TEMPLEMAN (Minister of Inland Revenue) moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 110) respecting agricultural fertilizers. He said: The present Act has been found unworkable and ineffective as a protection to the purchaser of fertilizers. It is proposed to repeal the present Act and substitute this one. There are some very important changes but the Bill is along the lines of the existing Act. It is desired to give greater security to farmers in purchasing fertilizers. It requires that all .manufacturers of fertilizers shall register and that they shall sell their products under registered numbers. It also provides that a guaranteed analysis shall be placed on every package of fertilizer sold and provides penalties for contraventions of the Act. A Bill was prepared last session, submitted to the Senate, brought to its second reading and circulated with a view to bringing it before the farmers and others interested in fertilizers. We have had a great many replies and criticisms of the proposed measure and they have been almost unanimously in favour of making a change. The present Bill therefore is in the form of a Bill introduced in the Senate last year with certain modifications and changes to meet the criticisms we have received.

Mr. J. D. REID (Grenville).

Could not the minister insert a clause in this Bill or introduce another Bill making similar provision with reference to the sale of feed for stock ? I have had many complaints from farmers that when they purchased feed, seeds and other things which they did not purchase were found.

Mr. TEMPLEMAN.

The question of an Act regulating the sale of food for stock has been under consideration since last session. Several delegations have visited Ottawa and had interviews with the Min-

ister of Agriculture and myself, and the question of preparing and submitting a Bill at the present session, something along the line of this Bill, is receiving consideration. I hope to come to a conclusion in a week or so with regard to it.

Hon. FRANK OLIVER (Minister of the Interior).

The amendment proposed by the Senate is made at the suggestion of the department and is intended to meet a condition which has arisen by reason of the very large numbers of patents now being granted. Section 90 of the Act relates to the preparation and signing of patents. Provision is made that the patent shall be transmitted to the Secretary of State, by whom, or by the Under Secretary of State, it shall be countersigned. The number of patents has become so great that the signing of them becomes too great a tax upon the time of either the Secretary or the Under Secretary of State and the amendment prepared by the Senate and offered for the assent of the House provides that the patents may be countersigned either by the Secretary of State, the Under Secretary of State as at present, or by ' some other person thereunto specially authorized by the Governor in Council.5 That is the whole amendment and its purpose.

Amendment concurred In.

Mr. W. F. MACLEAN (South York).

Mr. Speaker, before you leave the Chair I desire to bring to the attention of the House a letter which I received this morning as follows :

36 Craig Street West, Montreal.

Dear sir,-I want to ask you to help me to get my money refunded from the Grand Trunk Railway. I came from Toronto and left there Tuesday last. They sold me a second-class ticket and checked my luggage. No one said a word or stopped me getting on the 10.15 p.m. train, but when the conductor came round he demanded $3.35 from me or to make me leave the train. I paid under protest and send you the receipt. I know you are the man who is fighting this question and can get what is right for me.

Hear, hear.

Mr. W. F. MACLEAN.

Sometimes we do get a little compliment outside of this House. The letter continues:

Mr. TEMPLEMAN.

I have travelled by the same train, 10.15 p.m., from Toronto to Montreal, three times before and they have always taken my second-class ticket without a word. I am told that the company are bound to carry second-class passengers by that train. Will you put me right on this matter? Thanking you in anticipation.

Yours truly,

Mr. FOSTER.

Had they no second-class accommodation on that train?

Mr. W. F. MACLEAN.

I am not in a position to say whether they had or not, but the man was entitled to travel at that rate. It makes every Canadian's blood boil with indignation at the thought that the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific Railway Companies carry all the travel that originates in the United States across Canada for

two cents a mile or less, gladly accepting that fare, and at the same time threaten to eject a Canadian who demands similar treatment. How long will we stand that in this country? Yet, it is going on every day.

I have investigated it, and I have had it proved time and time again that on travel which originates in Michigan or New York state, the same being true at the Soo and on the Manitoba border, it is carried for two cents a mile while a Canadian must pay three cents and he is not even given second class or third class accommodation. The conductor holds him up and says: If you do not pay this additional sum we will stop the train and put you off in the wilderness. They have done it. The case that we won in the Privy Council arose out of stoping a train and putting a reporter off because he would not pay the additional sum. I am not here to antagonize the railways of this country; I am not here to say or do anything against the Grand Trunk. But, I am here to ask these railways in the first place, to carry out their charter obligations, and, in the next place, to treat Canadians as well as they treat Americans. It is not antagonizing the railways. It is not making an, attack upon their credit or their capital ; but my contention is that they are bound to do this and that if they would agree to do it they would make more money and the people would appreciate it. At this very moment this same Grand Trunk Railway Company is a suppliant to parliament, asking this country to come to its relief in connection with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and we have already been told that it is to get relief. If the managers of that road are coming to parliament asking for relief is not this the time to put it up to them and say: You are not going to get any help until you carry out your charter obligations and until you agree to give as good treatment to Canadians as you give to people across the line. I know that Mr. Hays and some of his newspaper friends in this country say that I am making an unjust attack on the road and that the Canadian roads cannot live if they carry people at two cents a mile. It has been proved in the United States, as it has been proved wherever it has been tried, that cheap railway travel increases the revenue of the railways. I am prepared to stand here and prove that such is the case and that these roads are not going to be hurt. The attitude of Mr. Hays and of the railway companies is to give as little service as possible and to go at the public with a club. My contention is that they will make more money if they give a better and cheaper service. The people will spend as much money on railway travel but they will get a better service and there will be a better understanding between the railways and the public. I hope that I will 92

have the assistance of the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Railways in trying to get better treatment accorded to the Canadian travelling public and that no Canadian in future will be ejected from a train because he is asking for his rights and for equality of treatment.

Now, I want to pass to the question I raised the other day in this House with regard to the capitalization of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. I then told this House that the capitalization of railway companies was an important matter, that it bore directly on the traffic charges and I said that that had been found to be the case in the United States, and that if we would wait a few days we would hear the deliverance from the incoming president on the subject. Almost the first paragraph of President Taft's inaugural address the other day at Washington was to the effect that the time had come when the capitalization of interstate railways had to be regulated, and that the people who used the railways had to be protected with regard to tariff rates through the regulation of the capitalization of these railway companies. They have found it desirable in the United States that somebody should exercise a scrutiny over proposed increases in the capital of Tailway companies. Yet, here in Canada we have allowed the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to increase their capital by an immense amount, to divide over $60,000,000 amongst the shareholders, thus putting an unnecessary tax, I contend, on the traffic of this country to the extent of whatever the earnings on $60,000,000 may be. I was told that we had no concern with the capitalization. I have proved that we have by the statement of the President of the United States and by the law in existence in the state of New York, and I am now going to show something else which follows from over-capitalization. If we in this country are to establish the idea that this cutting of melons is to be the rule who will invest anything in railway securities unless a melon goes with it? And, strange to say, that very thing is being demonstrated in our own day. If the Canadian Pacific Railway cuts a melon, if it becomes the rule to issue stock in that way and if all the shareholders have the prospect of becoming-shall I say-millionaires, it will continue to do that business and nobody will buy any railway security that has not a bonus or a melon with it. What has happened? The Canadian Pacific Railway can sell all the stock they wish as long as there is a bonus or a melon to cut. The Grand Trunk cannot sell a dollar's worth of stock and they are to-day coming to this country for relief. If they had a melon to cut they would get their money, investors would take up their stock, but what the investor looks for is a security that has a melon attached to it and the Grand

Trunk Pacific cannot sell one of their securities. This man of melons, this man who is making this new class of melonaires, Sir Thos. Shaughnessy, is able to come to the relief of the government and buy some of these Grand Trunk securities that cannot be sold. That is the position of things in this country with regard to railway securities. It is high time that there was a change and that the government undertook to scrutinize all these issues of stock. The government ought to confine the Canadian Pacific Eailway to an issue of 4 per cent bonds. Then I was told by the Minister of Justice that instead of finding out what was the actual investment in the Canadian Pacific Eailway as provided for by the charter, the minister had agreed to hang up for an indefinite period the ascertainment of what the actual cost of the Canadian Pacific Eailway was. In other words, the Canadian Pacific Eailway having been sentenced to be hanged on a certain date, as long as it was pampered and allowed to issue melons it would not ask to be hanged. That is the position in regard to the regulation of its rates as we are entitled to have them regulated under the original agreement.

Then, I want to tell the Minister of Finance how far this bonus business has got to in this country. You cannot issue hardly a security of any kind in Canada unless there is a bonus of some kind with it, and we find our Canadian banks and some of the Canadian insurance companies parties to a new kind of what I consider dangerous financing in this country. They are raising money every day for the development of electrical industries in South America, Central America and Mexico, and all these securities are put on the market largely with the assistance of Canadian financing institutions, and the proposition is in the shape of bonds and with the bonds there goes bonus stock so that you buy a bond for $1,000 and you get $1,000 of bonus stock. That- kind of financing is producing a bad effect in this country and it is getting so that people will buy no security unless a bonus of stock goes with it. And while I say Canadian capitalists aTe free to invest in any way the-"' like, I do not quite think that the Canadian banks and the Canadian insurance companies with the savings of the Canadian people ought to be floating propositions for the development of foreign industries. We have enough industries at home to develop and enough necessity to keen our money here. I want to see the Grand Trunk Pacific built, and if there is Canadian money I would like to see it put in that enterprise. But you will never get investments of that kind taken by the Canadians if this practice of issuing bonus stock is continued. There was a gentleman defending the insurance companies the other day and he said he regarded the gov-Mr. W. P. MACLEAN.

ernment proposal to limit these companies so that they should not indulge in this purchase of bonds along with which went bonus stock, but I say the legislation in that direction is right and that the practice has got to be stopped in this country so far as public action can stop it. We have got to tell the Canadian Pacific Eailway Company that never again will they be allowed to cut a melon and to issue to their shareholders at par a security that is worth $170 and soon will be worth $200. We have got tc stop that once and for all, and in the name of the Canadian people I tell the government here to-day that that must never occur again, and later on I intend to test the feeling of the House on that very proposition. I want to tell the House here to-day that we must stop this financing of foreign corporations with the savings of the Canadian people on this basis of issuing bonus stock with bond securities. It is not in the interest of the Canadian people. Once we establish that habit in this country of dis-tiibuting bonuses of one kind or another with nublic securities, then we will have to give bonuses with all our securities and the first thing we know when this government goes on the London market to get a security issued it will be asked: What bonus are you going to give us; can't you give us some kind of common stock that some dav will be of some use to us, or cannot we get some kind of rights? So, the thing is going on and it is time it was stopped and it must be stopped. I am availing myself of this occasion when the Grand Trunk Pacific Eailway and the Canadian Pacific Eailway is here before us to-day asking for favours ; the Canadian Pacific Eailway is before us asking for an increase of its capital stock and the Grand Trunk Pacific is here as applicants for assistance.

I say now is the time to compel these great corporations to treat the people of this country fairly, and to give us a 2-cent passenger rate, as. they give to the American travel on their roads. Again I say that the Canadian Pacific Eailway financing of this kind must be stopped, and the [DOT]way to stop it is to tell them not only that they must come under the general Act under the control of the Eailway Commission, but that they must use the funds they now have in their treasury, that they must sell their lands, and abandon" that exemption clause which protects them in the west. Al' these privileges can be wiped away when they come here as suppliants, and some kind of concession can be got from them in this respect. Later on I intend to test the feeling of the House on this question. I have now got my facts fairly well before the House and I leave these facts with the House, and this letter which I have read from a common ordinary Canadian traveller on the Grand Trunk Railway, who was threatened with ejectment because he would not pay something he was not

entitled to pay, I commend to the consideration of the Minister of Railways and I hope he will compel the Grand Trunk Railway Company to treat that Canadian as he ought to have been treated and compel them to Tetum to him the three dollars and odd cents which he was forced to pay.

Hon. G. P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways).

I will detain the House but for a moment. The question of the Canadian Pacific Railway issue of stock has already been discussed and I will not further discuss it now. My hon. friend (Mr. W. F. Maclean) tells us, and rightly, that there was something in President Taft's address in reference to the issuing of stock. I think his statement was fairly general on that point. .