LEWIS (West Huron) moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. Ill) to amend the Railway Act. He said: The

Bill I now feel it my duty to lay before the House has reference to a pernicious state of affairs which affects the people who travel in Canada, and the remedy which I propose will, I believe, be welcomed by the heads of the railways themselves, as well as by the Board of Railway Commissioners and by the general public. I have here an editorial article from a leading Ottawa paper dwelling upon the fact that the health as well as the comfort of the people who travel in Canada is affected by the sanitary state of the trains and the stations, especially the small stations throughout Canada. We have Acts of parliament which provide for the appointment of inspectors to look after the cattle, the fruit and other commodities carried on our trains, but we have no inspectors to look after the welfare of the people who travel. And now that the people of Canada are rising to the state of prosperity in which as I am glad to know the plain people like myself are getting the travelling habit, legislation of this kind is needed. The Railway Act provides that the Board of Railway Commissioners shall have power to look after the matter to which this Bill Tefers, but there is no machinery provided for that purpose. The Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham), whom I am glad to see in his place, may contend that the power of the Railway Commissioners in this matter is sufficient, but I do not so read the Railway Act. There are a number of clauses providing that certain officials may be appointed by the board with the approval of the Governor-in-Council, but there is no provision for the appointment of the officers referred to in this Bill. I am sure that no person within the sound of my voice, no person who travels in Canada, but will say that this Bill is needed. It is proposed by this Bill to add a subsection to section 284 of the Railway Act providing for five inspectors, to be appointed by the Board of Railway Commissioners subject to the approval of the Governor-in-Council. The duty oif these inspectors shall be to see that trains, railway stations, and buildings in connection therewith, are in a sanitary state. One of these inspectors shall be for the province of Ontario, one for the province of Quebec, one for the maritime provinces, one for Manitoba and Saskatchewan and one for Alberta and British Columbia.

The second clause is in reference to complaints under the Railway Act of which the Railway Board has cognizance. It has always occurred to me that while a large corporation, a mercantile company, a city or municipality, have power to put in force the Railway Act and ask the Commissioners to remedy the evils which may be extant, the poor man, the man of moderate means, has no such power. Therefore I ask this House to empower the board to appoint a public official, subject to the approval of the Governor-in-Council, who shall act as a public prosecutor, to whom private persons may make their complaints, and who shall examine the same, and, if necessary, lay them before the board and prosecute them.

Mr. SPEAKER.

I may remind the hon. gentleman that inasmuch as this Bill calls for the appointment of certain persons, implying thereby a charge on the revenue, it ought perhaps to be preceded by the usual formality. However, I suppose there is no objection to the introduction of the Bill.

Mr. R. L. BORDEN.

Before the orders of the day are called, I would like to inquire of the Secretary of State whether any person has been appointed in place of Mr. Foran, who I understand has become secretary of the Civil Service Commission; and if so, whether the person so appointed was appointed upon the recommendation of the Civil Service Commision, or whether there was any departure from the Act in that regard.

Hon. CHAS. MURPHY (Secretary of State).

I may say in answer to the hon. gentleman that an appointment has been made of a successor to Mr. Foran, and it was made by the Civil Service Commission.

Hon. GEO. P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals).

Before the orders of the day are called, I wish to jnake reference to an answer I gave the other day to the hon. member for St. Antoine, Montreal (Mr. Ames), as to the cost of the Canada Eastern. The answer, which will be found in ' Hansard,' page 2657, should not include the $25,000 which was spent on the Indiantown and Blackville Railway. The answer should be amended by striking out the words:

To put line between Indiantown and Blackville in condition for operation.

Ballast $10,000

Ties and rails 10,000

Fences 5,000

Mr. AMES.

I would ask if the minister would be willing to make these corrections in the original statement, so that the original statement shall go into the ' Hansard ' in the corrected form.

Mr. M. BURRELL (Yale-Cariboo).

I desire to bring up a matter of sufficient importance to the government, and especially to the _ agricultural industry, to excuse me in taking up a little time of the House. I wish to deal with the question of the regulations in regard to the fruit industry. I have already, in this House, referred to the importance of this particular industry in my province of British Columbia, where we have now some 75,000 acres actually in orchard. We are practically only at the commencement of our orchard work, and of our output; and in connection with the building up of this industry, on account of the great expense in clearing land, in adopting the irrigation system, in providing fences and other things which are necessary to a successful horticultural development in our province, I need only say that the market question is for us particularly important, and that anything which tends to weaken the markets for the grower of fruit, must also weaken the whole industry. In 1905 the Minister of Agriculture took a step which I think was thoroughly commended by the industry throughout Canada, when he called together the Dominion fruit conference, a conference of gentlemen interested in this particular industry throughout Canada. That conference, I am glad to say, speaking I think for all western fruit growers, resulted in a great deal of good. It familiarized the various growers in the country with the methods and with the weaknesses of the industry which may have existed. It tended also to uniformity of method, and in one way and another, I think, strengthened the industry, and made it in a very real sense an industry recognized as national. Now, in connection with that conference the Fruit Marks Act was discussed and amended; and while we believe that the Act has operated for the development of the horticultural industry, it is perhaps natural that in the course of its operation for a series of years, some weak spots in it should have become manifest. To these I now desire to draw the minister's attention, to see whether it could. be amended or interpreted in a way that would better the conditions of the industry. Now, section 319 defines what a close package is, and subsection (a) says:

(a) ' closed package ' means a box or barrel of which the contents cannot be seen or 1 inspected when such package is closed.

Mr. LEWIS.

Then it defines these particular grades. It has been suggested and strongly felt throughout the whole western country that while section 320 simply confines its operations to the Canadian packer, section 321 should also be legally read and interpreted in conjunction with section 320, and therefore, when we come to infringements of this particular section which provides that

No person shall sell, or offer, expose or have in his possession for sale-&c.

I say that it does not apply as stringently as it should to the American competitor in our own market. It has been suggested that section 321 should be amended in some such way as to define how fruit has to be marked so that we can compel the United States competitor to enter our market at least on an even footing with ourselves and not have any advantage. This, of course, may be a question of law, and no doubt the minister has taken advice in regard to it from the Department of Justice. At all events, I would like to suggest that because a great many of our own people believe that it would be in the interest of the industry to alter the Act in that direction.

As this question opens up the whole subject of the kind of competition that we have to face and as I want to particularly and clearly state to the minister and the government our grievances wth regard to this matter, 1 shall take up the attention of the House for a few minutes in defining the position as it is to-day. We recognize, of course, that in building up this great industry in the west we have to face competition. We have to face very strong competition from the United States. There are only two ways in which the government can help those who have embarked a great deal of money, time and energy in this industry; one by means of a protective tariff and the otheT by means of the enforcement of the regulations. Of course, I thoroughly understand that it is not well to touch upon tariff matters now, although I hope upon a future occasion to deal with that question and to present our views to jny hon. friend

the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). I might mention, however, in passing, that there is one thing that I think operates a little injuriously with regard to our industry and that is that the customs officials interpret the word ' barrel * to mean four boxes. Although a barrel does not hold four boxes we find that the American competitor is only charged ten cents a case, where we think he should be charged more. It is usually reckoned that three boxes, instead of four, are the equivalent of a barrel. At a later time I think I will be able to advance reasons for greater protection being accorded to that one great staple, apples, which will secure for me the sympathy even of our northwest members, who, I know, do not want to increase the price of the articles that they consume there. But, with regard to this phase of the subject that I am dealing with now, that is the question of inspection, I am positive that I can get the sympathetic attention of every hon. member from the prairies because we are simply aiming to give the consumer on the prairies the right to expect that what he pays for he should get. In this connection we, of course, meet our strongest competition in the west from the great states of Washington, Oregon and California, which are building up an enormous industry and building it up under greater^ advantages in some ways-I will not go into that now-than we can expect ourselves. There are two unfair ways in whiqh the product of the American competitor can come into contact with our own products upon the prairies. There are two dangers to meet connected with pests and diseases, and insufficient or poor grading. With regard to the question of the diseases and_ pests connected with fruit, I may say that in our own province the comparative immunity which we enjoy from all the serious pests and diseases which affect horticulture and inevitably affect the reputation of fruit products is simply the result of eternal vigilance along the line of our own provincial legislation. We enforce the most rigid system of inspection against the great states to the south of us which are infested with almost all the diseases and pests known to horticulture. We have something like twenty or thirty provincial inspectors who inspect, but only for diseases and pests. We found-and as this enforces the argument to some extent with regard to the grading of fruit I may mention it-some dealers _ and consumers taking a position of opposition to our method on the ground that it rendered the importation of fruit in large quantities a more difficult matter, hut we have happily found that as year after year has gone by we'have enlisted the sympathy both of the consumers and dealers. The net result has been that we have a fairly clean sample of fruit coming in from the United States,

whereas, before that, British Columbia Was made the dumping ground for Mr. BURRELL.

infected fruit of all kinds. It is quite true that in achieving that end we had to reject, and are even now occasionally rejecting, thousands of consignments of all kinds of fruit, but we felt that we were justified in our position and the result has afforded us the most ample justification. We have come to the stage when we are not only supplying the wants of our own country but when we are exporting to our own northwest provinces and in a few years we will be an immense factor as regards fruit. We enter these markets in western Alberta and eastern Manitoba practically on the same terms as the United States with regard to freights. In the middle of the northwest provinces we have probably better terms than they have.

But what is the position of the United States fruit industry and the United States firms that enter our own markets? We have looked into the matter very carefully and we have found that there are a great many very large American firms that are operating in the United States and that are reaching out to control the great markets of the northwest, of Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan and, in short, are endeavouring to practically control our trade. I might give the House some idea of this. I have a letter written to the general manager of the Coldstream ranch at Vernon, one of our biggest fruit growing concerns. This is a reliable and well known gentleman, and he gives us some idea in this letter with regard to what the American firms are doing:

The Rogers Fruit Company of Winnipeg, Pioneer Fruit Company of Brandon, and Stockton & Mallinson of Regina, are practically the one firm; in other words the stock of these concerns is held practically by the same people. They have also houses at Saskatoon and Calgary, and have just opened up at Edmonton. The chief man in connection with these houses is Mr. H. B. Finch, of Grand Forks, North Dakota, who manages a similar group of fruit houses and wholesale groceries in the Dakotas. Their chief representative, however, is Mr. DeCamp, who is the manager of the Winnipeg house, hut looks after their Canadian business generally. This is the combination you referred to in one of your previous letters as handling so much of the Washington fruit.

I took occasion yesterday to interview Mr. DeCamp, with the object of finding through their means a more extended market for the product of the Okanagan and British Columbia orchards. I was somewhat astounded to see the large quantity they had brought in from Washington into the Winnipeg and Brandon markets, of small fruit such as plums, prunes, peaches, cherries, &c. Winnipeg had taken over 150 cars. They had also done an enormous business in Washington apples.

Although we would prefer that the men who handle the fruit in our Canadian Northwest were Canadians, yet we are not simply

complaining that they are Americans or that we have to face this competition. The position is this: These great firms operate on a tremendous scale and they control to a very considerable extent the great fruit centres in Washington and Oregon. This year, in Washington and Oregon they had a very heavy crop and a slack market as the people had not recovered from the financial depression which visited the United States two years ago. Somewhat similar conditions existed in our own country and the American operators naturally reached out to send their surplus to the Canadian market and so control our trade. The Canadian growers were of course vitally affected, and we have some reason to claim that the American fruit did not meet us on even terms in our own market. We have been told that amongst the causes which operate against the purchase of large and increasing quantities of British Columbia fruit is, that the American box weighs heavier than the Canadian box and that the purchaser of American apples gets more for his money. The American box averages from 51 to 53 pounds whereas the British Columbia box only gives 45 pounds. The Canadian Act defines the dimensions of our boxes to be 20 by 10 by 11 inches inside measurement or 2,200 cubic inches. The California box is exactly of the same size, but there are a great many different types of package in the states of Washington and Oregon, some of them being a little smaller than the Canadian box. I am not at all sure whether it would not be a wise provision for the protection of our own industry that when this American fruit is sent into our markets the packages should be made to conform in size to our packages. However that may be, I want to give some facts which I think will enable the House to see that the argument that the American package contains more fruit than does our package cannot be well sustained. Shortly before I came east to attend the session of parliament a carload of Washington apples came to our district and I sent a careful man to weigh these apples by the box and give me the weights. It is of course known to every fruit man that the weight of a box of apples is always variable from the fact that some varieties will weigh heavier than others, and that the method of packing and the size of the apple will cause a difference in the weight. I had about nine varieties of these American apples weighed and it was found that the American boxes ran all the way from 53 pounds (the highest) down to 43 pounds; the large majority of them weighing 45 pounds, 46 pounds, 47 pounds, and 48 pounds. Judging from this there is no good reason for the contention that the American boxes contain a greater weight of fruit than do the Canadian boxes.

Then another reason given why the American apple meets with success in , our market is, that their system of packing is better and that the quality of their apple is superior to the quality of the Canadian apple. Well, I could give the House any quantity of testimony from dealers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, that other things being equal, as far as quality and freedom from disease is concerned they would prefer the British Columbia fruit to that grown in Washington and Oregon. I will admit that there is some excellent packing done by the American growers and handlers of fruit, but at the same time it is not a question of the size of the package or the excellence of the packing, because packing does not mean grading or freedom from disease, and to give the consumer what he has a right to expect we have got to have not only good packing so far as the appearance goes, but we have got to have honest grading and freedom from disease. It is in this that the British Columbia grower is at a grievous disadvantage. We have gone into this question very thoroughly and I would like to quote the opinion of one of out own inspectors who was sent from the Department of Agriculture of British Columbia into the Northwest to make a careful examination into this matter. The letter is written to our chief inspector, and he says:

Waneta, B.O., 21st Dec., 1808. Thomas Cunningham, Esq.,

Provincial Fruit Pest Inspector,

Vancouver, B.C.

Dear sir,-I beg to submit the report of my recent visit to Alberta. There is no provincial law providing for the inspection of imported fruit in Alberta. The province therefore becomes the dumping ground for the culls and diseased fruit from the United Slates and from the eastern provinces of Canada.

Unfortunately the Dominion Fruit Marks Act in so far as Alberta is concerned is almost a dead letter, no effort being made by the resident inspector to enforce the requirements.

In jobbers' warehouses and retail stores throughout the province I found thousands of boxes of apples from the United States and from British Columbia which in no way complied with the requirements of the Fruit Marks Act, and which were distributed and sold without hindrance.

There are large quantities of eastern Canadian apples sold in Alberta, principally from Ontario and a few from Nova Scotia, which seemed to me to be culls and diseased fruit, unsaleable in the east. They were certainly not graded as marked, were full of worms, covered with apple scab, and in many instances with San Jose scale.

Large quantities of apples imported from the ^United States were poorly packed and graded and infested with codling moth, apple scab, bitter rot, and in a few instances with

San Jose scale. I may say that I also found a considerable quantity of apples from the United States splendidly packed and graded and entirely free from disease.

I would like also to quote the opinion of another inspector who went into the districts of Lethbridge and McLeod where he carefully examined the conditions. He says:

Lethbridge.-Here I found a few British Columbia apples of good quality, pack and grade, but the American article predominates; in some cases the packing and grading of the American fruit were excellent, but the fruit diseased, one box apples (Wolfe River), of fine appearance, well packed and graded, placed in a prominent place in the windows of the Hudson Bay store, was covered with spots (bitter rot). Other American apples and pears were of poor quality, and in many cases contained codling moth larva and apple scab in abundance.

The Dominion inspector had been at this place, but had taken no action, only instructed the importers to put their name on the box before sending them out of their warehouse.

Now, although I think we are learning fairly fast how best to pack our fruit, and while a large proportion of it is very well packed, unfortunately there is yet something to be learned. However that may be we have very good reason for the belief that a large proportion of the United States fruit is bad both as to disease and grading, and that owing to the inadequate number of inspectors under the Fruit Marks Act, a great deal of fruit has been sold as No 1 when in reality it was not of that quality, and yet, it came into competition with our really superior fruit, under that brand.

In this connection I might add that the general manager of the Coldstream ranch in Vernon, a very large concern indeed, sent a competent man out to Alberta to get a fair and clear idea of the conditions there, and I would like to read this extract from his letter. I might add that this man was in every respect absolutely reliable. He wrote as follows :

W. Crawley Ricardo, Esq.,

Pres. Coldstream Valley Fruit Packing Co., Ltd.,

Vernon.

Dear sir,-I beg to inform you that I have visited Calgary and (Edmonton and during my visit to both these cities have seen a large amount of American fruit. All this fruit appears to mo to be what would usually be graded as No. 2 and in some cases the writer would certainly not let it leave his packing house as anything but No. 3, if such a grade were packed by us. Though small and in a great many cases very mis-shaped, the colour was good and the pack very excellent-in fact from a casual look at a box of this fruit you could hardly see where one apple ended and another began; besides which, in no case that the writer noticed was an apple packed either Mr. BURRELL.

at the top or bottom of the box which showed any deformity or flaw and it was only by moving one of the sides or taking out several apples that you found these. So far as colour was concerned, some of the Jonathan were excellent, their only fault being size. I am informed that these can be purchased in Washington, Wenatchee or Yakima at sixty to seventy cents there..

This gives a little idea of the state of things, but to make assurance doubly sure -because the point has been raised that very little of this fruit comes in and that in the main we simply have to face first-class fruit- I suggested to the general manager of the Coldstream ranch that he should send one of his good men to the National Apple Show at Spokane, where the leading fruit men in that country exhibit their products, and have him go to these men as if he were a land seeker interested in their valley and find out from them exactly what class of fruit they would ship into Canada. He did so, and these were his instructions:

Mr. Frank Rayburn,

Fruit Foreman, Coldstream Estate Co., Ltd.

Dear sir,-I (shall be much obliged, when you go into Spokane, if you can get me definite information what the Americans are selling Iso. 1 stock for.

By the enclosed letters from Mr. Lanigan, assistant freight traffic manager, Winnipeg, you will see that dealers claim they are getting No. 1 at 65 cents and 73 cents per box f.o.b, Yakima. .

I am anxious to get the following information :-

1. What the Americans are selling their No. 1 for?

2. Where their number ones are going to?

3. What class of fruit they are shipping into our territories; if it is their surplus stock, or their straight No. 1.

When you get this information, please get from the most reliable people that you know.

The answer this man procured was that they were getting for their No. 1 stock, not 65 cents or 70 cents, but $1.50 a case f.o.b.; that this fruit was going to Chicago and New York and Europe, and that they were shipping to our country their second-class and surplus. Mr. Ricardo wrote me as follows:

M. Burrell, Esq.,

Grand Forks, B.C.

Dear Mr. Burrell,-The following information is what I secured through our foreman, who went to Spokane show; he went down to the Hotel Spokane, the headquarters of the Yakima people, as a land seeker, and got the answers to my questions. He told them that he had been through the Northwest Territories and had seen their fruit; they were emphatic that it was their 2nd class stuff and surplus.

Yours sincerely,

Mr. BURRELL.

We have now in British Columbia 75,000 acres under orchard. A fair valuation of these lands would be $15,000,000. I predict confidently that in ten years' time that great industry at the very least will be valued at $100,000,000, and it is growing with a rapidity not witnessed in any other portion of Canada. We are asking and obtaining the best class of settlers from eastern Canada, and from Great Britain, and a large number of our good friends from the_ prairies are going in there .to take up their residence and practise horticulture. When we get these men into the province they have to realize as all others who have been in this business for years and years have realized, that it takes not only intelligence and perseverance but long years of waiting before you begin to reap the results of all your work and investment of capital, and therefore an industry of this kind is deserving of the greatest consideration on the part of the government. We have to surmount many difficulties and we are trying to do so, but I do not think we should have to surmount difficulties which could be wiped out of existence by acceding to the legitimate request we have made. Any difficulty in the market end would simply have the effect of discouraging the building up of this industry and the settlement, along the very best lines, of our British Columbia lands. We all deprecate as disastrous to the industry any competition of this kind, if we can prove as I think I have proved, that that competition is absolutely unfair to those of us who are building up the fruit industry of British Columbia. I sincerely trust that the minister will accede to these very moderate requests. They are made not in any political or party spirit but with the sole desire to build up what I believe can now be truly designated a national industry and I trust the minister will see that in meeting our wishes he will be carrying out the suggestions and aims set forth at the Dominion Fruit Conference of four years ago.

Mr. J. E. ARMSTRONG (Lambton E.).

In supporting the position taken by the hon. member for Yale-Cariboo (Mr. Burrell) which I am sure the House appreciates. I would urge upon the minister the necessity of appointing more inspectors in the east as well as in the west. We appreciate the extent to which the British Columbia fruit growers have been pushing ahead in the last few years. In 1894 there were in British Columbia only 13,000 acres under fruit while to-day there are over 100,000 acres, and fruit trees were planted at the rate of 1,000,000 per annum in 1907 and 1908.. We must, however, remember | that out of the 21,000,000 fruit trees in Can-

ada in 1906 the province of Ontario had 14,000,000, two-thirds of the total number. To impress on the House the importance of this subject, I shall quote a few statistics furnished by the provincial government of of Ontario with reference to the fruit industry of that province. In 1904, 55,000,000 bushels of apples were grown in Ontario At three bushels to the barrel, that would be about 18,000,000 barrels. Last year, ac cording to the same authorities, only 13,000,000 barrels were produced.

However, my reason for calling the attention of the minister to this matter is that of all the fruit packed for consumption last year, out of possibly five million packages, only 43,000 packages were inspected, and in the year 1906 only 11,000 packages. I know that the number of inspectors has been increased by four. But this is an increase for the whole Dominion.

I took the opportunity to go down to the fruit division to make some inquiries of Mr. McNeill, of that division, and I shall give the House the benefit of some of the facts which I elicited from him. In British Columbia, as the hon. member for Yale-Cariboo (Mr. Burrell) has stated, there is only one inspector, while there are twenty-six provincial inspectors in that province taking care of the fruit which comes in from the United States. There is one inspector for Alberta and Saskatchewan and one for Manitoba. As to Ontario, each inspector is given a district. Mr. McNeill marked off on the map the outlines of the several districts, for each of which there is an inspector. Huron district, for instance, covers part of Lambton, part of Middlesex, Huron and Bruce. This includes the important ports of Goderich and Sarnia. There are probably a hundred points in that district, in addition to these two important ports. I need not go further in order to show the impossibility of one man beginning to look after the fruit in that district. I am satisfied that the minister will see that in order to do justice to this work it will be necessary to have one man who, during the few months of the fall, would be able to give all his time to looking after the exports of fruit from Sarnia and another from Goderich, besides providing for adequate inspection of the rest of this district. The inspector in this Huron district is Mr. Bryan. Then, Mr. Furmigan has the counties of Essex, Kent, Elgin, Norfolk, Haldimand, part of Lambton and part of Middlesex, perhaps, as a whole, the most productive fruit district in the country. Yet, there is only one man to look after that extensive district. I am sure the minister will see that it is practically impossible for one man to begin to cover even a considerable portion of that district. There is another inspector who has his central office in Toronto. The city of Toronto itself must afford work enough

for one man, but this inspector is to cover also the counties of Welland, Lincoln, Wentworth, Brant, Peel, Halton and several others. So, I might go through the list of those who have charge of the different districts in Ontario to show how impossible it is for them to cover even a reasonable proportion of their districts within the time at their disposal in the fall of the year. When the minister looks at this question from the business standpoint, I am sure he will find it necessary to greatly increase the inspectors in these districts. It ought to be possible not only to have these inspectors look after the fruit, but educate, or, at least advise, the packers, and assist them to send out a better class of fruit. I desire to read part of one of many letters that I have^ received from prominent shippers of fruit in different parts of the country. I am sure the minister has received many such communications from prominent shippers of fruit in Ontario and elsewhere, urging the necessity of increasing the number of inspectors. The writer of this letter represents one of the very largest fruit growers' associations in Western Ontario. He says:

Last winter, I visited the Northwestern markets, such as Winnipeg, Brandon, Regina and Calgary. I saw large quantities of fruit, most of it marked No. 1, which we would not pack as No. 2; in fact, most of it was not better than we would use in the evaporater. I do not think I saw one single barrel packed as we would pack it or that was properly marked No. 1. You can easily see that this kind of packing is ruining the market for those who are packing right, causing suspicion to fall on all packers of Ontario apples. I have talked this matter over with nearly all of the reliable fruit shippers and co-operative associations of Ontario and 'find that practically every one of them condemns the present inspection under the Act and desires that we be given district packers who shall be responsible to the government for the reputation of the district assigned to them.

He then goes on to call attention to other matters in relation to the shipping of fruit. But, this subject that is now before us is the one that I ho up the minister will deal with in the near future. The letters that I receive go to show that a large portion of the fruit shipped to the western provinces is very carelessly packed, and that the inspectors are not able to cover a reasonable portion of their several districts. Take the export trade, covering about 1,200,000 barrels, a small proportion of which are examined at the port of Montreal, and, in addition, the enormous number of barrels packed and distributed in the_ different districts of the Northwest and it is clear that it is not fair to place the honest packers, these men who have reputations at stake and who have been^ building rip this business for many yeaTS, in the position in which they are placed as a result of this at-

tempted inspection. These men find that irresponsible packers, small packers who ship out by carload lots, are sending their goods into these different markets in competition with goods that are fairly and hon-estly^ packed. We must take either one position or the other-we must either increase the number of inspectors and compel the bulk of the shippers to live up to the Fruit Marks Act or abandon the Act altogether and allow matters to go back to where they were before, or, if you are going to discriminate in favour of the careless packer, you can depend upon it that you will find plenty of these men who are ready to take advantage of the Act to ship their goods under it. I am aware that the minister will say that he has increased the fine for infringement of the Fruit Marks Act. That is a step in the right direction. But the minister can understand that shippers, who have not a reputation at stake and whose standing is not lowered by being compelled to pay a fine, if there is money enough in it, will pay the fine and continue to do things in direct opposition to the Act. Let me call the attention of the minister to the fact that out of twenty-one inspectors in the whole Dominion there are ten who are almost entirely confined to the city districts, five at the ports of Montreal and Quebec, one at Port Arthur and Fort William, one at Toronto, one at Vancouver, one at Halifax and one at St. John.

I am satisfied that I have given sufficient grounds for urging upon the minister the necessity of investigating this question, and I am sure he will see the wisdom of appointing at once a number of extra inspectors, not only in the western provinces but in the eastern provinces, to compel shippers of fruit to live up to the Fruit Marks Act; otherwise he may depend upon it that the Act is going to do' an injury to the honest packer who is endeavouring to acquire a reputation as a packer of fruit, while the man who is careless in packing, will receive an advantage over him, because he will enjoy the advantage of the reputation secured by the honest packer. I do not need to mention exports to the old country. I know the minister fully appreciates the fact that many shipments which went over last year were far from being up to the standard. His own report states that a number of those shipments were far below the standard; in fact you will find that one of his superintendents of division says that the fruit is not up to the average of the other years. This superintendent also puts in a number of letters from different districts in England showing that the fruit sent over to the old country has not been up to the standard, and if we do not have a better enforcement of the law we cannot expect to hold our present advantage in that market.