Mr. CLANCY.

It is extraordinary that the government should offer no explanation of this extravagance. It is the right of the public to know why this service costs such a largely increased amount over former years and we would fail in our duty if we did not insist upon an explanation. The increase in this expenditure is nothing less than startling.

Mr. CLANCY.

When was that?

Mr. CLANCY.

Coming back to the question of making restitution to those who are denied their statutory increases, I have been looking at the question of the sergeant-at-arms. I see that he had a salary of $2,400 in 1897. It appears that there has been no statutory inerease from 1897 up to the present year. You. Mr. Speaker, say that the maximum is $2,500 a year. If he had received the statutory increases which he was entitled he would in 1899 have reached the maximum. It will be seen that there is some discrimination between the increases that are given to the others and these which are given to the sergeant-at-arms. Perhaps you will be able to explain why this is the case. I understood the hon. gentleman to say that the clerk assistant had been given an

advance partly on the ground that he had not received any statutory increase and partly because his predecessor had received $2,800 a year and it was thought the services that he is performing now are quite as good as the services performed by Mr. Rouleau. That is not at all, perhaps, unreasonable, but what seems to be a strange thing is that the officials of the Housd are not dealt with in accordance with some uniform rule by which men get even justice. Here is the sergeant-at-arms ; he was entitled to have reached the maximum in 1899 and now receives $50 of an increase. I am in this, pointing out the injustice that has been done to the civil service. Hon. gentlemen opposite cried out in every back school-house in Canada, at least In Ontario, against the sums that were paid to the civil service. I am not here as an advocate of the salaries of the civil servants. I think first that we must have a good service and to have a good service it must be reasonably well paid for. I think that there are many in the service who ought not to be there, but an efficient officer must be reasonably well paid. If we have a good service we must pay for it and we cannot afford to take any other ground. Hon. gentlemen came into power, and weak in office as they were in opposition, they found themselves confronted with the expenditures which they had criticised in the country. They withheld the statutory increases and now they have come down and made partial restitution. That is not creditable to the government. It shows a deplorable weakness, first to have taken the course they did in the country. I believe that under our system it is a very difficult thing not to made appointments that should not be made. I do not know whether we will ever come to a time when we shall sufficiently profit by experience and when any government will have that complete courage to do what they ought to do in a matter cf that kind, but hon. gentlemen opposite were not at all content with making appointments that should never have "been made, but it was made a campaign cry in the country that men went to their offices at nine and ten in the morning, that they closed them at five in the afternoon and that they were paid immense salaries. I say again that I am not here to advocate the cause of the civil service ; it is not my business, but it is my business in my humble way as it is everybody's to state the truth. However it does seem to me that there has been a very extraordinary inconsistency in regard to the way that the civil service has been dealt with in regard to statutory increases. I am not now saying whether officers of the civil service are overpaid or underpaid. That is a matter entirely aside from what I have to say and I think there ought to be some explanation of these inconsistencies. I think, no matter what party is in power, that we

should forget what the former leanings were of those in the service. I should hope that every man in the service would be faithful and loyal to his chief and to those who are over them, and the best way to secure loyal service is for those in superior positions to treat fairly the mein who are under them. I am speaking now of the sergeant-at-arms ; I am not saying whether he is paid too much or too little, but T do not understand upon what principle these salaries have been dealt with.

Mr. CLANCY.

I suppose the hon. gentleman sent the officer out after he made the lease.

Mr. CLANCY.

Where are these fish hatcheries to be located ?