Mr. SPENCE:

I should not think so, but

people do make mistakes.

Mr. SPENCE:

I feel diffident about rising to criticize or even make a suggestion in connection with a bill as important as this. But I have listened to other hon. members discuss it, and even the members of the legal profession do not seem to know all about it and do not seem to know whether or not they are in order or whether or not they should discuss some particular point. I should be the last person to oppose any measure that would lower the interest people must pay on mortgages, because for many years I have advocated that interest should be brought down to five per cent. It should have been done long ago; it is overdue, and I am sorry this legislation does not apply to the individual mortgage just as it does to company mortgages.

What I had in mind, however, was that this is a gamble. I am not knocking the proposition, but the government are entering into a gamble here which may cost one or two hundred million dollars. I wonder whether people will have the same confidence in the bonds of Canada if we go into a few more of these gambles, and if they will continue to

Central Mortgage Bank

buy the bonds of this country as willingly as they buy them to-day. I hope this sort of thing will not have any effect on the sale of government bonds, which we have been able to dispose of quite easily. If we go into very many of these propositions, however, where we gamble millions of dollars and take all kinds of chances, I do not know what the result will be. I should like the minister to tell me whether this may impair or endanger the selling of the bonds of Canada.

Mr. SPENCE:

We are all out of order, anyway.

Mr. SPENCE:

I hope that is true.

Mr. SPENCE:

What about lakes?