Mr. FIELDING:

If the hon. member

seriously objects to the motion, I will not press it any further to-day.

Mr. GARDINER:

I object to the motion, and I object to the principle that members of this House should be called upon to consider bills which are not printed and not in the hands of members; because we should have an opportunity of considering the details.

Mr. FIELDING:

I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Mr. GRAHAM:

I wish to make an explanation. The suggestion was made last night by the hon. member for Vancouver in reference to another bill that the resolutions might be allowed to go through their formal course, and that we should get these resolutions in the shape of a bill, so that every member could have it in his hands. I have a bill drafted on these resolutions. If the House would consent, we would get these resolutions in the form of a bill, and then let the matter stand for two or three days, till each member has a copy of the bill and can look over it. fSir Lomer Gouin.]

Mr. HANSON:

When does the minister suggest that consideration should be given to the bill?

Mr. GRAHAM:

Very soon, for the simple reason that when we go into the details of the bill it will be necessary to have some members of the staff from Montreal here.

Mr. HANSON:

I think that is a reasonable request.

Mr. STEVENS:

I would suggest that the consideration of the bill be taken up on Monday, if that is agreeable to the minister.

Mr. FIELDING:

No objection.

Mr. MARCIL (Bonaventure):

I do not desire to object to proceeding with the resolution, but I wish to draw the attention of the government, and the Minister of Railways more especially, to the fact that they are going into an expenditure of about $25,000,000 for the construction of branch lines. I scanned the resolution very rapidly, and I observed that 71 miles are located in Nova Scotia, 25 miles in New Brunswick, 14 miles in Quebec, and 29 miles in Ontario, and all the rest goes to the west. I do not object that the proposal be adopted. I have had the honour of representing my constituency for twenty-five years, and his Honour the Speaker (Mr. Lemieux) has represented Gaspe, the adjoining constituency, for a longer period. We have on several occasions called the attention of governments in the past to the singular position in which the people of the Gaspe peninsula are situated. In twelve years from now the four-hundredth anniversary of the landing of Jacques Cartier on Canadian soil will occur in this the oldest-inhabited part of Canada. And we are still asking for a decent railway service. When Sir Wilfred Laurier took office in 1896, one hundred miles of railway had been built, as far as New Carlisle, following out a proposal made to the parliament of that day by Sir Hector Langevin and Sir Charles Tup-per in 1882. Sir Hector Langevin at that time was Minister of Public Works and leader in the province of Quebec, Sir Charles Tupper was Minister of Railways. In 1882, parliament voted an amount for the construction of this branch of the Intercolonial railway from Matapedia towards Gaspe Basin. This undertaking was handed over to a private company, and the misfortunes of that district began with that date. Sir Wilfred Laurier took office in 1896, and the present Speaker of this House asked, very fairly for his constituency-because at that time Gaspe was the only constituency in Quebec which

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had no railway service whatever-that the line should be continued from New Carlisle to Gaspe. The remaining one hundred miles were completed, making in all two hundred miles of railway. The late Minister of Railways (Mr. Cochrane) had a law passed through this House by which any two hundred miles of railway connecting with the Intercolonial or with government-owned railways might be merged into the Canadian National system. We have urged this for many years without success. The present two hundred miles of railway line are owned by two companies, the shareholders of which reside in England. They give service merely to keep the railway alive, and the result is that that part of Quebec, which is the most interesting from its maritime aspect, from its valuable resources, from the attractiveness of its territory and from its very energetic population, has remained to this date the most poorly served part of Canada in the matter of railways. It seems strange to these people, inhabiting the oldest part of Canada, while we are voting millions for new parts of Canada which are barely settled at the present time, or which are yet to be settled by newcomers to this country whom we welcome

that the oldest settlers, the people of the oldest part of Canada, should remain still without any adequate railway service.

Lately we have called the attention of Sir Henry Thornton to this state of affairs. Sir Henry Thornton volunteered to have an inspection made of these lines and to have them operated as if they were the property of the Dominion, as branch lines of the Intercolonial railway, because they are de facto branch lines of that road. The two counties of Gaspe and Bonaventure are inhabited by 60,000 people, and we could easily have three times that population if we had a proper railway service. These two constituencies cover 10,000 square miles of the most fertile territory in the province of Quebec, with a double advantage of being situated by the sea, having thousands of miles of timber and pulpwood, mineral resources, fertile soil, and splendid fisheries producing some of the finest fish of the North American continent. Our rivers are visited yearly by the cream of American and Canadian society, from His Excellency down, and that has been the case for the last forty years. A member of the Royal House has gone to the extent of establishing a residence at New Richmond to take advantage of the fisheries in these attractive regions. Nevertheless the district has remained in a quiescent state. During the first ten years that I had the honour

of representing the constituency in this House, the population increased in one county alone by 5,000. During the next decade, from 1911 to 1921, the population increased by only 500. Why? Because the industries in both Gaspe and Bonaventure, one after another moved away across the Baie des Chaleurs to the Intercolonial where they could get service over which they could send their produce. At Nouvelle, to begin with, the Province of Quebec Lumber Association transferred all its lumber over to Dal-housie, and it is operating on the main line of the Intercolonial. The same thing happened at Bonaventure and New Richmond where the mills of the McLean Lumber Corporation were transferred to Bathurst, and to-day we witness the spectacle of this lumber being cut in these two countries and being transported in booms across the Baie des Chaleurs, a distance ranging from 25 to 50 miles to be sawn and placed on board cars to be exported to the Canadian and American markets at great disadvantage and loss. The result of this is that the young people are leaving these two counties daily, and settling, unfortunately a large number of them, in the United States. We are losing our population, and this because we have not an efficient railway service which would develop the resources of these two constituencies as they should be developed. I know the Minister of Railways or the government has handed over the operation of the Canadian National Railways to a board of directors. Sir Henry Thornton ia willing to operate these lines as branches of the Intercolonial. We find ourselves in presence of these two companies holding these roads for a price, and between the two the people are not getting the service. There must be a solution to this, and I wish to attract the attention of the Minister of Railways and the government of Canada to this fact. Hon. Mr. Carvell and some of his associates on the Railway Commission visited the constituencies two or three years ago and made an elaborate report, which is now in the possession of the Minister of Railways, pointing out that these two constituencies did not have the railway service to which thev were entitled. And if an application were made to the Railway Commission to-morrow, I have no doubt that an order would be issued which would place these two Enelish companies in the position of having to give up the operation of these railways, because I understand their resources are not sufficient, to give the country the service to which it is entitled.

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We have on these two roads some very antiquated locomotives. We have no rolling stock whatever. The rolling stock that we have comes from other roads, and still every pound of freight and every passenger coming over these 200 miles of territory cannot reach any other railway than the Intercolonial. After the hon. the Speaker had succeeded in having the second hundred miles of this road completed, I had the honour of introducing in this House in 1904 a bill to authorize the contraction of the interprovincial railway bridge over the Restigouche river between Cross Point and Campbellton, the reason at that time being to link up these two railways with the Intercolonial Railway at Campbellton. We have now communication with Matapedia by which we can easily reach Montreal, Quebec, Ontario and the West. But our communication with the American market and with the Maritime provinces is defective. By the construction of this bridge over the Restigouche river between Quebec and New Brunswick, we would have an easy access to these railways, to the Intercolonial going east and west, to the International running from Campbellton to St. Leonards and the border of the state of Maine, where it would connect with the American system of railways and would place the entire Gaspe Peninsula within 24 hours of Boston, the great .fish market of the United States. .We have in the Baie des Chaleurs some of the most magnificent fish in the province. We have pulpwood galore. We have untold wealth in minerals. We have all these resources, but we need a much better railway service. Before the Minister of Railways proceeds much further with this railway legislation, I trust he will give this state of affairs his serious consideration. He will find in the archives of his department a very elaborate report issued last year by one of his officials, Mr. Fraser, who went down there and made a thorough investigation into the whole system. In this report Mr. Fraser points out that these 200 miles are the most valuable branch of the Intercolonial east of Montreal. Still they are inadequately unoperated, the people have not the service, and the Canadian National Railways are without the proceeds that would be derived from the proper operation of these roads. We have a huge deficit in connection with our Canadian National Railways and the only way in which that deficit can be reduced is by obtaining business for the system. Here is an excellent opportunity. People are willing to stay at home here and are anxious to develop the place. We find here large families, and the people are not

troubled with any advanced hour or any eight-hour-a-day system, nor are they bothered with labour unions. They are of the old type of Canadians who inhabited this country years ago. This is an ideal country for the development of all our industries and, as I have observed, there are large families-families of ten, twelve and fifteen children are frequent. We have lately seen at Gaspe itself the creation of a new diocese, which in the province of Quebec means the centre of a large district; and the absorbing powers of the French-Canadian race are strikingly exemplified in the fact that the first Roman Catholic bishop of this diocese is the Right Rev. Monseigneur Ross, the descendant of a Scotsman, though a French-Canadian himself. This part of the province of Quebec has thus become the nucleus of a new district, and when the Minister of Railways is considering this development of the National Railway system generally he will find a very notable example of what has occurred in the Lake St. John district as well as in the Chicoutimi district in the fact that this part of the province of Quebec has been erected into a diocese with a bishop in charge. He will also see in the Three Rivers district a section of the country that is fast becoming the industrial centre of the whole of Canada.

I am in favour of immigration, and during the past twenty-five years I have voted for the expenditure of millions untold for this purpose, for the construction of railways, and for the advancement of Canada generally. But really I consider that this part of the province of Quebec has been overlooked; and when His Honour the Speaker and myself placed the matter before Sir Henry Thornton on a purely business basis he was amazed at the state of affairs that actually existed. To such an extent, indeed, did it appeal to him that he offered at once to undertake the operation of these railways as branch lines of 'the Intercolonial. But we are held up by these English companies who are keeping the roads alive merely for the purpose of obtaining their price. Now, there must be a solution for this condition of things, and I call upon the Minister of Justice (Sir Lomer Gouin), who is familiar with the province of Quebec, his colleague, the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham), and the government, to p-ovide this solution as soon as possible. We are not asking for the construction of railways; we are merely asking for the operation of a railway that has already been constructed, a portion of it forty years ago and the other portion within the last fifteen years. We simply want to give to the people the service to which they

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are entitled; and that they are entitled to this service is admitted by the Railway Commission and all officials who have gone over the ground. I trust therefore that proper attention will be given tins matter before long and that the people of Gaspe peninsula will receive that consideration which they have a right to expect at the hands of the country.

Mr. HANSON; I am sure the Minister of Railways must have a heart of stone if he does not give heed to the eloquence of the hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. MarcilV While this subject is under consideration I want to call to his attention the position of a branch line of the Intercolonial railway.

Mr. MARCIL:

Would the hon. member bo kind enough to allow me just a few more words beforp he proceeds?

Mr. HANSON:

I should rather like to continue; the topic I propose discussing is akin to the one just dealt with by my hon. friend. There is in the province of New Brunswick a line known as the Kent Northern railway, the only branch line in the province which has not been taken over by the Dominion. That line was included in the scheme projected by the Minister of Railways in the late government, and but for the attitude of the owners it would ere this have formed a part of the government railway system. I understand that the only difficulty in the old days was with regard to the price. The government at that time were willing to pay $60,000 for the twenty-eight miles of railway line, while the company that owned the property expected considerable more. It has lately come to my knowledge, however, that the company is now willing to sell at the offer originally made by the government, and I will ask that the Minister of Railways, while he is taking into consideration the appeal of the hon. member for Bonaventure. to give serious heed to the request of the people of the county of Kent in New Brunswick, that that line be taken over. During the recent very severe winter the people of that county, numbering some 25,000, were for forty-two days without railway communication. This is a great handicap to a part of the country, such as this is, that is well settled and is thriving industrially, besides being a considerable farming and fishing community. These people are entitled to a better service and the only possible means of providing such a service is for the government to take over this branch line. Again I ask the minister to take into earnest and serious consideration the question of acquiring that line.

Mr. CASGRAIN:

While in opposition I took the opportunity on various occasions to call to the attention of the Minister of Railways the situation in regard to certain branch lines which were at that time needed in the county I have the honour to represent, the county of Charlevoix. These two branch lines extend respectively from Baie St. Paul to St. Urbain and from Murray Bay to Naim fall. The distance between St. Paul and St. Urbain is nine miles and the line would cost approximately $200,000. I had the assurance of the Minister of Railways at that time, Hon. J. D. Reid, that he would send his engineers to look over the site with a view to seeing whether something could not be done in the immediate future. This, I might observe, was in the year 1920, or perhaps in 1921. There is a great mine operated by the Titanium Ore Company in this district; and the General Electric Company of the United States, during the war, succes-fully operated a mine next to it. I have no doubt that if proper facilities were afforded by a branch line the people that now own the capital stock of the Titanium Ore Company, and who belong to the province of Quebec would be able to carry on operations that would prove of great benefit to that district. At St. Urbain there is a national park which the Department of the Interior has set aside as a special reserve for fishing and hunting, while there are a great number of clubs under the control of the provincial government in this locality. As in the case of the county which my hon. friend (Mr. Marcil) represents a great number of visitors from various parts of Canada, as well as from the United States, and indeed, from other parts of the province of Quebec, pass through this district of which I am speaking, every year, spring, summer and fall, and I am sanguine that if this branch line were built it would increase that traffic and bring more money and people to the place. This district is also a great farming centre, from which butter, cheese and other products are shipped to other parts of the province of Quebec. Then there is the other branch line to which I have referred, from Murray Bay to Naim fall. It was constructed eleven years ago before the main line of the Saguenay railway was built. But up to the present time the government has not officially taken possession of it. The line has been leased for a nominal rental to a pulp company. I am informed that about $100,000 would put the line into proper shape. A great deal of cheese and butter

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is produced in this district and extensive lumbering operations are carried on, so that there is plenty of freight business for the railway. Although the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Graham) and the new board of directors of the Canadian National Railways have apparently overlooked the transportation requirements of my district, I hope that they will take the matter once more into consideration and do something. There is also the completion of the Quebec and Saguenay Railway, to Chicoutimi from Murray Bay, a distance of about 55 miles, which has to be undertaken in the very near future if the main railway is to be made to pay. The previous government was very free with assurances that in the very near future they would do something for these people, but apparently these were merely election promises. I hope the new government will do better than their predecessors. To this end, I would extend to the hon. Minister of Railways and Canals another invitation to visit this district next July, when I am sure they will agree with me that Baie St. Paul and Murray Bay for scenic beauty are not equalled anywhere else in the Dominion-in fact they will be charmed with the delightful county of Charlevoix-Montmorency.

Mr. LEGER:

I can assure my hon. friend from York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) that the railway in Kent was looked after by those more closely concerned in the interests of the county long before he was politically born. If we have not control of the branch lines down there it is not the fault of the Conservative government; they made an offer to the provincial authorities, which offer was declined. I for one have done all I could with reference to the matter, without bringing it before the House as a complaint against any government, and to-day it is being looked after by this government in a way which I think will be for the advantage of my county.

I can assure my hon. friend that this business is in good hands and that we can get along fairly well without his interference.