Hon. Mr. HAGGART.

Suppose a case like this occurs. Freight is being carried from the port of Buffalo on the American side to Montreal. The Canadian Pacific Railway has a line between these two points, on which the rate is fixed by the commission. Some time or other they may have to compete with the American route for the traffic. Is there any provision in the Bill which would allow them to do that ?

It would be allowed on competitive business.

Hon. Mr. HAGGART.

Suppose the railway were competing with water transportation, it would be allowed to lower its rates. But fifty or sixty times in the year a foreign railway company, when they find that the rate's on our railways are fixed

between Buffalo and Montreal and that they could not charge any less without the consent of the board, might immediately lower their rates and take the whole of the freight from our railways. It seems to me that more elasticity should be allowed to the companies. *

Mr. DAVIS.

1 think that the hon. member for Lanark (Hon. Mr. Haggart) is perfectly right. In the United States that principle has been adopted. I notice that in one instance from Kansas city to Buffalo, while fixed rates were something like 12 cents, the actual rate charged was 5 cents per one hundred pounds. The same thing applied between Chicago and Buffalo. When the water rates come in, if you tied the railways up to a certain rate, they could not do anything at all. So long as they do not discriminate, I think you should allow them to cut rates as low as possible.

Mr. BARKER.

The difficulty I see about the principle which the hon. minister is trying to establish is this, that it virtually makes the board traffic manager of all the railways. They have to know everything that goes on from week to week, settle the rates, variable as those must be according to the exigencies of business. The hon. gentleman says that an emergency caii be met by the company acting upon it and afterwards giving reasonable explanation, but apart from emergency altogether, the traffic manager of a railway has from time to time to consider all the surroundings, and while lie cannot raise the tariff rates he may be forced, by circumstances beyond his control to carry for less than those rates. If the board must be consulted on all these occasions, they will be virtually traffic managers of the road and be given all the discretion that ought to be given the officials of a road carrying on a commercial business. The hon. gentleman has not shown ns the necessity for this. He has told us what he intends doing and why he thinks there is no difficulty, but how this will benefit the public he has not said, and I should think that there ought to be some very good reason indeed why a railway should not be allowed to charge as little as it likes, provided it charges everybody on the same scale.

The hon. gentleman must see the importance, the absolute necessity of the board being advised of changes in rates, if it is to exercise proper supervision over these rates. No one imagines that any railway commission would lie averse to a railway company carrying its traffic at the lowest possible rate, and there will be no fault found with any tariff which a railway company may propose because the rates are too low unless it be a discriminatory tariff. But unless you have some sort of control over

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tlie tariff which they make, how are you to juuge whether or not the company are discriminating ? The hoard will then he at a great loss to form a judgment and to deal with the question of discrimination in an efficient manner. If you are to allow a railway company, without the knowledge of the railway commission, to reduce tins rates, you will be undermining one of the safeguards provided in this Bill for the public protection. I have listened carefully to the objection made on behalf of the railways, but I do not see that I could abolish this principle in the Bill without greatly weakening and impairing the control of rates by the board. With these tariffs before it, the board will be able to see whether or not: rates are being lowered in one direction or another for the purpose of discrimination, One ol' the things that the people most complain of is discrimination, and wherever it exists it ought to be stopped, and we are moving in that direction.

Jlr. BARKER.

I would like the hon. gentleman to consider whether he is not, by the method he is adopting, destroying in fact the competition between railway companies. I suppose he will concede that in a particular district, when the board settles the tariff, it will settle it for all railway companies. That being so, the board says to each railway company : Ton must carry at such a rate and no lower, but it is not uncommon that all the, railway companies in tlie same district will not have exactly the same opinion as to how low a rate they can charge. Take the Canadian Pacilic Railway and the Grand Trunk Railway, the Grand Trunk Railway may be of opinion that it could carry at a live cent rate and the Canadian Pacific Railway might be of the opinion that it would require a six cent rate. The board, by its decision, might deprive the public of the benefit of the lower late.

Where competition exists, each company may make its rates. There is nothing in this Act which suggests that a railway company may not charge lower rates than the tariff. On the contrary, the probability is recognized that that will be done. A railway company may make its rate as low as it pleases. All it has to do is to file its tariff and the board will not disallow it except where it is a discriminating tariff.

Mr. BARKER.

How would the hon. gentleman deal with the ease where one railway wanted to carry at the rate of five cents and the other wanted to charge six cents.

The hon. gentleman is talking about one railway now against another. But the question of discrimination does not arise in such a case. The question of discrimination. Mr. BLAIR.

tion arises when a railway company deals differently with its own customers.

Mr. BARKER.

I am speaking about tariffs which have been approved by the board. The tariff is binding on both companies. If one is willing to carry for less than that and the other is not, and you prevent one fr. m carrying at a less rate than that fixed by the tariff, you prevent competition.

Not at all. I must have failed altogether to make my meaning clear. I defy my hon. friend to point to a single syllable that will prevent competition. On the contrary everything points to competition. We do not require a tariff to be filed before a competitive rate is made.

Mr. BARKER.

I am not talking about an emergency tariff.

Neither am I. The question is as to competition. Whenever a railway is offered competitive business, business which another railway could get, if they do not take it, they are authorized to make a rate of what they please and take the business. The only thing is that they must give the board notice by filing the memoran dum showing the tariff they made on the business. Then they justify the tariff by the fact that they are giving it to get the business. Is that calculated to discourage competition ? I think not.

Hon. Mr. HAGGART.

The hon. minister's explanation seems so entirely different from the section itself. The section is :

And upon any such joint tariff being so duly filed and published, and published as provided in section 274, the company or companies shall, unless such tariff is disallowed by the board, charge the toll or tolls as specified therein, but until such tariff is so duly filed and published. no such toll or tolls shall be charged by the company or companies.

The hon. gentleman is not dealing with the question. The clause the hon. gentleman has read is not the only clause of the Bill bearing upon the general question of tariff. 'This is a clause relating to joint tariffs upon a continuous through-route business-where one railway hauls a part of the way and another must haul the rest, and they have a joint tariff. There are a great many branches and subdivisions of the tariff question, and it is very important not to confuse them, because it is impossible to discuss them intelligently if you do.

Hon. Mr. HAGGART.

Though this applies to joint tariffs, still fhe principle is there. A competitive tariff can be arranged where two roads must take part in the haul just the same as where the haul is altogether by one road.

Certainly.

Hou. Mr. HAGGART.

The same principle applies to the joint tariff as to the other. My opinion is that under this clause the company should be allowed to charge anything under the amount of toll approved of by the board, without furnishing the department of the government with the information, provided they do not discriminate in a joint tariff against any individual or place.

How would it be possible to insure the possession by the board of such information as would enable them to determine whether there was discrimination or not, if you allow the companies to make such charge as they please without furnishing the information as to what charge they have made ?

Hon. Mr. HAGGART What possible object is it for the board to know. They only want to know whether there has been discrimination or not. But, if there has been no discrimination against an individual or against a place, what possible object is it for the board to know whether the tariff charged is lower than that allowed by the board or not ?