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CIHM/ICMH

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t»>'; ' „ ;f''-.,^t '"(''.■■;;■■ «•-"!,' '

4t'

,^!

0tt^taf^omm0nH

SPEECH OF THE HON. EDWAI5D BLAKE

•■| •>•:

ON THi"^.

m ANSWER TO THE

, [• .-.1. ^ "-^iTv ■ ' : • .•'■,■

SPEECH FROM THE THRONE

Delivered in the Hmise of Cttmmom, at Ottaica, on Friday, Jan. 30//t, 1885.

Mr. BLAKE. I have to congratulate
my hon. friends who have just addressed
the House on the manner in which they
have discharged their somewhat difficult
and onerous task. It is true that we
observed at some stages slight signs of
hesitation, but upon the whole, if I were
asked to say in what particular blanches of
the art of oratory they have most s'lown
their abilities to-day, I should say it was
in the euphemistic and the hyperbolic
departments. We have heard an account
of the country, (rf its progress and pros-
perity, of its general condition, which we
should be only too glad if we could to
adopt as correct, but which, unfortunately,
from th6 point of view from which we
look at that condition, from the facts
which are visible to our eyes, from the
facts which reach our oars, we are utterly
unable to assent to ; and I must repeat my
congratulations to my hon. friends, having
undertaken the task of seconding and of
bettering the expressions in the Speech,
that they have been able to go through
their business w th so much gallantry , and,
upon the whole, with so little hesitation.
I am sorry that we are met so late. I had
hoped that after the promise made the
Session before last, and which was very
measurably kept last Session, we should
have adhered to the notion of coming
here as soon as our friends and colleagues
from the most distant parts of the

Dominion cou'u reach Ottawa, after
passing their Christmas week at home.
I believe that is the most convenient
time for th^ discbarge of the legislative
I ueines'i of the Dominion, and it is a
very important thing for us that that
business should be discharged at the
period at which it can, with the least in-
coiivonience to the country and to the
members wha compose the Legislature,
be fulfilled. I trust that we shall not on
future occasions go further into the year
than to-day, but rather that our future
Sessions may commence at the time at
which the hon. gentleman brought us
together at last year, if not a few days
earlier. I join in the oongratulatioas
which have been addressed to the House
in the gracious Speech, and referred to
slightly by the hon. gentlemen who have
moved and seconded the Answer, as to
the abundant harvest which, no doubt,
has been a vtry great blessing. I have
not observed upon this occasion a rejjeti-
tion of those further eulogies with refer-
ence to harvests which have accompanied
some former Ministeiial utterances upon
that subject. I recollect very well the
occasion of a Ministerial demonstration
in the western part of this province a
few years ago — I think in honor of the
Minister of Public Worls— when a then
member of Parliament epresenting an
Ontario constituency, declared tluA

he had voted for, and intended to sup-
port, the Government that had raised
the price of wheat from 77 cents to
$1.40, He did, I admit, vote for and
support that Government, whether upon
those or otiier grounds I know not. He
was faithful, and he has received his re-
ward. He no longer adorns those
benches, at least during the sitting of the
House, but he receives a handsome salary
for inspecting the Colonization Companies
of the North-West. I dare say, under
similar circumstances, some other hon.
members, with similar expectations, may
be induced to say that the price of wheat
is to day satisfactory ; but that stretch
of audacity has not yet prevailed in this
House. And we are told besides, in
efiect, that we are enjoying commercial
prosperity as well as a good harvest ;
and the hon. member for Beauce (Mr.
Taschereau), several times felicitated us
upon the condition of the country. He
opened his speech with felicitating us on
our general prosperity, and he said he
could not do better than close it with a
repetition of the same felicitation. It
is admitted, indeed, that we have a share
a slight share, a modest share, hardly
worth mentioning, to be mentioned only
in a whisper at all events, in the depres-
sion which is said to prevail in the
neighboring Republic and also in Great
Britain. But we are told that we are
ever so much better off than they aie —
the great exemplars of Free Trade on the
one hand, and of Protection on the other.
We have, I presume, reached the happy
medium with respect to our fiscal policy.
"We are, I suppose, just right. They
protect too much in the United States,
and so their depressions are deeper; they
protect too little in England, and so their
depressions are deeper ; but happy
Canada, its financial destinies presided
over by the hon. gentleman who smiles
so blandly upon me, and who, no doubt,
would smile in the same way on a plat-
form in St. John, if he happened to be
there to-day, — I say happy Canada has
found the medium. SLe neither indul-
ges in Free Trade nor does she
iB;dulge in Protection, and so, hy

consequence of that the depression is ever
so much lighter. But there is a depres-
sion. It is now acknowledged. It was
faintly denied last year. I remember,
two or three years before, the hon. Min-
ister of Finance pro[)hesiei^ — standing
as he does on a great eminence, with
means and sources of information not
available to the general public, respon-
sible as he is, at least to the extent of
giving the tone and turn to public opinion,
which is important in these res^pects — he
prophesied, I say ten years of prosperity,
and invited those who might trust in him
to clap on all sail for that time and then
to take it in. Last year he offered
us a modified pro.sperity. Thiee years
had elapsed so he did not offer us the ten
years then ; but he gave us seven years to
date from last Session. It was not absc^
lute prosperity either, it was not an all-
sail kind of prosperity ; you were t take
in a reef or two, and if only yo: U,jk in
a reef or two and were prudent y ju would
get seven years of prosperity. Well, we
have had one year of the hon. gentleman'^
half-breed pi'osperity ; we have had one
years of going under reduced canvas, and
I am afraid in too many instances with
masts gone and running under jury masts,
and in some other instances with wreck*
on divers rocks and reefs, some of which
were created by the hon. gentleman him-
self. I say we have had that little time,,
and now we are told that there is depres-
sion, but that it is only a modified depres-
sion. What a contrast that is to the ten
years of full-sail prosperity, and even to
the seven years of modified prosperity
promised last year ! What a contrast
the condition of the country presents in
the light of the promises made by ilw
hon. gentleman just before the General
Election of 1882 ! What do we hear to-
day of the increasing industries which
were to be established, provided he se-
cured the verdict which the hon. gentle-
man solicited and wh^ch he obtained upon
the faith of those fallacious promises made
in 1882 1 The hon. the Fir.st Minister
speaking in Toronto, said : — ; . .

"I tell you this, and this is not a matter of
supposition bat of certainty and knowledge on

my part, that there are millions of dollars
waitmg to be invested in Canada, millions in
England and large sums in the United Stales
waiting to be invested in every kind of
industry, in mines and manufactures of every
kind."

And then a little later he said: —

"All that is wanted by capitalists in Canada,
England, and the Unitea States, aye. in
France and Germany, is to learn whether the
country is of the fixed, constant opinion that
the National Policy shall be continued as
settled in 1878."

Ke promised ns, not as a matter of specu-
lation, not as a matter of expectation,
not as a matter of belief, not as a matter
of calculation, as were the hon. Finance
Ministei^'s promises of coijitinued pros-
perity, not as a matter of suppo-
sition, but of certainty and know-
ledge, that if he got the verdict which a
few weeks afterwards he did get, we
should see not merely a continuance of
the existing industrial activity, not
merely a continnance of existing indus-
trial investmeirts, but an enormous influx
of capital in addition, to be invested in
various industries. Where ai-e they? I
ask again, where are those millions which
the hon. gentleman certified to us as a
matter of absolute certainty and know-
ledge would be here if he was retained in
power 1 The gracious Speech assures us
that our commercial prosperity rests upon
foundations which no temporary or pai tial
disturbance can remove. There is a
sense in which I agree to that proposi-
tion. I am glad to do so, because I do
not desire to move an amendment to the
Speech. There is a sense, I say, in which
I agree to that proposition. Such com-
mercial prosperity as in this country we
can enjoy does rest on permament luun-
dations. It rests on the land and on the
sea. It rests upon the fertility of the
soil, upon our agricultural products,
upon our great timber resources, upon
our minerals, upon our ships, upon ouv
fisheries; but important and large as it II
these interests are, it rests, and will for
many generations mainly rest in Canada,
upon the land. And it depends, th- sf
being the foundations, upon the well .))>-
plied energy and industry of our people

>i <

and th frugality of their expenditure
If thooC energies and abilities and thai
frugality are properly applied we shall
grow in trade, commerce and manufac-
turers. But the hon. gentleman obvio'.isly
reads the Speech in another way. It i*
not upon these great foundations to
which I have referred, which the hon.
Finance Minister may indeed shake, with
which he may indeed to some extent in-
terfere, but it is upon Acts of Par-
liament that he thinks our trade and com-
merce and prosperity depend. Wo-
had, circumstanced as we are, having-
gone through a very long period of liqui-
dation, of depression, of economy, during
which all the weak houses in business
were eliminated, and having made a
fresh start a vei'y little while ago,
we had in tht natural and ordinary
course of things a right to expect, not
indeed the Finance Minister's promised
ten years' duration of prosperity, but we
had a right to expect a very considerable
number of years of extraordinary pros-
perity. That is what past events, and
the experience of different commercial
countries, would have indicated to us.
What we got was a too brief gleam of
prosperity. What we obtained by the
hon. gentleman's arrangement was not
an increased permanence of that pros-
perity but an abbreviation of it. It haa
been lessened and contracted, its term has
been shorteneJ, and difficulties have been
created by the system which he lauds af?
itself the very foundation of prosperity.
How has this been done ? Disturbances
the hon. gentleman speaks of. He talks of
temporary and partial disturbances.
There h^ve been disturbances not very
partial Vjut pretty general — not very
temporary, for they have lasted a good
while. There have been disturbances
which he has created. There has been [
the disturbance of a high and excessive
taxation. There has been the disturbance
of an unequal, and unjust taxation.
There has been the disturbance of a
sectional taxation. There has been
the disturbance of an unnecessary
amount of taxation. There has been an
unnecessary withdrawal of the people's

I ~*fJ*J k'lj' - ^^ i\' » ti.'ii)* .jUjil.*- *'*/nga *,*-. A-A'.iM " ' * 'i •

earnings from the conduct of the
people's buHiness. There has been a
inversion and a lockup of money, causing
in many cases an entire loss and annihila-
tion of capital as an effect of his policy.
There has been great inilation andsjiecula-
tion promoted by the hon. gentleman's
policy. There has been as unnatural &timu-
ias adminstertd to certain favored indus-
tries, giving to them a brief opportunity of
fleecing the public by the higher rates they
were enabled to charge while they were
practical monopolies, and producing the
natural, inevitable, predicted results at a
time even earlier than we might have ex-
acted them. These disturbancesare due not
to visitations from on high; they are due not
■jO the natuml difficulties of our situation.
They are due to the action of this Govern-
ment and the preceding and present Par-
liament. It is natural, under the circum-
stances to which I have alluded, that the
hon. gentleman should propose to press
upon our attention a bankruptcy or insol-
vency law. It is the natural outcrop
of h>j policy. He has delayed it as long
he could, but he feels that the situation is
so serions that that measure must be
brought into the pi'ominence which all
measures receive when they are introduced
in the Speech fi-om the Throne. We are
told that Canadian boai-ds of trades and
English chambers of commerce alike have
poin ed out the necessity of such a mea-
sure. We were quite familiar with the
views of Canadian boards of trade.
They have been pressed upon us for more
than one Session past. Strong represen-
tations have been made by the principal
boards— the Montreal board, the Toronto
board — and, I think, one of the hon. gen-
tlemen from Montreal introduced last
Session a Bill, based on a report or pro-
pc sed by the board of trade of his city, and
we know the active course which has been
pursued by gome of ou ; western boards.
They did not produce much effect ; but I
ot serve by the papers that the First Min-
ister has taken a trip to the other side of
the water and has sfjen there some of the
English chambers of commerce. The
Finance Minister has also seen them, and
I am glad to know that their representa-

tions have had more effect than ihe re-
f resentations of our home-made boards
of trade, and that they have given go
much attention to the subject as is in-
volved in suggesting its consideration in
the Speech. The First Minister, ir'sed,
in that country, in which it seems there
is something in the air — I do not know
what it may be — which makes our tongues
wag a little wildly sometimes, told one
of the Chambers he addressed, that ours
was principally a rural population, with
the prejudices of a rural population ; that
we members naturally represented those
prejudices ourselves, and that of courae
there were difficulties in passing such a
law. If, said he, we wer>^ an urban popu-
lation, if we had the superior intelligence
and knowledge of affairs which belong
to urban populations, there would
be no dithculty in the matter ; but having
only poor homespun country people for
our constituents and representing them
in this House, there were difficulties in
carrying out the measure. However, he
intimated that he would do what he could
with us ; he would do his best to open
our eyes and remove these scales of pre-
judice from our vision. And I suppose
he has satisfied himself that his influence
is so great, and indeed I observe that
the Secretary of State has said of him ihttt
the phrase ia appropriate, **l'etat c'eet
moi" — that he can do what he will — I
suppose from the utterances from the h<Mx.
gentleman that he has decided that he oaa
do what he will in this matter. Now there
were glorifications on this subject some
time ago when, after «, long period of
depression, the threat of t^e remoral
from the Statute Book of the existing
Bankruptcy Bill had frightened all the
weak houses into, in some cases, prema-
ture assignments. We had pointed out
to us as the effect of the policy of the
Administration the short bead roll of
bankruptcies and insolvencies when they
were something between six and eight
millions a yeax' for a period of three years.
In 1883 they became heavy, though not
so heavy as in the old days, and
they b^me veiy heavy in 1884.
The list of liabUities for 1883 was

about $15,900,000 while for 3884
they were about $19,000,000, and these
figures become still more remarkable
when we look at the divisions as to the
bankruptcies by Provinces. Quebec has
fared much better in this regard in 1884
than in 1883. The Province of Mani-
toba has fared better still, for if I rightly
recollect its insolvency liabilities amount-
ed to only about one-fourth of the liabil-
ities for the year before. But the other
Provinces, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick and Prince Edward Island,
present very diffei-ent features. The
liabilitif's for Ontario, in 1883, are stated
at 14,700,000; for 1884, $9,600,000.
Nova Scotia, 1883, $1,075,000; 1884,
$2,075,000. In New Brunswick, 1883,
$750,000 ; 1884, $1,675,000. Prince
Edward Island, 1883, $40,000; 1884,
$150,000. In all cases I have given
the round figures, and they make a
gross result for 1S83 in these four
provinces of $6,550,000, and in 1884,
$14,400,000, an increase of about 140
per" cent. As to the numbers, I ob-
serve that the hon. First Minister the
other day stated that we compared favor-
ably in that respect with with the United
States. But that was a itatement made
on very inaccurate infoimatioa indeed,
because the number in proportion to the
number of traders in Canada was one in
fifty, while in the United States it was
only one in eighty-four ; and it would be
difficult even for my hon. friend from
Beauce (Mr. Taschereau) or my hon.
friend from Cumberland (Mr. Towns-
hend) to make out that that was a sign
of comparative prosperity. The bank
returns show similar results. The cur-
rent commercial loans have decreased over
eighteen and a-half millions between 1882
and 1884. and the larger portion of the
decrease has taken place in 188^. Over-
due debts have more than doubled between
1882 and 1884. They were $8,190,000
in 1882, and $4,400,000 in 1883, and
$6,440,000 in the year w.hich has just
expired. The circulation has decreased
mora than four and ahalf millions
between 1882 and 1884. Public de-
posits have decreased about the same

amount in the same period. Govern-
ment deposits have decreased about one-
hulf — ia fact we do not know where the
money has gone. Oa the whole I main-
tain, notwithstanding the smooth phrases
of my hon. friends, that the condition of
the country in the large is one of dullness
and depression ; of stagnation, of short
hours, of reduced wages, of diminished
occupation for working men, of lost cap-
ital, of vanished opportunities, of hard
times generally; and hardest chiefly ia
those industries which were but a while
ago the chief and prime glories of the hon.
gentleman's fiscal policy. Take the cotton
industry. In New York the First Mia-
ister was candid enough, I observe, to
admit that there was a little trouble in
cotton, but when he got to England he
almost forgot the existence even of that
trouble, and stated that there was a condi
tionof tolerable general prosperity. Take
the iron industry; take the sugar industry;
take important branches of the woollen
industry; I will give as an example the
general production of knitted goods. All
these but a short time ago were cases for
the application of unbounded praise to
the fiscal jwlicy of th. Administration,
which had, it was said, revived and al-
most recreated these industries, and put
them ii- a position of stability, perma-
nence, and great prosperity, Whatis their
condition to-day ? What has it been for
the past year 1 Does any man doubt that
there has been an immense premanent
loss of capital in the cotton industry ?
Does any man doubt that there has been
an unproductive diversion of capital in
that industry, and of sugar refining, as
well as in the industry of knitted goods '^
There is another great industry — an
industry which if you take the value of
the output may be said to be almost the
largest—the flour milling industry, I do
not perceive that the millers are entirely
contented with the present Tariff. The
degree ot Protection the hon. gentleman
has given them doeo not seem to*
satisfy them. On the contrary they
seem to be so blind as to suppose that
they are discriminated against. They are
so foolish as to allege that there is a pog'.-

tive premium |»la{ h\ on the importation
of flour lu place of wheat from the United
States; and I st-e that they are presenting
a |>etition, whether to the Government or
the Parliament I know not, asking that
the duty on flour should be raised to a
dollar a barrel, and I observe that the
Finance Ministerhasmore thanonce stated
lately that serious consideration would
ihave to be given to the ditficulties of the
milling industry. Having stated so much
generally with reference to the condition of
the country, I would, allude again to the
City of St. John. It ia the constituency of
the Finance Minister, and in its fate and
fortune he is no doubt specially interested.
I do not believe things have been so bad
in the City of St. John for forty years as
they have been in the last year, and I do
not believe the hon. gentleman would find
his old and faithful friends in that city rally
around him in sup; >rt of his policy, even
though they might do so in supi)ort of
himself individually. I believe they have
Jiad some amongst the saddest and most
difficult exi)eriences of the failure of the
hon. gentlema.'i's policy to do tie great
things which he promised it would do.
Take the capital City oi Nova Scotia, the
City of Halifax, and ascertain what its
condition is. Ascertain in each case
what is the condition of the special ly-pro-
tected industries. Look at the cotton
industry of St. John ; look at the cotton
industry of Halifax, the sugar industry
of Halifax, the West India trade of
Halifax which this policy was going to
do so much to develope. Go to the far
West and look at the City of Winnipeg,
and see what is its condition this year as

compared with the last I Manufactures,
of course, have not been developed there ;
but take the returns of Customs duties,
of populations, of assessment, take the
general condition of the people, and tell
us whether Winnipeg has prospered. And
so, whether you go to the far East or to
the far West on this side of the Rockv
Mountains, can you find prosperity 1
Take the old City of Qujbcc, and not-
withstanding the statement of the hon.
m mber for Cumberland that the timber
and ship-building industries are flourish-

ing in Nova Scotia, I ask what ia the condi-
tion of these industries in Quebec? There
is another view, however, not quite so plea-
sant, which the hon. gentleman over-
looked when he told us of the change that
has taken place in the system of construc-
tion of ships in Nova Scotia, and that is,
that it is found that the wooden sailing
ships of the tonnage formerly prevalent
can no longer live, that they cannot do
a business to keep them afloat, and that
vessels of larger tonnage for longer
voyages have to be constructed. There
has been a change in the system owing
to a change in the times. In the long
struggle between steam and sail and
between wood and iron, it is found that
the only chance for wood must be in
vessels of large tonnage and built for
long voyages, and if so, ships constructed
before that change took place must be
doing an unprofitable business. So, when
the hon. member for Cumberland spoke
of the large amount of tonnage employed
and said it was in an active condition, I
must say he surprised me, because it is
the common talk of the world that there
has never been a time when tonnage
was so unprofitable as it has been in the
last year. It is certain thao there has
been a great over-production in the
world's tonnage. It is also certain that
freights were never lower and that ships
are carrying freights at prices which can-
not pay. It happened only the other
day that there were tenders for carrying
a certain lot of stufi" from Liverpool to
London, and an Atlantic liner agreed to
carry it by way of New York for six
shillings. That is the state of the ship-
ping industry of the world when the
hon. member for Cumberland finds cause
for congratulation in the state of the
shippings industry of Nova Scotia. The
hon. member having told us that his pro-
vince was flourishing so greatly, it was
natural that out of the abundance of his
his heart he should have had regard
for the poor Province of Ontario. I
thank him for his consideration when, in
expressing the hope that the article of
coal should be admitted free into the
United States, he coupled with it the

reservation that he would have regard
for the Province of Ontario, and that he
' .should not like to have the price increased
by the removal of the present duty on
that article imported by us from the
United States. I do not know whether
the hon. member's remark was serious or
a joke. If a joke he will allow me to
say that it was not a very good one ; if
serious, I will not waste time upon it. Take
the City of Montreal and see iiow it fares.
To go a little farther west thaii Montreal,
take the town of Cornwall, one of the
glories of the l^'ational Policy, a place
the hon. firat Minister was good
enough to visit shortly after 1882, and
find the conditior> of the main in-
dustry in that town. Go to the City
of Kingston, to Cobourg, to Oshawa ; go
even to Toronto, which has had exceptional
opportunities of prosperity and growth,
and which has fortunately only a few
protected industries. It is true we have
a couple. We have the boM works, but
they are shut uj) — yes, they bolted, as
my hon. friend from East York, Mr.
Mackenzie, says ; we have also the
glucose works, but they wero not opened.
Other industries we have, and they
are in a happier condition. Then take
Hamilton, Dundas, London, St Catherines
Guelph, Chatham — it would be too
tedious. Sir, to prolong the list, but with
very few exceptions you will find that
the story of the cities and towns and in-
dustrial centres of Canada is the same
everywhere. It varies in degree, but it
is the same in kind ; it is one of difficulty
and depression instead of life and anima-
tion. No wonder. The hon. gentleman
as I have said, has done what he cou'd to
disarrange the natural progress and
growth of these industries, and we have
in the lumbering industry, the farming in-
dustry andnotwithstandingthe statements
of the hon. member for Cumberland, the
fishing and shipping industries, great sour-
ces of difficulty, partly owing to this pro-
cess of disarrangement. You could net give
that permanent prosperity you talked of,
but you could take it away, you could
sl^orten it, and that you have done. The
Speech rather regrets than otherwise the

diminution in imports, but it announces,
I observe, that notwithstanding that
eircumstances and notwithstanding the
lessened prices and volume of imports,
the revenue exceeds the expenditure.
At the close of the financial year a surplus
was announced oi" about ^1,600,009, —
$700,000 from the other sources of the
revenue, and $900,000, in round figures,
from Dominion lands. The expenditure
on Dominion lands was omitted, and I
am afraid it was very large, but as the
hon. gentleman charges it to capital
account, he finds it is of no account at
all. . We borrow the money to pay for
the expenditure on Dominion lands which
I am afraid was about $700,000. Thia
would leave a modest margin of $200,

000 as the net revenue from Oominion
lands instead of $900,000 : or if you leave
your revenue from Dominion lands intact,
it would absorb the surplus from all other
sources. Perhaps I am uncharitable, but

1 suspect the hon. gentleman of having
put to capital account some of thesa rail-
way aids which we have been granting so
lavishly out of our revenues, from dme
to time, until to-day ; and I shall look
with some anxiety for the production of
the Public Accounts to see whether this
surplus, small as it is, compared with
former turplusses which the hon. ger le-
man gloried in, is real or in large part
fictitious. With reference to the question
adverted to in the Speech of the lessened
pi ice of imports, it is to be remembered
that that circumstance is not of such
great importance under the present as
under the old ad valorem ^tiriff, because
now a very large proportion of the
duties is specific, and you pay the same
duty to that extent, however cheap the
goods may be bought. But this is also
to be remembered, that your revenue —
although you very nearly produce au
equilibrium between revenue and expen-
diture — is still very large. In 1879 and
1880 the imports were from $82,000,000
to $86,500,000, and the hon. Minister
said they were too large and ought to be
reduced. He said that one cf the great
sources of evil and difliculty in this coun-
try had been the expansion of imports i

he congratulated us on their being down
to these figures, but he wanted and
intended to bring them down still
further in order to make things
Hafe and tidy and comfortable. Now
in this year of reduced imports they
are $30,000,00 J to $35,000,000 more
than they wore in the year when the
h«n, gentleman said they were too lai'ge,
80 that it is not for him, whose p-^licy it
was to make the imports smaller than
$85,0uo,. ?0, to complain, because they
are $30,000,000 more than what he
said was too much. If, on the one hand,
the imports have decreased, and the
revenue has diminished, on the other
hand the hon. gentleman is getting but
Vfcry slowly towards the realization of his
policy which was to import less
than $85,000.0^0, because the im-
ports are t^tili $80,000,000 more. But
about the same time the hon. gentleman
denounced the adverse balance of trade
and gloried very much in the circum-
stance that in one year that adverse
balance had been turned the other way,
and I recollect well how the Ministerial
organs generally crowe over that event.
The good time hud come and we were
going to keep it up. We were going to
Keep up our exports and to keep down
our imports. Well, that has not happened.
At the time the hon. gentleman said
he did it, he claimed to have succeeded, in
pnrsuance of his policy, in so aiTanging
that he had, I think, one or two millions
exports over imports and he was happy.
But if his policy is to be measured by
his statement at that time, what sort of
view a ust be taken when theie is an ad-
verse balance of $25,000,000 1 Last year
this was the adverse balance ; and foi-
the last three years the adverse balances
amount to about $75,000,000. In 18"^
he declared $13,000,000 was about the
ffam required for Customs duties to carry
on the public service, and in 1881 he
gloried in having obtained a revenue
of eighteen and a half millions, whish
■was a vei'y handsome revenue and
l^oduced a very large surplus. This
yeax the hon. gentleman has a Onstoms
rtrenue of more than twenty millions, or

more than one and a half millior greater
than in the year 1881. Yet we lea»i> now
that the hon. gentleman almost seems to re-
gret the revenue is reduced, for he says that
notwithstanding »ts reduction he is still
ab'e to ))ro<luce a modest surplus. Well. I
admitthe great growth of Canada in one re-
spect; we have grown in many things, in
various degrees, but there is one thing
alonein which it maybe said we have grown
enormously — a growth, I think, almos*;
too great to be natural and wholesome,
though the hon. gentleman has thought
differently. What I refer to is the
amount of money we take out of the people
in the way of Customs— an amount which
has increased 50 per cent. Whether we
have grown equally in any other reftpect,
except in our ability to extract from tho
j>eople their national life, I leave to the
most ardent gupportets ot the (Tovern-
ment, not to assert but to es-tablish. Our
public debt has increased A'ery largely ;
we shall get the account very soon, with
the engagements of the current year ;
and looking to those engagements which
are to be added in the coming year, it is
clear that there must be an increase of
the public debt to a v«;ry large extent.
That general result has afftcted our cred?^^^.
Notwithstanding the great commendation
of hon. gentleman opposite on th(^ lite
loan, we find it drags ; we find that it Ik
a drug in tlie market ; we find it s vated
in an important London paper the other
day that a portion of it was taken by a
f- w persons who hold it still, as they have
been unable to unload. And that is the
condition of things, aritinged by the hon,.
gentleman, in which we have toeff:)ct the
important operation of exchanging a very
large proportion of our 5 per cent, debt
in a voy few months. I hope, however,
Sir, that whatever the hon. gentleman
else many have done with reference to
our finances, he has been more careful of
his investments than he was last
year. I trust he has not invested
any mora money in l)anks like the
Exchange Bank, and that no item of that ^
description will reappear in our Public
Accounts as an investment. All the cir-
cumstances which have since become

manifest to the general public with refer- j
encetothedisgrojeful management of that I
institution throw light upon what ouglit j
to have been the conduct and the policy
of the Administration, when they lent,
under the peculiar circumstances under I
which they (lid lend, that sum at the tim» '
at which they did Itnd it; and I canr
but conceive that the hon. gentleman v ■
have a very difficult task, even in this |
Hou^e and to this House, in vindicating, :
with that added light, his conduct in that [
transaction. We seem to have stopped a
good many gaps. We seem to have tilled
up money void.s. Wcseem to havehanded ,
OTor to Mr. Craig some .'ISOO.OOO ; and :
I suppose thus settled that little gap |
that was made in that anomalous account \
which placed a sum of about S(i,5U0
to the credit of the Conservative
election committee, for I forget which
division of Montreal, but I dare B^y
the hon. member to whom it b<'!oags
■will rise and say. Now, Sir, it
was in this state of things with reference
to the country that the first Minister in \
England in November last declared that |
at that juncture "there .wei'e in Canada j
no industries materially suffering and that i
every industrious man could get a good j
day's pay for a good day's work." It is in-
deed quite true that the hon. gentleman
has assumed a new role. Who does not re-/
member the diatribes that were uttered
against my hon. friend from East York I
(Mr. Mackenzie),f,iid those who acted with j
him when thev morlestly said that they i
thought it was of soiiie consequent e to |
Canada that it rihoxild be a cheap ct>untry I
to live in ? Who does not remember that i
we were almost told it was a disreputable :
thing to L e a cheap country to live in '
— cheap and nasty — that what was wanted I
was a dear country to live in and plenty
of money to pay the high prices? That ^
■was the argument, and it was said that |
the argument to the contrary, of its being I
of some consequence that the prices of I
commodities should be low and that people
should pay as little as possible for what
they wanted was a despicable argument,
an argument to be swept away by *ha
•imtempt of the hon. gentleman opposite.

But it is his own argument to-
day. He re{)eat8 on two occasions
the statement that we art puffering
to-day from too great plenty. There is
too much wheat in the country and so
wheat and Hour are too cheap ; there is
too much cotton in the country, enouj*'^
or three time."? as many people as, there
<ire, and so we are sutfoiing because
cotton is too cheap ; and so forth and so
forth. Well, in part, of course, this is
due to that gt'ueral reduction of values
which the hon. gentleman mentions in
the Sj)eoch itself, which he declares
exists, and which applies necessarily tj
imports and, by retlex action, to a con-
siderable extent to home miinufacture.*^.
For example, sugar. I read the report
the other day of Connal's Stores in Glas-
gow for the close of the year, and I find
from it that for the last few we^ks of
the year a fair quality of yellow refined
sugar was retailed in Glasgow atapenny a
pound, and this was not due to the fiscal
policy of Great Britain, in the way of
protection at all events, Pot I hear hon,
gentlemen talking about relatively cheap
sugar, not I'elatively cheap as compared
with the price in England, but as com-
pared with the price here a little while ago,
and declaring that this is the resultof their
fiscal policy here. But the eftect of
these values being reduced, as far a.s
their policy has affected them, is that,
instead of there being a slaughter of tlie
foreign goods to the prejudice of the
foreign maker, there is a slaughter of the
domestic goods to the disadvantage of the
domestic maker. We have brought to
our own doors, to our own homes, and
amongst ourselves an unnecessary and
abnormal degree of demoralization of trade,
of dej)ression of values, and of difficulty.
The consumer is reaping a temporaiT
advantage, it may be, which we know-
will not be a ^/ermanent one, which will
very soon be disposed of ; but, in the
meantime what has happened to the in-
dustries the hon. gentlemen were so
anxious to protect and secure, and to the
workingmen whose wages are reduced,
whose numbers are diminished, whose
days and hours of remonerative toil ara

shortened ? What is vranted in some of |
these industries is a blessing of one kind
oranother. There are natural or accidental
blessings which may relieve the hon. gen-
tlemen. A flood or a fire would relieve
'chem. If we could sell some of our surplus
cottcn manufactories to an insurance com-
pany, that would relieve them. If we had
a violent storm of some kind that would
carry them away, that would help the
thing a little bit. Short of that, we
want what we are to have if what
we hear is to be believed, a ring
or a combination by which half the ma-
chinery can be kept idle and the other
half worked, by which the operatives
may be cut off to the extent of one-half
in numbers, the rest worked, and by which
the general consumer may be obliged,
thi'Ough the effect of the high tariff, to pay
such a price as will remunerate the capita-
list in respect first of the mill he ia working,
and seconcfly of the mill he is keeping
Hie. These are the things we want,
and in regard to cotton and knitted
goods I observe that there is some
Lope of something of the kind being
accomplished. It is a difficult mattter
to accomplish, it takes time to arrange,
and afterwards very often it is broken.
Still, it is getting along, and by means of
these natural or these artificial blessings
it is possible that the hon. gentleman
may be able to report some improvement
in some of these industries at some other
and happier day. While this is the
condition of matters, we hear nothing
now about the foreign trade. Oh, I beg
the hon. member for Cumberland's
pardon — we did hear a little of it from
him — we heard that the export of manu-
factures had increased by $43,000 over the
last six months of the previous year.
Has the hon , gentleman taken the average
of the years before the present fiscal Tariff
and compared it with the average of the
years under the present Tarifi", which was
to develop our manufactures, and promote
•our trade ? If he does so, he will find the
<3omparison give a very different result.
I know not the figures for the last six
aaiontbs. No doubt he has stated them
correctly, but the excess which he gives,

not an excess over the figures of the old
days, but an excess over those of 1883,
is no indication ot the improvement of
trade. We heard in the past a great
deal of the efforts made to encourage
trade with foreign nations. We have
appointed High Commissioners, first one
and then another, specially to accomplish
that object. We have had missions to
France, Spain and elsewhere with
the same view. As yet, however,
there has been no result that we can as-
certain, and I am entitled to assume, in
the absence of any statement to-day in
the Speech from the Throne, that there is
no result — that there is nothing to be
communicated to us. So with reference
to that which is of course also foreign
trade, but which naturally assumes an
exceptional prominence in our eyes —
reciprocity with the United States — we
hear nothing except the statement that
we are not to move, that we are to do
nothing, that we are not to approach
them, that we must wait until they
approach Ufi. It was our view, and we
emphasised it last Session by a vote, that
the kipproaching expiry of the articles of
the Washington Treaty rendered it prudent
to enter into negotiations with the United
States upon the subject of the fishery
arrangements between the two countries,
and in connection with that, the subject of
reciprocal trade Setweenthe two countries.
The hon. gentleman caused that resolu-
tion to be rejected ; he declared it was
inopportune, and this policy of masterly
inactivity seems to have been pursued
until now. We have drifted along with-
out effort, that we know of, that we are
told of, to secure better results than
are likely to accrue from the policy of drift-
ing. Now the hon. gentlemen who have
spoken, having found grounds for
congmtulation as to the past, and
as to the present, found it very
easy to be congratulatory as to the
future, I am not surprised that when
they were able to felicitate us upon our
present condition they should coroc to
a like conclusion with reference to our
more immediate future, I hope that
the early apprehension by the public of

'Canada of the fallacy of the views of the
2ion. Finance Minister, their early reach-
ing out to the conclusion that he was
not a trustworthy guide, the determin-
ation which they evinced — not, indeed,
until after there had been, under his ad-
vice, an unhealthy expansion, a diversion
of capital from which we are suffering to-
^ay, but still much earlier than he would
have wished them to do — their reaching
out, I say, to the conclusion that they
must retrench and draw in, will enable
us to pass through what one hon. gentle-
man has called the present crisis, to pass
through the present period of depression,
at any rate, within a period of not very
protracted length nor of very great sev-
•erity. But I do not believe that there
•are indications which would render it
justifiable in members of Parliament, or
in Ministers, to invita the commercial
and the general community to launch out
at this timer I believe that we have
before us a year of considerable difficulty;
.1 believe we have before us a year in
which it will be requisite to exercise the
virtues of prudence, of frugality, and of
retrenchment in public and in private
aflfairs, and that the true advice to
give to the people is what I have
just now suggested — not to befool them
with statements as to their immediately
returning into the state from which they
iiave recently passed, but rather to point out
the true method by which it is alone pos-
sible to accomplish a recurrence of good
times. I am quite aware that the hon.
gentlemen opposite, many of them,
denounce statements of this description,
that they declare that they are unpatriotic,
that they declare that it is wrong to deal
•with facts as they present theniselve-s to
tho mind of the speaker, if those facts
be not grateful to their ears; but I
believe that it is our duty not to
•exaggerate but yet to state facts, and
the conclusions from them, as we really
understand them, and that honest advice
of that description is what we owe to our
country ; and therefore, notwithstanding
these denunciations, I am determined, for

.my part, to toll the truth and shame

the Tories. Now, Sir, the second para-

graph of the Spoech deals particularly
with Manitoba and the North-West ; and
some later paragraphs with railway.! there
and with the financial status of the Pro-
vince. I am very glad ao hear the ac-
count of the well-being, the hopefulness
and content of the settlers there, which are
said to have been manifested to the visitors
from the British Association. We all
cheerfully voted the supplies which
were asked from this Parliament in
order to carry out the projected visit
of the British Association; we were
all very glad that it took place ; we all
expected considerable benefit from it, and
there was no dissenting voice as to the
pecuniary arrangements that the Govern-
ment proposed upon that occasion ; but
it did strike me as oi.e of the mDst cogent
proofs of the excellence of the hon. mem-
ber for Cumberland, in that particular
part of oratory to which I referred, name-
ly, hyperbole, that he should have de-
clared that no event in the history of
Canada during the present century has
been so important, or redounded so much
to its advantage, as the visit of the
British Association. I remember in my
own experience a good many things, and
I have read of many more which I con-
ceived to have been of infinitely greater
importance to our country, which have
conduced more to its credit and prosper-
ity than the visit of some two hundred,
or whatever the number may have been,
of eminent British gentlemen, oould by any
possibility accomplish. Now, Sir, the ex-
pectations of immigration, it is said, have
been disappointing but by the hon,
gentleman's account, not so very much.
He says there were about 100,000 wlio
came in. I shall not enter into the con-
troversy which is going on from
Session to Session as to the accuracy
of these figures. We shall get
them, and they will be analyzed in due
time. But extravagant expectations of
immigration were, no doubt, entertained.
At one time we hoped great things from
the Railway Co., and we were told when
the contract was let that one of the bur-
dens from which the country would be
relieved was that of getting immigration

into the North- West, because the Rail-
"Waj Co. would do that for us. I have not
observed, in any accounts that I have
received, any large expenditures, as yet,
by the Canadian Pacific Railway Com-
pany ui)on immigration, but I do observe
per contra that our own expenditures
have been very largely increased, and this
year they will be found considerably to
have exceeded half a million of money.
Notwithstanding that glowing picture
whi' h the Speech gives of hopefulness,
■well-being and content in Manitoba and
the North-West, I am . obliged to reiter-
ate the view that there have been great
blunders and errors in the policy of the
AdPxiinistration, with reference to that
country; that the railway monopoly, the
policy as to other lines in Manitoba in
the earlier years after tlie contract with
the Canadian Pacific Railway Comj)any,
the locking uji of large blocks of lands,
the speculative sales which were made,
and the operations of the Tariff, have all
been extnimejy adverse to the creation
and permanent existence of that condi-
tion of hopefulness, well being and con-
tent which we all agree, is so essential
to the growth of that country and
the prosperity of Canada at large, greatly
dependent, as it is, so large is the stake it
has takenin that country,for itsprosperity
upon the prosperity cf the North- West.
The hon. member for Cumberland j>ointed
out in a sentf^nce an important fact. He
says one cent of freight on a bushel of
wheat to the farmer of the North-West is
of the greatest ii.iportance; we must not
handicap him in his effort to get his wheat
to the markets of Europe. That is the
great difficulty. That is the difficulty
which we have got to surmount,adifficulty
largely of our own creation, in view of the
policy ot the Government with respect to
the whole C.P.R. The anxiety of the
jjeople of that country to obtain some other
mode of communication, their anixety to
reach Europe by some other means, cutting
off us of the east by a short run to Hudson's
Bay, their proposals with respect to the ex-
penditui*e, the zeal which they display in
pressing the construction of that railway,
are to my mind the strongest evidenoes of

the feeling that must e::i8t thore, as to the-
vital importance of procuriiig some other
means of communication or some competi-
tion with respect to moving thtir produce.
I was very sorry to hear — I suppose it was*
a half inspired utterance — the hon.
member for Cumberland (Mr.Townshead),
when, in referring to the expedition to
Hudson's Bay he told us that whatever
difficulties it might have evidenced as to
its primary object, the establishing of the
possibility of a route between the North-
West and Europe, we had at all events
to congratulate ourselves more than to
console ourselves with the reflection that
we had found a new salmon fishery.
That will, indeed, be balm to the people
of the North -West. I am very glad
under these ciroumstacces to hear, and I
hope it is not now to late, that a libcrnl
land policy with respect to railways in
the North-West is about to be adopted.
When the Pacific Railway Company was
chartered we were told that it would sup-
ply us with branch lines ; that a very
large proportion of the land grant was to
be taken from districts off the
main line, and that interest and
policy would necessitate their building
the branches; and in the earlier day?,
after the execution of that contract,
they adopted that view themselves and
they projected very lengthy lines — I can-
not n iw give you the mileage, but in one
year the projects transmitted to the Min-
ister covered more than one thousand
miles of branch lines. But a change
took place in their policy and in the policy
of the Administration, and it was deter-
mined to make it the primary object, to
the exclusion and sacrifice of the branch
lines, in the meantime, to finish the
ends of the line ; and so, although some-
thinghas been done by thecompanyin that
direction, something where it was neces-
sary perhaps to meet competition, some-
tfiing where it was necessary to pusb to
one side rival enterprises, something
where it was necessary to provide another
means of connection with the second line
of the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Mani-
toba Railway, yet what has been done in
that direction hau been trifling compared

wifch the expectations which were held
out to us, trifliiifj compared with their own
projects as laid before us some years ago.
I cannot altogethei blame them, — this
policy havang been adopted — because
if all the resources they possessed,
if all the money they could boirow
and raise, were to be devoted
to the construction of the ends of tlie
line, it was clear there could be nothing
'eft for the branches. One observation
only I will make. L^ng ago in the last
Session, I think of the Parliament of the
hon. member for tast York (Mr. Mac-
kenzie), a proposal was made to grant
liberal aid to local railways. That pro-
}>osal has been the subject of much ani-
madvertion and criticism on the other
side, Hon. gentlemen were going to do
the thing a great deal better ; they were
going to help the railway companies and
at the same time to make money out of
it ; they would not give the land away,
not they; they would sell it at $1 per acre
and the company would make $1 orf)i.50,
and so both the railways would be bene-
fitted and the Public Treasury i^-.plen-
ished. But now we find free grants cure
to be given to luilways. I will a<id this
oaution to hon. gentlemen opposite. I
hope, whatever arrangement is made
with any railway for a free grant of lands,
it will be coupled with such restrictions
as will secure those lands being open for
settlement at fixed moderate prices. I
maintain that that is of vital importance.
We have 8u£Fei*ed enough in the North-
"West from not keeping that before us as
^fleaiding, cardinal principle in the land
and railway policy of the country. To
repeat it now would be more than a
blunder ; it would be a crime. I hope '
that the golden dream has not altogether *
vanished, and that it is not too late for j
the Government to have awakened to(
the necessities of the situation, because I
have always believed that the rapid
-settlement of that country demanded \
numerous railways through it, and I /
tated in my place here years ago, that
ou might as well talk about rapidly
ttling the North- West with one cart
oad as with one railroad. The hon.

First Minister has not upon this occasion
said anything in the Speech about the
Canadian Pacific Railway Company —
and for this much thanks. We were
a littie afraid there might be an
announcement made to us. We were
roassuied by a statement lately made that
the company had, during a certain
period, made $800,000 or $900,000 of
net profits. We were reassured by a
statement that out of those profits the
company would be able to pay its
February dividend in excess of the guar-
antee dividend, .$625,000, making a profit
to investors in tliat enterprise of from 1 1
to 12^ per cent., according to the rate at
which they acquired their stock. We
are glad to know by this fortunate
omission in the Speech that we shall not
be called upon to put our hands into our
pockets again. We are glad to know
that no demand for further help will be
made ; we are glad to know that the
second final settlement is final, at all
events for this Session, and that we have
therefore nothing to apprehend in that
direction with resjject to the Canadian
Pacific Railway. But while that is so,
I had expected that the circumstances of
the road, its approaching completion and
the great through trade that is about to
be developed, would have been the sub-
ject of a glorifying paragraph. I had
really expected that when the hon.
gentleman could extract so much sun-
shine from cucumbers as he has done with
respect to those matters which he has
put into the Spe«ch, he would have cer-
tainly found, j)articularly when we re-
gard the floods of oratoiy which we have
heard within the last few weeks on this
subject, something to say in regard to the
completion, before we next meet, of the
great Canadian Pacific Railwiiy and
with regard to its through trade, and the
new impetus which is to be given to Can-
ada. And the hon. member for Cum-
berland (Mr. Townshcnd) felt there was
an omission there, and he bettered the
Speech by himself introducing the subject
and pointing out to us that the road was
going to do great things for us, of which,
the Speech does not tell but of which

the Ministerial orators tell us. I
hope it may be so. I hope the trade
will be quite as large as the hon. gentle-
man depicted, and quite as profitable ; but
still I would have felt a stronger assu-
rance had I found it certified by Minis-
ters whose eveiy prediction has hitheTto
been verified to the letter. There is one
point on which I should like to have
heard something, and that is with )-e.s-
■^ect to the grades in the Rockies and the
Selkirk Range. The time has noA^ ar-
rived when Ministei must have settled
and approved the route of the road. 3
have moi'e than once called their atten
tion to the fact that the reports of engi-
neers indicated that grades could not be
obtained within the contract, and that there
was no power in them to approve grades
heavier than those specified in the con
tract. I trust no violation of the law
has taken place, and that no grades have
have been approved or sought to be ap-
proved in excess of those which Parlia-
ment sanctioned, because it seems o me
that n, grave breach of the duty oi *^he
Administration to Parliament willbu.e
been committed, as well as a course
taken which may be, in the future, ex-
tremely prejudicial to the permanent in-
terests pf the railway, if that result has
taken place. Nor do we hear anything
this time aVout the colonization com
panics. I am sorry for that. I had hoped
to hear they had paid their instalments
and that the Treasury was getting filled
from their resoui'ces. Instead of that, a
rumor is in circulation that they are call-
ing for relief. It is actually said that
tbey talk about a change ; that they
require some modification in their posi-
tion, and that they make, as a basis for
their application, the change in the policy
of the Government with regard to. branch
railways. They fay, if you are going to
give branch railways lands free along
their roads, the companies will sell them
at prices at which people who have free
lands can sell and make a handsome
profit ; and how shall we make a profit
when we have to pay for our liuuls which
will or me into competition with these
fire lauds at the disposal ©^railway com-

panies ] ; and therefore as you have con-
ceded it for the others, so vou should foi'
the colonization cr m ) anies. Under these-
circumstance.? it is to me a great pleasure
and Gatisfaction to refer to solemn esti-
mates, to ascertained and carefully cal-
culated results, to feel that whatever
difficulties may sometimes oppress my
mind and make me rather gloomy as to
the financial results ol' the lands in the
North- West, we yet know that the Gov-
ernment, on an occasion when they were
calling upon Parliament to take an im-
portant step, when they were demonstrat-
ing the consequences of that step, took
their officers into their confidence, and
obta^'ned from them statements which re-
assured my sinking spirits. On the 4th
of May, 1883, the late hon. Minister of*
Railways was about to address the House
on the subject of the Canadian Pacific
Railway, and on that day, doubtless with
a view of confirming his own statements
— as if those statements should need con-
firmation — read in this House a letter
from the first officer of the hon. Minis-
ter of the Interior, which letter
I have read several times in the last,
few months, whenever I felt low spirited
about the financial results of the sales of
our lands in the North- West. That
letter is as follows : —

"Ottawa, 4th May, 1883.
" Sir, — Having given the subjects my best
and fullest consideration" —

You see how careful he w«ts, Mr. Speaker.

" I estimate that the receipts of this depart-
ment from the sale of agricultural and coal
lands, timber dues, rents cf grazing lands, and
sales of mineral lands other than coal, with
the royalties from the minerals, between the
Ist January, 1883, and the 31st December,
1891, both inclusive," —
Mark you the precision of detail. The
1st of January, and the 31st December,
were both included in the calculation.

"will amount to not less than $58,000,000.

"A, M. Burgess."

That, Sir, is testimony which makes me
feel happy under the most desperate cir-
cumstances. We are sorry to observe
that the receipts from Dominion lands
this year do not quite come up to the

proportion. In fact, 'I am not aware of
any particular year in which they may
be said to have reached those figures.
But doubtless the hon. gentleman was
just stooping to conquer ; he was with-
drawing only to make the better leap ;
and what little has been done in the way
of permitting arrears to accumulat3 in
the North-West lands will be made good;
the assurance given to Parliament by the
Ministry will be implemented, and our
debts will not only be paid but we will
nave a handsome revenue from the sale
of North West lands — between the first
of January, 1888, and the Slst December
1891, both inclusive. But while I feel
thus assured as to the west, while I stick
to my text and insist on its accuracy in
spite of all difficulties, I am not so cer-
tain jibout the eastei-n part of our expen-
diture. One of the hon. gentlemen who
have addressed the House — in fact both
of them — all ided to the east. The hon.
member for Beavice (Mr. Taschereau)
said something about one east and the
hon. mem.ber for Cumberland (Mr.
Townsheiid) said something about another
farther east, and it seems we have not
received any assurance or statement as i
yet as to *:ihe eflFects of the policy of last !
Session in the east. What of the Short Line |
route 1 What of the Bill of last Session i
for reaching the City of Quebec 1 As \
to the arrangement for reaching that city ;
one alternative of that arrangemer was |
to take effect, if at all, within six months '
after the passing of the Act ; the other
within twelve months. I do not know ;
whether the fatal hour has struck, Init j
at any rate it approaches very nearly,
and we begin to be anxious about the
aritvfigement in that regard. As to the
rout .^ of the Short Line we really thought
last Session that we had something to
say about it. Some of us were audacious
enough to suggest that the people's
I'epresentatives should have an oppor-
tunity of deciding whether the view of
the Government after receiving the
report of a competent engineer, was
good or not, and that the route Bhould
not be finally fixed by executive action.
We were poo poohed. My hon. friend

who sits close to me (Mr. laurier)
tested the sense of the House oiv
that view, but his motion was de-
niel, the '>overnment resisting it,,
and we were refused the opportunity.
But I see something in the newspapers,
which always are accurate, that seems tc
indicate that after all my hon frienc' v/as
not so far wrong. I see that something
was said by tiie First Minister, and coi*ro-
berated by the Minister of Public Works^
in the City of Th-ee Rivers, in t he-
county which he so ably represents,,
indicating that we were to see the surveys,
that we were to have some opportunity
of dealing with them, notwithstanding
the decision which was reached last
Session, which will be proved a
wrong decision under the circumstances.
To what do we owe this new i'ght on the^
pai't of the hon. gentleman 1 Was it to re-
concile his supporters, or why was it, that
having us completely in his hands, having
procured from this confiding Parliament
the consent that he asked for, he should
now say that he will be gracious enough
to permit us to do our duty in the matter ?
From the hon. member for Cumberland
(Mr. Townshend) we learned that nothing-
has been done in the far east, and that
the counties of Cumberland and Pictou
are in a sad condition by reason of that
failure, Now that surprises me. T
begin to lose faith in assurances, how-
ever positive alid plausible. I had myseir
doubts about this matter; I expressed theua
frankly as I always do. I questioned
the hon. gentleman's predecessor, the
late hon. Minister of Railways, a»
to whether he had satisfied him-
self that the companies were all right
that they were solvent, that the matter
was bona fide, and the Minister of Rail-
ways assured me, with every positive-
ness, that it was all right, that he had
satisfied himself as to the bona fides
and good standing of the corporations^
and that everything was going through..
Now, the hon. gentleman from Cumber-
land says that his pi-edecessor was all
wrong. He assures me that nothing —
no, that some small work has been done,
which has not been paid for, and that th»

poor laborers lack, and the storekeepers
lack, and they call on the Government
whom they have faithfully supported in
two elections, notwithstanding the offer
held out to them of a railway throiigh
the country — they call on the faithful
<jOvernment to j)aytluse debts and pro-
:;ure the construction of this railway.
And has the line not gone to Cape Breton
either^ We had a positive assurance on
that point, too. My hon. friend from
Digby (Mr Vail) declared that he thought
that the amount was too sj all, and I was
obliged to say to him that the Minister of
.Railways had told us it was enough ; and
that the work was going to be done ; that
if we wanted more money to sjiend on rail-
ways we should spend it wheie it was
wanted, but that he should not ask us to
take more money out of the Treasury than
was needed to secure the railway. Is the
hon.gentlemau really serious in saying that
no ari"angement has been made for the
building of that railway? "Whom shall I
believe? As to the Manitoba settlement
I am glad to hear that there has been
another final settlement in that Province.
But I want to know if it is fijial for this
year only, or really final finally. There are
some things which it is utterly impos-
sible to settle finally. You cannot provide
finally with reference to that Province on
the population basis. And with regard
to that question, I suggested, two
or three years ago, that there should
be moie frequent census adjustments of
the population subsidy to that Province.
But, apart from that, there was no reason
why these matters should not have been
settled once for all. I see, however,
that the hon. gentleman declares that we
shall have a Bill to confirm the settle-
ment as soon as the Local Legislature
has accepted it. Therefore, I presume
that the Province is to be called upon to
deal with the matter in the first place,
and I am not called upon to pronounce
upon the merits of this settlement until
the details shall be laid before us. But I
am very glad to see that the hon, gentle-
man has succeeded again in conciliating
his stern opponent, the Premier of that
Province, and actually capturing his

confidence. We are treafed with the
statement, for the third time repeated,
that we are to have a representation Bill,
and I suppose the third time is the charm,
because twice before we have had it up
to a certain point, but no farther. I
trust, however, that as the story goes
thah this is to be a very shon Session, the
hon. gentleman will have reconsidered
the provisions of that measure as intro-
duced on two former occasions, and that
he will have taken heed to the objections
rathe)' suggested than elaborated ; because
it was not proper that the measure
should have been fully discussed until the
hon. gentlemaij opened that discussion by
an expository speech in introducing the
measure, which he has never yet made,
I hope that the measure introduced will be
more satisfactory than the former one
was. For my part, I declare my un-
swerving adhesion to the view, notwith-
standing the statements of the hon.
gentlemen who have spoken on this
occasion, that simplicity, economy, con-
venience and the public welfare are to be
scved most by our adopting, until
there is some good reason given to the
contrary, the franchises of the Local
Legislatures. I shall not anticipate that
quettion, but I maintain further that a
measure which proposes, as the former
measures of the hon. gentlemen proposed,
that persons to be appointed by the
executive of the day shall practically
control the revision of the voters' lists, is
a measure that should not be accepted
by a free and independent Parliament.
The hon. member, Mr. S[)eaker, was very
much pleased with the paragraph in the
Speech with reference to the question of
Chinese immigration, and thoughtj it
evinced great care and great diligence on
the part of the Administration in the
prosecution of their duty. I am not sur-
prised that the iion. ni ember for Cumber-
land, who is new to this House, should
have apprehended the state of the case
somewhat differently from the way in
which some of us are disposed to look at
it ; because I find that in the commission
to which reference is made in the Speech
a most inaccurate recital has been

made of the fkcts of the Mise. That
comraiasion, speaking from meraory, as it
was publLsbed in the papers, was issued
upon a report o£ the First Minister to
the eflfect that a motion which had beon
made in this House on the subject of
Chinese immigration had been withdrawn
upon a pledge made by the Government
that thev would issue such a 'commission.
Now, this is wholly incorrect, and I am
astonished that the hon. gentleman should
hare so soon forgotten the events of the
Session, or that he should have trusted
to his memory, and not have referred to
the record. It is quite true the hon.
gentleman used his most persuasive tones
to induce the withdrawal of the motion.
It is quite true he asked my hon. friend,
who is a supporter of his, and who was
pressing on the motion very earnestly,
to withdra«r it, but he was not success-
ful on that occasion. The hon. gentle-
man insisted, and the First Minister then
proposed some slight modification of the
terms of the motion, or of the amend-
ment moved by the hon. member for
North Grey (Mr. Allen), and with that
amendment the motion passed. So far
then, fi*om this commission issuing
upon a pledge of the Government,
the fact is that we unanimously
resolved " that in the opinion of this
House it is expedient to enact a law re-
stricting or regulating the incoming of
Chinese into the Dominion of Canada."
That was the state of the case at the close
of the Session ; that motion was
with tae assent of the Government
now we are informed that a commission
has been isuued, that the report is nearly
ready, and that it will be presented to us
during the Session, which I suppose is
intended to convey to those interested in
this subject tbat they shall see the report,
but the measure which the House agreed
should be brought down, and which it
was understood should be brought down
this Session, will not make its appearance.
I do not think, Sir, the report ought to
be delayed. There is one member of the
Government at any rate— the hon. Secre-
tary of Staie^ who also fllla the position

carried
; and

necessity of delay. Therefore, I hope,
the report will come, not during the
Session merely, but at on e, so that we
shall be in a position to grapple with the
question in accordance vdth the resolu-
tion of thy House to which I refer. The
hon. member for Cumberland paid a
very natural and graceful compliment to
his predecessor — whom he will permit me
to say we miss from his place this Session.
His disappearance from that place is the
practical result of the view taken by thin
side of the House last Session. We in-
sisted that the holding of the two posi-
tions which that gentleman then held Tras
inconsistent, inconvenient and improper.
My hon. friend from Bothwell (Mr.
Mills) moved a resolution indicating chat
it should not be continued ; the hon.
gentleman resisted it, and his usual
majority sustained him ; but immedi-
ately, after the close of the Session, the
view we took prevailed, and the holding
ot the double office ceased. The office of
Minister of Railways has not since been
filled. For now a long time — for more
than two years, if we except the actual
period of the Session, during a considerable
portion of which it was the opinion of a
large number of the members of this
House that the office was not filled either
— at any rate by a member of Parliament-—
there has been no Minister of Railways
practically. It is of some consequence to
us to know, particularly when important
transactions are taking place with refer-
ence to the Pacific Rail >vay route and other
matteis, that there should be a Minister
of Railways. It is of some importance
to us to know who should be th^uccessor
of the late Minister of Railwa^ It is
of little consequence when a Bobitaille
a Robitaille succeeds, but it il of some
consequence who should be the successor
of the late n< iber for Cumberland.
Now, we are promised some measures,
mostly of an amendatory character'-
measures to amend the Insurance law,
the Civil Service Act, a Contagious Dis-
eases measure, a North- West Census
measure.and a measure in relation to the
North-West Mounted Pojijca. I|i8ware

I«

stibjeoto of legislation of the Session.
But yre find on both sides of the Honse —
the hon. member for Cornwall and Stor-
mont has shown that he found it too —
tliat certain measures which were pro-
mlsbd once or twice before are not men-
tioned. Thi^re U no Factory Bill pro-
miwed, though, like the Franchise Bill,
it adorned former Hpeeches from the
Throne. The Franchise Bill survives, but
we cannot sf\y, in jhis instance, that it is
the feurvival of the fittest The Factoiy
Billseeir to have disappeared, obviously,
as the . m. member for Cornwall and
Stormont thinks, for good. It surely is not
am(mg the alia, the othpr things which
it was not thought worth while to men-
tion in the Speech horn the Throne, but
which are to be brought forward as
Special plums in the pudding. Nor do
We find anything more promised to the
Nbrth-West than the censur. I had
hoped some measure would h.\ve been
promised for the represent atiai of the
North-West Territories. That question
was discussed in both branches of the
Legislature last Session. My hon. friend
from Huron (Mr. Cameron) brought in a
Bill to provide for representation in the
Territories, but the hon. gentleman does
not see fit to offer them representa-
tion, and tells iktm instead he will
count their numbers. Nor is anything
said 'with reiereiice to the grand Imperial
schemes of w. ich ths hon. Minister lately
declared himself a supporter. We
had some reason te expect that when a
gentlemen in his position had announced,
in his view, the importance of these
schemes, jtthey Meonld, at any rate, have
been brt«g^t forward in that Speech
But npoilthem nothing is said. I shall
not, under these circumstances, discuss
them, but I cannot pass by the occasion
on which the hCm. gentlettian made state-
metets on these subjects without protest,
for my part, with reference to certain lan-
guaige which he Used, When in England,
as the First Minisfter ef OSm^a, the hon.
gehtlebian ou^htto have been particularly
otttefnl, if he ^hose to make allusions, to
|xiUtteftl opt^tomtts to make them wHh
Mgttid 4o 'tiecitta0y Aod fsct, titid kiot

to have used his position unfairly,
as I conceive he did, to discredit
those who are opposed to him in this
country. As reported in the English
papers, he said in one of his speeches :

" The Can dian Liberal Conservatives are
tho^e who draw their inapirations from Eng-
land, who believe in the English constitution,
and would loyally fellow English precedents.
Opposed to tnem we have the Liberal party,
but they are not the true Liburals. The
majority are, I believe as loyal as any con-
servatives. They have an earnent desire to
continue the union which happily exists be-
tween Canada and the Mother Country, but
they do not draw their inspirations from Eng-
land. We have no contiguity to a great
nation, to a people who speak the same
language, d«al with us and trade with us, and
it is therefore very natural that their iustitu-
tions should offer some attractions to a con-
siderable body of our people."

I maintain that was an inaccurate state-
ment of the opinions of the Liberal party.
I maintain that the Liberal party has a
well settled and reasonable preference for
that system, as more flexible, as giving
earlier and apter opportunities for the
triumph of the popular will, which we
have here according to the British
Executive and Parliamentary plan,
than it has for the Presidential system
which prevails on the other side of t e
line. I have never heard any gentleman
who represented in any shape any hection
oi the Liberal party or any constituency
in the interest of the Liberal party,
express a preference for the Presi-
dential as opposed to our Parlia-
mentary system, and I maintain it was
an unfair use to make of the position the
hon. gentleman vocupied in England,
that he should make a statement emi-
nently calculated to discredit in that
country his politi(. >il opponents and with-
out any fmundatitm in fact. At the
same time, the hon. gentleman was good
enough to fcay that :

" Any Englishman, in coming to Canada,
if he was a man of education, invariably
joined the Canadian Conservative party, no
matter what his home politics may hav« bean. "

I do not know, 1 am sure, tmder whdb
flboimurtaneiiMi the ^on. gentlettuui made

such a statomor.t, but I »y he inflicted
a groes insult on, a very inrge portion of
the most Lntellfgent part of th^s coinmu-
nitj, who bavo come from England, are
educated men, and are warm adherents
of the Liberal party. The hon. gentle-
man made another statement on the same
occasion. In giving what he thought
was a historical riaumi ot past history,
he declared, with some very violent lan-
guage which I will not read, for we are
accustomed to it from the hon. gentleman,
that the conduct of the Liberal party
had been that of demagogues in Canada,
aud then he went on to say :

" And they charged Sir George Cartier with
being little better than a French speaking
Engtishman." %,

That was the climax of the hon. gv'^ntle-
man's attack upon us, that wo had oha.?ged
Sir George Cartier with being no batter
than a French spf^aking Englishman.
Why, I fancy, if the hoa gentleman's
audience had been present when Sir George
Cartier was in England on a former occa-
sion, they would havn heard him making
the same statement. That was Sir George
Cartier's public statement frequently made
with reference to his posit i on. But the ho a.
gentleman turns this statement, whiob
came from the lips of his own colleague, in-
to a dreadful accusation hurled at him by
poUtioal opponents. I hope the hon.
gentleman, on future occasions, when in
England, will be a little more aocurate
when he attempts to describe the actions
and conduct of his political opponents.
The hon. gentleman ought to have re-
membered, when he gave that account,
which I have read, of the principles and
view» of the Liberal party, that the only
man of the quondam annexationists of
1849 now prominent in public li^e, is Sir
David Macpherson, a colleague of his
own. He ought to have remembered that
the most prominent advocate of independ-
ence in Canada was a former colleague of
his own. Sir Alexander Gait, his Minister
of Finance for many years, who declined
to receive the honor of knighthood exceut
upon the distinct understanding that he
held views on independence which he
If ould be at perfect liberty to uphold ; and

who denounced the hon. gentleman in
1875, but, as a repentant sinner, was
afterwards received into the services and
embraces of the sinner he had denounced.
Under these circumatanots, it became
th:^ hon. gentleman to make such attacks
P3 he has made in the absence of those
whom he was aspersing. Besides the
absence of those subjects in the Speech,
there are some other little omissions. The
hon. gentleman found place in the Speech
from the Throne for the decision of the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
in Russell and the Queen. There haa
been a greater decision since then.
There has been a decision on the boundary
question. The Russell cane settled a
point of law with reference to what the
hon. gentleman thought were the reHtive
jurisdictions of the Domini(m and the
Provinces. The boundary case decided
the f^te, as the hon. gentleman
described it, of a kingdom, and yet W3
find no statement of it. Thei'e is much
said upon this subject, whluh I am a little
compelled to disagree with. People seem
to think that the issue is very different
from what I have always thought the
issue to have been. A great question has
been settled ; a question between Canada
and one of the Provinces ; a question
promoted by this Adminiatre'' n, from
one point of view, which it afterwards
thrust upon one of the Provinces,
and which has ultimately been decided ad-
versely to this Administration. I say ad-
vt^rselytothis Administration. The issue
was, as to what the boundary of Ontario
was, and up n that subject, as long ag|o as
March, 1872, the Government presided
over by the hon. gentleman made this de*
olaration with reference to that boundary ;

" The boundary in question is clearly iden-
tical with the hmita of the Province of
Quebec, according to 14 George III, chap. 83,
the Quebec Act, and describ^da^ follows • • •
Extending along the river Ohio westward to
the Banks of the Mississippi (that is the junc-
tion of the two rivers) and northward to the
southern boundary of the Hudson's Bay
territory. The southern boundi^?y of the
Hudi>on's Bay territory is well understood to
be the Height of Luid dividing the ivi^te^
whieh flow i«co HucUon'ii ]3ay Ufm %HP

tatering the yalley of the Great Lakes, and
forming the northern bo undarj of Ontario."
ThereK>rethe position the hon. gentleman
took at that time was that the bounHary of
Ontario was the due north line from the
junction of the Ohio and the Misgisaippi
on the one part, and the Height of Land
upon the other part. The Government
ox Ontario stated its view in the course
of that correspondence, which was prao
tically the boundary of the Lake of the
Woods to the westward and on the north
a line to the northward of the Height of
Land. Then the hon. gentleman, on the
17th November, 1872, reported, stating
this:

" The northern boundary of Ontario the
Ooremment believe to be the line of the
watershed separating the waters that run
towards Lake Superior from those which run
towards Hudson's Bay, and the western
boundary a line drawn in accordance with
the provisions of 14 Geo. III., chap 83,
from the conflux of the Mississippi and Ohio
rivers northward, that is, by tne shortest
northward course to the southern boundary
of the Hudson's Bay territory."

These, Sir, were the two statements of
the Administration on that subject Then
there came an attempt to ascertain what
the boundary was, and the arbitration
was arranged, and the award took place,
and the hon. gentleman, in opposition to
the contention from tiis side of the
House, that the award ought to be accepted
declared that it should not be accepted,
Whyt Because he said it was all
wrong, that we ought to have an entirely
difierent boundary from that which was
found by the award. He said this :

"They" — that is the Dominion Parlia-
m«nt or Qovernment — "say it is not a true
boundary — that the Dominion wants simply
what by law is their right. The Ontario
Qovernment asks and Legislature have no
tight to ask more but they say, no. They
passed a law accepting the award, because
they saw It added an aidditional kingdom to
Ontario, as was the remark of its Premier,
and they will not do anything else.
Once again :

"The effect of settling the boundary be-
tween these Provinces will compel I do not
■ay the Province of Ontario, but the present
QoTenuneiQt Pf Ontario^ to be reasoAable,

and not to insist upon a boundary which
cannot be supported m any couit or tribunal
in the world. They will come to terms
Quick enough when they find that they must
do so. To use an expreBsion which is
common in Scotland, it is land hungry they
are for that country, and they are resolved
to get it rightly or wrongly."

Then again :

"Nor is it the duty of the Dominion
Government to accept their idea of the
facts ; because, according to my idea, the
whole case was giver, away before the arbi-
trators. Anybody reading the case would
see that it was most wretchedly managed on
the part of the Dominion. An inferior man,
though a respectable man in his way, Mr.
McMahtm, was chosen to conduct the whole
case, instead of employing the first legal
ability in the country — instead of the
Minister of Justice himself conducting the
e' before the arbitrators. The whole case
^ irown away — it looks almost as if it
v,^ deliberately thrown away. Never was
such a case so given away as the cs>^e of the
Dominion was on the very face of it."

Now we find that t,his subject is once
more discussed; but before it was His-
cussed, and at the very time at which this
debate took place from which I have been
reading these extracts, the hon. gentleman
was arranging to thrust the issue upon a
sister Province and to hand over to Mani-
toba the controversy in which he had
been, up to that time, himself engaged be-
tween the Dominion and Ontario, and
the Province of Manitoba ende*»voured
to take possession of a portion of that
which had been awarded to be, and is
now found to be, territory of Ontario.
And hon. gentlemen opposite said it w^s
all right fi*r the Provivce of Manitoba to
take possession. A nd the Province of On-
tario resisted the attempt of Manitoba to
take possession of what is determined to
have been Ontario's territory ; and hon.
gentlemen opposite said it was all wrong
for Ontario to attempt i > resist such a
taking of possession — ^they ought, like
good Christians, to have allowed the
Manitobans to take possession of the
territory wihch it is now established was
all alon^ their owil The question has
been pactically settled according to the
awitrd, as fav as the copmiitt^e have de>

si'

oided. They hare decided, It seems, not
that the award was wrong, not that
it was a conventional boundary, but that
it was the real bound ry. As far as the
oomraitt' e have decided, the case was not
given away before the arbitrators, dfli-
beratelv or otherwise, and the issue which
the hon. gentleman, in the year 1872,
joined, as I have shown from these ex-
tracts, between the Dominion of Canada
and the Province of Ontario, in which he
contended for a due north line from the
conflux of the Ohio and Mississippi as
the western boundary and for the Height
of Land as the northern boundary, as far
as it is decided, so far is it decided entirely
against the contention of the hon. gentle-
man and in favor of the contertion of the
Provinc . Those oceans of learning
and erudition which we heard poured
out in the debates upon the subject in
this House from supporters of the Ad-
minstration seem to have been all wasted
and thrown away, inasmuch as the
decision has been altogether opposed to
them. Yet the whole question is not
settled. The hon. gentleman, for some
reason or other, although it was agreed in
this House that the reference should take
place between the- Dominion as well as
Manitoba and the Province of Ontario,
although it is said that there was an
assent on the part of the Dominion to
such a reference, at the end it seems
withdre v, and so the decision only form-
ally and effectually settles the question
as far as the boundary of Manitoba and
Ontario is concerned. Still one is led to the
hope that, inasmuch as what has
been declared by the arbitrators in effect
settles the prin(uple8 upon which the rest
of the boundary ought to be deter-
mined, there will be no further con-
troversy and the award will be accepted,
in reference to the rest of it, on the prin-
ciple which appears to have guided the
Judical Comaiittee so far as it has gone.
Nor is anything said to the hon. gentle-
man's attitude in regard to the lands. He
has arranged another controversy with
the Province ; he is at issue as to the
ownership of the lands in this territory.
He has declared that, even if the territory

be within the boundary of the Province of
Ontario, still the lands are the property
of the Dominion. It will be important
for us to know, if that contention is to be
maintained, whether there is still to be a
controversy, or whether this question is
not to be, as I say it ought to be, at once
settled iu all its parts. There is yet an-
other omission which ia proper to bo re-
marked upon — nay, there are two. The
first is with refc;i.:^cetothe Streams Bill.
Since we last met here, there has been a
decision of the Judical Committee on that
subject also. It was alleged by the hon.
gentleman that the legislation in the Local
Legislature, declaring what the law was,
was not legislation ; that it was robbery.
He used language which, coming from
anybody else, I should have said was
strong. He said these things :

The Ontario Government, " dressed in a
little brief authority, Jacks-in-the box, tramp-
ling on the man, as they said they would do,
pleased Mr.Caldwell and robbed Mr.McLaren.
Au hon. member has stated that the Streams
Bill was not intended fur Mr. McLaren, but
for general application. But it is mean of
the sneak who creeps down the back stairs
and steals the kitchen utensils, or the fellow
who comes behind you and picks vour pockets
— they are men more to be despised than the
highway robber. It would have been more
manly if the Ontario Government had intro-
duced a Bill to hand over Peter McLaren's
Property to Wm. Caldwell ; they dare not
so, and therefore they passed a Bill respect-
ing rivers and streams. It was a wretched,
flimsy and transparent device ; it deceived
nobody, but it was only by being a public
bully that the Government could introduce
and carry it ; otherwise there must be a
•petition. It had the effect of depriving Mr.
McLaren of his property, under the pretence
that it was in the public interest. No-
thing more contemptible or sinister could
be done by a Government or Legislature.
It was a Bui to take from Mr. McLaren his
property and hand it over to h.T. Caldwell.
True, Mr. McLaren had spent, some say
^250,000, and hon. gentlemen opposite say
from $100,000 to fl50,000. I do' not know
how much it was — but it was Mr. McLaren's
property. The river at that spot was not a
navigable river, and the judge who heard the
evidence and viewed the facts stated that it
was dear that at the place where the improve-
meats were made it was only not navigable
but not floatable. It would soarc«ly allow a

plank or a alab to so down any mare than
upon a ditch. CaHwell'a timber and logs
could not K<) thiough there until the im])rove-
mentB were .'nade. Mr. McLaren, with his
usual indust tj and perseTerance, in order to
carry on his extensive business, made a dam
and a slide out of his own timber, for his own

Eurposes and on his own soil. Mr. CaldweU
ad no right to use it without his consent
and without paying for it. It was absolutely
the propwty of Mr. McLaren."

And again he says :

" Supposing an honest old farmer's wife
sbonld expropriate her neighbour's hen and
say : ' I shall keep this hen, and you shall
feed it right and see that it lays at the proper
time, and I will pay you by giring you a
share of tie eggs.'"

Now that was the attitude of the hon.
gentleman. But the Judicial Committee
of tke Privy Council have decided to the
contrary ; thev have decided that it was
not Mr. McLaren's right to interfere with
Mr. CaHwell's ('oraing down thisutream ;
they have decided that the law was correctly
declared by those who advised the local
legislation ; they have decided, in fact,
that the Bill which was said te be a
means of taking away Mr. McLaren's
property w'*^^h an illusory compensation,
was the omy Bill that could protect him
at "ill, or give him any reasonable com-
pensation for the use of his improve-
ments over property in respect of
which there was a public easement
under the existing law of the land. So
t!ie infallible disallowers who disallowed
this measure on the ground that it was
an unjust interference with Mr. McLaren's
property, turn out to be all wrong, and
t le reason upon which they acted, in-
sufficient as I conceive that reason to have
been, turns out to have been no valid
reason at all. I say insufficient aa I con-
ceive that reason to be, because I am con-
vinced that upon the true reading of our
constitution the mere circtimstance that
in th6 opinion of these gentlemen a diff-
erent kind of compensation ought to be
given, that the bill was interference with
private rights, was no ground whatever
for the exercise of i he power of disallow-
ance. But it turns out that the very basis
of their aetiou was an error. And yet^Sir,

wo do not find any reference to Culdwell
and McLaren in the Speech from the
Thione. Then. Sir, there waa the very
caj»e in which the hon. gentleman intro-
duced this c "^tom of giving an account
to us of the decision of the Judicial Com-
mittee of the Privy Council the case of
the license question. The license ques-
tion was raised last Session on several
oocaiuons, but it was last raised on the
fteor of this House on the motion of our
lamented friend, Frederic Houde; anrl I
may say that all of us who watched
his course here must receive the
mention of his name with sadness.
He has since passed from amongst
us. He was a man of marked indepen-
dence of character,of f rankness.of honor,of
indomitable spirit and energy ; and no
man who has seen him here for these many
years past but muct have been touched
by the exhibition of that spirit and
energy which he made when he struggled
against weakness and disease in the dis-
charge of his duties in Parliament. We
know that he exhibited that independence
of character to which I refer in a very
marked way, outside this House, with re-
ference to the journalistic career to which
he was attached. We have observed in
this House, with what emotion he, on one
or two occasions, separated himself from
his friends, feeling that it waa a painful
thing to do, knowing that it was a painful
thing to do, but rising superior to his
emotions at the call of duty. And he waa
a man of gieat kindness of spirit as well.
He was kind to all of us, opponents as well
as friends ; and I cannot omit mentioning
here the marked kindnf^ss and generosity
of feeling with which, durin y many years,
he treated myself who am now addressing
you. More than once it has happened to
me to receive from him, sitting on the
benches opposite, before he came to sit
ixear my hon. friend from Montreal East
(Mr. Coursol) — I have received from him
a little note after I h-id said something
that pleased him, expn^saing satisfaction
with the way it was said, though not al-
ways concuiring in the sentiments I ut-
tered Such was the spirit in which he
treated hia opiKments^ and the kindiiiieas

he exhibited towards them, I am flare
was exhibited in a re-doubled spiiit
towards his friends. How would h«, who
haHgoiie fioin amoagst ub, have rejoiced
at the late decision in this cane, the last of
his efforts; how wouid he have rejoiced to
see that by the unaniinous decision of the
Supreme Court the view which he cook
as to the law was sustained in the Speech.
Now we have no reference to that, and
yet 't was an important transaction. Par-
Uam ^*; by a Bill, decided that there
8ho«A».i be a reference of this subject to
thtj Supreme Court. It was thoughi
important enough to do so, and a refer-
ence was made. The Provinces were
called upon to take part in the proceed-
ings, and five, I think, did take part-^
the Province ef Ontario, the Province of
Quebec, the Province of Nova Scotia, the
Province of New Brunswick, and the
Province of British Columbia. From the
Province of Manitoba, as we are aware
by public documents, there had pro-
oeet'^'d a protest against this license
measure of the Government, although
I do not observe that they took part in the
case. I am not aware what was the
attitude of the Provincn of Prince
Edward Island. But we find most of the
Provinces taking part in this transaction
on one side, ard the Dominion on the
other ; yet a ti ansaction of that des-
cription, taking plaoe under authority of
that Act of Parliament, resulting, as it
has resulted, is not thought worthy of
being adraitteti into the Speech from the
Throne. Whyl Because the result is
unpleasant to the hon. geritlemen, I
suppcjse. Now, I ask the House, is it
too late to retrace our steps ? Remember
that we meddled in this matter for one
reason, and for one reason only, because
it was said by the hon. gentleman that
the local laws were waste paper, and that
it was absolutely necessary that we
should intervene. Remember that was
the ground upon which he invited his
supporters to sustain him in passing his
Bill. I^emember that that alleged neces-
sity was whoUy disproved by the decision
in the cai^ of the Queen w, Hodge ;
that since that time the ia^stance of the

hon. gentleman that the local license laws
wsre waste paper, has been by him
<* thdrawn ; that it has been admitted that
Inejare valid, and therefore the{>retence
upon which Parliament wtis introduced to
interfere has diBapi)eared &nd disappeared
forever. Remember that from that time
out it was only as a point of expediency
and policy and not as a necessity that
we have ^en told we should interfere;
that it has been admitted to be true
that the local laws, which had been in force
for seventeen years, were good and valid
laws, and it wasonly because it was thought
better in the interest of the whole Domi-
nion that we should interfere, and if we
could supersede them, invalidate them —
submerge them, as the hon. menber for
Glengatry (Mr. McMaster), I think,
said — by federal legislation. Remem-
ber that in this policy of inter-
ference, of abstraction from the Pro-
vinces o'i that whi' h it was decided by the
Committee of the Privv Council is their
right, we, in this Parliament, are engaged
in a conflict with each one of six out of seven
Provinces; and I have no i reason to sup-
pose that the attitude of the Province of
Prince Edward Island differs from the
attitude of the other Provinces. Re-
member that we are engaged in an effort
to take away, against the will of the Pro-
vinces 0^ Canada, a right which th' y have
been exercising — validly, as decided by
the court of last resort— ever since
Confederation. Remember, again, that
since last Session, the Supreme Court
has decided unanimously, not that
the local laws are waste paper, as
the hon. gentleman alleged, but that
his Act is waste paper,thac the Act which
he passed because the local laws were
waste paper is itself vaste paper. And
consider for yourS'^lves whether it is use-
ful, in the interests of this Confederation,
to continue this struggle; whether it is
calculated to strengthen the bonds of
union, to strengthen our confidence in
the federal system to press this
Parliament further in a controvsrsy in
order to take away from the several Pro*
vinces a right which is theirs that you me-y
be able by legislation of your own to do

I! ii.

the same things which they are doing,
according to your fashion, instead of theirs,
and by that means, as the hon gentleman
stated, submerge their legislation. I do
think v^e ought to retrace our steps, that we
ought not to prolong this controversy,
that we ought to repeal the objectionable
parts of the Act which the hon. gentle-
man passed, and leave the Local Legisla-
tures, according to the wants and wishes
and the condition of public sentiment
and opinion in each locality, to. deal with
the license question. I do trust that
wiser counsels will prevail. I know full
well that it would be a humiliating act
for the First Minister . He made great
pretensiona On the stump and else,
where he declared himself infallible. He
declared he had never been mistaken, but
had always been sustained. It was a
foolish action. It was not necessary to
have done it, and he should have allowed
his followers to have sounded his
praises in that regard rather than
have sounded them himself, because just
80 soon as he began to do so defeat after
defeat took placa Once he began boast-
ing of hie infallibility, day after day the
hon. gentleman found that he was mortal
and fallible like the rest of us. Is it
not much better that we should acknow-
ledge that we are all fallible, even if
Bome are immortal, and decide that we
will not continue this struggle to save
the hon. gentleman's amour propre, but
will leave the matter where it was
for seventeen years, whence the hon.
gentleman himself said he would never
have dragged it, except under the belief

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that it waB neeeflsary in the public good,
because the local laws were only waste
paper f Let the locax v. .ft remain. If
I oculd hope that my words have any
weight I would pray the House to re-
cognize, though it may be late, our true
position ; to apprehend the fact that we
are, and have been for some time, by
our general policy, rather weakling than
strengthening the true bonds of imion ;
that our centralizing policy, our Tariff
policy, our policy uf high and sectional
taxation, our policy of extravagan^^
expenditure, has been and is alienat
ing important elements in Canada from
sympathy with the uuion itself , that
it is our duty to recall the promises that
were made , to the various Provinces
which were induced to ent^r into this
union, the promises of economic \l govern-
ment and ,of .low taxation, the promises
with respect to trade, the prcHnisee with
respect to a fiscal policy, the promises vtrith
respect to expenditure, which w,ere made
panieularly by the leaders in the Maritime
Provinces at the time the union measure
Nvas Ijrought before them ; and that we
otight to set about the initiation, J might
almost say, of ajtrue Federal policy, in-
cluding, together with the practical re-
cognition of the Federal principle, a re-
duction of expenditure and svich a reduo*
tion of taxation as past extravagance
permits ; a policy rsuitable to our actual
oiroumstaucee, instead of one based on
hollow dreams, already proved untrue,
and but too likely if persisted in to end
in a disastrous waking, ^.u..

oao iui •i»j^-i"t ,8i«li ,{:i h>''hhmt o'w laU

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