dern, thoroughly well equipped, up-to-date in every way, and exactly suitable for the purpose to which we are putting them.

An hon. MEMBER: When were they built?

Mr. GUTHRIE: I will take the largest of them first. The Aurora is described as a light cruiser, adapted for coast, river and harbour defence. I assume that that is what we want particularly. She is an oilburner, built in 1914, and her armament is as follows: Two six-inch guns; six fourinch guns; one four-inch anti-aircraft gun; eight torpedoes. She has a speed of 28.5 knots.

Mr. GRAHAM: I think she has exceeded that.

Mr. GUTHRIE: She has at present a complement of 19 officers and 307 men, the great majority of whom are Canadians. I think I am correct in saying that 13 officers and 230 or 235 men are Canadians, but I cannot establish the correctness of those figures by the latest reports. She is a very fast ship, and the minister, I think, intimated a moment ago that she had attained a greater speed than 28.5 knots an hour. She is particularly adapted for the work which we require in Canada. She is an excellent training ship, an excellent coast and harbour defence ship, modern in every respect.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING: Am I not right in understanding that that ship is of the Arethusa type? And if so, is it not true that she is the only ship of that type in active commission at the present time, and that other ships of that type are at present being scrapped?

Mr. GUTHRIE: I cannot give the information to my hon. friend, but I think he has been in his department long enough to get the information.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING: I think that is the fact.

Mr. GUTHRIE: The Aurora was not in Dominion waters either during or after the war, and she could not be one of the ships refrred to in the statement made by that witness before that committee. The ships in Dominion waters were the Sheerwater and the Algerine.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING: The statement said "usually" not "always".

Mr. GUTHRIE: The Aurora never was.

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Mr. DUFF: That is right. She never

was.

Mr. GUTHRIE: The hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff) says that I am right, and he probably knows.

Mr. DUFF: Right, for once.

Mr. GUTHRIE: Well, we agree for once. The two destroyers, the Patricia and the Patriot, are what are called sister ships. They are both oil-burners, built in 1916. Their armament is as follows: Three fourinch guns; one two pounder; five machine guns and four torpedoes. They have a speed of 35 knots an hour, and each of them a complement of five officers and 76 men, the majority on each ship being Canadians. Neither of these ships was ever in Canadian waters, either during or after the war. The two submarines are known as the C.H. 14, and the C.H. 15. They were built in October, 1918. They have each a complement of 3 officers and 18 men, nearly all of whom, I think, are Canadians. They are both thoroughly modern in every respect. These are the five ships which were transfered by the British navy to Canada within the last year or two, and which have been kept in commission since then by the Dominion of Canada. I am informed that the total expense in connection with the naval service, including the maintenance of these ships, is in round figures, only about $2,000,000 a year. The statement appeared this morning in one of the daily papers that $2,000000 would cover the whole outlay, although $2,500,000 was the appropriation. I have not seen the returns and I cannot verify the figures. I know, however, what the maintenance was. To-day the Government submitted answers to the following questions:

What was the expenditure for 1921 on the cruiser Aurora and the two destroyers Patriot and Patricia, (a) for repairs, (b) for maintenance, (c) for equipment and supplies, and (d) for pay and allowances?

The answer was that the total under all these heads for the Aurora was $819,516; for the Patriot, $267,294; and for the Patricia, $254,227; a grand total, on the three ships, of $1,541,037. No question was asked in regard to the two submarines, and no answer was given in respect of them; but I would imagine that the expenditure in regard to the submarines would be much less than in regard to the other three ships.

The proposal now is to take that cruiser and practically tie her up, to disband her crew. You cannot keep a crew on a ship tied up to a dock. The alternative would

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be to return her to Great Britain, and I think that was the intention of the Government when the estimate was first laid before the House. I assume, however, that this fine ship is to be tied up to a dock. Some kind of a crew will have to be kept on her; but whether she has a crew or not, she is going to deteriorate very rapidly. The two destroyers, these long knife-like ships, which are not adapted for training purposes, are to be kept as training ships.

Mr. MARTELL: Does the hon. member speak of the Niobe and the Rainbow in the same way?

Mr. GUTHRIE: As training ships the Niobe and Rainbow were excellent. But they are not like the destroyers of modern times, which are in no sense of the word training ships, and which have never been used as such. They are not used except for the special purposes for which they are designed.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING: What was the purpose of the government in acquiring them?

Mr. GUTHRIE: They were acquired as destroyers, as complementary ships to the cruisers.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING: What were they going to destroy?

Mr. GUTHRIE: A man has to be trained for work on destroyers as well as on other ships.

Mr. GRAHAM: Then they are training ships?

Mr. GUTHRIE: They form part of the auxiliary craft which accompany the cruiser, and certainly you must have some trained men upon such craft. But I would ask the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) to consult his own naval department. If he does so he will ascertain to what extent destroyers are used as training ships. The Aurora is splendidly adapted for the purposes of a training ship, while destroyers are ill adapted. They may be used as a makeshift, and that is evidently the object in view in this case. This good ship, however, is to be tied up at a dock and left to deteriorate.

Mr. CRERAR: Would the hon. member suggest that the cruiser should be used for training purposes and the destroyers tied up?

Mr. GUTHRIE: I suggest that the Government continue to keep them all in com

mission. It is poor economy to allow these vessels to deteriorate under the circumstances, when a real benefit would accrue from maintaining them in the modest way in which they have been maintained in the past. Now what is to happen to the submarines? They are to be tied up at the docks, I suppose. Any one who inquires into the matter will discover that a submarine tied to the dock rapidly depreciates. A submarine has certain delicate gas, electric and other machinery which has to be operated occasionally to be kept in trim. If allowed to stand idle, without being occasionally submerged and tested, the machinery gets out of order, and after a very protracted period of disuse the vessel becomes absolutely useless. I have brought these matters to the attention of the committee only because I felt, since the debate in the House last Tuesday, that probably

a

wrong impression had gone abroad about these ships. I believe they are suitable in every way for the purposes for which they were procured.

I should like to know what was the entire cost of the naval service last year. If, as has been suggested by a morning paper in this city to-day, the whole expenditure last year was only two million dollars or thereabouts, surely my hon. friend (Mr. Graham) could manage to keep the service going for another year without any great strain upon the treasury. There are undoubtedly other avenues and other departments in which we could lop off half a million dollars in order to maintain this service. I make an appeal to the minister. I do not suppose it will have any effect, but I appeal to him that in his treatment of the men whom he is going to let out, these young men who have been trained and are now qualified and ready for lieutenancies or higher ranks, he will make sure that they are not cast adrift. I hope he will accord them very generous treatment. They have gone into the naval service with the best of intentions. The naval course is hard and exacting and they have gone through with it successfully and now that they are qualified for lieutenant's rank, are they suddenly to be told, "You can cut loose, we are done with you"? They should certainly be generously treated, and I appeal to the minister accordingly.

Mr. DUFF: I want to say a word in answer to the member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie). I am glad, and I am sure the committee is glad, to get the

information from him with regard to the different ships he has mentioned. I presume he took the matter up last year when he was over in London. He had a very nice trip, having visited France and other places, at a cost to this country of $9,180, and I take it for granted that he got the information over there. Now, he is not quite right in saying that the Aurora is a modern ship. She is eight years of age, and it is a well known fact that when a cruiser or a manof-war reaches the age of five she is considered obsolete. The member for South Wellington did not tell us what work the cruiser did during the war. Let me say that she did important work in the North sea. She steamed between 70,000 and 80,000 miles with the result that she was practically worn out at the close of the war. Any ship that steams 70,000 or 80,000 miles is not much good for anything after that; her machinery especially is no longer serviceable. It is common knowledge that when she returned to this side a very large sum of money had to be spent by the Canadian government in an attempt to repair her machinery. Last year when the people of Nova Scotia wanted to get a government boat to accompany the sailing ships in the international race, I telegraphed the Minister of Naval Affairs in the matter, and in his own telegram in reply he said that the boats, the Aurora, the two torpedo boat destroyers and the two submarines, were in dock being refitted. In other words, the whole five boats comprising the Canadian navy were in the dock at one time being repaired with their machinery in the repair shop. These are the kind of boats we accepted from Great Britain. They are absolutely no good for defensive purposes, because a cruiser or a torpedo boat destroyer which is over five years old is absolutely useless for that purpose. With reference to the Aurora, this vessel did such good work during the war that her guns are no longer fit as weapons of war. If my information is correct the Aurora took part in the battle of Jutland and also in some previous engagements off the English coast when the German cruisers came forth and attacked some of the coast towns. As a result of her activities her guns have been entirely used up, if I may put it that way; and before she could be of any further service in the way of defence she would have to have new bores fitted into her guns. What, therefore, is the use of the hon. mem

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ber for South Wellington telling the committee that the Aurora is a proper ship to defend the Nova Scotia or the British Columbia coast? Then he says that she is good for training purposes. The Niobe was far better than the Aurora ever was or will be, for the reason that the Niobe could take twice as many men as the Aurora can. The Aurora is not a training ship; she is a fast cruiser. Any cruiser that can steam 28 knots is no good for training purposes. The old Victory in Portsmouth harbour is a better training ship for young men than the Aurora. And yet the hon. member for South Wellington, who never smelt salt water in his life, tells us that the Aurora is a better training ship than the Niobe. It is all very well for him to read letters from men who have boys training in the colleges, but this country is not going to spend much more money in training boys who have no prospect of being able in the future to put their naval education into practise. It is bad enough to have wasted $4,000 a year, or $12,000 for the training of each cadet, as the hon. member says, and it is time for this or any other government to consider carefully all the circumstances and the possibilities before spending $12,000 in order to make a midshipman or a lieutenant who will not be engaged afterwards. The minister, I think, said that the British Navy let out 2,000 men. My information is that they turned out 20,000 officers and men in the past two or three months. So that if we did keep these boys and train them there would be no career for them, because the British government would look after their own men before Canadians. The right policy, therefore, is either to tie these vessels up, sink them, or use them for breakwaters on the New Brunswick coast. Perhaps Grand Manan would be a good place to put the Aurora, while one of the destroyers could be placed at Campobello and one at Fredericton on the St. John river, in the constituency of the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson). They would serve a good purpose in this connection, perhaps. But at all events the Government is doing wisely in tying them up.

Mr. MacLAREN: I believe I represent the views of my constituency, as I do my own, in expressing the opinion that the proposed reduction in the naval estimates is unwise and unjustifiable. Before I proceed to say what I purpose saying, I shall

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refer to the remarks of the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff). I believe he stated that the expense for naval students was $12,000 a year.

Mr. DUFF: No, I said $12,000 per cadet. Mr. MacLAREN: I understand the minister said it was $4,000 per cadet.

Mr. GRAHAM: Yes.

Mr. MacLAREN: At first blush that seems a large amount, but those of us who have boys or girls at boarding schools or universities will not be very much impressed by the figure.

Mr. DUFF: When we send our boys to school we pay the expense ourselves.

Mr. MacLAREN: And I trust we will pay for a fair navy before many years are past. If you are sending a boy to a university or boarding school where there may be two or three thousand or two or three hundred, other pupils, you are obtaining for him the advantages in training that result from his being among a large number of fellow pupils, and the expense will run about $1,500 a year. Therefore I do not think it out of the way that the rate for a naval student is about $4,000 a year, considering the small number of about fifty cadets. Now, Mr. Chairman, I believe that throughout the country there is a feeling of war-weariness, and that the people are impressed with the magnitude of our national debt; that is natural. But we must remember that this applies to the Mother Country and to our sister dominions also as well as to other countries; the condition is not exceptional, and a certain time must elapse before matters are completely adjusted. In the meantime I submit that in view of many estimates which have already been passed and in view of what the Mother Country and the other dominions are doing in regard to their navies, there is no occasion to reduce our naval estimates by so large a sum; the economy is altogether too drastic.

I have just had placed in my hands the Ottawa Evening Journal containing a Canadian Press cable from London dated to-day, and I should like to read it to the committee. It is as follows:

Premier W. F. Massey, of New Zealand, replying to a speech made by Lord Lee, First Lord of the Admiralty, to the Colonial Institute in London on May 10 in which His Lordship regretfully referred to the shrinking of the navies of the Dominions and intimated that the result might be that the Royal Navy of Great Britain would be compelled to shoulder

the entire responsibility for the protection of the commerce and liberties of the Empire, asserts that New Zealand will do her part, says a Reuter despatch from Wellington. Premier Massey points out that the resolution on the naval question passed at the Imperial Conference stated plainly that the matter of the naval contributions from the various Dominions was held over until after the Washington conference.

The responsibility of the British Empire has not been lessened thereby, Premier Massey says, except in so far as an understanding being reached respecting the Pacific. He takes the stand that whatever each of the Dominions contributes can be settled on at an Empire conference subject to ratification by each of the Parliaments.

Premier Massey adds: "I have stated definitely that New Zealand will give her full share and I am quite confident that our Parliament will shoulder its responsibility but while this should be done as soon as possible we must have an opportunity to readjust our finances and recover, to a certain extent, from the effects of the war, in which we played no unimportant part."

That is the attitude of New Zealand in

regard to naval defence.

I submit that no one is urging upon the Government an enormous naval expenditure, but simply that such an amount be expended as will give the country something effective and tangible in the way of naval defence. Last year's estimate was what might be termed the irreducible minimum, and if the minister continues to press for this reduction it will resolve itself into a reductio ad absurdum. Undoubtedly the sentiment of the country is in favour of our doing what is reasonable and proper and self-respecting in bearing our share of the naval burden of the Empire. No one asks the Government to go beyond what, under the circumstance, should be considered the minimum.

Yesterday was observed all over the country as Empire Sunday; next Wednesday will be observed as Empire Day. It is a striking coincidence that, at this time when our people are about to engage in fittingly observing this great day, the Government should propose such a reduction in the naval estimates as to reduce our navy's effectiveness to futility. But that is the condition. Yesterday I happened to be in Toronto and heard an admirable sermon on the text, "If I forget Thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning." I do not know whether the learned preacher had in mind the present naval programme of the Government, but I think there would be ample reason to infer this from the aptness of his text. I submit that the naval policy of the Government is a most clumsy handling of what so vitally

affects the Empire. Our country has done nobly; no one can question that. Nor need we despair of our country, notwithstanding the discouraging and trying circumstances of this naval policy. May it never be truly said, Sir, of Canada, as Edmund Burke said long ago: "The age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded."

Mr. MACLEAN (Halifax): I was very glad to hear the remarks of my hon. friend from South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) in connection with the treatment that should be accorded to young boys now in the Naval College at Esquimalt. I very heartily concur in his recommendation to the minister that ample justice be done these boys. I would ask the Minister of Naval Affairs Mr. Graham) not to deal lightly with this suggestion; I hope he will take sufficient time to understand every fact in connection with the situation and, in the end, do what is nothing but justice to these boys. not prepared to make any definite or what I would consider practical suggestion in the matter, but I do feel there must be many cases where great injustice will be done to some of the boys at least, who entered the naval service, and now find that the career which they had hoped to follow is not further open to them.

I am

I should like to say just a few words in connection with the naval policy which was was laid before the House a few days ago by the minister. I cannot say that I am very enthusiastic about it personally; at the same time I am not in a position to submit to the House any proposals which I think would be more practicable. At least, I cannot put myself in a position to recommend with confidence any other proposals. I want to point out, however, that so far I have heard no hon. member, unless it be the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff), has recommended that there be no expenditures for naval defence. That being the case, it means that the House has not absolutely declared against the principle of naval defence. Considerable criticism was made of the militia estimates, but I do not recall that any hon. gentleman went so far as to say that we should have no militia expenditure in this country. I should hope that no man would be so foolish as to make such a suggestion.

Mr. WOODSWORTH: May I just say that I was one who was "so foolish" as to say that I was here to advocate absolute disarmament? I want to make my position clear.

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Mr. MACLEAN (Halifax): Then I am very sorry that my hon. friend makes what, in my judgment, is such a foolish suggestion-and, of course, I do not intend by that to be personally offensive to my hon. friend. I shall take the opportunity of reading his remarks again; I thought he spoke very guardedly, indeed. Nevertheless, if he did make that suggestion I would feel myself on very strong ground in opposing it absolutely. In this country and in all countries of the world, the maintenance of law and order depends upon force, and there must be some instrument for that purpose, and it would be utterly preposterous to say that in Canada we can safely pursue our national course without some arm of defence.

I sympathize with the Government in their endeavours to practice economy; that is quite necessary. But any campaign of public economy on which we embark must have some intelligent, and uniform basis; and there should be no unfair discrimination as between the different public services. By a vote which the Minister of Railways (Mr. Kennedy) will present to Parliament presently, he will ask for $4,

000,000 on account of the mer

My

5 p.m. chant marine, a service which it is not necessary for the Government of this country to carry on. Economically it is of no value; it cannot now or ever perform a service which could not be as well performed by the world shipping, yet it involves an annual expenditure vastly greater than the amount by which the Minister of Naval Affairs has reduced his vote for defence since his estimates were first submitted to Parliament. When we talk of practising economy in. public expenditures we must do so upon some fair basis as affecting all the national services. fear as to the policy which the minister has announced is that it is not practical enough. I am quite willing that it be given a fair trial, but I fear that at the end of the first year's experiment it will be found to be ineffective. I hope that experience will prove that I am wrong. However, I really rose to express the hope that in the meanwhile, for a year at least, the minister would see that proper care was taken of the Aurora and of the submarine vessels so that in the event of the commercial and economic outlook of this country being brighter a year from now, these ships might be returned to the service in proper shape. I hope the minister will be able to take due and proper care of the boats which he now proposes to put out of commission.