Mr. WALLACE.

The question is :

Has the government abandoned its intention, declared last year, of proceeding with its construction?

That is the answer.

Mr. WALLACE.

No, it is not the answer. It is not a satisfactory answer.

Order, order.

Mr. WALLACE.

I am quite in order. I move the adjournment of the House. The government have not dealt fairly with me. In the English parliament and in this parliament, up to a recent period, the government have recognized the right of private members to ask proper and pertinent questions and to receive answers for the information of the House and the public. This way of disposing of a question, is not, I am sure, satisfactory to the House, or to the country. It is not an answer at all. The government, last year, in their estimates, proposed a vote of $5,000 for the purpose of procuring land and proceeding with the erection of a public building in Toronto Junction. I asked a question in the early part of the session, and was informed by the hon. Minister of Public "Works just what I am informed to-day, that the matter was engaging the attention of the government. Nearly a year has elapsed, and nothing has been done according to the answer given to the first question on the Order paper. Nothing whatever has been done. Now. I want to know, whether anything is going to be done,

Whether the money that was voted is going to be used, or whether a single thing has been done towards supplementing their proposal last year, or whether there simply was a vote of money made in order to Influence the electors of the town of Toronto Junction, immediately before an election, or whether, because the town of Toronto Junction did not choose to vote confidence in the government, they are going to be punished now, and that the government after pledging themselves in that way, are not going to erect that public building. The hon. Minister of Public Works, when he is asked, the question :

Has the government abandoned its intention, declared last year, of proceeding with its construction ?

Says the question is engaging the attention of the government. It cannot engage the attention of the government unless the government say : We made a pledge last year to the citizens of Toronto Junction, and we are considering to-day whether we will violate that solemn pledge that we made. That is the position, and that is the statement made by the hon. Minister of Public Works. I do not believe in that kind of way of doing business. I believe in a straightforward way.

Hear, hear.

Mr. WALLACE.

If the government have made up their minds that they are going to abandon the project of putting up a public building in Toronto Junction let them get up and say so like men in answer to this question of mine. Instead of saying, when asked a question, it is still receiving the attention of the government. That is not the way to do business, and it is not the way that parliament should be treated in these matters.

Mr. W. H. BENNETT (East Simcoe).

Mr. Speaker, I think it is only fair to the House that when an hon. member asks a question he should not be treated in the cavalier manner in which the Minister of Public Works takes it upon himself to treat the House. It was, in the last parliament, a matter of comment and complaint that that parliament, as compared with former parliaments. was a very cheap one, but, if the last parliament was a cheap one compared with former parliaments, I would like to ask what the present parliament is compared with the last one. It is going lower and lower .every day, and this is because of such action as the action of the hon. Minister of Public Works. When questions are asked in the House, and when they are allowed to stand over day after day owing to the fact that ministers are not in their places, when the House is almost deserted, when out of 130 government representatives there are rarely ever more than twenty-five or thirty in their Mr. WALLACE.

places, public business is being treated in a most flippant manner, and so long as ministers will treat it as flippantly as the hon. Minister of Public Works treats it, by refusing point blank to answer questions, so long must this cheapening of the House go on. The hon. member for West York (Mr. Wallace) is surprised. I am not at all surprised at the way In which the government treated him. Prior to the last general election in East Simcoe, the hon. Postmaster General (Mr. Mulock) was asked to do what ? In a part of the country where there was no necessity whatever of granting a daily mail, and where there had never been a daily mail before, a daily mail, on the eve of the election, was granted.

Order, order.

Mr. BENNETT.

The hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Hon. Sir Louis Davies) says order. No doubt the hon. gentleman does not like me to speak of such things. It was a most shamefaced thing, and when the election was over the daily mail service was withdrawn.

Mr. SPEAKER.

The hon. gentleman (Mr. Bennett) has only a right to refer to the point raised by the hon. member for West York (Mr. Wallace), who moved the adjournment.

Mr. BENNETT.

I was just referring to this incident, Mr. Speaker, by way of illustration. All I can say is that if hon. gentlemen wish to expedite the business of the House it would be much better that ministers should answer questions when they are placed upon the Order paper, and if they are not answered, the only course left open will be to move the adjournment, and in that way to provoke discussion.

Mr. R. L. BORDEN (Halifax).

Mr. Speaker, it is undesirable that we should have any difficulty over this question. When we come to look at the questions which the hon. Minister of Public Works (Mr. Tarte) answered in a general way, we shall see that they were capable of a distinct answer. They do not seem to be questions which were improper or offensive in any respect whatever.

If no site has yet been selected, what steps have been taken to do so.

That is a definite question, a perfectly proper question and an answer to it, it seems to me, would furnish information which the House is entitled to receive.

If nothing has been done, why not?

Is it the intention of the government to place a sum in the estimates for 1901-2 for the construction of said building ?

Unless there is some technical objection to that. I do not see any reason why it should not be answered.

Has the government abandoned its intention, declared last year, of proceeding with its construction?

Surely the House is entitled to know what the intention of the government is with regard to that. Their intention was announced last year, and when the hon. gentleman (Mr. Wallace) inquires whether or not the government has abandoned that intention, the only answer received to that and to all these questions, is, that these matters are engaging the attention of the government. That is an extremely vague answer ; it is, in fact, no answer at all. I would suggest to the right hon. gentleman who leads the House that it is desirable in the interest of expediting public business, that answers of a somewhat more definite nature, in cases of this kind, might very well be given by ministers having charge of the departments.

My hon. friend (Mr. Borden, Halifax) knows that very great latitude is given ministers in answering questions, and when a minister states his judgment it is not open to any hon. gentleman to criticise it. If the answer is deemed insufficient the question might be repeated at another date.

Mr. WALLACE.

What is the good of asking the question again, if the answer is not given ?

Sometimes there is a disagreement between the hon. gentleman who asks the question and the minister, and an understanding may perhaps be come to and the answer given.

Mr. WALLACE.

I might mention, to the right hon. gentleman that this is virtually the second time that I have put this question on the Order paper ; at the beginning of the session, and now.

Very good ; and the answer given is that the matter is under consideration. We are asked if it is the intention of the government to place a sum in the estimates for 1901, and the hon. leader of the opposition knows that the answer to such a question always is : You will have to wait until the estimates are brought down. The question again is put : If the government has abandoned its intention, and the minister very frankly says that the matter is under consideration. If the hon. gentleman (Mr. Wallace) does not see an (item in the estimates for this, it will be open for him to take any recourse he thinks proper.

Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).

Surely there should be some definite answer given to question No. 5.

The answer to questions 5, 6, 7 and 8 is, that the whole matter is under consideration. The minister is considering as to the site and as to

the policy and everything else, and the question is as fully answered as it should be.