1926-06-21

AUDITOR GENERAL'S REPORT

[Stage Direction]
IMr. S. W. JACOBS (Cartier) moved:
That the Auditor General's report for the past fiscal year be referred to the committee on Public Accounts.
Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: For the fiscal year ending March 31 last?


Mr. SPEAKER:: "For the past fiscal
year."


Arthur Meighen: Is the Auditor General's report down for the year ending March 31 last?


Mr. JACOBS:: The current Auditor General's report whatever that is-the one that is before the House.


Arthur Meighen: That has been referred.


Samuel William Jacobs: No, I understand it has not been referred; that is why I make the formal motion to-day.
IMr. SPEAKER: Shall I say the "current fiscal year'" or the "past fiscal year?"


Arthur Meighen: It is the second last
past.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

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

Mr. BARBER:: 1.	With respect to the Sumas lake drainage project: Did the government of Canada and the government of British Columbia enter into an agreement dated 8th August, 1923, providing for the transfer of lake bottom lands from the Dominion to the province, upon the conditions, amongst others, that (a) "The province of British Columbia assumes complete responsibility for the manner and method of the reclamation." and (b) "for the fair and equitable treatment of prospective and actual settlers" upon the whole lands to be reclaimed?
2.	Was this agreement signed on behalf of British Columbia by "John Oliver, Acting Minister of Agriculture"?
3.	Did the government of British Columbia, by "E. D. Barrow, Minister of Agriculture," make application on April 2nd, 1925, for formal transfer of the lake
[DOT] bottom lands, in a letter stating that "all the provisions of said agreement have been flilfi filed" ?
Questions

4.	Have a body of land-owners, about 125 in number, under date of 6th February, 1926, petitioned the government of Canada inviting attention to alleged breaches of the terms of the contract, on the part of the government of British Columbia, and particularly to the allegation that the provincial government through their commissioners carried out the works recklessly and without regard to cost, so that the petitioners have been subjected to charges represented as ruinous and confiscatory; and also that the provincial government have denied to petitioners the fair and equitable treatment stipulated in the contract, and by contrast that government has caused the passage of legislation forbidding appeal to the courts against alleged unjust assessments?
5.	(a) Have the representations of these petitioners been communicated to the government of British Columbia, and (b) has that government made a reply?
6.	D:d the Hon. John Oliver in this reply assert that "the diking commissioners who had charge and did carry out the work were the agents of the landowners and not of the government"; and (b) if he did so, whether or not this position is considered to be in compliance with the stipulation of the contract that "the province of British Columbia assumes complete responsibility for the manner and method of the reclamation"?
7.	Was the reply by Mr. Oliver communicated to the petitioners?
8.	In view of the allegation of breach of contract and contradictory statements as to other material facts, in the petition and reply respectively, does the government contemplate effective inquiry, at which .petitioners may be heard, before giving decision on the petition for disallowance of the legislation complained of as against sound public policy?


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1.	(a) Yes., (b) Under section "g" of the agreement dated August 8th, 1923; the province of British Columbia assumed complete responsibility for the fair and equitable treatment of prospective and actual settlers upon the crown lands sold to the province.
2.	Yes.
3.	Yes.
4.	Yes.
5.	(a) Yes, (b) Yes.
6.	(a) Yes, (b) The matter is receiving consideration.
7.	No.
8.	Any interested parties are at liberty to make representations to the Minister of Justice upon the question of disallowance.


LOUISEVILLE POST OFFICE-CARETAKER
Mr. DOUCET:: 1.	Was the Hon. H. S. Belaud, who recommended Freddy Regnier as caretaker of the Louiseville post office, at the time Minister of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment ?
2.	Is Doctor Legris "who has given similar recommendation in favour of Regnier the same 'person as Captain Legris of the medical corps of the Canadian army in France?

3.	Among the recommendations given in favour of Regnier, a veteran, was there one given to the Public Works department or to the Civil Service Commission by one Thomas Vaniasse, contractor of the town of Louiseviille?
4.	Has another recommendation in favour of the same veteran soldier been received by the Civil Service Commission or the Public Works department from J. A. Barrette, a notary public?
5.	Has a petition signed by more than 140 citizens of Louiseville, protesting against the nomination of Victor Heroux and praying for the appointment of a returned man, been received by the Civil Service Commission? If not, has such request been received by the Department of Public Works?
6.	Is the Department of Public Works aware of the fact that its representative, Mr. Gingras, when sent down to Louiseville to examine the applicants, has said to several persons, that Victor Heroux could not be appointed to the position, as he was over age?


Hon. Mr LAPOINTE:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Yes.
3.	No.
4.	No.
5.	A copy of the petition sent to the Department of Public Works was received in the commission.
6.	No information. Mr. Gingras recommended the appointment of Mr. Victor Heroux.


MR. J. A. DONALDSON
Mr. GOTT:: 1.	Is Mr. J. A. Donaldson of the town of Kingsville, Ontario, engaged in any capacity by any department of the Canadian government?
2.	If so, what is his official position?
3.	What .salary, wages, or fees, are paid in connection with this position?
4.	Was an application deceived for the same position from Mr. Ernest Harris of the town of Kingsville, Ontario ?
5.	What qualifications are required for this position?
6.	Were any examinations required in connection with t h is a ppo int menit ?
7.	Is the department aware that Mr. Donaldson failed in examination for a Customs .position at Kingsville during the year 1925?
8.	Has the government any record of inefficient service on the part of Mr. Donaldson in the capacity of returning officer for the south riding of Essex county during the federal election of October, 1925?
9.	When was Mr. Donaldson appointed?
10.	Under whose recommendation was Mr. Donaldson appointed ?
11.	How many applications were received for the position?
12.	What consideration was given to the other applicants?
13.	Could applications have been made to those interested in Mr. Donaldson without same reaching the department ?


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1 and 2. Mr. J. A. Donaldson is not in the employ of the Department of Marine and

Questions
Fisheries, but a Mr. John E. Donaldson is both wharfinger of the government wharf and temporary lightkeeper at Kingsville, Ontario.
3.	His remuneration as wharfinger is 50 per cent of his collections and as temporary light-keeper $210 per annum.
4.	No.
5.	As wharfinger-to supervise the government wharf and enforce the wharfage regulations; to collect and make returns of whaf-age.
A-s temporary lightkeeper-to look after and be responsible for the care and proper exhibition of the light.
6.	7 and 8. No information.
9.	As temporary lightkeeper-1st April, 1926. As wharfinger-26th March, 1926.
10.	On the recommendation of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries.
11.	For wharfinger-one; for lightkeeper,
one.	*
12.	Careful consideration.
13.	Presumably yes.


EXPERIMENTAL SHIPMENT OF HORSES
Mr. DAVIS:: I.	In connection with tihe experimental shipment of horses from the province of Saskatchewan in 1925; on what date were these horses shipped?
2.	What amount of freight was paid from point of shipment to port of Montreal or whatever 6ea port to which said horses were sent for shipment by boat, giving total weight and rate per hundred?
3.	What railway in Canada were said horses shipped over?
4.	What insurance company insured said horses?
5.	What were the names of persons to whom salaries were paid, for what service, and the amounts to each person, in this connection?
3.	What were the names of persons to whom living and travelling expenses were paid, and the amount to each person?
7.	What were the names of persons who purchased the said horses, number purchased by each, and amount paid each person for buying the said horses?
S. What was the cost of the horse sold in Canada, the amount pair for said horse and to whom was it sold?
9.	Where any of these horses sold to be slaughtered and sold for horse meat?


Hon. Mr. MOTHERWELL:: 1.	September 4, 1925; From Moose Jaw.
2.	Shipment consolidated at Moose Jaw; Freight Moose Jaw to Boston, $1,160.90; Total weight, 89,250 pounds; Rate $1.29i per 100 pounds Moose Jaw to Boston.
3.	Canadian National Railway.
4.	Lloyds-London, England.
5 ,inj e.	Salary Expenses
Jack Byers, District live stock promoter	$1,260	00	$2,744	55R. H. Youngman, horseman	
670	35	668	16W. W. Butcher, horseman	
455	00	467	.5Montana Earl, horseman	
487	50	21	20Joe Orr, horseman	
487	50	21	20
Expenses not yet finally adjusted.
7.	The horses were purchased by Mr. Jack Byers and Mr. R. E. Wilson, district live stock promoters of the department assisted by Dr. McLellan of the Saskatchewan Department of Agriculture and Dr. Talbot of the Alberta Department of Agriculture.
They received no additional remuneration for this.
8.	Cost price, $70; selling price, $80; experimental farm, Indian Head.
9.	Two horses each broke a leg and were sold to a butcher.


FREE RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION-CLERGY
Mr. ESLING:: 1.	Are the dergy of Canada entitled to free (transportation on Canadian railways?
2.	Are the clergy in the employ of the Immigratian and Colonization Department receiving free transportation on Canadian railways?


Hon. Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	No.
2.	Yes, when requests are received therefor from the Minister or Deputy Minister Canadian Immigration department.


POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS
Mr. SPENCER:: 1.	How many post office savings banks were there in operation on the 1st of January in each year since 1920?
2.	What was the total amount o<f deposit in .these banks on the 1st of January in each of these years?
3.	Is there a limit to the amount a person can deposit annually? If so, how much, and why?
4.	Is there a limit Ito the amount on which any person can draw interest? If so, what is it, and what is the reason for such Limitation?
5.	What is the average rate of interest paid on these deposits?
6.	To what use does the government put these moneys?
7.	Is there anything 'being done by the government to increase the use of .the post office savings banks?
Questions


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1.
1921-January 1 .. ..		 1,324
1922-January 1 .. ..		 1,309
1923-January 1 .. ..		 1,309
1924-January 1 .. ..		 1,327
1925-January 1 .. ..		 1,364
1926-January 1 .. ..		 1,371
1921-January 1 .. ..	$29,199,126 14
1922-January 1 .. ..	24,838,643 82
1923-January 1 .. ..	22,139,940 83
1924-January 1 .. ..	24,218,985 07
1925-January 1 .. ..	24,124,252 88
1926-January 1 .. ..	23,569,330 36
Yes-$1,500 annually.	Limited to an
amount considered to be fairly within the scope of a purely savings account, but simply an arbitrary amount.
4.	Yes-$5,000. See answer to Number 3.
5.	2.91 per cent.
6.	Transferred to consolidated revenue fund in accordance with provisions of the Consolidated Revenue and Audit Act.
7.	The service is extended to all offices where there is a demand for the post office savings bank. The demand is limited owing to the activity of the regular chartered banks in establishing branches at all points where there is a fair prospect of business being transacted on a paying basis.


MINISTER OF CUSTOMS-MOTOR CAR
Mr. DAVIS:: 1.	Was a motor car (purchased for (the use of the Minister of Customs during the present year?
2.	If so, of what make and what was ithe price?
3.	Is the car of American or Canadian manufacture?
4.	From whom was the said car purchased?


Hon. Mr. BOIVIN:: 1.	No.
2,	3 and 4. Answered by No. 1.


PELEE ISLAND CABLE
Mr. GOTT:: 1.	When was the Pelee island cable first installed?
2.	Whait was the initial cost of rnstaMation ?
3.	When was telegraphic communication between Pelee island and the n\ainland disturbed last?
4.	On how many occasions has the Pelee inland cable been out of commission?
5.	When were repairs, on each occasion, made?
6.	What expenditure was made in connection with repairs each time?
7.	What progress has been made with the present repai rs?
8.	What has caused the long delay?
9.	When is it expected that the island will again be connected with the mainland for telegraphic purposes?
10.	What is the estimated cost?
11.	Does the political stripe of (the representative of the constituency play any part in the delays that have taken place?
12.	Would a Liberal representative be able to obtain more prompt consideration in this resipeat from the department than a Conservative?
13.	Docs the government consider the present conditions deplorable and pathetic?
14.	Could not the department have relieved the islanders from their isolated predicament much sooner than they have or will if proper business ethics had been used ?
15.	Under whom is the repair work being supervised?
16.	What tug is engaged and how much per day is being .paid for same?
17.	How many men are engaged in repair work?
18.	Has the department under advisement any process by which they might eliminate these interruptions and expenditures from time .to time?
19.	Have any representations been made .by residents of Pelee island or by anybody in their behalf for the construction and maintenance of a government aerial station or a radio station or anything ito overcome the breaks in telegraphic service?
20.	Is the department prepared to favourably consider suggestions which will be conducive to overcoming the occasional inconveniences and expenditures and thereby supply service .to the residents of the island?


Hon. Mr. KING (Kootenay):: 1. 1,888.
2.	$6,908.17.
3.	November 15, 1925.

Questions
4. 5 and 6.
Interrupted date	Year	Repaired date	Year	CostJune 2	1891	1891	$ 441 90November 11	1892	November 27...	1892	241 25October 14	1893	November 4	1893	545 63January 26	1895	May 20	1895	585 48November 26	1895	1896	291 35May 27	1897	1897	599 54February 15	1898	June 15	1898	146 20june 28	1898	July 19	1898	1,545 161898	May 21	1899	U484 50 1,451 451899	June 6	1900	1900	August 13	1901	2;767 40 604 561902	July 25	1902	September 12	1902	1902	2,179 41 2,470 94 446 19November 18	1902	1903	May 19	1903	1904	December 9	1904	October 13	1905	1,799 47 725 67September 29	1906	October 15	1906	1907	June 20	1907	831 531908	1908	1,228 131909	May 20	1910	T547 36 616 00July 19	1910	August 2	1910	1910	September 26	1910	996 271913	May	1914	4,910 31 1,630 79 1,819 671914	May	1915	1916	May	1916	1916	October	1916	539 581917	June	1917	566 571917	November 2	1917	770 331917	May 14	1918	2,696 33 5,544 40 1,458 99 1,227 65 718 631918	July 31	1919	1920	July 21	1921	1922	July 13	1922	1922	October 6	1923	November 15	1925	Work of repair now going on.	7.	Work of repair now going on.8.	The fact that the most recent break occurred shortly before the close of navigation, in November 1925, precluded the possibility of securing the necessary tug to aid in the
19. The installation of wireless service was suggested in 1924, but after investigating cost of installation, maintenance and service possibilities, it was decided to adhere to the cable.
repair work. The subsequent forming of ice on the lake and the unsettled weather conditions this spring has delayed the starting of work.
20. Yes, if presented by qualified persons.


POSTMASTER AT MANIWAKI
Mr. DOUCET:: 9.	In the course of the present week.
10.	Cannot estimate cost. This is governed by weather conditions.
11.	No.
12.	No.
13.	Conditions unavoidable.
14.	No.
15.	Under supervision Asst. General Superintendent of Telegraphs.
16.	No tug engaged. Department of Marine and Fisheries' boat will be used.
1.	What is the name of the postmaster at Maniwaki, Quebec ?
2.	Was Mr. N. Lacoursiere the postmaster in that locality ?
3.	Has he been dismissed, and was there an inquiry?
4.	Does the fact of changing the site of a post office constitute a reason for dismissal?
5.	If another postmaster has been appointed, who asked for and recommended the new postmaster?
6.	Was the new postmaster recommended and appointed by the Civil Service Commission?


Ernest Lapointe: 17.	Six, approximately.
18.	No.
1. No permanent Postmaster-J. 0. Roy, acting .postmaster.
Questions as Orders

2.	Yes, postmaster of former Maniwald post office.
3.	No.
4.	See No. 3.
5.	No postmaster permanently appointed.
6.	See No. 5.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: 1.	What is the name, the position and the salary of each officer on the staff at the general headquarters, local headquarters, Ottawa, and in each military district, whose tenure of appointment is ended, but who is maintained in the service by reappointment or an extension of term?
2.	Is it the intention of the Minister of National Defence and of the present government to maintain in service those officers?
3.	Is it true that some of the above mentioned officers who have received reappointment or extensions of term, will be transferred to another district in October?


NARCOTIC DRUG ACT-CONVICTIONS, ETC.
Hon. Mr. TOLMIE:: 1.	How many convictions were made under the Narcotic Drug Act in Canada during 1923-24-25, divided as follows, (a) orientals, (b) all other nationalities?
2.	How many appeals from convictions, habeas corpus applications or other legal process, for the release of prisoners convicted under this act were taken during this said period, how many such appeals or applications for release of those convicted were granted, and how many were for those residing in British Columbia ?
3.	Will the Minister give details concerning the conviction of Wong Wa and Kow in Victoria, in 1925, under this act; particulars of drugs found in possession, conviction, and appeal, and if the said Wong Wa and Kow are doing sentence?
4.	Is the Minister considering taking steps to amend the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act in order to prevent the release of so many prisoners convicted, and if so, what steps?
UNOPPOSED MOTIONS FOR PAPERS PREECEVILLE-LEASE OF LAND Mr. CAMPBELL:
For a Copy of all correspondence, reports, letters, telegrams and other documents, exchanged between the Department of the Interior and rural municipality of Preeceville, Saskatchewan, and any other parties in connection with the lease of the east half of section 29, township 34, range 5, west of the 2nd meridian.
Also a copy of any reports of any officers of the department in connection therewith.



PHILIP RODRIQUE

Alfred (Fred) Davis: For a copy of all correspondence, reports and other documents, relative to the suspension of district swine promoter, Philip Rodrique. Also a copy of all correspondence, reports and other documents pertaining to the reinstatement of this man in the Live Stock branch in the Department of Agriculture.



INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS AND TREATIES


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved:: Whereas the Imperial conference of 1923 recommended for the acceptance of the governments of the empire represented that the following procedure should be observed in the negotiation, signature and ratification of international agreements:
The word "treaty" is used in the sense of an agreement which, in accordance with the normal practice of diplomacy, would take the form of a treaty between heads of states, signed by plenipotentiaries provided with full powers issued by the heads of the states, and authorizing the holders to conclude a treaty.

1.	Negotiation.
(a)	It is desirable that no treaty should be negotiated by any of the governments of the empire without due consideration of its possible effect on other parts of the empire, or, if circumstances so demand, on the empire as a whole.
(b)	Before negotiations are opened with the intention of concluding a treaty, steps should be taken to ensure that any of the other governments of the empire likely to be interested are informed, so that, if any such government considers that its interests would be affected it may have an opportunity of expressing its views, or, when it3 interests are intimately involved, of participating in the negotiations.
(c)	In all cases where more than one of the governments of the empire participates in the negotiations, there should be the fullest possible exchange of views between those governments before and during the negotiations. In the case of treaties negotiated at international conferences, where there is a British Empire delegation, on which, in accordance with the, now established practice the dominions and India are separately represented, such representation should also be utilized to attain this object.	.
(d)	Steps should be taken to ensure that those governments of the empire whose representatives are not participating in the negotiations should, during their progress, be kept informed in regard to any points arising in which they may be interested.
2.	Signature.
(a)	Bilateral treaties imposing obligations on one part of the empire only should be signed by a representative of the government of that part of the empire in respect of which the obligations are to be undertaken, and the preamble and text of the treaty should be worded as to make its scope clear.
(b)	Where a bilateral treaty imposes obligations on more than one part of the empire, the treaty should be signed by one or more plenipotentiaries on behalf of all the governments concerned.
(c)	As regards treaties negotiated at international conferences, the existing practice of signature by plenipotentiaries on behalf of all the governments of the empire represented at the conference should be continued, and the full powers should be in the form employed at Paris and Washington.
3.	Ratification.
The existing practice in connection with the ratification of treaties should be maintained.

Apart from treaties made between heads of states, it is not unusual for agreements to be made between governments. Such agreements, which are usually of

International Agreements
a technical or administrative character, are made in the names of the signatory governments, and signed by representatives of those governments, who do not act under full powers issued by the heads of the states: they are not ratified by the heads of the states, though in some cases some form of acceptance or confirmation by the governments concerned is employed. As regards agreements of this nature the existing practice should be continued, but before entering on negotiations the governments of the empire should consider whether the interests of any other part of the empire may be affected, and, if so, steps should be taken to ensure that the government of such part is informed of the proposed negotiations, in order that it may have an opportunity of expressing its views.
And whereas it was further agreed that the existing procedure in relation to ratification of treaties was as follows:
(a)	The ratification of treaties imposing obligations on one part of the empire is effected at the instance of the government of that part:
(b)	The ratification of treaties imposing obligations on more than one part of the empire is effected after consultation between the governments of those parts of the empire concerned. It is for each government to decide whether parliamentary approval or legislation is required before desire for, or concurrence in, ratification is intimated by that government.
This House approves of the procedure proposed for the negotiation, signature and ratification of treaties and conventions, and considers further that before His Majesty's Canadian ministers advise ratification of a treaty or convention affecting Canada, or signify acceptance of anj' treaty convention or agreement involving military or economic sanctions, the approval of the parliament of Canada should be secured.
He said:	The resolution which you have
just reald, Mr. Speaker, relates to the all important question of the negotiation, signature and ratification of treaties involving military or economic sanctions. The resolution will be founid to divide itself into two parts, the first part asking formal approval by parliament of the resolution respecting the negotiation, signature and' ratification of treaties which was adopted at the Imperial conference of 1923; the second part asking the approval by parliament of the procedure to be adopted with respect to the ratification of treaties only upon the prior approval by parliament which, under the resolution of the Imperial conference, was left optional with the different governments and parliaments of the empire concerned. My reason for bringing this resolution forward1 at this time is that another Imperial conference has been called' to assemble in London in October of this year. It is, I think, desirable that representatives of the government attending that conference should be in a position to state that the parliament of Canada has approved the resolution respecting the negotiation, signature and ratification of treaties which was adopted at the previous conference. I think it desirable also that the House and the Imperial conference should know the attitude which the representatives of the government will be expected to take in 14011-302
stating the position of this country on the all important matter of procedure with respect to the ratification of treaties.
In connection with the first part of this resolution I assume there will be very little if any question as to the attitude of parliament. Indeed, I hope the entire resolution will meet with the unanimous approval of this House, and: if I refrain from going into matters of possible controversy it is because of a desire to have agreement between all parties in this House as far as possible in connection with these questions which relate to our interimperial and international relations. The resolution considered in a broad way is one which should commend itself to all groups in this parliament; at any rate it is my hope that the discussion will so resolve itself.
In connection with the first part of the resolution requesting approval by parliament of the resolution adopted at the Imperial conference of 1923 respecting the negotiation, signature and ratification of treaties, I would say that at the Imperial conference this resolution was unanimously approved by the governments represented there. It was approved by the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and by the representatives of the governments of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland and the Irish Free State and Canada, as well as by the representatives of India. In the circumstances, therefolre, I think there will be little difficulty in finding general acceptance of the resolution in this parliament. It may, however, be advisable to put on record the reference made in the report of the Imperial conference itself as to the manner in which a decision was reached with respect to this particular resolution.
I might anticipate the reading of that particular paragraph by recalling to the House the discussion which we had in this parliament in a previous session with respect to the negotiation of a treaty with the United States having to do with the conservation of the halibut resources on the Pacific coast. Hon. members present at that' time will recall that the government of the day, the present administration, took the view that as that treaty affected only this part of the empire and related to a matter of mutual concern to the great republic to the south and ourselves, it was right and proper that the negotiations should be conducted by ministers of the crown representing the government of Canada, and that the ministers so conducting the negotiations should be given full powers by His Majesty, and that the same rights which existed with respect to the negotiation of the treaty should also exist with re-

International Agreements

spect to its signature and with respect also to its ratification. In other words, that as it was a treaty which concerned only one part of the empire, the part of the empire alone concerned was the part which should undertake and carry through the negotiations and advise ratification.
The consideration of the Halibut treaty gave rise, as I have said, tQ some discussion in parliament and to a difference in the point of view as between the parties as to whether the government in thus asserting Canada's position was perhaps not going too far in placing upon the shoulders of its ministers obligations which theretofore had been exercised by either ambassadors or ministers of the home government. There was a considerable discussion here, considerable discussion in the press of this country and in the Old Country as to the whole position, the significance being as to whether or not it marked a departure in the negotiation of treaties. That was how the matter came to come before the Imperial conference.
I shall not go into the discussions which took place at the Imperial conference with respect to that matter. All I wish to say to the House at the moment is that the Canadian position as taken was maintained absolutely by the Imperial conference as a whole. Not only did the ministers of the other self-governing dominions take the position, in giving their assent to the resolution, that what Canada had done with respect to that particular treaty was done in a right and proper way, but the conference went further and said that with respect to similar classes of treaties in the future the procedure there adopted should be the one to be followed.
In considering the question of the negotiation, signature and ratification of treaties, a special committee of the conference was appointed to give the matter detailed study. That special committee was presided over by the late Lord Curzon, who at the time was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and it had the advice and assistance of the able counsel of the Foreign Office, Sir Cecil Hurst. The record of the 'proceedings of the conference will be found on page 13 of the Summary of Proceedings presented to His Majesty's parliament in November, 1923, as follows:
The principles governing the relations of the various parts of the empire in connection with the negotiation, signature and ratification of treaties seemed to the conference to be of the greatest importance. Accordingly it was arranged that the subject should be fully examined by a committee, of which the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was chairman. The Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Prime Ministers of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand,

the Union of South Africa and Newfoundland, the Minister of External Affairs of the Irish Free State, and the Secretary of State for India as head of the Indian Delegation, served on this committee. With the assistance of the legal adviser to the Foreign Office, Sir C. J. B. Hurst, K.C.B., K.C., the following resolution was drawn up and agreed to:
Then follows the resolution, which is exactly as cited in the notice which appears on the order paper, but for the purposes of record, Mr. Speaker, I think I had better place it in full on Hansard. The resolution reads: "The word 'treaty' is used in the sense of an agreement which, in accordance with the normal practice of diplomacy, would take the form oif a treaty between heads of states, signed by plenipotentiaries provided with full powers issued by the heads of the states, and authorizing the holders to conclude a treaty."

"1. Negotiation.
"(a) It is desirable that no treaty should be negotiated by any of the governments of the empire without due consideration of its possible effect on other parts of the empire, or, if circumstances so demand, on the empire as a whole.
"(b) Before negotiations are opened with the intention of concluding a treaty, steps should be taken to ensure that any of the other governments of the empire likely to be interested are informed, so that, if any such government considers that its interests would be affected, it may have an opportunity of expressing its views, or, when its interests are intimately involved, of participating in the negotiations.
"(c) In all cases where more than one of the governments of the empire participates in the negotiations, there should be the fullest possible exchange of views between those governments before and during the negotiations. In the case of treaties negotiated at international conferences, where there is a British Empire delegation, on which, in accordance with the now established practice the Dominions and India are separately represented, such representation should also be utilized to attain this object.
"(d) Steps should be taken to ensure that those governments of the empire whose representatives are not participating in the negotiations should, during their progress, be kept informed in regard to any points arising in which they may be interested.
"2. Signature.
"(a) Bilateral treaties imposing obligations on one part of thS empire only should be signed by a representative of the government of that part. The full power issued to such representative should indicate the part of empire in respect of which the obligations are to be undertaken, and the preamble and text of the treaty should be so worded as to make its scope clear.
"(b) Where a bilateral treaty imposes obligations on more than one part of the empire, the treaty should be signed by one or more plenipotentiaries on behalf of all the governments concerned.
"(c) As regards treaties negotiated at international conferences, the existing practice of signature by plenipotentiaries on behalf of all the governments of the empire represented at the conference should be continued, and the full powers should be in the form employed at Paris and Washington.
"3. Ratification.
"The existing practice in connection with the ratification of treaties should be maintained."
That is part I of the resolution. Hon. members will notice that the House is asked

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to approve of the procedure proposed for the negotiation, signature and ratification of treaties and conventions as set forth in that resolution. As I say, I think there can be no possibility of the House in any way taking exception to the form of procedure as therein outlined. I would only add this, that since this resolution of the Imperial conference was adopted, the government has proceeded in the negotiation of other treaties upon the basis therein laid down. In the report of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, for the year ending March 1, 1925, which was tabled in the House at the beginning of this session, will be found a list of the treaties that have been negotiated, signed and ratified since this resolution went into effect.
I have already spoken of the Halibut treaty, which has been signed and ratified prior to the meeting of the Imperial conference. The next treaty to be negotiated, signed and ratified in accordance with the proceedings therein set forth was the commercial treaty with Belgium. I might say, in passing, with respect to the signature of that treaty that it was the first treaty in the history of the Dominion to be signed in Canada by Canadian ministers of the crown holding full powers from His Majesty to sign in his name. The first treaty of the kind to be signed in Carlada; the Halibut treaty, had been signed by ministers, of the crown of Canada holding full power from his Majesty to sign in his name, but it was signed at Washington, and not at Ottawa,. The commercial treaty with Belgium has the historic significance of 'being the first treaty approved by this parliament, negotiated and signed in Canada, with the full powers given by His Majesty to Canadian ministers to act on his behalf.
The other treaties with the United States which were signed since the resolution of the Imperial conference are the- convention for the purposes of suppressing smuggling operations along the international boundary, and preventing the violation of the laws regarding narcotics, which was signed at Washington on June 6, 1924, and ratifications exchanged at the same place on July 17, 1925. A supplementary convention to provide for extradition on account of crimes against the laws for the suppression of traffic in narcotics was signed at Washington on January 8, 1925. and ratifications were exchanged on July 17, 1925. On February 24, 1925, a convention between Canada and the United States was signed at Washington providing for the regulation of the levels of the lake of the Woods, ratifications being duly exchanged at Washington on July 17, 1925.
At Washington on the same day a treaty was signed to define more accurately the international boundary between the two countries, and ratifications were exchanged at Washington on July 17, 1925.
Hon. members will find in this report references to other conventions and treaties, some of them of a. commercial character and some relating more particularly to negotiations between different parts of the British Empire. But the treaties which I have just mentioned are treaties with foreign countries, treaties which were negotiated by Canadan ministers holding full power from His Majesty for the purpose and signed by them in the name of His Majesty, and the ratification of which was effected after this parliament had approved of the treaties. So, Mr. Speaker, I submit that with respect to the first part of the resolution which sets forth t)he procedure to be followed in regard to negotiation, signature and ratification, this parliament may be assumed by its repeated actions to have endorsed the resolution in full, and there should therefore be no difficulty at the present time in obtaining formal approval of the course of procedure there outlined.
The second part of the resolution asks the approval of parliament to one particular form of procedure with respect to the ratification of the treaties. May I pause here to remind hon. members that ratification of a treaty is an executive act-it is an act of the sovereign. Sometimes in the discussion of these international questions we use terminology with a freedom that is perhaps hardly permissible if we wish to be exact, and not infrequently one hears mention of a treaty being ratified by parliament. The act of ratification is an executive act, an act performed by the sovereign. It is performed by the sovereign, however, on the advice df his ministers, that may be regarded as sufficient, or there may be a limitation placed upon ministers before advising ratification-such a limitation as is suggested in the present resolution, namely of approval by the parliament of the country in the first instance. In the resolution of the Imperial conference it was stated that the procedure with respect to ratification was to remain as it had existed theretofore. That meant that it was optional with the parliaments or the governments of the different countries concerned to decide whether or not ratification should be on the advice of the ministry solely, or whether it should be upon the approval of parliament in the first instance. The present government, jn the case of Canada, believes that it will help to avoid embarrassments and dissensions, that it will make

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for greater unity and for greater security with-dn the empire in the long run, if the general practice is adopted with respect to important treaties such as involve military and economic sanctions of approval by parliament Of such treaties in the first instance preceding advice on the part of the ministry favourable to ratification.


Mr. McGIBBON:: Does the Prime Minister not think that it is the duty of the government to advise parliament as to what the policy of the government is?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I will come
to that in a moment. I think it is more .mportant that parliament should feel assured in regard to all these great obligations of an international character which involve military and economic sanctions that a government should not have the opportunity of binding parliament in advance of its own knowledge to the obligations incurred thereby. That is the principle that is being laid down at the moment.


Peter McGibbon: Are they really binding parliament? Is it not really a case of having parliament back up the government?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: 
Peter McGibbon: May I ask the Prime
Minister a question?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


Peter McGibbon: Is it not a fact that
practically all the obligations we might be subject to by the Locarno treaty were contracted by the Peace treaty of Versailles?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do n'ot wish to go into a discussion of the Locarno agreement at the present time. That is a big subject. The particular question my hon. friend has raised is one which no doubt will.
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come up at the Imperial conference, and I would like to be in a position, should it be my privilege to present to parliament matters connected with the Locarno agreement, to give all those phases careful study and investigation before pronouncing too definitely upon them. But what I wish to direct the attention of the House to at the moment is that clause 9 of the treaty of mutual guarantee as it stands at present reads:	-
The present treaty shall impose no obligation upon any of the British dominions, or upon India, unless the government of such dominion, or of India, signifies its acceptance thereof.
Some critics who have, examined the treaty have been inclined to be suspicious of the use of the word "government", rather than the use of the word "parliament", as it appeared in a previous treaty of guarantee relating more particularly to France, which was proposed a couple of years ago, but which did not become .effective. In that treaty, a treaty of guarantee, to which the United States, France and Britain were named as -parties, and1 which contained provision similar to the one now found in the Locarno treaty, it was stated that the treaty would impose no obligation upon the dominion unless the parliament of such dominion signified its acceptance thereof. The use of the word "government" in the present Locarno agreement would seem to suggest that in the minds of those who had to do with the drafting of the treaty there was a reason why the word "parliament" should be dropped and the word "government" substituted therefor. May I say that, after knowing, as I do from the correspondence, what was in the mind, of the British government, I have no hesitation in saying that the British government had no ulterior object in view, so far as the change of the word "parliament" to "government" was concerned. This clause, as hon. members will notice, speaks of India as well as the dominions. India has not a parliament in a position to express approval on matters of this kind, and I believe that was the consideration which governed in the use of the word "government" in this clause rather than the word "parliament." But what the British government itself has anticipated, what it expects at the present time, is that before Canada becomes a party to the Locarno agreement, this parliament will be asked to express its approval. It is not anticipated that the government regardless of parliament will be expected to give approval on the part of Canada. That, I think, is sufficient with respect to the Locarno agreement.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: What additional
information is it hoped to secure at the time of the Imperial conference bearing upon the Locarno treaty that will enable the government to decide any more fully than it now can with regard to the policy of Canada?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I really cannot tell what additional information there may be. I have already told my hon. friend our position up to the present moment, namely, that we are prepared and I am sure the House will be prepared to wait for any additional information which other members of the Imperial conference may wish to place at our disposal. I simply accept in good faith the expression of opinion of the British government that it is desirable an opportunity should be given to have all information before us before a decision is reached and I am prepared to act upon it.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Am I not right
that we shall be dealing with a definite treaty and certain documents and that Canada ought to have her own policy with regard to that treaty just as much now as at any later time?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have already said that 'Canada has her policy. Canada knows her mind in this matter; but if a request comes from one part of the empire to another to defer a final word until there has been opportunity of conference, I for my part do not see why a request of that kind should not be met. It is altogether desirable that in these matters . affecting the empire as a whole, the fullest opportunity for conference and discussion should be given. Certainly if Canada were asking another part of the empire to defer its final judgment on a matter which affected Canada, I would hope that other part would be willing to meet us in like spirit.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Has such a request been passed on to the other dominions?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It has been
passed on to all the dominions.


Peter McGibbon: The Prime Minister has said that the government has a definite policy on this matter. Will he be good enough to tell the House what it is?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend could not have been listening. I did tell the House. I said that up to the present time the government had not seen any reason why it should assume obligations under this par-

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ticular clause which leaves it optional for the dominions to say whether or not they will assume these obligations.
In conclusion I have just one other word to say bearing directly on this matter. Hon. members will have noticed that I have drawn a distinction between an obligation placed upon a government and an obligation placed upon parliament. In this instance I direct my present remarks more in the form of a question to the right hon. the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) than of any observations with respect to certain declarations which he has made on the subject of Canada's participation in foreign wars which, of course, arises out of obligations assumed through agreements, treaties or conventions.
In a speech made at Hamilton in the fall of last year my right hon. friend is reported as making a very significant statement, I hope he will correct me if in any particular I fail to give the quotation aright. I am taking the following quotation from my right hon. friend's speech as it is found reported in the Mail and Empire of Toronto, of November 17, special to the Mail and Empire from the staff reporter at Hamilton under date of November 16. I will not attempt to read the whole of the speech, but I will deal with the point that is pertinent to my present remarks. My right hon. friend is reported as saying:
If ever the time should come when the spectre of 1914 should again appear I believe it would be best not only that parliament should be called, but that the decision of the government which, of course, would have to be given promptly, should be submitted to the judgment of the people at a general election before troops should leave our shores. This would contribute to the unity of our country in the months to come and would enable us best to do our duty. It would not mean delay. Under the stress of war delay would be fatal. Let me make clear what I mean. The government would have to decide and decide quickly what was best in the interests of Canada. The government would have to act on its judgment, but before there was anything in the way of participation involving the despatch of troops the will of the people of Canada should first be obtained.
The question I wish to ask my right hon. friend is this-and I hope he will explain it when he gets up to speak-whether by that declaration he means that it shall rest solely with the government to make the decision whether or not Canada shall participate in wars or whether it shall be parliament which must approve before the further 3 p.m. reference is made to the people as a whole in a general election. As I read my right hon. friend's remarks they are capable of two interpretations. One is that if Canada is asked to participate in a war parliament will be summoned, but there
is no obligation to place before parliament for its approval the decision taken with respect to sending troops overseas. I think my right hon. friend's remarks may be read to mean that the government itself, irrespective of parliament, will have the deters mination of whether or not troops are to go overseas; what the government would do would be to call parliament together very quickly and as soon as parliament is called together there will be an appeal from parliament to the people in a general election after the government has reached a decision but _ before it has submitted its decision to parliament for approval.


Arthur Meighen: I can answer that now.
I never for a moment contemplated that the government would make the decision irrespective of parliament.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Does my right hon. friend say his policy is that parliament should in the first instance approve the decision of the government?


Arthur Meighen: I have not said anything about the order. I simply say in answer to the direct question put to me: I never contemplated the government acting in the way of sending troops without the approval of parliament.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That does not answer my question. I think it is due to the House that my right hon. friend should make his position clear. Let us assume for a moment that the government has reached a decision to participate in a foreign war. Will he first obtain parliamentary approval of that decision before appealing to the people in a general election?


Arthur Meighen: If the people have to be appealed to, it is perfectly worthless to appeal to parliament first. The people will decide and parliament, when elected, will approve.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Now we see
exactly what my right hon. friend means. He does not mean to ask the approval of parliament, the representatives of the people, with respect to our participation in foreign wars.


Arthur Meighen: Not at all.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I beg his pardon. His answer is not capable of any other interpretation. He will call parliament together but he will not say that he will submit to the approval of parliament the decision that the government has reached with respect to participation in foreign wars.


Arthur Meighen: I did not say that at all.
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William Lyon Mackenzie King: I ask my right hon. friend again. Will he answer the specific question? I will put a concrete case to him. Under the Locarno agreement let us assume that the government has decided that troops are to be sent to France or Germany. Will my right hon. friend say that if he has decided that troops are to go, when he calls parliament together he will submit that question to parliament and abide by the decision of parliament before he makes his appeal to the electorate?


Arthur Meighen: I have answered the
question already, but my answer is only being misinterpreted and the Prime Minister had better finish his speech.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend has not answered the question.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, I have.
Mr. MACKENZIE KIN|G:	Well, Mr. Speaker, I direct the attention of the House and the country to the tactics of my right hon. friend at the present moment. I will read the 'language again so that hon. members will see his position exactly. He said:
Let one make clear what I mean. The government would have to decide, and decide quickly, what was best in the interests of 'Canada. The government would have to act on its judgment-
Not parliament, but the government-my right hon. friend and his executive-would have to act on their judgment.
-but before there was anything in the way of participation involving the despatch of troops the will of the people of Canada should first be obtained.
In other words, my right hon. friend is declaring in this speech that should there be war in any part of the world, he will take good care to see that this parliament the representatives of the people assembled in parliament, do not have to approve the action of the government before it makes an appeal to the electorate, but he will precipitate a khaki election after the government has reached its decision, and allow a condition of affairs to arise at a time of war abroad which might be equivalent to civil war itself in parts of the Dominion at a moment when the nation should be united and view the matter with the greatest care and the greatest caution. I say, Mr. Speaker, that my right hon. friend owes it to this House to make the position of the great party which he leads a little plainer to the people of Canada than he has made it this afternoon. The resolution which the House is being asked to pass will make it clear, no matter what may be in the mind of my right hon. friend, that before this country parti-

cipates in a foreign war parliament must be assembled and its approval obtained to the sending abroad of troops to take part in the war.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I submit that in this policy we are asserting the supremacy of parliament. Two or three years ago my right hon. friend took the position that we should not even wait for parliament if a call came to us to participate in a war overseas, but that we should say, "Ready, aye, ready"-get right into the fight.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Speaker the Prime Minister is not only misrepresenting me, but he is doing so intentionally.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not doing anything of the kind.


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Then I will
leave it to my right hon. friend to tell us whether when he said, "Ready, aye ready" he meant we should be "Ready, aye, ready." I am quite prepared that in that extreme as in the other his position shall remain in the doubtful category in which he has placed it himself.


Arthur Meighen: We are not children.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have no
desire to geit into a controversy in this matter. As I said at the beginning, I only wish to state the position in the clearest, possible way. I asked my right hon. friend for an explanation, of the words which he used, but I have not yet been able to get from him an explanation which the country will regard as satisfactory. Let me say, Mr. Speaker, with regard to the position of the present administration and of the Liberal party, that whate'ver may be the position of my right hon. friend and of those who surround him, on this grave question of the obligation of the country to participate in foreign wars, we declare that in regard to the ratification of treaties, conventions or agreements involving military or economic sanctions we stand first, last and always for approval in the first instance by the parliament of Canada. We do not take the extreme of ignoring parliament in one way or the other. We believe that parliament stands as the one body representative of the nation as a whole, and we believe that by having it understood in advance that on all these great questions parliament will be consulted and its approval obtained, we will be helping to maintain without possibility of division or difference

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the relations between the different parts of this great empire, and that in the most effective way we will be able to further unity within our own country and unity within the British Empire as well.
Mr. C. H. CA'HAN:	(St. Lawrence-St.
George):	Mr. Speaker, the resolution which
the Prime Minister has placed before the House embodies, as I understand it, the existing practice with regard to the ratification of treaties in so far as they are ratified, or in so far as signification is given of their ratification, on behalf of the Canadian dominion. The resolution in itself consists of two parts. First, it approves of certain procedure proposed for the negotiation, signature and ratification of treaties and conventions affecting Canada. I do not understand that there is anything new in this procedure. Secondly, it affirms as a rule of public .policy that before the government of Canada shall advise ratification of a treaty or convention affecting Canada, or signify acceptance of any treaty, convention or agreement, involving military or economic sanctions, the approval of the parliament of Canada should first be obtained.
Now, dealing with the first part of this resolution, I understand that the duly authorized representatives of the Canadian government may, in accordance with its terms, properly sign treaties or conventions on behalf of Canada without having received the .prior authority of the .parliament of Canada to do so, but that no such treaty or convention or agreement so signed shall be binding upon Canada until it has been formally approved by the parliament of Canada. The preamble to the resolution also affirms that no treaty shalll be signed on behalf of one part of the empire which shall affect any other part, without affording to any and every other part, which is likely to be interested, full opportunity to be heard, and when the interests of that other part are intimately involved, opportunity to participate in the negotiations. Such provisions are reasonable and I think undoubtedly in accordance with the existing practice. As to the ratification of such treaties or conventions, the preamble to the resolution affirms that the said practice or procedure should be maintained, and the existing procedure is declared to be as follows:
(a)	the ratification of treaties imposing obligations on one part of the empire is effected at the instance of the government of that part.
(b)	the ratification of treaties imposing obligations on more than one part of the empire is effected after consultation between the governments of those parts of the empire concerned.
But I call the attention of the Prime Minister particularly to this fact, that neither
the preamble to the resolution nor the resolution itself declares that no such treaty or convention shall be binding on a self-governing dominion of the empire except it be accepted by the government of that dominion.
In other words, in the treaty of Locarno, as the Prime Minister stated, under article 9 it is provided that the present treaty shall impose no obligation upon any of the British dominions or upon India unless the government of such dominion or of India shall signify its acceptance thereof. First, I would ask the Prime Minister was it the clear understanding at the Imperial conference of 1923 that hereafter no treaty or convention negotiated by the crown should be binding upon the Dominion of Canada or the other dominions unless its ratification were assented to or signified by the government, subject of course in the case of Canada to the approval of. the Canadian parliament? Are we not to understand that up to this date there have been many treaties entered into by the crown which undoubtedly bind Canada, even although the Canadian government has not intimated its assent or acceptance and even although the Canadian parliament has not been called upon to approve the same? Is this a new departure? Is it clearly understood that hereafter the crown,-because it is the crown alone that can negotiate treaties- shall not negotiate any treaty or convention which shall apply to or bind Canada or which, in the words of the resolution, shall affect Canada without such treaty being assented to by the government based in the ease of Canada, if this resolution is in force and the prior practice prevails, upon the authority of this parliament? Would the hon. gentleman answer now, or shall I wait until later?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I cannot see
that there is any occasion for the resolution at all unless the language means that where one part of the empire is affected, that part in order to be bound must be kept advised of the negotiations, and must be a signatory and agree to ratification of the treaty in question.


Mr. CAHAN:: Then I understand that this is a new departure.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would not
say that; I am rather inclined to believe that what has been set out in the resolution is what has been assumed in the past despite such different views as others may have held. Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir Wilfrid Laurier and all the Prime Ministers of this country have I believe taken the view that Canada is not necessarily bound by treaties signed without her knowledge and without her consent.
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Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Then I understand that the
resolution makes it clear that the understanding approved by the representatives at the Imperial conference is, then, that hereafter the crown will refrain from making any treaty applicable to and binding on any one of the dominions unless with the assent of the government of that dominion, leaving it to that government and its parliament to decide as to whether prior to the consent of the government being given, there shall be express approval by the parliament of that dominion.
There is another point as to the ratification of any treaty or convention by the government of Canada. The resolution provides generally that the approval of the Canadian parliament must first be obtained, but the terms of the resolution seem to me to discriminate between a treaty or convention affecting Canada which may be ratified on notification by the Canadian government, and a treaty, convention or agreement involving military or economic sanctions to which the government of Canada may signify its acceptance. I would like to ask the Prime Minister if this is a mere matter of a little irregular drafting, or whether by the use of the different words, a treaty or convention affecting Canada in the one place, and, in the other, a treaty, convention or agreement involving military or economic sanction, the one term is intended to be exclusive of the other.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am very,
glad my hon. friend has asked that question. As the resolution was originally drafted and placed on the order paper it read, I think, "Any treaty or convention affecting Canada." As I studied that language it appeared to me to be broad enough to include treaties of a purely technical and administrative character.
I did not wish the resolution to go that far; I did not wish to ask that all treaties of a purely technical or administrative character should necessarily come before parliament for approval. What I wished to make clear however, was that all treaties or conventions involving military or economic sanctions must come before parliament, and where military or economic sanctions were involved I wished to make the terms broad enough to include agreements, so that in referring to treaties or agreements of any kind we would not have a difference over the mere use of words.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I would suggest that the
resolution might be made clearer if it stated, "any treaty affecting Canada and particularly any treaty involving military or economic

sanctions." It also strikes me that there is some discrepancy in the last few words of the resolution:
-or signify acceptance of any treaty, convention or agreement involving military or economic sanctions, the approval of the parliament of Canada should be secured.
I can well understand that the approval of parliament might be "secured" by a majority of the members sitting behind the Prime Minister agreeing in terms to support a particular treaty upon the calling of parliament. In that way it would be secured within the meaning of that w'ord, but I would suggest that a better word would be "obtained". That is a far better wofd, but I do not wish to be technical.
Although this resolution may and probably does, as the Prime Minister says, embody only the existing procedure, as far back as I can remember, over thirty or forty years, no treaty has been negotiated by or on behalf of Canada which has not been subject to the approval of parliament before it belcame effective. In that respect I am entirely at one with the Prime Minister in upholding the supremacy of the Canadian parliament in dealing with matters directly affecting Canada and the Canadian people. In reading again Lord Durham's report of 1839, I chanced to come upon the vivid and inspiring message which he sent to the British colonies of North America:
If in the hidden decrees of that wisdom 'by which this world is ruled, it is written that these countries are not forever to remain portions of the empire, we owe it to our honour to take good care that, when they separate from us. they should not be the only countries on the American continent in which the Anglo-Saxon race shall be found unfit to govern itself.
I think in dealing with all these matters of inter-imperial and external affairs the sooner is is clearly recognized, not only by the people but by members of this parliament as well, that the future destiny of this country rests in the hands of the men who sit in parliament representing the people, the sooner will we have a clear consciousness of the grave responsibilities which Test upon parliament in dealing with all matters of this character. I remember well in my native province of Nova Scotia when every boy of my age was taught to read at college the discussions from 1839 to 1846 in our own provincial parliament, dluring that memorable contest for responsible selfgovernment in Nova Scotia in which the late Hon. Joseph Howe took such an important lead. I remember hearing him speak once myself, though but a lad, on these matters, and in the whole eastern part of Canada there was left an indelible impression upon the minds of the electorate, which exists even to this day, that in all matters of domestic and internal policy

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the parliament of Canada must be supreme. Since that time there has grown up a strong, a seriously strong, impression that in all matters of external or inter-imperial policy affecting Canada, the parliament of Canada must have the decisive word, and therefore it is that I regard this expression, of the procedure that has gradually developed during the last thirty or forty years, embodied' in a resolution of this kind, as being somewhat impressive, although it does not incorporate any new principle of public policy.
But I suggest that so long ago as the discussion of the confederation resolutions, Sir John A. Macdonald anticipated some such possibility as this. I notice that in his oration upon the Quebec resolutions in 1865, he declared at great length that with respect to the future destiny of Canada, its political destiny, even if it be independence of the British Empire, the people and parliament of Canada must have the supreme and final decision, even in regard to independence, because I wish to impress the view that, if this country desires independence of the British Empire, parliament at the present time is perfectly free to declare what our political future shall be, and that decision will be supreme and binding and final so far as the British government is concerned. I have at my hand a dozen or more statements of that view from the most responsible statesmen of the British Empire, down through all the years from 1839 to the present. But the very fact that we have this power, the very fact that w:e have this authority, the very fact that the supreme decision rests with us as the representatives of the people in the House of Commons, places upon the government and places upon parliament a grave responsibility with regard to the exercise of these powers, even indirectly, and with regard sometimes to very trivial affairs. Sir John A. Macdonald said:
One argument, but not a strong one, has been urged against this confederation, that iit is an advance towards independence. Some are apprehensive that the very fact of our forming .this union will hasten the time when we shall (be severed from .the Mother Country. I have no apprehension of that kind. I believe it will have the contrary effect. I believe that as we grow stronger, thait as it is feLt dn England we 'have become a ipeople, able from our union, our strength, our population, and .the development of our resources, to take our position among the nations, she will be less willing to pant with us than she would Ibe now, when we are broken up into a number of 'insignificant colonies, subject ito attack piece-meal without any concerted action or common organization of defence.
I am strongly of opinion that year by year, as we grow in population and strength, England will more and more see the advantages of maintaining the alliance between British North America and herself. Does any one imagine that, when our population, instead of three and a half, will be seven millions, as it will be ere many years pass, we will be one whit more willing than now to sever the connection with England ? Would not these seven millions be just as anxious to maintain their allegiance to the queen and their connection with the Mother Countiy, as we are now? ....
And when by means of this rapid increase we become a nation of eight or nine millions of inhabitants, our alliance will be worthy of being sought by the great nations of the earth. I am proud to believe that our desire for a permanent alliance will be reciprocated in England	
The colonies are now in a transition state. Gradually a different colonial system is being developed- and it will become, year by year, less a case of dependence on our pant, and of over-ruling protection on- the .part of the Mother Country, and more a case of healthy and cordial alliance.
For myself, although I pray God may forbid that in this generation or in succeeding generations we shall be separated from the British crown or sever our allegiance to the British crown as it at present exists, I believe that it is absolutely necessary that the people of this country should thoroughly appreciate and understand1 that the political future of Canada that the destiny of this country is in their bands, and that we may have whatever future political career the great body of the people of Canada, as represented in this House of Commons, may decide to have for Canada. I believe in the necessity of maintaining the supremacy of the Canadian parliament in respect of all matters affecting the peace, progress and prosperity of Canada, but I believe also in the supreme necessity of creating in all sections of the Canadian people complete confidence in the efficiency and in the efficacy of our parliamentary institutions. If we fail in this Dominion of Canada to create and maintain such a confidence, all our institutions, which we have developed year after year and year after year during the last century, will fall to, pieces of their own weight. It is only by maintaining the confidence of the people of Canada in the good faith, in the efficiency, and in the efficacy of parliament, that we can maintain parliamentary institutions in this country. For parliamentary institutions, it seems to me there are only two alternatives-either communistic or autocratic despotism. There remain to-day in the whole wide world exercising the rights, the duties, and the responsibilities of democratic government those countries alone which have adopted and maintain English parliamentary institutions.
With regard to the matter to which the Prime Minister has alluded, I wish to say that it seems to me that when grave international crises arise, if they do arise, in the future history of this country, in which the political
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security of the country is menaced, the parliament of Canada must take full responsibility for such immediate action as may be necessary to safeguard the public interest. I do not remember that in this country the principle of parliamentary responsibility in this respect has ever been directly questioned, and may we not, Mr. Speaker, have implicit confidence that in the future, as in the past, the representatives of the people sitting in this House of Commons will have sufficient courage and sufficient confidence to act up to the full measure of their responsibilities?
In case of such a crisis arising under exceptional circumstances when the House of Commons is more or less equally divided and when public opinion is doubtful, in order that the action or decision of parliament might not be rendered nugatory and ineffective a dissolution of parliament might be necessary, even for instance in such a great international crisis as that with which we were confronted in 1914. That may be possible, but as we know there is a discretion as to the dissolution of parliament vested in His Excellency the Governor General, and we have never yet had occasion to complain very much of the exercise of that discretion by the representatives of the crown who have held that high office in this country. But in the exercise of that discretion I personally hope that at no time will any representative of the crown precipitate an election when there are grave differences of opinion in this country, an election which would engender social disunion and civil strife, and possibly rioting and bloodshed in our midst, over a question of external or inter-imperial policy. The great safety of the empire lies in the fact that the crown, as represented by the British government, has left in the control and disposition of the governments and parliaments of each dominion the power to decide in all these matters of inter-imperial and external policy; and I think that we of this older generation, who have lived through times of crises and have lived nearer to the events of the period from 1835 to 1846, must have full confidence that the younger members in this House, who will be here long after we are gone, and others who are their successors, will be so imbued with a deep sense of the responsibility of the high offices they hold and of the grave trust which is confided to them as members of this House that in deciding upon these matters of inter-imperial or international importance they will so exercise their discretion and so render their decision as to compel the almost unanimous approval and support of every section of this vast and important Dominion.

It seems to me that the great danger at the present time in connection with our domestic affairs is the tendency in this country-I do not wish to be more specific-to separate in respect of inter-imperial and international affaire, and to create divisions of opinion with respect to those matters of external policy, which also serve to create dissensions in respect to the domestic policies of this country and prevent that unanimity and solidarity of opinion being realized in Canada wffiich is absolutely necessary for the efficient and efficacious solution of the grave domestic problems with which we are now face to face. And therefore in regard to the Locarno treaty, or in regard to other treaties or conventions which may be submitted to this parliament, I hope that we may reasonably anticipate that this House o!f Commons, laying aside all merely party prejudices, all merely personal ambitions, may act in a spirit of unity and with the supreme desire to maintain a solidarity of public opinion in Canada with respect to inter-imperial and international matters. In the exercise of that discretion may we not reasonably hope that those who succeed us in filling the highest offices in the gifts of the people of Canada shall only undertake such inter-imperial and international responsibilities as may be undertaken with the general approval of all sections of the country, and so insure that the action of parliament, and of the government which this parliament maintains and sustain^, shall have the approval not only of a majority of the electoral constituencies throughout Canada, but also have the substantial support and co-operation of the constituencies in every important section, district or province of the Dominion? I am confident, Mr. Speaker-and my sole excuse for speaking is that I feel so strongly about this matter-that it is only by restricting all our external commitments and obligations within such limits as to merit and obtain the general approval, as I said, of each and every section of Canada, that we can ever hope to have such cordial co-operation between the peoples who compose the Canadian electorate as will enable us to solve our domestic problems in such a manner and so successfully as to maintain the continued solidarity and unity of the great Canadian nation, and thereby promote for all time the peace, progress and prosperity of this country, in which we were born, in which we will die and which will be the home of our children and our children's children for all future time.

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Mr. HENRI ROURASSA (Labelle):: It is much to be deplored that a subject of this magnitude should be brought before parliament in the dying hours of the session. For many years, due I suppose to a desire to take a rest from the exciting conditions of the war, there seems to have been a disposition to avoid full and ample discussion of our outside affairs, whether they relate to interimperial relations or to external affairs generally. Perhaps that is due also to the fact that the people of Canada, their parliament and their government, have practically never exercised their full responsibility as a free nation in these matters, and have inherited from generation to generation the old colonial and childish attitude of relying upon somebody else to shape their foreign policy.
As regards this resolution, worded as it is, there ought to be no exception taken. It is, first, a ratification of the decisions taken unanimously by the last Imperial conference, as the proper policy and the proper procedure to be followed in order to establish interimperial relations upon a certain logical basis, -inasmuch as logic can apply to the extraordinary system of government under which we live.
But the latter part of the resolution is much more important. The hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Caban), in that magnificent oration to which I am sorry so few members listened, has suggested to the government that there is a discrepancy between the former part, dealing with the ratification of treaties and conventions affecting Canada, and the acceptance of any treaty, convention, or agreement involving military or economic sanctions, without reference to Canada. I do not know what was in the minds of the framers of this resolution; but, I take it to be this. The former part of this paragraph applies to treaties and conventions in which Canadian interests are specifically dealt with; and therefore such treaties and conventions ought to be governed by the procedure which we are called upon to ratify to-day. But, in addition, the government invites the co-operation of parliament and a declaration by parliament that no treaty, convention or agreement, whether Canada is mentioned or not, but involving military or economic sanctions, shall be accepted by the government of Canada without the approval of parliament. This is indeed much broader, and much more to the point. It means that the British government, answerable as it is to only one parliament in the empire, will be now warned in advance that it cannot count upon the support of Canada, in any
matter of external policy, unless the parliament of Canada has signified its acceptance and approval of such policy.
The first concrete application of this principle will undoubtedly be to the Locarno treaty. Unfortunately, Sir, we find ourselves in the strange position that we have not at hand the correspondence exchanged between the British government and the various dominion governments. The very spirit of this resolution has been violated in advance by withholding from the parliament of Canada and the other dominion parliaments all those exchanges of views which have passed between the British government and the various dominion governments with regard to the Locarno treaty. The Prime Minister has invited the attention of the House to and its approval of this resolution for two reasons. One object is that he, or any representative of Canada at the next Imperial conference, may be enabled to say that the parliament of Canada has approved what was done at the last conference, and the other to direct future policy. But, as regards the future, the government has no opinion to express. Are the representatives of Canada to go to London without any expression of opinion on the part of this parliament, on Locarno, for example? We are told that the situation here is the same as it is elsewhere. No, 6ir, Locarno has been discussed in almost every dominion parliament. In India, a resolution has been introduced, though disallowed by the government, to disapprove of Locarno. In Australia, the leader of the opposition, Mr. Charlton, has attacked' Locarno and the Prime Minister, Mr. Bruce, has not defended it. In Ireland, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Fitzgerald, and the leader of the opposition, Mr. Johnson, have made it quite clear that the Free State will not be bound by the treaty of Locarno and will not endorse it. In South Africa, Mr. Hertzog made it equally clear that he did not favour it, and when he challenged his opponent, General Smuts, to contradict him, Mr. Smuts stood up and practically endorsed the attitude of Mr. Hertzog. It is not going too far to say that the consensus of opinion, in all the parliaments of the empire, except the British parliament, has been against Locarno: not against what has been called the "spirit of Locarno," inasmuch as it means a move for peace, but as against the terms under which the "spirit" has expressed! itself in those various agreements, and more specifically against the undertaking by any of the free dominions of the empire to endorse the treaty and to assume its obligations. Now let us see what we have on hand.
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It has been stated-the hon. member for Muskoka (Mr. McGibbon) had it on his mind when he questioned the Prime Minister this afternoon-that the Locarno pact imposed no obligation, or would impose no obligation on the dominions, beyond what we have already assumed under the treaty of Versailles. Let us examine the documents as they stand. Take, first, the preamble of the main treaty, passing over the recitation of the powers of the plenipotentiaries. Germany, Belgium and France on the one hand, and Great Britain and Italy on the other hand agree to make a treaty. For what purpose? Let the treaty speak:
Anxious to satisfy the desire for security and protection which animates the peoples upon whom fell the scourge of the war of 1914-18;
Taking note of the abrogation of the treaties for the neutralization of Belgium, and conscious of the necessity of ensuring peace in the area which has so frequently been the scene of European conflicts;
Animated also with the sincere desire of giving to all the signatory Powers concerned supplementary guarantees within the framework of the Covenant of the League of Nations and the treaties in force between them; -
Have determined to conclude a treaty, etc.
Therefore, the very object of the treaty is to give "supplementary" guarantees. In the correspondence exchanged between the French and the English governments upon the proposal drafted by the Germans, Mr. Briand made this quite clear. Here is what he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain, through the French ambassador in London, on May 22, 1925:
By the words "within the framework of the Treaty of Versailles," the French government meant to specify that the pact proposed by Germany cannot in any way contradict, infringe or weaken the Treaty of Versailles, and represents an offer of complementary guarantees-
In other words, the treaty of Locarno means that over and above the "guarantees" given under the treaty of Versailles, the signatories to this new treaty are called upon to offer supplementary or complementary guarantees to Belgium and France-and to Germany, under certain conditions. With regard to Belgium, this is meant to replace the neutrality guaranteed to her by the treaties of 1831 and 1839, broken by the invasion of Germany in 1914, and abrogated since by the common consent of all parties to these treaties. With regard to France, those supplementary or complementary guarantees are to take the place of the treaties signed at Versailles, June 28, 1919, by the British and the American governments. Those two treaties have been thrown overboard, first, by the refusal of the American Senate to ratify the engagements taken by President Wilson; second, by the condition expressly stipulated by England,

that her engagements were subordinated to the ratification of the American treaty of guarantee.
As far as we are concerned was the idea ever entertained that we were a party to the treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium? Has it ever been contemplated that we should be a party to the treaty of 1919 regarding France? As regards the treaty guaranteeing the' neutrality of Belgium nobody would entertain that idea. As regards the treaty with France, Sir Robert Borden exacted and obtained a specific article which made the Dominions absolutely immune in that respect. Therefore if the Canadian government undertook at the next Imperial conference to recommend to this parliament adherence to the treaty of Locarno, that would mean that we would be assuming engagements, subject of course to ratification by the Canadian parliament, over and beyond what was contemplated by any preceding govern-hent; and very material additional obligations would be assumed by Canada as well as by any other dominion that would adhere to that treaty.
But it may be said, it has been said: Are we not already tied up by Article 10 of the Versailles treaty? We hear frequently of article 10, but I do not think many people have pondered over its terms. Let us read it now:
The members of the league undertake to respect and preserve, as against external aggression, the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all members of the League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression, the council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.
Later on, it is provided that such decision of the council must be unanimous. Moreover this very broad and vague obligation was discarded in practice, on the part of the dominions, first by the protest made by Sir Robert Borden immediately after he signed it, second by the protest made before the assembly of the League of Nations, by Mr. Doherty, representative of the late Conservative government, then by Sir Lomer Gouin, then by the present Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe): and finally in Geneva a vote was passed upon and carried unanimously, but for the one opposing vote of Persia, which practically frees us from all responsibilities arising from article 10. How can it be said now that the application of article 10 of the treaty of Versailles entails any such obligation as can be compared with the very con-ciete obligation we would undertake if we adhered to the Locarno treaty?

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But it is said further:" After all, this is a move for peace; should we not help morally and politically the British government in any move that they may make for peace?" Is it a move for peace? Has it been received by the thoughful opinion of Europe and America as an instrument of peace? Let us look into the matter for a moment. Supposing it does advance the cause of peace as between Germany on the one hand and France and Belgium on the other, this is a very 4 p.m. small and limited spot on the continent of Europe and the one where there is the least danger of a new war arising. It still leaves open the whole of the Balkan problem, the relations between Poland and Russia, the relations betwen the various European nations interested in the spoils of the old Turkish empire. The whole of the Near East question is left open. Therefore it cannot be defined as a move for the establishment of peace in Europe. But as far as is goes, does it make for peace between France and Germany? Let us look for a moment in the treaty itself. Article 1 reads:
The high contracting parties collectively and severally guarantee, in the manner provided in the following articles, the maintenance of the territorial status quo resulting from the frontiers between Germany and Belgium and between Germany and France and the inviolability of the said frontiers as fixed by or in pursuance of the Treaty of Peace signed at Versailles on the 28th June, 1919-
Nothing bad in that. But it goes on:-
-and also the observance of the stipulations of articles 42 and 43 of the said treaty concerning the demilitarized zone.
In other words one of the basic conditions of the treaty is that Germany will remain disarmed on the right bank of the Rhine, but that France will remain free to arm herself to the teeth up to the limit of her frontiers on the left bank of the Rhine. As long as those clauses exist in the treaty of Versailles there is no certainty of peace as between France and Germany, because it is essentially an unjust disposition which was adopted in the turmoil of passions still boiling after the war, but which every thoughtful person realizes is a false basis of peace. Article 2 specifically provides:
Germany and Belgium, and also Germany and France, mutually undertake that they will in no case attack or invade each other or resort to war against each other.
So far, so good; but immediately the article goes on to say that this stipulation, or in other words this mutual engagement not to resort to war or to attack or to invade each other, shall not apply in the following cases:
1.	The exercise of the right of legitimate defence, that is to say, resistance to a violation of the undertaking contained in the previous paragraph, or to a flagrant breach of articles 42 or 43 of the said treaty of Versailles, if such breach constitutes an unprovoked act of aggression and by reason of the assembly of armed forces in the demilitarized zone immediate action is necessary.
We shall see in a moment how this is to be interpreted in the light of the other conventions signed on the same date. Again the undertaking not to make war against each other does not apply in the case of:
2.	Action in pursuance of article 16 of the covenant of the League of Nations.
In other words, if France passes over the territory of Germany to enforce a decision of the council of the League of Nations, this is not an act of aggression on her part. But if Germany undertakes to protect her territory. against that invasion by a French army going for example to the rescue ot Poland, this is an act of aggression under the terms of article 16 of the treaty of Versailles Under that treaty, to invade your neighbour's territory under certain circumstances constitutes no aggression, but to defend your country against invasion constitutes aggression. That is the Versailles spirit. But the worst is contained in paragraph 3. Again the stipulation not to resort to war shall not apply in the ease of:
3.	Action as the result of a decision taken by the assembly or by the council of .the League of Nations or in pursuance of article 15, paragraph 7, of the covenant of the League of Nations, provided that in the last event the action is directed against a State which was the first to attack.
What is this? Paragraph 7 of article 15 is precisely that disposition of the treaty of Versailles under which Mr. Poincare, against the advice of the council of the League of Nations, against the advice of his allies, the British and the Italians, invaded the Ruhr in conjunction with the Belgian army and maintained occupation there with a negro army, for nearly a year-increasing by an immense amount the debt of Germany, without reducing by one iota the claims of France as against Germany, and bringing the whole of Europe again to the brink of war. Well, under this treaty, both France and Germany reserve to themselves the right to act exactly as Mr. Poincare did in the invasion of the Ruhr. Will anybody tell us that this is a sure guarantee for peace, and that if we adhere to it we are enabling the British government to establish peace between France and Germany?
Article 3 stipulates that:
In view of the undertakings entered into in article 2 of the present t-reaity, Germany and Belgium and Germany and France underbake to settle by peaceful means and in the manner laid down herein all questions of every kind-
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-and so forth. This is the engagement to resort to arbitration, but always reserving to themselves the right to attack without resorting to arbitration in the cases that I have just mentioned.
But there is worse than that. If you go through those four arbitration treaties which follow-one between Germany and France, one between Germany and Belgium; one between Germany and Poland, and one between Germany and Czeoho-Slovakia -you will find that in the very first article it is said most positively that:
This provision-
-the undertaking to resort to arbitration,-*
-does not apply ito disputes arising out of events prior to the present convention and belonging -to the past.
Now I ask, viewing the surface of things as they have been and as they are still in Europe, what possible cause of conflict, what possible cause of bickering, can be imagined for the next twenty-five years to come between any of those nations, which a government desirous of making war could not tie up with some cause anterior to the signature of the treaty, whether it relates to frontiers, to economic sanctions, to rights of way-to any of those multitudinous questions which have been dealt with or mentioned in the treaty of Versailles? Those are precisely the causes that will keep Europe in a turmoil and in a state of unrest so long as the diplomats and1 the governments of Europe have not made up their minds to tear down that monument of folly and iniquity, the treaty of Versailles, and rebuild a real treaty of peace in Europe.
Now, under article 6 of the treaty of Locarno, it is stipulated that the whole of the Versailles treaty remains untouched. This in itself is an untruth. The treaty of Locarno is an amendment of the treaty of Versailles. Besides, anybody who has followed the trend of events for the last seven years, knows that in fact at least, if not in law, the treaty of Versailles has been amended or disregarded in many respects by every country in Europe. Therefore to profess that the object of the treaty of Locarno is to maintain the treaty of Versailles is at the outset to nullify the moral effect of the spirit of Locarno, and. secondly, to establish this so-called movement for peace on a basis of deceit-deceit against public opinion the world over, but especially against those unfortunate peoples in Europe who are in such sore need of real political direction towards peace. Need I say that

this declaration would mean, if we adhere to it, that we approve of all the dispositions of Versailles? That after seven years of experience, notwithstanding the happy moves made by Sir Robert Borden, by Sir Lomer Gouin, by Mr. Doherty and by the present Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) to disengage us from that clap-trap, we would again undertake, by the simple acceptance of this one short section of the treaty of Locarno, to revive the corpse of Versailles? It would mean that we approve of the regime of the French in the Saar, that we approve of the disposition relating to the future of Austria, of article 80 under which-violating the basic principles upon which the United States entered the war, violating the professions of faith uttered by Mr. Asquith and other British statesmen-we have forbidden a crushed nation, deprived of nine-tenths of its possessions, ever to decide its future according to its needs. It would mean we make ourselves the guarantors of the system established in Upper Silesia against all the principles of public policy, against the most-solemn promises of good faith that were given by the council of the League of Nations, that the status of those populations would be decided under the principle of self-determination. It would mean that we still maintain those provisions by which the German nation has been deprived of all her colonies, thereby making us a party to this absurd policy of saying: That whilst we, British, occupy one-fourth of the surface of the earth, that whilst France is in possession of one-half of the continent of Africa-France a nation with no surplus population-we keep as a basis of policy the inhibition to a great nation of eighty million people to find expansion for her population and for her merchandise. And you think peace can be established upon that basis? It would mean the maintenance of these absurd articles declaring that Germany is the sole responsible party for the war, that the former rulers of the German empire are culprits before public opinion and should be brought before the tribunals, not of disinterested nations, but before tribunals instituted by their victors. Now, Sir, it may be that in colonial and savage countries where what is now known about the war has not penetrated, this notion is still sincerely entertained; but there is not one right-thinking man in Europe today, whether he be French, English, German, Dutch or Italian, who still believes that. I have in my hand protests that are being signed by hundreds of the best-thinking men and women in England and France against those ridiculous articles; not through any

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high sense of generosity, but because they realize, being on the spot, knowing the condition of affairs, that so long as such nonsense remain in a public document supposed to contain the wisdom of the diplomacy of the world, there can be no moral peace in Europe; and as long as there is no moral peace there will always be danger to material peace.
Fortunately, the British government realized that they should not commit the governments of the dominions, either directly or indirectly, to such a piece of doubtful policy, and they made the reservation which the Prime Minister read this afternoon. To show how little these matters are followed in this country, when the text of the Locarno treaty appeared, one of the best-informed newspapers of Canada usually, the Montreal Gazette, expressed great surprise at this "new departure", forgetting that the same principle had been laid down, in almost the same words, in the treaty of guarantee signed on June 28, 1919; that a few years later, when Mr. Lloyd George was endeavouring with Mr. Briand to reach some terms of agreement as between England and France and to substitute something else for the discarded treaty of guarantee, the same reservations were introduced into the draft treaty of Cannes of 1922. So in England, much more than in Canada, do they realize that it is not only proper, but that it has become a fixed principle of imperial policy, that the British government has not the right to commit the action of any of the free dominions associated with England without the full consent of the responsible governments and parliaments of those dominions. The only difference is that in the first instance, at the particular request of Sir Robert Borden, the action of parliament was reserved. I have not the text here, but it can easily be found. In article 5 of the treaty of guarantee, it is stated in exactly the same terms as in the treaty of Locarno that the present treaty shall impose no obligation upon any of the British dominions unless the "parliament" of such dominion signify its acceptance thereof. That is so under the treaty of 1919. Under the terms proposed by Mr. Lloyd George to Mr. Briand, there was a slight modification. I quote from memory, but I feel sure it is correct:
The present treaty shall impose no obligation uipon any of the dominions unless and until it is approved by the dominion concerned.
There was no mention of either parliament or government; but it was the same disposition, the same principle. In this later treaty, reference is made to "governments", no doubt, 14M1-303
as the Prime Minister stated this afternoon, because India was then added to the dominions, marking a new step in the emancipation of the various portions of the British Empire. But so far as Canada is concerned, and so far as all self-governing dominions are concerned, is it not quite proper and according to the spirit of our constitution and of the principles of British government, that this parliament should assert that it is supreme in such matters and that no government, whatever its majority or whatever the principles of its individual members, will have the right to commit Canada, not only by adhering to a written treaty, but by giving its moral adherence to an unwritten agreement which may carry military or economic sanctions?
Anyone familiar with the trend of diplomacy knows that the great art of diplomats, and not only the last but the most frequent resort of governments, is the undertaking of unwritten engagements. Public opinion is then prepared to accept them and finally, when everything is practically agreed upon, parliament is asked to ratify them. Therefore I think it was proper for the government to enlarge the scope of this motion and to invite an expression of opinion by parliament, not only upon Locarno, not only upon the ratification by parliament of any written agreement of which everyone knows, but also to declare that no government has the right to commit the action of the country, either economic or military, without previous approval by parliament.
It may be said that the days when the British government would think of including the dominions in the purview of its diplomatic action or political undertakings is long past. It is not so long past. In the correspondence exchanged between the British and Canadian governments, previous to the ratification of the Versailles treaty, I find over the signature of Lord Milner, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, the following words:
The king, by a single aot, wouttd bind the whole empire, as it is Tight that he should so [do], but that act would represent the considered judgment of his constitutional advisers in all self-governing states of the empire, because it would be merely giving effect to an international pact which they had all agreed to.
In other words, Lord Milner held that because we had been represented at Versailles -in what manner everyone knows or should know,-the simple fact that the treaty was
ratified by the king, or by the English representatives of the king, should bind all the dominions. Fortunately, the Prime Minister

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of Canada, Sir Robert Borden, protested most clearly against this, and replied to Lord Milner as follows:
Your secret telegram of July 23 has been carefully considered by cabinet, and it seems to us that there is considerable doubt whether under modern constitutional practice the king should ratify without first obtaining the approval of parliament. We think that in accordance with recent practice and authority such approval should be obtained in the case of treaties imposing any burden on the people, or invoicing any change in the law of the land, or requiring legislative action to make them effective or affecting the free exercise of the legislative power, or affecting territorial rights.
I fail to find any reply by Lord Milner, but nevertheless it shows that it was quite proper in those days-even since the last war; even after the great sacrifices made by the British dominions to carry on a war in which they had no direct interest and which they carried on simply because of secret and unwritten engagements entered into by five ministers of the British government, which resulted, so far as Canada was concerned, in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and! the expenditure of billions of dollars,-and I think it is now the proper time, with the good move taken at the last conference and! before the next conference, when great 'questions of international concern will be discussed, to make it quite clear that the doctrine and practice of the absolute liberty of any dominion to decide its policy, external or internal, the doctrine which was upheld by the great leading statesmen of this country, to whatever party they belonged, still holds for the present and for the future. So far as that is concerned I think the great mass of the people of Canada will be behind any prime minister who will go to London and make it clear that this is our policy.
With regard to Locarno and the attitude which the Prime Minister will take upon it at the next Imperial conference, I venture to express, and to give him for what it is worth, the opinion that many people hold. We believe that Canada should not adhere to that treaty, first, because it is not a real move for peace. It is at best a hornets' nest out of which we had far better keep. Secondly, because it does entail new obligations over and beyond those vague and undetermined obligations of the treaty of Versailles from which we are free for all practical purposes since the declarations made by our various representatives in Geneva. This applies to all the dominions, and it explains why, so far, none of the governments of the dominions has expressed any desire to uphold and adhere to that treaty. But with regard to Canada, there is something more-we may just as well face the situation now while the atmosphere

is peaceful, while we can discuss those possible situations in a free manner and, if we do it in a reasonable spirit, without any risk of arousing dangerous passions-so far as Canada is concerned, suppose the Locarno treaty did not go beyond the treaty of Versailles, or to put it in another way, suppose the obligations under the Versailles treaty entailed no more and no less obligations, generally speaking, than those involved in the treaty of Locarno: there is at least this difference. Under the Versailles treaty, there was no obligation to go to the rescue of Germany. Under the Locarno treaty, there is a specific obligation to go to the rescue of Germany as against France in certain given cases.
I have been in Europe several times. I was in Europe for a good while four years ago, and I kept in very close touch with people who were present at the Genoa conference and who knew something of the situation in Europe. I keep in touch by correspondence with men informed on affairs in Europe; and there is not one of them, either French or German, Italian or English, who-I will not say in public, but in private intercourse-will not admit that if any difficulty arises out of the Locarno treaty and its obligations, it is nine chances out of ten that it will mean the intervention of England on Germany's side as against France. And no wonder. It is the natural evolution of the whole foreign policy of England, as imposed upon her 'by her situation in Europe and in the world. It is the logical consequence of the policy that has always been pursued by England since she has been expelled from the continent of Europe and has become the greatest maritime and colonial empire in the world. The English think, and quite rightly from a certain .point of view, that they are bound to see no domineering power on the continent, that they are bound to crush any nation which appears or will tend or be forced by circumstances to dominate the continent. England's policy was anti-Spain as long as Spain dominated the continent and the seas. England's policy was anti-French and pro-German as long as France was a threatening power. All the sympathy of the English was on the side of Germany so long as Germany had not the pretensions of becoming in her turn a maritime and a colonial power. But the moment that time came, the moment England realized Germany's ambition to rival old France and old Spain, and modem England as well as modem United States, England went to her old enemies, France and Russia, and taking

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advantage of their defensive alliance, turned it into an offensive alliance in order to get rid of the dangerous competition of a maritime Germany. But now that Germany is deprived of her fleet and of her colonies, now that France, according to the words of the late General Mangin, has at her disposal possibly three million negroes to dominate the continent of Europe, England is bound to be anti-French. It may be a longer or a shorter time; the occasion may not arise tomorrow or next week, but it is bound to come, just as it was bound to come sixty years ago during the first feast of love between the France of Louis Philippe and the England of Victoria; it was bound to come the moment France decided to acquire the colony of Algeria, and to recuperate her maritime and colonial forces; it was bound to come that England would turn against France. She did not do it herself. As Lloyd George once said, England has usually fought with her ships and her money, rather than with her armies, and when she has had any amount of money she has always been able to find somebody on the continent to fight her battles. Therefore in England, every thoughtful man considered the victory of Prussia over France in 1870 just as much an English victory as a German victory. Likewise England has considered that in the crushing of Germany in the last war, the taking away of her fleet and of her colonies was her share in the victory. But now she does not want to see any other nation change the balance of things and become the dominating power.
With that situation we in Canada are mot concerned. I for one am not prepared to pass judgment upon the policy of the present or of any past government of England with regard to the relations of that great country with the continental nations of Europe; but I think we are bound in conscience and honour to declare here that in the event of England finding it necessary for the maintenance of her power to fight with Germany against France, the responsible leader of a government in power in Canada who would propose to enlist troops to wage war against France in such a contingency, and then launch the country upon a general election to get the people of Canada to agree to that-that man would take the responsibility of dealing to the heart and! the life of Canada the deadliest blow that ever could be given to it. We should have the courage now to face these things as they may come, and not wait until they do come. Let us think in advance of such a situation as may present itself between England and this nation, that or the other.



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Why not go back to the old commonsense policy of our forefathers and think of the situation of Canada-Canada first and last.
It has been said that that was a parochial policy. Perhaps it was; but it had at least this advantage, that it permitted all Canadians of various races and provinces, of different political parties, to agree at least upon certain things, although they disagreed upon many things; and one of those basic things upon which they agreed, and which was never disputed, was that Canada had no moral or political duty to perform towards the Empire, beyond making the necessary preparations to defend her own territory as against any possible attacks from the enemies either of Canada or of England.
James Shaver Woodsworth: May I ask the hon. gentleman whether the more recent commercial and financial relations in which Canada finds herself involved do not make it very difficult to maintain the older isolationist s policy?


Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: I do not call it an
isolationist's policy, Mr. Speaker. I call it the exercise of our responsibility according to our situation, political, geographical and economic. In the second place, I call it the necessary reaction against the absolutely false theory that there must be one imperial policy, that we must act on the principle:	"United
we stand, divided we fall." How can it be explained that the empire was never so united as when it lived to the opposite principle? Not long after the American rebellion, the British statesmen made up their minds that it was useless for them to dictate a policy to their colonists in America, and later on in Oceania and in Africa. It was recognized that the only policy for the empire, in view of its geographical composition, was that of unity upon matters in which there could be a common view as between the various component parts of the empire, but absolute liberty in all matters in which local interests must prevail over imperial interests. But once that man of, in a sense, genius, but evil genius, once Mr. Chamberlain had made up his mind that the British Empire must be established on a basis copied from the old Roman empire or more servilely copied from the modem German empire, the moment British imperialists attempted to turn the British Empire, with all its principles of local autonomy and freedom, into a mere replica of the Roman and Prussian empires, from that moment you had1 disputes, from that moment you had quarrels in Canada as between the imperialists and the nationalists. From that
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Friendly relations with England may last a long time or may be short. Revolution may produce certain issues. As far as I am concerned, none of the issues would frighten me. I would be just as much prepared for close partnership within the empire as for independence; of course I would rather have independence. But if it were a question of annexation with the United States or British imperialism, I would rather have British imperialism, though I think it would be a mistake. Time will always work against treaties and constitutions enacted against the laws of nature. Canada is and always will be a country on the continent of North America, and the time is coming, sooner or later, when the people of Canada will realize the truth of that fact. When that times comes, treaties and constitutions will not stand five minutes.
From a Canadian point of view or from a British point of view, let us serve notice to the world at large, not in any spirit of animosity towards Great Britain, but in full consciousness of what we owe to our people, that Canada is prepared to uphold morally any .real move for peace which may be taken in Europe or anywhere, but that Canada is not prepared to arm her youth and to spend her millions for the sake of any foreign policy with which we are not connected by necessity and from which Canada is disconnected by all the exigencies of her natural situation. That is the policy that Sir John A. Macdonald .and Sir Alexander Campbell made clear to the British government in 1S65 and 1870, when they discussed the terms upon which the country would stand in the future in regard to England and military matters. They represented that, being situated as she was, by organizing quietly and reasonably the defence of her own country, Canada was accomplishing her full imperial duty. They demonstrated that it would be against the interest of England if Canada handicapped' her progress in population, in wealth, in economic development, under the pretence of going to the rescue of another part of the empire differently situated. This fact is imposing itself upon us in spite of all our professions of imperialism. Due credit must be given to the present leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) when in ecnsidering in London, some years ago, the question of the Anglo-Japanese treaty, he took sides practically with the United States against Great Britain, 'because he realized that Canada being situated as she is, that problem was affecting Canada primarily as an American nation. Likewise, when this government was asked by the British gov-fMr. Bourassa.]
eminent to adhere to the Geneva protocol, I think it was the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) himseLf who wrote to London:
We do not consider it in the interests of Canada, of the British Empire or of the League itself to recommend to parliament adherence to the protocol and particularly to its rigid provisions for application of economic and military sanctions in every future war. Among the grounds for this conclusion is the consideration of the effect of the non-participation of the United States upon attempts to enforce the sanctions and particularly so in the case of a contiguous country like Canada.
Of course that was common sense. Not so very long ago, an authoritative representative of the British government, one whom I have never heard accused of lacking loyalty to the British government or British institutions, the English Ambassador at Washington, Sir Esme Howard, stated most positively that the imperial duty of Canada consisted in interpreting England to the United States and the United States to England. What does that mean? It means that our primary duty, national or imperial, is to remain at peace with the United States and to make it as easy as possible for England to carry on her imperial policy in coincidence with that of the United States. That is our modest, but very effective role, which we cannot fulfil if we take a hand in all the quarrels which England may have elsewhere, because the time will surely come when the United States will ask us to choose as between our situation as a nation in America and our new so-called obligations towards the British Empire elsewhere.	.
One thing which I have never been able to understand, from a British point of view, is how it is that so few Canadians of note have endeavoured to realize that the basis of our foreign policy is and must be the Monroe doctrine. I know many people will jump at that; but surely men of English blood should not be scandalized. As was so aptly stated once by Mr. Ewart, the Monroe doctrine is a misnomer; it should be called the Canning policy, although once in a while it is called the Monroe doctrine. To my mind, the framing of that policy is one of the greatest examples of the imperial genius of England. The moment England found out that Spain had lost all her colonies in America, that the empire of Brazil, after a civil war, was separated from Portugal, and that she remained alone with vast possessions on the continent of America, she imagined that policy of making the United States the policeman holding guard over the rest of European possessions in America, which meant Canada. It is sufficient to follow the correspondence, both public and secret,-most of it was secret then -to realize with what patience and insight

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the British government succeeded in having a president of the United States, in the midst of that period where twisting the lion's tail was the basis of all American politics, declare in favour of a policy which permitted England to breathe at last and to have no more cause to fear for trouble in America.
Of course there was a little difficulty once in a while with the United States, but it was all settled by diplomacy. What has remained in fact is that from George Canning down to the present Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, the Monroe doctrine has been the one axiom of policy upon which no government, no party, no foreign minister, has ever gone back. It was just a few months, if I remember rightly, before the war, when Sir Edward Grey declared that the Monroe doctrine remained the axis of English policy in America just as solid and untouched in our day as it was when it was invented. I reminded the House some time ago of what I was told in London by Lord Fisher on military preparations. He said that it was absolutely foolish for Canada to embark upon any policy of external defence by applying to London for direction, but it must be to W ash-ington. in connection with the United States authorities, that Canada should look for a basis of external defence " if," as he added, "you need any such thing; because no country on earth will think of attacking Canada on the soil of America. Only one country, the United States, can do that, and as against the United States we cannot and will never defend you." That is another basis of English policy which has never changed.
In the old House, I have heard Sir Charles Tupper declare in the most energetic terms that the result of all his relations with the British government, from the time he was a member of the Canadian government down to his resignation as High Commissioner in London, was to find out that on no consideration whatever would any English 5 p.m. government undertake the risk of any difficulty with the United States on account of Canada. The great advantage of exercising full national responsibility is the comprehension of realities which naturally result. We are like big boys who always count upon papa and mamma to help them out if they do nasty things. They will throw snowballs right and left, and if some angry passerby runs after them they will fly home and say: "Mother, mother, come to my rescue." We 'have been so used to that sort of thing that we feel we have the British Empire at our back. We are the British Empire, we often think; but the Englishmen at
home who have built up that empire, stone by stone, know the materials of which it is composed. They know it is a tremendous fabric; but they also know that it could crumble very easily, because of its abnormal configuration, because of its being dispersed over all lands, because of the impossibility of having one imperial policy. When they talk of one imperial policy in England, what do they mean by that? They mean an English policy which the dominions will accept blindly. That is the one imperial policy, the only one possible. Mr. Asquith made that quite clear and there has never been any change from that position. When at the conference of 1911, pressed by Sir Joseph Ward, the representative of New Zealand, for the establishment of a constitutional system under which the imperial authority wTould be shared equally by the dominions and England, Mr. Asquith replied:	"That authority cannot be shared."
Of course, since, they have given us a little more hearing, they have admitted somewhat more frequently representatives of the various dominions to the antechambers of empire. They have treated them well there, given them good tea, and champagne occasionally. They have made them cognizant of what is going on in the political world and of the decisions taken by the British government for the good of the empire-and I think on the whole their decisions are good. But when they endeavour to make us believe that we rule the empire-well, Sir, let us have a little more consideration for the common sense and appreciation of responsibility of British statesmen. They know they cannot share that authority. I remember one day, in a very intimate gathering, an apostle of empire was present, and for my sake-I was the only colonial there-he began speaking of the great future there was before us Canadians, especially before us French-Canadians, in ruling the empire. It was a little like the story of that young scapegrace of Toronto who happened to be the son of an Anglican bishop, and one day gleefully boasted:	I rule the English
church; I rule mother, mother rules father, and father rules the church; therefore I rule the church. Well, that is something like the way in which we participate in ruling the empire. I admit the imperial authorities keep us informed. It is a good thing. Let us take advantage of that information to broaden our views, to realize the complexity of the government of this empire, to understand the tremendous responsibility of the Englisn government; but let us not ask from the English government what it cannot give ua
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COMMO'NS

[Stage Direction]
As one other gentleman said in that conversation: "Why deceive those poor people in the colonies? You know, so-and-so, tha; we have too much at stake in the world to run the risk of letting any Canadian or Australian butt ini"
But what has been possible, and what is still possible, is for us to frame our policy as it suits us and to take that share of responsibility in imperial affairs which does not bring us into conflict with our duty towards our own people. By that, I am not speaking only of our duty towards the present generation, but towards future generations. If we can hope-and I admit, so far as I am concerned, that that hope is diminishing from day to day-to resist first the economic, then the moral, and then the political absorption of Canada by the United States, it will not be by impoverishing Canada for the sake of England or Australia, it will not be by directing the attention or the conscience of our people towards foreign engagements which have nothing to do with our country and over which we have not. and cannot have, effective control. On the contrary, it will be by trying to develop in the minds of all Canadians, French, English, Irish and Scotch, or of any other descent, a strong sense of duty towards this country-the only country for which we have responsibility, the only country in which our children will live as our fathers have lived, in the eloquent words of the member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Caban)-the only part of the British Empire for which we are responsible, morally, politically, socially and economically. If we do that, if we do all we can for Canada, and by Canada, if we keep Canada free from the entanglements of a situation in Europe which heaven may solve-how, I do not know -but surely which we cannot solve, if we do not distract the mind of the nation towards problems which the mass of our people cannot comprehend because they are not home problems for them, we shall be doing our duty as Canadians. Go to Belgium, go to Holland, go to Switzerland, to those small countries that, thank heaven, are not engaged in the turmoil of imperial policy which has been the curse of the world, but which nevertheless live in close contact with those ambitious and rapacious nations, have to understand foreign affairs-talk for example, to a dog-driver in the streets of any Belgian town, and he will speak to you of German policy, of French policy, of English policy, not of course with the same knowledge as Sir Edward Grey or Sir Austen Chamberlain possess, but with a degree of understanding which very few Canadian statesmen have

shown so far in regard to foreign affairs. Why? Because those problems are home problems to him, because the fate of his nation is at stake in the event of a quarrel between France and Germany.
Is it the case with us? For one century previous to the Great war England had many wars. Did we think we had to have one imperial policy at the time of the Crimean war? Fortunately we did not; we had sensible statesmen then who kept us out of the fray. Did we think we had to go to the rescue of England because she wanted to paint half the area of Africa red? Did we think we were bound to go and bombard Peking in order to compel the Chinese to absorb opium to enrich some poppy planters in India who wanted to make more money? That was one of those great "civilizing wars" which fortunately we did not have to share in. Did we have to share in about thirty wars that Great Britain has been engaged in since the downfall of Napoleon up to the last war, extending over just one century? Not in one of them except the South African war. There the one imperial policy began to make itself felt, there we began to be clap-trapped by the same kind of propaganda which caught us in the last war. But surely after that experience of the one imperial policy, is it not time that we come back upon our own soil and appeal to the conscience of our people and ask them to have one national policy? You can never have one national policy if at the same time you run such risks as the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St George has so very delicately pointed to this afternoon.
But I repeat, Mr. Speaker, though perhaps it may hurt the feelings of some hon. members here, I think it is just as well to go to the root of the thing now, it is just as well to realize that if at any one of these future conferences such undertakings and engagements as were taken by Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1897, in 1899 and in 1909 are still resorted to in vague terms, moral or verbal engagements will be forced upon us later by an appeal to us that they are engagements of honour and all that, then it will be too late to settle the issue and avoid the consequences. Although I may have a very different conception of empire from that* entertained by several hon. members, I do not think there is one here who has more love for this country than I have. Perhaps my heart is small, but when I think of the sacrifices that have been made by eight generations of my forefathers to make something of Canada, when I think of my seven children who will be Canadian citizens and will have to make such

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sacrifices, if they are to be true to their country, I think it is enough. I do not see why I or any other Canadian should have a different standard of patriotism or national duty from that which the Englishman, the Irishman or the Scotchman has. I do not see why we should have two countries to serve. We have one, and only one. It is the country that you can make one only if you appeal to all Canadians to be Canadian first, and to think of the empire when the people who are responsible for the empire have no time to think about it. That is the manner in which I think the problem should be considered.
It may be that my language has been a little too forceful; if I have hurt anyone 1 sincerely apologize, because I have approached this subject not with the idea of attacking anyone -whose ideas are different from mine, but because after thirty years of study and political experience in Canada, and after a good deal of study of European problems I am convinced more deeply than ever that if we are to save the future of this country; if we are to save Canada from internal dissension, from external absorption, from the turmoil of European politics or from American absorption, it will be by bending all our energies, by devoting all our talent, by doing all we can to make the different sections of this country one united people for Canada. So far as England and the empire go, I am not in a hurry to lose that connection. As I have often said before, I appreciate our connection with England; but our best manner of appreciation is to show the rulers, the business men and diplomats of England that we are just as intelligent as they are; that we realize our situation just as they realize theirs, that we have a duty to perform to Canada just as they have a duty to their own country. If imperial association can last and if an imperial policy can be fruitful of results, it will be through each portion of the empire thinking of itself first, not through any selfish spirit of absolute disinterest, but in order to start on a sound basis of internal and external policy and join hands with England every time her rulers make a move for real peace in the world, but also to resist any attempt to drag us once more in foreign wars. We should join hands, I repeat, every time England may associate with any group of nations in the interest of peace, when her own interest lies in peace; every time she makes for justice, because her interests lie in the preservation of justice; every time she prevents or endeavours to prevent any nation from dominating, because it is to her interest that no nation should
dominate. Then, I say as a Canadian and a British subject, I approve of that move, and I give it my moral support. But to subscribe to undefined and unlimited engagements, or even defined and limited engagements which go beyond the sphere of our action, which go beyond the natural laws which should govern our policy just as they govern the policies of other nations, is wrong. There I say British, yes, but Canadian first; if necessary, secession from Britain rather than the sacrifice of Canada; Canada in partnership with Britain so long as it is possible, but Canada first and forever.
Mr. RENE MORIN (St. Hyacinthe-Rou-ville):: It is difficult for a modest, silent member of this House to be called upon to speak after the eloquent and forceful oration which we have just heard. It is my intention, Mr. Speaker, to accept the conclusions which the hon. member has drawn in respect of the resolution now before us, but if I agree with him on many of the grounds which he has brought forth in support of his resolution I must state that with some of his contentions I am quite unable to agree. It is very well and very easy to condemn the policies of the statesmen who have governed the European states for the past two or three centuries, and to find that everything they did was wrong, but .1 am not in a position to say that if we had been in their places we would have dons better. There may have been reasons which would explain, if not justify, their actions. Man is only human, and liable to make mistakes.
The purpose of this resolution is to approve the procedure proposed at the Imperial conference of 1923 for the negotiation, signature and ratification of treaties affecting Canada, and, before the ratification of any treaty can be made, to require the formality of its approval by parliament. It may be in some ways a cumbersome procedure, but it is also a great and necessary safeguard. Legislation lias to be passed by parliament, but if it does not work properly, parliament may repeal it. Treaties, once entered into, cannot so easily be put aside; they may bind our successors in office and our country to momentous undertakings, and it is only reasonable that these undertakings be entered into after full discussion and under the sole responsibility of the representatives of the people.
It is not my intention to discuss the merits of this proposition, but to consider a case actually pending and then to draw conclusions in support of this resolution. The treaty of Locarno is a typical instance of a treaty subject to ratification by Canada, and an ex-
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axnination of it, in its relation to our country, will show the great importance of undertakings of that nature. The Locarno treaties, to be properly understood, must be studied in the light of the treaties and covenants which, since the war, have been proposed or passed [DOT] with a view to preventing future wars and securing a peaceful and amicable or judicial settlement of all difficulties which may arise between nations.
It is unnecessary to recall that the war, on the side of the allies, was fought as a war to finish wars, with the set purpose of creating after it conditions which would absolutely prevent the recurrence of such brutal, bloody and stupid conflicts, and the League of Nations was constituted mainly for that purpose. The covenant contains provisions whereby states are obliged to endeavour by peaceful methods to settle their differences, but it does not enforce an Obligatory peaceful settlement of a conflict. Later, the protocol for the pacific settlement of international disputes was submitted to the consideration of the different countries, members of the league. Under the covenant the decision to submit a dispute to arbitration or judical settlement was to be arrived at through an understanding between both litigants. The main purpose of the protocol was to provide that arbitration, or submission to judicial settlement, could be resorted to at the instance of one party alone. Arbitration of all international differences or their submission to the Permanent Court of International Justice was made compulsory; all wars of aggression were prohibited and all wars, resorted to in violation of the undertakings contained in the covenant or in the protocol, were branded as wars of aggression. The protocol was rejected by the British Empire; some other way to settle the situation had to be found and the Locarno agreements were negotiated and signed on the 16th of October, 1925. So far Germany had been left out of the League of Nations, and she was not invited to be a party to the Geneva protocol. The obligations imposed upon her by the treaty of Peace, though apparently voluntarily agreed to, had really been forced upon her, as she was not in a position to refuse to submit to them; these obligations were liable to be repudiated as contracted under duress.
The peculiar feature of this new attempt to promote peace was that Germany, acting of her own free will, was a party to the Locarno agreements. By these agreements, Germany. Belgium, France, Poland and Czechoslovakia agreed to submit to arbitration all difficulties arising between them; and fMr. Morin.]
Germany, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Italy agreed that Great Britain and Italy would guarantee the observance of these agreements, entered into between Germany and France and Germany and Belgium, to the extent of resorting to war against any of the parties which would violate them. Treaties of mutual guarantee between France and Poland and France and Czecho-Slovakia were also entered into, though Great Britain was not a party to them. Great Britain is bound by this treaty to maintain the present western frontier of Germany and to guarantee the peaceful settlement of conflicts between Germany and France and Belgium.
Article 9 of the treaty provides:
That the present treaty shall impose no obligation upon any of the British dominions or upon India, unless the government of such dominion or of India signifies its acceptance thereof.
The question is now: Should Canada adhere to this treaty and submit herself to the obligations which it involves? But for the fact that Germany was not a party to it, the Geneva protocol was a much more effective weapon to promote international peace than the Locarno agreements. The purpose of the Geneva protocol was to make compulsory arbitration, or judicial settlement of international disputes, the law of the world, and if it had been adopted by the principal nations of Europe it might have been reasonably hoped that Germany and the other countries would ultimately have agreed to it. All wars under it could only take place in the name of the general international interest. The Locarno agreements are more local in character. They perpetuate the system of alliances of certain countries against others, and recourses to wars, for local and private reasons, under certain conditions are allowed to subsist. As the Geneva protocol was to apply to a greater number of countries, conflicts arising out of it might have been more frequent, but normally all the signatory countries would have united, in the name of law and order, against the infringer, and the application of economic sanctions should have been sufficient to bring a settlement. A conflict arising out of the Locarno treaty, being more local in character, might again create a situation which would strain all the resources of our country. Yet, Canada refused to adhere to the Geneva protocol because she did not want to accept its rigid provisions of economic and military sanctions in practically every future war. Surely there is no more reason why we should assume greater risks under the Locarno agreement.

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At the time the treaty of Versailles was signed, treaties of guarantee were entered into between France and Great Britain, and France and the United States. These treaties were not ratified, but the treaty of guarantee by Great Britain in favour of France against German aggression contained a clause that it would not be binding upon the dominions or upon India unless ratified by the governments of the dominions or of India. It was well understood by Great Britain and the dominions that these would not be submitted to the obligations contracted under this treaty, and the government of the day in this country, if I am well aware, made it clear that it did not intend to be a party to it. The purpose of the treaty was the same as the one signed at Locarno; the principle underlying this agreement was the same as at Locarno, and there is to-day no more reason for ratifying the Locarno agreement than there was in the first case.
The first thing to notice in respect of this treaty is that Great Britain and Italy are parties to it, not for the direct safeguarding of their respective frontiers or of their peculiar direct interests; they are parties to it only indirectly, as sureties, to guarantee that both Germany and France or Germany and Belgium will carry out the terms of the treaties of arbitration negotiated between them at Locarno. If Great Britain was to declare war under this treaty, it would be a war of police, resorted to in order to compel one country to abide by the terms of a convention with another. There is a vast difference between a war of that kind and a war of defence in which the life of the empire would be at stake. The duties which are imposed upon us by our association in the Britannic commonwealth cannot go so far as to involve us in a war of aggression or in a war of intervention between foreign nations.
The casus foederis may be controvertible; it may not be understood by nations living thousands of miles from the scene of the conflict as it would be by peoples living near it; it may give rise to different interpretations amongst our own population, and promote disunion and discord. It is not a case where we can bind ourselves so long in advance. We must let the parliament of the day decide the issue when it arises, and we woidd be failing in our duty towards future generations if we were to bind them, hand and foot, to all wars which may result from the engagements of Great Britain at Locarno.
To assume obligations which may lead to war, our country must have something at stake. This stake must be something which
directly affects us, and must be of sufficient importance to be commensurate with the risks which such an undertaking involves. We have a great interest in the maintenance of peace in Europe, but we have this interest in common with the other countries, and our responsibilities incurred to reach this aim should not be greater than those of the other countries. With that end in view we have assumed obligations under the covenant of the League of Nations, and we will fulfil them to the best of our ability, but our moral duties should not go further.
I am not a pessimist, and I have great hopes that the democracies will succeed in preventing a recurrence of the unfortunate events of the past decade, that common sense will prevail and find ways and means, other than war, to effect a peaceful settlement of the conflicts as they arise between states, that civilization has reached a stage where arbitration and judicial settlement will decide these issues; but we must all admit that, as a result of the war, the situation in Europe is not yet perfectly adjusted, that the peoples of Europe are not all yet reconciled to the alterations and modifications brought about by the war; that resentments, envy and fear still prevail, and that time alone can cure all that. I quite understand that Great Britain, being part of the European continent, should have felt bound to intervene in order to promote a readjustment along peaceful lines, but I fail to see how a country two thousand miles away can undertake to act forcibly as arbitrator between European states, or how she can feel any legal or moral obligation to intervene on one side or on the other in order to impose its solution on unwilling populations. To ratify such a treaty would be to assume a role which does not befit our country, and which is unnatural.
There is the solidarity of the empire to be considered, but it is, to my mind, a solidarity in defence; it is not one which can extend to wars of encroachments, or wars of police to restore peace between foreign countries, or to punish certain foreign countries for their misdeeds. Our country has the advantage of a geographical situation which reduces to a minimum the risks of encroachments on the part of its neighbours. She is from that standpoint in a most enviable position. On the other hand, climatic conditions and the configuration of her inhabited territory create difficulties which are not of easy solution; her transportation problems constitute a burden which is heavy to carry; she has immeasurable natural resources, but they are as yet mainly undeveloped. All her
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energies are required if she wants to overcome these difficulties and secure her full development. Under these conditions, even looking at it from the standpoint of the interest of the empire as a whole, would it be wise for Canada to divert her energies from these problems, to sacrifice her own interests in order to assume heavy obligations for the purpose of contributing by force to the restoration of order on the European continent? I sincerely believe that our obligations to ourselves and our obligations to the empire may be fulfilled in a way to yield better profit, for all parties concerned, by limiting as much as possible our external undertakings and applying ourselves to the development of our country.
The constitutional development of Canada is based to a large extent on precedents, and since confederation our rights and our powers in matters of international intercourse have been increased and widened on the sole authority of precedents and common sense. Since the war it has been the practice for Canada to be represented at all international conferences where obligations were to be assumed in the name of the British Empire, and to be a party to the treaties which embodied the decisions of the conferences. Certain rules were laid down at the Imperial conference of 1923 to govern the procedure to be followed for the negotiation and signature of these treaties when they were to bind the empire as a whole. They provided that the full powers should be in the form employed at Paris and Washington. This rule was not adhered to at Lausanne and at Locarno and the dominions were left out of the negotiations. The dominions were not invited, their participation was not looked for and as there was no wish on the part of the other contracting parties to bind the dominions, these cannot be expected to involve themselves in military undertakings to enforce the provisions of the treaties mentioned. Our claims to an international status corresponding with the status which we occupy in the League of Nations have been constantly pressed since the Versailles treaty by all parties in Canada, and they are well known. To assume responsibilities under treaties contracted without our participation would be to impair or sacrifice this status. It is true the Locarno treaty provides that the dominions shall be bound by this treaty only if they ratify it, but to adhere to it would be to sanction a practice which is not in harmony with our present status.
Some will say that to refuse to ratify such a treaty would be to impair the diplomatic unity

of the empire. But we are an autonomous country, with the right to govern ourselves as we see fit. Has the foreign policy of Great Britain since the war or before, always been such as to warrant our unequivocal en-dorsation? At the khaki election of 1918 the policy of the British government was to maintain firmly the entente with France, to make Germany pay, if necessary by searching their pockets, and to bring to trial and punish the kaiser and the other war criminals. A little later, without change of government, there was a complete reversal of British policy. Germany was encouraged not to fulfil her engagements, she was induced to resist the attempts of France to extract partial reparation, and the whole British policy became permeated to saturation with a franco-phobia which delayed the restoration of normal conditions and increased the dissatisfaction and the resentments which already existed. That policy was a failure and there was another reversal of policy. All these policies were determined without our participation, without our consultation. They never represented the concerted opinion of the governments of the autonomous dominions. Diplomatic unity, without consultation and without co-operation, means diplomatic servility, and as presently constituted it cannot be acknowledged as a factor in the shaping of the policies of Canada.
There is no doubt that when Great Britain is at war the dominions are also at war, but they are merely in a state of passive belligerency; active belligerency or actual participation in the war does not necessarily follow; it is a matter which is left at the discretion of their respective governments. In this case, the ratification of the treaty of Locarno means necessarily active belligerency, whilst nonratification means only passive belligerency. It is not for us to bind ourselves and to bind our children to active belligerency in a future war between France and Germany arising out of this treaty. We have no direct interest in such a war. Our association in the Britannic commonwealth is not such as to involve the taking of such risks in order to increase the importance, the power, the strength and the prestige of the political leaders of one of the associated nations of this commonwealth, or to enforce policies decided and determined without our participation. We have no business to interfere, in the name of law, order or civilization, in conflicts which may arise under this treaty, as we hold no mandate for that purpose.

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There is therefore, in my humble opinion, no reason whatever why we should ratify the treaty entered into by Great Britain at Locarno, and in the best interest of our country parliament should refuse to adhere to it. To vest in the government of Great Britain or in the government of Canada the right to embroil our country in adventures of that nature without the participation of parliament, would be a policy pregnant with the most dire results, and undermining the whole democratic structure of our country.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Toronto Northwest):: I represent a soldier and British-born constituency. This is the fourth time the present matter has come before the House this session and very little has been said with respect to it by hon. gentlemen on this side. Sir John A. Macdonald was satisfied with the status of this country. He did not ask the British government to increase the status of Canada. Five hundred thousand soldiers who went to the front and fought for civilization in France and Flanders were satisfied with Canada's status. Fifty thousand of those gallant men lie buried in those countries; they were content to fight even unto death under Canada's status. They fought for Canada's status but did not ask that any change should be made in it; they did not ask for any increased status for Canada. Such being the case I think the civilians who stayed at home should also be satisfied with the status of this Dominion.
Of the links that used to bind Canada to the Motherland what links remain to-day? First there is our allegiance to the British crown; secondly there is the right of appeal to the Privy Council; thirdly any treaties into which we enter must have the sanction of the mother of parliaments. We are not an independent nation, or a nation at all; we are a link in a chain of free commonwealths within and making up the British Empire. We never were a nation. Talk about annexation with the United States! There is no feeling at all in Canada in favour of it, nor for independence either. Talk about Canada being independent, a country of nine million souls, competing with or withstanding a nation of 110,000,000 people! Why if we were independent a foreign fleet might sail up the St. Lawrence and we would not have as much as a rowboat to oppose it with because our toy navy is locked up in a garage at Halifax.
I invite consideration of the question of what our duty is as a member of the empire. We are shortly to have an Imperial conference. Where is the agenda; what will Canada bring up, and what is the government's policy? The late Sir Wilfrid Laurier used to sit down at such a conference with the representatives of the sister dominions, Australia, New Zealand and others, with the object of seeing what could be done to better the conditions of the component parts of the empire and foster inter-imperial trade and relations. The time has come for Canada to stop whining about our status, to stop complaining, to stop shouting from the housetops about our lack of status, which is a mere technicality, a mere academic question. The time has come for Canada to keep step with Australia and New Zealand; to sit in at a table with these sister dominions and discuss in a friendly, amicable and peaceful manner, in the interest of the good of the empire, the inter-imperial trade and economic problems and other inter-imperial problems and questions in a big, brotherly, united way; to consider our relations with the Motherland and try to assist the Mother Country to solve her economic problems and get some imperial results instead of attending these colonial conferences and adopting benevolent aloofness policies and whining and complaining about our status.
I am opposed to this resolution and intend to vote against it. My reason for that is that the whole resolution is based on the doctrine and principles of separatism. That is what it is, and nothing else. There was a colonial conference in 1922 or 1923, and what position did Canada take over there? The representatives of this country sat back and said: We are satisfied; we will not help; we will pursue a policy of drift and benevolent aloofness. Australia and New Zealand had a policy but we did not have any at all. We were satisfied to hold aloof and whine, like Ireland and South Africa, instead of being satisfied with the Motherland and with the happy conditions in which she has placed us and appreciate the debt of gratitude we owe her for maritime freedom. We should have unity of policy within the empire. We should be in law and fact, all parts of the empire, an international unit working all in unison and complete accord for the good of the empire and each and every part thereof. Instead of Canada's present position of shirking all empire responsibility, Australia's vigorous participation prejudices Canada in England, and Canada's aloofness hurts our country. We who in the darkest hours of the war were prepared to accept the protection of the British fleet and all the privileges we enjoy
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as part of the British Empire should now be prepared to accept some of the responsibility which that incurs; yet, on the other hand, we give nothing in return, except that we whine and complain about our status within the empire.
The status idea of Sir John A. Macdonald and other great statesmen of Canada was expressed in the statement, "A British subject I was born; a British subject I will die." Sir John was satisfied with the status of the country within the empire and made no demand for a change. We have been in session six months and a resolution is now presented to the House in its dying hours, when there is no adequate opportunity to discuss it. It is all very well for the hon. member for Labelle, to give his views on the subject. This is the fourth occasion on which he has spoken for two hours and a half on the same subject of Canada's status and independence. If Canada is to be talked out of the British Empire the hon. member for Labelle would have accomplished that many years ago. But Canada is not going to be either talked1 or written out of the British Empire. Canada will have to be fought out of the British Empire. There is no demand for any change in the status of Canada to-day, so far as the city I represent is concerned. Before the session closes I hope the Prime Minister will lay on the table the agenda of the coming conference and let this House instruct him on the country's policy. I hope he will not follow in the footsteps of Ireland and South Africa, but will adopt the policy of Australia and New Zealand and try to help solve with all Canada's power the inter-imperial and difficult economic problems which confront the empire to-day. If an united effort is made, great benefit will accrue in the extension of the empire through all its parts. As Mussolini said the other day, "You who live in an empire have a sacred trust to perform." What he said of Italy is true of our great British Empire. He said, "A country does not belong to the people who live in it to-day. It is an inheritance from the past, a possession for the present, and a trust for the future." Canada's status was good enough for Sir John A. Macdonald and his successors and the soldiers who fought in the South African and the late Great war. The war did not change Canada's status. I am utterly opposed to any change in Canada's status. I am opposed to separatism autonomy and further changing of our status. We are proud that Canada is an integral part of the greatest empire the world has even known. The war left us our status as it was. What Canada has

done the past thirty-five years she has done of her own volition, and voluntarily, and she would do the same thing over again, namely, come to the Mother Country's aid in her hour of peril. So the people of this country are satisfied with our present status.
Speaking of treaties, Canada sent gentlemen down to Washington in 1911 and made a treaty with reference to reciprocity. You all know what happened to them and their government. Where do we stand with regard to the Chicago diversion of waters? Not one line has been written to the British government regarding that particular matter, owing to our desire to deal with Washington ourselves. I asked a question of the government in regard to water diversion, and I received the answer that there had been no correspondence whatever with reference to that particular matter directly with the British government. We have allowed this question of diversion of water at Chicago to remain in abeyance, and where has it landed us? Nowhere, because of our failure to place our case with the British government.
Regarding the other treaties that have been made by Canada, where are we? The French, Australian, Belgian, West Indies-all failures. Speaking of the position of this country, I say that I do not believe in separatism. If we were to accept the Independent separatist views of the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) the quicker Canada gets out of the British Empire the better for the rest of the empire. There are some 'links which bind Canada inseparably to the Motherland. But there are people who would abolish appeals to the Privy Council, who would alter the British North America Act, who would abolish the office of Governor General and of Lieutenant Governor, and who would have an Ambassador at Washington-an ambassador who would have no functions but be a figure head. Two ambassadors went down there in 1911 and almost landed Canada in economic annexation through reciprocity with the United States. When Canada sends delegates to the Imperial conference the House of Commons should instruct those delegates to eliminate the spirit of separatism entirely and instruct them to co-operate and not hold aloof. I hope the Prime Minister will lay on the table of the House the agenda for the coming conference and the policy of the government. The Premiers of Australia and New Zealand have already taken their parliaments into their confidence, and I see no reason why the head of this government should not follow suit and lay down a solid British Imperial policy, and a forward one.

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I would urge a closer policy of trade union between the Mother Country and the various dominions; that they should sit round a table and try to solve our problems, instead of adopting a spirit of aloofness. Premier Ferguson in a speech dealt with the subject, and was in favour of closer trade union within the empire. The people of New Zealand and Australia are in favour of it, and I think we should favour it also. We are accepting all the privileges of citizenship within the empire, and should not be afraid to shoulder some of the burdens. By adopting this motion we are declaring for separatism all along the line. I am opposed to the doctrine set out in the motion, and the people of Canada are I believe also opposed to it. If this proposition had been placed by the government before the country the last general election, I believe we would have a membership of a different complexion. The time has come to stop whining and complaining. The facts should be placed before the country. I represent a city which has British ideals which favours British institutions and is entirely British imperial.
I am opposed to the appointment of a Canadian representative at Washington. I believe it will cause Canada a good deal of trouble and do a lot of harm to our empire at Washington, as it did in 19(11, and I have no use for it. If the British authorities recommend the Locarno treaty as necessary for the defence of the empire, I think Canada should sign it. If Britain tells us our safety depends upon it, that settles it; let us adopt it unanimously. After accepting the rights, privileges and prerogatives of British protection, Canada should be prepared to accept some of the responsibilities and burdens. We should show our self-respect in that way and no longer permit the British taxpayer to provide for our Maritime protection. Instead of Canada taking the same position identically as South Africa and Ireland did as to their status within the empire, we should take our cue from New Zealand and Australia and be satisfied with our present status within the empire. What is that status? It is a status which was good enough for Sir John A. Macdonald, for the soldiers who fought the battles of the empire in the South African war and in the last war.
Why is this change proposed? There has been no demand so far as I can see for a change. This appointment of a Canadian representative at Washington is in my opinion another foolish example of the separatist idea. How long this will continue in Canada I
do not know; but I believe if a vote of the people was taken as to the status of this country within the empire, they would be satisfied with the present status of allegiance to the British crown, of appeals to the Privy Council, of ambassadors and in regard to many other matters that occurred during and after the war; they would side with our dear sister dominions of Australia and New Zealand. The policy of 1914 that parliament should be summoned and asked to sanction a matter of war is the right policy, but in minor matters and all other matters the government must take the responsibility as long as they are the government.
As regards sitting round the table with the sister dominions on constitutional and economical questions, I believe the government of the day should assume the responsibility, and on the government of the day so far as they are the government is the responsibility of seeing that when they go to the colonial conference they will represent the views of the people of Canada impartially and not hold aloof as they did at the last conference.
There is no demand for this resolution; in my opinion it is only an academic one and one which will not do any good. If these are the views expressed by the government in the House of Commons, and the Prime Minister and his government are for separatism and benevolent aloofness, it would be far better if Canada had no delegate at the coming conference and sent no one to wrongly express Canada's views. If we were to take the same position which New Zealand and Australia took at the last Imperial conference that would be the right view.
If the Canadian parliament will not say what are our rights in regard to constitutional matters, and stand by the empire and oversea dominions, I see no necessity for sending a delegate to the colonial conference. If the views of the hon. member for Labelle are the views of the people of this country, the quicker Canada gets out of the British Empire the better.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. E. J. GARLAND (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, when the House rose at six o'clock one of the hon. members from Toronto (Mr. Church) had just taken his seat. It has not been my practice in this House to attack any hon. gentleman because of his personality, and
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I do not propose to do so on this occasion. I wish however, to refer to some of the remarks of the hon. member, because I really do not think that the dignity of this House in debate, nor the serious and due consideration we should give to questions as important as this, is going to be helped by references to " the 50.000 soldiers that died overseas not being in favour of this form of resolution." The hon. gentleman makes many general allegations without substantiating them by one tittle of evidence. He charged the Prime Minister with having introduced this resolution as a separatist, as a man who is anxious for the separation of Canada from the Mother Country. Pie charged others who supported the Prime Minister from these benches, the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) and the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan), as 'being secessionists or separatists. I wish to dissociate myself from such statements especially as in this particular instance they were utterly unsupported.
The same hon. gentleman says: We are not a nation. Why are we not? We are a nation in the eyes of all those who signed the treaty of Versailles. We are a nation to the full extent that we desire to assert our nationhood. That is all that remains. He says he has had no chance to discuss this important question because it was introduced in the dying days of the session. I wonder how long the hon. gentleman would like to discuss the question, all the evening? He had all the evening if he wanted to take it. He could have had all to-morrow too if he wanted to debate it at still greater length. I wonder how long the hon. gentleman requires to discuss a question of this kind.
Then he said in closing that the colonial status was good enough for Sir John A. Macdonald, therefore it was good enough for him. I disagree with the hon. member's statement in the first place because I do not think Sir John A. Macdonald ever was satisfied with the colonial status. Many of his speeches in Hansard and many of his addresses in the country would indicate the contrary to be the fact. But even supposing Sir John A. Macdonald did believe in t'he colonial status, and so stated, I should like to ask the hon. gentleman: would he'be satisfied to be back in the same position as Sir John A. Macdonald was; would be be satisfied to do without the great inventions of modern science, to do exactly as they did in those pioneering days in Canada? Or would he prefer the present time with its involved nationhood and stand up with his fellow^Canadians to urge forward the status of this country until we achieve that independence within the 
commonwealth which all true Canadians desire?
In opening up the material portion of this discussion, Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate the Prime Minister on introducing the resolution. I do not think it is fraught with any great terrors either for this country or for Great Britain or for any other country. It is a very moderate resolution indeed. But I congratulate him because in introducing it, and indeed I hope subsequently when the House shall have endorsed it, he will have succeeded in consolidating the position to which we have attained by recognition, if not by actual declaration. I have in my hand an article which appeared in the Fortnightly Review of March, 1925, written by a famous English publicist, who signs himself Augur. It reads as follows:
In 1914 Great Britain went to war with Germany without consulting the view of the dominions. The dominions were not consulted before the war began, neither was their approval of the declaration of war asked for afterwards officially. But now the situation has undergone a complete change. The great dominions by their effort in the war, and with our consent, have acquired national status, not only within the empire itself but also among the states of the world. The confirmation of this is in the fact that the selfgoverning dominions of the empire have been admitted, with our approval, to full individual membership of the League of Nations. Thus, for better or for worse, the constitution of the empire has changed.
I refer these statements by an Englishmen, to the hon. member for Toronto Northwest (Mr. Church).
But it is yet in the making. The principle of consultation has been imposed, but the method of its practical application has not been discovered yet. The situation needs careful and delicate handling. The time is not ripe when wo can go into imperial consultation with a complicated, far-reaching problem. For a long time we shall be obliged to restrict ourselves to elementary, straightforward issues.
Even of it were fair, we could not consult the empire about a French or a Belgium interest. With the best will in the world the dominions would not be able to understand us, and certainly would refuse to follow us in assuming a binding obligation towards peoples which do not belong to the British commonwealth of nations.
Now, Mr. Speaker, it is an entrancing study to follow the slow evolution of a nation from almost a primary condition. I have done it in a meagre way. I should like to have had time and opportunity in my early years to have studied it thoroughly. When we study the political evolution of Canada we find it has passed from the day of fiscal domination to the day of fiscal freedom-that is, as free of fiscal domination as my hon. friends to the right will permit us to be; we have passed from economic enslavement to economic freedom; we have passed from a war slavery, or

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almost that, to a war freedom. In the last instance it has been of recent consummation. It is interesting to know that Sir Robert Borden, the great leader of the Conservative party who preceded my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen), insisted that there be inserted in one of the treaties which he assisted in drawing up, the tripartite treaty of 1919, a clause providing that none of the dominions should be bound unless its parliament consented thereto. - That was the first really definite break in our war unity. It is interesting in passing to note that by article 40 of the constitution of the Irish Free State agreed to by the British government, and of course by the Irish Free State, it is provided as follows:
Save in the case of acutal invasion, the Irish Free State shall not be committed to active participation in any war without the consent of the Dail Eirrean.
That is the Irish parliament. So I say the war unity of the empire itself has gone. Diplomatic unity is going.
Let not hon. members, Mr. Speaker, be disturbed at this steady evolution of a child into manhood. It is really not a disturbing thing, because after we have reached that condition where we are assuming our own responsibilities and undertaking all that is implied in our complete nationhood, we still are bound more firmly, more definitely and more completely to the Mother Country by ties of honour, of justice, of loyalty and of love, than any tie of a colonial or subject condition can ever bind us. I say it with all the strength I have, that I am satisfied Canada will remain more definitely a friendly part of the British commonwealth of nations as an independent nation within that commonwealth than she ever will as a state under conditions which compel her inevitable participation in all those complications in which England herself may be involved.
Let us advance another step. During the discussion this afternoon the Locarno treaty was mentioned, and that is the second point upon which I wish to congratulate the Prime Minister; we are now to have an opportunity through this resolution of discussing that treaty. I am sorry, however, that in his remarks he did not pronounce more definitely his own opinion or that of his government upon this matter. It is true that he intimated that with what he at present understood of the treaty he did not think he would be willing to commit himself to sign it but that he preferred to leave any definite statement until after the Imperial .conference in October.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Because the
British government so requested.


Edward Joseph Garland: If I were to attempt to analyze that answer I would first, in fairness to myself, require to study the correspondence in connection with that request; there may be a good deal more behind it than at .present appears. Nevertheless other so-called colonies, or others of our self-governing dominions, have come out as definitely in respect of this treaty as it is possible for governments to do. Hertzog in South Africa, for example, is in no uncertain position in that regard. I would like then, to ask a question and to endeavour in my feeble way to answer it: Why do some of the imperial authorities appear to be so extremely anxious for Canada and her sister dominions to tie themselves to this treaty?
In order to answer that question thoroughly it will be necessary to examine the treaty itself and its antecedents. In so doing I would. like the House to recall the struggle which took place in 1919 between Clemenceau and Wilson and Lloyd George. At that time Clemenceau, answering the dire fears of the French populace, had determined to insist not only upon a treaty of guarantee of assistance by England and1 the United States, but also to insist on the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. Wilson and Lloyd George were not at all agreeable to this proposal and Tardieu, Clemenceau's right hand man and one of the most brilliant young men in France at that time, who has since written a very excellent story of the whole transaction, has this to say about the situation:
It was on Maroh 14, 1910, that Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson proposed to M. Clemenceau, in place of the inter-allied occupation of an independent Rhineland, the undertaking by Great Britain and the United States to come immediately to the assistance of France in case the latter should be the object of an unprovoked aggression by Germany.
This proposal if accepted by England, would have been an unprecedented thing. Tardieu himself acknowledges this fact in his book:
I have said "unprecedented"; on that I would lay stress. England in the course of her history has entered into specific and temporary agreements with various continental countries but has never subscribed to any general and permanent obligation. She has at times lent her aid; she has never bound herseLf in advance to give it.
Yet we are asked in this instance to bind ourselves in advance. It so happened at that time that Lloyd George and Wilson did not agree with Clemenceau's views. Further meet-

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ings were held, and at page 178 Tardieu describes what took place:
Mr. Olemenccau's mind is made up on the evening of the sixteenth and his decision expressed dn a note handed to the heads of the allied governments on the morning of the seventeenth. A proposal is made to js, which substitutes one guarantee for another. We refuse this substitution. We gratefully note, with the fullest appreciation of its value, the pledge offered and desire to accept it but only on the express condition that it be supplemented by most of the other guarantees demanded by us	
Clemenceau at that time exerted a most extraordinary pressure upon those with whom he was associated, and so successful was he chat on the 22nd of the month Lloyd George capitulated; Wilson had done so a few days previously. Tardieu records the incident at page 186 as follows:
Mr. Clemenceau holds his ground unmoved. We send note upon note (March 19, 20, 22, 28 and 31, and April 4, 5, 15, 16 and 19). We shoiw that no matter how important the results attained it remains indispensable to give the treaty a guarantee of execution, to give to France a material safeguard against a Germany which because o-f the war will have millions of trained soldiers for years to come. We show that occupation alone meets this double need. Day6 pass.
At last Mr. Clemenceau's indomitable will wins its end. Light begins to break. Slowly, prudently and patiently, he widens the opening and on April 20 at six oclock in the evening he secures-first of all- from President Wilson his approval of the provisions of chapter 14. On the morning of April 22. Mr. Lloyd George gives his approval also, but not without agan renewing his objections. Mr. Clemenceau, who for two days has been in agreement worth President Willson, maintains all has points-duration of the occupation, its possible extension; participation by the Allies. Mr. Lloyd George ends the discussion:
"Very well, I accept."
What had he accepted? Mr. Lloyd George on behalf of England and Mr. Wilson on behalf of the United States had agreed not only to give assistance to France in the event of an aggression by Germany, but had in addition assented to the inter-allied occupation of the Rhineland. That occupation was condemned by the radical elements in all countries; it was laughed at and ridiculed by the moderates everywhere, who looked upon it as a hopeless and stupid piece of Prussianism on the part of the allies. However, Lloyd George and Wilson committed themselves to it. They were to occupy the territory west of Essen and Cologne for five years; the territory immediately south of that, the central zone, for ten years and the territory still further south, close to the Saar basin, for fifteen years. In the event of Germany's failure to live up to the complete terms of the treaty-since moderated, as hon. gentlemen know-the interallied occupation of the Rhineland could have continued indefinitely. So we had this extraordinary situation arise.

Then, Mr. Speaker, the inter-allied occupation of the Rhine commenced; the terms of that occupation were so involved and so far-reaching that a very definite occurrence took place at a meeting of the war cabinet held later. But before coming to that I would like hon. members to realize exactly to what we have been committed in this particular treaty. The inter-allied occupation of the left bank of the Rhine was fixed for fifteen years; evacuation was to be by zones and so bn. Then Tardieu states:
If faithful compliance is lacking, there is to be no evacuation art five-year intervals. Even ait the end of fifteen years, we retaiin in any event, a safeguard; if the guarantees against an unprovoked German aggression are deemed insufficient, (there is to be no evacuation.
There was, of course, the moral obligation at that time admitted by Lloyd George on behalf of England to come to France's assistance in the event of aggression- by Germany. However, Clemenceau was a very cute and shrewd old Tiger; he realized that both England and the United States had to depend on other sources than themselves for their inspiration and support, and so at page 209 he recounts what took place a little later:
It was, on April 25th, that face to face as was his wont Mr. Clemenceau boldly confronted the difficulty in an interview with President Wilson by saying:
"The treaty, as it stands, satisfies me on the score of guarantees; but the future 'belongs neither to you nor to me. You have a senate and I have a parliament. We cannot be sure of what they will do ten years hence, or even of what they will do to-morrow. If, for example, the treaties with the United States and Great Britain were not ratified, what would be France's situation? What alternative guarantee would she have at her disposal?"
President Wilson answered:	"Your observation is
perfectly just. But it raises a delicate question. Let us seek a solution."
So the discussion continued for some time, seeking the solution for which Clemenceau was so anxious. Both England and the United States had then, as I have said, departed from the generally recognized practice of not committing themselves permanently in advance to any very involved obligations. It is now to 'be noted that the United Kingdom had pledged -herself morally to come to the support of France in the event of any aggression by Germany. The Locarno treaty carries that out. It failed in the first place, the previous treaty having broken down. This particular treaty is in my opinion based on the acknowledgment given by Lloyd George to Clemenceau at that time. Secondly, there was unquestionably the laudable desire on the part of England to encourage a more favourable condition of affairs in Europe.

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Let us ask now what is our position with respect to this. Sir Robert Borden was a member of the war cabinet when the matter came up, and' at page 196 of Tardieu, the same right hand man of Clemenceau, he relates what ILloyd1 -George WId Clemenceau -later as having occurred' at that war cabinet meeting:
"I fear," said Mr. Lloyd George, "that we rallied too quickly to the idea of a prolonged occupation. In my opinion, the whole scheme should be reconsidered.
I accepted the occupation, it is true. But since then I have held four meetings of the imperial war cabinet and our delegates to the Peace conference. They were unanimous in their belief that I did wrong.
The Dominion of Canada, through Sir Robert Borden, was complete in agreement with the other dominion representatives in the war cabinet that Lloyd George had done wrong in undertaking the commitments involved.
One hoi. gentleman this afternoon suggested that we were committed under clause 10 of the treaty of Versailles. Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any clause in the whole treaty that is so utterly misunderstood and so completely confused as is clause 10. I doubt if any nation definitely knows what its commitments are under it, nor do I think any nation would1 regard itself as bound in any event to carry out clause 10. In any case clause 10 is relatively insignificant when, compared with the commitments under the Locarno treaty, and even now the interpretation of it is completely confused. Again, we see the reason for Locarno. Locarno was Great Britain's attempt to -meet the obligations entered into with Clemenceau. It was her attempt to meet those obligations in the form of a new treaty that might be acceptable to the world as a whole, and in particular to those who were participating in it. At page 72 of the Independence Papers, by Mr. John S. Ewart, we find an illustration of just how confused the understanding is with regard to clause 10. The Hon. Mr. Doherty and the Hon. N. W. Rowell, both members of the Conservative party at that time and delegates from the Conservative government-


Mr. RYCKMAN:: The Union government.


Edward Joseph Garland: A number of hon. gentlemen have great difficulty in determining the difference between the Union government and the Conservative government, but we will let that go. At page 72, Mr. Ewart describes what took place in the House of Commons:
To placaite Canada Mr. Doherty and Mr. Rowel], in the course of the debate, gave such an interpretation of the covenant of the League of Nations as renders 14011-304^
it not only valueless but positively mischievous. Instead of being a real covenant for united action against disturbers of the peace, /the ministers declare it to be, in effect, nothing (more than an agreement that df, under any future set of circumstances, the members of the league are willing to take action, they will proceed to do it. The argument is that although it is true that under Article X, it is the poumci! of the league which is to "advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled," yet that if the council, as ordinarily constituted (that is of nine members) proposes to make a call upon members of the league for action, those members must first be invited to become members of the council; and inasmuch as decisions of the council must be unanimous, the -invited members must assent to the proposal before it can become obligatory- To Mr. Fielding's inter- * ruption: "Under that interpretation, the whole assembly would become members of the council," Mr. Doherty replied: "If the council chose, at one and the same meeting, to consider the duties and obligations of all the members of the council, (they would." When Mr. Rowell was enunciating the same doctrine, Mr. Lapointe said: "That means that Canada shall never be compelled to take action uniless she agrees	to it. Is	that	the answer of my hon.	friend?"Mr.	Rowell:	She	cannot be compelled	to take
action unless she agrees to it, so far as action under that clause is concerned.
Mr.	Laponite:	lit	is interesting to have	that on
Hansard.
Then Mr. Ewart comments:
What a perfect farce! Germany or Russia, for example, becomes aggressive; the council of nine -proposes	to institute a	commercial, financial and contraotional boycott, and to organize a military campaign to which all the members are to contribute; representatives of the ithinty-it/wo members are therefore summoned to meet at Geneva; after the lapse of several weeks the representatives assemble; they listen, and disagree; and they go home again. Thirty-one can make no decision. The covenant, if this be its meaning, is a scrap of paper smirched with stupidities.
So I do not think any hon. member who studies the treaty and the comments made thereon by Mr. Rowell and Mr. Doherty will be of the impression that we stand to-day committed under clause 10.
'We can go even further than that. In 1922 Canada herself through her delegates tried her best to have clause 10 amended, and it is reported at page 505-506 of the Round Table Papers, as follows:	,
T-hat the American senate was not alone in sensitiveness upon the point of moral obligation under Article 10 of the Covenant lhas since been shown by the attitude of Canada towards that Article. At the meeting o*f the League Assembly in 1922, Canada tabled an amendment to Article 10 adding at the end of the sentence empowering the council to advise members as to -the means by which their obligation should be fulfilled the words, "taking into account the political and geographical circumstances of each state.'*
I wish hon. members would note that this is the first attempt that has been made to determine the geographical principle in
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treaties; I shall deal with that a little further later on. It goes on:
The opinion given by the council in suoh cases shall be regarded as a matter of the highest importance, and shall be taken onto consideration by all members of the league which shall use itheriT utmost endeavours to conform to the conclusions of (the council, but no member shall be under the obligation to engage in any act of war without the consent of its parliament, legislature or other representative body.
It so happens. Mr. Speaker, that unfortunately the Persians on the council at that time defeated the Canadian objective, and we subsequently ratified clause 10. Our position has since been understood to be an interpretive position, and has been regarded by all nations as having a powerful bearine on the clause itself and the commitments of the nations thereunder.
Not only did Sir Robert Borden object, as I have stated, but Lord Balfour expressed himself in no uncertain terms as to the ambiguous and doubtful character of clause 10. Then again at pages 656-7 of the Round Table of September last we can find some further references to that in the following, and I would recommend this to the hon. member for Muskoka (Mr. MoGibbon):
As has been repeatedly pointed out, however, in the Round Table, the meaning of the covenant itself needs to be defined. At present its wording is dangerously ambiguous, and different nations put widely different interpretation upon it. Nothing will be more conducive to the destruction of that confidence and good faith between nations, which is the very essence of progress towards peace, than that there should be any confusion or misunderstanding between members as to what their mutual obligations under the covenant are, when the time for fulfiilling them arrives.
Hon gentlemen will note that this confusion is clearly acknowledged and discussed no later than September last in this imperialistic journal Round Table, which reports, on non-partisan basis, the .political happenings of interest to the empire. It goes on to say:
Some day it may be possible to overhaul the covenant so as to remove any possible obscurity. Meanwhile we accept Lord Balfour's recent plea that to attempt at present any general revision of a document signed by more than sixty nations would do more harm than good. But we think it imperative that the British nations should make it clear to the other signatories that neither article 10 nor article 16 mean that they are under any obligation "automatically" to take sanctions against any other power.
No words could be more definite than these so far as the commitments of Canada under article 10 are concerned. We are'not committed morally or geographically.


Peter McGibbon: Does the hon. member
take this statement as an official interpretation?


Edward Joseph Garland: Yes.


Peter McGibbon: On what authority?


Edward Joseph Garland: The Round Taible is recognized as an official interpreter of the position taken by the various nations in the commonwealth in matters political or matters international. Lord Balfour has also commented upon the matter and1 he takes much the same position.


Peter McGibbon: May I say that there
has been no such pronouncement made by the nations involved?


Edward Joseph Garland: The hon.
member is missing the point.


Peter McGibbon: I am not missing the
point.


Edward Joseph Garland: The nations involved signed' the covenant ini which article 10 occurs. Now, there is complete confusion in regard to it. There has been all along utter confusion as to the commitments under article 10, a confusion which needs clarification if article 10 is going to be in any way beneficial. As a matter of fact under the position formally taken by the Canadian delegates in this matter, I think article 10 should either be drastically amended or completely eliminated. Canada should not be Obligated under article 10 to any commitments that are not undertaken with full recognition Of the geographical situation involved.
So far as the geographical situation is concerned we 'have the position taken by Mr. Chamberlain. Discussing the Locarno treaty in the House of Commons in England he indicated, in answer to a question as to whether he did not consider the treaty applied to the eastern frontiers as well as to the western frontiers of Germany, that he was unwilling to do so because of the geographical situation of those boundaries. They were away from his personal interest, they were away from the deep and natural interest of England herself, and therefore he realised the difficulty of guaranteeing definitely in any treaty any status quo as respects the eastern boundaries of Germany. However, that is another question and I will come to that later on.
Article 5 of the treaty of Mutual Assistance was the first treaty in my recollection in which there occurs definite recognition, of the principle of geographical limitations and responsibilities. Article 5, subsection (b) reads as follows:
The high contracting .parties undertake to furnish one another mutually with assistance in the case referred to in article 2-

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And so on.
Invoke 'by name the high contracting parties whose assistance it requires. No high contracting party situated in a continent other than that in which operations will take place shall, in principle be required to co-operate in military, naval or air operations.
Mr. MacDonald, who was Prime Minister of Great Britain at that time, has quoted Canada's opinion on this subject, as embodied in a letter from Canada to be found at page 277 of the Accounts and Papers (State Papers). This is a letter to the Secretary General of the League from the government of Canada, dated June 19, 1923, and reads in part as follows:
It is intended that the obligation to render assistance shall be limited in principle to those countries situated in the same part of the globe. While Canada is situated in the North American continent, she is a nation forming part of the British Empire, and it seems difficult to devise a scheme which would give due effect to those conflicting considerations. In any case, it seems very unlikely that the Canadian people in the present circumstances would be prepared to consent to any agreement binding Canada to give assistance as proposed to other nations, and the government therefore does not see its way to a participation in the treaty of Mutual Guarantee.
Canada has definitely stated her position with respect to commitments outside of the North American continent.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the treaty of Locarno involves, as the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) indicated this afternoon, commitments with respect to the western boundaries of Germany, commitments tremendously far-reaching in themselves-how far-reaching hon. gentlemen can only really understand when they study the history of the whole situation since the war. For example-and this is just one little difficulty that has occurred to me- there is the famous and wealthy Saar basin. It is under the control of France, the coal deposits there being of tremendous value. But under the treaty the understanding is that within 15 years-that is from the time of the m'aking of the treaty-a plebiscite is to be taken in the Saar basin and the nations concerned are to agree to the determination of the people in that basin. We have already had an illustration in the case of another country of what happened with respect to a determination of that kind. But in this particular case if the people of the Saar basin vote to return to Germany there will inevitably be a conflict with France, bad feeling will at once be stirred up, and I doubt- if France will consent. That is just one little illustration. Further than that, as the hon. member for Labelle indicated this afternoon, the treaty itself obligates Canada, if we should sign it-which I sincerely hope and believe we will not do-to come to the assistance of Germany if Germany should be invaded by France. Now let me give you just one little illustration of how this might work out. At the present time France and Poland are very close together and aTe assisting each other in every possible way. France is particularly interested in Poland. Indeed so is England at the moment but that is another question. Poland may determine to attack Germany. Or if Poland were attacked France might undertake to come and help her. In that case we would be compelled to go over there 'and assist France under this treaty. On the other hand, if Germany should invade either France or Poland, and then be invaded by France in return, we would then be committed under the terms of this treaty-this treaty which Mr. Chamberlain himself in the House of Commons in England stated did not commit England to any other undertakings than those contained in the covenant itself with respect to the eastern boundaries of Germany, yet inevitably compels her take an interest in it and may involve us in future wars.
We all know th'at a treaty has just been concluded between Germany and Russia which undoubtedly imperils the Locarno treaty. Personally I doubt very much whether the larger nations involved will agree that they could carry out the provisions of the Locarno treaty in view of the Russian-German treaty which has been negotiated. In 'addition to this, at this very moment Russia and Poland1 are struggling for supremacy in the Baltic states of Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Poland has been successful in Lithuania but has not made any progress with the others. Russia is struggling hard to get control there. These three states are almost powerless alone. They must enter into treaties for mutual assistance with either Russia or Poland. Again difficulty is going to arise. Russia is going to insist on German assistance in the event of Poland being too aggressive in the Baltic states, and we might get involved again in the Baltic mess of Europe if we entered into the treaty. As a Canadian I would hesitate to urge any hon. member to do anything which was not fair, so far as Europe was concerned. No one is more anxious than I am to see Europe settle down and endeavour to effect an economic adjustment. But no treaty of this kind will be of any assistance to Canada, in helping the Old Country in her complications in Europe. No treaty of this kind can bring us any closer to a solution of the terrible inter-state quarrels on that continent.


An hon. MEMBER:: What makes you think so?
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Edward Joseph Garland: 
Mr. J. L. BROWN (Lisgar):: The question of the future status of Canada in the British Empire .is one of extreme importance and one that I think demands the earnest consideration of this House. The British Empire is a new experiment in the world's history. In the past great empires have been built upon force, and the component parts of the empire have been held together by military force I think we can say that such methods have been utterly discarded by Great Britain herself, and if this new experiment is to succeed, as w7e believe it can succeed, we must fix our attention upon the essential principles that bind the empire together. I thoroughly concur in w'hat the hon. member for Bow-River (Mr. Garland) has said, that the bonds of love and affection are infinitely stronger than any rigid bonds or any binding treaties can possibly be, and those bonds are strong just because they are elastic.
I shall not undertake, Mr. 'Speaker, nor is it my intention, to enter at any great length into a discussion of these questions. I shall not deal with the various treaties which have been brought before us from time to time for our consideration, but there are two or three essential principles that seem to my mind important. II should like to lay dow-n this principle; that Canada's destiny mudt be determined by the people of Canada themselves, as expressed through the will of this parliament. It is inconceivable to me at this time that we should think of entrusting our destiny and the determination of the part we should play in any crisis that might arise to those who live on the other side of the ocean, strongly as we may be bound to them by ties of love and affection and strongly as we may sympathize with them in their position in world affairs. It seems to me inconceivable that we at this stage in our history should allow our course to be determined by people other than ourselves. In times past men have fought for their rights, for individual liberty and for freedom. Some-

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times it has been for religious freedom, for the right to think for themselves, for the right to determine their own creeds and beliefs. To-day I think we need to urge upon men not only their right to these things, but their duties and responsibilities to determine these things for themselves. As it is true in all matters of faith that men are under the duty and obligation to determine them for themselves, so it is true in regard to our political destiny. We must determine for ourselves the part that we are going to play in world history and what will be our place in any world crisis that may arise. It is to me inconceivable that we should bind ourselves to a course of action in the future without reserving to ourselves the right to determine whether the circumstances justify this action or that, or that we should bind ourselves to follow at some time in the future a course that would be determined for us by others.
I aim convinced! that in the great experiment in which we are engaged-a new thing, as I have said, in the history of the world-namely, that of building up an empire bound together not by military force but by ties of common sympathy, common ideals and common history, each component part of that great empire must maintain its individual freedom of action. Especially is that true of those dominions which like ourselves have for years now enjoyed the privileges of self-government and the right to manage their own internal affairs. There was a time when British statesmen thought that if Canada were given _ the right to manage her own internal affairs, that would mean separation from the empire. Whenever some new step has been suggested these fears have been expressed:	Oh, if you
do that it will mean separation from the empire. Just as those fears have been belied in the past, so I believe they will belied in the future when we undertake to determine for ourselves just what part we shall take in external affairs. While I cannot always justify some of the things which Great Britain has done, I glory in her traditions and the part she has played in the history of mankind, and I have no fear that any injury will come to the British Empire if the self-governing dominions like ourselves reserve for themselves freedom of action when any crisis may arise.
I have sometimes said in the past, although perhaps I have been wrong-and I have almost come to the conclusion that I have been wrong-that if we recognize that the British Empire is an anomaly and that many
anomalous situations arise, the greatest danger lies in attempting too positive a definition of our status. In view of a decision given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council regarding the right of Canada to determine just what subjects shall be allowed to be appealed to the Privy Council it may seem that the time has arrived when in some of these matters we should have a clearer definition of the position we intend to take and of the rights we propose to assume. On this general question I am strongly of opinion that our destiny must be decided for ourselves by ourselves. I have no fear that the acceptance of that responsibility will in any measure tend to the disruption of the British Empire; I believe rather that it will bind us closer together than would be possible if we attempted to build upon the other foundation that is sometimes urged upon us.
There is another question that has been brought to our notice, and I cannot allow it to pass without expressing some opinion upon it.
I am greatly -disappointed that the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) has not up to this point taken any part in the debate. I would have preferred not to discuss the particular question .to which I am now going to refer until I had heard from the right hon. gentleman his statement of his position.


Mr. SPENCE:: Then would the hon. gentleman believe it?


John Livingstone Brown: I would at least have an
opportunity of judging, and at present I have no opportunity of judging except from the reports. When I hear him denying that a certain statement-that is the "ready, aye, ready" statement-has been made, and offering some explanation in regard to a statement made at Hamilton, I would! have much preferred before forming a judgment to 'listen to the right hon. gentleman himself. Unfortunately, however, I have not had that privilege and therefore I must deal with the matter as I see it myself. There is no question in my mind that the people of Canada as represented- in this parliament should decide what part they will- play in any crisis that may arise. If some such circumstance should again prevail as prevailed in 1914, if a crisis of that kind should arise, it is only fitting that the government of the day, 9 pm. whatever government that happens to be, should take such immediate steps as in their judgment seem justified. But following upon that, the proper step would be an immediate summoning of parliament. That government might place
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its views before parliament and it would receive the endorsation of parliament or otherwise.
As regards an election appeal, it seems to me that is the most illogical proposition that has ever been offered to the 'Canadian people. Why should1 we be asked to say at this time that under circumstances of which we are and must be ignorant until they arise, we shall commit ounselves to a certain course? I can imagine that circumstances -might arise when an election would be necessary, but let us go back to the situation that prevailed in 1914. When the great war -broke out in 1914,, from end to end of Canada the opinion was expressed that Canada could do- nothing but commit all- her resources to winning t'he war for the allies. On that matter there was practically little difference of opinion, and the government of the day received practically the unanimous support of the people of Canada. Should such a situation again arise, would it -not be absurd to say immediately: We must have a general election? We would be plunged into an election on which -perhaps there was no issue, on which the people were not divided1. One of the most discreditable things that ever happened in Canada was the attempt of so-me -members of the government of the day, some of whom now sit in this House-
An -hon. MEMBER: Name them.


John Livingstone Brown: The hon. member for South Winnipeg (Mr. Rogers) for one-to plunge Canada into a general election. I may have been wrong, but I -felt at the time that the severest criticism which could be made against the premier of that day, Sir Robert Borden, was that he allowed a year and a half to pass before it was definitely stated that we would not have an election until the end of the parliamentary term. Many, many times when our whole energies should have been devoted to the winning of the war we were on tenterhooks, not knowing whether we were going to have an election or not. In the constituency that I now represent the bills for a convention of the Conservative party were actually posted, and then the convention was called off. That is the position in which we found ourselves-jockeying for an election when we should have been devoting our energies to other purposes.
Therefore it would seem to me, Mr. Speaker, a most absurd proposition that we should declare here and now, or before the circumstances arise, that the (question will be submitted to the judgment of the people in

an election, when there might be no issue between the parties at all. What would (be the situation then? Whichever party might be in control at the time would be appealing to the people and securing support perhaps for policies other -than those immediately involved, and of which the country entirely disapproved. That was the situation which to some extent confronted us between 1914 and 1917. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that we have not had the privilege of listening to the right hon. leader of the opposition propound his views on this question. Perhaps I have misinterpreted them, perhaps I have misrepresented them, but I am firmly of the opinion that this parliament, representing the people of Canada, must assume responsibility. I believe it would be the duty of the government of the day to call parliament together and place the question before it. Unless there-was reason to believe that any wide difference of opinion existed among the people, there should -be no election. We should not be plunged into civil strife, fighting one against another, when we ought to be devoting all our energies to meet the crisis that was confront-1 ing us.


Mr. ROBERT FORKE (Brandon):: Mr. Speaker, I feel some hesitation in taking part in -the debate on this very important subject after listening to the eloquent and instructive addresses which have been delivered this afternoon, but it is so important that I must place myself on record with respect to it. The British North America Act, with the various precedents that have been established since its enactment, may be called the constitution of Canada. Those precedents have been created by this parliament and have been sanctioned -by the common consent of the country, and it may be taken for granted that they now form part of the constitutional privileges and liberties which this country enjoys as a nation. Those precedents involved progressive changes, and they were not, challenged. Someone said this afternoon that we have just drifted into our present position. I do not think that is a correct statement of the case. I think we have carefully considered step by step the moves that have -been taken from confederation up to the -present time, and whatever advances have (been made have been, the result of that careful consideration by all concerned.
Sometimes we talk of Canada as a nation free and independent. I do not think that is a correct description of our status. We have freedom, we have liberty, but we are not in full control of our national destinies. We

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have large powers in internal government, but at the same time those powers are not unlimited; for instance, the federal and provincial jurisdictions respectively are fixed, and this parliament cannot change them. In regard to certain reforms that we would like to make with respect to another legislative body we find ourselves powerless to move. But, Mr. Speaker, I believe that when the people of Canada make up their minds to effect that reform, they will find a means of doing so,' That is one of the difficulties we are up against at the present time and bears out my statement that our legislative powers are to a certain extent limited.
This afternoon frequent references have been made to Canada's place within the empire. It is pretty hard to define our position in relation to the commonwealth, and although I have listened very carefully to the debate I have not heard any hon. member clearly define our position as one of the sister nations of the empire. On one occasion Sir Wilfrid Laurier when speaking on this question said, in effect:
Our barque is upon the ocean and is making for harbour, but I do not very well know what that harbour will be. It is not exactly the same harbour I expected the ship of state would make twenty-five years ago, but I am well satisfied that it will be a safe harbour at last.
I think we can confidently accept that statement. I believe we are going in the right direction and shall arrive in a safe harbour at last.
As to getting in closer touch with Great Britain in the matter of conferences to decide foreign policy, I think Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier were very careful not to commit the country too far on imperial matters. If I recollect aright, I think the present leader of the opposition in 1921 attended an imperial conference. I do not know what was discussed at that conference, I do not know if any commitments on behalf of this country were made, but I trust the right hon. gentleman sufficiently to believe that nothing detrimental to the interests of Canada was agreed to by him. The hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) has referred to certain statements made by the right hon. leader of the opposition, as to Canada's position in relation to imperial policy. I am not going to dwell on them, but I also should have been pleased if the right hon. gentleman had told us this afternoon just exactly where he stands in this matter. Canada has certainly travelled quite a piece since the days of confederation. Canada signed the Peace treaty as a free nation, and many of our acts since were not anticipated in the early days of confederation.
On the whole I think we can feel quite satisfied that we are travelling in the right direction.
At the Imperial conference of 1921 Premier Hughes of Australia and Premier Massey of New Zealand were present and expressed their anxiety to link their parliaments up more closely -with the imperial parliament. We can understand their position to some extent. We have been told this afternoon, as on other occasions, about our geographical position, and there can be no doubt that her interests as one of the two great countries occupying the North American continent will for all time to come be to a very large extent bound up with that of the United States. Australia and New Zealand lie away out in the Pacific ocean in- a much different position from Canada, and I can well understand how they look to their own safety first. While I believe they are also bound to the Old Country with bonds of love, yet in matters of self interest I believe it will be perhaps more to their good to be closely bound up in imperial matters. This whole question of tying ourselves up with the imperial parliament and with imperial matters is fraught with a good deal of danger. I will not attempt to go into the matter to-night after the eloquent address of the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) who has covered the ground completely, but I am sure that the people of Canada will best serve the interests o-f the whole British Empire by developing their own country and attending to their own affairs, all the while looking across the wide Atlantic with feelings of affection and appreciation. Should the time ever come when danger again threatens the Old Country I am certain that the sons and daughters o'f Canada will be willing to make sacrifices as they did in the years gone by. Canada has always been ready in the past to do her share, but I think we should consider well the situation before we bind ourselves and get embroiled in the entanglements of European affairs as we know them to exist to-day.
One might ask what Canada's responsibilities are, and what is likely to cause the trouble in which we may find ourselves. I do not think there is much danger on this North American continent; I do not think we will ever see war -here, but if we look across the Atlantic to the continent of Europe and realize the conditions existing there we must always feel that there still remains a danger and that some day the spectre of war may arise again. When we look to Italy and Poland we find that responsible and parliamentary govern-
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ment has fallen down, and the countries are in the hands o-f dictators. Some remarks Of the Italian dictator do not lend themselves very well to the peaceful solution of the difficulties of Europe, but perhaps it is beside the question to discuss this matter at present. It does seem to me, however that so long as there is so much jealousy, hatred and bad feelings between the nations of Europe there will be trouble.
It might be asked as to what is going to cause war, and what has been the cause of war. I heard a statement made the other day which is perhaps partly true; a professor of history said that all the wars of the nineteenth century were basically economic. I do not suppose the people realize this 'fact. I think sentiment has played a large part in the history of warfare, but I believe a close study of what took place in the nineteenth century will show that most of the wars were caused through economic problems. So perhaps one of the great factors entering into permanent peace would be a proper solution of the economic questions as they affect the different countries of Europe at present. However, ;I am not going to spend any time on that matter.
The world wants peace to-day; I think people generally in every nation are seeking and longing for peace, for the time when man shall go to war no more. Then why should war come upon us almost accidentally, it seems, or without due notice? I believe that the days of secret diplomacy should pass and that the negotiations between nations should be made in the open in order that the common people, those who must suffer, should have an opportunity of knowing what is going on. Perhaps this is not the proper time to discuss some of the negotiations which took place before the Great war broke out. Half a dozen men, perhaps, have the decision as between peace and war, yet the great majority of the people who must suffer have nothing whatever to do with those causes responsible for war. Military people say that the way to prevent war is to be always ready for war, and I have a great deal of sympathy with their viewpoint; it seems natural that the proper way to preserve peace is to get ready for war, but what has been the experience of the past? You will find everywhere in history that when nations prepared for war they were immediately at war; the one inevitably followed the other. So if the nations go on arming and preparing for war we will have another war. The only way to get peace is to prepare for peace in the same way.

Just a word in regard to the consolidation of our empire. Some people ask how Canada is to protect herself in time of war, and where she would be if it were not for the protection of the British army and navy; sometimes we are called selfish and narrow because we are not prepared to maintain a large standing army and navy to protect our chores. Perhaps a good deal could be said along this line in regard to a navy; I do not know that 1 would' complain if we were just a little better equipped in that regard than at present. At the same time, however, where is the danger coming from? I was bom in the Old Country and perhaps my heart beats as warmly for Old England as any in this House, but I think the only danger likely to come to Canada will come from our connection with the imperial parliament. Switzerland lies in the centre of Europe, but die seems to be quite safe; Canada would also be safe so long as she did not become embroiled in the European squabbles which are so frequent. If we keep out of those troubles and attend to our own business we will have no war, unless it should be through the call of blood to help our Mother Country in distress.
I might say a few words in regard to the actions which took place in the Dominion parliament" in regard to treaty-making, but that matter was so well discussed this afternoon that I do not think it necessary to take up any more time. I hope some way may be found whereby the free nations of the British Empire may find some tie which will bind them together, but I agree with the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) that if you bind that tie too closely and make it a fixed thing you will be taking the best means to destroy the unity of the British Empire. I believe in the strong bonds of affection and love which bind us to the Motherland; Canada should go on her way step by step, perhaps drawing near the time when she shall be a free nation entirely independent, and capable of directing both her internal and external affairs.
I believe great things are in store for this country of ours; I believe Canada has something to give the nations of the world that will work to the betterment of all mankind, and I for one look into the distant future for the day when Canada will become one of the great nations of the earth, making for the peace and welfare of not only her own people but of the rest of the world as well.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Montreal Harbour Commission


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from June 14 consideration in committee of Bill No. 189, to provide for a loan to the Harbour Commissioners of Montreal.-Mr. Cardin-Mr. Duff in the chair.
The CHAIRMAN:: Clauses from 1 to 5 inclusive have been passed. We are now on the preamble.
On the preamble.


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: I think, Mr. Chairman when the committee reported progress, the minister had thought it would be quite all right to adopt the suggestion of the opposition that there should be some check on these expenditures, and that the accounts of the Montreal Harbour Commission should be referred to the committee on Public Accounts. He was going to consider the form of an amendment to bring in, and I have no doubt he has it.


Mr. CARDIN:: Representations were made, as my hon. friend has just said, with regard to referring the accounts of the harbour commission to the Public Accounts committee, but on looking into the matter I find that this point is already covered by the law as it at present exists. I do not intend to say that the accounts of the harbour commission can be submitted to the Public Accounts committee, but a check is provided for in the existing legislation. By the Audit Act of 1923 power was given by parliament to the audit board to investigate and inquire into all the expenses and matters of administration of the harbour commission. It was mentioned the other night that this board had been practically abolished, or that the law had been changed. I find that under the law as it was amended in 1925, there is a section which covers this case exactly. Section 4 provides:
It shall be the duty of the board to act in an advisory capacity to the treasury board and under its direction to inquire into and report with regard to any matters entrusted to it by the treasury 'board including the following:-
(d) the financial affairs of any commission or other public body the operations of which are carried on by appropriations from the treasury of Canada, or which are aided by grants or loans from the said treasury.
This audit is made by the new audit board. Each member or the board is empowered with the same authority as any commissioner appointed by virtue of the Inquiries Act, and
by clause 7 of the Board of Audit Act it is provided that:
Each report of the board shall be laid before both houses of parliament within twenty-one days of the date of its receipt by the minister, or if parliament be not then in session, within the first twenty-one days of the session then next following.
That is the law as it stands at present.


Arthur Meighen: Where is the report?
Mr. CARDIN': This law came into effect on the 2nd day of July, 1925. An investigation has been made by the Auditor General, and a report has been made to the Minister of Finance.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend now says that a report has been made by the Board of Audit to the Minister of Finance on the Montreal harbour.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That still leaves us where we were before. There was not only a suggestion, but the direct statement was made by the hon. member for West Calgary that things were not as they ought to be in connection with this harbour board. He made that charge, and the minister said that so far as he was concerned he saw no reason why the matter should not go to the Public Accounts committee, for he was quite sure that everything was all right. If everything is all right I admit at once that there is no reason why the matter should not go to the committee, and the minister believing that everything was all right said that he had no objection whatever to the matter going to the Public Accounts committee. The minister will see that the report he speaks of is merely a report made to the government. It does not come to the House.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: This report can be laid
on the table of the House.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What good is
that if we cannot inquire into it?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The House has power to
inquire into any document laid on the table.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Before the
Public Accounts committee?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Certainly.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Not a bit of it. The opposition would have to move as a matter of grace to go into it, and the government, if it had any right to carry on, if it was strong enough to vote it down, undoubtedly could and would. A government that would say that this can only be done on a motion of the House, and not as a matter

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of law, if strong enough would undoubtedly vote down that motion. I am more interested, though, in wondering what has accounted for my hon. friend's change of heart. My hon. friend was all keen for investigation before. What has happened since? What nas he learned?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I am still; and if my hon. friend moves, I will support him.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am moving
for it now in connection with this bill. My hon. friend agreed to it the other day, but the trouble is he does not stay put. We had exactly this same act quoted to us last session. The Prime Minister produced and read it. It was pointed out then that there had been some changes in it; it was changed again in 1925, but the effect of it has not been changed at all. As my hon. friend has departed from the understanding we had, I think he should give us plainly the reasons for his change of heart.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I cannot agree with my
hon. friend that I committed myself to giving power to the Public Accounts committee to deal with these matters. I stated that I should be glad to look into the matter, and that I was not opposed to any check being made on the affairs of the Montreal Harbour Commission. I think the most serious suggestion of the hon. member for West Calgary was that he wanted to have an audit made by the Auditor General. His contention was twofold. He wanted to have an investigation by the Auditor General, and to have the accounts submitted to the Public Accounts committee. Well, as the law stands at present, this power is already in the hands of the members of this House. An investigation can be made by the Auditor General under the law now; in fact, one has been made already, and when the report is made to the House any hon. member may move that the matter be referred to the Public Accounts committee. But if we amended the bill, which provides only for the granting of a certain sum of money to the Montreal harbour commission, to provide that its accounts shall be investigated by the Public Accounts committee, that would be the first time we had stated any such thing in any such legislation we have in Canada. It would be the first law of that kind. There is no law on our statute books which states that the affairs of any commission or organization of any sort shall be submitted to the Public Accounts committee. The Public Accounts committee draws its power, not from any legislation, but from the powers of the House of Commons itself. It is an institution 
of the House of Commons, and the Public Accounts committee has never been empowered by any legislation that we have passed in parliament; in fact, that is not exactly the duty of the Public Accounts committee. I have taken care to look into the matter and to consult some authoritieis, and I find that it is not the duty of the Public Accounts committee to deal with matters of that kind. But what is more important is this:	Why make an exception of the port
of Montreal? If we amended the bill in the way that has been suggested, Montreal harbour would be the only one to have its affairs investigated by the Public Accounts committee. From such an investigation Vancouver harbour commission would be free Quebec harbour commission would be free, and all the other harbour commissions that we have. If we were dealing with the powers of the harbour commission it would be quite proper to have a disposition of that kind; but we are only dealing with a proposed grant of money to be made to an organization which exists already and which appears to have been established long ago. It is not the proper time for .an amendment of such a kind. Let us go on with the bill as it is, let us grant this loan if it is agreeable to parliament, and later on the matter can be studied. Then if it is necessary that the accounts of any harbour commission should be submitted to the Public Accounts committee, let us pass legislation at the ensuing session placing all the harbour commissions on the same footing. But I say it is not fair or reasonable at this time, when we are only asking to be permitted to make a grant to the harbour commission, to say that the accounts of that commission should be submitted to the Public Accounts committee. As I said the other night, I have no objection, nor has the government, to the accounts of the harbour commission being investigated, but in suich a matter as that let us take the logical and reasonable course of applying the investigation to all the harbour commissions and not confine it simply to the harbour commission in Montreal. In view of these circumstances I think the bill should be allowed to pass, because the last time the measure was under consideration all its clauses were agreed to, and it was only postponed in order to afford me an opportunity of inquiring into the purchase of certain properties which were needed for the bridge.
The other night the hon. member for South Winnipeg (Mr. Rogers) raised some objections in regard to the buying of certain properties. I have now the information with respect to that matter in front of me. The complaint

Montreal Harbour Commission
of the hon. gentleman was that certain properties had been bought along the line of what has been called during the debate "the old line" or "the old proposed site". The hon. gentleman gave a list of the properties which, according to the information in his possession, were on the old line. Well, I have inquired into the matter and I am in a position to say that all the properties which were mentioned by my hon. friend the other night are on the line which has been definitely chosen for the building of the approaches to the bridge in Montreal In the case of one of the properties mentioned by the hon. gentleman the civic numbers are 1150 to 1176 Delorimier avenue. This property has not been purchased, although there had been negotiations with respect to it. But it is on the line which has been accepted definitely for the building of the approaches to the bridge. One single property among those mentioned by my hon. friend the other night is on the line which has been chosen definitely, but it is not on the old projedt. It is a property which has been bought in the vicinity of certain other properties which were required for the bridge, and it has been acquired in order to establish the value of property in that vicinity. All the other properties which have been mentioned are on the line which has been definitely fixed for the building of the approaches of the bridge. And this property which will not be required is bringing in an annual revenue at the present time of $1,400 a year. It was bought with the sole object of determining the value of the surrounding properties which were needed for the construction of the approaches to the bridge, and can be very easily disposed of.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Will the hon. gentleman tell us what price was paid for that property?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The price paid was $11,000.


Mr. ROGERS:: What is the number of it?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The civic numbers are 1125 to 1129 De Montigny street. I think these explanations should be satisfactory and that the bill should be allowed to pass.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Of course we always like to agree with my hon. friend in any way-


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Thank you.


Henry Lumley Drayton: -but after all, pleasing him is a secondary consideration, I think he will agree to that.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It is sad, it is really sad, to see the change of heart my hon. friend has had. I do not want to delay the House at this period of the session but I would say to him that these reports which have been made must be laid on the table and become the .property of parliament; at present they are not. I am going to ask my hon. friend to see that the reports of the auditors of the harbour commissions of Montreal and Quebec shall be tabled. Then we can discuss this matter further, perhaps, when the estimates are up.


Robert Rogers: Has not the bill which passed parliament a year and a half ago granting Montreal harbour commission $6,000,000 been taken advantage of by them?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes.


Robert Rogers: That money was voted distinctly for the building of this bridge. What has it been used for?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: No money has been voted by parliament for the construction of this. The money which has been advanced to the harbour commission in the past has been for the development of the facilities of the harbour. The bill passed in regard to the building of the bridge provides only for the guarantee of the bonds or debentures which will be issued by the corporation. We did not advance a single cent for the construction of the bridge; we only authorized the harbour commissioners to proceed with the construction of the bridge and we undertook to guarantee their debentures.


Robert Rogers: If my memory serves me rightly I think I read in Hansard a statement by the minister to the House at the time that this $6,000,000 was for the purpose of constructing this bridge.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Oh no. If I said that I was absolutely mistaken. That was not the purpose of the law passed at that time.


Robert Rogers: My opinion is that there is a lack of information with respect to this matter and the minister would be wise in refusing to go on with the bill until we have more information. There are very many reasons why (this measure should not foe passed at the present time. First of all the minister made the clear and distinct statement that there was no right of way required for the bridge. A few days afterwards he admitted the fact that there were purchases to the amount of $750,000 for right of way and
4S04

Montreal Harbour Commission
that money had been obtained from last year's vote, or some such source, to make the payment. He made various other statements which do not seem to be in accordance with the facts. The minister has not informed himself very clearly as to the conditions with respect to Montreal harbour. I do not think it is possible for the minister or anybody else to justify the expenditure of this huge sum of money under present conditions. There is really no immediate or pressing need for the construction of this bridge. If you go into this venture and borrow the money from the treasury of this Dominion you are going to build a bridge that enters into competition with a bridge that the Canadian people already own. As my hon. friend well knows, the bridge already there was purchased by the Canadian people from the Grand Trunk Railway and is owned by the Canadian people, and the earning power of that bridge has been given as something like $250,000.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Is any part of this appropriation which is now before the House to be expended on the bridge?


Robert Rogers: What bridge?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: On any bridge.


Robert Rogers: It is to be expended on the bridge.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: No.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Not a cent.


Robert Rogers: What is the minister going to spend it on?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The bridge is not mentioned in the list I gave. I referred to elevator No. 3, for instance, with conveyors and jetty.


Robert Rogers: The minister told us the other night the money was used already, out of the fund of $15,000,000.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: No.


Robert Rogers: The minister is on record to that effect.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: No.


Robert Rogers: What is the minister going to do with this?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I stated the other night when the bill was introduced.


Robert Rogers: I want information.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I gave it the other day.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The information was given when the bill was up the other day.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The total amount authorized during the past four years was $15,000,000, and I went on to show how it had been expended-$3,000,000 for elevators, $2,000,000 for grain elevator "B" Windmill Point-I have no objection to reading what I stated the other night.


Robert Rogers: I am taking it from Hansard.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: It was given to Hansard.
The proposed expenditure of the money we are asking for will be under the following
heads:
Habour dredging	 $ 800,000
Wharves, piers and	'basins	
5,400,000Plants'	
[DOT][DOT]	155,000Shops and building	
322,000Railways and electrification	
1,342,000Permanent sheds	
300,000Grain elevators	
3,155,000Sundries	
142,000Total	$11,fil6,000
These are the expenditures that will be covered by the loan we are now asking parliament for.


Robert Rogers: Where are you going to get the money to build the bridge?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The bridge is going to be built by money borrowed by the harbour commission themselves, upon debentures of their own guaranteed by the federal government.


Robert Rogers: Does the minister mean to say he has already spent $44,000,000, and has added $15,000,000 to that and is going to add $15,000,000 more for another bridge? How does the minister answer that? That is according to his own statement. He says he wants this $12,000,000 to do something else, different from his statement the other night. He said it was to build a bridge.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I refer the hon. member to Hansard.


Robert Rogers: I have read Hansard. The minister said:
The total amount authorized during the past four years is $15,000,000.
The minister gave a detailed statement of that expenditure; then he spoke about the south shore bridge, and he went on to speak of the amount of $15,000,000 already advanced in connection with the bridge. He said:
We have not advanced any money, we have merely guaranteed the debentures which are to be issued by the harbour commission.
Then I asked the question, "You bought a lot of right of way and that sort of thing in

Montreal Harbour Commission
connection with the bridge?'1 The minister answered "Yes". I asked, "Where did you get the money?" The minister explained that he got it from a former vote for the purchase of the right of way. The minister told us at a later period that he had bought $750,000 worth of right of way for the bridge, and told us also that that would be very nearly the amount necessary to complete the purchase of the right of way, whereas I find it would take nearly a million and a half more to purchase the right of way necessary for that bridge. The minister is so mixed in his figures that it . is very difficult for members of the House to understand what he is really asking for. But apart from all that, apart from the question of the bridge, and apart from everything else in connection with the harbour commission, I have another matter I want to deal with. But before doing so I would like to refer the committee to an act passed by the Quebec legislature during the past few weeks or months. It proceeds to deal with this question and the matter of the building of the bridge, and it says:
Whereas the corporation of the harbour commissioners of Montreal has declared itselif ready to build such bridge;
Whereas in order to secure the erection of the said bridge it is necessary to have the concurrence of the province, of the city of Montreal and of the corporation of the Montreal harbour commissioners;
Whereas the city of Montreal and the corporation of the Harbour Commissioners of Montreal are each prepared to contribute a third towards the erection and maintenance of such bridge, provided that the province itself contributes the other third;
Whereas the probable cost of the said bridge will be about ten millions dollars and the annual charges would be as follows:
Interest at four and a half per cent on
$10,000,000	 $450,000
Sinking fund of one per cent for forty years. 100,000 Maintenance	 50,000
Making a total of	 $600,000
Now if you take the cost of $19,000,000 as the Quebec legislature suggested for the building of this bridge, you have a liability at once of $600,000 according to their own figures. Then the city of Montreal and the province of Quebec each undertake to pay $150,000 a year, or $300,000; so that instead of the harbour commission having a third interest in this work they are going to have saddled upon them at once a liability of double the liability of the city and double the liability of the province of Quebec in connection with this matter. Then it goes on to say:
Whereas the bridge will be a toll bridge, and the estimated yearly revenue will be about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, leaving a balance of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to be provided by the province, the city of Montreal and the corporation of the Harbour Commissioners of Montreal, one-third
by each, that is to say one hundred and sixteen thousand six hundred and sixty-six dollars and sixty-six cents;
Whereas, however, with the development of Montreal and of the region, the yearly revenues must increase, but, at the start, it is necessary to provide for the unforeseen, and an amount of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum, payable respectively by the province, the city of Montreal and the corporation of the Harbour Commissioners of Montreal may be necessary;
Whereas it is expedient to grant to the corporation of the harbour commissioners of Montreal the requisite authorization and* powers for the erection and maintenance of the bridge; and
Whereas it is expedient to provide for the payment of the share of the government of this province;
Therefore, His Majesty, with the advice and consent of the legislative council and the legislative assembly of Quebec, enact as follows:
1.	The authorization granted to the corporation of the harbour commissioners of Montreal to erect, possess, maintain, manage, operate and use a bridge between the city of Montreal and the town of Lon-gueuil, as well as the other rights and powers given to this end by the act of the parliament of Canada, 14-15 George V, chapter 58 are, in so far as the rights of the province and the jurisdiction of the legislature are concerned, confirmed and ratified, provded that such of the rights and powers is appertain to the legislative authority of this province be exercised in conformity with its laws and according to the procedure prescribed thereby.
2.	The Lieutenant-Governor in Council may authorize the Minister of Public Works and Labour to enter into, for and in the name of the government of this province, a contract with the corporation of the Harbour Commissioners of Montreal and the city of Montreal, to provide for the erection, maintenance and operation of a bridge over the river St. Lawrence between the city of Montreal and town of Longueuil.
And so on. Then it goes on to say:
5. It shall be stipulated in the above-mentioned contract that the province shall not be bound for the payment of the said annual sum, except in so far as the bridge shall remain a toll-bridge throughout the full duration of the contract, that the tariff of tolls shall be approved by the Lieutenant-Governor- in Council and that it shall not be amended without his authorization.
Therefore we are now undertaking the construction of a bridge and the Quebec government very properly are going to regulate the tolls while this government will have nothing to say about the matter. It goes on:
The Lieutenant-Governor dn Council may order the insertion in the said contract of any other conditions, not inconsistent with thiis act, which may assure the erection of the bridge, its maintenance and operation, and at the same time better protect and secure the province for the obligations assumed by it under this act.
If my hon. friend undertakes to go on with this bridge on the basis, as he told us the other night, of $15.000.000-and I am sure he will not deny that because Hansard will show that he made that statement-what is the position that this parliament and the people of Canada will be in? According to this bill

Montreal Harbour Commission
the interest on the loan will be 5 per cent per annum. On his own figure of $15,000,000 that will amount to $750,0010 for interest, $100,000 for depreciation and $50,000 for maintenance of the bridge, or a total of $900,000. Deduct from that the estimate as presented by the minister the other night of the earning power of the bridge, namely, $260,000, and you have $650',000 left. The city of Montreal and the province of Quebec agree to pay $300,000 between them, so that this parliament and the country will be called upon to contribute $350,000, on the government's own estimate, and before they get through the amount will be very much more than that.
What I wish principally to point out to the government is this: Last year the harbour commission-and I have their statement of their earning power as published in the Gazette three days ago-came through with a total surplus of $82,000. The harbour commission are in no position to undertake greater obligations than those which they already possess. It will be impossible for them to pay interest on any further loans borrowed from this parliament or anywhere else. I am confident no business concern in Canada or anywhere else would lend money to a counterfeit corporation in the city of Montreal if they applied to-day for the construction of any great work runing into millions and millions of dollars, but that is what the government are doing if they go on with this expenditure. They will find this commission in Montreal defaulting the same as the Quebec harbour commission is doing. I am confident the minister would not like to see such a serious condition arise.
There is something worse still in respect to the harbour in Montreal. During last year the harbour commission have undertaken to operate and have actually operated without the consent and approval of the government of the day the mixing of United States grain of all kinds with our Canadian grain. If there is one thing more than another that the western farmers have laboured for during the past quarter of a century and more, it is to produce a high standard of grain. They have gone to endless expense in order to produce a high grade of wheat, oats, barley and so on. Now we find that this government and the Montreal harbour commission are undertaking to mix that grain with United States grain, thereby destroying the labours of twenty-five years on the part of the farmers of western Canada.


Mr. MOTHERWELL:: Upon what authority does the hon. member make the statement that the wheat is being mixed?


Robert Rogers: On the authority of the
Department of Trade and Commerce, who are issuing certificates for that mixture. The minister can go to the Department of Trade and Commerce and he will find that such is the case.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Is that charge to go unchallenged? It is a very serious charge and I would like to have the statement of the authority with the day and date.


Robert Rogers: It is a very serious charge, and it is serious by reason of the fact that not only' are they doing that but they are doing it in violation of the law of this country.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I should like to have some evidence of it.


Robert Rogers: The hon. gentleman should go to the Department of Tfiade and Commerce.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That statement is denied by the Montreal harbour commission, and I believe them. .


Robert Rogers: That statement stands, and hon. members will find that certificates have been filed by the Department of Trade find Commerce showing that they are mixing grain at the harbour commission in Montreal. There is no doubt about that at all. They are doing it in violation of the Canada Grain Act, which provides:	'
Inspecting officers shall, when required, inspect grain of United States production passing [through Canada in transit to the United Kingdom or to a foreign country, and shall grant certificates therefor based on standard sample of such grain established as hereinafter provided.
I want the minister to look into this matter and ascertain the facts of the case. This information was given- to me by the most reliable men in the grain trade in this country and I am satisfied that it is correct. All the minister will have to do is to go to the Department of Trade and Commerce and get a copy of the certificate which they give to the harbour commission to issue. Thi3 is all being done in violation of the law which is on our statute book to-day.
10 p.m. If the mixed manner in which they handle their affairs as shown in a report presented to parliament through the minister is a sample of their -management, it is not surprising that they would be guilty of doing what is stated and what I state on the best of authority. I am not opposed to any development that is necessary, but I am opposed to spending $15,000 -000 to build a bridge that will enter into

Montreal Harbour Commission
competition with a bridge that already exists there and that is sufficient to carry all the traffic for some time. My hon. friend told us the other day that only on Sundays was it rather congested. That is a very poor justification for spending $15,000,000.


Mr. RINFRET:: Two years ago it was decided to build that bridge.


Robert Rogers: But nothing has been done.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: The right hon. leader of the opposition dearly stated himself in favour of the project.


Robert Rogers: Why should the country undertake to lend $15,000,000 for a bridge to be built to compete with t'he bridge already there? Will anybody answer me that?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The hon. gentleman has
laboured for the last half hour under the misapprehension that there is money to be voted in this bill for a bridge.


Robert Rogers: Yes.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It has nothing to do with a bridge. When the estimates were brought down it was clearly stated by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries that not a dollar was included for a bridge. If we are to discuss the bridge to-night there may be differences of opinion, but if we are to discuss the object of this particular appropriation we should keep in mind that it has no reference to the bridge whatever.


Robert Rogers: Certainly the minister told us the other night it would take $15,000,000 to build this bridge.


Ernest Lapointe: Not with this money.


Robert Rogers: That makes it all the
worse. The harbour ,commissioners will not be able to meet their interest on any such expenditure, and' they will come back to this parliament for relief, or they will add to the cost of handling our western grain sufficiently to enable them to make good the interest on the loan So made.


Mr. MILLAR:: Will the hon. gentleman say what document can be found to prove the mixing of grain at Montreal? The statement thart; it can be had in the Trade and Commerce department is rather broad.


Robert Rogers: You can get the inspection [DOT]certificates there. I will endeavour to get one to-morrow for my hon. friend.


John Millar: That is not very good
proof.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried1.


Robert Rogers: If the House wants to
carry this vote, it is for hon. members to decide, and I have nothing more to say, having fulfilled my duty in respect to western conditions. This harbour cannot continue to pay interest on any $15,000,000 loan, no matter for what purpose it is going to be used; there is not the earning power there to produce the interest. The result is there will be default, and the liability will come back on this country, or on the farmers of western Canada in the handling charges on their grain.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: My hon. friend is not fair
in his criticism, particularly in regard to the financial soundness of the harbour at Montreal. This institution is one of the great assets of Canada, and the development there during the last four or five years justifies the harbour commissioners in making new developments to take care of the increase in traffic that is now confronting them. In 1921 the revenue of the harbour was only 82.891,274, but in 1925 it had jumped to $4,749,100. This gives an idea of the rapid progress of the port, and my hon. friend is not justified in trying to destroy to a certain extent the credit which the port now enjoys. This is too big an institution to be lightly criticized. I am ready to admit that I cannot give from memory all the figures contained in the books of the harbour commission or in the documents prepared by the engineers who are working on the bridge; but if we have been mixed up to a certain extent in this discussion it is due probably to my hon. friend, because when we were discussing the bill to provide for the development of facilities in the port of Montreal, he spent all his time discussing the bridge, although it was decided upon two years ago. Not a single cent of this money is to be placed in the bridge.


Robert Rogers: That makes it all the
worse.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: There may have been
differences of opinion in regard to the site which should be chosen for this bridge, but in so far as the bridge itself is concerned all those in Montreal who know anything about the traffic conditions are unanimous in the opinion that there is a pressing necessity for a new bridge. My hon. friend is speaking about the bridge which is now the property of the Canadian National. Well, I think he has never crossed that bridge in recent years.


Robert Rogers: Yes, thousands of times.



4808	*
Montreal Harbour Commission


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I used to cross it every
Saturday and Sunday in the year, and I may tell my hon. friend that the congestion there is very severe, and people crossing the bridge are in danger on account of the narrowness of the roadway and the heavy vehicular traffic. A new bridge is absolutely necessary.


Arthur Meighen: Is there not another
bridge, though, to be built shortly, not very far away from that bridge?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: No. There is the Canadian Pacific railway bridge at Lachine, about ten miles away from the present Victoria bridge.


Arthur Meighen: About seven I have been told. Is that to be a traffic bridge?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: No, a railway bridge only.


Arthur Meighen: Would it not have been better to provide for road traffic as well there? That would greatly relieve the Victoria bridge.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: It would have cost a large sum of money to change the bridge.


Arthur Meighen: Nothing like $15,000,000.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Besides, that bridge is
several miles from Victoria bridge and there is no connection between the two shores of the St. Lawrence where the heavy traffic is.


Mr. LANCTOT:: We heard a great deal
about that bridge in 1013 during a certain by-election.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: As to the mixing of grain, last year the Turgeon commission, which investigated the grain trade very thoroughly, visited the harbour of Montreal, and I do not think they found there anything of the kind which has been mentioned by the hon. member for South Winnipeg.


Robert Rogers: I would advise the minister to make inquiry of the Trade and Commerce department. With respect to the increased earning power of the harbour board of Montreal, I find in the annual report of the harbour board for 1925 there is shown an increase of income and revenue account of $4,749,100, an increase of $366,985.44 over the previous year, due mainly to the increased income from the grain elevator system. The main increase comes from the grain trade, largely originated in western Canada. From that point of view alone do I take an interest in the matter. The report shows that the interest charges, which amounted to $1,161,000, showed an increase last year of $113,000. Now then, you are going to add another $350,000 to those interest charges if you put through this loan, and the harbour 
board will not be able to maintain payment of their interest charges. It will be impossible for them to do it, no matter how anxious they are.
Mr.,CAHAN:	As I have already said, I
do not intend to enter upon a discussion of the bridge. There may be differences of opinion as to whether or not the bridge should have been constructed under the supervision of the harbour commission, but this bill deals with an appropriation for the purpose of increasing the capacity of the harbour for the handling of grain, and1 that is a national undertaking. The hon. gentleman suggests that a great deal of American grain goes through the port of Montreal but the fact is, Sir, that every ton of American grain going through the port of Montreal brings down the unit cost of handling that grain, whether it be Canadian or American. It is a great advantage to the port that its elevators should be used to their full capacity and that we should have new elevators with a greater capacity, because the larger volume of grain going through Montreal-the mass trans-shipment, as it were -enables the harbour commission to transfer that grain at a less unit cost than would otherwise be the case. On that account I think these appropriations which are to increase the capacity of the harbour for handling grain will not only yield an income sufficiently large to pay interest and provide something in the way of sinking fund on the appropriation we are now making, but will, if the harbour board is managed as well and as economically in the future as it has been managed in the past, enable it to cut down the unit cost of handling Canadian grain. Therefore I think this appropriation is entirely justified, and I think it should be passed because it is a great national undertaking and in the interests of the whole country. But it seems quite unnecessary to enter upon a discussion of the bridge at this late hour; it was authorized by parliament over a year ago and has nothing whatever to do with this appropriation.


Mr. ROBB:: I do not wish to delay the
passing of this bill but I would not like to let the statement just made by the hon. member for South Winnipeg (Mr. Rogers) in regard to the mixing of grain at Montreal go unchallenged. I am not going to be drawn into a discussion of the bridge, which as the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) just said was provided for two years ago and which has nothing whatever to do with the subject under consideration. I have nothing to say in regard to the bridge, except

Montreal Harbour Commission
that I am rather surprised to hear my hon. friend oppose the construction of another bridge. Rightly or wrongly he received credit for winning a by-election in 1913 on the promise to build a bridge across the St. Lawrence, and we have had many bad half hours when people have urged us to carry out the promise made by the Hon. Mr. Rogers in 1913.


Mr. DUNNING:: Is it the same Mr. Rogers?


James Alexander Robb: Yes, the same genial Mr. Rogers. The mixing of grain is an old story; we heard it first with regard to Canadian grain being mixed in New York, Baltimore, Newport News and other ports. It is a fight between Canadian and United States transportation lines to get the business, and I know an effort has been made to say that grain was not going through the port of Montreal correctly. That statement was made to offset the proof brought home by us that there was mixing of grain in the elevators at Baltimore. As has already been stated, the Turgeon commission investigated that matter and found the report ili-founded, and I submit that it is not in the interests of Canadian transportation lines or Canadian trade for a member of this parliament to advertise that there is mixing of grain in Montreal, when it has been established by a royal commission that there is no such mixing.


Robert Rogers: The mixing has probably
been carried on since that commission was appointed; it is of a very recent date, and my hon. friend will find the certificate in his own office.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Only a few weeks ago, when we were visiting the harbour of Montreal, we called the attention of the harbour commissioners to an allegation which had been made to the effect that mixing was carried on in the elevators. The harbour commissioners, in the presence of myself and other hon. members of this House, gave a complete denial to that statement and pledged their honour that there was nothing like that done in the elevators of Montreal. If it is done it is contrary to law; it is a breach of faith between these commisioners and parliament and the country, and before any hon. gentleman undertakes to spread that allegation throughout the country he should produce the facts and make a charge, in order that a thorough investigation may be made. We all know that the royal commission which investigated that subject two years ago found the harbour commission absolutely clean in that respect.


Mr. BELL (St. John):: I would like to
ask the minister if he would be good enough to furnish the information I requested previously in regard to the salaries of the officials of the harbour boards of Montreal and Quebec, other than the commissioners.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Unfortunately I have not
the list for Quebec; I have asked for it and expect to.receive it shortly. I have the list for Montreal, however, and I wil give it now:
Per Annum
Thos. W. Harvie, general manager	 $9,000
Thos. F. Triihey, secretary	 7,000
George E. Smart, comptroller	 7,000
M. P. Fennell, Jr., director of trade and
transportation	 9,000
Paul Leclaire, chief engineer	 7,000
F. W. Convie, consulting engineer	 5,000
Captain J. F. Symons, harbour master.. ..	6,000
John Vaughan, superintenedent of railway terminals	 6,000


Mr. MacLAREN:: Is there any difficulty
in getting the details concerning the Quebec harbour commission officials?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: No.


Murray MacLaren: 
Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: There is no difficulty in
getting this information, but I have to aslj the harbour commission to supply it.


Murray MacLaren: When will the ministei
give the committee these details?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: II think I will be in a
position to give them in a day or two; I will undertake to give them within that time.


Murray MacLaren: Will the minister have
the information on Wednesday?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes, I will have it on Wednesday.


Mr. MULLINS:: It seems to me this is a sink-hole for Canada's millions; we now grant $12,000,000 more to a harbour commission which already owes $44,000,000. I had the opportunity once of travelling around the harbour with some other hon. members; we passed through a huge cold storage plant which had only one comer occupied-the rest all empty. If we lend millions to the harbour commission in Montreal, what will be left for western Canada with which to develop a harbour in Hudson bay? The hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) made a vicious attack on the $3,000,000 in the estimates for the Hudson Bay railway, but I notice now that he is in favour of this item

Montreal Harbour Commission
of $12,000,000. In the Public Works estimates only $21,000 was provided for the province of Manitoba. They take millions from the federal treasury and lend it without any provision being made for reserve or sinking fund. I think that is unfair to Canada. Canada has wonderful resources, and I could hardly understand how those resources could be devoured, but I am finding out where they are going and how they are being used up. I think this legislation is absolutely unfair.


Mr. GARDINER:: A few minutes ago the minister gave us the income of the Montreal harbour commissioners for 1921 and 1925. Will he give us the tonnage for the same years in order that we may determine how the tonnage is growing in comparison with the income?


William Richard Motherwell: May I quote an extract from the Turgeon Grain Commission, which is considered the most authentic authority on the grain trade that Canada has ever had? This is supplementing what has been said by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries and by the Minister of Finance:
No complaints are made touching grain shipped through Canadian channels and out of Canadian ports.
My hon. friend may have better authority, but this is the latest recognized authority on the grain trade of Canada including the port of Montreal.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: In reply to the hon. member for Acadia, the total tonnage last year was 9,137,281 tons. I regret I have not the figures here for 1921, but I shall be pleased to supply that information to my hon. friend.


Robert Gardiner: Very well. I wanted the tonnage for the same years as those for which the minister gave the income, so that we can see how the charges are increasing in comparison with the tonnage.


John Millar: Who fixes the salaries of the harbour commissioners?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The commissioners themselves.


John Millar: The government have no control whatever?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: No control.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I am surprised at the attitude taken by some hon. members on this bill, and I must thank the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George for the support he has given to it. I would think that his opinion, coming as he does from the city of Montreal, but representing the opposing party

in that city, would carry some weight with hon. members on the opposition side. We hear that money is being squandered all over the country, and this is given as an instance of the squandering of money. On the contrary Mr. Chairman, if there is an expenditure we should support it is this one, because we are really not spending any money here at all; we are merely lending the money to the harbour commission of Montreal, and I do not think I am wrong when I say that that is the only harbour commission in the whole country which pays back interest on the money that we lend to it.


Mr. KING (Kootenay):: And Vancouver.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I like to see Vancouver joining the select circle. I hope the hon. member for Vancouver Centre will support this bill.


Mr. STEVENS:: Why not let it go through? Why stop it?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: If my hon. friends want to carry the vote, certainly I shall not dbject, but I do not want to let my hon. friend from St. Lawrence-St. George stand alone on the other s.ide in supporting this bill, which some* of my friends apposite have been unwise enough to oppose.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Do not obstruct it.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: We have the hon. member for South Winnipeg talking about the mixing of grain. I believe he is rather willing to mix things up a little in 'connection with this bill. We could not telll whether he was talking about the present bill or about a bill concerning a bridge projected two years ago. I remember that at that time when we said the leader of the opposition was not very favourable to the project, we were taxed with creating prejudice over that fact. We were told that we did not want to have the leader of the opposition presented in his proper colours before the people of Montreal. Tonight we find not only members from the back benches of the party opposite but even one of the leaders of it taking direct objection to the construction of this bridge in Montreal, pretending that the other bridge would be sufficient to carry all the traffic and that the new bridge is not needed at all. Then the leader of the opposition got up and wanted to know what bridge we were talking of, and my hon. friend from Laprairie-Napierville very properly remarked that at all events we were not discussing the bridge that was promised by my hon. friends on the other side in the

Canada Evidence Act
Chateauguay by-election, but which was never built, although they carried the seat on that promise at that time.
Coming back to this bill, Mr. Chairman, I am rather surprised when I hear some of our western friends objecting to the lending of money to the harbour of Montreal, a loan on which good interest will be paid. It was only the other day that it was proposed to spend $3,000,000 for the Hudson Bay railway, and my hon. friend from 'South Winnipeg then rose, and not only did he think we should spend that amount lof money, but he said that that was not enough, that we should spend more this very year. Then the vote for the Welland canall was called1, amounting to $14,000,000, and he stood there silent, like a statue of alabaster and! had nothing to 'say against that at all. But when it comes to lending money to the harbour of Montreal, on which we will reap good interest every year, he finds all kinds of difficulties. He says we are mixing Canadian grain with American grain, and he mixes this bridge with the other bridge. The bridge has absolutely nothing to do with this loan from the Montreal harbour.


Robert Rogers: You are buying right of way for the bridge all over. You have spent an enormous sum of money.
Mr. :ST. PERE: The bridge has to land somewhere.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: This parliament has decided to build a bridge, and my hon. friend's party were so strongly in favour of it that when we suggested they wrere really objecting to it, they took very strong issue with us on that point, and said that they did not want us to believe that they had the least objection to it at all. But the bridge, Mr. Chairman, is a separate project altogether from the Montreal harbour works. I would also remind my hon. friend that tolls will be collected on that bridge that will help a great deal to meet the interest on the capital investment. But the project we are here considering is the harbour itself, not the bridge. Again, I express my surprise when wei from the eastern part of the country are so willing to support votes of money for works in the west, that hon. gentlemen from the west oppose legislation that proposes, not to spend money, but simply to lend a certain sum, not on an untried experiment, but on a tried harbour-and a loan on which wei shall reap interest for every cent spent.


[Stage Direction]
Preamble agreed to.
Bill reported.

Hon. G. H. BOIVIN:: (for .the Minister of
Justice) moved that the House go into committee on Bill No. 205, to amend the Canada Evidence Act as respects bank 'books and records.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I was just rising, Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of pointing out before we enter upon this order that it is not covered by a notice. We were to take up the two matters that have been dealt with to-day, and then we were to go into committee of Supply, according to what the Prime Minister told me. I was just rising for the purpose of finding out why we are to have no motion to go into committee of Supply.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think we
ought to be prepared to take up any legislation that is on the order paper at this hour of the session. These are two small! bills, No. 203 and No. 205, and I think we might get through with them to-night.


Henry Lumley Drayton: On Friday
night I asked what would come on to-day and my hon. friend made this.reply:
The motion standing in the name of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, and there is also the legislation in respect to the Montreal harbour board which will probably come 'up. If we go into Supply we will take the estimates of the Department of External Affairs and Soldiers Civil Re-estaMishmeint.
I was just wondering whether the idea is, apart from the question of notice, that there are to be no more motions to go into committee of Supply except on Thursdays and Fridays. If that is not the idea the proper programme should certainly be carried out, and the motion made to go into committee of Supply.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Considering the importance of the matter that is to come up for discussion to-morrow I thought it would be as well for the House to adjourn at 11 o'clock, by which hour we could possibly get through the two pieces of legislation in question. I do not propose that the House shall go into committee of Supply to-night.
Motion agreed to and the House went into committee, Mr. Duff in the chair.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Has .this bill
been distributed?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, it is on
your file of Senate bills.


Georges Henri Boivin: The bill is Bill X6 from the Senate. It received its third reading and1 was passed by the Senate on June 16th. It wai
Canada Evidence Act

introduced, explained!, and given its first reading in this House on Friday last. When we come to the second section of the bill I can repeat the explanation already given, if hon. members so desire.


Mr. MEWBURN:: The bill1 is practically
the same as the English act.


Georges Henri Boivin: Absolutely the same, except for one word.
Section 1 agreed to.
On section 2-copies of entries.


Georges Henri Boivin: The entire bill is embodied in clause 2. It is copied from the English act, which is known in England as the Bankers' Books Evidence Act. The law in Canada has been that in all cases, especially in all criminal cases, the best possible proof available had to be produced, which meant that in all cases where bank books or bank records were required to be produced before the court the original books had to be brought, which caused a great deal of inconvenience to the banks. The bill is being passed at the request of the Canadian Bankers' Association with the object of enabling the bankers to produce duly certified extracts. The bill provides that the extracts shall either be certified to by the oath of the manager or accountant given in open court, or by an affidavit of these official's taken in the usual way. Hon. gentlemen wilil notice that there is a proviso guaranteeing all the rights of litigants and other parties concerned; subsection 3 provides that in any case where, for special cause, the court desires to order the production of the book itself the book shall be produced.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Is the bill a fair transcript of the English act?


Georges Henri Boivin: It is an absolute transcript except on two points; we have added the words "books or records." Banks sometimes keep their accounts in loose-leaf ledgers and in index cards, and the word "records" has been added to cover these two documents. No provision is made for costs as in the ^English act, because as my hon. friend knows tthe Canada Evidence Act applies to the administration of the Criminal Code and costs are not adjudged in criminal matters. Apart from that, this bill and the English act are identical.	.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. LUCIEN CANNON (Solicitor General) moved that the House go into committee on Bill No. 203, to amend certain provisions of the Criminal Code respecting the possession of weapons.
On section 1-dangerous weapons.
Henry Lumley Drayton: Who will explain this bill? It certainly does not look like the short bill described by the Prime Minister.


Mr. CANNON:: The measure looks rather bulky, but it includes both the bill and also the provisions of the Criminal Code which are being amended. The main object of the bill is to replace section 118 of the Criminal Code as it exists to-day. If the section is enacted as provided by this bill it will require a permit for the sale of weapons, the sale of ammunition, the importation of weapons and ammunition, and also the possession of weapons, firearms and ammunition. Secondly, the bill provides for the issuance of the permits by the Department of Justice or by officials designated by that department. Thirdly, it provides for an increase in the penalties imposed for infractions of the act. Certain objections were raised to the original bill as introduced, on the ground that considerable harm might result to that trade from the section covering or including the sporting rifle or arms used for sporting purposes. The act has been amended so that none of these are touched.
Mr. M.ANION:	Is this bill now satisfactory to the dealers in sporting rifles and tha/ sort of thing? I have received a lot of protests from them, although I am not familiar with the question.


Lucien Cannon: I think these objections
have now been withdrawn in view of the amendment introduced. This afternoon I was put in touch with one gentleman who had certain objections to the definition of the word "ammunition," but II suggested an amendment which apparently met his wishes. When we come to that part of the bill I intend to move that amendment.


Mr. MANION:: So far as the minister
understands, the objections raised by the hardware dealers and those who deal in the sale of weapons are met in the bill as it will be amended?


Lucien Cannon: Yes.

Criminal Code
Mr. M-cCLEN AGII AN:	This ball was
objected to by the Hardware Merchants' Association of Canada. Their secretary appeared before the committee and had the clause relating to shot-guns removed. That took 'away a great deal of the objection that had been raised by the dealers. They do not objedt to the placing of restrictions upon the carrying of concealed weapons, 'but they showed the committee that Canada was a great sporting country, and to put any restrictions on the dealers and on the men using firearms and rifles would injure our tourist trade. But after this amendment had been made the original bill was introduced here, though I think it should have gone to the Private Bills committee in order that the matter might be thoroughly discussed. We have a provision with reference to ammunition which puts it back in its original shape, because when you buy ammunition for a rifle the same ammunition can be used in a revolver. The ammunition for a 22-calibre rifle can be used in a 22-calibre revolver, and the same with rifles and revolvers of other calibres; the ammunition is interchangeable. We claim you cannot make any amendment to that ammunition clause; the only thing is to withdraw it. Then you have your restriction against your firearms such as revolvers and pistols, but say nothing about ammunition, which, as I say, is interchangeable. A dealer is liable to a fine of
SI,000	and two years' imprisonment if he violates the provisions of a certain clause in the bill. There is also a clause under which a man who obtained a permit in Ottawa and went down to Rockland with the ammunition would be fined because he would be in the county of Russell. It is all mixed up. In the interests of sport in this country we should remove this restriction. The bill should have gone to the Private Bills committee where it could be discussed with more freedom.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I have not heard a good reason why an innocent man can be sent to gaol for two years.


Lucien Cannon: He cannot.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Why not?


Lucien Cannon: The hon. member for Ottawa has just explained that in the original bill arms used for sporting purposes were apparently included, but the bill as drafted now, as my hon. friend will read-


Henry Lumley Drayton: Your hon. friend has had no chance to read it.


Lucien Cannon: In paragraph 2 of clause 1, under the subparagraphs (a), (i), (ii), (iii),
(iv) and (v), the different kinds of firearms covered by the bill are enumerated. If my hon. friend reads these clauses I think he will come to the conclusion that the sporting community is in no way affected. In answer to the objection raised by my hon. friend from Ottawa concerning ammunition, I intended, in order to meet the objection raised, to amend the bill. The word "ammunition" is defined in paragraph (c) at the top of page 2 as follows:
''Ammunition'' means all amimuniition that can be used with a weapon.
And the word "weapon" would be interpreted in accordance with its definition under paragraph (b). But as the hon. member for Ottawa mentioned, the same ammunition might be used both for sporting arms and for arms which are enumerated and prohibited under this act. So that I intended amending the definition of ammunition by saying that ammunition would mean ammunition for use exclusively with any weapon to which subsection 2 of this section applies. If the bill is amended in that way the objection raised by my hon. friend would be met.


Mr. BEAUBIEN:: I understand the bill was introduced in the Senate?


Lucien Cannon: Yes.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Would this not be the time to reciprocate and throw out some of the Senate measures?


John Livingstone Brown: I do not think any good purpose can be served by worrying over that word "ammunition." So far as the bill refers to revolvers and pistols I am in hearty agreement. Long ago before I came to parliament, I thought that if ever I came here I would introduce a measure dealing with revolvers and pistols. In the main the revolver is a useless weapon for any law-abiding person. I do not think this bill should trouble itself about ammunition at all. I do not care what definition you give to ammunition, you cannot meet the needs of the case because ammunition which is used in revolvers can also be used in smaller rifles and some of the larger ones as well. Therefore I do not think any definition you can give to ammunition will get you over the difficulty. Why ' should we not fix our attention entirely on the weapon and then the ammunition will take care of itself? As regards the other things in this bill that are spoken of as dangerous weapons, I fully appreciate the dangers that might arise from carrying concealed weapons; but the difficulty of guarding
Criminal Code

against them seems to me so vast that I hesitate to approach it. It is distinctly stated that the weapons which a person must not have in his possession are:
Any sword, sword -.blade, bayonet, .pike, pike-head, spear, spear-head, dirk, dagger, stiletto, or any similar device or contrivance.
These are dangerous looking weapons, but ,1 usually carry in my pocket a big jack-knife that on occasion icould be just as dangerous ,a weapon as one of these. I have lying around at home an old bayonet which according to this bill I would be forbidden to keep. Nevertheless, while I might have to .discard that particular weapon, if I wanted to make a weapon for murderous purposes I could go into blacksmith's shop and in half an hour I could turn out just as dangerous a weapon as this bayonet or any of the weapons referred to in the bill. I mention that simply as an illustration of the difficulty that confronts us in dealing with the question in this way. A good big butcher-knife that every farmer has around his farm might be just as dangerous a weapon in the hands of a man who is murderously inclined as any one of the weapons mentioned in the bill. I am inclined to think that in this particular matter of dealing with dangerous weapons we had better make haste very slowly, deal with the revolvers and let the ammunition take care of itself. While the other weapons may be dangerous, the difficulty of meeting the situation seems to be so great that if we pass this measure as it now stands we shall only land ourselves in trouble and possibly subject honest people, people who are not murderously disposed at all, to a great deal of annoyance by an over-zealous official.


Lucien Cannon: I may assure my hon. friend that he can still keep possession of the arms that he has mentioned, because his case is provided for in subsection (3) paragraph (g).


John Livingstone Brown: I saw that.


Lucien Cannon: I should be very sorry if we had to remove any arms from my hon. friend.
Mr. kORKE: I had no idea my desk-mate carried such dangerous weapons around with him. I am going to keep an eye on him from now on.


Mr. POWER:: I remember some years ago a bill similar to this came up in the House when the Hon. Mr. Doherty was Minister of Justice. At that time the present Solicitor

General, if I remember rightly, took exception to some of the weapons named in this bill. He asked, if I remember aright, who wanted to barter with a cannon or who would go around concealing a cannon. I remember on that same occasion asking the then Prime Minister if it was his intention to have children go to the Minister of Justice for a permit to have a child's air-gun. I thought at the time it was a ridiculous provision and I think so to-day.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It is getting
worse now.


Charles Gavan Power: There is another feature of this. W'e have really omitted weapons which are possibly far more dangerous than these obsolete swords, bayonets, spear-heads, dirks and daggers. There is such a thing, if I remember reading the history of our criminal activities, as a sawed-off shot-gun. This is far more dangerous in a riot or la hold-up than any of the weapons mentioned in this bill and we seem to have omitted it altogether. I agree a good deal with the hon. member for Lisgar. Let us, if we wish to restrict the use of these weapons, confine ourselves to those which we can restrict and not endeavour to give a long enumeration making crimes which we shall never be able to detect.


Peter McGibbon: I rise to protest as I
have many times in this House against this eternal restriction of the liberties of the Canadian people. I remember quite well the incident referred to by the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) concerning the Solicitor General's attitude at that time. I would like also to impress upon him that there are in. this country thousands and tens of thousands of war souvenirs which have been brought home by the returned soldiers and which I think come under the restrictive clauses of this bill. At least I would like to ask him if they do or do not. It is time this parliament stopped placing restrictions upon the liberties of the Canadian people. We are not a band of outlaws and we should be trusted to some extent.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I should think
the Solicitor General would like to revert to that former position which he took so strongly and so well. Does he not feel like doing so? If he does not want to revert to that former position which has been so highly praised in both quarters of the House, why does he not at least make this bill something that is going to work? Let him cover the sawed-off shot-gun which is certainly much more dangerous than any of these old pikes, or

National Railways and Shipping
bayonets, or dirks, or other things described in the bill. The sawed-off shot-gun and the revolver are the two things which are really dangerous. Cannot we get this bill down to something which everybody will understand at once and which any police officer can enforce?


Peter McGibbon: Would the Solicitor
General be good enough to answer my question?


Lucien Cannon: I would like to explain
first that with myself las well as with others, responsibility of office always gives maturity of thought. I am sure the hon. member for Quebec South will realize that quite soon himself. As to the returned men having arms in their possession, I do not think this bill would prevent them from having them.
I would refer my hon. friend who has raised that question to subsection (3) paragraph (g) of the bill which I think will cover the case.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: If the weapons are not obsolete it does not cover them. I have in my possession a sword which happened to belong to one of my ancestors. It is not obsolete in any way. It is really an excellent sword and it probably could not be manufactured now.


Mr. PARENT:: Has it ever been used?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Yes, in service. It is not
obsolete; I would have to put it in the melting pot if this bill goes through. I have some other war souvenirs that would also have to go into the melting pot. It does not help me by way of defence to say they are not usable, because they are.


William Duff: Shall the clause carry?


Peter McGibbon: No, Mr. Chairman.
While I am not a lawyer, I do not think these cases are covered by the sections the Solicitor General quoted.


Lucien Cannon: This bill was introduced
in the Senate by the Hon. Mr. Belcourt, and careful attention was there given to it. I see by the discussion there is apparently quite a division of opinion among hon. members. The hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. McClenaghan) suggested that the bill should be referred to the committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills, and I think it might be well to adopt his suggestion, as the bill can then be studied by that committee and the interested parties can be heard.
Progress reported.


Hewitt Bostock: When shall the committee sit again?


Lucien Cannon: Mr. Speaker, I move that the bill be referred to the committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills.


Arthur Meighen: This proceeding may be right, Mr. Speaker, but I never heard of it before. The bill is still in committee of the Whole, and I do not see how it can be referred to another committee.


Hewitt Bostock: The committee has
reported progress on the bill, and I have received the report. The House should now give such an order as will take the bill from committee of the Whole to be referred to the committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills.


Arthur Meighen: Then should not the
order read, that the bill be withdrawn from committee of the Whole?


Lucien Cannon: When the Speaker said,
"When shall the committee sit again?" I moved that the bill be referred to the Private Bills committee.


Hewitt Bostock: The point made by the
right hon. leader of the opposition seems to be well taken. The bill must be taken from the committee of the Whole to be referred to the committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills. Shall the motion be adopted with that amendment?


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the House adjourned at 11.10 p.m.
Tuesday, June 22, 1926