Mr. STEWART (Leeds) :

I have been hoping for the last hour that I might be able to give to every hon. member of the house information as to every item in the schedule. I suggest to my hon. friend that it is not usual or proper to disclose item by item what is in the schedule of a bill to be introduced, I know that the Minister of Finance is anxious to get a pressing item of business through, and if we cannot make progress I think I shall have to move the committee up and ask leave to sit again. But I should like to get the bill in to-night, and then my hon. friend will have the information he is now seeking.

Mr. MeINTOSH: If the minister is bound to introduce the bill to-night I can conclude my remarks later.

Mr. STEWART (Leeds):

I should like to.

Mr. POULIOT:

Before the committee rises, I regret very much that the statement has been made that some private firms besides the railway companies will benefit under this legislation. The work for the railways should be done first by the railways themselves. For instance at Riviere du Loup there are fine shop's, but very few men are working there because not sufficient repairs are done by the railways themselves. This resolution relates to the guarantee of securities of both railway companies, the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific. With regard to the Canadian National, very often we have heard the government complain of the burden of the railway debt of this country and liabilities incurred on account of guarantees of railway securities. Very often we have heard the Prime Minister speak about that. I am suspicious about this resolution because it is neither in the name of the Minister of Railways nor in the name of the Minister of Public Works; it is in the name of the Prime Minister himself. Sir, there is a reason why I object to the terms of this resolution; it is that the Canadian Pacific

Public Works Program

Railway comes into tbs picture. How can we get information, about what is done with that money? It will be impossible. I remember very well when the Canadian National-Canadian Pacific bill came before the house a year ago one of the reasons given by the Minister of Railways for submitting the bill to the committee of the whole was the expense of paying witnesses if called before the select standing committee on railways and shipping. I put a question concerning that on the order paper, and it was struck out by Mr. Speaker as being out of order. Then I wrote to the Minister of Railways asking him for information, and he said he could not give it to me, that I should direct my question to someone in the senate. Then I wrote to the government leader in the senate and he suggested that I 'have an address voted by the house to get information about the cost of witnesses heard by the railway committee of the senate. Finally a senator was kind enough to ask the question for me in the senate, and the answer was that the cost of witnesses heard by the senate railway committee in regard to that legislation was nil.

If the Canadian Pacific Railway Company gets some guarantee from this government and it is impossible for us to trace it back and get any information about it from that company, I do not see why this country should guarantee any more loans to them. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company is a very strange organization. They come here and beg, and the money they got from us under former guarantees or otherwise we cannot learn anything about. What we receive is the annual statement of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. We see these people in the corridor, they come here begging, and afterwards it is impossible to get information. Not only that, but while the country is subsidizing the Canadian Pacific Railway Company we get lectures from Mr. Beatty, their president, from coast to coast. Every member of the House of Commons should have the opportunity of asking questions of Mr. Beatty the same as questions are asked of Mr. Hunger-ford. These people give us lectures all the tirnq, but it is impossible to get information we want. It is time for a change. This, sir, is a humble suggestion that I have to offer to the Minister of Railways in order that he might submit officials of the Canadian Pacific Railway to examination as is done in the case of the1 Canadian National.

Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in. Mr. Stewart (Leeds) thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 63, to create employment by public works and undertakings throughout Canada and to

authorize the guarantee of certain railway equipment securities.

Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

Mr. SPEAKER:

Is the house ready for the question? Mr. Rhodes moves:

That all the amendments proposed by the senate to Bill No. 15, an act to amend the Canadian Farm Loan Act, be concurred in with the exception of amendments Nos. 13 and 14, in which amendments this house does not concur for the following reason; _

That farm property being at the present time at its lowest value, a total advance of sixty-six and two-thirds per cent of the appraised' value of a farm would secure a much smaller loan than would have been secured at fifty per cent valuation a few years ago.

.Mr. LAPOINTE: Are all the amendments printed?

Mr. RHODES:

Yes, I explained to the house on Friday that they are to be found in the votes and proceedings of April 11. They are also to be found in the reprinted bill which has been circulated.

Mr. CASGRALN:

It is an entirely new bill.

Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):

I assume this will be a matter of conference with the senate. One other question before the minister replies. Is it the intention only to protest against the two amendments which the minister mentioned on a former occasion?

Mr. RHODES:

Of course, Mr. Speaker, we are not in committee, but so long as no objection is taken I have no objection in answering. My motion is that we concur in all the amendments made by the senate except the amendment which provides for a lowering rather than an increasing of the appraised value of the land.

Mr. SPEAKER:

Is the house ready for the question?

Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):

May I ask whether if this motion carries we go into committee on these senate amendments for explanation?

Mr. RHODES:

No.

Mr. 'GARLAND (Bow River): With all due respect to the minister, he is not fair with the house. These things are too important. The minister comes in with an

Farm Loan Act

omnibus motion rejecting two of the senate amendments and accepting all the rest. I take grave exception to some of the amendments, and it seems to me that the minister is not justified in the course he is taking. I am opposed to the adoption of this motion.

Mr. RHODES:

It is just too bad if the hon. member is opposed to the amendments. That would be a great pity, although of course he is quite entitled to his opinion. But I do take exception to his statement that the minister is not fair to the house. The minister is simply following the accepted procedure which has been followed in this house for the past fifty or sixty years.

Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):

The procedure is very wrong then.

Mr. RHODES:

My hon. friend is sometimes wrong. Nevertheless it is the procedure laid down by this house.

Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):

Then I

withdraw my previous remark and I say that the procedure is unfair to the house, most unfair. We should have an opportunity of fully considering each of these amendments before we are asked to vote on them, because some of them are extremely important.

Mr. LAPOINTE:

Mr. Speaker, I was just

going to make the same remark as my hon. friend did, but not perhaps in quite the same way. Usually there comes back from the senate to this house a bill with a slight amendment or two, and it is easy to accept or reject the amendment without this house going very deeply into the matter, but when a bill comes back so amended that it is practically a new piece of legislation, containing many important amendments, I do not think it is quite a good procedure merely to move the adoption of the amendments less two of them, without going into details as to the many changes made in the bill by the other house. I know that that is the usual procedure, and the minister is quite right in making that statement, but with regard to an important piece of legislation such as this, containing so many amendments, I think it is only fair to the house that each amendment should be considered separately.

Mr. RHODES:

The house, of course, is

the arbiter of its own procedure, and my hon. friend would be the first to admit that. I would not take exception to an alteration of the procedure if an alteration was deemed desirable, but I was confronted with this situation, that unless this bill is passed before the adjournment it will be a matter of at least five or six weeks before it can become law, and

in the meantime we shall have deprived three provinces of an opportunity to secure mortgage money at all. I thought it would be the part of wisdom to concur in the amendments as a whole with the exceptions of the ones I have noted, even though there might be others to which one might take exception, although as I indicated when I moved my motion in the first instance, while the amendments are numerous, most of them are of a minor character. There are two perhaps of a major character. One of them I think is undoubtedly designed to strengthen the bill. The one I have particularly in mind is the one to which I think my hon. friend from Bow River objects. He apparently assumed that the provision which tended to give the crown in the right of the dominion priority as against provincial enactments which would tend to detract from the security was a provision against the interests of the borrower. On the contrary, that provision was inserted in the bill in order to ensure that the crown in the right of the dominion could make its loans with safety in the province, and therefore could lend more freely. It would be a protection to the borrower, because if there was any danger of the security of the crown in the right of the dominion being impaired by provincial legislation you would find the dominion quite properly tightening up; it would not make loans, and the borrower, or intended borrower, would be the one who would suffer.

Coming back to the point I intended to make originally, may I say that the senate spent a long time in the consideration of this bill; whether or not they pursued their time profitably is a matter of opinion. I do not take exception to the time they took. The fact of the matter is that after giving the bill careful consideration they made a number of amendments. If we were now to insist upon the measure as we sent it from this chamber, and were to refuse to concur in certain amendments made by the senate, we would run the grave risk of not having the bill passed before the adjournment. My view is that it would be much better for us to accept the amendments which, in the main, are of a minor character and not fatal to the measure. I pointed out one that I thought was quite important, and another upon which there may be divided opinion, namely as to whether or not the amount to be lent to an individual farmer should be made greater than it was in the bill as it left this chamber. I felt that inasmuch as the amendments to which we have taken exception were two major amendments we might effect a compromise by accepting all of them with the exception of the ones to which I took objection. We had hoped the

Farm Loan Act

senate would concur and in that way have the measure pass this house to-morrow. That is the manner in which I had approached it. Had it been open to us to take ample time I should have had no objection to the bill being referred to committee of the whole, although under our procedure that is not possible except by unanimous consent.