1925-03-05

PRIVATE BILLS FIRST READINGS

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 20, respecting a patent owned by the Concrete Surfacing Machinery Company. -Mr. Chevrier.
Bill No. 21, respecting the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of Canada, Limited. -Mr. Casgrain.
[Stage Direction]
Supplementary list of leases, licenses, permits, or other authorities cancelled under provisions of section 3 chapter 21 of the Statutes of 1922, an act respecting notices of cancellation of leases of Dominion lands.- Hon. Mr. Stewart (Argenteuil)).

[Stage Direction]
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals) moved:
That the order of the House referring ,to supplementary estimates 1925-26 respecting loans to the Canadian National Railway Company and Canadian Government Merchant Marine, Limited, laid on the table Monday February 16, referred to the committee on Supply, be discharged, and that the said estimates be referred to the select standing committee on Railways and Shipping owned, operated and controlled by the government.
Motion agreed to.

Mr. W. F. KAY (Missisquoi) moved:: That the annual report of the Minister of Agriculture and of the Director of the Experimental Farm be referred to the select committee on Agriculture and Colonization.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. L. H. MARTELL (Hants) moved for leave to introduce Bill1 No. 22, to amend the Criminal Code.
Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: Explain.


Mr. MARTELL:: As hon. gentlemen know, there is a provision in the Criminal Code in regard to lotteries. Section 236 of the Criminal Code was amended, and special provision was inserted to permit churches or eleemosynary institutions to hold lotteries where the prize was of less value than $50. They were permitted under this provision to conduct a raffle. The purpose of the bill is to cut out that exception, on the ground that if the church of this country is to be a model for the discipline and morality of the country they should set a good example to others. Hon. members will quite appreciate the force of the old maxim which declares that the church is the teacher of the laws and the dictator of morals. What is wrong for an individual is wrong for the church.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. ROBICHAUD:: 1.	What was the total amount of subsidies paid by the Dominion government towards the construction of the Caraquet and Gulf Shore railway?
2.	What was the total amount paid by the government for the purchase of said roads?

Questions
3.	What amounts were spent for the reconstruction of these roads in each year from the time they were taken over to the end of the last fiscal year?
4.	What were the total operating deficits during the same period ?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	*277,699.20.
2.	$296,399.60.
3.	Capital expenditure:
Year ending March, 1921...$	104,253	34March, 1922...	263,718	33March, 1923...	143,895	71March, 1924...	49,729	214.	Operating returns of this line are not segregated in accounts of the Canadian National system.


COL. H. A. MULLINS
Mr. McTAGGART:: 1.	Was Colonel H. A. Mullins, Winnipeg, employed by the Dominion government during the war period?
2.	If so, what was his official position?
3.	What was his annual salary?
4.	What was the total amount paid to him for services rendered ?
5.	What was the total amount paid ito him for expenses during the period stated?


Hon. Mr. MACDONALD:: 1.	Yes.
2.	(a) Inspector of meat at Sewell camp,
(b)	Chief Inspector transport and supplies from Fort William west.
3.	(a) Lieutenant-Colonel's staff rates 27th May, 1915 to 3rd November, 1915; pay, $5 per diem; field allowance, $3 per diem; married allowance, $1.20 per diem.
(b)	Lieutenant-Colonel's rates from 4th
November, 1915 to 31st December, 1915: Pay, $5 per diem; subsistence allowance, $1.50 per diem.	[DOT]
(c)	As Chief Inspector transport and supplies from 1st March, 1916 to 30th November, 1937: Pay, $2,900 per annum; allowances, $1,100 per annum. (During this period he *was on leave for one month without pay and allowances.)
(d)	Colonel's rates from 1st December, 1917 to 28th February, 1918: Pay, $6 per diem; field allowance, $1.50 per diem; subsistence allowance, $1.70 per diem; separation allowance to dependent, $60 per month.
4.	Total .pay and allowances. .. $9,355 92
Total separation allowance.. .. $ 180 00

5.	Total expenses paid: 1915-16, $302.10; 1916-17,	$242.75;	1917-18,	$84.00; total,


$628.85. PORT NELSON HARBOUR WORKS
Mr. McTAGGART:: 1.	Was any considerable damage done to the harbour
. works at Port Nelson, by a storm, in the year 1924?
2.	If so, what was the extent of the damage?
3.	Was the bridge connecting the artificial island with the mainland affected by the storm?
4.	What stops, if any, have been taken by the government to repair damage caused by the storm?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Damage confined to removal of part of the stone and earth filling in the timber crib bridge piers which lead from the shore to the island structure.
3.	The bridge spans and supports were not injured.
4.	Impossible to take steps to repair during the winter season.


GRANTS TO HIGHWAYS IN ONTARIO
Mr. CHURCH:: What grants have been, made to the province of Ontario during the past fourteen years on account of good roads?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: The Department of Railways and Canals has no record of any payment to the province of Ontario on highways account prior to the passage of the Canada Highways Act of 1919. Since that time, and under that act, the following payments have been made:
1920- 21	$ 295,100 00
1921-	22	
1,031229	011922-	23	
2,047,918	281923-	24	
1,377,440	881924 to Jan. 31, 1925.. ..	701,069	90
Total payments to date.. $ 5,452,758 07


MINERS AND STEEL WORKERS
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. W'. C. GOOD (Brant): I have received the following telegram from Sydney Mines:
Sydney Mines, N.S., March 3, 1925.
Conditions getting * acute Sydney Mines. Much relief given out (already. We start a soup kitchen to-morrow. Citizens meeting appointed relief committee and assistance would be appreciated.
W. C. Stewart.
Has the Minister of Labour any recent information to give to the House concerning the situation, and is anything going to be done to stir up the provincial government to take prompt action?
Hon. JAMES MURDOCK (Minister of Labour) :: The information before the government in regard to the general situation in Cape Breton, both as to a dispute between em-
Miners and Steel Workers

ployers and miners in the matter of a new wage scale and as to the distress which is the result of some of the mines not working, is, I think practically the same as the public generally has through press reports. Yesterday, we received a telegram of almost six hundred words, which was a copy of a statement that had been made by representatives of the miners to the Nova Scotia government. Our understanding is that the Nova Scotia legislature is now in session; that it is taking cognizance of the situation and the claims in regard to both the distress which is the result of unemployment and the dispute which is and has been for some months in evidence between the mine operators and the miners. Our understanding is that the Nova Scotia government is taking all such steps as to it appear proper to bring about a settlement of the existing dispute, and, we assume, taking such steps as may be necessary to assist in relieving distress, if any is in evidence.
I can add nothing further to what has been previously stated as this government's position, except I might say that it is not regarded as good form to step into another man's house to assist in settling a dispute which is under careful discussion between those who are directly concerned and responsible. That is all I could say for the federal government.


ROYAL MAIL STEAM PACKET COMPANY
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. MURRAY MacLAREN (St. John City and Counties of St. John and Albert):: I desire to draw the attention of the government to the following announcement that appeared in the daily press of 2nd March:
The Royal Mail Steam Packed Company have announced their intention not to renew their contract with the government.
I desire to ask the government-I notice unfortunately the absence of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Low)

if any statement can be made to the House regarding what action it is proposed to take in view of this announcement.


Hon. CHARLES STEWART (Minister of the Interior):: The Minister of Trade and
Commerce, evidently anticipating a question of this kind, sent a note to my office asking me to assure any inquirers that:
Negotiations are now' proceeding for the extension of this contract, and we have no reason to think that there will be any interruption in the service.


PEACE RIVER RAILWAY OUTLET
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. D. M. KENNEDY (West Edmonton):: When does the Minister of ' Railways and

Canals expect the joint report of the two railway 'companies with regard to the Peace river transportation question?
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals): I have nothing in the way of words of hope to add to those uttered by myself the other day in reply to the same question. I have nothing further from the heads of the railways, but I anticipate having word in a few days.


RURAL CREDITS
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. E. J. GARLAND (Bow River):: I trust the government will be able to give us some more hope in respect to the report of Dr. Tory on rural credits. Has the government any further information to lay before the House?
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals): The Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) is not in his seat. I will call his attention to the question of my hon friend.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS- BRANCH LINES
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. N. H. McTAGGART (Maple Creek):: Will any branch line bills be introduced this session? If so, how many, and when may we expect them to be brought down?
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals):	I think it is safe
to say that branch line legislation will be introduced at this session. I am not sure that there is not something on the order paper for two lines that are in a different position from the other lines from the fact that the government of Saskatchewan has in its hands in trust certain moneys which it desires,-as legislation has been provided-to apply to the construction of the lines that will be named in these two bills. The bills will be introduced without delay.


Mr. H. E. SPENCER (Battle River):: Will the bills to be introduced by the government in connection with branch lines include any more than two branches?


George Perry Graham: I am not in a position
as yet to state.



QUESTIONS ON ORDERS OF THE DAY UNANSWERED

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
['The hon. member was\nhere when that was ratified.\nProgress reported.']
Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Has the Acting Prime
Minister any word to give to the House on

Canteen Funds
the various questions that ministers told us on previous days they would submit to their absent colleagues and advise the House upon later?
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals):	Are the colleagues
yet absent?


Arthur Meighen: They are still absent
and getting more absent.


George Perry Graham: The absence of the colleagues to-day is on account of the funeral of the late Madame Dandurand, wife of the leader of the government in the Senate. These matters have all been referred to the ministers interested and I hope they will have answers to-morrow.



[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Centre Winnipeg) :: When does the government propose
to lay on the table the report of the commission appointed to investigate the alleged frauds in the sale of coal in the Department of National Defence, Military District No. 10?


Hon. E. M. MACDONALD (Minister of National Defence):: H my hon. friend had
followed the proceedings of the House as he usually does, he would have noticed that a few days ago an order of the House was passed for all the papers in connection with this matter. These papers will be brought down in due course.


CANTEEN FUNDS
[Stage Direction]
Hon. H. S. BELAND (Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment) moved that the House go into committee to consider the following proposed resolution:
Resolved that it is expedient to bring in a measure to provide for the distribution of the canteen funds by distributing the same as follows:-
(1)	The sum of $20,000 to be held for payment of any outstanding accounts;
(2)	The sum of $100,000 to be paid to a central board of three trustees appointed by the Governor in Council, without remuneration, to be used in such amounts and such manner as it may deem best for the maintenance and assistance of an adjustment service and bureau for the benefit of ex-service men and their dependents;
(3)	The sum of $50,000 to be paid to the United Services Fund of Great Britain, and the sum of $50,000 to be paid to the American Red Cross, to be used by them, respectively, in such manner as they deem proper for assistance in specially meritorious cases of ex-members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who have served in France or England, and their dependents, resident in Great Britain or the
United States as the case may be, and who are in genuine distress;
(4) The residue of the Canteen Fund to be divided into nine provincial allotments in the proportion indicated by the following percentages:-
Alberta	 7.752
British Columbia	and	the	Yukon	 11.213
Manitoba	 10.654
New Brunswick	 4.072
Nova Scotia and	Prince	Edward Island.. .	6.288
Ontario	41.237
Quebec	 11.622
Saskatchewan	 7.162
100.000
(5)	The provincial allotments to be paid to a provincial board of trustees, appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council in each ,province, without remuneration, empowered to receive and hold the provincial allotment and to ascertain the wishes of those interested and residing in the province concerning the disposition of such allotment and to determine the object to which the allotment should be devoted, and to administer the same for such object or to provide for such administration by others, and to do such other things as may be indicated in the order in council appointing them. The expenses in connection with the trust to be a charge on the allotment ;
(6)	The sum of £5,000 received from the Council of Management of the United Services Fund to be allotted and paid to the Central Board of Trustees to be expended by such board from time to time in such amounts and in such manner as it may deem best for assistance in specially meritorious cases of ex-members of the Imperial Forces and their dependents resident in Canada or the United States of America as the ease may be.
Motion, agreed to and the House went into committee, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
Mr. BELAND:: The committee will note that British Columbia and the Yukon are put together. As was indicated' last year, the Yukon is not organized as a province, and the interests of the returned men residing in that territory, it was felt, might be better served if the province of British Columbia and the Yukon were joined in the administration of these two allotments. In this regard, however, certain representations have been made to me by different persons having an immediate interest in the welfare of the Yukon; returned men and members of this House who have taken an interest in the matter have represented that, from the Yukon point of view, it would be preferable if the share that fell to that district were allotted1 to it directly instead of forming a part of the allotment to British Columbia for use in both the province and the Yukon. Personally I have no objection to this being done, I cannot look unfavourably on any such proposal; and, if it is the desire of the committee, I shall introduce an amendment to the bill to provide that the Yukon shall have its share separately. If this is done, however, some local committee or board will have to be appointed for the disposal of the allotment, whatever it may be.
The percentages which are set out in the resolution are arrived at on three bases,-the percentage of enlistments, the percentage of discharges, and the percentage of pensioners in each province or territory as the case may be. This has been deemed by the royal commission the fairest way of dealing with the fund, and we have adhered to the principle this year as we did' last year. The figures are somewhat different, but they are correct to date, having been subjected to a close review by the Department of National Defence. These, I think, are the only comments that seem necessary at the moment, but I shall be pleased1 to give hon. gentlemen any information that may be in my possession.


Mr. GUTHRIE:: It has been reported that an order in council has been passed within the last few months appropriating or disposing of a portion of the fund. Has the minister that order in council before him, or can. he explain the nature of it? I am told that it was to authorize the borrowing and apportionment of some part of the fund.


Henri Sévérin Béland: No money whatever has
been appropriated from the canteen fund, by order in council .or in any other way, since 1921.


Mr. CLARK:: Will the minister say that
no order in council was passed relating to a grant of some ten or fifteen thousand dollars [Mr. B&and.I
from the moneys referred to in paragraph 2 of this resolution, to an organization known as the Dominion Veterans' Alliance or to any other body? There has been a great deal of mystery about this order in council. Surely the minister knows what we are talking about and can give us the particulars. The matter has been referred to at least a dozen times; there is such an order in council, and the minister knows it.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I am giving my hon. friend all the information in my possession. No money whatever-


John Arthur Clark: I know that.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Perhaps my hon. friend
will allow me to proceed with my explanation. I say no money whatever pertaining to the canteen fund has been disposed of by order in council.


Mr. MANION:: Irrespective of the money having been disposed of, has any order in council been passed dealing with it?


Henri Sévérin Béland: Yes.


Robert James Manion: Will the minister explain
that order?


Henri Sévérin Béland: Last year a certain amount of money was appropriated from the disablement fund for the maintenance of the adjustment bureau. That was done after the bill had passed the House of Commons unanimously. No money has been appropriated from the canteen fund.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Perhaps I can
help the minister's recollection. There are two trust funds: One the canteen fund1, the other the trust fund that was very largely created through the munificence of the late Mr. James Carruthers, under which a large sum of money was obtained for the purpose of looking after very grave cases which did not technically fall within the rules. I think my hon. friend will remember those two trust funds?


Henri Sévérin Béland: Yes.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Is my hon.
friend quite clear that this is not what has happened? A loan of $10,000 was made to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance, another of $10,000 and a third of $5,000, all covered by order in council, that money being taken, in breach of trust, not from the canteen fund, but from the trust fund which I have secondly described, the Carruthers fund; and that the same order in council provided for the return of that money. Of course, the government would know that it was entirely improper to

Canteen Funds
use trust moneys for a purpose not covered by the trust, so they had to put the money back again, and they propose to effect this by providing that the three trustees whom the government are going to name when the matter is finally adjusted should repay to the government the $25,000 improperly taken out of the Carruthers fund. Now, have I assisted my hon. friend's recolleotion sufficiently?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I think my hon. friend
has stated the facts correctly inasmuch as the last apportionment was made from the disablement fund. The House will remember that two years ago an appropriation was before parliament for the partial refunding of the expenses incurred by organizations presenting claims. That appropriation was not voted at the time, and, if I remember correctly, the disablement fund advanced $5,000.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Was it not $25,000?


Henri Sévérin Béland: It may be $10,000, it may be $5,000.


Arthur Meighen: On what authority?


Henri Sévérin Béland: There were no orders in
council as far as I remember, dealing with the first payment.


Robert James Manion: The minister admitted a
moment ago that an order in council was passed. Would he mind reading the document to the committee so we will be familiar with it?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I have not the order in
council.


Arthur Meighen: Perhaps the minister
would recognize it if I read it to him? He will have more difficulty I think in defending it than in recognizing it. The order in council is dated September 18, 1924, and is as follows:
Certified copy of a minute of a meeting of the Committee of the Privy Council approved by His Excellency the Governor General on the 18th September, 1924.
The committee of the Privy Council have had before them a report dated 12th September, 1924, from the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment representing that the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment is the trustee of a fund known as the Disablement Fund which was contributed by patriotic citizens mainly during the years 1915 and 1916 and that this fund is being used generally for the purpose of small loans to pensioners and others who are in need of immediate assistance and who, in the opinion of the departmental investigations, would benefit by such assistance.
The Dominion Veterans' Alliance, which represents the various veterans' organizations throughout Canada has for a considerable time past maintained a service bureau in Ottawa for the purpose of assisting former
members of the forces in the presentations of claims in respect of pension, medical treatment and other matters. It is stated by the officers of the Alliance that the service given involves considerable expenditure.
On the introduction of a bill to parliament at the last session to deal with the canteen funds now in the hands of the government provision was made for the setting aside of the sum of one hundred thousand dollars to be applied by a board of trustees to the maintenance of an adjustment bureau in the city of Ottawa. It was intended to utilize the Dominion Veterans' Alliance as the adjustment bureau under the provisions of that bill. (Wing to the fact that this measure was introduced during the last few days of the parliamentary session it failed to become law and consequently the moneys which would have been available for the assistance of the Dominion Veterans' Alliance still remain in the hands of the Receiver General. It is proposed to re-introduce the bill early next session.
The minister further represents that in order to enable the Dominion Veterans' Alliance to continue its activities a loan of five thousand dollars ($5,000) was made by the trustee of the Disablement Fund in June, 1924, and that it is now proposed that a further loan of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) be made, subject to reimbursement of the disablement fund should any moneys be appropriated by parliament for the benefit of the alliance or should the proposed allocation from the canteen funds be made.
The minister states that a further loan of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) is being made out of the Disablement Fund to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance, payable as to five thousand dollars ($5,000) on the 1st of October, 1924, and as to five thousand dollars ($5,000) on the 1st of January, 1925, and he recommends that the trustees who may be appointed after the passage of the canteen funds bill at the next session of parliament be requested to reimburse the Disablement Fund the amount ot fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000) out of any moneys transferred to such trustees under the authority of the said bill.
The committee concur in the foregoing recommendation and submit the same for approval.
E. J. Lemaire,
Clerk of the Privy Council.
On the recommendation of the minister the government effected a misappropriation of trust funds-admitted on the face of the document to be a misappropriation to the extent of $25,000-trust funds, known generally as the Carruthers fund, contributed by patriotic citizens, for certain definite purposes specified in the trust. Because the government did not get their bill through parliament under which they hoped to support this Dominion Veterans' Alliance, they take the money out of this trust fund and hand it over to the Alliance, and then say, "We will depend on parliament recouping the trust fund." They give, as the reason why parliament has not already made good the breach of trust, that the bill was presented too late last session, and therefore did not pass; the order in council recites that it was because the bill came so late to the House that it did not pass. But the Prime Minister declared that it did not pass because of the obduracy of the Tory
Canteen Funds

Senate, and because of that obduracy he mounted his charger, raised his sword, and proceeded through Canada on a campaign to clip the Senate's wings. Now the order in council says parliament approved of the bill all right, and it was only because it reached the Senate late that it could not get through. Anticipating the will of (parliament, the government passes the money out of the treasury before parliament has any say about it at all-not only passes it out of the treasury, but passes it out of a specific trust fund.
Now will the minister give his opinion of that as an example to the people of Canada? I wonder how that would appear before the depositors, say, of the Home Bank at the present time? What would their opinion be of conduct of this kind on the part of trustees? There is no question as to the facts. No man need start to argue that the use of the funds for that purpose was in accordance with the terms of the trust. If it was, we would not need an order; if it was, the trustee could do it; if it was, we would never suggest a return. The minister says that parliament is going to be asked to return this money; that parliament would have done it before only we were so slow about getting it through the House. The fact is that parliament rejected it. Parliament acted on it; this House passed it; the other House rejected it. But the government is above parliament in both its branches; and of course this is all a part of the great programme of "restoring responsible government to Canada."


Mr. CARROLL:: Who were the trustees
of this disablement fund?


Arthur Meighen: The trustee is recited to be the Assistant Deputy Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. He is the trustee, but the government orders him to dig into his trust funds and apply the moneys to purposes not within the purview of the trust at all, to assist what they call an "adjustment bureau" of the Dominion Veterans' Alliance, And they justify it by saying that parliament will vote the money back into the trust fund some time later. Is that not very much like what the bank teller always says when he takes trust funds-that something will happen later on and that the money will be returned? This government puts its hand on trust funds, casts them where it will, then says, "Oh well, parliament will have to return them in order to save the government."


Henri Sévérin Béland: I think a very simple explanation can be given. It was recognized two years ago that certain organizations were carrying out certain duties on behalf of the

ex-service men. Parliament recognized that to the extent of appropriating a sum of money to recoup those organizations which had spent money in so serving the ex-service men. First of all, therefore, that principle was recognized. Last year a bill was introduced into this House making provision for the maintenance of the service bureau at headquarters in Ottawa and the amount of $100,000 was specified in the bill for the purpose. My right hon. friend has admitted-and it is of common knowledge-that this bill passed the House of Commons nemine contradicente-not a single word of opposition from anybody. Questions were asked as to how the board should be constituted, and so on, but the principle was recognized by the House of Commons of that time that canteen fund money could be used for the purpose of maintaining a service bureau.


Arthur Meighen: The point is that it is
not canteen fund money that is used at all; it is disablement fund money. That is the whole thing.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I am coming to that.
There are two trust funds, the disablement fund and the canteen funds. I hold that the disablement fund can better be used for this purpose than the canteen funds, and that is the view of Sir Arthur Currie. Sir Arthur Currie is of the opinion that unless parliament provides differently, the disablement fund could be put to no better use than that of supporting an adjustment bureau at headquarters. I say that the House of Commons recognized the principle of the maintenance of a service bureau at headquarters and that the House of Commons voted $100,000 for the purpose from the canteen funds. That the bill did not become law was not because the Senate rejected it on the ground of its not deserving their approval; the reasons were well known-they said they had not time to go into the matter fully. These facts being of common knowledge, am I to prevent the adjustment bureau from fulfilling the duties which have been recognized by the House, by withholding from them assistance available from the disablement fund? I would not take any money from the canteen funds for this purpose. Why? Because a bill was introduced in parliament, and although it was approved by the House of Commons it did not pass the Senate and was therefore not adopted by parliament. But after consultation with many who occupy high places among the returned soldiers I was advised that some money might be taken from the disablement fund for the purpose, it being

Canteen Funds
understood that the funds might be recouped as suggested.


Arthur Meighen: Is the disablement fund in the hands of the government as trustee?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I do not understand so.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly not; the disablement fund is in the hands of a single individual as trustee and the government has no authority over it at all. The fund is in the hands of an individual for a certain definite purpose. That individual being an officer of the government, the government says to him: "You are our officer; put your hands into your trust funds and give us the money."


Henri Sévérin Béland: Does my right hon. friend contend that the disablement fund was not used for a proper purpose when it was devoted to serving the interests of the ex-service men through the adjustment bureau?


Arthur Meighen: It is not a case of the propriety of the purpose; it is a case of the purpose not being the purpose of the trust fund. There are lots of good purposes.


Henri Sévérin Béland: What is the purpose of the trust fund?


Arthur Meighen: The purposes are recited in the minister's own order in council. If this is in fulfilment of the purpose why does the minister provide for the return of the money?


Henri Sévérin Béland: The loans that are made from the disablement fund are generally very small loans.


Mr. ARTHURS:: What is the total amount loaned from that fund up to date?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I think it is $15,000 in the order in council.


James Arthurs: The appropriation is much more than $15,000.


Henri Sévérin Béland: My hon. friend will remember that two years ago an appropriation was made by the House in the amount of $150,000 for partial refund.	-


James Arthurs: That was passed by parliament. It was a vote of the House; it was not a case of-shall I say?-misappropriation of trust funds. But if the trust fund has been diverted why should the minister in the order in council use the words "be requested to return"? Why should there not be an order to return any moneys so appropriated?


Henri Sévérin Béland: My hon. friend will know that the man in charge of the disablement fund has a sort of surveillance over it; he keeps a good guard around his fund and seeks reimbursement.


James Arthurs: Pardon me-


Henri Sévérin Béland: Oh yes.


Robert James Manion: Who is the trustee?


Henri Sévérin Béland: The Assistant Deputy Minister. I have no objection to naming him; Mr. Scammell, an appointee of the late government, a man who is discharging his duty properly-


Arthur Meighen: Nobody attacks him.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I am satisfied that I was justified in doing that, and I am satisfied also that my right hon. friend would not have done otherwise.


William F. Carroll: Did I understand the hon. member (Mr. Arthurs) to say that this parliament had already dealt with a part of the disablement fund?


James Arthurs: No.


Arthur Meighen: Oh, no; that is the whole point. It is not subject to the disposition of parliament ait all. It is bad enough for ithe minister to be a party to this transaction without attributing similar conduct to others on a mere supposition.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I may say in that regard that if I am guilty, the right hon. gentleman must knock bis conscience three times because he himself when he was Prime Minister appropriated $202,000 of the canteen fund.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, from the canteen fund, and this government out of the funds in their own possession would have the right to anticipate the will of parliament, taking its life in its hands; but it has no right to go into a trust fund of which it has no disposition at all, and never had any, and authorize the man in charge of that trust, merely because he is their own officer, to dip his hands into that trust and hand the money over to a Veterans' alliance or to anybody else; that is the point I am making. In exigent circumstances the government, the trustee of the country, can, by Governor General's warrant or other process, meet that exigent circumstance, and then come to parliament for approval. That is the manly stand the government should have taken if they thought the circumstances were an exigency demanding a loan from the treasury. But on the contrary, that is what the government does: It dips its hands into a private trust fund, which is in the hands of an officer of the government, a trust fund the purposes and the destiny of which is clearly and plainly set out, and it says to its own officer, "We order you to take that money and hand it
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over to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance; expect your return out of a 'hill which parliament last session rejected but which we hope next session it will pass."


James Arthurs: I would like to point out to the minister that his answers in this matter have not been very frank.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Oh, yes, very frank.


James Arthurs: A few days ago I asked whether any moneys had been appropriated from the canteen fund by order in council or otherwise, and the answer of the minister was a distinct negative. Now, if the minister's contention is right, and the moneys appropriated by the order in council now before the House will be returned, the minister was at least begging the question.


William F. Carroll: I have never seen the trust, but I have a general idea of what the disablement fund was for. I presume it was in the general interest of the returned soldiers of this country, and was to be looked after by the deputy.


Arthur Meighen: The presumption is loose and wrong. This was a loan for certain definite purposes of returned soldiers, to assist the disabled by money appropriation, and the thing is clearly set out in the letter of gift. It is not for any general purposes of the returned soldier.


William F. Carroll: I still hold that this trust was for the purpose of assisting the returned soldiers, and the most 'likely and the most reasonable presumption is that it would be to 'assist disabled returned soldiers. Now we have in Ottawa an organization which has been looking after the returned soldiers of this country, and looking after them I think fairly well. Last year, as was pointed out by the minister, this House undertook to do something with the canteen fund which had been in the hands of the government since the end of the war. I am not going to discuss now the reasons which the Senate may have had1 for rejecting that bill-which was passed unanimously by this House-'providing that the canteen fund should be distributed in a certain way. It was passed by this House very late in the session, it is true, and the Senate saw fit-and I am not criticizing that body at all-to say that they would not pass the biffl because of the lateness of the session; that probably was a fairly good reason. The Department of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment consequently found themselves in this position: This House had decided1 that a certain sum of money should be given to

this organization for the purpose of 'looking after returned soldiers, but when the bill did not pass, 'they did not have the .money to give. Now my right hon. friend the leadier of the opposition (Mr. Meighen), has made the point, and made it very well, that the department could then have said: We will taike $100,000 out of the canteen fund and band it over to this organization, expecting that parliament next year will approve the canteen fund legislation. Now what difference would that make? I dare say that those who are adversely criticizing the action of the department to-day would have done so in that case because neither this nor any other government would have any right to deal with the canteen fund in the way suggested. But if they have that right, then I say this government has the right to say by order in council: We have this money for a distinct and separate purpose; we have not outlined what the distinct and separate purpose is, 4 pan. but we do know by the trust which was created what the disability fund is for; we will therefore borrow $25,000 from the disability fund and help out the returned soldiets of this country in the way the House of Commons decided they should be helped out, and' if necessary we will return it.


James Arthurs: Why, "if necessary?"


William F. Carroll: If necessary for the returned soldiers. I may point out to the hon. member that there must certainly have been a necessity when the minister asked for this $100,000 vote, and this House must have felt there was a necessity because they voted that money without a dissenting vote.


James Arthurs: I asked the hon. member why he said "if necessary" return it to the trust fund.


William F. Carroll: I say, if there was any
question about the desirability of returning it to the trust fund. I am not saaying it would be legally necessary; it may be, I do not know. But I cannot see that there has been anything in the nature of fraud or of improper dealing with a trust fund. Everything was done openly by order in council, which was open to the public gaze.


John Arthur Clark: Does that justify misappropriation of funds?


William F. Carroll: There was no misappropriation.


Arthur Meighen: Was the order in council published in the Gazette?

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7S3


William F. Carroll: I do not know.


Arthur Meighen: It was not.


William F. Carroll: I have never time to read the Gazette after parliament closes, but I notice my right hon. friend got the order in council. If there was anything secret about it, if they could frighten the deputy into making a recommendation to council, surely they could frighten the department sufficiently to have the order in council kept secret.


Arthur Meighen: I will tell the hon. member the secret. I got it through the mail marked "Secret", with no name appearing on the envelope or anywhere else. I have no idea who sent it, but it was evidently someone who understood its nature.


William F. Carroll: I am certain the minister did not advise his officers to keep it secret; but if he did, he should investigate and ascertain who the scoundrel was in his department that gave it out. Knowing the Minister of Soldiers Civil Re-establishment as I do, and knowing what he has done for the returned soldiers, I do not for one moment think he had any desire to keep it a secret. How could he keep it a secret? The matter had some day to come before this House.


Charles A. Stewart: There is no secrecy about orders in council.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Oh? We cannot get them.


Charles A. Stewart: Oh yes you can, and you are getting them.


William F. Carroll: I am very glad to know that the minister has pointed out, in regard to section 4, that the item representing the allotment to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, will be corrected. I do not see any good sound reason for putting them together. As a matter of fact, I think they would have a good deal of trouble in disbursing this fund if they left it in that position, because the Governor in Council in each province might appoint a separate and distinct board, as they probably would. I think there is nothing else to be done. When the act is brought down, I think this matter will be corrected. The same remark applies in the case of British Columbia and the Yukon. Their local governments are administered under entirely different organizations. They have a commission, I believe, in the Yukon.


Robert James Manion: We are not quite finished with this canteen fund. Might we not finish that before we deal with the other section of the bill?


William F. Carroll: I want to give the minister the benefit of any ideas I have on the general act.


Robert James Manion: The hon. gentleman will have plenty of opportunity.


William F. Carroll: The same reason that exists for separating Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in my opinion exists for separating British Columbia and the Yukon, because they have two governmental organizations in the province and district, and it will lead to trouble if left as it is. They have no lieutenant governor in the Yukon but they have in British Columbia.
I intended asking the minister a few other questions on this matter, but I will only ask one at the present time, because it refers to the matter before us. What item in this resolution refers to replacement of the $25,000 which was referred to in the order in council by the right hon. leader of the opposition?


Henri Sévérin Béland: There is no such provision in the resolution.


Mr. HANSON:: For the benefit of those who do not understand the history of the fund, I ask that the deed of trust or letter of trust be laid on the table. It seems to me a veiy serious charge has been laid at the door of someone in connection with this matter, and in order that we may properly understand the situation it is absolutely necessary that the House should know affirmatively what are the terms of the deed of trust, and I ask the minister to produce the deed of trust.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I advised the assistant deputy minister to loan that money to the Veterans' Alliance, because the association was in my opinion discharging duties which were important to the ex-service men. He consented to make the loan, and if the same thing occurred again I would make the same recommendation. And why?


Arthur Meighen: Is this money that the
assistant deputy pays out submitted to the Auditor General?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I do not think so.


Arthur Meighen: Is not that the reason
it is done in this way?-The other payments would have to be submitted to the Auditor General.


Henri Sévérin Béland: That is not the reason it
was done.


William F. Carroll: As I understand the matter,
it is simply assuring the trustee of the fund
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that he will be reimbursed these moneys. There will be no act of this parliament affirming that.


Henri Sévérin Béland: It is true there is no
provision that will force anybody to reimburse him, but even if the loan were not repaid into the disablement fund, where is the harm? Have not the interests of the ex-service men been served by the amount that has been loaned?


Robert James Manion: Possibly, but that disablement fund was for a specific purpose, and this is for an altogether different purpose. Will the minister tell me to whom this money was paid? It is stated that it was paid to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance. How much money was paid to them and to whom?


Henri Sévérin Béland: Whatever money was paid must have been paid to the secretary treasurer of the association, and I think the gentleman was Mr. MacNeil.


Robert James Manion: I am informed by one
officer of that alliance that not one cent was ever paid to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance. He does not dispute the statement of the minister, but he says that the Dominion Veterans' Alliance never received a cent of it that Mr. MacNeil did. I am not criticizing Mr. MacNeil. He was secretary of the Great War Veteran Association, but that association was only part of the Dominion Veterans' Alliance, and this officer states that the Dominion Veterans' Alliance never received the money or had anything to do with it, that it was handed to one of the officers, Mr. MacNeil, and that, as far as the Dominion Veterans' Alliance is concerned, they never saw it. That is the information I got from one of the officers, and he gave me permission to make the statement.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Is there any reason why
the minister should not produce, for the benefit of hon. members who are not familiar with this matter, the deed of trust under which this disablement fund was created. It seems to me that that is elementary. We could then determine the matter for ourselves. I ask the minister, and I am going to persist in asking him to produce the trust deed for the benefit of the members who do not know the details of the matter. It is only fair that we should know what the deed of trust was.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I have no objection to giving my hon. friend what he requires.


Robert James Manion: Will the minister produce the cheques or receipts showing how the money

was disbursed and showing who got the money, so that we can see how much money was really paid out?


Henri Sévérin Béland: What is the request?


Robert James Manion: To bring the cheques or
receipts, as well as the documents asked for by the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson), which would show to whom the money was paid and by whom cashed. Bring the cheques if possible, or whatever vouchers the department has, in order to show to whom the money was paid, as to whether this payment was made to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance, as the gentleman from that association says they never saw it.


Henri Sévérin Béland: If the cheque was written
to the order of the secretary treasurer of the Dominion Veterans' Alliance, and that secretary endorsed it, would that be regular?


Robert James Manion: I do not think there would be anything irregular in that. I want to see if that was the way it was done, as these gentlemen say they never saw it.


William F. Carroll: When the minister brings down that information will he also bring down the order in council of 1921 authorizing the payment of $200,000 out of the canteen fund, also to whom it was paid and for what purpose.


Arthur Meighen: I want to get the minister's mind in order on a distinction he persists in not seeing. This fund is not a fund over which the government has control. This is a disablement fund, in the hands of an individual, subject to disposition provided in a specific declaration of trust, and the minister has admitted that the Auditor General has no right to deal with the cheques after payment. I do not doubt that he is right. My understanding is that it is a fund over which the government has no control at all, it is not in the Receiver General's hands and the money never was in his hands. It is not under the disposition of the government. It is under the disposition of a private individual who happens to be an officer. The canteen fund on the contrary is a fund in the Receiver General's hands. It may be anticipated that the government feel that the circumstances are such as to justify it, and then submit the matter to parliament. I submit first of all that the government under no circumstances at all had any right to authorize one of its officers to commit a breach of trust. The minister says that there is no breach of trust so long as it is for the general benefit of the exservice men. If that had been the purpose of the men who gave the money, they would

Canteen Funds
have said so. That was not the purpose at all. The purpose was to assist a certain class of veterans under certain circumstances. For the minister to say that as long as the money goes to some organization that calls itself an alliance, the government's hands are washed of thj whole thing, is a very loose view to take of public responsibility, especially in trusteeship. I venture to say that if any individual came before the courts of Canada in that position, his liberty would be short-lived.


William F. Carroll: Would not a trustee be
allowed to make a legitimate loan of part of these funds?


Arthur Meighen: That depends on the
trust deed. As long as he is giving it in terms of the trust deed, all right. But the very order in council shows that this is not the purpose at all. The order in council shows what the money was for and then goes on to say:	We will authorize them
to use dt for something else, on the supposition that it will be subsequently returned.


William F. Carroll: It is in the nature of a
loan.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly, but has a bank teller a right to make a loan of the bank's money on the supposition that it will be subsequently returned? Has a bank manager that right?


William F. Carroll: He has.


Arthur Meighen: Oh, oh.


William F. Carroll: Of a trust fund?-yes, of
a trust fund.


Arthur Meighen: The minister, under
present circumstances, would have no right to put his hands on the canteen fund and anticipate its return. Inasmuch as parliament has already acted in respect of the matter, whatever parliament's reasons may have been, the minister has no right to impute reasons in the conduct of his office now. Parliament has rejected the proposal of this government to use the canteen fund for this purpose. In the face of that rejection, the government has no right to assume that parliament now would be of another mind. If parliament had never acted in the matter at all, the case would be different; it would come under the general rule. But parliament having acted, the minister is bound to take the will of parliament, and I venture to suggest that the minister would have gone into the canteen fund and1 presented his cheques to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance, but for the fact that the Auditor General would not 50
have passed the cheques. The Auditor General, in face of the decision of parliament, would not have been justified in passing the cheques. That could not be done; there was someone on guard. So the minister goes about the matter through another official who has charge of another fund over which the government has no control, and he orders the money out of that fund, saying:	We
will depend upon parliament taking another view of the canteen fund next session.


Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: Did the administrator of this disablement fund, who is the assistant deputy minister of this department, voluntarily pay out this money, or did he make any objection, in writing or otherwise, to the minister?


Mr. BEL  AND@: He made no objection that I remember. Naturally, the man who has this fund in trust would like to keep it as complete as possible. When he makes a loan, he endeavours to secure repayment of it.


Arthur Meighen: Did he get an order in
council on any other occasion than this?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I do not know.


Arthur Meighen: I think the minister
will find that he did not.


John Arthur Clark: Has a cheque been drawn
at any time and submitted for signature or payment to the Auditor General for any of the amounts mentioned in this order in council, P.C. No. 1596, or any portion of the amount mentioned therein?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I do not think so. That
is my opinion.


John Arthur Clark: Will the minister secure a
definite answer on that subject before this resolution passes?


Henri Sévérin Béland: Surely.


John Arthur Clark: Was the Auditor General
requested to pass an appropriation from the canteen fund for this amount or any portion of this amount mentioned in this order in council?


Henri Sévérin Béland: The Auditor General was
never requested by this government to pass any amount from the canteen fund.


John Arthur Clark: Does the minister suggest
that it was recognized by this House that the canteen fund or any portion of the sum of $100,000 mentioned in paragraph 2 of this resolution should be appropriated for the purposes of the Dominion Veterans' Alliance?


Henri Sévérin Béland: No.

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John Arthur Clark: 
Henri Sévérin Béland: It is going back to them.


John Arthur Clark: It is going back to them?


Henri Sévérin Béland: Not back-it is going to
them.


John Arthur Clark: Does the minister now say
that no portion- of this sum of $100,000 which he expects to be appropriated from the canteen fund and placed under this central board of three trustees is going to be paid to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance?


Henri Sévérin Béland: If the trustees are willing
to reimburse the disablement fund, they may do it, and if they do not choose to reimburse the disablement fund the loan will not be paid, but the amount will have been spent for the benefit of the ex-service men. Does my hon. friend dispute that?


John Arthur Clark: In other words, the minister says that he is not going to exercise any coercion over these trustees, though he has already passed an order in council stating that he will tell these trustees that they must appropriate this $20,000 as soon as they are appointed. Now he says that he will not exercise any coercion over them, and if they refuse, the result will be that the trust funds which have been misappropriated and which belong to the disablement fund will never be repaid.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I do not agree with my hon. friend that the trust funds have been misappropriated in the sense that they have been taken away from the ex-service men.


The CHAIRMAN:: The word "misappropriated" has a peculiarly significant meaning. I have been looking it up in Crankshaw. It is not within the range of expressions that may be used in the House of Commons.


Arthur Meighen: Any charge at all can be laid against a government, and it is against the government that we are laying the charge. You may lay a charge of misappropriation, or theft or anything else against the government.


George Newcombe Gordon: I would call the right
hon. gentleman's attention-


Arthur Meighen: Perhaps the Chairman
will show me where, under the rules, this cannot be done.


George Newcombe Gordon: I do not need to refer to the rules to substantiate the ruling that the expression that has been used is not within the compass of those that may properly be directed against a minister.


Arthur Meighen: All ministers are responsible for actions of the government, and so long as an expression is directed against the government there can be nothing unparliamentary about it.


George Newcombe Gordon: I quite agree with that, but I disagree with the contention that a remark may be directed to a minister questioning the honesty of his own conduct.


John Arthur Clark: When I was interrupted I was about to point out that these moneys belong to the disablement fund and are unquestionably in trust; as recited here, they were subscribed by patriotic citizens during the war to be used generally in the making of small loans to pensioners and others in need of immediate assistance. There is the sole purpose of the fund; that is what it was created for. And here we have a portion of these moneys appropriated and paid to an organization, the minister being unable to give us any details whatever of what it was used for. He cannot tell us whether it was used for the purpose of paying salaries, nor can he assure us that there is any probability of its being returned. He admits, as he must admit in view of the terms of the order in council, that these moneys were taken out of the trust fund, contrary to the express object for which they were subscribed. He attempts to justify that course of action before this committee, yet cannot give us any assurance

Canteen Funds
that the moneys will be repaid, nor can he assure us that the trustees of the canteen fund when appointed will be trustees in fact, free from government control. It is a pretty mess that the minister has got himself into, as far as I can judge.


Mr. HUMPHREY:: I merely rise to bring to the attention of the committee something that has taken place in previous years and which probably has been overlooked. I cannot really follow the line of reasoning of our friends to the right on this particular question; perhaps I may be able to follow them in other respects but not on this question. There seems to be a good deal of criticism of the action taken by the minister (Mr. Beland) in allocating certain sums, which were held in trust, to a representative of the Dominion Veterans' Alliance. Personally I would commend the minister on the judgment he used in this matter. It is a well known fact that the Veterans' Alliance have decided amongst themselves to appoint one of their number to speak on their behalf, and before all previous special parliamentary committees which have considered these various questions, the Dominion Veterans' Alliance have had a spokesman. In the majority of cases they have been represented by Mr. MacNeil, who has proved a very admirable representative.
I think that possibly this question has come up to-day much in the same way as a similar question was brought up in 1921, and it would be interesting if hon. members of the committee would refer to the final report on the second part of the investigation which was carried out by what has been called the Ralston commission. Looking over that report I find that the government of that day, that is to say, 1921, passed a good many orders in council along the same line. We need only refer to Nos. 2378, 3648, 3519, 3762, 3647 and many others, which have to do with the allocation by the government of certain funds that were held in trust.


Arthur Meighen: Who would allocate them if the government did not?


Levi William Humphrey: But the question came up nevertheless as to whether the government had the power to allocate funds which it held in trust and which were the property of the men throughout Canada at that time. As the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) knows, the question arose in 1921 as to the right of the government to take to itself that authority, and in my opinion the present minister, in allocating say $25,000, in the way that has been indicated, can point to a very 50i
strong precedent established in 1921. I think it would be well for hon. gentlemen to read over these orders in council to which I have referred, inasmuch as the question did arise as to what authority the government had in the circumstances. Those moneys at that time were held in trust for the returned men throughout Canada.


William F. Carroll: Subject to the action of parliament.


Levi William Humphrey: Yes, and practically in the same manner as in the case of the present order in council which has come under discussion.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member is not within a mile of the point.


Levi William Humphrey: I take it that the two things are similar.


William F. Carroll: Can the hon. member tell us what amounts were appropriated in 1921?


Levi William Humphrey: I should say, roughly speaking, about $100,000.


An hon. MEMBER:: For what purpose?


Levi William Humphrey: The various reasons are set forth in the orders in council; moneys were given to every individual returned soldier organization for certain purposes. As I size up the present situation, I should say that there is some similarity between it and the condition I have described as existing in 1921. If the government had authority in the matter then, I should say the government would have the same authority now, subject to the approval of parliament.


James Arthurs: I agree entirely with the hon. gentleman, but in the former case the government of the day published an order in council and used the canteen fund for the benefit of returned soldiers; in this case the government did not take that action, they went to the Carruthers fund.


Levi William Humphrey: Was not the canteen
fund at that date held in trust? And is not this practically the same thing?


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Chairman, the hon.
member complains that he cannot follow the reasoning of this group to his right. I am afraid that I shall have to say in all deference to him that until he gets a lot closer to the subject he can never expect to follow our reasoning. He is off the line altogether. The canteen fund is in a sense a trust fund. This is a trust fund. But the difference is that the government is trustee of the canteen fund; it has nothing to do with this trust fund. I wonder if an officer of this govern-
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ment, say the Deputy Minister of the Interior, were treasurer of the Red Cross fund, would the hon. gentleman say that the government would be quite justified in ordering that man to dip his hand into the Red Cross fund to help out the situation that the government wanted to help out at the moment? Does he think so?


Levi William Humphrey: I would hardly think
so. But I still question the right of the government in 1921 to dip their hand into the canteen fund.


Arthur Meighen: If the hon. member
questions the action of the government in 1921, why was he a party to the justification of it in voting the money? Because it was right. I am not questioning that action at all, I never did. This House, controlled by a government opposed to us, voted the money, and thereby ratified what we did. Therefore it is a little late now to question our action. The government had to determine, subject to the will of parliament, how to best carry out that trusteeship. The government was trustee, the fund was in the hands of the government and subject to the audit of the Auditor General. In determining what action to take we were subject to the ratification of this House. Here is a fund over which the government has no control at all; it is a fund in the hands of an individual, and the purposes for which it is to be applied are clearly set out in the order in council-for loans and pensions to individual disabled men. That is what the contributors to the fund wanted the money used for. But because the trustee happens to be one of its officers, this government says to that trustee, "Put your hand down in the treasury and give us this money, hand it over to the Veterans' Alliance, because we believe in the purposes of the Alliance."


Mr. HOEY:: Had the trustee power to refuse in this case?


Arthur Meighen: Yes, I say most frankly he should have refused, no matter who appointed 'him. A trustee has no justification whatever for taking dictation from the government; the only dictation he should submit to is the dictation of the deed of trust.


Mr. CRERAR:: Can anyone here give us
the terms of the deed of trust?


Arthur Meighen: Yes, it is recited in the order in council:
The Committee of the Privy Council have had before them a report dated 12th September, 1924, from the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment, representing that the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment is the trustee of a fund known as the
(Mr. Meighen.]
Disablement Fund, which was contributed by patriotic citizens mainly during the years 1915 and 1916, and that this fund is being used generally for the purpose of small loans to pensioners and others who are in need of immediate assistance and who, in the opinion of the departmental investigations, would benefit by such assistance.
That is the purpose of the fund.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Of course, that does not
give the terms of the trust in full.


Arthur Meighen: I have no doubt the
terms are set out more fully elsewhere, but this gives enough to make it clear that the fund was not intended, for example, for the purpose of a $25,000 loan to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance who were carrying on activities all over Canada, activities for the benefit of the men who were just as well as you and I. Is that a purpose within the meaning of the clause as there defined?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am inclined to agree with you.


Arthur Meighen: It is the plainest possible breach of trust. The minister gets this money, over which he had no disposition at all, which does not go before the Auditor General, and consequently is not within the disposition of the government as such, and he says to the trustee, "Use that money for this purpose." Then we are asked to justify it because the funds over which we have control were disposed of in anticipation of the judgment of parliament.


Mr. SPEAKMAN:: The order in council
states that these funds are being generally used for the purpose of assisting individual cases. Does the deed of trust specify that the funds shall be used only for that purpose, or is it simply indicated by the order in council that it is being used generally for that purpose? This seems to me to be an important point.


Arthur Meighen: I have not seen the deed of trust, but on the minister's admission there is a private trustee, there is no trusteeship in the government. Consequently the government had no authority to order the trustee to do this at all. Further, if by any possibility the trustee were justified in using the money to this end, this order in council would never have been necessary. The fact that the order in council exists shows that there was a diversion of the trust fund, and the fact also that the Dominion Veterans' Alliance is to get this money back on a request, as it is put, of these trustees to be appointed, shows it is trust funds that have been diverted.

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Robert James Manion: I am going to ask the
minister three questions in the hope that he will be able to give me answers to them. These questions, I think, will show the difficult position in which he and the government are placed under certain circumstances. In the first place, suppose the House of Commons, or the Senate, or the Parliament of Canada at this session refuse to pass legislation dealing with the canteen fund, suppose they do as the Senate did last year, throw it out, where is the minister going to get the money to enable Mr. Scammell to recoup his trust fund which money he, on the order of one of his superior officers, loaned to the government to pay salaries or something of the sort? Second, suppose the legislation does pass and these trustees are appointed, and suppose then they refuse to pay back the money, saying, "We had nothing to do with the 125,000 spent last year; we are appointed to deal with the future, not with the past, and we refuse to pay back this money to the trust fund from which it was borrowed," where will the government get the money? Third, suppose that the government cannot get the money to pay it back-I do not know how the government can pay this money back except by getting the proposed legislation enacted and appointing trustees who wall be willing to pay it back-if the government do not get the money to pay it back to Mr. Scammell, what position would he be in? -because the order in council distinctly states that this money was in the hands of Mr. Scammell as trustee for the purpose of making small loans to disabled veterans. He would be S25,000 short, and he would certainly be liable personally to the trust fund for that money; I do not think there is any question about that. Will the minister answer those three questions?


Henri Sévérin Béland: The matter reduced to its simplest form is that a loan has been made by Mr. Scammell to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance. That is the fact.


Robert James Manion: Even that fact is disputed.


Henri Sévérin Béland: That the loan has been
made?


Robert James Manion: No, the fact is disputed
by one of the officers of the Dominion Veterans' Alliance that they ever got the money.


Henri Sévérin Béland: My hon. friend surely does not seriously contend that the money was not paid to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance?


Robert James Manion: I seriously contend that
one of the officers of the-


Henri Sévérin Béland: If my hon. friend will
permit me to continue.


Robert James Manion: My hon. friend asked me
a question; I was going to answer him.


Henri Sévérin Béland: If the money has not been paid it is in the trust fund.


Robert James Manion: Not necessarily, it may
have been used for other purposes.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Well, it has been paid out. My hon. friend will admit that?


Robert James Manion: I think probably it has.
That is one thing we will admit.


Henri Sévérin Béland: The money has been paid out as a consequence of Mr. Scammell consenting to make a loan to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance. That is admitted also?


Arthur Edward Ross: Did he consent?


Henri Sévérin Béland: Surely he did; otherwise
the loan could not have been made.


James Arthurs: What about the order
in council?


Henri Sévérin Béland: What order in council could force him to make the loan? The right hon. gentleman (Mr. Meighen) has stated twice in my hearing that the trustee could have objected and refused to make the loan. That is very clear. He made the loan. My hon. friend questions the payment of this money to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance.


Robert James Manion: I question it-if the minister will allow me to correct him-on the statement of one of the officers who says that the Dominion Veterans' Alliance did not get the money. He does not say that some officer did not get it, but he does say that the Dominion Veterans' Alliance never had the handling of it.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Who was the officer?


Robert James Manion: I do not know that I need answer that.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Somebody must act for the Dominion Veterans' Alliance. You cannot pay the money to a piece of paper bearing on its face "Dominion Veterans' Alliance"; you must pay it to somebody who represents that organization, somebody who is authorized to act for the organization; in this instance I think it must be the secretary treasurer, though I am not absolutely sure about that. It has been made plain to the committee that six or seven different Dominion-wide organizations have got together and formed what is known as the Dominion Veterans' Alliance
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with a president, a vice president and a secretary treasurer. Mr. MacNeil is the secretary treasurer of the Dominion Veterans' Alliance.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Is he secretary of that organization at the moment?


Mr. BEL  AND@: Yes, I think he is, and has been from the first. He happens to be at the same time, I think, secretary of the Great War Veterans' Association. But it is not for me to say whether he should be in either one place or the other; he happens to be there, and the loan has been made to him. If it is not paid back into the trust fund the trustee will be in the position of having made a loan in the interests of ex-service men to assist them in presenting their claims-disabled men who have claims to present to the department and to the Board of Pension Commissioners. The spirit of the trust is preserved. Does my right hon. friend say that the spirit of the trust is not preserved?


Arthur Meighen: I say the spirit of the
trust has been brazenly violated.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I do not agree with my
right hon. friend. He is very insistent in his assertion that we have violated the trust. Does he say that the canteen fund could be regularly disposed of without action of the Canadian parliament?


Arthur Meighen: The canteen fund, like
any other trust fund in the disposition of the government-for the government is trustee of all its funds-can regularly and constitutionally be disposed of in anticipation of parliament. The only question is, are the circumstances so exigent as to demand it- that is all. But that law does not apply and that rule does not apply to a fund over which the government has no control.


Henri Sévérin Béland: The government did not
make the loan; the government did not take the money from the trust fund. Representations were made to the minister in charge that the maintenance of a service bureau would be impossible unless assistance was given. The minister in charge, who happened to be myself, asked the man in charge of the fund to make a loan to these people. I did that, and I am not sorry for it; I would do it again because it is right. The loan has been made, and it has served what purpose? It has helped the Dominion Veterans' Alliance, or the men who are in it, to discharge important and useful duties to returned men generally in Canada. That is what has been done with the money.


Arthur Meighen: Was that why the money was given to this trustee?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I believe so.


Arthur Meighen: "To discharge important
and useful duties to returned men generally in Canada"?


Henri Sévérin Béland: Surely, that is the spirit
of it.


Arthur Meighen: Well, if the minister cannot see the distinction I am afraid there is no use of proceeding further. That was not the spirit of it at all. What is the sense of talking about the spirit and the letter and all the rest of it? The thing is as plain as words ever were. It is one thing to devote money to a trusteeship, to a trust for the purpose of returned men generally, disabled and undisabled alike, the well-off and the poor alike-that is one thing; but it is a wholly different thing to devote money to a trust for the purposes of disabled men only, for loans to small pensioners and the like who are disabled. Yet the minister stands up and says: We have helped the returned men generally by this action; I am proud of it and I would do it again.


Charles A. Stewart: Has not my right hon. friend missed something just as important as the stress he lays upon the making of loans to pensioners only? If the order in council contains a proper quotation of the trust, and I take it that it does-


Arthur Meighen: I did not say pensioners only; I said disabled men.


Charles A. Stewart: My right
hon. friend is stressing the point that this trust fund was for one purpose only, that of loans to and assistance to pensioners and others in need of funds.


Arthur Meighen: Disabled men.


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, but it also says, "to others who are in need of immediate assistance," and it says that the decision is not altogether in the hands of the trustee. I would prefer not to say very much about this until I have seen a copy of the trust itself, but I take it that this is a fairly definite statement of what is contained in the trust. Not only that, but it goes on further to say, "who in the opinion of the departmental investigations." Surely my right hon. friend will not contend that one individual, in the person of Mr. Scammell, had the absolute disposition of that fund, to whom he might seek to give it? Loans are specified to individuals and others, and the investigation is to be departmental.

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Arthur Meighen: Does my hon. friend suggest to the committee that this fund, which is known as the disablement fund, can legally be given in any way to men who are not disabled at all?


Charles A. Stewart: I do not
know, because I have not seen the deed of trust.


Arthur Meighen: Is the minister not bound to know that before he can support this proposal?


Charles A. Stewart: I am quoting the very words here, in the preamble.


Arthur Meighen: The preamble intimates
clearly it cannot.


Charles A. Stewart: I differ from my hon. friend. It says "and to others who would benefit by such assistance."


Arthur Meighen: Disabled pensioners and
others.


Charles A. Stewart: Here is the document. I will hand it to my right hon. friend.


Arthur Meighen: Very good; I have it here too. I do not think it could be called a "disablement fund" to start with if it is a fund for the undisabled. If what the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment says is right, then there is no need of this order at all.


Charles A. Stewart: I am not
raising that point.


Arthur Meighen: Here is what it says:
This fund is being used generally for the purpose of small loans to pensioners and others who are in need of immediate assistance and who, in the opinion of the departmental investigations, would benefit by such assistance.


Charles A. Stewart: That is the point.


Arthur Meighen: Very good; the trustee
gets the benefit of the departmental investigations.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Does my right hon. friend
still maintain that it is a fund to pensioners?


Arthur Meighen: No, I never said it was.


Henri Sévérin Béland: My right hon. friend just
said that.


Arthur Meighen: No, no; I say it is not for the undisabled-that is, from all the indications here; I have never seen the deed of trust, as I have repeated over and over again.


Henri Sévérin Béland: All who are war disabled
are war pensioners.


Arthur Meighen: I know some who are
not; and there would be disabled men who would be disabled before they would be pensioners, and the fund could be used for them. But I have not seen the deed of trust. I know this, that a fund known as a "disablement fund" may be presumed not to be for the undisabled. Secondly, I know that if it were for all alike, for general purposes, there would have been no need of this order in council at all.


Henri Sévérin Béland: As far as I am concerned
I will say this: No loan was made from the disablement fund with my consent or at my request before I had secured from the chief donator and Sir Arthur Currie an expression of their views, and their view is that it can be used for an adjustment bureau.


Arthur Meighen: Does the minister say
he has that from Mr. Carruthers?


Henri Sévérin Béland: Yes, it was secured from
him.


Arthur Meighen: Is it in writing?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I think I can have it in
writing.


Arthur Meighen: I would be very glad
to get it.


Henri Sévérin Béland: At all events it was requested from him and he expressed his view, as did Sir Arthur Currie also. Does my hon. friend say Sir Arthur Currie did not?


Arthur Meighen: I do not know anything about that, nor do I care. What matters is the deed of trust, and that deed of trust Sir Arthur Currie and no other man can change.


Henri Sévérin Béland: My hon. friend is an
adroit and skilful lawyer-


Arthur Meighen: Not at all.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Yes, everybody will grant
him that, but upon this point, although he has used all his adroitness and his skill, he cannot succeed in putting the minister wrong. My view is that the Dominion Veterans' Alliance was discharging a useful and important duty to pensioners and to other service men in need of assistance.


Arthur Meighen: Nobody denies that.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Well then, we agree perfectly. The loan was requested from Mr. Scammell-I could not authorize the loan- for the purpose of discharging those very purposes.


Robert James Manion: Is Mr. Scammell satisfied,
if the legislation does not pass and the money
Canteen Funds

does not come back, that he has lived up to his duties as trustee of this fund?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I think so.


Robert James Manion: Then, if the minister has finished, I would like to differ. I am not an adroit lawyer as he says my right hon. leader is.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Oh, don't complain.


Robert James Manion: I am not complaining;
I am rather glad I am not. But I want to point out that the order in council distinctly says, if this is taken from the charter or trust deed, that this disablement fund is being used generally for purposes of small loatis. The Minister of the Interior read just beyond that. It is loans to pensioners and others who are in immediate need.


Charles A. Stewart: Read it all.


Robert James Manion: The minister would not
call $25,000 a small loan.


Henri Sévérin Béland: They are small loans if
they are spread over two or three years.


Robert James Manion: It was not spread over two and a half years. The smallest amount paid out was $5,000. The small loans referred to here are loans of ten or twenty or thirty or at the most fifty dollars to' pensioners who have got into difficulty. The minister knows full well that very many times a pensioner for some reason or other does not get his pension when it is due, not due to any fault on the part of the officials, but that sometimes happens. I have had dozens of chaps come into my office whose pensions were two or three months over-
5 p.m. due, and then all would be paid the arrears in one cheque. I am not blaming the department for that; it would probably happen if I were in charge. But take a man like that who gets into difficulties over his board bill and needs immediate assistance. He can come to this fund for assistance to the extent, I would say, of $25, or $50 at the most. It was cases of that kind that were spoken of as small loans, not $3,000 or $5,000 for another department altogether. If the minister says he is perfectly satisfied with what he has done, and would be perfectly satisfied if the money was not returned, I think Mr. Scammell must be very uneasy; if I were in his shoes I would be very nervous about the disablement fund if the minister would be perfectly satisfied if the government did not pay the amount back.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Mr. Scammell is like my
hon. friend; he is not nervous,


Robert James Manion: I think he should be nervous. I hope the minister will bring that trust deed down; he has had plenty of time to bring it down already and he should let us know exactly what that money was for. When the trust deed is here we shall be able to discuss the matter much more intelligently. If only small loans were to be made, there has been an absolute breach of trust in giving out $25,000 from that fund for any other purpose than the purpose laid out here. I venture the assertion that the minister when outlining this order in council, if the charter or trust deed had permitted these moneys to be used for such purposes as this, would have shown his good common sense 'by putting that in the order in council; but it distinctly says it was for small loans. So unless the trust deed shows a good deal more than this shows, there has been an absolute breach of trust in handing out $25,000 to any organization.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Read it.


Robert James Manion: I will read the whole thing to put it on record:
The committee of the Privy Council have had before them a report dated 12th September, 1924, from the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment representing that the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-estab-lis foment-
That is Mr. Scammell.
is the trustee of a fund known as the disablement fund which was contributed by patriotic citizens mainly during the years 1915 and 1916 and that this fund is being used generally for the purpose of small loans to pensioners and others who are in need of immediate assistance and who, in the opinion of the departmental investigations, would benefit by such assistance.
I do not see any other interpretation, but that what was meant was small loans of ten or twenty or thirty or perhaps up to fifty dollars to pensioners or others in need of immediate assistance. Certainly by no stretch of the imagination can you include under that clause payments for the salaries, which I presume this money was used for, of the officers of the Dominion Veterans' Alliance or of the Great War Veterans' Association or any other body.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The speech of my hon. friend who has just sat down (Mr. Manion) is based entirely on the alleged contents of a document about which this committee has been talking for over an hour, but which it has never seen and knows nothing about.


Robert James Manion: That is the minister's fault.

Canteen Funds


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The minister dealing with this question cannot get papers out of his office in such an easy way as my hon. friend thinks. The whole question is, under what terms and conditions does Mr. Scammell hold this money known as the disablement fund?


Robert James Manion: He is in the gallery.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I do not care where he is; what difference does it make? Surely this committee is going to wait until it sees this document which constitutes the trust deed before we express an opinion one way or the other. I think, Mr. Chairman, we might well have saved the time that has been taken up by this discussion for the last hour, in which suggestions and insinuations have been made here and there as to what was done with this money, in view of the fact that nobody in this committee knows what the terms of the trust are.


Mr. STEVENS:: Would it not be better if the usual procedure had been followed that obtains in the case of resolutions of this kind and estimates in committee, when the minister has one of his officials on the floor to advise him on questions which we all frankly admit it is difficult for the minister to anticipate.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: That is
something that every minister will have to decide for himself. The point I wanted to make is this: I think this committee might well have awaited the receipt of this trust deed and found out its terms and conditions before expressing a hasty opinion. I want to say further that it is a fact that Sir Arthur Currie, about whose interest in this matter nobody can have any doubt, has stated that he knew no better purpose for which the money in this disablement fund could be used than maintaining this adjustment service.


Mr. DOUCET:: Does that make it right?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I think hon. gentlemen might well have hesitated to make insinuations when he approved of the money being used in that way.


Arthur Edward Ross: Have you a written opinion from Sir Arthur Currie?


Henri Sévérin Béland: If we have, do you agree with it?


Arthur Edward Ross: I am very doubtful if he gave it. I have too high an opinion of his good judgment to think he would give
such an opinion, if the details were explained to him. I would like to see an opinion from Sir Arthur Currie in writing. Has the department such a document?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Hon. members seem to have got into a suspicious frame of mind. When I say that Sir Arthur Currie stated that he knew no better purpose for which the fund could be used than this scheme hon. members say they do not believe he said it. I say he did say it, and I say further-and I think the committee will agree with me-that the proper way is to wait and see what occurred with this trust deed.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Assume this is a trust
for disabled soldiers, does the minister suggest that by any stretch of the imagination these funds should be loaned to the War Veterans' Association for the purpose of paying salaries which the members of that association have not interest enough to pay?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend is a lawyer and a very distinguished one, and he knows that he could not expect me or any other person to express an opinion upon any question with so many presumptions and whereases as he has put in this question. I will wait until I see the document.


Mr. BLACK (Yukon):: If in the opinion of the minister, the government and Sir Arthur Currie the terms of the trust agreement have not been violated, and the money has been appropriated to a proper cause, why pay it back? Why not leave it as it is? Why pass such an order as has come to light since this debate began? And why dip into the canteen fund to take money to pay back this money which has been-the word " misappropriated " has been used but has been objected	to-improperly withdrawn
from the disablement fund? If the government was not doing wrong in using that fund, why pay it back? Let it go. Eventually that disablement fund must be expended and dissipated. If reasonable and proper expenditure has been made of part of it, let it go, and if not why go into the canteen funds to get money to pay it back? Let the government put it in the estimates and put it through in the regular way. There is no reason on earth why the canteen fund should be used to pay back the money paid to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance.


Henri Sévérin Béland: My hon. friend will remember that a certain amount, namely $100,000, was set aside in the bill last year for
Canteen Funds

the purpose of maintaining an adjustment bureau, and that bill never became law. It was understood to be the unanimous desire of the House of Commons that $100,000 should be used for the purpose of maintaining a service bureau. The trustee of the fund, without questioning the use of a certain amount of money for the maintenance of the bureau, suggested perhaps that it should be repaid to him, because he makes loans with the idea of being repaid, and the provision in the order in council is, if possible, that this trustee should be paid the loan he has made at my suggestion.


John Arthur Clark: What is the total amount in that fund?


Henri Sévérin Béland: 


John Arthur Clark: And this is 25 per cent of the total fund-a small loan.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Although the amount of the fund is now $100,000, there is a great deal of money which has been loaned, and some small loans are outstanding and some written off.


John Arthur Clark: What was the biggest loan previously made?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I have no idea.


John Arthur Clark: When the minister brings the agreement this evening, will he also bring with him the details of the expenditure of $25,000 and the exact name and position held by the payee of the cheque?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I will give the name of the payee, of course.


John Arthur Clark: Will the minister answer my question?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I will give the name of the payee. I cannot supply him with all the information he desires.


John Arthur Clark: Can he supply the committee now or at a later time with the details of the expenditure of this money advanced to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I will try to do that.


John Arthur Clark: Did I understand the minister to inform the committee that the House of Commons passed a resolution for the distribution of the canteen fund before any loan was made by the trustee of the disablement fund to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance?


Henri Sévérin Béland: No, I never said that.


John Arthur Clark: Will the minister give me the date when Sir Arthur Currie approved of this scheme ?


Henri Sévérin Béland: I will try and get it.


John Arthur Clark: Is it in writing?


Henri Sévérin Béland: It is in writing.


John Arthur Clark: Will the minister bring that letter.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I do not say I will bring the letter, but I will quote the passage that refers to that matter.


Arthur Meighen: We want the letter.


Henri Sévérin Béland: If Sir Arthur Currie treats with subjects which have no relation to the disablement fund, my hon. friend would not insist on my producing that.


Arthur Meighen: Perhaps not, but I can hardly conceive of his dealing with an important matter of a trustee like this in the body of a general letter. It is the rule of the House that if the minister lays on the table of the House any letter or document, or reads it, he must read the whole of it.


Mr. BOYS:: Was the deed of trust submitted to Sir Arthur Currie when he gave, his opinion? I can understand him expressing a view as to what might be done with a certain fund which was not ear marked in some way, but if it was to be disposed of according to the terms of a trust agreement, one would think that he should see that agreement before he could express an opinion that would be of any value. I would like to know from my hon. friend (Mr. Beland) or from the Minister of Militia and Defence (Mr. Macdonald) whether he ever saw the agreement.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I cannot give an answer to the question as to whether he ever saw it.


William Alves Boys: I suppose my hon. friend will agree with me that if he had not seen the trust agreement his opinion would be of no value. The Minister of Militia and Defence has said that he or no other intelligent person Should be asked to give an opinion without seeing the trust agreement; therefore it is most vital to know whether he saw it, because if he did not his opinion would not be of any consequence. I want the minister to bring certain papers with him. I take it for granted that when a loan involving $25,000 is made by the trustee of the fund there will be a contract of some description under which the money will be repaid whether with or without interest, and stating when it shall be repaid and by whom. I would ask him to bring such a contract with him if there is one. You can hardly imagine that the minister or the trustee on his advice would loan that money

Canteen Funds
to any association without some document providing for repayment.
The minister points out that these loans are made under the trust agreement. I would ask the minister to look at the very words of the first paragraph of the order in council- and I am assuming they were used intentionally and deliberately; that they properly indicate in a measure at all events the purposes of the trust-and say if it is not perfectly plain that the intention there is that the trustees should make these loans to individuals for the benefit of individuals, and if he can find anything in the language used in the order in council which would warrant the giving of that money to an association and not to the individuals who are intended to benefit by it.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: If my hon. friend will more closely scrutinize the order in council from which he is quoting, he will see that it does not purport to quote the terms of the trust deed, but that it goes on to say that this money under the disablement fund is now being used for the purpose of making small loans.
Mr. BOA'S: I absolutely agree with what the minister says, but I think I have a right to assume that in so using it, they are using it in accordance with the declaration of trust, and surely the minister would be one of the last to ask me to come to any different conclusion. When, in the Privy Council, of which he is a member, this language is used, surely he is not going to suggest that the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment (Mr. Boland1) in introducing this order in council and asking to have it passed is intimating that this money is being used for purposes not authorized by the declaration of trust?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: No. .


William Alves Boys: If it is for purposes authorized by the trust -as are indicated in the order in council, surely it is manifest that the money is intended for individual benefit and use and not for the use of any association.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: That might be only one of the purposes of the trust. There might be many other purposes in the trust-We had better wait until we see the trust deed.


James Arthurs: I think we are wasting time, because it is very unlikely that this resolution will pass before the minister has brought down certain information. A couple of weeks ago I asked the minister whether
or not an order in council had been passed diverting funds from the canteen fund for other -purposes. The answer of the minister was no. If, however, the minister is right in his premises to-day, that answer was wrong, because he is seeking to recoup the disablement fund from the canteen fund. At least the order in council refers to the canteen fund indirectly. The request has been made to-day by myself and others that the trust deed be produced before we go any further with this debate. I believe the minister mow nods his head when he says that $25,000 has been paid. Only an hour or two ago he would not admit that $15,000 had been paid over to the Dominion Veterans' Alliance. I should like to -ask how much has been -paid, -to whom, on whose recommendation and for what purpose it was paid. I should also like to ask the minister if he can produce a record of any case in which this government or any previous government has passed an order in council directing a private trustee to divert funds whether for the -benefit of -the government or anybody else.


Mr. BEL  AND@: I do not know th-at any older in council has been -passed prior to this, disposing of the disablement fund or any portion of it. But I was referring a few minutes ago to the canteen fund and my right hon. friend stopped me at a point when I was asking him whether he thought it was regular that -the government should apportion to soldiers' organizations large amounts of the canteen funds without the authority of parliament. The canteen funds are made up of moneys which belong to the returned men, to all those who served overseas. By what stretch of imagination can the leader of the opposition contend that it is regular to dispose of the canteen funds by order in council when this parliament is sitting, and every year when it had been sitting in 1919, in 1920 and in 1921, only a month, I think, before the first disposal of the canteen fund was m-ad'e? Does he think this is quite regular?


Arthur Meighen: I will answer very
directly, but first of all I cannot help commenting on the minister's wondering as to the morality of disposing of the canteen funds under the government's charge, but having no doubt about the morality of disposing of the disablement fund which was not under their charge at all. I have stated repeatedly that any fund under the charge of the government may be disposed of in anticipation of the will of parliament. There is no hindrance save that the Auditor General must be
Canteen Funds

convinced that the exigent circumstances require it to be done. If the government fails to get the authority of parliament for what it has done, the government goes out of office. That applies to the canteen fund as well as to all other funds of which the government is trustee. This House at this session will be asked repeatedly to vote money which this government has paid out of funds of which it is trustee in anticipation of the will of parliament. That is what was done in 1921. That is what this government is doing this year. That, I do not criticize. It is all a matter of the nature of the circumstances which demand it. This is a matter in another category wholly, as I have sought to explain. I do not wish to prolong the discussion further. I am only too anxious to see the terms of his declaration of trust. What we have now indicates that a breach has been committed. When we get the full terms it will not matter what anybody, however dignified, may have said as to the merits of the Dominion Veterans' Alliance. I had never attacked the Dominion Veterans' Alliance or any organization under it. They serve a purpose that is perfectly laudable and right, but because a fund is a trust fund devoted to a certain purpose, you cannot justify diverting it to another by merely saying that the other purpose is very laudable and good.


Levi William Humphrey: At the rate the government of the day, during the few months prior to November 1921, were disbursing the funds they held in trust for the returned men, the minister, had they been returned to power, would not have been able to bring a measure before parliament to provide for the disposition of any $2,000,000 because the late government were paying out these funds at the rate of from $25,000 to $50,000 a month. Mr. BOYS: Anything wrong with that?


Levi William Humphrey: In my opinion, yes.
I was not here at the time.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member was
here when that was ratified.
Progress reported.



SUPPLY PUBLIC WORKS

[Stage Direction]
The House in committee of Supply, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
Public Works-Salaries and contingencies, $689,655.
lion. J. H. KING (Kootenay, Minister of Public Works):	Perhaps I had better make
a brief statement in explanation of the items before the committee, comparing them with the estimate passed last year. There is a reduction of S18,665. The estimate last year 
was $633,320 for salaries, but we aTe asking this year for $614,655 for the same purpose. There has been a decrease of four in the number of positions, due to the following reasons. Ten positions were dropped from civil government owing to retirements and resignations. This is offset in part by two new appointments, one a position which was dropped last year but which is revived for 1925-26, and three transfers from the Ottawa building repairs vote. Two new positions, are provided for namely, a clerk-typist and an office appliance operator; but the position was revived of assistant to general superintendent of telegraph service. This makes a net decrease of four. It might be wise to explain how the reduction is made up, accounting for the reduction in the estimate this year. Three positions were reclassified, at a reduction of $1,180; one vacancy was reduced to the minimum, making a reduction of $360; there were five deaths accounting for a saving of $1,290; there were ten resignations, accounting for $9,750. twelve retirements, $15,535, twenty promotions in connection with which there was a decrease of $5,970; and one position abolished at $300, making a total decrease of $34,385. The increases are due to three positions re-classified, accounting for $435, sixteen transfers from other appropriations, making an increase of $2,415; two new positions and one position revived, making an increase of $4,200; one hundred and three statutory increases totalling $8,670. In other words, the grand total of the increases is $15,720, which being deducted from the total reduction of $34,385, represents a net decrease of $18,665.
['I am not speaking\nabout any particular province. I am speaking about a general practice over this Dominion, not confined to any province as it is to-day.']
Henry Lumley Drayton: What are the
particulars in regard to the ten resignations and the twelve retirements, having reference to superannuation and pensions?


Mr. KING (Kootenay):: The position of
curator of prints has been dropped.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What has become of the individual?


John Warwick King: He resigned.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Is he getting a
pension?


John Warwick King: No. The position of construction architect has also been dropped. There is no pension in that case, the employee having resigned. The position of principal clerk is not to be filled. This was a resignation with a retiring allowance.


Henry Lumley Drayton: How much?

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, Mr. KING (Kootenay):	The position of
clerk stenographer, in which case there was a resignation, is being refilled at the minimum salary. No pension.


Henry Lumley Drayton: We have no information in regard to the one in which there was a retiring allowance. That is part of the expenditures.


John Warwick King: I thought I would give a summary later on dealing with the whole matter.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That will do just as well if it is more convenient to the minister.


John Warwick King: I have a statement covering the whole service, showing the amount of retirement allowances and pensions.


Henry Lumley Drayton: In the minister's department?


John Warwick King: Yes. The position of junior clerk stenographer, resigned, is being filled at the minimum salary making a saving of $165. The position of clerk-stenographer, also resigned, is being filled at the minimum salary; the same in the position of junior clerk typist. The position of messenger clerk is being re-classified as that of office boy, accounting for a saving of $700. The position of junior file clerk, which is now under transfer, will be placed in the minimum class. As to the question of retirements and annuities, I have a table showing the amounts paid from the year 1921 down to the year 1924. There have been in all 351 retirements during the four years, the number last year being 186.


Mr. KENNEDY (Glengarry and Stormont):: All in civil government?


John Warwick King: Not all, no. The gratuities paid during the four years totalled $84,409.60; for the year 1924 they amounted to $42,935.99. The annuities for the four years amounted to $132,530.31; for the year 1924 the total was $75,614.24. Salaries of positions abolished amount for the four years to $207,949.52; for the year 1924, $60,651.86. Of the total number of 351 persons retired, 269 were over sixty; the other retirements were due to ill health.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I did not quite
catch the effect of all that was said, but if I caught one figure correctly it was that the amount of annual pensions inside and out, as I caught it, was $75,614 in the one year. Is that correct?


John Warwick King: That is correct.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Will my hon.
friend give me the annuities for the past four years?


John Warwick King: For 1920-21, $15,011.47; for 1922, $22,391.21; for 1923,$19,510.39; for 1924, $75,617.24. Fifty-seven retired in 1920-21; fifty-four in 1922; fifty-four in 1923, and one hundred and eighty-six in 1924.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Is that an annual payment, or is it got rid of now for all
time?


John Warwick King: That is an annual
payment.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Then I take it that that represents pensions.


John Warwick King: I gave the gratuities for the four years; they amounted to $84,409.68.


Henry Lumley Drayton: So we are now paying in pensions for this department $76,614. While we have a saving this year of $18,000, of course this has only to do with the inside service. To be fair to my hon. friend, he would have a further credit in the lower amount asked for the outside service this year as compared with last year. Has he those figures handy?


John Warwick King: The statement
covers both the inside and outside sendee of the Public Works department.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I appreciate that fact, but I want to be fair to my hon.. friend. He has given me the information which makes for expense in connection with pensions, and as against that he points to a net saving of $18,000 on the inside service.


John Warwick King: It is the reduction in the amount asked for to carry the service for another year.


Henry Lumley Drayton: As I understand the figures, there is a saving of approximately $18,000 on the inside service. Now, as we have the plus of the $75,000 and the $80,000 odd in gratuities covering the whole service, it would be in the interest of my hon. friend to now give us the comparative figures for the outside service this year and last year, so we can see how pensions, gratuities and salaries are running along one with the other.


John Warwick King: The positions
abolished in the whole department through retirements effected a saving of $207,949.


John Wilfred Kennedy: Were not those positions refilled?
Supply-Public Works


John Warwick King: No, they were
abolished. That is for the four years. For the last year there would be a saving of $60,651.86. I do not think I have the data that would cover my hon. friend's question. We are not dealing with the outside service in this vote.


Henry Lumley Drayton: All I want, Mr. Chairman, is what pensions are costing the inside and outside services respectively.


John Warwick King: I have not the
inside and outside services separated.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend has given the total in one case, and a section in the other, which does not cover it at all. Take for example the saving that is said to have been accomplished?


John Warwick King: The saving in
the inside service of the Public Works department by positions abolished through retirement is $12,305.55 for 1924.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I understand
that is the figure for annual pensions payable in respect of resignations and retirements accepted up to the present time?


John Warwick King: No, I do not think that is right. It is under the head of annuities and salaries of successors. I think we can give the annuities. They are: Engineer public works, grade 2, $2,215; engineer public works, grade 1, $1,740; head clerk, $739.56; architectural modeller, $680; principal clerk, $1,064; assistant tester of building material, $1,050; draftsman, $771.66; file clerk, $840; second file clerk, $498.33; junior architect, $952; senior stenographer, $1,005; photographer, $750. These are all annual payments.


Mr. ANDERSON:: To what extent is the superannuation fund in the minister's department self-sustaining?


John Warwick King: Most of these retirements are under the Calder Act. As to the fund maintaining itself, I have not that information.


Robert King Anderson: I understood the minister to say that these were annual payments?


John Warwick King: Yes.


Robert King Anderson: They are under the
Superannuation Act, are they?


John Warwick King: They are all under the Calder Act.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am afraid that is incorrect. The Calder Act was not a superannuation act proper; it was not a perman-
ent act. If all these payments are annual payments they cannot be under the Calder Act. As it is near six o'clock, I suggest to my hon. friend that he have a statement prepared during the dinner hour showing, first, all cash bonuses, gratuities or other payments following suspension of service, including those under the Calder Act, and, second all annual payments under the different superannuation acts. I think these annual payments ought to be separately classified. It is not fair to the department to do otherwise, because it makes it look as if the department is costing more than it really is. We would like to know exactly, on the one. hand, what it has cost to get the service reorganized to the extent that it has been reorganized, under all the different methods, and, on the other hand, the saving involved. If we have this at eight o'clock we can deal with this matter in a short time instead of having perhaps half an hour or more of cross-examination.


John Warwick King: I do not think
we could prepare a statement that would show the matter any more fully than the statement we have before us now. We have shown the retirements for four years, the annual payments for each year, the amounts of salaries dropped on account of abolition of positions, and the retirements from the inside service. Under the Calder Act annual payments were made to many who retired under its provisions, so that it was not merely a matter of cash payments or gratuities. I will try to have a statement prepared if my hon. friend desires it, but I do not think we could state the facts any more clearly.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am quite content to take as final from this department the statement that they are paying out in pensions $75,617, if the minister thinks he is doing himself justice by letting it go at that. But if that is correct he is running up in a very short time a rather alarming burden upon the country. We have $42,000 in superannuation payments in the one year-


John Warwick King: The $42,000 was for gratuities and the $75,617.24 for annual payments.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I thought the
$42,000 was the amount of annual payments for the year before last. What was the corresponding figure, then, for the annual payments during the year before?


John Warwick King: 
Henry Lumley Drayton: So we jump
from an annual cost of $19,510 in 1923 to an annual cost of $75,617 in 1924; is that right?


John Warwick King: Your cost depends entirely on the number retired and the amounts they draw. There were 57 retirements in 1920-21; this year there are 186.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Can the minister give us the average age of those retired, so that we may get an idea of how long this will go on?


John Warwick King: That can be had in the department, yes.


John Wilfred Kennedy: Of the 186 retirements of last year, some were made under the Superannuation Act of 1924?


John Warwick King: No, none.


John Wilfred Kennedy: Was the $75,000 paid last year in respect of retirements that took place last year?


John Warwick King: Yes.


John Wilfred Kennedy: Can the minister give us the total payments made last year to those retired last year as well a3 to those who had been retired in previous years?


John Warwick King: We have not that information, but it could be obtained in the Finance department. The information could be procured if the House desires it.


John Wilfred Kennedy: Would it be fair to assume that the figures for the last four years given by the minister, 57 retirements amounting to $15,000 and 54 retirements amounting to $22,000, are annual payments?


John Warwick King: Except in the
case of death, which of course would reduce the payments. Many of these men are old, and some of them are dying. The payments in 1922 amounted to $14,510.30. I have no doubt that the annual payment to-day would be very much less on account of the men who were retired that year, because there will have been deaths among them.


John Wilfred Kennedy: But the annual payments made under superannuation la^t year would be much greater than $75,000. The total would almost be the sum of the payments that have been made in all the previous years, except for those who have died.


John Warwick King: Yes.


John Wilfred Kennedy: And the minister has not the total.


John Warwick King: No, that does not come within our department, but under the Department of Finance. I understood there was to be a statement presented to the House showing the retirements under the Superannuation Act. The figures I have given relate only to the Public Works department.


John Wilfred Kennedy: Year by year.


John Warwick King: Yes.


Mr. CALDWELL:: I have on my desk the list of retirements from all the departments, but it does not give the information asked for. I asked that it should also state the amount paid into the fund by those persons who have been retired. That information is not given, and it is very necessary to have it in order that we may see if the fund is self-sustaining. Do I understand that there were no payments made by the civil servants into the superannuation fund under the Cal-der Act?


John Warwick King: No.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: In what year was the Calder Act passed and how many retirements were made under it?


John Warwick King: In 1920 I think. There have been 351 retirements from this department under that act.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I think we passed a very unwise superannuation act last year, but if it should be criticized, the Calder Act should be absolutely condemned. Any superannuation act to provide pensions for civil servants who contribute nothing towards making up a pension fund I think is absolutely unsound. I have criticized the act of last year before and I shall do so again at some future time. I think it was unsound because it was not on an actuarial basis. I think in almost every case you will find that the civil servant who retires at sixty-five, and who is drawing a salary averaging $3,500 for the past ten years, will draw out more in two years than he paid in in thirty-five years. Unfortunately I was unable to speak on the bill last year. I intended to do so, but it had got through committee and was up for its third reading when I happened to come into the House from a committee meeting I had been attending, and I did not have the opportunity to speak. I think last year's act was unsound, and the Calder Act much worse. I think there were one or two superannuation acts under which we were working
soo
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previous to 1924. Was any payment made by the civil servants under those old acts?


John Warwick King: I think so.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Can you give us the
details?


John Warwick King: I have not the
details.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I suppose we can get
that information.


John Warwick King: The Finance department can furnish that, when the Finance estimates are before the House. The suggestion my hon. friend has made regarding the list before him I will bring to the attention of the minister with a view to having the list supplemented.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I would urge very
strongly that this list be printed so that it will be available to hon. members. It is not in a convenient form to get at, and is hard to copy as it as. It would not cost much to print. It would be valuable as a matter of reference, and I think we should1 have it. Before the list is printed it should be supplemented, showing in detail the payments that have been made into the fund.


Mr. MILLAR:: Is any member of this House also receiving a retiring allowance under the Calder Act? I have heard that charge made.


John Warwick King: Not to my knowledge.


John Millar: I have heard that charge
made publicly in one of our churches, and I just wanted to know whether it was true or not.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That must have been a long way out in the west.
Item stands.
Progress reported.
At six o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair and the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.



[Stage Direction]
A message from His Excellency the Governor General, transmitting further supplementary estimates for the, year ending March 31, 1925, as presented by the Hon. J. A. Robb, (Acting Minister of Finance) read by Mr. Speaker to the House, and referred to committee of Supply.

[Stage Direction]
The House in committee of Supply, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
Agriculture-Experimental Farms, $1,440,000.
Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Minister of Agriculture):: Probably it would facilitate the work of the committee if I were to give a short explanation of the increase of $40,000 over last year. This has to be utilized for specific purposes. One of these is the extension of the Harrow tobacco farm which was undertaken last summer. This was formerly a small tobacco station, but the work has extended into the growing and breeding of corn, and it was found desirable to add about 200 acres to the farm. The sum of $10,000 will be used for the purpose of getting the farm in shape, plotting it out, making roads through it and doing all the things necessary to carry on experimental work. A similar amount is being expended at Invermere, where a small farm existed, and was organized ten or twelve years ago with the idea of developing it as a fruit farm. The altitude, however, was too great and the temperature too low to be suitable for fruitgrowing purposes. Therefore we are developing that also into a general farm. For this purpose something like 300 acres was transferred from the Soldier Settlement Board. It was some soldier settlement land that had lasped back to the department. This land was transferred to the Experimental Farm branch, and this made the necessary addition to convert the Invermere farm into a regularly constituted farm. This farm is in an irrigation area, and well adapted for potato growing, poultry raising and so on. Some buildings were erected on it last year, but this $10,000 is to develop the farm, complete the fencing and ditching, and provide the general equipment, so that it may be utilized for the purpose intended.
A further $10,000 of this amount is to be used for the establishment of additional illustration stations. We find that we have all kinds of ideas regarding experimental farms. Some people have no use for a little illustration station. They would not be bothered with it in their neighbourhood. They see a post in the ground with a board on it stating it is a Dominion illustration station, and when you speak of these stations they look upon them with disdain. They want a great big farm of 300 acres fully equipped with stock and buildings, and they have no use for these little farms. There is another class of people that have no use

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for the regular large experimental farm. They say: They are run by the government and therefore they cannot be much good; the men are paid salaries by the government; they do not work very hard and they are looking for sundown and their salaries. So these people think that such farms are not of much account. They want a small farm, an illustration station. We find, however, that the kind of farm work that is increasing in popularity more than any other is these small illustration stations consisting of forty acres that the government does not buy but merely rents from a resident settler that is of an experimental turn of mind. We enter into a contract with him, renting his property at five dollars an acre, supplying seed and everything else required for working out experiments best adapted to that area. These are particularly popular in the soldier settlement areas. Some of these boys that have taken up farming have been rather unfortunate in their location, sometimes, perhaps, through the fault of nobody in particular. But they are having a hard struggle and are just able to wiggle along. These men appreciate very much any assistance that can be given to them in the way of demonstrating the best method of conducting farming operations in their particular district. I have more especially in mind a number of illustration stations established in Manitoba around Dauphin that have been very beneficial to these soldier settlers who are starting out anew and who are badly involved, without much experience and in need of some assistance from the government. These illustration stations seem to be filling a real need and appealing to a large number of people who like to see work done by what we call a dirt farmer himself, a man on the land that they know, working out these problems without the halo of having a government salary associated with him. That is just an idea that some people have and they derive a great deal of benefit from these little illustration stations On the other hand, others receive greater benefit from the larger experimental farms and would not thank you for the little ones. There is $10,000 for that, $10,000 for the Harrow farm, $10,000 for the tobacco and corn farm, and $10,000 for the extension of the Invermere farm. If we have the money to spare, we have thought of re-establishing a tobacco station at L'As-somption in the county of Montcalm-Terre-bonne. There was a tobacco station there some years ago on rented property, but the land did not prove suitable for growing tobacco. Tobacco growing requires a special character of light soil, and there are in Canada 51
only a few such places, one of them being in the Windsor country in Essex county and two or three places in Quebec which are peculiarly adapted for growing tobacco. We are thinking of devoting $5,000 to the re-establishment of a tobacco farm there if we haye the money for that purpose, and we think we shall have that by exercising a little economy in other directions. The farm was never re-established during the war period and so we are taking it up now. These are the explanations regarding the increases.
With regard to the experimental farm system proper which consists of the Central experimental farm at Ottawa and something like twenty-three branch farms, the Central experimental farm is spoken of as a farm. We think of it as a farm, but it is really a research agricultural bureau with branch activities in different parts of Canada. Not over one-half of the money that is devoted to the Central experimental farm is spent on the farm proper. Out of the moneys expended there over $300,000 are devoted to research work in the various branch farms throughout Canada, but the money is charged up to the Central farm. The sum of $107,000 is devoted to running this farm itself and when you deduct the revenues derived from it, amounting to $65,000, which are returned to the treasury, that leaves a net balance of thirty-two thousand dollars odd against the Central experimental farm. This Central farm has not had its farm areas extended since its organization something like forty years ago. Part of the land has been taken up for an arboretum, part for extensive lawns and borders, shelter beds, orchards and vegetable gardens, so that the farm proper now is reduced to about 235 acres, or about one-half of the original acreage. Therefore, it stands very much in need of extension for fanning purposes.
With regard to branch farms, our policy, since I have had the responsibility of trying to guide the destinies of these institutions, has been not to establish any more branch farms until we had the old twenty-three in better shape. I believe that has been the correct policy. It is not an easy matter to carry it out. The government that preceded us started nine new branch farms in different parts of Canada, a number in the Maritimes and a number in the west. The government that preceded that again started nine branch farms. The government responsible for starting these farms, that led by Sir John A. Macdonald, started five, making in all twenty-three farms. We have stopped establishing new farms until such time that we get the others already estab-

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lished in reasonably good shape. That is speaking generally as to the situation. If we come back again to the Central experimental farm, if members of the committee interested in the matter, should so desire, I will give the subdivisions of the work that goes on at the Central farm showing the nature of the research work. Hundreds and thousands of experiments are conducted from year to year, and I shall be glad to give some of the results therefrom, if hon. members so desire. These are the subdivisions: Chemistry, horticulture, cereals, botany, animal husbandry, field husbandry, tobacco, poultry, agristology, bacteriology, illustration stations, extension and publicity, bees, fibre plants. The total amount expended under these various subdivisions I can give, but I had better leave it where it is and let members of the committee ask what they desire as to these particular subdivisions, or any work regarding the branch farms or illustration stations, or any other matters they may desire information about.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Is this the vote under
which the new residence for the superintendent at Fredericton is being built?


William Richard Motherwell: No. That comes out of the Public Works vote. There is a vote later on in Public Works for new buildings. Part of the work is, however, being done by the experimental farm regular labour and charged up to the Public Works vote. The work, as I think my hon. friend knows, has been under way for ten years, since the year of the war. Last year we conceived the idea of cleaning up some rough land that was an eyesore from the railway and using the stone from that to build a residence for the superintendent. They had not enough to finish it last year, so we hoped to complete it another year. The same force of men that cleaned the land was used to build the house. There is a way of adjust'ng the accounts


Richard Burpee Hanson: I was wondering why it
was that the minister departed from the well-accepted principle of having work of this kind done by tender, and not cy day labour. The minister did us the honour of visiting us the summer before last, and I understood that he left instructions to have this work done by day labour. I was just wondering why.


William Richard Motherwell: That was the reason. It would be pretty hard to get a contractor to go grubbing around in this rough land, hunting up the stones. If he did, I think he would charge up pretty sweetly for it. There is a popular idea too that a contract

is always the cheapest, but that is not necessarily so. In this particular instance better value all round was obtained in the wiay the work was done, having regard to the peculiar material that was used and especially in view of the difficulty we should have experienced in getting the contractor to clean up the land. As it was, the same force that cleaned the land supplied the material for the building, so that they had an interest in getting the best stones they could for the work as well as in cleaning up the place at the same time for the plough.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is not very convincing, if the minister will allow me to say so. I do not complain particularly but I wondered why there was a departure from the general principle. I have no doubt that the minister could have secured competent contractors in the city of Fredericton to build the house just as it is being put up now, and it would not have been necessary to send out of the immediate community to look for labourers. As far as I am aware, there was not a local stone cutter employed; men were brought from the north shore of New Brunswick to put up the building under the plea that local men were not available. I do not think that this was the fact.


Mr. BROWN:: From what vote is the
money to be taken for further research into the rust problem?


William Richard Motherwell: That comes under
" Administration of the Destructive Insect and Past Act." With regard to the question raised by my hon. friend (Mr. Hanson), I would point out to him that it takes experience of a special kind to build a wall out of field stone. Some masons will not put a hammer on it at all; they insist on having quarried stone to work on. These being field stones I presume it was found necesary to get outside men who were familiar with this kind of material.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That may be, I do not
know.


Arthur Meighen: I would suggest that
the idea which the public has, that it is better to have tender and contract, is likely the product of the speeches of the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff) and others in the last parliament.


William Richard Motherwell: I was not here;
I think I have read something about it.


Arthur Meighen: The minister is not
guilty; he never had any such heterodox views himself.

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William Richard Motherwell: I used to have
when I was younger and less familiar with these things. Speaking generally, though, I presume that the contract is the proper method; but it does not always get the best results 'by any means.


Arthur Meighen: The minister means, not the best results politically.


William Richard Motherwell: I had no thought
of that this time. Sometimes, however, the intense desire of the contractor to get the contract induces him to bid too low and he either skimps the job or gets into difficulties before he is half through. I am merely defending the day labour system under these peculiar circumstances, and I add, too, that it often proves better even under more favourable conditions. The popular idea of course is that the only right way is the contract way.


John Millar: There is a line of work I
have been urging the minister to take up in connection with experimental farms and I am glad to see that something is being done in this direction. Yesterday I received a notice indicating that the Civil Service Commission is applying for a horticulturist for the Indian Head experimental farm. I believe that more money devoted to that work would bring good results, for it is research work that would certainly prove beneficial. I have here a clipping showing something of what is being done in the west at the present time. There are some gentlemen in this House who believe that the west is unable to grow fruit; I am sorry that the hon. member for Hants (Mr. Martell) is not present, because I remember his making a reference to this supposition a short time ago. This clipping is short and I shall read it. It has to do with the work of Mr. Tate P. Stevenson of Manitoba, and reads:
RUSSIAN FRUITS THRIVE IN WEST Varieties Introduced by Pioneer Manitoba Horticulturist Are Still Bearing
In front of the old Stevenson home near Morden, Manitoba, stands a Transcendant crab apple tree forty years of age, still bearing fruit in abundance. A little way off is the old apple orchard with its Blushed Calville, Repka Kislaga, Charlamoff, Ostrakoff, Hibernal and other varieties of Russian apple trees, which were loaded with fruit last year. From this orchard Mr. Stevenson harvested one autumn, a few years ago, no less than 300 barrels of apples. Several of the varieties are splendid eating apples, and all of them are first-class cooking fruit. Many varieties of plums have fruited successfully at Pine Grove Nursery, notably the Emerald, Minnesota No. 131, Kaga, Stella, Etopa, and Pembina and several of the newer varieties. The well-known Mammoth plum was developed by the late Mr. Stevenson, being a seedling of the Cheney. Raspberries and strawberries have long been successful fruits at Pine Grove Nursery.
51i	'
Of chief interest to the visitors at Pine Gro/e Nursery was a hedge row of Vladimir cherries. Back in 1891, the late Mr. Stevenson secured a shipment of the then newly introduced hardy Russian cherry trees. Gradually nature thinned them out and cut them down until Mr. Stevenson discarded all except the Vladimir and Shubianca varieties, grown extensively north of Moscow, in Russia, the former being the better in quality. Some of the trees fruited after a few years, there being naturally a great variation in the quality of the fruit. Pits from the best Vladimir fruit were planted, and in due time produced trees which again began to fruit about 10 years ago. Pits from the best of these were again selected and planted. Probably there are 500 to 600 of these cherry trees growing close together in hedge rows six to thirteen feet high, and bearing, in August last, quite abundantly a beautiful bright red cherry. It was rather an inspiring sight to see upwards of 50 people busily engaged eating cherries in a Manitoba orchard. The horticultural experts from eastern Canada pronounced the best of these Vladimir cherries to be quite equal to the best sour cherry produced in Ontario.
To give some idea of what the results might be if a little more attention wer* paid to this department, let me remind the committee of the benefit which the western provinces have derived from the work of Dr. Charles Saunders. Reference was made to this subject before and it will bear emphasis again. Working year after year quietly, and after a considerable period of experimentation,. he was able to produce the marquis wheat, and although it did not involve very much money, the production of that wheat has meant hundreds of millions of dollars to the prairie provinces. One of our leading daily newspapers put it at five hundred million dollars to the world. That may be a large amount but I am not sure that it is over-estimated. Now, the prairies are very bare of fruit, and what was done by Mr. Stevenson, what is being done at Indian Herd in the forestry farm, where they are able to grow an excellent plum, and what a doctor in the town has done, in producing standard apples for a number of years, can be accomplished by departmental activities. At that experimental farm there is a small staff but little attention has been paid to these things. There is an impression in the town nearby where I reside that this work has not been very continuous, nor has it been given any encouragement in past years; in fact, I have heard it rumoured on the streets that on one occasion when there was a fairly good foundation and the trees were ready for grafting, an order was issued that they should be tom up and the place converted into a pasture field. I do not vouch for the truth of that, but it does seem that there has not been sufficient continuous and persistent work along this line; had there been the results would have been better. Certainly, they would
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have been better when you think of what has been done by Mr. Stevenson and others who are known to the department. I was very glad to see that horticulturists were to be engaged, but I have this criticism to make: The salary offered, $1,500, does seem to me to be entirely inadequate for a qualified man to fill such a position in a new country where the foundations for this work are to be laid and three vast prairie provinces to be supplied. I think any man that can be engaged for $1,500 a year is-well, dt does seem to me that he surely cannot have the experience and standing in his profession that he should have. I do not think a salary of $2,500 or $3,000 would be too much; it would be well warranted. However, I am glad that a start has been made. I do hope that a great deal of attention will be paid to this work. The people concerned will appreciate it. It will be easily understood that the individual farmer cannot carry on very much of this work himself; it is too expensive. Fruit trees must be brought from Russia largely. It is well known that we are greatly indebted to that country for a great many of our best hardy varieties of fruit. I will not say that all the money expended on this grant and on experimental farms is wisely spent, but I believe more money might be spent on this department with very good results.


William Richard Motherwell: Mr. Chairman, I am very glad to hear my hon. friend from Qu'-Appelle (Mr. Millar) so express himself. We have had representations from Mr. Chip-man and others urging the conversion of some of these farms into strictly fruit farms. That, again, is a question of money, and until people in the west get well established there will not be very much attention devoted to the developing of fruit growing except by a few enthusiasts. As a business proposition, fruit growing at the beginning does not bring very good returns, although of course it affords one a great deal of satisfaction to be able to fill his basket with home grown apples and other fruit. I have had some experience of fruit growing on my own place, and I know it takes a lot of work, work that can ill be spared from other more revenue-producing branches of the farm. Speaking of the late Mr. A. P. Stevenson, I had the pleasure of presenting his family with the Carter medal that was awarded by the Canadian Horticultural Council for having done the most for horticulture, particularly apple growing, in the west. I also had the pleasure of visiting the Morden experimental farm and his old homestead. His orchard was a very interesting place indeed, and you would think you were

in an old established orchard in Ontario to see the large burly limbs well laden with fruit.
Horticulture is a somewhat comprehensive term; to-day it covers vegetables, flowers and fruits. I presume my hon. friend applies the term largely to fruits?


John Millar: Yes.


William Richard Motherwell: Well, it just depends upon how much money we will have available. We have to divert our funds into the avenues that will bring the most practical results to agriculture at this time. It is a matter of opinion as to when we should embark on a more active policy with reference to fruit growing. Fifty years ago this locality was not much better adapted for fruit growing than the district around Indian Head is to-day. I can remember when only an occasional enthusiast grew any considerable number of apples here, but during recent years Mr. W. T. Macoun, Dominion Horticulturist, has evolved, by grafting and by the development of seedlings, eight or ten first class varieties of apples suitable to this climate. They are all excellent for eating, particularly the Melba. Her Excellency Lady Byng is very much interested in this work, and she pronounces them to be very high class apples. Some of these varieties no doubt will be suitable for development in the western country. I will give consideration to my hon. friend's representations -indeed I am doing so now by calling for this assistant horticulturist. With regard to the salary offered, I have always noticed, Mr. Chairman, that the salaries of technical men in agriculture were lower than in any other department. If anyone examines the salaries of technical men, say, in the Mines branch, where engineers are required, and then runs over the salaries of corresponding men in agriculture, he will find the latter are lower for some reason. I am not going to account for it, but they are lower. When young men are starting out in life they choose the vocation which offers the best salaried prospects. If agriculture does not bring as much remuneration as some other profession, naturally they avoid agriculture. Consequently the country develops with comparatively few men available for this class of work, and the salaries are low. I do not want to pass the buck on to the Civil Service Commission, but there is the classification, and I tell you it makes one sweat to get it changed. If my hon. friend, (Mr. Millar) will back me up in insisting that agricultural technical positions should be better paid, probably we will get somewhere. We have

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had these positions reclassified, but the Civil Sendee Commission have hundreds of other similar applications, and by the time they' have investigated them probably a year has elapsed, meanwhile the lower salaries prevail and there is no one available for the positions at the lower remuneration. I quite agree with my hon. friend that the salaries are too low.


Mr. SENN:: How much money is spent in Ontario outside of the experimental farm in Ottawa?


William Richard Motherwell: Last year we added nearly 200 acres to the Harrow farm, and this year we are spending $10,000 to develop it into a general farm, because we find we cannot very well develop a proper tobacco or corn farm without live stock. Then there is the Kapuskasing farm in northern Ontario, doing excellent work where a few years ago was a wilderness. That is one of the few farms I have not visited. I have seen it passing by on the train, and everything looked quite progressive compared with the surrounding country. We have spent about $40,000 at Kapuskasing and $35,000 at Harrow. I remember that my hon. friend who is just rising (Mr. Sutherland) rather took me to task the first year for not having given more attention to illustration stations in Ontario. I think there are eight in this province, at about $300 apiece; then we have $35,000 for Harrow and about $10,000 for Kapuskasing. These, of course, are exclusive of the Ottawa farm. The first agricultural college in Canada was established at Guelph over fifty years ago, so that Ontario has had the benefit of that training and assistance to agriculture, and that may account for the fact that there has not been such a large demand in that province for these small illustration stations.


Mr. SUTHERLAND:: The hon. member (Mr. Senn) asked what the department was doing in regard to the fruit growing in Ontario. The minister has talked a long time and ended up by not giving the information asked for.


William Richard Motherwell: I often do not
hear very well, but my deputy has good ears and he told me that what the hon. member wanted was the amount spent in Ontario outside the Central experimental farm. Now, I am going to try to-night to meet the wishes of the hon. member for South Oxford, even if it takes us all night. As to fruit growing, the principal work is done at the Central farm under Mr. Macoun.
Under another vote we have the appropriations for the horticultural work, horticultural council, and so on. WTe had representations only yesterday with respect to the expansion of this work, particularly as it relates to vegetables, flowers and fruit. But not very much is spent in Ontario outside the Central experimental farm and at Harrow and at Kapuskasing so far as fruit goes, except in an educational way.


Donald Sutherland: What fruits are
grown at Kapuskasing and Harrow?


William Richard Motherwell: Largely the small
fruits at Kapuskasing; other tree fruits and smaller fruits at Harrow.


Donald Sutherland: Is it not a fact that the provincial government are carrying on this work and have experimental farms all over the province? Are any of these illustration farms in Ontario devoted to fruit growing?


William Richard Motherwell: No.


Donald Sutherland: So that the department are really not doing anything in Ontario in the way of experimenting in fruit growing, outside of the Central farm at Ottawa, which is really for the whole Dominion, not particularly for Ontario?


William Richard Motherwell: We had an application recently from the county of Lanark for some work along the line of the rejuvenating of old orchards-spraying and putting them back into good bearing shape. I do not know of any other application. I went fully into the matter, and it looked to me a little like invading what has been recognized as the provincial field to start out on a policy of establishing illustration stations in respect to fruit alone. There is no particular line of demarcation; but that is the way I feel about it, particularly in regard to an area that is not peculiarly adapted for the growing of tree fruit.


Donald Sutherland: So far as invading
the provincial field is concerned, I do not look at it from that view at all. It costs less for the province to do this work than for the federal department to do it; that is really about what it amounts to. If the federal department refuses to do anything the province has to step in and do it and pay for it.


William Richard Motherwell: That is about the way a lot of the work is done; if the province refuses to go into it then we take it up. We are trying to work out an allocation of
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the respective spheres of operation of the provinces and the Dominion. Speaking generally, work associated with production is looked upon as provincial and work associated with the health of animals, the grading of products and the marketing of them, is looked upon as federal. But it is hard to get the line.


Robert Alexander Hoey: The minister visited the constituency of Nelson in September last. He must have been impressed, not to say surprised, by the agricultural possibilities of that region. Apart altogether from the gardens that he visited-


William Richard Motherwell: Does my hon.
friend refer to that portion of the district which is towards its northern extremity?


Robert Alexander Hoey: Yes, I will explain that.


William Richard Motherwell: It is pretty hard
to give any estimate of its possibilities after one hurried trip, but I was very much struck with what I saw there in the way of gardens, in the way of grass and in the way of possibilities in many directions which may be considered as sufficient to support a very considerable population. Without entering into railway matters at all-confining myself strictly to agriculture-I found less evidences of frost in the gardens around the Pas than we found around Winnipeg, and up the Swan river. In the newer districts, where the soil is largely what is called muskeg but what is really vegetable matter, the gardens were frozen very badly. But where the soil had been worked for three or four years and the ground solidified and its capacity to contain heat increased, the gardens were in perfect condition. Onions do not grow well there, however; there is too much vegetable matter.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: What time of year was that?


William Richard Motherwell: The last week in
August. We went on north to mile 81- that is the Herb lake country. The train we were on had something like twenty cars, including the car of settlers' effects. There was no siding on which to spot this car; so it was just set on the track right opposite this man's shack, and the hon. member for Springfield's party I think must have had a time pinch-barring it on and getting their gas car past it. It is quite a trick on that road to spot a car right opposite a man's farm so that another man can get past it. When you get to mile 137, you find there a Hudson's Bay store and other frontier buildings, and evidences of men who in the winter

time devote their attention to trapping, and in the summer to farming operations. At mile 185 there was a gentleman by the name of Cowan. He had a beautiful garden of flowers, and one little apple tree, only about so high, but it had produced its first fruit in the shape of one apple. That was about the last of August. I never inquired how it developed, or whether it wouild suit the particular taste of my hon. friend from Macleod (Mr. Coote), but at all events it was an apple. Then os we journeyed further north we came across a cold storage plant at mile 239. It had been filled with sturgeon fish but at the time we got there only one carload was left to ship out. From that on up to mile 332 there was not much evidence of agricuture that I could come to any conclusion about; but the country is not the quagmire or muskeg we hear so much about. It will support a very considerable population engaged in mining, trapping and fishing in the winter, very much the same way of living pursued down in the Maritime provinces, where the people may be engaged in fishing or lumbering at one time of the year, and in farming at another.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I object.


William Richard Motherwell: I am not speaking
in disparagement at all. It is a fine thing in a new country to have two or three sources of revenue for the first few years. I cannot remember his name, but the party who was keeping the stopping place at the end of the track was from Cape Breton and knew all the members in this House from Nova Scotia. He and his wife gave us a splendid lodging, and an excellent breakfast next morning at four o'clock when it was time to get back on the train. The whole country up there is capable of considerable agricultural! development, but I do not think you will get much development up there so long as you have better land on the open prairie. Do not mistake me; people are not going to flock in there pell-mell when there is better land easier of access and Closer to the market; but when the Hudson Bay road opens up the farther north country, of course, the closer they will be to their market

I presume that is what my hon. friends across the way wanted to get out of me.


Mr. TOLMIE:: The minister was good
enough when the live stock vote was taken up the other day, to give us permission to speak on live stock in connection with the present vote. The other day during a somewhat long discussion, one very important feature of the live stock business was not

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touched on, and that is that while we have expended hundreds of thousands of dollars on exhibitions and the improvement of live stock by the distribution of pure bred sires and in various other ways, at the present time there are still thousands of cattle of very poor quality and in very poor condition being crowded into our markets during the last two or three months of the year, and in that way forcing down the prices in our markets, and so crowding the market with cattle that they can hardly handle the bulk of them. It also tends to lower the market at that time even for the best cattle. In view of this condition and its seriousness to the whole of our agriculture in Canada, I would like to know what the department is doing and has done in the last two or three years towards remedying such a condition, and towards inducing the farmers to finish their cattle in a better way so that they can take them to market and make a better profit on them. The great problem to-day is not so much the quality of the cattle, as the proper feeding of them before sending them to market, and sending them to market at the right time.


William Richard Motherwell: Speaking from memory, the latest action we have taken in regard to the improvement of live stock is that we have refused to give indemnity to the owners of grade bulls that are slaughtered for tuberculosis, or for steers of any kind or lump jaw cattle. In order to encourage the farmers to produce a better quality of cattle we have let them know that we are no longer going to indemnify them for animals slaughtered for tuberculosis. That step has just been taken, and that is why I mention it first.
We have also been working in conjunction with the provincial governments where they have had "better live stock" trains, with men going through the country preaching the gospel of better live stock, because after all this is largely an educational matter.
In addition to that we have developed our various branch farms more and more along the line of live stock. I have used the term "live stock breeding depot" in the past, and at such points we are not spending so much time in experimenting with the soil, because in some of the older districts the farmers have a good knowledge of the best cultural methods necessary for their district, but we are giving more attention to live stock and the development of a better quality from grades up by using pure bred males and developing the ordinary cattle along that line. I think that is the cheapest and most practical way for the average man, to take his ordinary female stock, and rather than sell them at a
sacrifice, use a pure bred sire and grade the stock up.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: What is being done in the feeding line?


William Richard Motherwell: Feeding is a very important matter. There is no virtue in live stock of any kind if you are a bad feeder.
You cannot turn animals out
9	p.m. to take care of themselves and expect to make money out of them. You have to give them not only a maintenance ration, but more, to make them thrive and fatten. We are trying to bring that lesson home, for it is a lesson everyone should know, but like any other missionary work you have to keep pounding it into the people all the time. Some will listen, some will not; but there are always some who believe it.
Then during the last two or three years we have had various stockyard associations at Calgary, Moose Jaw and Winnipeg, working in conjunction with the provincial departments of agriculture and our department in the putting on of three feeder shows. Those owning feeders are encouraged to bring them in there, and those wanting to buy feeders, including Ontario buyers, are encouraged by special freight rates to come out there and buy feeders to take back to Ontario and other eastern provinces. The first show was a remarkable success. Then we put on men to give lectures and addresses on the best way of conducting feeding operations. It seems simple enough but you have to keep on reiterating these things, and we are having remarkable results already. It was really fine at the second feeder show-I was present at the shows at Moose Jaw and Calgary-to see these animals which were nearly all ranch grown animals running on their mothers on the range with that sleekness that you get only from such bred animals. They were in great demand when they arrived at the show, and they ran up to as high as 7 cents, and very many of them 6 cents, for feeders. The Ontario farmers ran them up a little bit because having gone out there so far, and having the advantage of a cheap freight rate they wanted to take back something with them, and they made a good bid; and I have no doubt they will make good returns too. It is just a question of keeping the necessity before them.
In regard to the rubbish to be found in the stockyards, I was quite amazed two years ago, on going to the stockyards at Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg, to see the rubbish in those yards. The stock will not pay the freight. They have a very poor quality of
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stock, and frequently have no money to buy feed for them, and they have to get rid of them in some way. It is a burden on any man to keep such stock. Where is the responsibility? We are spending a lot of money under the live stock vote. We come in for a little bit of criticism in this regard- I am told that no matter where you go through the Dominion you will trip over an employee of the Department of Agriculture, in the Live Stock or some other branch. If we are to speed up this work any more than we are doing now, we have still more to preach the gospel of better live stock. You can go into the older districts of Ontario, not 25 miles from where we are sitting, and find a very alarming number of poor, unprofitable boarders among our cattle. I do not think my hon. friend from Victoria and Carleton (Mr. Caldwell) looks any more guilty than anybody else, but I am sure he can tell us about the unprofitable class of animals kept down in some parts of the Maritime provinces.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I have got rid of
mine.


William Richard Motherwell: Everybody knows
about them. I do not know if my hon. friend has any explanation of why people will perisist in raising this class of animal. If he can tell me how we can provide a remedy I shall be very glad, because I know my hon. friend is a practical live stock man. We have our clergymen preaching the gospel of salvation for over 2,000 years, and yet a lot of people do not believe it, and many people believe there is no more profit in good cattle than in the poor ones.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: The hon. gentleman implies that while they preach the gospel, people still persist in betting on horses.


William Richard Motherwell: I do not think that that practice would keep my hon. friend out of the Kingdom.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: I should like a little information. Has the minister any figures he can give us over a term of years as to the profit in feeding steers on the experimental farm with the ordinary feed that can be obtained from the farms in the neighbourhood.


William Richard Motherwell: We have not that information here. That is published in the regular reports and bulletins. I suppose my hon. friend means the branch farms.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: The branch farms throughout the country, looking at it in a commercial way.


William Richard Motherwell: The branch stock was sent to the Central farm and finished off

with that experiment as chilled meat last year. We have not the figures here. But a lot of animals fed here were used entirely for that experiment. Some were sent as fat animals, some as Stockers and some as chilled. If you are not too fond of getting out or of constant and continuous hard work, and if you like live stock, you can convert a whole lot of money into it on the farm, and if you do not know how to manage it and buy the wrong type of animal, you can lose money faster than you can make it. If you have the room and cheap enough land, you can make a profit. But there is tremendous room for information in this regard, and there is an additional desire to get the right kind of animal. I shall be pleased to get that information for my hon. friend.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: There must be a number of feeding experiments carried on at the experimental farms west of the lakes, where there is a profusion of food.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Have they been generally successful or not?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, I have visited a good many farms; the animals are nearly all fed outside and they are profitable. People go out and buy them. Last year Mr. Taggart of Swift Current was at the Calgary feeder show, and he claimed he could buy the steers cheaper outside of the show where there was no competition. He buys them at the market price from the farmers, takes them to Swift Current, keeps them in a straw shed, feeds them in the open yard from trench silo with cut com and sunflower and makes good money. He gets the right kind. However, I have not the exact figures.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: This feeding has been carried on very largely on the prairies by private companies and private individuals who have started out on a large scale. Is the minister aware whether they are making it successful?


William Richard Motherwell: No.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: There is a big plant out in Manitoba and another near Edmonton.


William Richard Motherwell: I was not thinking of Manitoba. I understand they are doing well. I wonder how they look after them. I see these dealers all dressed up very natty round the Fort Garry hotel, and it must be very profitable if they are able to stay at that nice hotel, feed their stock and make a profit. I was never able to do it mv-self.

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Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Maybe they have a
man to do it.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, and they
have a good foreman, a gentleman named Speers. He tells me he is making money and I think he is. I think he is a real feeder. I think he is pretty much on the job. But it has become a profitable business since the embargo was taken off. Everybody who has a little money to blow in buys a bunch of steers, feeds them, gets interviewed, and they are supposed to be developing the British market, and all that sort of thing. I have some doubts as to whether that is the proper way to car o' on practical steer feeding for any market. If a person has a little money he might as well amuse himself that way as any other. But you require to give careful personal attention to the business and I think that that is being done in the one or two oases my hon. friend refers to.


Mr. BIRD:: I should like to draw the minister's attention to the Hudson Bay railway again. The northern part of the province of Manitoba was delighted and gratified when the minister decided to take his trip up north, and I think they will be equally gratified to learn he has borne his testimony in the House to-night regarding that district:
My purpose in intervening in the discussion to-night is to inquire of the minister whether he has given any consideration to the desirability of instituting an experimental station on some modest lines on some points on the Hudson Bay railway.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Thomas William Bird: I do not mean that part of
the railway which is not built yet, or the part that has gone into decay, but the part that is operative. I want to announce to the House that the Hudson Bay milway, so far as half of its mileage is concerned, is in operation. I think the minister himself can bear testimony that it is a good piece of railroad, and ought to be put to the utmost possible use. The minister's testimony does not stand alone. For two or three years we have been trying to persuade the House that this country through which the Hudson Bay line runs is as good a country as you can find in the west of Canada.
This does not depend upon recent visitors to that country. We have evidence dating as far back as that district has been known. Every government expedition sent in there has reported equally favourably about that country. Before the Senate committee, five years ago, J. B. Tyrell, a well-known government explorer, described that country through which the line ran for about 200 miles as being beautiful clay land, as good as any in Manitoba. We have other evidence which all goes to back up what the minister has said. I will detain the House just for a moment in reading the evidence of Mr. Mc-Innes, a member of the Geological survey, who went in there some years ago:
In summing up his impressions of what he designates "the gently rolling clay covered country", Mr. Wm. Mclnnes, of the Geological survey, wrote:
"Of the whole of this extensive plateauland, extending from the valley of the Nelson river westward to near Burntwood and Wekusko lakes (west long. 99 degrees, 46 min.), northerly at least to beyond latitude 56 d., and southerly to the limestone escarpment, an area of about 10,000 sq. miles, it may be said it is characterized by a heavy clay soil entirely free from boulders. Lacustrine clays, composed of the rock flour once held in suspension by glacial streams and deposited by them as they reached the quiet waters of a great lake, are essentially the soils of this region; there is no distinct surface soil clearly separable from the clay subsoil, the one merges gradually into the other, the clayey character of the soil being strongly apparent at the very surface where merely the shallow cover of decaying leaves and other vegetation is scraped away. Generally for from five inches to over a foot down the clay is deep brown in colour from the admixture of vegetable matter, and quite friable, and the rootlets of even the smaller surface vegetation reach down far below this level, though on the tops of many of the ridges the light buff-coloured clay, without any appreciable colouration from vegetable matter, comes to the surface. The rolling character of the plateau generally provides fair drainage, but over considerable areas in its central portion, far from the valleys of the larger streams, there are large tracts that have not sufficient gradients for the proper flow of the surface water but could be made available for agricultural uses by being artificially drained."
And further, this is his description of the climate:
Mr. Mclnnes gave particular attention to the question of climate, which he rightly considered of "vital importance in connection with this region". He kept a careful record of temperatures, and from the time it was "begun on the 19th of June until the night of the 29th September, when the thermometer fell to 26 d., there was no frost that affected even tender vegetation. On the night of the 10th of August the temperature fell to the freezing point, but did not get low enough to do damage at least in the valley of Grassy river, though some of the potato vines on the summit of the high ridge north of the Pas were slightly touched". He was convinced that the "district is not at all too cold for general agricultural operations. The longer daily duration of sunlight in these high latitudes must be taken into consideration and for purposes of comparison with more southerly localities yearly averages of temperature are of no value."
Through this agricultural region described by Mr. Mclnnes, the Hudson Bay road runs at the present time and is operating the whole of the distance through this clay belt. It seems to me to be a reasonable request that the government should, in a modest way, without going to a great deal of expense, institute
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some form of experimental station to prove up this country. Already there is an abundance of proof, as the minister's own experience has confirmed, in regard'to the character of this land. Not only has the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion been over that country, but so has the Minister of Agriculture for our province. As late as last summer, Mr. Bracken, in company with the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Hoey) took the same trip and covered the same ground as the Minister of Agriculture, and their impressions were almost identical with those of the Minister of Agriculture. We are always glad when visitors take that trip. We never try to keep any one away from viewing that country because our faith in it is very well established. It is a beautiful country to look at and I believe it is a good country. It may not be feasible to develop it immediately; but if we are going to operate these 214 miles of railway right through the middle of it, it is only reasonable to spend a little money in trying to determine its agricultural qualities. In this country, even in Manitoba, we have a class of farmer who likes to mix his agricultural operations with a little fishing or other occupations of that kind. I think we have many of them who are trying to eke out a living on land that is not equal in any respect to the land I have described. I think there are, in Europe, especially in northern Europe, farmers who would be only too glad of the opportunity this district gives. It may not be possible to open up the land extensively to settlers of any kind for some time, but in view of the ultimate completion of the Hudson Bay line and the fact that 214 miles of it are being operated every week, it is only reasonable that the government should follow up the personal investigations of the Minister of Agriculture and try out, in a scientific way, what the soil and climate of this immense northern clay belt of 10,000 square miles can really do. I hope the minister has given some attention to that and has already determined in some way or another to test out this country.


William Richard Motherwell: Has my hon. friend in mind any particular place along that road where he thinks we could get the best information in regard to the region? When I came back from there I met some of my experimental farm staff at Winnipeg at the rust conference, and I discussed with them the advisability of establishing either one of these small forty-acre illustration stations or possibly what we call a substation that will cost about $3,000 a year, either at mile 137, where there is a Store owned by a man named Atkinson 
or at mile 185, Where the apiple tree was growing to which I referred. I do not know which might be the better place and perhaps my hon. friend might give some suggestion.


Thomas William Bird: I think either point would
be suitable, but probably the more northerly point would be desirable. It seems to be a suitable spot in many ways and, being more northerly than the other, it might give the region a better test.


Robert Alexander Hoey: When we reached Port Nelson we were surprised1 at many of the things we found there, but perhaps the most surprising thing to us was the fact that they had been ploughing. They had a splendid team of Percheron horses there and they had ploughed, I would say in the neighbourhood of three-quarters of an acre of land. The soil was rough on the surface, but we had a technical agriculturist with us and he was very much impressed with its possibilities. There are six men there under the superintendence of an engineer, Mr. Hazelwood, and I was wondering, in view of the fact that they had been attempting to cultivate some land there, if it would not be possible to have even there, without much expense, a kind of little illustration farm. That is to say, why not send up some seed to the engineer and the men in charge there, just as it is sent out to a little illustration station in my country and have them do a little experimenting on the side? The question may be asked as to its value. Well, one cannot help being impressed, in visiting the United States, by the erroneous opinions widespread there with regard to the southerly region of the provinces of Manitoba and1 Saskatchewan. In the United States someone will ask you whether it would be safe for a woman to visit the city of Winnipeg in December. Now if it could be shown that wild grasses or coarse grains can be grown at Port Nelson, I think it would prove of tremendous advertising value to our immigration authorities and would dispel a great many of the erroneous opinions that prevail to-day concerning that whole north country. I would not expect anything of an extensive nature, but I should like the minister to promise that the officiate of his department would get in touch with the engineer in charge of the work there to see what could be done with the ground which was ploughed when I was there.


William Richard Motherwell: I shall be glad to
do that. I did not know there was any experimental work carried on there. I think we could have some experiments made at a very small cost, especially now that the land

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has been tilled. What staff is the hon. member referring to?


Robert Alexander Hoey: There are several men in connection with the engineering work and so on.


William Richard Motherwell: I do not see why,
without additional men, some experiments could not be made at a cost under $50.


Mr. BLACK (Halifax):: What proportion
of the $1,440,000 for experimental farms is spent in Nova Scotia? We have in Cumberland county a farm which looks very well seen from the railway, but so far as the public are concerned it is not very well known. Whether this is due to lack of advertising and propaganda I do not know.


William Richard Motherwell: Which particular
farm is the hon. member referring to?


William Anderson Black: I am referring to
the Nappan farm in Cumberland county. What proportion of the money devoted to experimental farms generally is spent on the experimental farms in Nova Scotia, how much is spent outside the farms, and for what purposes?


William Richard Motherwell: The hon. member
seemed to be of the opinion that the experimental farm to which he has referred just looked like a farm. Well, that is the greatest compliment he could pay. I understand it is thought not to be sufficiently developed. I asked the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Logan) last year a question in regard to that farm and he gave me the figures in regard to the number of visitors who resorted to it annually, and my recollection is that the number was something like 6,000. It would seem therefore that a good many people visit the farm in the belief that they can get some benefit Lorn what they see carried on there. I may say that that farm has got some pretty hard knockers around Nappan, I do not know exactly why this is l!D, but every now and then I see correspondence in the press him a gentleman there who never misses an opportunity of slamming the farm He is something like our friend Mr. Bamjum, who is quite frequently heard from m -egard to the teivible depredation in connection wilh our forests, a whole lot of which no doubt is true. In this case the active party is Mr. Blanchard, who appears to have some grievance; and through the adverse publicity he has given the farm an impression has been left with people that it is not doing much good. Well, I visited the farm myself and I can say something of what it does. There are three farms in Nova Scotia, one at Nappan, one at Truro and one at Kentville. Possibly the public may be of the opinion that at a time like this some of these institutions might be dispensed with, but that is a matter of opinion. The farm at Truro is a provincial farm, the one at Nappan was one of the four original farms which were established throughout Canada, while the farm at Kentville was established principally for the purpose of developing the orchards of the Annapolis valley. It has been a problem to know how to reduce these without doing injustice to an old established institution. Has the hon. member any suggestions to offer as to how the Nappan farm could be put to any better use? Some suggest that it might be closed, but I would point out that it is an old established institution, being among the very first. There is a certain sentiment associated with the location; there are beautiful trees and lawns, there is excellent live stock, the experimental work is good, and the farm has been in operation for the last forty years. I would not care to be the one to take the responsibility of closing that farm unless I happened to be at a safe distance at the time the fact was made public. The question has been raised, however, as to the necessity for this number of farms in Nova Scotia. New Brunswick has only one, as has Prince Edward Island, while Nova Scotia has two federal farms and one provincial. As to the cost, the farm at Nappan represents about $40,000 and the one at Kentville $46,000.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: I may tell the minister that he would get no advice from anybody in the Maritime provinces to close any of the farms there. When he first introduced the vote, the minister said that the former administration had established a few farms in the Maritime provinces. I fail to see where they were established, because there are only four federal farms in that part of the country. As the minister says, Nappan is one of the first four farms that were established in the Dominion; the one at Fredericton, in the province of New Brunswick, was established a few years later, and the one at Kentville was instituted for the purpose of developing the fruit industry of the Annapolis valley.


William Richard Motherwell: What is the point? The Fredericton farm was established by the government that preceded this one.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: That is so much to their credit then, and I wish the present administration would consider the advisability of establishing one in what we call the north shore counties of New Brunswick. The condition of the soil there, the climate, and the
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fertilizing ingredients available on the shores of that part of the province are such that it would be beneficial to the farming population of that district if at least illustration stations were established, conducted by the federal department, for the purpose of helping agriculture in general in those counties.
The other evening, when discussing the live stock vote, the minister told us that we should have an opportunity of referring to these questions later. I placed on the order paper some time ago a question in regard to the Live Stock branch at Moncton, and I find that of twenty-one organizations for the co-operative marketing of sheep and lambs there are sixteen in what are known as the French Acadian centres of New Brunswick. These are Mont Carmel, Saint-Ignace, Saint-Louis, Saint-Paul, Richibucto village in the county of Kent; Rogersville, in the county of Northumberland; Tracadie, Saint Isidore, Lameque, Six Roads, Upper Caraquet, Grande Anse, Bathurst, Sainte Therese, Petit Rocher, in the county of Gloucester; and Saint Quentin in Restigouche county. Eleven of the seventeen poultry clubs in the province are in the same section, namely, Acadieville, Saint Louis, Saint Ignace, Saint Charles, in Kent county; Bara-chois and Cap Pele in Westmoreland county; Rogersville and N'eguac in Northumberland county; and Saint Isidore, Paquetville and Pokemouche in Gloucester county. Furthermore, of the twenty-one egg circles, thirteen are again to be found in the same section, namely, Acadieville, Saint Louis, Saint Ignace, Saint Charles and Saint Paul, in Kent county; Barachois and Cap Pele in Westmoreland county; Rogersville and Neguac in Northumberland county; and Caraquet, Saint Isidore, Paquetville and Pokemouche in Gloucester county. In this connection an immense amount of correspondence has to be sent out from the Live Stock branch office in Moncton, but I find on looking over the personnel that there is no one in the office able to conduct the correspondence in the French language. Now, these poultry clubs and egg circles have been established for the purpose of co-operative marketing, and they are doing excellent work. Therefore I hope the minister will find an opportunity of having a bilingual stenographer appointed1 in the Moncton office so that the men in charge of this special work for the various counties of the north shore of New Brunswick may be able to get the correspondence conducted in the French language whereby the greatest benefit will result to them; otherwise it will be practically impossible to conduct the work satisfactorily either to the Live Stock branch or to the farming population of that section 
of the province. This special work needs development, and the people interested expect to get a large measure of help from the department which has been instrumental in creating those organizations in the districts which I have enumerated.


William Richard Motherwell: I understand that
three of our officers are capable of talking both English and French, and three others are French Canadian. It is rather regrettable that all our staff is not bilingual. As a matter of fact it is sometimes late in life when we make the discovery that we should' be able to speak both languages. If my hon. friend will draw my attention to any appointments which he thinks will result in the work being neglected or an injustice being done to his constituents I shall be glad to look into the matter, We have twenty illustration stations established in New Brunswick. One reason why we are not building up a permanent well-balanced staff, as suggested by my hon. friend, is that nearly all of this work is, strictly speaking, provincial. All these egg circles, calf clubs and such like organizations should have been looked after by the provincial government, but inasmuch as they did not take action we started the work, and sometimes we operate with our men, the province paying half the cost, and sometimes the provincial men do the work with the federal government paying half the cost. We are working in conjunction with the local government, and as soon as we get an opportunity we are going to try to have them take the work over entirely. I will consider my hon. friend's suggestion.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: It is true that some of
the men are bilingual, and that is appreciated, but more effective work would be done if an additional bilingual stenographer were engaged to conduct the correspondence with the French Acadian farmers, who would be in a better position to understand the business if carried on in their own tongue.


Mr. McBRIDE:: Mr. Chairman, I think the point raised by the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Hoey) and by the hon. member for Nelson (Mr. Bird) was well taken. In my opinion the government would be well advised, before they spend any more money on the Hudson Bay railway, to find out whether anything could be grown up in that part of Canada. I also agree with the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) that agricultural farms in the old districts are not as useful as they would be in new districts. I have been going to the Agassiz farm for the last thirty-two years, and I

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cannot see what good that institution is doing. It is simply a bill of expense to the government. I think if it was closed and its activities transferred to the northern part of British Columbia, an immense amount of good would result. The Minister of Agriculture in the late government (Mr. Tolmie) and the present minister has approved of the establishment of a farm in the Nechako valley. He sent his men to look over the location, and they too approved of it, but so far nothing has been done. I think if the government could see their way to spend less money on the farm at Agassiz and make a start on another farm in the northern portion of British Columbia it would be a step in the right direction, and I know the people out there would very much appreciate it.


William Richard Motherwell: Is the Agassiz farm in my hon. friend's constituency?


Thomas George McBride: No.


William Richard Motherwell: The hon. member for Victoria City (Mr. Tolmie) I think gave some assurance to the people concerned that Van-derhoof was in line for the first new farm. I had hoped before this to have established one there, but we have not been able to do so yet. However, we have that still in mind. Agassiz is one of the original four branch farms-Nappan, Agassiz, Indian Head and Brandon. I have at times thought, Mr. Chairman, that in order to deal with this matter without bias we might get an impartial committee appointed to view those four old farms and two or three others to see if we could not arrive at some conclusion of what would be the fairest thing to do. I have views myself on the subject, but I do not think it is necessary to express them because I am not in a position to carry them out. I do think we could dispense with a few of these farms. Agassiz is doing good work, but there is no question that to-day a similar farm at Vanderhoof would do more *effective work in the next thirty years. But it takes money to dismantle and transfer such a farm, and we have not the means available, so the old farm is continued. The Brandon farm is well located, but it has had the misfortune of being flooded during the last three years in succession, and it may be flooded again. Some people think we should move it to another location, but I do not know what my hon. friend from Brandon (Mr. Eorke) would say if I suggested it. I think we had better leave these somewhat delicate activities to a more suitable date. If my hon. friends have any recommendations to
make with regard to the closing of any of these farms in their respective ridings, I shall be very glad to give them careful consideration.


Mr. KNOX:: I wish to endorse the request
of the hon. member for Nelson and the hon. member for Springfield in regard to some kind of demonstration stations along the Hudson Bay railway. I am not surprised that the hon. member for Cariboo should oppose the Hudson Bay project. He is not opposing the demonstration stations but he opposes the project; and I find that the farther a man is removed from that project and the less he knows about it the more he is opposed to it. There is a vast area lying to the south and west of this railway that should get a little more attention than it has been getting. The route itself should be given more attention; and there are hundreds of thousands of people in the western provinces who are of that opinion. I have had communications from people who live along the railway and if is astonishing what they have grown in gardens at these different points. I had heard of that garden which is producing the apples; and not only is it doing that; it is producing all kinds of vegetables. A demonstration station at a point like that would no doubt prove a great many things that the people residing there do not now realize as to the possibilities of production in that area. The constituency which I represent lies to the west of the territory that we have been discussing, but the south end of my constituency also contains an experimental	farm-the	Rosthern farm.
Rosthern has been giving a good account of itself in many lines, particularly in the herd of Holstein cattle which they have developed there. When the hon. member for Qu'Appelle was speaking about expanding in horticulture at Indian Head, it occurred to me that that expansion might very well be taken to Rosthern. Rosthern is very much nearer the centre of the province than Indian Head is, and it has already earned on a good deal of experimentation in fruits and other things. There has been some talk of removing the farm from Rosthern, but if something along the line of expansion in horticulture is carried out I can see where very good work could still be done by the Rosthern farm. We have also been very successful in bee culture. I would ask the minister to consider the advisability of spreading a little in horticulture at Rosthern.


William Richard Motherwell: We are considering it now.
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Mr. GARLAND (Carleton):: Is the embargo on American baby chicks still in force, and is there any objection to the way it is working?


William Richard Motherwell: There is an embargo against all kindis of chicks from some twelve or fifteen states. Of course, that covers baby chicks.


William Foster Garland: According
to the understanding of the producers of poultry in Ontario, if a certificate from the Bureau of Animal Husbandry of the Department of Agriculture of the United States accompanied the shipment, it would be allowed to come in. I have been led to believe however, that they are allowed in without that certificate from the bureau, but with a certificate from some veterinary in the United States, which is very easily procured.


William Richard Motherwell: If that is happening we will stop it. A certificate is required to show that the chicks do not come from the quarantined states against which the embargo is in effect. If my hon. friend will bring the matter to our attention in such a way as to start the wheels of inquiry in motion, we will certainly look into it.


Mr. PRITCHARD:: What was the net
profit on the steers that were fed last year at the experimental farms?


William Richard Motherwell: We have not that information.


John Pritchard: It is rather strange
that the minister cannot give that information. Were the steers fed for profit or for experimental purposes?


William Richard Motherwell: All that work is
experimental. If we get a profit out of it, so much the better, but quite frequently we do not. My recollection is that we made money on the steers we sold for feeders. On the ones we sold for fat animals to be killed immediately on arrival, we got two cents less, and for those we sold as chilled beef we got four cents still less, so that on the latter we lost heavily. But the experiment was successful so far as it showed that for intermittent shipments the sale of these animals as chilled meat was not profitable under these conditions.


John Pritchard: I understood that all the feeding was done with a view to experimenting and making the results known.


William Richard Motherwell: The information is all published in detail. I should be delighted to supply my hon. friend with the bulletins containing it.
fMr. Motherwell.]


John Pritchard: According to the
Auditor General's report, about $20,000 was paid for the steers and about $88,000 for feed, but the total sales of the twenty farms amounted to only $81,(XX).	I would like an
explanation.


William Richard Motherwell: If we are to feed our own cattle we would have to buy more land to grow the feedstuffs, but if I brought down an estimate here for three or four hundred thousand dollars to buy additional land my hon. friend knows I might have great difficulty in getting lit through, judging,by the way such increases have been received in the last two or three years. It is a very expensive business buying the feed for these experimental farms, but we have to do it or enlarge the farms. A lot of this revenue from the cattle does not show in the Auditor General's report. A certain part of the proceeds goes into the Receiver General's hands, and a certain part back into the operations of the farm. I have simply been following the system of accounting that has been followed here for the last thirty or forty years.


Mr. LEWIS:: I notice that the experimental farms brought in a revenue of $125,000, about one-twelfth the total expenditure for the experimental farms. Is this sent back to the government?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


John Pritchard: I am not prepared to leave this matter yet. I have been a cattle feeder all my life, and I have had to pay my own bills for feed. While I do not expect the experimental farms to be a paying institution, I am taking only this one item of feeding cattle, and I find the farms could not grow enough to feed their stock. They sold $81,000 of steers, and that included the cost of the steers.


William Richard Motherwell: What farm was
that?


John Pritchard: I am taking the sales
of twenty-one farms, but I am not charging up the expenses of the Ottawa farm, and yet we fall $7,000 short of the feed you bought for the $20,000 worth of steers handled. I do not see why you bought so many if you could not make them pay.


William Richard Motherwell: What is the point
-that something disappears somewhere, that it is not good business buying feed? I quite agree with my hon. friend. I have been signing accounts not only here but elsewhere for the purchase of feed that I know is not good business; but you have either to do that or buy more land for these farms. I have

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not been accustomed to buying feed for my own farm. I do not think a man should buy any feed that he can grow; but that is my opinion with regard to a private farm, and I cannot carry out my opinion with regard to these experimental farms. I have simply the money to spend that is voted by parliament. I try to get all I can, and to get the votes through this committee as easily as possible, but I say that you cannot run a farm at a commercial profit, speaking generally, if you buy your feedstuffs. I suppose that if you had the very finest class of feeding animals and the most skilful feeder, and you could buy your grains cheap and everything was favourable, you might show a profit, but you would show far more if you grew the grains yourself.


Mr. FORKE:: The minister is up against that old statement that when the fanner eats his own eggs he is getting cheaper eggs than if he bought them in the store. It is the same with the farmer who raises his own feed for his cattle.


William Richard Motherwell: I do not think it is the same thing. If you buy your feed you pay for the cost of production plus the other fellow's profit. If you raise it yourself, there is just the cost of production.


Robert Forke: The minister says it does not pay to feed cattle when you have to buy the feed, but the little margin of profit you have to pay in that case should not make so much difference. A ton of hay on your own farm is just as valuable to you for feeding cattle as the ton of hay the other man has to sell. It is the old story that what the farmer consumes himself does not cost him anything, that if he uses his own chickens, they do not cost him anything; but the chicken the farmer consumes off his own farm has just exactly the same value as the chicken the man buys in the store. There is no difference. -


William Richard Motherwell: We will just carry that out to its logical conclusion. Here is a farmer, and my hon. friend says it does not make any difference whether he buys his feedstuff or grows it; so he follows the easier method and buys it if he has the money, and keeps on buying and buying-buying feed, and calves, and everything. Now where is he going to get off eventually? It may be able to be done, but I tell you frankly I do not know how to do it. The less you buy that you can raise on the farm, the better off you are. If you keep on buying, buying roughage and hay and concentrates, and paying for your labour and housing and all
that sort of thing, I do not see how you are going to make it pay. On the other hand, if you put the labour of yourself and your family into it-I gave this illustration once before and one hon. member was considerably exercised over it-if you can manage your farm with the labour of your own family, assuming that you have a family, and I am fortunate enough to have one, that is the way the farms of Ontario were run and made to pay, not by paying for everything outside. That is my own idea, and I am surprised that a good canny Scotch farmer like my hon. friend would justify buying anything ait all that he could raise on his own farm.


Robert Forke: I remember a system of
farming in Scotland where the farmers never raised any sheep; they raised turnips and grain, and bought all their sheep. It did not pay them to raise the sheep. That is an instance of where it pays to buy. If you go to the lowlands of Scotland you will find very few men raising sheep on their farms; the sheep are bought from lands that are better suited for raising sheep, lands that are not so valuable. There is another point. The minister talks about the farmer and his family working. I want to protest
10	p.m. against the idea that to make a living on a farm the farmer and his wife and family have all to work. Do you know any other business where they have to do that?


William Richard Motherwell: With regard to the buying of sheep to be fed on turnips and other fodder grown on your farm, that is sound policy. You are buying live stock; but it is vastly different when you are buying hay or fodder.


Robert Forke: I do not see why.


William Richard Motherwell: Out in the west
that is what they do at feeder shows. They buy range steers, and ship them down to Ontario and other eastern provinces and feed them there. But when you start in to buy feed, your profits begin to disappear. As for the family working, my hon. friend knows that he got along himself by the hard toil of himself and his family, and that if he had to pay for all his labour, and unwilling service very often, his profits would have been a lot smaller than they were. I do not think it is a bad thing for a man and his family to have to work as long as they get a reasonable reward.


Robert Forke: That is the point. But what about those thousands of sheep that come

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down to Fort William where the feed is all bought? They make a big profit out of those
sheep.


William Richard Motherwell: They are fed offal that would otherwise be thrown into the lake. That is found money.


John Pritchard: How do you expect
these men at Edmonton are going to make a
profit if they buy cattle and buy the feed, when the experimental farms cannot do it at a profit?


William Richard Motherwell: I have a memo,
from my deputy here pointing out that the money that is got from these animals does not show7 in the Auditor General's report. Part of it goes back into the farming operations and part to the Receiver General. My hon. friend asks me, if the government cannot make money buying feed, how can anybody else do so?


John Pritchard: Yes.


William Richard Motherwell: I am not saying
that anybody is making money. If you are going to buy everything, buy your feed, put up your building, buy your labour and concentrates and buy your steers, believe me, you have to do some fancy work.


Mark Cecil Senn: I have heard several hon.
members to my left making suggestions to the minister that the experimental farms might very well be established in their own districts, and I understood the minister to say he was quite favourably disposed towards that proposition. Would the minister give us a list of the experimental farms in each province, and the total amount of this vote which is being expended in each province separately, outside of the experimental farm at Ottawa.


William Richard Motherwell: With reference to
these branch farms, if we had somebody to do the w'ork, I think we could perhaps dispense with three or four of them which are not doing as useful work as some others, and I believe we would get better results 5f we concentrated on the others. I do not see why we should have more than two in each of the three prairie provinces, or more than one in each of the Maritime provinces and three or four in the central provinces of Quebec and Ontario. I think we might have some impartial tribunal, and get some man like-


Henry Lumley Drayton: Duncan Marshall?


William Richard Motherwell: -some man like the president of the Agricultural College at
I Mr. Forke.]
Guelph, Mr. Creelman, or Mr. Reynolds, or J. W. Robertson, or two or three of those gentlemen who have had no political bias, with no idea but the good of the experimental farm system. Such men might very well decide how many branch farms there should be in each province and stop at that. I know there is a temptation just prior to every election to spread out in the matter of experimental farms, and the result is that some of them are very politically and very unfortunately located. I am not referring to any particular party in this regard. If the farms keep on growing in this way there will be no definite .plan in regard to them. I think there should be a specific system of branch farms, beyond which we should not go, and they should be used for developing the activities of the Central farm.


Mark Cecil Senn: This is a fairly large vote,
and there is an increase over last year of $40,000. Will the minister give us a list of the experimental farms by provinces and the cost?


William Richard Motherwell: You mean the
amount of money?


Mark Cecil Senn: Yes.


William Richard Motherwell: The hon. gentleman wants to know the number Of farms and the amount of money for each individual farm?


Mark Cecil Senn: Yes.


William Richard Motherwell: For this year or
last year?


Mark Cecil Senn: Both.


William Richard Motherwell: I will give last
year. The figures are as follows:
Charlottetown	 $26,000
Kentville, Nova Scotia	 46.000
Nappan	 30,000
Frederiction	 44,000
Ste. Anne de la Pocatiere, Quebec	 41,000
Cap Rouge, near Quebeo city	 46,000
The Horse farm, associated with the same
farm	   16,000
Lennoxville	 44,000
La Ferme	 33,000
Kapuskasing	 30,000
Harrow, Ontario	 25,000
Morden, Manitoba	 37,000
Brandon, Manitoba	 46,000
Indian Head, Saskatchewan	 39,000
Rosthern, Saskatchewan	 31,000
Scott, Saskatchewan	 32,000
Swft Current, Saskatchewan	 33,000
Lethbridge, Alberta	 46,000
Lacombe, Alberta	 42,000
Summerland, British Columbia	 44,000
Agassiz, British Columbia	 39,000
Invermere, British Columbia	 36,000
South Vancouver Island	 30,000

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Then we have sub-stations like Grande Prairie and Vermilion, $9,000.


John Pritchard: Can you give the
revenue?


William Richard Motherwell: We have not it
totalled by provinces. In Nova Scotia the total was $86,000 and in Quebec $165,000.


Mark Cecil Senn: Does that include illustration
farms as well in the different provinces?


William Richard Motherwell: No, nor the substations. I have just read the sub-stations.


John Pritchard: I have no desire to
do anything to injure the work of experimental farms, but we are dealing with this vote which asks for an increase of $40,000 over last year. I am in favour of all the research work and I have no criticism to offer of the farm at Ottawa. I do not look for anything in the shape of monetary return in that work. I believe they are rendering a great service, but there is a feeling abroad through the rural sections that we are going too fast with our experimental farm enterprise. If you cannot show that you are teaching us anything from your operations experimentally, and it is a failure financially, why ask that more money should be spent in the same way? I am not a bookkeeper, and the hon. minister tells me I have not looked at the figures properly. I take the total sales of those farms and I add them together. I admit I may have made a clerical error. I took the cost of the steers and' I added it up. I do not see how there can be any mistake in the amount of the total sales of the steers or the total expenses of this year. The total sales for the whole of the farms was $81,000, and $20,000 of it was put in for steers. I think that we should have some explanation of how this business was transacted. Those of us who have fed cattle all our lives will look at this matter with interest. If we had lots of money, if we were a wealthy concern that had money to burn, I would have no fault to find with the spending of our money on all sorts of things without getting any return, but we are doing business and are somewhat in the position of a man that is hard up, and we should realize our position financially. I would not give much for the chances of the business man who would undertake to run his farm in the same way that we are running these experimental farms. For my part I think that, taking what the hon junior member for Halifax (Mr. Black) says about the farm down there, the minister would be well 52
advised if he would make a present of that to the province of Nova Scotia. He could also make a present to the provinces of a couple of farms in the west and a couple in the east.


William Richard Motherwell: They would not take them.


John Pritchard: The minister would get $140,000, and now you are asking for $40,000 more to go on and do the same thing over again. We have in this country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, men who are making money in farming operations. What I have asked the minister to do before and what I am asking again to-night is to run a farm so as to make it financially profitable. I do not know why the government do not try that. They have never attempted it so far as I know. If they started such a farm and suffered a loss on it, I would say: All right, try again, and keep at it even if it is a loss. But I do not believe in spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in carrying on an unprofitable business. We are not reaping any benefit in the way of gaining experience from the operations of these farms, as the minister tells us that he cannot give us any information.


William Richard Motherwell: What is my hon. friend complaining about? What is the difficulty? There is nothing in the Auditor General's report, but I told him some time ago that the Auditor General's report does not show the receipts from these steers. Supposing $2,000 is paid out of the experimental farm vote for steers and those animals are sold afterwards for $2,500, the money goes back into the same vote. It does not go to the Receiver General, it goes back into the operations of the farm from which it came.
While I am on my feet, might I answer that theory that a government farm primarily established for experimental purposes should show a profit? Surely no hon. gentleman in this House believes that can be done by anyone under the sun. I know there are some who are said to be doing it out in the west. The International Harvesting Company are said to be doing it in the United States and are offering to do it on the prairies, but I want to be shown. I never saw anybody do it. How are you to keep these farms in proper shape at all times for visitors, for excursions that may come along at any moment? How can you keep the lawns, borders and everything else in proper shape? My hon. friend must put that kind of improvement on his own farm and he knows there is no revenue except the pleasure which he gets out of it.

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In my opinion, it icannot be done; at all events, I will admit that I cannot do it. You cannot run an experimental farm established primarily for experimental purposes, for profit, in the same way as you would run another farm.


John Pritchard: The minister has not got my point.


William Richard Motherwell: I am pinning my
hon. friend down to what he was saying.


John Pritchard: I said that I wanted
the government to run a farm for profit, not for experiment.


William Richard Motherwell: That is another
matter.


John Pritchard: We have a list of
salaries paid to officials for these experimental farms running up to $235,879. If you will let three or four of these officials do as we have had to do when we have bought farms, borrow the money and pay interest on capital, and let them show, at the end of the year, their balance sheet, that is all we want to see. We do not want an experimental farm, we want a farm for business, for profit. We have, in Canada, men who are farming for profit and who are making a profit, and these men are laughing at us. I could cite cases if I wanted to, but I do not feel disposed to mention names in this House to-night. I can cite several cases where they are laughing at some of the statements of men who are setting up to be authorities on agriculture in this country. I feel like some other hon. members who have spoken on agriculture to-night. We have in our country one of the best colleges, if not the best college in the Dominion, and I am sorry to say that right under the shadow of that college and right in the vicinity of that experimental farm we are not getting the information put into practice by the men there as we would like to see it put. As I have said before, there are weeds growing right beside the experimental farm, and 75 per cent of the cattle are below what they ought to be. If we are failing in what we set out to do in our experimental farm work, why increase the work and the expenditure? If you want to use the money already allotted, cut out some of the farms in the east and the west and go into the outlying districts, such as the Hudson bay region, in a small way. I do not want to curtail the work at Ottawa. I have no criticism to offer as regards that institution. The criticism I have to make is in regard to laying out hundreds of thousands of dollars in outlying points where insufficient return is received for the work we are carrying

on there. I am expressing the views of a number of men in the country. If you look over the list, you will find many things that men who are in poor circumstances do not like. I find that on one farm the cheapest horses that were bought were four horses bought from one man for $750.


William Richard Motherwell: Which farm?
Mr. PRITCHAJtD:	I cannot tell you
which farm. The prices paid ran up to $500. Just by the way, the other day I was talking to a business man at home who has been a farmer, and he complained about a certain young man Starting out to pay $125 each for two horses, saying that that was too much for him to pay. But we have plenty of money to pay $400 for a horse, whereas these people have an idea that they can go out and buy as good horses for $300. I find that $400 is paid for Jersey cows and these people think it may be possible for someone to go out and buy these cows for $300. Whether that is the case or not, these men who are paying the taxes imagine that that can be done. Many people throughout the country are feeling sore about this, and coming from an agricultural section I take the liberty of mentioning it. I do not want to speak disparagingly of the experimental farms, but I am dealing with this estimate and I think the increase should be cut out this year.


William Richard Motherwell: Is it Guelph my
hon. friend is talking about?


John Pritchard: Yes.


William Richard Motherwell: Was that where
the horses were bought?


John Pritchard: No. I took all the
farms and all the horses bought by the department.


William Richard Motherwell: My hon. friend's
leader a short time ago was lecturing about all these stallions being sold. Now my hon. friend thinks that we are paying too much for them.


John Pritchard: Ido.


William Richard Motherwell: The hon. member
had better settle that with his leader. What is the use of discussing whether too much or too little has been paid for a horse, without seeing the horse. I cannot bring the horse in here as was done with the apples the other day. I do not want to discredit my hon. friend's criticism, but I have heard that kind of criticism quite frequently and I know it is entertained. My hon. friend represents a certain element in the community. I re-

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ferred to it in the earlier part of the evening when I said that many people have no use for these farms. These are experimental farms. If my hon. friend wants commercial farms established and run, we shall have to have another vote for that. You cannot have that under this vote. These are farms primarily meant for experimentation. If you can make any revenue out of them, all well and good, but as a rule these experiments cost something. I remember the other evening the hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Stewart), when we were discussing dehydrating plants with which we were experimenting, made a similar criticism. I will tell the committee something that I did not know at that time, that we have two commercial dehydrating plants that developed last fall. We did not give them any grant, but they are developing there, one in the Annapolis valley and one in the Okanagan valley. The comment of my hon. friend was that when they got going, it was hard to stop them, and so why not get them started commercially? We have started them commercially, but as a result of these experiments private capital has gone into them. When we are through with experimental farms, why cannot private capital develop these farms commercially? It is not the function of a government to develop commercially operated farms. Does my hon. friend think that any government under the sun can operate a farm as economically and successfully as a private individual can?


Arthur Meighen: Under the late government we did, in the case of some of the greater production farms.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, but that was with Indians, not white men.


Arthur Meighen: Oh yes, we operated them, the Indians did not. I admit, however, that I have no hopes of this government doing the same.


William Richard Motherwell: I know of no greater
production farm which has ever been operated more successfully by a government than by private individuals, except the greater production experiment which was carried out by Mr. William Graham, with the Indians.


Arthur Meighen: If we did that with
Indians, what could we not do with white men?


William Richard Motherwell: I know what
Indians can do, and I know that one thing which they can do is farming. They farm the way our forefathers did.
52i


Arthur Meighen: They are not Progressives.


William Richard Motherwell: They are, in the strict meaning of the term. Now, I do not know where I was.


Robert Forke: I hardly know what the
minister was trying to unload on me when he associated me with the hon. member for North Wellington (Mr. Pritchard). I really got up to help the minister out a little.


William Richard Motherwell: Thank you.


Robert Forke: While the hon. member for North Wellington was speaking about experimental farms I began to think about the one at Brandon. I have every summer made it a point to visit the experimental farm there, and I would say a word or two with reference to the gentleman who was formerly in charge, Mr. McKillican, who is now at the agriculture college in Winnipeg. As he has left the Brandon farm I am free to say what I like in praise of him. He has been making an effort for a number of years now to popularise that farm among the farmers in the vicinity who visit Brandon once or twice in the summer to discover what is going on there in the way of raising crops and live stock. Now, when you consider that that farm is divided into hundreds of plots, a quarter of an acre here growing one thing and another plot somewhere else growing something else, different kinds of grains being experimented with, you can readily realize how impossible it is to make a paying proposition of anything of that kind. It is in a different category entirely from any farm operated on a commercial basis. Then take the horticultural side of the farm; there you find experiments in plums and different kinds of fruit, some of them paying and others not. It is all an experiment, and it is a matter for the government to consider whether it is of sufficient benefit to the people for the money that is spent on it. That is the question ; it is not a question of commercially operating the farm with profits in view. The object of the institution is to give information to the people in the surrounding country as to what can be done and what is the best variety of grain or the best grade of cattle, as the case may be.
I do not know anything about prices paid for live stock, but I would hesitate to suggest that the experimental farm at Brandon is not a success. It is a distinct benefit to the community and is increasing in popularity. Each year there are more and more people visiting the farm, and last year when I was down there looking over the crops there was a very large attendance. They bitched up
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teams and drove around the different fields, the man in charge explaining what the different varieties of grain were, and so on. Some were more liable to smut than others, while some were peculiarly liable to rust. I really think that a great deal of benefit is derived by the farmers from the institution, and the one criticism I have to offer is that the farmers do not take sufficient advantage of the experiments that are carried on in their interests. They do not realize the privilege that is within their reach. I want to pay a tribute to Mr. McKil-lican, and I do it all the more cheerfully because he is out of the department, being now engaged by the province of Manitoba. Certainly he did a great deal to popularize the Brandon farm. I had almost forgotten to mention that the women find a great deal to interest them in the farm; they go there to find out what can best be raised in the way of vegetables and things of that kind.


William Richard Motherwell: The speech of my hon. friend is to the point, and I thank him for the tribute he has paid. If he would be good enough to do so, he might take his follower from North Wellington with him to the farm and give him a few kindergarten lessons.


John Livingstone Brown: I have visited only two or three farms but those that I have seen amply justify their existence. That at any rate is my opinion. One of these farms in my own constituency I had the pleasure of visiting at the same time as the minister (Mr. Motherwell).


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, we had a good time too.


John Livingstone Brown: Yes, we did have a good
;ime; nor do I think that anyone could visit that farm which is operated at Morden without being impressed with the value of the work that is done there. I do not suppose the experimental farm there is conducted in such a way as to show a profit, any more than any one of the rest of them. Nevertheless, they are doing a work of incalculable value to the people of the northwest. My hon. friend (Mr. Forke) has seen fit to pay a tribute to the man formerly in charge of the Brandon farm; I would pay a similar tribute to the young man in charge of the farm at Morden. I am surprised that such things should be said as were said by the hon. member for North Wellington. The fact that there are some farms in the vicinity of these stations that still show signs of weeds and bad farming is aside from the point altogether. I might remind my hon. friend of the old saying, the nearer the church the further from grace. That

may be true in regard to some of these farms, although of course I do not suggest that it is necessarily so.
We should like to see these farms carried on as economically as possible, of course; but we cannot reasonably expect them to show a balance on the right side of the ledger from the strictly money point of view. There was one point brought up by the hon. member for Brandon on which I could not quite agree with him, and that is in reference to feeding on the farms and at home. If my hon. friend has some straw stacks out in the prairies in which his cattle are running around, he will realize that he has something that is absolutely of no market value, and which at the same time is of value when fed in that particular way. If he will bear that in mind he will perhaps realize that there is not so much ground for his criticism after all. I think we all realize that on the farms we have an immense amount of roughage that can be profitably used there and nowhere else.


Alfred Speakman: I want to say a word
about the decreasing value of the older farms, but before I do so I must take issue with the minister on a statement he made a little while ago in regard to stock feeding. I do not consider myself an expert farmer, but I do know something about feeding stock, because this is something I have had to do from the age of ten. The minister made the statement that while it was impossible to purchase feed and feed at a profit it was possible to grow the same feed on the farm and then feed profitably.


William Richard Motherwell: I said more than that.


Alfred Speakman: That is part of what was said by the minister.


William Richard Motherwell: I said a lot of roughage would go to waste anyhow.


Alfred Speakman: Precisely; but I would point out that very little of that roughage is of any value in finishing stock. To my mind, the value of hay or grain or any other form of feed you grow is exactly the value you can get for it on the market. If I have a bunch of young cattle I want to fatten -baby beef-and I have a stock of hay and other feed, I take the value of the stock unfed and the value of the feed as it stands, that is, the price I can get for it on the open market, and if I can get more by selling the two separately I will do so. If I cannot make money feeding that stuff at the market price, then I cannot make money either by growing it or buying it. Every pound of feed grown on your own

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place and fed to your own stock is worth exactly what you can get for it on the open market. I think the suggestion of the hon. member for North Wellington (Mr. Pritchard) might not be so far out of line as the minister intimated. He said this was an experimental vote. I quite agree with him, and I suggest that one of the chief experiments should be to see if we could carry on farming at a profit. Certainly that might be considered in the light of experimental work.
I did hold the view very strongly that our older farms had practically outlived their usefulness, but I have rather changed my mind. I can say so the more frankly because I am speaking of a farm which will not be in my constituency after redistribution, so no one can accuse me of talking politics.


William Richard Motherwell: Lacombe?


Alfred Speakman: Yes. In the newer districts they have certain problems. Take Lacombe, the first experiments were to see what grain could be grown in the surrounding district which would not be subject to frost, to find out how cattle could be fed on grass, and so on. That phase has passed away. The important phase now is to study crop rotation, because you are dealing now with soil' which has been depleted of much of its natural humus. Consequently an altogether different set of problems have to be studied. I may say that I put in some time last summer in going into the business aspect of that farm, because I had felt that this was a vote which might well be reduced without impairing the efficiency of the farm. I took the trouble to see how much correspondence had passed between the farm and the farmers of the surrounding country in order to gauge the value of the farm to the farmers within a hundred mile radius. I estimated the number of visitors. I was surprised at some of the results. The letters numbered about 20,000, and I found by inquiry among the farmers within that radius that the most valuable were the negative results.


William Richard Motherwell: That is right.


Alfred Speakman: At times we in that
country are deluged with literature and pestered by salesmen advocating some new kind of seed that is frost proof, rust proof, cutworm proof, drouth proof and everything else; in a word, the seed will make our fortunes. Hundreds of farmers have paid out good money on the strength of such representations. This experimental farm carries on experiments with grain seed offered for sale, and they advise the people of the district whether the seed is of the quality represented'. I made an estimate, based on the number of inquiries received by them and on the answers given me by farmers in the district, and I have reached the conclusion that the experimental work resulted in a saving of at least $80,000 because the farmers had not bought this useless seed that they would otherwise have wasted their money on. That negative result is something I had not considered before.
While I believe the farm has been carried on well, and while I believe that Mr. Reed and his staff are not only capable but enthusiastic, anxious to do their work and give all the service possible yet I think some lines of experimentation are being duplicated in the province. For instance, we have stock feeding experiments conducted at Edmonton, one hundred miles away, by the university under provincial auspices. We could very well come to an arrangement by which the federal farms and the provincial institutions might carry on experimental work along different lines and so avoid unnecessary duplication. Undoubtedly a considerable saving could be effected by a careful system along that line. After going through the district and observing the beneficial influence that has been exerted by the farm in the last year, for instance all through that part of the country the people are growing shelter belts, flowers, small fruits and shrubbery, I believe the farm has been worth while and is still doing exceedingly good work. But I should like to have the minister take steps so that as far as possible- and I discussed this very frankly with Mr. Reed-no duplication of research and experimental work should be continued as between the federal experimental farms and the provincial institutions. I believe it would be easy to arrange for certain phases of the work to be taken over absolutely by each class of institution, that is, when they are close together and1 the conditions are comparable. I have not made a careful estimate of the saving that could be effected, but when we discussed it we were agreed that undoubtedly a considerable saving would result and the money so saved might be devoted to the carrying on of experimental work that is now being neglected.
As I said at the outset, I visited the farm under the impression that the vote ought to be reduced, but after going through all the books and files I came away very dubious as to the ability of the manager to reduce his expenditure by one dollar, because it did seem to me that he had made a dollar stretch to a dollar and a half wherever he possibly could, even to the extent of taking off his coat and working after hours. But I also
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came to the conclusion that when the management is efficient-and I say this because I do not know whether the management is equally efficient elsewhere-and they recognize the changing nature of the problems to be dealt with, keeping a little ahead of the farms in the surrounding country, these old farms are still doing good work and might well be continued.


William Richard Motherwell: It would be well
if more hon. members would follow the example of my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Speakman) and visit these farms. I find that a distressingly small number of public men visit our experimental farms at Lacombe and Lethbridge. I had the same view regarding these older farms, but I find that new problems present themselves with changing conditions, and I do not know when the time will come that these farms will not be useful. The other proposition regarding overlapping is something we have all along the line more or less. We are trying to cut it out all we can, but in a system of farms like that the provincial men will have their ideas and our men will have theirs. I think, though, we can still travel a little bit further and a little bit faster along the lines suggested, with a view to avoiding overlapping.


Donald Sutherland: About half an hour ago the minister said that these old farms had lost their vahie and he recommended the appointment of a commission with a view to eliminating a great many of them; that an experimental farm was really not much use except in the newer districts. But now, if I understand him correctly, he is advocating the value of the old farms. I do not know which view he is going to carry out after this item is voted, but I do know that the minister is advancing two or three different policies. We would like to know what his views really are. If he does not approve of his farms, why not pare down the estimate? The minister said there was a tendency to increase these appropriations for experimental farms just before an election; that everybody liked to have an experimental farm in his vicinity. Well, there is an increase of $40,000 again this year.


William Richard Motherwell: But not for new
experimental farms.


Donald Sutherland: At any rate, there is an increase. The hon. member for Haldimand asked for some information with regard to fruit growing, and the minister stated that if we did not hand these things out to the provinces they would go ahead and do the work themselves. Why not have a uniform

system? Why not treat all provinces alike? Why discriminate against one province and favour others?


William Richard Motherwell: Is my hon. friend
referring to Ontario? We cannot press these things upon Ontario; they must want them.


Donald Sutherland: They want them and want them badly. New farms are being established by the provincial government in Quebec almost every year. The farm in connection with the Agricultural College at Guelph is one of the best on the continent, and that work is being done entirely by the provincial government. The minister has said that you cannot carry on this experimental work and demonstrate that you are able to make a profit. But surely with twenty-one farms, one hundred acres here and* there might be used to show what the cost of operating a farm under ordinary conditions is and what the ordinary revenues would be. That information would be of great value to many people. With regard to the receipts from the farms, the minister stated that the Auditor General's report did not contain that information; I think it does contain it. I notice that the receipts from all the experimental farms for the last year were $125,814 and that there was expended on wages on the one farm at Ottawa $192,017. I do not want to leave a wrong impression with the committee; of this $192,017 the salaries of officials amounted to $29,496, but the cost of ordinary farm labour on this one farm was $162,520


William Richard Motherwell: Not ordinary farm labour.


Donald Sutherland: Yes, ordinary farm labour, according to the Auditor General's statement. I think we are justified in asking that some real demonstration work should be done, even on an experimental farm, to show the actual cost of production. Work of this nature is being done at the Ontario Agricultural College farm at Guelph. I know this does not make any impression on the minister; he is going to ask the House to vote this money again, even though he takes the view that a lot of it is absolutely wasted and that a commission should be appointed with a view to doing away with some of these farms. I do not agree that the old farms cannot do useful work. In fact, if an experimental farm can do good work at all it is in the old settled districts. Where the land is new, crops of almost any kind can be grown without much effort; it is in the old settled districts that the greatest problems arise and where science can be applied and remedies provided to bring about better re-

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suljts. A few years ago the minister held the same view that he holds to-day-that the old farms have outlived their usefulness. I think the minister ought to comply with the request of the hon. member for Haldimand and bring down a statement showing the amount of money to be voted for these farms and illustration stations in each province so that we shall have a fairly good idea of what is being done. The minister talks about the need for economy and refers to the cutting down of estimates. It is true that the government have cut down the estimates in some respects. The appropriations for the building of highways have been struck out and the provinces now have to provide the money to carry on this work without the assistance of the federal government. The same thing holds with regard to federal aid to agriculture under the Agricultural Instruction Act; nothing more is to be done along that line and the provincial governments have to take up the work themselves. Then there was the housing question; the government have eliminated assistance under that head, and they have refused to give any assistance in the matter of unemployment. They are paring down these items in refusing to do anything, but when it comes to a matter of experimental farms, many of which the minister states are of very little use and ought to be done away with, there is no reduction but on the contrary an increase of $40,000.


William Richard Motherwell: My deputy has
figured up the amounts that are being spent in each province. They are as follows, in round figures: Prince Edward Island, $42,000; Nova Scotia, $86,000; New Brunswick, $44,000; Quebec, $165,000; Ontario, $57,000, outside of the Ottawa farm; Manitoba, $75,000; Saskatchewan, $144,000; Alberta, $87,000; British Columbia, $140,000. You will notice a considerable disparity when we come to British Columbia. Because of its tremendous variety of conditions, with its valleys and mountains, it has been found advisable, and I have no doubt justifiable, for it to have more forms than some of the other provinces; but that does not account for Saskatchewan having four farms, while Alberta and Manitoba have only two. I do not think even my hon. friend from South Oxford, however, would hold me responsible for the way these farms are distributed, because they were all there before I had anything to do with them. My good friend has tried to make out-I do not know exactly what he was trying to make out, but I think he was trying to show that I had two or three policies, and yet had none at all. As
I intimated the first year I took charge, I thought some of the older farms could be dispensed with. I think now more farms can be dispensed with, without designating whether they are new or old. I have had just the same experience as my hon. friend from Red Deer. The closer I get to some of the old farms, the more familiar I become with them, the more I find that their problems are changing with the passing of years, and though they may not be quite so useful to the settlers as they were in earlier days, we find they are still required. We find farms existing in the old countries for over a thousand years, and finding new problems all the time. It is not an easy matter to decide on just which four or five farms we can dispense with and still have enough left, not so much for the purpose of teaching agriculture in their respective provinces but for co-operating with the provinces working in conjunction with the Central farm. That is what we want them for rather than for teaching agriculture in their respective provinces, which is primarily a provincial duty.
My hon. friend from South Oxford has got that same idea that the farms can be run commercially, or at all events he pretended to have that idea; I do not really think he believes it for whatever faults he may have he is a practical farmer, and he knows just as well as I do that if he had to hire all the labour for his farm, including his farm foreman, he would have to hunt around for his profit. There are over eight hundred thousand people conducting commercial farms; so why should the government go into that business? One of the vital problems in making a farm pay is the difficulty of getting competent farm foremen. I know this myself. I hunted around for them, but I never had a proper one yet; I never found one that could get the same results out of my machinery and team that I could myself. I do not know what further I can tell my hon. -friend. I have given him the figures for Ontario and all the other provinces, but if there is anything I have overlooked, and he will repeat his question, I will try to answer him; but it will be difficult to convince me that you can run a farm successfully when you have to hire all your labour. I understand that my hon. friend had ambitions at one time of being Minister of Agriculture. If he ever has that experience, I would suggest that he try it out and see how it works. Maybe some day the opportunity will come his way.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What particular lines of
policy are you following at the farm ai
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Fredericton? What particular problems is the superintendent there carrying on?


William Richard Motherwell: The biggest problem is to get the stones out and get the ploughing done. We Will be able to build houses for the foreman and all the men before we get all the stones off that place.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is said very facetiously. That is not a fair answer to my question. I admit that on one part of the farm, where they are building a new house on the crown of the hill, there are stones; but it is not a bad farm. It is a very good high land farm in the immediate vicinity of Fredericton, as good a one as can be found in the district. I would ask the minister to tell me seriously, if he can get his mind down to a serious problem, just what problems Mr. Bailey, who is a first-class man and is trying very hard to interest the farmers in central New Brunswick in the farm, is devoting his attention to.


William Richard Motherwell: I did not mean
to make any reflections on the farm. This is getting kind of dry, and as the hon. member for South Oxford does not seem to be contributing to the entertainment, I thought I would do a little myself. But the big problem at Fredericton really is getting out the stones, so that we can get on with the ploughing. I may say that they are using not only horse-ipower but ox power, and I was very glad to see that, because it is a cheap and economical means of supplying power for the breaking of a new farm. A great many of the Maritime farms at the outset have a shortage of lime in the soil. That condition is more pronounced in the other two Maritime provinces, and the problem is to supply the soil with some antacid or mussel mud. Then in addition, there will be the growing of clover and grass and the rotation of crops. I did not mean to disparage the farm at all. I was rather pleased with the work done there, and if my hon. friend had just given me time I was going on to tell him of the work, but he was so loyal to his district he was afraid I might not come to the other part.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: A little earlier in the
debate, remarks were made with regard to the necessity of an experimental farm in northern British Columbia. When I was minister I was over that territory, and I found it a very rich Country with a
11	p.m. great future, particularly in agriculture. It is a fine grass country that gives great promise as a live stock 
producing area, particularly in the dairying line. I think at the very earliest opportunity a farm should be established in the best place in that great northern section, an empire in itself.
With regard to the removal of the experimental farm at Agassiz, that farm has rendered a very valuable service during the time it has been located there. I can quite understand it would not be of great value to the hon. member for Cariboo because he is located in the dry belt area and under conditions quite different from those prevailing in the section where the Agassiz farm is located, where there is a heavy rainfall. No one can say that the farm at Agassiz has not done good work, after the splendid record it has made particularly in dairying. It has won some of the world's records in the cattle produced on that farm; it has also done excellent work in hogs, poultry, and also in connection with other field experiments. I think it has been very valuable to the Fraser valley section of British Columbia in general. I do not agree with this idea that the minister has presented on one or two occasions to-night, that just as soon as the country gets settled you must move the farm away to some new area.


William Richard Motherwell: I have expressed doubts about the wisdom of that.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: The minister expressed himself both ways earlier in the evening.


William Richard Motherwell: No.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: The minister seemed to change his statement a little later on. I desire to say that as a district settles up and farms become more numerous farming problems are greater than they were previously, and an experimental farm located in that district can be of much greater benefit because more people come in contact with it. The minister has presented another problem to-night in connection with the lack of interest taken in our farms. I want to say that, when Minister of Agriculture a few years ago, one of the things that struck me very much indeed was the fact that the farmers do not take advantage of their opportunities of visiting their experimental farms and seeing what splendid lessons they can learn there.


William Richard Motherwell: Hear, hear.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Just the same way in connection with the remarks I made earlier in regard to our exhibitions and the splendid feeding experiments carried on there. The

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farmers do not take advantage of these, but prefer to send the live stock to market, and grow scrub stock, when they might as well grow good stock. If agriculture is to be made a success, it does not matter what effort the government may make, the farmer has to assist to a very great extent.


Mr. HODGINS:: The minister spoke a few moments ago about the chilled meat sent to the Old Country. Would he give us any further information in regard to that? Has he any idea of continuing the experiment?


William Richard Motherwell: I will be glad to send my hon. friend the bulletin, but we do not have it here. I referred to it fully last year, and we had a very good discussion in regard to it on the live stock vote. The vote will not stand a continuance of the experiment. We are going to lose money. We would require to continue the experiment at least a year or two more to get any results, and it is quite possible we would have to establish butcher shops in Great Britain, because of the difficulty of getting the meat sold on its merits as Canadian beef. That would mean considerable expenditure of money, and there are objections to establishing wholesale butcher shops. I do not know how they would be received by your brother butcher shops which have been trading for a number of years. I think it would probably cause a good deal of friction. In the absence of these butcher shops I do not see anything but a substantial loss of money. The Stockers are selling pretty well now.


Archie Latimer Hodgins: Does the minister not
think he could establish some sort of cooperation with our packing plants and establish that trade? The handling of live stock overseas seems to me to be the most expensive method you can possibly adopt. If there were some system by which you could handle chilled beef, put it on the market and place it in your retail stores in conjunction with, the Canadian Packing Companies the trade might be established. I think that is the only feasible way of handling our live stock business.


William Richard Motherwell: There is quite a
bit of sense in what my hon. friend says, but he will have to help me create the impression through the country that co-operating with the packers is a safe line of business. There is a tremendously foolish prejudice throughout the country and nine-tenths of it is quite unwarranted. The packers have done a great deal of good work to improve our live stock industry, but we have not accepted it very
graciously. It is only by team play in these times that we are going to get the maximum results. I had the pleasure-my hon. friend from South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) will not object to my making the statement-of accepting an invitation to Gunn's Limited, where some sixty members of his staff and sixty members of the staff of the Health of Animals branch had an evening's entertainment, and the usual nice dinner, but no four point four stuff or anything like that. We had the usual after-dinner speeches. I feel if I did as my hon. friend suggests I would have a hornet's nest around my ears. I am not speaking of the sentiment down here because I am not familiar with it, but there is a tremendous sentiment to be found largely in the west; they are prejudiced against the packers and have no confidence in any experiment in connection with them. It is something like the prejudice we find against public men, and if my hon. friend stays in parliament long enough he will probably find the sentiment directed against himself.


Archie Latimer Hodgins: I will not stay.


William Richard Motherwell: It is something
that develops against the big fellow. I think there is something in what my hon. friend says, and possibly they have been conducting experiments. One of our primary objects in our experiments was to check up the figures to see if they were bona fide experiments, because some people were suggesting to us that we could not rely on the factory experiment, that we should make one for ourselves, and in order to remove that suspicion we did so.


Mr. SNOWBALL:: I was very much
pleased to hear the remarks of the hon. Minister of Agriculture in regard to the benefit mussel mud is to the farms in New Brunswick, that it needs that element to make them productive, especially the rocky experimental farm in the constituency of the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson). There is a considerable amount of mussel mud available in the constituency from which I come, and I will be glad if the minister will put something in the estimates to have that mud transported to other districts as well as used by farmers in the locality, so that they may get the benefit of it. Provision should be made to enable the farmers to use the mussel mud more than they are able to do at the present time.


Robert Forke: I have been a little puzzled
at a remark the hon. minister made. He suggested some connection between a mem-
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ber of parliiameot and a packing house. Will he kindly explain what he meant?


William Richard Motherwell: I would like to answer the remarks of the hon. member for Northumberland (Mr. Snowball). I looked into the proposition he presents, and1 I find this mussel mud is usually dug out when the water is frozen, often on the ice, carried to the adjoining land and hauled in the summer time. I understood it could1 not be hauled more than eight or ten miles by team to advantage, and a suggestion was made that there should be a spur run into the bay at the island, in order to facilitate the transportation of it more interiorly, and thereby make more use of it. To men out on the prairie it would be a joke, but it is no joke down in the Maritime provinces. It is a real requisite, but the long haul is very expensive and they require eight or ten loads to the acre. AVe have nothing in this vote to assist that and I have no plan whereby assistance could be granted. At the same time, however, it is an interesting proposition that might be looked into with advantage.


Mr. McKILLOP:: Has the minister had
any reports lately as to how the premium which is being paid on bacon hogs is working out? A few years ago the minister first announced that this premium was going to be paid and the farmers throughout the country received the news with great pleasure. But I have had several complaints lately that the hog producer is not receiving the premium; that in many cases, when they bring their hogs to the local shipper, they do not receive more for them than they do for the ordinary kind of hog, and therefore many of them are dissatisfied and have quit trying to raise the bacon type of hogs. Has the minister had any complaints along this line?


William Richard Motherwell: My hon. friend, I think, refers to those who sell to drovers at a flat rate?


Hugh Cummings McKillop: Yes.


William Richard Motherwell: I do not know how you can get over that. The only way is to encourage the hog producers to form cooperative shipping societies, ship to the packers and get the government grader there to grade the hog and the buyer to buy it on the basis of the grade, taking the "thick, smooth" as the foundation of the price and "selects" at ten per cent more. In the small places where the drovers buy, they buy on the flat rate. In fact, I do not see you are going to reach them unless you encourage them to ship in the hogs in carload lots, have a farmer accom-

panying them and have the hogs marked with tags in the ear to indicate the owner. Then they can get the grade and price according to the grade. That has been done in the west through co-operative shipping associations.


Hugh Cummings McKillop: At the present time I understand the local shipper or the packer is receiving the benefit of the premium.


William Richard Motherwell: No, it will be the drover. If the drover buys a hog at the price of a "thick, smooth", and he gets the price of a "select" out of it, he gets the ten per cent. The packer does not get the benefit; he pays his money for the "selects", no matter who brings them. That is why the drovers are invariably against the grading. They want the flat price because there is more money in it for them.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: In the earlier part of the evening when I suggested to. the minister an illustration station on the north shore of New Brunswick for the purpose of demonstrating the fertilizer value of mussel mud, he said that twenty illustration stations were there located. I find from the Auditor General's report that the only amount paid for illustration stations in my county, where the mussel mud experiment could be conducted, was something like $110 at Rexton. I do not find any for the neighbouring county of Northumberland, and I find a small amount of about $80 for the county represented in this House by the Secretary of State (Mr, Copp). I point this out merely to show that even in that northern section of the province many illustration stations could be established where experiments could be conducted with mussel mud for the purpose of showing to the farming population the fertilizing ingredients contained therein.


Mr. STANSELL:: I do not want to be understood as criticizing unfairly experimental farms, because I realize the value of the work that is done by them. It is, however, only fair to say that there has been criticism, not confined to this House, as to the number of experimental farms actually needed in Canada. It must be apparent to all that an experimental farm, no matter what the nature of the work, is valuable only in proportion to the degree that the farmers avail themselves of the results of that experiment. We can readily understand that an experimental farm does not need to be located close to the farmer who is to receive benefit from it. That is easily seen from the fact that farms in close proximity to experimental

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farms are usually not much more up to date or better operated than ones at a distance from them. The reason for this is plain. The only farmers who can benefit are those who are willing to apply the result of the experiments to their own operations, and that can be done just as easily from the reports sent out from the farm by the man who lives twenty, thirty or forty miles away as by the man who is quite close to the farm itself. The work of experimenting, it seems to me, could be very well carried on in one central farm in a province. I cannot see the necessity of having three or four or more experimental farms in a province except under very exceptional circumstances. I have many times heard the criticism that there is too much overlapping and that there are too many experimental farms to be in the best interest of the work. Whether this is so or not, I am more than ever convinced to-night that it is by the statements of the minister himself. The minister told us some time ago that he really believed there were too many and that some might very well be done away with. If this is true, there never was a time when that policy was needed more than it is at present. Everywhere we are asked to practise economy. The government is faced with a falling revenue and there is a necessity for economy in expenditure. I think I can speak for the farming population in this country in saying that they are willing to bear their share of real economy in order to help balance revenue and expenditure. If what the minister has told us to-night is true that some farms could well be done away with, why not begin that policy now? Why the necessity of increasing the vote at this particular time when we should be trying to economize? What is the necessity of appointing a commission? The minister states that he believes there are too many of these farms. I cannot see why it is necessary in a matter of this kind when everything is within the knowledge of the minister and when he has the power, that he should appoint a commission to deal with a little matter like this. Especially when Mr. Preston is otherwise employed just now, why cannot the minister deal with it himself?
I have suggested that it might be possible to do with less experimental work; that in each province one or at the most two properly located and well conducted experimental farms should be sufficient. Other work necessary could be done in a small way possibly by illustration farms in different localities: If this is true-and I believe it is-I should like to ask the minister how many illustration farms
he has at the present time, where they are located by province, what is the approximate cost of operation and what is the average acreage?


William Richard Motherwell: The acreage is
about forty acres to the farm. Sometimes it is not quite that. There are 143 illustration farms. I have not given them by provinces, but while we are looking them up, I will tell my hon. friend why I think it is not advisable just now to make any reduction, until the provinces are consulted. I have discussed the question of reducing the number of provincial farms with two provincial authorities, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan, and we have further deliberations to enter into before we can take any action, because it is not wise to take action with respect to this matter without consulting the respective provincial departments of agriculture and the respective governments. I have suggested, not a commission but a committee of disinterested men to look into the matter because their recommendations would be freer from, shall I say, bias, than would the recommendations of the minister. He might be accused of partiality towards his own province, his own party or his particular riding, and for that reason it would be better to have an independent committee. I could make the selection right now, for I have my mind almost made up as to where we might do the paring. But I question the advisability of doing it arbitrarily in that way. I think we should consult all the provincial governments affected before doing anything. It has been recommended that we should have co-operation with a view to cutting out the overlapping, and that is a good suggestion. One of the very first things to consider would be cooperation with the provinces in the matter of suggested changes; and in the meantime, while that is being decided, we should keep the farms in a respectable condition.


John Lawrence Stansell: The minister has been
thinking of this matter for the past two or three years and he admits that it is nothing new. Why not begin in a small1 way and, instead of increasing the estimate $40,000, come forward with the former estimate if not a lower? Where are the 143 illustration farms located?


William Richard Motherwell: There are in British Columbia 13, in Alberta 15, in Saskatchewan 24, in Manitoba 8, in Ontario 8, in Quebec 43, in New Brunswick 20, in Nova Scotia 12 and in Prince Edward Island 8.


Hugh Cummings McKillop: Has the minister any
record of the number of hogs the packers take
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in in the course of a year on which a premium is paid?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, we have a
record. The first year it was very small; it depends on the province. We get more in the Maritime provinces as a rule, in proportion to population, than anywhere else.


Hugh Cummings McKillop: I think the highest number is in Ontario.


William Richard Motherwell: That is right, yes. Ontario and then the Maritime provinces. In some of the provinces the tendency has been to grow fat hogs, but in all of them there has been a marked improvement in the increased number of selects. This is a business that can be developed rapidly, and it is showing considerable improvement.


Donald Sutherland: With regard to hog grading, the minister informed us a little while ago that the government graders were doing good work. But he admits that a great many of those hogs shipped direct to the stockyards are not graded at all.


William Richard Motherwell: Those shipped to the stockyards are graded1 there; the drovers do not grade them.


Donald Sutherland: The producer does
not get the benefit. Why are hogs not bought according to quality the same as beef animals? Why employ an army of graders to grade hogs for the packing companies, who should buy their hogs according to quality as they do beef animals? The minister knows very well that while he employs graders to go to the packing companies he keeps no check on the meat that passes through the packing houses. He can give no information concerning the proportion of the meat that is sold as select, but as a matter of fact it is all sold as select; they do not mark it anything else. The people of this country have to pay the price of select but they are not getting it. Why does the minister not exercise control over the packers as well as over the fanners? I do not see why we should have all these vexatious regulations governing the producer, while we give other people a free hand to do as they see fit. The minister has his officials all over Ontario just now threatening the people that unless they do so and1 so the law will be enforced. Egg grading, for instance, has to be carried out throughout the country; with what result? Eggs are sold as seconds just as the farmer sells his hogs, not as selects but for a lower grade, where they are not taken to the packing company. And this thing will result in a lower price paid for the eggs although a higher price 
will be charged the consumer. If there is one commodity in regard to which there is no necessity for all this process of grading by government officials it is eggs. Eggs are either good or bad; and as to size, you might sell them by weight if you cared to. At all events, I do not see why we should have an army of officials who do not encourage but rather discourage people who would like to do something. The whole fact is that we have too many restrictions. Here are two items in connection with which we are asked to vote upwards of $2,000,000. and the minister admits that a great deal of what is being done is practically useless.


William Richard Motherwell: I do not admit that.


Donald Sutherland: Well, then, what
about the farms which the minister admits should be eliminated? Is that not an admission that they are useless? With regard to the graders, the minister knows very well that if there is anything that requires attention on the part of the officials of his department it is the food sold to the consumer. But nothing is done in that direction.


William Richard Motherwell: But that would only
take more inspectors.


Donald Sutherland: Would it not be better to put the inspectors where they would do valuable work? The packing companies are anxious to have the graders do for them what they should have done for themselves years ago. There is no reason why they should not pay for the hogs they get on the basis of quality, just as they pay for beef animals. Why does the minister not employ graders to grade beef animals as well as hogs?


William Richard Motherwell: You have to start somewhere, and the proposition was worked out by the various provincial ministers, as well as the Swine Breeders' Association and the federal Department of Agriculture in the fall of 1921 before I came to Ottawa, as my hon. friend (Mr. Tolmie) knows. We took over the plant and we are doing our best to give it a chance; and I believe it will go, if we have not too many people in the country roaring against it. My hon. friend asks why we do not follow it up with grading bacon. Well, it takes all our time to get the graders to grade the hogs. We have had one of the best experts we could secure engaged in studying the question of bacon requirements, and he has gone to the Old Country in this connection. This gentleman came back and we discussed the subject with him on his return. The Dominion government was asked by Great Britain to appoint two representatives

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on the Imperial Marketing committee, and this man we recommended as one. He is over there now and will complete his investigation in due course. But if we employ more graders, the first complaint will be registered by the hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) that we are stacking up another bunch of inspectors. You cannot have it both ways, Mr. Chairman. If new duties are to be imposed upon my department I must have additional men. We are going along in the direction my hon. friend indicates as rapidly as we can get the men and the money.


Donald Sutherland: Is the committee
to infer from the minister's remarks that he proposes to appoint graders to grade beef animals too?


William Richard Motherwell: No. There is no
demand for that.


Donald Sutherland: There certainly has
not been a demand for the egg graders. I can assure the minister that there are very pronounced protests against these obnoxious restrictions.	#


William Richard Motherwell: For anybody who
wants to make political capital out of it. There is a complete system of egg grading in Prince Edward Island and the other Maritime provinces, also in the three prairie provinces. The only place where we have had to do any stimulating to get the system adopted is in the province my hon. friend comes from, and I d'o not know whether his agitation has retarded its adoption or not.


Donald Sutherland: Yes, Mr. Chairman, this is the province wherei the people have to work for a living. The minister informed us how the westerner could produce beef cattle successfully by going around the hotels in white pants and starched collars. We cannot produce beef in Ontario that way.


William Richard Motherwell: I did not recommend that system anywhere.


Donald Sutherland: That may be the
case in western Canada; in Ontario the minister may impose all the restrictions he likes, but he cannot force the people to produce this stuff if they do not wish to do so.


William Richard Motherwell: I am not trying
to.


Donald Sutherland: 
William Richard Motherwell: I am trying to improve them.


Donald Sutherland: I should like to know the cost of these Seasonal Hints.


William Richard Motherwell: My hon. friend spoke about publications.


Donald Sutherland: Yes, the publications I referred to are the reports of the experimental farms, which reports are not available to the prospective immigrant. The shipping agents in the Old Country naturally get all the information they can about Canada, but this information so far as Ontario is concerned is practically a blank; they see abundance of
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it with regard to farms located in. all the [DOT]other provinces. This is the penalty Ontario pays for having borne the cost of this experimental work herself. The same discrimination against Ontario prevails in the Immigration department. The provincial government for years has had to do this work and pay for it, while the federal government has been doing it for all the other provinces. This is absolutely unfair. The minister exclaims, " Why, if these things are not done for the other provinces they will likely do them themselves." But why penalize them for bearing the expense? Why should Ontario suffer by reason of the fact that the federal government does little or nothing for experimental work in the province, and fails to furnish the prospective immigrant with the information he is seeking about farming opportunities in Ontario. These Seasonal Hints which are sent all over Ontario are really an insult to the people. What do they cost?


William Richard Motherwell: About $5,000.


Hugh Cummings McKillop: A little earlier this evening the minister remarked that Essex and Kent were great tobacco-producing counties. )I would ask him not to forget to add the county of Elgin the next time he is talking about tobacco production in Ontario. During the past few years the county of Elgin has had from 700 to 1,000 acres under tobacco, and we expect this coming season the area will ibe increased to about 1,500 acres. The county produces very good tobacco. With respect to the regulations governing the premium on bacon hogs, is it not about time the minister made a change so that the producer may receive the benefit?


William Richard Motherwell: We changed them a few months ago. Only two grades are graded by the graders now, " thick-smooth " and "select." As to the other grades, the buyer land the seller do their own negotiating, and if they disagree as to the grade they call in the grader to arbitrate.


Hugh Cummings McKillop: The local shipper you are referring to now?


William Richard Motherwell: There is no way of reaching the local shipper. He Is in the same position as the local shipper of grain. The man who sells to a local shipper on a flat rate basis cannot get the benefit of any grade. The system cannot be applied to the man who will not use his Chances of co-operating with his neighbours and shipping in car lots.


Mr. GARDINER:: The minister informed the committee a few moments ago that we have 143 illustration stations. Are those stations owned by the government or is the land rented?


William Richard Motherwell: The farms are owned by the farmers and operated by them under the advice and supervision of a member of the experimental farm staff.


Robert Gardiner: What is the average
cost of these illustration farms?


William Richard Motherwell: About $300.


Robert Gardiner: I have been studying this question of experimental farms and I have come to the conclusion that the work in that connection is not giving the benefit to the people that it should, simply because it is impossible to get to the farmers the information that can be derived from that work. I suggest that the illustration station is far more valuable than some of the present experimental farms and that it would well repay this country if we put more money into the illustration stations and less into the experimental farm work. I have had the pleasure on more than one occasion of observing the work of these illustration stations. They are usually very close to a small town or village, on highways that are much used by the farmers, and as the farmers go to market or to town, as the case may be, they pass these illustration stations and see what is being done. Personally I believe that the results would be more beneficial if the illustration station plan was extended and the experimental farm work reduced.


William Richard Motherwell: Thank you.


John Lawrence Stansell: Most of the information I intended to ask for has been given in answer to the hon. member (Mr. Gardiner). Like him, I have been of the opinion that good results could be accomplished by increasing the work of the illustration farms, and that without greatly burdening the taxpayer. What I wanted to know was about the average cost. Am I correct in inferring that the average size is about fifty acres?


William Richard Motherwell: Forty.


Mark Cecil Senn: A year or two ago the federal department entered into some kind of arrangement with regard to the importation of sheep, and I think that policy was carried out last year. Is it the intention to continue it?


William Richard Motherwell: I think last year was the first year we adopted that policy. A few Rambouillets have been brought in from the United States by the Sheep Breeders' As-

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sociation, with some assistance and supervision by members of the Department of Agriculture, who assisted in making the selections. All the other breeds we have been handling are prohibited entry under the embargo on account of the foot and mouth disease.


Donald Sutherland: Two years ago the
minister intimated that the department intended to import pure bred animals and to use the central farms as distributing centres to supply the surrounding districts. Many complaints have been made as to the unfairness of the government's entering into competition with people engaged in legitimate business, yet the government have been paying officials to go over to the Old Land, buy stock there, bring it out here and sell it in competition with breeders of live stock in this country. Does he consider that that is a proper policy for the government to pursue?


William Richard Motherwell: We endeavour to
carry only such stock as the capacity of each farm will permit. We have practically no complaints of the character my hon. friend has mentioned; in fact, our activities develop such a demand throughout the country for pure bred stock and better stock that the result has been to increase rather than to lessen the sales to private breeders. The same question came up some years ago in connection with the distribution of trees by the Forestry department. It was urged that the private nurseries would be injured, but the reverse actually happened; the business of the nurseries was increased very considerably.


Donald Sutherland: I have received a
letter from Nova Scotia to-day complaining about this very matter and pointing out the unfairness of the government's entering into this business in competition with those in this country who have invested their money in it and have been endeavouring to carry on. I do not think this is a matter that comes within the province of the federal government. The government have enough to do to look after things that are absolutely necessary, and they should not venture into such new fields as the Department of Agriculture have been entering upon. Many vexatious restrictions have been put into force by that department during the last few years, but I believe this establishing of breeding depots at these farms is about the worst. The minister says they are carrying on this work just to the capacity of the farms. Well, what is the capacity of the farms? If you import
stock and keep it there a week, two weeks or a month-


William Richard Motherwell: We do not do that at all.


Donald Sutherland: The minister informed the House two years ago that that was what he proposed to do, and I believe a good deal of it has been done in the Maritime provinces as well as in other parts of the country. The minister intimated that was his policy.


William Richard Motherwell: My hon. friend has got the two problems mixed. These importations of sheep are made by the provinces, and we place them. We rarely import even breeding animals for the use of the farms, but occasionally we do import hogs and sheep. But we do not bring them here and then retail them to the farmers. We import only what we require for the various farms, and then we breed from them on our own farms. My hon. friend thinks we are doing a retail business in them, importing them and retailing them, but that is not the situation at all. We have not done that in one single instance.


Donald Sutherland: I am afraid I shall
have to send for Hansard1 and read the minister's policy on this matter given a few years ago. I protested against it at the time, and I know complaints have kept on coming in. I received one to-day from Nova Scotia complaining of what the government were doing, and of the inferior class of animals that were being sold to them.


Thomas Langton Church: What is the minister
going to do with regard to assisting the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair? The city of Toronto has spent $2,000,000 on this fair, and it gets only a small grant towards the prize list from the government. The minister made a fine speech in Toronto, much better I think than he makes here, and promised the pioneers in that work some assistance. The city has spent $40,000,000 on the summer fair, very largely for the benefit of the agricultural industry, and then it comes along and spends $2,000,000 for the Royal Agricultural Fair for the development of the live stock industry of this country. An application has been made to the government for practical assistance, and I would like to know what the government is going to do. It is not a municipal matter at all, but a federal and provincial matter, because live stock is under the jurisdiction of both legislatures. The show is larger than the New York and Chicago shows. The minister himself said

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that 'it was the largest show on the continent when he spoke in Toronto at the opening of the fair. He has received a memorandum asking for assistance, and I would like to know what he is prepared to do. The association is composed practically of farmers; I do not think the city of Toronto has a single representative on the board, although the city has supplied all the money for the fair, which is far larger than Madison Square Garden. The city should not be left alone to carry the burden, because the fair is doing an educational work that is for the 'benefit of the live stock industry all over the country, and it is being done now at great cost to the taxpayers of the city of Toronto.


William Richard Motherwell: The annual grant to the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, not of Toronto, but of Canada, is $25,000 a year, extending over ten years. They have requested additional! assistance, and that is under consideration. That is as far as I can go.


Donald Sutherland: I notice an item in the Auditor General's report of $18,476 for free freight policy, which is included in this item we are discussing. There is another policy of car lot policy, for which there was an expenditure of $8,768. How does this apply? How is it that some provinces can avail themselves of this free freight policy and others not?


William Richard Motherwell: That policy was adopted in order to encourage the shipping of breeding animals back into the country. Take the case of one of our stock yards where there is a lot of breeding stock that should be kept on the farm. The farmer being hard up has shipped this stock into market; he may have been short of feed or of cash, or both. In order to encourage the return of that stock to the interior, which it should never have left, the government some six or eight years ago adopted this policy of assisting the farmer in buying this breeding stock at the respective stock yards and shipping it back to the interior. We have continued that policy up to this year. We have recently had a conference between the deputy minister and the live stock commissioner, and as a result, whether for good or evil, we are discontinuing the policy. A considerable amount of abuse has crept in under it. I am not criticizing the policy; I think it was all right when it was inaugurated, but certain abuses have crept in that render its discontinuance advisable.


Mr. THURSTON:: This policy was to assist in shipping back young cattle from the 
west that had been sold on our eastern markets?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Donald Sutherland: Did it not apply to the shipping of feed cattle as well as breeding stock? The shipper from western Canada to Toronto could have these animals sent back at half carload rates, but in Ontario we have not any of these privileges. I am speaking of feeders for commercial purposes.


William Richard Motherwell: I think my hon.
friend refers to the first item, the free freight policy with respect to breeding stock. This other is with respect to steers. Assistance was given by the federal government for a number of years. We pay the transportation expenses of the purchaser and his hotel expenses, and the transportation companies knock off 25 per cent from the cost of transporting the animals. That was arranged with the railways just about the same time, some five or six years ago, and I understand that that is being eliminated also.


Donald Sutherland: What I was particularly inquiring about was the policy of getting a half rate on cattle for feeding purposes. The western shipper into Ontario can get that rate, 'but the Ontario buyer cannot get it. Now is that fair?


William Richard Motherwell: I understand that
policy was extended to Ontario. I know the Ontario buyer got sufficient inducement to come out west to the feeder shows, in the way of cheaper freight rates and assistance all round both from the government and the railways, although I have not the
12	m. exact details, to encourage him to come out there and get animals for feeding purposes at a good figure and bring them back east. As far as the future is concerned, I understand that we are eliminating both that system and the free freight policy with respect to breeding stock.


Mr.   FORICE@: I thought the minister was wrong, but if he is right I must be mistaken. The way he explained the matter was that if western cattle were shipped to Ontario there would be a reduction in the cost of transportation back to the west.


William Richard Motherwell: No.


Robert Forke: That is what the hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) stated.


William Richard Motherwell: No.


Robert Forke: He talked about shipping
them back to the west.

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Henry Lumley Drayton: I think that was only to Winnipeg.


Robert Forke: What goes to Winnipeg can be shipped to the prairies.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, I did not think it extended any further than Winnipeg.


Donald Sutherland: I must protest
against the impression which the minister's explanation leaves on members of the House. That does apply to Ontario. The shipper from the west can ship his stock to Ontario, he can sell it there and consign it out again at half rate. If it is consigned to a dealer in Toronto and sold there, and the purchaser purchases it in Toronto, he has to pay full car rates if he sends it outside. I know payment is evaded in many instances, but it is not honestly done, and should not be permitted, because many people send their cattle to Toronto, and in some instances, through the connivance of the commission men, can get the special rate. Why should this rate not apply to people all over the country?


John Jabez Thurston: The minister stated a few minutes ago that the purchaser's hotel fare was paid. Was that the Ontario purchaser who went to our city markets and purchased young western cattle?


William Richard Motherwell: In the local market. I do not know why they make a difference, but it only applies to stockyards, Winnipeg and the west; but an eastern man could go to the stockyards at Winnipeg and the west and get these, advantages and ship stuff down here. I do not know why it was not extended to the eastern stockyards at Toronto. I did not work out the policy, but it was in force when we started to administer this work, and certain abuses have crept in, with the result that we are dropping all these things.


John Jabez Thurston: The hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) left the inference from his remarks that the purchaser from Ontario did not benefit by this reduced fare.


William Richard Motherwell: He is wrong.


John Jabez Thurston: I have been on the market considerable myself, and I know it was the practice of Ontario buyers to go in and buy western stock or cattle and have them shipped out to their homes without any freight charge, but the Ontario purchaser did get the benefit of it.


Donald Sutherland: I referred to a case where the westerner sold his cattle at Toronto market, as has been done in many instances, 53
but some of the dealers arranged to have those cattle shipped out, even though they were not consigned by the party who shipped them there at all. Another farmer comes in and buys a mixed load from two dealers, and does not get that advantage. It is an unfair thing and the regulations are being evaded. In many instances, people get that rate, but they do not get it honestly. If the western shipper consigns his stuff right through to the dealer and it is purchased direct on the market from that dealer, he gets the benefit. But if it is purchased with a mixed load he does not get any benefit a.t all.


John Jabez Thurston: I beg pardon. It was the practice for two or three falls that when western cattle consigned to commission men in Toronto market sold again as stocker cattle out through the country there was no freight charge from Toronto to the distributing point. It had to be western cattle. It did not matter whether you bought them out of half a dozen loads, as long as they were all western cattle. It was not necessary that they should all be purchased out of the one car


Donald Sutherland: I think the hon. member is in error, and if we had a little more time I believe we would be able to convince our western friends that they have many privileges that we in the east do not have, even in regard to the Hudson Bay railway which the country will have to build for them. In the province of Ontario we have offered to build a line through to Hudson bay, and we are going to do it ourselves. I think the minister might move that the committee rise.


William Richard Motherwell: That is what the member has been playing for all night.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not think that remark is justified. The minister should be fair sometimes. He has done more talking than anybody else. The hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) has only been talking for the last half hour, and the minister has made long and probably excellent speeches.


William Richard Motherwell: I harm to, I cannot get out of it.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am not complaining, but it is not fair for the minister to charge the hon. member with killing time and holding this vote back till twelve. He certainly has not. I do not know what the understanding as to adjournment is. I thought the idea was to sit till eleven, unless we were given some notification to the contrary. It

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is after twelve o'clock now, and I have no doubt the minister will move the adjournment.


William Richard Motherwell: We would like to have the item passed. We have referred to the live stock this evening and reverted to a former vote, and discussed experimental farms until I think we have covered the ground better than we have ever done on any previous occasion. We have to judge our hon. friend from South Oxford by his conduct of former years. He may not have wanted to prevent the item going through to-night, but we know his attitude generally.


Donald Sutherland: I do not want the minister to impute wrong motives. I think I have been reasonable in my request for information, and if the minister had been more frank with the committee it would have been better for the committee and for himself. He has certainly given information on two or three different questions on different occasions, and taken up a good deal of time in doing so, when he might very well have given a direct answer. He has informed the committee that there are a large number of these things they propose cutting out, even the last item to which I have referred in regard to' the assistance in freight rates. Why is the minister asking for as large an item as he asked for a year .ago in regard to live stock; and an increase of $40,000 in the item for experimental farms, when he admits that a great deal of pruning might be done and much money saved in that respect? Surely some information should be given in regard to that.


William Richard Motherwell: The work in other lines is increasing and requiring more money. We dropped off the work which had been developed to the point where its usefulness ceased or its purpose was accomplished, but other activities required more money.


Donald Sutherland: What new activities are being undertaken in connection with this?


William Richard Motherwell: Experimental farms. I gave that information.


George Newcombe Gordon: That information has already been given to the committee, and the minister does not require to give it again.


Donald Sutherland: I object to any blocking of any reasonable information. I asked for information in regard to live stock and it has not been given.


George Newcombe Gordon: The information asked for by the hon. member was given and the minister does not require to give it seriatim the second time. As it has already been
fSir Henry Drayton.]
given to the committee, to give it again would mean irrelevancy and the debate continuing over the same ground1 the second time.


Donald Sutherland: I must insist that
to my knowledge the information for which I have asked has not been given, that is with regard to new activities in connection with the item under live stock.


John Jabez Thurston: The minister mentioned that it was the intention of the department to cease giving this assistance on freight to stock or cattle in Ontario. I differ slightly from the hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) in saying that this assistance is given only to western farmers. It was taken advantageously by the .farmers of Ontario, and I think they appreciated it fully as much as the western people because it afforded them an opportunity to get good stock and receive some assistance in connection with it. I am satisfied1 that the Department of Agriculture is carrying on a good many side lines that might much more easily be cut out than such a direct aissistance to agriculture as this is, and I think it is something that should be continued.


William Richard Motherwell: Has my hon. friend reference more to the feeder shows that I think he is familiar with?


John Jabez Thurston: No.


William Richard Motherwell: I am sorry we have decided to cut it out for the reason I have given. Many abuses were creeping in and we found we could use the money to better advantage elsewhere. We will continue though, the encouragement for eastern men to go west to these stacker or feeder shows at Winnipeg, Moose Jaw or Calgary, because we find that they like our class of feeder animals there very well and they assist the sales very materially by their activities.


John Jabez Thurston: What is the nature of
the feeder shows the minister mentions?


William Richard Motherwell: I read them over
very fully. I want to answer the hon. member for South Oxford as to the new work we are taking over. This branch is taking over the cow testing for butter fat, not for tuberculosis. An additional amount is required for that. It was formerly conducted by the Dairy branch.


John Jabez Thurston: I did not hear the
minister's explanation, but I am not going to ask him to repeat it because it was my fault possibly for not being present. As regards the feeder shows, they may be doing a certain amount of good, but the department is assisting eastern people and there will be

Disablement Fund
only a very limited number of Ontario fanners who will be able to go to these shows. At the same time the western stocker cattle must come to Ontario to be finished for the export market, so as to be in the condition we should try to put them into before they leave the country. Therefore, I feel that the department will be doing more good in assisting the distribution of stocker cattle from the central markets into eastern Canada than by assisting a few individual farmers in going to those western shows.


William Richard Motherwell: There may be
something in that, but there were certain abuses that I do not care to mention.


Donald Sutherland: The matter referred to by the hon. member for Victoria (Mr. Thurston) is very important in the older province. There is certainly not much advantage in shipping stockers to the Old Country when it costs just as much in ocean rates for a thin animal as for one that is finished. If these animals can be finished in this country, so much the better for the country. That is the point that should be encouraged. The hon. member for Victoria must have shipped the feeders to which he has been referring through the farmers co-operative.


John Jabez Thurston: Not all of them.


Donald Sutherland: I know they have
been able by some means to ship those cattle out where others did not obtain the same rates which they did. I am not saying this in any way disparagingly of the practice, because I know of instances where stock has been shipped out by commission agents as these people really are. I know in many other instances they have not been able to avail themselves of this assistance. The department might very well encourage the giving of cheap rates on feeder cattle so as to have them sent back and finished on the farms. I do not know of any expenditure which could be made with better results.


Thomas George McBride: Does the hon. member
think he is entitled to rates from the prairies to Ontario when we do not get them to British Columbia?


Donald Sutherland: I am not speaking
about any particular province. I am speaking about a general practice over this Dominion, not confined to any province as it is to-day.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Lapointe the House adjourned at 12.20 aun. (Friday).
Friday, March 6, 1925