Mr. McLENNAN.

It is a very important shipping point.

.Air. PUGSLEY. The average number of sailing vessels per year calling tl^re is 70, besides quite' a large number of steamers.

Port Hilford breakwater-protection of, with creosoted sheeting, repairs, Ac., $5,000.

Mr. MCLENNAN.

No, but they built close to it and crowded it so much as to make it utterly useless for public purposes.

Mr. MCLENNAN.

One feature of the population of Port Hood is that there are 500 miners employed in a coal mine within about half a mile of these very works.

Mr. MCLENNAN.

No, and hence the greater difficulty in getting vigorous workmen to Mr. PUGSLEY.

work on the breakwater. This revote of $5,000 unfortunately could not be expended on this work last year owing to the illness of the superintendent. I do not see why such a tremendous furore should be raised over the revote of a vote which was discussed and passed by this House a year ago. The population of Port Hood all told at the present time is about 3,000. Let me tell the House how an error might be made by a minister or anybody else looking over these estimates. To my knowledge the resident engineer made three estimates of this work-first, brush and stone ; then part cribwork and part brush and stone ; then, wholly cribwork. These three estimates wrere there and the minister, in looking over them, might very well quote one instead of the other. But the main point is this: Are these votes applied to the purpose for which this parliament passed them. That is the question, and not as to the exact estimate which an engineer may compute of the amount of material necessary to fill the large arm of the Gulf of St. Lawrence reaching in between Port Hood Island and the mainland-an estimate which is a most difficult one at best. No one will fail to see that in a work of this kind, when the isthmus between the Island and the mainland is narrowing and the current is running more swiftly and therefore digging more deeply the channel and requiring a greater amount to fill in, should be considered as affecting the estimates made at various intervals. But the question is, have these votes been applied honestly and carefully to the purposes for which this parliament adopted them ? I have personal knowledge of the gentleman in charge of the work, and I challenge any one to point out where one dollar was unnecessarily expended or lost by an error in the work of construction, ft is one of the most successful works of the kind ever entered upon in the maritime provinces. The population of Port Hood is about 3,000 and increasing in numbers very fast in view of the fact that these very works are affording protection to the very enterprising men who have put their money into the coal enterprises carried on near by. Even now that the breakwater is sufficiently far out into the water to afford protection, not only to the government wharf, which is 400 feet long, jutting out into the harbour of Port Hood and which used to be wrecked every two or three years by the .fall storms-this breakwater protects, not only the government wharf, but also the coal shipping pier at Port Hood. Any gentleman travelling that way on the railway train would pass along these grounds and see around the piers steamers lying in perfect safety-tied up to the coal company's pier.

Mr. McLENNAN.

It was built by the Nova Scotia government and taken over by the Dominion government.