Mr. R. L. BORDEN (Halifax).

Before the Orders of the Day are called, I would like to know whether or not the documents in connection with the Bill to amend the Audit Act have been laid on the Table, or when they are likely to be laid on the Table. I mentioned some of them the other day, documents and correspondence with which the Bill had to do. I should have mentioned at that time any opinions from the Department of Justice with reference to the difficulties that have arisen between the Auditor General and the Department of Finance. I understand that there is one opinion given, I think, by the Deputy Minister of Justice within a' few months.

They will all be brought down.

Mr. CLARKE.

I would like to know upon what principle the subdivision of the city of Toronto is made ? Every recognized rule supposed to govern a matter of this kind is completely ignored. Take the case of South Toronto, where the hon. gentlemen have succeeded in carving out a constituency where they hope to get a majority of 150. They have done that by taking a strip about 400 yards wide running from near the Humber bridge down to the Don bridge. They have taken a piece here and there off each of the other constituencies. It is the most extraordinary looking constituency that can be found in the Dominion of Canada. I would like to know why they departed from the recognized boundaries of the constituencies heretofore existing, from the boundaries of the ridings, from concession lines, and from every other landmark in making this division ?

I cannot understand the hon. member for Toronto in asserting that there is any difference in dealing with the county of York from the rule followed elsewhere. My hon. friend knows that this matter was referred to the committee. In the last redistribution almost every other one of the great counties of Ontario had been cut up, and parts taken from one county and added to another, or some constituencies were in three or four counties. My hon. friend knows that, and he knows that they had left parts of the municipality of Toronto in the county of York. He knows that when this matter was referred to the special committee, the principle of county boundaries was adopted. There has been no variation from that rule except by agreement. Then we were bound to take the population of the city of Toronto as it was within its municipal boundaries.

Mr. CLARKE.

But the hon. gentleman has not answered my question as to why such a scandalous division has been made.

My hon. friend knows that there were two plans of division submitted to the committee. The members of the committee could have but little knowledge of the local conditions in a large city like Toronto. Plans were prepared, and the members for Toronto, as I understand, handed in a proposition. I will ask the hon. gentleman who is familiar with the local conditions, to point out wherein every principal that was adopted by the committee as ruling principles was not violated in the proposition submitted by himself and his colleagues. I asked him to explain that when it was before the committee. Now we are

getting accustomed to hear the hon. gentleman and his friends get up in the House and talk about these scandalous transactions, without any evidence whatever. I am surprised to hear my hon. friend from West Toronto using language of that kind. We had before us two propositions submitted to the committee for consideration. They were compared, and I would like the hon. gentleman to point out where the proposition adopted by the committee has less merit than the one he and his colleagues submitted.

Mr. CLARKE.

Of course we all know that the hon. gentleman is simply bluffing, if that is a parliamentary term. He has not attempted to answer a plain question. The subdivision of South Toronto is indefensible, and nobody knows it better than the hon. gentleman and those who are associated with him. To take a strip of territory 400 yards wide and six miles long and constitute it one division of a city-I say no more indefensible proposition was ever made to any community. There is no community of interest between the extreme east and the extreme west of the city, there is no compactness in the division. The division was made for the sole and only purpose of trying to get a liberal representative. If, according to our proposition, the territory east of Yonge street were given two members, and1 the territory west of Spadina avenue were given two members all classes of the citizens would be represented, the industrial classes, the manufacturing classes, the commercial and professional classes. I ask those gentlemen why in subdividing the city of Toronto, they have taken a strip from the extreme western limit at the Humber about 400 yards wide in some places, and fifty yards wide in others, a strip running along the front of the city, and constituted that into a constituency ?

The hon. gentleman said I was bluffing, and! he had a splendid opportunity to have called that bluff, and to have shown it to the committee. I told the hon. gentleman that there were two propositions before this committee, and let the hon. gentleman, instead of imputing motives to the members of the committee, point out any principle that is violated in this proposition that was not violated previously. He ought to be more familiar with the local conditions than the members of the committee. Let him go back and show where there is any principle violated in this that was not violated in the last readjustment of that constituency as it now exists. Take it backwards or forwards. I am prepared to take him on his own proposition, and I ask him to show, as between the two propositions, that there has not been in this one a more evident attachment to principle and to the rules that ought to govern a redistribution

of seats in a city, tlian was shown in the last redistribution.

Mr. CLARKE.

I am asking the hon. gentleman to show the difference, I am asking for information.

If the hon. gentleman wants to discuss it seriously, I will give my views in regard to it, and I will leave it to the judgment of the committee as to whether I am right or not. The municipality of Toronto has to be divided into five constituencies. By adhering as nearly as possible to a community of interest and to a fair division of a city, we find that the populations of the various divisions are as follows :

South Toronto 38,205

East Toronto 39,529

North Toronto 41,454

Centre Toronto 43,851

West Toronto 44,991

The hon. gentlemen opposite, instead of getting up and moving an amendment to any portion of this Bill which does not suit them, get up and say : This was done for political or partisan motives. Let any hon. member of this House take the two propositions and compare them, and let him judge as to whether those who made the division of the city of Toronto, dividing it into five equal constituencies, were influenced by political motives as much as those who made the propoposition in amendment which violates every rule that could apply to a fair redistribution. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Clarke) proposes to have one constituency with two members. What is the reason for that ? There is no rule that I can understand that applies to it. On the contrary, that principle would never be adopted unless for some good and sufficient reason.

Therefore, the rule requiring the equalization of population which would govern the committee in making a division of this kind has been adhered to ns nearly as possible. In a city like Toronto, with a large population, this is almost an equal division of the population. Then, as to the complaint which has been made, and as to the proposition which has been submitted by the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Clarke), I will leave it to the committee to say if the divisions as embodied in the Bill are not compact in form, and if they do not carry out the rule as to the community of interest. I will tell the hon. gentleman why his proposition is a worse one than that which is embodied in the Bill. In the first place, the hon. gentleman, for some reason or other, puts two constituencies into one. If the hon. gentleman had made a proposition to avoid an inequality of population or to conform to wards or other municipal divisions, indefensible as it might be in some respects, he would have applied1 some-principle to his proposition that might have influenced the committee. What principle was there in his proposition? For some reason, I do not know what, it appeared to him and the other members from Toronto that it would- be better, instead of making equal and fair divisions as we are making and to have one member for every constituency, to have one constituency represented by two members.

Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).

Why not?

I said on one occasion that I thought perhaps these hon. gentlemen were influenced by political motives in making this proposition.