MR. CARTWRIGHT: Yes; they entered as junior second class clerks. Most of them were older than, and above the average of second class clerks, but they were appointed under the ordinary provisions of the Civil Service Act in such cases.

MR. MASSON: Does not the Civil Service Act provide that, when such appointments are made, the House must be notified of them?

MR. CARTWRIGHT: Not in the case of Civil Service junior clerks.

MR. MASSON: Is it not a deviation to appoint a man as a second class clerk all at once?

MR. CARTWRIGHT: No.

MR. MASSON: Is it not the intention of the Act that a person who goes in as a probationary officer, is put in the third class? I do not see why you can put him over the heads of third class clerks and appoint him as a second class clerk.

MR. CARTWRIGHT: No; there third class clerks are generally appointed.

fault with the hon. gentleman, but he thought that to permanently appoint men who, in the pressure of work during the Session, were engaged temporarily, placing them at the same time above the third class clerks, was a dangerous principle. It seemed that, no sooner did these extra clerks perform the work, for which they received from $730 to $750, than they were transferred over the heads of third class clerks in the permanent Civil Service. Such a system was liable to great abuse.

MR. MASSON did not want to find

MR. BLANCHET: Will the hon. the Minister of Finance tell me if these extra officers have been continued since the 1st of July?

MR. CARTWRIGHT: They have; or at least four of them have been appointed.

MR. BLANCHET: But there is no provision for them in the Estimates of | 1878-9.

MR. CARTWRIGHT: I did not

appoint new officers, but merely filled up vacancies in the Department.

MR. BOWELL said he could quite understand that men were frequently appointed to the Civil Service, third class, who had not the talent necessary to justify their promotion to vacancies which might occur through death, resignation, or removal; but he thought that the employment of

MR. CARTWRIGHT: I have had two or three third class clerks in my Department; but my hon. friend must understand that, for the bulk of the work of that Department, we are almost always obliged to appoint men of experience and capacity.

extra work was a system that ought to be deprecated. In the Finance received a salary of $50 for twelve Department he found that a clerk who months work, had, during the same period, been paid $243 for extra work. Now, it seemed to him that clerk could do such an amount of extra work without neglecting his ordinary duties. He found, on looking at the report, that no fewer than eleven permanent officers were em

no

He was one

ployed to do additional work, besides the eight extra clerks. of those who believed that Civil Service employés did less work, probably, for the money they received, than any other class of clerks in the country; he believed that, if they were made to work harder, and were paid in proportion to the amount of work they did, this service would become more efficient.

MR. CARTWRIGHT said the gentle man to whom the $243 had been paid did a quantity of extra work which no one else could be spared from the Departments to do. The work was of a special character, and consisted of the preparation of the very accounts which were now being discussed; it required some special acquaintance with the particular Department, so that real assistance might be rendered to the chief officer. In answer to the hon. member for Niagara, he might state that the work of the Department, during the last four or five years, had increased instead of diminished, particularly in connection with the Savings Bank. The Savings Bank accounts had greatly increased in number, and extra work had to be performed in order to prevent the possibility of fraud. No increase had been made except those which were covered by the statutory increases to which he had referred.

MR. BOWELL said he called the attention of the House, five days ago, to the fact that this gentleman had sent down a memorandum stating that he had to put off making out a return required by the House until the summer vacation in consequence of the additional work imposed upon him, and so he would be robbed of his summer vacation to get out this return. If this gentleman was so necessary to the Department, his salary was much below the sum a gentleman of his ability ought to receive. He saw that it was only $850.

MR. CARTWRIGHT: The hon. gentleman wil be gratified to hear that the gentleman in question has received his promotion.

MR. LANGEVIN said that, with regard to the first-class clerks, he saw

MR. CARTWRIGHT said there was no fixed rule, and promotion depended on seniority and length of service. One of the senior secondclass clerks had been promoted to a first-class clerkship, it being desirable to do so because of the status his promotion would give him. This was the only alteration required. They had no formal rule fixing the number of clerks in this Department, nor had he made any increase in it for three or four years. This was the only promotion of the kind given for a long time, and he did not think it was an unreasonable one under the circumstances.

MR. LANGEVIN said he did not

say it was an unreasonable promotion; all he wished to ask was if there was no fixed rule by which the officers were classified. The officers had good ground for complaint when a promotion took place in their ranks of one of their number who had performed his duty no better, and was no more deserving, than themselves; but, if there was a fixed rule by which the vacancies were filled, they could not expect promotion unless there was a vacancy.

MR. CARTWRIGHT said that many of the clerks that had been appointed had been appointed in entirely new branches of work. Whether the Government could venture to make a distinct rule with regard to promotion, he did not know. The matter had been debated two or three times by the Civil Service Board, and two or three reports had been brought forward upon it; but the hon. gentleman (Mr. Langevin) himself did not venture to put the report presented to himself into execution. The Government thought it better to leave themselves some discretion, and came to Parliament from time to time for occasional

increases. There was a danger, as the hon. member said, that undue pressure would be brought to bear on Ministers for these first-class clerkships; but the hon. gentleman would see that they had not yielded unduly to that pressure up to the present.

MR. LANGEVIN said one way of guarding against this pressure would be to have a rule that the special authority of Parliament should be obtained in each case to create new officers. It might be said the money was voted in the Estimates, and this was sufficient authority. There was no doubt it was an authority to spend the money, nevertheless, he thought that, if the matter had to come specially before Parliament, in the shape of a Bill, it would act as a check against the check against the increase of officers.

Vote agreed to.

present regulations remained on the Statute-book. If his hon. friend (Mr. Plumb), or any hon. gentleman, wished to repeal that Statute, or some part of it, he was not at all sure that he should feel it his duty to oppose him. As long as that Statute remained, they must pay these annual increases of $50, and he did not think hon. gentlemen could complain. These increases represented $1,400 or $1,500 per year, and that, multiplied by five, gave $7,000 since 1873-4, and that was the sum total of the increase that had occurred.

MR. PLUMB said it might be possible that this increase only represented statutory increases. It was well known that the business of the Customs Department had been declining for two years; there had been a very large deficit, growing almost entirely out of the decline of Customs revenue,

these are statutory increases.

MR. PLUMB said there was an increase in this item as compared with the year 1873-4. The hon. gentleman said there had been an increase, but he held that there was a very marked increase, an increase of something like 16 or 18 per cent. There was a large increase compared with the expenditure of the extravagant Government that preceded this.

MR. CARTWRIGHT said that the total expenditure of 1873-4, in this Department, was $25,267.

MR. PLUMB: $24,835.

MR. CARTWRIGHT said $25,267 was the sum stated in the Public Accounts in that year. He must observe, however, that the point to which, in ordinary cases, attention was directed, was the increase as against the preceding year's Estimate, not the increase as compared with the Estimate of four or five or six years previously. He had explained on all these occasions that, under the operation of the Statute, there must be an increase of from $500 or $600 to $1,100 or $1,200, according to the size of the Department, as long as the

the reductio ad absurdum, they might suppose that the revenue fell off onehalf, and still there was no reason for a reduction. The expenditure need not be permanent. He did did not object to statutory increases; he thought public servants, particularly the humbler class, the under clerks, were very poorly paid. There were large items which might be discussed in connection with the Customs Department, such as travelling expenses of the Ministers, but he did not know whether he had a right to discuss even them.

MR. MACKENZIE: They come under contingencies.

MR. BURPEE (St. John) said there had been no additional appointments since he came in. The only increases were statutory increases. The staff had been reduced because there had been, at one time, a commissioner as well as a deputy; that was now done away with. The work of the Department, instead of decreasing, had gone on increasing, because the statistics had been largely extended, as the returns showed that the increased statistical information was making the volume larger and the

to tell the House on what principle the Government had gone in increasing those offices. He did not remember how the case stood previous to the advent of the present Government, but, so far as he could recollect, there was an organization of all the Departments, and the number of first-class, senior second-class, junior second-class, and chief clerks, and so on was determined either by the Act or by an Order in Council, and no Department could go beyond the number so determined without a special Order in Council and the matter being brought before Parliament. It might be that this extra first-class clerkship in the Department of Finance was needed, but he thought the principle was a bad one. The fact that they could state that the present year's salaries were not on the whole larger than those of the previous year did not answer this portion of the question, how it was that these new offices were created and that Parliament had not the opportunity of voting upon them, except in voting the money required for the Department. It might be that, in a Department where last year they had twenty-four officers, this year they had only twenty-three; but one of these had been a messenger with a salary of $600 or $700. He had disappeared and a new first-class clerkship was created, with a salary attached to it of $1,800. Instead of office commencing at $300 and going to $800, they created one commencing at $1,800 and going to $2,400. It was therefore important for the House to have a chance of determining the policy of the creation of these offices. He desired to know on what principle the Government acted in regard to this matter. He did not say that new offices might not be created; the public service might require them, but he thought Parliament should have something to say before voting the money.

MR. CARTWRIGHT said the hon. gentleman was quite right in saying that Parliament should have that op portunity, and, as he knew, it was specially provided that no first-class or chief clerkships could be created without a special vote in the Estimates.

He (Mr. Cartwright) was afraid that it was not possible to fix the number of officers required in each Department, and it had been considered inconvenient to pass a new Act of Parliament every time a new office was necessitated. In the Department of Inland Revenue there had been no chief clerk proper. There was an assistant commissioner who, no doubt, ranked as chief clerk, but the officer who was accountant, and who was discharging duties which, in the several other Departments were always assigned to chief clerks, had only the grade of an ordinary first-class clerk; and it had been thought only fair to that officer, who had been a long time in the service without receiving any increase, having come to the maximum of his grade, and having regard to the duties assigned to him, to submit this change to the approbation of Parliament. The question raised by the hon. gentlemen as to whether this ought to be fixed by Statute was important, and deserved the consideration of the Government. He thought the hon. gentleman would see, on reflection, that the practical inconvenience resulting from it would be considerable. These votes were fairly carefully scanned, and the fact that no chief clerk or first-class clerk could be created without a special vote in the Estimates, operated as a check. He quite appreciated the relief which he and his colleagues would find in having this fixed fast and firm, but he was not sure that the consequent inconvenience would not be considerable.

MR. LANGEVIN said the hon. gentleman must see that the vote in the Estimates was nothing else than the vote of the salaries of the whole Department. The House was not called upon specially to vote for each of these new officers, and, therefore, it was quite illusory to imagine there was a special vote. The House voted the whole Department en bloc. The hon. gentleman knew by experience that the tendency was to have higher sala ries rather than lower salaries. If the organization of a Department was fixed for one year, he did not see the great inconvenience of waiting the nine Or ten months until Parliament

|

met, and stating the increased number of officers required; and, if an increase was really required, Parliament would never refuse it. At present, the only way in which the House could control these items was by moving, on concurrence, to diminish the vote.

MR. CARTWRIGHT: No

doubt

that could be done; but we do not propose to do it this year.

MR. BOWELL said the same com

plaint which had been made the previous evening existed with regard to this item. In the Estimates of 1873-4 the item for this Department amounted to $19,775, and this year it was $26,767.50, an increase of $6,992. He supposed the House was to understand that the $50 increase was the cause of this. Extra clerks were also employed in this Department, and they received the same pay as in the other Departments, leading one to the conclusion that these must be permanent officers. These salaries were $730, $723, $535, $428 and $328; amounting in all, for extra work and clerks in this Department alone, last year, to $2,950. He called attention again to this matter to show that, in that, in every Department brought under the consideration of the House during the present Session, they found the expenditure for extra work and clerks running from $1,000 to $2,000, and in the Finance Department to nearly $8,000 for the year. He wished to know whether this was a new clerk or a gentleman who had been employed as an extra clerk.

MR. CARTWRIGHT said that the gentleman who was to be promoted was one of the first-class clerks. As to the increase, the sum total expended in 1873-4 amounted to $28,773, or, deducting the Minister's salary, to $21,773. The difference of $5,000 was partly composed of several statutory increases, but it was largely due to the introduction of the Weights and Measures Act. One of these first-class clerks was required for the Standards Branch, involving the expenditure of $1,300 or $1,400; a third-class clerk was also required in this branch, and a mechanic, salary $680, in the Weights and Measures Department. Deducting the salaries paid to these three officials,