Mr. BLAIN.

Is there any correspondence in the Public Works Department from the municipalities of Granville, or Annapolis, or from the local government with respect to this work?

Mr. PUGSLEY.

Not since I became a minister, that I have seen.

Mr. BLAIN.

Prior to that?

Mr. PUGSLEY.

I do not know.

Mr. BLAIN.

If there is, will the correspondence be brought down?

Mr. PUGSLEY.

I shall be glad to lay it on the table.

Mr. SPROULE.

According to the trade and navigation returns, there were in Annapolis Royal only eighteen vessels from the United States, one from the British West Indies and one from Norway, carrying an aggregate of 1,679 tons.

Mr. PATERSON.

There is the coasting trade in addition.

Mr. A. K. MACLEAN.

I regret to sec that the estimates for harbours and rivers for Nova Scotia do not contain any sum for contract dredging. Last year contracts were awarded for dredging work in some of the harbours and rivers of Nova Scotia, and I trust that my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works may see his way to making provision for the carrying out of those contracts. In my own constituency dredging is most necessary in one or two cases, and I trust that the minister will be able to have an additional vote of $200,000 or $300,000 placed in the supplementary estimates to provide for such cases. I am quite willing that a great many of the usual items under the head of Harbours and Rivers should be abandoned this year; but the matter of dredging is very important, and I think the government and the House generally would agree to a supplementary vote for dredging in several of the provinces.

Mr. BLAIN.

It has been abandoned in a great many sections in the western part of Canada.

Mr. A. K. MACLEAN.

The necessity for dredging may not be so great on the great lakes as it is in the maritime provinces. Another remark I wish to make is that in the province of Nova Scotia at least we have not received from the government dredges the amount of work annually that we might fairly expect. I think that has been the case ever since confederation. The dredges do not get to work early enough in the spring and stop too earlv in the autumn, and the number of hours they work daily is altogether too small. There are a number of places in the province of Nova Scotia where the dredges could easily work all winter. The office in St. John appears to be altogether too inactive and too slow in its supervision of the work. In the province of Nova Scotia we have never obtained the amount of dredging which the necessities of our ports and' harbours demand. Therefore my request is twofold-that we should get more work out of the_ government dredges than we have been doing from confederation down, and that a vote of $200,000 o. $300,000 be placed in the supplementary estimates to carry on dredging in the province of Nova Scotia, for which contracts were entered into in 1908.

Mr. SPROULE.

Would you get better results from dredging done by the government or by contractors?

Mr. A. K. MACLEAN.

I would prefer the work to be done by contractors.

Mr. EMMERSON.

I would like to emphasize the remarks of my hon. friend from Lunenburg. I quite appreciate the neces-1 sity of suspending, for a time at least, all

works that are not absolutely essential; but in the matter of dredging, in some instances where the work has been under contract and has been commenced, I do not observe in the estimates anything for its continuance this year. That may possibly be reasonable in some instances, but in one particular instance of which I am cognizant, the result will be, that if the work is not continued during this season, the work that was done last year will be practically lost to the department. There was some dredging required in Baie Verte, on the border line between Westmoreland and Cumberland. For very many years the municipalities have been asking to have this dredging done, and at the last session of parliament a vote was passed for the purpose, and a contract was entered into, and the work commenced. It was for the purpose of dredging_ a bar which blocked the entrance to the river and the harbour. For some reason this work was suspended in the early autumn, when the bar was only half cut through. If that work is proceeded with this year, and a cutting made through the channel, the work done last season will be available; but if it is allowed to stand and no money provided for the continuance of that contract, the work done last summer will fill in and be practically lost. It seems to me that the minister, in order to save the money already expended should make provision for the continuance of that work. I refer particularly to the dredging of the Port Elgin harbour on the Gaspereau river in the Baie Verte. I would ask the minister to bear this in mind, as it is coupled with the request of my hon. friend from Lunenburg (Mr. Maclean). The conditions at Port Elgin are certainly such that the case is much stronger, and I would like to emphasize what has already been said in that regard.

Mr. GAUVREAU.

Mr. EMMERSON.

Thursday, March 11, 1909.