Mr. CROCKET:

With great deference

to the views expressed by my hon. friend from South Simcoe (Mr. Boys), I believe that the evidence adduced before the Senate Committee in this case and considered by the Private Bills Committee, proves that the respondent was guilty of the offence charged. Had I considered only the evidence which the petitioner gave in regard to the admission which her husband made to her of his conduct, I would not have been disposed to vote for the divorce; but the co-respondent was put upon the stand and was examined by counsel representing the respondent. The co-respondent corroborated every detail of ' Mr. BOYS.

the admission which the respondent made to the petitioner, except with regard to the actual fact of adultery. There is no doubt at all but that, if the admission which the respondent made to the petitioner is true, the offence was committed, and would be held to have been committed by any court of law in this country. I shall read just the material evidence on page 11, a3 follows:

He said: 'Well, last Wednesday evening I made a fool of myself. I was sitting downstairs, and May was sitting there, and I pulled her over on my lap-she did not seem to object very much; she sat there for some time; she did not seem to have very much on in the way of clothing, and I got very inquisitive and investigated.' He said, ' I put my hands up her clothes, and found that she had no draw ers on.' He said, ' she sat there for some time, and then she said she wanted to go to bed; so I carried her upstairs to her bedroom with my arms around her bare body.' I said, ' and you went to bed with her ? ' He said, ' No, not then, I didn't.' He said, ' I went downstairs and I drank some whisky, and when I went upstairs again I undressed and I went to her bed.'

If that evidence were given in any court of law, it certainly would be taken as-evidence of the commission of adultery. One can well understand that the young girl would perhaps not admit the commission of the actual fact, but that is the only difference between the statement of the co-respondent and of the petitioner in this case. It is for that reason that I voted for the granting of this divorce.

Mr. CROCKET:

I quite agree with my

hon. friend from Perth as to the necessity of great care being exercised by this Parliament in the granting of divorce. I confess that of the thirty odd divorce cases which have been considered by the Private

Bills Committee this session, with respect to at least three of them I entertained great doubt as to whether a divorce should be granted. However, with respect to the present case, the evidence which was given, and which was considered very carefully, I think, by the Private Bills Committee, convinced me absolutely that the respondent was guilty of the offence charged. The evidence shows that the respondent in this case had been absenting herself regularly from her home in the evenings, not returning until a very late hour, and that she informed her husband that she had grown tired of him, preferred some one else, and proposed, I think, to live with some one else. Immediately after that statement, she separated from her husband, and the evidence shows that for a period of a year she lived in a house, I think in Ossington avenue, in the city of Toronto, the only other occupant of which was a man by the name of Hillyard, whom she introduced to her neighbours as her brother, while the evidence shows that he was not, in fact, her brother. It seems to me that that is a combination of circumstances which raises only one inference, and, so far as I am concerned I have no hesitation in saying that of all the cases that have been considered by the Private Bills Committee this session, I entertain less doubt with respect to the petitioner's right to divorce in this case than in any other.

Preamble carried on division, and Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

Mr. CROCKET:

I was paired with the

hon. member for Carleton, N.B. (Mr. Car-veil). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the ruling of the Chair.

Ruling confirmed.

On the motion of Mr. Pugsley in amendment, that the Bill be referred back for further consideration:

Mr. CROCKET.

If my hon friend will pardon me, I said we were demanding the restoration of a right of which we had been deprived.

Mr. O. S. CROCKET (York, N.B.).

I desire to endorse the resolution moved and so ably supported by my hon. friend from Cumberland (Mr. Rhodes). There is undoubtedly a general feeling throughout the maritime provinces that those provinces have been ignored in the advertising propaganda which has been carried on by the Immigration Department of the Federal government within the 'last ten or twelve years, and that the efforts of the department have been too exclusively devoted to the booming of the west.

There is no objection in the east to the freest and most generous advertising of the resources of the prairie provinces, or to the 'employment of all legitimate means to attract desirable settlers to that section of the country. But we feel in the east that the efforts 'and the energies of the Immigration Department should not be wholly devoted to that purpose, as they have been in the past, and that the maritime provinces, which are seeking more population and which have equally 'attractive and more varied opportunities to offer for settlement, should now be given equal attention. At the present time, I may say that there is in the province of New Brunswick a feeling of optimism and hopefulness with respect to our future development that has not, I think, been equalled in any previous period of our history. For a long time that progress was not made which we would like to have seen, in agriculture particularly, in consequence largely of the fact that the valley of the St. John river, which traverses 7 of the 15 counties of the province from the Quebec boundary in the north to the Bay of Fundy in the south, and which contains the most fertile and productive lands within the province, has been deprived of very necessary transportation facilities. Now, however, that the construction of that great public work has been assured by the joint action of the provincial government of New Brunswick and the present Federal administration, a fresh impetus has been given to the whole of that section of our province, agriculturally , commercially and industrially. To-day the attention of the whole population has 'been fixed as it never has been before upon the extent and variety of our natural resources, and the unexcelled opportunities *and advantages which New Brunswick offers for expansion and development. Only recently I had the pleasure of listening to an address delivered before the Fredricton Board of Trade by Mr. Palmer, of the ' Financial News,' of London, Eng., ia very illuminating and encouraging address with respect to the resources of tlie province of New Brunswick. He stated that he was more impressed with the possibilities 'and resources of that province than with those of any country he had 'ever visited, and he had travelled over the whole of Canada three or four times. Therefore I say that in the province of New Brunswick at the present time the people 'are particularly hopeful and optimistic with regard to our future development. We have iin that province valuable fisheries, we have iron deposits, we have coal fields, we have oil wells and water-powers, and ia wealth of timber resources which is equalled by few of the provinces of this confederation, and a soil adapted for fruit growing and profitable mixed farming. In addition to all these things, we have the principal ocean port of the Dominion of Canada. All that we need at the present time is more population, and in order to get that we only need to make oetter known the resources of that province to the intending emigrant in the old world and in other countries. I am sure that this government will do its utmost in that respect. What we desire in New Brunswick is that the Immigration Department of this, government will cooperate to this end with the provincial authorities to a greater extent than it has done in the past. I a,m already assured that the government will do so, and that the result wild be that within the next ten years we will have 'the greatest development in New Brunswick that has ever been known in the history of that province.