I have heard a much more considerable amount put down as the price of a seat in the Senate under the Conservative regime, and if the hon. gentleman (Mr. Hughes, Victoria) desires it, the information on that subject may be forthcoming at no distant date.

Sir, when I contemplate the collossal corruption that existed at that period and the fashion in which those huge sums of money were acquired and used, upon my word there is only one man in the whole lot for whom I feel the slightest commiseration, and that man is Mr. Thomas McGreevy. Upon my word, Sir, when we reflect on what that man did and what that man suffered ; when I reflect that he was beggared and broken hearted ; when I reflect on what he did for the party and how the party requited him, I will say to these hon. gentlemen that if they are moved to atone for the sins of their predecessors ; if there is any true repentance in them, let them go to my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works, and I will back their request ; let them beg a plot a little way from the left of these parliament buildings and let them erect there a monument to Mr. Thomas McGreevy, and I will supply the inscription. That inscription will be :

' To the memory of Thomas McGreevy, victim and martyr, who did more than any other human being to put the Conservative party in power in 1878 and keep them in power regardless of expense for thirteen years. Who was imprisoned and bankrupted by them.

' Had he served his country as faithfully as he served his party leaders, the name of Thomas McGreevy would have stood high on the roll of Canadian patriots.'

Now, Sir, why do I recall these things ?

I recall them for one purpose and for one alone. I want that future historians and the people of this country may know what sort of a price the people have to pay when they choose to substitute plausible charletans for able and faithful public servants. Further I know things are very apt to slip from the , public mind. I know very well that the cotemporary history of all things is the least , known by the men of to-day. We are con- i stantly forgetting what has happened in : our own time. Ordinary business men and ordinary professional men really know 1 nothing of the co-temporary history of their own time, and even in our own House members succeed other so fast that all recollection of these things is apt to pass away within a very short time. But, : Sir, I think the House should understand one thing; it would be well that hon. 1 gentlemen and it would be well that the country should understand one thing and that is this : That protection (at any rate . as they practiced it) and corruption are practically convertible terms. I do not mean to say that a government may not be j 44J

corrupt and yet not protectionist. That may be. But I do say that human nature being as it is, it is almost impossible for a government to be protectionist and escape being corrupt. And I will add this further ; I will add that while I think protection and corruption are practically inseparable; I will add that I likewise believe for my part, that protection and true freedom "are all but absolutely incompatible. On that I will give you words of another more eloquent than any I can utter. Here are some remarks which are very much indeed to the purpose. The gentleman whom I quote says :

I come to expose to you the policy of the Liberal party. Let me 'tell you that policy may be resumed in the good Saxon word 'freedom' in every sense of the term; freedom of speech, freedom of action, freedom of religious life and civil life, and last, not least, freedom in commercial life

In the American Republic you have the line of cleavage which exists between the Liberal party and the Conservative party

the question of free trade. We stand for freedom, they stand for restriction; they stand for servitude; we stand for freedom.

I denounce to you the policy of protection as bondage; yen, bondage, and I refer to bondage in the same manner in which the American slr.tery was bondage ; not in the same degree

perhaps, but in the same manner In

the same manner the people of this country, the inhabitants of the city of Winnipeg especially, are toiling for a master, who takes away, not every cent of profit, but a very large percentage, a very great portion of your earning3 for which you toil and sweat

Mr. TAYLOR.

Is 35 per cent protection ?

35 per cent may or may not be protection. 35 per cent may be high revenue tariff or it may be a grossly protective tariff. It depends entirely on how applied. 35 per cent as against American goods is a high revenue tariff and as against British goods it would be a protective and prohibitive tariff. This gentleman from whom I am quoting goes on to say :

I do not tell you that we must have no taxation, but I do say that the government has no right to take a cent from you or me except for the necessities of the revenue, and if the government takes from you any portion of your earnings, whether the portion' be large or small, to give to somebody else that government is as much a robber as the highwayman who puts a pistol to your forehead and says :

' your purse or your life.'

Admirable sentences, admirably expressed with that force and eloquence with which my right hon. friend (Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier) usually puts the case before his audience.

Mr. MACLEAN.

Is that a warning ?

A warning to you.

Mr. MACLEAN.

A warning to your leader.

I hope it is a warning to you, but I am afraid the hon. gentleman (Mr. Maclean) is not greatly inclined to take it. I say that if you wish to see Canada ten years hence as Canada was ten years ago when the British press was ringing with those sentences I lately read, you have only to return to the Conservative government and to the good old Conservative ways of a protective tariff.

Now, Sir, I turn to a more pleasing side of the question. We cannot undo the past; we cannot recover our lost legions; we cannot regain our lost opportunities; and it may be that we have lost more than we are aware of, because at this moment there are other formidable competitors springing up whom we may soon have to face. I have noticed with considerable interest the enormous development now taking place in Siberia. It may be that in wheat and other kinds of agricultural produce that country may enter into a formidable competition with the people of North America, especially the people of Canada. But although nearly a quarter of a century has been thrown away, although Canada has done little more than mark time for a generation, I believe that the chances are coming back to us again. Great fertile areas are lying open to us, and we must bring people to them. The process has well begun, indeed no sign of the times is more wholesome and hopeful than that which I mentioned a little while ago, that the number of immigrants coming from the United States to Canada has risen from 700 to

17,000. I warn our people to beware that they do not check the progress now going on. It is no idle dream to say that If we do as well within the next decade as Dakota and Minnesota have done, we may look for a population of two millions, or at the lowest a million and a half, in the valleys of the Saskatchewan, the Red River and the Assiniboine, and in the vast territory that extends towards the Peace River district ; and we may double the volume of our trade. I do not altogether agree with some of the demands of our friends in the Northwest ; but I heartily sympathize with them in the view they take of the great future that awaits Canada if she will only stretch out her hand and seize the opportunities that present themselves to us there. And let me say further to the people of Canada; if you are desirous of entering into a controversy or a commercial war with the United States, the true way to conquer them is to show them that you have a population increasing faster than theirs, that you have a volume of trade far in excess of theirs. Then indeed you may reasonably hope in a comparatively short space of time to have them knocking at your door. This is for Canada the true path to greatness, the true path to wealth. Let us not turn our backs upon it. Let us lay the lessons of the census to heart. I

Sir RICHARD CARTWRIGHT

say it was a national disgrace that the increase of Canada during those twenty years was far less than what took place iu the same period in old and long-settled European countries. I have heard it said by hon. gentlemen opposite, and even by some friends of mine, that Canada is a dumping ground for American manufacturers. I have heard plaintive wails that heathen Yankees, not having the fear of God or of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association before their eyes, come to Canada and actually have the audacity to sell goods to Canadian consumers at a lower price than that at which they sell them to their own people. It is even said, though this lacks proof, that they sell them at less than cost, in their greed to monopolize so profitable a trade; and it is said that there are mauy Canadians so unpatriotic, so dead to all lofty feeling, that they will actually purchase American goods for no better reason than the fact that they can obtain them better and cheaper than they can similar goods in their own country. It is a very sad state of things, no doubt. But to my mind it is a much sadder thing that Canada should be, as Canada was for eighteen years under the national policy, no better than a breeding ground for people of the United States. Here is where Canada was landed in 1896-in depopulation and stagnation, utter incapacity to utilize her vast territory, and with political corruption practically reduced to a fine art. Now, I counsel the people of Canada no more to copy Yankee vices. I do not want them to imitate the Yankee fiscal policy or Yankee political methods. I desire, like hon. gentlemen opposite, that Canadians should think for themselves and act for themselves; and if they will imitate the people of the United States, I advise them to imitate their good qualities, not their bad ones. Let them imitate their pluck, their patriotism, their energy, their push, their skill in developing and utilizing their waste territory. If they will do that, Sir, I have no fear for the result. Take it all in all, I say that the record of the last four years is a grand record, a credit to the country and a credit to the government. The progress of our trade in that period has been very great, and if I am correct in the statements I have made to-night, the recovery of our people in population in the last four years has been relatively as great as the expansion of our trade. The government invites criticism: it invites the closest

scrutiny; the facts will bear out my statements. Sir, I repeat the assertion with which I commenced. I say that the best test of a nation's progress, at least a nation like Canada, with enormous quantities of fertile land wholly untouched, is the increase of her population; and I say that Canada can stand that test now, and she will be in a position to stand it infinitely better ten years hence. If we do our duty, our shams will then be wiped out, our

national humiliation will be effaced, and Canada will be in the van once more. She will have a larger trade in proportion to population than the United States, a faster growth, a better distribution of wealth, better security for life and property, a better fiscal system, and infinitely more freedom.

Sir, I am not given to idle gush, as this House knows; but I believe that our resources have been barely scratched. I believe we have enormous resources, the extent of which we have scarcely begun to realize. With half a continent unexplored, we can only imagine what possibilities yet lie before us. After what we have seen in the Klondike, who shall say that the barrenest region in the arctic zone may not contain riches equal to the Rand? Who shall say that the region of Hudson bay or the region of Labrador, or the region of the Mackenzie river or the great Slave lake-all these regions which are only geographical expressions to-day, may not become household words to-morrow? But there is no need of talking of possibilities. The Red River valley, the Saskatchewan valley, the Assiniboine valley, the Peace River valley, are realities; and the progress which the western States have made is a reality too. We have room for a population of at least fifty millions. We have marvellous water powers, the value of which we are just beginning to realize. We have immense mineral resources. We need but men, capital, fair-play and freedom, and if we are true to ourselves and persevere in the path we have entered upon in the last five years, I believe that the record of the next ten years will surpass that of the last five, good as it has been, as much as the record of the last five years has surpassed that of the preceding fifteen.

Mr. E. B. OSLER (West Toronto).

Mr. Speaker, I have just been wondering where we are. I have not been in this House long enough to carry my memory back to the subjects which we have had discussed for the last hour and a half. I thought we were going to have a discussion of matters which are of interest to this country to-day. We have scarcely a word from the hon. gentleman dealing with events that are within the personal experience of the great majority of the members of this House. Instead of dealing with the facts of the day, he harked back to ancient history, he revelled in old scandals. He in fact' shouldered his political crutch, fought his old political battles, and made his old political speeches over again. And where he did not deal with events that have disappeared in the archives of the past, he deluged us with a dry array of figures, despite his promise at the outset that he was not going to weary the House with statistics. Well, if the hon. gentleman has

any more figures than he has already given to us, we have reason to be eternally grateful to him for keeping them to himself Referring to the speech of the leader of the opposition, the hon. gentleman said he could shut his eyes and imagine that he had heard all that before. Well, I do not think that it is necessary for any one to shut his eyes or draw on his imagination at all to come to a like conclusion with regard to the speech we have just heard. One would require to close one's eyes very tightly indeed and make a considerable draft on one's imagination to come to the opposite conclusion. It would require a considerable effort of the imagination to make one believe that he has not heard over and over again the arguments and the appeals to which the hon. gentleman has been treating us during the last three hours.

I jotted down a few of the things upon which the hon. gentleman appeared to lay some stress. One of the first was his admission that the cost of living under the present government has largely increased. In that respect I do not think any one will contradict him, but whether that is something which the present government has a right to be proud of, I leave to the House and country to decide. He then took credit for the reduction in the postage rates to Great Britain, but we have the admission of the Postmaster General that only one-seventh of the mail matter which leaves Canada is carried in Canadian boats or through Canadian channels, and that six-sevenths are carried in foreign channels. If that be a point on which the horn gentleman thinks he is entitled to some credit,

I am willing to gratify him to the utmost extent.

Then my hon. friend could not forbear loosing one of the shafts of his satire at his hon. friend from North Norfolk (Mr. Charlton). He referred to a vision of Hades which that hon. gentleman had at one time and of which he gave a vivid description. But if my recollection serves me right, the Hades which the hon. member for North Norfolk described was merely a vision, whereas the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce had been plunged, uot into an imaginary, but into a real political Hades from which his friend, the member for North Norfolk (Mr, Charlton), had to extricate him. The policy of the Minister of Trade and Commerce had failed to meet the approval of his electorate, another Reformer was ambitious to get his place, and the hon. minister was doomed to political Hades and would have become for ever politically extinct, had it not been for the help of his friend (Mr. Charlton), who got him out of the shades of death. And this friend the hon. minister does not now hesitate to throw over.

In all the time during which the hou. gentleman laboured through his argument,

he made no reference to any question of the day, no reference to the policy of his party, no reference to the enormous growth of expenditure, no reference to the increase of public debt, or to anything of live interest to the country. For nearly an hour and a half he spoke of the census of 1891 and the census of 1901, and he assumed that the former was fraudulently taken. His whole speech Was simply drawing a red herring across the track in order that public attention might be taken away from those things which are of importance to Canada to-day, from the shortcomings of himself and his colleagues since they have been in office, and directed to matters of far minor importance. He spoke of ,the immigration to the North-west. He pictured the rush that took place into that country in 1881 and 1882, and tried to draw the inference that had free trade prevailed, that country would to-day have been settled up and we would have had a million or a million and a quarter population there now. But I have no doubt that the hon. gentleman is sufficient of a business man to know that the reason why population did not continue to flow into the North-west was because the price of wheat had fallen from $1 a bushel to about 40 cents or 45 cents pe? bushel-a price at which it was almost impossible for farmers to make a living out of it. He quoted Dakota and Minnesota as illustrations of how countries fill up with great rapidity, but he omitted to tell us that these two states flourished under the highest protective tariff known on the earth.

He gave us also figures from the census returns of Toronto and Manitoba, to show that up to a certain period these localities were depressed and are now flourishing. But he omitted to draw our attention to the fact that these places were suffering from that most disastrous thing which can befall any community-a land boom. Toronto suffered from that evil and is hardly over it to-day. So did Manitoba, and is only just now recovering from it.

He drew a glowing picture of what would have happened had the policy of the late Mr. McKenzie been carried out. X tell you, Sir, that had that policy been continued, the whole of the trade and the products of that western country would now be tributary to the United States. It may be possible that a larger population would be there now, but our North-west would not belong to Canada, and there are few members who will agree that it were better that Manitoba were more prosperous at the cost of not belonging to Canada and Great Britain.

Another point on which the hon. gentleman dilated was the vicious system of granting government bonuses to railways. Had that system not be entered upon, had the railway companies been forced to enter the country' and build for themselves, we Mr. OSLER.

should have had that country built up without railway bonuses. But surely the hon. gentleman could not have been in earnest in this argument. Has he been asleep these ten or fifteen years and just woke up ? Is he not aware the policy of granting railway bonuses is the same to-day as it was under the late administration ? And there is not to-day the same reason for that policy which existed in the past. Yet notwithstanding that the North-west has been settled since ten or twenty years and that there is no longer the same reason for granting bonuses, we find this government continuing the policy of granting large bonuses to railways in the North-west. And we find this government continuing the same checker board system of reserving each alternate section which the hon. gentleman denounces as an evil. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman finds it impossible to disassociate himself from the past and cannot refrain from denouncing the same things which he was won't to denounce in the days of old, although he is to-day the member of a government in which these very same practices continue to flourish.

But talking of the policy of the late Mr. McKenzie and the policy of the late Sir John Macdonald, one of the men who is very high up in the political scale in this country, the Hon. George W. Ross, had the manliness to admit publicly that he was mistaken in his judgment of the policy of Sir John Macdonald in connection with the settlement of the North-west. He is the only man of the late chieftain's opponents who has had the manliness and the honesty to make this admission; and I tell you, Sir, that that admission appealed to the sense of fairness of the people of Ontario and did more credit to Mr. Ross than any act of his life.

If we examine into the heaps of figures which the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce piled upon us during his speech, we will find that there is not a clean-cut statement among them all. They are all based upon assumptions, and his conclusions flow from mere assumptions. He takes the figures of the census, puts them together in his own fashion, and then draws his own conclusions, and treats those assumptions as facts. They are figures drawn up by a man who looks at only one side of the question, who is choosing his figures and making them tell the story exactly as he wants it told. S

It is a very interesting spectacle to see how thoroughly the members of this ministry are in accord with one another. They cannot keep their little grievances at home, but the spite that is shown between the members of the administration is made known to the House and to the world. The hon. member who preceded me said that he was not going to trouble the House with figures-and he wearied the House for three

hours with figures. We have had figures for two days. And for that reason, although I have many figures here, I shall leave most of them out.

Look back for one moment to the Speech from the Throne, for a government of business men, of wonderful men, that was a great production. Here was a Speech from the Throne, and in it was supposed to appear the questions upon which Canada was vitally interested in one of our most interesting years, a year of great prosperity, a year when great works are going ou and when great schemes might have been expected to be outlined by the government. And what have we in this speech V Outside of the ordinary platitudes, and an expression of thankfulness for the visit of Their Royal Highnesses, we have a reference to only two wonderful things. This government, so great, and so powerful, in their great wisdom saw fit not to prevent an inventor landing on the soil of Canada and carrying on experiments. It would have been a very sad thing for Canada and for the world if the government had seen fit to order that inventor off the soil of Canada. The government take great credit to themselves for having allowed Mr. Marconi to come and experiment here, and they tell us they are going to give him 880,000. Now. that is a very serious and very important item to put in the Speech from the Throne. The next thing the government take credit for is for not having refused-for it was in their power to have done so-to allow a private company to spend $20,000,000 of money to be raised from its own shareholders, and to be used in improving its road-bed, its rolling stock, and so on-expenditure that will be a benefit to Canada. The government in their great wisdom have decided to allow that company to increase its capital stock. These are the only two things in the speech. It completely bears out what I had the plea. sure of hearing the Prime Minister saying at a luncheon of the Industrial Exhibition Association in Toronto, that there was nothing to reform in Canada, that everything had been done. Even the Senate is reforming itself without the aid of our wise men ; so we hear no more of the great reforms that were to take place in the Senate. Let us come down to what we in this House think worthy of discussing. We ought to take the question of our finances, the question of what this government has done for the good of the country, and how it has fulfilled the promises made before it came into power. In 1895, in a speech on the budget, the present hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Hon. Sir Richard Cartwright), discussing the expenditure of that time, $38,000,000, said

To-day we are called upon to pay the interest, and the 10 or 12 million dollars a year, which we have to pay through the medium of the government, is only a small part, only a part, at any rate, of the total sum vf interest wh'ch

Canada has to pay. Sir, have we got value for our money, had that money been invested in works which w ire really useful and which really added to the productive powers of Canada, the case would not have been so bad.

If it had been possible for us to have borrowed $800,000,000 or $1,000,000,000, if you will-

The hon. gentleman was dealing in large figures.

-and we should have beon able to pay the interest largely out of the profits arising from these works. But it is only too well known to any one who knows anything of Canada that an enormous amount of money which was borrowed has been wasted, aye and worse than wasted, for a very considerable part of it has gone to debauch and corrupt the people of Canada.

Now, that is the platform on which the hon. gentleman stood and which he enunciated in this wonderful article of his that has been referred to by the leader of the opposition, that the money spent had been, in great part, spent on works that were not for the benefit of Canada but for corrupt purposes. In 1895-6 we had a revenue of $38,041,700. According to the present Minister of Trade and Commerce that was about $4,000,000 too much. In 1901, the revenue was $57,000,000, and, according to the Minister of Finance it is a revenue that is a great deal too small and will be increased considerably during tbe present year. In 1896, our debt was $258,497,000 ; to-day it is $268,480,000, and tbls notwithstanding the fact that during that period, something like $39,000,000 additional have been taken out of the pockets of the people. The platform on which the government came into power in 1896 is the platform by which we must judge them to-day. I quite admit that an increase of expenditure is necessary for an increased population and an increasing trade. But the $4,000,000 by which the revenue under the Conservative administration was too much should have been quite sufficient to provide for the necessary expansion during the five or six years that the present government have been In power. The government came into power on the policy of economy, reduction of taxation and reduction of the public debt. They remain in power to-day in consequence of extravagant expenditure, a large increase in debt, increased taxation, and an expenditure exactly and precisely on the terms to which the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce has referred, whereby the people of the -country are debauched and corrupted. We heard that hon. gentleman the other evening, speaking on a proposed item in the estimates of absolutely useless expenditure, defended that expenditure on the ground that it was making up for the injustice that Conservative governments had done to his friends. In other words, not because the Conservative party had spent money, but because they bad not spent enough money, as he put it, corruptly, for the purpose of debauching the country.

Now, Sir, Canada being a great and growing country, it should be the business of statesmen to cast about and find bow they can direct the trade of that country into the best and most profitable channels. But what has this government done in any shape or form to bring about such an end ? They have talked and talked about Improving the navigation of the St. Lawrence. They have proposed to spend money upon it, they have admitted that we must have a better outlet for our produce and grain to the sea; and yet we cannot find, on inquiry, that they have taken one single step towards realizing that end. We are spending money in all manner of ways, we are spending money all over the country, frittering it away, in little driblets here and there; but as for relieving the pressure of our western grain and providing the farmers with freer and better transport to market, this government has absolutely neglected to do anything.

The question of a fast Atlantic service, like some other large questions, has been before this government, but they have shirked it and put it on one side, until now it is almost forgotten. Yet we find that mail subsidies have gone on increasing, and last year alone they increased by $112,000. What has this government done towards solving that great question? Sir, in my opinion the transportation question is the most important question before this House and country to-day. It was discussed a great deal last year, and aroused a good deal of interest, but nothing has come of that discussion. We do not know yet whether it is Montreal, or Quebec, or that new port at Sorel, that is going to be the seaport for our Canadian grain. We cannot tell whether our grain will eventually come by the St Lawrence, or whether it must go by United States ports. It is admitted on all hands that we ought to get some of the grain that comes to Buffalo, some 300,000,000 bushels, that part of that grain ought to find an outlet by way of the St. Lawrence. But people forget entirely that two-thirds of that grain is consumed in the New England states and never reaches the seaboard. Nevertheless one of the great questions that should engage the attention of the government is how to improve our transportation facilities. The government are now spending large sums of money on the upper lakes and on all the ports, but so far they have not taken a single step towards relieving the pressure in the North-west caused by lack of facility for bringing that grain east, no more than If such a question never existed. On the other hand, the government are constantly devising schemes to spend money in the various constituencies where it will do them the most good-solely and only for that purpose. We see item after item in the estimates where the minister charged with it is not aware whether it is wanted or not;

Mr. OSLER.

but if it is wanted, he will take care to look after it and see that the money is properly spent. I notice the Minister of Justice, in speaking the other day at Montreal, referred in concise business terms to this question of transportation, and acknowledged the necessity of solving it, but he had no suggestion to make, and not a single step has been taken by the government towards finding a solution.

There is another question that ought surely to have engaged the attention of the government if they are to help on our marine, and that is the proper lighting of the coasts of the St. Lawrence and of our inland lakes. Now, we have spent very little comparatively on that important matter. If you look at the map of the American upper lakes you will find lighthouses dotted all along the coasts, but if you look at the map of our own shores you will see that we have only a miserable light here and there; and many of those lights, I believe, are so poorly maintained that they will only last half the night, and unless a man gets up in the middle of the night to replenish them, they go out before morning. Surely that is a question worthy the attention of the government; and I expected that the Minister of Trade and Commerce, during his three-hours and a quarter oration, would have devoted some little attention to it. But he does not seem to realize that he is not living twenty years ago, when he used to talk about free trade and protection, and of the terrible misfortunes that would happen to the country under a protective policy.

Now, I come to another point which I wish to treat briefly, and that is the Intercolonial Railway. The government have increased the capital of that railway by eight to nine million dollars since they came to power. They have also leased a line into Montreal for which they pay a large yearly rental. Now, it is very amusing to hear the Minister of Trade and Commerce and a previous speaker saying : It is quite ti-ue we have spent money, but our revenue is increasing. Yes, their revenue is increasing, but their expenditure is increasing in a still greater ratio. Every year their deficit it getting larger; and I am bound to say that if their accounts were kept properly, if a proper proportion of their expenditure for rolling stock and like things were charged up against the Intercolonial Railway, the deficit would be probably twice as large as it shows to-day. Now, Sir, the condition of the Intercolonial Railway is rather humiliating in the face of the fact that there is not an old one-horse railway on this continent that has not picked up during the last year or two, that is not paying its running expenses and showing a little surplus. Not a solitary instance can be pointed out on this continent, with the exception of the Intercolonial Railway, which does not show an improved condition of affairs, an increasing revenue, a decreasing expenditure, or, at all events,

making both ends meet, and leaving something for the stockholders or the bondholders. The Intercolonial Railway does not charge one cent for the interest of capital expended on it. The Minister of Railways and Canals is increasing its capital expenditure year after year, apparently without any thought as to a limit, and yet deficits are pilling up year after year under the mismanagement of the present government. It would almost seem as if the government were in league with those portions of the community who do not believe in public ownership of public franchises, because, surely the exhibition of the Intercolonial Railway and what the government are making out of it is so humiliating that no advocate could be found of public ownership in the hands of such management. There is no other railway on this continent that shows such a lamentable state of affairs. The government do not give us its earnings and expenses in such a "way as to enable us to check what its rates are. I cannot find out from anything that is published as to the rates charged on the Intercolonial Railway. The freight rates, at all events, are as high, and probably higher, than the rates on either the Canadian Pacific Railway or Grand Trunk Railway for similar service and similar distance. We are not able from the government returns to ascertain that, and I think it is a great mistake that such returns should not be published in the government railway reports. The reports are drawn up as far as it is possible in such a manner as to prevent anyone from arriving at a correct statement of the figures as to the expenditure and revenue. Capital and ordinary expenditure are so mixed up that it is impossible to come to any conclusion.

Now, the burning question, to-day, and it evidently is a burning question between the different members of the ministry, is the question of protection and free trade. It was generally thought in the country that the ministers were pretty well coming round to be of one mind. It was suggested that there had been an anti-free trade vaccine imported into the ministry and that the importer of the vaccine was quietly administering it to all his colleagues and administering it also to his followers. We saw that this had a very startling effect and that it had taken very strongly upon one member of the government, the Minister of Public Works (Hon. Mr. Tarte). I think that it has taken fairly well upon the Minister of Customs (Hon. Mr. Paterson) and I think he is showing very good signs that he has had a proper dose of vacccination. Upon some of their followers the anti-free trade vaccine has taken so strongly that they are baring their arms all the time and showing the public that they have been vaccinated against the evils of free-trade. I have an impression that the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Fielding) has been vaccinated, but

he has his shield on yet and his arm is pretty sore if you go near it. As to the Prime Minister (Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laur-ier) I think he would be vaccinated if he saw any necessity for it. I think he would bare his arm and cheerfully submit if his colleagues thought that the best thing for him to do and that it would ensure him his political health. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Hon. Sir Richard Cartwright) absolutely refuses the vaccine. The hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce has drawn for us a very doleful picture of what will take place if we do not return to good old simple free trade. What would free trade mean for Canada ? It would mean the closing up of every factory we have from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It would mean that Canadians would be hewers of wood and drawers of water for the great American manufacturers. What has been the effect of free trade, to some extent, already ? It lias driven away our bright young men who are educated in our schools of practical science and other institutions of learning. These young men have gone off to join our neighbours and take an interest in the development of the large manufactures in the United States. These men have been replaced in this country, how ? We have been sending away our brightest young men. We must send them away unless we can give them employment in this country and exercise their skill in all manner of manufactures and enterprises. We are sending these men off and how are we replacing them ? We are replacing them at the government expense with Galicians, Doukho-bors and the lowest class of labour. We are sending away from the country our brightest young men and bringing into the country a class of men who are lower than any we have in the country already. That is how free trade acts. Now, Mr. Speaker, as I do not propose to quote all my array of figures, my remarks will be much shorter than I had intended them to be, because I know the House is weary of figures. I think we will have figures in detail many a time during the next week or ten days, but I want strongly, before I sit down, to emphasize one point which we should keep constantly before the country. We should keep before the country the fact that this government ame into power pledged to economy, pledged to reduce the expenditure, which was then $38,000,000 to some $3,000,000, or $4,000,000 below that sum. We now see hon. gentlemen opposite glorying in an expenditure of $57,000,000 and we hear the hon. Minister of Finance saying that the expenditure is to be very largely increased during the coming year. We see that they have increased the debt of this country by $10,000.000 or within a few dollars of $10,000,000, and at the same time they have taken out of the country an amount of $39,000,000 more taxation than the average taxation of the year in which they came into power. These

are the questions that are of interest to this House and of interest to the country and it is on these questions that this government must be judged. There has been no attempt made towards a reduction of the debt. Hon. gentlemen are simply revelling in spending money and their policy seems to be : While we have money coming in,

we will spend it and trust to luck when it stops coming in. There is no attempt at economy ; there is a glorying in expenditure. There has been no important undertaking in the interest of the country. These are the points that I think should be held up before the country. These are the points that the government should discuss and the members of the government should intelligently defend, not the points raised by the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce in his three and a quarter hours speech. The hon. gentleman did not refer to a single matter that occurred less than five or six years ago. That is not the kind of discussion of public affairs that we want. It is simply dragging a herring across the track, hoping that people will not understand and will not see the iniquities that this government is perpetrating ; the breaking of all their promises ; the breaking of all their pledges ; the increasing of the debt of this country, and the encouragement of corruption to a degree that was not known and not even thought of before the Liberals came into power. These are the questions that are engaging the attention of this House and of the country, and it is not a live issue when the hon. gentleman talks of figures and of contracts, the men concerned in which have been dead for years.

Mr. C. B. HEYD (South Brant).

Mr. Speaker, owing to the very lengthy discussion we have had on this question to-day, I presume it would be gratifying to both sides of the House if it were brought to a close now, and I therefore move the adjournment of the debate.