Mr. PROULX:

I beg to remark, Mr. Speaker-

Order, order.

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order.

Sir WILFRID LAURIER:

Do you rule, Mr. Speaker, that a member cannot state his question and that it is out of order before he has had an opportunity of stating it ? How do you know ?

Mr. SPEAKER:

Having heard the hon. member say that he desired to ask a question of the hon. member for Centre York regarding a cablegram which was sent by him in regard to something with which this House is not concerned, I ruled that it was out of order for him to ask any such question.

Sir WILFRID LAURIER:

May I ask how you know that the House is not concerned in any such cablegram as that ?

Mr. SPEAKER:

The rule says plainly that it must be some ' public matter connected with the business of the House in which such member may be concerned.' Then he has to give the regular notice, neither of which conditions has been complied with.

Mr. PROULX:

I will put it in this way: The hon. member for Centre York is an officer of the militia-he is a captain-and I want to ask the hon. Minister of Militia if he has taken cognizance of the cablegram which was sent by Captain Wallace to Sir Edward Carson.

Mr. BORDEN:

Might I suggest that if the hon. member has any question to put to the Minister of Militia he take the ordinary course and put it on the Order Paper so that it may be answered in the regular way ?

Mr. PROULX:

This matter is very urgent.

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order. I was about to say, in view of the version which the hon. member has given of it, that it would be a proper question if he desired to put it on the Order Paper in the usual way.

Sir WILFRID LAURIER:

Does this concern this House ?

Mr. HUGHES:

I shall rise to a question of privilege. I find in the Montreal Star that my old friend, Mr. Hamar Greenwood, in the House of Commons in England, made a statement to the effect that he deplored something with all his heart, and then went on to say that:

The feeling in the Dominions was that the British officers were drawn from a class antagonistic to democratic ideals. It was a great wrench to him as an imperialist when quite recently the Minister of Militia in Canada had appointed a new Commander-in-Chief, and he did not consult the War Office. The Canadian army for the first time now had not got a single imperial officer serving under the Canadian flag.

I wish to state that I have not appointed a new commander-in-chief; there is no such office in existence. I did appoint a chief staff officer and I consulted Sir John French and Colonel, 'Seeley before I appointed him-not that I had to do it at all, but I did it out of courtesy. We have upwardsof seventy of the best British officers toibeobtainedinthe empire in our Canadian permanent service, some on loan, some on exchange and others for instructional purposes. We have also a great many British non-commissioned officers in the service and I hope it will be a long day to come when we will be without the services of these gentlemen.

While I am on my feet, I should like to refer to an incident that occurred in this House the other evening. A few nights ago, on a matter altogether irrelevant to the'business of the House, a member put a question founded on one of their ' slander-bund ' cablegrams, or emanating from the ' boozarium '-I do not know which-

Order, order.

It was published in the Montreal Star.

Mr. HUGHES:

The Montreal Star, I

presume, repeated the cablegram coming from the slanderbunJ.

Mr. PARDEE:

Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege.

Mr. HUGHES:

I am not through with my question of privilege yet.