1932-05-26

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(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk)

Mr. BOUCHARD:: Was any appointment made in Kamouraska county in connection with the new taxes on telegrams and telephones?


Mr. RYCKMAN:: The answer is no.



MONTREAL HARBOUR

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On the orders of the day.
Hon. FERNAND RINFRET (St. James) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to put a few questions to the hon. Minister of Marine (Mr. Duranleau) in connection with the Montreal harbour. May I first inquire whether the report of Commissioner Gibb on Canadian ports has been printed and translated?


Hon. ALFRED DURANLEAU (Minister of Marine) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, the report of Sir Alexander Gibb, I think, has now been printed in the two languages.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I wish to thank the hon. minister. May I further inquire whether the government intends, previous to prorogation, to make known its policy with reference to legislation or measures to implement the report.


Alfred Duranleau: It has been impossible owing to the arduous work of this session to discuss the details of Sir Alexander Gibb's report wdiich is voluminous and, as all know, covers all Canadian ports. The governement intends to closely study this report between now and next session and then to state its policy.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I thank
the hon. minister for his information. I have but one other question to ask, I make a request under the form of a question so as to comply with the rules of the House, however, in truth, I wish to persuade the government to grant my request. Is it the intention of the Montreal harbour commission during the summer season to give all the work possible to the working population of Montreal and to restrict as much as possible this assistance to the people of Montreal?


Alfred Duranleau: The
Montreal Harbour Commission, sir, this season will carry out its usual work. If it is possible to extend such work so as to stem unemployment, we shall do so. I am aware that lately, the commission has started the construction of wharves in the eastern part of Montreal, and I think that before long other works will be undertaken.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I again wish to thank the hon. Minister of Marine, and to also inform him that I made all these inquiries for the purpose of co-operating.



REPARATIONS


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On the orders of the day:
Hon. C. H. CAHAN (Secretary of State):: Reparations-Mr. Cahan

dissatisfied with the awards made should apply for a rehearing. In some cases the suggestion has been made that rights of action lie against the crown. I am informed that such representations have been made to some of the soldiers who were prisoners of war in an effort to obtain authority from them to bring aotions for compensation against the crown. I should like to refer those lawyers to a case recently decided by the House of Lords in England.
The case of Civilian War Claimants Association, Limited, and The King was finally deeided by the House of Lords in November, 1931. The decision will be found in 1932 Appeal Cases, page 14.
By a petition of right the suppliants, as assignees of civilian claimants, who had suffered loss and damage by German aggression during the war, claimed on their behalf payment of compensation out of moneys paid or payable by Germany under article 232 of the treaty of Versailles and the provisions of annex I thereto.
The case made by the petition was that the claimants had sent particulars of their claims, first, to the Foreign Claims Office and, afterwards, to the Reparation Claims department in accordance with the instructions of His Majesty's government, that these claims had been duly verified by the government, and were included in the agreed total of claims for reparations which Germany was required to pay under the treaty, and that the crown in inviting the claimants to submit their claims had constituted itself an agent or a trustee for the claimants in respect of any money received by it from Germany on account of reparations, and that any such money was money had and received by the crown to the use of the claimants.
Held, on demurrer by the crown, that the petition afforded no ground for the contention that the money received under the treaty was received by the crown as an agent or a trustee for the claimants, or as money had and received to their use, and was had as disclosing no ground of claim cognizable by the court.
Rustomjee v. The Queen (1876) 1 Q.BX). 487 ; 2 Q.B.D. 69, was approved and followed.
Lord Buckmaster, in delivering the opinion of the Lords, said:
First, in article 231 there was an affirmation by the allied and associated governments, accepted by Germany, that Germany was responsible for causing all the loss and damage to which the allied governments and their nationals had been subjected, and by article 232 it was provided that compensation should be made in the following words: "The allied and associated governments recognize that the 
resources of Germany are not adequate after taking into account permanent diminutions of such resources which will result from other provisions of the present treaty to make complete reparation for all such loss and damage. The allied and associated governments however require and Germany undertakes that she will make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the allied and associated powers and to their property during the period of the belligerency of each as an allied or associated power against Germany by such aggression by land, by sea and from the air and in general all damage as defined in annex I hereto."
It is known that associated with the specific damage caused on the sea and by aircraft and bombardment to our people at home during the war there were included in the claims for damages against Germany large sums representing the damage that was suffered in payment of pensions to soldiers' widows and similar matters, which were in a different category from the damage of the nature I have already mentioned; but the whole was collected into one group claim, and there was no separated and specific claim under one head or another, so that one whole claim was put forward and approved by the reparations commission to represent the total claim against Germany under that head. Moneys have undoubtedly been received in respect of that claim, and it is in respect of those moneys that the present proceedings are brought.
In the first place, to establish that any one was a trustee of that fund under the circumstances I have mentioned is, to my mind, to attempt an impossible task. I can see no evidence whatever of an acceptance of trusteeship on the part of the government, or assertion of trusteeship on the part of the people who suffered damage, nor anything up to the time when the money was received to show that the conception of trusteeship was in the minds of anyone in any form whatever. Indeed, the original statements that were made were made of the readiness to compensate out of the national funds at home, and nobody suggests that the government were trustees of those funds for this purpose.
Finally, when the moneys were received, it is said that from and after that moment the crown became a trustee. I have pointed out in the course of the argument, and I repeat, that if that were the case, unless you are going to limit the rights which the beneficiaries enjoy, those rights must include, among other things, a claim for an account of the moneys that were received, of the expenses incurred, and the way in which the moneys have been distributed. Such a claim presented against the crown in circumstances such as these would certainly have no precedent, and would, as it appears to me, invade an area which is properly that belonging to the House of Commons.
That the money was received by the crown as agent seems to me can no more be established than that the money was received by it as trustee. In fact, the trusteeship is the agency stated in other words. If the crown was not a trustee, neither was it an agent; nor can I see that in any sense the crown received these moneys as money had and received to the use of the people whose claims were made. The people whose claims were made were not considered by Germany on making the payment at all. The terms of the treaty were that Germany should pay the sum necessary to

Prorogation
satisfy the claims of various people who had suffered, and it was left to the governments themselves, as between them and their nationals, to determine how that money was to be distributed. Therefore, my Lords, on general principle, I should have thought that the petition must fail but the general principle is immensely strengthened by the case of Rustomjee v. The Queen (1 Q.B.D. 487; 2 Q.B.D. 69),, for there a case similar in many respects to this, although of course not exactly identical, arose for consideration in the Queen's Bench Division.
Lord Atkin followed with a short opinion entirely in line1 with that which I have just read, so I may assure hon. members that the assumption by some of the younger members of the legal fraternity that soldiers have a right of legal action against the crown in the right of the Dominion of Canada for such compensation, when it has been refused both by the pensions' board and by the reparations tribunal, is not a sound opinion, and that soldiers who contribute their funds for the purpose of paying the expenses of bringing such action are doing so without any possible hope of securing a return.



PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT

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A message was delivered by Major A. R. Thompson, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the deputy of His Excellency the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable house in the chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker with the house went up to the Senate chamber.
In the Senate chamber the deputy of His Excellency the Governor General was pleased to give, in His Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bills:

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An Act for the relief of Ida Tarantour Waxman.
An Act' for the relief of Frances Helen Dawes Porteous.
An Act for the relief of Minnie Jones Chandler.
An Act for the relief of Elizabeth Irene Woolnough.
An	Act	for	the	relief	of	Ellery Sanford
J ohnston.
An	Act	for	the	relief	of	Faria Goldman
Rother.
An	Act	for	the	relief	of	Romfo Xavier
Vandette.
An Act for the relief of Adlena Emma Sills Burrow, otherwise known as Adlena Emma Sills Burrows.
An Act for the relief of Ida Judith Clark Freudberg.
An	Act	for	the	relief	of	Elizabeth Ann
Routledge Gunther.
An Act for the relief of Chesley Hastings Potter.
An Act for the relief of Theo Alice Mac-Farlane Lamb.
An Act for the relief of Chia Hannah Shiff.
An Act for the relief of Margaret Spencer Heald.
An Act to incorporate The W. S. Newton
Company.
An Act to amend the Winding-up Act.
An Act respecting the Department of Insurance.
An Act respecting the Ottawa and New York Railway Company.
An Act to amend the Bankruptcy Act.
An Act respecting the Incorporation of Live Stock Record Associations.
An Act to amend the Judges Act.
An Act to provide for the deduction from compensation in the Public Service.
An Act respecting Foreign Insurance Companies in Canada.
An Act respecting Canadian and British Insurance Companies.
An Act respecting Radio Broadcasting.
An Act to amend the Customs Tariff.
An Act to amend the Income War Tax Act.
An Act respecting the Waterton Glacier International Peace Park.
An Act to amend The Montreal Harbour Commissioners' Act, 1894.
An Act to amend the Civil Service Act.
An Act to amend the Soldier Settlement Act.
An Act to amend the Income War Tax Act,
An Act to amend and consolidate the Fisheries Act.
An Act to amend the Special War Revenue Act.
An Act for granting to His Majesty certain sums of money for the public service of the financial years ending respectively the 31st March, 1932, and the 31st March, 1933.
To these bills the royal assent was pronounced by the Clerk of the Senate in the following words:
In His Majesty's name the deputy of His Excellency the Governor General doth assent to these bills.
Then the Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons addressed the Deputy of His Excellency the Governor General as follows:
May it please Your Honour:
The Commons of Canada have voted supplies required to enable the government to defray certain expenses of the public service.
In the name of the Commons I present to Your Honour the following bill:
An Act for granting to His Majesty certain sums of money for the public service for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1933.
To which bill I humbly request Your Honour's assent.
To this bill the Clerk of the Senate, by command of the Deputy of His Excellency the Governor General, did thereupon say:
In His Majesty's name the deputy of His Excellency the Governor General thanks his loyal subjects, accepts their benevolence, and assents to this bill.
Governor General's Speech

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After which the Deputy of His Excellency the Governor General was pleased to close the third session of the seventeenth parliament of the Dominion of Canada with the following speech:
Honourable Members of the Senate:
Members of the House of Commons:
I desire to thank you for the careful attention you have given to the various measures submitted for your consideration during the present session of parliament. The zealous discharge of your duties manifests alike, a deep concern for the welfare of Canada and an unshaken confidence in its future.
It is gratifying to observe that the program of economy for the current fiscal year will ensure relative equalization of revenues and expenditures, and that the additional moneys necessary to provide for the public service will be obtained without adverse effect upon the cost of living or impairment of the national credit.
My government's policy of unemployment and farm relief, consistently and vigorously pursued, has already achieved an amelioration of conditions and forecasts steady and continued improvement in both agrarian and industrial communities.
The means by which a larger area of distribution has been secured for the coal production of the maritime provinces will do much to relieve conditions heretofore prevailing in that part of the Dominion.
The measure for national ownership and control of radio broadcasting provides the necessary assurance against foreign interference with broadcasting from Canadian sources, and ensures to our people, without regard to class or place, equality of service from the new broadcasting system to be inaugurated as soon as practicable.
The commercial agreement negotiated with the Dominion of New Zealand and ratified by parliament is a further step towards closer empire economic association based upon the principle of reciprocal benefits.
The enquiry by a committee of the House of Commons into the operation of the Civil Service Act prepares the way for a reorganization of the Civil Service Commission and the better administration of matters pertaining to the civil service.
Among other important measures enacted were bills respecting The Patent Act, Unfair Competition in Trade and Commerce, the Export of Gold, Insurance, The Fisheries Act, The Judges Act, The Excise Act, The Companies Act, The Soldiers Settlement Act and The Railway Act.
Approval has been given the British Commonwealth Shipping Agreement, The International Convention for the Amelioration of Conditions of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field, The International Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, The International Convention for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs.
Members of the House of Commons:
I thank you for the provision you have made for the public service.
Honourable Members of the Senate:
Members of the House of Commons:
I do sincerely commend the fortitude and patience with which the Canadian people have endured the trials and hardships of these troubled times. Those attributes have equipped them to surmount whatever difficulties may yet be encountered before prosperity returns. Recurring disturbances in world conditions have hindered our progress. The prosperity we rightly expected before this time has been by them delayed. For no nation can alone resist the influence of the universal disruption of financial and industrial conditions.
Near at hand are the means by which this country, organized and prepared, may hasten its economic recovery. Within two months' time an economic conference of the countries which compose the British Empire will meet at Ottawa. From that conference may arise a power which will bring enduring harmony out of economic chaos, and provide the wise and courageous leadership which in other times of universal stress the world looked for and obtained from the British peoples. Canada believes that the closer economic association of the British Empire will herald the dawn of a new and greater era of prosperity both for ourselves and for all the nations of the earth.
In relieving you from attendance upon your parliamentary duties, I pray that Divine Providence may guide and bless you.
This concluded the third session of the seventeenth parliament.