before it had been investigated; but when the Public Accounts Committee met and they had an opportunity to investigate their charges they had so wrongly made and so wrongly circulated before they were investigated, when I say they were given an opportunity to investigate, they had other business, oftentimes they did not even attend the sittings of the committee, they threw up their hands, and said in effect that they had accomplished all their purpose when they made their charges and got them in the newspapers. a The hon. member then speaks of a certain place where some $40,000 has been spent in dredging for the accommodation of one launch and one little steamer, and that, he said, was a piece of political rascality, of political iniquity. Sir, I do not know that we can come hastily to that conclusion. If there is a place where any considerable number of people live, they may be humble people, they may not have much political influence, they may be poor fisher folk, they may be poor tillers of the soil, but if that one steamer and that one launch is the only means they have of getting to market, or of communicating with the outside world, then I say that that expenditure is justified. This is government that has spent a great deal of money in endeavouring to benefit every class of people, those who till the soil, those who go to sea in their fishing boats, and those who dig minerals in the mines. I suppose we will not for a long time hear the last of the Quebec bridge. Now what are the facts? The Quebec bridge was built, and the Quebec bridge fell down. The Quebec bridge was built according to plans and specifications that were drawn up by men who were recognized and generally admitted to be the best bridge building engineers on the American continent, or in the world. The engineers who drew the plans and who drew the specifications for the Quebec bridge, were recommended to this government by whom? By Mr. Schreiber, the government engineer, a gentleman who was the faithful employee of the Conservative government by whom he was appointed, and who has continued, I believe, to be the faithful employee of this government. When that bridge collapsed, what did the world say, what did the engineering world say? They said: This is a matter of great concern to us, this is a matter of great concern to every man in the engineering profession. That bridge, they said, was planned by men that we believed to be experts, by men whom we believed to be the very best bridge engineers in the world, and if that bridge, built according to their plans and specifications, has collapsed, it simply means this, that that gigantic bridge, a very long bridge, much longer than most of the bridges that had hitherto been built, was wrongly designed, why, it means that our whole theory of bridge building is at fault, our engineers are wrong, we will have to revise our plans and adopt new methods. No blame, Sir, can be attached, and no blame will be attached by men who are acquainted with the facts, to this government for the misfortune which befell the Quebec bridge. Such charges as that are only made in the absence of any real and true grounds of complaint. The Newmarket canal is characterized as the Aylesworth ditch. I am sorry the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) is not in his seat. We used to know that as the Newmarket canal. Upon a certain occasion the member for York, the present hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Aylesworth) gave the hon. member for North Toronto perhaps the greatest castigation ever received by any man in this House, and ever since then this canal has been known as the Aylesworth ditch. It is not a public work of any less value because you call it by any such name as that, it does not lessen the importance of the work. Now, Sir, there was vigorous cheering, there was vigorous desk pounding to-day, when the hon. member mentioned the Newmarket canal. Sir, I venture to say that not one man in twenty of those who sit behind the hon. member and who cheered him, ever saw that canal or know a single thing about it. I talked to a man to-day who was telling me, and I am sure honestly, what he thought. He said that that Newmarket canal would be of very great advantage to the section through which it runs. For my part I do not know anything about it. I say frankly, Sir, that I am just as ignorant of the Newmarket canal, of its method of construction, of the country through which it runs, or the way in which it will answer the purpose for which it is intended, as the majority of the members who applauded my hon. friend. Then the building of the St. Andrew's lock was criticised." I do not know anything about the St. Andrew's lock except what I have been told. And I wonder how many members on the other side of the House know anything about the St. Andrew's lock. But I am told by a man who knows much more about it than the hon. member for North Toronto, that the building of the St. Andrew's lock opens up to the city of Winnipeg 350 miles of waterway. Sir, when in the most harrowing terms, the member for North Toronto was picturing some of the sins and iniquities of this government, I almost felt like believing him for a moment. I do not often feel that way when he goes on a tirade of that kind. But when he mentioned the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company, and found the fault he did, I said: Well, any intelligent man who would tell that story over again and Mr. OLIVER. No, but I say that the government of Canada cannot send agents into Germany to promote immigration into Canada; they cannot do that in Switzerland and I am advised they cannot do it in either Norway or Sweden. That being the case, we are not carrying on the immigration effort in those countries, we would desire to carry on. The North Atlantic Trading Company was in a position to carry on immigration work in those countries and this government was not in a position to be held to account for what they did. that if the names of the persons composing that company were known, a large number of suicides would be committed. Mr. OLIVER. I am not responsible, of course, for what Mr. Smart said, and I am not responsible for my hon. friend's understanding of what he said. I am think there must rather inclined to have been some misunderstanding on his part. It must be clear, however, that in a country where the laws are absolutely restrictive against immigration, but where it booking agencies are licensed, while might not be against the law for booking agents to take a bonus from one country it country, as against another might be against the administration or the policy and might put these booking agents at a disadvantage in their own country; and it was to protect them against that feature of the case that it was desirshould not be able that their names divulged. That is my understanding of the case, a perfectly fair and legitimate understanding. It is, I firmly believe, according to the facts; and all the ideas which our hon. friends have built up around this question have no more foundation that the idea that the government dared not cancel the contract. Mr. OSLER. Was there not a provision in the contract that the incorporators should not in anv shape or way do anything unlawful in promoting immigration where there was a restriction? The only inference from the minister's words is that the government deliberately entered into a contract with responsible people on the face of it, to do what was absolutely illegal for the government to do in regard to a friendly nation. Mr. OLIVER. If that is the inference to be drawn from my remarks I can only say I did not wish that inference to be drawn. If I may explain a little further I think my hon. friend will agree that inference is not warranted. While I am not acquainted with the personnel of the North Atlantic Trading Company, my understanding of the matter is that it was an association of what are called booking agents, operating in the European countries which I have mentioned. A booking agent in Europe works under a license, he is licensed to sell transportation. He sells transportation for such lines as he can secure agencies for. He gives bonds to the government of the country in which he operates which ensure that that country shall have due supervision over his operations. Inasmuch as his business is to sell transportation and is authorized and licensed to do so, it is within his power, without contravening the law of the country in any degree, to say to the man who comes to buy a steamship ticket to take him across the ocean: You ought to go to Canada rather than to the Argentine or to Brazil or to some other country. I hope I have made my point clear that the agreement with the North Atlantic Trading Company was not an agreement in contravention of the laws of the countries in which that company operated but it was an agreement with people who were licensed by the laws of those countries to carry on the business of selling transportation and by that agreement we enlisted their services on behalf of Canada as against other countries to which they were also authorized to sell transportation. Mr. MACDONELL. Then how was it that Mr. Smart, in giving evidence said than Mr. HUGHES. Is the minister aware that these booking agents have an organization and have an arrangement with the the world from these European ports by steamships sailing to the various parts of which a certain proportion of immigrants are allotted to each steamer and that the payment of the bonus by Canada would have no influence on the proportion of immigrants sent to Canada by these agents? Mr. OLIVER. No, I am not aware of that fact, and I would be rather inclined to doubt it. I know there is what is practically a steamship combine. I do not know what the arrangements are in regard to that, but I do know that since the cancellation of the North Atlantic Trading Company agreement, immigration from the especially desirable countries I have mentioned has unquestionably fallen off, but I cannot say more than that on that point. Mr. R. L. BORDEN. I thought the minister said it had fallen off before and that that was the reason he cancelled it. Mr. OLIVER. My reference in that particular was to Norway and Sweden in regard to the immigration from which countries we paid a special grant of $5,000. I am speaking now of Germany and Switzerland, two other countries with much larger population and nearer to immigration effort, and I say in regard to these countries, Germany and Switzerland, the immigration 1 has, if my information is correct, decreased since the cancellation of the North Atlantic Trading Company contract. Mr. HUGHES. Has not emigration from Germany decreased to other countries, the Argentine, Brazil and the United States in a greater proportion than to Canada? con a Mr. OLIVER. I could not answer that question, I am not famliar with the facts. As the question of bonus payment has been up many times, and as I am satisfied the House has a misunderstanding in regard to it, I think it might as well be brought out in this connection that the bonus was paid to an association of licensed booking agents operating in European countries whose laws were such as to prevent direct emigration effort on the part of the government of Canada. The tract entered into was not in contravention of the laws of these countries, but it may have been such as to render the booking agents who were party to that arrangement liable to the displeasure of the authorities as contravening, not the law, but the policy of their countries. This would be to them a very serious business disadvantage. It surely must be evident that if a man is making his living by selling transportation, he is interested in promoting transportation, and, if he gets $5 per head more on people who go to one country, he is going to use his efforts at publicity towards sending the emigrants to that country as against a country for emigration to which he receives no bonus. By the contract with the North Atlantic Trading Company, and by the arrangements that we have in Great Britain with the booking agents, we secured the active efforts of these men whose business it is to promote transportation towards immigration to this country. But, by the cancellation of the agreement with the North Atlantic Trading Company, that arrangement was cut off, and we have not been able to carry on an effective propaganda in those countries since. brought before the Public Accounts Com- isfactorily settled so far as this House is concerned. I want to tell the hon. gentleCommittee last year when the chief soliciman that I was in the Public Accounts tor-shall I call him?-or legal adviser, or defending lawyer, of the government, said that the committee was not there to hear the rights or the wrongs of the case, that the committee was there playing the political game and he was there for the government playing it. And yet because the case of this North Atlantic Trading Company was more or less bruited before the committee, the hon. gentleman is satisfied. I want to tell him that we on this side were never satisfied nor was the country. He may have been satisfied because the government was in a measure whitewashed in the eyes of the people who did not understand the methods that were being operated in that committee. If this be a dead issue why is this claim of $71,000 put forward? Dead men are supposed to tell no tales; they certainly do not bring claims. The hon. minister was asked two or three times to tell the names of the people who composed this company; he does not know; the government pretends to this House that it does not know; and a man who used to have a prominent position in one of the departments here went the length of saying, when he was on oath, that were the names of these men disclosed suicides would occur. I say it is a pity the names were not disclosed, because if the business of these people was so nefarious that on the disclosure of it they would commit suicide, it would have been for the good of the counshould be made. The hon. minister refers try and the world that that disclosure to the class of immigration that came in under this company. I asked with regard satisfied that the Galicians came in vast to the Ruthenian immigration. He seems numbers into Manitoba and what were then the Northwest territories. And he was well satisfied, in the late elections, that Mr. GLEN. CAMPBELL (Dauphin). The these people were in the country as elecMinister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) and tors. In the country from which they came myself have one thing in common, we both they had no voice in public affairs, and, come from the west; but I must say that coming here, they understand nothing his idea of the west and its interests and about the duty that goes with the franchise possibilities have been widened out in my and are controlled by men, as far as my mind by his speech. He certainly wander- experience goes, vitiated men who lead ed from Dan to Beersheba and back again; them astray and they vote, as it were, in he has talked of everything under the sun flocks. The minister himself knows that but has made no argument in the particu- what I say is absolutely true. He need not lar matter before us that ought to be con- wag his head as much as to say he does sidered by this House. He spoke of the not agree with me, because I can give him matter of the North Atlantic Trading Com- an instance in which he recognized the fact pany as being a dead issue, a matter that that these people can be controlled by a has been threshed out for years in this vitiated influence. He recognized the fact House, and, before the Public Accounts to this extent, that the law was subverted Committee. The hon. minister seems to so that a man who had been put by this hold that any matter which has been government in charge of the Ruthenians position having its own iron ore and the coal and being in no way dependent upon any other concern. The company's output of coal was larger than ever this year and the deposit both of coal and iron ore at Wabana are practically inexhaustible. Everything in connection with our property is encouraging and with the improvements in finances the company can go ahead and work out its own destiny to greater advantage than if it were in a merger. I take these words from the Monetary Times' of December 4, 1909, which publishes the annual address of the general manager at the last meeting of this company. Now, Sir, the Nova Scotia Iron and Steel Company are not, I fancy, in any different position than the other iron and steel companies of the Dominion. I think the language used by Mr. Cantley is language that no man need be ashamed of; it is the language of a man who has self reliance and self dependence. I believe that a man who at the annual meeting of this company can say: 'We are now in a position to work our own destiny independent of any merger' will be willing to say: 'We are now in a position to work out our own destiny without any iron or steel bounties from any government.' And Sir, I trust when the term expires, as it will expire next year, for the payment of iron and steel bounties that it will not be renewed. Unless I change my mind more than I think I will, I shall be utterly opposed to their renewal. We have made a treaty recently with France. As to the commercial advantages to be derived from that treaty I will say but little because it is a matter that has been already fully discussed. There is one thing I do wish to say to the farmers of this country, and when I say it I am simply repeating what has been stated by the Farm Journal' published at Winnipeg. That journal has referred to the considerable benefit which will accrue to the farmers of Canada from the negotiations of the French treaty, and it does not speak of it in terms of praise because of the advantages for the shipment of stockers or fat cattle, but it says that the manufacturers of agricultural implements in Canada will be so largely helped by that French treaty, and their trade will be so increased and extended that they will put up much larger factories with greater capacity, giving a greater output, and that having that increased capacity and output, as a consequence the price of agricultural implements all over Canada will be largely decreased. But, Sir, it is not so important because of the trade advantages that are likely to accrue, although there will be trade advantages, but it is because we always receive an indirect benefit when we make a trade treaty with any other nation in as much that we get their friendship. And if we suffer no material loss I think it is man surtax. There was we must look at these matters from a broader point of view. Such views may be and the conditions tween the two countries has materially suf- There can be no doubt that the trade be tions from now, I have no doubt that their children will become thorough Canadians, and no man will be able to tell, on meeting them, that they were not of British or Canadian ancestry. I have only to say in conclusion that since the Minister of the Interior has spoken in favour of this North Atlantic Trading Company, it is up to him surely to tell this House who were the members of that company. The company claimed approximately an amount of $31,000 only, and after some discussion a sum of $36,950 was agreed upon. That was an opportune time for securing a receipt in full. Then the hon. Minister of Justice stated a moment ago that conscientiously he was satisfied that the company had no fair claim to make on the government, notwithstanding which he grants a fiat. On occasions such as this the minister is acting in a judicial capacity, and if he is satisfied that the party apply ing for a petition of right is not entitled to such a privilege, he should not grant the fiat. Lastly, the outcome of it all is that the government is now being sued for an amount of over $71,000 by a company unknown to him for the time being and possibly for all time. lieves, but will admit that this was one of the greatest rascalities that was ever committed by any government. The Minister of the Interior tells this House, now that he does not yet know who the gentlemen An hon. MEMBER. Men. Mr. J. D. REID. Yes, the men were who composed this company. Yet he is doing business and going into this suit with Mr. W. B. NANTEL (Terrebonne) these men although he does not know who (Translation). Mr. Speaker, three conhe is dealing with. Can any person beclusions of some importance are the unlieve that the Deputy Minister of the Inavoidable outcome of this discussion. In terior (Mr. Smart), who was occupying a the first place, I think that if the hon. good position, and who went over and made Minister of the Interior had played the these arrangements on the other side, and part of a busines man he would certainly then resigned and took the management have settled that claim and secured a reof that concern, was not one of the comceipt in full when paying over to the company, and was not interested in it Can pany that amount of $36,950. A mere any man in this country believe that there country dealer under similar circumstances were not others in Canada also connected would have thought of protecting himself with this corporation? I do not believe against any future action of the company there is a man in Canada who does not bein that connection and secured a receipt lieve that in some way directly, or inin full, instead of the ordinary receipt. directly, men connected with the civil service or the government were interested and received benefits from this great piece of rascality which the Minister of the Interior did not hesitate to stand up and defend. Every man believed that a good, righteous, honourable gentleman like the Minister of would immediately try to remedy it. But the Interior, when he saw any rascality, right in his own department a man named Philip Wagner is convicted and sent to jail for robbing immigrants in the Northwest, and immediately when he gets out the min ister gives him a higher salary and a better position. Is there any justification for the minister doing a thing like that? He was one of the members who complained about giving away lands in the Northwest, yet, immediately he comes into the department he is willing to give away 250,000 acres for a dollar an acre when it was proved that these lands were worth $3 an acre and up. It is strange how the gentleman that we believed was the angel of the Liberal party could be converted so soon immediately upon occupying a seat on the ministerial benches. When I saw that contract and when I found out the way the government allowed the payments to be made it appeared to me that there was something wrong in the deal at this end. Instead of counting the immigrants they simply took the ship's register, and perhaps counted the crew, for all we know. They counted the number of people on board and paid $5 per head for all that came in that way. First-class passengers, second-class passengers and all were counted as immigrants and $5 per head was paid. I am awfully sorry to see good men like the Minister of the Interior getting into a mix-up like this. I would like to have seen the Mr. J. D. REID. I am greatly surprised that the hon. Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) is defending the rascalities that have been going on in the Department of the Interior. We older members of the House will remember a time when the present Minister of the Interior occupied a seat at the back of the ministry, and when he was held up as the angel of the Liberal party He was for ever finding fault with what the government were doing and we all believed that there was no man in the Liberal party who was more anxious to remedy the rascalities that were going on in the government. At that time, as my hon. friend from Victoria and Haliburton (Mr. Hughes) says, he claimed he was an independent, but, strange to say, the minute he appeared on the ministerial benches he changed his tune. There is not a man in this House, on either side, if he will stand up and tell us what he conscientiously be |