Mr. CLANCY.

How does the hon. gentleman justify submitting a table from 1896

to 1900, showing each year the net revenue, expenditure and deficit, and excluding the Yukon district ? He took exception to my stating that there was concealment, hut 1 tell the hon. gentleman that no milder language could he used to properly mark the course taken by the hon. gentleman. In his statement he has excluded two items-the Item of revenue, $21,550, and expenditure $112.368-which would make an addition to the deficit of $90,818. How does he attempt to explain this ? He said that his department had one way of keeping the accounts, and the Finance Department another. But, Sir, the accounts correspond if you take in these items. Yet the hon. minister professes to give a true statement when he makes the deficit $90,000 less than it really is. But some hon. gentlemen opposite say that we had not the Yukon in former years, and therefore, to make a proper comparison, the Yukon should he left out. Well, if the hon. gentleman had said that there was a deficit of $461,000 in 1900, but that he had not included the Yukon service, which would have increased the deficit $90,000, that might he a frank statement, but he did not. Ana if his report went to the country without the public accounts, what inference would be drawn ? The only inference that could be drawn would be that there was simply a deficit of $461,000, instead of a deficit nearly $100,000 more.

I see in a campaign sheet that the hon. gentleman boasts that he reduced the deficit in 1898-9 from nearly $800,000.

What paper ?

Mr. CLANCY.

It is marked ' Record of Progress and Prosperity under Liberal Rule.' This is what appears in this paper :

The Hon. Mr. Mulock, by the application of proper business principles and sound economy, cut down the deficit of about $800,000 to $47,602 in two short years-thereby making possible the reduction in the rates which quickly followed.

In the first place let me say that there was not any* such deficit. But let us suppose there was, how did he reduce it ? By an act of bad faith and repudiation.

Oh, oh.

Mr. CLANCY.

Hon. gentlemen opposite may .leer as much as they like, it was an act of repudiation and bad faith to the public. What was it ? Why, the hon. gentleman took advantage of the Queen's .iubilee to issue jubilee stamps, and these the public purchased from patriotic motives. Largely actuated by the proper sentiment which prevails in matters of that kind, the public bought these stamps, ranging in value from a half cent up to large figures. But. there was also in the minds of the people the belief that these stamps had a value. The Postmaster General, however, refused to exchange these for other stamps :

and the result is that he has unloaded, practically-beyond a few that were used- nearly half a million dollars on the public, which they hold to-day, and which the Postmaster General will not redeem. That was an act of bad faith. The hon. gentleman stated, on a former occasion in this House, that these stamps were being used. Any one can use a flve-dollar stamp to carry a letter from one post office to another if he likes, but only in this manner will the stamps be redeemed. It is not greatly to the credit of the hon. gentleman (Hon. Mr. Mulock) to make the statement that there was a very large deficit under the former government. As was pointed out by tiie hon. member for South Lanark (Hon. Mr. Haggart), that was largely a mere myth, a mere matter of book-keeping. The Postmaster General would have us believe that he reduced that deficit by the economy and wisdom that characterized his management of the department. As a matter of fact, he did it by means which his friends cannot defend. I defy the hon. minister, for instance, to rise in his place and deny that he has been guilty of the act I charged him with a moment ago. With regard to the Yukon postal service, I would like to ask the hon. gentleman if the mounted police are now performing any service that is not included in the charges made here ?

None.

Mr. MACLEAN.

In view of the Postmaster General's statement that the revenue of the post office about meets the expenditure, I would like to ask whether he will take into consideration the unfair taxation put upon some newspapers by way of newspaper postage. The law is not made general, but is so arranged as to impose a special tax upon newspapers in the large cities. It is time to treat all newspapers alike and remedy the grievances that now exist in connection with the hon. gentleman's department.

My fion. friend (Mr. Maclean) has not indicated in detail the amendment he would suggest. I would be glad to consider any suggestions he may make.

Mr. MACLEAN.

What needs to be done is to make a law that will apply to all newspapers that deliver through the post office. As it is, a heavy burden is imposed upon the newspapers of Toronto and Montreal, instead of being distributed over the whole country. This is a tax that men would be justified in refusing to pay, because it is an unequal tax and unjust. If the revenue is in the condition the hon. minister says it is, I hope that he will remove this special tax upon one class of newspapers and subject all newspapers fairly to the incidence of the taxation levied by his department.

Mr. WALLACE.

I think the long and rambling statement of the Postmaster General evades the charges brought on this side of the House. It was charged that the First Minister (Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfrid Lau-rier) made statements which were not supported by the facts. He would not nave made those statements, relating as they did to the Post Office Department, without the authority of the Postmaster General. There lore, the Postmaster General cannot dismiss file matter with a wave of his hand, and the remark that he is not responsible for newspaper reports. He is responsible for the information he gives to the First Minister. Then, with regard to the statements made by the Postmaster General in East Grey. These statements were made, not only at Meaford, but at Thornbury, Sing-hampton and Feversham. After repeating these things at four different places, it will not do for the Postmaster General to tell us that he would not pay any attention to newspaper reports. He said that he had wiped out the deficit of $780,000, aud had left $1,000,000 in the pockets of the Canadian people. He tells us to-day that the deficit is $460,000. But the hon. member for Botliwell (Mr. Clancy) has proved that he should add to that $90,000, the receipts from the Yukon having been $21,000 and the expenditure $113,000. Why does he not place that where it belongs, among the expenditures of the Post Office Department V In 1898, he entered in his report an amount of $48.33 as the post office expenditure in the Yukon. Does not every member of this House know-does not every citizen know- that that is not a correct statement of the expenditure of the Post Office Department in carrying the mails into and out of the Yukon ? The department were simply utilizing the North-west mounted police for the service and not paying them. Therefore, the Postmaster General's statement is misleading and unfair to the people of Canada. It is an untrue statement to make, that the deficit for the past year was $461,000, when, including this $91,000 which ought to be included, it would amount to over $550,000. The hon. Postmaster General says that he does not propose to pay any attention to what was said in the campaign. Does the Postmaster General intend to say to the country : I am going to make speeches on the public platform, but before I begin I warn you not to place the slightest reliance on anything I may say. We are coming to a nice state of things when a minister of the Crown declares before the whole country that he will ignore utterly what he has said upon the public platform. Here is one thing that he said, as reported in a friendly newspaper

Mr. Mulock was pleased to say that many independent Conservatives of Grey county had thrown party to the winds, and had decided to vote in their country's idterests. This senti-Mr. MACLEAN.

ment was not condned to Grey county alone, but the independent vote of Canada was lining up with the Liberal party.

The province of Ontario, where the Postmaster General, the Minister of Customs (Hon. Mr. Paterson), and the other ministers from that province, did their fine work, in the last parliament gave hon. gentlemen opposite a majority of a round dozen. Today there are eighteen or twenty of a majority of independent stalwart members against them. Therefore, the prediction of the Postmaster General was not verified where he had any influence or did any work.

Who is the leader of that Ontario majority ?

Mr. WALLACE.

Their leader, and the leader of the Liberal-Conservative party, is the hon. gentleman (Mr. Borden, Halifax) to my left, who is a credit to the party, and who, judging by appearances, such, for instance, as the division we had last night, will not be long in leading us to victory.

Mr. Mulock then put a poser by asking the electors if they endorsed Dr. Sproule on the present occasion.

Well, Sir, the poser was answered a few days later by the intelligent electors of East Grey, and they said just what the Postmaster General wants them to believe now, that they are not to believe anything said by the Postmaster General. He went on :

Dr. Sproule had never brought the advantages of Meaford before parliament.

Well, Mr. Chairman, I think if he had consulted the ' Hansard' he would not have been able to make that statement, because Dr. Sproule, in season and out of season, has not confined his efforts to the county of East Grey ; while he has brought the necessities of that county to the attention of the House, he has been one of the foremost men in parliament in advocating a broad and comprehensive policy that would develop every portion of this Dominion. He said furthermore :

He could build five harbours on the former postal deficit alone. Some time ago he (Hon. Mr. Mulock) asked the town council to send him a plan of the harbour.

How generous and considerate he was.

The request was complied with, but the council had asked too little.

What a generous man! Why does he not pay his officials what is due them ? Why does he not pay the letter carriers what, by law, they are entitled to receive, instead of going up to the electors of the county of East Grey and saying to them : You electors of Meaford, why, you are not asking half as much as I would like to give you. He said :

I want to make a great harbour of Meaford. It might do for the present, but would not answer for the future. The harbour would have to be large enough to accommodate the largest ships.

The Great Eastern must sail into the harbour of Meaford, Mr. Chairman ; Meaford must be made a harbour for every vessel, not only vessels on the lakes of 6,000 tons or 8,000 tons, but a harbour that will accommodate ships of the Atlantic, which will make Meaford their headquarters, according to this generous statement of the Postmaster General, a man who is squandering the public money with bribes, who is not fail-enough to give the employees of his own department what the law says they should have. Now we will have to have revised editions from the Postmaster General of the statements that he has made, and of the statements he has put in his report, which are misleading to the extent that he has laid aside that Yukon matter. The Yukon is a part of Canada, it has been opened up in recent years, there is no reason why Yukon expenditures for the post office work should not be treated like any other expenditure, and included in the expenditures of the department, and thereby increased by the amount stated by the member for Both well (Mr. Clancy).

Mr. BRITTON.

I cannot understand the ground of stating that there is any deception or misleading statement in the report of the Postmaster General. The amount of the revenue that we are speaking of is one thing in itself, and the amount of the expenditure is another thing. You are speaking of, or comparing the amount of one year with another, and taking the different items on which comparison is made. But to talk about deception and concealment is entirely beside the mark ; because if hon. gentlemen will look at the report that they have in their hands, on page 3, they will find the whole thing. The Yukon expenditure is there, the Yukon receipts are there, and anybody can add the items of the revenue to each other and the items of expenditure to each other. All that is in the report actually in the hands of hon. members, and they have no ground whatever for talking of deception or of cooking the accounts. Hon. gentlemen will find it on page 3 of Appendix A : Statement of the revenue of the Post Office Department of the Dominion of Canada for the year ended June 30. 1900 (except that from Yukon and Atlin districts). And just below is given the revenue from the Yukon and Atlin districts.

Hon. Mr. TISDALE.

Read what it says about the revenue and returns of the Yukon district.

Mr. BRITTON (reading).

Statement of the revenue of the Post Office Department of the Dominion of Canada for the

year ended June 30, 1900, from the Yukon and Atlin districts, not included in above, $20,788.49.

Hon. Mr. TISDALE.

What is the expenditure ?

Mr. BRITTON.

On the fourth page the expenditure is stated in the same way, giving the expenditure of the Post Office Department, but not including the Yukon and Atlin districts. Then it gives the Yukon and Atlin district services, not included in the above, $112,368.57. I am saying that there is an entire absence of deception when the figures are all given in the report in the hands of hon. members.

Sir CHARLES HIBBERT TUPPEIt. In the items of expenditure, does the hon. gentleman find any amount put down as incurred for the use of the police, or are the police, so far as this service is concerned, paid entirely under other headings ?

Mr. BRITTON.

The figures on this page from which I am reading are : Mail service, $80,433.06 ; salaries, $28,885.80 ; miscellaneous, $3,049.71. I am not in a position to know, nor is any one, without looking at the public accounts, whether the mail service, costing the sum 1 have mentioned, includes something for the police.

Sir CHARLES HIBBERT TUPPER.

As I understand, the Postmaster General explained last session that there is no item in the post office account for the payment of the mounted police for the services they performed as mounted police for carrying the mails, etc., in the Yukon district. They are paid entirely from another department.

The mounted police for the fiscal year that is now being discussed, beginning on June 30, 1899 and closing June 30, 1900, performed no mail service that I am aware of for the Post Office Department.