Mr. EMMERSON:

The Minister of Customs-

Mr. SPEAKER:

I do not think

it is permissible for one member of the House to get up over and over again, when the Orders of the Day are called, and introduce subjects and ask questions. While it is permissible to ask questions regarding something which is of urgent importance, most of these are questions which could be more intelligently and correctly answered if the questions were placed on the Order Paper and allowed to be answered in that way. To keep a minister rising over and over again to answer these questions is, to my mind, out of order.

Mr. EMMERSON:

respondence, petitions or memorials, if there are any.

Mr. REID:

I intend, immediately after the Orders of the Day have been passed, to telephone Mr. McDougald to come over here, and I will ask the hon. member for Westmorland to tell the commissioner just what he wants, and to have Mr. McDougald get him all the information and papers he requires.

Mr. EMMERSON:

That is very satis^

factory.

Mr. E. M. MACDONALD (Pictou):

I desire to ask leave to move the adjournment of this House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the action of the War Office and National Rifle Association in limiting certain competitions at Bisley to rifles which are not equipped with the aperture sight, which may have the effect of excluding Canadian riflemen from competing at Bisley.

Mr. FOSTER:

I do not wish to intervene so that my hon. friend shall not have his discussion, but the next motion will be one to go into Supply, and could he not take it then equally well?

Mr. SPEAKER:

I might say that to-day the House goes into Supply without a motion; the Speaker leaves the Chair without motion.

Mr. FOSTER:

I am a little at a disadvantage since the revised rules have been instituted.

Sir WILFRID LAuRIER: I do not

think my hon. friend is in error, although he was not here last year. I put a question to the Prime Minister just a week ago as to whether or not the rule would apply, and I understood from what the Prime Minister said that on that day the matter was by consent, and therefore the rule would not apply.

Mr. FOSTER:

My right hon. friend is

correct; I remember the conversation. The Prime Minister said that he did not intend that the rule should apply. We are going into the discussion now of the Estimates of the Minister of Labour. It is a new department and it requires a motion. My hon. friend will be able to come in then.

Mr. MACDONALD:

It is what the

Speaker says.

Mr. FOSTER:

It is for the Speaker to decide.

Mr. SPEAKER:

In regard to Rule 17, if I correctly heard the right hon. the leader of the Opposition, as well as the right hon. the Prime Minister, they are not quite correct in the interpretation which they place upon it. The rule says:

On Thursdays and Fridays, when the Order of the Day is called for the House to go into Committee of Supply, or of Ways and Means, Mr. Speaker shall leave the Chair without putting any question, provided that, except by the consent of the House, the Estimates of each department shall be first taken up on a day other than Thursday or Friday.

That is the exception, but that does not apply to the question of the Speaker leaving the Chair.