Mr. MACLEAN (York).

I desire to ask the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) what truth there is in the statement which appeared in the ' Globe,' a couple of days ago that the government have practically adopted the principle of the Bill in regard to suburban service giving jurisdiction to the Railway Commission. This has been stated by the ' Globe ' editorially.

< GRAHAM. The facts as stated in the

Globe ' were new to me. I have not considered the matter since last session.

Mr. MACLEAN (York).

This progressive policy announced in the ' Globe ' may not be carried into effect?

Mr. SPEAKER.

Under Rule 39 Mr. Lake begs permission to move the adjournment of the House in order to discuss a matter of public importance, that matter being the statements of a periodical in England in regard to the conditions of life in the western provinces.

LAKE (Qu'Appelle) moved the adjournment of the House. He said: The article to which I,wish to direct the attention of the House for a very few minutes is of an exceptionally scurrilous nature. It is published in a paper which claims a very large circulation in the United Kingdom-Sir WILFRID LAURIER.

very nearly a million copies weekly-and that is my first reason for bringing it to the attention of the House. There are other reasons. One is that the editor, Mr. Horatio Bottomley, is a Liberal member of the British House of Commons, and his name appearing on the front page seems to lend some strength to the article as published in the paper. Also the article bears a name similar to that of a man well known in the world of art. The writer also is an artist: but evidently of a very different type from the other. The journal to which I refer is called ' John Bull,' and this is the article to w'hich I wish to call attention:

Mr. MARTIN BURRELL (Yale-Cariboo).

Mr. SCHAFFNER.

I am not English-born (and that is nothing to boast of) but I have had quite an experience in that western country, and I believe I know the conditions there. I do not know anything about this man Wain, but I could express

my opinion of him in two words. However, as these words would be unparliamentary I shall have to content myself with thinking them rather than expressing them. The statements in this article are a gross libel on Canada and Canadians, and I think that the Minister of the Interior is the proper person to take steps to nullify whatever effect such scurrilous writing may have. There have been failures in the west as the result of inexperience. Twenty-five or thirty years ago the conditions in Manitoba were very similar to the present conditions in the further west, and for many years I have gone in and out amongst the people and I know them, and I know that although the great majority came here poorly off financially, yet they have been progressive and prosperous. It is the first time that I have ever heard or read of any question as to the morality of the women in that country. True, in the early days especially they underwent great hardships because they had not much of this world's goods, but they met their circumstances in a womanly way. On the face of this article, the writer shows that he does not know what he is talking about, and while in this country his statements will have no influence whatever, there is the danger that those who do not know us may take some heed in them. This House is right in making a strong protest.

Mr. BRODER.

I would not speak on this question were it not that there is in the article a reflection on the older provinces of Canada. According to the special census taken in 1906, out of 808,000 in that western country, 444,000 have come from the other provinces of the Dominion and 164,000 from the province of Ontario alone, so that any reflection on the people of the west is a reflection on the people of the older provinces. I shall not detain the House further than to say that the right hon. the Prime Minister, who has in his power the most effective means of reaching the people, should cause the strongest possible denial to be made of the statements that are to be found in this article. The people of the best families of our older provinces have gone into that western country to make homes for themselves, and they are aspersed in the most dastardly way by this writer who makes statements as false as they can possibly be. The effect of such writings may be to influence adversely towards Canada the very class of people we want to get into this country, and so the government should take the most effective means to counteract whatever ill effects such an article may have.

Mr. BOYCE.

Mr. Speaker, I should noi have spoken on this question were it not for Mr. SCHAFFNER,

the means which have been employed to publish this libel upon Canadian resources and Canadian treatment of the immigration into this fair land. This man's writings characterize him as knowing nothing whatever of the subject on which he purports to write, but, we must remember that this article appears in a magazine, the editor of which is member of the Imperial parliament, a fact which is sufficient to stamp it with a certain authenticity when it goes into the hands of the million readers amongst whom it circulates. It is therefore inconceivable that an article of this nature published in such a magazine should pass unheeded by this House, and I am quite sure that no hon. member will grudge the time that has been taken in stigmatizing it as absolutely unjust and grossly untrue. In this same magazine I notice in the editorial column for which Horatio Bottomley, member of the Imperial parliament, is directly responsible, an article launched against Canada. What does the House think of this? I quote from the same magazine, of date December 10, page 919:-

It is the fashion just now for the Canadian papers to abuse this journal for its outspokenness in regard to emigration truths. The language of the gutter is the only argument they can find to refute our definite allegations-confirmed quotations from advertisements-that 'no Englishman need apply' for any job in the Dominion. An Ontario reader sends us cuttings from the Hamilton 'Spectator' (the first dated as recently as November 16th) with the remark that he has been over there more than seven years and does'nt know yet why Canadians are so prejudiced against Englishmen.

Under the heading 'It is'nt true,' appears the following:-'To settle an argument will you please state in the 'Spectator' if it is true that the gaols in England are freed of prisoners once a year and sent to Canada?' To this is attached the note, 'No.-Ed.' But in a subsequent issue 'Chirper' chimes in that he would Tike to add that possibly years ago such was the case, and the big majority^ of present day Canadians are the progeny of such scum.' I don't say this is a fact, but judging by the number I have met and worked with, I should think it is more than likely. How the Canadians do love the motherland.

That, Sir, is the work of a member of the Imperial House of Commons, and some definite action ought to be taken by the representatives of this government in England to make it impossible for a gentleman occupying so high a position in the councils of the empire to publish such a libel, or such a scurrilous article. With reference to the Englishman in Canada, I may say that 1 have the honour of being an Englishman myself, who came to Canada and found the conditions here to be such that any Englishman of energy, with any reasonable amount of ' get-up-and-get * in him, could

carve out a living for himself in this country, and receive all the encouragement possible from good Canadian citizens. There is everything in this country to encourage Englishmen of the right type to come here. Speaking for myself and for the class of Englishmen who have come to Canada and, as good, honest, intelligent, hard working citizens, are helping to build up the country, I say there is no country in the civilized world that offers better inducements to the Englishman who is not afraid of work, but who is prepared to meet the conditions and to wrest from them what this country has in store than this fair Dominion of Canada. I am glad my hon. friend from Qu'Appelle has referred to this article, and I sincerely hope that, with such means as are at the disposal of the government, libels of this character, unjust, untrue, and malicious in their nature, published and circulated as they are by so high an authority as a member of the imperial parliament, may in the future be prevented if it is possible to prevent them.

Mr. MICHAEL CLARK (Red Deer).

I feel, Sir, that I have a duty to perform in regard to this matter, if no other than to . disavow being classed among the broken-down young-old men who came from England and settled in Canada. I read this article in my shack in the west with the comfortable knowledge that I had plenty of beef, plenty of pork, and a good Dit of my own land around me, and a little bit of venison in the larder, shot strictly in season. I smiled and remarked to my family:

' It is astonishing what a lot of fools there are in the world.' I should have left the article at that. I do not think it is a wise thing to give such a stupid letter as the' one we are now commenting upon, the publicity and the comparative immortality that it gets by being placed on the pages of ' Hansard.' The press do not regard their emanations so seriously, so far as I have the honour of knowing them, on both sides of the Atlantic. They prepare each day's manna for each day's consumption, and then forget-why shouldn't we? That is the question I should have put to myself before taking the responsibility of bringing this matter before the House. I desire, of course, fully to associate myself, if it is necessary, in the condemnation of what has been very accurately described by my hon. friend from Souris (Mr. Schaffner) as_ a publication which bears the evidence of its being a lie on its face. But if it bears that evidence on its face, everybody will know it for a lie, and I cannot understand why it should be made the subject of comment in parliament. Mr. Bottomley is a very eccentric member of parliament, financier and journalist. He believes, like most British journalists, in the utmost freedom of the press, and it is a fine poim whether more harm will result from curtailing the utmost freedom of the press, or from the publication of an occasional lie. We all know that the lies in the press, whether in Britain or in Canada, are exceedingly rare, but they do appear occasionally. My belief is that the people in England who are kept from coming to Canada by such an article as this, are people who from their low order of intelligence are better left orit of the country. I have a much more serious purpose in rising to offer a few words on this subject; and, after all, Sir, there is a serious origin to this kind of writing in the old country. I am bound to do this justice to the press in Canada, that I have never read a word in the newspapers of Canada which for scurrility would compare with that letter. But there is a great deal of talk in private, and sometimes in public, in Canada which sets an example to journalists of the order of Mr. Bottomley.

' What is the price of Free Trade ? ' said Sir Joseph Lawrence at the Empire Club in Toronto on October 12 last. He answered in part, ' One million paupers.' He ought to have known, if he did not know, that he was talking nonsense. Seventeen out of every twenty of those paupers are either physically or mentally incapable of looking after themselves. I was a great many years ago medical officer to a parochial workhouse in the old country, and the paupers under my charge were almost to an individual either imbecile old women or old men who I knew had been drunken and improvident in their habits; and yet we have a member of the Unionist party coming and telling such a distinguished patriotic and imperialistic body as the Empire Club of Toronto that these imbeciles and drunken old men are the produce of Free Trade. Of my own knowledge they were born and lived a groat many years in Britain when she was under Protection, so that if they were produced by an imbecile system, it was Protection that produced them. I do not contend that for a moment, but I do contend that the responsible public man, and the responsible body of men who listened to him, who give publicity to a libel like that on England and England's fiscal system, are only traducing the old country in a degree somewhat minor to that in which this scurrilous writer traduced Canada. The tendency to preach the decadence of Britain we find occasionally indulged in for political reasons. On this subject I can do no better than quote the Hamilton 'Times' of October 24 last:

There lias been so much fool talk about ' British decadence,' that ignorant people even in Canada have come to think that, in spite of the evidence of the facts of British pros-

perity and progress, there must be something in it. We can hardly conceive of the unpatriotic conduct of the coterie of British partisans who conduct the campaign for protection and who stop at nothing, not even depreciation and defamation of their country, in the effort to forward their selfish and treasonous party ends. But among educated and intelligent people the cry of British decadence evokes only contempt for its makers. As Frederick Austin Ogg points out in the ' Review of Reviews,' the United Kingdom never possessed elements of strength equal to those of to-day. There is no question of decadence, save in the minds of a few defeated and discredited politicians, who, lacking an acceptable policy, and hungering for office, set out to attempt to lie ignorance into disquiet. ; ! . i* -If

I should like to repeat from my own knowledge that there is no country in the world where a man has to-day such opportunity to get on as he has in Canada. When I first came to Canada I did some of that early-morning lighting of the _ stove which evoked such expressions of pity from the Minister of Labour for the workmen engaged in that operation. I can only say that I have never been more conscious of any addition to the virility of my manhood than when going through that operation. When I had the honour of representing Canada a few years ago for immigration purposes, I told any Englishmen I met that if they wanted to pick up money in the streets they had better stay where they were, but that if they wanted to find a country where they would have the greatest scope for their capacity and vigour they should by all means come to Canada and that in this country, despite our protectionist policy, we looked upon immigrants who had a little money as a desirable addition to our population. There is an important political lesson in what has been drawn attention to this afternoon. What is that lesson? It is that after all the good sound old Liberal policy of each nation in the main minding its own business and attending to its own affairs is the only policy upon which you can build and maintain the permanence of the British Empire. Nothing could afford better evidence than this very discussion of the deep insight of that imperial statesman whom we all admire irrespective of parties, Sir Edward Grey, when he said that this attempt to draw closer the material bonds between the different portions of the empire will only lead to mutual recriminations which will in the end make, not for the good of the empire, but its destruction. That would be the lesson to be drawn from this whole business which would at all make it worth while bringing it to the attention of this House. I can only say in conclusion that I am proud to be a Canadian citizen, just as I am proud to be a citizen of the old country, and as we all are Mr. CLARK.

proud, I believe, to be citizens of the British Empire, and to look upon the old country as the head and origin of that empire.

Mr. RALPH SMITH (Nanaimo).

It seems to be considered necessary by the Englishman in the House to-day that he should be the defender of this country against the writer of the scurrilous and untruthful article contributed to an important paper in the old country. The only disinclination I have to saying very much on this question arises from the fact that I do not attach any serious importance to this article at all. I read it for the first time last night, but having read the English press for some years and knowing what the English press has to say about Canada and Canadians every day, and when I remember that there are any number of English people in Canada who are in constant correspondence with their friends in the old country, I do not attach any serious importance to the article we are now discussing. I do not believe that it will affect one single individual on the other side. The people of the old country know the benefits and advantages of Canada almost as well as we do ourselves. The standing of Canada in the motherland to-day, the maintenance of that standing shown by the press of England, and the constant correspondence between the English people on the other side and this-all these make it impossible lor any single individual contributor to any newspaper to do any injury to this councrv by anything he may write. My hon. friend who brought forward this resolution, (Mr. Lake) suggested that the writer of this article might not have been in this country at all. I am rather inclined to disagree with him in that respect. After reading the article closely I am inclined to suspect that the writer has been in Canada some time and that he is one of these incapable, degenerate gentlemen who come out here and do not make good, and consequently had to make some excuse perhaps to his father for the constant remittances he was receiving to enable him to live. My impression of the writer of that article is that he belongs to that class who never succeed in any country. They come from every country and they all fail when they come to this country. But, as I have already said, the great majority of Englishmen who come here and whose success encourages their friends to follow are an object lesson that make it impossible for any newspaper article to have any detrimental effect on the English mind.