Mr. MACKENZIE KING:

I think the suggestion of my hon. friend is a very good one and, as the Minister of National Defence has just said, it is one that he is prepared to consider sympathetically. But once again the house will have to ask itself how many committees it can stand. We are enlarging the number and it will have a bearing on the attendance in the house. I think my hon. friend's suggestion of that particular committee is a very good one.

Mr. COLDWELL:

There might be a

reorganization of the committees. Some of them never sit at all.

Mr. BURTON:

I do not wish to delay the passing of this item, but there is something I wish to say that I could not say on the regular estimates. It will be recalled that it was only a few months ago that we passed estimates for all the departments, and I would have thought that a department like the Post Office would have been able to get much closer to its requirements than it evidently did. This supplementary vote is for $1,234,720. This seems to show that they did not use good business judgment in preparing their estimates, and I would suggest that when their estimates come up they try to get a little closer to their requirements for the year.

Mr. MacKINNON:

The Postmaster General is unavoidably absent this afternoon, but one of his senior officials got in touch with me and furnished me with a very good explanation of the point just raised by the hon. member. I would suggest, however, that the explanation be deferred until the main estimates are before the committee.

Mr. FOURNIER (Hull):

We have purchased from War Assets Corporation "gate vessel No. 5" for use as living quarters in connection with the double shift for dredge No. 305.

Mr. CRUICKSHANK:

Buy another and put on three shifts.

Mr. ILSLEY:

Mr. Chairman, I move:

Resolved, that towards making good the supply granted to His Majesty on account of certain

expenses of the public service for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1946, the sum of $4,938,873.32 be granted out of the consolidated revenue fund of Canada.

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):

Mr. Speaker, I move that the house do now adjourn. My hon. friend who is leading the opposition will probably ask about the order of business on Monday. Monday is private members' day, and the order will be private bills, senate amendments to public bills, questions, notices of motions, public bills and orders, government notices of motions, government orders.

If the house will allow me a few minutes, I should like to say a word about private members' day. I do so in the expectation that what I am about to suggest may be taken exception to by some hon. members. I would call the attention of hon. members to the desire, already strongly expressed, that we should proceed rapidly with the business of the house so as not to have the session prolonged unduly. If hon. members will look through last year's proceedings they will find that one of the reasons why the business was so considerably delayed was the length of time taken in the discussion of private members' resolutions; a length of time wholly out of proportion to the importance of the resolutions in relation to government business. The British house has found it impossible to get through important public business and at the same time have any private members' resolutions.

I have before me the British Hansard of last session, and at page 133 of August 16, 1945, I find the following resolution:

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I beg to move,

"That during the present session:

(1) Government business shall have precedence at every sitting;

Private Members' Resolutions

(2) The following provisions shall have effect as respects public bills:

(*a) no bills other than government bills shall be introduced;

The parliament in Great Britain found! it necessary to adopt that course in a post-war period because of the growing importance of public measures as distinguished from private members' resolutions and 'bills. I am told that it has been found necessary to follow the same course this year. An appeal has been made to, and accepted by the house that, the importance of public measures being so great, they should be considered to the exclusion of other matters.

This house has set up a committee for the revision of the rules. It is perhaps not for me to suggest how the rules should be revised, and hon. members may take strong exception to what I am going to suggest, but I Should hope that the question might be considered whether some arrangement could not be made either to bring on private members' resolutions near the end of the session rather than at the beginning, or to fix a limit of time to be devoted to any single resolution. I should think that private members might introduce their respective resolutions, have one or two speeches made upon them, and then allow the house to proceed with the consideration of other motions. To take up three or four days in discussing a private member's resolution does seem to me to be a waste of time when time is very precious in view of the urgency of public matters. t

I throw' out that thought at the moment because it is something in which we are all interested. I do not wish to take away any rights from private members, but I think that the nature of public business in parliament to-day is such that if' the government has important measures that should be proceeded with expeditiously, and is prepared to proceed with those measures, some way ought, to be found of giving public business priority.

Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Peel) i If I may suggest it to the Prime Minister, in the British house the private member has an opportunity, limited no doubt, but an opportunity nevertheless, during the first hour of each session, from 2.15 to 3.15 p.m. of seeking information orally from the government across the floor of the house. I realize that it begins with written questions, but the supplementary debate that takes place afterwards gives the private member a wide opportunity to discuss a variety of issues which normally are present in the private member's mind, and in regard to which he can seek information from the government.

TMr. Mackenzie King.]

I intend at another stage of the proceedings to make some reference to this question having relation to the setting up of a committee on rules, because it seems to me that we are gradually departing from this practice in this house. I am not suggesting that anyone in particular is responsible for it, but I think the house ought to give consideration in the committee on rules to providing* some system whereby private members may be enabled to make oral inquiries of the government on a much wider range of subjects, urgent and otherwise, than are permitted in the discretion of the Speaker at the present time. One day in the British house I noticed that eighty-two questions were asked and answered and supplementary questions were asked at the same time.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING:

Yesterday we answered about sixty.

Mr. GRAYDON:

They were not answered in the way in which they are answered in Britain, and that is my point. In addition to questions being permitted for a whole hour in Britain, there are hundreds of questions in the same position as the questions to which the Prime Minister has just referred, questions which do not reach the House of Commons at all in the ordinary verbal debate.

I suggest that more latitude should be given because I feel the restrictions at the moment are far too pressing with respect to those seeking information from the government. I do not wish to reflect upon Mr. Speaker who is courteous to us all, but I feel that we ought to have wider latitude on questions. Far too many questions are ruled out on the ground that they are not urgent, that there has not been notice given and that they are too long. I believe these are bases which will not always commend themselves to the members of the house. Now that the rules of the house are to be revised, I suggest that with reference to questions wider latitude be given, and I make that suggestion to the rules committee.