1926-06-24

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, June 23, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mercier (St. Henri) for concurrence in the report of the special committee appointed to investigate the Department of Customs and Excise, the proposed amendment thereto of Hon. Mr. Stevens, and the proposed amendment to the amendment of Mr. Woodsworth.
Mr. SPEAKER:: I am now in a position
to give a ruling on the point of order raised last night.	[DOT]
On the motion of Mr. Mercier (St. Henri) for concurrence in the final report of the special committee appointed to investigate the Department of Customs and Excise, Mr. Stevens moved that said report be referred back with instructions to add thereto certain clauses purporting that ministerial action had been influenced by improper pressure, with the knowledge of the Prime Minister and government, and that the oonduct of the Hon. George H. Boivin in the case of Moses Aziz is entirely unjustifiable; and also deploring the practice of certain public men to direct appeals to the minister to relax and depart from the proper administration of his department for reasons of political expediency; and concluding
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that such a practice is detrimental to the best interests of the country and prejudicial to the administration of the department.
To this amendment a sub-amendment is moved proposing that certain words be struck out and replaced by others providing for the appointment of a judicial commission with full powers to continue and complete investigating the administration of the Department of Customs and Excise and to prosecute all offenders; stating that the practice of members of parliament and others appealing to the minister to relax departmental regulations was done also for personal advantage;
Suggesting that the administrative duties of the department be wholly entrusted to the executive officers;
And finally, recommending that R. R. Farrow's services should be dispensed with.
A point of order was raised by the Right Hon. Mr. Meighen on the ground that an amendment to an amendment must deal with nothing but the subject matter of the amendment. It was also argued that the adoption of the sub-amendment would prevent the Housei from pronouncing on the proposal contained in the amendment.
There can be no doubt in my mind as to the relevancy of the sub-amendment.
According to Bourinot (page 321) the law on the relevancy of amendments is that if they are on the same subject matter with the original motion, they are admissible, but not when foreign thereto.
The only exception to this practice, as the House is aware, is on the question of going into supply or ways and means.
The object of an amendment is to effect such an alteration in a question as will obtain the support of those who, without such alteration, must either vote against it or abstain from voting thereon, or (vide May 13th edition, page 283) to present to the House an alternative proposition either wholly or partially opposed to the original question.
The effect of making an amendment is for the time being to link the amendment with the main motion so that the subject matter of both is thereby placed under the consideration of the House.
Bearing this principle in mind, there can be little question in this instance that both the amendment and the sub-amendment refer to the inefficiency of administration in the Department of Customs and Excise. The bon. member for Vancouver Centre proposes a general censure of the ministerial conduct, and of the failure of the government to take prompt and effective remedial action. The proposal of the hon. member for Winnipeg
]Mr. Speaker.]
North Centre would eliminate that censure for the time being at any rate, and while appreciating all the existing evils as to smuggling, he asserts that only a portion of the illegal practices have been brought to light, and therefore recommends the appointment of a judicial commission to continue and complete the investigation. This is an amendment to an amendment, which affords the House the opportunity of voting upon an alternative proposition. There -is no reason why such an amendment should be pronounced to be out of order.
It has been represented in the course of the debate on the point of order, that the possible elimination- of the amendment would result in depriving hon. members supporting it from the right of directly recording their views by a vote -in the House.
This is contradicted by long practice which is inherent to the British parliamentary system. May, page 254, 13th edition, says that it can not be contended that such a practice is unfair. After all, in the last analysis, the decision of the House is supreme. A-s long as Mr. Stevens has asserted his right to express his views by making his amendment he suffers no prejudice if Mr. Woodsworth using the same right, submits a sulb-amend-ment asking the House to accept an alternative proposition.
My ruling, therefore, is that the sub-amendment is in order.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) :: During the past five
months an important committee of this House has been inquiring into the administration of the Department of Customs and Excise, and has made a report to the House which contains a number of far-reaching recommendations looking to the improvement of methods for securing the revenues of the country and for the suppression of the evil of smuggling, which has come to be one of the great evils of modern times, and one of the greatest problems with which this country is faced. The House has before it the report of that committee, with a motion on the part , of the chairman (Mr. Mercier, St. Henri) that the report be concurred in. May I say at once that, with respect to every recommendation in that report, the government is in entire accord. The government is prepared to give to the recommendations in the report as made the full force and effect which it was hoped by the members of the committee they would have. We accept the report as it comes, believing that it creates what, in the opinion of the members of the

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
committee of this House, is most necessary in the interests of our country at the present time.
In addition to the report before the House there are two amendments, one an amendment moved by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens), which I think I might at once classify as a political amendment, as a partisan amendment and as a destructive amendment, and another-a subamendment-which you Mr. Speaker, have jtist ruled is regular in every particular and which I might classify as a constructive amendment, as a non-partisan amendment, as an amendment intended to further the work of the investigation which the House committee has been engaged upon and designed to make more effective the smuggling and revenue laws of our country. The House is called upon at this time to consider to which of these two amendments it will give adherence.
Before I go in any detail into the amendment, may I direct the attention of the House to the nature of the problem with which the committee has been dealing as well as its scope and magnitude? The problem in its essence is one created largely by a new condition that has developed on this continent within the last few years, grown, I think hon. members will agree, out of legal enactments in the country to the south of us and in our own country, which have made extremely difficult, particularly in relation to liquor and narcotics, the matter of protecting effectively the revenue laws of the country and preventing smuggling. May I remind the House that this problem is not peculiar to Canada? The United States of America has had to face this problem, and those of us who have any knowledge of the difficulty which the United States has had to contend with in facing it will be able to appreciate the great difficulty which confronts this country in relation to the same problem. May I draw the attention of the House to this fact: the boundary line between this country and the United States extends over a distance of something like 4,000 miles. We have in addition, as they have, a large boundary line contiguous to the ocean, and part of the boundary line between our two countries is in the nature of lakes and rivers, and part of it is simply coterminus territory; mountains, forest, prairie, and all other phases of physical geography go to make up this boundary line extending, as I say, 4,000 miles across the continent. To enforce the customs laws in this country that entire boundary has to be properly protected. If it is a difficult thing for the United States government to
protect its boundary line against Canada, how much more difficult is it for our country to protect its boundary line against the United States? We are a people of nine or ten million sparsely settled and the United States a people of one hundred and ten million, with an infinitely larger production and denser population in their country. Our nine or ten million have to find officials, and have to form an administration which can protect this country against smuggling across that boundary of the Dominion from the larger number of people and the larger production on the other side. The Americans on their part, having a larger number of people, are in a position to afford a much more liberal and. extensive preventive service than this country is able to afford, though they have not against their border the same pressure as we have from the other side. I mention this in order that the House may get a correct perspective of the magnitude of the problem.
The United States have found, that in order to cope with the question of smuggling, it has to increase its preventive service enormously. It has had to take measures of a class and character never hitherto contemplated by any other country. When it was my privilege to be present at the Imperial conference in England three years ago, one question that came before the conference was a request from the United States that for the purposes of the suppression of smuggling operations the right of search on ships should be extended to a distance of twelve miles, that the marine league should be extended so to speak, the distance of twelve miles, for the purpose of permitting vessels that were likely to be engaged in the rum-running business to be searched or apprehended by craft of the United States. There was a very important departure from anything which the British government had ever countenanced theretofore. England above all others has prided herself on her control of the seas and on the freedom of the seas, and the demand from another country that England should give up that right, even for any purpose, to extend the marine league from three to twelve miles, to permit vessels to be searched when under suspicion of rum running and the like, shows how considerable in extent and importance the governments of the two countries regarded this problem. I think I am not wrong when I say that the representatives of Canada at that Imperial conference appreciating the magnitude of this problem, helped not a little to bring about the decision which was ultimately reached, whereby the British Empire, with respect to vessels of British
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register, agreed to allow the American authorities that extension of the marine league from three to twelve miles, so that the abuse of smuggling might be more effectively combatted. The United States in the effort to combat that abuse and to stamp out the evil have found it necessary to employ part of their great navy and vastly to increase their preventive service on the high seas as well as on land. If the United States, as I have said, having a larger population than we have, have found it necessary to go to the extremes to which they have gone in the matter of seeking to prevent the evil of smuggling, this House will, I hope, appreciate the problem which the Department of Customs and Excise of Canada has had before it within the last few years in seeking to deal effectively with that problem. The number of officials in the Customs department is, I believe, something like 5,000. According to our theory of government the Minister of Customs is responsible for the administration of the affairs of that department, and if we are to judge from what has been said in the course of this debate his responsibility extends to the behaviour of every one of those many officials. I just put this before the House in order that hou. members may see for themselves something of the scope of the problem with which the government is faced.
May 1 add this further feature? From the days of confederation down to within the last couple of years our customs laws have not been materially changed; they have remained practically the same. Owing to the new conditions that have grown up there have sprung into being new evils which never existed before. When the United States as a great country declared for prohibition it created immediately on this continent a new problem with respect to the smuggling of liquor. That problem never existed in the same manner before; it fell to the lot of the present administration to cope for the first time, may I say, with all the evils that arose out of that situation because hon. gentlemen opposite while they were in office made no change in the laws in any particular; they kept the laws just as they were from the days of confederation down to the present time. This government undertook to face that problem and to seek to meet it. Therefore I contend that instead of being criticised for lack of ministerial attention to this matter, when the facts are known this House will discover reasons for congratulation that the government has been more than vigilant in coping with this menace.
r.Mr. Mackenzie King.]
May I invite the attention of the House for a moment to evidence in support of what I have just said? Our attention was first directed to this question of smuggling between the two countries in connection with an effort to negotiate between the United States and ourselves a treaty which would be helpful to both countries in suppressing smuggling across the international frontier. I will not go into the details of the negotiations that were conducted; but I hold in my hand a treaty for the suppression of smuggling operations along the international boundary between the Dominion of Canada and the United States and assisting in the arrest and prosecution of persons violating the narcotic laws of either country and for kindred purposes.
That treaty was negotiated during 1923; it was signed at Washington on the 6th day of June, 1924. That treaty of itself and the convention which supplemented it between His Britannic Majesty in respect of the Dominion of Canada and the United States for the extradition of offenders against . the laws for the suppression of traffic in narcotics-those two international agreements are evidence irrefutable of the fact that the government of this country was seeking to deal with this problem of smuggling across the borders in the manner in which it could be most effectively dealt with, namely, by agreement between the two governments as to steps that were to be taken to secure the enforcement of revenue laws.
After the negotiation of those international agreements the attention of the government as a government was drawn for the first time to the growth of the smuggling evil as it affected commercial interests in this country by a group of gentlemen who came to Ottawa to interview the administration with reference to the growth of smuggling in Canada. Mr. Sparks was chairman of the group who came to interview the government. My recollection is that this was in the fall of 1924; it may have been and possibly it was earlier in 1924 that this delegation representative largely of the manufacturing interests of the country, came to Ottawa and drew the attention of the government to the circumstance that owing to the smuggling of liquor coming to be the problem it was, numerous persons had become engaged in that traffic in an illicit way. Having become engaged in it, to all intents and purposes they had become professional smugglers and. while seeking to export liquor in one direction, they were seeking to bring back in the other direction, namely, to Canada, other commodities. Silks, auto-

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
mobiles, tobacco, narcotics were, I think, the items that were specially mentioned.
The point that was developed in the course of the meeting with that body of gentlemen was this:	That in their opinion the matter
could be effectively met only if the government were prepared to co-operate with a voluntary association which they were ready to bring into being if that was agreeable to the government. I wish the House to keep this clearly in mind because it lies at the basis of all that has since developed. The government was asked by this association, representative mostly of large manufacturing interests in this country, whether it would be agreeable to having a voluntary association formed to work in co-operation with the government for the apprehension of offenders against the revenue laws, for the suppression of smuggling, and for bringing about more effective legislation to meet that evil.
What was the attitude of the government towards that delegation? Did the government say: No, we have our own preventive service, our own Customs department, our own officers. We ourselves will look after the suppression of smuggling and the protection of the revenue laws. The government did not take that position. It took the position that it would welcome any and every co-operation that could be given in helping to suppress this evil and finding more effective means of preventing it. The government took the position that those gentlemen were all financially interested in seeking to suppress smuggling, and that being financially interested, they were the ones most likely to be able to make suggestions that would most effectively help to deal with the situation.
How did the government show its bona fides in this matter? The association had its own officers. First the government agreed to co-operate and then to assist financially and in other ways. They asked the government if it would place other officers at their disposal. They wanted secret service men. The government undertook to give to them the one secret service man in the Department of Finance, Inspector Duncan, a detective who is known throughout the length and breadth of this country as one who has been for many years inspector of police forces in Ontario. I need not enlarge on Inspector Duncan's standing as a detective in this country. The government said:	We will
turn over to you Inspector Dunoan if he is the one you want. We will lend him to you; we will give him authority to engage other detectives to assist him, and we will cooperate in every way with you and him in
seeking to find out where this evil of smuggling is latent, to suppress it in every way and to enact better legislation.
The Commercial Protective Association went to work with Detective Duncan and two or three others whom he employed. They brought criminal experts from different parts of the continent and had them working as a body on this problem day and night. The point I wish to call to the attention of the House is this: Inspector Duncan and his cooperators were to report to the Commercial Protective Association and in this the government did not seek to restrain them. On the contrary, the government strove to give to the association the freest hand to make out its case, and to facilitate the placing at the disposal of the Commercial Protective Association all the information that could possibly be secured, knowing that the association would come to the government again with measures which in their judgment it was essential to have enacted. That was the form of co-operation adopted. One of the first requests made after the detective forces had begun to work in the manner I have described was that power to arrest should be given to these detectives similar to those of the regular preventive officers in the customs service. It was deemed necessary to empower the detectives to make arrests on the spot whenever they found anyone guilty of violating the laws. That power was granted to enable the detective organization co-operating with the Commercial Protective Association tc cope with the situation under the most advantageous conditions.
What was the next step? Members of the Commercial Protective Association then waited upon the government in a body, and afterwards, through Mr. Sparks its representative, communicated with the government in writing regarding the need of special legislation. I desire to direct the attention of the House particularly to that point. After the matter had been investigated by detectives and trained criminal experts throughout the course of a number of months, the Commercial Protective Association came to the government and represented that what was most needed was legislation to make punishable, by imprisonment rather than merely by fine, infractions of the customs and revenue laws. Indeed, they went further; they declared that, until the law was so amended it was impossible effectively to meet the situation. They stated that 90 per cent of the entire evil could be met provided the laws were amended in accordance with suggestions which they were prepared to submit to the
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government. How was that request received? I shall give in a few minutes from the correspondence proof of what I am now saying. The government met that request by asking the Commercial Protective Association to draft such legislation as its officers thought would be most effective. Now I ask, could the government possibly have taken a more effective way of dealing with the problem than by requesting those most concerned to draft the legislation themselves? I was asked by the chairman of the association whether the government would be agreeable to having the association's legal adviser undertake the work of drafting the legislation, and this request was also acceded to. As a matter of fact, every single request made in that regard was met to the full. And not only did the government concede to the protective association and its legal advisers the drafting of the law, but we came to this parliament with the law so drafted, the only intervention on the part of the government being this: that the legislation was submitted to the Department of Customs in the first instance for any criticism of a technical character and then transferred to the Department of Justice to be put into proper shape for presentation to the House. In every respect the law brought down in this House at the last session was the law which the Commercial Protective Association suggested would meet 90 per cent of the evil.
I need not recall to those who were in the House during the last session that I stood up in parliament myself and strongly advocated the enactment of that law. I called the attention of the House to the fact that the country was face to face with a condition in relation to smuggling of a magnitude such as few could comprehend, and I urged from my place here that that legislation should be immediately passed. When the legislation was before the House it was opposed by some hon. gentlemen opposite as being too drastic, as going too far. One has only to refer to the debates to find that more than one hon. gentleman opposite complained that it was too drastic and was going altogether too far. But the position which the government took in that regard was that all along they had promised co-operation with the Commercial Protective Association, having indeed asked that association to draft the legislation. The government was therefore prepared to give the proposed legislation a fair trial and if it was too drastic it could be amended.


Mr. MANION:: I do not remember anyone on this side opposing the legislation at the time. I may be mistaken and perhaps the Prime Minister will mention an instance.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Possibly I
could give my hon. friend the pages of Hansard at which hon. gentlemen opposite are reported.


Mr. MACLEAN (York):: I do not think
the minister piade it plain whether or not the association accepted his offer of co-operation. If there is any document to that effect it might be well to have it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The association accepted the proposal and thanked the government very much for it.
The hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) was one of the members of the House who objected to the legislation. I find in Hansard, page 3775, the following:
Mr. Hanson: What is the reason for doing away with the power of remission? I presume it is intended to make it a 'Jittle more stringent, but I can suggest cases in which it might be out of proportion. Suppose it were a trifling article which might have a certain value of affection; to take away from the minister the power of remission might result in hardship. I presume the object is to prevent the minister 'being harrassed to death by friends of the smugglers. After all, tha minister can use a wise discretion in matters of this kind- I think it is perhaps going too far to provide that there shall be no power of remission. I think it is misplaced and I object to it on that ground.
What was the reply of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Cardin) then Acting Minister of Customs?
Mr. Cardin: I quite agree it is very severe, but it has been prepared with a view to meet representations made by people interested in 'legitimate trade. Complaints coming from the trade are very numerous, and they are very insistent in this matter. These amendments have been practically suggested by persons who have been in the trade, and we thought that doing away with the powers of remission woulld act as a sort of deter rent.
Elsewhere the hon. member for York-Sunbury is reported as saying:
It developed in the course of the next few days that the American vendor had undervalued the machines. He had got his cheque and passed out of the country and the machines were seized. They were released on the deposit of a large sum of money. I think the Commissioner of Customs demanded $30,000. After a good deal of negotiation we got that sum reduced to about $10,000, which was about double duty, if I recollect rightly.
He cites a case of which he had special knowledge as evidence that the power should not be taken away.
Then I have before me the words of Mr. Baxter, the then member for St. John and Albert the present Premier of New Brunswick.

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King


Mr. STEVENS:: Surely the Prime Minister does not suggest that this inquiry by the hon. member for York-Sunbury as to the nature of the legislation could be looked upon as opposition to its enactment? I would remind the right hon. gentleman that this legislation was offered to the House without publicity, shall I say, and we were requested as a whole to give support which my right hon. leader and others of us cheerfully accorded. The inquiry of the hon. member for York-Sunbury was an intelligent one as to the possible working of the act.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The words in Hansard speak for themselves. This government brought down legislation proposing to do away with the power of remission. The report at present before the House allows the power of remission up to a certain amount. There is now submitted an amendment suggesting that the power should be done away with altogether. That amendment was moved by my hon. friend from Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) and I for one shall support it. In that particular it proposes what this government wished to have enacted before. The concluding part of Mr. Hanson's remarks are as follows:
The rules of the department, the Customs Act, and the regulations under which they work are very rigourous at .present, but this seems to me to be going the limit, and in the case I suggest it would create a greet hardship.
Then Mr. Baxter, now the Premier of New Brunswick, and who was formerly Minister of Customs in the administration of my right hon. friend, says:
I want to urge him-
That is, the minister.
-to strike out the words which deprive the minister of the power of remission. I do not think it is likely to happen that we shall have a minister of the crown who would use the power of remission unfairly.
Then he goes on to say:
During the very short experience I had in the department which the minister is now administering I came across one or two cases in which, without the slightest representation from the parties themselves, but merely on reading the evidence that accompanied the papers for formal signature to confirm the forfeitures, I felt that it was morally unjust to impose the whole penalty.
That is the former Minister of Customs in the administration of my right hon. friend. Let me repeat his words:
I felt that it was morally unjust to impose the whole penalty.
He continues:
In one case I felt it was unjust to impose the penalty at all, while in the other I did not think it should be imposed to the full.
There we have the Minister of Customs in the administration of my right hon. friend very clearly stating that he felt that where penalties had been imposed he should exercise certain discretionary power, and he admits that he exercised it in part in one case and to the full in the other. We were suggesting at that time that this discretionary power should be taken away from the minister. We were prepared to enact that, and the only reason it did not become law was due partly to the opposition of hon. gentlemen in this House, which was not wholly successful, and partly to the bill being amended in the upper chamber so as to exclude the more rigorous clauses that we had introduced.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: I ask the Prime Minister if he has been careful to look that up. My recollection is that an amendment was moved by Senator Belcourt and seconded by Senator Beique, and pressed for considerable time. Neither of those gentlemen are Conservative senators. Finally the amendment was withdrawn under pressure from the Commercial Protective Association, and the bill went through.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think if my right hon. friend will look at the legislation as it came back from the Senate he will find
it was amended in the particulars I have mentioned.


Arthur Meighen: What particulars?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That the bill
when it came back was not as drastic as when it went through this House.


Arthur Meighen: In what particular?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: With respect
to remission.


Arthur Meighen: The Prime Minister is
wrong.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend can speak later. I would refer hon. members to the bill as it passed this House and to the act as it is now in force. They will, I think, find the result is as I have indicated.
Mr. STEVEN'S:	The Prime Minister is
mistaken there.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not mistaken, Mr. Speaker, in the language I have read from Hansard with respect to the debate that took place in this House. The point I want to make perfectly clear is that this government was seeking in the fullest way to meet the requests and the demands of the
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Commercial Protective Association, with which it had 'been co-operating, for the purpose of making as effective as possible the law with respect to smuggling and the prevention of offences against the revenue law.
What I have just told the House, Mr. Speaker, is confirmed by the correspondence, some of which has been read, in part, by hon. gentlemen opposite. The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. . Stevens) read this extract from a letter dated Ottawa, February 4, 1925, addressed to me by Mr. Sparks:
Some months ago a large representative deputation waited upon you and members of your cabinet .pointing out that smuggling and under-valuation for duty purposes were causing an immense loss of revenue and seriously interfering with the business of legitimate traders and manufacturers.
On that and similar statements he tries in his amendment which is now before the House to have it appear that the ministry had full knowledge of what was going on in the way of violation of the smuggling laws, and that it ought now to be subject to censure because it did not meet the whole situation. Assuredly the protective association brought to the attention of the government the evils of smuggling as they have described them. I have not to go further than my speech in this House when we were putting through the law, and which has been repeatedly referred to in the course of this debate, to make it dear to hon. members that I accepted everything the protective association said to me with regard to smuggling and sought to meet their wishes in having the law made as nearly in (full accord with them as possible. But my hon. friend did not read the next paragraph of the letter from which he quoted:
Subsequent to that time this association was organized-
In other words, a group of men came to the government and asked if we would be agreeable to have an association formed and to work in co-operation with that association. We said yes, and that was the agreement we then made. The association was formed, and the Minister of Customs and Excise undertook to co-operate with its officers in the work they had in hand.
Subsequent t-o that time this association was organized for the purpose of assisting the Department of Customs and Excise in t/he prevention of smuggling and under-valuation and to make certain investigations of tiheir own into this problem. In this regard-
This is what my hon. friend did not read.
In this regard we are pleased to 6ay that both the Minister and Deputy Minister of Customs have welcomed our co-operation and have facilitated in every poss hie way the investigations we have made into the smuggling problem.

Now wh.en hon. gentlemen attack the government and say we were aware of a great deal of degeneracy in the administration of the Customs department, I wish to tell them that on February 4, 1925, the date of this letter, the Commercial Protective Association, which knew more about the situation than any other body, said to the government-let me repeat the passage:
In this regard we are pleased io say that both the Minister and Deputy Minister of Customs have welcomed our co-operation and have facilitated in every possible way the investigations we have made into the smuggling problem.
Then they say:
These investigations have even moire strongly impressed the business men who have given close attention to this work with the magnitude of this traffic and the necessity of prompt and drastic action.
Under the present law smuggling is not an indictable offence, although the minister has the right to take cases of smuggling into the civil courts. It has, however, been the practice ever since confederation to settle departmentally practically all seizures for smuggling or under-valuation.
I ask hon. members to notice that phrase, " ever since confederation."
We believe that this practice has had the general effect of what might not be improperly described as contempt for the law .in this regard.
There is a practice that has existed from the time of confederation, and it was the practice which we sought to change, and did change, and as a result of our efforts we improved the law governing the Department of Customs and Excise. The letter continues: We respectfully submit that, in order to maintain respect for the law and to correct the abuse of its infraction, all cases of fraud whether by way of smuggling or under-valuation under the Customs Act should be dealt with by the civil courts, and, in the case of what might be described as commercial smuggling, that is smuggling of goods for resale of a substantial value, say $100 or over, the offence should be made punishable by imprisonment without tihe option of a fine. The various penalties as set out in the act at present are entirely inadequate. The preventive service as at present constituted is quite unable to cope with the situation, handicapped as they are by existing laws and regulations which interfere with effective preventive work.
Now I ask hon. members, is the government to be blamed for that system which has been in existence ever since confederation? Is the government to be blamed for the fact that, as this letter states:
The preventive service as at present constituted is quite unable to cope with the situation, handicapped as they a.re by existing laws and regulations which interfere with effective preventive work.
Those are the laws we were working to change, those are the laws we have changed, and we welcomed the co-operation of this

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association towards that end. Now may I read another sentence in this same letter:
We believe the only solution, oif the problem will be found in drastic punishment for smugglers when caught.
That was the one note continually emphasized by this association. Now, to make the position clear, may I say this. If the government had turned a deaf ear to these representations we might well stand here subject to censure by an amendment of hon. gentlemen opposite, but 'instead of turning a deaf ear we did the very opposite. We co-operated to the full; I do not say we promised to cooperate, we have on the statutes legislation passed last session the evidence of the effectiveness of that co-operation. Let me read one more paragraph:
It is respectfully submitted that the conditions herein set forth are sufficiently well known to the government and to its departmental officers and t'he requested forms of relief so necessary and reasonable as to justify t'he government to take immediate action, by instituting the required departmental changes and submitting to padiament bills providing for necessary legislative enactment, or, if the government is not satisfied as to the necessity of action and the action which should be taken, it is respectifully submitted that a parliamentary committee should be appointed immediately to inquire into the necessity of departmental and legislative changes.
The government was satisfied from the representations of the association that legislation was necessary; the government being satisfied introduced legislation and had it passed through this House.
Other passages have been referred to and quoted. Here let me pause to say that wlrile the enactment of legislation was the main objective of this association there was one additional factor brought to the attention of the government by Mr. Sparks. He contended that the preventive officer at Montreal, Mr. Bisaillon, was not discharging his duties properly and should be dismissed. So far as I am aware this was the only official named by Mr. Sparks or the association in any communication to the government eitheT written or verbal, and the correspondence, while it relates to this officer, 3 p.m. relates also to the larger question of legislation. I will deal in a moment with the case of Mr. Bisaillon, but I mention it now so hon. members may see that when the government was being interviewed by Mr. Sparks the two questions were put to the fore, and the one to which the greatest prominence was attached was the matter of legislation.
On February 26 Mr. Sparks wrote to me as fallows; this was also quoted by my hon. friend opposite:
Might I take the opportunity of stating that, after four months investigation by a staff of trained criminal
investigators, we are convinced that at least half of the smuggling now going on could he prevented within a month by an energetic policy on behalf of thie department, and further that, with necessary amendments to the act, ninety per cent of the smuggling could ultimately he prevented. Might I further express the opinion that smuggling is increasing at an alarming rate, rather than decreasing, as the minister states.
The reason for the comment on the minister is that one afternoon in this House the Minister of Customs and Excise apoke of the difficulty of coping with the situation, and made the remark that he believed it to be impossible effectively to combat the evil, but he believed it to be lessening. That comment was taken up by Mr. Sparks in the manner here mentioned. The meaning of the minister's woids was subsequently explained to the House by the Hon. Mr. Graham. I am directing the attention of the House to the fact that what the association was anxious to secure, and what they stated would remedy 90 per cent of the evil, was the necessary amendments to the law.
I will not take the time of the House in attempting to go through the correspondence, but I submit that the correspondence as a whole discloses that in every particular the government was seeking to meet Mr. Sparks and the protective association in the proposals which they made. One hon. member opposite drew attention to the fact that some of these letters were not fully acknowledged. May I say, and I think hon. members will appreciate the fact, that, these letters were written and received while parliament was in session. Anyone who appreciates the position I am holding at the moment will reali.se that it is not possible for a prime minister with the many other matters he has in hand, to keep up correspondence day by day, particularly correspondence as voluminous as this. Especially is this not necessary if a more effective means of dealing with the situation is at hand. During the period of this correspondence, as is showm by the correspondence itself, not on every occasion, but I think on most cases when 1 received a communication from Mr. Sparks I had my secretary call Mr. Sparks over to my office. He would meet me and we would discuss the matter in my office, and I would make verbal answer to his communications. Of this there is ample evidence in the correspondence. For example, when Mr. Sparks spoke about the necessity of amendments to the law I told him that we would welcome suggestions from the association. Take the letter o! March 13:
In furtilier reference to your suggestion (that we shouk put before the committee of the cabinet concrete suggestions as to the amendments to ithe Customs Act
4948	COMMONS
Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
dealing with .the matter of smuggling, I beg to say that we are now prepared to do this at any itime that suits your convenience.
If agreeable to you, I would be glad to have Mr. H. D. McCormick accompany me as a technical adviser.
And then he goes on:
I am taking the liberty of enclosing a copy of a resolution passed at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Garment Manufacturers, which you will note expressess appreciation of the efforts already made by the government to prevent this traffic and urges further action.
I understand Mr. Sparks at the time was president of the Canadian Association of Garment Manufacturers. Here is a resolution passed at the annual meeting of that association held at the Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, on March 11 and 12, 1925. Let me read the concluding words, in order to show how, from the point of view of Mr. Sparks and his association, the matter stood1 in March of last year:
This association further desires to put on record its opinion that the only satisfactory method by which this illegal traffic can be lessened and prevented is such changes in the Customs Act as will increase the penalties against those convicted of smuggling or undervaluation, and that, in the case of wholesale smuggling of merchandise for resale, the penalty should be a sentence to jail without the option of a fine.
This association desires to go on record as expressing appreciation of such action as has already been taken by the federal government to lessen this evil, end endorses the suggestion made to the government by the Commercial Protective Association for further action in reference to amendments to the Customs Act and strengthening of the preventive service.
I ask the House to consider whether that resolution indicates that in the mind of Mr. Sparks himself at that date the government was remiss in the administration of the Department of Customs and Excise or in what it was seeking to do to improve the revenue laws of this country. I venture to say that that resolution, was drafted by Mr. Sparks himself. The truth of the matter is that the protective association did believe and were night in believing that the government was doing its utmost and was co-operating with them to the fullest possible extent.
Mr. CA'HAN: May I ask the date of that resolution?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: This resolution was passed at a meeting of the Canadian Association of Garment Manufacturers held at the Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, on March 11 and 12, 1925.
I just want to interject a word here, which I will amplify later. Up to that time Hon. Mr. Bureau was actively administering the affairs of the department. His health broke down in the early part of last year, thereafter

he was largely absent from the department on the advice of his medical adviser, and the department was administered by an acting minister. I just interject that point at the moment to make clear the relationship, as it. was understood by the government, that existed at that time between the Commercial Protective Association and the then Minister of Customs and Excise. A resolution of thanks was passed by the association of which Mr. Sparks was the head, for the co-operation that its officers and members were getting from the department and from the minister.
I will not read at the moment but will quote one passage from a letter of April 8r 1925. In this letter Mr. Sparks says:
I beg to enclose herewith a memorandum covering proposed amendments to the Customs Act, as recently discussed with you-
Showing that while these letters were not answered he was coming to me as Prime Minister. I had suggested to him to get his amendments drafted and that I would see that the government would put through the legislation that was requested and I was expediting and facilitating the move in every possible way. In the same letter Mr. Sparks goes on to say:
These suggested amendments have been submitted to the officers of the department, and, while they do not feci it their duty to express an opinion as to their desirability, they do state that they present no administrative difficulties. The object of nearly all of these amendments is to increase the penalities against those proven guilty of infractions of the Customs Act.
Hon. gentlemen may ask why these amendments were discussed with me? I have just given the reason. The minister of the department was away, and I took the responsibility as Prime Minister to see that the evils complained of were as far as might be possible effectively remedied. I was determined that this parliament should go just as far as it could possibly go in the matter of prosecuting those guilty of smuggling and infractions of the customs law. The letter says elsewhere: While these suggested amendments may appear drastic, I would like to point ouit that legislators have never before been called upon to deal with such a situation. The condition exhibited by the United States, a nation with about sixteen thousand miles of border or coastline, along practically all of which smugglers (commonly called bootleggers) by the hundreds of thousands are endeavouring to evade the laws of the country, creates a situation entirely unprecedented in the history of the world.
That is the view Mr. Sparks took of the problem the government had in hand-"a situation entirely unprecedented in the history of the world."
Smuggling on this continent has become a huge industry. Along the international border between Canada

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
and the United Slates thousands of men are making their living by illicit trade. The step between smuggling from Canada into ithie United States and from the United States into Canada .is a short one, and a large part of the smuggling of commodities into Canada is directly due to the fact that smuggling has become a profession dn which there are many adepts.
After months oif investigaition by trained investigators we have no hesitation in saying that this traffic constitutes a rtational problem of the very first importance. Our investigations have proved to our complete satisfaction that the only successful way in which this traffic can be discouraged is by the imposition of the most severe .penalties. Along a border of neardy four thousand miles the physical act of bringing goods from the United States into Canada will never be difficult. To-day it is neither difficult nor dangerous, owing to the insufficiency of the penalties. We believe that no legislation will add much to the difficulties, but the legislation which we propose certainly will make it dangerous for those who are caught.
We believe there are certain matters of administration in the matter of enforcement which could be greatly improved. However, until the act is amended along the lines suggested the departmental officials, no matter how efficient, will be unable to cope with the situation.
Now there is the note which the Commercial Protective Association, as I said before, was sounding continually. It was impossible for the officials of the government to deal with the matter until the legislation itself was changed, and the legislation, as I have said, was changed in accordance with the methods which this association thought were most advisable. The correspondence goes on to show that the draft bill was submitted first of all to the Department of Customs and Excise for their approval or rather for their comment. I had undertaken to see that the bill would be put through but there were some technical considerations of administration and drafting that had to be met. After a reference to the Department of Justice the bill was drafted and full approval was given to it by Mr. Sparks on behalf of the Commercial Protective Association before it was brought into the House.
Now may I quote in support of this statement a letter, dated April 17, which was addressed to Mr. Farrow and signed by Mr. Lemaire, Clerk of the Privy Council:
Dear Mr. Farrow,
I am directed by the Right Hon. the Prime Minister to forward you the enclosed communication which he has received from Mr. R. P. Sparks, chairman of the executive committee of the Commercial Protective Association, and to which is attached a memorandum covering certain proposed amendments to the Customs Act.
It is the desire of the Prime Minister that you should go carefully into this matter at the earliest moment and forward it with any comment which you may deem necessary to the Honourable the Minister of Justice by whose department as agreed by council the necessary legislation will be drafted.
Yours sincerely,
E. J. Lemaire,
Clerk of the Privy Council.
That course was taken and the bill was brought into the House. I desire to read one other communication which will indicate how Mr. Sparks felt with respect to my own attitude towards the association. This is a letter which was written to the Premier of Quebec, in which Mr. Sparks sets out his view of the manner in which the government at Ottawa was co-operating with him. This letter is dated March 5, 1925 and reads as follows:
Hon. L. A. Taschereau,
Prime Minister and Attorney General of Quebec* Quebec, P.Q.
Dear Sir,-I am taking the liberty of writing you on behalf of the executive committee of this association in reference to the prosecution of smugglers in the courts of the province of Quebec and with special reference to the case of Abraham and Israel Lenetsky* arrested on March 2nd.
I shall omit the next paragraph but the following is pertinent:
You expressed the view that the most satisfactory solution of the difficulty would be an amendment to the Customs Act making a jail sentence compulsory in cases in which wholesale smuggling had been proven. This recommendation has been put before the federal government, and the whole matter of amendments to the Customs Act is being dealt with by a committee of the cabinet, of which the Prime Minister is a member. Mr. King is taking an active interest in this matter, and I am taking the liberty of suggesting that, if you felt disposed to write him expressing the opinions which you expressed to the delegation in reference to this matter, he would appreciate it. I can assure you it would be greatly appreciated by the whole business community.
I was taking an interest in the matter because in the first place the minister was absent much of the time, but primarily because I regarded this as probably the greatest problem which the country has . before it at the present time.
In his speech the other day the member for West Hamilton (Mr. Bell) said that the Commercial Protective Association, together with the boards of trade of Montreal and Toronto, had appealed to this government but had appealed in vain. The hon. member was speaking in support of the amendment of my hon. friend (Mr. Stevens) which says that the Prime Minister and his colleagues have been indifferent in this matter. Well, I happen to have a communication from the Toronto Board of Trade. It is not dated April or May but bears the much later date of July 13, 1925.
I will read this communication, which is signed by the president of the Toronto Board of Trade.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Who is a Liberal.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say that the delegation that waited on the government was composed in large part of representative
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Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
business men of the city of Toronto, members of the board of trade and other bodies, who were watching the actions of this government in every detail in dealing with this matter. So convinced were they of the splendid manner -I use the term advisedly,-in which the government had sought to meet them and carry through their desires that the expression I am about to read came unsolicited from the Board of Trade's president. The communication reads as follows:
On behalf of the executive and council of the Toronto Board of Trade, I desire to express appreciation of the action of the government in introducing legislation at the recent session increasing the penalties for the smuggling of goods into Canada and including in the estimates a substantial sum to enable the preventive service to be so strengthened and improved as to be able to cope with this illegitimate traffic. We are also gratified that the House of Commons and Senate have accepted the government's recommendations and that the new law is now in force.
You will remember that a deputation from this board waited upon you and your colleagues in the cabinet last fall and discussed the seriousness of the smuggling situation with you. You then expressed the desire of the government to do everything in its power to combat the inroads which the smugglers were making into the legitimate trade and revenues of the country and you welcomed the co-operation to this end of an organization of business interests which at was then proposed to form. Acting on this assurance, the members of this board comprising the delegation organized the Toronto branch of the Commercial Protective Association. We were very pleased to note from your remarks in the House with respect to the proposed new legislation that you appreciated the vast proportions of this traffic and the need for drastic action. We have been in close touch with the association's work and it has been a great pleasure for this board to learn that the government has co-operated to the fullest extent with the result that adequate machinery to deal with the smuggling menace will, we understand, shortly be in operation. We are informed of the fact that the new penalties are already . in force has 'had a very deterrent effect upon the traffic and we sincerely hope that in connection with the reorganization of the preventive service 'Which is now under way, the dominant note will be the strict enforcement of the law in the interests of the lawful commerce of the Dominion and an increased national revenue which in turn will be reflected in an improvement in economic conditions generally.
We congratulate and thank you for your efforts in the solution of this problem and assure you of the continued co-operation and support of this board in curtailing the smuggling traffic with the aid of the new powers now available, I am,
Yours very truly,
S. B. Gundy,
President.
That letter is dated July 13, of last year. I have other communications here, but I will not take up time reading them.


Mr. CAHAN:: Is that the Toronto Board of Trade?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes. I say
that if in July of that year the Commercial

Protective Association, composed largely of members of the Toronto Board of Trade, had any doubt as to the genuineness of what the government were doing and seeking to do, they never would have permitted a communication of that kind to be sent, but they realized, as I believe the public is prepared to realize, that where a government attempts to cope with a great problem of this kind, if the national interest is to be served, it is better to strengthen the arm of the government than to seek to impair it and destroy it, as hon. members opposite are trying to do by the amendment they have proposed.
I think I have covered all that I need to say with regard to the major effort of the association, namely that of procuring the enactment of laws that would effectively cope with the situation. As I have said, another matter came up in the course of my interviews with Mr. Sparks and members of the association, and that was the advisability of dismissing the preventive officer at Montreal, Mr. Bisaillon. Mr. Sparks mentioned to me that in his opinion this officer was not doing his duty as it should be done and that he should be dismissed. I said to Mr. Sparks, "This is a departmental matter. Have you spoken to the minister about it?" He intimated to me that he had, and that the minister took the position that the officer was performing his duties, that there was no charge made against him of any kind, and if there was a charge he would have it investigated. In regard to that I asked Mr. Sparks if he did not feel that the position the minister was taking with respect to discharging the man was a reasonable position. I have forgotten the answer he gave, but it was to the effect, at any rate, that this one officer should be dismissed, and that if he were dismissed, as far as he, Mr. Sparks, was concerned he would be perfectly satisfied with all the rest. Now I pause here for a moment to ask the House to consider the position of a minister of the crown and the Prime Minister in dealing with officials of the public service. May I say-and I do it without fear of contradiction-that with respect to the different departments of the public service, there is not a department where a man is holding a public position in which sooner or later he does not come in conflict with certain parties. There is scarcely a man holding an important position in the civil service of the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific who does not sooner or later come .to have his personal enemies. Hardly a week passes that someone does not come to me personally with

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
respect to some individual in some department and say, "That man should be dismissed." Let us forget for a moment this particular case. Take the position of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance who is sitting near me. He has in his department officials who are doing their duties I believe honestly and well, but against whom men are levelling charges day in and day out.


Mr. ROBB:: Hear, hear.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: 4952	COMMONS
Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
before making an arrest. He painted out that it was impossible to prevent criminals from escaping unless power were given to the detective to make the arrest on the spot without waiting for any report to the government or any word in return.
What attitude did I take towards him? What attitude did the Minister of Finance take? We said to him: This business that you are on is a serious one for the oountry; we give you full latitude to do anything and everything you want to do or think ought to be done; in the matter of making arrests or landing criminals, we will stand behind you and we will take consequences of your action whether it conforms or not with what is the custom or regulations of the department.


Mr. LUCAS:: At what date did that interview take place?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Fortunately I have under my hand Detective Duncan's evidence and I believe he gives the date himself. 1 Inspector Duncan was lent by the Department of Finance to the Commercial Protective Association on the 3rd November, 1924; he acted with them until the 30th June, 1925, making his reports to them. It was during that period that he had this interview with me and he gives the date himself. This is the evidence of Detective Duncan before the committee as it will be found on page 496 of the proceedings. The examination was by Mr. Bell:
Mr. Duncan, what was the first time that you had anything to do with the matters now under investigation before this committee?
A. The 27th of November was the first interview with the Hon. the Minister of Customs.
Q. What year?



A. 1925.

[Stage Direction]
Q. Whait minister, would you say, this was?
A. The Hon. Mr. Boivin.
Q. What instructions or first suggestion did you receive from tlhe minister at that time?
A. I received instructions from the minister to proceed to Montreal, ,for the purpose of conducting an investigation into the conduct of J. E. Bisa.ilIon.
Q. Now, let me. stop you there just for one moment. I do not know that I have made myself entirely clear. Did you not have some investigating to do on behalf of the Protective Association before ithat?
A. Oh. yes.
Q. The Commercial?
A. Oh, yes.
Q. And when did that take place and under what circumstances ?	.
A. On the 3rd of November, 1924, I commenced discussing matters with Mr. Sparks, re smuggling.
Q. What position did you hold in November, 1924?
A. I was the special investigating officer for the Department of Finance.
Q. In Ottawa, here?
A. In Ottawa.
Q. Yes. And under what circumstances did you begin to discuss any of these matters with Mr. Sparks?

A. Well, I was loaned by the Department of Finance, to assist Mr. Sparks, and the organization which he represented, in getting a look in as ,to smuggling operations in Canada.
Q. In what way did the information come to you that you were 'being loaned to .that association? Who told you about it?
A. The Minister of Finance.
Q. The Minister of Finance?
A. The Hon. Mr. Rolbb.
Q. Mr. Robb, himself?
A. Yes, also his deputy, Mr. Saunders.
Q. He told you that you were being loaned to the Commercial Protective Association to undertake an investigation for them?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you proceed immediately ito enter on that investigation ?
A. Yes. I took the matter up with M,r. Sparks; I attended some meetings; I think one in the Montreal Board of Trade, when the matter was discussed, as to the best methods to find out what was going on in connection with smuggling.
Q. Yes. And did you adopt any partdcullar method thereafter in investigating?
A. Yes.
Q. What was that?
A. On the 17,th of November I selected James Knox and George Sloan, engaged them at a salary of $2,500 a year. I got Knox from the C.P.R.; -they loaned Mr. Knox, and I got Sloan in Montreal, and on the 15th of December I selected Alexander as another officer.
Q. And then the investigation was pursued where? Any -particular place, or did you go from place ^o place?
A. It was principally Montreal and Toronto.
Q. And you reported to them, did you?
A. Oh, yes.
Q. Those reports were made how?
A. May I say, after we received -powers as customs officers, I had some discussion with the Prime Minister and also with Mr. Robb, in connection with a memorandum -that was sent along with our appointments, and I drew their attention to -the fact that we might as well not try to go into anything with the instructions given us. We were so tied up at the time that we coulld not operate.
I want to draw the attention of the House to the significance of that statement:
After we received powers as customs officers.
Not only did the government lend these detectives to the Commercial Protective Association, but the association came to us and said:	Wil-l you make these detectives
preventive officers so that they can go right into the preventive service and sit down alongside of the other members? We gave them that power; we made them preventive officers, and we gave them the power of arrest that preventive officers have. Then Mr. Duncan discovered that there was a certain ruling with regard to preventive officers that had to be observed, a regulation existing in the department evidently in accordance with some general rule there:
Q. What instructions did you tell the minister you wanted?
A. I think that memorandum is darted 1922, signed by W. F. Wilson, and it is headed general directions

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
re Customs Act:	When cases are taken ito court, (have
the information laid in the name of the King. However, in seizures under the Customs Act no proceedings in court are to be taken until instructions have been received from me, after receipt here of a full report from you.
That was the instruction from the chief preventive officer to the other preventive officers:
Q. Was the memorandum dated?
A. Yes. It is dated November 23, 1922.
Evidently instructions had been sent out year after year in that form.
By Hon. Mr. Stevens:
Q. 1922?
A. 1922. This is the original memorandum that I got at the time.
By Mr. Belli:
Q. Yes, but this investigation was being undertaken in 1924?
A. Yes, exactly.
Q. This came to you under what circumstances?
A. Just as soon as we received our appointment as customs officers this memorandum came along. I then took the matter up with (the Prime Minister and Mr. Robb and pointed out ito them the fact that if we were waching at the roads, when loads came from the American side, and we got a smuggler with a load of silk, what were we going to do about it if we had to wait and receive instructions from Ottawa.
Q. You are now referring ito the memorandum?
A. I said the thing was ridiculous. Were we to hold them up on the highway until we could communicate with Ottawa or What were we going to do. After a good deal of discussion the Prime Minister said: "Ignore the whole thing; put them in jail. Any smugglers you get put them in jail." I said, "All right, Sir," so we started out with that intention.
By Mr. St-Pere:
Q. The Prime Minister told you that, to put them in jail?
A. The Prime Minister told us to put them in jail and we were asked to make a weekly report to the department, but I drew their attention to the fact that the half of our time would ibe taken up in making reports, so, I think, Mr. Robb said, "After you make the seizure and have them in jail, then make a report to the department." That is what we did for about six or eight months.
William Thomas Lucas: Can the Prime Minister give the date of that interview in his office when Inspector Duncan referred to his inability to make arrests?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I thought it was given in his evidence. It must have been very early in the year, because he says that "just as soon as we received our appointment as customs officers, this memorandum came along." They received their appointments either at the end of 1924 or at the beginning of 1925, and he says that as soon as that occurred the memorandum came along. He goes on to say that he had taken the matter up with the Prime minister and Mr. Robb asking what they would do if they had to wait while they were watching at the roads, and so on. The Minister of Finance reminds me 14011-314J
that it must have been before the opening of navigation in view of the fact that some of the counterfeit bills we were concerned about at the time were landed at St. John, vessels not being able to go up the river. It is difficult to recall the exact date but it would be in January, February or March.


William Thomas Lucas: Was Mr. Bureau Minister of Customs at that time?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes. The Hon. Mr. Bureau was Minister of Customs then and he was co-operating with the Commercial Protective Association. He knew that these detectives were working with the association and he volunteered the co-operation of the officers of his department. I am glad the hon. gentleman has asked that question because I want the House to understand the situation exactly; and it will never be understood so long as it is approached in the spirit of party animosity and personal bias. The only way by which we can clearly understand the whole matter is to forget for the moment any one particular department and assume that we have an identical situation in some other department of government.
I think I have shown conclusively that the government met the association- in every request it made. We lent them the services of detectives, gave the detectives ample powers, took them into the preventive service, and endeavoured to apprehend everyone who was guilty of any offerre. What position did the government take in relation to Bisaillon? We said that if he was a crook we wanted to arrest, not only himself but all those who were working in conjunction with him. No one man can go very far in this illicit traffic; he is bound to have associates and accomplices. And we were out not for the purpose merely of dismissing one employee, but with the determination to obtain all possible evidence to enable us to stamp out the smuggling business by the most effective means possible. To this end we rendered the association and detectives every conceivable aid the government could afford. That is the point I want to bring home.


Henry Herbert Stevens: If that is the case, why was it that later on in the autumn of 1925, synchronizing with the date of the arrest of the notorious smuggler Cohen, the power of arrest was taken away from officer Knox and other officers while Inspector Duncan retained that power as a member of the government staff? Why was that power which had previously been given taken away from these other men?
4954	COMMONS
Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I cannot answer that question inasmuch as I never knew that the power was taken away.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It is a fact.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I could surmise a reason for it if I were called upon to give one, tout I do not wish to venture conjectures at this stage. I desire to make the facts clear so that the House will understand the situation regarding the secret service work which was going on at that time. At that time the Commercial Protective Association had three or four detectives working around Bisaillon's office in Montreal- because that is where the investigation was being carried out, according to Inspector Duncan's own statement-and Mr. Sparks came to the government with the suggestion that Bisaillon should be dismissed. I agreed absolutely with him on the basis of his representations but I said, " What we are after, as you know, is evidence upon which we may act with confidence. You have detectives and every assistance you require, and our desire with respect to anyone to be dismissed is to apprehend him in such a manner as will enable us to take definite action which we can justify by clear proof." I repeatedly pointed out that we- could not dismiss Bisaillon on mere hearsay or general allegations, for if we did so we should only be making a martyr of him in the public mind and putting ourselves in a false position. We could not act on general statements. My hon. friend (Mr. Stevens) endeavoured to have it appear that there were charges, one of these was that because of the acquittal of Bisaillon in a certain case we should dismiss him at once. Surely the House will see that the government could not dismiss the man without grounds which it could maintain. Another general charge was that Bisaillon had a house on one side of the border line and another house on the other side, and that these two places were being used by smugglers. In this connection I pointed out to Mr. Sparks that, with his criminal investigators, he could surely ascertain whether any smuggling was going on between the two places and could secure substantial evidence. I said that the government wanted to be perfectly sure of its ground before making an arrest or dismissing this man. We wanted to be in a position to defend our position in parliament. The Hon. Mr. Bureau was Minister of Customs at the time, he took the position with Mr. Sparks-it will not be denied-that if Mr. Sparks could make a charge against Bisaillon the man would be dismissed. But I went a step further. As Prime Minister, 
when I saw that there was suspicion in regard to Bisaillon and that a situation might develop in Montreal in consequence, I stated over and over again to Mr. Sparks in my office that all the government wanted was sufficient evidence to justify it in so doing, and I would appoint a royal commission to inquire into the affairs of the Montreal office and smuggling generall}'-.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hon. gentlemen laugh, but I cannot see the point of their laughter. I said, "Give me a chance to start an inquiry against Bisaillon and I will appoint a royal commission to look into the whole situation and anyone can come before that commission and make any charge regarding customs frauds in Canada." Mr. Sparks himself admits that I offered the appointment of a royal commission. Perhaps I had better read his letter written on March 20:
In reference to my conversation with you on Monday last my understanding was:	That, if this association
or any individual was prepared to make definite charges against the above customs officer, you would appoint a royal commission to investigate such charges. My further understanding was that lacking such definite charges no action would foe taken.
What reply did I make? I had Mr. Sparks come to my office and I pointed out to him that it was not necessary for him personally to lay any charge. He represented a responsible association and either the association through any of its officers or members or their solicitor could lay a charge. If none of them wished to do so then any one of the three or four detectives which the government had lent to the association could come and lay a charge. I said, "You have three or four detectives lent you by the government-Mr. Duncan, Mr. Sloan and other men. Let any one of them lay the charge. Mr. Duncan is accustomed to laying such charges."


Arthur Meighen: Is this in evidence?
Did the Prime Minister go and give this evidence?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No, but I am giving the facts to parliament and to the country. If my right hon. friend doubts my word, I am prepared to give it in evidence at any time and at any place he desires.


Arthur Meighen: Where?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Here and now.


An hon. MEMBER:: In a court?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, in any
court. I challenge hon. gentlemen to say that what I am saying is not true. I repeat

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
once more, I said to Sparks: Not only can one of these detectives lay the information, but you talk of having had a body of criminal investigators at work for months; those criminal investigators have nothing at stake so far as their reputation is concerned in laying a charge; therefore if you have any specific charge let one of them lay it, and I will see that this whole business is investigated by a royal commission. But I told him that as Prime Minister I could not lightly go over the head of the department unless a definite charge was laid. It is not permissible to disclose what takes place in the cabinet, but I think I am justified in going this far: The position of the government with respect to appointing a royal commission to investigate this whole business if a charge of any kind was laid was a matter of government policy agreed to by Mr. Bureau himself. He said he would take no exception, if a specific charge were made against Bisaillon, to the appointment of a royal commission to investigate everything in connection with his office or other matters at the port of Montreal.
Now, I ask the House, what position was the government in, with respect to launching a royal commission when the protective association working with criminal investigators and with detectives for months were yet not prepared to make a single charge against that officer? Just let us forget for the moment the Customs department. Suppose an identical situation in the Justice department. Someone comes to me and says: We have a matter with the Justice department in regard to the conduct of certain of the mounted police. People have come to me and said: We believe some of the men in the mounted police are crooks; they are betraying you, they are playing into the hands of the Tory party, they are furnishing information to your opponents; they are dishonest; they should be fired. I tell the House I have had many requests of that kind, requests to dismiss this and that member of the mounted police because he is said to be a crook, because he has done this or that. What course do I take? I speak to the Minister of Justice, who is head of the mounted police, and I put the matter before him. What is his reply? I will dismiss the man? No. His answer is: Let someone bring a charge against the man and I shall see it is investigated; if he is found guilty, I will dismiss him, but I want something specific to go on. The minister has to defend his action in parliament. What would be thought of me as Prime Minister if, when the Minister of Justice takes that position as head of his department, I should turn around and dismiss the man or order his dismissal?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Would the Prime Minister allow a question? In such a case would the Minister of Justice be wholly deprived of any initiative on his part to ascertain the real facts with respect to the accusation?
Mi-. MACKENZIE KING: Certainly not. He would have to exert his initiative. When you come to the case of the Customs department, what was the position? You had detectives working on this man, you had trained criminal investigators, in fact you had a whole network of investigation surrounding him. I think the House will see the wisdom of the course we adopted. If out of that network of investigation it was not possible to find a single investigator or anybody else to lay a charge against the man, does my hon. friend say the government ought then to have dismissed him?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Would you allow me to answer the question?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I should certainly think that in such a case the Prime Minister should not denude himself and his colleagues of all responsibility and place that responsibility in an irresponsible body such as this protective association.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We were not denuding ourselves or responsibility; we were taking full responsibility, but we wanted something definite to act on. I say in regard to the officials of the public service generally, that not a day passes when charges of some kind are not made against some official. This man apparently was not doing his duty, apparently he was guilty of some of the charges made against him, but at the time- the gov* ernment could get no evidence of that, although we were determined to keep on un* til we got evidence if any were to be secured
Now I ask this House, was Bisaillon dismissed? How was he dismissed? Who dismissed him? The hon. Minister of Customs (Mr. Boivin) who sits here in his seat was the man who dismissed Bisaillon. How was he apprehended? It was by this very process the government was adopting of giving to the detectives a free hand until they landed him. May I go a step further to show what the government had in mind and how it proceeded? The evidence shows that the present Minister of Customs told Mr. Duncan to work on Bisaillon until he got him. The minute the minister had evidence sufficient to justify Bisaillon's dismissal he came into council and said he was dismissing the man. What was the next step we took? We said: We will
4956	COMMONS
Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
not publicly dismiss this man and let him carry everything away with him; we want to get at the inside of this smuggling business, and we are going to find out all we can about it. It was a Saturday afternoon, a special meeting of the cabinet was called to put the order through. It was sent down by special messenger to His Excellency for signature. Then Detective Duncan proceeded to Montreal and took possession of the office, so that when Bisaillon might come in to clear off his files he could be told, "You are no longer a member of the public service of Canada; I am here representing the government of Canada, I have taken possession." That is how the information was obtained on which most of this inquiry was based. There is how the material was obtained that the hon. member for Vancouver Centre comes before this parliament and seeks to indict this government on-the material that this government itself secured in dismissing the official complained of and in its effort to put an end to this smuggling business.
My hon. friend asked me why Inspector Knox had some powers taken away from him. I do not know, but I do know this that Knox was working in collaboration with Mr. Duncan, and that when Mr. Duncan got all this information he gave it to Mr. Knox, and Mr. Knox gave it to the hon. gentleman opposite.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a
question of privilege, and in justice to a party who is not in the House at all. I never met Mr. Knox until after the inquiry started. I never saw the gentleman. As to the withdrawal of his powers, this took place in October 1925. Furthermore, in evidence Mr. Sparks has stated, in fairness to all concerned, that he, Mr. Sparks, gave me certain information- that is without question-and that he had worked with the Prime Minister-as he has laboured for over an hour to demonstrate- with Mr. Duncan, with Mr. Knox, with Mr. Sloan and others through a long period of time, and certainly this information was legitimately in his possession.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If it makes
any difference to use the word "through" instead of the word "by" I am very glad to make the change. It was through Inspector Knox that the information came into the hands of my hon. friend.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I want no excuses and I make none, but I wish to be fair to a man who cannot defend himself.
(Mr. Mackenzie King.]


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think the
House sees pretty dlearly that Inspector Duncan after he had been working with the protective association, when he had all the information he could have collected by them and through them; was retained by the 'government expressly to try to get Bisaillon where we could dismiss him-not only dismiss him, but along with his dismissal secure such a mass of material that we could clean up this business in the fashion in which it should be properly cleaned up. There is the position and, as I say, the information Mr. Duncan got he got in that way, secured through this government directing him to secure it, and it was secured wholly and solely for the purpose of enabling tire government to proceed further in its deliberate purpose to clean up this smuggling business as completely as we possibly could. My hon. friend would never have been in a position to make the charges he did if the very information which our own officers gathered1 for us had not been put in his possession. But here, in the midst of a great effort on the part of the government to grapple with an evil such as smuggling is, my hon. friend for the sake of party politics comes along and makes charges in this House against the government on matters of which it had knowledge, not one of which he could have had knowledge of apart from the information obtained by officers of this government and given to him before much of it was known to the government itself.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Apparently the Prime
Minister is very sorry that I did get it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not at
all sorry that my hon. friend secured the information, but I am sorry that in the public service there are apparently men who are prepared to betray those by whom they are employed, because I regard as a base betrayal the transference of this information. My hon. friend says he got the information from Mr. Sparks; I wonder if that was a noble act on the part of Mr. Sparks.


Mr. RYCKMAN:: Too bad they said anything at all.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Just a moment Mr. Sparks' change of mind and heart is no1 difficult to see. In [September, after a general election was declared, Mr. Sparks was tendered a banquet in the Chateau Laurier here; he was given no end of praise for having

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
secured the reforms which had been brought about, and I am told that as an additional recognition he. was given an honorarium of $1,000.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is too small for a
prime minister-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It was too
small; they should have given him $10,000. My point is-


Henry Herbert Stevens: -reflecting on a citizen
who cannot defend himself.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The point I
am bringing out is that Mr. Sparks at that late date was allowing it to be believed that he had achieved a great purpose, that he had done a great service to the association and to the country. That was in September, just at the time a general election bad been declared. And then what took place? Mr. Sparks began to associate with my right hon. friend opposite, just as he is doing from the gallery at the moment. They worked together back and forth during the campaign and when the election was over, just before parliament was summoned, in order to make things difficult and complicated for the government, he supplied the bon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. 'Stevens) with the information brought out in this way.


Arthur Meighen: Will the Prime Minister be good enough to explain what he meant by saying that Mr. Sparks was in association with me from the gallery at the moment?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have not been blind to my 'hon. friend's eyes.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Cheap 1


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes; if my
hon. friend wishes to follow these methods I will admit that they are cheap. The whole business is pretty cheap when you get to the bottom of it.	-
Now, Mr. Speaker, I think I have shown to the House pretty conclusively that the government was determined by 'legislation, by regulation, by dismissal of officials and in other ways, to do all it possibly could do to put an end to this smuggling business. The question naturally arises as to whether the government is to have the opportunity ,of continuing this work and carrying out the reforms recommended by this committee, or whether that opportunity is to be taken away altogether.
Before I touch on that point, however, I want to say a further word in regard to the former Minister of Customs whose name has been especially mentioned in this
4 p.m. report and of whom the House will naturally expect me to say a word. Here again I ask hon. members to be fair and to recall the situation as it existed at that time. I will take for the moment the three years 1922, 1923 and 1924, the first three of this government in office. I ask hon. members if there is a single one of their number in this House who had not the highest respect for the integrity, the ability and the honesty of Hon. Jacques Bureau. If there is one such member I ask him to reply.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We will see
how brave some men are. I say that all the time that Mr. Bureau was in the ministry I never knew of an act on his part with respect to the administration of the Department of Customs which was dishonourable or dishonest in any way. What has come out in this present inquiry is as surprising and painful to me as it can be to any human being on this earth. I am not prepared yet to believe the charges made against Mr. Bureau, charges so fully developed by hon. gentlemen opposite.
As hon. members know, Mr. Bureau's health broke down in the early part of the year 1925; he left on a leave of absence and the department was carried on by an acting minister. I want to ask hon. members who have been in this House for some years how in their opinion a prime minister should treat his colleagues if perchance they happen to be absent on sick leave. Hon. gentlemen opposite have had members of their party and ministers of the crown absent; I think even the prime minister of the day was absent for the greater part of a year through sickness. His position was not taken from him; an acting prime minister carried on. When a minister, under the strain of work or from any other cause, breaks down, I venture to say that every prime minister with any sense of loyalty to his colleagues will see to it that someone else takes his place and carries on for him in the meantime. That is what was done with respect to Mr. Bureau; I asked the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Cardin) to take over the department for the time being.
Now may I say that the fact of Mr. Bureau's absence through illness made it additionally difficult on my part to go over his head and institute an inquiry by a royal
4958	COMMONS
Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
commission into the affairs of his department, but I was nevertheless prepared to do so, and that with Mr. Bureau's consent, in the event of any charge being made which would provide grounds for so doing.
Some hon. members will ask why Mr. Bureau was appointed to the Senate; they say that it was his reward. Reward? When Mr. Bureau came back I saw that his health was such that he was not in a position to carry on longer as minister of a department; I told him so and asked him to give me back his portfolio. But I said that in recognition of his twenty-five years of public service to this country I would ask him to accept an appointment to the Senate. Mr. Bureau came into this House in 1900; he was re-elected in 1904, in 1908, in 1911, in 1917 and in 1921; he served as Solicitor General in the cabinet of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and as Minister of Customs and Excise in the present administration. I say without fear of contradiction that no member of parliament sitting on this side of the House was more respected and more liked by hon. gentlemen opposite than Hon. Jacques Bureau. I wish to pay a tribute to my hon. friend the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton); in a chivalrous way, he nods his head in approval; I know he is always ready to be chivalrous in a case of this kind. I will put the question of chivalry up to other hon. gentlemen opposite; if there is anyone who will deny the esteem in which Mr. Bureau was held at the time he was appointed to the Senate, let him stand up in his seat and say so. Not one! That reveals better than words could do the regard in which Mr. Bureau was held at the time of his appointment to the Senate.


Mr. WHITE (Mount Royal):: May I ask the Prime Minister to be good enough to say whether Mr. Bureau, whom I never met but for whom from his reputation I have the highest regard, was a capable and proper administrator of the Department of Customs?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I will say this to my hon. friend: I believe that right up until the last year of his administration it was generally conceded throughout this country that a more capable minister had not held the portfolio of Customs in years past. It was generally admitted I think throughout this country that Mr. Bureau was a most efficient and industrious Minister of Customs and Excise. He was at his office from early morning to late at night, day in and day out, and until he broke down in health the affairs of the department were conducted-so far as I was able to leam, and I heard from many sources-in a more efficient manner than had 
characterized the administration of any previous minister. When his health gave way conditions, I am frank to say,, were different. If there is one limitation in the action of the committee that has been investigating this matter, if the committee has fallen short in any particular, I think it is that its members did not ask Mr. Bureau to appear before them. Why was Mr. Bureau not asked to appear before that committee? If hon. gentlemen opposite were going to attack him, why did they not invite him to appear before them? There is a well known procedure which hon. gentlemen opposite could have availed themselves of. All that was necessary was for any member of the committee to request the chairman to ask the Speaker of this House to send a message to Their Honours of the Senate asking their permission for a particular member of the upper house to appear before the Commons committee.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: May I ask the Prime Minister a question?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Did the Prime Minister,
knowing all the facts that were being brought out in evidence, ever suggest to his former respected and venerated colleague that he should appear before that committee and make a statement?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I may say that I have not talked with Mr. Bureau from some time before the day the investigation began until this very morning; I deliberately refrained from so doing, but I would like the House to know that I did have a talk with him this morning and of what was said by Mr. Bureau to me in conversation. Mr. Bureau expressed surprise that he had never been asked to go before the committee. He wished me to say when I spoke this afternoon, that if a judicial body properly constituted, were appointed, a responsible judicial ibody, not only would he wish to go before that body or any properly constituted tribunal, but he would welcome the opportunity of so doing, and he asks this parliament to grant him that opportunity. I ask my hon. friends, particularly hon. gentlemen opposite who are fond of the use of the word "British," who like to talk about British fair play and British justice: Are you now going to deny to a member of this parliament before final judgment is passed the opportunity of appearing before a judicial tribunal to answer any questions that may be put to him with respect to his administration of the

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King
affairs of a department over which he presided and which has been reflected upon in a committtee of this House and in this House?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: May I ask the Prime Minister another question?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Is it not entirely within the discretion of the Prime Minister and his colleagues to appoint at .any time a royal commission to inquire into the Department of Customs, or any other department, without any action on the part of parliament?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, it is, and that discretion will be exercised if the government is given the opportunity. But if hon. gentlemen opposite succeed in their amendment, which is designed for purely political purposes, the government will be deprived of that opportunity. I stand here and say that if the government is retained in office it will appoint a judicial tribunal to continue the investigation which haq already taken place, and in particular will ask that tribunal to have Mr. Bureau appear before it and answer questions with respect to any charges, reflections or allegations that may be made concerning him. Further I will say this: Unless Mr. Bureau gets a clean slate from a judicial tribunal of the kind, if constituted, I will ask him to give up his position in the Senate and retire therefrom. But I am not going to be numbered among those who seek to destroy a man's life and the lives of those that are near and dear to him, and his reputation as well, without affording him an opportunity to be heard in any and every particular before a properly constituted tribunal. If there is one thing more than another which men have to watch in politics it is to see that party persecution is not carried to the point where it ruins human lives and homes; and every hon. member in this chamber owes it to himself and to the position he occupies to see that men who enter public life are not slaughtered for the sake of party ends and party gain.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I conclude with what I started out to say. There are before this House at the present time two amendments to the motion that the House concur in the report which has been presented. I think the report should be concurred in. I think every recommendation in it should be carried out: I think they should be carried out expeditiously. But I say this much further: I do not think the work of that committee should be allowed to cease just at a point that suits hon. gentlemen opposite.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The committee itself calls for a continuance.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The report
states that the work has not been completed, that the committee have not reviewed all the matters that were referred to it-


Henry Herbert Stevens: Hear, hear.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: -and mention was made lof some particular matters that were not concluded. Now I do not say that the action of my hon. friends opposite was designed to prevent inquiry elsewhere, but there is a certain chivalrous attitude that needs consideration in this regard. It so happened that hon. gentlemen opposite sought to focus this Whole inquiry on the province of Quebec.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: They did not go much beyond that province.


An hon. MEMBER:: Shame!


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The facts speak for themselves.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Shame! shame!


An hon. MEMBER:: Too small!


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The port of
Vancouver has not been investigated.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am told
there is more smuggling going on in the port of Vancouver than in any other port in this Dominion. I do not know whether that is the case or not, 'but I should like to be certain on that point. I should like it to be investigated. The port of Winnipeg has not been investigated.


An hon. MEMBER:: What about Lunenburg?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The port of
Toronto has not been investigated, the port of St. John has not been investigated, the port of Halifax has not 'been investigated.


An hon, MEMBER:: Why not?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Because this committee did not take time to do it. They concentrated on the port of Montreal.


An hon. MEMBER:: Now you are getting under their skin.


An hon. MEMBER:: What about Lunenburg?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I add this point. There are certain distilleries that have not been investigated as yet.
4960	COMMONS
Customs Inquiry-Mr. Mackenzie King


Mr. CHAPLIN (Lincoln):: Who appointed the committee?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I say that
every one of these distilleries should!'be investigated*-


Henry Herbert Stevens: So does the report.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: -and will be investigated if the government is sustained. I say that if this House an'd this country is in earnest about cleaning up the smuggling evil they will stop at nothing until they get it cleaned up.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say that is the reason why I am prepared to support the amendment which was moved last night by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. It is a constructive amendment which proposes that this investigation should be carried on between now and the next session of parliament so that when parliament reassembles it will have before it the evidence and the findings of a judical tribunal, taking in all the ports I have mentioned, and in regard to the smuggling evil taking account of representations no matter from what quarter they may come. There are other recommendations made in that amendment and in the report which I believe should be carried out. But I do say that these recommendations cannot be made effective if the amendment of hon. gentlemen opposite were to be accepted, designed as it is, and as they well know, to be not constructive but destructive, designed not to enable the government to carry out the great national service it has undertaken-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: -but to destroy if possible the power of the government to deal with the very serious problem with which the country is still confronted. What is the object of hon. gentlemen opposite? It is that they and their friends may again control the policies of this country; it is another device whereby those who favour higher and higher protection-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hon. gentlemen may laugh but they know it. From the beginning to the close of this session hon. members opposite have sought in one way or another to get possession of the seals of office, in order that they might put their own policies into effect. But, Mr. Speaker, I come back to this

point, that what this country is interested in at the present time is not party politics. The country is not interested in the game of party politics with respect to thi3 great problem of reform.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hon. members shout. Evidently they do not agree with that statement, but the people will. What the people of this country want is some reform, carried out in a manner which will worthily supplement the legislation which this government put through this parliament last session, and which may rightly be described as one of the most important reforms accomplished since confederation. The people want that class of work carried on. That is admitted, and I believe it is also what the vast majority of the members of this House want.
One word in conclusion; I have made no reference, up to the moment, to my colleague the present Minister of Customs and Excise (Mr. Boivin). He has made his own statement in this House. I do not think he requires anyone to supplement on his behalf what he has aheady said, and I do not intend to attempt anything of the kind, but I do wish to say this: of all the men that I have had the privilege of being associated with in the administration of this country, I cannot recall one who ever took up the work of his department with the same zeal, the same energy or the same industry as my friend Mr. Boivin. I want to say that my hon. friend came into a very difficult position, he was called upon to deal with one of the greatest problems ever dealt with and under most embarassing and distressing circumstances. and I say that until three or four days ago, when his name was mentioned in the amendment proposed by the member for Vancouver Centre and there began to be talk about it, there was not a man in or out of this parliament who was prepared to point a finger at him and to say he should be censured by this parliament-not a man. If Mr. Boivin was to be singled out for censure, why was that censure not brought on weeks ago or months ago, at the time his evidence was given? If he was not fit to be a minister of the crown and carry on business as a minister, why has he been allowed to continue in a position to do so since the time his evidence was given before the committee?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Because the majority of the committee voted down a resolution to report it to the House.

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think I can say to my hon. friend that I believe the majority of the committee voted it down for the same reason as I believe the majority in this House will vote down that censure. I say, Mr. Speaker, the majority of hon. members opposite, whatever their proposed views may be, in their heart of hearts, do not condemn the present Minister of Customs. If parliament stands for anything, it surely stands for fair play and justice, and I ask hon. members, when they are recording their votes on one or other of the amendments or on the main motion, to remember that every man who goes into public life sooner or later is certain to be subjected to the kind of thing to which my hon. friend is being subjected to-day. I say to hon. members, judge by the judgment wherewith you expect to be judged, "for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with whalt measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friends may laugh. They laugh at Scripture. They laugh at anything and everything, but they will find the truth of the words I have just uttered, because those words have stood through many centuries and will stand for many centuries to come.


Arthur Meighen: The House is nearing
the close of a debate which is certain to become historic, and nearing decision on a great work and a great problem, perhaps the most important in its bearing upon the future of our country with which parliament has dealt for the last twenty years. By reason of the vastness of the subject and the wide scope of the investigation, it is almost impossible for members even to read the evidence adduced, to say nothing of being in such command of it as to bring to decision upon all its features that full information which the occasion demands. The Prime Minister has just concluded a very laboured defence of the administration and his minister; and I will deal with his remarks with the respect which his office demands, with the respect which I owe to him and have always felt for him. But I commence with this promise, that it will be my endeavour through every sentence which I utter, to keep just as far as I can from his method and his style.
I join with many hon. members who have spoken in a word of recognition of the very great toil which has been given to this work
by the committee. I doubt if any committee of parliament in a generation ever had a subject to cover which involved so much real work, so much patience, so much concentration, as the subject to which this committee has given its energies for something over four months. Having read practically all the evidence, and -having read part of it many times, while I cannot agree in all the judgments given by the chairman, I believe he yielded to a minimum of party proclivity, and on the whole was fair. I say most unreservedly that he devoted himself with an assiduity to the great task which deserves the commendation of all. The last thing which would occur to me to do would be to allow my speech to be charged with that censure of the committee which characterized the last sentences of the Prime Minister's address. The Prime Minister is very laudatory of the recommendations of the committee, so long as one does not read them or go into the real meaning of the findings and the recommendations, but for the conduct of the committee in general he has nothing but abuse. It has been unfair, he says-unfair especially to his late colleague! That committee, he says, allowed evidence to be adduced against him and never called him to defend himself. He upbraids the unfairness especially, he says, of the Conservative members of the committee for not calling the Hon. Jacques Bureau in his own defence. I have practised law for some years; hon. members have also acquaintance with the jurisprudence of our country, and I never learned of the doctrine that those who are said to be of the prosecution should see to it that the defence is called. Were there no doctrine to the contrary, which is so plain that a child would understand it, were there none at all, those of us who know the Hon. Jacques Bureau know this, that he does not need any instance from us, any summons or suggestion, to come and defend himself at a trial if he feels it is in his interest to come. Whatever may be said of him, no one will challenge his intelligence or his capacity to look after himself.
I wonder what is in the mind now of the five members of the committee who were not Conservatives, the four hon. gentlemen opposite and the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Kennedy) the majority of the committee; I wonder what they are thinking of now after the castigation they have received from the Prime Minister. If there was onus on anybody to see that Mr. Bureau was called, surely it was on those who were of
4962	COMMONS
Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
the same party faith as he, four of them completely so and one of them so close that I will not attempt to draw the distinction as it is practically negligible. What is to be thought of the present minister (Mr. Boivin) whose department was on trial, the friend and associate of Mr. Bureau, that he did not see that Mr. Bureau appeared before the committee?
The whole thing is humbug. It is such transparent, unspeakable nonsense that it is incapable of discussion. Senator Bureau would have come there if he had felt there was anything in his interests to be served by coming. Senator Bureau would stay away- if he felt it was in his interest to stay away. But to charge those who are not serving Senator Bureau, whose interests are not his but the interests of Canada, with being under an obligation to summon him, and especially to charge those of the opposite party-well it so shocks the intelligence that the sooner the subject is dismissed the better.
I am not here to make any attack on Senator Bureau. The Prime Minister, with great declamation, called across this way to know if we did not respect him, if we did not recognize his ability while he sat as a member of this House, and because no one rose to impugn or to slander him, the Prime Minister felt that he had achieved a great victory. Certainly we respected him, certainly we admired his ability, and I venture to say that very few of us were even under a suspicion that this department was being conducted under him in the way it is found by this report to have been conducted.
The reason I am making no special attack upon him is chiefly this. He is found guilty by the report; the report itself of the committee finds him guilty, the very report which the Prime Minister stands up in this House and says is right. Every sentence of it, he says, is true and sound and we intend to carry it through. Let us look at what those sentences are. Let us see what the findings, not of four Conservatives alone, but of four Liberals, one Progressive and four Conservatives, are in this regard, unanimous findings. Hon. gentlemen know by heart clause 6 of the report which reads:
The evidence submitted ito the committee leads to the general conclusion that for a Hong time the Department of Customs and Excise had been blowfly degenerating in efficiency and that the process was greatly accelerated in the last few years.
I ask hon. members ito note the words "the last few years."
Apparently the Hon. Jacquee Bureau, then Minister of Customs, failled to appreciate and properly discharge

the responsibilities of his office and as a result there was a lack of efficient, continuous and vigorous control of subordinates 'by the headquarters staff at Ottawa.
I ask .the Prime Minister: If he believes what, he said of the Hon. Jacques Bureau this afternoon, of his record in that department, of his devotion to ithe public service, of his capacity, if he believes that all the Hon. Jacques Bureau was guilty of was being sick, is he honest to-day with Jacques Bureau; is he standing by Jacques Bureau as a friend, as a citizen, in allowing this report to be adopted? I put it to hon. gentlemen behind him, those who agree with the words of the Prime Minister this afternoon, those who applauded his words that all that was the matter with Jacques Bureau was his illness. Do they consider that clause 6 fair to the Hon. Jacques Bureau? Will anybody reply? If I believed as the Prime Minister says he believes, I would be a member of no government that would submit to the adoption of that report. If what the Prime Minister expects the House to believe this afternoon is true, that report is a calumny on the administration of the Hon. Jacques Bureau and on Jacques Bureau himself. Let me read further. The Prime Minister sought very vigorously to convince the House that the government had done everything in its power; that it was alacrity itself in response to every appeal to purge and purify the service; that Hon. Jacques Bureau especially had been unreserved in his co-operation with the Commercial Protective Association and only too anxious to run down those in the service who were not doing their full duty.
The Prime Minister who gave utterance to those assertions this afternoon wants a report adopted which contains also the following words:
7. The procedure provided by the Customs Act in the matter of customs seizures is as follows:-Upon making a seizure the collector or seizing officer forthwith reports the circumstances of the case to the Commissioner of Customs (section 174). Thereupon the commissioner notifies the owner or claimant of the thing seized, stating the reasons for the seizures, and calls upon such owner or claimant to furnish within thirty days any evidence he may desire to submit (section 175). After the expiration of thirty days or sooner, if evidence ia forthcoming on the part of the owner or claimant, "the commissioner may consider and weigh the circumstances of the case and report 'his opinion and recommendation thereon to the minister" (section 176). The minister thereupon either gives his decision and states the terms upon which the thing seized or detained may be released or the penalty or forfeiture remitted or refers the decision to the court (section 177). The committee finds that this procedure was not followed. Although as a rule, the facts are correctly recited in the summary submitted to the minister, the opinion is not infrequently at variance with such facts, and the recommendation is so drawn as to elicit a decision tc which such facts are repugnant.

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
But why?
This discrepancy is accounted for iby the fact that the report upon the evidence was in many instances preceded by a conference, and the recommendation was dictated by an intelligent anticipation of the minister's wishes in the premises.


Mr. DONAGHY:: Doea the right hon. gentleman not think that the statement is justified by the facts in the Daivey Waisberg
case?


Arthur Meighen: Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
beaten in the Senate where the Tories were against it. So says the Prime Minister. This is in keeping with the tactics of the Prime Minister in respect of all subjects with which he deals wherever he happens to go from one end of this country to the other. He knew when he uttered that statement that when the bill was before the House I as leader of the Conservative party spoke in support of it in every particular, and that I not only supported it but approved without any qualification whatsoever of the immense appropriation of $350,000 which was asked for the purpose of enforcing the customs provisions of the country. The Prime Minister knows, as well, or he ought to know, that when the bill was before the Banking and Commerce committee of the Senate, an amendment to remove the clause which took away the power of remission was moved in that committee by one of his strongest supporters, Senator Belcourt, and seconded by one of the strongest, if not the strongest, representing him there, Senator Beique. The bill was in danger because of that amendment and the evidence- for I speak by the evidence-shows that in view of that danger Mr. Sparks came to the Minister of Marine (Mr. Cardin) and urged upon him that he go back and try his best to get the bill through. That minister offered to make an amendment which in the judgment of Mr. Sparks would have denuded the bill of any effectiveness, and for that reason he refused to accept it. Accordingly he went back to the Senate and by his own efforts, with the co-operation of his association, he got the bill through. I refer hon. gentlemen to the evidence which is to be found in this respect, in pages 229 and 231, of the testimony. But after all, is the passing of this legislation, even with the approval of this side of the House, an approval with which I know the Prime Minister is not satisfied merely because there were certain inquiries as to its character in the course of its consideration in parliament-nothing but blind approval, three cheers and a tiger seems to suit the Prime Minister-is the passing of that legislation, I ask, an achievement worthy of an hour and a half of boasting? When all is said and done, is legislation any more than paper and parchment until it is enforced? And has the Prime Minister looked at the evidence to see what it discloses as to the work of his government in effecting that enforcement? I have that evidence. At pages 229 and 230 I find the following:
Q. How many prosecutions have been had under the amended act-A. The Minister of Customs the other day said six. I am inclined to think he was wrong; I 	,
think up to the first of the year only three. I say that because one of the cases the minister mentioned was not under section 219. I think only three.
Q. So far as you have been able to discover, only three?-A. Yes.
Q. You welcomed that amendment last year, Mr. Sparks, and your associates also, according to the rather eulogistic letters that have been written?-A'. We certainly did.
These are the letters which the Prime Minister read.
Q. Have you experienced since that was passed, or have you observed the resul ts, the beneficial * results from that legislation which you expected?
A. The immediate results were very good. Smuggling stopped, and the deputy iminilster showed me figures showing an increase in customs receipts at border points, but that improvement did not last.
Q. How long did it last?
A. I wouldn't like to fix the time.
Q. Just approximately will do.
A. I would say it was effective for a month.
Q. That would be up to say the first of August or the middle of August, or around there?
A. I wouldn't like to specify.
Q. Do you infer that there has been a lapse since then back to former conditions?
A. I do not infer it; I state it because I know it.


Dugald Donaghy: Will the right hon.
gentleman permit a question? Has he read the testimony of chief inspector Wilson, where he swore there were 69 prosecutions under the amended act?


Arthur Meighen: There may have been
since this investigation was on.


Dugald Donaghy: Is the right hon. gentleman aware that those prosecutions extended over a period from the time the act came into force?


Arthur Meighen: I know that. Three of them were up to the first of the year-the rest since the investigation.


Dugald Donaghy: Will the right hon. gentleman be good enough to read Mr. Wilson's evidence to substantiate his last statement?


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman spoke for four hours and a half, and one would have thought he might have read it. The hon. gentleman will not be able to contradict what I have said this afternoon, no matter what evidence he may quote.


Dugald Donaghy: Read the evidence.


Arthur Meighen: A childish request. I
want to make some comment, though, upon this pretension that a tremendous achievement is to the credit of the government in the passing of this legislation. One would think from the Prime Minister's speech that the poor government stood helpless without any legislative arm; that there was a law, doubtless passed by the Tories long ago, and

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
it was worthless, the government could not stop smuggling under it; but they co-operated with this association, and as a result of that great co-operation-for which he has a letter of thanks from a prominent liberal of Toronto-we have got this magnificent legislation. What about the Commercial Protective Association-of whose praise he was so proud because at first they approached this matter with confidence in the government, believing they had a pledge that something would be done, and they wrote the letters which the Prime Minister has read- what did this association say after a few months' experience of this administration, what did they say in their recommendations read to the committee? I quote the following:	.
In submitting recommendations to the committee urging that the Customs Act be amended, we wish to place ourselves on record by stating that in our opinion the Customs Act, even prior to the amendments of 1925, was sufficiently drastic in its provisions respecting penalties to have enabled the Department of Customs and Excise to cope with the evil of smuggling, and other forms of fraud, if the department had availed itself of the provisions of the act and had prosecuted offenders to the full extent of the law.
If the Prime Minister will look at the evidence of Mr. Sparks-which he did not go into the box to contradict-he will find Mr. Sparks declared-I will not vouch for the exact percentage from memory, but he said something to this exact effect, save the percentage,-that 90 per cent of all the smuggling which was going on could be prevented by a proper application of the law of the land.
A great deal of time was also occupied by the Prime Minister in his attempt to justify the government in respect of Bisaillon. The Prime Minister stated that he was moved by a desire to be fair to this official and to be able to defend himself in parliament. The correspondence is all that is on record, all that was before the committee, and all that is before this House now, and we are bound in justice to that committee and in justice to all concerned to decide on the faith of the evidence alone. It shows that the Prime Minister demanded specific charges should be laid on the responsibility of Mr. Sparks or his associates before he would so much as appoint a royal commission to investigate the conduct of a civil servant. When he was told that this was utterly unreasonable, that the responsibility was not at all on any outsider to make these charges, that their responsibility was discharged when they brought certain facts to the notice of the department sufficient to justify inquiry, and when he was asked definitely if he adhered to the proposal
that only specific charges on the responsibility of Mr. Sparks would be considered, his reply to the letter, written almost a month after the letter was received, was merely that it would receive " due consideration.". This is the record as shown in the evidence.
Who ever heard before of the doctrine that a civil servant cannot be removed except after specific charges are laid before a royal commission? Who ever heard of any procedure such as the Prime Minister insisted on in relation to Mr. Bisaillon? I ask how many members of the government sitting in front of me this afternoon ever appointed a royal commission before dismissing a civil servant. Not one. I put the question especially to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell). Will he name the party who laid the charges, will he name the royal commission whom he appointed to investigate specific charges before dismissing Dr. Torrance? I ask, why such solicitude for Mr. Bisaillon, and why such brutality for Dr. Torrance? The Prime Minister said, Oh, we had to have a defence in parliament, we could not dismiss Bisaillon without a proper investigation. I ask again, why was the investigation delayed until the end of November, 1925, why was it they could not get any evidence till then? Is any hon. member able to answer? Mr. Walter Duncan had been in their employ for years, he had been loaned to the Customs department from the Finance department, or rather he had been loaned to the protective association and by them loaned to the Customs department, and was a Customs official for over a year before that. Now, I wonder how it was they could not get any evidence- till the end of November. Were Bisaillon's offences only shortly prior to the end of November, 1925? The offences upon which he has been dismissed, were they of recent date? Why, they extend back for years. The Prime Minister said: Oh, we are the people, we got Bisaillon, we kept at him until we got him, and only because we caught him and because we had the Duncan report a little later were these charges laid. Has he read the evidence of Mr. Walter Duncan? If he has, he will find Mr. Walter Duncan swore that on the very occasion when the present Minister of Customs sent him to Montreal to get evidence against Bisaillon he told him about Mr. Stevens' resolution to be moved in the House of Commons. Will the hon. member look at page 499 of the evidence? On the last third of the page he will find the following :
The Witness:	I do not recall eU ithat was said at
the time-

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
That is the time of the conversation when he was sent down to Montreal.
-but I know that before I started out there was talk of his dismissal.


An hon. MEMBER:: This is Duncan speaking?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.
Q. For what reason?
A. I presume complaints that had readied the minister.
Q. Was anything more than that said |to you?
A. Not .that I can recollect.
Q. Before you commenced to execute your commission?
A. Well, there was something said about the Hon. Mr. Stevens' resolution.
Q. Who said that?
A. I talked about it, and I think the minister talked about it.
Q. Hon. Mr. Boivin talked to you about that?
A. Yes.
Q. About the Stevens' resolution?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you remember the purport of that conversation?
A. No, only that I was to proceed ,to Montreal, and as soon as I had sufficient evidence, to report to the minister, which I did.
Q. Was the reference to Mr. Stevens' investigation made on the same occasion when you were told to proceed ,to Montreal and proceed to investigate Mr. Bisaillon?
A. Yes.
Q. It was?
A. Yes.
I wonder what hon. members now think of the promptitude of the government in this respect. Let me make this remark in passing. It is quite true that Mr. Duncan was sent to Montreal a day or two days before Mr. Stevens' resolution came out in this House, or before notice of it was given in the press. But it was known to those associated with Mr. Duncan, and indirectly to the minister, that this resolution was coming; it must have been so known or the minister never could have spoken of the resolution at the time he sent Mr. Duncan to Montreal. I wonder why the assiduous minister who was only too anxious, if Mr. Bisaillon were guilty, to have him arrested and punished; that assiduous minister of the immaculate record, Mr. Bureau, was never able to get any evidence on Bisaillon. If hon. gentlemen will read the evidence taken before this committee regarding Bisaillon they will find whole series of pages taken up with it. Then ask yourselves how it is that all this was unknown to the minister and unknown to the government until news of the resolution came out and Mr. Duncan hied himself to Montreal at the request of the Minister of Customs.
One would think, to hear the Prime Minister this afternoon, that all Mr. Sparks had

done was to say, "I have suspicions of Mr. Bisaillon; I want you to dismiss him." I ask hon. gentlemen to read the letters which Mr. Sparks wrote the Prime Minister on February 4 and again on March 20, 1925. I speak now from memory, but my memory is good; it is not very long since I read the letters, and I speak in the hearing of those who may correct me. In that letter allegation after allegation was recited against Mr. Bisaillon; in that letter the attention of the government was directed to his evidence given at the city of Quebec, together with facts showing that evidence to be false. It is shown that a man with a salary of 12,300 a year had $69,000 on deposit at a certain town, and that the evidence he gave at Quebec to show how that money came to be there was so ridiculous as to be ludicrous; that he had added his debits and his credits together in order to make up the deposit of $69,000. This as all shown in the letter; many other things are adduced and then Mr. Sparks says, ''If this it not enough to warrant Mr. Bisaillon being dealt with, then tell me if you still insist that I must maJke specific charges." That letter was never answered' save by an acknowledgement written by the clerk of the Privy Council a month less four 5 p.m. days after the letter was despatched, and that reply merely said that it would receive "due consideration."


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, but it was answered verbally as well.


Arthur Meighen: Yes; now we are again
getting "parliamentary" evidence which was not given before the committee. I am informed by the hon, member for Vancouver Centre-and this will be in the evidence without a doubt, although I cannot recall it myself-that Mr. Sparks was asked in the committee to disclose these conversations with the Prime Minister, and was refused the privilege of doing so.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not know why the privilege should have been refused.


Arthur Meighen: I made a mistake; he
was not refused the privilege but he declined to dt>
so because he felt these conversations to be confidential. But Mr. Sparks gave this evidence; if the Prime Minister felt that the evidence was not a fair representation of the whole truth it was his duty to go before that committee and so correct and modify that *evidence by his own that the truth would be faithfully revealed. When he has failed to do that he cannot be heard in parliament; he

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
cannot in a speech to this House say, "No, the evidence is not right; it is not a just reflection of the facts, I will tell the facts new when I cannot be cross-examined and when Mr. Sparks cannot contradict me." I leave this point, as to the knowledge of the government, merely with a request to hon. members of this House who want to deal with this subject on the evidence and on the facts to read the various communications which passed between the government and the Commercial Protective Association. They will find there, it is true, commendation of the early course of the government; they will find a friendly disposition on the part of the association and its president, Mr. Sparks, towards the government; they will be convinced without doubt that Mr. Sparks and his association approached this task in the friendliest spirit to the administration. But they will soon.be convinced also that Mr. Sparks and the association came to the conclusion that the ministry was either powerless or wanted to be powerless, and would do absolutely nothing to enforce the law and so purge the service of those who were engaged in its prostitution. The Prime Minister says Mr. Sparks was against the government in the last election. So he was, and I venture to suggest that if any hon. member of this House, be he as strong a Liberal as Mr. Sparks has been all his life, had the same experience with this government as Mr. Sparks had, he would probably turn against the administration also.
Now I wish to proceed to a discussion of the evidence which peculiarly affects an hon. gentleman who is in this House, and who has already made his defence and may do so again. I am going to speak on this matter not without kindness, I hope, and certainly with no personal animosity; I am also going to speak with all the frankness in my power. When I sought to assure the minister of the good opinion personally which hon. gentlemen on this side of the House have always held of him he was pleased to hurl back what I thought a rather coarse gibe, but in what I have to say I shall not be influenced at all by any recollection of that incident. The minister is in the House, and one always feels more free to speak of hon. gentlemen who are in the House and able to defend themselves.
May I first make a few personal references to the minister. He entered this House some fifteen years ago after a brilliant record at the bar, a record which maintained its brilliancy in parliament. So highly was he regarded that under the late administration, there being unfortunately no French speaking member on our side of the House, he was 14011-315
entrusted with the honour and charged with the duties of the position of Deputy Speaker. I recall this by way of tribute, because my purpose is to give the House some idea of his ability. I doubt if the chair was ever filled with as great capacity as respects to complete command of the rules of parliament as was the case with the minister; certainly in the efficiency of his discharge of that work he never was exceeded. He is a man of extraordinary ability; on that score no stone can be cast against him, and no excuse can be made of his conduct on the ground of simplicity or inexperience. If he has done wrong he has done so knowing the right as perhaps very few hon. members of this House would know it; if he has sinned against the light it is not because he did not see the light. There is none more capable and none o-f a clearer mind.
Now, what is alleged against the minister which, in our judgment, it is the duty of parliament to pass upon? There is much but chiefly-and I dwell on those which are chief only-his conduct in connection with the barge Tremblay liquor and his conduct in connection with Moses Aziz. These have been most to the front, but I do not want the House to come to the conolusion that the evidence of the degeneration of the department in so far as the present minister is affected is confined to the barge Tremblay and the Moses Aziz case. The evidence is multitudinous. There is not a sign of reform upon the accession of the minister so far as the evidence discloses. But I want to take what the minister has said in his two addresses in this House, and in the evidence, as respects these cases. I will deal first with the barge Tremblay case. I am not going to deal with it from the aspect of the treatment of Captain Tremblay, the appeal made by the hon. member for Charlevoix-Saguenay (Mr. Casgra.in) the light fine imposed, and the fact that the captain was allowed to get away with a gross offence against the laws of this country at a profit of something over $3,000-this feature is bad enough-but I am going to come to the feature which deals with the disposal of the alcohol seized.
Mr. DONAGiHY: Will the right hon. gentleman permit another question?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Dugald Donaghy: Will the right hon. gentleman be fair enough to state at what time the barge Tremblay was seized and when that offence was committed, and whether it was before or after the new Minister of Customs and Excise was appointed?



Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen


Arthur Meighen: It is true the barge
Tremblay seizure was made before the minister was appointed, and a very considerable time before, and that the guilt of this does not attach to the present minister; but the guilt of which I am going to speak does attach to the minister. I was wondering when the hon. member interjected his question why he had not thought of the appropriateness of putting that question when the Prime Minister was on his feet; when such a high eulogy was passed upon Mr. Bureau and upon his associates, and the House was being regaled with the fairness with which the department was administered. I wondered why he did not think then that it was at this particular time that Captain Tremblay was allowed to get away with a crime at a profit? Would that not have been an appropriate interruption to the Prime Minister rather than to me?
I come nowr to the disposal of this liquor. Some 16,000 gallons, I believe, of what is known as special denatured F alcohol was seized and remained for some considerable time in the possession of the government on some wharves in Montreal. But not long after the accession of the minister he sold that liquor without getting in touch with the officer who. at the time, had charge of its disposition. Indeed, without the knowledge of that officer, it may be said behind the officer's back he came to a bargain with a political associate-only about a month or two or three months before a member of this House-to dispose of that at some 36 cents a gallon. He made the sale, that political associate and his friends got the liquor, and the contract apparently was embalmed in some sort of a document, on a regular form of the department which stipulated certain conditions. On February 2 last allegations respecting this matter were levelled by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens). The minister was charged with having failed to safeguard the public interests in his disposal of this seized liquor. By way of defence the minister stated that he had got a good price for it; that he had got 36 cents a gallon although it could have been manufactured by the purchasers for 32 cents; but inasmuch as they were in a hurry and needed the alcohol for blending purposes they paid 36 cents a gallon and thereby he made some money for the treasury of Canada. The minister went on to say that that liquor was sold under such conditions that not a gallon, not an ounce of it could be used by the purchasers save upon the payment of an excise duty of $10

a gallon. Ten dollars a gallon would amount to $160,000 in addition to the sale price of the liquor. The minister admits now that his representations to parliament at that time were not correct, but in his speech the day before yesterday he said: "I was taken by surprise. I did not know that speech was to be delivered by Mr. Stevens, and I was not ready." Hon. gentlemen will remember that we had offered to adjourn the debate and the offer had been refused by the other side. They could have had time had they wanted it. That is not very pertinent now but what I want to emphasize is this:	The
resolution of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre had been on the order paper for weeks. The Department of Customs knew of the charges, knew of the action the hon. member intended to take, with respect to the Department of Customs, and the minister, as hon. gentlemen will remember came into this House with quite a number of papers whatever they were. From these papers, evidently departmental, he read, and sought to have the matter all settled with the assertion that this liquor was for' blending purposes and that $160,000 was to come to the treasury, the statement invoking immense applause from his followers. It transpired in the evidence that the liquor was not sold for blending purposes at all and that not a dollar was collected, and that the time had gone by when one dollar of excise could be collected into the treasury of Canada out of the disposal of the liquor for 36 cents a gallon; that the stage had been passed when collection of duty could be made and the matter had gone out of the control of the government altogether. Well, we have reached that point. But the minister now says: "This was denatured alcohol; it was not fit for potable purposes."


Henry Herbert Stevens: Denatured after it went to Dominion Distilleries.


Arthur Meighen: Denatured after it went to Dominion Distilleries, and that it was sold for export to the United States. Is not that the minister's assertion? I read his speech very carefully and I ask him now if he did not intend that inference to be given to this House by his statements? If I am wrong I want to be corrected.


Mr. BOIVIN:: I shall be very glad to repeat the statement for my right hon. friend so there will be no misunderstanding. What I said on February 2 was that I was under the impression that this alcohol was purchased by the Dominion Distilleries for blend-

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
ing purposes, and that not one gallon, not one bottle, not one ounce of that liquor could leave its distillery without the payment of excise duty upon it. That is exactly my statement on February 2nd. Speaking in the House the day before yesterday, I said that I was mistaken in one	respect-that the
liquor which had been purchased by Dominion Distilleries was used not for blending purposes but for denaturing purposes, and that when it left the distillery it left as denatured alcohol. My hon. friend knows, and every hon. member in this House knows, that denatured alcohol leaves the distilleries without the payment of any excise tax-that there is no excise tax upon it.


Arthur Meighen: That may be all very true, but it is not an answer to the question.
I am asking the minister if he did not give this House to understand that this alcohol was sold for denaturing purposes to be exported to the United States?


Georges Henri Boivin: At the time the alcohol was sent to the Dominion Distilleries the minister did not know. The proof that I did not know was that I made the mistake of saying that the alcohol was for blending purposes. I did not know what purpose it was purchased for. It was purchased by the Dominion Distilleries Limited, at 36 cents a gallon, brought into their distillery at that price and it could not leave their distillery without paying $9 a gallon, unless it was sent out as denatured alcohol, when it had no duty to pay.


Arthur Meighen: The minister stated
the other day:
If it is true that the Dominion Distillers succeeded in evading the law; if it is true that two or three carloads of that denatured alcohol did not reach the United States-


Georges Henri Boivin: I said that, it is quite true.


Arthur Meighen: It being an evasion of
the law.


Georges Henri Boivin: The hon. member for Vancouver Centre stated that three carloads of that alcohol did not reach the United States, and he also said that it might have been used for potable purposes in this country, although it was marked poison and denatured.


Arthur Meighen: The breach of the law,
according to the ministers' statement, was failure to export it to the United States. He said so. He said three carloads were kept in Canada. The purpose of the purchasers, as known, was to export it to the United States, and the minister knew that for denaturing purposes this class of alcohol could not be sold, under the regulations of his own 14011-315i
department, in Canada except to very limited licensed purchasers. I want to ask in what position is the government of Canada, selling liquor for export to the United States? Because this liquor cannot be imported into the United States under the laws of that country, as known to the Customs department and to the minister. I am not one of those who contend that it is the duty of the government of Canada, or the duty of the people of Canada specially, to go to the extent of making themselves responsible for the enforcement of the revenue laws or any other laws of the United States. The United States will attend to that themselves, but I do say that the government of Canada should not itself become a party to a breach of the American law, and when liquor was sold under conditions that it could be used for no other purpose than to be sent to the United States, against the laws of that country, sold by the government of Canada, that is making the government of Canada a party to the breach of the law of the United States.


Georges Henri Boivin: I rise to a point o,f order.
I absolutely deny the statement that when the liquor was sold to the Dominion Distilleries Corporation Limited, it was sold for the purpose of export to the United States, or that there was any such condition attached to the sale.


Arthur Meighen: The minister's speech is
strictly in conformity with that inference and nothing else, because he said the breach of the law consisted in not sending it to the United States. He said that in his last speech.


Georges Henri Boivin: I said no such thing. I
was answering the remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre who made the assertion without having any proof in the evidence to support it.


Arthur Meighen: The minister said:
If it is true that the Dominion Distilleries succeeded in evading the law-


Georges Henri Boivin: If it is true that-


Arthur Meighen: It is true that three or
four carloads of that denatured alcohol did not reach the United States-


Georges Henri Boivin: If it is true.


Arthur Meighen: Is there any other inference in that than that the evasion of the law consisted in the liquor being sent to the United States? And the minister knows that liquor could not have been sold in Canada,, save to licensed purchasers, and for specific and restricted purposes. They would not think of purchasing it for such specific pur-

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
poses. He knows it could not .be exported anywhere else. You could not export that liquor to reach any other country save in violation of the revenue laws of that country. How could we manufacture the liquor here, send it to another country and pay the revenue charges of that country? No legitimate use, therefore could be made of it for denaturing purposes.


Mr. CANNON:: Is it not a fact that the minister at that time was discussing with the hon. member for Vancouver Centre, who had assumed that the distilleries were exporting it to the United States-


Henry Herbert Stevens: No.


Lucien Cannon: And the minister said,
"If such is the case-


Arthur Meighen: No.


Lucien Cannon: I may be wrong.


Arthur Meighen: The member for Vancouver Centre will answer this very thoroughly. There is no escape; but the department must have known the purposes, unless it was to be used for potable purposes, and the evidence shows this liquor was used for potable purposes, not only in Canada, but what went to other places was used for potable purposes, and this country was defrauded out of a revenue of $160,000. Is the government to be able to stand in this House and say "That $160,000 was lost but we are not responsible; what could we have done to collect that money?" If we have a government that cannot look after the collection of the revenue is it not worth while suggesting to them that another government take their place? What did the minister of the department do, after selling that liquor, to see to it that it was used for the purposes for which it should have been used? The answer is, nothing at all. Every hon. gentleman knows that liquor was purchased in order that a fortune might be made out of it by the friends of the ministry, and a fortune was made out of it by the friends of the minister.


Georges Henri Boivin: Is it not a fact stated in evidence that the Dominion Distillery Products, Limited, could have bought the same liquor from other distilleries and did buy 60,000 gallons of it at 38 cents a gallon, two cents a gallon more than we sold the barge Tremblay alcohol for. Is it not true that the only fortune, therefore, they could possibly have been made by this purchase was two cents a gallon on the 16,000 gallons? Is it not true that if any fortune was made, it was $320 and no more.
IMr. Meighen. 1


Arthur Meighen: And on the liquor they bought from others as denatured liquor this government should have collected the excise, because it was used for potable purposes, and the government knew it.


Georges Henri Boivin: When it is proved by my hon. friend from the evidence taken before that committee, that the liquor was used for potable purposes, this government will take the responsibility and not before.


Arthur Meighen: This government has the responsibility now. We have the evidence of Mr. George.


Lucien Cannon: Not a word of evidence.


Arthur Meighen: We can easily adduce the evidence. Now the minister says, "This was not good liquor". And he produces a letter from the Quebec Liquor Commission addressed to Mr. Bureau written sometime in January, 1925. I listened in this House yesterday to the hon. member for North Vancouver seeking to upbraid the member for Vancouver Centre for not having proved explicitly that a certain number of files were taken from the department and destroyed. I remember the hon. member for Vancouver Centre making a statement to that effect in his speech on February 2, and I remember the minister saying that what was referred to was just the personal correspondence of Mr. Bureau and that he took such correspondence away. I think it was eight wooden boxes that he took to his home in Three Rivers. It was stated they were his personal property, not public property at all, that they were not destroyed, that they were at his home in Three Rivers, and that he was able to get whatever he had asked for up to that date. The first evidence we have of what is in that correspondence which Mr. Bureau took and still has is this letter of January 25. Will hon. members look at the letter and tell me if they see anything personal about it. If it is "personal" and "private", why is it introduced in the debate? Why, may I ask, was it not adduced in evidence? The first evidence we have of the contents is that these papers constitute documents which are the property of the people of Canada. The former minister takes the position: I will keep these eight wooden boxes here. If I can find in . them anything that will help me or the government I will give that to the Minister of Customs, but the rest I will keep as my property and nobody will know anything about it. That is the position of the eight wooden boxes. If that does not amount to destruction as regards the people of Canada,
497i

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
I would like to know what it is. It is worse than destruction; it enables the party who suppresses them, to use what he likes out of them and to refuse to the country the right to use the rest or any part.
I would not refer to the eight wooden boxes any more if I were a friend of the Hon. Jacques Bureau so far as this investigation goes. This letter says that the Quebec Liquor Commission have examined this liquor and it is not as good as what they buy from Canadian distilleries, although the evidence which was given at the inquiry, and which alone we are allowed to work on, declared it to be exactly the same as the liquor which the Quebec Liquor Commission had bought and on which it paid revenue tax. I can understand the minister selling liquor as denatured alcohol if it is unfitted for use as potable liquor to a private individual who does not pay anything in the way of revenue tax; but if the minister has something which can possibly be sold for use as potable liquor, it is his duty so to sell it because in that way he gets revenue for the country which he is sworn to serve. If the minister could have got a nickel for the liquor from the commission it was his duty to get it, because if the liquor was sold to that commission the revenue tax would be paid.
The only meaning of this letter is this: While they claim, although it is against the evidence, that the liquor is not as good as what they bought themselves, they would have bought it but at a very low price. If they bought it for a cent, the revenue would be paid, the $160,000 would come to this country. But the minister preferred to dispose of it to a political associate and the country lost the $160,000, although we were led to believe by the minister himself in his first speech in this House that this money was still to come into the treasury of Canada.
I want to come to the Moses Aziz case and I shall dwell on this with a little more thoroughness.


Georges Henri Boivin: I hope the right hon. gentleman will be more successful.


Arthur Meighen: I hope I shall be as successful as I was on the last. The minister's success in this House appears to be in such clashing, violent contradiction of himself as has never been witnessed before in parliament and never witnessed before in the' case of a minister of his ability. Ask him to put one sentence of his speech of February 2 against any sentence of his speech of the day before yesterday and make them harmonize. Ask him in the Aziz case to put any sentence of
his evidence beside his sentences in this House the day before yesterday and make them harmonize. The minister has indu'ged in the practice Which the Prime Minister illustrated this afternoon of reserving for the committee such evidence as he thought he could safely give when subject to cross-examination and then coming to this House with the remainder and telling it here where he knows no crossexamination can take place. The minister sought to justify his course in relation to Moses Aziz by the assertion that he had not acceded to the request of the hon member for Gloucester (Mr. Robichaud).
It becomes us at this point to inquire what was the nature of the appeal made by the hon. member for Gloucester. Hon. members know it, -but its exact terms had perhaps better be on record.
Will you please consult with Hon. Mr. Lapointe about the proceedings instituted against Mr. A. M. Aziz, Caraquet, for violation of the Revenue Act. I attach the greatest importance to this affair, since ir the actual circumstances I need the help of all mj friends.
The Hon. Mr. Lapointe will give you all the neces sary information. Mr. Aziz is of the highest help fo; us during this campaign, and we cannot do withou his services.
With assurance of my highest consideration -
The appeal was this, that Moses Aziz, convicted for a second time on the prosecution of this government, convicted for the third time altogether of being a bootlegger and a violator on a Wholesale scale of the revenue laws of Canada, having been convicted and sentenced, should be kept out of gaol because he was necessary to the hon. member for Gloucester in the election then ensuing; that he was a precious help; that the hon. member could not do without his services. This was the appeal of the hon. member for Gloucester. It was characterized yesterday by his political associate the hon. member for North Vancouver-and I would not ask that a more severe characterization be applied-as such a letter that no man who had any sense of public honour could write and that the self-respect of the hon. member for North Vancouver was such that he would not attempt to defend it.
It follows that if an appeal of this dishonourable character was made to a minister, and that appeal was acceded to by the minister, the offence of the minister was greater than the offence of the appellant. The duties of the minister are bii#ier; his responsibilities to the whole public are higher and more direct. If the minister acceded to that appeal bis offence was worse than the offence of the hon. member for Gloucester. Did the min-
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Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meigheu
ister accede to the appeal or did he not? 1 put that question in the mind of all hon. members. It is always better in these matters to get down to evidence, facts and details. Let us try to understand the matter. I want now the best friend the minister has in this House to answer me when I put the question again: Did the minister accede to that dishonourable appeal or did he not? Every hon, member and none better than the minister himself knows that he did accede to that appeal, not only acceded to it at the time, but persisted in his compliance with that appeal over a space of many months.
When the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) asked the minister: Had you, at the time you answered the appeal of Mr. Robichaud, read Mr. Robi-chaudls letter? Mr. Robichaud's letter is dated the 21st September; the answer i3 dated the 28th or 29th September. The minister said that he either dictated the answer or it was ready there dictated for him when he went in. He answered the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre with the statement that he had not read the letter and that it had not been read to him. He went on to explain that he came to his office, found a large number of letters, about 150. with the answers there ready for him to sign. When he came to this he asked his secretary about the subject and his secretary said that it was an appeal from Mr. Robichaud to withhold the issuing of a summons for Moses Aziz. He asked the secretary whether Moses Aziz had been convicted. The secretary said yes. He asked him what the reason was and the secretary said that there was to be a revaluation and there was not. Then he asked him if he had power to withhold the execution of the warrant and he was told yes. Thereupon he said: Withhold it.
Speaking last night the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre said that he was very much impressed by this reply. Perhaps it animated him to move this subamendment. If the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre would associate less with those who are vitally concerned with the result of this verdict and read the evidence itself, read the former speeches of the minister, he would not be quite so much impressed with a reply of this kind. I want to point the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre to at least three answers of the minister in the evidence, when he was under oath. I believe, that he had seen that letter of Mr. Robichaud. After I have done that, I will point to something else; but before I do this, let me put a thought in the minds of hon. members. Do

they think that any private secretary should be retained for five minutes who would permit a minister to sign an answer to a letter of that kind without knowing its contents? A minister's duties are multifarious, as I ought to know; I have had charge myself of as many as three and four departments at a time. But I know, as the minister knows, that no letter of that character would ever be answered by any minister or any minister's secretary without its contents being known, and if the secretary permitted an answer to be made under such circumstances he has no business to be in the service one hour longer. Had the minister denied when giving his evidence having seen the letter or having been told about it by his secretary, then the secretary could have been called, and if he was delinquent the public of Canada who pay him would know it. But the minister reserves that assertion for parliament, at a time when he knows the secretary cannot be called nor he himself be subjected to cross-examination. The minister in his address the day before yesterday said in reference to this point, as will be found at page 4838 of Hansard:
Now what are the 'facts? Why did the minister, even at that late date, consider it advisable to hear the member representing the constituency before this man was sent to jail? There were several reasons. A letter from Mr. Stewart, the customs preventive officer at that point, whidh unfortunately was not filed, but which I have here, shows that Moses Aziz had turned king's evidence and had convicted his own brother and another person of smuggling.
The minister says that the reason he gave that answer and authorized his deputy to wire to Mr. Stewart, telling Mr. Stewart to see the magistrate and make sure that the warrant was not executed, was that he had a letter from Mr. Stewart stating that Moses Aziz had been tried in another case and had given King's evidence against his own brother, and that he had been given a vague promise by Mr. Stewart that he would be tried summarily and not on an indictable offence. This was one reason, and I ask hon. members to reflect that, to know of such reason, the minister must have examined the contents of Mr. Stewart's letter. And it is reasonable to assume that he would inquire into the contents of Mr. Stewart's letter and not acquaint himself with the contents of a letter upon the basis of which he was to take action? There is another reason also. I quote again:
That is one point.
This illustrates the mathematical definition that a point has no dimensions.
The next point is this: there is an assertion in th* record, it is read into the record in a lettor from Mr. Veniot, that the smuggling operation complained of

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
took place before the twenty-seventh day of June, 1925, the date upon which the new law was adopted. Previous to that date no jail punishment was obligatory, and the smuggling in this case had actually taken place before the new law went into force.
The minister must have known of the contents of Mr. Veniot's letter in which Mr. Veniot contended that there was an extenuating circumstance that Aziz had the liquor before the new law of 1925 went into effect. The minister proceeds to refer to the claim for revaluation:
The law, however, provides for imprisonment for a term of one year, and he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment only. The judge therefore must himself have made a mistake.
I admit that up to the point we have reached it is possible, though very highly improbable-so highly improbable that I do not think the minister should ask us to accept the suggestion-that he would make these inquiries in order to find reasons for acceding to the appeal of his fellow member from Gloucester without knowing what was contained in the letter which that member had written. It is hardly likely that he would inquire into all these other matters which, as he says, he had in mind and not inquire into the reasons given by the member himself. It is exceedingly improbable that he would not read the letter or have dt read to him. I stop here to make a few comments on these reasons advanced by the minister. The first is that there was evidence in a letter from Mr. Stewart that- Aziz, because he had turned king's evidence in another case, was given a vague promise that he would be tried summarily and not on an indictable offence. The House will be surprised when I tell them that Aziz was tried on summary, trial and not on an indictable offence. He was never tried on an indictable offence and the minister knows it.


Lucien Cannon: My hon. friend knows that under the criminal law a man may be tried for an indictable offence and elect to have a summary trial.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, but will the hon.
gentleman read the charge in this case? Has he read it?


Lucien Cannon: The nature of the offence makes no difference. Whether the trial will be summary or whether the accused will be prosecuted on an indictable offence is a matter that is left to his option.


Arthur Meighen: The nature of the offence makes no difference whether it is indictable or summary? What does make a difference?


Mr.   GANNON@: A man may be tried for an indictable offence any day and have a summary trial.


Arthur Meighen: Let the hon. gentleman read the offence in this case. He will find it in the evidence at page 1316. He will see that the man was tried under section 219 of the Customs Act and convicted of a summary offence. He was not tried on an indictable offence; he appeared before a magistrate. Consequently that reason wholly falls to the ground. The next reason is that there was an appeal from Mr. Veniot on the ground that the man had liquor in his possession before the new act was passed under which we are led to understand that he was tried. But I inform the House now that Aziz was not tried under anything new in the act at all; he was tried and convicted of an offence which has been in the law for decades. Again, therefore, the reason advanced by the minister falls, as appears on the record. But the House knows, just as the minister does, that even if all these circumstances existed as they have been described they were open to Aziz in his own defence. These were matters he should have pleaded; but he pleaded nothing. The fact is that with these things before him the minister must have known that there was nothing in these allegations. And he did know it; for later on, when he had nothing more before him other than he had on September 28, he said there was no reason for interference.
Now I come to the minister's evidence. In three places he states on oath that he actually had seen the letter, and although he does not swear that he read it the clear inference open to the committee was that he had read it. Surely he would not say that he had seen the letter and wish to convey the impression that he had not read it. The committee would have a right to assume, as beyond any doubt it did assume, that the minister did read the letter.


Mr. STEWART (Leeds):: If he had not read it he should have said so.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly, if that was his defence. But I will show that the minister's defence before the committee was wholly different from the defence he made in this House, both in manner and as to the facts he sought to establish. He took an entirely different position.


Georges Henri Boivin: I am very sorry that I did not know at that time that the committee would attach so much importance to that letter. Had I known that I would have followed

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
before the committee the same line of defence I adopted here, after becoming acquainted with the facts.


Arthur Meighen: Surely the minister knew what importance the committee attached to the letter. It was made clear enough to him in the questions he was asked. Does he stand here now and suggest that he did not appreciate the importance of a communication of that kind? Can any hon. member conceive for a moment that the committee would not attach the utmost importance to a letter which the miniser had received and which is described by one of his colleagues as stamping the writer with dishonour and something no self-respecting man would defend? Of course the minister fully understood the importance of the letter. It was impressed upon him by the questions which were put to him by the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett).


An hon. MEMBER:: He was under oath.
Mr, MEIGHEN: Yes, he was under oath. And what is more, the defence he assumed before the committee was wholly inconsistent with what he said in this House the day before yesterday. The two could not possibly be harmonized. I want to come, though, to what the minister stated in evidence. Hon. gentlemen will find it in many places, but chiefly at pages-


Georges Henri Boivin: Pages 1406 to 1413.


Arthur Meighen: I thank the hon. minister. I read first at page 1407. He uttered two sentences before he used the following words:
If the committee will look two pages further down in the same evidence they will find that I took good care to say, before leaving the box, that I did not want to mislead the committee-
Evidently the minister had been in the box before.
-that I had been in Ottawa on two or three occasions to attend council meetings, and when here had gone to the office and attended to some routine matters. The 29th September, or 28th and 29th September was evidently one of those occasions. I remember very well having seen a telegram or a letter of the 21st September which was on my desk when I arrived.
How does the minister say he was right in stating that to the committee if he had not read that letter? Everybody would assume from that answer that he had read the letter. Then he goes on:
I might say I was at the office only in the evening. My private secretary, Mr. Ide, was there with me, assisting me to clean up correspondence, and when I saw the letter of September 21, without taking the time to go through the file, I was informed by Mr. Ide in a previous message sent by the-
[DOT]
and so on. Twice there he states he saw it. I turn to the next page, 1408:
Q. Tlhe fact is Moses Aziz has no-t yet been imprisoned?-A. No, he has not.
Q. And so far as the records show he has not been imprisoned because of the intervention of the Minister of Customs and Excise?-A. Well, I would not like to admit that the intervention of the minister was the sole cause of his not being imprisoned.
Now I ask hon. members to listen to this:
Q. It is the causa or causan, speaking as a lawyer,-
said Mr. Bennett.
-of his not being imprisoned?-A. Possibly. I am sure the committee will appreciatesaid the hon. minister:
-that seeing this letter as I did on the 28th or 29th of September, having just entered into my duties and not knowing the rules and regulations, I was asked to consult the Hon. Mr. Lapointe who was not in Ottawa at the time, and whom I could not consult.
Now, the hon. gentleman will remember that in the body of that letter he was asked to consult the Hon. Mr. Lapointe, and he explains that he did not see him, because Mr. Lapointe at the time was out of town. So far I have quoted from the minister's evidence, but now I want to direct the attention of hon. gentlemen to what the minister himself said in this House before the question of the hon. meriiber for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) was posed. I ask hon. members to look at page 4837 of Hansard containing the speech of the minister delivered the day before yesterday, and I direct special attention to this because the minister knows this address was revised by himself, and very rightly so.
I read:
Sitting at my desk in Ottawa, on or about September 28, 1 was approached by my secretary who had several hundred letters to dispose of-the accumulation of a month. He was trying as rapidly as possible to deal with them, and reading this one to me he remarked, "This is a request from Mr. Robichaud-"
and so on. The minister in his own speech before the question was put declared to this House that that letter was read to him by his secretary before it was answered, and previously three times in three sentences in his evidence he declared that he had seen the letter which asked him to consult with Mr. Lapointe. I wonder if this impresses the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. Are we to hear now the minister say he did not see it or read it, that he had not it read to him, that he did not know its contents when he made and directed that reply, in face of the fact that three times on'oath he swore he saw it, again in his speech he said it was read to him, and in face of the further fact that the reasons given in this House for acceding to the request were reasons which involved considerable inquiry on the part of the minister,

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
inquiry which it is certainly not reasonable to assume he would undertake without making inquiry into the contents of the letter itself. I lay these matters before hon. members, and I venture to say that all who will read this evidence will never accuse me of having presented unfairly the position of the minister.
Now he says: I was justified in directing that despatch and in writing my reply of September 28 or 29. I ask hon. gentlemen to keep closely in mind what that reply was. The minister said: I did not stop this man going to jail. I had to order him to jail-that is the only inference; I am not putting it in his own words, I admit-under the custom of New Brunswick, unless the private prosecutor interferes and sees that a warrant of commitment is issued after sentence, the warrant will not be issued; "That," he says, "is. the custom in New Brunswick; I did not keep him out, all I did was to say to Mr. Stewart, 'Don't interest yourself to see the warrant is issued'." The fact is that is not what the minister did at all. The minister directed Mr. Stewart to go to the magistrate and see that the warrant was not issued.


Georges Henri Boivin: I never communicated with
Mr. Stewart at all.


Arthur Meighen: No, but he directed his
chief preventive officer to do it.


Georges Henri Boivin: He did not.


Arthur Meighen: He swore it in evidence.


Georges Henri Boivin: I never spoke to Mr. Wilson until a long time after the Moses Aziz matter came before me, when I instructed him to send a message and have Moses Aziz incarcerated. You will find the instructions given through Mr. Blair, or through the chief preventive officer.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know how many intermediaries there were, but I know that what was sent was sent by the direction of the minister, according to the evidence. The number of intermediaries is for the minister to explain, I do not know how many there were.


Georges Henri Boivin: The minister had only been in his office a few days and did not know the method of procedure.


Arthur Meighen: Very well. This is what is shown in the evidence to have been his instructions. If the minister will stop to look, I think he will find he himself said a telegram was sent at his request or direction. I am satisfied the minister will find that to be the case. Certainly it is shown by other evidence that it was sent at his direction, and
the telegram was to the effect that the minister desired to make further investigation before the warrant was issued, and that Stewart was instructed to go to the magistrate and see that the warrant was not issued. But I ask hon. members, I put it to the minister: Does he think at this hour that he has any right to intervene after sentence is pronounced by a court of justice?


Georges Henri Boivin: [DOT] It all depends on the merits of the case.


Arthur Meighen: Who tries the merits,
the minister or the judge?


Georges Henri Boivin: My right hon. friend has
asked me a question. He asks me now if I am under the impression that I have a right to intervene between the condemnation of an accused and the execution of the sentence, I say that it may not be expedient for a minister to intervene, but that under the law as it stands to-day and in the opinion of the Deputy Minister of Justice as embodied in my speech the assertion is made that the minister has the right to issue a warrant of commitment or to not issue it as he sees fit.


Arthur Meighen: After hearing the minister now I feel like saying that reprehensible as was his conduct in relation to both the barge Tremblay and Moses Aziz, I would rather be guilty of it than of certain statements the minister has made in this House. Does the minister stand before his fellow' lawyers in this House, before a layman or before anyone and say that after conviction he has the right to interfere? Imagine him doing so! The law of the land is there; the man was convicted under a Dominion statute,^ and not under any provincial law. Are hon. members of this House to accept the assumption of the minister that after the merits of a case are tried before a judge there is still jurisdiction in the minister to prevent execution of the sentence? Is British law in that condition? Will the minister repeat that he believes in his heart that he had the slightest . right, after the judge gave his judgment in the case, to step in between that sentence and the prisoner?


Lucien Cannon: Certainly he had.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Arthur Meighen: The last words the House was treated to as it rose at six o'clock were an assertion by the Solicitor General, concurred in by the Minister of Customs, that

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
that minister had the right, under the law of Canada, to step in between a sentence and its execution. It is one of the sad features of this House that hon. members can be found who will make assertions of law of that character. The law is written in the Criminal Code, its provisions are there; the duty of the magistrate is there. Surely it is the common knowledge of every British subject that whatever may be the rights of a prosecutor, and they are very limited, up to the time of a conviction, the moment the conviction takes place those rights, whatever they are, are closed, and the prisoner is m the hands of the court, subject to no jurisdiction but the jurisdiction of the court. If it is to be assumed that the Department of Customs has control and discretion-and it has in very large degree -during the progress of the prosecution, but that after the merits are tried, the verdict given and the sentence pronounced, it still has control, then I ask what are our courts of justice more than mere machinery of government departments? The minister said just before six, and these words are in line with What he said in his speech of the day before yesterday, that under the law as it stands to-day and in the opinion of the Deputy Minister of Justice as embodied in his speech, the minister has the right to issue a warrant of commitment or not to issue it as he sees fit. As I said before, it is really something of a shock to hear a minister of the crown-yea even a member of parliament -make an assertion of that sort. The minister issue a warrant of commitment? He never issues a warrant of commitment. It is the magistrate who issues the warrant of commitment, and the magistrate's duty to issue it is imperative and final, subject to the intervention of none whatever save a higher court. Aziz might have appealed to a higher court had he wished; but if he does not, no department of this government and no. minister of the crown, has the right to sit in appeal over a judge and pass judgment on the merits of the sentence, or as to whether it is right or wrong.
I have before me the form of the conviction and the form of the commitment. I do not wish to labour the record with too much in the way of quotations, but if hon. members will look at Crankshaw's Criminal Code, fifth edition, at pages 1286 and 1287, they will see what the duty of a magistrate is, and will see very clearly that no one can intervene between the magistrate after sentence and the prisoner himself. Now an attempt was made-


Lucien Cannon: Will my hon. friend allow me a question? As I said this afternoon, it is probable that I may follow the right hon. gentleman, so in order to understand one thing may I put this question: Is it not a fact that the Criminal Code also has a clause to the effect that after sentence the Minister of Justice can interfere?


Arthur Meighen: The Minister of Justice can recommend parole or clemency to His Excellency as to imprisonment or ai to fine, undoubtedly. There is a jurisdiction in clemency in His Excellency the Governor General, but that duty he never can depute to anybody. Here was a case where an attempt was made not only to get the Minister of Customs to interfere, but to interfere even before the man went to gaol; and so great was the confidence of the friends of Aziz-this "precious help in the election"-that they believed they could get the man out of gaol before he got in, by intervention of the Minister of Justice. Do not let anybody be confused, The question is as to the right of a minister of the crown, or of anybody at all, to step in and pervert a court of justice after the prosecution has wholly passed out of his hands and rests in a court of law. I do not think I need labour the subject more in order to convince any member of this House; but I want to say a few more words in order to put the Minister of Customs in the position he is bound to occupy in relation to this matter.
He states that he produced an opinion of the Deputy Minister of Justice to the effect that he had a right to interfere after sentence was pronounced. I beg all hon. members- I do not need to say this to lawyers; every lawyer knows that no deputy minister of justice can sign any such thing-but I beg all others to read, and read carefully, what the Minister of Customs read from the Deputy Minister of Justice. I have it before me and I am afraid I will have to burden the record by reading it again. I ask hon. members to watch carefully and see if the Deputy Minister of Justice says one single word, expresses one single thought, on the subject of jurisdiction after conviction. I ask hon. members to follow the reading and they will find what the Deputy Minister of Justice says is that in the conduct of the prosecution-under the law it can be done, and as a matter of convenience it is done-instead of the Department of Justice conducting a prosecution it could be conducted by the Department of Customs. That is what the Deputy Minister of Justice says. He shows that under the

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
law that could be done, so that whatever could have been done by the Department of Justice in conducting a prosecution can be done by the Minister of Customs. That is quite true, but neither the Deputy Minister of Justice nor anyone acting under him can step over the threshold of the conviction and stand between a prisoner and his sentence. Now I read this memorandum which the minister would like hon. members to confuse with the opinion that he had the right to do that act.
Referring to your inquiry as to the practice in the handling of customs and excise prosecutions-
Hon. gentlemen will note that:
I may say that there is a custom of long standing whereby the instructions to legal agents of this department or to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in certain classes of cases are given direct by the department whose minister is charged with the administration of the particular statute under which the proceedings are being taken.
The conduct of the prosecution is given to the department whose minister is charged with the particular work in respect of which there is an infringement:	The memorandum
proceeds:
The classes of cases referred to are principally prosecutions under the Customs and Excise Act, the Income War Tax Act, the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act, the Food and Drugs Act and other statutes relating to health and agriculture. The reason for this practice, which has had the approval of successive ministers of justice, is that in the large majority of cases belonging to any particular one of these classes the points of law and the other considerations which arise are similar, and do not require to be specially considered by this department in each case. In order to keep the business in connection with these prosecutions running smoothly it is essential that the procedure should be so far as possible free from red tape. The practice referred to eliminates a great deal of unecess-aiy correspondence between the departments concerned, resulting in a saving of time, labour and expense in the handling of this work.
So far as the customs and excise cases are concerned. the practice seems to be not inconsistent with the desires of parliament for at least two reasons, first because the administration of the Customs and Excise Act is given to the Minister of Customs, and secondly, because it is provided by section 266 of the Customs Act that:
"All penalties and forfeitures imposed by this act, or by any other act relating to the customs or to trade or navigation shall, unless other provisions are made for the recovery thereof, be sued for, prosecuted and recovered with costs by His Majesty s Attorney General of Canada, or in the name or names of the Commissioner of Customs, or any officer or officers of the customs, or other person or persons thereunto authorized by the Governor in Council either expressly or by general regulation or order, and by no other person."	.
Under the practice the proceedings are taken in the name of the Attorney General of Canada, but they are instituted upon instructions from the Department of Customs and Excise, and are carried on, adjourned, discontinued, abandoned or pressed to a conclusion as that department may direct.
There is the end of the whole opinion. Of course the Minister of Customs knows that the direction of prosecution, instead of being in the hands of the Attorney General, is only in his name, and it is in the hands of the Department of Customs-the direction of the prosecution to a conclusion. But once it is concluded his jurisdiction ends. To intimate to this House that after a conclusion is reached the minister could stop a warrant of commitment is a suggestion which does no credit to the minister and is something which should shock the conscience of parliament.
Now I turn to the minister's contention that the reason he did this was that he had the right to do so. I have argued, and I think shown conclusively, that he had not, that no deputy minister of justice or any other minister ever gave him such an opinion-and I may say parenthetically that, labouring as hon. members have to get an opinion, if they could have got such a statement from the deputy minister of justice they would have had it. They would be here in parliament with it. They might have brought it even to the committee, but they could not get it, so -they produce just a long harangue in order to confuse the members of the House.
I now proceed to show that the minister knew he did not have the right, not only on the 28th and 29th October, but that he knew it ever since. He stands here and gives his reasons. Why did he not give these reasons when examined by the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett), the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Kennedy) and the hon. member for West Hamilton (Mr. Bell)? I ask hon. members to ponder again and ask themselves why he did not give these reasons then. Did he believe he could stand crossexamination? If he did so believe, would he not have given the evidence? He sought to intimate this afternoon that the reason was that he did not know the committee regarded seriously this letter from Mr. Robichaud. What has that to do with the question? Nothing in the world. I now affirm and stand -prepared to prove that the minister swore in evidence that he had no right at all to issue that retardation of the order of commitment, no righ-t at all to interfere with that sentence, and not only that he had no such right, but that he knew so from the beginning-knew so at the time he gave his evidence. This is the minister who stands now before the House and says he had the right. If hon. gentlemen will turn to page 1408 of the evidence they will find verbatim the letter of Mr. Robichaud. They will also find verbatim a telegram sent at the request

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
of the minister to Mr. Stewart, their officer, which telegram reads as follows:
Am directed to request you Lto stay execution of warrant of commitment against Moses Aziz pending further investigation. Arrange with magistrate accordingly.
Now we proceed a little further and we get to the evidence of the hon. the Minister of Customs. He said something about taking the place of the acting minister and being responsible alone. The evidence reads:
Q. That may be, although it seems that there is a difference between staying iproceedings against a man, that is holding up prosecution, and interfering with commitment after sentence has been pronounced.
A. I am quite willing to admit [that. I admit I did not understand this case very thoroughly, as I did not think it was within the power of a minister to stay proceedings on a warrant of commitment.
I will undertake to give six definite and distinct repudiations on the part of the minister of his right to interfere with that warrant. On the next page the examination proceeds :
Q. The question is still open, and I think you from the files satisfied yourself that the man should go to jail, but you held it up until Mr. Robichaud came to see you, and stall the man is walking the streets and defying the laws of the country.
A. I want to be fair to Mr. Robichaud and I want the committee to be fair with me. I wanted to keep the promise with Mr. Robichaud, but I am willing to admit there may have been negligence on my part in not bringing Mr. Robichaud to my office. I want the committee to realize that since parliament opened the Minister of Customs has been exceedingly busy.
That is preliminary only. The examination proceeds:
Q. Why not issue the writ of commitment now?
A. I will be very glad to after I have heard Mr. Robichaud. If he has nothing further to say, there is no reason why it should not be issued.
The only reason he ever gave was that he had the right. Then the next question reads:
Q. What right have you to interpose yourself between a warrant issued by the court and its execution?
A. I do not pretend to have that right, but whether right or not I promised Mr. Robichaud I would hear him before I withdrew the order.


Lucien Cannon: If I understand the question aright, it is:	What right have you to
interfere between a warrant of commitment and its execution? Is that not correct?


Arthur Meighen: The minister will not
rise again after I have read a few more answers. The question was whether he had a right to interfere when he did interfere, and he admitted that he had no such right. I continue:
Q. Surely, you realize this, that you are a minister, and have your duties to perform as Minister of Customs and Excise?
A. I do not think for a moment I have a right to withhold it.

To withhold it merely. Will the minister rise now? He had no right to withhold the warrant, although the telegram was to withhold it.


Georges Henri Boivin: I shall be very glad to rise and reply to my right hon. friend if he will permit me.


Arthur Meighen: He will be sorry.


Georges Henri Boivin: Perhaps not so sorry after
all. What I said under oath in my evidence was the absolute truth. When the contents of that letter were communciated to me I did not think I had the right to withhold the warrant, and when I came before the committee I was not convinced that I had that right. What I said in my address in this House and what I might have said before the committee, although I will not assert that I did, is that I called in the senior officer of the department and asked him if I had the right, and he told me I had. There is a difference between what an officer tells you and what you think. My experience is in the courts of Quebec, where it is not necessary for a private prosecutor to apply for a warrant of commitment.


Arthur Meighen: Nor anywhere else, and
no one knows that better than the minister. The criminal law is the criminal law of Canada.


Georges Henri Boivin: Will my right hon. friend
allow me one question?


Arthur Meighen: He is making a lot of
the speech.


Georges Henri Boivin: If the criminal law is the
criminal law of Canada, will my right hon. friend tell me why a man who was sentenced on the 18th day of August had not been incarcerated when I first became aware of the case on the 28th September?


Arthur Meighen: I will give a good surmise-because for that length of time the influence of the hon. mentber for Gloucester (Mr. Robiohaud) was sufficient in itself, but as he could not succeed any longer, he called for the assistance of the Minister of Customs and he got it. Whether that was the whole reason or not I do not know. Am I called upon to answer Why a peace officer in New Brunswick does not do his duty? The magistrate has since retired. Hon. gentlemen know the circumstances in the province at that time and they can surmise the reasons themselves. Read the letter of the then Premier of New Brunswick, Mr. Veniot, and perhaps that will give some idea of how justice was

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
administered under him in that province. The fact is that the magistrate delayed the warrant; the fact is that the magistrate was ordered by the minister further to delay it, without any shadow of right and when the minister knew he had no shadow of right.


Georges Henri Boivin: Once again I emphatically
deny, as I have a right to do, that I ever communicated with the magistrate or with the peace officer in New Brunswick.


Arthur Meighen: I will read where the minister said that the telegram was sent to him at the "request" of the minister.


Georges Henri Boivin: I said to send a telegram.


Arthur Meighen: To send a telegram to withhold the commitment and to see that the magistrate w'as approached with a view to making sure that the warrant was not issued.


Georges Henri Boivin: The minister did not sign that telegram.


Arthur Meighen: No, he did not sign it, but the minister ordered it and that was the telegram that was sent. That shows that the officers of the department knew that they had to interfere with that magistrate or the warrant would issue. The telegram is signed by Mr. Wilson. I will ask hon. members to remember that only half a minute or a minute ago the minister said that at the time he gave his evidence he still was not convinced that he had that right. I should like hon. members to remember that answer as I proceed to read this evidence:
Q. Surely, you realize this, that you are a minister, and have your duties to perform as Minister of Customs and Excise.
A. I do not think for a moment I have a right to withhold it. I stated very clearly in my letter that I think the man should go to jail. I said that on the 28th of September or the 29th.
Right, at the time the letter was written and the telegram sent, he declares that he said then that the man ought to go to gaol. Do hon. members have any doubt in their minds why that man did not go to gaol? Let us go on:
Q. Mr. Boivin, you are exceeding your power?
A. I do not believe the minister has the right to withhold execution of a warrant.
This will be very interesting to the Solicitor General who a minute ago was clinging to the straw that the warrant was perhaps somewhere on the road and had not been executed on the person of the man.


Lucien Cannon: If the minister said that he was wrong.


Arthur Meighen: I would think so, but I thought that was in the mind of the Solicitor General:
Q. Mr. Boivin, you are exceeding your power?
A. I do not believe the minister has the right to withhold execution of a warrant but the bald fact remains that I promised Mr. Robichaud that before I took action I would hear 'him. Surely there is no harm in hearing him.
This is reminiscent of the speech in the House. One would think the minister was being charged with hearing or making an appointment with a member of parliament. Certainly there is no harm in hearing a member, but there is harm in stepping in beyond the jurisdiction of the minister, perverting and prostituting the courts of justice, waiting till the member appears to be heard. Let us go on:	.
Q. Mr. Boivin, your position is a very unhappy one. -A. It is very unhappy.
Q. You are placing yourself in between a sentence of the court of this land and the execution of the sentence and you are doing it for one reason, and that is that an individual member of the House has asked that you do so. That is a very serious position for any minister to take, and I say now, this is something which you have no right to do as minister. -A. I do not pretend that I have, and I have made the statement three times.
Impatient that he should have to make it again. Still he went on and made it:
Q. He has been doing it-
That is Aziz.
-since the 18th of August and you are preventing the application of a just sentence because of your interference. You admit now you have no right as minister to interfere. I say to you, in the face of these facts, should not the writ of commitment be issued at once?-A. I think it should. I do not think it ever should have been withheld.
Q. I must admit I cannot understand the persistent delay. It is pretty serious.-A. I still state that I do not think that the telegram sent in my name or at my request, to the officer of the court was worth the paper it was written on.
I pause there just to call the attention of the minister to the fact that he had been seeking to convey the impression by interruption of my speech that he did not send or intend any message to go to the magistrate. Here in his evidence it is clear that he was under the impression that the message went directly to the magistrate.


Georges Henri Boivin: Not at all.	[DOT]


Arthur Meighen: Or to an officer of the
court, which is the same thing.


Georges Henri Boivin: There is a great deal of
difference.


Arthur Meighen: The minister's conduct
would be excusable if he sent a telegram to
49S0

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
the officer of the court, but wrong if he sent it to the magistrate. One is impatient and cannot bear delay over a suggestion of that sort. The minister swore in this evidence that he did not think the telegram to the officer of the court was worth the paper it was written on. On the next page we have this evidence:
Q. Speaking to you as one professional man to another you realize as minister of the crown, of Customs and Excise, that you have not the right to arrogate to yourself, the power of His Excellency, the Governor General to change or deal with the findings of a court. You say, you propose to further exercise these powers, and you think you have that right, but I cannot understand it, or cannot understand your mental process.-A. But Mr. Bennett, I do not say that, I do not say that.
Q. I am sorry, Mr. Boivin, I followed you with great care.-A. I realize, Mr. Bennett, you are a very, very able attorney. I realize that. I state as one professional man to another, or as a minister of the crown, that I never thought at any time I had a right to withhold the execution of the sentence. I have made that clear very, very many times. When the original order was given to withhold the sentence, it was given without thought and without consideration on my part, and when I was only in the office as minister for about eight hours.
If the minister had been a layman one might possibly excuse an error of that kind, he having come to his office very recently, but one could never excuse it even in a layman after the statement the minister has made in the House as contrasted with the evidence he gave before that committee. But the minister is no layman. He knows that the criminal law passed by this parliament is the law of Canada and he knows that it applies to every magistrate and judge throughout the land. He has known that for the last twenty years or quarter of a century. He has practised as crown prosecutor for years. Yet he, a skilled lawyer and a former crown prosecutor, asked a man who was not a- lawyer at all whether he had the right to step in between a conviction and the sentence and keep a criminal out of gaol! What does the minister really think must be the opinion of this House as to a suggestion of that kind? If the minister went to the trouble to inquire into the contents of Stewart's letter; if he ascertained the contents of Mr. Veniot's letter; if he saw fit to take all these precautions, did he do so without knowing the reason for which the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Robichaud) wanted, the execution of the sentence deferred?
The minister stands here, after the hearing is over, after the cross-examination is concluded and there is no opportunity for reply, and declares that he had a letter from the Minister of Justice indicating that he had a right to do what he did-a letter which does not touch the subject at all. The min-

ister knows that the letter from the Deputy Minister of Justice has no bearing on the subject. And that is all he produces or can produce. Further, he makes that statement after he has declared several times on oath that he had not, and knew he had not that right. The letter from the member for Gloucester dated September 21 the minister says he did not read; that is the evidence he seeks to give now after the hearing is over. But even if that were true he has no right to make such a statement at this time inasmuch as it conflicts with his evidence given before the committee. The evidence there shows that he three times declared that he had seen the letter; and even in the House in his speech he admitted that the letter had been read to him by his secretary.
Now I put the question I asked at the outset. If the conduct of the member for Gloucester is, as stated by the hon. member for North Vancouver (Mr. Donaghy), dishonourable and impossible of perpetration by any man with any sense of public decency, so gross that the hon. member would not dare to defend it out of self-respect, are we to condone the conduct of the minister who accedes to such a corrupt appeal? The minister says that if we go against the government in this question it means that members of parliament can never again make appeals to the department. No member, he declares, either on this side of the House or in any other part of the chamber may dare to interview the minister again and ask for any favour. No member need go and ask that someone's fine be remitted for any reason whatever if the conduct of the minister is not condoned to-night. And hon. gentlemen who have spoken opposite have endeavoured desperately to save the minister. Desperation is written on the page of every appeal that has come from hon. gentlemen opposite, gleaming in letters of fire in every sentence uttered by the Prime Minister this afternoon. Those hon. gentlemen have sought to impress upon the House that the practice of making appeals to ministers for anything will be for ever stopped if the conduct of the Minister of Customs (Mr. Boivin) in this case is not condoned. Whoever heard before that it was wrong for any member of parliament to make an appeal to a minister of the crown, whether on this side of the House or opposite, where such an appeal is made on worthy grounds. We are here to make appeals with relation to our constituencies and our constituents in relation to any whom we consider worthy of such appeal. Any appeal on an honest ground, any bona fide argument which is

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
advanced in good faith is legitimate. But there are other appeals which are distinctly not legitimate. In the first place no appeal may be made to a minister of the crown unless the merits of the case warrant it; and what never can be permitted is that members of this House shall make appeals from unworthy motives, for base, selfish, and corrupt reasons. Such appeals never can be tolerated. And such is the appeal which was made by the member for Gloucester and to which the Minister of Customs acceded.
Hon. members will turn their minds at this hour to what has occurred in Great Britain in the last few years. There we have as an example to Canada a case which is eminently pertinent, where a man issued an invitation to sedition-an offence described, by the way, by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Wbodsworth) as merely " criticizing a government "-through the medium of a newspaper which he happened to be temporarily editing. Prosecution was instituted by the attorney general's department of England and the case was in its hands. The discretion of that department still subsisted and would continue to subsist until conviction. And while that discretion remained with him the Attorney General of England acceded to appeals to discontinue made on behalf of the accused. What was the nature of those appeals? Were they that the accused should be released in order that some politician in his county might be helped in an election? Were they appeals based on any selfish motive whatever on the part of the appellant? Not at all. Those appeals were made on the ground that this accused had fought for his country in the war, had lost both feet, was at present a cripple maimed for life having sustained his injuries in the service of his country. For these and other reasons, not wholly though very largely similar, the Attorney General of England was moved and the course of justice was diverted. Now, compare that case with the one under review to-day. Here is a case in which, when discretion no longer remains in the hands of the minister, the direction of prosecution having passed absolutely from his control, appeals are made to pervert justice-appeals based not on any ground of personal service so far as the culprit is concerned, but on the ground that the man accused, if he is kept out of gaol, will help some other interested person to get into parliament. That is the sort of appeal to which the Minister of Customs yielded, and that is the appeal on which he is indicted to-night. Can hon. gentlemen compare the two cases? Is the parliament of England to be forever honoured throughout
the world because, by reason of the temper of the people of that country, the course of justice never can be turned by any appeal unless it is shown to be in the interests of the public, while we in Canada deliberately allow it to go forth that justice in this Dominion may be perverted after judgment has been pronounced by a judge, and that a minister of the crown, for political purposes and none other, may step in and save a prisoner from the execution of sentence?
The mover of the motion for the adoption of the report, the chairman of the committee (Mr. Mercier), says that if we are not to condone this government and the minister in this case, then there must be a better education of public opinion in this country. I ask him particularly, and this House in general as well as yourself, Mr. Speaker: What is this parliament going to do to educate public opinion if to-night we release the government and release the minister from all culpability? If we condone the minister and the government we shall contribute to the education of public opinion the knowledge that justice in Canada to-day stands at the mercy of the politician, whose conduct must be condoned when he yields to corrupt appeals. That will be the measure of our contribution to the education of public opinion if we fail to censure this offence-these long series of offences.
Now I turn to the position of the government itself. I have been compelled to make these remarks because of the conduct of his defence in this House by the Minister of Customs himself. Had the minister left the case as it was after the investigation, then this speech of mine would have been wholly unnecessary.
I want now to bring home to the administration this responsibility. I ask, is the administration not responsible with the Minister of Customs? I ask hon. members again to reflect on the Campbell case in England. Was the vote of censure on the attorney general alone? Did hon. members of the government of that day in England seek to say, "Here is a mistake of the attorney general's, he made it himself; do not hold us responsible." Every man of them in the Labour government stood up and took his full responsibility for the conduct of the attorney general, and that government fell because the attorney general had dared to interfere with the course of justice. Is Canada to follow that example? What is to be the name of Canada before the world if tonight, while we have the courage to attack Mr. Giroux, an underling, while we have the courage to attack Mr. Farrow while

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
we have the courage to put our strong arm on the shoulder of Mr. McLaughlin, to compel these men to pay the penalty of their delinquency, we show by our vote that we have not the courage to bring home even censure to those who are responsible to this House for the administration of our affairs? Here is a document we are asked to accept, whose every word we are asked to adopt as ours, here are long series of findings that we are asked to make the findings of this House, and those findings declare that for years the Minister of Customs allowed a rapid degeneration of his department to ensue-


Mr. KING (Kootenay):: The minister before him.


Arthur Meighen: No, they do not say
anything about "the minister before him."


An hon. MEMBER:: For a good reason.


Arthur Meighen: Perhaps so. I am now dealing with the report as it stands. That report says that the degeneration in efficiency was greatly accelerated in the last few years.


John Warwick King: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: Not since the minister was sick, but "in the last few years." Hon. gentlemen cannot put less than three for those years of rapid degeneration. That minister is declared to have failed to appreciate the duties of his office altogether and he is further declared to have directed his officers to make reports and recommendations to him, repugnant upon the recited facts, in order that he might do something which the facts did not warrant. We are asked to approve of that report, to approve of every particular, and then we are asked to find that the government itself is guiltless of the malfeasance, so described.


John Warwick King: May I interrupt? Does not the report also show that when the present Minister ,of Customs came into office he immediately started the machinery which brought about the cleaning up of the department, and that the inquiry which he instituted was the basis of this debate and the success-


Arthur Meighen: It shows this, that immediately the minister got information that the member for Vancouver Centre had a resolution on the order paper, he told an officer of the department, Mr. Duncan, to proceed to Montreal to see if he could not get evidence.


John Warwick King: And he got it.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, he got it. I wonder why he started it? That same officer had been in the employ of the department for months back and his efforts had been wholly sterile. The moment he was told to go to Montreal on the mission that proved effective, at that very moment he was informed by the minister and discussed with the minister the Stevens resolution in this House.


John Warwick King: No.


Arthur Meighen: Does the minister say
"no"? I read the evidence this afternoon, and there is no evidence to contradict it. I do not doubt that now the case is closed, and we have to accept the word of hon. members in this House, we will get evidence yet; but I am arguing this case on the testimony before the committee, and no hon. member has any right to come to any conclusion save on the testimony there adduced. And what is more, this government would not be arraigned before this parliament to-night seeking to give evidence from the floor of this House if there was evidence they dared to give before that committee.
Now there is an amendment before this House moved by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth)-an amendment to the amendment. The purpose of that amendment the merest tyro in parliamentary life can easily discern. In itself it is comparatively harmless. It seeks to destroy, and if it is passed will destroy, every word and sentence of the original amendment; it seeks to destroy every word and sentence which passes the judgment of this House that the conduct of the government in permitting this state of affairs to exist is indefensible, that the conduct of the minister is utterly unjustifiable in relation to the Aziz case; it seeks to eliminate this wholly, and will do so if it is passed. Then it says that you ought to amend clause 4 so as to provide for a royal commission to continue the investigation. I wonder if the hon. member ever read the report, or did he who collaborated with him to prepare this amendment ever read the report. The report itself advises the continuation of this investigation, not merely departmentally but extra-departmentally, and leaves it wholly to the government to say what form that investigation shall take. There is the body of the report. But in order to get something to put in a subamendment, in order to get a bridge upon which timid members of parliament could pass over and get away from the main amendment-in order to do that, the amendment to the amendment says: you must appoint a royal commission to continue this

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
investigation. And the Prime Minister stands up and says that unless we vote for this and oppose the other resolution, thus defeating the main amendment, there cannot be a continuation of the investigation. Imagine the Prime Minister of Canada suggesting such a thing to the members of this House! The investigation, if this report is adopted, must go on by order of this House. The investigation can proceed by royal commission or by any extra-departmental machinery that to the government may seem fit.
The amendment to the amendment continues:
That the following be added >to danse 6:
Your committee deplores the common practice, as revealed by ilhe evidence, of members of .parliament and others appealing to the minister to relax the regulations of the department for personal advantage or political expediency.
May I ask the hon. member why he did not go on and say, "and of acceding to those appeals?" Why did he not say that? The member is very much absorbed. Do hon. gentlemen recall that the loudest assertion of his speech, that upon which he seemed to have the deepest conviction was a declaration that the most astounding fact of the whole thing was the appointment of Mr. Bureau to the Senate; that is what he denounced most. "Will the hon. gentleman tell me where that is in his amendment? His amendment is a lot of eyewash, purposely eyewash, froth and foam, and he knows it. His only-purpose was to-


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: Mr. Speaker, as
a matter of privilege-


Arthur Meighen: I have the floor.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I rise to a question of privilege.


Arthur Meighen: I am accustomed to some of these privilege matters on the part of hon. gentlemen opposite.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The right hon.
gentleman undertakes to state what my purpose was in moving this amendment to the amendment.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I assert that the
purpose which I had in view was not that which the right hon. gentleman says it was. I tried last night-


An hon. MEMBER:: That is not a question of privilege.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I tried last night
in the course of my address to state as clearly as I am capable of stating the reason that led me to propose this amendment to the amendment, and I submit, Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I submit, Mr. Speaker, that it is absolutely against all the rules of this parliament for any hon. gentleman to deliberately accuse me of having in view a purpose other than that which I myself stated.


Arthur Meighen: What I had stated was that this was froth and foam, mere words, and I stated that its purpose was to save the government by giving a bridge for hon. members to cross who wanted to avoid a straight vote on the amendment. Now the hon. member says I cannot attribute to him an unworthy motive. I can, but if he considers it an unworthy motive-


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I was speaking a
moment ago on a question of privilege, and I submit that already, in what the hon. gentleman has continued to say or attempted to continue to say, he is not repeating what he said a few moments ago. I urge that I have the right to say what my purpose was, and no man has a right to question that statement.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


An hon. MEMBER:: You talked last
night.


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I talked last night and set out my reasons, and while the hon. gentleman has always the right to say what the effect may be he has no right to say what my purpose was if that purpose is other than the one I stated.


Arthur Meighen: If the hon. gentleman
would prefer that instead of saying it was his purpose I should say it was its obvious, manifest and only effect, and that a child ten years of age could see it, I will put it in that form.
The last clause goes on to . say that in clause 8 all the words after the word "department" in the last line be struck out and a clause inserted suggesting that Mr. Farrow, instead of being retired, should have his services dispensed with. This cannot be said to be without some effect; this does alter

4984	COMMONS
Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
the amendment in material degree. I believe I express the mind of the government as well as my own when I say it is not usually considered necessary to amend reports on grave subjects involving great principles in the mere matter of a single detail, but if it is to be done I am disposed to the view that the evidence, which I have read, justifies that treatment of Mr. Farrow. This I say with the greatest reluctance and the greatest regret. I think that is what should be done and that the evidence would justify that action more than the action recommended. If the hon. member will add this, and for that matter add the entire subamendment to the amendment which we have moved, I will support it all; eye wash does no good, but it does not hurt. This last sentence does something, and I will support it. I would willingly support the whole added to the original amendment; then the hon. member can have his way and this House will have the opportunity of voting on the question of the responsibility of the government in this matter, while if the hon. member has his way now the House will never have that opportunity. It is not, Mr. Speaker, because of objections to the wording of the amendment; not because of what the Prime Minister calls the constructive, but for what is actually the destructive feature of the subamendment, which destroys the whole purpose of this debate and makes impossible the performance of a duty by this House; it is because of that feature of the subamendment that I am compelled to oppose it. And I say to hon. members of this House that all those who want to give a vote on the position of the government and its responsibility for the degeneration of its own department and the malfeasance of its own ministers; those who want to give a vote of that kind will be compelled to vote against this subamendment, whatever its terms. All who vote for that subamendment vote, in ambush it is true, but nevertheless directly, against this House even expressing an opinion upon the conduct of this administration in relation to the facts set out in the amendment. Hon. members who want to take that responsibility should vote for the subamendment moved by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.
An attack was made in this House this afternoon upon a citizen of this country, the president of the Commercial Protective Association. The Prime Minister sought to depict him as a partisan, blinded 9 p.m- by partisan malice, and seeking only to injure the government- after having read the most flattering letters from him in the opening of the work of that 
association. All I rose to say is this. I remembered as the Prime Minister was speaking that I had received a request from that very gentleman not long ago to make no partizan issue of this matter at all and to keep it out of party politics. I bunted through my files in the 'meantime, and I now have the letter written me by that gentleman.


Lucien Cannon: Will my right hon. friend permit -a question? If his argument this afternoon concerning the Prime Minister was right, why did he not produce that letter before the committee instead of waiting until to-day?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Arthur Meighen: After the House gets
over its hilarity I will give my answer. This letter has nothing in the world to do with the subjects the committee had to deal with, but it has to do with an extraneous matter brought in by the Prime Minister, namely, motive of the president of the protective association. I hope that answer sounds to the point to the Solicitor General. Before reading this letter I want hon. gentlemen to recall that in the course of his last few ponderous sentences, with their flamboyant appeals, the Prime Minister said that if we were in earnest about this thing, about the accusation of the Minister of Customs, we would never have waited until now to bring it up; we would have done it long ago, when the facts came up. I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker; had we the right to discuss this subject while the matter was before the committee? Will any hon. member of this House suggest that we had that right, save by breaking the rules of parliament? Because we did not so break the rules the Prime Minister stands up and says we are insincere. It is true that members of the committee moved that the facts in relation to this matter be brought before the House, but the Liberal majority, assisted by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Kennedy) voted it down. Therefore we were debarred from bringing up this subject until now. This was not known, I doubt not, to the president of the protective association, who is not a member of parliament, and he wrote me on March 20 having in mind the election which was then proceeding in the county of Middlesex. The following is his letter:
Dear Mr. Meighen :
I am 'taking the liberty of writing you in reference to certain matters arising out of the inquiry into the administration of the Department of Customs and Excise.

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Meighen
A by-election is now in progress in West Middlesex, and there appears to be a possibility that the Customs inquiry may become a matter of public discussion.
I would appreciate it very greatly if you would endeavour to prevent the association of the name of the Commercial Protective Association, or my own name, with any campaign literature or speeches, or the use of evidence given by me as a basus for criticism of the government. As you are aware, this association, which as absolutely non-political, has, for nearly two years, been endeavouring to have conditions improved in reference to the prevention of smuggling. It was only after all our efforts to have effective action taken by the government failed that we decided to go before the committee appointed by parliament at the instigation of the Hon. Mr. Stevens. In order to establish beyond question our entire freedom from any political consideration it was necessary that we should lay before the committee a complete record of our activities during the past two years.
Just at present we are arranging for the appearance before the committee of about twenty-five leading business men, both Liberal and Conservative, for the purpose of giving evidence as to the extent of this traffic and its effect upon legitimate business. If our activities became a matter of political controversy it might create an entirely erroneous impression and might prejudice the minds of some who are to appear as witnesses.
I believe that it is in the public interest that this investigation be kept as free from politics as is possible, and for that reason would respectfully request that your influence might be used towards that end. Of course, when the committee has concluded its work, the whole matter, no doubt, will be, and should be, a matter for the most full public discussion, but, from the standpoint of the business community, discussion of this matter during the heat of a byelection might tend to interfere with the proper functioning of the committee.
Trusting that you will favourably consider this suggestion.
I remain,
Yours truly,
R. P. Sparks,
Chairman, Executive Committee.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I ask my right hon. friend why Mr. Sparks did not address him in a similar letter for the general election instead of for a by-election?


Arthur Meighen: Because the committee
was not sitting then. I am quite prepared to read my reply to that letter but I do not think it is worth while; I wrote acceding to his request. Hon. members smile. Very well, I will read it. It is as follows:
Ottawa, March 22, 1926.
Dear Mr. Sparks,
I have your letter of the 20th March. So far as your letter refers to the work of the Commercial Protective Association and to your own evidence before the Customs and Excise committee, I am in entire agreement with the statement of the situation as made by you. Undoubtedly the activities of your association have been entirely non-political and I am equally certain that your own efforts have been actuated only by a desire to carry out your duty to the committee in the most thorough and efficient manner. Having this in mind I had already before receiving your letter suggested to members of our party who are to take part in the West Middlesex election that no attempt be made to drag either yourself or your association into political controversy.
14011-316-1	Yours very truly.
Now this concludes the substance of what I have to say; I leave the case so far as I am concerned in the hands of parliament.
If parliament believes it is in the interests of Canada to condone this conduct, parliament should condone it. If parliament conceives that a public investigation conducted under the auspices of this government by a committee appointed by this government, and from this House, after finding rapid degeneration in a great department of state involving millions of the money of the people of Canada; if parliament conceives that that can be found and be known to have gone on and the government be entirely wanting in guilt then parliament should vote for the amendment to the amendment, which means voting against all censure of the administration. If hon. members believe that a minister of the crown has a right to use property which becomes public property for the benefit of his * political associates to the loss of scores of thousands of dollars of the money of the people of Canada and still be utterly without blame, though several accounts and reasons are given to this House of a contradictory character, parliament then should vote for the amendment to the amendment.
If this House believes that one of the functions of the departments of state is to pervert the course of justice and step in after conviction, after judgment, to see that sentence is not executed, and to do these things on the appeal of a member of parliament in order that the guilty, convicted man may help in an election, then parliament should vote for the amendment to the amendment. The amendment to the amendment of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre will effectively exculpate everyone connected with the transaction, and will declare that a ministry which allows a great department of state so to degenerate is to be held without blame before the parliament of Canada. But if, on the other hand, there is concern on the part of hon. members of this House, aside from all party proclivity, for the good name of our country; if we want to-night to show to our constituents, to the people, to the citizens of this Dominion, that we have some regard still for the honour of this nation, that we have some sense of our duty to hold ministers responsible for malfeasance, that we are not afraid-while visiting condign punishment upon officers of this government who are at our mercy, making them pay the full penalty of their deliquency-at the same time to bring home their guilt to men in high places even if they are members of this House and this government, then they will vote for the amendment. But if we are going to yield to this insidious appeal that
49S6

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Cannon
every time an hon. member seeks to hold those in the seats of the mighty responsible, then he is playing politics, he is seeking to "get" his enemy, if we yield to such insidious appeal, then parliament is paralyzed and is no longer the guardian of the honour of the state. Between these two positions I place every hon. member of this House to-night, and I put my fellow members there with confidence that parliament at this momentous time will fufil its high purpose in our land and vindicate its name to the people of Canada.
Hon. LUCIEN CANNON (Solicitor
General):	Mr. Speaker, I wish very frankly
to express my sincere feeling of hesitancy in addressing the House, following the very strong appeal which we have just heard from the lips of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen). As is realized in all quarters of the House, the question which is now being debated is a question in itself of great moment, and besides, the consequences of whatever decision may be reached by the House will be very far-reaching. My hesitation is also increased because of the fact that to-night, making an address which I consider of some importance, I will have to use language which is not my own, and therefore I am not at liberty to express my thoughts as freely as I might if I were to speak the French language.


Arthur Meighen: Pretty good.


Lucien Cannon: During these remarks,
realizing the seriousness of the occasion, I will endeavour to restrict my consideration purely to the judicial or legal aspect of this matter, and leave aside altogether anything which might narrow the issue or make the question petty; I wish to avoid any question of personality. I have been a member of the parliament of Canada for a period of nine years, and have taken part in many debates. I have disagreed with my opponents; I have always expressed as forcibly as I thought fit the opinions which I held to be right. On the other hand-and this is a very favourable feature of parliamentary life-if on the floor of the House I have had political opponents, outside the walls of this chamber I have had even among my opponents, very warm personal friends. The friendships which have been formed here in Ottawa amidst the battles and struggles of political life are very dear to me, and I do not wish by any remarks of mine to impair in any way the friendships which I hold so dear. As I said I shall speak simply from a legal viewpoint, leaving aside the smaller and narrower aspect of the question.
TMr. Meighen.]
The speech delivered by the right hon. gentleman who has just preceded me can be divided into two parts, and I will endeavour to answer as briefly as possible the two main arguments that he advanced. This debate has lasted a long time. I realize the anxiety of every member of the House to have it brought to a conclusion as soon as possible, and I shall endeavour to be as concise as I can.
The first argument brought out by the right hon. leader of the opposition is that the government should be held responsible for the bad condition of things discovered in the Customs department, as reported by the committee, and being held responsible as a whole, should be put out of power. His second argument is that, should the House reach the conclusion that the government or the administration as a whole should not be held responsible, at least the Minister of Customs should be held responsible for certain things, and' the House should pass a vote of censure upon him.
Before I enter into the merits of the question, allow me. following the example set by the previous speakers, to offer my most sincere congratulations to the chairman and to the other members of that committee. Their work has been arduous and their task difficult, and although very often political sentiments have clashed, they have endeavoured to introduce during the course of their proceedings an atmosphere of judicial impartiality, and they have brought in a report which contains many recommendations most useful in the public interest. The members of the committee, whether of the Conservative, of the Liberal or of the Progressive party, deserve not only the thanks of this House but the thanks of this country at large, and especially the thanks of the commercial community.
When the report was introduced, and it was stated that that report contained the unanimous conclusion reached by the members of the committee, I was hoping-I am quite sure in common with the majority of the members of the House-that we would have, in so far as the report was concerned, simply to deal with a business matter; that politics would not be introduced into the discussion of the important question which has been before the committee for over four months. Unfortunately our hopes were not realized. Politics were introduced, and I am sorry to say that that feature was brought into the debate by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) when he moved the amendment. The hon. member had conferred with his colleagues in bringing

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Cannon
down, a report which contained recommendations and suggestions which were received by the press of Canada with the greatest commendation. If the hon. member had only in mind the improvement of conditions in this country, if he had only in mind the disclosures of certain abuses and their remedy, his role would have ended and he would have been satisfied when that unanimous report was presented. But such was not his aim; such, unfortunately, was not his object.


Arthur Meighen: I think the hon. member should not describe the report as unanimous. The findings so far as they go are unanimous, but the report was not unanimous.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It was carried on division.


Lucien Cannon: The right hon. member presented the argument more than once that the report was unanimous.


Arthur Meighen: No, I said the findings. It is nonsense for the hon. member to speak as he does. The report was not unanimous, for the reason that there was one subject not dealt with in it.


Lucien Cannon: I was pointing out that after a report had been brought in which bad been approved by every member of the committee, the suggestions which had been discussed having been concurred in, the political factor or element was introduced in this House when the hon. member presented his amendment. I was disappointed, because I thought that the hon. member, with his ability, his talent and the very high motives which actuated his conduct, would remain on that high level and would not descend into the plane of party warfare to try to destroy the good effect and beneficial results of four and a half months of arduous work. But on the other hand, I know the hon. member is not responsible. He acted under pressure from his own party. If the hon. member had been left to his own counsel, no such amendment would have been brought in. But no doubt he was told, "We have been here six months trying to overthrow this government; we have adopted every possible device; we have used every method that our most vivid imagination could suggest, and on every occasion the government has succeeded in securing a majority in the House. Let us introduce a moral question; let us claim in the dying days of this session that we are not thinking of the manufacturers, we are not thinking of the commercial interests who always guide our politics; we are not inspired by St. James Street, Montreal, or King Street, Toronto; let us
try to have a majority in this House for one moment and believe that we are as sincere as moral preachers and missionaries." We may fall on this question; but to those who listen to me I say that the defeat of the government may -be brought about by these gentlemen putting on masks and wearing the new appearance of moralists. Before, however, they achieve their purpose I will put up a defence showing that we are justified in saying that this subamendment should be adopted. The right hon. gentleman said that the government ought to be overturned. It is very easy for him to make that assertion, but let us briefly examine the facts.
Smuggling did not start in Canada with the advent of the Liberal party. When my right hon. friend was Prime Minister of Canada a great deal of smuggling was going on, and he knows that. When his colleague the hon. member for Vancouver Centre was a minister in his cabinet,-a great deal of smuggling was going on, and not far from his own home. Let those who wish to give us a moral lesson to-night, those who wish to ask this House to teach us public morality, -think for one moment of the situation as it existed, not only during the four months that the committee sat, but as it existed throughout the country at large for many years.
First, can any gentleman, reading the evidence as it was given before the committee, say that this government in 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924 and 1925 was in any way responsible through its legislation for the conditions which have increased smuggling in Canada?


Mr. BURY:: What about its administration?


Lucien Cannon: One moment. Can we say for instance that this government, no matter how far and wide we want to stretch 'our imagination, can be held responsible for the passing of the Volstead Act in the United States? That act was passed When -the Conservative party were in power. Are we responsible for the increase in the number of automobiles? Are we responsible for the improvement of roads so that communication is much easier now and smuggling therefore more extended?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Lucien Cannon: This is a consideration.
Hon. gentlemen on the other side seem to answer my argument by a laugh or a sneer. I am not addressing my remarks to those who wish to answer me in that way; I -am addressing them to members of the House who wish to reason out the situation and to give a de-

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Cannon
cision to the best Of their ability and good faith according to t'he facte. I am not appealing to partisans; I am not appealing to those who are wilding to vote against us no matt-eT what we may say; I am appealing to those who want to give justice in this matter.
What did this government do to prevent smuggling as much as possible before even the beginning of the investigating committee? First of all-and I am going to deal with this very briefly-we negotiated a treaty with the United States. Why did my right hon. friend not do so when he was in power if he is so keen on preventing smuggling? If these gentlemen are sincere in their new campaign of moral, uplift, why were they so derelict in their duty when they were in power and had authority to do something?


Arthur Meighen: Conditions were not so bad as to cause the United States government to appeal to us for a treaty.


Lucien Cannon: The answer of my right hon. friend must be compared with what a doctor once remarked. He said that he was satisfied the patient had lost only one leg and before he attended him he was waiting until he had lost both. Let us come to the legislation which was passed. What did we do? It cannot be denied that we had amendments passed to the Customs Act. Mr. Sparks has been mentioned very often in this debate. I have nothing to say against him, and I have very little to say in his favour, because opinion seems to be divided. There is no doubt however, that Mr. Sparks, as regards this investigation, represented certain commercial interests who wanted to have changes made in the existing legislation. Let these gentlemen examine the evidence either oral or documentary given by Mr. Sparks, and they will reach the conclusion that Mr. Sparks wanted two reforms: first, an increase in the penalties imposed for infractions of the Customs Act and, second, an increase in the preventive service of Canada. That is all he wanted.
We oan go through the whole of the evidence given before the committee and we can reach only one conclusion, namely, that before Mr. Sparks had anything to do with the right hon. gentleman in his campaign, when he was simply president of his commercial association and not at the same time a politician, he wanted only those two reforms. Whait did we do? It is easy for my right hon. friend, speaking with his usual facility, to try to get the minds of hon. gentlemen sitting in this House away from the

main object. He talked about different correspondence and conversations that Mr. Sparks might have had with him or with others. If we examine the evidence given by Mr. Sparks we shall find that these two are the only things he wanted. And he got them. This is something that must not be forgotten.
We amended the act last year, and what happened then? These hon.. gentlemen who are asking the majority of the House to put us out because, as they say, we are unworthy of the confidence of our fellow members, themselves opposed the amending legislation, some of them declaring that it was too drastic. I must say in fairness to my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) that he spoke in favour of the amendments, but we may surmise now the reason for his supporting them in view . of the disclosure he has made of his relations with Mr. Sparks. His support of the amending legislation might have been an anticipation of future developments.


Arthur Meighen: I speak pretty certainly from memory when I say that I had never met Mr. Sparks at the time that the amendments were introduced save at an Ottawa exhibition.


Lucien Cannon: I am sorry the right hon. gentleman wants to throw his friend overboard. I do not see why he should. But what about hon. gentlemen sitting around him? I have here extracts from Hansard which will show exactly what attitude hon. gentlemen opposite took when the legislation was being discussed. Those hon. gentlemen have changed that attitude since the report of the committee has come in, but it is interesting to know what their views were last year, two years ago, three years ago, now that their eyes are fixed upon the mirage of possible power. How did they act then? I would refer the House to the position taken by the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson), who opposed the bill on the ground that it was too drastic. He said that we should draw the line somewhere and that the minister should retain discretion. That was the attitude taken by that hon. gentleman when we were trying to amend the law to keep down smuggling.
Let us pass on to something else. When we voted money to meet the second demand of Mr. Sparks to increase the number of preventive officers in Canada, what did hon. gentlemen opposite do? In order to render absolutely useless the appropriation of $350,000 which was voted, they suggested that all officials be appointed by the Civil Service. Commission after examination. What would have been the result of that? It would have

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Cannon
meant that a list should be published throughout the country of officers who were Supposed to engage in secret service! That was what hon. gentlemen opposite wanted us to do; yet this year they are asking the House to put us out on the ground that we have been helping smugglers.
I go further. I am pleased to see the hon. member for Vancouver Centre here. The government made a third attempt to put down smuggling-and how? As has been explained in the House, one of the reasons why there is so much smuggling of liquor from Canada into the United States to-day is the facility with which liquor can be shipped either from the Pacific or from the Atlantic coast. Well, we introduced a law, Bill No. 43, to amend the Canada Temperance Act. Every hon. gentleman will remember that bill. It was intended to suppress the illegal export of liquor from British Columbia, Vancouver included. What happened in that case? Let any hon. gentleman consult Hansard. That bill passed this House, because naturally the leader of the opposition was too clever to have it defeated here. It got through this House but was murdered in the Senate. At whose request was it defeated in the other chamber? This party which to-night claims to engage in moral uplift, which is eager and keen, violently keen, to put. down smuggling or any other .unlawful practice, put up the former Minister of Customs, Doctor Reid, in the Senate to kill that bill.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman do two things? First of aid will he accept my word when I tell him that I never spoke to any senator nor did any senator speak to me? And secondly, will he give the objections to the bill urged by Liberal senators?


Lucien Cannon: My answer to the first question wild be brief. I will be more generous to the right hon. gentleman than he w*as to my leader this afternoon; I will take his word. His word is to the effect that he did not speak to any member of the Senate. Well, if he did not he failed in his duty as leader of his party. If the right hon. gentleman wishes us to go out of power in order to enable him to form an administration to prevent smuggling, and if he was as sincere last year as he wants us to believe he is this year, why then as leader of the Tory party did he not prevent the bill from being killed by Senator Benard, Senator Fisher, Senator Gillis, Senator Robertson, Senator Laird, Sir James Lougheed, Senator Mulholland, Senator Ross, Senator
Webster, Senator Sharpe, Senator White, Senator Willoughby and Senator Reid? Those senators killed that measure which was intended to put down smuggling.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Does the Solicitor General seriously suggest that it is the duty of members of this House, whether they support the government or the opposition, to lobby in the Senate with a view to influencing senators personally as to how they shall vote?


Lucien Cannon: The right hon. the leader of the opposition is not an ordinary member; he is the leader of a party.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: In this House, but not elsewhere.


Lucien Cannon: Well, the hon. gentleman
from St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) at the opening of the session expressed his loyalty to his leader, in answer to certain rumours to the contrary that had been spread.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I stand by every word I
said in this House.


Lucien Cannon: Yes, provided his leader
confines his leadership to the four walls of this room. My right hon. friend had his warning from Montreal: the moment he steps into the passage he is no longer the leader. In the Senate his own followers can kill any legislation, he can see it cast aside, and my friend from St. Lawrence-St. George will say: it is true there has been murder going on in the Senate, but my leader cannot be an accomplice because his leadership ends at the door of the Commons. It is ridiculous.
Now, Mr. Speaker, when the hon. member for Vancouver Centre made his charges on February 2 last I was absolutely startled. Every member of the government, even the most modest-that is myself-was guilty of having taken part in murders in Montreal. I remember him pointing his finger across the floor to the Minister of Justice, to myself and to the other French-Canadian ministers in the government as he accused us of having been accomplices through our misconduct in murders commTtted in the Back river at Montreal. He accused us of being the friends of dope peddlers, of public poisoners. Every crime contained in the criminal code, every offence that could have come to his mind at that time was hurled across the floor into the faces of ministers, who could not give an immediate answer because the charges were so exaggerated, so excessive in their nature and scope. The motive behind the words of the hon. gentleman was so obvious that we

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Cannon
said:	We will wait, we will give the hon.
gentleman every opportunity of proving his allegations before a committee, where he shall get freedom of access to every record in the Customs department, confidential and otherwise. I said confidential documents. What proves the honesty of this government-and I may say my personal opinion is that it is an exaggerated honesty-is that files were produced before that committee which could have been very easily withheld. If we had had anything to hide, if we had been criminals, the companions of murderers and poisoners, as the [DOT] hon. gentleman said, we would not have opened wide the door of the Customs department and laid before that committee every file, confidential and otherwise. Do you think for one moment, Mr. Speaker, that if we wanted to deceive the country at large, and the members of the committee in particular, the letter written by the member for Gloucester (Mr. Robichaud) would have been put before that committee? I am sure of one thing, that if the Minister of Customs had been my right hon. friend that letter would have remained in his pocket. We have had investigations before in this parliament. I recall when I was a member sitting on the opposite side, I asked on behalf of my constituents, on behalf of what I considered the sacred interests of this country, for information. When did I ever get it? Files disappeared, papers vanished.


Arthur Meighen: Nonsense.


Lucien Cannon: We never could have any enlightenment, any information or any particulars before the Public Accounts committee. The only fault with the Minister of Customs is that he is too honest to deal with his opponents.
Four months and a half my friend from Vancouver Centre has had to prove his allegations. To-night, on behalf of those who sit iround me, on behalf of the members of my Dwn family, I tell him: You have a duty to perform before this parliament and this country; perform it in a manly way, as you should; get up and say that what you have said against men who are just as honest as yourself you now find was not true. Four and a half months you have had with the documents put at your disposal by this government, we have given you every possible means of making your case, and having failed, you should stand up like a man and own it. You should admit that when you made those declarations-no doubt prompted by an excessive zeal for your party, by the hope of obtaining power which was then within yorr
TMr. Cannon.]
grasp-in a moment when your better judgment faltered, you insulted men who to-day are entitled to an apology from you.
The hon. member for Vancouver Centre now takes the credit for this investigation. His friends talk of him as the champion who has cleaned up this awful mess in the Customs department. What has he done? He has done only two things. First, putting on the mask that Mr. Sparks passed to him. he walked into that committee room and laid before the members the information that Duncan had already gathered. During those four and a half months the only thing he did of real advantage to this country was to keep the investigation from being general throughout Canada; he simply confined it to our province. In Montreal the searchlight was thrown in every corner; for weeks and for months everything was searched. But what did my hon. friend who led the investigation do with the sections of the country represented by his friends? What evidence did we have of what took place at Windsor? What evidence did we have of what took place in Vancouver or New Brunswick or Nova Scotia? Before I close on this point I will make an appeal to my fellow members. If we, the Liberal party, are the friends of the bootleggers how is it that we. were defeated wherever bootlegging goes on? '


An hon. MEMBER:: How about Lunenburg?


Lucien Cannon: Are you going to make a
speech? If not, keep quiet. Mr. Speaker, if we, the members of the Liberal party, have forgotten our duty to the public interest of Canada as alleged by our opponents; if we are the creatures, the slaves always in obedience to the smugglers of Canada, how is it that every Liberal was defeated around Windsor, where bootlegging is going on? How is it that in the Maritime provinces where, according to the hon. member for Kent (Mr. Doucet) bootlegging and smuggling flourish, we only returned one unfortunate member, the remainder being Tories?


Robert James Manion: Perhaps they hoped some members who would stop the smuggling would be elected.


Lucien Cannon: The hon. member for
Fort William (Mr. Manion) might have found some reason to convince him, because I think he wishes to be convinced, but it does not convince me.
Now, Mr. Speaker, before I go any further I wish to ask the hon. member for Vancouver Centre another question. It is not for me,

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Cannon
although many years of friendship and interest have united us, to say anything to condemn or to absolve the former Minister of Customs, Hon. Mr. Bureau. He has his own responsibilities as disclosed by the findings of the committee, and I am quite sure that he is capable of protecting
10 p.m. his own interests and will do so at the first opportunity. But to show that very often an honest man may be carried away by party spirit to do something he would afterwards regret, I heard with the greatest surprise the hon. member for Vancouver Centre make an assertion last night which will be found at page 4890 of Hansard, where the hon. gentleman used the following words:
The answer is a very simple and a very plain one- yes, very simple. The answer is this, that the Duncan report, to which my hon. friend refers, and upon which * he bases his question, was for a long time suppressed. Later on, on the insistence of certain members of the committee and the public press, it was finally read before the committee, but during the reading of that report and the evidence certain portions of it were deliberately suppressed and not read.
I have asked members of that committee sitting on this side of the House if it were true that one word, one sentence, one line of the Duncan report had been suppressed and the answer was no, that the report as made by Mr. Duncan was read before the committee and printed in the report whieh we have. As I say, I have no brief for anyone ; a public man may be attacked in his way of administering a department, but When it comes to attacking a former fellow member who is united to the hon. member for Vancouver Centre by a friendship of many years, and insinuating anything as to his private conduct by saying that the report is incomplete when it is complete, I say that unless the hon. gentleman withdraws that insinuation, as I hope he will, members of this House will listen with some hesitation to anything he might tell us later.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will my hon. friend
permit me?


Lucien Cannon: Certainly.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The hon. gentleman is quite correct in saying that that section of the report termed a report was printed, but he will note that. I refer to the report and the evidence. If he will read a few lines further down he will see that his colleague whom I interrupted and who kindly gave me the floor for a moment, also recognized the point by referring to the portion which was suppressed, which was a portion of the
evidence. The report consisted in toto of two reports, the exhibits and the evidence, all of which was laid on the table.


Lucien Cannon: The hon. gentleman said, and his words are here-


Henry Herbert Stevens: At least do me the
courtesy of reading them.


Lucien Cannon: I was startled, as I have already said, because as a rule the hon. gentleman uses other methods.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will my hon. friend please read the words?


Lucien Cannon: The hon. gentleman said:
But during the reading of that report-


Henry Herbert Stevens: "And the evidence."


Lucien Cannon: Yes.
-and the evidence certain portions of it were deliberately suppressed and not read.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will my hon. friend now do me the justice of reading what his colleague said in commenting on my action at the time?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It is at page 4890.


Lucien Cannon: I know, but I am saying that the hon. gentleman said that the Duncan report and the evidence attached to it had not been placed completely before the committee. That was his contention, and I am informed by every member of the committee on our side of the House that the report and the evidence were put completely in the report we have.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Will the hon. gentleman allow me a question?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: At page 4890 does not the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. Donaghy), who was on that committee, admit that a part was not published?


Dugald Donaghy: Read what I said.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I will certainly read it:
It is the hon. member's fault-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


Lucien Cannon: I say, therefore, Mr. Speaker, that it has been conclusively proved that this government has done more for the putting down of smuggling in the last two

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Cannon
years than any former government, and that my hon. friends opposite when they were in power did not do anything at all. So I conclude my argument as to the first point of the right hon. gentleman that the government as a whole should be held responsible, and 1 say that I do not believe the majority of the House will reach that conclusion.
Coming to the right hon. gentleman's second point, he says that the present Minister of Customs and Excise acted in such an extraordinary way in the Aziz case, and that he should not remain in this House five minutes longer. Let us examine this. I interrupted the right hon. gentleman when he was speaking by asking him to tell me if his contention, as the leader of a party and as a lawyer, was that the Minister of Customs and Excise had no authority to do what he did, and in both capacities my hon. friend replied that he had not. That is the attitude taken by the right hon. leader of the opposition, and I want every hon. member to remember it. The right hon. gentleman said that the Minister of Customs and Excise had no right to do what he did; having done what he did he committed such a terrible crime against justice and against everything that is sacred that we ought to put him out. Again I say let us examine this. First of all we have got to lay down the general principle,- and this is not to be forgotten in reaching a conclusion on this point-that customs offences up to the last amendments passed in 1925 were not criminal offences but simply penal offences. That is the principle my right hon. friend should not have lost sight of. Read the evidence given by Mr. Farrow, read the evidence given by Mr. Taylor, read the document placed in evidence by Mr. Gallagher, read the official opinion of the Deputy Minister of Justice, and you will come to the conclusion that the minister has a perfect right to interfere in such cases, and I will tell you why. Notwithstanding the usual positiveness of his assertions, the right hon. gentleman did not dare deny it when I asked him-laying some ground for the argument that I am making now-if it was not a fact that the Minister of Justice had power of remission. In all cases, penal, criminal and otherwise, the power of remission exists; nobody can deny that. The Minister of Justice can remit a fine, can remit imprisonment, can change a sentence; and a clear, striking example of this is the case a few days ago of Mr. Smith. The power of remission, if it is to be exercised with ordinary logic and sense, implies the power of suspen-

sion. If I have a right to remit imprisonment I must evidently examine the case; I cannot reach a decision unless I know what I can base my decision on. But while I am examining that case, while I am deciding whether the fine is to be paid, or the penalty imposed, or the imprisonment served; while I am deliberating and trying to form my judgment, the fine is paid, the penalty is imposed, the imprisonment is served, and the power of remission becomes absolutely purposeless, because the object of remission has disappeared and the sentence has been served or the penalty paid. Therefore I say that the power of remission implies the power of suspension. And here I join issue with my right hon. friend. In this case the right hon. gentleman has tried to impress the House with the idea that the Minister of Customs and Excise interfered in favour of Aziz when the judge had issued his warrant of commitment. He said:	"Why interfere with the judge when
sentence has been given?" First there was no warrant of commitment issued. Why did the right hon. gentleman speak as if there were one?


Arthur Meighen: It did not make a bit of difference.


Lucien Cannon: It made no difference?
That is where my right hon. friend shows he is not serious.


Arthur Meighen: Not a bit.


Lucien Cannon: The whole point lies right there and my right hon. friend knows ilt. That is why he did not represent the facts as they are.


Arthur Meighen: Talk sense.


Lucien Cannon: There was no warrant of
commitment issued.


Mr. LENNOX:: If there was no warrant of commitment issued, why was the telegram sent?


Lucien Cannon: I will come ito that in a minute. I am making my own argument. I say that when Mr. Boivin for the first time had any dealings with the Aziz case he did not prevent the execution of the sentence. Aziz was just as free as I am; there was no warrant issued against him. If you examine the sentence you will realize that the sentence was suspended at first-not through Mr. Robichaud, as the right hon. leader of the opposition tried to insinuate, butt through the magistrate himself; the magistrate suspended his sentence for six weeks. These are the facts. Not only was this man free, not only

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Cannon
was there no warrant issued against him- although my right hon. friend erroneously stated to the contrary-but the magistrate had said "My sentence is not going to be executed for six weeks".
It is all right to talk about the Moses Aziz case as if it were the most important case that ever took place in Canada, but we have got to reduce things to their proper proportions and examine the facts in their right light. Here was a man who had been arrested in New Brunswick. Why? I would like my hon. friends to follow me at this point. Not for smuggling, but for having in his possession goods upon which duty had not been paid or goods which had been smuggled. That was the offence. Is Aziz to be regarded as a professed murderer, or guilty of rape, as the hon. member seemed to insinuate? If Aziz is a murderer, how many people not far from this parliament could be found guilty of having in their possession goods imported into this province illegally? Let us have the same standard of justice for ourselves as for everybody else. Why should an hon. member on the floor of this House, appealing to the thousands of people who are listening to this debate and to the millions who to-morrow will read the debate, try to distort the facts in this case to such an extent as to make the people believe that Aziz is a gross criminal and an offender of the worst kind? He was no guiltier than many a man within my hearing. He was accused of having in his possession goods that had been brought into New Brunswick unlawfully. If he lived in Ottawa he would have been charged, perhaps, with bringing goods from Hull. These are the true facts. Let us judge this case as it should be judged and not be carried away by appeals such as have been made by the right hon. gentleman, who does not even know the facts.
I said the power of remission implied the power of suspension. I said, secondly, that there was no warrant of commitment issued against Moses Aziz when the minister took action, and I say, thirdly, that the offence of which he is accused is an offence of a minor character.


An hon. MEMBER:: Was the conviction
wrong?


Lucien Cannon: Certainly it was wrong;
instead of having a year he only had three months. Now, Mr. Speaker, the man was at liberty and there was no warrant; the minister was called upon to give a decision. Immediately we hear these new apostles of morality saying that the minister could not
obstruct that case, and that the moment he gave instructions he encroached upon the very basic principles of the administration of justice. Hon. members heard that statement a moment ago. Read the evidence and get the real facts; do not simply listen to speeches. What are the facts? Mr. Taylor was not appointed by the Liberal party. Mr. Farrow was not appointed by the Liberal party, and I wish hon. members of this House to remember that every official at the head of the Customs department, where things are supposed to be so rotten, was appointed by our opponents. If the system is vicious and its conditions are bad, that system was inherited from our predecessors.
Now I come to my last point. In 1925, on the demand and at the request of Mr. Sparks, notwithstanding the opposition from the other side in many quarters, we amended the law to provide that whenever .a man was found in possession of smuggled goods the value of which exceeds $200, he should be liable to one year's imprisonment. I should like hon. members to bear in mind that up to 1925 these offences were not punishable by imprisonment. Never, according to what Mr. Farrow said, for offences under the Customs Act was imprisonment .imposed. In 1925 we made a new departure; we said that when the smuggled goods exceeded in value the sum of $200, a term of one year's imprisonment would be imposed. What does Aziz say? I have examined the record carefully, and I tell hon. members that he says the goods are not worth $200, but the complaint says that he had in his possession goods to the value of $600. If he had goods of the value of $600, and the complaint mentioned that fact, then, contrary to what my hon. friend contended this afternoon, he came under the new law and not under the old act. My hon. friend should read the complaint, and he will not contradict me. He had these goods in his possession before the passing of the act. Here is another principle that any lawyer in this House will have to acknowledge-


Henry Herbert Stevens: I know that my hon.
friend is speaking with absolute sincerity, but he is overlooking one point and I will draw it to his attention. Under the amendment to the act, section 219, having in possession goods over the value of $200 becomes an indictable offence. That was the original complaint.


Lucien Cannon: I know all that.


Henry Herbert Stevens: But subsequently it was
changed to another section.

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Cannon


Lucien Cannon: I had that in mind all
right. I will deal with that. The original complaint was under the new law, and the goods had fallen into the possession of Aziz before the passing of the act. There is one principle of criminal justice that has to be observed in every country, namely, the nonretroactivity of a criminal statute. Even in civil law, when a new act is passed, we say that it is not to affect any interests or pending cases. In civil and in criminal matters are we going to send a man to jail for having committed an offence which did not exist in law when the offence was committed?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Oh, yes.


Lucien Cannon: My hon. friend says: "Oh, yes." I am not surprised. The only example to be found in history is the typical example given when the enemies of the Prime Minister of Charles I brought Lord Strafford before the House of Commons and he was then, under an attainder based upon a retroactive law, beheaded. But every historian'-and after my hon. friend has done with the Customs department, I would ask him to read English history on that point-has said that that was a crime and a worse crime than any that might have been committed by Strafford himself. If therefore he was brought under a new act, I say that there was the principle of non-retroactivity that should have guided the minister in his decision and, second, there was the question of revaluation. My right hon. friend said: There is nothing in that; the Premier of New Brunswick does not know what he is talking about. If the goods were worth $600, he might be condemned to jail under the new law; but if the goods were not worth $200, he could not be jailed. Therefore that man had an interest in knowing what the goods were worth. It is easy to talk about Mr. Robiehaud's letter.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. member say that if the goods were worth less than $200 the man could not be gaoled?


Lucien Cannon: According to the custom established before. If my right hon. friend would stay in the House all the time he would follow me better.


Arthur Meighen: Read the act.


Lucien Cannon: I am talking not about the act but about what exists in the department and what is in the evidence. I have no objection to being interrupted; but I would ask my hon. friends, if they interrupt me, please to remain in the House so that they will follow my argument.

It was vital to have a revaluation. Could that be refused? The answer to that is that there should be no intervention in the administration of justice. We heard that fifty times to-night. But let us examine the evidence. I have under my hand records of which I can give a list starting in 1914, 1915, 1916, and in every one of those cases there was an intervention by the minister according to the custom existing. Is the Aziz case the only one? Is it the only time that a minister has suspended a sentence? If my right hon. friend wants to form a proper opinion of the Aziz case, I ask him to read the Plamondon case, and I am going to explain it to him in a minute. It is in the evidence, and if hon. gentlemen want to find out what existed in the department, what was the custom, what were the rights of the minister when he was a Tory, they will find it there. My right hon. friend to-day says:	The minister
had no right to do that. It is easy for him to say that, but I am telling him that when his friends were in power they did it all the time.


Arthur Meighen: I will ask the hon. gentleman to produce from the evidence, outside of which he has no right to speak-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Arthur Meighen: That is what hon. gentlemen want. Come along with the evidence now.


Lucien Cannon: I knew beforehand the
usual generosity of my right hon. friend. He wants to tell me that I cannot talk outside of the record. I am not going to talk outside of the record. My right hon.. friend might be disappointed, but follow me in No. 50, of the minutes of evidence. Plamondon was a gentleman who lived in Quebec. One day the customs officials-not under the wicked Liberals, those who are unworthy of the confidence of the House but under a Tory regime, under those new angels who were in charge- arrested Plamondon.	.


Henry Herbert Stevens: What page?


Lucien Cannon: Page 2148. Plamondon is arrested, not for having $600 worth of liquor like Aziz. That was bad enough, but let us see what Plamondon had done:
I beg to enclose herewith-
That is the usual report.
-report 699 of three red copper stills and one galvanized tin still of the capacity of about thirty gallons, three lead worms, about 2,000 gallons wash, forty-five gallons' spirits, 1.7 U.P and a large quan-

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Cannon
tity o*f other articles as enumerated on seizure retport No. 699, excise form No. 4, executed on the 11th instant against Mr. Olivier Plamondon, jobber and manufacturer.


Mr. DUNNING:: What date?


Lucien Cannon: This is on the 12th August, 1920. I think my right hon. friend was Prime Minister then. This gentleman is arrested. Who were the lawyers at that time representing the department? A gentleman by the name of Sevigny who, I think, was a colleague of my right hon. friend, ceases to be the lawyer of the department and becomes the lawyer of Plamondon. Two other gentlemen are appointed to represent the department, namely, Moraud and Alleyn. The minister has no business with these things now that he is a Liberal, but when he was a Tory he was consulted in these matters. This is what the representatives of the department write to Ottawa about Plamondon:
We were informed this morning-
This is dated August 18, 1920.
-that Plamondon intended to plead guilty-
Please follow me.
-and as we feared that the magistrate might be too lenient towards the accused-
Dangerous man, no doubt about that.
-we took it upon ourselves to have the following complaint sworn to before the magistrate.
Please listen to this:
(a)	For manufacturing spirits illegally;
(b)	For having had in his possession spirits which he knew had been illegally manufactured;
(c)	For having had in his possession an empty barrel of spirits on which the marks have not been obliterated;
(d)	For having sold spirits which he knew had been illegally manufactured.
This is a dangerous man. The representatives of the department are so fearful that he may escape through the leniency of the judge that they decide to lay another complaint with four counts against him. Plamondon appears before the judge. He pleads guilty. The judge says "I will fine you $200 and in addition to that will sentence you to three months in gaol." Plamondon says, "If you sentence me to gaol I will plead not guilty"-the same thing as Aziz wanted to do. No one wants to go to gaol unless he has to. As crown prosecutor I am called in and the judge wishes to know whether I will accept a change of plea. As any lawyer would do, representing the crown with dignity, as the crown ought to be represented, I reply, "Let the Customs department take their own responsibility; they have their own lawyers. I will not be mixed up in this mess." The judge persists in the sentence and the minister through his officials intervenes. Talk about interfering with the administration of justice!


Arthur Meighen: Where does the minister come in?


Lucien Cannon: The minister is represented by his officials and his lawyers, and the lawyers of the department appear^before the judge and say, "You must not send that man to gaol." The judge says, "I have convicted him and have sentenced him to gaol." They insist, " Even so, he must not go."


Arthur Meighen: Read the evidence.


Lucien Cannon: Let the right hon. gentleman read the evidence himself. I am stating the facts.


Arthur Meighen: It is not in the evidence.


Lucien Cannon: I will not be interrupted.


Arthur Meighen: It is all imagination.


An hon. MEMBER:: They did what the lawyers are paid for doing.


Lucien Cannon: It depends on the kind of lawyers, and the lawyers of the department told the judge that he must change the sentence.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: Will the Solicitor General allow me to ask a question?


Lucien Cannon: Yes.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: Does he not know that very often the magistrate allows a man who has pleaded, to change his plea? Will he tell the House why the Department of Customs intervened? Was it to allow the defendant in this case to change his plea?


Lucien Cannon: The attorneys of the department appeared in court and said to the judge, "Although you have condemned this man he must not go to gaol."


Arthur Meighen: They did not.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: Will the Solicitor General-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: Will the Solicitor General-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Lucien Cannon: I will not allow hon.
gentlemen to interject remarks about matters in regard to which they know nothing.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: I asked the Solicitor General a courteous question, whether he would tell the House the ground on which the Department of Customs interfered. Was it-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Cannon


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: If the Solicitor General's
friends do not want to hear the question and do not want to have it answered, I have no desire to press it. But if the hon. gentleman is prepared to answer it I will put the question. -


Lucien Cannon: What is the question?


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: I want the Solicitor General, if he will be good enough, to inform the House on what grounds the solicitors of the Department of Customs intervened in this case. Was it to allow the accused to change hie plea?


Lucien Cannon: Not at all. They intervened in order to prevent the man from going to gaol.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: You are not answering the
question.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Lucien Cannon: That interference with the administration of justice occurred under the premiership of my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen). Now if we are to be put out of office let us at least be replaced 'by people who have not sinned in a worse way than we have. Under the right hon. gentleman's premiership the Plamondon case was tried, if I mistake not, and there was submitted to the judge from the Justice department an opinion which is unbelievable.


Arthur Meighen: Read it.


An hon. MEMBER:: Let the hon. member read it.


Lucien Cannon: They brought to the judge an opinion to the effect that the words "fine and imprisonment" in the Customs Act should be interpreted "fine or imprisonment".


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: Are you afraid to read the
evidence?


Arthur Meighen: Read it.


Lucien Cannon: I am making this point to show that when hon. gentlemen opposite talk about interfering with the administration of justice they are simply trying to make fun of us. Are we to confide the administration of justice to these same gentlemen? The judge persisted in his sentence and the department gave instructions to their attorneys-mark you, the man was defended by the Hon. Mr. Sevigny-not to oppose any appeal; and to keep the sentence from being executed an appeal was launched. While that appeal was pending the Governor General, through the government in the ordinary way, pardoned

the accused so that he never went to jail. Is that interfering with the administration of justice? Remission of sentence was granted in that case by means of pardon.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will the Solicitor General permit a question? Is it not true that the accused in this case turned king's evidence, and three or five others were convicted?
M'r. CANNON: I was waiting for this, I was hoping it was coming. Now I have got my friend where I want him.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Go ahead.


Lucien Cannon: In the Aziz case there is a report from officer Stewart that Aziz turned crown evidence. My right hon. friend says: Oh, crown evidence, piffle; don't listen to that, it is stupid. Let me tell hon. members what happened in the Plamondon case. That gentleman did not go to gaol, although the judge had sentenced him; he was relieved of that painful necessity by the representatives of the department.


Arthur Meighen: No.


An hon. MEMBER:: Through a pardon.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes.


Lucien Cannon: The reason they gave was that he turned crown evidence-crown evidence on his own self; he pleaded guilty. Moreover, if you examine the record you will find that this department, administered under the leadership of the right hon. gentleman when he was at the head of affairs- he who to-night has such great respect for justice, who is so indignant and scandalized -had three unfortunate men, who had been hired by that scoundrel Plamondon, sent to jail in order to give to the department a pretext to say that he turned crown evidence. These were poor, unfortunate carters, who had been his hired men, poor fellows who did not have any influence-their lawyer had been no former minister-and to gaol they went without any leniency. And do you know that this government in 1920, under the leadership of this model of morality-


Hewitt Bostock: Order. No hon. gentleman can refer to another hon. gentleman without using the word honourable.


Lucien Cannon: Certainly I said it, and if I did not I should have. I say that in the Plamondon case, if you examine the record you get an exact idea of the moral standard of our gentlemanly opponents when they are in power. After having sent these

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Cannon
poor unfortunates to gaol, they paid Plamon-don his share as an informer against his own self, and it was with the money he received as such informer that he paid the fine that had been imposed against himself. As if the Aziz case, Mr. Speaker, was an isolated case! My hon. friend knew what I was leading to a minute ago, when, getting up, he recalled the rules of the House by telling me I could not go outside the evidence as printed in the report. I have records here, and he is welcome to read them. Hon. gentlemen who wish to form an unbiased and honest judgment by perusing these records- and they are only a few-will find that the custom of suspending sentences and of remitting fines has always existed, and that Mr. Boivin never did anything else but what all his predecessors have done. If hon. gentlemen of the opposite side wanted to mete the same amount of justice to the Minister of Customs as should be given to every member of this House, they would admit that in doing what he did in the Aziz case, while it may have been a mistake, yet he only exercised his judgment within his ministerial authority and according to the custom established for many long years by his predecessors. Are we going to overturn and throw out a government on the Aziz case? Are we going to turn over the reins of power to the gentlemen who manoeuvred the Plamon-don case?	I have here another record-I
will pass it to my right hon. friend if he wants it

which discloses that at the request of a former minister in his government, the Minister of Customs at the time, 1916, did worse as to suspending sentences and remitting fines than Mr. Boivin ever did, in this petty Aziz matter.
Are we as judges in this House to say to Mr. Boivin, who is a young man at the dawn of his career: We will waste your talents, we will stop your ascending march in public life, we will ruin your future, we will cast a shadow of suspicion not only upon yourself but upon those wrho are around you and the members of your family, because at the opening of your administration, confiding in the advice of the old officials who had been there for forty years -officials who told him that the custom was, as I have explained, that ministers always had done what they were asked to do-you did what your predecessors had done, and because the Conservative party are hungry for power, because they are thirsty and wish once more to drink at the well of government, listening to their howls, we will refuse to pay heed to the call of common, ordinary justice, and we will break your career-the
career of one of the most brilliant young men in this House? It can be done; this parliament has full authority, but coming to my last argument I say this. The government is not responsible for any wrongdoing; Mr. Boivin may have made a mistake, but he simply acted on the advice of his officials and according to customs long established in his department.
Finally, who is going to judge this case; who are going to be our judges; who in this House has the right to decide whether the Minister of Customs was right or wrong? I said that I did not wish to resort to personalities, and I will not do so. My friends opposite need not be afraid; I will name no names, but the records of many scandals are strewn on the banks of the Ottawa river; we can see them on the other side. As crown prosecutor in the province of Quebec, when a man stood in the dock with his liberty and sometimes his life in jeopardy, in justice not only to society which I represented but also to the accused whose interest I had in hand, I made it a sacred duty that no man should sit on the jury who did not have the moral qualifications to do so. I hear that this division is going to be close; I hope not, because the issue is so clear. But if it is to be close I give fair warning that we are not going to be given a certificate of moral turpitude by some gentlemen on -the other side.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I have done. The task was a rather tiring one at this late hour and especially so in answering my right hon. friend, who is a very able lawyer. But I did it in justice to my colleague, for whose talent I have great admiration and in whose integrity I have great confidence; I did it thinking of our leader, whose spirit of true Canadianism he has voiced many times in this House. I may say very frankly that notwithstanding the warm personal friendship and admiration I have for the leader of the Tory party I did it because I thought it was a sacred obligation on my part to prevent, if possible, repetition of his administration; I did it because, after six months of hard work against all the obstacles and difficulties imagination could put across our path, we have succeeded in writing in the 11 p.m. statute books of Canada some liberal, progressive legislation. I want if possible, Sir, to see that our efforts do not remain without result after all this work; we should at least have the reward of seeing the legislation for which we have fought triumph in the end and not be annulled through this very indirect way adopted by the opposition of killing Liberal principles and having Tory principles triumph.
4998	COMMONS
Customs Inquiry-Mr. Boutillier
I hope the vote on this question will allow us to continue on the road we have started, so that next year we will be able to do more than we did this year. This is my last word. As to this new court of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, those who valiantly and with great courage always fight for noble causes-Lancelot from Winnipeg; Galahad from New Brunswick-1 leave these knights in their armour and say to them that you may don your new shining armour of virtue, but unfortunately that armour does not fit; we see through it.


Mr. A. M. BOUTILLIER (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, when I rose to address this House for the first time some days ago I neglected the courtesy due Your Honour, and at this late moment I wish to express my regret and to make amends; I desire to convey to you, Sir, expressions of my highest respect and esteem.
After listening to the learned exposition by very able members of this House it is somewhat presumptuous for me to ask hon. gentlemen to listen to any remarks I may have to make. I rise with a deep sense of responsibility; I may or may not make another address in this House, but I shall be ever grateful to the electors of the constituency of Vergreville for the privilege of being present on this important occasion and having the opportunity of presenting my views.
In speaking on this matter all personal feeling is absolutely divorced; I wish to assure the House on that point. I have received very courteous treatment from the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), as well as from every member of his cabinet, and I appreciate that extremely.
In looking over the columns of this morning's Citizen, I find these words as part of an editorial :
The Woodsworth amendment should have the support of every free member in the House.
Well, Mr. Speaker, I am a free member but I am not prepared to support the amendment in its present form. I understand that the principle of the subamendment as proposed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. WoodSworth) has been accepted by the right hon. leader of the opposition. If I am not right I wish to be corrected.


Arthur Meighen: Quite right.


Arthur Moren Boutillier: Well, if the hon.
member for Winnipeg North Centre is sincere, I presume he will allow his subamendment to be incorporated into the amendment as presented to the House, and I am sure it will

facilitate matters; it will show a sincerity on his part that will be entirely admirable. I for one want that judicial inquiry, and the introduction of that part of the subamendment into the amendment will, I am sure, make for a more efficient inquiry and be more satisfactory to all concerned. As I said before, I am perfectly free"-perfectly free to pronounce on the issue before the House. And I am proud of the fact that I am free. It would be a great deal easier for me to give the matter no thought but let somebody else do my thinking, and to make my decision and to vote with the crowd1 or with the majority. But I would not be true or faithful to the electors of my constituency if I followed that course. If being free is merely to get up in this House and declare that a public department has been debauched'; that certain political conduct is inexcusable; that the lives of men and women have been ruined; that the people of Canada have been plundered of large sums of money; that certain evidence respecting the conduct of an ex-minister of the crown was so indecent that the Customs inquiry committee had to leave it out of the records; that the man to wlfom these remarks apply, had, in order to reform the Senate, been rewarded' and elevated to that august chamber as a shining example to the youth of our land and as in indication of what they might expect in the way of gifts from this government as long as they served it faithfully-if to rise in my place and merely express my disapproval and hold no one in a position of trust responsible, if that is to be free, if that is my duty, then, Mr. Speaker, I misunderstand very largely the meaning of the word. It is nothing to the taxpayers of this country that the treasury of Canada has been defrauded of large sums of money? Canada has been suffering from a heavy burden of taxation which might have been relieved easily had the administration of the Department of Customs been honest and effective, and had not a man sworn to guard the interests of the people of this country disregarded his solemn oath of office. I consider, Mr. Speaker, that the moral welfare of this country transcends every other issue; compared with it other issues fade into insignificance. Since 1921 I have been combating political immorality of the blackest type. Such disgraceful occurrences as took place in the constituencies of Athabasca and Peace River are not unknown in the district of Vegreville. I will not weary the House with details, but court records and newspaper clippings and files can be produced to verify my statement.

My experiences in this regard have been most interesting.
In 1921 I found myself in the ranks of the United Farmers of Alberta, a band of men and women pledged to bring about better economic conditions in Canada and to work for higher standards in public life and higher standards of citizenship. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that there is now a concrete opportunity to put these tenets or principles into effect, and to strike a real blow for Canada and all who reside within her borders.
I fully agree with all that has been said as to the thanks of the whole country being, due to the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) for his splendid efforts, and to the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Kennedy) and other members of the committee who so ably assisted him. No one can come to any other conclusion, after reading the evidence, even with much of the famous Duncan reported omitted, but that a most serious and disgraceful state of affairs exists as it affects our public life. In that regard may I be allowed to read a short extract from the Toronto Globe of June 19? This is but a small portion of that editorial, Mr. Speaker, but it refers to the report brought in by the Customs inquiry committee:
The country will be fortunate if it ifa not termed departmental culpability with governmental connivance. The committee is generously lenient in attributing the conditions which have [prevailed to slow degeneracy in efficiency accumulated over a number of years. It may be so, but the evidence points with damning clarity to disregard of official responsibility on so many occasions that the deipartment is made to appear too often as little less than a clearing-house for political adventure and personal ambitions.
It seems, Mr. Speaker, that the time has come when our parliamentary standards should be raised, and those w7ho are sent here for that purpose would be derelict in their duty if they did not do everything in their power to contribute to that result. I used a very unfortunate word some time ago; it is a word I do not like to use, but it happened to come into this matter, and that was the word " indecent ". I found that word on the pages of Hansard and it refers to the Duncan report. In this connection, may I quote a dialogue which occurred yesterday between the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. Donaghy and the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens):
Mr. Donaghy: It is [printed in this book.
Mr. Stevens: In part only.
Mr. Donaghy: It is the hon. member's fault as well as anybody else's if the dirty part is not in it.
Mr. Stevens: It was unanimously agreed by the committee to omit it. Put it all on the table.
Mr. Donaghy: I am quite agreeable to that. It was through no desire on my part that any part of it was not put on the table.
Customs Inquiry-Mr. Boutillier
Mr. Stevens: The hon. member consented to its suppression.
Mr. Donaghy: As my hon. friend knows, the part that was omitted has nothing to do with the stealing and destruction of nine government files. It relates to some matter of an indecent nature, unconnected with those files.
It seems to me it is very unfortunate that such a word should be used in connection with any public servant of this country.
Now every phase of this matter has been referred1 to very fully, and I just wish to touch on one matter that is quite interesting to me, namely, the bootlegging of liquor and its allied activities. This traffic, along with its allied activity, must have material to feed upon. There must be a place to go to get recruits to repair the wastage or to replace those whom they destroy. May I ask where these recruits come from? Are they not supplied from the ranks of such fine lads as we have around this chamber, from upstanding young men like those who made such a splendid1 display before this House a few days ago. The youth of Canada, the finest asset which the country possesses, are the fodder needed for the capacious maw of this monster. This traffic-and now we speak of it in a larger sense-does everything it can to drag our young men, aye even our young women, into its net. It would soon cease to exist if these came not forward to pay toll.
Should we not, Mr. Speaker, do everything in our power to protect the young people of this country, the next generation of Canadians? The evidence does not indicate that this administration gave a thought to our young people. In time of war we call upon our young men to go forward and fight for those who are at home, the children and the older men and women of the nation. This they willingly do. Is it then not meet and proper that we of this country with age and experience should in time of peace contend as valiantly as those who go forth to fight our battle, to protect our boys and girls at home from influences that are so terribly dangerous? Is not this serpent, this traffic, rearing it slimy head in this country in a most menacing way? Does it not strike at the heart of our country? Is it not gnawing at the vitals of parliamentary institutions? Has it not brought disrepute upon one of our greatest governmental departments? What are we going to do? Stand idly by and do nothing, or are we at this time by our action to give notice to smugglers and bootleggers that Canada will be an unpleasant place for them to live in? This enemy is not in Europe; it is here. Many of our best



Customs Inquiry-Mr. Boutillier
fall by the wayside. Some are rescued and restored, while others miserably fail.
I would that I had the eloquence of many hon. members so that I might place this matter properly before this honourable body, that I might do it justice, that 1 might plead forcefully in behalf of those who suffer from this traffic. The bootlegger deserves the utter contempt of every law-abiding citizen. He treats laws enacted iby this honourable body with utter disregard. In other words, he is a law breaker of the vilest kind and a wretched example to all with whom he comes in contact. Apparently he has no conscience, or, if he has, it is skilfully concealed. He not infrequently causes death and disaster with the poison he peddles. Follow him and what do we find? Broken hearts, the tears and sighs of mothers, wives and sweethearts, ruined homes, disease, separations and sorrows of all kinds. He is associated in his villainous work with smuggling dope smuggling included, burglary, gambling, perjury and bribery, in fact every form of dissipation and evil. Let me say here that statistics collected by our various health departments indicate that ninety per cent of new cases of our most terrible social evil are traced directly to alcoholic stimulants. It is believed that many of these cases can be traced to the activities of the bootlegger. He respects not hi3 neighbour, his mother, his wife, his sweetheart or his child. The children of his neighbour are not secure. They are nothing to him. He is responsible directly or indirectly, through his product, for blindness and deformity in many of our Canadian children, with all the suffering and heartache that these involve. He has no patriotism. He thinks only of himself. To add to his ill-gotten gains he would ruin his native land and those who inhabit it. He has no regard for body or soul; he is just as ready to destroy the soul as the body. He apparently pays no respect to those solemn words and I repeat them with all reverence, Mr. Speaker:
What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Does a being such as I have described deserve much consideration at the hands of hon. members in this House? Is any treatment too severe for him? What then shall we think of those who, either directly or indirectly, have countenanced or protected such enemies of our country? How would hon. gentlemen feel if this influence touched their homes? What then of the homes of others? Shall we not remember them at this time? I ask hon. members to pause-to stop, look and listen.

Reference has been made to the ex-Minister of Customs, the Hon. Jacques Bureau, under whose administration the bootlegger and smuggler flourished like green bay trees, who was culpable of gross negligence and responsible for the loss of much money to this country. Yet this man is taken into the bosom of the Prime Minister of this Dominion and protected by him by an appointment to the Senate, the haven of refuge. Is there no sense of responsibility, Mr. Speaker? At the opening of each day's session, Sir, you most reverently repeat certain beautiful petitions. In one of these you ask-I say it with reverence-our Creator, "That peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety be established among us for all generations." It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that the conduct of this administration as revealed has not helped greatly to contribute to the consummation of these desires. Where is the peace and happiness, in the homes of those invaded by this nefarious traffic? Where is the truth and justice in permitting a man, unworthy, to be elevated to the highest chamber in this country? If there is little regard for the peace and happiness of so many Canadian homes, and if there is so little regard for truth and justice, are religion and piety likely to abound?
There is nothing personal in this, Mr. Speaker. It is away and beyond a personal matter. I am here as an elector of the province of Alberta as representative for the district of Vegreville, and a servant of the people of Canada. I speak on behalf of our Canadian boys and girls, and I ask most respectfully that this parliament see that every action is taken to protect them from the evils that have been brought to light. If I have been sent here by the electors of Vegreville to apologize or make excuses for, or to attempt in any way to whitewash, the political transgressions of hon. members of this House, either singly or collectively, no matter, Mr. Speaker, upon which side of the House they sit, or to what party they belong, I mistake my mission. I do not believe it is my duty to do so, or that my electors expect it of me.
I believe that this administration has not not been careful in important matters affecting the moral and material welfare of this country; that this administration is entirely responsible for negligence in not taking steps of a sufficiently active nature to prevent bootlegging, to prevent recurring infractions of the law, and for appointments to high office of unworthy persons. For these reasons I cannot support the subamendment except under the condition under which the leader of the opposition would accept its purport.

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill


Mr. A. W. NEILL (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, we are supposed to be discussing the report of a committee appointed to investigate conditions in the customs. We have not been discussing that report for the greater part of the time; we have drifted off into a discussion of an amendment calculated to give a political aspect and slant to the whole discussion and incidentally to the whole report. This illustrates the initial mistake we made in entering into this matter when we confided the investigation to a political body and consequently a partisan body, because a political body will sooner or later make a political report.
I decry in no way the sterling services rendered by these hon. gentlemen. They have given intensely of their time and energy. I would not have pretended to do it; I do not think it is fair and right that they should have been asked to do it. But the work would have been as well done by a commissioner with the assistance of the very able counsel that was engaged and hon. members would have been free to attend to their parliamentary duties. Further, when the report was brought down it would have been considered entirely on its merits and not have had a political bias imparted to it.
The amendment immediately gives it a political slant by moving a vote of want of confidence in the government and more particularly in the minister at the head of the department. We then have the subamendment moved by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) last night. I wish to compliment him upon the very able manner in which he handled the subject. I thought he put the debate on a higher plane than it had yet reached. I was particularly grateful to him for the lucid way in which he brushed aside the superfluities, the details, that appear only on the top and got down to the essentials and to a discussion of those principles which should really govern members voting on this question to-night.
There was in his subamendment one point with which I do not entirely agree and that is the suggestion to put the deputy minister in the class of those who ought to be more severely dealt with. I know nothing about the gentleman myself and I have no brief for him at all. It is for that very reason that I hesitate to support a condemnation of him so-to-speak unheard. I know this committee of nine men have gone thoroughly into the subject and I rather hesitate, without any further evidence than that which the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre furnished last night, practically to reverse that decision as regards this one man. Otherwise I am in full accord with the sentiments expressed in the subamendment.
I would like briefly to refer to the report.-Section 13 claims that six men whose names1 are given should be dismissed. I was going to say that it shows there are six crooks in the service, but that is too strong a word. The language used in the report is only that they have been delinquent in their duties, and it may well be that there is no great censure attached to some of these men. They may have been incompetent, careless or inattentive; but for that they have to suffer because perhaps they have allowed smarter crooks on the outside of the service to take advantage of their laxity of duty. In that way they are not so much to blame as those who operated outside of the service. I am glad to think that this long investigation has so far resulted in pointing the finger at only six men in the service. It is rather a good record for the service which consists of thousands of men, men of good character and working under great temptation as we all know. I presume, although the fact has not been emblazoned abroad, that these gentlemen whose discharge is recommended, are not appointees of the present government. It is reasonable to suppose from their positions that they have been some years in the service and have therefore been appointed by hon. gentlemen opposite.
The report makes various recommendations, all of which I may say have been given very little heed to in this discussion on account of the political slant which it has taken, but all of which are good and have been arrived at unanimously. Nearly all of them deal with recommendations looking to a better enforcement of the liquor regulations, more particularly as regards the exportation of liquor to the United States, a condition that as we all know has enormously increased since the United States went dry and the temptation of bootlegging into the United States was greatly increased. That of course is what you might call a new crime or series of crimes, and therefore possibly the machinery adopted in years gone by has proved inadequate to cope with the growing increase of crime in that regard. That in some measure explains the failure of the department at the present moment.
I should like to deal briefly with the political aspect of the amendment which is entirely political	and	designed of course tooverthrow the government. On the amendment will depend the fate of the government of the day. I would like to address myself	more	particularly to the Progressive members in this House; they are the jury in this case and the full responsibility lies upon them. It has lain upon them throughout the whole session so I am not
Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill
saying anything more than what we all know; nor am I in making my remarks to them putting myself into the position of dictating to them in any sense at all because, with the other minor groups in the House, we must share the responsibility of having kept this government in office for the last six months.
If I might for a very few minutes turn aside, I should like to imitate the example of the hon. member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges (Mr! Wilson) who speaking a few weeks ago, hinted that he might retire from the House. I wish to take the same attitude and to say that possibly this is my last public appearance, and to take the opportunity of expressing to my fellow members my appreciation of the courtesy and kindness which I have invariably received at their hands. It has been my fortune or ill-fortune to go into politics on two occasions when times were in a condition, shall I say, of extreme flux. When I entered local politics in British Columbia conditions were even more chaotic than they have proved to be here. After I had run three elections in five years I decided that politics was no game for a poor man. If the government is defeated to-night there is no doubt that an election will be held, if not this fall, certainly before another House is called together.
Possibly suggestions have been	out,
possibly even promises have been made that if the government is overthrown there will be no need for another election; that the House could carry on for another session or more. Anyone credulous enough to believe that deserves to be pitied. I am as certain if the government suffers a defeat to-night that an-election will take place before we meet again, as I know it is impossible to stop the sun from rising to-morrow morning. In that case I will retire from politics because running an election in my constituency is a heavy and arduous task, involving three months of very hard campaigning. In addition to the duties of being here and the necessity for looking after the district at home, if one is to have the physical, not to say the financial, strain of a campaign every year, then I for one have no particular desire to undertake such burdens in the future, more especially as, being independent of party funds, my financing is a matter entirely for myself. So much for the personal aspect, and I will not allude to the matter again.
Now the issue to-night we must face squarely, so far as the groups at the lower end of the House are concerned. We are being asked to vote a Liberal government out of power and put in the Conservative party- and, by the way, I notice that the hon.

gentlemen now in power are referred to exclusively as the Liberal party. We are told to turn the Liberal rascals out; that is the cry. A few days ago, however, it was not the Liberal party; that party was not functioning, for the government was said to be dominated by the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke). Just a few short days ago the party in power was the ProgressiveJLabour-Liberal party with the Liberal very much in the background. Now, however, these other groups are forgiyen their sins and if we vote the right way we are to be taken into the Conservative paradise, or, at least, be given the privilege of turning out the Liberal party.
Now I will ask one important question which cannot be put more opportunely than here and now. In return for voting the Liberal party out-and I am speaking generally for these groups at the lower end of the chamber -what is there in it for us? What shall it profit us if we defeat the government? This is the proper time and this is the proper place to ask that question. This is the highest court of the land, as we have frequently heard, and here the greatest publicity is possible. I am a firm believer in publicity; anything that cannot be told on the platform had better not be told at all. I repeat the question, therefore: If we turn the government out what shall we get in return? By that I mean, what benefit will accrue to the people whom we represent? I am not of course speaking of any individual advantage. That is the question I want to discuss for a few minutes.
We have reached in this debate the occasion which comes up about once a month when a vote of want of confidence is moved, when the Conservative party turn their eyes once more longingly towards the lower end of the House. Hon. gentlemen opposite listen to our speeches and hear us with courtesy and attention while the expectation and the hope exist that we may lend our assistance to have them regain the treasury benches through a vote against the government. So far, however, it has been our experience that after a vote has been taken and the government has been sustained in power a change has come over the spirit of the dream; the flag of truce comes down with a run, and hon. gentlemen opposite have not hesitated, indeed they have been quite frank, to express in no measured terms the contempt they entertain not only for ourselves but, as well, for our principles and all who belong to our parties. I have been wondering to-night, in the event of hon. gentlemen opposite climbing into office on our shoulders, whether-or rather I should

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill
say, how soon, for there is no doubt as to what would happen-how soon, I say, the same conditions would again prevail. I recall once in the local house of British Columbia three socialists had kept the Conservative government in power for a whole parliamentary term. Now, I never heard any suggestion that it was scandalous for these socialists to maintain that government on the treasury benches. There was no talk about any unholy alliance. It was all right because the socialists were supporting a Conservative government. In return for the support they gave that government, possibly as is the case in this parliament, those socialists got certain concessions in the shape of labour reforms, which were enacted. But time went on, and as the result of an election the Conservative party came back with a majority so large as to make them independent of the socialists, who were returned in the same numbers as before. I remember hearing the leader of that Socialist party, an able man now in a prominent position in British Columbia, saying in his soft Welsh voice, "Yes, Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentlemen opposite when in power during the last parliament used to throw bouquets at us. They still throw bouquets at us, but there is a brick concealed in them." In other words, having kept the Conservative party in power for four years, these socialists, after the Conservatives had been returned by a clear majority, were ignored as utterly as they had ever been. Possibly there is a lesson there for us too.
There is some advantage in having been in local politics in times of chaos. The occurrences in the local House are to my mind a moving picture of what has been going on here; I have recognized every phase as it has come up from time to time. I recall an incident which made quite an impression on my mind. An hon. member got up in the local House on one occasion and disavowed his .party. He was a Liberal and he expressed his intention thenceforward of supporting the Conservative government of the day. Now I have no fault to find with any man who takes that stand, for it requires strength of character in a man to take up a position against his party. He must be animated by a strong conviction and sense of duty. In this particular case however it was not so; this man's abandonment of his party was prompted by petty motives of a very trivial nature. But, as I remember, the Conservatives in the House and the newspaper the next day, proclaimed the bold step he had taken. Great headlines in the
press, three inches deep, described him as the saviour of the country, another Daniel come to judgment, a brand plucked from the burning. He was everything that was good and great and intelligent and holy. It is many years ago but I remember saying to my wife at the time, " This man has committed suicide; now watch his finish." Time passed and an election came around. He had been carried along on a wave of popular enthusiasm for his heroism on going back on his party. He had been promised that all he had to do was to show himiself at the convention and he would get the Conservative nomination. Well, he was received with the glad hand; there was still a good deal of adulation for his bold independence. He was proposed for the nomination and just as a matter of form he was asked if he had any objection to going before an open convention; and as he could not logically object he agreed. The vote was something like four for him to eighty-four for his competitor. However, he had been treated with the greatest courtesy and he got what was coming to him. I am not saying that he was wrong in changing his party if he had been animated by proper motives, but he was not. The point I make is that all is not gold that glitters.
So in this case we must answer this question: If we put hon. gentlemen opposite into office, when the shoutings die down, when the cheering is over, when the kings and princes of the Conservative	party are
safely installed on the treasury benches,, what will be left for us? We of course can go home; .there will be no bands for us, no acclamation, no $14,000 positions.. I say we can go home, and when we do go home the first person who will meet us will be old Bill Smith. He may have one name in one member's constituency and a different name in another's, but he is the typical voter. Bill Smith we will call him for convenience sake. While our ears are still filled with the applause that will follow our turning the government out, while there is still lingering around us like a halo the eloquence of hon. gentlemen opposite for turning the government out and putting them in, Bill Smith will shift his chew of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other and will say to us, "You say you have turned those rascals out. What did you turn them out for?" "Have you not heard? Why, we turned them out because 'of corruption in the Customs department which was proved to be directly connected with the Minister of Customs (Mr. Boivin). Here is his record.

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill
He postponed a man's gaol sentence for several months and we turned him out." Bill Smith will take another chew and he will say, "Yes, I see you turned those rascals out but whom did you put in?" Why, we will say, "We have put in the Conservative party. They will start with a clean sheet." Bill Smith will then want to know whether the Conservative party too have not a record. And then is when we shall begin scratching our heads!
Now, Bill Smith is not the man he used to be. He is not a Liberal or a Conservative because his grandfather was a Liberal or a Conservative; he is becoming more intelligent; he is taking a keener interest in politics although from a different angle. He is no longer interested merely in hearing of the success of this or that party; he is taking a keen interest in his own interest. In other words he is becoming class conscious and he wants to know what there is in any form of government for him. He is keeping a sharp eye on changes at Ottawa affecting the interests of his class. Presently he will want to know about the new party that we put in-[DOT] if we put them in^- "W'hat about their policies?" For we must not forget that many of the policies of the Conservative party are diametrically opposed to those which we in these groups in the lower part of the House were elected to support when we came here. He will want to know what we have done about that. He is apt to ask us: "Well, in this Change have you advanced in any way the principles, the policies and the interests of the people who sent you there?" "If not, why not?" That is the question we have got to ask ourselves, and perchance, Mr. Speaker, it would be well if we ask ourselves that question now, and have the answer ready before we go home. Therefore before we do the spider and the fly act and walk into the parlour of our friends opposite, let us atsk ourselves: Is it a question of putting purity into politics, or of putting politics into purity? Or, to put it another way: Are we being asked merely to be the stepping stones, the toote, we might say, of an adroit office-seeking body of men in this House? I was very much struck by an hon. gentleman's naivete. He does not generally display any, .but in talking of something that happened in the Customs committee he said: Of course, the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Kennedy) gave the deciding vote. He took it for granted as a foregone conclusion that as there were four Conservatives and four Liberals on the committee the casting vote must fall upon the other man, it not being nossible in his con-
ception of political life that even in that Customs committee the Liberals or the Conservatives would be voting other than against each other. I suggest, then, we should ask ourselves, as we wall be asked by our constituents: Well, what guarantees have we got to justify a change of government? I use the word " guarantees " rather than the word promises. Promises can be written in sand, Mr. Speaker. As Tennyson says:
Like the snowfall in the river,
A moment white, then gone forever.


Mr. FORKE:: I will not allow that from a Scotchman.


Alan Webster Neill: Well, it has been my experience through life that all great poetry originated with Bums, but my modesty forbids me proclaiming it. We want guarantees, not promises. When the party opposite, whose policies in many cases are diametrically antagonistic to our own, get into power what guarantee do we have that they will carry out such legislation as we desire or as we were elected to support? We do not want to be in the position of France at Versailles. Her one ambition was not to get promises from Germany. She had pages and pages of them, and France had had a bitter experience of their inefficacy. What she asked for, what she schemed for, and what she prayed for, was a guarantee. She asked Britain: Will you guarantee all these promises made by Germany? Britain did not care to do it. She then tried the United States, and if she could have got the United States and Britain to guarantee her security she would not have worried the least bit about Germany's promises. When Mahomet and the mountain come together, we want to know which will show up the- bigger in the picture. When the lion and the lamb lie down together, we want to know which is going to get the better meal. These things we want to know before we go too far.
I think I am justified in saying that the amendment will convert the report practically into a political report. Now, by the shrewdly drawn amendment, the whole blame is fixed on the hon. Minister of Customs. The hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. Donaghy) the other night drew my attention to the question and in some measure went into it, so I need not deal with it at length; but he did direct my attention to the fact of the great discrepancies between the charges made on February 2 by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) against the administration of this department and the results shown by the report which we are now considering. It may be said: Why bother

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill
about that? That is a thing of the past. Charges are generally more or less vague and exaggerated. Let us deal with the facts as we have got them now. Well, there is another side to it. Not only were the charges very extravagant in their language, they were exceedingly positive and were widely circulated. I have in my hand a letter from a constituent who says:
Praatically every voter in this district has been supplied with Conservative literature, especially the . charges by the Hon. H. H. Stevens concerning the Customs department. I enclose a sldtp bearing the initials of the member forwarding some of them.
This slip bears a rubber stamp, such as tve use for franking our letters, with the initials " W. K. E., M.P." Consultation of the House of Commons Guide shows me that the only gentleman whose initials are W. K. E. is the hon. member who represents the constituency of West Kootenay, which is in British Columbia. May I say that not only one of those speeches has been sent around in the manner I have indicated, but a whole assortment, like a parcel of sweet peas, was distributed. You could take any variety you wanted. It was a sort of Aladdin's lamp business, you could take what you did like and discard what you did not like. The hon. gentleman who represents that district-I do not see him in his seat, and I should like to give him an opportunity of contradicting this-apparently used his frank, or allowed it to be used, to circulate this thing. His constituency is not in any way in the neighbourhood of Comox-Alberni, it is at the extreme other end of the province, and I must thank him cordially for the kindly interest he has taken in the education of the electors of my district. I must assume that he sat up night after night with 7,000 envelopes high in front of him while he kept this little stamp with the initials, W. K. E., going in his zeal to spread the glad gospel of Conservative propaganda among the electors of Comox-Alberni. But methinks, Sir, I smell a scandal. Did he sit up night after night to do that; or was his stamp stolen from him; or did he give it to someone? If he gave it to somebody, then there is a scandal of such magnitude that that of which the minister is accused sinks into insignificance. And it is not simply one scandal; there are 7.000 scandals at your door. It is a well-known fact, and I think I am justified in saying that it is part of the law under which these franks are issued, that they are strictly non-transferable, they are not to be used by anyone other than the members of parliament in whose favour they are issued. I may be wrong, but I do not think so. I think these franks are something like railway passes,
which you know will be immediately taken up by the conductor and retained by him if somebody other than the members themselves are ever detected using them. This literature containing the charges made on February 2, has been circulated far and wide throughout Canada. I presume that other gentlemen, inspired by like zeal, helped to circulate the propaganda in other districts. Now there will be the idea given out through the press in one vague, general, sweeping statement, that these charges were proved. The man out in the backwoods will reflect back upon these sweeping, horrible charges and say, "Good gracious; if they are all true it is certainly time the government was out.'' Now leit me deal for a moment with this man Bisaililon. It seems that Bisaillon was discharged by the government of the day before the dhariges were made by.the hon. member for Vancouver Centre. I would like to quote a few of the remarks of the hon. gentleman in making those charges. Here is the opinion of the hon. member concerning this man Bisaillon, which is found at page 684 of Hansard:
The worst of crooks. ... a typical debauched and debauching -public official; .... a criminal and a known crook. ... if I can judge by this man's Character I doubt if he lived a straight day during that whole period.
That is, for ten years.
He is the head, the chief smuggler of the ring, a perjurer and a thief.
And on page 687:
I purpose to show that this man Bisaillon. . . . received moneys of the crown, some $69,000 . . . deposited them to his own account, and never remitted them to the Receiver-general.
Then on page 696 we find a reference to a man named Gaunt:
-the exchequer had been, defrauded of $60,000 odd in duty.
That is, by this man Gaunt. Then again,
speaking of him:
Why don't you prosecute him now? Why haven't you prosecuted him since you started this investigation?
.... The arch conspirators, the chief smugglers, the men who deal in millions will not be prosecuted-no-t if the government can get away with this adjournment .... there will be an odd official dismissed here, a fellow perhaps like Giroux who ought to be .behind the bars, and Bisaillon who ought to have a life sentence.
Then again at page 698:
I am asking for action on the part of -this government. 'Let them arrest this man Bisaillon. ... let them arrest Giroux. ... Let them prefer a charge of fraud and the grossest kind of fraud against Gaunt .... I could put my finger on dozens of -them tomorrow-let them go after the hosts-

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill
Mark that word'.
-o-f others as to whom they have abundant evidence in their possession, and arrest them, put their liberty at stake and then there will be disclosures that will surprise the House and the country.
At page 699 again he asks:
Why was he (Bisaillon) not prosecuted?
Brave words full of meaning, especially if they are to be circulated to the extent of 30,000 or 40,000 copies among the electors of Canada. That was the statement of hon. gentlemen opposite on February 2, but now let us see what happened. One would suppose after the language I have read that when those who had been accusing this man Bisail-lon got him there would not have been much of his reputation or indeed of his person left;
you could almost imagine him 12 m. crawling away, ashamed and degraded, with his reputation utterly gone. But what was the situation? It appears that Bisaillon was not that kind of girl at all. What really happened was that when they were through with him he put on his hat at an angle, wished them good-day and said he would see them later, then strutted out. It was supposed that once they got hold of him they would turn him inside out, but perhaps the inside looked even better than the outside. It might be that he had such a strong personality that he was able to put it over the members of this committee. I would not suggest that, but it seems to be the only solution. On February 2 he had been described as a thief, a crook and all the rest of it, but we find that the only reference to him in the report is as follows:
The committee recommends that the evidence of Mr. J. A'. E. Bisaillon given before this committee. . . . be transmitted .to the Attorney General for Quebec-
To be compared with the evidence he had given on some previous occasion. But I would like to point out that this is all new stuff; this is something which happened when he was before the committee, and they had reason to suspect, I presume, that he was perjuring himself. So they recommended that his evidence be taken and compared with the evidence given in a court somewhere else, but there is not one word about this perjurer, thief, criminal, who should be in gaol for the rest of his life, with that exception. I think perhaps it is a good thing that the law of criminal libel does not attach to a member of parliament making statements in this House, or Mr. Bisaillon would have added something to that $69,000 which he is supposed to have swiped from the government, but which investigation showed had not been stolen, at least from the government. In other words,

he was practically whitewashed and turned out into the world as a man sans peur et sans reproche.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman
give an indication of where there is any evidence that that money was his own?


Alan Webster Neill: I think it was admitted in
the debate yesterday.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, I know it was.


Alan Webster Neill: Admitted?


Arthur Meighen: No, not at all. If it
was, why does the committee recommend that its origin be investigated?


Alan Webster Neill: I was just going to deal with that. I remember the hon. member for Vancouver North saying yesterday without contradiction that crook and all as this man Bisaillon was, the one thing he did not appear to have dione was embezzle the country's money. The right hon. leader of the opposition speaks of the recommendation of the committee, and I am just going to read it:
The committee recommends that the following firms and companies should he .proceeded against in the proper forum .to recover the sums, if any, now owing by them *to the crown.
The first name mentioned is the John Gaunt Company. Yes, but that is a very different thing from the charges made on February 2. Then it was not a question of the possibility of this man owing money to the crown; it was charged that he had embezzled the sum I have mentioned, the amount of which I forget, but it was a large amount at all events. And the hon. member challenged the government at the time, asking why it was they did not arrest this man and make him talk. In the committee they had every opportunity; they cross-examined him to a finish and now their only recommendation is a somewhat meagre one, to try to collect any moneys-if any-which may be found due from this man.
These are only two occasions which I have used as examples of the wide divergence, after an investigation extending over five months, between the charges made by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre of February 2nd, and the facts brought out in the investigation. I hope the hon. member for West Kootenay (Mr. Esling) will do the Martha act and ponder these things in his heart. Perhaps in the fulness of time it will bring forth fruits meet for repentance. I hope then he will be found sitting up at night stamping another seven thusand envelopes to correct the errors of his previous propaganda, and I shall be glad to furnish him with copies of my speech at cost price. It turns out after

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill
ail that a very small percentage of these statements is true, and what makes it worse is that, as the hon. member for Vancouver North pointed out, there should have been a largo measure of results obtained from the charges made on February 2, because the hon. member was playing with loaded dice; he had information-someone called' it smuggled information-but at any rate it was information that had been gathered by the very man he was accusing. Certainly the results should have been to have obtained a greater number of bull's eyes than were actually scored.
Now a great deal was made in the course of the debate from time to time by various other hon. members of this phase of the "booze" question, to put it vulgarly. I saw the trend of it in the speech of the hon. member who preceded me, who thought the whole country is being devastated by this influx of illicit liquor, and so on; and the suggestion was advanced-it was not specifically stated because it could not be-that the government were a party to the spread of this booze in Canada and the traffic that has grown up, admittedly grown up. Then there was the suggestion that with the wish and consent, so to speak, of the government, multimillionaires were being created out of a traffic that was sapping the life of the young people of Canada. Much was said about the loss of revenue to Canada. Now I would point out in that connection that the traffic, immoral and improper as it was, involved no loss of revenue at all to Canada. If there was loss of revenue it was that of the United States and not of Canada, as of course the stuff was manufactured in this country. Is this a new cry? It is as far as hon. gentlemen opposite are concerned, but is it a new condition? I think not. My memory goes back to the year 1922 when the government of the day brought down an amendment to the act by which the export houses in British Columbia would be put out of business. Not one step could ever be taken so far as the province of British Columbia was concerned that would do more to crush out the evils sugested by the hon. member for Vegreville than that simple bill as introduced by the Minister of Justice. It was passed almost without comment by this House but rejected by the Senate. The Commons declined to accept the rejection of the amendment and there was a conference 'between representatives of the two houses. I was a member .of that conference and we found that we were up against a dead wall. We could not get a compromise in any way at all, the dead wall taking the shape and form of the Brewers'
Association of the province of British Columbia. The bill was rejected entirely that year. It was introduced, I think, another year and again rejected. Then what happened in 1925? Hon. members-not the Conservative member for Vancouver Centre or his associates, prominent in the House and prominent in the party as they are, but two insignificant members from the backwoods of British Columbia, the hon. member for Cariboo, Mr. McBride, well known and esteemed in this House, and myself-had to go to the government, and I suppose the Minister of Justice ought to be impeached for listening to us when we beseeched him to give us once more this law that was so badly needed in British Columbia. He yielded to our pleading. The bill was once more introduced into this House, and Mr. McBride and I had to bear the whole brunt of the opposition, led for the most part by one of the Vancouver members of the House who is still in parliament. About that time there had been two men just recently convicted of murder. They had been hi-jacking, that is stealing the other fellow's illicit booze. Those robbed could not squeal because it is an illegal traffic. The victims were murdered and these two men were sentenced to be hanged. I pointed out that it was technically and perhaps legally correct for us to allow this booze to go over to the States, but I said it was anything but a friendly act toward the United States and sooner or later it would involve us in responsibility and friction with the United States that we would be very sorry indeed to incur. I got no support from the hon. members of the Conservative party. Instead of that I got their active opposition, in the case of one or two at least who seemed more faithful to the brewers' interests of British Columbia than to the interests of the province. This booze question is not a new thing. It is brought up now in order to attack the Minister of Customs, but is not a new thing at all. Let us begin at home. Let us consider who is to blame for the situation in British Columbia. Owing to the existence of these export houses and their proximity to the water and to the neighbouring towns of the United States, the situation is ten times worse there than any revelation contained in the report we have been considering. Then do not let us talk in too careless a manner about blaming the government for allowing this liquor trade to grow up in the east.
Another feature of this amendment is the utter condemnation of the Minister of Customs and Excise. The language used is that his actions are utterly unjustifiable.

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill
Such language to a man in an ordinary sphere of life might not seem very strong but in the case of the Minister of Customs it means his complete condemnation, just as much as if the mover of the amendment had used the word "criminal" or employed the language used to describe Bisaillon. Because in view of -his position as a minister of the -crown if he is convicted of doing something -that is very unjustifiable it means that he must vacate his cabinet position and possibly even his seat as member. But let me compare the language used to describe this minister, whose fault was most trivial compared with that of the Hon. Jacques Bureau who, it was admitted, was responsible in very large measure for a great deal of the corruption that has gone on and for the downfall of men who, perhaps, if they had been left alone would have been in office respectable and respected to-day. What is the language used in Mr. Bureau's case? Bet me compare the two. The actions of Mr. Boivin are described as being utterly unjustifiable. The language used in regard to the other gentleman-and apparently that is the only allusion made to him in this report-is:
Apparently-
"Apparently," Mr. Speaker-
-the Hon. Jacques Bureau, then .Minister of Customs, failed ito appreciate and properly discharge (the responsibilities of his office.
And then the report goes on to say that there was a lack of efficiency. "Apparently" is the strongest term they can employ after five months' investigation of the department of which he was the head. Every trail sought apparently led directly to this man. and yet the strongest language the committee can employ is "apparently." Now I have looked up the term in the dictionary and the meaning given there of "apparently" is "seemingly but without actuality." Seemingly the hon. senator was guilty, but not with actuality. That is the language used to condemn this man as compared with the language used in the case of the minister. Could anything be more gentle or more suggestive of a Sunday-school picn-ic? Why was not- Senator Bureau called by the committee? That question has already been asked but I am going -to ask it. again. It was suggested that he was not called because there were personal reasons, thpre were matters that it was undesirable to go into. That is no excuse, none Whatever. He could have been called, he should have been called and cross-examined without any reference -to these personal matters. It was not his personal record that was on trial at all, it was his official record and that could
[Mr. Neill.1
h-ave been inquired into without entering upon any personalities whatever. Why not have called his secretary, admittedly an honest man, to make any revelations as to what transpired? It was not the duty of Hon. Jacques Bureau, an -accused man, to go on oath and incriminate himself. It was the duty of those who accused him to make good their case; to call him and make him certify to -the facts that the country wanted to know and which the committee indeed was created to find out. I see -a parallel between the case of the Hon. Jacques Bureau and that of Samson of olden times. By the way, the hon. member for Vancouver Centre alluded to the buccaneering spirit of the Hon. "Mr. Bureau; and if we cast our minds back into the pages of biblical history we find that Samson was a man somewhat of the same character; he had the buccaneering spirit. He was a man of great stature and enormous strength, and he had the convenient habit, when he needed a change of raiment, of going down into the camp of the Philistines, slaying a number of them, and getting his raiment at a very cheap rate. That was better than smuggling prison goods from the United States, because there was not the same risk and) trouble. That was his attitude and course of life. He had the buccaneering spirit, and in that regard the oases are analogous. Time went on and he was betrayed by a woman. His hair was cut off, his eyes were put out and he was a horrible sight and a pitiful spectacle. But in course of time his hair grew again. He was brought out on some gala day to -a place where the Philistines -had assembled, and with true Jewish guile-which is exhibited among his descendants to-day-we find him saying to his attendants, "Where is the pillar of this building?" An enormous number of people were gathered in that place. They showed him where the pillar was.- His strength had come to him, and he exerted all his power, with a call to his God to help him once more; he pulled down the pillar of -the temple, and it is said in the Scripture that the number of the Philistines that he slew at his death was greater than -all those whom he slew before in his lifetime. Now here is the comparison: There is a chance that the spirit of the buccaneering senator, when he heard there was talk of calling him,, came into prominence and perhaps he said-not in the committee, no; such things are not written on visiting cards, not published through a loud speaker-but perhaps a bird whispered in the air that he had said to himself, "If I go down I will not go down alone. I will be like Samson and

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill
the Philistines, and those who fail with me will be greater than all those who have gone down before." Perhaps for that reason he was not called on to give evidence before this committee, where every suggestion of propriety and urgency demanded that he should be called.
Now, Sir, perhaps it would be well for hon. members opposite to soft-pedal when they blame the government for the petty charge made against the Minister of Customs with which I will deal in a minute. Although these men went to the committee animated with the greatest idea to keep out of politics, the smear of politics shows itself all through the proceedings. If the proceedings had been before the Supreme Court or before a royal commission, there would have been no considerations of that kind.
I want to deail with two other cases, those cases cited by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre in connection with Montreal and Regina. When the hon. member for Vancouver Centre was making his statement the other day, prior to moving the amendment, I do not mind saying that I was strongly impressed with the force of his argument, and before he had half finished I turned to the hon. member sitting behind me and I said, "If Mr. Boivin cannot answer those charges I am going to vote against him."


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Alan Webster Neill: Hon. gentlemen seem to doubt my statement. Nevertheless I say I did make that statement, and I can produce the hon. member if necessary. It was one of the Ontario members. But it matters not. If they will not take my word, then they would not believe if one rose from the dead.
I was going to say that after the minister made his statement I believed he had made good his position, and I was convinced that he was worthy of support. I am coming to the stage in the remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre when he introduced these eases from Regina and Montreal. I could not help feeling that he had very materially and almost fatally weakened his case, because I cannot but. think it was a great error of judgment. I was reminded of the old saying that you can judge the future by the past. That is an old saying and a very good one, and I want to apply it in this way. If I were buying a motor car-I may say that my knowledge of motor cart only extends to ten per cent, and that is a liberal allowance-and a shrewd salesman was holding forth about the merits of the car and the engine and all the parts, as long
as he kept off the ten per cent with which I was acquainted I might be favourably impressed with his statement, but when he entered the field of which I had some knowledge and began to lie to me, I would1 realize that his statement could not be correct. I would not say to him that his statement was ninety per cent true and ten per cent false, because that is not the way any reasonable man would argue. I would say to him:	I
have found you lying with regard to the features of the car with which I am acquainted, and therefore I cannot believe your statement in regard to the other features. 1 would be convinced that he was lying one hundred! per cent on account of the fact that I knew he was lying as to the ten per per cent. I am not using that literally, but simply as an illustration of tlhe principle. When you find an hon. member putting forth an argument in regard to the complicated and complex matters reviewed by that committee with which you are unfamiliar, you cannot judge whether or not his statement is correct. You have to take his word for it, and to some extent we are glad to do so. But when an hon. member introduces such cases as those I have under my hand, which we can check up, and' when we find he has not been so straightforward in his presentation of those cases as he should be, it leads us to suggest the same argument would apply to his statement in regard to the other features of the case with which you are not acquainted. We would say his statements were overdrawn and the matter was overstated. I think the letter to the Prime Minister was framed for a certain purpose, not to give information. The very language of the letter will show it. The purpose of the whole suggestion would have been very far-reaching if it had' been successful. The purpose of the resolution was to catch us at the lower end of the House and to say to us, "Now you have heard the records of the crookedness and corruption of this department, and you should form your opinion of the matter on that record. But here is the feature: who is to continue the work and who is to turn over the neiw leaf? Listen to these revelations. They are proceeding at Montreal and Regina with the same corrupt practices and interferences as have been the whole cause of trouble so far." These statements have been made to us, and it is argued that therefore we could not trust them further. Had that argument succeeded! we would have been justly entitled to say that these men cannot be trusted with the reins of power and continue the administration. I quote from page

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill
4829 of Hansard some of the remarks the hon. member made. This is from a letter to the Prime Minister:
I have now before me information regarding two cases, a recital of the facts concerning which would indicate that, in spite of the disclosures of the last four months, there still remains within .the ranks of the government those wfho are willing to submit to outside influence in order to prevent the ultimate result of illegal and criminaJl practices being arrived at through the regular courts of justice.
If that is true, then let us vote against them. Then in the same letter he says:
It appears however-
Dealing with the Montreal case-*
-that certain influences in the government ranks are exercised to prevent this case from being successfully handled.
Again we find that "the police operative at Regina is recalled, on the excuse that he is required to give evidence on a case in Montreal." If that is true that is a very vital and important thing, as if the Minister of Customs was to take that man away from Regina the government should be condemned; and that is a statement made with the knowledge of the fact before him. He says:
The police operative is recalled on the excuse that Ihe is required to give evidence on a case in Montreal, and Bryant is removed-
He was a Conservative lawyer employed by a policeman, a peculiar method to hire a lawyer.
-and one Anderson, secretary of the Liberal Assoeia-tion of Regina, is retained.
The hon. member was asked^-I would, hesitate to make the statement if I had not seen it in Hansard-if he did not know that Bryant was a Conservative and leader of the Conservative organization. He said that the man that the government ordinarily used and employed to prosecute cases in that district was the secretary of the Liberal Association. But he said that he did not know that the man whom the operator hired, on some sudden inspiration from heaven itself, I suppose, was the president of the Conservative Association.
Again we find-and this is my closing quotation:
The facts as disclosed to me-
This is a solemn letter written on a solemn occasion to the Prime Minister and intended to be brought into this House:
-'reveal a. co-rotinuance of a practice of .political interference, which cannot now be justified, and which would seem to indicate a continuance of .the very practices which brought about the breakdown in the Customs department.
If that letter is true I repeat: It is the bounder, duty of every decent man to vote 
against the government. But along comes this letter from the respected head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police which knocks the whole thing into a cocked hat. It says:
It is always customary to apply to the Department of Justice for the appointment of counsel.
He said that the police agent had no authority to hire another counsel. He said that the secret agent had not been removed from Regina; that his absence was .only temporary. Then he went on to explain that the secret agent was working on a very urgent case in Montreal and the arrangement had been made that he should immediately go back to Regina and prosecute the work there. The letter goes on:
There has been no interference whatever in connection with Secret Agent Cahill's work.
That is signed by the commissioner of the mounted police. But supposing the commissioner had been a man of a different type; supposing that when he was asked for this report he had shilly-shallied and said he did not know; he would see about it later on. Where would the reputation of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Customs have been in these two cases? It would have been another nail in the condemnation of their conduct. One of these cases was dealt with in the committee; the' other was not. They were being vigorously prosecuted and there was no necessity and no design at all in bringing them into the House except for the purpose I have suggested, namely, to suggest that the government were proceeding in the same way as had been done by certain officials in the past.
By the way, if I may refer for just one moment to the Cohen case in Montreal, a great deal was made of the fact that this bootlegger or criminal had turned king's evidence. Yes, many a man turns king's evidence to save his neck. Many a mac condemned to the gallows will give away a great deal in the hope of extending his life a little longer. The word "frame-up" was used against the government. It seems to me that Mr. Cohen with all his national ability rather slipped up a cog. It appears that it was he who was framed up. He gave evidence against certain smugglers, but he apparently was not smart enough to have a legal adviser so that he might get protection for himself. If there was any frame-up it was not against the interests of justice. But these two cases were used to prop up the idea that the government were not worthy to prosecute any further. Instead of weakening the position of the government, it has weak-

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill
ened the confidence we must place in the arguments adduced by hon. gentlemen opposite in this connection.
Let me give just one illustration more and I am done with this phase of the matter. The suggestion was made that there was a paradise of smugglers down near the border at a place called Rock Island. The suggestion was made with very great subtfety, subtlety worthy of a better cause, that the constituency of the Minister of Customs was in that neighbourhood. It would not have done to say that he represented those thugs and bootleggers. That could have been contradicted. It would not have done to say that they were living in his constituency, so that the adroit language is used that the district was in his neighbourhood. Another hon. gentleman got up and pointed out that it was not even the next district to the one in Which the smugglers were located; that there was a constituency in between. In the same way one might suggest that the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. Donaghy) was liable at least for the electoral corruption that went on in the Peace River district because there is only one constituency between that of the hon. member for North Vancouver and that of the hon. member for Peace River. Of course it f'.i V1	in tVm wtirvlo mrwiuce of British
Columbia, 1,500 miles across, but one could as truthfully say that the constituency of Vancouver North was in the neighbourhood of the constituency of Peace River.
I come now to the famous Moses Aziz case, soon I hope to be known as Moses as was. On this centres the whole crime and crux of the charge against the Minister of Customs. It appears that the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Robichaud) was guilty of endeavouring to influence the attitude of the Minister of Customs, and I admit frankly that the hon. member for Gloucester did what he did for entirely improper purposes. But his motive is not of so much importance because there is no charge against him, there is no vote of want of confidence being moved against him. The charge is against the Minister of Customs who, in Ignorance of the improper motive of the hon. member for Gloucester, gave heed to him and postponed action until the member could have an opportunity of being heard. In other words, the hon. member used his influence. If a member is to be condemned for that, how few of us indeed can go unscathed! I spend half, yes more than half of my time using my influence such as it is for the benefit of my constituents in every walk of life. More than that, I have done it with every department
of the government and I have done it and am willing to do it again to the extent I have done it with the Department of Customs.
I claim it is my perfect right and duty to do so. The Minister of Customs in these matters has a discretion allowed him by law, a very proper discretion.
I am not quite clear what the amendment moved by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) means. It says something about taking away that discretion. I hope if he takes it away from the minister he will leave it in the hands of some officials, because it is essential for the ordinary and decent carrying on of the law that someone should have some discretionary power. If you make one fixed arbitrary rule, one fine for one offence, you are going to inflict unheard of hardships on many practically innocent people.
The criminal law, the greatest law we have dealing with these things, in almost every page records the fact that it is necessary to give the magistrate or the judge a margin on which to work. I was a magistrate for many years and under the act the penalty, if I remember correctly, for vagrancy gave a justice of the peace power to impose a fine of not more than fifty dollars or not more than six months in gaol. But he can impose as small a flue a= L like; - as short a time in gaol as he likes. It is very essential that this should be so. Cases came before me time and time again when I would have been doing absolutely wrong on a technical conviction if I had given anything but the most trivial penalty possible. That is so particularly in the Customs department. We must have somebody using that discretion and it is the privilege and duty of every member to appear on behalf of his constituents in that regard.
Even while this investigation was going on I had the temerity to apply to the department. I think I even intruded on the minister himself in the case of a man in my district. This was a large respectable firm doing a big business, importing a lot of stuff. Inadvertently they had made a mistake to the extent of some $200 in the value of some articles they were importing. It was a pure accident, a pure mistake. They showed me how it had occurred and asked me to explain the matter to the department. More particularly they did not mind paying any appropriate fine, but they did not want the officials here to get the idea that the firm was the cheap, shyster kind of dealer who would make a practice of that thing, because they had a high reputation to maintain.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill


Alan Webster Neill: Some members laugh at the idea, but men treasure their reputation. There are in British Columbia, if not in Ontario, men who treasure their reputation. This firm is one of that class. They did not want their reputation to be shattered. They asked me to lay these facts before the minister and I was only too pleased to do so.
Another case that comes nearer home is one that I was mixed up in. It was a bootlegging case and I wonder that I am not at the bar of the House to-night, accused of all the crimes in the calendar. The only reason for my immunity, is, thank God, the obscure position I hold. Had I been in the position of the Minister of Customs (Mr. Boivin) nothing would have prevented my exposure. Here is my criminal record: a boat was caught bootlegging to the United States and the Customs department seized it along with the liquor. It was discovered that a gentleman in the district I represent had chartered the boat for so much a day, and according to the customs law the boat was going to be confiscated and he would lose the whole value of it. He was as innocent of any desire to bootleg as I could have been. At the previous election he had voted against me but I took the case up as a fair one. I made representations to the department in the matter. I did not ask for anything improper but by putting the wheels in motion I facilitated the settlement of the case. I got the man's boat out on bail, so to speak, by having him put up a large sum of money as deposit by way of guarantee. This enabled him to have the use of the boat in the meantime. Otherwise he would have suffered a considerable loss for many months. Was there anything criminal in that? In the course of time the matter was settled satisfactorily. I merely smoothed things over so that business was accelerated and justice was done.
I want to deal for a moment now with the position of the hon. member for North Sim-coe (Mr. Boys). Of his action in connection with the Waisberg case I have no complaint whatever to make. I would have done exactly the same thing in his place, with one distinction, which does not touch anything vital, being perhaps merely a matter of opinion. I may be wrong, and if I am I offer the hon. gentleman my apologies; but I understood his position to be that when he applied to the minister on behalf of Waisberg he did so not in his capacity as a member, but as a lawyer. In that case, in my judgment, he was wrong. I cannot conceive how a man can be these two things at once; I do not understand such a dual personality. Was the hon. member using his friendship 
with the minister, his reputation and standing as a member of parliament, in order to secure, in his capacity as a lawyer, justice for this man? I do not think that hon. members who are of the legal profession should allow their respective interests as members and lawyers to conflict. I remember once a man, not a constituent of mine, asking me to present his case before a certain department. I said I had troubles enough of my own and I asked him why he did not consult his own member. He said his member was a lawyer and he would charge a fee. It would not have been proper for me as a member to charge anything, and I am sure no member wants to do that. If the hon. member from North Simcoe had not been a member there would of course have been no objection to his making representations to the minister in his capacity as a lawyer. I entirely support the view that he was not guilty of any crime any more than I was guilty in the case to which I have referred.
But there is another aspect of the matter that must be considered. I do not attach any blame whatever to the hon. gentleman but I would attach blame to myself-the hon. member for North Simcoe can speak in his own behalf-I should indeed be ashamed if, after having solicited a favour of the minister and accepted it, I then turned round and condemned him for granting a favour in some other case. We all remember, I am sure, the occasion on which the founder of our religion, when a certain woman was taken in sin, and brought to him, uttered those words which it is well for men always to bear in mind when judging their fellow men. A Jewish lawyer was endeavouring to get from the Master an opinion that the woman should be punished according to the strict letter of the Mosaic law, and the reply came:
He that is without sin among you, Jet him first cast a stone at her.
He appealed to the best elements in human nature in speaking those words.
I entirely endorse the suggestion of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) that we should consult our common sense, our good taste and our good judgment and refrain from any attempts to embarrass the minister or his officials with overdone appeals. A good deal of the fault must be shared by every member, for there is hardly one of us, certainly none of the older members, who have not been guilty- if there is any guilt about it-of applying to the minister to exercise discretion in particular cases. In the Moses Aziz case the minister was asked merely to delay and not

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Neill
to cancel the penalty that had been imposed, and I see in that a parallel in my own experience. When I was a magistrate charged with the duty of sending men up for trial in a higher court. I was often asked, when it was apparent that I was about to do so, not to sentence the accused immediately, for the reason that he would have to remain in prison until he could appeal to the higher court. Because once a man is sent up by the magistrate the magistrate cannot give bail. I was asked to delay the process of justice for a few hours until arrangements could be made for the man to get bail. I notice that the hon. member for Gloucester requested only such delay as would afford him an opportunity of being heard, whereas the hon. member for North Simcoe appealed for several delays, and that, too, for his own convenience.
Now the minister is accused of interfering with the course of justice, but he has read a statement by Mr. Gallagher of the Department of Justice in which the opinion is expressed that it was for the Minister of Customs to exercise discretion. I believe that a good deal of the contradictory exchanges that have taken place between the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) and members on this side of the House is due to misunderstanding.
I am reminded when considering the case of the Minister of Customs of the incident which was discussed in this House at a previous session in which the Hon. James Murdock, who was then Minister of Labour, was charged with having acted in violation of his oath of office because he had withdrawn certain private deposits which he had in the Home Bank before the failure of that institution, which failure he knew was imminent. We can recall that, according to hon. gentlemen opposite, the very foundation of constitutional government would quiver on its base unless parliament voted a want of confidence in Mr. Murdock. Let me read from the words of the leader of the opposition spoken on that occasion-words that echoed familiarly an hour ago while the right hon. gentleman was addressing the House :
It will not do for tdris House to treat these matters lightly. If the House goes on record as stating that in the face of all these circumstances a minister can so act, and be acquitted, then so much the worse for the conduct of cabinets and public men in the years ito come; so much the worse for the honour and repute of parliament; so much the worse for the standing of our political institutions throughout the empire and throughout the world.
The whole condemnation of the world was to be gathered around us if we did not cast
from our midst the hon. Minister of Labour of that day. The same language, or something almost similar, was used to-night in an exaggerated and magnified form about this trivial case of Mr. Boivin, who delayed a sentence of three months. What happened to the Minister of Labour? We were invited, as I say, by every phrase of oratorical ability to condemn this man. We did not condemn him; this House sustained him by the huge majority of 110. The case was then traversed to the greater court of appeal, to the district of the hon. member who made the charge, and there again the: common people of Canada said they did not take much stock in condemning a man who, going down the street, heard that the bank in which were all his little savings was going to break, and he took them out.. The man in the street looked at it in that way.


Mr. GOTT:: They attended to him on
October 29 last.


Alan Webster Neill: I have neither time nor inclination to pay attention to such an interruption, and I hope I am a bigger man than to be distracted by it. Here then is a parallel case. The conduct complained of in Mr. Murdock was, in a sense, more serious than that complained of in the Minister of Customs. The latter only exercised delay in his discretion as given him by law. I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that but for his position ' we would never -have heaTd of his case. Had it happened to myself or to any other private member it would never have come before parliament. And his -case would never have come before parliament had it not been for the exigencies of political war which -made it necessary to find a peg to hang a motion of want of confidence on, and a very poor and faulty peg I think it is.
If the government are going to be defeated, -perhaps it .might be to my advantage, perhaps it might be to our advantage, to -chip in with the crowd' and) turn on the- government before it is too late. But, Mr. Speaker, the role of a rat deserting a sinking ship has never been a popular one with me, nor has it ever been with the ordinary member.. I have received many benefits of legislation-, of policy and of administration from this government for the district which I have the honour to represent; nothing for myself, but everything for my people. They have benefited individually in many cases, in sections and in classes, and though I may have nothing to do with the steering of the ^hip, yet I think if the ship is going to founder I would prefeT to go down- with her rather than scurry -to
Privilege-Mr. Stevens

shelter at, the eleventh hour. I might lose something in that way, but, Mr. Speaker, I would not lose my self-respect, I would not have with me for all time the feeling of unspeakable meanness that would possess me if I knew I had solicited this man Boivin to d'o me a favour and was then going to condemn him because he agreed to do it. It is Roibi-ehaud and Boivin to-day. It may just as well be Boys and Waisberg or myself and my constituents to-morrow; the cases are practically parallel. It is only a chance that we, too, are not standing in the dock, so to speak, arraigned in the same way.
I do not think, Mr. Speaker, that in the years gone by I can be accused of having been particularly over-enthusiastic in proclaiming the virtues and merits of this government, but I have watched Mr. Boivin for four years as a private member in the last parliament and his career as a member of the cabinet in this, I have watched him handling matters intricate and delicate always with conspicuous ability. Even yesterday at the crisis of his career when he was in this awkward and embarrassing situation, trying to defend himself against charges yet to be made-an unfair position but one assigned to him by our rules-when, if ever, we might expect any man to show irritation and nervousness and loss of control, he maintained his same cool judgment, his same courtesy in debate, and his same careful consideration of the arguments that he wished to make. * I have seen him handling bills through this House, and to those of us who were in the older parliament and saw the confusion of some ministers and the way they poked their bills through the House, it was a pleasure to see the hon. Minister of Customs pilot his bills through the House. His knowledge of the subject, his courtesy to his opponents, his ability, his willingness to explain any point, and above all his readiness to accept reasonable suggestions from anybody, made the passage of any bill that he was handling very easy. I submit this as my judgment, poor as it may be, that we could ill afford to spare a man of such outstanding ability.
I wish to express my unqualified conviction, Mr. Speaker, staking on it such poor reputation as I may have gained in this House, that the Hon. George H. Boivin is first of all a capable man, next he is an honest man; therefore we cannot afford to lose him from this House; and though it should be the last act of my political career, I propose to express that opinion by the way I cast my vote.
On motion of Mr. Campbell the debate was adjourned.



PRIVILEGE-MR. STEVENS

Henry Herbert Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege. My attention has been drawn by the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. Donaghy) to a reference in Hansard at page 4889 which, inadvertently both on his part and my own, may do an injustice to an individual who certainly was not intended to be brought into the discussion. In the course of his speech the hon. gentleman challenged me in these words:
Perhaps the hon. member will say that Senator Bureau would not accept the invitation to appear before the committee.
Then there was a little passage between us, and he said he would give me an opportunity to speak in a moment. Later on he used these words:
Why did the hon. member for Vancouver Centre not ask to have the Hon. Jacques Bureau's secretary summoned (before the committee. Now I pause for an answer.
I rose and answered in a manner applicable to the ex-minister, not noticing that the word "secretary" had been used. I want to say very frankly, Mr. Speaker, that I had no intention, and it would have been altogether wrong, to apply what I did say to the secretary of the minister. Therefore I desire that this should be corrected in Hansard).
On motion of Mr. Robb, the House adjourned at 12.50 a.m. (Friday).
Friday, June 25, 1926