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Mr. MEIGHEN: Mr. Chairman, I express my appreciation very gladly of much that has been said by the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) and of the spirit that animated all he said. He evidently has been anxious to do one thing only, and that is to get to the rights of the question. I am, of course, no authority of my own knowledge on the value of vessels for fighting or for training purposes, and in so far as that is an issue here I would like to see the committee favoured with the report of the best officers of the department, of the best experts in the service of the country, as to what the values of these vessels are that have constituted the nucleus of the naval service of this Dominion; and by that I would be very largely guided. I do not, in all respects, think the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff) is an informed critic on that question. Were he a public officer, possibly, with some training, one might give some weight to what he says; but he is a party man, he is a follower of the government; and I do not think, speaking from that position, in view of his lack of acquaintance with naval matters in the military sense, that his judgment is really very dependable.

Mr. DUFF: Is the right hon. gentleman any less a partisan on the other side than I am on this?

Mr. MEIGHEN: Certainly; but I am not affecting to give personal opinions as to the value of these vessels. That is the difference between me and the hon. member.

Mr. DUFF: The hon. gentleman did, the other night.

Mr. MEIGHEN: No, not at all.
Mr. DUFF: Oh, yes.

Mr. MEIGHEN: Not at all. I stated when they were bought; I stated the character of them. I do not know how they are fitted for these things, save to the extent I have been advised. I think it would be fair to the committee if the committee were favoured with the opinion of the officersI do not know who they would be. I have heard Commander Hose mentioned by the minister; Admiral Kingsmill is now out of the service; there may be others. Let us have their opinions. My opinion would be -judged only by what I have been advised; judged only by the information that came to me when they were purchased-that these vessels were admirably adapted for the purpose. But of personal knowledge or expert opinion I have none; I am just in the

position of one who, as the hon. member for Lunenburg says, knows very little about salt water and salt water matters. It is my recollection-and I give it only as my recollection-that this vessel is not one of those of the type which is being scrapped by the Imperial Navy. It may be that the words quoted by the Prime Minister referred to covered this vessel, but I do not think so; it is more likely, I think, they referred to a vessel of the type of one that had been under negotiation, for which subsequently the Aurora was substituted. The Aurora was understood at the time, I know,-and was so represented to us to be modern in every way, fitted in every way for coast, harbour and river defence, and for training purposes. Let this point be remembered as well: If we are to do any training we ought to have ships fitted to do the training upon. And if the Niobe was a ship of the right class why did the government sell it?

Mr. DUFF: The Tory government did it, not this Government.

Mr. MEIGHEN: Certainly, because we did not think she was of the right class.

Mr. DUFF: You did not know that.

Mr. MEIGHEN: My hon. friend's style of reasoning may have the effect of exposing his reasoning powers to the committee even if it does not have other effect. We determined the character of our naval service on the advice of the officers of the department, and we decided that the Niobe was not useful at all in view of present naval conditions. Consequently we determined to sell her, and did so. They took her back and sold her again. Yet my hon. friend says the Niobe is just the ship for training purposes.

Mr. DUFF: I do not say that.

Mr. MEIGHEN: Well, far better than the Aurora, and still they sold her for $41,000.

Mr. DUFF: I would like to know why? You ought to be able to tell me, it was your government that did it?

Mr. MEIGHEN: I say she was not a vessel of the requisite type. I have gone far enough to expose the hon. member's strange reasoning; it is certainly not worth pursuing further.

Now I come to the other question, as to the value of the ships for the purposes for which they are intended. Acting on the best advice we could get the late government felt they were. If the present Gov

ernment has different advice let it present that advice to the committee; let it present the advice of men who are at least in the best position to judge of the character of these vessels. In that connection, I only suggest this: We have to decide whether we are to have a naval service or not; we have to decide what our fair portion of the burden of naval defence is and undertake that portion in a naval service; we ought to get the best results we can obtain for our expenditure. We are now at the point of deciding this is what I emphasized when I spoke first, but really it seems to me it is the whole question we have to discussare we not in the place where it is our duty to establish a modest but a real unit of naval service? Hon. members say we are in difficult financial circumstances. They say we have a great debt, more debt than we had before the war. Very well, that it correct; we have more debt than we had before the war. But are other nations not in the same condition? Is Britain not even more emphatically in that position than we? Is the British debt per capita not two to three times what ours is per capita, and their resources, their natural resources, per capita very much less? Are we not in a position fairly camparable with Australia? Yes, fairly comparable with Australia, for her debt would run, I think, about three or four per capita to ourstwo or three anyway-and New Zealand the same. But we find all these countries maintaining naval services on a scale far transcending ours-yes, by hundreds of per

cent.

I

Then the question comes: Are they doing more than is essential? Is there extravagance in naval construction? Are the Mother Country and Sister Dominions going anywhere at all beyond the margin of safety itself? Has any hon. member discussed that point in this committee? have not heard the point debated by any hon. member opposite. Now, does any hon. member think these countries are doing too much? What are they doing? They are striving to maintain a one-power standard as the aggregate naval strength of the British Empire. Now, do we say that is too much? Will even the hon. member for Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth), will any hon. member, stand up in this House and say that in his judgment that is too high a standard for the British Empire to set for itself? I do not think any one will.

Such being the case have we a right to say, "Oh, we will do nothing; let the other fellow do it." We have a duty to perform. How would the Prime Minister feel,

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sitting before the Prime Ministers of the other Dominions and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, telling about what the debt When the debts of the of Canada is? other Dominions were shown him to be far greater than ours, and much harder for them to bear, would he not consider the argument closed on that score? If he has

any further argument at his disposal to advance in answer I would like to hear it; I personally do not know what it could be. Very well, is it the part of honour, is it the part of manhood, is it just to the sense of honour of the Canadian people, is it fair and right and just to the manhood of our country, to stand up and say "Oh, we will unload ourselves for a while. will build wharves, we will expend money on facilities here and there at home, and we will let you, Australia, you, New Zealand, and you, Great Britain, take care of naval defence"?

We

It may be all right to economize, undoubtedly it is; but as the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) says: We must take care where we apply economy. I would suggest this maxim: That it does not do an individual or a nation great credit to apply economy at the expense of somebody else. Let us economize first at our own expense; let the Government go into any department and make a saving as we of the late government did; let the Government go into any one department and apply the knife there as we did in three departments-and we took the political penalty for our action-and in any one of eight departments they can save more than the additional amount that is necessary for the continuance of the nucleus of the navy that we have.

Of course, if we were an independent people we might stand bravely before the world and say: "We throw down our arms; we have more common sense in these enlightened days than to build instruments of destruction." That would be courage; -most people would call it insane courage, but at least it would be courage. But such is not what we are doing at all. No; we are in effect saying this: "We don't throw down the burden of defence, we just lay it on somebody else; we just expect Tommy Atkins and the Weary Titan to carry it. We expect our Australian brother and our New Zealand brother to carry it. While we are spending 28 cents"-as we were last year-"to your $2.80 in Australia, we will reduce our 28 cents to 17 cents, and all that even though now we have reached the stage where we realize the

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aggregate responsibility of the Empire." I cannot understand the course of reasoning which arrives at that conclusion.

An hon. member read some reference to reductions having been effected by New Zealand; I do not know whether he included Australia or not. Is it any wonder when they look over here and see us contributing only a fraction in the matter of handling this naval burden-only a mere fraction of their burden-and they see no reason for it; is it any wonder that they feel like taking that course? They may feel that in this way they will bring the matter to a head. Perhaps it will be brought to an issue. I cannot but think, from what experience of life I have had, that by allowing the Dominion of Canada to pursue this course the Government is ultimately going to drift our nation into a shoal where it will pay a disastrous

penalty for playing such a part as this. I never knew a similar course to be pursued by an individual, where that individual did not ultimately reap the bitter reward. The fire in the end came upon his own head. He finally had to pay in shame and in suffering more than he would have paid if he had pursued an honest and an

upright course. In what form our penalty will come I do not know, but I cannot conceive that we can successfully play the part recommended by this Government, virtually dissolving the naval service, and relying more and more upon others to do what we know those others must do, and of which we get the advantage, the same as they we cannot so act and not at some day take our punishment.

But if the Government cannot come to that conclusion, then do not make a farce of the whole service. Do not pretend to be training men for the defence of this country in naval service by putting them an hour or so a day, for two or three weeks, in an armoury, or sending them out on a fishing scow or a trawler on the Pacific for two or three weeks to get sick. Do not let it go abroad that we believe such conduct is a naval service. I could not but admire the euphony of the hon. member from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) when he expressed the fear that this would turn out to be no good, and a negligible factor at the end of the year. It will turn out to be a joke; in fact it is an obvious joke to-day. No other nation ever attempted such a thing. If this is all we can do, it is better to do nothing. Let it all go, and let us stand before the world in our true position. This policy simply adds the offense

of waste to the offensive poltroonery and national mendicancy.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING: If the hon. member means what he says, why does he not bring in a motion to that effect?

Mr. MEIGHEN: Because it is not my policy.

Mr CRERAR: I would judge from the tenure of my right hon. friend's argument, that it is based on the assumption that Canada should do her share in Empire defence.

Mr. MEIGHEN: Yes, precisely.

Mr. SHAW: Do I gather from the remarks of the leader of the Opposition that Canada is bound and obligated to the policy of the one power standard?

Mr. MEIGHEN: Canada's obligations are purely bounded by a sense of duty. I believe in the one power standard as a standard for the Empire. I do not believe the Empire dare in the vital interest of all of us go below it. I do not believe many in Canada take any other view, nor did I ever hear anybody in this House subscribe to any other belief, and I am prepared to take the responsibility of endorsing the one power standard, and if the

hon. member feels that it is the will of the country that the British Empire go below the one power standard, in my judgment he does not know the will of the Canadian people.

Mr. GRAHAM: My hon. friend asked about the suitability of the Aurora for training. I am not going to shield myself behind my officers or anything of that kind. This matter has been discussed and the concensus of opinion is that the Aurora is not by any means the best type of ship for training. In the first place, she is so speedy and narrow that she is loaded down with machinery, and space and draught are sacrificed for speed. The Aurora is 410 feet long and 39 feet wide, a very narrow boat. Her draught is only 131 feet and she would go over the sills of one of the St. Lawrence canals. I think any person, even though not a naval officer, would say that a boat of that size, with a speed of 28 to 30 knots an hour, would not be an ideal boat for training, although training could be done on her. The Niobe, in her class, was a superior boat for training, but I am of opinion that when she was sold recently she was in such a condition that it would have taken almost as much to refit her for training work as it would

to buy a first or second class new boat of the same size. Now we are all striving to ascertain what is best in this situation, and it is my firm belief that what the Government proposes is superior to what the Government found to be in existence, for the benefit of Canada, and for the performance of her share in the defence of the British Empire when the programme reaches its culmination. The Government is beginning at the bottom, and not at the top. We are starting to train men to be ready for the service, instead of getting the service and then starting to look for the men. It is said that no country in the world would take this attitude. In other words, that they would not have a naval reserve force. The United States has 30,000 of these men now.

Mr. MEIGHEN: Trained in this way? Mr. GRAHAM: Thirty thousand trained in the naval service.

Mr. MEIGHEN: They are defined in our act. This then does not provide to really train a naval reserve in the sense that the United States does so?

Mr. GRAHAM: Yes. My hon. friend asked me to give him the view of the technical officers in the United States. I am going to give it to him. I will show him our authority with regard to this scheme:

A great deal of criticism has been levelled at the policy of developing a naval reserve system. The main arguments have been that with two or three weeks training in a year you cannot make a sailor.

Such an argument confuses the function of the permanent naval officers and men with those of the volunteers.

To produce the highly skilled officers and men who must necessarily form a large proportion of the complement of modern men-of-war ranging from the battleship to the submarine undoubtedly requires years of training.

Permanent work and study of the problems of defence against the types of vessels and weapons by which the shipping making and leaving our ports and coasts may be attacked, is also essential for a certain number of officers and men in order that the complicated organiation of coast and port naval defences may be put into operation in quick time when neces

sary.

But there are large numbers of officers and men required to carry out defence work afloat which calls for but a small amount of technical training combined with principles of discipline, knowledge of technical terms and orders, which may be acquired by men who are anxious to learn in a very short time.

The essential defence work of minesweeping, patrols, examination service etc. was very largely carried out by all countries in the last war by these "amateur sailors" organized by a nucleus of permanent men, and the story of their work and its value will be undying.

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If money spent in such methods of defence were useless one can hardly conceive of Great Britain including in her naval estimates provision for the maintenance of a naval volunteer reserve of 484 officers and 5,000 men-mnen who are not sailors by profession-in addition to a naval reserve of merchant seamen of 2,029 officers and 9,000 men. The latest information from the United States is that they have a naval volunteer reserve of some 2,000 officers and 30,000 men.

That is just what I am describing as the naval volunteers, and I want hon. members to bear in mind that this is only part of the naval reserve scheme. These are volunteer naval reserves. There are men who need not necessarily be sailors to attend to the work I have outlined here, and surely in modern warfare the laying of mines and mine-sweeping, and all the other similar duties, form the most modern style of defence against any effective attack. In this scheme, the development of which will come later, there is the naval reserve, and this will be composed of seamen who can be given technical training, discipline, gunnery and all that kind of thing, and do not have to acquire the process of seamanship, because the men will be selected when the time comes from seamen themselves. It looks then as if, instead of running away from our duty, the Government have taken the risk of some adverse criticism in arriving at a substantial basis from which a navy of any size can emanate in years to come.

I do not know that I can say any more except in reply to the hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) and the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean). I was somewhat worried in regard to the boys in the naval college; but I do not think much stress need be laid on the few months' work that these boys have done at Halifax because they have been started on a career; they have done a few months' work of initial service that will stand them in good stead wherever they go. As I have pointed out already, all those who have graduated through the naval college at Esquimalt are, if they so desire it, in the Royal Navy now, paid, not by the Royal navy, but by Canada, and this Government does not propose to change that system. Therefore, every boy who has graduated up to the present time will be paid during his training overseas. The fact that the situation has been changed in Canada does not decrease that boy's chance of a

career

in the Royal navy; but at the present moment, no matter what navy we might have had in Canada, no difference

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would have been made in the standing or in the opportunity of the boys who had graduated through the naval college. If any of the officers who have graduated through the naval training college wish to retire, they can retire on a gratuity scheme under the Naval Service Act; but we believe that the young men in the Canadian navy can be absorbed and used in this new scheme.

During the first year, of course, nothing much can be accomplished, and the hon. member for Halifax will probably be right, because we shall have approximately half the year gone under the old expenditure. so that there will be probably three or four hundred thousand dollars left for the reorganization and all that sort of thing.

But I am convinced, from what I have read, from the discussions which I have had with members of the naval staff, that Canada can save quite a large amount of money and yet begin a system that will not lessen our ability to protect ourselves and serve the Empire, but that will, in a few years, prove the foundation for a service that will intensify our ability for service and protection. I say quite plainly that if the cost were the same under the scheme that has existed and under the one now proposed by the Government, I would suggest to Parliament to accept the new scheme, because I believe it gives a broader and wider opportunity for doing the thing that Canada in years to come will probably have to do, and for launching on a permanent naval policy. There is to be an Imperial Conference where all these things will be discussed. I must not forestall any attitude that any member of the Government might take; but these things will be all discussed in a friendly manner, and if I were Prime Minister of Canada with the scheme outlined by the Government, I would not be ashamed to sit in with and face any of the prime ministers of the Empire and say: "This is our policy which, when developed, will give us a medium for performing our whole duty to ourselves and to the British Empire."

Mr. HUGHES: The leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) made the statement that there were eight departments of the government service where economies could be practised that would amount to more than the present Government proposes to spend and, I think, he said more than the late government spent, on the navy. all events, he said that the economy would amount to a very large sum of money. I would ask the right hon. gentleman to name

At

those departments and to tell the committee and the country how those economies can be practised, how those savings can be made. In my judgment, as a member of this House and a citizen of this country, any man who has information of that character and who does not give it to Parliament and the country, is not fulfilling his whole duty. Another question which I have to ask is this. What, in the opinion of the leader of the Opposition, is our share of the one-power standard? I do not know whether he would feel like answering that question or not, but that is information which I should like to have.

Mr. MEIGHEN: I am sure it is the duty of the leader of the Opposition to inform members on the Government side on matters of policy, and just as far as he can to answer their hunger for information, long unsatisfied in looking around them. In the first place, the hon. member for King's, P.E.I. (Mr. Hughes) will, I hope, be more accurate in listening to what I say now than he was in listening to what I said before. What I said before was this, that there were departments in which more could be saved than the Government was saving to-day, more than would be necessary to keep up the necleus of the navy that was kept up. The hon. member wants to know what the departments are and how to effect this saving. Just the way we effected savings in connection with the departments which we took up. For example, in the Printing Bureau alone, not a large department, by any means, nearly $600,000 a year was saved, and that is more than the Government is trying to save this year over the expenditure of last year in the matter of naval defence. In the Post Office Department we effected a still greater saving, and in the Department of Customs and Inland Revenue, still more, by their amalgamation, not by merely nominal amalgamation, keeping all the staff. That is how the saving was effected. An organization was put into these departments to make recommendations that would enable us, through the Civil Service Commission, to effect the saving.

Mr. HUGHES: Was that done by reducing the staff?

Mr. MEIGHEN: By reducing the staffs, almost altogether.