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Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peh: ,-.-'^». ./;>, ■ "•■ ;. . .•' liQu$^ of Commons 19 abates THIRD SESSION-EIGHTH PARLIAMENT ST^E r :cH OF HON. CLIFFORD SIFTON, M.P. ON THE CANADIAN YUKON RAILWAY OTTAWA, 15T1I AND 16th FEBRUARY, 1898 TuBSDAY, 15lh February, 1898, The MINISTER OF THE INTB-iCOR. (Mr. Siftou.) Inasmuch as the admin- Istratlou of the Yukon district, of which so much has been said, has fallen largely to the charge of the department of which I am the head, it has been thought well that I shouhl make some observations explanatory of liie nosi- tion of the Government and of the facts and circumstances leading up to tlie In- ti-oduction of this Bill, although such ex- planation might possibly have come more properly, under other clrcumsitances, from an older and more experienced member of the Government. The hon. g"ntlem.i,n (Pir Charles Tupper). who ]\as just sat down, has been a long time In public life. He 'has told us a great many times, in the very sliort time I have been a member of the House, that ho has been Mlnlstf " of Railways and Canals, and that he has 1 -n High Commissioner. He has been at interv;ils Finance Minister and High Commissioner— in fact, we hardly knew, those who were not In the confidence of the Government, whether the hon. gen- tleman was inside or outside of the Gov- ernment. Then he was for a very brief and much regretted period Premier of Can- ada. And now he occupies the responsible position of leader of the Opposition— at least, Mr. Speaker, he la the titular leader of the Opposition ; but after the address to which we have listened to-night, coupled with what we have heard and seen during the last month or so there remains a very serious !ind grave doubt as to whether lie Is the loader of the Opposition or whether, to use a vernacular expression, the tail wags the dog or the dog wags the tail. The lion, gentleman I hope will not take offence if 1 make use of an old adage, and suggest that I may be permitted to quote Philip sober against Philip drunk, and to Indicr-te to the hon. gentleman that it requires a much more lucid and coliereut explanation than he has favoured us with to-night to explain the radical change in the views he entertained in regard to the contract which is now ))efore this House. The hon. gen- tleman has favoured us with several ex- pressions of this kind since I iiave been in the House— that he had never in the course of his parliamentary exprrieuce seen such an exhibition as this, that or the other. Will lie say if he ever, in the whole course of Ills parliamentary experience, saw an old .ind experieuctHl leader of a party dragooned in the lliiht of day by the fag end of his party Into abandoning his position upon a pub- lic question ? I do not want the hon. gen- tleniin to take offence at wjjat I say, for I he expression is only used because it Is an adage and I do not coin It myself— but we heard Philip drunk to-night and now I ask the members to listen to Philip sober. The hon. leader of the Opposition was Philip sober when he was interviewed, and when he expressed hla opinion in the am jam and Empire" of January 28th— I suppose that is the date, as the interview is dated the 27 th January. The authenticity of this toterview is vouched for by iny hon. friend from East York (Mr. Macleau), the gcntle- nnan who in the Conservative party fills the i-ole of private detectlre and regulator of the party leader. It appears that Sir Charles Tupper was asked by the correspondent of the " Mall and Empire " to state his view regarding the arrangements the Government had made. This is what he said : He stated that the route chosen Is the best that could have been selected. " When I was in the west," be said, " I made inquiries, and I reached the conclusion that Canada ought at the earliest possible moment to have communication with the Yukon. I impressed It upon the Bri- tish Columbia U ivernment that It should co-op- erate with, the Dominion Government to insure tbe construction of a link between the Stikine River and Tesliu Lake. At Winnipeg I declared that the undertaking was a necessity, and when I returnc ] to Ottawa I went Immediately to Mr. Sifton. I impressed upon him the absolute ne- cessity of opening up the route to, secure Can- adian trade. I said to him : ' You heard my arguments against Government construction on the Crow's Nest Pass Railway. I am willing to withdraw all that if you will go ahead and give that country a railroad. As a matter of prin- ciple, I am opposed to Government construction, but here la a case in which I quite concede the country ought to be prepared, if necessary, to build the road ic order to secure an all-Canadian route and to secure the trade of the Yukon for Canada.' " The hon. gentleman was willing to change his opinion In tbe course of twelve months. I have no doubt he thought then that that was a rapid change, but it is nothing to the change that has taken place since then. He is a'^quiring greater rapidity in changing his opinions as time goes on, jiuil if he does not get better control of the hon. member for Kast York, I fear he will be obliged to change more rapidly still. As to the arrangements made with Messrs. Mackenzie & Mann, Sir Charles Ti'ppRr said that they were men who had the capital, re- sources and energy to carry it out. They were probably tbe only men In Canada who could put the undertaking through in the time that It waa speclfieii. The same hon. gentleman to-night stood up and held his hands up high and declared that this Government should have given to all the contractors In Canada an opportnnily to tender for this work, and he demanded of the Minister of Railways 6nd Canala and of the Government why it was that we did not give to every contractor in Canada such an opportunity. Yet he himself had declared on the 27th of last month that these contractors were the f»nly ones who could do the work within the time. It is surely not necessary to follow in detail an address composed of criticisms of that kind. I will not weary the House by following the hon. gentleman's Incoherent abuse of my hon. friend the. Minister of Railways and Canals, but I may be allowed to refer to a few of the eccentricities of his address. Now, Sir, he considers that the Govern- ment ought to have acted with more prompt- ness. But so many of his followers— if he has any, if they can be considered his followers, but at any rate some hon. gentlemen on th » other side— think we have gone too fast. But the leader of the Op- position thinks the Government ought to have acted more promptly. This Interview is a very valuable docuihent, and it is very desirable that it shall very fully and com- pletely be embalmed in " Hansard " imme- diately after the speech of the hon. gen- tleman. Sir Charles considers that the Government ought to have acted with more promptness. That much valuable time had been lost, and If his suggestions had been acted upon, the pro- ject would be in an advanced state by now. Of course, we know that If the hon. gentleman's suggestions were acted upon In all cases there would be no blot upon the Administration, everything would be done exactly as it ought to be done. The fact that a trail was to be put through In six weeks, so that the distance between the Stikine River and Te^lin Lake may be covered in three days, is in his Judgment of great im- portance. He thinks shelters should be erected at suitable places for the accommodation of the flood of traffic that will go in. The contract provides for them. The completion of the road by September is slower work than might have been done had the question been grappled with earlier. Still, It will be of the utmost importance to Canadian Interest - It is difficult to understand how we could have gotten the ice out of the Stikine River by making the contract earlier, but the hon. gentleman seems to think so, and I am giving his opinion. Sir Charles gives the Government credit for acting with such vigour as It has shown, and asserts that the opening of the Canadian route was strongly urged by him upon both Govern- ments interested as the proper course to pursue* He does not anticipate any trouble with the United States in transferring cargoes from the ocean boats to river boats at Wrangell. Neither did my hon. friend the Minister of Railways, and yet the hon. gentleman (Sir Charles Tupper) spent nearly an hour in abusing the Minister of Railways and Canals for using 'an expression almost precisely similar to that used by himself in this inter- view. If, however, such should happen, Canada has Fort Simpson to fall b0,ck upon which will be equally serviceable. That will be Interesting in the light of the criticism the hon. gentleman has ad- dressed to this House to-night on the sub- ject of this contract. The hon. gentleman, when he rose this afternoon, evidently addressed himself to the task of getting out of the difficulty he was in, of turning hig bade upon this ques- tion, and of explaining the extraordinary change of attitude. He evidently felt very much oppressed by that tasli. But I notice that he addressed himself much more cheer- fully to It this evening. Possibly the idea had Just occurred to him that he could draw a red herring across the trail by indulging In an hour's abuse of the Minister of Rail- t^rays and Oanals, an Idea which, apparent- ly had not occurred to him in the afternoon. So, as the main reason why he changed his attitude upon this question, he said, that further light had come to him. And, as one of the other great authorities which had changed its opinion on account of the new light that had come, he quotes that very reputable and well known paper the Montreal " Witness." At least, he quotes part of it. I suppose it would not be kind for me to refer to the fact that sometimes the hon. gentleman does not quote the whole of a document which he submits to this House. In this particular case he has not quoted the whole, or even the material part, of the document which he was reading for the purpose of explain- ing the position he took before this House. Now let me read it : Tbe details of the bargain of the Mackenzie- Mann syndicate reveal objectionable features that do not appear In the information -which came to light before the presentation of the con- tract to Parliament. It was not then known that the railway was to be a very narraw gauge one. It was not then realized, as it seems to be admitted, that the Stlklne is not navigable for iea craft, and that bulk must be broken In American waters, and there are, as we have pointed out, possibilities connected with the par- celling of the land grant which are Interesting to contemplate. , Will the hoft. gentleman say that these were the reasons that caused him to change his opinion, and that the " Daily Witness," of Montreal, is in the same position as he Is upon that question ? An hon. MEMBER. Read on. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. Well, we will read the balance of it . We doubt, however, if a business man acting in his own interest would, even with all consid- erations fully before him, recall the bargain as a whole, if he coild, much as he might wish he could alter many of Its details. We doubt if any of the Government's critics would, were the case their own, recall the bargain. The hon. gentleman quotes as a reason for changing his opinion, an article which approves of ^he contract, and states that it would not be recalled if it could be. Now let me Mr. DAVIN. Read all the article. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. I trust that the hon. member tor Asslnibola (Mr. Davin) will not allow this debate to terminate without addressing the House on the subject, and he will have an opportunity of reading the article himself when he comes to speak. Another thing which the hon. gentleman did, and which I thought was somewhat beneath the dignity of a gen- tleman of his age, and position, and expe- rience, was to make an attack upon my hon. friend the Minister of Railways which was totally unjustified by anything that was said by my hon. friend. He alleged, again and again, that the Minister of Rail- ways had attacked the engineer of the Gov- ernment, Mr. Jennings. Now, I listened to my hon. friend when he was speaking, and I think I know an attack when I hear it, and I think I can recognize whether a gentleman speaking of an engineer's report, is speaking Jn a hostile tone and attacking it ; and I assert most positively, and there is no man who listened to my hon. friend who will not assert with me, that there was nothing whatever !n the words of the Min- ister of Railways to Justify the statement that he made an attack upon the engineer's report, nothing whatever. Mr. Jennings made an estimate of the cost of a railway. If the hon. gentleman will read that esti- mate he will come to the same conclusion, in the light of his great railway experience of which we are so constantly reminded, ns my hon. friend the Minister of Railways came to, as I come to, as anybody will come to who reads that report, and who endeavours to get any knowledge whatever of the actual cost of the work. He will come to the conclusion that that estimate was based on normal prices and normal conditions, and that abnormal prices and abnormal condltlous such as will prevail In tlie execution of this contract, must be taken Into account when the cost of the work which is going to be done by these conlraetors, is taken into consideration. Tliat, it appears to me, is a fairly intelligible proposition, and it is a proposition which no intelligent man reading that report, can fail to grasp. That is the proposition which the Minister of Railways made this afternoon ; I make that proposition now, and I am not attacking Mr. Jennings, the engi- neer, who was employed by me for the pnri)ose of making that report, and who has my complete confidence, and the com- plete confidence of every member of the ^Hovernraent. . If the hon. gentleman will take the trouble to look at the report and .sne the prices that are figured on there, he will see that ordinary prices and ordinary cost of material are all tliat Is figured on ; and extraordinary conditions, the extraor- dinary difficulties of getting freight up the Stikine River, the large number of special steamers that have to be purchased and employed by them for that purpose, all the dllficulties that crowd upon contractors when they are forced to do their work much more rapidly than in ordinary course - all these circumstances have to be taken into account ; and I am satisfied myself that one-half more at least than the price Mr. Jennings has placed there would not more than satisfy the increased cost that will be brought upon these contractors by reason of the extpime haste with which the voric has to be pushed along. I have thought it necessary to mentloji that fact simply be- cause of the unreasonable and, to my mind, the ridiculous attack that was made by the leader of the Opposition upon the Minister of Railways and Canals in connection with that phase of the question. Then my hon. friend spent a larfje portion of his time in endeavouring to play upon words, to attach a meaning to a casual sentence in my hon. friend's opening statement in connection with this Bill, that nobody had the slightest idea was intended to be conveyed by that sentence. There is no necessity for mis- representation, there is no necessity for try- ing to twist things into what they do not mean, and what everybody knows they do not mean. We all know exactly what we knew last session about the Yukon country ; there is no dispute about it. If I recollect aright, the printed report was not brought down before the House prorogued, but at the request of some hon. members I had some copies made of the xnost Interesting portion of Mr. Ogilvle's report, and my hon. friend the member for Lambton (Mr, Lister) par- ticularly asked for a copy, and copies were given to him and given to others, and we know perfectly well what information was In our possession. We had the information of Mr. Oi^llvie'H report In which he says that there had been some extraordinarily rich finds of gold made, and that there was likely to be an Irflux of people. An influx of people would be anderstood by any intelli- gent man at that time, reading that report .about a far-off and aim 'St unknown dis- trict, a district that had attracted no attention whatever, a district that had not attracted the attention of the late Government sufflclently to induce them to provide the most ordinary facilities for the administration of law, until a change of Government took place, and this proper provision was made — I say that what any person would have understood by that, what I understood by it, what the hon. member for Lambton understood by it, what all the metabers who .discussed the British Yukon Railway Bill understood by It. what the leader of the Opposition himself under- stood by It, was that there would probably be a few more hundreds of people golug In, a few more hundreds of miners going Into that district . thac had gone In the previous year. Th's mining had been golu;:? on since 1880. In that year the Stewart River was prospected and worked, and ever since that time odd companies of miners have been working there. But will anybody in his senses undertake to say that when this Parliament prorogued we had any Infor- mation whatever which led to the suppo- sition that tens of thousands of people were aoln^ to the Klondike district last fall and the coming year V Why, nobody dreamed of such a thing. It is easy to be wise after I the event, and if the hon. gentleman can prove eveatB backwards, and hold people responsible for not knowing what Is going to happen In the future, then he can hold ids political opponents responsible for a i great deal, and It would be a very conve- I nient method of political argument. But I I assert, Mr. Speaker, that there has not I been one moment of delay in connection with any of the work devolving upon the (joverument of this country by the devel- opment o/.' the Yukon district. I assert that the hon. gentleman can take the records of his party, he can look back over the history of the development of the great west, and he can find, time after time, when prompt action was required, no action was taken by the late Government, us a result of which they had two rebellions on their hands, and millions of dollars of the people's money were lost. Why, Sir, at the very earliest moment ^^ e could get any definite information, we acted : and I say no one in his sense would have Ueen justified la taking the opinion of Mr. Ogllvlo— who for two years had been In the Yukon district and totally shut out of the civilized world— as to there being ; likely to be an influx of people into that ; country, to mean that there would be a gen- eral and an unprecedented rush to that country. No one respects Mr. Ogllvle more than I do, but he would be the last man to expect a Minister of the Grown, in charge of the depjtrtment in which be was employ- ed, to take a cursory statement of tliat kind as an intimation that people from the whole world would flow into tlie Y'ukon district. How could he know ? He had no communication with the outside world. The only people to whom fie, could be re- ferring would be the few miners in the Immediate neighbourhood of the Yukon on the Alaskan side, whom he might expect to come over and stake claims on the rich creek which he had reported as having been dis- covered, and in respect to which he report- ed that a couple of men had taken out gold to the value of so many dollars to a single pan. The report was very short. I read it over sever.ll times and discus.sed it with several members of the House, and we were in doubt as to whether it was even likely at that time that the discoveries would amount to anything or not. Yet it has been urged to-dny that a responsible Minister of tlie Crown should have come down to Pnrlla- I ment and recommended an expenditure of : hundreds of thousands of dollars on such a \ statement. It is the craziest thing a man ever dreamed of, and the leader of the Op- I position would have been the first man to ' have denounced me for making such a re- j commendation and asking an appropriation \ before I knew exactly the purpose for which It was required. Even after the district be- came known as a gold-bearing region— and ct last fall y dreamer! wise after einan can old people t Is going can hold 'le for a 'ry conve- >nt. But e has not connection upon the the devel- ssert that •ecords of le history west, and n prompt taken by of which auds, and [)ney were f nioraent aticn, we ise would pinion of had been slmt out ?re being Into that be a gen- to that vie more it man to n charge i emplov- of tliat from the i Yukon 3 had no rid. The be rp- in the ukon on xpeet to ch creet een dls- ' report- >ut j;old I single read it it with m Were ikely at !i mount I urged of tlie Pnrlia- :ure of such a a man he Oi>. nan to I a re- lation which let be- »— and It did not become so known until the arriral of the first steamboat from Alaska, bearing a large quantity of gold, the arrival of which created great excitemont— notlilng de- finite was before the Gov. rnment as to the richness of the discoveries or as to the dis- coveries being BO extensive as to warrant aiy large or PXorl)ltnnt exp.Miditur«» In con- nection with the Yukon district. But prior to that time, some steps had been taken. 1 did not leave the matter in the same shape as it was left by lion, gentlemen opposite.who year after year neglected, si far as I know, to ijviMi read the rc^ports of the otHcers they sent into that country. Prior to that time. I had taken steps to send there a gold com- missioner, instructed and authorized to transact the business that would arise In connection with raining claims, with two assistants, this force being deemed amply sufficient for the work sc far as we had any Idea of it at that time. As the excitement Increased, we took such further steps as seemed to be necessary. We adopted mea- sures to Increase the number of the mount- ed police and to have them selected and all necessary supplies forAs arded as quickly as pcssil)le. But we did not realize, and 1 do not think the House will blame us for not realizing until the summer haake to get into the Yukon River by the Hootallnqua River, when he did not know whether that river was navigable or not ? That. I pre- sume, is the way in which the Minister of Railways, in tlie plenitude of his experi- ence, would have proceeded. Some hon. MEMBERS. Oh, oh. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. Tlie ex-Minlster of Railways and Can- als (Sir Charles Tupper). I mean. The hon leader of the Opposition has given great attention to some parts of Mr. .Ten- nings's rojiort. and I recommend him to give some attention to some other portions. If the hon, gentleman will look at page 13, he will find a report dated .Tanunry 0th, by Mr. Arthur St. Cyr. This report Mr. .Tennings did not receive until a few days later, and I do not think I received Mr. .lonnings's report until the 13th or lltli of tlie montli. I could not have called I'or lenders for the construction of the work on ^Ir. .Tennlngs's report because the report to which I have alluded, as necessary, was the report to be made by Mr. St. Cyr, who was sent by Mr. .TcMinings. under m.v special In- st ruci ions, to ascertain whether Teslln Lake and liootalhuiua River were naviga))le or not. So. when we conunenced our proceed- ir.gs, >vo had an intelligent plan in our minds, and wlien we got our reports comjiletod, we know certain facts beyond a doubt, and that the route we selected was a route which would be a proper one for Parlia- ment to adopt for the purpose of getting p.nssengers and supplies into that country. We could not have known anything alwut it from Mr. .Tennlngs's report, if there had boon no report made as to the navlgal)illty of the waters below. This re))ort was dated 6th .Tanuary ; it was sent to Mr. .Jennings a day or two Inter, and it got into m.v hands about .Tanuaiy l.Sth. The contract was signed on January 2.'>th ; and I tliink the House will aaroe with me. without any further discussion, that no additional answer whatever is required to the strictures of the hon. gentleman on the Government for not having proceeded witii more speed. I do not know that it is necessary far me to make any more detailed reference to the remarks of the hon. gentleman (Sir Charles Tupper)) except to say that among the principal reasons, or alleged reasons, which he gave this afternoon for his cliange of mind, was that another offer had been made to construct a line of railway from Pyramid Harbour by way of Chllkat Pass and Fort i Selkirk, for 5,000 acres a mile. That alleged offer, that mythical offer, seems to have had an extremely disturbing effect upon the mind of the lion, gentleman (Sir Charles Tupper). Well, It will probably have the effect of relieving the hou. gentlenmu's mind when I tell him that this alleged offer is a figment of the imagination of some of our newspaper friends, and that no such offer was ever made to this Govern- ment or to any member of the Governuicnt. Therefore, the comparison which has boon made in the press, and to some extent in the House, between the project we are now dis- cussing, and the offer alleged to have been made, is not at all in point, for as I have said no such offer was ever made. I desire to make that statement very clear, because In the most extraordinary way, a way that seem to lue Is not at nil creditable to some of the newspapers which have taken it up, it was at once taken for Rranted Ihat this offer luid been made. When the Minister of Railways made bis statement and noth- ing was said about any such offer having been made. It might have at least been taken for granted that the Governnumt ought to iinve been interrogated on the sul>Ject. and some definite information se- cured. l)efore it was assumed that such an offer had been made and refused. Mr. FOSTER. May I ask my hon. friend a question ? The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. Certainly. Mr. FOSTER. The Minister of Railways when speaking stated definitely that other persons were conferred with, that other contractors, or eompauios. or corporat'ons were mentioned ; several of them. Now, my hon. friend (Mr. Slftou) is no doubt per- fectly acquainted with all the steps in the negotiations. They appear to have been ••iirried on by word of mouth, but at the same time I think he will .igree that it is the right of the House to have a full exithuia- tlon from him, as to all such parties who conferred, and what was the purport of their propositions, and what was the pur- port of the conferences that went on. It would be very gratifying to the House to have that knowledge. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. It is perfectly correct to say that there were verbal discussions, but it is not in any sense of the word correct to say that any otfer was ever made to the Government for the construction of any railway on any of the i.ntes mentioned, except what are described and set out in the papers laid on the Table this afternoon. I would like to repeat that statement fo^ the purpose of making it more definite if I can. I repeat that the papers which were laid on the Table this afternoon, contain ail the offers of any kind whatever that were aver made to the Government in connection with the building of railways to the Yukon, so far as I am aware. I may say upon that point— not In material qualification of it, but simply for the purpose of avoiding even the slightest possible Inaccuracy, that as the House will perfectly well understand, there were conferences and informal drafts of memoranda discussed between the Govern- ment and Messrs. Mackenzie & Mann when the negotiations were going on ; btit there V as nothing even then in the shape of a for- mal offer and from time to time these drafts were amended and changed until eventually the contract was agreed upon between the Government and these gentlemen. The proposals that were submitted, were made In the terms set forth in the letters, of which copies were laid on the Table of the House this afternoon, and the House Is therefore In possession of the fullest Infor- mation on the whole subject. Xow, Mr. Speaker, 1 want to say just a few Words In rogard— not to the railway project —but to some circumstances leading uf) to an intelligent understanding of the 8ul>Ject with wlilch the (iovernraent has had to deal. I said, and I repeat : that I do not think It can be laid to the charge of the Govern- ment that there was one moment's delay in connection with the administration of the fcffalrs of the Yukon district that could pos- j sibly l)e avoided. Every step was taken i just as promptly as it could be taken ; and ; it was taken under the very greatest dltfi- ' culties and under the most disturbing and hanisslng circumstances. When it first be- i came evident to the Government that spe- cial measures had to be taken in connection , with this district, the House will under- I stand that there was no otflcor lu the De- partment of the Interior— with the exception , pos8U)ly of Dr. Daw.sbn who aome years ' before had made a geological exploration i trip through that district— there was no offl- j cer !n the Department of the Interior avail- • able for the purpose of consultation wno I had a personal and accurate knowledge of that district. And. in the steps that were in the first instance taken and everything that was done until \ met Mr. Ogllvie at i A'^ancouver on the 1st of October, until that i time, we had to depend upon the vaguest ; and most Indefinite Information. We had the survey, we had Mr. Ogilvie's report, but I can tell hou. gentlemen opposite, that as to Information which would enable us to In- telligently do the work which we had to do, these reports were not of very much assist- ance to us. For Instance, we found it was absolutely impossil)le to find out definitely and positively at what time and at what period the lakes and the rivers in tlie lower part of the district were frozen. We found It was impossible to discover what the state of the Passes was likely to be at that time of the year, and all we could do was to send on. our mounted police, let them take their supplies, send them over the Passes and let ijs know the result of their efforts. Bel mal the Yukon, y upon that on of Jt, but ns: even the vat as the tand. there drafts of lie Govern- ^Iann when but there l>fi of a for^ iiese drafts eventually itween the len. The vere made ett«r8, of ole of the House Is est infor- "St a few »y project ''iff up to t' subject d to deal, t think It (Tovera- ' delay in n of the ouia pos- !>s taken ^en ; and ■i^at diffl. ^>bn? and first be- hilt spe- nneetlon ' nnder- tUe De- cceprfon ^ years 'oration uo offl. r avall- n wjio 'dtre of t Were •ythinjf Ivie at . il tiiat •iffuest e had 't, but lat as to in- to do, isslst- was litely what Dwer Dund state time 8 to Lake sses >rts. Reference was made by some hon. gentle- man, whom I do not now remember, to ibu appointment of Major Walsh ; and with re- ference to that I may say that, although Major Walsh was appointed somewhere about the middle of August, he onlv ac- cepted the post upon the express coudiilon that he should not be asked to leave before the ISth of September. It Is not a light thing for a man to nccept a post Involving the imminent risk of his life, ineolvlup the entire uprootiug of all his business and so- cial relations ; but Major Walsli loyally ac- cepted the position which was tendered him by the Government. He has loyally done the work, done It in a manner beyond all praise, and for which this country will ever owe Major Walsh a debt of gratitude ; but be was Justitled iu making the condition that he should not be asked to take his (.'parture for the Yukon untl) the 15th of September. When the 15th of September came, we had reijorts to tlje mounted imlice oflicials here, showing tliat the ofHcerH who had con- sented to go through tlie White Paws witli their supidies liad been struggling in that pafis amidst the rain and tlie mud nnd all the friglitful dldlcultles which accumulaled around tb-jui there "iid they l»ad almost utterly failed to get uie supi)lit s uecessarj foi* them acn ^ that i)ass. All they coidd think oi doiuj^ waa to get twenty men through, with the supidles necessary to talic them to Dawson City. The remainder of the iTii^n were stuck in the pass. The Gov- ernment apiiroved of the suggestion that I should go out with Major Walsh, and take such steps as were necessary to overcome the (litricultles. I went with Major Walsli ; no time was lost ; ami from that time to this, without cessation. Major Walsh and his men have been labouring under dilll- enltles of which the members of this House can have no possible conception, for the liUiT)ose of provisioning and keeping up the I)osts In the task of saving tlie lives of the unfortunate men who are constantly going out. While my hon. friend treats this question with that jocularity which he can assume so Avell, and with that flerce abuslve- ness Avhlch he can assume ele and most successful In prevent- ing starvation ; and up to this time, so far as my Information goes, not one single man has died of starvation on that terrible route. Someliody the other night— I think it was the hon. member for West York (Mr. Wal- lace)— in a sarcastic tone, wanted to know why Major Walsh was camped far froln Dawson City. In the name of common sense, \\ hat would he be doing at Dawson City ? We have forty mounted policemen and a sufficient staff of officers there to do the work. Major Walsh is at ihe place where he was told to stay, attending to the busi- ness he was sent to attend to ; and when in his good judgment every provision has been made there for the purpose of meeting emergencies, then, and not till then, he will go on to Dawson City to do the work which is intended to be done there. I would not like to be here to have to ex- plain that Major Walsh and his men had I gone on and locked themselves up at Daw- son City, and left the people to get out as they could, and perhaps starve on 'i! ill the way. Major Walsh is doing the work he was sent to do, and he la doing It, as I said before, in a manner beyond all praise ; and, Sir, it is a pleasure to me, in the heat cl' a political discussion to be able to say one word here in commendation of the efforts of a man who, not Impelled theioto by any financial necessity or by any desire for emolument, has thus sacrificed his own peace of mlud, his safety and his conveni- ence for the saiie of doing what he believed to be Ills duty to his country. Perhaps I have said enough on that sub- ject. I want now to say Just a few words to indicate what my conclusion was upon the possibilities of that country. I will not burden the House very long with it. The report which Mr. Ogllvie has made, and ■which embraces the results of the more recent discoveries of that district, is now In the hands of the members. In case the members of the House have not all had opportunity to follow Its pages through, I will take the liberty of reading a short ex- tract froiti it which gives a fairly compre- hensive resumS of what may be expected, and what oplnioja ought to be held In re- gard to the future possibilities of that dis- trict. I read this because I think it is well tliat we should try to get an intelligent idea of what thN country is, and I read it particularly for le benefit of the members of the Opoositlou ; because the discussions which some of them have given us upon the possibilities of that region and the ease with which gold mines may be found indicate that tliey not only have not read this re- port, but that they have never read any account of any go'd-bearing country in the V orld ; and even if the members on this j «- ile of the House find it a little tiresome, 1 ! will request our hon. friends on the other i side of the Hou.se to give it attention. Mr. Ogilvle says : With these facts before us we may confidently assert that we have here a region situated in the North-west Territories upwards of 300 miles in length and 500 or more miles wide along tho southern boundary, for this zone extends south- oastwaids into British Columbia, and we may r(\isonably assume westward to and across the Mist meridian, for some of the streams heading ; en and near it, discharging into the Pacific Ocean j west of Mount St. Elias, yield gold on their lower I stretches, and we may reasonably assume the i upper parts are gold-bearing, too. I<''arther In- i land gold has been found on the upper waters of I the T,:niina, near the head waters of the Porty- ! mile, antl in 1S73 and 1874 Harper and Harto found some gold on the south branch of White ; River, in the vicinity of the boundary line, all I of which is a jualiflcation for this assumption. ' Thus v/e may conclude with reason that all that ■ portion of the North-west Territory westward from the easterly limit of the Yukon water syd- tern to the 141st meridian, will prove more or less gold-bearing. The westerly boundary of this region — the 14lst meridian, or international boundary — is upwards of 300 miles in length ; the southern boundary— the 60th parallel of latitude — Is about 500 miles long, and the north-v^ast boundary, and irregular line from the 60th parallel to the 141st meridian, in latitude 65° approximataly, Is upwards of 600 miles long. These three lines bound an area of about 125,000 square miles, over which gold is scattered more or less profusely. At many of the points mentioned It will pay well for working even under present conditions, and at • many others It will pay well when we : nave such facilities as we expect to have du/lng j the next year for' entering and developing that region. Attention may be directed to the fact i that the whole of that vast district owes its now v.'orld-wide reputation to the richness of 140 I claims in the Klondike division. One hundred of '' these are on Bonanza Creek, and about 40 on Bl- ! dorado. To use a mining term, many of those > claims are " world-beaters," and if the indlca- I tlons now known are worth anything at all they ■ are worth from sixty to seventy millions of dol- ' lars in those two creeks. i Taking this division as a whole, including the thre^ creeks named, affluent to Indian Creek, a district some 35 miles in length and 25 or more miles in width, if! the indications can be relied on, there are one hundred million dollars In sight in that area. No one can guarantee this amount, but the prospects so far developed point to that sum pretty conclusively. This distrlot is exceptionally rich. I commend that to the attention of the hon. leader of the Opposition, who seems i.o think that these contractors will be able to walk In there and find these tracts lying ai'ound every mile or two. Nothing has ever been found like It heretofore in that country, in fact, in very few countries : has anything been found like it, and while we cannot confidently assert that other finds as val- ! uable as it will be made, it Is altogether impro- : bal)le that gold is scattered over such a vast : extent, and only rich at a point which is less I than the 140th part of the total area. j Some hon. MEMBERS. Hear, hear. The MINISTER OP THE INTERIOR. Quite correct. The hon. gentlemen oppo- site, if they think they are easily found, will have the first chance. Some hon. MEMBERS. No, they have not. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. They can engafii> their prospectors and send them out there. There is nothing In this world to prevent these hon. gentlemen lo- cating their claims right now, and they will have from now until the lotb of June to get their claims located before the rail- way company will have tho privilege of milking one location. I will talk to these hon. gentlemen about mining claims after a little while. If we add to this part of thw northern area of British Columbia, we increase it nearly two-fold, and the comparative area of the Klondike dis- trict is much lessened Thus says Mr. Ogllvie. Now, here is the opinion of a man wlio has been there for years, and who talks as a reasonable man should : j Taken all together, we have a vast field with fair prospects, as fair, it may be claimed, as any 1 other equally extensive region in the world. The l»t meridian wards of 600 a an area of '^ch gold Is It win pay conditions, 1} when we Ijave dui-lng loping that to the fact wes Its now ^ess of 140 hundred of 't 40 on El. [y of those toe Indlca- at all they ons of doN 'udlup the » Creek, a 5 or more be relied aollars In intee this •Ped point s district the hon. able to ts lying eretofore wuntrles v'hllo we ' as val- f* Impro- a vast Is less natural conditions are not as favourable as In many other parts, but time and enterprise will no doubt agreeably modify many of them, and the reward may be great. That Is a fair statement of the conclusion of Mr. Ogllvie and of the conclusion which anybody would come to who went iiut the matter carefully and endeavoured to collect the information that Is now available. Let me point out to the House now some of the dilHf'ulties of a territorial character under which the Government labour In dealing with this problem. I was somewhat sur- prised to hear the remarks which were made on this subject by tlie leader of the party which, we are told by the erudite and scholarly member for West Assiniboia (Mr. Davin) so often, has the instinct of Govern- ment, whatever thnt may be. and which, he says, Is possessed exclusivel. by hon. gen- tlemen on that side. One of the great proofs of that instinct, I should thinlc, would be unanimity and loyalty. And when you see a party which displays so much har- mony as that perfect accord which exists between the ex-Mlnlster of Railways (Mr. Haggart) and his leader, and between an- other of its leading lights, the hon. member for West York (Mr. Wallace) and his leader —when you And a party whose leading spir- its are so intimate and perfectly united in brotherly love— when you find tliis perfect loyalty among them to one another, with no such thing, for instance, as setting a private detective on their leader's track to find out when he is Interviewed by a newspaper re- porter, you find a party undoubtedly pos- sessed of the instinct of government. I do not pretend that this is altogether germane to the question ; but the remarlvs of the hon. member for West Assiniboia about the instinct of government are really so amus- ing that It is difficult to refrain from ad- vei'ting to them. I was somewhat surprised to find an hon. gentleman wlio leads tlio party that has this Instinct of sovcrnment to such an intense degn^o, proc?eding to- night, in fi manner which would not do credit to the most obscure stump-siieaker that ever addressed a backwoods audience, to discuss, in the most unqualified terms, the most delicate intcnational relations ex- isting between the Go'/^mment of this coira- try and the Government of tlie T'^nited States. Wliy. I am astonislii^l. >rr. Speaker, that an hon. gentleman wiio lias been years In the public service of tlie country, does not seem to realize that speeches of that kind are calculated to leid to the direst calami- ties and difficulties between nations- speeches which inflame the public mind and the sentiments of people who do int know better, who o.* nov lsents our jienple will remem- ber, wltii gratltu'l,^ when discussing ques- tions of tliis Icind. These regulations were changed, and our friends at the Coast now tell us that they are perfectly satisfactory with the addi- tional arrangements that were made by the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) for the purpose of more elTectually carrying them out and more effectually promoting their object. In addition to that, our mounted police have gone through United States waters and thi'ougli United States territory Avithout question.' Every facility that could be given has been given to us ; and, while at present, there remains some J)usiness to 1)0 done in connection witli the Stikine River and tlie navigation thereof—as to which I shall speak at a later iieriod—I say that we I have had up to tlie present time, so far as Ihe TTniled States Cal>inet is concerned, the most fair and reasonable and courteous treatment. It would not be a proper thing for me as u member of this Government to listen to llie Mutant stateineiiii^ made in Ihis House to-niglit witliont niMieeu treated, witli regard to that point, with ] rlie utmost friendliness by the Governnieut ( of the United States. I want my hon. 1 friend from Victoria (Mr. Prloi') with whom f I think I hare had some communication, ^ and who. I think, has probal>ly been Infln- I enced to some extent by the natural ex- citement in regard to the questions of trade J upon the Coast, to understand that, while I there is the strongest possiliie feeling In . c the Pacific Coast towns in regard to this j 1 question of trade, we have had no cause ' I of complaint against the United States Gov- 'ernment, because of their dealings with us I upon this question. As my hon. friend from * Pictou (Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper) said J In his remarks upon the Address, c there was something to explain in regr.rd to t Issuing the regulations at Dyea and Skag- ' iway which I had promised would be forth- It i coming in a short time. It Is quite true there was a delay, which delay has not been very fully explained. I do not know that I have any particular right to demand an explanatioxi from the Secretary of the Trea- sury of the United States. When I was there he said that the regulations would be Issued in such a way as to facilitate our trade In any reasonable way that we had a right to expect and that he thought he would be able to get them out in a short time. He was not able to get them out Just as soon as he expected, but I have not felt that I was entitled to demand any explanation from him in connection with the matter. I did get a telegram from the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury to the effect that the delay I was caused by the fact that he wished to I consult the collector of customs In Alaska : and get some information with regard to ! local matters which he thought he ought to i understand before he issued the regulations. i Sir CHARLES HIBBERT TUPPER. I Since the hon. gentleman has been good I enough to refer to some remarks that I \ made, I would like to ask him what I sug- ' gested in my remarks should be answered, and which Is not altogether wl' t he seems ! to think. The tjiiestiou I wish ..im to have . explained is, why he sent a telegram on the 8r(l of January to the effect that regulations i had been decided upon between the United ; States Government and himself by which these odious exactions would be removed. j The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. I They have been removed. ! Sir CHARLES HIBBERT TUPPER But this telegram on the 3rd of January I was not a promise but a positive assurance to the people of the Coast that these regula- tions had been amended and changed. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. The Secretary of tlie Treasury did assure me that he would at once issue regulations which would have the effect of doing axf&j with the necessity of paying these fees, and I so telegraphed to the Board of Trade of Victoria, and, I think, that of Vancouver. The regulations were to have been drafted and Issued at once. I had no doubt, when I sent tliat tel egram, that they would be drafted and issued in a day or two, but it was put off from time to time. But, as I said, I did no< feel that I had the right to demand an explanation, because the Washington authorities have ti'eated us most courteously, and I presume tlmt the delay was because the Secretary of the Treasury wanted to consult the collector of customs of Alaska before he had them sent up. That was a reasonalde explanation, and I do not feel that I was justified in complaining. But from time to t'me, I did communicate with Washington for the purpose of in- ducing the issue of the regulations as fast as possible. - Qnite true "as not been know that demand an >f the Trea. I was there d be Issued ur trade In a right to would be Je. He was IS soon as that I was Ltlon from ier. I did Secretary the delay wished to n Alaska regard to ' ought to filiations. sen good s that I at I sug- nswered, lie seems to have u ou the rulations ^ United y which •emoved, ETUOIi. Sir CHARLES HIBBBRT TUPPBR. With the permission of the hon. gentleman, I would like to ask him a qnentlon. I do not do It for a factious purpose. What I wished to reach was, If possible, a more definite explanation of that point. I never challenged the good faith of the hon. gen- tleman, but I did refer to the positive as- suritnce which he made, undoubtedly on the absurauce given to him ut Washington on the 3rd of January. Then I asked an ex- planation, which I do not think the hon. gen- tleman has yet given, how it wati that this positive assurance which he conveyer of Railways a' d Canals as a " Know-nothing." Surely luy hon. friend was somewhat lost to a sense of what is due to his own dignity aud the dignity of this House, when he made use of that expression. Sir CHARLES TUPPER. I ask leave to Interrupt my hon friend for one single mo- ment to ask him whether he thinks that was a greater violation of parliamentary decorum than for one of his colleagues to call a gentleman on his side of the House " Ananias." The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. If my lion, friend will have any one who sug- gests that epithet on his side of the House, of course we cannot help It ; the truth will come out some time. It would be quit«^ Im- possible for us, at any rate, to prevent im- pressions of that kind being formed. But I do not suppose my hon. friend will take the position that, because some gentleman on this side Intimated that there was a pos.sl- ble resemblance between Ananias and some I gentleman on that side of the House, he Is j to be relieved for all time to come from all I sense of decency and of the Importance of I mnintaining i)arliunientary decor iim. What I was seeking to call the hon. gen- tleman's attention to In connection with n j , remarks on that subject was that while he was addressing his gentle crllicism to my hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Canals, he was adverting moat strongly to the fact that the Government had presumed to come down to Parliament and ask for the subsidizing of a line of railway, and yet hill was not able to state either by speech In Parliament or In the Bill specifically what the rates for freight and passengers on this railway should be. That is a criticism that is very stronglv and very repeatedly ad- dressed to this side of the House by my hon. friend. It is a criticism that has been In the air, and has been seen In the press and heard in this House, and it has been heard a number of times while this question has been under consideration. Now the party of which the hon. gentleman Is the titular leader was In control of the railway legisla- ton of this Parliament from 1878 to 1896. I would lilie the combined wisdom of the gen- tlemen on that side of the House, before this discussion is through, to be addressed to meeting this challenge that I now malie : For them to produce the case of a single railway Bill presented to this House since 1878 which stated the rates which were to be charged upon that railway. If they can- not do that let them produce a single case in which, since 1878, th« Minister of Rail- ways when he brought down a Bill for the subsidizing of a railway stated In this House what were to be the specific passen- ger rates upon that railway. Will they pro- duce one single case in Avhich they did what they have demanded and re-demanded we should do in regard to this particular rail way ? Mr. MACLEAN. What about the two cent passenger rate Bill ? Mr. MACDONALD (Huror;). Are you the leader of the Opposition ? Mr. MACLEAN. The challenge was to any member on this side. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. Now, I do not intend to follow the windings i of my lion, friend's (Sir Charles Tupper's) at- 1em))t to ijive the reasons for his change of front, or to offer any furtlier criticisms ou his remarlvs at tlie present moment. I was endeavouring, last evening when the debate adjourned, to explain the position in which tiie Government was placed respect- ing the difficulties arising out of the admin- (Ji Istration of flie Yulion district, to the end I that Ave might give to the House and the IJij country a fair idea of the reasons which Impelled the Government to the action which they have talien and to recommend i the course which they have recommended , to Parliament. I pointed out that the facts were unprecedented in this respect— that we had to accept responsibility for the govern- ment and administration of a distant and almost inaccessil)le country, and that the onlr mode of access to tlie country (prac- 'tically speaking, although not absolutely so from a geographical standpoint) was throu.^rh territory which was in the possession of the United States, and which, according to Inter- ■ national usage, It was not competent for i|;jj this Government to take possession of or to r'l exercise jurisdiction over without negotia- !i! w! tions and the consent of the United States Government. I wish the House to take spe- cial note of the difficulties caused by that one fact when considering the criticisms ad- dressed to us from the other side of the House based on the fact that we have not taken such action as would un- doubtedly have brought about strained re- lations between the Government of Canada and the Government of United States. I might say, that the suggestion which was broiif^ht to the attention of tl)e right hon. the First Minister in connection with the Stlkine River, that this Government should take steps to prevent certain action being taken at Washington, comes very strangely indeed ; from an lion, gentleman who a night or two I ago donouuced most furiously and in the I uiost unqualified terms the idea of any mem- I ber of this Govei-nment having anything to j do witli the Government at Washington. I This only shows the absolutely incoliercnt ! and Inconsoqiientlal nature of the criticisms j addressed to the Government. I Sir CHARLES TUPPER. My hon. friend ! perhaps will allow me to say that he has en- tirely misinterpreted my words if he thought I that I proposed that this Government should I put Itself In communication with the Amerl- I can Government in any other way than I through the Imperial Government and the i British Ambassador at Washington. The MINIS'!" '^R OP THE INTERIOR. I am quite satisiied to let the hon. gentle- man's explanation stand. I was pointing out tlie dilficultles we were under with re- spect to that territory, and wish to state the further fact that up to that time we •were dependent, for the very supplies which our officers in the Yukon district I'e- celved, upon the American transportation companies which were doing business In the United States territory of Alaska. It will at once be seen by the House that that is a most important consideration. These supplies had to pass through nearly 1,600 miles of American territory before they reached the places where our supplies had to be delivered. We might have anticipated —In fact we did anticipate— what actually happened later on, thJit one of the boats containing sup] dies, some of which, I be- lieve, were actually ordered for our own officers in the Yukon district, was hold up In United States territory and •. .•ovisions taken off. and our post was left sliort in ' consequence. I only call attention to those facts to show to the House the difBcult position in Avliicli the Government Avas placed. Then, I Sii', let me onll attention to this fact, that : uotwlthslauding the warning Avhich Avas la'ldressed to the pi^ople of the United States last summer in regard to the almost abso- ! lute v'ertainty of starvation, if any very i large number of people Avent into the Yukon district, a considerable number of people did go, and a very large expense has been n'teJ States ^o, take spe. sed by that itlelsms ad- slde of the * *^e have strained re- of Canada States, J ^IJicli was fnt hon. the the StlkJne l^oiild take elng taken 'Ply Indeed f?lit or two I'KI in the , «ii.v raem- 'i.vMiinff to •isliington. liieolieront vernmeut in that ("strict would be overth' . .i. and the further result would be that it would be quite impossible for this Gove"i)meiit to re-assert and to re-establish Its authority until a railroad was built aixl a proper system of transportation provided so that our forces and our supplies could be taken In. TiCt me make tliat clear to the House. If it should happen rnat 40.0,0(K).000 Is a thing « v.hich the Government of this eountrH should devote a large amount of attentloH v.hen it is pessll)le to secure it for CanadiaB merchants and Canadian manufacturer^ The possibilities of trade, therefore, weiH very carefully considered by the GoveriH ment in connection with this question, anl we have done all that we could to man reasonalile arrangements with our friends fl the United States In order that the passaS of goods through the Dyea and SkagwM ! i I I Bl" M :1 'i routes might not Interfere with the work of our merchants. But this we know, Mr. Speaker, that there are 10,000 or 12,000 men at Dyea and Skagway now. We know that these people now there cannot get over these passes probably In the next three months, and tha± it Is an almost absolute certainty that within two or three weeks there will be more people at those two places than can get over the passes between now and next fall ; and as a result of this we have the fact that means of access to that coun- try. In the course of a couple of weeks, will be practically shut off so far as those places are concerned. Therefore, It seemed to the Government as most essential that another and better method of access to the country should be pro voided, so that Immediately it Is seen that the method of access to the country by Dyea and Skagway is shut off, we will be able to divert the stream of traffic along our Canadian route, and our Canadian merchants and manufacturers will benefit by that traflflc being so diverted by reason of the fact that the purchase of goods will necessarily be made in Canada. Now, Sir, these are some of the considera- tions which have led the Government to re- gard this question as one of such serious and great urgency as to justify us In taking a very string stand In reference to It, and In dealing with it In a w^ay which has been described, and very properly described, as unusual. Not so unusual, however, in point of speed, in point of what may be called hurry, as to ofCend the experienced parlia- mentarian Avho presides over the destinies of the Opposition, because the only fault that that hon. gentleman found with us was that we had not moved fast enough. It is, Mr Speaker, sometimes desirable that we siioiild seii ourselves as others see us, and if the House will pei-mit me, I will just read a sliovt extract from one of the best known and ablest commercial papers in the United States, as an indication of what our rivals for this ijreat trade are thinking of our action in this connection. It Is always a good thing to know what ycu- opponent is doing, and while we are on the most friendly terms Avith the Cabinet of the United States, we know they are doing everything they can to secni'e tliis trade for their people, and they know we are doing eveiything we possibly can to secure this trade for our people.' This is what one of their most reliable organs, tiie New York " Commercial Advertiser." in its edition of February 4. under the heading " The Klondike Railway." says : The Canadian Government Is sedulously follow- ing up Its policy of securing all the benefits of Klondike wealth for itself. Having exacted royalties from American miners, having appro- priated a proportion of the gold-bearing soil for Itself That is a most outrageous thing for Canada to do, to appropriate a little bit of its own territory for itself and having Imposed a heavy duty on sup- plies brought Into the country by Americana, Canada has now chartered a railway to enable Its citizens to reach the gold fields without en- tering American territory, and thus! to cut down the profits of American transportation and sup- ply companies. I wonder whether our supplies would be allowed to go into the United States with- out paying duty The projected railway does not make an all- rail route to the Klondike, and it will, no doubt, be long before there is one. The road is to start on the coast Just south of the southern boundary of Alaska, and traverse Dominion territory until it reaches navigable water flowing down through the Klondike region. It will be many years be- fore there will be any settlements In the north- ern part of British Columbia to enable the build- ing of a railway to connect the Canadian Pacific with the new Klondikel road, and by the time there are, the Klondike gold will very likely be exhausted and the Klondike railway abandoned. That, of course, Is a matter of opinion. The thrifty Canadian Government is not risk- ing any money on the projected road. The con- tractors clamoured for a subsidy and insisted that they could not be expected to construct the road without one. But Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his colleagues stood firm, and all that the contractors receive from the Government is a land grant along the route. The bargain Is pronounced to be the best one which Canada ever drove in a railway negotiation, Mr. FOSTER. I desire to ask the hon. gentleman The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. I will address a few remarks to the hon. gen- tleman In a few minutes, and I think I can satisfy him. This is a sentence that will grieve the hon. gentleman : as the land will never be worth anything without the railroad, and cannot prove very val- uable with it, unless some unexpected mineral resources are discovered. This Is a comment on the action of hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House. I am sure they will like to know the estima- tion in which their party is held by our American friends, as compared with the opinion entertained by them of hon. gen- tlemen on this sido of the House. The new railway will be a short one, to be sure, but to get it built without spending a cent of the public moneys upon it I cannot expect the hon. member for York (Mr. Foster) to agree with this. -is a great contrast to the prodigality with which Sir John Macdonald subsidized the Cana- dian Pacific, and ; dicates sincerity in the de- nunciation by Laurier and his party of the sup- posed corrupt relations between the Canadian Pacific and thei Macdonald Government. I commend this latter portion to the atten- tion of the House. An Ottawa Government organ exultantly re- marks that Canada now has the key to the gold fields In her own hands, and can deal with the .«««<*»**)•'«•'•*•■*• duty on sup. way to enabfi J« without en! ■to cut down ■*tlon and aup- States with- ^f^^ an all- "1. no doubt, 'ad Is to start ern boundary errltory until 'own through ny years be- ° the north- ble the bulld- adlan Paciflc ^y the time •ry likely be abandoned. >lnlon. Js not rlsk- • The con- nslBted that ct the road er and hfs contractors land grant nounced to drove la a tlie hon. hon. gen- nk I can :liat Will Americans as she sees fit. This boast migkt have been wIthheM until the road was finished. Pkybical obstacles or excessive cost may prevent the contractors from building It at all under the terms of the contract. Hon. gentlemen opposite think this Is a trifling matter, b\it others do not think it so trifling. The °'ame Journal says that Americans have macl< lar too large a share of the profits of the Yukon, both in the transportation business, the outfitting and the mining itself. This is true, because they have bad the enterprise to secure it. I have read these extracts to show how the matter is looked at by people who are taking the largest interest in it on the other side of the line, how it is looked at by the men who are going to suffer from the rail- way being put through, which will involve loss of their trade, and by which we will be able to add the trade of the Yukon to the general trade of the Dominion. If the House will not consider it a task too wearisome, I will try and offer a few remarks In regard to the various routes by which the Yukon can be reached, with the view of affording the House a little Infor- mation on the subject, which possibly I have had a better opportunity of acquiring than have members of the House generally. First, we have the route by way of the Yukon River. That route involves an ocean passage from a Paciflc Coast port to St. Michael's, at the mouth of the Yukon River, on the coast of Alaska. From St. Michael's by a river steamboat, the passenger goes to Dawson City through the United States ter- ritory of Alaska, a distance of about 1,600 miles. The Yukon ^ is a river that, during the early portion of the season, contains sufficient, water to float river steamboats carrying freight to the amount of about 500 tons. Those steamboats make one trip, fully loaded, from St. Michael's to Davpson City and return. They generally are able to make a second trip, but very seldom fully loaded. That is the information we have fi'om the transportation companies on that river. The boats go up and down twice in the season, and make no more than two trips in the course of tlie year, and on the second trip, on account of low water, they are not able to take a boat-load. There are two companies doing business on that river, the North American Transportation Com- pany, and the Alaska Commercial Com- pany ; and those are the only companies we can rely on actually to get freight np that river. Other people are building boats and intend to take them up the river next spring, but there is no certainty of those boats reaching Uawson City. The great difficulty arises from— and I need only men- tion the difficulty to realize the fact that a siralllar difficulty Is met with in navigating all western rivers, and of course It applies to a river 1,800 miles long— the shoals and obstructions, which remove any certainty of boats getting up the river nnless conducted by experienced men, knowing fully the nav- igation of the river. Some of the boats under construction may get up, but there Ir no assurance that they will get as far rs Dawson City next season. There is also the danger connected with that route, as regardo getting provisions and supplies up the river, that it may not be made available for Can- adian use. There are gold developments on the American side of the line, and these may lead the Americans to use their trans- portation facilities for the beneflt of their own people, and we are liable to be told that the supplies carried are needed for their own settlements, and thus left with- out any facilities. Now, the combined trans- portation facilities of the two companies upon the Yukon route, next year, will be about 40,000 tons for all purposes what- ever. Mr. FOSTER. This year ? The MINISrER OF THE INTERIOR. Yes. this year ; next season. It will be about 40,000 tons, and It would be a very libenil estimate on our part to assume that one-half of the tonnage of these companies would be devoted to the carriage of pro- 1 visions and supplies to the Canadian side, i We may therefore say that we can probably* count on somc-»vhat in the neighbourhood of | 20.000 tons ol supplies of all kinds ; remem- l>er not provisions alone, but supplies audi outflts of all kinds coming in by the YukonI route. That is the very outside limit ofl what we can reasonably expect to come by| that route during the next season. Then there Is the Dyea route. WhenI I was at Dyea there was no method of| getting supplies over the Chilkoot Pass, ex- cept by packing them on men's backs. Wei are now informed that a portion of the! distance has been spanned by a small tram-| wa.v, that another portion has been spannec by a wire cable, and that small qunntltlefi of supplies can be taken over in that way.| The cost at the present time Is said tc be 15 cents a pound, but the capacity for taking supplies over by that route Is veryJ very limited, and only a small amoun( could be transported over that pass durlnj the season. On the Skagway trail the onlj method of transferring supplies Is by pack^ ing oil horses' and on men's backs. Then there Is the Taku route. That ifj the route by way of Taku Inlot. and It I^ best known . y reason of the fact that th^ most active glacier on the Paciflc Coasi) Is In the Immediate neighbourhood of th{ harbour. Tlie harbour is a very poor onel generally filled with icebergs, as it waf when I was there. This route is totalis impracticable without a railway, and. likl the other routes that I have spoken of, term( nates in the strip of American terrltorj which runs along the coast. Then. Mr. Speaker, there Is the Stlklnl route, and that is the route which has beei I decided unon bv fh.^ n "^^^^^^^^^^T^^^^^^^^^======^^ I and carf'fiii o«i^ government after n fnii n... ~^^^ ==========:—-—— Sr.no&r--^^^^^^^^^^ rSof^r ^-« because HetookaXleof n^n^^^'^^t^^tkiS^^ f^^^^^^ House to i^ushTn? ?/ ^«^- up there wltl firn Professional assistants S '^^'n^'folded. We wfl. *^*° *"^s mar- t to tak.> general, ihi^;.*''''^ ^^ ^arpject wbich ^Igabllity of 1 prime con- ^pr could be rrangements ad until the "ly iiands, eagues : We on of a rail- eslln Lake, t the Waters ^e now got ^^d definite Junction of I'lvers the t'e to Daw- - for scows and with ice in the "ie Avaters ' iiave not e Fingers ^ity of do- ttion from 'sons who we think rapiit that suffice to 1 tile ob- pids. It ijuly not Will then iiead of we sliail te open r there- we have V'e shall 1 Teslin Vs: that ■oni the fm-nlsh auspor- ^iffable PPosed 'amers, e pur- !'• Jon- port : I may say that I was at the Stlkine Blver myself and went a short distance up the river and made careful Inquiries about the dates when the Ice formed lu the fall ; and \ the information I received was to the effect that it was generally very late In Octo- ber dependeat of course on the openneBS of the seasoa and the amount of rain and snowfall. Its width varies from half a mile on the lower river to 500 feet above. The depth is generally good and the channel is remarkably free from snags, sunken rocks or boulders, but at Little and Klootrhman Cafions, respectively 96 and 106 miles from the sea, during high water periods when many drift trees are running, it is with considera- ble risk that the passage through these contracted reaches are made and delays are common, as drift-wood is liable to be- come foul of the rudders or \(beel. The first 50 miles, or to the Great Glacier, is very good water with a moderate current not exceeding three miles per hour, while from this point upwards the chan- nel becomes somewhat tortuous and contracted, with an increasing general rate of current vary- ing from three to eight miles per hour ; however, the exceptionally swift sections are few and usually not more than half a mile in length. A powerful river steamer should be able to make the Little Caflon in one day's run from the mouth of the river, and the Glenora or Telegraph Creek on the second day. Mr. Jennings makes that report after hav- ing gone up this Identical river, over this Identical course, in a small steamer ; so that he is making the report, so far as this phase of the question is concerned, from absolute personal knowledge. The sum of $5,000 could be advantageously spent in removing snags and boulders and In placing permanent cables for use in the heavy water, principally above the Little Cafion. I may say that the Government contemplate asking the House for authority to spend a small sum of money, whatever may be ne- cessary, for the purpose of removing the snags spoken of, and improving the naviga- tion of the Stiklne River. That matter is now before the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Tarte), and is receiving his best atten- tion. Of course, the -House is aware that from the mouth of the Stiklne River to Vancouver or Victoria the route is by ocean steamer. I am giving these details to the House so that the House will be cognizant of the route to be followed when this rail- way shall be completed, and the facilities for traffic which it will afford. I calculate that the average trip from Vancouver or Victoria to Wrangell will occupy certainly not more than three days, and probably will be accomplished in two days, when better facilities for making the trip are completed, and when the steamers run on quick time, as they will no doubt do during the coming season. From Wrangell to Telegraph Greek the trip should be made In two days ; from Telegraph Greek to Teslin Lake by the railway in one day ; and from Teslin Lake to Dawson Gity by steamboat in iKYen days. So that we shall have by September next the possibility of reaching Dawson Gity from Victoria or Vancouver in thirteen days. I think, Mr. Speaker, if that desirable ob- ject is attained, the House will consider that the Government have succeeded in overcom- ing very great obstacles, and have brought about a very satisfactory result. Then, Sir, this is to be remembered, that Dawson Gity Is the extreme north-western town or large settlement in the Yukon dis- trict, not far from the boundary line ; and the first boat that goes up the Yukon River only reaches Dawson City about the middle of July. It is only between the middle of July and about two months later that there is any interchange of traffic at Dawson City by the Yukon River, and one cannot order freight which can possibly, reach Dawson City by the Yukon after the first of Septem- ber. About the Ist of September last we gave an order for freight to be sent to Daw- son City by the Yukon River, and it never got there, and It Is not there yet. So that that route Is practically useless for modem commercial purposes. Though It has been used by the North American Transportation Co. and the Alaska Commercial Co., they have taken plenty of time to get in their supplies, making their arrangements a year or six months ahead ; but it is a route which is perfectly useless for modern com- mercial purposes, when large quantities of supplies have to be sei ; In on short notice. The route which we contemplate opening up will enable us to start on the 15th of May from Victoria or Vancouver, and in thirteen days to land people and provisions In Daw- son City ; and from that time till late In the season, generally till from the 15th to the 30th of October, that traffic can be carried on. There is cot very much difference of opin- ion as to the route which the Cana- dian Oovernmenit have selected being the best possible route for the purpose of reach- ing the Yukon district. Everybody who knows anything about it agrees with the Government on that point. My hon. friend the leader of the Opposition, although he has altered his opinion on a great many matters In connection with the contract, has not altered his opinion In regard to the Stiklne route. He still thinks it is the best route. I venture to say that every member from British Columbia— men who know per- haps the moot about the subject, If not per- sonally, yet by hearsay from meeting men who do know personally— will be of the same opinion. The members of the Govern- ment of British Columbia, whom I met In Victoria, and with whom I discussed the question casually, expressed an unqualified opinion in favour of the Stiklne route. So that we are In 4hl8 position, that the route which the railway Is to follow Is the route endorsed by everybody who knows anything at all about the question. That appears to me to be a very important consideration for the HooM to bear In mind In considering the qneetlon now before It There is another phase of the question to which I wish to draw attention. Oar friends of the Opposition, while they are not able to say that the Stlkine route is not the right rente, are still so utterly averse to honestly and fairly giving the Oovemment credit for being right, when they know that the Oov- emment is right, that they have raised some questions about the action of the Govern- ment in conneotion with transnlpment and the rights we have in respect to the navigap tlon of the Stlkine River. I showed last night that the Minister of Railways and Oanals had practically said only the same thing that the leader of the Opposition had said. The leader of the Opposition no doubt was mak> Ing a wise and statesmanlike remark when he made that statement ; but the Minister of Railways was apparently saying a most outrageous thing when he made the same statement. It seems to de- pend largely on who makes the state- ment, whether it Is wise or statesmanlike. We have heard a great deal in regard to our rights on the Stlkine River. I think I can give our hon. friends some light upon that subject. The boundary between the Yukon district and the territory of Alaska was settled many years ago by a treaty between Russia and Great Britain. At that time, the territory of Alaska was the property of the Russian Orown, and a treaty was made betewen Great Britain and Russia, known as the Anglo-Russan treaty of 1825, a copy of which I have in my hand. I am going to call attention to this little circumstance to show with what justification the great Con- servative party claim to have the instinct of Government. And let the House under- stand this clearly, that when the United States purchased Alaska from Russia, they became subrogated in the rights of Russia, and could by no possibility have any addi- tional rights or any right different from or In addition to thos<^ possessed by Russia. The MINISTER OP MARINE AND FIbJHBRIES (Sir Louis Davies). Or sover- eignty. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. Or sovereignty. They took exactly what Rus- sia possessed. And what the subjects of Great Britain possessed, under the Anglo- Russian treaty of 1825, as against Russia, they possessed as against the United States and all others. Article 6 of this treaty provides : It iB understood that the subjects of His Brit- tanic Maje&cy, from whatever quarter they may arrive, whether from tho ocean or the Interior of the continent, shall for ever enjoy the right of navigating freely and without any hindrance whatever, all the rivers and streams whloh, In their course towards the Pacific Ocean, may cross the line of demarcation upon the line of coast described in article 8 of the present convention. That was the law as it stood upon that point until the Washington treaty— the woriE of our hon. friends who possess in such a distinguished degree the Instinct of govern- ment—was made. We had by treaty, not the mere right of navigation, not a limited right, not a right for the purposes of com- n>erce only, but a right for all purposes— a proprietory, a complete right— with Russia and the subjects of the Russian Government, an absolutely equal right to— not the Stlkine, or Yukon, or Porcupine rivers— but all the rivers that come down and cross the line of demarcation provided In the other articles of the treaty. That was the position we would be in to-day If It had not been for the statesmanship of hon. gentlemen oppo- site. Mr. HAGGART. Does that treaty with Russia apply to the Yukon or Porcupine ? The MI.VISTBR OF THE INTERIOR. I shall talk about the Yukon and Porcupine later. Will the hon. gentleman endeavour to address his great Intellect to one subject at a time ? I am talking about the rivers that cross the line of demarcation, with special reference to the Stlkine River, which is of the utmost Importance to us at present Sir CHARLES TUPPER. The hon. gen- tleman said distinctly the Yukon and the Porcupine Rivers. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. We will get to them afterwards. These hon. gentlemen are getting very restless. They know what is coming, and they do not like It. Now, will the House take cognizance of the fact that the subjects of Her Britan- nic Majesty possessed, under this treaty with Russia, a proprietory right, for all pur- poses whatever, In the Stlkine River until that right was Interfered with by the states- manship of our friends on the other side. These gentlemen apparently had never i'ead this treaty. They did not know what it contained, they had not the remotest con- ception of what they were doing when they put this clause In the Washington treaty, which they have been boasting about ever since the question of the Stlkine River came up. Sir CHARLES TUPPER. Will the hon. gentleman permit me to ask him one ques- tion, and that is, whether it was not a great Lil>eral statesman, the present Marquis of HIpon, who was at the head of that Joint commission, and who ought to have had ail the knowledge from the Foreign Office in England bearing on the subject ? The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. I admire the statesmanship of the greal: leader of the Conservative party, who, when his former leader miade a most Inexcusable blunder with regard to a Canadian matter, about which he should have Instructed the Marquis of RIpon, seeks to throw the blame for his Ignorance upon the Imperial officers, *88 the Hne of other articles ' position we not been for tlemen oppo- treaty with ■ orcupine ? JBRIOR. I a Porcupine » endeavour one subject t the rivers atlon, with klver, which at present e hon. gen- ^n and the 3RIOR. We rhese hon. jss. They JO not like cognizance fer Brltan- ^^B treaty or all pur- ■Iver until the states- ther side, ever i'ead what It )test con- ^hen they n treaty, •out ever ver came the hon. ne ques- 1^ a great rquls of at Joint had all >fflce In who should have received the requisite in- formation from the officers of the Canadian Government We are indebted to the sub- lime statesmanship of our friends on the other side for the curtailing, to a very great extent, of the privileges which we did en- joy on the Stllclne River. Instead of this article which gave us an unrestricted pro- prietory right in the Stllcine River, we have now the following :— The navlgatloa of the rivera Yukon, Porcu- pine and Stlklne ascending and descending from, to and Into the sea shall for ever remain free and open for the purposes of commerce to the sub- jects of Her Brltannlo Majesty and the citizens ot the United States, subject to any law and regulations ot either country, within Its own ter- ritory, not Inconsistent with such privilege of free navigation. If they had understood what they were doing, they would not have put in the word " Stllclne," but have applied the pro- vision—the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Haggart) will take note of the fact— to the Yukon and Porcupine to which it ought to have applied, if the Yukon and Porcupine were not covered by the Russan treaty, leaving out the word " Stlklne," which they put in simply because they did not know the contents of this treaty. I do not need to explain to members of this House, who are experienced in public mat- ters and many of whom have, time and again, year after year, discussed similar matters, the difference between an absolute proprietory right to a river and the privilege of its free navigation for purposes of com- merce. Free navigation for purposes of commerce is a very valuable privilege, and we are going to make use of it to the ut- most possible extent but It is not of the same value, by any means, as the proprie- tory right which we would have had if these hon. gentlemen had let alone at the time what they did not understand. Coming away from the question of that treaty and coming down to the position in which we are now placed Sir CHARLES HIBBERT TUPPBR. I rise merely for information, and would ask the hon. gentleman if I am right In under- standing him to argue that our rights under the treaty between Russia and Great Bri- tain were curtailed by this provision of the Washington treaty ? The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. I should say yes. If the hon. gentleman desires to dispute that, I think I will be able to satisfy him. Sir CHARLES HIBBERT TUPPBR. I do not wish to argue it, but wish to have the hon. gentleman's statement The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. (Reading.) "The navigation of the rivers Yukon and Porcupine and Stlklne, as'^iend- Ing and descending from, to and Into the cea." Every word of this clause is Important Hon O S-2i That la, we have the right to get In and out by the sea, not almply from the mouth of the river— because a point might arise there —but we have a right to go to the sea wher- ever it shall be. Let me finish the reading of the text : Shall for ever not a limited period remain free and open, for the purpose* ol commerce, to the subjects of Her Brltannlo Ma' Jesty and the citizens of the United States, sub- ject to any laws and regulations of either coun< try, within Its own territory, not Inconslstenl with such privilege ot navigation. Now, my hon. friend has to-day called th< attention of the House to the fact that cer tain legislation was pending before the Con gress of the United States which woulc have the effect of curtailing the prlvilegei of the Canadian people on the Stikine River No legislation that can emanate from tht Congress of the United States can repeal i treaty solemnly entered Into by that conn try without violation of good faith and this Government does not consldei that it would be in any way justified foi one instant in entertaining the idea tha the United States would contemplate vlolat Ing a treaty that they made with Grea Britain. Why, Sir, the United States is i civilized country, and no civilized countrj deliberately violates the treaties it hai made. The only thing that could deprlv< the people of Canada, the subjects of He Majesty, of the privileges which exist a the present time of the free navigation o the Stikine River, would be the voluntar; abandonment of that privilege under an other treaty, or a state of war between th( two countries— and that of course, wouh justify the abrogation of all treaties exist ing at that time. So that we consider out selves in a perfectly iipregnable positioi in regard to the navigation of the Stikln River. We have treaty rights there whlc cannot be taken away without our consen Our friends of the United States Congres may pass a Bill, but not one that wi violate the treaty which they have mad with Great Britain. We may be perfectl; certain of that ; and It would be a mos puerile thing. In my judgment— I give m; opinion for what it may be worth— for thl Government whenever any Irresponslbl member of the United States Congress ii troduces a Bill, which, perhaps, would no have the slightest possible chance of beln accepted by both branches of Congress or c receiving the signature of the Presldeo —a member who, perhaps, does not knoi what was in the treaty— to assume that th United States contemplated doing a thin which no civilized country would do, that to say, to violate a solemn treaty. I have hei a copy of a Bill to which the attention o the House has been called on two or thre occasions, and which has been made a snl ject of discuaalon in the press of late. It ;:^ not yet law, and I do not know whether It ever will be law, but, In any event, it does not affect the question before us, because It l8 only United States legislation provided for the purpose of aiding the Govornment of the United States to carry out this treaty In a wny that may be necessary for the pro- tection of the revenue of the United States. The clause which has been referred to, is |as follows :— ! The manter of any foreign veflsel, laden or In jballast, arriving, whether by sea or otherwise, in the waters of tlie United States from any foreign territory adjacent to the northern, north-eastern, pr north-western frontiers of the United States, shall report at the office of any collector of the 'customs which shall be nearest to the point at which such vessels may enter such waters ; LTLat Is a perfectly proper thing— to have uie vessel report whon it enters. I and such vessel shall not transfer her cargo or passengers to another vessel, or proceed farther inland, either to unload or take in cargo, without A special permit from such collector, or deputy ixtUector, issued under and in accordance with ■uoh general or special regulations as the Sec- retary of the Treasury may, in his discretion, from time to time prescribe. This section shall ijilso apply to trade with or through Alaska. I Now, my hon. friend the Minister of Cus- 1 horns tells me that the procedure under this ^ct will, in no substantial respect, differ . rom our own procedure upon the St. Law- "ence, the free navigation of which the Jnited States have under Identically the lame treaty. It is not calculated in any vay to interfere with or prevent the ixercise of our right of navigation for he purposes of the commerce which we intend to build up. The only question of ) Importance Is the question of transhipment, that Is a question upon which we can give Qo positive statement, because, although the 'natter has been brought to the attention of he United States Grovernment, they have lot yet expressed an opinion on the sub- ect It Is a question which, if disputed, nust be decided either by nego<-iation or by ■eference to a competent tribunal. But it oust bo evident that it is utterly out of the question for the Government of Canada, [inder the extraordinary circumstances in v^hlch we were placed, to think of opening p diplomatic negotiation and waiting until re got a question of that liind settled, be- ore we proceeded to deal with the building if the railway. It would be a ridiculous iropositlon to go to the Government of the onntry which is now getting the largest lortlon of the trade which we seek to take [way by constructing a railway, and, be- ore starting to construct a railway, to try get them to agree to something which rouid have the effect of taking the trade 11 away from them. They might possibly uky that we were entitled to the privilege IIS transhipment ; but, under the extraor- ■Ilnary circumstances, It would probably ' iptke us some time to get them to say so. Under the circumstances, the negotiations might be prolonged for several years. In the meantime, I fear, our people would grow somewhat Impatient for transporta* tion facilities to the Yukon district. And the miners, the poor men, for whom hon. gentlemen opposite expressed such sympa- thy, If they were waiting for something to eat until we made a treaty with the United States, might be sad and hungry before that treaty was signed. If It had been ab- solutely necessary to get the privilege of transhipment before we could make use of the road, it would be a different thing. But It is not. I can quote my hon. friend the leader of the Opp'osltlon again, who says in his interview— I have not the extract with me, but I quote his statement substantially —that, if the transhipment at Wrangell Is not permitted, we can make use of Port Simpson, which will be equally serviceable. Sir CHARLES TUPPBR. No, no ; I never said anything of the kind. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. It is always cheaper to take our goods by large ocean steamboats. When you use a little steamboat, carrying 150 or 200 tons, your transport becomes expensive. I do not pretend that It is equally serviceable to tranship at Port Simpson. Sir CHARLES TUPPER. My hon. friend did not hear me say that I had never said that Port Simpson was equally available. I never said that. But I did point out— and I made the statement with a view to prevent our being interfered with !n the navigation of the Stikine— that. If vexatious exactions were made, we had Port Simpson to fall back upon. But I never said it was equally available, because I knew that there was a portion of the route between Port Simpson and the mouth of the Stikine that was sub- ject to heavy weather, and that occasionally delay might be caused. The MINISTER OP THE INTERIOR. I accept the hon. gentleman's statement that he did not say it was equally serviceable. He was so reported, but I presume It is a mistake. I desire, how- ever, to point out to the House that while it is not as convenient for us to tranship at Port Simpson, yet we can tranship at Port Simpson and have a good and effective route. I made a careful examination of that subject myself when I was there. Mr. Ogllvle and myself went ashore at Port Simpson and examined the Hudson Bay Com- pany's steamship, the "Caledonia," which was last year navigating the Stikine River, ' and was then pulled up at Port Simpson. The fact that the " Caledonia " was at Port Simpson proved conclusively that a boat of that quality could cross the Intervening waters, because she was there and had so crossed. Inquiry demonstrated the fact that, with the exception of a very few days In the year, It Is possible for a river <^ii>,i boat constructed especially for the navl- nation of the Sitlklne River, to cross the waters between Port Simpson and Wrangell. As transhipment can talce place at Port Simpson, we will have a Canadian route without any possibility of beinj? Interfered with by any regulations that may be made. It has been sugKested to me to-day— I merely mention the suggestion for what it may be worth— that It Is quite possible to get over the difficulty with regard to breaking bulk. If such a difficulty should be ralHed, by taking large barges built specially for the navigation of the Stiklne, and towing them across from Port Simpson to Wrangell, and then sending them up the river. That might, no doubt, be done, and It might be a method of getting over the difflclilty which might arise by reason of the Increase in freight. But I men'ilon this for the purpose of showing the House that, beyond the possi- bility of a doubt, this Is an all-Ganadlan route, and a practicable all-Canadian route. We can make an all-Canadian route throughout, and that Is what the Gov- ernment have endeavoured to achieve. We have not come down here with a pro- position that we knew nothing about, but we are prepared to give details, and are prepared to prove that the route Is a prac- ticable route, and an all-Canadian route. My hon. friend will excuse me If I Justify the remark that I made, which I do not do at all with the object of showing that he Is not correct In his statement— I loyally accept his explanation that he did not make the statement—but he was reported In the " Mall and Empire," in a despatch dated at Ottawa, January 27th, as saying: Sir Charles gives the Government credit for acting with such vigour as It has shown, and as- serts that the opening of the Canadian route strongly urged by him upoh both Governments Interested is the proper course to pursue. He does not anticipate any trouble with the United States In transferring cargoes from ocean to river boats at Wrangel. If, however, such should happen, Canada has Port Simpson to fall back upon, which will be equally serviceable. Of course, I accept my hon. friend's de- claration that he did not nj ke that state- ment ; I only read It for the purpose of showing that I was not recklessly putting Into my hon. friend's mouth a statement which I had not seen. It being Six o'clock, the Speaker left the Chair. After Recess. The MINISTER OF THE IN':.ERIOR. I do not intend to weary the House with references to newspaper criticisms of this contract, but I have in my hand a couple of criticisms from a Journal which, so far as I have been able to observe, has endea- voured, although adverse to the contract, Apparently, to be fair In its criticism— I refer to the " Dvenlng Journal " of OttawA. I think the criticisms of that newspaper, although mistaken, have not been Intention- ally unfair, and therefore I think it reason- able and proper to refer to a couple which I find In the "Journal" of the 10th Inst, that Is to-day. One reads as follows :— jMr. Slfton stated, In the House of Commons yesterday that the statement that the Rothschilds had offered to build a road by the Dalton trail for 6,000 acres per mllei was a newspaper tigm ment. Sir Louis Davles said In the House last Thursday that the Government had t>een In ne« gotlation with the Rothschlldg about a railway. Mr. Slfton's statement therefore, must mean simply that no formal figure was named to thd Government by the Rothschild representatives. Messrs. Hamilton Smith and Henry Bratnober, representatives of the Rothschilds, stated la Montreal that their principals " proposed " to build by the Dalton trail for 6,000 acres per mile. Evidently, even if the figure did not reach the Government, it was the figure the Roths' chllds were prepared to abide by ; and In view of the fact that the Government made a private agreement with other people, Ignoring the prin- ciple of disposing of public franchises oy open competition, Mr. Slfton's statemenH about what the Government was or was not offered Is not weighty as a dismissal of the Rothschild figure. I wish to say in reference to that article, that no proposal. In writing or verbal, direct or indirect. In any way, shape, form or manner, came to the Government from Messrs. Hamilton, Smith and Henry Brat- nober, representing, or assuming to repre- sent, the Rothschilds, for the building of any railway in that country. It Is com- paratively easy, after other men have de- posited a quarter of a million dollars and assumed a responsibility for the expendi- ture of several million dollars, for other gen- tlemen to make statements about what their principals would have been prepared to do. These gentlemen, apparently, have been In Canada for some time, but they have not seen, nor so far as I am aware, have they ever even waited upon the Government, nor had themselves Introduced to the Gov- ernment, so far as I know, until after this contract had been signed. T also wish to point out that there Is no Inconsistency or inaccuracy In the statement made by my hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fish- eries (Sir Louis Davles). As I said, I do not think the " Journal " Is desirous of misrepresenting the Government, and there- fore I think It is only fair that It should be set right. On page 395 of the "Han- sard " my hon. friend the Minister of Ma- rine and Fisheries said, in reference to a statement made by the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Clarke) : The hon. gentleman will permit me to say, as I did not catch the name he mentioned, that the gentle aan who does represent the Rothschilds in tijs country had the question put to him, whether he would make a tender to the Govern- ment, and after considering the whole question and examining all the> Information the Govern- ment could place before him, and cabling to his Itrlnolpala at home, he wrote to the OoTemment ^ that after the fulleat ooneideratlon; he declined I to touch It at all. ^hat is very clear ; but that gentleman was iOt Mr. Hamilton Smith nor Mr. Bratnober ; ^tbat gentleman was Mr. Kersey. I desire . ftlso to say that although in his written pro- \po6al, which has been laid before Parlia- ment, he did not state that he represented Ithe Rothschilds, yet he furnished to the Qovernment the names of persons whom he j assumed to represent, and amongst those 5iames which hn furnished to the Government ^^..ere the Rothschilds firm, as well as seve- jral other leading financial people in Europe, i^he Government could hardly be expected Imagine that,, when a gentleman was here epresenting the Rothschilds and negotiating ith us, somebody else in Montreal, wlo ad not introduced himself, was also repre- ji-.enting the Rothschilds. That will dispose llMof the idea that we had any other or any p'^tter offer than the one we have laid before *ithe House. I was adverting to the question of the tilsine route when you, Mr. Spealcer, left (rSiie Chair at six o'clock, and I want to say filljust a word or two, particularly to my li^^friends In the North-west and British Colum- iLola, in relation to the route, the alK!ana- ""ian route, to the Yukon country from the orth-west, which I presume every patriotic 'Canadian would be very pleased to see jjopened up by the construction of a rall- ,„way. I have seen an Intimation that there |was opposition to this project in Manitoba, he North-west, and also to h, certain extent some parts of Ontario, which was al- eged to exist on the ground that it was ot a route all through Canadian territory, ^ut was hostile to or in substitution of a I L jail way by way of the North-west Territo- iJjTies. Now, if my hon. friends will take the Jmap which accompanies Mr. Oglivie's re- j)ort they will see that one of the strongest joints In favour of the Stlkine route Is that rit is the continuation of, the natural com- plement to a route from the North-west to "^eace River and thence to the Yukon ; that It is the shortest, the best and in fact the ^^nly ivay of striking that country and get- ting In there. I am not in a position to speak of this route with absolute definite- iiies*' and correctness, because the Govern- inent have had no opportunity of obtaining -exact and full information in regard to the jj^oute on that general line. But we know Qjthat the Peace River pierces the mountains, ,pthat there is a practical through route that ^n.y, and we know it is the only practicable ofoute for many hundreds of miles north of jjthe Yellow Head Pass, and that the Yellow y^ead Pass would be too far south for the l^urpose. That at all events is my opinion, ^and as the matter appears to me at the jtoretent moment— from a cursory examina- jltmon— it would be too far south. Peace ■yP.iver valley will bring us to Halfway ' "^-Iver, and from Talchudy Lake we reach Stiklne River and Telegraph Creek and go forward on this line to the navigable waters of Teslin Lake and the Hootallnqua River. So we have not only an all-Canadian rente, but a complement route from the North- west, and the only possible route we can make use of from that portion of the coutt- try. That is a point to which I wish to direct particularly the attention of members from the North-west. I refer to it in this general way, and if hon. members will take the map and study it for themselves, they will see at once that this conclusion is ab- solutely correct I shall now speak of the advantages of this route. The Cassiar and Cariboo districts of British Columbia are very rich. They have been retarded in their development only by lack of railway facili- ties. I was told by a gentleman who is manager of a company now seeking to operate in the Omenica country that there is a great stretch of mineral lands in that dis- trict and la Cassiar, and, while there is not the richness of Bonanza Creek, there ta sufiBcient mineral to admit of profitable and successful operations being carried on with suitable mining machinery. With proper transportation and mining facilities this company would carry on extensive works and make a profit on its capital. These dis- tricts, I say, have been held back by reason of the lack of transportation facilities. But the railway project now proposed to be undertaken would open up the Cassiar district almost completely, and go far to- wards satisfying the demand for railway facilities there ; It would develop the coun- try north, and, In addition to furnishing the Cassiar district with railway facilities, we would secure the natural complement of the enterprise by extending the railway down to Alice at the head of Observatory Inlet, t'ud to au ocean port. Thus the road would traverse the northern part of British Colum- bia, opening and developing the rich dis- tricts of that province, and afterwards reach ier8 will take inselves, they Jluslon is ab- speak of the , Casslar and 'Olumbla are rded In their iilway faclll- man who is seeking to that there Is In that dla- there Is not K there Is •ofltable and Jed on with vith proper cllltles this 'Slve works These dls- ipy reason Htles. But ^sed to be lie Casslar go far to- or railway ' the coun- ilshlug the Jliltles, we 'ent of the ^ay down tory Inlet, ^ad would sh Oolum- rleh dls- rdB reach Id thus It to which errltodes Id horses irket for Km. It ^egraph 'tension >e seen 9 about no en- e have ludson special ssured I route I have adverted to this matter in connec- [tion with the enterprise in order that mem- jbers of the House, from the west particu- larly, may see that in considering vhis mat- I ter we have uot lost sight of their interests. Members from Manitoba and the North- west know very well and thoroughly under- stand that in any project of this kind I at least will be most sedulous in looking after the interests of Manitoba and the North- v.'est, the fertile districts of which I hope to see settled by a very much larger popula- tion than is there at the present time and according a much larger and more pro- fitable market for the merchants and manu- facturers of the east. This, therefore, is the scheme we have laid before the House for its approval. In addition to possessing these advantages, it Is in every sense the only available and practicable route at the present time to meet the absolute necessities of the occasion ; and I leave the sub- ject with this statement as to the pro- ject, that when this railway has been com- pleted it will be practically the only route that will carry the ordinary commerce con- nected with the Yukon country. The St. Michael's route can never do anything more than a small transportation business ; the routes by Dyea and Skagway are imprac- ticable—they are practicable only until the railway is built. The result of carrying out the proposed project will be that an Im- mense volume of trade, which we hope to see going into that country, will be forced over the Stlkine route, and instead of the thousands of miners, whom we are told by the New York " Herald " are arriving daily at Seattle, prepar- ing to go north by American steam- boats and by American routes, they will find themselves forced in tb^ir own interest to come to Victoria, Vaoccuver and other points in British Golurooia, and there obtain their goods and outfits, take their passage on Canadian boats and traVel by Canadian channels up to the yukon district. This will be the result, we hope, and I see no reason to doubt that the hope is well founded in view of the policy we have sub- mitted to the House. At the risk of being wearisome I will read some clauses from the contract, especially with the view of converting members of the Opposition. I have myself found, from tie short experi- ence I had in legislation before I came to this House, that it Is a very common thing for even careful and systematic and intel- ligent members of the House, in the rush of business, not to give a very careful and thorough reading to Bills which come be- fore Parliament. Therefore, so as to avoid any misconceptions, I shall take the liberty of reading the terms of this contract ; and it will only take me a few minutes. It Bays : 1. The contractors covenant with the Govern- ment to lay out, construct, oquip, and fully com- plete a 11 le of railway with proper terminal faoill- tiea froii the navigable waters of the Stlkine River In Jrltlith Columbia, at or near the mouth of Telegraph Creek, Olenora, or the mouth of Clear Water River, thence running northward to the navigable waters of TesUn Lake, a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles, more or less, on or before the first day of September, A.D. 1898, the said railway when fully completed to be of the general standard and cfauge of the Kaslo and Slocan Railway In British Columbia and ac- cording to the specifications to be approved by the Minister of Railways. ppo^'Med also, that the seJd railway shall be the propo.ty of the contractors but shall be sub- ject to inspection and approval by an engineer to be named by the Minister of Railways and Canals before being accepted as complete by the Govem-> ment. Provided further, that for the purposes of the season of 1898 and of complying with the requlre- mentti of this contract In respect to the comple- tion of the line on or before the said first of Sep- tember, it shall be suflOicleut if, on or before that date, the contractors have the rails laid in such a manner as will permit of regular and efficient operation of the railway, although the whole work be not fully completed, and if the said railway be sufficiently equipped for such operation. Pro- vided also, that the location of said railway be- tween the points mentioned shall be such as the contractors may decide upon without filing plans thereof prior to completion, provided that the grant of land hereby contracted for shall not be made upon a larger mileage than the Minister of Railways considers reasonably necessary for traversing the distance between the terminal points. 2. The Government shall submit to Parliament at its next ensuing session a measure for the necessary Act confirming this agreement and authorizing the Government and the contractors to perform and carry out the same, also incor- porating che contractors and such others as may become shareholders Into a company under the name of the Canadian Yukon Railway Company or other name approved by the contractors (here- in after referred to as the contractors' company) with power to acquire and perform and carry out this agreement, and with all i;ecessary provisions in that behalf, and with all necessary powers to Imild and operate a railway above mentioned and an extension thereof northward to Dawson City or thereabouts and an extension southward to a point in British Columbia to be designated by the Government and capable of being made an ocean port, also a line of railway from the waters of Lynn Cajial to Port Selkirk or thereabouts by way of Chilkat Pass, also branch lines of railway from any points on the company's railways to any property owned by the company, also lines of rail- way from any navigable waters to any property | owned by the company : Provided that the powor to build said lines from Lynn Canal to Port Sel- kirk and said branch lines and said lines from navigable waters shall not be exercised without \ the consent of the Governor General in Council. I am reading this to show that a lot of I things which have been imputed to this contract, are not in it at all, that they are not contemplated by the contract, and thai they never were contemplated by the Gov- ernment. The House will at once see thati this clause which provides for these exten- sions, does not at all contemplate that any I bonus should be given for them. They are I w mere charter powers for ^T — a line of mllway which „!?® construction of «et on application 7oParH?^.i'°°JPa'»y rnighl ]fay, and thev do nn/T ^ ™®°t !» the usual Hpns to the bonSs or ^i'^^'^P^^te anySddt the Government ft assessments given by that the power hpro!« I s*^P«Iated further «nly be exercised^fn°*^S^ Provided for cS The contract contln?e8,^oTay.^^'^« ^^^«°- The bbm A_i. _„ . "^ ■ q,, "«co, lo say : ^oe said Act of <«« ferantea by thu r,r "^'"s or the lando /f« i r wish to nnll +!,« ^"^ IV^a'r *•'"«'»' ttffitt •'"'"'»»' sipate the^idea XfT® ^"^ at once dj monopoly granfed to thfs^':? ^^^ been any getra'^rT^y ^hVever^'S^- ^^^^ Keis a charter to hmin ^. -"^"^s eompanv River to Teslla Lake Twr,™ *^« ®tlklSe ^ that charter. The Lp11«? ^ °° monopoly Columbia can e-fvo „ ^f^isiature of British fow, or this Ho?se coSf^^^" ^^^^^r ttmor ter. We do not blnn ."^ ^^7® another cW another charter • w^ ourselves not to give about It, and, by the wJ/°I '^^ anytS charter in existence rt^th?^""^ ^« aio?ief e^Cfij' *he Casslar Cental ^'^^^?* «™e' enarter does not spe'-iflpoTiv «'; ^hls latter but it la wide enough o„^ ^^me this roufp House Who rS'^J^e eW^^'^^^^^^S with me, to Justlfv «n^ charter will aerep Charter, and go 5^*°^ ^^^^^ise taking fhS? the same route Tbp?; f°*? ^uildlng^ ov?r clause which b; ««„ '^^ ^^ nothing in 111 agination, Sn^^e^ca^nS^^^^'^ stretfh of *m! have said, other n^i ? * monopoly. As t arJthere'lsSanvfi^^^" ««* eharfers ^ ence at this pitsenf ^*^®'' ^^^rter in e5 oad management hna ««„^ ^'^at nature or a little nearer to their w,?""*"^ ^be ocean and that this plXm ^^*?^ tl'an to oum help out that dSmS«?f J« "°* ^o^^g to rise by to Parliament as a vjIw 3^^ f"^°^'t that shonM^^'^^'^^^atlves Of t^e r?n^^,^« think c?M ,«T.P'"°P«'' to endo?s?^° h1^° P^^P^e conth.jes to say ; """rse. ^jiq contract Pany shalfTe^^mrL ^^""^ *^« contractors' „« any other person "t'^ *" '*«°elve In preWn/l^" from the -aid fi?.°'^/o™Pany durlnrftn^'® *» orassistLctIn lan^"^ September IS moh^l^ ooetn p^o'r?'n''f rSL'??? '^^^tf^n^e S^et t ^' bocfyStU'hlX^rV^^ *^at any. of railway therr-nn*^?".™ building a Iln« H Charter to anyboSvPisf T ^1» °ot give Government dedde/ thS^'li'"^ *hat, if^thl terest of Canada f« ?** ^^ Is in the fn from Teleg^,^jS^54\h^^^^^^^^ and is willing to tiL Observatory Inlet so much monfy 'to I^Tn t^"'^ ^^^'^ ^nd' elvp fM "^^ ^Ithlf ten Ji? ^construction ft m?'\ company the flJLt^if''®' • ^^ shaU ., . That is what th„+ * chance to buUrt all It means am? li,^** ""^ans, and th«i S ^ould, of coursp h ^°°«^°t of Parllampn? could give Standee TrTf^'^ bofiT"^^* to any other. S\t^ this eompanv or ins gone In as pioneers and built the first railway and opened up the trade, if there is to be an extension of the railway to the south, they are to have the first chance to go on and build it. Now, I sub- mit to the House that if this clause were not in the contract at all, and If two years from to-day it were proposed by the Government of Canada to have a railway built from the Stilclne River down to Observatory Inlet, and an- other company came here and aslced for assistance for that purpose, and this com- pany came for the same purpose, this House would not wait half a minute to decide to which company to give it. This House would at once decide to give It to the company which was on the ground and in operation. What possible sense would there be in having one company with a railway extending for 150 miles and an- other company with a railway extending for another 150 miles ? Such a proposition would not be considered by this House as a reasonable business proposition. 6. The tolls to be collected by the contractora or contractors' company upon the line of rail- way hereby contracted fqr between Stikine River and Teslin Lake shall be first fixed by the Gov- ernor General In Council, and the tolls so fixed shall not be liable to reduction until the said railway has been In operation for four yeara, but such tolls shall be reduced by the Governor in Council by twenty-five per cent from and after such four years, and after the said railway has been in operation seven years they shall be reduced by twenty-five per cent off the tolls, previously reduced, but after the said railway has been ten years in operation the tolls shall be subject to the general railway laws of Canada in that behaJf. A great deal of fault has been found be- cause we did not come down to Parliament and state what the rates would be. I called the attention of the House and my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition this afternoon to the fact that such a thing never was heard of before—that in all the railway legislation of Canada, so far as I linow, no »Act of Parliament ever fixed the rates of any railway, and no Gov- ernment ever stated in advance what the rates of any railway would be. It is time enough to fix the rates when the railway is prepared to go Into operation. The law of Canada is that no railway company can fix its rates until they are first approved of by the Governor in Council ; and this Is precisely the law in regard to this com- pany, except that it provides for an auto- matic reduction of the rates after the first tariff shall have been fixed. I am quite free to say that, although I do not anti- cipate that any member of the Government would think of authorizing such a wild tariff as was suggested by the hon. mem- ber for West York (Mr. Wallace) the other night, yet the rate^ upon this railway will be higher, conai(. drably higher, much higher, thAA the rates ipon an ordinary railway in a settled country. The chances whlc people take in building a railway into mining country, of their property and th trade being destroyed owing to the minln district becoming exhausted, must be take into consideration In a case of this kind and I would not for one instant lead th House to suppose that the rates the So^ ernment would authorize would be no highe than those on an ordinary railway in settled country ; but I do not think the; will go anywhere near the flguresi of th hon. member for West York. 7. The land granted to th© contractors or con tractors' company hereunder shall be free froi taxation for ten years from the granting thereol except municipal taxation by an incorpoiatet city, towr or village withlu the Yukon provl slonal distr.jt. I think the exception in this case is a great as the exemption. I thinli municipa taxation outside of incorporated towns o: cities is not likely to materialize in tei years, so that the exemption amounts prac tically to nothing. 8. The contractors shall imme'^ic.tely construe a practicable sleigh road from the mouth o Stikine River to Teslin Lake, and shall provld< suitable shelters or stopping places for travellen at intervals of not more than twenty-five mllei along such road, such road and stopping placet to be available for use at the earliest possioU moment, and in any event not later than sli weeks from the execution of this agreement. 9. The contractors or the contractors' com- pany shall provide or arrange with others to pro- vide steamboat transport of freight and passen- gers between the terminus of said railway OB Teslin Lake or other terminus northerly thereol and Dawson City to and fro. The next clause refers to the deposit ol $250,000, which I need not read, and I need say no more in regard to it than that the deposit is in the hands of the Government. 11. In aid of the construction of said line ol railway from Stikine River to Teslin Lake th« Government shall grant to the contractors foi each mile of said railway twenty-five thousand acres of lauJ io bo selected as hereinafter men- tioned from the Yul-on provisional district and from that part of the North-west Territories ol Canada lying west of the Mackenzie River and Liard River and north of the 60th parallel ol latitude, such land to be and become vested In the contractors upon the said railway being completed and accepted as complete by th© Gov- ernment, and upon the said land being selected as hereinafter set forth. Mr. HAGGART. Will the penalties ap- ply to clauses 8 and 9, or has the hoa gentleman any idea whether clause 8 will be complied with or not ? The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOB. The $250,000 deposit refers only to the con- struction of the railway. It does not ap- ply to the construction of the sleigh road. But for that we have the covenant of the contractors, which, as the hon. gentleman is perfectly aware, is Just as good as the deposit. HI i t ill i F it .J to extend three miles along the base line and to extend three > miles backwards on each side of the base line. ; On each base line there shall be at least eight of such blocks, but there may be more at the op- ; tion of the contractors. These blocks tfhall be numbered from one up consecutively ; the odd- numbered blocks shall be the property of the contractors : the even-numbered shall remain the property of the Oovernment. The contrao- i tors shall take at least four blocks on each base- I line established by themi for the purpose of I selection, but shall not be bound to take more I — but they may take as many more as they de- ': sire and as circumstances permit. Thus upon each base line so established there shall be laid out a tract not less than twenty-four miles along the course of said base line by three miles on each side thereof in width, making eight blocks of three miles by six miles. Provided that if In ; the selections of lands along any base line the courses thereof prevent rectangular blocks being laid out, such blocks shall be adjusted to the required angles, preserving as far as practicable blocks of an area of three miles by six. Any shortage or surplus of such area shall be adjusted by the prolongation or shortening of such base line. The contractors may also at their option select additional blocks lying on either end of any odd- numbered block along a base line, but such ad- ditional blocks must be three miles square each and they shall not exceed three in number on each end of each such odd-numbered block. Some hon. MEMBERS. Hear, hear. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. I shall refer to that later. 13. The contractors shall make selection of one- half of the lands to which they become entitled under this contract within three years from the first day of September, 1898, and of the remainder within six years from that date. 14. No portion of the beds of the rivers Yukon, !Lewes or Hootallnqua, or of the lakes Teslin, Bennett, Tagish, Labarge or Marsh (said lakes and rivers forming continuous watercourses), or of the banks thereof for twenty-flve feet on each side of the ordinary high-water mark shall pass to the contractors under any selection of lands mad-3 under the agreement. I may say that that clause is one which was discussed a loiig time between the con- tractors and the Government, and the con- tractors thought they were being unfairly ^ated in not being allowed free selection Along these rivers, because It is well kno^r. —contrary to the statements made In this House— that there are very profitable de- ,^poBits, especially along the Hootallnqua, which might be immediately made avail- able. 16. The free rights of paasagi* and use along navigable or floatable streams within the lands selected by the contractors shall not bei Impeded by them, and if any stream be diverted by them from its natural channel an equally convenient navigable or flotable channel shall be provided In lieu, and the Gold Commissioner of the dis- trict shall decide any dispute which may arise as to whether such equally convenient channel has been provided, and from his decision ther* shall be cm appeal to the Qovemor General In Council. 16. Any and all mining claims actually held and recorded pursuant to Government regula- tions by a free miner or free miners, and being within ai block of land taken or selected by the contractors hereunder, shall be excepted from the grant and shall not pass to the contractors, provided that such claims have been so actuallj held and recorded prior' to the base line, along or with referance to which such block Is taken, being actually run and marked on the ground by the contractors. 17. There shall be payable to and reserved by the Government a royalty of one per cent upon all gold mined by placer or alluvial or hydraulic mining upon the lands selected hereunder, and if and so long as any royalty up co one per cent is levied by the Government upon all gold got by quartz mining in Government land in the Yukon district a royalty of an equal amount up to one per cent, but no more shall be payable la and reserved by the Government upon all gold got by quartz mining in the land selected here- under. 18. So soon as any ten continuous miles of said railway between Stlkine River and Teslin Lake have been completed and in running order, and certified so to be by an officer named by the Minister of Railways in that behalf, the con- tractors may select ninety-two thousand one hundred and sixty acres, or two blocks of land hereunder, and thereupon such blocks shall be reserved by the Government from sale or loca- tion or free miners' claims, and upon the com- pletion from time to time in a similar way of any other ten miles, the contractors shall have a similar right to select ninety-two thousand one hundred and sixty acres, or two blocks, which shall thereupon be sinllarly reserved, and upon the completion of the said railway and ac- ceptance thereof by the Government as com- pleted, the blocks so reserved shaH be granted to the contractors. All free miners' claims being excepted, as provided by clause 16 hereof. 19. In case any land is excepted out of blocks taken by contractors on account of free miners' claims or otherwise, the quantity so excepted shall not be counted in the acreage of lands to which the contractors ar3 entitled hereunder. 20. The contractors shall upon application sell to actual settlers for farming purposes, at prices to be fixed by the Governor General in Council, any arable lands forming part of those selected hereunder. Provided, however, that upon such sale all minerals and the right to mine same shall be reserved, and this clause shall not extend to lands suitable for village or town sltec. That clause was specially put In because there are a few places where men occupy small tracts of land, which might not per- haps be designated as farm but as grazing lands, and In such cases would be entitled to have their land at reasonable prices. y made aval}- 21. So soon as the contmctora notify the Mln- Br of Railways and Canals to send an engineer Inspect and approve of any ten miles of the le of railway hereby contracted for, such en- leer shall be sent without delay to make such ispection, and shall thereafter remain: ready to ispect such each ten miles until the whole line completed. 22. The grants of lands selected by the oon- [ tractors hereunder shall be in fee simple, and I shall Include all precious metals and all min- erals whatever, reserving only the royalties [above provided for. 23. Provision shall be made In the Act incor- porating the contractors' company against any discrimination by such company in operating its railways between customers, whether by dis- criminating rates or treatment or otherwise, or by means of its steamships or other connections or otherwise. That clause was inserted in order that the company may not unfairly discriminate against any steamboat or transportation company and drive it off the route. The next clause relates to the use of water for hydraulic and placer mining. What I desire to call the attention of the House particularly to with reference to this contract— which I have perhaps read at wearisome length—is this, that, in the first place, there is no monopoly of any kind whatever. In the next place, these people put up their $250,000 to build a railway by the Ist of next September, and I venture to eay there is not another man in Canada who would contract to bu'ld it by that time. If there is, I never heard of him. I did not even hear, in the midst of all the re- markably rash assertions which we have had from the other side of the House, It insinuated that there is In Canada to-day one single man who Is prepared to put his money into a contract to build that road by the 1st of September. If there is, we have had no intimation of it. They have said almost everything that could be said on the other side, but they have not Intimated that any man would undertake that work and carry It out on the terms proposed. Mr. OSLBR. What forfeiture Is there other than that If the road Is not built by that day The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. There is a forfeiture of $250,000 now in the hands of the Finance Minister, and there Is the person.ll responsibility of Mackenzie & Maun, under a signed contract, which ren- ders them liable to the full extent of their means, whatever these may be. Mr. OSLER. Suppose they do not build the road by that day ? The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. They lose the $250,000 and are liable to damage. Mr. OSLBR. They do not forfeit their charter if they only build the road within a year from next September. The MINISTER OF THE INTBRIOH. They pay damages. Sir CHARLES HIBBBRT TUPPBB. What damages ? The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. That would be decided In the ordinary way In which damages are decided. We make a contract, but we cannot be at the same time court and Jury to decide upon the breach of a contract that may or may not take place. The hon. gentlemen need not get restless. The fact is this, that notwith- standing all the criticism that has been made, the vital point of this contract, which Is that It provides for a railway by the Ist of September, has not been met In any shape or form. There has not been any Information that any man in Canada woald sign that contract to-day if it were offered to him. Least of all, I think, would my hon. friend from West Toronto (Mr. Osier) risk his good money In the scheme. Sir CHARLES HIBBERT TUPPBR. WiU the hon. gentleman allow me The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. I would prefer that my hon. friend would iiot interrupt me. Sir CHARLES HIBBERT TUPPBR. Certainly then I shall not The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOH. These hon. gentlemen are not asking any- thing germane to the point. There are lotp of lawyers to give an opinion as .o what the contract means. I take it to be pretty clear. What I further desire to say Is that having made that deposit, having entered into that obligation, my judgment Is that that obligation means, under the extraordi- nary circumstances existing, an expendiure probably In the neigh; ourhood of $4,000,000. Having taken that risk, these gentlemen have no right to locate a single acre of land until they have ten miles of that rail- way in operation. It Is inconceivable that they should have ten miles In operation be- fore the 15th of June ; and, from now until then, any portion of that country can be taken up by any of the thousands of people v'ho are going In. If It Is easy to find Bonanzas and Eldorados, as the hon. leader of the Opposition (Sir Charles Tupper) seems to think, if It Is only a question of getting up to the Yukon district and walking right In and finding beds of gold, why do not some of our hon. friends do It ? There is nothing to prevent them. My hon. friend, the leader of the Opposition, Is the president of a company which, I see he has said in an address delivered by him In London, has secured a capital of £70,000 sterling for doing work. If it is an easy thing and 8 sure thing- If anybody who can command capital has only to send prospectors to that country to plant their stakes on Bonanzas and Eldorados, why does not my hon. friend do it ? He has the capital and has been ^vorking for several months In connection with this matter already. We all know that when a man talks that way about a W'b II mining country, he is talking utter nonsense. We know that In the aggregate it takes more money to flni and take out gold than the gold amounts to after it is taken out The total amount of money spent in tak- ing gold out of placer-mining regions throughout the world, so far as known, is far in excess of what has been taken out My hon. friend (Sir Charles Tupper) said that himself in the course of his speech. He possibly made the statement inadvertently. Far from this company having any outrage- ous advantages given to it, it Is taking the whole responsibility, putting up the money, risking its millions, as well as its $250,000 deposit, and risking all this upon a land grant— and the whole world has practically nr-onths to go through and take up claims before the contractors will make their selec- tion. I need not say that this point was strongly contested by the contractors, that they protested bitterly against being put in that position, and it was only after long and wearisome negotiations that the Gov- ernment got them to agree to this provision of the agreement ; and then, finally, only by inserting the clause providing that they might make some selection after they had ten miles of the railway In operation. After they have ten miles in operation, they can take two blocks, that is, they can place claims in not more than two localities. After they have ten miles more in operation, they can take two blocks more, and so on. And, while this Is going on, the two hundred and fifty thousand people who, we are told, are coming from all over the world Into that country, are spreading over that vast terri- tory, prospecting and picking out their claims beforehand and taking everything that Is considered by them of much value. I cannot conceive of anything more perfectly clear than that the advantage in this con- tract Is practically on the side of the Gov- ernment. For my part, if I had any money —which Providence has never blessed me with so far— I would not care to risk it in a transaction of that kind. Now, I have just called attention to this method of selec- tion In order that the House will see how utterly false the propositions are which are being advanced by the other side of the House, based upon some of the paper calcu- lations which do not find any justification within the four comers of the contract. I want to refer for a minute or two to some stateme i made on the subject of the standarc* ' this railway. My hon. friend the . minister of Railways (Mr. Haggart) Is g to follow me, I believe. I want to give liim some things to start his remarks on. On page 224 of the " Hansard " he delivered himself upon this contract In words which I shall quote. He said : I know the standard of tlie Kaslo-Slocan Rall- I way , I do not think he does. as well as the hon. gentleman does. It is a road built among mountains, twisting ajx>und a hill with a curvature perhaps fifty times greater than anything that will be necessary on this road. I am reading just to show how utterly reckless are the criticisms of this contract ; and to expose the fact that, even a gentle- man whom we have respected as a practical man of business, who was at the head of the Railway Department, and who, one would think, should speak with some degree of caution about a matter of business, es- pecially an important matter of business, did not take the trouble of gaining the slightest bit of information on the subject he was talking about. 'W'e know nothing about this road We don't ? If the hon. gentleman had read the report of the department he presided over, he would have found out a good deal about this road. It Is all there. The hon. gentleman's name is not appended to that report, but it is the report for the year dur- ing which he was Minister of Railways, and the slight accident of the change of Government at the end of the year is the only reason why his name does not appear there. for they have not the report of the engineer, which, I suppose, the hon. gentleman will lay on the Table of the House before another stage of this Bill Is taken. The standard of the road, he says, is to be that of the Kaslo and Slocan Ra' - way. What kind of a read Is that ? A narrow gauge road, with rails, twenty-seven or thirty pounds to the yard. That Is not the case. In the report of the department for the last year during which he presided over it he will find it stated that the weight of the rails is forty-five pounds to the yard, and not twenty-seven or thirty pounds, as he says. Again, he says : At any rato, the road That Is this road (the Yukon road). ia only going to be a temporary road, as the hon. leader of the Government stated the other evening — a narrow gauge road built upon any gradients and with any curvature the contractors may think fit, as long as it comes withiTi the spe- ciflcations of that mountain road built by th« Canadian Pacific Railway from Kaslo to Slocan. The road was not built by the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the hon. gentleman was reminded of this by the ex-MluIster of Finance (Mr. Foster). The lion, gentleman (Mr. Haggart) continued : It was an independent road, but It was after- wards obtained by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. It was not obtained by the Canadian Pacific Railway CJompany. Even that casual ob- servation was not correct. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company did not obtain It or control it ; that company never had any- thing to do with the road, and has not now. For the hon. gentleman's Information, I may say that It was the Great Northern Railway* Pompany that had to do with the construc- lon of that road, although it was built and now being operated, and has always been jerated, by an Independent company. The lion, gentleman gees on : But perhaps I am mistaken on that point. I lid not lenow who the possessor of the road was ^ut I have been over it and I Icnow what its char- cter is. [•hen, why did he not tell us ? He told us bhe very reverse of its character. Now, I irill give the standard of the Kaslo and Jlocan : Length of line, 31-8 miles ; weight >f steel rails, 45 pounds ; radius of sharp- curve, 193 feet ; number of feet per I mile, heaviest grade, 171 'G. I am reading [this to obviate the necessity of the hon. gen- [tleman reading the report of the depart- iment he presided over. Such an unaccus- tomed labour it would be unfair to exact l^rom him. If any hon. gentleman will Qgure this out, he will find that this grade is a trifle over 3 per cent. And, of course, the ] heaviest grade on the road we are propos- ilng to have constructed in this district can- [not be heavier. The cost of this tramway, jas the hon. gentleman calls It, was $22,800 [a mile. This is a rather unpleasant comment- ary on the statements of hon. gentlemen opposite who talk of its costing |22,800 a mile to build a tramway. That was in a part of British Oolumbla, where the cost of building a railway Mr. PRIOR. If you had ever been out on that line you would find It a very differ- ent country. The MINISTER OP THE INTERIOR. I have been over it, and over this tram- way. I rode over it thirty-one miles In less than an hour, and any one who knows anything about a railway knows that you cannot run thirty-one miles an L--»ur over a tramway. It Is a raili:oad, and ^w is a good railroad, too. Mr. LANDBRKIN. It is through the best timber in the world. The MINISTER OP THE INTERIOR. It goes through a magnificently timbered belt, and is a difficult country in which to build a railroad, but not an extraordinarily difficult country, not anything like as ex- pensive a country, taking all things Into consideration, hs the country from the Stl- klne River to Teslin Lake. There is per- haps more expense of a certain kind, that Is to say, there may be a little more rock cutting ; but I venture to state that there Is no part of the road from the Stikine River to Teslin Lake which will be built for $22,800 a mile. Now, my hon. friend the ex-Mlnlster of Railways (Mr. Haggart) does know all about the standard of the Kaslo and Slocan Railway. That is the standard of the road which we are going to build. I want to speak to the House a moment in regard to the question of the weight of the rrj.io. The weight of the rails upon this rail- way, before It can be accepted by the Govern- ment and before the company can get a title to an acre of land, must be forty-five pounds, according to the standard. It Is yet un- settled between the company and the Gov- ernment as to whether foity-five pound rails should be laid upon the road this coming summer. If It Is shown to the Govern- ment to be physically Impossible to get In forty-five pound rails by the river, or enough of them, then we propose to let the company put down twenty-eight pound rails temporarily until they can get forty- five pound rails up the river, allowing traf- fic to go on In the meantime. That Is the only advantage given to the contractors in the way of enabling them to get the road into operation by the 1st of September. It is not an advantage financially on the total operation, because anybody can see it would be much better for them to put forty-five pound rails in at once than to put down twenty-eight pound rails, and then have to take them up and substitute heavier ones. Now, just one word about the other propositions that were made to the Gov- ernment. When I opened my remarks this evening I think I made it clear that there were no other offers made to the Government than those which had been laid upon the Table of the House. The House Is In full possession of everything that the Government is in possession of with respect to this matter, and I appre- hend that the members of the House have familiarized themselves fairly well with the contents of these documents. I will not weary the House, therefore, with read- ing them at length. The last two letters are those to which I desire to call the at- tention of the House. The only gentle- man whom we know as the representative of the Rothschilds is Mr. H. Maitland Ker- sey, lately agent of the White Star Steam- ship Line in the City of New York, and now engaged In financing a company for the purpose of putting steamboats upon the Yukon route between various points which I have spoken of to-night at length. As the papers upon the Table of the House will show, Mr. Kersey first made a propo- sition a considerable time ago for the con- struction of a railway from the Stikine River to Teslin 'Lake, In which he asked for a bonus of $0,000 a mile. The time, the 1st of Sept( Miber, of course, was not mentioned at all, and I need not say that Mr. Kersey had no Intention whatever of even suggesting that he could build a road by that time In the proposal which he laid before us. It was intimated to him that the Government would not give a cash bonus for this railway at all, and that dls- eussion on that question might therefore be dispensed with. Mr. Kersey came back, after having made full flhanelal arrange- ments In London, and on tJ^e 21st of Jann- n ary he asked for an Interview with me. I saw him fn the presence of my hon. friend the Minister of Militia, and my hon. friend the member for Quebec West (Mr. Dobell). These gentlemen were both acquainted with Mr. Kersey, and I met him in company with them. I Informed him that we were prepared to give a liberal amount of land. Mr. Kersey knew that 20.000 or 26,000 acres of land per mile was under discussion; and I informed him that we were prepared to give a liberal amount of land aggregating some- thing in that neighbourhood ; that we want- ed the road in operation, if not finally com- pleted, by the 1st of September ; and that we wanted $250,000 In cash deposited as a guarantee that the work should be accom- plished. He placed in my hands, on the mornlug of the 22nd of January, this let- ter : Ottawa, 22nd January, 1898. Dear Mr. Sifton,— With reference to our con- versation of last evening, I communicated tolly by cable last night both to Devonshire Houae and Chatsworth the Ideas of the Oovernment as I understand them with regard to the con- struction of a railway between Olenora and Tesi lin. Saturday, as you are aware, la a dilQcult day to transact business in London, but as I had already prepared my frlenda for the message which was sent last night, I have every hope of receiving an answer at any moment, and that I shall be able to lay before you a definite and favourable proposition for the construction of the work within a few hours. I may say that Mr. Kersey, before going to England, had put in the proposition for the construction of this railway. It was no new thing with him, he was not taken unawares, he knew all about It, and had discussed it fully with his principals in London : I advised London that the Oovernment re- quested a definite decision to-day, but that in any event they would not wait after Monday. I should, therefore, be In the position to either malce you a definite offer not later than Monday or to withdraw entirely in favour of other appli- cants. I am now having the proposal drafted on the lines of my cable so as to save every pos- sible moment. As I advised you yesterday, we have a fleet of boats building on the coast, in- cluding two steamers and numerous small boats on Teslln Lake Itself, the engines and boilers for these boats and a aaw-mlll being sent in over the snow, and I have further a full equipment of men, sleighs, &c., under an experienced man who knows the trail, waiting in Victoria at the pre- sent moment for news to come of the taking of the ice on the StiHne Rivp.r, In order that they may proceed to open u; tne trail. I understand that wm should have to guarantee the construction of the road by the Ist of Sep- tember, putting up a deposit, and I have so ad- vised London. Thanking you| for your courteous attention, I am, yours faithfully, H. MAITLAND KBRSHT. Next I have a letter dated January 23rd, 1898. I think January 23rd was Sunday, but this letter probably reached my hands on Monday morning. Sir,— With reference to the offer which I madtj to you on behalf of m;' syndicate In early De.] cember, and to the conversation which I had thtj pleasure of having with you on Friday last, taj relation to the construction of a wagon roati and railway from Olenora to Teslln Lake, I have I to advise you, after consultation with London,! that we deem it inadvisable to make a further offer to the Oovernment which would of necessity involve a guarantee of the completion of the line by the 1st of September next, and which offer would have to be based on a land grant, unac- { companled by any cash subsidy. I have to thank you for so kindly postponing action to enable me to communicate with my friends in England, and have the honour to remain. Tour obedient servant, H. MAITLAND KERSBT. I think that pretty well disposes of the fig- ment that we had better ofTers lying around which we could have accepted, or that any- body was willing to make a better offer than that which was made to us. Now, Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that my hon. friend tbe ex-Mlnlster of Finance (Mr. Foster) is not in his place, because I expect that the hon. gentleman will favour us with an elo- quent denunciation of this contract before the discussion is through. But we have the advantage, the very great advantage, of our enemy having written a book, or rather a letter to the newspapers, and I will trouble the House with a short dis- cussion of some of the views of a gentleman who signs himself " Onlooker." The hon. member for Bast York knows who " Onlooker " is, and I am Justified by what took place in this House a few evenings ago in concluding that although the hand is the hand of " Onlooker, ' the voice Is the voice of the hon. member for York. There are two or three things in connection with the hon. gentleman's criticisms of this contract which indicate that even the hon. gentleman's facility in not accurately stat- ing facts has been somewhat outdone In this particular effort. I must say to the hon. gentleman that out in the wild and woolly west from which I come, it is not considered very good form for a leading statesman to anticipate discussion by Par- liament of an Important question by abusing bis political opponents In a newspaper. Of course If the hon. gentleman thinks other- wise, he can exercise his privilege. I will now refer to "Onlooker's" letter in the " Citizen," of January 29. Mr. LANDBRKIN. They have had a great deal of experience with anonymous letters. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. Yes, my hon. friend is correct The great Oon- serratlve party is rich in such experience. I take it that this view presented in the •• Citizen " is the view of that combination which is now the Conservative party in this House— that is to say it will be the official view. We had the view of the leader of the Opposition, his private view when he *')^' offer which I joMiA on Which I hid SSI resllnLake. I have f to make a further would of nece««it; IPletlon of the lini \J^^^ ^tloh offer Jand grant, unac- ' Wndly po8tponln« I lumcate with inj' e the honour to | rvant, ^ND KBRSBT. )08e8 of the &g. 'K> lying around Bd, or that any- * better offer to us. Now. my hon. friend (Mr. Foster) is 'XD«ct that the >s with an elo- »ntract before But we have Jat advantage 5n a book, or papers, and I I a short dls- vlews of a f " Onlooker." rk knows who tified by what few evenings igh the hand the voice Is fr for York, in connection clsms of this ven the hon. •"rately stat- itdone In this to the hon. wild and ae, it Is not f a leading Ion by Par- » by abusing iv^spaper. Of links other- Jge. I ^jji tter in the f^TEBloa great Oon- Jerlence. I Jd in the mblnatlon rty In this be official leader of when he ^as first interviewed, and it was favourable to this contract in all its details, and it can scarcely be supposed that he seriously attempts to get out of that position ; he practically approved of the contract, but the hon. members for Bast York, York and West York have been too much for the hon. gentleman and he had to change his view. I presume this statement by " Onlooker " will go down to history as the attitude of the Conservative party on this question, and that is the reason why I want to discuss it. I will not read the whole of the article, for if I did so I am afraid the House would never forgive me. The hon. gentleman in a certain part of his letter, in the fourth column, makes a statement— and If the hon. gentleman Is going to indulge in literary efforts he must make his contributions shorter ; for, although he can make members sit here and listen to him for three or four hours at a time, he cannot make people read lengthy articles in newspapers. Referring to the profits to be derived from the road, the hon. gentleman wrote : Vary this calculation as you may, cut it down or increase the estimate, and it shows you that no more paying' franchise could be obtained than the bare privilege of building and operating this road. I am not going to criticise these observa- tions at length, but I am going to show how entirely absurd is the position taken in this article, which will, I presume, be the position of the Opposition. The state- raent is made, it has been made in this ?fIouse, and has been argued that it is a great privilege to allow the contractors to build the railway on account of the enor- mous profits. There is a provincial charter in existence at the present time, held by the Casslar Central Company, for the building of a line of railway over this route. It contains a provision for a land grant, a lease of lands with mineral rights, to the extent of 10,240 acres per mile in the Cass'ar district, subject to certain conditions. The provisions are not so favourable to the Casslar Central Company as are these pro- posed by this Government, and therefore that company has not been able to get any money to build the road. If we made the same conditions we would not have our railway built. So we have a railway char- ter in existence covering the same territory as that by our projected railway and the company has the liberal concession of 10,- 240 acres of land per mile under lease for thirty-five years, which is practically a deed as regards the mineral rights. That grant is subject to certain conditions in respect to payment of royalties ; but I need not go Into that point fully. If hon. members will look ait the charter In the British Colum- bia statutes they will see the conditions set out, and that there is a liberal conces- sion given to the company for building the road, '''he gentlemen composing the <;om- pany have been in Bngland for a year and have not been alble to secure, so far as my knowledge goes, one dollar, and certainly they have not been able to build a single foot of the road. The proof of the pudding is in the eating ; and if the charter is there, not only a charter but a large and liberal concession, and no* body of men can be got to build the railway, !'< the name of common sense what is the uae of making a statement of that kind and sending it all over Canada ? Is there to be no sense in statcnents made by public men ? Here is an hon. gentleman who for years and years, has been a member o: the House, who has been Finance Minister, who has occupied the responsible position of leader of the House, and who in an anonymous letter, in an article not even over his own name, has made a statement which he knows and which every man knows to be absolutely and entirely false. Is there any justification for that sort of action ? I rise to a Sir CHARLES TUPPBR. question of order. Mr. SPEAKER. I was about to direct the attention of the hon. gentleman to the use of the word false. We do not approve of the us*^ of that word in the House. The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. bow most deferentially to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, and If I have said anything con- trary to the usage of the House I very cheerfully withdraw It The House, hope, however, will not forget that this clause is in the hon. gentleman's letter. Here is another point in the letter : For a coast and boundary line of over 1.000 mllei not a rail shall for five years be laid to compete with Messrs. Mann & Mackenzie. No mattei what eligible passes may be discovered, no mat- ter what citizen may wish to build and engage li lawful transport, there stands the flaming aword of the Oovemment flashing in the monetary dc fenae of Mann & Mackenzie. The mere statement of this monstrous proposition instantly condemni it. The hon. gentleman says that the mere statement of a proposition, which is Ir effect that this Government proposes to de fend Canadian trade. Is enough to condemi it. This hon. gentleman who, hour aftei hour, and week after week, last sessioi lectured and denounced the Governmen because Canadian trade was suffering, get) up here and says that the mere statemen of the fact that the Government of Canadi proposes to protect Canadian trade is en ough to condemn the €rovernment's pollc; in regard to this read. Now, Sir, I bring this forward for th< purpose of showing that the position of th< Opposition on this point Is, that we. In en deavourlng to protect Canadian trade, ai wrong. That is a point I want this Hou8< to take note of, and that is a point I wan the country to take note of. I want th< country to note that we on this side ar endeavouring to protect that trade from In vasion, and that our friends in the Opposl *ys^ \ tion are not In favour of that policy. That iB clear. Again, he says : Worse at ill, If worse there could be. The Got- •rnment have undertaken to bind Parliament tot ton years to a preference for Mann & Mackenzie for any railway between Stlkine River and any ocean port in British Columbia. That is the most Ingenious way of creating a false impression that could possibly be imagined ; but I need not criticise that state- ment, because there is something later on which will need comment. Promising aid tc them and prohibition to all others. I would like my hon. friends on the other Bide of the House to take note of the fact I that I have requested, and this Oovemment have requested the ex-Minister of Finance (Mr. Foster) and the ex-Mlnlster of Rail- ways (Mr. Haggart), and the combined force of the intellects of gentlemen on the other side of the House, to set to work and show wherein that contract provides any prohibition to anybody else. He goes on : n And they have an exclusive option and mono- p poly of this all-rail route for ten years from Sep- tember 1, 1898. There is not one single word of truth in that J Btatement. Now, I am going to say a few words al>out Stthe selection of the land, and I will place ri these words In connection with the statement ? here, which bas been repeated time and agn'n Yj in this Houi. i throughout the discussion, and \ which, I sup^oose, we will hear again : J These lands will not be taken haphazard, but ;i will be selected on placer creeks and quartz leads , J as a powerful and active company knows so well jl how to do. It is difficult to estimate the value c f \ this tremendous concession. One gulch such as f \ the Bonanza or Eldorado creeks would bring In '!,714 acres In which they have a possible chance of flndln/i; anything ; not a cer- tainty. ronieinl)er— nothing' more tlian a mere probjiblUty. Does anybody Imagine that you can walk up and down the water courses and find gold In paying quantities In .ill of thoni ? You can find the colour of gold : you can find that all over the North-west. In places where It does not pay at all. But these gentlemen have a jjossible chance of finding something that pays In 35.714 acres out of the 3,750,000 acres— equal to a piece of territory less than ten miles by uix miles in extent. That is the effect of the method of selection which we have provided that these gentlemen must adopt. Now, as to the rich lodes and ledges whicii my hon. friend writes about. My hon. friend the leader of the Opposition (Sir Charles Tupper) is, I understand, the presi- dent or the manager of a gold mining com- pany. I am told that the ex-Mlnister of Finance (Mr. Foster'* is also the president of a gold mining company. I can take either of these gentlemen to as rich a min- ing district as there is in the world, the Slocan district, in the neiglibourhood of the town of Sandon, and if they will talk there, as I have done, to experienced mining men —for instance, to Mr. Macdonald, one of the owners of the Payne mine, which pays a dividend of $85,(XX) a month— they will find that these men of experience wlil tell tliera that there is no doubt whatever that In the neighbourhood of Sandon there are many ledges as rich as those which are exposed. Why does not my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition or my hon. friend the ex-Mlnister of Finance get a few of them ? Why does not everybody who wants to get rich in a short time get a few of them ? Because the experience of every mining country in the world Is that it costs a great deal more in the aggregate to develop these ledges than they are worth. Yet by what process of reasoning do hon. gentlemen ajiply to the men who are getting this laud grant a rule that applies to no other min- ing country In the world ? If they find rich ledges, they will find them only after they have won them by spending their time and money ; and anybody else in the world, under our present mining regulations, has just as good a chance of going there and Hon C S-3 finding these rich ledges as the men who are building this railway. Why, I say, apply a different rule to tills company from what has been applied to other conipanies ? Thn hon. leader of the Opposition the other night made a statement which Is perfectly true ; he made it Inadvertently ; lie did not intend to make It, and he tried to correct It after he did make It ; but It is true Just the same : that It costs more to take; the gold out than tiie gold Is worth after It Is taken out. Sir CHARLES TUPri^R. If my hon. friend will allow me to tell him he has no foundation whatever for saying that I at- tempted in any way to qualify or withdraw that statement. I did make it, and I made It without the slightest quail Ilea tion. The MINlSTKIl OF THE INTERIOR. I gathered that from the hon. gentleman's re- marks. If he did not so Intend, my Infer- h ence is not correct. But he irjade the state- ment, mid I say the statement Is true ; and 1 think 1 can prove It so far a.s the placer districts of Casslar and Cariboo In British Columbia are concerned, which are in every » respect the same in nature and In kind as the Klondike district. I have here a tal>le which shows that in these districts from 1858 to 1880 inclusive, there was taken out |45,- 140.889 In gold, which the House will agree witli me was a very respectable production. Now, analyse the figures for a few min- utes. I find that during that time tiie high- est amount that was taken out in any one I ypar, on the average, was .'^1,222 per man. and the lowest was $403 per man ; and we all know that oven the highest amount did not represent r, the wages and living expenses of the men who were working in Those mines or any- thing like tiieni. If you look down the table you will find these figures : for 1S.")8. .$173 per man ; for 1850, ii;4()3 ; for 18(^0. $500 ; for 18()1, .$634 ; for 1802, .$517 ; for iaoS .$482 ; for 18(V4, $849 ; for 1805. $813 ; for, 180(5. $893 ; for 1807, $814 ; and so on till it goes down to .$518. This Is the avt»nigi amount of gold taken out per man pei annum for the whole mining population and every member of this House kuowf that tiiese figures do not at all represen the wages and expenses of the men actu ally engaged in mining opevations in tho8( districts. Now, what I want to know is l)y what process of reasoning is It argue( tliat the same rule will not applj' to thi members of this company when tliey go t'il work to mine their railway land grant There is no i>ossible analogy which can hi drawn from any mining operation in thj world which will not lead to the inevitablf conclusion that if these gentlemen send ot a large numl>er of prospectors and unde: take to work their land grant for place mining, they will spend more money tha they will ever get out of the land gran I want to say on that point that I think thi ot will makft money out of their land grant, and 1 will tell you why I think so. Not because I think they will succeed in making any rich discoveries such as those that have been spoken of ; because I cannot conceive of any reason why the same rule that applied in the very same kind of district in British Columbia will not apply In the Klondike district, especially when Lhe ex- pense and trouble of getting there are very much greater than they are in the other case. But in tlie Klondike district there are long stretches of territory where at the present time a man could take out $4, $6 or $8 a day. There are large stretches of sand-bars of that kind which It will not pay the placer miner to stay and work for any length of time. But this company can take such districts, which would be unpro- ductive if worked In the ordinary way, and they can apply to them the results of [science and the latest Improved methods of machinery, and make them profitable. In doing this they wouljd employ a large num- ber of men, and a large quantity of machln- lery and supplies, which would be furnished Ithrough the ordinary channels of Canadian Itrade ; and this is one of the reasons why II think this contract should commend itself jto the judgment of the members of this iHcuse. Now, I have taken longer than I intended Ito take in the discussion of these matters. |But I have one word more to say in re- gard to some statements Oontaiued in the let- ter of " Onlooker " ; and I think it would be mistake if the House failed to understand That the position of the great Conserva- |:ive party is upon another phase of this luestion. Here is the statement of " On- looker " : Is Caiiaaian tra-^'' to the Yukon dependent on thla particular m«jthod of contract-giving, with Its peculiar attaching" conditions ? Have I net lead in the same .paper tnat gave the news of Ihls deal that a United States commercial com- pany had placed orders to the amount of ?170,000 In Vancouver for Yukon goods ? Are there not Icores of able transportation companies advei- nsing for and now actually beginning the trans- lort of people and supplies from Canada to the ..londilie, and some of them jver this very oute ? Is there not besides the Edmonton Dute, the Asheroft route, the Skagway route, nd the Dyea route, for all of which Canadians re outfitting parties in every quarter of Can- da ? Was the future of all trade to the Yukon pom Canada bound up with this particular pheme ? |Now, here we have as clearly as the )n. gentleman will dare to state it, the In lation of his opiulon that the position of le Yukon trade at present does not warrart ]iy extraordinary effort on the part of the )vernmeut to secure It. We have here |e Intimation that we were getting $170,- of trade, and that surely if we were Jtting that ao:ount, we ought to be satis Id It ought to be nothing to us that Jr frleTids down on the Puget Sound were getting millions, we ought to be satisfied— being a poor and small community— with getting $170 000, and let the millions go to our friends on the other side of the line. That is the position which the Conservative party is talking in connection with this con- tract, and that is the point I want the House to understand, and which I think the hon. gentleman will have to explain to the manu- facturers and merch;ints and wholesale men of the Dominion when he comes to ex- plain the attitude he has taken upon this contract. As to the difficulty of carrying out the undertaking by the contractors, I just wish to quote briefly an article from the " Victoria Colonist " which is a paper that generally opposes this Government, and a paper on the Pacific Coast which probably has a more accurate knowledge of the un- dertaking than any newspaper, ordinarily speaking, in this part of Canada. The "' Victoria Colonist " says : Hon. Clifford Sifton has declared that the task of constructing the Stlkine-Teslin Railway is almost superhuman. This is strong language, but not too strong. Few people can grasp tiie magnitude of whtt Messrs. y^ckenzle & Mann have undertaken. We 'believe they will succeed, but only those who have made actual calcula- tions of what must Ya done In order that the 150 miles of railway ma> be completed by September 1, can have any Idea of the magnitude of the undertaking. The actual work of building the road Is not a very serious matter. If the con- tractors wore given two years In which to do the work they would accomplish It without any very great difficulty ; but it is to be remembered that they have practically only four months, and that during this short period everything used In' con- structing the railway, except the right of way and the ballast, must be taken up the Stlklne River. This is what will make) the undertaking exceptionally difficult, and If the contractors can manage to carry out their bargain they will de- serve the first place among railway builders. We venture to say that no men ever before un- dertook to build IIJO miles of railway under such circumstances In the same length of time. For- tunately, both the contractors are men who have energy and experience to assist them In their treiiiciiJous undertaking, and the facts that they have put up a very substantial guarantee sliows that they believe themselves able to do what they are attempting. That is tlie opinion of a paper published on the Paoifle Coast which usually opposes the administration of this Government. Now, I have simply referred to that to .show that we who entered into this con- tract are not the only persons who attach groat importance to the magnitude of the undertaking which these contractors are attempting. 1 propose to say only a few words more with regard to one or two points brought before the House during this discussion. The term " Land Monopoly " has been thrown across this House. I think It was my hon. friend from Gananoque (Mr. Tay- lor), or perhaps it was the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule), who suggested «M to e. re Q- 36 a. a- le c- [s le h e Lt a y i- 7 e k B l> e that the men from the North-west could not be expected to support a land monopoly. I wonder that any man on that side of the House should have the assurance to talk of land monopoly. If the hon. gentlemen would like to look at a map, I will show them one that represents the fertile belt from the Rocky Mountains to the Red River and Lake Winnipeg. I will show them on that map the land monopoly of the North-west as it exists to-day. There it is. (Exhibiting map.) I live in the North-west— • but let me explain the map first. Here, on this map, are the Red River and Lake Win- nipeg, and thire are the Rocky Mountains. This portion shows all the fertile Dolt, and of ,thls fertile belt the hon. gentletoen oppo- site contracted to give away so much that they did not have enough there but had cb go outside it. On all that enormous terri- tory; every odd-numbered section— 67,000,000 acres—has been reserved from settlement, and reserved for the benefit of the railway companies. Sixty-seven mlU'on acres— the vhole fertile belt and much that Is not 'a now a land monopoly reserved for the bene- fit of railway companies. Do hon. gentle- men opposite think It Is the white portions of this map that show the land reserved ? No, It is the black part. We mourn over that in the North-west, and therefore I had It marked in black on the map. I wai^t the House to understand that that Is the result of the land administration of our friends opposite, who claim to have the Instinct of government. We have 67,000,000 acres of land in Manitoba and the North-west Territories reserved trom settlement. On that 67,000,000 of acres, I, as the Minister of the Interior to-day, cannot give a man «, homestead entry. Nor can I sell a single at;re of it. although there are millions of acres of that land that never have been and never will be or can be earned by any railway company whatever. But, Sir, they are i-esei'ved by Order In Council, the good faith of tlie Dominion is pledged fo that for ever, and no Government can interfere with that reserve until the bond is literally fulfilled to f^e very last letter. That is the position those hon. gentlemen have put us iti. I wonder that any member on that side can have the colossal assurance to tallc to any nieuiiber from Manitoba or the North- west about land monopolies. Do not let us run away with terms. What Is a land monopoly ? We have it in the North-west. We have there millions of acres owned by corporations— owned In part by a corporation which my hon. friend from West Toronto (Mr. Osier) represents. And let me say, I do not blame him for that, buv I thought, when he stood up the other day and sad he was going to oppose this contract at every stage and every chance he got, he was not quite so bitter when the Calgary and Edmonton Bill was before the House. I did not then hear, away In the far North-west, that any tenders were called for when that road was contemplated. We all knew In the North-west that the cash subsidy to the Calgary and Edmonton Railway was enough to build the road and provide a very snug sum to go Into the pockets of the promoters, as it ultimately did ; but I did not hear that the non. gen- men who then composed the Government called for any tenders or permitted any- body else to have any share In that enter- prise except our hon. friend from West Toronto (Mr. Osier). What we have In the shape of a land monopoly Is this. We have millions of acres in that country owned by railway companips, and these companies are not requh-ed to do any work or spend any money. They sit down ; they toll not neither do they spin. But the farmers toll and the farmers spin. The farmers do their work : they culti- vate their land and make their roads and bridges and pay their taires and Improve their land And land goes up In value for the benefit of the railway companies. That is what takes place under the land-monopoly policy of our friends on the other side of the House. That is what Is taking place now. And I tell the hon. gentlemen that there Is no man sitting In this House to-day who realizes now, or who will live to realize the baneful effects of that policy upon the fin- est agricultural territory that the world has ever seen. We propose, for the purpose of getting a great and valuable public work constructed under the most extraordinarily difficult cir- cumstances, to give a land grant. ■ It a laud grant to which value will be given by the labour rf other people or by the expendi- ture of other people's money ? No, Sir, but a land grant which is not wortb a dollar, except as it is made valuable hy the ex- penditure nad the work of the men who get it. Lot the hon. gentlemen rest with that and explain to this House the coberence and logic of the position they take on this sub- ject. I apprehend that if any man goes up and discovers a valuable claim, he will re- gister it for himself and not for the rail- ^^ay company, and the company can find their own claims and register them for Themselves, and they are in no respect better off for the lai)our the miner has performed. I have detained the House longer than I anticipated. I look for great things from the construction of this railway ; I look for great things because of the fact that I think it will largely promote Canadian trade. I think that if It Is promptly and vigorously carried through, as I have no doubt it will be, It will have the effect of drawing to Canada within tte next six months trade to the extent, perhans, of twenty or twenty- five millions of doJars, that being a moder- ate estimate. I think it will conduce to the honour and dignity of Canada In making that country safe to us from a national standpoint. It will remove the danger of the coimtry being not In the hands of our V i' I'' oflScers, but In the hands of an alien popu- lation who would contemn the authority of this Government. These things I look upon as important. Let my hon. friends opposite understand that If this railway project is obstructed, If It Is stopped here or else- where, and if that territory passes from the control of Canada by reason of there being no railway communication, the people of Canada will hold them to a bitter account tor it. I ha^e no more to fay. As the Minisic- who has been called upon to give 'he most attention to this subject, I have tried to place the House In possession of the facts as well as I could. I look upon this as one step In the development of the great West -.vhich I reprefient, by tue too great favour of the people, in th's House and in this Gov- ernment, And, if, in some small measure, the benefits which I have anticipated are realized, I shall only be too grateful and happy to have had some part in bringing about such very happy results. =-.,,; , yX. . > ■•• .^'v?Trr^,,. ,.,:viv"-*v:v--- '>-, \>-i 4^, 1* ^ .\ '*,,' 1 ■".' •.■.^7'^" ^^,,^ ,. ■'■ ^-A ■ :■'.'■ •/ !., ■v,.:-:^--r ;^^K '• ( . 7:'*^^^ t' ■■^'>'.'' ''•/k ir-:.^' .■='^ »^-,%; •-