Salaries, outside service, and contingencies, some $559.000.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is not the vote we are talking about. As I understand it, we are dealing with each item as we go along. The Chairman called the first item, $506,000; that was passed, and some time ago he called the $210,000. How much was spent under that same item last year?


Charles A. Stewart: It will be
approximately $210,000.


William Garland McQuarrie: I understood the minister to say that there was to be an amalgamation of the Dominion lands and Crown timber agencies all over the Dominion.


Charles A. Stewart: In some
cases, yes. For example, at New Westminster we will have an amalgamation of the two offices. It has not yet been completed there.


William Garland McQuarrie: What is contemplated
there? How is the staff to be dealt with?


Charles A. Stewart: There are
two men there, Walmsley and Cowell. One of them will have to be removed. It is not the intention to keep two men there.


William Garland McQuarrie: Who will be moved?


Charles A. Stewart: That has
not been decided definitely.


William Garland McQuarrie: I am not asking for
any secrets to be divulged. In reference to the former crown timber agent, E. W. Beckett, does the minister know how he came to be removed?


Charles A. Stewart: Is he at
Kamloops?


William Garland McQuarrie: No, he vras at New
Westminster before Walmsley. The reason that has been given to me was because he was a good Conservative.


Charles A. Stewart: I do not
happen to know about that.


William Garland McQuarrie: Is there any other
reason why Mr. Beckett should be summarily discharged?


Charles A. Stewart: When was
he discharged?


William Garland McQuarrie: Since this government came into office, just before Walmsley was appointed; it was in the last couple of years.


Charles A. Stewart: Mr. Beckett appears to have been retired under the Cal-der Act, on April 1, 1922.


William Garland McQuarrie: You have not got the
details?


Charles A. Stewart: He was
given $400 and an annuity of $393.


William Garland McQuarrie: When the amalgamation takes place in New Westminster, what will be the arrangement of the staff? I am not asking as to the personnel, but how many will be retained in the office and how will the office be conducted?

Supply-Interior


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot
say at the moment. There will be one chief in charge of the office, and only the necessary staff to carry on the work.


William Garland McQuarrie: The minister cannot
say how many others besides one of these chiefs will be dismissed?


Charles A. Stewart: No, nor
do I say either one of them will be dismissed. They are both very valuable men, so far as I know.


William Garland McQuarrie: Has there not been
a very marked increase in the business done in those offices, particularly in the timber office?


Charles A. Stewart: I think that is correct. There has been a flurry in timber within the last six months.


William Garland McQuarrie: There has been a very remarkable growth in the timber business. Could the minister tell us the amount of revenue received from the timber office and the land office in New Westminster during the last two years, giving the figures for each year separately?


Neil Haman McTaggart: What is the intention of the department in regard to arrears of payment on pre-emptions in purchasing homesteads? I believe the amount outstanding stands now at approximately $12,000,000. Does the department intend to enforce collection or is it considering the advisability of cancelling these obligations?


Charles A. Stewart: The department has not considered the advisability of cancelling these obligations, but the department will certainly not press people unduly for payment. There are hundreds of people who have paid up in full, and my hon. friend will readily see that it would be most unfair to them to give special consideration to those who have not paid. This work entails very considerable amount of correspondence, notices are sent out and1 records kept of all this business, whether we get a considerable revenue or not. I can say, however, that there is no intention on the part of the department to unduly press anyone for payment ,of his obligation.


Neil Haman McTaggart: There is a considerable difference between the pre-emption which has been paid for, and the one where the obligation remains undischarged at the present time. In the main the pre-emption which has been paid for was the better class of land. There are 72
many types of land in that area, and it is in the poorer area where these pre-emptions are not paid for. I would ask the minister to give serious consideration to the suggestion that the obligations on these lands be cancelled. The lands which are paid for are in the main the better class of land, and I am satisfied that many of the settlers on the poorer class of land will be unable to pay for them unless we have a pronounced period of prosperity, which does not seem likely in the near future. I would therefore urge upon the minister the advisability of cancelling at least the interest charges on these pre-emptions remaining unpaid at the present time.


Robert Gardiner: I would call the minister's attention to the fact that in those areas where pre-emptions still remain unpaid for, you can buy land patented for much less money than what the department is charging for these pre-emptions, and it seems ridiculous to expect these people who have taken these pre-emptions to pay for their homesteads when they can buy land already under improvement for less money than the department is charging. I submit that the least the minister can do is to wipe out the interest charges against these lands and start afresh again, and I hope he will give that suggestion his serious consideration. Otherwise he will have on his hands much land that he will be able to rent for only two cents an acre for grazing purposes, and that will not bring in the revenue you could get otherwise.


Charles A. Stewart: Answering
the hon. member for New Westminster: For the fiscal year 1922-1923 the revenue collected at New Westminster was $34,041.16; Revel-stoke, $47,140.07; Kamloops, $43,128.83.


William Garland McQuarrie: That is for both timber and land offices?


Charles A. Stewart: We do not appear to have the complete figures. We have a report on Revelstoke and Kamloops, but not on New Westminster. I will be very glad to get a full report giving the information which my hon. friend desires and the exact amount.	*


William Garland McQuarrie: That is for the last
*two years, giving each year separately. I should like to get the expenses of these two officers in New Westminster, the land and the timber office, for these same years.


Charles A. Stewart: I will be very glad to bring the information down at the next sitting

Supply-Interior


Mr. KNOX:: There are in the West large blocks of land that have been set aside as forest reserves. This setting aside was done some years ago and since that time-in some cases owing to fire, and in other cases mainly through the action of the lumbermen-the areas contained in these reserves have been largely cleared of timber and are very suitable at the present time for agriculture. Many of these areas are situated close to the railway line and a number of requests are coming through-I have received a great many such requests at one time or another-from people who want to enter homesteads on these areas, but owing to the fact that they have been set aside as forest reserves these persons are not allowed to make entry. Only a short time ago I received a petition to be forwarded to the Minister of the Interior, signed by over two hundred men who wanted to enter homesteads on the forest reserves. I have forwarded this petition to the minister, and I should like to ask him now if any action is being taken to have these reserves opened up for homesteaders?


Charles A. Stewart: Let me first say to my hon. friends, lest I forget it, that I can assure them of a very sympathetic consideration, but I think they will appreciate the difficulty the department is faced with in dealing with this problem. It may lateT on result in having a revaluation made, or some consideration being given to interest charges, before we clear this matter up, but I should like it to be borne in mind that we have the same difficulty to-day that we have in connection with the Soldier Settlement Board. Although some men have paid others have not paid. True, some of them are on inferior land and that fact perhaps might be given consideration. However, I can promise my hon. friends that I am prepared to give those men who have pre-emption and have heavy payments accrued against them very generous consideration.
With respect to the matter of returning to settlement lands set aside for forest reserve, here again you have a somewhat difficult question. If you allow settlement to get close to the vicinity of forest areas, where it is hoped to propagate and continue forest growth, you at once establish a somewhat dangerous menace to the forest itself. However, I am convinced that there is any quantity of inferior lands upon which timber can be grown and propagated without retaining any very considerable area of good agricultural land within the forest reserve. Wherever cases of this kind come up we 
conduct an investigation. Here again we find there are men who differ so widely in their reports that it sometimes takes a considerable time before we can decide to open up an area of such a character. However I can promise my hon. friend the most careful consideration of this request. I have before me now an investigation which is being made.


Andrew Knox: I should like to point out
that in some cases the lands are located along railway tracks, and there should not be any more danger from fire in connection with a homesteader than arises from the operation of trains. The very fact that these lands are near a railway, I think, should entitle this request to receive special consideration because an awkward situation arises when homesteaders take up land in outlying districts where no railway communication exists.


Neil Haman McTaggart: Would	the minister
explain what arrangement exists with respect to transferring grazing leases from the Dominion government to the western provinces? I understand an arrangement has been arrived at between these provinces and the Domininon for the transfer of grazing leases now under the control of the latter to the former.


Charles A. Stewart: An arrangement was made that we would turn over to the provincial government areas of grazing lands that had formerly been under lease for the purpose of their organizing a community grazing association-that was the object they had in view. So far we have only turned over one ranch, I think in Saskatchewan. I do not know what success the scheme is meeting with. All I know is that the provinces which were at first to pay the same rental we were charging, finally came back and asked that the land be turned over to them free of rental, they in turn agreeing to collect from the community association a charge of two cents per acre.


Mr. BIRD:: I wonder if the minister would give me the exact figure in regard to the money paid on these pre-emptions or purchased homesteads?


Charles A. Stewart: I will be
very glad to give that information at the next sitting.


Thomas William Bird: Also what amount is yet to be paid?


Henry Elvins Spencer: I should like to ask the minister a question with regard to pre-emp-

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tions. I understand that if a purchaser has paid for the pre-emption but has not paid up his taxes he is not given a free title to the land. Is that so?


Charles A. Stewart: I do not
think the matter would be held up in our office particularly, but when the purchaser went to register in the provincial registration office he would run into trouble there. We, of course, are not interested in the payment of the taxes.


Henry Elvins Spencer: The pre-emption of land would come under the supervision of the federal department would it not?


Charles A. Stewart: Not when
he has paid up. He is a freeholder then.


Henry Elvins Spencer: Would he be allowed to get his patent if he had not paid up his local taxes?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, I do
not think we would hold it up. I do not think we are interested in the payment of the local taxes but I am not quite sure. Perhaps some of my legal friends who are doing business with the Land Title offices could supply accurate information. If I recollect properly you have to clear up the provincial encumbrances before your title is registered in the local register.


Henry Elvins Spencer: Then your department
does not do anything in that respect? The case I have in mind is where several preemptions were taken up some thirteen years ago. Unfortunately the school taxes have not been paid, and it is going to involve a heavy burden on the other taxpayers in the district. The question was brought to my notice, and I said I would see what could be done. If the minister declares his department has nothing to do with the matter I shall have to take it. up with the local authorities.


Charles A. Stewart: I am answering my hon. friend offhand. I do not see where we would be interested because there are no taxes due the federal government from these lands. They are taxes that are due to the local school districts and the municipalities in the particular province in which the land is located. I think when the man went to the local land office to register he might have trouble then; he might find the non-payment of these taxes an obstacle but I do not know positively.


Mr. CARMICHAEL:: I should like to get a little information from the minister in regard to the purchase of homesteads and 72J
pre-emptions held by men who had been on active service and which were converted into soldier grants. I understand in some cases these men paid considerable money on the purchase of homesteads and on pre-emptions, and that when these lands were converted into soldier grants they were entitled to a refund. I should like to know what the ruling of the department is on the matter?


Charles A. Stewart: We have been treating each case on its own merits. It is really an adjustment that has to be made between the soldier interested, and the Soldier Settlement Board, and the Department of the Interior. I cannot inform my hon. friend that there is any definite policy in respect to the matter except to this extent- we try to protect the soldier as far as lies within our power.


Archibald M. Carmichael: Is there any definite ruling we can follow to ascertain whether they are entitled to relief or not? I have several of these cases myself to handle. I have one at the present time which I desire to take up.


Charles A. Stewart: In some
cases where differences of opinion arise between the Soldier Settlement Board and the settlers we are interested; but in most cases we turn the lands over to the Soldier Settlement Board, and they make their adjustments, whatever they may be. The difficulty of the pre-emption is rather a serious one. If my hon. friend has cases of this kind, I should be very glad if he would bring them to the department, and we would be prepared to give them the very best consideration possible.


William Garland McQuarrie: Will the minister inform the committee as to the places where the Dominion lands and crown timber offices will be amalgamated? You have one at New Westminster. What are the other places where similar amalgamation will take place?


Charles A. Stewart: So far we
have only one organization in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. Alberta and Manitoba are still in process of amalgamation.


William Garland McQuarrie: It is proposed to
amalgamate at all points?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


William Garland McQuarrie: That is to be done
immediately?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.
Supply-Interior


Mr. HUMPHREY:: What steps has the
minister taken to amalgamate the offices in British Columbia?


Charles A. Stewart: It is not
an easy matter to get all the records under control of one official. It takes some little time. This is being done as speedily as we can do it, but it is all in order to save expense, and yet give the necessary service to the people.


Levi William Humphrey: What was the object
of the department in moving the land office from Revelstoke to Kamloops?


Charles A. Stewart: In the
case of every place froln which we move an office there is an objection. We felt, from the report submitted to the department by departmental officials, that this would give the necessary service that was required to carry on the business of the government at this point. These points were chosen because they were deemed to be the most central points for the purposes of the service.


Levi William Humphrey: Is it not a fact that
the revenue at Revelstoke has exceeded any other office in British Columbia?


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


Levi William Humphrey: I believe I am correct in stating that the figures of the Revelstoke office exceed any of the other two points. The figures at Revelstoke have increased each year since the office was opened in 1914. The revenue has greatly exceeded the expenditure at the Revelstoke office. It would look to me, if you are going to work it out on a question of economy, that you would have the office maintained at Revelstoke, which is the largest revenue paying office in the province. It is also at a point where there are more timber limits particularly adjacent to most of the business that is being done.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend will notice that the revenues are almost upon an equality at Kamloops and Revelstoke; but the report we received here was that the one office would be quite sufficient to serve that particular locality, giving such service as might be necessary to the old points at which these offices were established. But one of the difficulties, of course, in trying to save money on administration is that no matter where you go with an office, or 
where you take away a service, it can easily be proven that it was very valuable to that community and that all the offices are needed.


Levi William Humphrey: In that connection, if
this particular office had not been a very good revenue producing office, there would have been occasion to have it moved or amalgamated as a matter of economy; but this office is right in the heart of the timber belt. All the timber and land business practically is controlled and has been controlled from Revelstoke. By moving that office from Revelstoke to Kamloops, you put the people of that particular district at a double inconvenience and you disorganize work that has been established for some few years and established on a very good basis. If it could be shown by checking the reports that this office had not been paying, I do not believe there would have been quite as much objection raised to its removal. But decided objection has been raised, and that objection has been raised in the entire district, east and west, in that northern portion of the country.


Charles A. Stewart: I can only
say that all I was interested in was to effect the greatest amount of economy in the administration of these offices, and I would be very sorry if we inflicted any hardship at any particular locality. I hope it will not turn out that way. I know there was considerable agitation when the report went out that we were to move this particular office, but that applies to any office we attempt to close. Kamloops has always been more or less of a centre for business of this character. I have no particular interest in Kamloops but I notice from the returns my hon. friend is referring to that they are just about on an equality, both sending in about the same amount of money.


Levi William Humphrey: Would you care to
look into the case further, check up the returns of the entire business for each year and make a thorough comparison with the business at other points?


Charles A. Stewart: I would
be glad to do that.


Levi William Humphrey: Taking into consideration all the objections that have been raised and the hardships the people of that district have been put to together with any other conditions that might arise?


Charles A. Stewart: I would be
glad to do that.

Supply-Interior


William Garland McQuarrie: Would the minister
bring down that information with the other information?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Thomas William Bird: Do I understand the minister
has the figures at hand to answer my question?


Charles A. Stewart: No, I will
bring them down at the next sitting. We have a very large number of items here, and as soon as we go into committee again I will have all these figures.


Thomas William Bird: Perhaps it is immaterial, so
far as my point is concerned. I did not want to ask the minister any unfair question, but he will know his predecessors in office have always taken a certain stand in regard to the proceeds from those pre-emptions.


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Thomas William Bird: I just want to elicit from
the minister whether he is taking the same stand. I will not press the question; but I would like to remind the House at this juncture that the amendments to the Dominion Lands Act which created these pre-emptions and purchased homesteads were enacted by this House with the express purpose of supplying a fund for the construction of the Hudson Bay railway. Perhaps I shall be in order in just briefly reviewing what took place some years ago. The Dominion Lands Act of 1882, as I think is well known, made provision for building the Hudson Bay railroad. It provided a grant of 6,400 acres per mile for that part of the railroad reaching to the Saskatchewan river, and one grant of 12,800 acres per mile for that part reaching from the Saskatchewan river to the bay. Part of that grant was subsequently earned by a private company, that part relating to the road up to the Saskatchewan river. The other pari of the grant was left in abeyance until 1906. At that time, due to the influx of immigrants into Saskatchewan and Alberta, the question of the Hudson Bay road became vital once more, and both political parties then acknowledged the rights of the West with regard to the construction of that railroad. It became a plank in the platforms of both political parties, and the Liberal government at that time, coming to a fresh lease of power, acknowledged that right to the furthest extent.


Mr.   CHAIRMAN@: I feel the hon. member is hardly in order at this particular time.


Thomas William Bird: When I came into the House
a short while ago, these pre-emptions and homesteads were being discussed, and I am dealing with the proceeds of the sales of those pre-emptions and homesteads.


George Newcombe Gordon: I thought the hon.
member was dealing more particularly with the Hudson Bay railway than with pre-emptions and homesteads, if I am not mistaken.


Thomas William Bird: I am leading up to a question.
I am afraid that the minister will not be able to give a very intelligent answer to my question unless I outline the situation. I was about to say that the Liberal government at that time, through the hon. gentleman's predecessor, thought fit to amend the Dominion Lands Act in this regard. The alleged reason for the amendment was twofold: to bring the act up to date and also to incorporate in it the principle which the Liberal party had adopted, that of "no land grants to railways." When Mr. Oliver proceeded to do that, he found himself in a dilemma. To do away with land grants to railways looked like going back on the West with respect to the Hudson Bay railway. His ingenuity was exercised considerably in order to get over that, and the pre-emption clause with which we are dealing to-night was the result. Mr. Oliver brought forth that amendment providing for the purchase of homesteads and pre-emptions in order to get over that difficulty, and he got over the difficulty to some extent. If it did away with grants to railways, thus carrying out the Liberal principle of "no land grants to railways," at the same time it made ample provision for the Hudson Bay railroad. That is the point I want to draw to the attention of the minister, the government and this House to-night, namely that the proceeds realized and to be realized from those purchased homesteads and pre-emptions with which we are dealing to-night, are, morally speaking, the property of the West in respect of the building of the Hudson Bay railroad. That is the situation that has always been acknowledged in this House. When Mr. Oliver was bringing this legislation before the House, he iterated and reiterated this fact: that the sole object in bringing in this legislation was to provide for building the Hudson Bay railroad; that there was no other object. He went so far as to say that if the provision alone was not sufficient to complete the road, he would make it sufficient; he would contribute land in order that sufficient money might be realized for the purpose of com-
Supply-Interior

pleting the railway to the bay. I thought 1 would take advantage of this opportunity to bring that before the House and the government in order to revive in the minds of the people at the present time the fact that the W est has in this respect a right that has always been acknowledged, that never at any time has been questioned and that is wTitten large upon the pages of Hansard, both at that time and since. Without pressing the minister to declare his attitude in the matter, I shall be content with placing that fact before the House.


John Millar: I should like to make a plea to the minister for leniency in regard to those who have leased grazing lands at a very high price. To-night we have learned that some grazing lands have been leased for two cents an acre, and in some cases, the price has been 20 cents an acre and more. Grazing land leased at 20 cents an acre a few years ago when times were good, was all right, but the price of stock having gone down, it is quite apparent that 20 cents an acre is an exorbitant price. I have a case in mind at the present time of a party who has spent a considerable amount of money on grazing land in building fences and who is now in arrears. I might point to a case which came up either last session or the session before, where in the sale of a pulpwood berth in the northern part of Manitoba, I believe, a concession was given by the minister to those who had made the purchase on the ground that the price had been too high. I cannot remember all the details, but that is what took place. Will the minister follow the same course and deal leniently with those who have purchased or leased grazing lands at the high price of 20 cents and even, I believe, 30 cents an acre?


Charles A. Stewart: Were those Indian lands?


John Millar: Yes.


Charles A. Stewart: Of course they are in an altogether different category from Crown lands, and unfortunately during the period of the war some very high figures were paid for grazing lands, in some cases in Alberta as high as 30 cents an acre. The hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Shaw) will,
I think, bear me out in the fact that this has broken two of the ranchers there. The matter is a very difficult one to adjust. One cannot very well sit down and say that you are going to forgive them altogether the payment of those rentals, but I have been doing the best I can to make an adjustment of rentals.
I Mr. Bird.]


Oliver Robert Gould: I wish to repeat a request which I made to the minister last year. I quite anticipate that I shall receive the same reply, but the request is on behalf of individuals who have been given the .privilege of taking land in forest reserves. The hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Knox) cited a similar case in his constituency. These men after settling there, persuaded themselves that they required a school district. Many of those lands have returned to the Crown, and the school districts in question are very hard pressed because of assessments and taxation which they are obliged to make in order to maintain their schools. I believe they have repeatedly requested the department, and I have received many requests to present their case on the floor of the House, to ask the Dominion government to assume the taxation on those lands that have reverted to the Crown. I,t seems to me logical to ask that in order to assist school districts which were constituted largely as a result of settlers going in there.


Charles A. Stewart: I am afraid my hon. friend is putting up a very difficult proposition to the department, for it would open the door very wide for innumerable claims, particularly on lands under the control of the Soldier Settlement Board throughout the whole of western Canada, and in the East too I presume. I am entirely in sympathy with his plea, but if the Crown undertook to pay taxes in such cases I do not know where it could stop.*


Oliver Robert Gould: I wish-


George Newcombe Gordon: What the hon. gentleman is discussing should come under the fifth item-Protection of timber, tree culture, protection and management of forest reserves, surveys of forest resources and research in forestry and forest products and so forth.


Oliver Robert Gould: I thought contingencies might < elate to the point as well. But I would direct the minister's attention to vote 141, the third item, "Halifax, Bellevue building- local improvement taxes, $1,777.77." I wonder if there is a differentiation between urban and rural taxes. Again I would remind the minister that the natural resources of Saskatchewan are retained by the federal government. Consequently it seems to me that our argument is stronger than the reference made to the eastern provinces, which own their natural resources.


Henry Elvins Spencer: I would direct the minister's attention to Indian and school lands

Supply-Customs
which were sold during the war at prohibitive prices. I understand that the interest rate in many cases was raised to 7 per cent when the purchasers did not keep up their payments. This has been a great hardship, especially as the value of products, from the farm, has gone down considerably, thus placing these men at a great disadvantage in keeping up their payments. Has the minister considered reducing the rate to, say, 6 per cent, to make it a little easier for them to meet their interest obligations?


Charles A. Stewart: The increase was made some four or five years ago at the request of the provincial governments. I believe I was one of the delegates who appeared before the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen), then Minister of the Interior. Saskatchewan was perhaps most insistent at the time in making this request. We were asking that the school lands be turned over to us for administration purposes. It was pointed out to us that the function of the department was that of trustee for the provinces, and by special arrangement the interest rate was increased. If we have not already done so we intend to write to the provincial governments asking them to revert to the old rate of interest in order to relieve the situation somewhat. It is a matter in regard to which we must receive the consent of the provincial governments before we take action.


Henry Elvins Spencer: Would that include school as well as Indian lands?


Charles A. Stewart: School lands only.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Henry Herbert Stevens: The whole vote is not passed, Mr. Chairman.


George Newcombe Gordon: The whole vote is not passed, only the second item.



DEPARTMENT OE CUSTOMS.

[Stage Direction]
Civil government-Customs and Excise-salaries. $585,755 Contingencies	 48,000
Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Explain.


Jacques Bureau: (Minister of Customs and Excise): The details are on page S3.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to be obstructive, but has notice been given of the estimates for this department coming up?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It is not the intention of the government to proceed with this vote to-night, but, as my hon. friend knows, a technical rule of the House would prevent us from going into Committee of
Supply on the estimates of any department on Thursday or Friday unless previously some item of those estimates had been called. The purpose therefore of calling this item to-night is simply, that on Thursday or Friday we may take up the estimates of the Customs department.


Jacques Bureau: This item is hardly correct In order that when we come to discuss the vote hon. members will be aware exactly how it should stand, I would ask that an amending motion be made by my hon. friend from Quebec South (Mr. Power).


Charles Gavan Power: I move that item 13 be amended by inserting after the word "salaries" the words "including W. Ide, superintendent of staff, at $4,200." These words appeared in the estimates as prepared, but were inadvertently omitted from the printed estimates. The amount of the vote is not affected, this item being already provided for.


Jacques Bureau: Mr. Ide's name was in the estimates as submitted to be printed, but through some error it was omitted. Reference to page 83 will show that the amount is set out in the twelfth line, "superintendent, staff $4,200." It does not increase the estimate at all. I have taken this procedure because last year the same thing happened when the estimates of the Post Office Department were before the committee. The name of Mr. Anderson had been omitted, and a similar motion was made to rectify the mistake, I was the mover of the motion when my friend the present Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) was acting for the Postmaster General.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I do not object at all to my hon. friend moving the motion, but I would direct attention to an incident that occurred the other day when we were discussing certain items. A motion was made by an hon. member on this side of the House directing where the vote should go. It was ruled out of order on the ground that it was not competent far a private member to move such a motion, that it ought to come from a minister of the Crown. If the rule then was applicable to a private member on this side of the House, it would be equally applicable now to the hon. member for Quebec South.


Charles Gavan Power: I will ask the Prime Minister to give me the acting position with salary.
Sup-ply-Customs


George Newcombe Gordon: The ruling to which the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) refers was that a private member could not change the destination of a vote.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Exactly.


George Newcombe Gordon: I assume that this
motion is simply descriptive as to whom the salary is payable.


Charles Gavan Power: It is to correct a clerical error.


George Newcombe Gordon: Or omission. With the information which the minister has given, it seems to me that this is not a motion to change the destination of the vote.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I merely want it distinctly understood that if a similar motion is later on presented by a private member from this side of the House, the present procedure will establish a precedent which will then be in order.


Jacques Bureau: To prevent any error, may I ask that, with the consent of the House, the name of the mover be changed to that of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock)?


Charles Gavan Power: With the consent of the
House I will withdraw the motion.


Jacques Bureau: I do not want to break any precedent established by the House. I was not here when the ruling referred to by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) was given.
Item stands.
Progress reported.



PROHIBITION IN UNITED STATES


George Newcombe Gordon: A message has been received from the Senate informing this House:
That the Senate doth unite with the House of Commons in the approval of the convention between His Majesty and the President of the United States of America, signed at Washington on the twenty-third day of January, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-four, for the purpose of avoiding any difficulties which might arise between them in connection with the laws in force in the United States on the subject of alcoholic beverages, a copy of which has been laid before parliament, by inserting in the said resolution m the blank space therein the words "Senate and".
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the House adjourned at 11.25 p.m.
Tuesday, April 8, 1924