parties, but instances of the kind were not so numerous as to make a clause of this kind advisable. The commercial community had made no recommendation of that sort. The Government had received recommendations from all the Boards of Trade, but not one of them had made a recommendation to this effect.

Mr. MACLENNAN regretted that the Minister of Justice did not see fit to adopt this suggestion. He hoped to bring He hoped to bring this matter up at a future stage of the Bill.

The clause was carried.

The following clauses to the 92nd inclusive, were passed :

On the 93rd clause,

Mr. LANGLOIS said this clause was adopted from the old law, and related to the contestation of claims. It provided that they should be decided by the Assignee himself, acting as Judge. The Assignee was to examine witnesses and render a decision, from which an appeal could be taken either before a Judge or Court. There was no provision in the Bill to provide before whom the contestation should be made and who should render a decision. Hemoved that after the words "consenting thereto," in the 44th line, the following be added: "shall be adjudicated upon by the Judge in the manner and form by him directed."

The amendment was adopted and the clause as amended was carried.

The remaining clauses in the Bill were passed without discussion.

The 22nd clause was changed so as to provide that the creditors at their first meeting should elect one of themselves as chairman, and that at all subsequent meetings the Assignee should be chair

man.

The preamble and forms of the Bill were adopted, and the Bill reported, and the amendments read the first and second time.

On the question of the third reading it was suggested that the hon. Minister of Justice had some changes for the first clause.

Hon. Mr. FOURNIER said those who were interested in this clause would do well to consider it carefully. In Quebec they had long had an exact legal definition of what a trader was, but in the other Provinces that was not the case. The Quebec Act had worked very well. He

Hon. Mr. Fournier.

The following Bills were introduced and read the first time

Hon. Mr. CARTWRIGHT (in the absence of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries)-To amend the Fisheries Act.

Hon. Mr. FOURNIER-To amend the Act passed in the 32nd and 33rd year of HER MAJESTY's reign, Chap. 21, entitled an Act respecting larceny and other similar offences.

THE EXPORT DUTY ON OAK LOGS.

On motion of Hon. Mr. CARTWRIGHT, the House went into Committee of the Whole (Mr. FORBES in the chair) on a resolution declaring it expedient to repeal the export duty on stave, bolts and oak logs.

Hon. Mr. MITCHELL asked for explanations with regard to the measure.

Hon. Mr. CARTWRIGHT said its object was to repeal the export duty on stave bolts and oak logs. He was informed that all the gentlemen of the lumber persuasion at Ottawa were favorable to this Otherwise he would not have doctrine. introduced it.

Hon. Mr. POPE said there were other gentlemen whose interests should be con sulted well as the exporters of oak logs. He did not see why the export duty should not be removed from spruce logs as well as from oak logs.

Mr. WRIGHT (Pontiac) said the principle that had been fought against last session was introduced in this Bill, but in a modified degree. They were endeavoring to build up the manufacturing interests of this country, and he was decidedly opposed to the exportation of the raw material from Canada to enrich foreign industries. He believed this country was in the infancy of its manufactures; and they should be encouraged. He thought

it was the policy of this country, if we wished to preserve to ourselves the material industries of the Dominion, that the exportation of the raw material should be deprecated. It should be manufactured in Canada so that the country might get not only the value of the material itself, but its manufactured value also. He hoped this House would not consent to the removal of duty from oak logs. or from any kind of logs.

Mr. JONES (Leeds) said the producers lost nothing in this country by this duty. The foreigner who exported the logs had to pay the duty, and he agreed with the member for Pontiac that we should continue the duty. He would therefore oppose this Bill.

Mr. WRIGHT (Ottawa) said the hon. member for Pontiac represented, so far as he was aware, the views of not one single gentleman in the trade of Ottawa. He (Mr. ALONZO WRIGHT) had introduced Mr. CHARLTON to the lumber men of Ottawa, and they consented to his very reasonable proposition to remove the export duty from oak logs, which would not affect this section in the slightest degree, while it was in the interests of the section represented by the hon. member for North Norfolk.

Hon. Mr. CARTWRIGHT said this was not, by any means, a novel proposition. It had been referred on at least two occasions to committees of this House, and a good deal of evidence had been taken with reference to it. It did appear that this export duty affected the interests of the section of the country adjacent to Lake Erie, and a good deal of valuable timber was destroyed because the owners could not take it to the United States, the only market for it, without paying an port duty. For these reasons the Government. had assented to the introduction, though, he was bound to say, they were given to understand there would be no opposition to the measure.

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Hon. Mr. POPE said the Eastern Townships stood in exactly the same position with respect to spruce logs, and he vas sure the lumbermen of Ottawa would have as little objection to the removal of the duty on one kind as on the other kind of logs. It would be a great advantage to the people living along the frontier of Quebec if spruce logs could be exported free of duty. In many instances

Mr. Wright.

it had to be burned up, yet the duty had been exacted in all instances. Were the residents of the country adjacent to Lake Erie to be relieved of a duty which was continued on the residents of the Eastern Townships? He had presented to the Government, from twenty-four mill owners of the section he represented, a petition asking some protection, and stating that the country was being so depleted of raw material that they were obliged, to shut down, and since then more than half of them had closed their mills from this cause.

Mr. CHARLTON said the section he represented was more deeply interested than any other part of the Dominion. The county of Norfolk had paid threefourths of those fourths of those export duties, and had never received any return for the exceptional burden imposed on them. It had been a sort of special tax levied on that county. Last year he had interested himself in this matter and called for a committee to give it due consideration. The report of the committee was adverse to the continuance of the duty. He found that many of his friends in Ottawa feared that the removal of the duty would work against their interests, and, consequently, he forebore to press the measure during that session. Recently he had an interview with the leading lumbermen in this city, and made a certain proposition to them, with regard to the abolition of duty on stave bolts and oak logs. There was no opposition to that from any one of them. The whole of the export duty on these two items was less than $2,000 last year. $2,000 last year. He did not ask the removal of duty from spruce logs, or pine logs, or shingle bolts, but merely from stave bolts and oak logs, which were principally exported from Norfolk. He held that the owners of logs had the right to select the best market they could find. A mill owner had no right to have a special tax levied for his benefit. By removing the export duty on stave bolts the settler would be enabled to utilize timber which was otherwise almost useless, and he would thus be able to obtain means for procuring comforts which would aid him in overcoming the difficulties with which he was surrounded. With respect to oak logs, there was no export trade except on the shores of Lake Erie, and that did not amount to not amount to one million feet, board

measure, per annum, The duty imposed was $2 per thousand feet, and the revenue was therefore very small. The measure proposed was satisfactory to all lumbermen who had been consulted, including those of the Ottawa Valley, and he hoped it would be allowed to pass without further cavil or comment.

Mr. COLIN MCDOUGALL said his constituents desired him to ask that the duties should be repealed. He sincerely trusted the Government would carry the measure which they proposed to introduce. The best interests of the trade would be served thereby.

Mr. PALMER said that the imposition of the duties was a hardship upon manufacturers in the Maritime Provinces. The manufacturers of carriages and railway cars had to import their oak and pay taxes that foreign manufacturers who competed with them did not have to pay. It, therefore, operated as a discrimination against our own manufacturers. He hoped that the Finance Minister would add a few words to the Bill which would abolish the duties, which amounted to a very small

sum.

The Maritime Provinces could not obtain from Western Canada the goods required in the manufacture of carriages, as the cost of transportation was more than the value of the article. They were, however, compelled to pay duty on a foreign article.

Mr. SCRIVER thought the measure proposed did not go far enough, and regretted that the hon. Minister had not, when taking a step in the direction of repealing the duties, gone the length of proposing the abolition of import duty on all kinds of timber. He agreed with the hon. member for Compton that there was no reason whatever if the duties were to be rescinded on certain qualities of timber, why they should not be abolished on all. The operation of the law affected very much the frontier townships in Quebec, where there was a very large amount of spruce timber. This country ought to give every support to the pioneers who went and settled on its waste lands, and manufacturing industries should not be bolstered up to their injury.

Mr. MACKENZIE BOWELL was surprised to hear the Hon. Finance Minister state that the result of the Investigating Committees, that had been appointed on different occasions to inquire into the effect Mr Charlton.

of the repeal of the export duties on lumber, had come to an unanimous decision. If the repeal of the duties proposed was necessary for the material growth and prosperity of the county of Norfolk, he would prefer that its operation should be confined to that county and the neighborhood, rather than that it should extend to other portions of the Dominion. There were not many oak logs exported from the central parts of Canada, but there was a large export trade in stave bolts, and if Parliament repealed the export duty upon them, the repeal of the duties on shingles, bolts and saw-logs would follow. If the measure were passed, the mills that had been erected for the manufacture of staves· and shingles along our shores, and particularly in the district in which he resided, would be compelled, as they had been on a previous occasion, when the duties were removed, to take away their machinery and re-erect their mills on the other side of the line. The American lumbermen, who owned extensive limits in Ontario, would find it to be to their advantage to bring the logs down along the shores and boom them, and watch for an opportunity to take them across the lakes, and the slabs which were of no use in this country but for fuel, would more than pay the expenses of transport. The result would, therefore, be that our manufacturing operations in a large degree would be transferred to the mills of Oswego and along the frontier. He did not hold free trade views, but believed it was the duty of Parliament, even if it were necessary to impose exceptional duties, to do everything possible to build up the industry of the country, and not to drive our raw material to the United States to be manufactured, thereby increasing their population and wealth at our For these expense. reasons he objected to the repeal of the duties upon even staves, bolts, and oak logs. Lumbermen, like other classes of the community, were very magnanimous when to be so did not cost them anything. lumbermen of the Ottawa region had no oak timber to export, nor did they export stave bolts, and as the measure would not, therefore, interfere with their trade, he could easily understand the magnanimity of the Ottawa members in concurring in the proposition of the hon. member for Norfolk. If, on the other hand, it had. been proposed to abolish the duties on

The

saw logs, he suspected they would have entertained different views.

Mr. WRIGHT (Ottawa) said one would think from the debate that the whole object of legislation was the protection of saw-logs. He thought the Ottawa lumbermen were as keen and sharp business men as would be found any where in the community; and they had been brought into contact with the hon. member for North Norfolk, and after considering the whole matter had given their consent to the proposition, which he thought was a very moderate one, and worthy the consideration of the House. He considered the matter was a purely local one, and even though it did affect his hon. friend from North Norfolk, it was worthy the consideration of the House, and he would give the proposition of the hon. Minister of Finance his support.

Mr. CURRIER said he had been consulted about the matter by his hon. friend from North Norfolk, and had consented to to the proposition, but he had expressed his regret that the Government should be asked to remove the export duty upon any class of lumber, though it was quite time that there were not oak logs in the Ottawa Valley to be exported. He thought every inducemeut should be offered for manufacturing lumber in this country, as the Americans were sharp enough to put a duty of $2 per thousand on sawn lumber and admit logs duty free, so as to encourage dealers to float logs down the Ottawa and up to Lake Champlain, there to be manufactured and to compete with our sawn lumber with the disadvantage of $2 per thousand.

Mr. McCALLUM did not consider the resolution went quite far enough, as he thought the export duties should be removed altogether, because then a great deal of timber would be exported that was fit for nothing else but burning. When á farmer went to clear off his land,

he

could get out  good deal of swamp elm that could be manufactured into stave-bolts if he could get a market, and this would be supplied by the removal of the export duty of a dollar per cord on stave - bolts. The Government sold these lands to the people of Norfolk, and in many cases they mortgaged their land to pay the Government, and the Government put on the export duty, and by that means made them pay Mr. Bowell.

for the land the second time. The people calculated to pay for the land with the sale of the timber, and the removal of the duty would help to give them a market. As it was, the settlers were compelled to burn a great deal of timber for which they could not get a market. If they wished to put a duty upon any timber it should be upon oak timber, because we have less of it than any other kind of timber. He thought the Government should go a little further, and include saw-logs of all kinds.

Mr. WRIGHT (Pontiac) said he was somewhat astonished at seeing the lumbermen of the Ottawa valley supporting the removal of the export duty on oak logs and bolt-staves, because he considered that policy was most suicidal for their own interests; and he was glad to learn that the hon. member for Ottawa City, although he had given his assent to the proposition, had done so reluctantly, and he presumed it was with the idea of preventing the hon. member from Norfolk proceeding the same length as the hon. member for Monck, and asking for the total abolition of all export duties. He held the principle that we should endeavor to encourage as far as we possibly could our home manufactures. He believed it would be a great advantage to the Ottawa Valley if the trade in square timber were materially reduced; and he would be glad to see the day when not one stick of square timber should be sent to Quebec and thence to England, to be manufactured there. considered it would be in the interest of the country if the square timber trade were abandoned, and the manufacturing done at our own mills, antl he hoped to see the day when we should manufacture everything that is made of wood in the Dominion of Canada. He did not believe that either the abolition or the imposition of the export duty would have the effect of damaging the interests of farmers. He believed that lumber was required on the other side, and that we did not pay the duty at all, but that the consumer paid it. Whether we imposed a duty or not would not in his opinion make the slightest difference in the amount exported from Canada, but it would make a difference to the amount manufactured in Canada. If they wished to remove the wooden manufactures from the Dominion and reinstate them among our neighbors, we would be doing that by taking off the export

He