Sir SAM HUGHES:

The minister said

that these would come in special ballot

boxes by constituencies. How is it possible to have them by constituencies?

Mr. DOHERTY:

The hon. gentleman

misunderstood me. I pointed out that one very important operation would be necessary, namely, assortment, because returns could not possibly come by constituencies. The assorting as well as the counting would come within the duty of the special returning officers and their clerks. They would furnish statements of the results to the commissioner in Paris and to the commissioner in London for transmission to Canada. So far as the secretary of the High Commissioner, or the commissioner to Paris is used, he is used simply as affording a convenient method of gathering together at one point the result of the operation and transmitting it over here.

I have referred to an officer to be known as the general returning officer. This is an officer whose services are made necessary by the fact that we shall have going on an election overseas and an election upon this side of the Atlantic. It is necessary that somebody should gather together the results of those two different subdivisions of the election and, adding them together, ascertain and return the general result. For that purpose we provide for the appointment of a general returning officer to whom shall come all of the returns from overseas, from Bermuda, and from the military voting in Canada-because we have to make provision for the taking of the votes of military voters in Canada who may, in large numbers, be absent from their constituencies. This general returning officer shall receive the returns from all these sources, and it will be his duty, adding the returns so received to those of the general voting ip Canada to annonce the result and proclaim therefrom the candidate elected in each constituency.

The provisions for the taking of the soldiers' vote obviously make it impossible for a returning officer in a particular constituency to make a return that a man has been elected, because he has before him only the votes of the people voting at home. We provide in the general returning officer an officer who shall receive these results and make return with regard to each constituency, after the information from all these different sources has come in to him.

Mr. MA.RCIL: What becomes of the

Clerk of the Crown in Chancery?

Mr. DOHERTY:

The Clerk of the Crown in Chancery performs all his ordinary functions; but it is not part of the duty of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery to first determine who is elected for a particular constituency. Under the machinery as it exists at present, the returning officer of that constituency makes return that So-and-So is elected. That is now rendered impossible by the fact that the returning officer of that particular constituency has not the necessary information to determine who is returned. The only way that that information could be got to him would be by making the people on the other side in some way transmit all information with regard to each particular constituency to these 230 or 240 officers scattered all over the Dominion, and it would necessitate sending information to those officers for the mere purpose of having them send it back again. It seemed a more reasonable and practical method to provide some one to whom all of the results of these elections held in this way in different sections should be transmitted, and who should establish and announce the final result.

Sir SAM HUGHES:

Will it be made legal to transmit it by cable in case the document is lose in transmission?

Mr. DOHERTY:

The provision is that as

Mr. MARCIL:

Do the ballots overseas

contain the names of the candidates or only of the political parties?

Mr. DOHERTY:

It is not intended that

the ballots overseas should contain the names of the candidates; the ballot as provided by the present Soldiers' Voting Act is retained. That is to say, a ballot upon which a man may vote for the Government or for the Opposition or foT an independent candidate, if there be any, or may vote for a particular person, so that wherever the elector knows who the candidates in his constituency are he has an opportunity

to vote for the particular candidate, and incidentally to that,- I may say we have made very full provision for creating a condition wherein, so far as it is possible, opportunity will

be afforded to the overseas soldiers to know who the candidates are. There is difficulty, apart from the knowledge of who the canqi-dates are, in the way of providing just such a ballot as is had upon this side; that is, that, if you sought to do that, you would have to have printed upon the other side of the Atlantic, necessarily after the nomination and before the voting, ballots for each particular constituency, containing, of *course, different names-ballots such as we have on this side of the Atlantic. By retaining the form of ballot provided for in the Soldiers' Voting Act, we enable preparation to be made upon the other side of the ocean of all ballots that are needed, because all of the ballots to be used, without regard to the constituency, will be in the same form. You get that advantage in preparation. Then you avoid what would be an obvious impossibility, you avoid the necessity oif every presiding officer being provided with specific ballots for each constituency in the Dominion.

Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:

What is the difficulty about doing that, by making the interval between nomination and election day two or three weeks longer?

Mr. DOHERTY:

We propose to prolong the delay between nomination day and voting day, and we have made provision for communicating and disseminating the knowledge as to who the candidates are in each constituency by every possible method, and we do hope that the soldiers as a whole will know who the candidates are. But there is the other difficulty, that if you were to hand to the soldier a ballot for his <'on-stituency such as we have over here, then every officer-and, of course, the officer cannot take the votes by constituencies, but is taking the vote of a group of soldiers-every officer taking the vote would have to have with him ballots for each of the 230 constituencies in Canada. While that might be an extreme case, undoubtedly there would be in every group of soldiers men voting as for different constituencies.

It is to be borne in mind that this operation is to be carried on practically in the field and if you load up the people who are going to take the votes with an assortment of ballots for each of the 234 constituencies, you will have to send a man

around loaded with a trunk. I do not see that any conceivable injury results from our having the one form of ballot applicable to every constituency so long as we take every possible means to let the soldier know who the candidates are in his constituency and to permit him to vote for a candidate by name. That, of course, also is a matter of detail with regard to which, iif an improved system can be suggested, it certainly will be welcome. But, as a result of the best thought that we have been able to give to the matter, that latter objection seemed to be an insuperable objection to the providing of specific ballots available for each man for the particular constituency in which he is entitled to vote.

Mr. GUTHRIE:

How would it be if the ballot papers were left blank so that a soldier might vote for any person for whom he saw fit to vote? I think the classification in the printed ballot may be very unfair to some hon. members now sitting in this House. As I understand, the ballot is printed, " for the Government,-' or " for the Opposition." I have no doubt that in the coming election there may be a serious question as to where some members of the present House will stand. They may be independent. Those who are considered to be party men, at a time when we are trying to break down party lines, are going to have an advantage. I would, as a suggestion to the minister, say that the ballots ought to be printed with blank spaces and let the soldier himself write in the name of the constituency wherein he votes and strike out, " for the Government," or " for the Opposition."

Mr. DOHERTY:

That is in the ballot

at present.

Mr. GUTHRIE:

There is that provision?

Mr. DOHERTY:

Yes, the ballot provides four distinct spaces.

Mr. GUTHRIE:

That is too many.

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order.

Mr. DOHERTY:

A man may vote for

the Government, he may vote for the Opposition, he may vote for any independent candidate, and, finally, there is a space which says " I vote for and he

can write in the name or names of the member or members that he votes for.

Mr. BRADBURY:

It is all on one ballot? Mr. DOHERTY: Yes. I appreciate the position of the man who wants to vote

for an individual candidate and I think it is most desirable that he should have the opportunity. The Bill provides ample means for the man who knows his constituency and knows his candidate and who votes for a particular candidate. All that is done by the other spaces on the ballot is to enable a man to vote who may, for instance, be uncertain as regards his particular constituency, or who under the conditions which exist over there, may not have received the information which we intend to endeavour in every way to have conveyed to him as to who the particular candidates are. It would be a most unfortunate thing if a man in that position should be deprived of any opportunity to vote at all. The form of ballot that we are providing in the Bill has all the advantages of enabling a man to vote for a particular candidate where his knowledge both of the constituency where he is entitled to vote and of the candidate running enables him to do so.

Sir SAM HUGHES:

Would the voter not have to write in the name of the constituency himself and vote for, say, John Smith, Montreal?

Mr. DOHERTY:

No, he does not require to write in the name of the constituency on the ballot.

Mr. SPEAKER:

I think it my duty to point out to hon. members that the motion before the House is for leave to introduce "The Military Voters Act, 1917," and it is not in order to -proceed with a minute discussion of the details. On the second reading of the Bill the principle may be debated and in committee details may be discussed. It is neither in order, nor desirable, to go into minute details on the motion to introduce the Bill.