PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

Sir WILFRID LAURIER moved:: That the committee ordered by this House on the subject of proportional representation be composed of Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King, and Messrs. Monk, Turcotte (Quebec County), Burrell, Magrath, Wilson (Laval), and Kyte.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. SYDNEY FISHER (Minister of Agriculture) moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 40) to amend the Inspection and Sale Act.
Mr. SPROULE.: Explain.


Mr. FISHER.: This is a Bill which has been handed to me by the Minister of Trade and Commerce as it comes under his administration. It involves an amendment by which the words 'no cargo' and 'cargo or cargoes' are struck out. The effect of this is to provide that the weighing of cargoes shall not be continued. They have found it impracticable after a year or two of trial and they desire it to cease. The second clause in the Bill is simply to give representation to Alberta and Saskatchewan upon the grain survey, board. The third clause is to correct a mistake by which this Act was put under the control . and administration of the Department of Trade and Commerce instead of the Department of Inland Revenue. The last clause defines the weight of a barrel of potatoes when potatoes are sold by the barrel.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

Mr.  H. H.@: LENNOX (South Simcoe) moved' for leave to introduce Bill (No. 41) to amend the Criminal Code.


Wilfrid Laurier: Explain, please.	.


Mr. LENNOX.: Briefly, this Bill is intended to protect the owners of copyrights. It has been frequently said in this House and in Canada that our copyright law is defective, but it will be sufficient for me to say that last session, when the Minister of Justice was amending the Criminal Code, I presented an amendment in the form that the Bill now takes. The Minister of Justice took time to, consider the matter and the Minister of Agriculture who was also interested was in the House. The amendment passed this House unanimously but it was rejected with other amendments re musical compositions by the Minister of Justice by the Senate. I, therefore, beg leave to introduce this amendment to the law.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Is this amendment with regard to copyright in music?


Haughton Lennox: No, the amendment with reference to music was introduced by the Minister of Justice. The amendment I propose is to protect the owners of dramatic copyrights.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first
time.


Mr. MONK:: 1.	Are the two water lots on the St. Charles river situate in front cadastral lots Nos. 582A and 583B, of the parish of St. Roch, in the county of Quebec, the property of the Quebec Harbour Commissioners, under the statutes governing that body?
2.	Have the said two water lots above described, been sold by the Quebec government

to private individuals within the past four years? If so, to what persons have the said lots been sold, and for what price?
3.	Who are to-day the registered owners of said two water lots, and in what proportion for each person?
4.	What is the superficial area of said water lots, in arpents and in foot measure?
5.	Has the conveyance of said water lots been ratified by the Governor General in Council pursuant to paragraph 2 of article 20 of chapter 34, of 62-63 Victoria?


Wilfrid Laurier: Stand.


Mr. MONK.: This question was put on the 12th November. One of the questions could have been answered on that very day. I was told that the question had been referred to Quebec for information on the 12th. It seems to me that the delay is unduly long unless a messenger has been sent down to Quebec on foot to get the information.


Mr. BRODEUR.: We have not in the department any information in regard to it. Just to please my hon. friend (Mr. Monk) we wrote to the harbour commissioners in Quebec asking them whether they could supply us with the information. We have not received that information from them so far. I am very sorry I cannot give any information to my hon. friend.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: This is a body that is under the control of the government.


Wilfrid Laurier: Order.


Mr. SPEAKER.: The hon. gentleman cannot discuss it at this point.


REPORTED EMIGRATION TO UNITED STATES.
Mr. GEO. TAYLOR:: 1.	Is the government aware that Col Viu Sant, American Consul at Kingston, Ontario, has made the following report to his government:-
Kingston, November 18-(Special)-Col Van Sant, American Consul for this district, in a report to his government, states that this city during nine months ended September 30, has lost nearly 800 of its population through its citizens emigrating to the United States. He bases his calculations on the fact that during the nine months 110 invoices for emigrants effects were issued at Kingston and continues: As each settler's effects' certificate usually represents a family averaging four, the gain in population to the United States for the past nine months from this city and vicinity will reach 400. Add to this number moving to the States without household effects, and the loss to Kingston would be nearly double, or 800. This condition largely prevails in other towns and cities of eastern Ontario.


Mr. MONK.: 2.	If so, what action does the government intend to take to put a stop to such emigration from Canada to the United States?


Hon. F. OLIVER:: 1.	The government has no information on the subject, beyond the statement referred to, appearing in the public press.
2.	Inquiry will be made as to the facts. I would like to add the contents of a
telegram which has been received from Kingston as follows:
Consul Van Sant says press statement that 800 people from Kingston have emigrated to United States this year is false.


INTEREST ON PRE-EMPTION PAYMENTS.
Mr. LAKE:: 1.	Is the government calling upon all persons who hold receipts for pre-emption fees to pay interest at rate of 5 per cent on the amount payable for their pre-emption at the close of each year from the date of their receipt ?
2.	Was specific notice given to applicants for pre-emption at the time they made their entries, or subsequently, that they would be called upou to pay interest at the expiration of every twelve months?
3.	Does the government consider that the average entrant for a pre-emption is likely to he in a position to pay the annual interest of $24 per annum for the outset, and does it intend to insist upon such payment? If so, what means does it propose to take to enforce the payments?


Mr. OLIVER:: 1.	Yes.
2.	No, it was not necessary to give such specific notice as the statute provides that interest shall be payable at the rate of five per cent per annum at the end of each year from the date of entry.
3.	When an application is made for a pre-emption entry it must necessarily be presumed that the entrant will be in a position to carry out all the conditions prescribed by the statute in that behalf. His failure to do so renders his entry liable to cancellation.


SALE OF SCHOOL LAND AT REGINA.
Mr. W. H. SHARPE:: 1.	What amount of school land was sold at the last sale at Regina, Saskatchewan?
2.	What amount was spent in advertising this sale, and where and how was it spent?
3 Who was the auctioneer and what is his address?
4.	What amount was he paid for his services ?

5.	Who were the purchasers of the land sold, and what prices were paid?
6.	How much land has the government sold to the Saskatoon and Western Land Company, and at what prices?


Mr. OLIVER:: 
Pt.   N.E. L...@: 29	17	18	2	158'	10 00	Nicldai Tanberg.


Pt.   N.E.@: i....	29	17	18	2	2'	8 00	Trustees Pilot Butte School District No. 207S.W. i	29	17	18	2	160-	10 25	Adam Kapall.S.E. i	29	17	18	2	160'	10 50	Conrad Wiesbtod.N.W. i	29	17	18	2	160'	10 50	Andrew Martin.S.E. 	11	18	18	2	160'	7 00	Gottleib Kalk.S.W. i	11	18	18	2	160'	7 00	Fred. Rust.N.W. i	11	18	18	2	160'	8 00	Daniel Wiesbrod.S.E. 4	11	19	18	2	160'	7 00	Konrad Brodt.S.E. 1	29	13	19	2	160'	7 00	John Edward Martin.29	13	19	2	160'	7 00	James Louis Keough.29	13	19	2	160'	7 00	Donald Andrew MacDonald.N.W. 1	29	13	19	2	160'	7 25	ii iiS.E. 1	11	14	19	2	160'	7 25	James Harvey.


Er.   S.W. J.. .@: 11	14	19	2	143'50	7 00	II


Pt.   N.E.@: i ..	11	14	19	2	66'	7 00	II *


Fr.   N.W. J...@: 11	14	19	2	5'50	10 50	II *S.E. i	29	14	19	2	160'	7 00	John Edward Martin.S.W. i	29	14	19	2	160'	7 00	II IIN.E. i	29	14	19	2	160'	7 00	John Wesley Connell.N.W. i	29	14	19	2	160'	7 00	ii iiS.E. i	11	15	19	2	160'	7 00	John Edward Martin.S.W. i	11	15	19	2	160'	7 00	It IIN.E. 1	11	15	19	2	160'	7 Oo	Ernestine Roberta Whiteside.N.W. 1	11	15	19	2	160'	7 00	John Wesley Connell.S.E. i	29	15	19	2	160'	7 00	John Edward Martin.S.W. i	29	15	19	2	160'	7 00	II IIN.E. 1	29	15	19	2	160'	- 7 00	Frank Judson Pearson.N.W. i	29	15	19	2	160'	7 00	II IIS.E. 1-	11	16	19	2	100'	8 00	John Edward Martin.S.W. \	11	16	19	2	160'	8 00	Maughan McCausland.N.E. -t	11	16	19	2	160'	8 00	John Edward Martin.N.W.i	11	16	19	2	160'	8 00	Frank Judson Pearson.


Mr. OLIVER.: Schedule of School Lands sold by public auction at Regina, &c.-Continued.
Part of Section.	Section,	Township.	o5 bp 1 P5	M.	Area in Acres.	Price per Acre realized.	Name of Purchaser.S.E. i	29	10	19	2	160-	$ ct3. 8 50	John Alexander McLachlin, Hector LachlanS.W. i	29	10	19	2	160-	10 25	Beeton. Robert J. Mutrie and Jaines Thos. Mutrie.N.E. |	29	10	19	2	160'	9 25	John Alexander McLachlin.N.W. 1	29	10	19	2	100-	9 25	Robert J. Mutrie and James Thos. Mutrie.S.E. i	11	17	19	2	160'	9 25	James Harvey.SW.l	11	17	19	2	160'	11 50	George Ferry March.N.E. i	11	17	19	2	100-	12 75	Walter Joseph Cummings.N.W. i	11	17	19	2	160'	11 75


Pt.   S.E.@: 
Pt.   N.E.@: i....	11	19	19	2	158'	8 00	Manasseh Hamilton Westgate.


Pt.   N.E.@: 
Pt.   N.W.@: i...	18	17	20	2	147-78	12 00	ii ii ii

Schedule of School Lands sold by public auction at Eegina, &c.-Continued.
Fart of Section.	Section.	Township.	Range.	M.	Area in Acres.	Price per Acre Realized.	Name of Purchaser.
						$ cts.	
S.E. }		it	18	20	2	160-	17 25	Daniel McCusker.


Pt.   S.W.@: 1....	ii	18	20	2	153 42	15 25	Alexander H. Brown.N.E. i	ii	18	20	2	160-	18 50	Benjamin F. Marshall.N.W. t	n	18	20	2	160-	21 75


Pt.   S.E.@: 
Pt.   S.W.@: j....	29	18	20	2	154-66	17 00	William A. Lambert.N.E. i	29	18	20	2	160-	30 00	Matthew Henderson.


Fr.   N.W. J...@: 29	18	20	2	15S-27	24 50	John Dougan.S.E. i	11	19	20	2	156-	12 00	Thomas R. Brown.


Pt.   S.W.@: i. ..	11	19	20	[DOT]2	157-50	13 00	It II


Pt.   S.W. I. .@: 11	19	20	2	2-50	12 00	Trustees Rose Plain S. D.N.E. i	11	19	20	2	160-	12 00	James D. Traynor.N.W. i	11	19	20	2	160-	12 00	ti uS.E. i	29	19	20	2	160-	18 50	George \V. A. McNeice.S.W. 1	29	19	20	2	160-	15 50


Pt.   N.E.@: i....	29	19	20	2	155-22	8 00	Charles Binnie.N.W. i	29	19	20	2	160-	8 00	Robert Sinton.S.E. |	11	20	20	2	160-	12 25	Oliver Wylie.S.W. 1. .. .	11	20	20	2	160-	10 50	Geo. Mollard.N.E. i	11	20	20	2	160	8 25	Moses Seed.S.E.J	11	13	21	2	160-	8 00	John H. Murphy.S.W. |	11	13	21	2	160-	8 00	N.E. i	11	13	21	2	160-	8 00	it nN.W. i	11	13	21	2	160-	8 00	ii iiS.E. i	29	13	21	2	160	8 00	John E. Martin.S.W. i	29	13	21	2	160-	8 00	M iiN.E. i	29	13	21	2	160-	8 00	it iiN.W. 1	29	13	21	2	160-	8 00	ii nS.E. i	11	14	21	2	160-	8 00	John Marshall Young.s.w. i	11	14	21	2	160-	8 75	James Balfour.N.E i	11	14	21	2	160'	8 00	James D. Traynor.N.W. 1...	11	14	21	2	160-	9 (XI	S.E. i	29	14	21	2	160-	8 50	William S. Calderwood.S.W. i	29	14	21	2	160-	8 75	William H. Johnston.N.E. J	29	14	21	2	160-	8 25	William S. Calderwood.N.W. i	29	14	21	2	160-	8 75	William H. Johnston.S.E. i 	11	15	21	2	160-	7 25	James Wallace Norton.S.W. t	11	15	21	2	160.	7 25	it ' iiN.E. i	11	15	21	2	160-	7 00	John E. Martin.N.W. i	11	15	21	2	160-	7 00	II IIS.E. i	29	15	21	2	160-	7 25	Noah T. Selby. il HS.Wi 	29	15	21	2	160-	7 25	N.E. i	29	15	21	2	160-	7 00	II IINW.J	29	15	21	2	160-	7 00	II IIS.E. J	11	16	21	2	160-	9 50	Walter J. Cummings. ii itS.W. i	11	16	21	2	160-	8 00	N.E. J	11	16	21	2	160-	8 00	ti itN.W. i 	11	16	21	2	160'	8 00	ii iiS.E. i	29	16	21	2	160-	10 00	Frank J. Pearson.S.W. j	29	16	21	2	1 *o-	10 25	Albert Hammond.N.E. .}	29	16	21	2	160-	11 00	Joseph Lube.N.W i	29	16	21	2	160-	8 00	Frank J. Pearson.S.E. J	11	17	21	2	160-	12 00	James Harvey. ii mS.W. i	11	17	21	2	160-	12 00	N.E. t	11	17	21	2	160-	12 50	Norman R. Hoffman.N.W. |	11	17	21	2	160-	13 00	Edward McDonagh.S.E. 1	29	17	21	2	160-	15 00	William J. Moore.S.W. i	29	17	21	2	160-	13 25	William Donald.N.E.i	29	17	21	2	160-	14 50	ii iiN.W. i	29	17	21	2	160-	12 00	Elmer Shaw.S.E. i	It	18	21	2	160	10 00	Edward Gleisser.N.E. i	11	18	21	2	160-	10 00	Verna J. Callender.N.W. i	11	18	21	2	ICO'	10 00	Albert Mullen.S.E. i	29	18	21	2	160	10 00	Frederick H. Cochrane.S.W. |	
Mr. OLI'	29 FER.	18	21	5!	160-	10 00	ii ii
Schedule of School Lands sold by public auction at Regina, &c.-Continued.
Part of Section.	Section.	o	Range.	M.	Area in Acres.	Price per Acre Realized.	Name of Purchaser.N.E. i	29	18	21	2	160-	$ cts. 10 00	Hubert J. Peacey.N. W. \	29	18	21	2	ICO'	12 00


Pt.   S.E.@: 1...	11	19	21	2	152-78	10 00	Matilda M. Bredin.S.W. 1	11	19	21	2	160-	15 25	M IIN.E. i	11	T9	21	2	157'38	10 00	II IIN.W.J	11	19	21	*2	155-	10 00	11 MS.E. i 	29	19	21	2	160-	17 25	Charles Keith.S.W. }	29	19	21	2	160-	13 00	William F. Carse.


Pt.   N.E.@: 1 ...	29	19	21	2	153-50	17 75	Charles Keith.


Pt.   N.W.@: }...	29	19	21	2	153-50	12 25	.Tames G. Mutch.


Pt.   S.E.@: i....	11	20	21	2	150-	8 00	James Grover.S.E. i 	11	14	22	2	160-	3 00	James Harvey.S.W. i	11	14	22	2	mo-	9 00	N.E. i	11	14	22	2	160-	9 00	ii HN.W. i	11	14	22	2	160-	9 00	H nS.E. 1	29	14	22	2	160-	9 00	William R. F. Richmond.S.W. i	29	14	22	2	100-	9 00	Edward McCarthy.N.E. |	29	14	22	2	160-	10 00	William R. F. Richmond.N. W.}	29	14	22	2	160-	9 75	Edward McCarthv.S.E. 1	11	15	22	2	ICO'	8 00	John E. Martin.S.w.i	11	15	22	2	160'	8 25	Peter Traynor.N.E. |	U	15	22	2	ICO-	8 0)	John E. Martin.N.W. 1	11	15	22	2	160-	8 25	Peter Travnor.S.E. i	29	15	22	2	160-	8 00	John E. Martin.S.W. }. ..	29	15	22	2	160-	8 00	n iiN.E. 1	29	15	22	2	160-	8 00	ii n -N.W. j	29	15	22	2	160	8 00	M itS.E.,}	11	16	22	2	[DOT] 160	9 00	Dan Donald and John Ford.S.W. i	11	10	22	2	160-	8 25	IT MN.E. i	11	16	22	2	160-	8 25	II II [DOT]N.W. }	11	16	29	2	160-	13 25	Edward Badley.S.E. j	29	16	22	2	160-	8 00	Frank J. Pearson.S.W. }	29	10	22	2	160-	8 00	M IIN.E. i	29	16	22	2	100-	8 00	Walter J. Cummings. ii tiN.W. 4	
Part N.E. } ..	29	16	22	2	160-	8 00	11	17	22	2	147 72	10 00	1 Duncan J. McGillivray and August W.


Part N.W.: 
Pt.   S.E.@: i....	11	19	23	2	156-	9 00


Pt.   S.W.@: i...	11	19	23	2	156-	9 00	John Martin.N.E. I	11	19	23	2	160-	9 00	ii iiN.W. I	11	19	23	2	160-	9 00	ii ii
dr. McConnell, op morden.


WRECKING PLANTS.
Mr. W. H. SHARPE:: 1.	Is Dr. McConnell, of Morden, Manitoba, in the employ of the government in any way?
2.	Has he been employed by the government during the past five years? If so, how much money has he drawn each year?


Frank Oliver: As far as the Department of the Interior is concerned:
1.	No.
2.	No.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: So far as the Department of Agriculture is concerned, no.
DR. ARMSTRONG, OF GLADSTONE. [DOT]


Mr. W. H. SHARPE:: 1.	Is Dr. Armstrong, of Gladstone, Manitoba, in the employ of the government in any way?
2.	Has he been employed by the government during the past five years? If so, how much money has he drawn each year?


Frank Oliver: -
So far as the Department of Indian Affairs is concerned:
1.	Yes, as medical officer to the Indians of Manitowapah agency.
2.	Yes. 1904-05, $11; 1905-06, $27; 1906-07, $56; 1907-08, $169; 1908-09, $97.50.
As far as the Department of the Interior is concerned:
1.	No.
2.	Yes. 1905-06, Nil; 1906-07, Nil; 1907-08, $37; 1908-09, Nil: 1909-10, $19.


Frank Oliver: 


Mr. MARSHALL:: 1. From what persons or corporations have tenders been received for the establishment or maintenance of any wrecking plant, whether on the Pacific or Atlantic coasts or in the River or Gulf of St. Lawrence, and what was the subsidy in each case?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Tenders for the maintenance of a wrecking plant on the Atlantic coast were received from the following: Dominion Coal Co., Glace Bay, N.S.; St. Lawrence Floating and Wrecking Co., of Montreal, P.Q.; Maritime Newfoundland Shipping Co., of Halifax, N.S.; J. E. Moore, St. John, N.B.; Messrs. Larder Bros., North Sydney, N.S.; William Leslie. Kingston, Ont.; J. A. Farquhart, Halifax, N.S.
Only one tender was received for the maintenance of a wrecking plant on the Pacific caost. This tender was from the British Columbia Salvage Company.
In the year 1901, an agreement was entered into with Messrs. Geo. T. Davie & Son to maintain a wrecking plant in the River and Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The subsidy granted for maintaining a wrecking plant on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and on the River St. Lawrence is $10,000 per annum in each case.


SHIPPING STATISTICS.
Mr. SINCLAIR:: 1. Distinguishing between sail and steam, how many tons of shipping were added to the Canadian register during the year ending 31st March, 1909?

2. How many tons of ship pin" were removed from the said register during the year ending 31st March, 1909, by loss of the ships so removed, and by transfer to the shipping register of some other colony or country, respectively ?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: The statistical year as regards registration of shipping is defined in section 31, chapter 113, of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1906, to be the calendar year. Statistics to the end of the fiscal year are not kept in the department. The figures given are therefore for the last statistical period, viz., the year ending December 31, 1908.
	Vessels.	Tons.
Steam			16,303
Sail			23,448
Total			39,751
	Vessels.	Tons.
Sold foreigners		.. 12	6,080
Wrecked			4,601
Stranded			2,115
Lost			2,684
Broken up			7,331
Abandoned		.. 6	3,178
Collisions			512
Missing			374
Registry surrendered..	.. 1	5Foundered	.. 5	410Burnt	1,653Condemned	1,475Transferred St. John's.	Nfld	2,964Transferred Barbados	.. 13	3,095Out of existence.. ..	.. 17	667Total	.. 281	37,144


GRAIN TRADE, 1908.
Mr. ARTHURS:: 1. What quantity of grain was received during the season of 1908 at the following points:	Depot Harbour, Midland, Tiffin, Collingwood, Owen Sound and Goderich?
2. What quantity of grain was bhipped from Port Arthur and from Port William to Canadian ports and to American ports, respectively ?
3.	How much grain was transhipped at Kingston and Prescott during 1908?
4.	What quantity of grain was received at the Port of Montreal during 1908, from Port Arthur and Port William by water from American ports?


Wilfrid Laurier: Bushels.
1. Depot Harbour	 2,624,622
Midland	 1,849,851
Tiffin	 8,440,136
Collingwood	 1,082,634
Owen Sound	 3,245,549
Goderich	 7,769,343
Bushels.
2.	To Canadian	ports	48,319,113To American	ports	
19,875,187
Bushels.
3.	At Kingston	 13,922,525
At Prescott	 2,120,000
Bushels.
4.	From Fort William and
Port Arthur	 19,157,905
From American ports.. .. 11,613,416



AIR NAVIGATION.

Mr. T. CHISHOLM:: Has the government given to Messrs. McCurdy. Baldwin or Dr. Graham Bell any financial or other aid to encourage them in their efforts to navigate the air?


Sir FREDERICK BORDEN.: The Department of Militia and Defence placed the Petewawa camp grounds at the disposal of Messrs. McCurdy and Baldwin during the past summer, for the purpose of carrying out trials with their aerodromes, and lent the services of one or two engineer officers and men to assist them when required.
The Department also erected a shed for the temporary housing of Messrs. McCurdy and Baldwin's machines while at Petewawa.
No financial assistance was given.



TRENT VALLEY CANAL.

Mr. OWEN:: 1.	What is the estimated cost of sections, 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 on the Trent Valley Canal when completed?
2.	How much money has been expended on each of these sections up to November 1, this year?


Hon. GEO. P. GRAHAM:: 1.	Superintending engineer's estimates for the following sections, of the Ontario-Rice Lake Division of the Trent Valley Canal, are as follows, viz.:
Section No.	1	$1,074,313	00Section No.	2	
733,482	00Section No.	3	
304,196	00Section No.	5	
527,239	00Section No. 7	
458,227 002.	The expenditure on the different sections on contract work, is as follows: Section No. 1-Larkin & Sangster	
Section No. 2-	$472,940 00Dennon & Rogers	
Section No. 3- Canadian General Develop-	126,830 00ment Co	
Section No. 5-	149,030 00Brown & Aylmer	
Section No. 7-	288,290 00Randolph McDonald Co.. ..	20,940 001,058,030 00Cement on above sections ..	136,987 50
1,195,017 50



VETERAN LAND GRANTS.

Mr. DANIEL:: Hon' many land grants have been taken up by veterans, and how many assignments approved?


Frank Oliver: 433 land grants have been taken up by veterans up to the latest returns from the various Land Agencies of the department.
2,588 assignments have been approved.



POSTAL SERVICE.

Mr. S. SHARPE:: 1.	In what constituencies were the following post offices established, viz: Cedar Croft, Kawartha Park, Midlothian Wharf, Ojibway Island and Rigaud sur le Lac?
2.	What is the number of persons that the department estimate is being served by each of these post offices?


Wilfrid Laurier: (for the Postmaster General):
Cedar Croft, in Parry Sound, Ont. Population served-15 families with cottages and 75 boarders.	[DOT]
Kawartha Park, in Peterborough, W.R., Ont. Population served-A boarding house accommodating 25 guests, 15 cottages with from 75 to 100 occupants; also several new cottages, together with the Y.M.C.A. camp of Peterborough, and other camps in the vicinity.
Midlothian Wharf, in Parry Sound, Ont. Population served-A number of summer cottages, 8 families and about 50 single people.
Ojibway Island, in Parry Sound, Ont. Population served-25 families and 100 single people.
Rigaud sur le Lac, in Vaudreuil, Que. Population served-30 to 40 families.



NATIONAL TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY.

Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM.: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make an addition to the answers given yesterday to question No. 19, asked by my lion. friend from South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox). By some error, a portion of the answer to paragraph 4 was detached, and it is as follows:-
4. Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, about fifteen months beyond fixed date. Contract covers from city of Moncton westerly for about 50 miles.


The John W.: McManus Company, Limited, about sixteen months beyond fixed date. Contract covers from Chipman easterly a distance of about 8 miles.
Lyons & White, about fifteen months beyond fixed date. Contract covers from near Grand Falls -westerly, a distance of about 62 miles.


George Perry Graham: M. P. & J. T. Davis, about three months beyond fixed date. Contract covers from Quebec bridge easterly for about 150 miles.



THE APPROACH TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Mr. GEO. TAYLOR.: Before the orders of the day are called, might I draw the attention of the Minister of Public Works to the fact that during the last two sessions on the approach of winter, cocoa matting was laid on the steps leading to the parliament buildings. The painted boards now on the steps are slipperv and dangerous, and I would recommend the minister to have the matting laid down at once.


Mr. PUGSLEY.: I shall be glad to give the matter attention.
NATIONAL TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY!-RESIGNATION OF MR. LUMSDEN.


Mr. R. L. BORDEN.: I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether there is any document to be a'dded to those brought down in connection with the resignation of Mr. Lumsden.


Wilfrid Laurier: My hon. friend suggested that there was some correspondence from Mr. Lumsden to me and a letter from me to him. I asked my secretary to look for this letter, and he has not found it yet.



RAILWAY ACT-AMENDMENTS.

Mr.  E. A.@: LANCASTER (Lincoln) moved second reading of Bill (No. 2) to amend the Railway Act. He said: this Bill, as I explained briefly in introducing it, is I think require'd by virtue of an unanimous decision of the Ontario Court of Appeals, given in a well-considered judgment, placing a construction on section 340 of the Railway Act as it at present stands. That is a section dealing, not with the question whether a railway company is liable or not, but with the question of the amount that a company should pay in the event of its admitted or proved liability for ' negligence in the carrying of goods. It might not be amiss to stcte that previous to 1903 the law, as settled by the decisions of the courts, was in an unsatisfactory state. We thought in this House in 1903 that we had m-^de it clear and distinct, and before this debate is over, I think the House will agree with me that the construction put on this section by the Ontario Court of Appeals is not the construction we intended that should be placed up on it when we passed it in 1903. The section permits a railway company, under certain conditions, to limit and restrict its liability to less than it would be at common law or ordinarily, when it injures or

destroys goods through its negligence in carrying. It is not a question whether the company shall be liable or not, hut whether its liability shall be reduced or impaired by any contract which it makes with the shipper or owner of the goods as a condition of carrying them. The courts held previous to 1903 that a company could not contract itself out of the total liability; but they afterwards held that it could contract itself out of a part of the liability by virtue of giving the shipper a special rate under a contract by which the shipper agreed that he would take only a part of the damages, if entitled to damages at all, for the loss of his goods. That was the state of the law in 1903. In 1903, we left to the Railway Commission, the question as to what should be a fair contract to be made. We provided in the statute that these, contracts, before they should be held to be good, should have the sanction of the Railway Commission. I had better, perhaps, read the exact words of section 340, which I am seeking to amend, as it now stands in the revised statutes of 1906. It reads as follows:
No contract, condition, by-law, regulation, declaration or notice made or given by the company, impairing, restricting or limiting its liability in respect of the carriage of any traffic, shall, except: as hereinafter provided, relieve, the company from such liability, unless such class of contract, condition, by-law, regulation, declaration or notice shall have been first authorized or approved by order or regulation of the board.
Now, the trouble turns upon these words, 'class of' in that section. I think parliament meant in these words a form of contract, and not that any court should say that a contract which was not the one authorized by the commission should be held to be good and binding on the shipper. That is what the court says could be done, an'd it is that which I object to, and which the House should amend. The case decided by the Ontario Court of Appeals last year, Sutherland vs. the Grand Trunk Railway Company, is to be found in volume xviii of the Ontario Law Reports, beginning at page 139. It was decided by Chief Justice Sir Glenholme Falconbridge in April of last year, and his decision was upheld by the whole Court of Appeals in November of last year. Mr. Sutherland shipped from Broc-ton, Massachusetts, to Grimsby, Ontario, $16,000 worth of valuable horses, which the chief justice held were fully prove'd to be worth that much money.
That was his loss when the Grand Trunk railway were negligent at Trenton and in consequence of the collision his horses were destroyed. He, however, was Unable to ship those horses from Brockton, Massachusetts, unless he signed a contract, not authorized by the Railway Commission, but something like it, under which he bound himself to accept $1,200 for a carload of horses worth 15
some $16,000 in case any loss occurred through the company's negligence. He had no option, no other rate was offered him, he could not ship those horses unless he signed that contract. They were taken by the Grand Trunk railway from a point near the Vermont line and were destroyed at Trenton, Ontario. Mr. Sutherland, having obtained on opinion that this contract had never been authorized by the board, thought he was entitled to his full amount of damages. He was given no option when he made the shipment, he had no chance to ship at any other rate, he had signed no contract which the Railway Board had sanctioned, and consequently thought he was entitled to recover his full amount of damages, but the judges held that the words ' unless such class of contract ' entitled them to rule that although the contract was not authorized by the Railway Board it was in that class, and therefore was just as binding as if it had been authorized by the Railway Commission. That ruling is contrary to the spirit of our legislation. We appointed the Railway Board to deal with questions of this kind. We did not want the ordinary judge of the land to decide what should he considered a fair contract. We appointed a board, specially selected for their knowledge, ability and acumen in railway matters to decide what shall be a fair contract, and the moment we agree that any judge, no matter how able, can in any sense usurp the functions of the board, we do a highly dangerous thing and a thing against the principle of the Railway Act. The Railway Board has declared that a certain contract, and no other, shall be the one the Grand Trunk railway must use in cases of the kind, but here we have a different contract, one which would be binding over the route in a foreign country, but which the Grand Trunk railway made apply to Canadian territory, and the company succeeded in convincing the court that because the words ' such class of contract ' are in the Act, they let in any other contract besides the one the Railway Commission adopts.
That is the chief point I make, but I go further and I say that as those contracts are based on the understanding that a man has to give up his common law rights, that he has to give up a part of what he is entitled to, he should at least have the option of paying a higher rate in order to be fully indemnified in case of loss or pay a lower rate should he agree to lesser indemnification. It is evidently manifestly unfair that if a man is willing to pay a higher rate and get his full common law indemnity, he should not have the right to do so before being compelled to ship at a lesser rate with a reduced liability on the part of the company. I might point out that we have already dealt with this matter in another



connection in the same Railway- Act. When we brought in the express companies under the control of the Railway Commission and gave the commission power to fix the rates and the form of contract, we left out the words ' such class of contract.' That will be found in section 353. In section 340, the one I am moving to amend, the words, ' such class of contract ' are contained, and these have been judged in the way I have pointed out. In section 353, however, the contract itself is not valid unless approved by order or regulation of the Board of Railway Commissioners. We are therefore in this position that, if we do not amend the law, we shall have two lines of decisions -the one with regard to express company's contracts and the other with regard to the railway company's contracts for carrying ordinary freight. That surely must be the actual effect, but I think the intention no doubt was that the same principle should govern both.


George Perry Graham: The reasons adduced by my hon. friend in support of his Bill certainly have some merit. I have had representations made to me in the last few hours to the contrary effect but I think on the whole the House would be wise to give the Bill a second reading and let it go before the Railway Committee.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the second time.
George Perry Graham: I move that this Bill be referred to the Railway Committee.


Mr. LANCASTER.: As I have said many times before, I do not believe on principle in public Bills going to the Select Committees of this House; I think this is the proper place to debate them, where the whole House deals with them. They are public Bills, and the rule of the House indicates that they should be dealt with here. However, I do not wish to be factious about the matter, and if the minister thinks he can give better consideration to this Bill by sending it to the Railway Committee, I would suggest that it be done by appointing a small sub-committee of the Railway Committee. I would agree to that if he will assure us that even if the government shall have taken all days when the Bill returns from the Railway Committee an opportunity will be given for discussing this Bill in Committee of the Whole House. I have not found the Railway Committee to be much more than a cul de sac in regard to public Bills. Unless we can have some specific assurance I think this Bill should go to the Committee of the Whole House.


George Perry Graham: As I indicated, I have had a number of representations during the last few hours on several of these Bills, Mr. LANCASTER.
and as the members of the Railway Committee are conversant with matters affecting railways and with legislation of this kind, it seemed to me that that committee would be the best place to deal with this Bill, and any one who is opposed to it could there say what he nad to say. I have no desire to retard the Bill or prevent it from getting through all stages.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I think the minister should give some such assurance as I requested, otherwise I shall have to divide the House. I have observed during the last ten years that although there may be merit in a Bill, and a majority desire to get it through the House, it is almost impossible to send it to the Senate, because it cannot be called when it comes back from the committee. I do not suppose that the minister, who is usually fair, wants to put me in that position, and so I think we should be assured that after the Railway Committee deal with this measure there will be an opportunity of discussing it in a Committee of the Whole House, otherwise I will have to divide the House.


George Perry Graham: I am astounded at the position taken by the hon. gentleman. Certainly there is no desire to retard the Bill, but rather to get it in the place where we can discuss it properly. I thought my hon. friend understood my position.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I did understand that he wanted it to go to the Railway Committee, but I also understood that he would take care it would come back to this House after the Railway Committee dealt with it. If it was a private Bill it would have precedence on Mondays and could always be reached, but a public Bill or order can never be called in this House after the government take all the days.


Wilfrid Laurier: I may observe that if the Bill comes back from the Railway Committee within a month or six weeks it is sure to have its turn on the Order Paper.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill referred to the Select Standing Committee on Railways, Canals and Telegraph Lines.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. LANCASTER moved the second reading of Bill (No. 3) to amend the Railway Act. He said: This is a Bill which seeks to put some limit upon appeals in matters that come before the Board of Railway Commissioners. The statute at present does not limit those appeals; it allows the Railway Commissioners to grant leave to appeal to the Supreme Court upon any matter that is before them if they see fit to do so. It is being found in the country that the commissioners construe that to mean that they should be liberal in

granting these appeals, and this acts very harshly and unfairly upon people having grievances against railways. The House will see that unless immediate relief is given in matters that are brought before the board, it is useless for anybody to apply to that board. We do not recognize the Railway Commission as a court in the ordinary'sense, because it is a place where laymen are supposed to go and air their grievances and obtain redress in an informal way from the board. The minute it becomes known that a man who applies to the Railway Commission runs the risk of being brought before the Supreme Court on an appeal, and that is beginning to be known now, applications to the board for relief will be avoided, as men will feel that they cannot afford to run the risk of a Supreme Court suit, and the whole object in appointing the Railway Commission is practically annulled, the whole benefit that parliament intended to give to the country is lost. We have a Railway Commission that in many ways is doing good work, but they are annulling the benefit of their work by allowing people to go before the Supreme Court, even in cases where there is no question of law involved, but only a question of the merits which the board is competent to decide. I contend that there should be some reasonable restriction on these appeals. Section 56 of the present Railway Act provides:
An appeal shall lit* from the hoard to the Supreme Court of Canada upon a question of jurisdiction, but such appeal shall not lie unless the same is allowed by a judge of the court.
That is on the question of jurisdiction. Then we have:	*
An appeal shall also lie from the board to such court (the Supreme Court) upon any question which, in the opinion of the board, is a question of law, upon leave therefor being obtained from the board.
There is no restriction on the time within which leave shall be applied for. There is no restriction or guide as to the sort of appeals to be allowed by the board. When a man gets relief against the railway company ordered by the board or the railway company gets an order of importance in carrying on their traffic, unless there is a serious question involved there should be no appeal, else the whole object of the appointment of the commission is frustrated and annulled.
Again there should be some finality even if an appeal is granted, on which a man or a company may reckon. If we are going to have the country understand that an applicant may get into a law suit on any application to the Railway Commission, that they may be dragged to the Supreme Court at the will of the opposite party, whether 15J
a railway or another company or an individual, then 99 out of 100 of the benefits of the Railway Commission will be lost to the country, and people will not apply for relief in the very cases the board was appointed to deal with. The whole intent in the appointing of the board was to afford immediate relief. In fact the board does not grant an order unless the relief is immediately necessary. Relief may be necessary next year, and the board says: Make your application next year upon better material; in the meantime we dismiss your application. If the case does not require immediate attention, the board does not make an order at all, and therefore no order is made unless immediate redress must be made in order to carry on the- affairs of the country properly. So I move to amend this section in order to limit the time for applying for that relief to one month from the time the order is made, so if anybody is going to ask the board to allow him to appeal to the Supreme Court from the decision, he must apply within one month. I think that is reasonable. We have that very thing in nearly all the courts, and we have it generally in the statute constituting the courts. I think we ought to put that in this statute as a principle to be followed by the Railway Commission. Then they will understand that parliament says to them: You must not grant leave to appeal in any case unless it is applied for within one month; and if people do not choose within one month to apply for leave to appeal, they must make up their minds to consent to the judgment. I also seek to add:
But suck leave shall not be granted unless, in the opinion of the board, doubtful questions of law are involved and serious in-,ury or loss will result from immediate compliance with the order sought to be appealed from; and after notice to the opposite party stating the grounds of appeal.
I am not wedded to the actual language of that section as I have drawn it, and if any hon. gentleman can see any better way by which the object may be accomplished, I will accept his amendment. Whether we agree or not upon the method of the remedy to be applied, we must all agree that there is an evil in regard to the application under the statute as it stands at present. We must not contemplate that this Railway Act is to be administered by these Railway Commissioners in such a way that anybody may be able to hold over the aggrieved party a threat that no matter how just his cause may be he may never know when he is going to get redress. The board have made rules which practically leave it open for an application to be made at any time. Under the present rules the individual must apply within fourteen days or afterwards and the statute allows him to do that,
[Stage Direction]
but the companies are not limited to any particular number of days. The board have practically said, and I do not blame them only as the statute is, that a man can apply any time that they, in _ their discretion see fit to allow. It is not proper legislation as it stands, and some amendment must be made. We should *settle on certain permanent principles and 'lay them before the board, with instructions to the board to follow them. As the law stands to-day an appeal can be brought on ten years afterwards. I do not say the board would give leave ten years afterwards, but they can legally give leave to appeal ten years after the case has been decided, as the law stands to-day. I do not think we can have this Act properly administered unless the people have faith in the Railway Commission. We must establish a belief among the people in this country that the Railway Commission will give them redress when they have a well-founded grievance; but the minute they think, as they are beginning to think now, that they are just launching out into a law suit in which they may lose a lot of money and perhaps ruin themselves, the minute we allow that idea to get abroad in this country, we are losing the whole benefit of the appointment of the Railway Commission, because people will be loath to avail themselves of the remedies which the board is supposed to give them. Now, this is not one-sided; the railway may get an order and the case may be tried out. On all these grounds, therefore, I beg to move the second reading of the Bill, because it contains these provisions simply to limit appeals within a reasonable period, and to allow the Act to be administered in such a way that people may have some faith in it, and may apply in the ordinary way for the relief to which they are entitled and get it in reasonable time.
Mr. BLAIN.: I do not propose to say any thing on the merits of my hon. friend's Bill, other than that I am of the opinion that there are altogether too many appeals to the higher courts in respect to legislation of this kind. I believe there is a growing feeling in Canada that instead of allowing more appeals, there should be fewer appeals from the lower to the higher courts. My hon. friend's Bill no doubt has a great deal of merit in it, when there is to be an appeal at all from the decision of the Railway Board. For myself, I think that the decision of the Railway Board should be final in all cases. My hon. friend has well said that the Railway Board was created for the purpose of giving the ordinary man an opportunity to lay his case before that tribunal, and when that case has been presented, as we have had a great many cases presented, and a great deal of good work has been accom-Mr. LANCASTER.
plished, in my opinion the decision should be final, and there should be no _ appeal whatever, in any case from the decision of the Railway Board.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: As one who advocated for many years the establishment of a Railway Commission Board, I have always held that one of the important requirements in all these disputes was some court of finality, from which there [DOT] could be no appeal. When this Railway Board was established, the people 'all over the country were told by both parties that it was" a good thing, and one of the reasons why it was a good thing was because, when a difficulty arose between an individual and a railway company, it was to be tried by a court where the individual could go and be sure of getting justice, and that when the Commission made a finding that finding was finality. It had been held, and generally believed by the public, that there was little use in an individual trying to get his rights from a railway company, because the railway companies were all powerful financially, and that an individual, no matter what might be the determination of the first court, could not contend with the railway company, because the company could always carry the case up, and up, and up. Under these circumstances people who were aggrieved felt that it was better to suffer loss in the first instance than to impoverish themselves by going to a court when they h4d no assurance that the decision of that court would be final. It was held that this Railway Commission would obviate that difficulty, and that the case would be settled quickly-that was one of the merits of this court-that the case would be settled at once, without much cost or waste of time, and settled finally. I am sure if the people ever believed that there was the latitude which there appears to be in the findings of this Commission, that there was some latitude remaining whereby litigants, if you call them such, could appeal to another court, they would never have endorsed the Railway Commission. That was one of the strongest grounds in the judgment of the common people why the Railway Commission would be practically useful. Now, if it turns out that it is going to be of little more value in that regard than an ordinary court, then I can only say that there are many people who would appeal to the Railway Commission from the understanding that they have had heretofore who will never appeal to it in future because they will regard themselves as unable to get justice for the simple reason that they have not the means to prosecute a suit against a railway company. There may be other grounds where there would be a justifiable right of appeal. As my hon. friend from Lincoln says, they could have the right to appeal upon a ques-

tion of jurisdiction or of law. I think that would be proper. It seems to me that that should cover the whole ground but if we are to widen it beyond that we will make what otherwise would be a valuable court for the common people of the country a court that would he practically useless to them.


Mr.  E. A.@: Mr. Speaker, I think there is a general impression that lawyers favour numbers of appeals, and that, ordinarily speaking, the average practising lawyer is better satisfied the more appeals he can find open to his clients who may not be pleased with the results of litigation with which he is concerned. Although I am a lawyer I do not share that view. I entirely agree with the sentiments which have been expressed by hon. gentlemen that we ought not to facilitate or to increase the facilities for repeated appeals and I think that, ordinarily speaking, at any rate, decisions that have been subjected to the canvassing which even one appeal will necessarily involve, are likely to be correct as if they are further dragged' through a course of repeated appeals. But while that is so, I do not suppose that many of us would favour abolition of the appellate court which has been carrying on its work in Canada now for the last thirty years-the Supreme Court of Canada. The propriety and advantage of establishing that court were debated and it was a matter in regard to which there was not perhaps agreement of opinion years ago, but experience, I think, has demonstrated the value of that court to the people of this country. Whether or not there is any question of abolishing the court, or putting an end to the right of resort to the court, the proposition which is before the House in this Bill does not concern anything so advanced or so far reaching as what I am suggesting. There is this, I think, to be borne in mind, that the existence of the right of appeal, whether it is exercised or not, and the knowledge on the part of the court which is deciding that if it goes wrong there is a place where it can be set right is something of very great consequence and of very great importance to the parties interested. We have in Ontario, and. I have no doubt, in other provinces as well, courts for the collection of small debts from which no right of appeal exists and very possibly no one would favour the giving of the right of appeal to a dissatisfied litigant where the amount involved was comparatively trifling. But, I am sure it is the experience of lawyers and, I think, it is the experience of litigants, that the same judge who is sitting in a court for the trial of small claims, where he knows that he is absolute, is very likely to be a much more' arbitrary man and very likely to pronounce decisions of a
very different character from those which the same man under the same circumstances would pronounce if the amount involved were a little larger so that his decision would be liable to review. Just so long as it is impossible to procure a perfect man, an infallible man for a judge, just that long there will be, I think, value in the right of appeal whether that right is, in a particular case, exercised by the dissatisfied litigant or not.
Now, with regard to this particular court -I term it a court because I think it possesses all the essential features of a court -the Board of Railway Commissioners-my understanding is that when that board was established and given the jurisdiction which it possesses it was with the idea that while it should have the power and authority of a court for many purposes it was not to be exactly the formal and certainly not the technical body which often our courts become. The right of appeal which is given from that, body is of a very special character. The board, it will be remembered, was a substitute for a committee of the Privy Council which previously dealt with such matters as now come to the board, and the only appeal upon questions of fact or of policy which the statute permits from this tribunal is an appeal to the whole body of which its predecessor was a part, namely, to the Governor in Council. That right of appeal seems a necessity when you remember the constitution of the board .and the purpose for which it was given being. The only other right of appeal which exists from the decisions of the board is upon questions of law or of the jurisdiction of the board. Upon questions of law a limited right of appeal exists to the Supreme Court by leave of the board itself. Upon questions of jurisdiction an equally limited right of appeal to the Supreme Court exists after leave so to appeal is given by a judge of the Su-< preme Court. The facility for appealing therefore from this board is peculiarly limited and parliament, in constituting the board, seems to have taken special care that there should not probably be numerous appeals from the decision of the board and that in the main these decisions, once pronounced, should be liable to correction if erroneous only by the board itself, because hon. gentlemen will remember that this board is given a very special power in that regard, that its judgments or decrees are not like those of a court which, when once pronounced are gone from the court and beyond control, but are liable to be altered, and modified from time to time by the; board itself as justice may seem to require. In conferring upon a dissatisfied litigant any right of appeal from this board I fully concede an advantage is given to the rich as against the poor but that, after all, is only the advantage which, in every walk of life, the man of wealth has, by reason of his

wealth, over the man who is without resources. No matter what piece of business a man may desire to enter into, if he is possessed of large means it is a great advantage to him, and I venture to question whether it would be right to take that advantage from him. But, however, that may be, let me remind hon. gentleman that very generally-I do not know that I can pay in the majority of instances-but very generally, at all events, the questions which come before this board are questions between possibly two contending railway companies or between a railway company and some municipal or other corporation and that very likely honours will be evenly divided as far as the possession of ample means to carry on appeals is concerned.
The discussion upon the propriety of the general right of appeal has gone a little afield, because while the Bill proposes certain restrictions upon the exercise of the right of appeal there is no proposal to cut down the existing right of appeal in the three cases-upon a question of fact to the Governor General in Council; upon a question of jurisdiction to the Supreme Court by leave of the court; upon a question of law of the Supreme Court by leave of the board. These three measures of appeal are left untouched, but the Bill proposes three limitations upon the exercise of the right of appeal to the Supreme Court. The most important of the three is that which will provide' that leave to appeal upon a question of law should be given by the board onlv when in the opinion of the board doubtful questions of law are involved and serious injury or loss would result from immediate compliance with the order sought to be appealed from. The law as it stands leaves it to the discretion of the board whether or not they will grant leave to appeal upon a question of law. An appeal lies under the Railway Act as it now stands to the Supreme Court upon any question which in the opinion of the board is a question of law upon leave therefor having been first obtained from the board and the granting of such leave shall be in the discretion of the board. Would there be any object in saying to the board: You must not grant this leave unless the question of law is doubtful. I would suppose that no such body of men as the Railway Board, no men clothed with the powers of a court and the. wide jurisdiction in the matters of railway dispute which is given to this board, *would dream of exercising their judical discretion to permit an appeal upon a question of law unless that question were a doubtful one.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: May I tell the hon. gentleman that not later than last August this board granted leave to appeal in a case where the very terms of their order prevented the point of law arising which the railway sought to appeal on. They put Mr. AYLESWORTH.
a condition .in their order which absolutely made factious the very point of law which the railway asked leave to appeal on, and vet they granted that leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.


Mr. AYLESWORTH.: 1 was going on to say that if this board was to be trusted with the discretion which the present legislation confers uDon them to determine whether or not the case was a proper one for appeal, it would seem to me that it would not advance the object aimed at in the Bill that we should say to the board on the face of a statute: You must not grant this leave unless the case is; doubtful. It goes without saying that unless they feel there is some room for argument and unless they feel there is some point upon which the opinion of the Supreme Court is desired, they will not exercise the discretion the statute vests in them in favour of granting an appeal. I see no special objection to the limitation which is proposed by this Bill', but I would certainly have thought unless some cases have arisen of which I am not aware in which the necessity for this amendment has appeared that there was no need to give any direction to the board as to the .manner in which or the style of cases in which the judicial discretion which is vested in them should be exercised. Generally speakne it certainly is better not to fetter the discretion of a court and to leave that discretion free to be exercised in such cases as the court may think proper. In regard to the other two points in the Bill, just a word. The Bill proposes that an appeal must be taken within two months after 'the decision complained of, and in the second section that unless such an appeal is entered in the Supreme Court within sixty days from the decision complained of, the appeal shall not lie. With great respect I should have thought that provision not necessary because the general practice of the Supreme Court must apply unless some special enactment such as this is substituted for the general practice. Under the Supreme Court Act, by section 69 chap. 139 R. S. C. every appeal to the court must be brought within 60 days unless a special order to the contrary is obtained and provision is made for the obtaining of such a special order. But, as to the general run of appeals unless they are brought within 60 days of the decision complained of the time for appeal has gone and the decision has become by lapse of time perfectly final. It is proDosed to varv that in the case of an appeal from this board, to 30 days. Is there any object in doing so? It is not desirable to have a different period for different, kinds of appeal.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: The hon. gentleman misunderstands. The Bill is that the leave must be applied for within 30 days and

the case must be entered in the Supreme Court within 60 days. The reason for that is that one of the judges of the Supreme Court has expressed a doubt, and has allowed an appeal to be entered, holding that it is not clear that the Supreme Court Act applies to the Railway Act and he invites, us to say so in order to make it clear.


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: I think I am acquainted with the circumstance to which the hon. gentleman refers when he mentions that there may be a doubt in the mind of one of the judges of the Supreme Court, but I do not understand it applies in any degree to the point I am discussing. The point I was at the moment speaking of was the principle of substituting a period of thirty days for the ordinary period of sixty days in regard to this particular kind of appeal. I cannot see any object in that, and I think it is not desirable to have a different period for one class of appeals from that prescribed for another class. The more variety you have in that respect, the more confusion you introduce. On the third point, by which this Bill provides that an appeal from the board shall not lie unless it is entered in the Supreme Court within sixty days from the making of the decision, under the general law as laid down in the Supreme Court Act, notwithstanding the omission to bring the appeal within sixty days, the court appealed from, or any judge of it, may under special circumstances allow an appeal after the prescribed period. Now, that is a very useful provision, and it would not be interfered with by the present Bill if it became law. It would still be competent to a judge of the court appealed from, under section 71 of the Supreme Court Act, to extend the statutory period in a special case under special circumstances ; and unless you repeal that provision of the general Act, or in terms declare that it shall not be applicable to an appeal from the Railway Board, I would think it abundantly clear that it would have such application and that the power to extend the time would still remain. That is a very valuable power. Every practising lawyer knows of many a case in which some slip or accident has occurred, and in which it is desirable to bring an appeal after the prescribed time has gone by. It does not at all follow that it will be permitted; but the power to permit it, under special circumstances, in me way the exercise of that power is now safeguarded by the Supreme Court of Canada, appears to me to be a very valuable power to give to the court. It is in this connection, as I understand it, that the question alluded to is now before the Supreme Court for adjudication. I understand that at the present sitting of the court a case involving that question will come up for consideration and determination, and it will require to be decided by the court, whether or not section 71 of the general Act has application to the decisions of the Railway Board. If the decision given in that case by the Supreme Court does not commend itself, it will be easy enough to amend the statute after such decision is given; but until the court has pronounced on the subject, and until we sea whether or not there is any necessity for special legislation in that regard, my view would be that we had better leave the statute alone.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: If no one else intends to say anything, I wish to say one word in reply.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. gentleman has no right to reply.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I think that under the present rales, as amended three years ago, it is distinctly provided that a member moving the second reading of a Bill has a right to reply.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: Rule 21, subsection 2, says:
A reply shall he allowed to a member who has moved a substantive motion or the second reading of a Bill, but not to any member who has moved an order of the day, not being a second reading of a Bill.


George Perry Graham: I think the reading of the rule would show that the hon. gentleman would be in order in making a reply on the motion for a second reading.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I understood the rule otherwise.


Robert Laird Borden: He is not allowed a reply on an order of the day unless it is the second reading of a Bill; but inasmuch as this is the second reading of a Bill, the hon. member for Lincoln is entitled to make a reply.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I just wish to point out that the hon. gentleman has, I think, misapprehended the effect of my language. I am moving to amend section 56, the section dealing with appeals, by inserting in the fourth line, after the word ' board,' in subsection 3, the words ' within one month after the making of the order or decision sought to be appealed from.' That is, leave must be applied for within thirty days. That in no way conflicts or has anything to do with the sixty days within which the appeal must be made to the Supreme Court. In regard to the other matter which the hon. gentleman mentioned, I wish to point out that we are dealing here, not with ordinary courts. The Supreme Court Act deals with appeals from ordinary courts, in which they protect the litigant against all the consequences of an appeal, in case the decision of the court appealed from is affirmed and it is found that the appeal should never have been entered. This distinction between appeals from ordinary

courts and those from the Railway Board should always be borne in mind.
The Board of Railway Commissioners do not make an order unless the applicant is entitled to remedy or redress at that particular time. But the moment that order is taken to appeal, the board cannot order that any damages be allowed for the delay. Take the case of an ordinary farm crossing, the board decides that it shall be given. Its decision is taken to appeal, ancl the farmer has to wait a year until he gets judgment from the Supreme Court deciding whether the crossing shall be allowed him as a matter of law. In an ordinary suit, on an appeal being taken from the lower court, the plaintiff would be entitled to indemnity for damages during the delay caused by the appeal; but the Board of Railway Commissioners have not the power to make any order to that effect. There is, therefore, the greater necessity for our being careful about allowing appeal. The hon. gentleman has said that he does not see any difference between the words I use in this Bill and those in the statute giving the board discretion to grant an appeal. Well, this has happened. Notwithstanding the board may have no doubt about the law, they still allow appeals simply because they are asked for. We should put a stop to that. We should provide that the board must have doubts before allowing an appeal. Otherwise every case will be open to appeal. The Minister of Justice, although he thinks my Bill is not necessary, is of the opinion that it will do no harm. Consequently he should not object to the House going into committee on it. Then if the language used in the Bill be not the best adapted to express its intentions, the wording can be change'd.
Mr. GRAHAM moved that the Bill be referred to the Committee on Railways and Canals.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I wish simply to state that the same objection applies to this motion as I applied to a similar motion on the previous Bill. However, if the majority of the House insist, this measure will have to go to the Railway Committee, where I hope it will be discussed without delay and sent back to this House.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It seems to me that in this particular instance the House would be a better tribunal than the Railway Committee. We have here a number of eminent lawyers on both sides well fitted to deal with a question of this kind. I do not think that the argument advanced by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Aylesworth) is one that will appeal to the common people. Speaking of the advantage which a railway corporation has against an ordinary individual, he said it was only the advantage which the rich have against the poor, and we ought not to deprive the rich of Mr. LANCASTER.
that right. Well, in my opinion, parliament should apply itself to carrying out the principle of protecting as far as possible the weak and helpless. That was one of the reasons which induced parliament to create this Board of Railway Commissioners. The contention was made in its behalf that poor people, who are not able to prosecute a case from court to court, should be given access to a tribunal where they could obtain their rights at a minimum of a cost. That was one of the strong grounds for appointing a Railway Commission. The hon. minister said that, as a matter of law, he regarded the right to appeal as a sacred one, and that was why we established the Supreme Court. Well, I remember that when an effort was made to abolish the Supreme Court, the strongest argument then used in support of that effort was that the establishment of the court, instead of limiting the number of appeals, had increased them. It was thought that when we had a Supreme Court there would be scarcely any appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, but experience has not proved that to be the case. Even Mr. Blake himself said he was rather disappointed in the Supreme Court. The Right Hon. Sir John Macdonald pleaded for the continuance of that court on the ground that it had not been tried long enough to give sufficient evidence of its value. Let us try it longer, he said, and if the people continue to be of the opinion that it is not as valuable as they expected, then will be time enough to abolish it. Since then no one has moved to abolish it, but it would have taken very little then to induce this House to abolish that court, if it had the power to do so. The consensus of the opinion of parliament then was really against the usefulness of that court; and the chief reason for that opinion was that it simply gave another appeal and another disadvantage to litigants who could not afford to carry a case from court to court until they could get a final verdict.


George Perry Graham: I move that this Bill be referred to the Railway Committee for the sole purpose of getting a better understanding of the measure. However interesting the discussion in this House may be, I think we could get at the kernel of the matter much better at close range in committee or in a subcommittee and work out the best results. What my hon. friend from Grey expected would be the result, has been the result of the establishment of the Board of Railway Commissioners. That board was appointed to give a ready and quick road to justice in the smaller cases as well as larger ones. As a matter of fact thousands of ordinary cases have been disposed of almost without a formal hearing and the parties have been satisfied. Larger cases

have been dealt with to the general satisfaction all over the country, and there have been very few appeals from the findings of this board.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Has an appeal been allowed recently that it was generally expected would not be allowed?


George Perry Graham: There must be a discretionary power somewhere, and merely because some person did not expect there would be an appeal, we are surely not called on to amend the law. One can easily imagine cases where an appeal ought to be allowed, but the right of appeal has been so safeguarded that as a matter of fact we have had very few appeals. I do not think we have had an appeal in cases where the poor are on one side and the rich on the other. The appeal just referred to is an appeal of a province against the Grand Trunk Railway Company. These are not poor people, they are two very wealthy corporations, one on each side, contending as to the right of the board to give an order for a station.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: But by the same reasoning there would toe a right of appeal in the case of poor persons.


George Perry Graham: That is where the discretion of good, sensible men like the chairman and members of the Board of Railway Commission comes in. The present board have so exercised their discretion that no injustice has been done to any one.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: They are granting a great many appeals.


George Perry Graham: It is a question of opinion, and I prefer to take the opinion of the Board of Railway Commissioners. An appeal lies to the Supreme Court under only two conditions, first toy consent of the Supreme Court itself. The judges of that court, the highest court in the land, surely have some discretion as to when an appeal ought to lie. The second case is when leave to appeal is granted by the Board of Rail-way Commissioners, and they would grant an appeal only when they had some doubt as to a decision which had been rendered. There is also an appeal to the Governor in Council, but in my time there has not been a 'single appeal from the Board of Commissioners to the Governor in Council.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Neither party seems to respect that court.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend now seems to think it would be a token of respect if there were a lot of appeals to somebody. A moment ago he was arguing against appeals. I point out that the result of the action of the Board of Railway Commissioners has been that the number of appeals has
been practically nil, and the good accomplished toy that board is acknowledged by every one. It is recognized that they afford justice to all people in small and large things. The only appeal that has even been suggested in my time to the Governor in Council and it never got there-was the appeal of a railway company against a decision which it thought was in favour of another railway company, and the appeals that will be made will be largely in cases of dispute between railway companies themselves as to the right or priority of possession of certain pieces of right of way which would involve the question of payment of the cost of crossings, terminal rights, &c. There should be some right of appeal when these large companies clash, and the board is called on to give a decision. However, we want to get the very best result we can from this Board of Railway Commissioners. We have 'been getting excellent results. I have moved that this Bill be referred to the Railway Committee so that we can discuss it at close range, and if there is merit in the Bill thresh it out and get what there is in it.


Mr. HENDERSON.: It seems to me that the Minister of Railways and the Minister of Justice have simply been beating the air, getting as far away from the question as possible. This court is said to be a layman's court. The whole procedure should be as simple as possible so that the simple layman could understand it. What does the farmer or business -man know about references to the Supreme Court or the Governor in Council or the time that should be allowed for such references? They know nothing about it, they do not pretend to read up the law in regard to these matters. If an ordinary layman obtains a judgment from the Board of Railway Commissioners favourable to himself, he -does not want to remain in suspense five or ten years without knowing whether that judgment can be attacked or not. This Bill simply provides that after thirty days no appeal shall lie, so that the ordinary layman would know, having obtained a judgment of that board, that that judgment could not toe attacked for any reason after the expiration of thirty days. Surely that is a fair and proper position and one which will add to the usefulness of the board's decisions. I fail to see why there should be any opposition to this Bill; it does not abolish the right of appeal, it simply limits the time in which an appeal shall lie to a reasonable period. Any one feeling aggrieved by a judgment of the board should know within thirty days that he had not received justice. I think the Bill is a very proper one, and I fail to- see any reason for sending it to the Railway Committee. Sometimes we say, and I am
**67

not going to impugn the motives of the Minister of Railways in making this motion-that Bills are sent to the Railway Committee for the purpose of being slaughtered. I do not think that is his intention. He has stated his intention, and I must give him credit for being perfectly fair in the matter. The Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Finance or the Minister^ of Railways in introducing a Bill dealing with matters connected with his department, does not think of sending that Bill to one of the committees of this House. This seems to be a new departure, and there must be something behind it. I think that the old procedure is the better one. There is no reason, to my mind, why this parliament should go beyond this House for aid in this matter. If there is, then it should be plainly stated, and the House should be convinced that its jurisdiction is not sufficient, that somebody else must be called in to give advice to parliament on the simple matter of what a layman's rights are in this court, whether they are to be clear, or whether they are to remain uncertain for ten, twenty or thirty years, and that he is always to stand in jeopardy of what might be sprung upon him some day without notice. I hope the House will consent to deal with the Bill at once, to put it through committee, if it is believed to be a fair Bill, and give the laymen of this country that protection to which they are entitled, without any technical attempt being made to destroy the legislation which the hon. gentleman is trying to get passed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. LANCASTER moved the second reading of Bill (No. 4) to amend the Railway Act, he said: This Bill, as I explained, on the first reading, is to correct what I think is a manifest injustice arising out of the amendments made to the Railway Act last year. When I was introducing the Bill I understood the Minister of Railways to say that he considered it an interference with the principle that had been adopted by this House last session in regard to his amendments. I wish to say that I think the hon. gentleman misapprehends the Bill entirely, though it may have been my fault in not sufficiently explaining the Bill. I understood the hon. gentleman then to say that I was violating the principle which he had got the House to adopt last year, namely, that there should be a contribution from the railways, the municipalities and the Dominion government to protect all crossings where highways are crossed by railways. But the section which I propose to amend here does not deal with that, but with the exceptions the hon. gentleman put through the House last session in regard to that matter. The section I propose to amend is Mr. HENDERSON.
the very opposite of what the hon. gentleman had in his mind when I introduced the Bill. I will read the legislation passed by this House last year on this question, which is to be found in chapter 32 of the Acts of last session.
238a. In any case where a railway is constructed after the passing of this Act, the company shall, at its own cost and expense (unless and except as otherwise provided by agreement, approved of by the board, between the company and a municipal or other corporation or person), provide, subject to the order of the board, all protection, safety and convenience for the public in respect of any crossing of a highway by the railway.
That is the section of the Act I am amending, and that section puts the whole cost upon the railway if it is a railway that is constructed after the passing of that Act. ' The Bill is now printed, and by it I am seeking to amend that section by adding these words:
And where the railway has been constructed before the passing of this Act,
[Stage Direction]
The converse of the case put by the hon. gentleman in his section last session.
-and is permitted by the board to pass over any highway crossing at rail level, the municipality shall not be ordered to pay any portion of the cost or expense of protecting such crossing unless and except it is otherwise provided by agreement, approved of by the board, between the company and the municipal corporation.
As the law stands to-day, a railway that is incorporated since last session has to bear the whole expense of protecting these crossings, no matter how well they may protect it, no matter what they may do in the shape of bridging or subterranean passages, no matter what works the board may order them to do, no matter how ideal the protection may be which they afford, they have to pay the whole expense if their railway was constructed after the passing of this Act of last session. Now, I am not saying that it is not always right to discriminate between railways, but we are certainly making a great discrimination here. We are saying that any railway that wishes to come into competition with the railways that were in operation last session shall have it up against them to bear the enormous expense of protecting a crossing, an expense to which neither the Dominion nor the municipality contributes, and no matter how good a protection they may afford. That is further than I would have gone, although I have been accused of being a radical in these matters. I would not have said that any corporation must do something that other rail-ways constructed before it did not have to do. That is a discrimination against the later railway, and is calculated to discourage the construction of competing railways. But

when we say that railways which are constructed since the passing of the Act of last session must, no matter what ideal condition they may create for the perfect safety of the people, pay all the expenses of such protection, and that the hoard has no power to apportion those expenses upon anybody else, we should at least say that where these old railways which are using the King's highway refuse to create the ideal condition which the board might order them to create, or object to doing so, in that case we should at least say that no portion of such protection as the board finds necessary over a dangerous crossing, should be borne by the municipality. I never could see why they should. The 'board will order such contribution if we put the principle up to them, they will not order it if we say that the proper principle prevents them from doing so. Now, what should we do? I think that when we find the board going wrong wre should step in and set them right. We are here to see that the Board of Railway Commissioners does what we think the people want them to do, and that they properly administer the affairs that we send to them to be administered.
The board holds as a matter of course, that the municipality shall always contribute. They are entitled to hold that. I am not finding fault with their power. If they choose to do so, they have the power to so hold unless you say, as a parliament, that there must be a distinction made. The Minister of Railways and Canals made the distinction last session in the law which I am now seeking to amend and he said that the board shall not be allowed to put upon the municipal or the Dominion fund, which was created for the purpose, any portion of the expense for protecting any highway from danger by a railway if the railway was not constructed before last year. But, these are not the railways that we are dealing with They do not exist. They are not killing peo-T.de because they are not being operated. They are only in people's minds at the present time. There is no harm being done by them. They have not been constructed yet and they are unable to hurt anybody because they do not exist. But, we have before us the condition of affairs in which the railways that were constructed before last session of this parliament continue to kill people upon highway crossings where the highway and the railway track are upon the same level, and you cannot go upon the highway without running the risk of being hit by a train. Who creates the danger? What principle are you going to go by? There is the danger in running across the King's highway. They are persisting in running their trains across the highway instead of protecting the crossing, persisting in saying that they do not think it fair to
require them to erect overhead or underground structures so that they cannot hit anybody because it will cost a lot of money and persisting in saying that they are going to run across the highway and create the danger rather than incur the expense which the commission may think they ought to incur in creating a better condition. The first question that we must ask is: Who creates the danger? It is the railway. I have heard it said-I never heard the Railway Commission decide it myself-but I have heard it said that the Railway Commissioners have said that they think that the public should help to protect these crossings because the public helned to create the danger. If that is the position of the Railway Commission, I think that parliament should condemn it. It is said that if a man owning a piece of property which the railway company did not expropriate erects a building upon that land which obscures the view of the railway he is doing something to create a danger and that therefore he and the municipality in which he lives should contribute towards the protection oi the crossing. He has a perfect right to build upon his own land. The fact that the railway runs near it is no reason why he should not build upon that land if he wants to. I understand the commission holds that because he does construct that building which may obscure a view of the railway he and the municipality should contribute towards the protection of the crossing. That is confiscation. We have heard hon. gentlemen on behalf of the railway companies in this House-hon. gentlemen who might be trying to do their duty in the public interest-speaking of confiscation. Might not this be said to be confiscation of a private owner's property? You are putting a limitation upon his right of ownership. The railways say to him: If you erect a building upon your own land near the railway track which may obscure a view of the train coming down to this level crossing, you are helping us to create a dangerous condition there and, although we are the ones who run the trains and kill the people, you have placed your building so that they cannot see our track or the danger and you must tear your building down or you and the municipality in which you live must pay a tax to create a fund for the purpose of protecting that crossing. These are the special arguments put forward by the railways before the commission, more or less appealing to the commission, but when you scan them vou find that there is no merit in them. The man who owns land outside of railway control has a perfect right to build upon it as much as he would if he were ten miles away, and he should not be prevented from building because he is going to be accused of obscuring the level crossing and the train coming down the
[Stage Direction]
track to it. Now, the danger is entirely created by the railway and the protection should be at their expense as long as they persist in running upon the highway.
There is another question involved here and some fine day somebody, will find it out, at a good deal of expense and disappointment perhaps to those concerned. I do not believe that this House, or, at all events, the government, in passing this legislation last year, gave anything }ike the consideration it shoul'd have had to what their power is to say that municipalities shall pay the cost of protecting the highway crossings assessed by a Dominion board. When had this parliament power to create any board to tax any municipality? Under the British North America Act who does control municipal government? Where did parliament ever get and how has it any vires or right whatever to deal with this question of municipalities protecting highway crossings under the orders of a creature created entirely by the Dominion parliament and having nothing whatever to do with the local legislatures which have the power to tax for municipal purposes? You are asking your board to say that the municipalities must contribute a certain proportion of the cost of protection of their own crossings which costs are to be put upon them by the Board of Railway Commissioners un'der the authority of a Dominion Act of parliament. You will find it some day decided, I am satisfied, that you have no power to do anything of the kind, and if a municipality against whom the board levied laughed in the face of the chairman and said: Go on and let us see, you collect this tax for crossings, the Board of Railway Commissioners could not collect it. They cannot do anything about it. If you bring an action how are you going to collect the tax? Who is going to impose the tax? Who is going to levy the assessment? This Dominion parliament cannot enforce the payment of anything of the sort unless perhaps they brought suit in the Exchequer Court against a municipality and seized a safe or a road roller. They cannot collect damages whatever they might be unless they could find some loose property of that kind that perhaps they might seize upon. You have not the power to levy any taxation upon any municipality for any such purpose and the right of the matter is probably as consistent as the right generally is with regard to technical powers. The reason that you were not given power by the framers of the British North America Act was because of the very great injustice of your attempting to exercise such a right. The municipalities control the highways, the highways are built by the municipalities with the aid of taxation levied by themselves, they are kept in repair for the convenience of the business of the country and if a railway crosses a highway upon a Mr. LANCASTER.
rail level and this Board of Railway Commissioners undertake to say that the municipality must pay a part of the tax it is a matter ultra vires of this parliament and besides that it is unmeritorious and not fair that it should be done.
Thomas Simpson Sproule: The highways belong to the Crown.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: The highways, as the hon. gentleman says, are the property of the Crown and are administered under the provincial legislatures. The provincial legislatures control the highways, they have passed this control on to the municipalities, the Dominion parliament has no power to tax the municipalities for anything done upon the highways and some day they will learn it to their cost. Orders made by the Railway Commission will have to be upset and you will have all sorts of confusion in regard to it.
But, the merits of the matter, outside of the technical question as to whether we are ultra or intra vires in passing such legislation is what appeals to me. Here is a railway constructed since last session trying to get into competition for the good of the country with railways that were constructed before last session and it is required to pay the whole expense. Not only is the municipality not to be charged but the Dominion fund is not to be drawn upon. But the railways which have done the harm, the railways that were constructed before last year, the railways that refused to protect these crossings, if the Board of Railway Commissioners find it necessary to protect them, are to be allowed to pay a portion of the expense only while they are running upon the highway and the municipality is to be ordered to pay part of the expense also. The effect of my proposed legislation is that where they do insist upon running upon the King's highway where they are likely to come in contact with people upon that highway the municipality must not be ordered to pay any portion of the cost. The board shall not have power to order them to unless they agree to it by some agreement which the board may sanction as fair and reasonable. That means that they cannot tax them without their consent. The board can still appropriate part of the Dominion fund to assist the railway, but they must keep their hands off the municipalities so long as the highways are being used by the railways for their own purposes. I move the second reading.


Haughton Lennox: This is a very important and a somewhat large question, but as I discussed the matter fully last session, and as when certain statistics I have asked for are brought down I shall direct my attention to it again, I do not purpose going very fully in to the question now. I entirely agree with the object my hon. friend

(Mr. Lancaster) has in view and with the principle that underlies his Bill, and I want to add that the only objection I have to his Bill is that it does not go far enough.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Take what you can get.	-


Haughton Lennox: It is well enough to take what we can get, but I have not very much faith that we will get anything this session, I prophesy, however, that sooner or later the minister will have to adopt the principle which this Bill propounds. What I contended last session and what I repeat this session is, that wherever a railway sees fit-whether it is a new railway or an old railway-to occupy a highway, then there should be no public contribution for protection. If the railway will increase the public safety by separating its line from the highway then I am in favour, under certain circumstances, of making contribution at the public expense. But in absolutely no case-whether it is the case of an existing railway or a new railway- am L in favour of giving one dollar out of the funds of the Dominion, and much less out of the funds of the municipalities, towards the construction of safety appliances so long as the railway endangers the public safety by occupying the public highway. The legislation passed by the minister last session was a step in the right direction and a fairly good step, but I then called his attention to the fact and that he should limit the assistance to cases in which the separation of the railway grade from the highway is effected. At first we understood that the minister would adopt that suggestion. Afterwards it was intimated that, at the suggestion of the chairman of the railway board, the minister concluded that he would allow the public funds to be diverted not only in the case of separation of highwavs from railways, but in the case of the erection of simple appliances such as gates, or bells, or other devices which afforded some remedy but not an adequate one. If the minister had confined the contribution of the public money to cases in which the railway company agreed to absolutely separate the railway from the highway then a great benefit to the public would have accrued and we would have had an incentive to the railway companies to pursue that course; but as it is, the public funds are contributed to the railway when they agree to erect some temporary appliance which does not afford a complete	remedy, and against	tha+ 1protest.	I	have	great pleasure	in supporting	the	Bill	introduced by	my hon.friend,	and I	hope it will	not be
very long before we will have legislation which will have the effect of saving not only the municipalities from having to contribute but which will prevent any contribution of any public moneys, to any purpose other than the separation of grades. There is absolutely no justification for contributing one dollar of the public funds, whether of the municipality or of the Dominion government, unless the railway separates the grades and thus for ever removes the danger to the public. I have asked certain information to be brought down on this matter. It is a question which will bear discussion from time to time. I am glad that my hon. friend (Mr. Lancaster) with his usual energy and his great interest in questions which are for the benefit of the public has brought the matter forward. I hope he shall pursue his course until we at last attain to better conditions with regard to the crossings of highways by railways. '


George Perry Graham: There are hundreds of railway crossings in Canada the separation of which from the level is impracticable, and in respect to which the public can be well protected by a gate or some other device. And, if the public is protected then the object we all have in view is attained and there is no need for discussing technicalities. My hon. friend (Mr. Lancaster) forgets that the chief expense is not in the construction of a gate but in its maintenance afterwards, and no part of the government fund goes towards that maintenance.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: But the municipality has to pay.


George Perry Graham: I should think that if our object is the protection of the public then so long as the public are protected it makes no difference how that end is attained whether it is by the erection of a gate, or of a subway or of an overhead crossing. Now, the innocent way in which my hon. friend (Mr. Lancaster) words his clause will compel me to read this subsection to the House: He told us that he was amending subsection 238A, but it would occur to me as a layman that in amending 238A my hon. friend is amending the whole legislation of last session, although if one had not the Act before him his Bill would not appear to mean so much as it really does. Now let me read subsection of 238A, and apply it to the Bill:	.
Notwithstanding anything in this Act, the board may, subject to the provisions of sec. 238a, &c.
When you amend sec. 238a, you amend the whole power of the board.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: That is what I intend.


George Perry Graham: This interferes with the principle of the Act passed last year. At that time we had a good deal of discussion on the question of why the municipalities or the government should participate at all. I could argue as strongly against the government participating as my hon. friend does against the municipalities participat-

ing. The argument, which has prevailed in the various states of the union, which prevailed in this House last year, and against which I have not heard one note of objection from a municipality in the province of Ontario, or arfywhere else, was this, that conditions now exist which did not exist in the early days of railway building. There must come a time when the line of demarcation must be drawn between existing roads and roads which are to come into existence. That line we drew last year, and the argument for it was this. In the early days of railway building, every municipality was so anxious to have a railway that it was willing to give railways level crossings wherever they liked to have them without restriction, property for stations and terminals and often large bonuses. The country was anxious to have railways, and the crossings were not supervised as they are now. The railway companies were building in a new country and had to do all the experimenting as to whether the lines would pay or not. There were three parties contributing-the railway company itself, the government, in not more closely scrutinizing, and the municipalities, in giving the railway companies any privileges they wanted. These three parties contributed to the establishment of level crossings all over the country. When a measure was proposed for the purpose of getting rid of the danger of level crossings, it was argued that the three parties who had contributed to -tins state of affairs might reasonably be asked to contribute in a proper measure to the removal of the evil. Now, Canada is not alone in that. My hon. friend from South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox), who has given this matter a great deal of attention, knows that in the various states of the union the municipalities are asked to contribute, and to contribute very largely, and the larger municipalities are always prepared to do so.


Haughton Lennox: They have always a fixed rate.


George Perry Graham: The rate fixed by the commission has been very small; but that does not interfere with my argument. The hon. member for Lincoln contends that municipalities should not be asked to contribute at all.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: When the railway runs on the highway.


George Perry Graham: His argument was that municipalities should not be asked to pay at all. I am pointing out that every state in the union that has dealt with this question has asked the municipalities to contribute a certain amount, which is usually specified, but a comparatively small amount; but the principle has been accepted that the municipalities should be asked to contribute something. Now, I am not Mr. GRAHAM.
prepared to argue the legal point, but I have been told by eminent legal gentlemen that although an Act might apparently be beyond the jurisdiction of this parliament, or that of any provincial legislature, anything that is incidental to the enforcing of that Act comes within the jurisdiction of this parliament or of the legislature, as the case may be. My hon. friend from South Lanark (Mr. John Haggart) stated that very clearly last session, giving as his authority the late Sir John Thompson. I have it on fairly good legal authority that the parliament of Canada can enforce against a municipality anything that it can enforce against an individual. But my hon. friend should not raise that point, because, if his argument be sound, he disposed of his apprehensions about our taxing municipalities. If we cannot tax municipalities, then his Bill would not be at all necessary, because we could not get anything out of them.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: Did not the hon. gentleman understand me to say that there were two objections-one the technical and the other the meritorious one. Why does he mix them up?
' Mr. GRAHAM. I have dealt with the meritorious one; now I am dealing with the other. On the meritorious one, I do not think he has any argument on his side at all. On the technical one, there is possibly a difference between legal gentlemen, but I have given the opinion of more than one legal man, including some of my hon. friend's own friends. I say again, if my hon. friend's argument be founded on good logic and good law, then his Bill is not necessary. But that he does not really place much confidence in his own statement of the law is evidenced by the fact that he brings in a Bill to protect the municipalities against a power which he says does not exist. Now, last year we agreed that railways in the future, knowing the Act as it has been placed on the statute-book, ought to be held responsible if the commissioners found that an evil existed. In the city of Ottawa, just a few weeks ago, although the municipality and the railway company did practically agree on a certain level crossing, the commission refused to allow the crossing to be made in the way proposed. It shows the trend of public opinion and the wish of the commission to compel railway companies in the future to be very careful about creating a dangerous condition by means of level crossings. I say that is not injurious to or a discrimination against railways. The railways that have been constructed under the old conditions are now being compelled to suit themselves to the new requirements, and as we have been a party, to a certain extent, to the old conditions, in having al-

lowed them to create those crossings, we are prepared to assist them to a small degree in removing them, but we give them notice that in the future, if they create such crossings, we shall not help them to remedy any evil that may exist in consequence. I do not think that is unfair to the railway companies or to the people. Should we allow this Bill to pass? I say no. We passed the Act of last year after a lot of consideration and debate. Both sides of the House spent hour after hour on it, and we got what we thought was a good Bill, and one which I think would not be improved, but would be injured, by this amendment. We should at least allow the Act which we passed last session to have a chance to go into operation before we begin tinkering with it in one direction or another. Make this amendment this session, and next session we shall have amendments asking for a relief in some contrary direction. I believe that the Act passed last year, if we give it a fair trial, will remove in a measure at least the great evil that exists, and believing that to be the case, I cannot accept this Bill and must ask the House to vote down its second reading.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


George Perry Graham: Mr. Speaker, I overlooked a phase of the question when discussing the Bill before six o'clock. In hundreds of instances the railways were in possession before there was a highway. Under the old Railway Committee of the Privy Council, a very marked distinction was always made in regard to priority of occupation. In a case where a railway had run through a portion of country before a highway was constructed, that fact was always taken into consideration in a decision by the Railway Committee as to the method and apportionment of the cost of a crossing. In order to express what I wish to in reference to[ this Bill, I think the proper procedure would be for my motion to take the form that the Bill be not now read a second time, but be read this day six months, and I 'beg leave to move accordingly.


Mr. STAPLES.: I would like the minister's opinion upon the case of a crossing which originally was a level crossing, but at which the railway, in order to reduce a grade, depressed the track by six or seven feet. In such a case would the municipality be called upon to pay their proportion of the cost of erecting an overhead bridge?


George Perry Graham: That would be a case for the Railway Commission and the facts my hon. friend has adduced would afford) a strong ground for the municipality to ask
exemption from contributing to the cost of such a bridge.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: I do ,'not agree with the Minister of Railways that the conditions to-day are the same as the conditions at the time of which he spoke, years and years ago, when in their anxiety to secure railways the people of Canada were willing to allow them to run on the level of the highway and when many municipalities granted bonuses to secure railways within their borders. Those are by no means the conditions for which we have to legislate to-day. In those days every train stopped at every station and the fastest train did not run 25 miles an hour. The fatalities that occur to-day are caused by the fast through trains running 50 or 60 miles an hour that do not in any way serve the municipalities that are asked to bear the cost of protecting the lives of their people at these deadly level crossings. In the days of which the minister spoke there were no trains of this character, no train passed through a town or village at such a rate of speed that accidents could not easily be avoided at level crossings. There would not be the same objection to the expenditure of this money by the municipalities if the result would be to absolutely safeguard the lives of people within the municipalities by the entire elimination of level crossings. My Bill does not apply to the conditions mentioned by the minister. This Bill applies only so long as the trains continue to run on the King'S highway.
As to the hundreds of instances which the minister has just mentioned, I fancy that is a little bit of imagination too, when he says there were hundreds of cases where the railways were in possession before the highway was constructed. In some large cities new crossings have been opened up, and those are always dealt with as they arise, that is a matter of new construction. But in the great majority of cases where the trouble arises to-day, the highways existed before the railway was built, in villages and towns where the railway stopped, ail'd where they did not have the fast running trains we have to-day and which can hardly avoid killing people. To corroborate that statement you have only to look at the statistics, and you will find that in every case where these accidents have happened, they have occurred by trains running fifty or sixty miles an hour through villages and towns where they did not stop.
House divided on amendment (Mr. Graham).
YEAS:
Messieurs
McIntyre,
McKenzie,
McLean (Huron), McMillan,
Allen,
Aylesworth,
Beauparlant,
Brown,

Bureau,	Major,
Carrier,	Marcile (Bagot),
Cash,	Martin (Montreal,
Champagne,	Ste, Mary's),
Chew,	Martin ftWeilingtc
Chisholm	Mayrand,
(Antigonish),	Michaud,
Congdon,	Miller,
Currie	Molloy,
(Prince Edward),	Murphy,
Delisle,	Nesbitt,
Douglas,	Neely,
Dubeau,	Oliver,
Ecrement,	Papineau,
Fisher,	Parent,
Fortier,	Paterson,
Fowke, ,	Pickup,
Gauvreau,	Proulx,
Geofirion,	Prowse,
Girard, j	Pugsley,
Gladu,	Rankin,
Graham,	Reid (Restigoucbe)
Guthrie,	Richards,
Harty,	Robb,
Hodgins,	Ross (Middlesex),
Knowles, ,	Ro9s (Rimouski),
Kyte,	Rutan,
Lachance,	Savoie,
nanctot . ^aprairie-	Sealey,
Napierville),	Seguin,
Laurier	Smith (Nanaimo),
(Sir Wilfrid),	Smith (Stormont),
Lavergne,	Templeman,
LeBlanc,	Tobin,
Doggie,	Todd,
Lovell,	Tolmie,
Macdonald,	Turcotte (Nicolet),
MacNutt,	Turgeon,
McAllister,	Verville,
McCoig,	Warburton,
McColl,	White (Victoria,
McCraney, McGiverin,	Alta.)-87.
NATS:
Messieurs
Armstrong,	McCall,
Arthurs,	Maddin,
Beattie,	Marshall, ,
Blain,	Middlebro,
Boyce,	Monk,
Bradbury,	Nantel,
Broder,	Northrup,
Burrell,	Perley,
Campbell,	Price,
Chisholm (Huron),	Reid (Grenville),
Clare,	Roche,
Cowan,	Russell,
Crocket,	Schaffner,
Brothers,	Sexsmith
Currie (Simooe),	Sharpe (Lisgar),
Donnelly,	Sharpe (Ontario),
Edwards,	Sproule,
Elson,	Stanfield,
Fraser,	Staples,
Goodeve,	Stewart,
Baggart (Winnipeg),	Taylor (New West-
Henderson,	minster),
Herron,	Thornton,
Jameson,	Wallace,
Kidd,	White (Renfrew),
Lake, ,	W ilson (Lennox &
Lancaster,	Addington).-53.
Lennox,


Edward Arthur Lancaster: PAIRS:
Messieurs
Ministerial.	Opposition.
Low,	Smyth,
Clark (Red Deer),	Barnard,
Black, t	Crosby,
Stratton,	Gordon (Nipissing),
Rivet,	Doherty,
Belaud,	Hughes,
King,	Borden,
Brodeur,	Foster,


Borden Sir.   F.@: Haggart (Lanark),
Clarke (Essex),	MacLean (York),
Chisholm (Inverness),	Macdonell, _
Fielding,	Osier,
Lemieux,	Barker,
Conmee,	Porter, i
Harris,	McCarthy,
Gordon (Kent),	Wright,
Bickerdike,	Ames,
Emmerson,	Daniel,
Hunt,	Worthington,
German, ,	Bristol,
Ethier, |	Lortie,
Lapointe,	Paquet,
Gervais,	Forget,
Law,	Lalor, ,
Schell,	Owen,
Turriff,	Lewis,
Wilson (Laval),	Thorburn,
Sifton,	Magrath,
Devlin, ,	Blondin,
Carvell,	Rhodes,
Martin (Regina),	Meighen,
Pardee, ; .	Taylor (Leeds).
Motion, as amended, agreed to.



[Stage Direction]
Mr. NORTHRUP moved the seoond read-inf of Bill (No. 5) to amend the Railway Act.
George Perry Graham: I think this is the same Bill that received the attention of the House some few years ago and was rejected. It was on the Order Paper last year, but, if I remember correctly, it was not reached. This Bill proposes an amendment to the present Railway Act, not so much, as I understand, to meet general cases as to meet a specific case. I do not care to go into the details as the House has heard the argument time and again from the hon. member for East Hastings (Mr. Northrup) as to a contract that was made some years ago between the railway company in the county of Hastings which he contends was never carried out by the company. Instead, the railway was transferred to another company. If I remember my hon. friend correctly, speaking last year, he said that a certain amount of money, paid by the late Conservative government, was caused to be paid through error and accepted fraudulently by the company. This Bill, if I understand it, is intended to be retroactive, to give the commission power to deal with the whole matter which had its

origin nineteen or twenty years ago. The matter was thoroughly discussed on a previous occasion. I do not care to detain the House, but I do not think that the government can see its way clear to accept the Bill, and as sending it to the committee will only be postponing the evil day, I beg to .move in amendment that the Bill be not [DOT] now read the second time but that it be read the second time this day six months.


Mr. NORTHRUP.: Mr. Speaker, the only regret I have is that this Bill, which I have introduced, will not come into operation within the next few months because it certainly must come into .operation after the next session of this House for there is no other point to which the minister can move but that one, he having been on every side of the compass with that exception. The minister objects to this Bill on what he regards as sufficient grounds. The first ground is that the Bill has already been rejected by this House. If this Bill had been rejected by the House that might be an argument, though certainly not a conclusive argument, against the present motion but, unfortunately, the minister is wrong. I am obliged, speaking in the parliamentary sense, to accept his statement, but I can assure you that it was the greatest surprise of my life to learn that this Bill had been rejected by this House, because it certainly was not my Bill, it was not during the time I was in the House that the Bill was rejected and therefore I cannot help having some kind of suspicion that the minister, when he gave that as a reason for not allowing this Bill to pass, was not stating the reason that was, at all events, uppermost in his mind. Then there was another reason, and that was that this Bill was introduced to meet a particular case. The minister is just as accurate in that statement as he was in the preceding one and not one bit more so. But it does seem rather an insult to a member of this House, when he introduces a Bill that he believes to be in the interests of the country, that a minister will deliberately oppose that Bill and give two reasons for the throwing out of that Bill on the strength of which two reasons there is not the slightest doubt in the world that this intelligent "body will throw that Bill out, and yet there is not the slightest shadow of a ground of excuse for either of the reasons he gave. One would hardly believe it possible that there could be such ingratitude in this world. I remember a time, only a couple of years ago, when this very same matter was brought by myself before the House, and at that time the hon. the Minister of Railways and Canals, the same gentleman who to-day fills the position and moves so sensibly and on such meritorious .grounds that this Bill should be thrown out, almost with 16
tears in his eyes, regretted the lamentable state of .affairs that existed and declared that he was looking for a remedy therefor. Let me tell the House what the minister thought of this same Bill two or three years ago when the Bill was first brought in and when, whatever may have occurred since, there had been no opportunity for any railway corporation to influence, the minister or express its opinion in regard to this Bill. In those early days, when perhaps the minister's conscience was more sensitive, as he had been in office but a short time, speaking of this very measure, the minister thus expressed himself. I had laid before the House the grounds upon which I complained that the people of this country were suffering .a grievance. The minister says that it is not necessary to repeat all the details, and I will not weary the House by repeating the full details of the story I told, but the .story I told was of the manner in which this country had been robbed of $21,000 .by a railway .corporation, and after I had pointed out that the case was not met by existing law and asked if there was no remedy, the minister spoke of this lamentable state of affairs and said:
We are anxious to find a remedy so that this will not occur again. The people have a grievance not only on account of the subsidies voted by this House, but on account of the votes by municipalities throughout Ontario and in other jn-ovinces. . . There is a weakness in the law somewhere that ought to be remedied, and I assure the House that I am trying to find out the method to remedy this grievance. If possible I shall have something further to say a little later on so that the Railway Commission or some authority may be given power to deal with such cases and compel companies to carry out their contracts with the people of Canada. . . I will say further that I will not be satisfied until I do find some way. I do not believe that a railway company lias a right to take the money of the people of Canada and then not carry out its contract any more than it would have a right to take my money and not carry out a contract entered into with me.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: That was not this Minister oi Railways.


William Barton Northrup: 'Twas he. As I said a few moments ago about another matter, does it not almost seem to be .a farce for hon. members of this House to waste their time preparing legislation in order to assist a minister to relieve himself of anxiety that is wearing him out and bringing him perhaps to an early grave through worry? And, when I found a reme'dy for him last year, the House did not reject the Bill but when it came up the first time it could not be moved because it had not been printed in both languages, and another unfortunate Bill was ahead of it-whether it was that Bill the government did not wish to



have read or my Bill I know not-but at all events no further opportunity of calling the attention of the House to the merits of this Bill was given. So Sir, I say that practically at the request of the Minister of of Railways I introduce this measure, because, when he informed this House that there was a grievance, that this grievance ought to be reme'died and that he would not rest until he had found a remedy, I felt I was conferring a favour on the hon. gentleman when, in discharging my duty to my constituents and the people of this country I offered him a remedy which he himself was not able to discover. If we find the minister speaking the truth, as of course he did speak the truth when he admitted there was a grievance; if we find the minister speaking the truth in all conscientiousness which of course he did when he said he desired to find a remedy; and if we find him speaking the truth, as I admit he did when he declared he would not rest until he found a remedy, then when the remedy is offered and the minister declines to accept it, what are we to think? This House has heard the objections made to the present measure but not one word dropped from the lips of the minister to show that the Bill [DOT]did not meet the desire of his heart to furnish him with the remedy he sought. But, merely, because, first, it had been rejected which it had not, and secondly, because it is to meet an isolated case which it is not, he asked the House to reject the Bill. The minister can hardly be surprised to find that I and other members of this House have their strong suspicions that there is some other reason actuating the minister, than the two most unfounded reasons which he has given to the House. Now Sir, what other reasons can possibly exist? The minister says this is an isolated case and therefore, possibly because I happen to sit on the opposite of the House from him, he thinks my constituents are not entitled to redress. But there sits on my left the member for Missisquoi (Mr. Meigs) a more faithful supporter of the government than whom does not sit in this House and he requested me to push the Bill because in his constituency there are some cases precisely similar to the one in my own constituency. An hon. gentleman sits behind the minister, the gentleman from the county of Perth who, whether or not he himself is aware of the fact, his predecessor was aware of it and was prepared to assist me in carrying this Bill because in the county of Perth there arc illustrations precisely similar to the one in the county of Hastings. Other members of this House have in their own constituencies precisely similar conditions, and therefore when the minister objects to this legislation on the ground that it is only to meet an isolated ease there is no Mr. NORTHRUP
more reason for that excuse than there is for the others he gave. Is it possible that in the parliament of Canada in the twentieth century a minister would dare occupy a seat in this House, and without denying the facts in this case refuse to remedy the grievance? These facts are that the Crown had been robbed of $21,000 by a railway company which made an application for it to the Crown under the name of another company which did not exist; that it obtained a cheque from the government payable to the order of a railway company that ha'd ceased to exist years before; that it endorsed that cheque in the name of a company which had no longer any existence and deposited that cheque to its own credit in the bank and was wrongfully the beneficiary of over $21,000 of the money of the people of this country; that a contract was entered into in the name of a non-existant company by one of the great corporations of Canada to-day; that that contract expressly recited and agreed that the recipient of the money, the bogus nonexisting company was to continuously and perpetually operate this line of railway seven miles only in length, would it be believed that in the face of these facts and when it is pointed out that unfortunately under the wording of the Railway Act no relief lies at present, because that great corporation if it was brought into court would say that it did not make the contract and that the company that did make the contract does not exist, any more than it did when the money was paid over in its name; would it be believed that when under these circumstances I ask the government to 'do something to recover for the people of this country the $21,000 which have been most improperly taken from their pockets, the minister while admitting this state of affairs, while regretting the scandal that the law should be as it is, while declaring in this House that he deplored that state of affairs and never would rest until he found a remedy, now deliberately stands before this House and refuses to accept the remedy which is offered to him, and refuses on grounds which I 'do not think he would venture to state before me on a public platform in the county of Hastings where I could use language that the rules of this House unhappily prevent me from using here. Now, it has been said by the minister that this legislation is only to meet a state of affairs that arose in the past, that it is ex post facto legislation. Why, Sir, when the very board to which I wish to appeal was created, was there a single solitary shred of jurisdiction given to that Railway Board which did not stand on exactly the same footing that this case stands on which I to-day wish to bring before the board.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: They are dealing with retroactive matters all the time.


William Barton Northrup: Certainly, they all stand on the same footing. There was no Railway Board until the Act created it and gave it jurisdiction to deal with matters that had occurred up to that time as well as with matters that might occur in the future. And when, unhappily, it was found from time to time, as it has been found in many cases, that the Act constituting the Railway Board unfortunately did not go far enough and that a grievance had arisen for which there was no remedy, the government itself, led by my hon. friend the Minister of Railways, has come to ihis House again and again and again and amended the Railway Act to give to the Railway Commissioners the power that they thought was necessary to do justice to the people of this country. And, when to-day, I ask him to do precisely what has been done again and again and again; when I ask him to give to the board power

not to compel them to take any steps but merely to give jurisdiction to the board-that when certain facts are brought before them, the fact that the people have been deprived of their money and the contract not carried out, that the board may have jurisdiction to make such orders as may seem reasonable in the premises. I do not even provide that if the matter is brought before the board they must make any particular order. I merely ask that in such a case the board may give such an order as is reasonable in the premises. The hon. minister has so little confidence in his own board, or so little confidence in the honesty of the people he is defending, that he is not willing to allow this matter to come before the board and give them jurisdiction to make such an order as they may think reasonable and fair. Now, I would like the minister to be honest in this respect and to tell me which it is he distrusts: the honesty of those-I can hardly call them his clients -the honesty of those recipients of the $21,000 whom he is protecting, or the integrity of the broad which he will not trust with such a matter as this. There is no escape from the dilemma. The hon. gentleman admits the grievance. He has declared it publicly on the floor of this House and therefore he cannot deny it. He has declared that a grievance existed and he wished to find a remedy for it, and now when a remedy is offered he Tefuses to accept it.


George Perry Graham: Will the hon. gentleman allow me? He has repeated that so often that he may possibly come himself to believe that it is founded on fact. If he will just read carefully the wording of my 16i
language which he himself has read, he will see that my observations were addressed to a remedy for future cases which might arise.
He had described this case as he has to-night, only at more length. I fear the hon. gentleman is not quoting exactly what I said, but if the hon. gentleman consults 'Hansard5, he will find that at that time there was a division taken and that my contention was upheld on practically the same Bill which he has before the House to-night. I was speaking in general terms and for the future, while my hon. friend tries to make out that 1 was discussing his own case.


William Barton Northrup: I do not wish to have any question of veracity between the hon. gentleman and myself. I asked a question in the House the other day as to the accuracy of these words, which were taken from 'Hansard5, copied by myself; and even at the risk of being charged by the hon. gentleman with repeating the words once more, I will read from 'Hansard5 exactly what he said. While the hon. gentleman the other day, in answering my question, said very astutely that the sentences were taken from different j^arts of his speech, which was perfecly true, yet it is also true that there is in the context, not one word to modify the statement made by the hon. gentleman at that time. In fact, so eloquent and convincing was the hon. gentleman that his leader assented, and said there was a grievance that should be remedied. Therefore I thought the remedy was at hand. That there may be no doubt as to what the hon. gentleman did say, I will read his exact words, as found in 'Hansard5 'of 1907-8, at pages 2815 and 2816:
We are anxious to find a remedy so that this will not occur again. The people have a grievance not only on account of the subsidies voted by this House, but on account of the votes by municipalities throughout Ontario and in other provinces.
There is a weakness in the law somewhere that ought to be remedied, and I assure the House that I am trying to find out the method to remedy this grievance.
1 will say further that I will not be satisfied until I do find some way. I do not believe a company has a right to take the money of the people of Canada and then not carry out its contract any more than it would have a right to take my money and not carry out a contract entered into with me.
Does the hon. gentleman think to night that a railway company has the right to use the name .of a non-existing railway company to obtain( $21,000 of the money of the people of Canada, to execute a contract in the name of a non-existing railway company, to get the money, to endorse a cheque in the name of a non-existing railway company, and deposit it in a

bank to its own credit, and then decline to carry out one of the conditions under which the money was paid? Does the hon. gentleman think that he and his colleagues have no responsibility to the .people of Canada in a case of this kind? Has the day come when the principle can be laid down, probably to be quoted as a precedent in other cases, that if once money can be filched from the public treasury and be placed in the pocket of any one not entitled to it, although you may prove that the money was improperly obtained, and although you may show the very pocket in which it still rests, nothing can be done by this House, because the muney Having beeii obtained, it would not be fair to pass ex post facto legislation, and make the recipient pay the money back, but we will see that in future no one catches us in the same way? Is that to be the highest type of political foresight that we are to find in this House? Now, I do not wish to occupy the time of the House, because I assume that, the government having committed themselves against the Bill, it will not pass. I am perfectly willing, if they insist,^ that the Bill will be thrown out, on a division without taking time to call in the members and have the vote recorded-but at all events, I will insist on this, that it the Bill is not accepted by the government every year that I occupy a seat in "Hs Hcmse, i will make them vote as they did last year, and as they apparently intend vote to-night, that it is not right to give the Railway Commission an opportunity to mi?-? railway company pay back money ^ ls admitted it improperly received. . e government and their supporters are satisfied with this public exhibition of the ideas entertained by this government of the standard of right and wrong that should prevail with regard to the handling of public funds I can only hope that the day is not far distant when the people of this country, estimating these hon. gentlemen at their true value, will place in office gentlemen from this side of the House who, whatever their faults, will not fail in this respect, but null be prepared to stand up not for the rights of a defaulting corporation but for the rights of the people of this country.


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: 
William Barton Northrup: What railways is the hon. minister talking about as having been fused at all?


Allen Bristol Aylesworth: The various amalgamations as detailed in the debates of the House the session before last. There were several pieces of legislation which the hon. gentleman himself narrated and which appear in ' Hansard.' If I recollect correctly, the Belleville and North Hastings Railway Company was originally fused with the Grand Junction Company. Thus a company was formed which fused with the Midland railway. Then immediately afterwards that new company was fused with the Grand Trunk Railway Company. So just as the first two fused companies represented both the Belleville and North Hastings Company and the Grand Junction Company, the new company formed when the Midland was fused with that first one, represented the three companies which had gone into the amalgamation together, and the Grand Trunk Railway Company, which existed after the final piece of legislation, represented all four. The provincial legislature was careful, by the Acts which effected these; fusions to provide that the liabilities, debts and obligations of each of the companies, dealt with and formed into one, were to be carried on as liabilities, debts' and obligations of the new cmpany. Therefore I am quite unable to understand on what principle it is my hon. friend continually represents the company which had earned this subsidy as one which had no existence at the time the money was paid it. I would have thought that my hon. friend, as a lawyer, if he had been advising the government of 1888 and had been told by that government that there was a certain railway company which had earned its subsidy and was entitled to the money, but that the government were a little uncertain how they should make out the cheque for that subsidy and wanted his advice-I would have thought that he would have advised the government to make their check payable to the company with which they had a contract and which had done the work and earned the money and presented its certificate showing that it was
entitled to be paid. My hon. friend says that the,payment was a fraud on the public, that the money was filched from the treasury. All I can say is that the company to which the cheque was payable received the money, as shown by its endorsement of the cheque, I am speaking of facts which my hon. friend himself put before the House the session before last. The cheque shows the endorsement by the payees, the properly constituted officials of this very company, but the endorsement upon the cheque was for deposit to the credit of the Grand Trunk railway, and my hon. friend says that makes it all wrong. I remember two years ago asking my hon friend to explain what would have been the difference if this company, having earned the money, had, instead, of a cheque, received the money in current coin of the realm and handed that coin over to the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and I have never heard any explanation of what wrong there would have been in that. The money was earned, the company had complied with the conditions of the statute governing the subsidy, there was nothing in the statute about operating the railway, and I am unable to see what difference it would make whether the company paid the money to the Grand Trunk railway or deposited it in the bank to its own; credit or threw it into* Lake Ontario.
My hon. friend says there has been great wrong done the people of his county because that line has not been operated during the last twenty-one years, and he presented that circumstance as a grievance when addressing the House on the subject two years ago. The Minister of Railways then told the House that if a repetition of such a state of things, as my hon. friend from Hastings had described, could be prevented, if there was any way of preventing it, he would take that way. The extracts which the hon. gentleman made from the remarks on that date of the Minister of( Railways, as pointed out in the answer given the other day to the interrogatories on the subject, were not continuous extracts. Sentences between were omitted and the quotations which the hon. gentleman put into the question he framed, were not given in the order of the sentences as uttered by the Minister of Railways. I venture to say that any one who reads the speech of the minister, as reported in ' Hansard,' will plainly see that every reference he made in that case was not to the individual grievance of which my hon. friend from Hastings was speaking but to the general question, and that he was pledging himself to the House upon that occasion that he would take the earliest means in his power to put on our statute-book, if he could find it, some remedy that would prevent any repetition of such circumstances

The pages to which the hon. gentleman has referred are incorrectly given in the citation from which he was just reading. They are correctly given in the answer to the question of the hon. minister a week or ten days ago, as 2815 and 2816 of ' Hansard,' 1907-8 in the report of the proceedings of February 10, 1908. What followed? During the course of that session the Minister of Railways thought he had succeeded in finding a remedy and he prepared and presented to this House his Bill amending the Railway Act, empowering the Board of Railway Commissioners to consider any future case of this character which should arise and conferring upon that board a new power by giving to any person entitled to apply to that board the new remedy of compelling all railway companies specifically to carry out every obligation into which they had entered. That was a vast step in advance in the legal history of this country. Up to that time, a railway company which might have entered into a contract that it would maintain a station, that it would operate a road or that it would do some other continuous piece of work, enjoyed this position of advantage not peculiar to a railway company, but which would apply and would exist in favour of any similar organization; the courts which have the power to compel people to,, carry out their contracts specifically have for a long series of years both in this country and in England, refused to pronounce any decree which the officers of those courts would not be in a position to see enforced. They had refused to pronounce a decree which would in terms order a railway company, for instance, to operate its road. How was such a decree to be enforced? It would need the sheriff or some other officer of the court to stand day by day through week after week or month after month over the company to see that it complied with the order of the court and because it was a task of that continuous character, which would involve the taking control of the railway and administering its affairs, the courts had long refused to pronounce any such decree, or judgment of that character as against a railway company or any other company which might have entered into such a contract. Under this legislation, which the Minister of Railways introduced and carried through the House during the session before last, the Board of Railway Commissioners is given precisely that power and for the first time in the history of this Dominion a court has been specifically empowered to take hol'd of a railway company, and compel it to live up to its obligations and to carry out specifically any contract of this character into which it may have entered.
When that legislation was under consideration in this House my hon. friend (Mr. Northrup) was not satisfied with it, he Mr. AYLESWORTH.
thought it would not cover this particular case which lay so near his heart and he urged that its language should be so widened that it would not merely include and cover cases which might arise in the future and which the hon. minister, by his Bill, was seeking to, guard against; but that the legislation should be so worded that it would cover this old outlawed claim of his of twenty odd years ago. He' pressed that upon the House, the matter was fully discussed in Committee of the Whole House, the committee was against him but he was not content. On the motion for the third reading of the Bill he proposed by way of amendment that there should be added to the Bill a clause in the very words, word for word and line for line, of this Bill now printed and now under the consideration of the House. He pressed his argument to the utmost and after a full discussion divided the House and on June 30, 1908, by a vote of 77 against 36, the House declined to accept the amendment of the hon. gentleman and accepted instead the Bill as framed by the Minister of Railways. My hon. friend is not content with that. He brings this Bill before the House and seeks to insist that it must be passed and that this duty which in 1908, only eighteen months ago, this House declined to put upon the Railway Board, should now be added to it.
We must in fairness to the hon. gentleman's Bill meet it not with reference to the particular facts of the special case which he described but with reference to its provisions and we must see in what way it would change the existing law. The existing law is to be found in the amending or substituted section of last session. On May 19 last the Royal Assent was given to the Bill of last session which empowers the Railway Board to deal in the way the hon. gentleman desires with all future cases of this character and the one point of substantial difference-there are verbal differences but they are matters of detail-between the Act as it now stands upon our statute-book and the Bill now under consideration is to be found in lines 21 and 22, and in lines 31 and 32 of the present Bill. That is simply a provision including the obligations of either the contracting company or any person or corporation which has acquired or owns or is in possession or occupation of or is operating the railway. Bear in mind that the present law imposes this obligation to carry out its contract to the full upon the contracting party but that will not suit the case of my hon. friend. He wants Paul to pay Peter's debt. He is not content with the present law which would make the company which contracted to do a certain thing do that thing, but he wants to make some other company do it and accordingly he frames this Bill to cover not only the case of the company which enters

into the contract but, in terms, to extend to and cover the case of any person or corporation which has acquired or owns, or is in possession or occupation of or is operating the railway. Now is that right? Ought that to be the law? If I buy a house and there is a mortgage on that house, I know that I must pay that mortgage before I can own that house free of encumbrance. But when I buy a house which is free of encumbrance, I hope I do not undertake to pay the coal bill of the former owner, I hope that I am not entering upon an obligation to pay any and all of the debts which the man who sold that house to me has contracted. And yet, that is identically and exactly the principle which my hon. friend wants to incorporate into this Bill now before the House and to enforce against the company which has purchased the property of the company that he says is in default. I think that principle needs only to be stated, needs only to be understood to justify every one in supporting the amendment which seeks to postpone for six months the consideration of this measure.
I,	Sir, am not prepared by any vote I give in this House to enable some person who has a debt against one man to collect that debt from another man simply because that other man may have come into possession of the property of the man who owes the debt. That, stating it in plain English, is the position which this Bill seeks to put any railway company, or other person, or company, in, if such railway company, or other person, or company, has acquired or is operating a railway line. It seems to me that such legislation is wrong in principle. That was the view in which the proposition of my hon. friend was opposed from this side of the House during the previous session. The matter was then very fully discussed and debated, the matter was then pressed to the ultimate extreme of dividing the House on the subject, and I for my part certainly see no reason whatever to depart from thg course which was taken then in rejecting the proposition of my hon. friend.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: With regard to the last reason which the minister has given for his course to-day, in my judgment it does not hold good, because parliament has already done the same thing once or twice, or more, with regard to roads that had been purchased by other companies than the original owners. I can cite one or two instances where the labour was paid, and parliament compelled the new company to pay the cost of the labour that went into the construction of the road long before it was sold. We have done this several times in parliament. We did it with the old Northwest Central railway, we did it with the railway
extending south from Hamilton, and we have done it in one or two other instances, I think one in the province of Quebec many years ago. So there is more than one precedent for it; and the argument which the Minister of Justice addressed to the House as the strongest reason why it should not be done, has in my judgment very little force in it, because parliament has already done it.
House divided on amendment (Mr. Graham).
YEAS:
Messieurs
Allen,	McGiverin,
Aylesworth,	McIntyre,
Beauparlant, ..	McKenzie,
Beland,	McLean (Huron),
Borden (Sir F.),	McLean (Sunbury),
Brodeur,	McMillan,
Brown,	Major,
Bureau,	Marcile (Bagot),
Carrier,	Martin (Montreal,
Carvell,	Ste. Mary's),
Cash,	Martin (Regina),
imampagne,	Martin (Wellington;
Chew,	Mayrand,
Chisholm	Michaud,
(Antigonish),	Miller,
Congdon,	Molloy,
Currie	Murphy,
(Prince Edward),	Nesbitt,
Delisle,	Neely,
Demers,	Oliver,
Douglas,	Papineau,
DubSau,	Parent,
Ecrement,	Paterson,
Ethier,	Pickup,
Fielding,	Proulx,
Fisher,	Prowse,
Fortier,	Pugsley,
Fowke,	Rankin,
Geoffrion,	Reid (Restigouche),
German, ,	Richards,
Gervais,	Robb,
Girard,	Ross (Middlesex),
Gladu,	Ross (Rimouski),
Graham,	Roy (Dorchester),
Guthrie,	Rutan,
Harris,	Savoie,
Harty,	Schell,
Hodgins,	Sealey,
Knowles,	Seguin,
Kyte,	Sifton,
Lachance,	Sinclair,
Lafortune,	Smith (Nanaimo),
Lanctot (Lagrairie-	Smith (Stormont),
Napierville), _	Templeman,
Lanctot (Richelieu),	Tobin,
Laurier (Sir Wilfrid), lodd.	
Lavergne, Law,	Tolmie, Turcotte (Nicolet),
LeBlanc, ,	Turcotte
Loggie,	(Quebec County),
Lovell, 1	Turgeon,
Macdonald,	Turriff,
MacNutt,	Verville,
McAllister,	Warburton,
McCoig,	White (Victoria,
McColl,	Alta.)-107.
McCraney,	


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
William Barton Northrup: Mr. Speaker, if I was somewhat surprised at the remarks made by the hon. Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham), I must frankly admit I was utterly astounded by the speech made by the hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Aylesworth). I do not know that I can blame hon. gentlemen opposite for voting as they did in view of the statements, the illustrations and the propositions of law laid down by the Minister of Justice. There are some points on Mr. SPROTJLE.
which there is room for argument. There are many questions upon which a man has a perfect right to hold an opinion on either side. But there are some questions on which it is inadmissable for any person to hold other than one opinion. I venture to say that if it were possible to entirely eliminate _ political considerations from this question there is not one single gentleman on the other side of the House, or a supporter of the government, sitting on this side, who would have by his vote signified his approval of the remarks made by the Minister of Justice. Let me proceed to give two or three illustrations. I might occupy considerable time in illuminating ' Hansard ' iby calling attention to his felicitous remarks, hut the hour is late, the question is practically decided, and I merely call attention to the speech made by the Minister of_ Justice in order that hon. gentlemen on this side of the House can see, and the country may understand how questions are decided here. The Minister of Justice, as an objection to the measure which I had the honour to move, said that when amalgamations were made by various roads, as had been the case with the Belleville and North Hastings, the road which was the result of the junction of a couple of other roads assumed the obligations of the roads which were so fused. That, I believe, as a general rule is the fact. I say that it is a fact that when the Belleville and North Hastings and the Grand Junction were amalgamated the new road, called the Grand Junction, assumed the debts of the Belleville and North Hastings. I quite agree with the hon. gentleman in that. I quite agree that when the Grand Junction and Midland railway were fused the Midland railway assumed the obligations then existing of the Midland railway and the Grand Junction railway. But, I would like to know what application that very proper principle of law has to the case, where, after a railway has ceased to exist, after the Belleville and North Hastings and the Grand Junction have been fused and the Grand Junction has assumed the debts of the two, and after the Grand Junction and Midland are fused and the Midland assumes the debts of the Grand Junction, somebody comes along with a promissory note upon which he had written the name of the Belleville and North Hastings years after the company had ceased to exist and put that note in circulation. Would anybody be more surprised than the Midland Railway Company if told: 'You must pay that debt years and years after the Belleville and North Hastings had ceased to exist because the name of the Belleville arid North Hastings is there, and ten years before they had assumed the obligations which were contracted by the Belleville and North Hastings.' That is the case we

have before this House. There was no road which could assume the obligations which the Belleville and North Hastings company had undertaken with the people of Hastings and of this country, because there was no Belleville and North Hastings to make good the obligations although the name of that company appeared upon the document. The Minister of Justice, with a great flourish of trumpets and as a conclusive argument, said: You might as well expect a man who had bought a house to be called upon to pay the coal bill of the former owner. It might be a proper thing to make him pay the bill of the former owner. If he had bought a house requiring coal, if he had sent an order for coal in the name of the deceased owner, if that coal were delivered and he used it, I would like to know why he should not pay the coal bill? I would challenge the Minister of Justice to show the distinction between the case of a man ordering a ton of coal in the name of a party deceased, using the ton of coal and refusing to pay for it, and a railway company, one of the large corporations of this country, using the name of a defunct corporation which had been defunct for years obtaining money on the endorsement of that name, pocketing that money and refusing to cairy out the obligation that the money was paid for. When the Minister of Justice stated that the railway had been completed and that the company had complied with the conditions of the statute, I cannot contradict him there simply because there is no provision in the statute of any kind or condition. The statute is the ordinary one bringing down subsidies to railways, so much is put in for the Belleville and North Hastings, and there was no more condition in that statute than in habeas corpus. But before the government paid over the money the Minister of Justice should know, as the Minister of Railways and Canals certainly knows, a contract was entered into between the railway company and the government and no money was paid over until this contract was entered into. All the money that was paid over was paid on the strength of a contract perfect in form, regular on its face, duly signed, sealed and delivered to the Belleville and North Hastings Railway Company and the only possible objection on the face of it was that there was no such company as that whose name was appended to the contract. This contract was made by the Grand Trunk Railway Company in the name of the Belleville and North Hastings Railway Company. The Grand Trunk almost became a party, because in the letter of William Wainwright, sent to the engineer, the Grand Trunk railway undertook to supply the rolling stock. If the Grand Trunk was bound to the people and the government to supply the road
with rolling stock, they avoided that liability under the contract by ceasing to operate the road, so that no rolling stock would be required. The hon. gentleman thinks that is a perfectly reasonable and fair way to treat the people of this country. I would just like for a moment to call the attention of the House to an opinion which, I am sure, all respect, which possibly may have weight even with the Minister of Justice, an opinion concerning this and a similar grievance which the Minister of Justice complains has been aired so often before this House. Let me give you an opinion which I frankly say and believe is entitled to the greatest respect and should carry the greatest weight. The opinion is this:	,
I think there is no doubt whatever that the intention of parliament, when the Railway Act was passed, was to give jurisdiction to the Commission to deal with such matters as the one brought np by the hon. member for East Hastings (Mr. Northrup), that is to say to compel railway corporations to perform the duties towards the public which parliament has imposed upon them. I did not understand my hon. friend to dispute that, but if I understood him aright, he thought no party in this case could be brought before the Commission.
So there we have the opinion that the Railway Act, when it was passed, was intended to give this Commission the authority which I now ask parliament to give them. When we .were told on authority which is at least respectable that the intention of this House; was to give the Railway Commission certain power, and when the Minister of Railways has passed many a sleepless night because he could not find a remedy to obviate the oversight and give the powers which the government had intended to the board, I think it is about time that the members who sit on the other side of the House should have sufficient respect for the opinion of the right hon. the Prime Minister, expressed on ' Hansard ' of 1908, page 2820, to vote for this Bill, I think I am justified in coming back again to the Minister of Justice and asking him what the influences are-for there certainly is some influence other than argument for of that we have heard none. What is the influence which prevents him from compelling the Grand Trunk railway of Canada to do what is right by the people of this country and to restore to the treasury of the Dominion the $21,000 which they wilfully and deliberately obtained on the promise they would perform a service which nobody pretends they ever did perform. Now, the Minister of Justice was very facetious over robbing Peter to pay Paul's debts. As a general proposition, like many other of his propositions, it is perfectly sound as a proposition, but unhappily, like the flowers that bloom in the spring it has

nothing to do with this case. I am not asking for legislation to compel the Grand Trunk Railway Company to pay anybody's debts. I am asking legislation to allow the railway board to do what the premier of this country said it was intended they should be given power to do when they were constituted. I am asking this House to give the railway board power to do what the Minister of Railways grieves they have not the power to do. I am asking this House to give the railway board power to compel a railway company which has wrongfully taken $21,000 and the interest on it for nearly twenty years, to pay back to the people of this country the money so long held and which they obtained by fraudulent representations. If such a matter as this were laid before the Board of Railway Commissioners, and if the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada had done just what the Belleville and North Hastings railway purported to have done; if the agreement which the Grand Trunk railway through its officials delivered to the government as being the contract with the Belleville and North Hastings railway had been signed by the Grand Trunk Railway Company; every single thing would have been precisely as it is to-day except that we could then make the Grand Trunk Company pay back the money because it had not earned it. Whereas to-day, because they wilfully used the name of that non-existant corporation, they keep the money of the people, they refuse to carry out the contract which cannot be enforced, and this House is apparently unwilling to 'do what in a saner moment two years ago it thought should be done. And to-night, blindly supported by their followers behind them, the ministers vote down this Bill without giving any rhyme or reason which had any bearing whatever on the measure before the House.
Motion as amended agreed to.



INTEREST ACT-AMENDMENT.

Mr.  H. H.@: MILLER (South Grey) moved second reading of Bill (No. 8) to amend the Interest Act. He said: The effect of this Bill if it becomes law will be that mortgagees holding a mortgage on real estate will be compelled to accept payment of over due principle no matter what the terms of the contract, upon one month's notice or upon being paid one month's interest in lieu of notice. Some members of this House have raised a question as to whether this parliament has jurisdiction in this matter, and in reply I point hon. gentlemen to section 10 of our Interest Act passed in April, 1880, and which was introduced into parliament by the Hon. Edward Blake. That section says that a mortgage made for any time beyond five years may Mr. NORTHRUP.
be repaid at the end of five years under certain conditions. This is certainly the same class of legislation as that which I now propose, and if one is within the jurisdiction of this parliament the other certainly would appear to be. It has been urged against this Bill that it interferes with the rights of parties to make contracts an'd so it does. In reply to that I again point the House to section 10 of the Interest Act to which I have already referred and which is a much greater interference with the right of parties to make contracts than is the Bill which I now move. I may be asked what is the necessity for this legislation. I contend, Sir, that at many times and in many cases where the mortgagor allows the mortgage money to run beyond the due date, that it is an imposition which he ought not to be subjected to that he cannot at any time thereafter repay his principal unless by the gift of three months' interest to the mortgagee. The mortgagee who usually inserts in his mortgage a contract that the overdue principal cannot be paid except by payment of three months' interest, is generally a loan company. I do not want to excite the prejudice of any person against loan companies. I have nothing to say against loan companies; I believe that the loan companies of Ontario have done a great deal towards the development of this province. I believe that loan companies are to-day doing a great deal towards assisting in the development of the western provinces, but that is not in itself any reason why a loan company mortgagee should have or exercise any unreasonable right or impose upon the ignorance of the borrower. It may be said that if the man borrowing money and the man lending money enter into a contract that I have no right to endeavour to disturb that contract, and that it is not fair I should endeavour to do so. I want to relate the circumstances under which these mortgages are usually made. The mortgager who is very often a farmer, goes to the agent of the loan company; he signs an application for a loan; the agent of the loan company sends in the application to the loan company's head office; if the application is accepted the mortgages are made out by the loan company's solicitor and are forwarded to that loan agent for execution by the borrower. The loan companies usually use a mortgage form that contains many long covenants, some of them very difficult indeed to understand. The mortgagor seldom either reads or has read to him all the long covenants contained in the mortgage. It may be said that he has the opportunity to read the mortgage if he so desired. That is true; but the mortgage being a very long document, when he sees that the rate of interest which he has contracted for and the

time of the year when it is payable are correctly stated in the mortgage, that is as far as he usually looks. If in an odd case the mortgagor should read the mortgage, and should understand the covenant, and should remonstrate with the agent, and say: I do not like to be bound by that covenant, he is probably told lhat it is a mere matter of form, that it is never likely to be exercised, and that he will be able to pay his mortgage when it matures.	But if he is a
strong-minded man and says: 'I will not sign that mortgage', the agent will say to him: 'Very well, you have signed an application for this loan, your application has been accepted and the mortgage has been made out, your farm has been inspected by the company's inspector, and if you refuse to go on you will have to pay about $20 of expenses.' Then he signs the mortgage rather than pay this amount. The borrower may wish to borrow money to pay off a mortgage maturing at a certain date, and for that reason it is necessary that he should obtain his loan promptly. Or it may be that he requires the money to make a payment on the purchase of another farm, which he has agreed to make on a certain day. In either case, his refusal to sign the mortgage might cause delay, and [DOT] involve him in great expense, and so he signs it and is under the covenant. Now, I have here two letters written by the managers of two different loan companies. One manager says:
We inclose herewith an agreement, and if you are able to have this signed and sent in, we shall he pleased to allow you the usual commission. We desire to point out that the mortgage is now overdue, and can he paid off at any time with a bonus of three months' additional interest.
In this case the borrower signed the mortgage containing a covenant that he could not pay off the mortgage if overdue unless he paid three months' interest by way of bonus. The mortgagor died, and his widow, not being aware of this covenant in the mortgage, and finding that she could borrow money at a reduced rate of interest, found that she was unable to pay off the overdue mortgage which her husband had made unless she paid three months' interest by way of bonus. The other letter, from the manager of another company, says:
This mortgage is overdue, and hv the terms of the contract the borrower will require to pay three months' interest in advance in addition to the principle and accrued interest. We cannot accept the notice in lieu of this, but will require the three months' interest in advance if the loan is to be paid off.
In this case the borrower was a poor farmer struggling with a large mortgage on his farm. He too had an opportunity to borrow at a lower rate of interest, but he
could not avail himself of that opportunity, unless he paid three months' interest as a gift to the company who had had a mortgage for 10 years or more on his farm.


David Henderson: Will the hon. gentleman be kind enough to give the names of those companies?


Mr. MILLER.: I do not think I should do that. I do not wish to injure the companies.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: As the hon. gentleman has read the letters in the House, he is obliged to give the names.


Mr. FIELDING.: They are not state documents. That rule does not apply to private documents.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Mr. Speaker, I ask your ruling on the question. If an hon. gentleman reads a letter or an extract from a letter in this House for the purpose of strengthening an argument, is he not obliged to give the names?


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I understand that Bour-inot holds that in the case of private members this rule does not apply. It applies only to a minister of the Crown quoting from a public document.


Henry Horton Miller: I want to point out that when a man's mortgage matures, if it is allowed to run on and become overdue, that is essentially the act of the two parties, both the borrower and the lender. They must agree to allow the mortgage to run on, otherwise it cannot do so. If at the time the moitgage matures, the prevailing rate of interest is lower than the rate stated in the mortgage, or if it remains the same, the mortgagee will in all likelihood allow the mortgage to run on overdue; but if the rate of interest has increased and the mortgagee has an opportunitv to lend the money at a higher rate, he will call it in. The mortgagor may allow the mortgage to continue until the opportunity occurs to call in the principal and lend it again at a better rate. Under the terms of the mortgage, the mortgagee may at any time, after the principal money is in arrear, take action without notice, to enforce the repayment of it. If he exercises the power of sale contained in the mortgage, he will usually have to give thirty days' notice, though sometimes he does not have to give any notice. If he desires to take proceedings under the mortgagor's covenant, he does not require to give any notice at all. I think the same privilege ought to exist as to the mortgagor as exists to the mortgagee. I know that an argument may be made, a very well sounding argument, that we ought not to interfere with the rights of parties to make contracts; but I want to point out that this fine or penalty of three months' interest by way of bonus is not a material part of the earnings of a loan company or any other

mortgagee; it is not necessary to add to the profits or the dividends to be paid upon the stock; and therefore it is not imposing any hardship upon anybody to enact this law and to that extent interfere with contracts that have been made. It may be said that we have not the right to interfere with existing contracts; but in the province of Ontario, by chapter 11 of the Ontario statutes of 1903, the very same law has been enacted, with the exception that the Ontario statute requires three months' notice or three months' interest, while I have made it one month. It may be said that the Bill which I have introduced is retroactive. It is, but so also is the Mechanics Lien Act of Ontario and the Woodman's Wages Act of Ontario. I took the trouble to go to the registry office and read some of the covenants contained in the mortgage to which one of the letters which I have read refers, and in that mortgage I found the following covenants
The mortgagor shall be liable for any tax the mortgagees may have to pay by reason of the mortgage, or money invested therein, or revenue derived therefrom.
Here is another covenant:
And that the society may at any time in their reasonable discretion, and from time to time, appoint some person to inspect the mortgaged premises and report thereon at the expense of the mortgagor.
Here therefore is a covenant signed by the borrower providing that the person or society he borrows from may at any time send an inspector to inspect the premises and the borrower has to pay. Then there is this covenant:
In the event of the mortgagor failing to pay the principal or any part thereof, at the time the same falls due as aforesaid, it is agreed that the mortgagor may pay the same at any time within ten days after maturity thereof, with interest for such ten days, and, if he shall fail to pay the same within ten days the society shall be entitled to three months' interest in advance at the said rate from the date of payment thereof, and to all the remedies for the collection thereof that they are entitled to in respect of any of the other moneys payable hereunder.
Another most vicious covenant reads as follows:
Whenever any interest shall be unpaid and in arrears for two weeks, the mortgagor, his executors, administrators or assigns shall and will, upon demand, give the society a chattel mortgage covering such of his chattels as, in the opinion of the society, shall be sufficient to secure the payment of arrears.
Here is a man borrowing money on his land who binds himself that he will, if required, give the loan society a chattel mortgage to secure the arrears of interest. And in the case of the sale of the land by the society before the maturity of the mort-Mr. MILLER.
gage, the society shall be entitled to costs of inspection, to three months' interest by way of bonus, and costs to them of obtaining the loan.	_
Then there is a covenant providing that the loan society may exercise the power of selling the lands before the maturity of the mortgage. If the borrower allows his interest to go in default, the mortgagee may sell him out:
In the case of the sale of the lands by the society before the maturity of the mortgage, the society shall be entitled to costs of inspections to three months' interest by way of bonus, and costs to them of obtaining the loan.
The mortgagor-thus attorns to the mortgagees and becomes their tenant. In case any of the covenants or agreements contained or implied be untrue, unobserved or broken, the society may, without any prior demand or notice, enter on the land and take and retain possession thereof and determine the lease. Thus the mortgagor, on borrowing perhaps half the value of his land, becomes the tenant of the mortgagee, and in case of default the mortgage may at any time, without notice or previous demand, close the tenancy and take possession of the farm and it shall be absolutely his. I say that the mortgagee who will, insert such covenants in a mortgage is not deserving of any sympathy; and if this House should chose to protect the borrower against companies which insert such provisos, I do not think any injustice would be done. I do not think there are many loan companies which insert such covenants or which would use them if they were inserted, but these have been inserted in this mortgage in order that they may be used should the mortgagees choose to use them. If such covenants were commonly used, it would be the duty of whatever parliament may have the jurisdiction and power to adopt a model form of mortgage and allow no other form to be used. These are my reasons for pressing this Bill, and I trust it will have the support of the House.


Mr. JOSEPH PIERRE TURCOTTE (Quebec county).: (Translation). Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a few remarks in regard to this Bill. Were such a proposal to carry, its effect would be to entirely do away with mortgages. While I do not deny that grievances may exist, I do not think they can properly be dealt with by this parliament. It does not behoove us who represent the general interests of the Dominion to enact a law with the object of doing away with grievances which, I admit, may at times be excessive on the part of the creditor by opening the door to downright abuses on the part of the debtor. I do not think it is our duty to state in our statute-books that henceforth the debtor shall no longer be left at the mercy of his creditor, but rather the

creditor who shall be left at the mercy of his borrower.
This Bill provides that whenever a sum of money has been obtained under deed of mortgage for a certain fixed period, that sum may be paid back at any time after maturity, notwithstanding the fact that there mav be in the deed a covenant whereby the parties have agreed that such payment should not be effected at any date after maturity, but only at the expiry of a term of two, five or ten years. According to the provisions of the Bill, the borrower would have the right by giving a month's notice or paying one month's interest, to terminate the mortgage.
This is what occurs as a matter of fact. Take the case of a small capitalist or of an estate. The sum of $10,000, let us say is loaned for a period of ten years, and it is covenanted in the deed that, if at the expiry of ten years the sum borrowed has not been paid back, the borrower will have to keep it for another period of five or ten years more. That clause is inserted because, as everybody knows, it is at times a difficult matter to find a good investment, ami also because the rate of interest varies from year to year. It may happen very likely that the borrower finds it more difficult to borrow at the expiry of ten years than to-day; or, on the other hand, the creditor may experience greater difficulty in finding an investment at an equal rate of interest. The creditor when negotiating a loan at a rate of interest of 6 per cent per annum, to be paid back at the end of a period of ten years, covenants that if ten years hence the amount is not reimbursed, the loan will run for five years longer as a means of providing against the ups and downs of the money market. The lender, who had the 'assurance of drawing 6 per cent on his capital during fifteen years, will have to be content with drawing 6 per cent during the first ten years; after which, if he is bound to accept payment of the principal, according to the provisions of this Bill, he may not be able to secure more than 3 or 4 per cent. It was in view of such a contingency that the lender covenanted in the deed that should the borrower fail to repay the principal at the expiry of ten years, then the loan would run for five years more on the same terms. It must be admitted, therefore, that the provisions of this Bill interfere with the fundamental principles underlying contracts, the agreements entered into being actually as law to the contracting parties.
In the province of Quebec we have been in the habit on considering agreements as something which should not be broken, something which should be lived up to, provided they contain nothing contrary to morals or public interest. Well, an agreement such as I have outlined above, would
be entirely lawful, and to my mind it would be undue interference on the part of this parliament to cancel the agreement entered into by the contracting parties.
My hon. friend referred to the grievances which occur in the province of Ontario. Of course, excesses will happen. But one of two things must be admitted: either those arguments are lawful or they are unlawful, and remedies other than the proposed legislation are available. True, it often happens that a borrower puts himself in the hands of his creditor; but that is the outcome of circumstances over which this parliament .has no control.
I am satisfied the principle of this Bill is antagonistic to the spirit of legislation in the province of Quebec, and for that reason I am bound to oppose it.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Mr. Speaker, this Bill is so obviously ultra vires that I have no hesitation in moving the usual amendment that it be not read now but this day six months. There is no question that this parliament has no jurisdiction whatever in the matter. One would imagine it was a Bill to regulate the rate of interest, as we have power to do under section 19 of section 91 of the British North America Act. In that case my hon. friend's proposed legislation would be at any rate intra vires of this House. But it is not so. It has fox its object the regulation and modification of contracts. It would, if allowed to become law, completely upset our hypothecary system in Quebec, which is a real rights, question, and I have no doubt it would have the same effect in Ontario. It actually interferes with existing contracts relating to real rights, contracts made under our Civil Code in which our provincial legislature has sole and exclusive jurisdiction under section 13 of chapter 92 of the British North America Act. It would interfere with the institution (of millions of mortgages in Quebec, completely upset our mortgage system, -and cause inextricable confusion in the transactions of our mortgage offices.
* Although I am quite prepared to admit that grievances. If this legislation was within my (hon. friend exist even in our own province, still it is within the jurisdiction of the provincial legislature to remedy those grievance. If this legislation was within our jurisdiction, we would have to suspend and hear the interested parties, the mortgage creditors and the mortgage companies in Quebec and the other provinces before attempting such drastic legislation. I have no doubt the Department of Justice would advise my hon. friend that this legislation is absolutely ultra vires under section 13 of chapter 92 of the British North America Act, as it interferes with civil rights and touches on real rights within the provinces. I do not think it is necessary for me to

point out in what way this ^ legislation would interfere with clauses in existing contracts made under the provincial law. The legislation on its face bears that ultra vires character, and I do not think the government should allow it to be proceeded with.


Mr. E. ROY.: I shall add only a few words to what has been said. This Bill is not under the jurisdiction of this parliament. It comes under chapter 120 of the Revised Statutes, which deals with questions of interest. The first clause in the Bill provides:
10a. Whenever any principal money, interest or other money secured by mortgage of real estate, is not paid at the time when, in the mortgage or in any agreement for the extension or renewal of the mortgage, the same is stipulated to be due and payable, the same may, notwithstanding any covenant, agreement or provision to the contrary, be paid at any time after due, by any person liable to pay or entitled to redeem the mortgage, upon one months notice.
We see immediately that under this Bill, if it should become law, the term of the payment might be enlarged and these mortgages or money thus secured under the contract, which is a civil contract, would be interfered with. I could understand an amendment to the law relating to interest, but when it comes to interfering with the capital, the principal money, and to changing the terms of repayment, it is interfering with civil rights and is beyond our jurisdiction. I shall therefore be in favour of the motion that the Bill be read this day six months.


Mr. H. GERVAIS (St. James, Montreal).: I will support the amendment proposed by my hon. friend the member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk). I think that the Bill proposed would prove to be ultra vires of this parliament. It is one of those many amendments which are being incorporated in our statute-book for the purpose of creating perpetual invasions on the legislative jurisdiction of the provinces. All the statutes of Ontario which have been quoted by the hon. member go to show that the contentions which I am now urging upon this House are sound. I understand quite well that it is within the scope of our provincial legislature to pass legislation regulating contracts and more especially to create additional causes of dissolution or setting aside of contracts; but I do not see that by the mere fact that under the constitution of 1867 the Canadian parliament is authorized to regulate the rate of interest, it is authorized at the same time and under the same section to create or define the necessary elements to constitute the contract of loan. The passing of this Bill would mean that the parliament of Canada would define Mr. MONK.
the causes of dissolution of that contract of loan and consequently then I say that the Bill would be an invasion of provincial jurisdiction, which is empowered exclusively to define the elements and causes of dissolution of civil contracts.
I say that this Bill, first of all, would be unconstitutional and in the second place that it would be unfair and unjust in that it constitutes an invasion upon the law of nature which guarantees to every one full and complete opportunity to make contracts, and much more so as the Court of Appeal of the province of Quebec and the Supreme Court of Canada decided, about twenty years ago, before the amendment of the Revised Statutes of 1886, that the parliament of Canada was powerless to declare that it was without the power of a loan company to stipulate, for example, that a loan should not be repaid before a certain period of years because it is exclusively within the jurisdiction of the provincial parliament to say under what condition a loan can be made or repaid. As a consequence the law courts have been consulted and in each case they have decided that it was not within the province of the parliament of Canada to regulate such contracts, although the parliament of Canada was authorized to regulate the rate of interest. The purpose of this Bill is to have re-enacted an amendment to the statutes concerning interest which has been repealed by this parliament, because it considered it ultra vires. There is a wide difference between the power to regulate the rate of interest and the power to say under what conditions a contract of loan may be created, set aside or may be dissolved. According to the text of the constitution of 1867, according to the jurisprudence of the Court of Appeal of Quebec and the Supreme Court of Canada, and according to the law of equity, this Bill, which the hon. member proposes to have reduced to an Act, would prove to he ultra vires, unfair and unjust, and in consequence I am ready to vote for the amendment. There is no reason why we should pass _ such legislation when there is in each province a legislative authority properly empowered to decide how such a question of civil coir-tract should be governed.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The hon. member has addressed an argument to the House which I have often heard before, that is, with reference to whether an Act is ultra or intra vires. The hon. member says that in a contract made under provincial legislation we have no power to interfere or touch it, but that we might regulate interest as a matter of usury. But I remember distinctly some years ago when a Bill passed this House, that we did both the things which this Bill proposes. In the first place it provided that where a loan company stipulated that in the event of payments not being

made at certain times, a higher rate of interest should be paid, or something else which would have been a penalty. We did away with that, and we said by that law that over due interest was only to bear the same rate of interest as is stipulate'd in the original contract for the loan.


Honoré Hippolyte Achille Gervais: If the hon. gentleman will allow me-under the Usury Act which was passed a few years ago, the civil contract was declared to be set aside as a consequence of the creation of the so-called usury crime. But the question of crushing usury is not introduced in this Bill. The payment of three months' interest cannot be considered for a moment as a penalty, it cannot be considered as a fine. But I may say, and any member of this House who has some knowledge of business will say also, that this three months' interest is simply an indemnity, or a compensation which is made under the contract payable by the borrower to the lender. There is all the difference in the world between the Usury Act creating the cancellation of the contract as a consequence of violation of its provision; and this Bill which purports to set aside a contract of loan alone or of mortgage.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. gentleman has already spoken.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I do not know whether I correctly understand the hon. member. But there were two features of the Bill in regard to which he argued that it was ultra vires and could not be considere'd in this House. One was with reference to usury, which I contend we have strictly control oyer, and that feature would make it intra vires. But the hon. member who introduced this Bill does not touch the interest question at all, it is the contract feature. But even though it dealt with the contract, and contracts are assigned to the provinces, or the right to stipulate what a contract should be, this would appear to be an interference with that right. In that Bill to which I have already referred we provided that where a mortgage is drawn. I think it was for five or seven years, when three years of the five ha'd expired, if the party who gave the mortgage desired to pay it off he could violate that original contract by giving six months' notice and paying it off. We stipulated that he could do that. Now the question was raised: Can we apply this in all cases to loaning companies? It was held that we could not, that we might possibly apply it to loaning companies that got their corporate powers from this parliament, but not to those who got their corporate powers from a provincial legislature. I think that was held by several prominent lawyers in the House to be good law.
But whether it is good law or not, I know that we went so far as to alter a contract [DOT]to that extent, with a provision that the morgage was to be payable at a certain time; we changed that contract by providing that after the major portion of that time had expire'd the mortgagee could give notice and pay that mortgage off before it matured by effluxion of time.


Mr. CARVELL.: I must say that I am rather inclined to think that the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) is right in his view of the law. But although I am in doubt, I would still be willing to vote for the second reading of this Bill for the purpose of having it brought before a proper committee, and also for the purpose of getting the opinion of the Justice Department. 1 must say that if there is any class of corporations in Canada for which I have very little respect it is loan companies. I have been practising law 19 years, and I have never yet allowed a client of mine to borrow a dollar from a loan company if I could help it. You have only got to take up the contract such as the bon. member for North Grey (Mr. Miller) has cited here to show the unfairness of those contracts. Why, we are spending days and weeks of our time in this House in attempting to enact legislation against railway companies that we think are unfair to the people. But all the iniquities of all the railway companies in Canada heaped together could not, in my judgment, compare with the iniquities of the insurance companies and the loan companies. True, we are not now discussing insurance companies, but I hope later on I shall have an occasion to say something about insurance companies. But on account of the justice of the claim which my hon. friend is advocating this evening, I propose to vote with him, although I have grave doubts as to our jurisdiction. There is, however, one excellent example we might follow and that is section 10 of chapter 120 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, referred to by the hon. member for South Grey. This section I am informed was drafted by the Hon. Edward Blake, a lawyer whose opinion I think will be taken for its face value anywhere in Canada. Now it is true, as the hon. member has stated, that if, under this section, a contract is drawn for more than five years, then, after the expiration of the fifth year the mortgagor can tender the amount due, principal and interest, and three months interest in advance, and no further interest can be demanded. If that be intra vires of this parliament, then it is certainly interfering with a contract which has been made by two parties, and which, according to the contention of my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier, wou'd be relegated to the provinces under the British North America Act. But in view of the action of this parliament on a previ-

ous occasion, and in view of the fact that the matter has gone on for probably twenty years, I think it is a ma'ter of much importance that we can well afford to consider it. For these reasons I will vote for the second reading.


William Stevens Fielding: It is quite evident that the Bill which the hon. member for South Grey (Mr. Miller) has presented to the House is regarded as one of great interest and great importance. I am afraid, however, my hon. friend has not impressed the House generally with the merits of the Bill, I think that the sense of the House is against ' him. Nevertheless, I would hope that the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) would not press the motion to give this Bill the three months' hoist in a thin House, and I would suggest perhaps that it would serve all purposes if he were to move the adjournment of the debate so that we may have a further opportunity of discussing the question. If that meets with the favour of my hon. friend from South Grey, I would ask him to accept that suggestion.
Mr. -SPROULE. As the Minister of Justice is present could wTe not have his opinion?


William Stevens Fielding: Ministers-of Justice do not like -to give offhand opinions.


Henry Horton Miller: I rather think that if the debate is adjourned it may be a long time before we will have further discussion. ,1 would like to have the Bill pass its second reading and be referred to the Committee on Banking and Commerce. We will then have"an opportunity of obtaining the opinion of the Minister of Justice, not an offhand opinion, but an opinion given after due consideration. We all agree as. to the justice of che Bill, and that I am endeavouring to do something that is reasonable and right. I talked to a number of the members of -the legal profession before introducing the Bill, and they have agreed that it is a reasonable thing, and none of them objected that it was beyond the jurisdiction of this parliament. I relied upon section 10, which was referred to by the hon. member for East Grey and the hon. member beside me, as being of the same class of legislation, and I think that if one was within the jurisdiction of this House the other certainly is. I may be wrong in that. I would ask the minister who is leading the House to permit the Bill to pass its second reading and be referred to the Committee on Banking and Commerce.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I -could not consent to that, not because I do not wish to accommodate my hon. friend, but the principle is at stake. I think the suggestion of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance is a more Mr. CARVELL.
reasonable and a wiser one, -because the principle is too important for us to allow it to be adopted under the conditions which exist at present. I would be quite prepared to change -my motion to a motion for the adjournment, but my hon. friend must see that if we allow the second reading of the Bill to be adopted to-night, the principle of the Bill is adopted, and I think it would entail to grave consequences to do anything of the kind by consent.
Mr. -MILLER. If we allow this Bill to pass its second reading on condition that it be referred to the Banking and Commerce Committee for the reasons I have stated, we are not accepting the principle of the Bill.
Amendment (Mr. Monk) agreed to, and debate adjourned.



CANADIAN SHIPPING ACT-AMENDMENT.

Mr.  J. H.@: SINCLAIR (Guysborough) moved the second reading_ of Bill (No. 15) to amend the Canada Shipping Act. He -qid:	Mr. Speaker, the shipping law of
Canada as it now stands, provides for the annual inspection of the iboiler, -hull, machinery and equipment of every Canadian ship subject to inspection by an officer of the Department of Marine and Fisheries. To this present provision I propose to add the following words:
Provided that any steamboat holding a certificate from the British Board of Trade, or the committee of Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping, shall, during the currency of such certificate, he exempt from the ordinary annual inspection under this Act on sailing from any port in Canada.
The effect of this Bill will be to dispense with the double inspection of Canadian ships. Every Canadian ship now, as I have said, is subjected to practically a double inspection. She is required to be inspected by Lloyds in order to obtain insurance. She. has to maintain her classification at Lloyds in order to be entitled to obtain insurance from Lloyds Company. That involves an inspection by Lloyds officers and the inspection of the larger ships is usually made in England, when they are over there trading. Then, under the present law, when a ship returns to Canadian waters she is required to subject herself to a second inspection by the officers of the Department of Marine and Fisheries. The contention is that this is unnecessary as Lloyds inspection is quite sufficient to satisfy the British Board of Trade. The British Board of Trade do not require a shin to submit to inspection by the Board of Trade after it has been inspected by Lloyds; in fact, the British Board of Trade have acknowledged Lloyds inspection to be quite sufficient.

Not only the British Board of Trade but the republic of France has very recently passed a similar law to the effect that whenever a French or English ship has been inspected by Lloyds the inspection in France as well as in Great Britain during the current year is dispensed with. I propose to place Canadian ships in the same position. This double imposes a great deal of expense upon Canadian ships. The inspection of a ship means that she must be placed on the dry dock, her boilers have to be cooled off the coal in her bunkers have to be cleaned out and it means several days delay. Some of these large ships earn $100 and some of them $200 a day or more. If Lloyds' inspection be considered good enough in England, there should be no reason why it should not be good enough in Canada. I submit therefore that the Bill ought to pass, and I would suggest, with the leave of the hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Brodeur), that it be referred to the Committee on Marine and Fisheries.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I am ready, so long as this Bill is going to be referred to the Committee on Marine and Fisheries to agree that it should be read the second time. This question of inspection is somewhat important and I may say to the credit of the officer who has the administration of that branch of the service, Mr. Adams, that the work has been done in such a way that we must note the fact that no accidents have happened. This we attribute to the fact that this officer is exercising a great deal of caution in the proper inspection of all ships. I would like very much that this gentleman, who has had a great deal of experience, should have an opportunity of being heard upon this issue which my hon. friend (Mr. Sinclair) is raising. I know that our inspection is somewhat severe but at the same time it must be acknowledged that under certain circumstances it was found that this inspection was absolutely necessary in order to ensure the safety of the persons who are on these ships. I have in my mind a case which occurred lately where a ship having a certificate from Lloyds, I think-I am not sure about that, but it was from one of these large associations-was subjected to our inspection. We asked that the tests generally required by the .department be applied to this ship and when they were applied it was found that the boiler was in absolutely bad condition. I think I would hesitate a great deal before accepting the proposition made by my hon. friend. But, I would like to have an opportunity to hear persons interested, the insurance companies and the vessel owners, on this subject and in view of the suggestion which has been made that the Bill be referred to the Committee on Marine and Fisheries I will not object to the second reading with that reservation.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the second time and referred to the Committee on Marine and Fisheries.
Mr. FIELDING moved the adjournment of the House.
Thomas Simpson Sproule: What business will be taken up to-morrow?


William Stevens Fielding: The Bills of the Minister of Inland Revenue, and afterwards we hope to move into Supply on the estimates of the Minister of Public Works.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at 11 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, November 26, 1909.