than two hundred men thus employed, while on the north shore there was no such impediment to navigation. By constructing a canal on the north shore, navigation could be opened six days earlier in the spring, and it would continue six days later in the fall. It had happened that vessels, on arriving at the Beauharnois Canal late in the fall, were obliged to return to Prescott and tranship their grain to the Grand Trunk Railway to be forwarded. By opening a canal on the north shore, twelve to fifteen days navigation could be gained each year. These were considerations which he had no doubt, would be well weighed by the hon. Minister of Public Works before he concluded which route should be chosen.

channel. At one time there were no less | water to admit vessels drawing ten feet of water. In 1871 he drew the attention of the Government of the day to this matter At that time they let the contract for removing rock from that harbor. He predicted then they would fail in the work, and that prediction was verified. At the same time they decided to deepen the feeder of the Welland Canal. They expended between $150,000 and $200,000 on this work, to draw water from the pond on Grand River. They got eleven feet at high water, but there was a depth of only seven feet over the culverts, and the feeder was only twenty feet wide at the bottom. Take an ordinary-sized vessel into this cut and it would stop the water supply, and it was therefore useless for purposes of navigation. He regretted to hear the Minister of Public Works talk of deepening the Welland Canal to twelve feet instead of making it fourteen feet, which could be done by getting the water supply from Lake Erie. The promise made to his (Mr. MCCALLUM's) predecessor by the Government, that they would examine this question and cause a survey to be made of the two routes, had not been fulfilled.

Hon. Mr. MACKENZIE said the report stated that twelve feet could be secured by the expenditure at the upper end of the canal of $500,000 and a similar amount on Lake St. Francis at the lower entrance to the canal. This was the engineer's estimate, and he was usually above the mark in his estimates. With regard to the canal on the north side, it should, no doubt, have been placed there in the first instance, but he was not prepared to say whether it should be built there now, Or that the old one should be enlarged. The estimate for the new canal was $3,500,000.

Mr. McCALLUM called the attention of the Government to the necessity of feeding the Welland Canal from Lake Erie instead of Grand River. A work for that purpose was commenced some years ago, and completed all but one thousand yards of excavation. A subsequent report by an engineer showed that the feeder could be completed for $60,000. It was doing an injustice to the mill owners on the Welland Canal to delay this work so long. Years ago they invested a large amount of capital on the line of the canal, expecting to find a sufficient supply of water there. Now, they had not water enough for four months of the year, and still the Government collected full rates. If the Government did not take steps to complete this work, the present canal would be useless. With another dry summer there would not only be a deficient supply for the mills, but not enough even for navigation purposes. Again, in Port Colborne harbor there was not sufficient 15. Lanthier

Hon. Mr. MACKENZIE-We have not had time.

Mr. McCALLUM said the contracts should not have been given out until the examination was made. At Maitland harbor there was twenty feet of water, and the harbor was sheltered from the winds during all weathers. Last year it was charged against Port Colborne that there was a strong current in that harbor. The Grand River failed to supply the Welland Canal with water, and the balance was therefore drawn from Lake Erie, causing a current into that harbor. Another advantage possessed by Maitland was that the harbor was open two months earlier than that of Port Colborne. The canal policy of the present and the late Governments was directed by one-man power. While admitting that the official he had indicated was an able one, at the same time he disapproved of millions of dollars being placed in Iris hands to expend. Reports should be obtained from independent engineers, who were not pledged to a certain route. He trusted the Government would appoint a commission to inquire into the grievances alleged, in order that justice might be done.

He

had been reduced in proportion to the
time their mills had to remain idle.
was quite willing to cancel the leases alto-
gether, and not require them to pay any-
thing if they would let the water alone.
With regard to the hon. gentleman's
remarks about the proper entrance to the
canal, he (Mr. MACKENZIE) must take the
opinion of competent engineers in prefer-
ence to that of the hon. gentleman.

Mr. THOMSON (Welland) said that his intimate knowledge of the Welland Canal led him to understand that Port Colborne was the legitimate mouth of the canal. The hon. member for Monck had spoken for that part of the country in which he was interested. With respect to carrying out the improvements, he (Mr. THOMSON) was quite willing to leave the work in the hands of the Minister of Public Works and the Government engineers, for the Mr. KIRKPATRICK was sorry that Government were well aware as to what the Minister of Public Works could not was required. With respect to the mouth hold out any expectation that the Welland of Grand River being open two months Canal would be deepened to fourteen feet. earlier than Port Colborne harbor, that | The additional expenditure which would circumstance was of no consequence be incurred by making it that depth would because the ice held longer in the St. be small compared with the immense Clair River through which all the vessels advantage it would give us in competing had to pass. He desired, however, to for the carrying trade of the west. From direct the attention of the Government to what he had been able to gather from the the depth of water in the Welland Canal. remarks of the member for Monck he supAn agitation had been going on for many posed it was out of the question to get years in favor of the construction of a ship fourteen feet at the present entrance to the canal round the Falls on the American canal. side, and if the Welland Canal was only made to a depth of twelve feet an American canal of greater depth would be built. But if the Welland Canal were constructed of sufficient capacity to allow the largest ships to pass from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, it was more than probable that

a canal on the American side would never

be built, and therefore the Welland Canal would prove a profitable work to the country. He had always been an advocate for so deepening the canal as to provide greater depth of water than twelve feet. Mr. MCCALLUM said it was in the interest of the whole country, and not merely of one section, that Port Maitland should be made the western terminus of the canal, and that the canal should be made fourteen feet deep. At any rate, if the canal was only to be made twelve feet deep, the mitre sills should be sunk fourteen feet so that subsequently the canal could be again deepened without moving

the sills.

Hon. Mr. MACKENZIE said he considered it a mistake that water privileges on the Welland Canal had ever been granted; but the hon member for Monck was wrong in stating that those parties who had the water privilege had been compelled to pay the full amount. They might have been compelled to do so, as their lease simply gave them the surplus water; but their rents Mr. Thompson.

glad

not

Hon. Mr. MACKENZIE—No, no! Mr. KIRKPATRICK said he was to hear that such was the case; and he hoped that the works now going on would be constructed with a view to increasing the depth to fourteen feet at no distant day. He would like to know from the Minister of Public Works if he could give an estimate of the cost of deepening the Welland Canal to fourteen feet.

Hon. Mr. MACKENZIE said he could not do so at the present moment. He proceeded to say that the extra cost of deepening the canal to fourteen feet at some future time as compared with now would be very small. With regard to the present work, contracts were now given out to the extent of about five and a quarter millions. Two or three contracts were still to let ; one had been kept back chiefly on account of the difficulty of crossing the Great Western Railway. The Government had proposed that the railway pass under instead of over the canal, and that arrangement was likely to be carried out, and that section would be placed under contract immediately.

Mr. KIRKPATRICK-When are these works on the Welland Canal likely to be completed ?

Hon. Mr. MACKENZIE-I am not quite sure, but I think there is little doubt

that they will be finished before the end, money, and he had not been able to see that the town had any claim to it. Mr. HAGGART said in answer to a

On item 76, St. Anne's Lock, $200,000, deputation, the Minister of Public Works in answer to Mr. HAGAR, had stated that he would take the matter into consideration.

AFTER RECESS

The House again went into Committee of Supply.

On item 83, Baie Verte Canal $1000,000,

Mr. MACDONNELL (Inverness) said that annually since 1872, an appropriation had appeared in the estimates for the construction of the Baie Verte Canal. The work was recommended by the Canal Commissioner appointed in 1870, and which reported in 1871. The report of that commission constituted the basis upon which the appropriation had yearly been made. The commission was appointed to consider the canal system of the Dominion and to inquire upon the different works. In proceeding to the discharge of their duty the commission very properly prepared a circular, in which they asked for information, copies of which circulars were sent to all the Boards of Trade in the Dominion and the Boards of the United States-to all the Canadian newspapers and the mercantile communities. The report of that commission was untrustworthy in two respects :-First, because it recommended the construction of the Baie Verte Canal on the assumption that it would cost only three and a quarter millions, while the report of the Engineerin-Chief, recently laid before the House, placed the probable expenditure at eight inillions; secondly, because it pretended to furnish information on the subject both pro and con. But it appeared that there was not a single letter from any individual who reported against the construction of the work. The report only contained the opinions of three gentlemen in Nova Scotia, namely, Hon. Mr. DICKEY, Mr. MACFARLANE and Mr. FAIRBANKS. This circumstance proved that the report of the commission was untrustworthy, and yet upon it the House, without any discussion, was called upon to vote a very large appropriation. He opposed the construction of the Baie Verte Canal on two grounds; first, he considered it was impracticable, and such was the opinion of celebrated engineers who had examined and reported upon it. Captain CRAWLEY, of the Royal Engineers, in 1825, examined and reported the work to be impracticable, as many others had done since. He opposed the work in the second place because, admitting that it was feasible to

Mr. McDonnell.”

a

The

between Baie secure open navigation between Verte and the Bay of Fundy, the cost would be more than its usefulness would warrant. If the work, however, was to be constructed at all the sooner it was undertaken the better, for every year the estimated cost increased. In 1825 the estimate of Mr. TALBOT and another engineer, was £155,897, or $700,000; while a few years afterwards when the Canal Commission proceeded to inquire into the project the estimated cost was Afterwards placed at $3,215,000. report was made by Mr. KEEFER, who placed the cost at $5,000,000; and to-day the Chief Engineer of the Dominion said the work could not be carried out for less than $8,350,000, although he stated that a canal one-half the size of that proposed could be constructed for $7,700,000. construction of the canal was recommended for various reasons by the commission. They said that it would open communication between old Canada and the Maritime Provinces by the Gulf of St. Lawrence. If, however, the canal was constructed vessels would only use it in going from the Gulf into the Bay of Fundy, and the canal would not be used in making any port east of Yarmouth. The Commission stated that the distance from the Gulf to St. John would be reduced 600 miles, but such was not the fact. the reduced distance not being more than about 400 miles. A further argument adduced by the commission was that the canal would remove obstacles to trade being carried on between Montreal and the Bay of Fundy. He did not, however, know of any trade that was carried on between these points, or that would ever be carried on between them ; or that there was anything of importance to ship from the Bay of Fundy. Of course there was fish, and there were some grindstones; but surely the Dominion would not believe a canal costing eight millions of money, to ship a few grindstones, a little shad, and some pickled herrings, was a necessity. A further reason the commission gave was that the canal would afford an improved and shorter route between Lake Huron and Boston. But the people of the United States did not appear very anxious to promote or encourage trade relations with us; and even if they did, they derived an equal advantage from the trade with the people of Canada, so that if the canal was