more.

building of railways, because everything done to facilitate trade between one point and another and to give cheaper transportation, was doing away with that natural protection which the hon. gentleman desired to compensate for by artificial protection. The motion was one that could not possibly inure to the advantage of agriculture.

tion to the subject and was not aware that | hon. member, to be consistent, should it was within the power of this House to have opposed any appropriation for impose duties upon the production of the the enlargement of our canals and American farmer to foster and encourage the agricultural interests of this country. What Canadian farmers most required was to be let alone. What they needed was that they should be able to get the articles they required at the lowest prices possible. They wanted the liberty to sell in the best markets, and they wanted the equal liberty of purchasing in the best markets. They recognized their obligation to bear their fair proportion of the burdens Jo taxation. He believed they did this, and he did not think they did anything If the time should ever come when the agricultural interests of Canada required further protection in order that they might exist, then the time would come when they should be no longer coninued. He did not know that the Government possessed facilities to make that profitable which otherwise would be unprofitable except at the expense of the community generally. Providence had so ordered things that it was not in the power of the Government to tax any people except those they governed, and any taxes they imposed could only be a burden upon their own people if the articles taxed were imported into the country. If we had a surplus of agricultural products, foreign markets regulated the prices for them, and if large quantities of foreign grain were imported, it was only for the purpose of exporting them again. The more traffic passed over our channels of transportation, the cheaper was the price of transport to ourselves. The increase of trade and industry in the country indirectly compensated us for all our expenditures upon canals and public works of that character. If we could by securing the carrying trade of the West double the population of Montreal within the next fifteen years, he apprehended that the 150,000 people who would settle there that otherwise would not be in the country, would bear their fair proportion of the public burden, and that population would pay more than the interest upon the debt incurred upon the improvements that were being made. But of what advantage or use would those public improvements be if we were to impose barriers to the importation of American cereals as the hon. gentleman suggested. The Mr. Mills.

Mr. DYMOND said this. was a motion of an utterly futile character, and would come to the same unhappy and disastrous conclusion as similar ones that had preceded it. They had all been strangled without coming to any practical result. In 1872 Mr. FRANCIS JONES moved for a committee. Questions were sent out all over the country, and out of some thousands of circulars a few hundreds of replies were received. In 1873 Mr. JONES moved his resolution again, and the result was that there was a debate and an adjournment, and nothing more was heard of it. In 1874 the mantle of the departed JONES was taken up by the hon. member for North Wellington, who obtained a committee. The history of that committee was a melancholy one. In the first place the hon. gentleman nearly came to a dead lock, on a point of order, in his attempt to get the number increased. The good feeling of the House came to his aid, and the hon. gentleman proceeded. After a most painful period of incubation the hon. member found it quite impossible to hatch his egg, and he went with his friends to the manufacturers' committee to ask if it would take the great agricultural interest into its ample bosom and nurse it into life. The Manufacturing Interest Committee, though consisting of large hearted men, was busy about its own affairs. At last the hon. gentleman and his friends, finding it impossible to do anything on their own account, procured the answers obtained to the questions sent out by the abortive JONES Committee a year or two before, and on these documents, which were worthless in themselves, proceeded to found a report. When the adoption of that report was moved, the unfortunate constructors of it were told it was out of order. Strange to say it nevertheless appeared in the votes and proceedings, and the illegitimate bantling of the

The

hon. member was safely bound up with exception was taken to it by the agricul the legitimate offspring of the session. tural community, but seeing that there After that history of committees on behalf was going to be none, they were now of the agricultural interest, the hon. gen- crying out for protection. They contended tleman might have been satisfied to let the that if protection was good far the manumatter drop, because if his last report were facturers it must be good for them. worth anything, surely he ought to be true policy of the farmers, however, was to able to found a motion on that report at oppose all increase in taxation and reduce the present time. What was another com- it whenever it was possible to do so. Supmittee wanted for? To send out more pose a duty were put upon American grain circulars and find out if the farmers imported into the country, there must be a wanted protection or not? If the hon. mem-duty on coal. That would increase the

ber did not know what the farmers wanted,
what right had he to occupy the time of the
House for an hour on the subject. There
were many members in this House
connected with agriculture, and they
could state what that interest wanted.
What did this House want to know about
the agricultural interest more than it knew
already? The hon. gentleman did not
want a committee; he knew if he had one
he would have to chase around the lobbies
for a quorum and after all might not suc-
ceed. His (Mr. DYMOND's) advice to the
hon. member was to rest satisfied with the
triumph he had won in delivering a speech
that
few had heard, and if
next session he was a wiser man he would
bring up the subject in such a form as
would enable him, if he should succeed in
carrying it, to scale the Treasury Benches
and form the new Government of
of which, 110 doubt, he hoped to
become a distinguished member.

very

price of manufactures, and the manufacturers would come to this House for an increase of taxation. Now he contended that the proper way was to reduce taxation in order to enable the farmers to raise crops at the lowest possible cost, and to compete with the markets. Anything he could do in committee or otherwise to further the interests of the farmers he would do. If it were possible to increase the fertility of the soil or the resources of agriculture he would regard it as a benefit, but to appoint a committee to sit here and advise that this House should impose further taxation would be futile. But it was contended that it would increase the revenue. Now there was a return showing the amount of duties received from the 7th April to the 31st December from flour, wheat and other grain, and the total amount received for nine months under that tariff was $109,956. At the same ratio the whole revenue from that source for the yearMr. FLEMING said it was unfortunate would be $146,568. This was all that we that all the Agricultural Committees which should gain for revenue purposes by the had been moved for in this House, had imposition of such a duty. Was it worth failed to attain the object for which they while to tax the people for that amount? were intended. He recollected that in He had heard another argument used— 1864 the hon. GEO. BROWN moved for an that it would be a retaliatory measure and Agricultural Committee, and that committee would force the Americans to open their was a perfect failure. Neither Conserva- ports to us. It was well known that when tives nor Reformers had anything to boast our neighbors abrogated the Reciprocity of in moving for such committees. How-Treaty that their intention was to force us ever much they might desire to improve and further the interests of that portion of the community, at all events Agricultural Committees as organized in this House, had never succeeded in accomplishing anything. The true position for agriculturists in this country was not to cry for protection but for a reduction of taxation. Unfortunately, last session the necessities of the Government required an increase of revenue, and additional taxation was put on manufactured goods. Expecting the Reciprocity Treaty no Mr. Dymond.

into annexation. They did not succeed in that, and when we found forty millions of people could not coerce four millions, was it likely that four millions were able to force forty millions of people into the adoption of a policy against their wishes? This motion brought up the whole question of free trade and protection. He contended that our true policy as a country, was to offer all the facilities possible for traffic and trade in the country, and we should then build up the manufacturing interests of the Dominion in the right way. They

would never be firmly established on such a basis, but should be founded on free competition with other countries.

might or might not be necessary for a bridge. If tolls were not a necessary incidence to a bridge, although they would

It being six o'clock, the SPEAKER left naturally be associated with it, the chair.

·:++:

AFTER RECESS.

PRIVATE AND LOCAL BILLS.

The following Private and Local Bills passed through committee and were read the third time and passed

To amend the Act 37-38 Victoria Chapter 115, incorporating the International Express Company.

To incorporate the Metropolitan Insurance Company of Canada.

BRIDGE OVER RIVER L'ASSOMPTION.

Mr. BABY moved that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole to consider the Bill to authorize FRANCOIS XAVIER GALARNEAU and others to build a bridge over the River L'Asssomption in the Parish of L'Assomption.

Mr. DYMOND desired to call the attention of the hon. Minister of Justice to the Bill, because he thought when the hon. gentleman had considered it, he would decide that the main subject dealt with was outside of the jurisdiction of the House, or if it were shown that the House possessed such jurisdiction, other matters incorporated in the Bill were clearly beyond the province of the House to deal with. The bridge which it was asked to build was already built, and had been in existence for fifteen years. It was private property, and no one could have access to it, except with permission of the owners. The only ground on which any one could apply to Parliament, and ask for powers to erect and maintain a bridge was that the bridge was to cross a navigable river, the object being to prevent navtigaion it being obstructed The promoters of the Bill did not desire to be put to the expense of constructing a swing or draw to the bridge which was already built, and a clause in the Bill stated that the bridge should not be provided with such machinery as there was no navigation above the bridge. That was the best possible proof that the river was not navigable in such a sense as to entitle Parliament to deal with the subject. The Bill also provided for the levying of tolls, which

Mr Fleming.

Parliament had no right to deal with the subject. Moreover, the House was asked to give police jurisdiction in connection with the bridge, not only to protect passengers from being assaulted or interfered with when on the bridge itself, but to protect them on roads and avenues leading therefrom. These, however, were matters under municipal control, and did not come within the domain of Federal legislation. If there were no navigation above the bridge, it could not be a navigable stream, and therefore it was incompetent for this. Parliament to say whether a bridge should. be constructed over the stream or not.. The Bill then went on to provide against the establishment of a ferry in the neighborhood. The Confederation Act explicitly provided that the Federal Parliament should only have the power of establishing a ferry, in certain cases, of which this was not one, and it was therefore impossible that it could enact that there should not be a ferry in this instance. The Bill also conferred certain powers upon the local magistrates-something which was entirely within the jurisdiction of the Local Iegislature. The last clause of the measure was of itself a proof that the promoter knew he was asking the House to exceed its powers, for it made the absurd and extraordinary admission that this Parliament was possibly doing something which might conflict with the jurisdiction of the Legislature of the Province of Quebec.

There was no

doubt that in the past a great many evil precedents had been set in regard to legislation of this class. He remarked that there were a great many legal gentlemen on the Private Bills Committee, and there was in this as in all similar matters an extraordinary affinity between them which made them unite in passing it through. The less they dealt with Private Bill legislation in the Federal. Parliament, he contended, the better. When an hon. member called attention, in the Private Bills Committee, to some point in a Bill affect ing another Province than that from which he came himself, he was told he was speaking of a subject of which he knew nothing. The rebuke was a fitting one. and was really the strongest argu

ment that could be put into any man's belonged to the parties making application mouth against this Parliament legislating | for power to construct this bridge, that a on local subjects. With regard to the Bill in question, he submitted, that it was beyond the jurisdiction of the House; if that point were decided against his opinion, he would ask that the clauses to which he referred should be struck out; and, in conclusion, he submitted that it contained in reality a proposal that the House should stultify itself.