Project No. 37, Port Credit-Cooksville. Project No. 39, Belleville-Foxboro; subsection A1, Thurlow township.

2. Project No. 1, York County-Whitby; subsection A1, Pickering township.

Project No. 2, Whitby-Belleville. Project No. 3, Belleville-Kingston. Project No. 4, Kingston-Brockville. Project No. 5, Brockville-Prescott. Project No. 6, Ottawa-Prescott. Project No. 7, Hamilton-Stoney Creek. Project No. 8, Stoney Creek-Queenston. Project No. 9, Hamilton-Brantford. Project No. 10, Brantford-Woodstock. Project No. 11, Woodstock-Ingersoll. Project No. 12, Ingersoll-London. Project No. 13, St. Thomas-Windsor; section S, Aldborough township.

Project No. 14, London-St. Thomas. Project No. 15, Lambeth-Maidstone; subsection K1, Chatham township.

Project No. 16, St. Thomas-Niagara Falls; subsection U1, N. Cayuga township, subsection V, Canboro township.

Project No. 17, Jarvis-Hamilton.

Project No. 18, Clappison's CornersChatsworth; subsection L1, Guelph township, subsection N1, Puslinch township, subsection No. 2, Puslinch township.

Project No. 20, Elginfield-Sarnia; subsection B1, Sarnia township.

Project No. 23, London-Stratford. Project No. 24, Stratford-Goderich; section B, Downie township, subsection C1, Ellice township.

Project No. 25, Dundas street (TorontoClappison's Corners).

Project No. 27, Toronto-Bradford.

Project No. 28, Bradford-Severn; section B, Gwillimbury township, section E, Barrie town-Oro Township, section F, Oro and Vespra townships, subsection G1, Oro township, subsection G2, Oro township, subsection I1, Orillia township, subsection 12, Orillia township.

Project No. 31, Port Hope-Peterboro; section J, North Monoghan township. Project No. 33, Ottawa-Point Fortune.

3. Project No. 2, Whitby

GRAND TRUNK RAILWAY EMPLOYEES-PENSION RIGHTS AND STATUS

Mr. J. W. KING (Huron) moved:

For a copy of all letters, telegrams, correspondence and other documents that have passed between the officials of the Grand Trunk Railway, the officials of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, and the Order of Railway Conductors, and all agreements signed between the officials of the Grand Trunk Railway and officials of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen and the Order of Railway Conductors, regarding the strike on the Grand Trunk Railway System, of trainmen and yardmen, in 1910, and particularly the correspondence and agreements affecting the seniority rights of the men who worked during this strike.

Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) Mr. Speaker, this is a pretty large order for which my hon. friend has moved. I am not sure that it is possible for the Government to get all the letters, telegrams, correspondence and other documents that have passed between the officials of the Grand Trunk railway and officials of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen and the Order of Railway Conductors relating to a strike that took place in 1910.

The Government, of course, has control of some of the correspondence; how much of it is in existence at the present day it is difficult to say. I fear, if all the correspondence were brought down, it would make a prodigious load. Perhaps my hon. friend would intimate more particularly what documents he desires, and it can be ascertained whether they can be brought down or not. I think he has one or two documents more particularly in mind, and if he will intimate just what he desires. the Government will endeavour to obtain them. I doubt, however, if it will be pos

G. T. R. Employees

sible to obtain from the Grand Trunk officials all the correspondence that is asked for in this motion, and to have that brought down, at this session of Parliament, at any rate.

Mr. KING (Huron): I would be satisfied if the Prime Minister would bring down the two agreements that are in existence between Charles M. Hays, of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and the trainmen.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING: Two agreements, my hon. friend says?

Mr. KING (Huron): Yes.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING: The Government will undertake to endeavour to obtain those agreements for my hon. friend. Will that satisfy him in regard to this motion? Mr. KING (Huron): Yes.

copies of all letters, correspondence, etc., exchanged between the Minister of Labour or any member of his department and Alfred J. Andrews, in connection with the strike in Winnipeg, in the year 1919. About fifteen letters and telegrams only have been brought down, none prior to July 5, 1919, and all extending over a period from July 5, 1919, to May 26, 1920. It is simply incredible that, during that great strike and those long-drawn-out trials, only fifteen letters and telegrams should have been exchanged. Have all the documents in the possession of the department been brought down, or have certain of these papers been destroyed? Any other alternative, I do not understand.

some

per

Hon. JAMES MURDOCK (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, there were some other telegrams and letters marked " sonal" or " private," which I showed to the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. McMurray), and I asked him if it would be proper and necessary for the purposes that he had in mind, to make those telegrams or letters public. He suggested to me that such as were brought down would be entirely sufficient. But I shall be indeed glad to let my hon. friend see the entire file, including those to which I have just referred, if he desires to do so. PRIME MINISTERS' CONFERENCE On the Orders of the Day:

Mr. J. T. SHAW (West Calgary): Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Prime Minister if he would be prepared to fix a date for a full discussion by this Parliament of the report of the proceedings of the last Imperial Conference.

Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister): Mr. Speaker, I think the subject is one of sufficient importance to have it fully discussed in the House, and the Government will be pleased to arrange a time; I cannot say, at the moment, just when.

COOLIE LABOUR ON BRITISH SHIPS On the Orders of the Day:

Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Centre Winnipeg): Mr. Speaker, according to the May number of the Official Journal of the Marine Engineers of Canada, I notice that British ships manned by coolie crews are engaged in coastwise port traffic on the Atlantic seaboard. In view of the discussion and the resolutions which were passed the other night in this House on the orien

Supply-Naval Service

I contend that the fleet units should be kept up and be increased from year to year. At all events, nothing should be done, until after the next Imperial Conference, that might tend to its disintegration. It is true that a Disarmament Conference was recently held in Washington, the object of which was to reduce arms and create a naval holiday. But it will be remembered that Mr. Harding's policy, and that of the Republican party in the last American election, was one of opposition to the League of Nations. On every platform of the United States they voiced their opposition to the League, and although after their election public opinion forced that government to summon a new conference, the one recently held at the American capital, the American shipyards have nevertheless been kept busy. The conference at Washington declared a shipbuilding holiday, but so far as Canada is concerned there was no necessity for this: Canada has always enjoyed a maritime holiday. She has been content to sponge on the hard earnings of the British taxpayers, who have had to pay heavy taxes on sugar, bread, coffee, tea and all sorts of other necessities in order to maintain a navy to protect our shores. Now, while the conference at Washington recommends a curtailment in the building of capital ships of war, this does not prevent President Harding's administration from going on with the construction of a merchant marine. And after all is said and done, as I pointed out the other night, the merchant marine has always been the backbone of British maritime strength, from the days of Drake and Frobisher and Hawkins down to the present time. There is nothing in the recommendations of the Washington conference to prevent the people of the United States from launching a great shipbuilding policy and building as many merchant marine ships as they please. And they are doing so. You go down the New Haven and Hartford road, passing through all the towns from Boston to New York, and down the Atlantic seaboard, and at every seaport you will find shipbuilding plants, which were closed for some timethey were formerly war plants-but are, most of them, now busily engaged executing orders both from private individua!s and from the government. The object is to supply a fleet of merchant ships that shall carry the American flag into the seven seas to secure trade for that country. They are spending millions of dol

lars in expanding the merchant marine, in the hope that eventually, notwithstanding the sentiments or the recommendations of the conference at Washington, they may out-distance the British merchant marine fleet, to which this Empire owes so much. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, that we are living in a fool's paradise, so far as that conference is concerned. The world has witnessed similar conferences before. Such conferences have been held at various times in the last hundred years; they were held in Gladstone's day; and they have always failed to a greater or less extent of their purpose. We need not, therefore, be over sanguine as to the efficacy of the latest assembly at Washington. Take the Genoa conference, again. What hopes can we entertain in respect of it when we think of the secret treaty between Germany and Russia. Russia to-day has a million and a quarter men mobilized and she is in a warlike mood. The conference at Genoa has virtually failed, and the outlook in Europe is far from reassuring today. As one leading French statesman said the other day, as reported in the various newspapers, war is as imminent to-day as it was immediately prior to August, 1914. I want to emphasize as strongly as I can the inadequacy of the present vote. I think the Government should at least retain the fleet unit they now have as it has been.

At the Naval College at Halifax there are forty cadets now undergoing training. In a couple of years' time they will have graduated, and what is to become of them then? What also of the forty who have graduated now on our fleet unit? What is to become of the college itself? I should like to see that college continued and the fleet unit maintained until another Imperial Conference is held at any rate. Talk about economy! We shall pay up in millions a little later for our folly in reducing this vote. It will prove to have been no economy at all.

Now perhaps the Government will inform the committee, with whom they consulted in framing their policy. Have they consulted the British Admiralty? Have they even consulted their own experts? If so, where are the written reports? Who is responsible for the recommendation to reduce the vote from $2,500,000 to $1,500,000? I do not see how it is that this is the only department-that of defence that is singled out for a forty per cent or fifty per cent reduction. Is this an honourable policy? Is it, indeed, a justifiable policy?

Are we to go back a hundred and fifty years to a Crown colony status and be dependent on the army and navy of the Mother Country in time of trouble? Are we going to continue to sponge on the British taxpayer? If so, it is a most humiliating position for this country, especially in view of what Canada did in the great war.

New Zealand and Australia have coordinated their naval policies, and to-day they have real, effective navies instead of a few fish trawlers. Following the example of those dominions, I think it would be a good thing to ask the British Government to have Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Beatty, make a report on the naval defence of Canada so that it may be available for the next Imperial Conference.

I am very much disappointed with the policy of the Government because had they continued the policy of building up a fleet unit we would obtain some tangible results. It has been said that, as an Empire, we came into being by the sea, and that we cannot exist without the sea. The sea is His, and He made it. Great Britain, as we all know, is primarily a maritime nation, and I think it will be generally agreed that Canada, with her 6,000 miles of coast lines on the Atlantic and Pacific, should also be, and is to a great extent, a maritime nation. She leads in rowing, canoeing, yachting, fishing and lumbering, but what opportunities do the Government propose to give our young men who excel in aquatic sports and would make good sailors, to develop themselves as mariners so that in peace or war the country could rely on them to man its merchant marine and its navy and fleet units? The only opportunities are in the shape of a couple of weeks' drill in fire halls or armouries each year! I disagree absolutely with this policy, for it cannot possibly be of any use to us. I venture to say that those landlubber, three-weeks-trained young men, on their first ocean trip, would prove toy sailors, and get seasick, and many in that time would be unable to even swim a stroke. They would be quite unsuitable to man the magnificent fleet of our First Lord of the Admiralty.

Last week the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gould) said the next war would be fought in the heavens above. I do not agree with him; I think the next war will be fought in the earth beneath. parently Canada's First Lord of the Admiralty is under the impression that the next war will be fought among the fishes in the waters under the earth. This magni

But ap

Supply-Naval Service

ficent toy fleet of his, which is to be maintained at a cost of 17 cents per capita, will be a myth, so far as any effective defence for our shores goes: it may, however, keep a few fish in order.

The Prime Minister said that his Government was prepared to continue the naval policy of Sir Wilfrid Laurier of 1910. In that year the Liberal party moved the following amendment in the House of Commons to the naval resolution proposed by the Borden Government:

This House regrets to learn the intention of the Government to indefinitely postpone the carrying out by Canada of a permanent naval policy.

It is the opinion of this House that measures should be taken at the present session to give effect actively and speedily to the permanent naval policy embodied in the Naval Service Act of 1910 passed pursuant to the resolution unanimously approved by this House in March

1909.

This House is further of the opinion that to increase the power and mobility of the Imperial navy by the addition by Canada under the above act of two fleet units, to be stationed on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada, respectively, rather than by a contribution of money or ships, is the policy best calculated to afford relief to the United Kingdom in respect to the burden of Imperial naval defence, and in the words of the Admiralty memorandum, to restore greater freedom to the movements of the British squadrons in every sea and directly promote the security of the Dominions; and that the Government of Canada should take such steps as shall lead to the accomplishment of this purpose as speedily as possible.

That could be done under the act of 1910. I am informed that it is the intention to construct three battleships under his bill. If hon. gentlemen or the government of the day wanted four or five, they could build them wherever they pleased under the act of 1910.

Further on he says:

No disunion; the Admiralty and House of Commons all one in defence of the Empire; that is the position in which we should be today.

Again he says:

Under the Laurier Act of 1910 provision was made for the training of men on board training ships, and in naval schools and colleges, so that the ships, as soon as constructed, would be prepared to go to sea and fill their place in the naval defence of Canada and the Empire as the case might be.

That was the policy of the Liberal party. In conclusion he states the principles of the Liberal party in the matter of naval defence as follows:

It stands for the defence of the Empire, from Australia to the Pole. Not on the North sea alone, but on every sea where the British flag floats in time of danger.

Secondly, we stand for as many battleships of the most modern type as are required; at any rate to the limit of our resources.