1. No.

2. Answered by No. 1.

According to a Canadian Press report of March 16 in the Gazette the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent), speaking at St. Michael's college in Toronto, said:

The foundations of combined strength we have already laid in the free world have given us a greater sense of security and grounds for hope that the war all decent people dread can be prevented.

I regret to say the precautions we have taken seem to have lulled some honest souls in our midst into a false sense of security, and to have induced them to join in agitation against the sacrifices and deprivations without which we cannot have any security.

As our hopes of keeping the peace rise, as our sense of security grows, we in the free world are facing the greatest test of our understanding, our resolution, and our patience. It is so easy to forget why we feel more secure and so easy to forget to pay the premiums on the insurance or even to ask ourselves whether we still need it.

I myself am convinced that if we are not to lose the security now coming within our grasp, we must be ready to keep up the insurance, much as I hope we may never have the fire.

WHat are we insuring against? We are insuring against aggression in the world, but that aggression is on two fronts, the military and the economic. The Prime Minister, according to the actions of this government, has taken out only one type of insurance policy to date, a policy against fire or military action. The government has failed, we believe, to recognize that there should also be a policy on the economic front. That is our objection to the present government policy. The government has put all its eggs in the one basket of military defence without making any comparable contribution toward economic aid, and the communists are making the most of that failure in order to promote

their line of propaganda throughout Europe. I might say that in many cases they are making a success of it.

Surely if the Prime Minister wants to insure against disaster, he should take out a policy that covers both of the dangers which threaten us at the present time. The minister of external affairs has on various occasions stated that the one danger is as great as the other; that we must give economic aid as well as military aid. Apparently he cannot sell that idea to his own government.

1 say that it is irresponsible for a minister in his position to make such statements unless he knows that he has the backing of the government in implementing them, and certainly the fact that for three years we have failed to do anything in this respect in NATO indicates something.

1. Civil servants are superannuated on account of age, ill-health or abolition of position. Civil servants may retire voluntarily at sixty and normally must retire at sixty-five.

2. No.

3. No.

4. The government's policy in connection with the granting of a cost of living bonus to superannuated civil servants has been stated many times in the House of Commons by the Minister of Finance, and in particular on January 28, 1949 (see Hansard for that date, page 42).

Mr. Belzile:

The books of the government for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1950, are not yet closed. The balance in the superannuation account .at February 28, 1950, was $94,834,517.25.

1. No.

2. Answered by No. 1.

Mr. Belzile:

(a) and (b) $1,466,933.47.