policy could only have the effect of excluding British coal, and the exclusion of British coal was thus brought within the scope of the hon. gentleman's policy. Last year they had a very fair criterion, showing what the effect of a certain amount of duty on coal would be. The Grand Trunk Railway had, shortly before the meeting of the Coal Committee of last year, issued tenders for coal contracts, and those tenders were opened, he believed, while that Committee was sitting. The tenders accepted for Montreal were for Nova Scotia coal, $3.96 per long ton at the wharf, which with 27c. per ton for cartage, cost delivered in yard, $4.23; for Toronto, American coal was accepted at $3.40 per short ton, equal to $3.78 per long ton, a difference in price of 45c. in favour of United States coal at Toronto. If to this were added $1 per ton, the lowest rate at which coal could possibly be borne from Montreal to Toronto, the difference against Nova Scotia coal would be just $1.50 per ton. This was in the absence of any special arrangements for securing round trip freights by direct water communication. This evidence, arising out of a transaction which came directly under the notice of the Committee, proved that Nova Scotia coal, even under a protective duty of seventy-five cents per ton, would still be excluded from the Ontario market; a duty of at least $1.50 per ton, would be required to place it on an equality with American coal. What would this useless outlay of money mean? Something like a million tons of coal werc, as he had shown, imported into Canada; at seventy-five cents per ton, the result would be that, not one ton more of Nova Scotia coal would be sold than before the imposition of the tariff, and the people of Ontario and Quebec would be saddled with a tax of $750,000 a year, as the result of what was called a national, but was really a purely sectional policy. This tax would be one which would fall every year to a greater and greater extent on the mass of consumers, and the consumption of coal was by no means confined to the cities, for, owing to the increasing scarcity of wood, it was rapidly ex tending back into the towns and villages and country. But hon. gentlemen opposite talked of establishing an interprovincial trade, and argued that, if a duty were placed on Nova Scotia coal, it would enable the people of the Lower Provinces to consume so much more of the breadstuffs and other products of Ontario. They spoke of a line of steamers being projected to carry the interprovincial trade, which would be thus established. But there were already several means of communication with those Provinces, and, if a line of steamers were running from Hamilton or Toronto to Cape Breton, what benefit would that be to the people of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, or the western portion of Nova Scotia? It would cost them less to buy their flour and carry it by other and more direct routes. So far as a domestic trade was concerned, any ingenious scheme of interprovincial trade would be utterly impracticable, and would only prove to be an interference with the ordinary course of commerce. If it were truc that they could bring cargoes of coal up from Nova Scotia and carry back flour and wheat to Cape Breton, or elsewhere, for foreign shipment, then the problem was solved. If they could by that means deliver coal so cheaply in Western Canada that no duty was wanted, why impose a duty? If, in any of these ports, such as Sydney, they could obtain such an amount of foreign trade as would carry away all the produce of Western Canada which they could send down, and take back coal, then there was, according to the reasoning of the advocates of such a scheme, no necessity for imposing a duty at all. It being Six o'clock, the Speaker left the Chair. After Recess. ELECTION PETITION BILL.-[BILL No.15. (Mr. Haggart.) SECOND READING POSTPONED. Order for second reading read. MR. MACKENZIE: This Bill must stand. MR. BOWELL: Is any objection made to it? MR. MACKENZIE said he had Local Parliament. Under these cirinformed the hon. gentleman (Mr. cumstances, this measure could not Haggart) the other day that this Bill pass in its present state, while there could not go as a Private Bill. If it also existed the objection which had were passed at all, it would be as an been raised by the hon. the First Act to amend the Controverted Elec- | Minister. tions Act. He had suggested to the hon. gentleman, privately, that he had better consult some legal gentleman and ascertain what he should do in the matter. He had understood that this was to have been done; but he had not seen the hon. gentleman since. MR. BOWELL said he was not aware of such an arrangement. He had not so understood the hon. the First Minister when the hon. gentleman made objections to this Bill the other night. He had understood the hon. gentleman to say that some questions affecting the law had arisen, which required consideration on his part, and hence he had asked to let it stand. Of course he (Mr. Bowell) did not intend to press the matter. He was only doing a friendly act towards his hon. friend. tho on ac MR. LAFLAMME said that the Bill could not pass as it was, for this reason: the party complained that a certain amount of money was lodged in the Election Court. It appeared that he made application to Court of Queen's Queen's Bench count of the change in jurisdiction, which vested the jurisdiction of the Election Court in the Court of Queen's Bench. He made his application to recover the amount deposited in the Court of Queen's Bench, not in the Election Court, and he now asked this Parliament to pass a law ordering the Court of Queen's Bench to pay over this money, which was altogether irregular. In the first place, this party did not say he had made the requisite application in order to recover his money, which must be in the Election Court; it did not appear that he had ever made such application, and if that Court did not exist, the party who had this money had it in his individual capacity, and it was not shown that he had applied to that person in his private capacity for that money. As the Bill stocd, it would amount to an interference with the administration of justice in a Court which was was entirely under the jurisdiction of the MR. BOWELL said he understood the hon. the Minister of Justice to say that the proper course would be for the gentleman in question, Dr. Stewart, of Kingston, to take take proceedings against the individual who held this money. MR. LAFLAMME: Yes; or go before the Court in which the money is deposited. MR. BOWELL: But there is no such Court. MR. LAFLAMME: Yes; it must exist for the performance of the duties assigned to it. MR. BOWELL: But that Court, as I understand it, had no existence at the time this money was deposited. MR. LAFLAMME: Oh, yes, it had. MR. BOWELL: Consequently, no application can be made to a Court having no existence, or which had no existence at the time. MR. LA FLAMME said the Court had such existence. A petition, according to the gentleman's own statement, was presented in the Court of Queen's Bench, when it ought to have been presented in the Election Court. MR. DYMOND said, as a matter of fact, he might state that he happened to be present when the application was made before the Election Court, but it held that this money was not deposited with that Court, and that it had no cognizance of it because it had no petition properly before it. In fact, that Court only existed, and still existed, to take action in the event of visions of the Act by which it was conanything occurring under the pro stituted. He supposed that it would terminate at the end of the present Parliament. MR. MCCARTHY said he also happened to be present at the time, and he thought that the hon. member for North York (Mr. Dymond) was not exactly correct in his statement. The difficulty was this: a petition was fyled in the Election Court, but it had no jurisdiction in elections arising out of the Act of 1874. An application was then made by the respondent to take the petition off the fyles of the Court, and this application was made absolute. The petition was taken off the fyles. Dr. Stewart was in this position: the petition was off the fyles, and the money was in Court, but not to the credit of the Clerk of the Court. It had been deposited on the order of the Court in a bank to the credit of the case; and what had to be done, it appeared, was to place the Court in the same position as if the petition was not formally off the fyles. He understood that the Government were going to bring down a Bill to amend the Election Law, and they might add a clause giving the Court the jurisdiction necessary to entertain the application on the part of whosoever was entitled to this money. There was also a difficulty, as some persons were probably aware, as to whether Dr. Stewart was entitled to this money or persons who had advanced it. Order postponed. LA BANQUE JACQUES CARTIER BILL. [DILL NO. 35.] which nature had placed at our command, advantages which were given to the central portion of the Dominion with respect to a foreign country and which were enjoyed at either extremity of the Dominion or on our own soil; nothing could be more unjust, nothing could be more fatal, in his estimation, to a true national policy than to attempt to deprive the great and populous central portions of the Dominion of those advantages which nature had bestowed upon them. Not only were the coal fields of the United States more favourably situated for the supply of our need, but the mode by which the coal was obtained was so economical as to overcome the expenses arising out of a land carriage varying from 150 to 300 miles; and this enabled us to obtain that coal at as cheap a rate as it could be possible to obtain it, even if our Nova Scotia mines were situated much nearer to us than they were. So far as the evidence before them went, it was impossible to deliver Nova Scotia coal at the pit's mouth for less than something like $1.50 a ton, whereas coal of equal quality might be obtained at the pit's mouth in the United States at prices varying from 80c. to $1 a ton; and the topographical features of the country where coal was found in the United States were such that it was delivered almost without handling on board the vessel that bore it across the lake to its destination; whereas, in the case of Nova Scotia, the coal had to be raised fom a greater or less depth, the advantage, however, on the other hand, being that the mines were there situated so very near the water's edge that anything like land carriage might be said to be avoided. But there was one objection to the duty on coal-the same objection that applied to the duty on iron. He confessed he could not reconcile in his own mind the fact that an hon. gentleman like the hon. member for Cumberland-who was so excited and enthusiastic in favour of the shipping interests when it was proposed to place taxes or duties on articles used for shipbuilding purposes on the ground that they were the raw materials of a great industry,-should, on the other hand, propose to impose duties on an article which was the raw material of every industry in the country-and lowest possible rate, and the effect of also on iron, which, next to coal, a retaliatory policy would be that we was our most important raw material. should impose upon 3,000,000 bushels of But the food of man might also salt a tax which would range from 8c. to be considered raw material, and the 12c. per hundred-weight. That would proposition of the hon. member was, have the effect, perhaps, of excluding that, having taxed the people of 100,000 bushels imported into Canada Western Canada and Quebec to the from the United States, against amount of $750,000 per annum, in 820,000 bushels of salt exported from order to carry out a retaliatory policy | Canada to the United States. The against the United States, a dollar and Canadian salt producer, in fact, nota-quarter or a doilar and a-half should withstanding the heavy duty imposed be charged upon every bushel of flour by the Americans, had a very proficonsumed in the Maritime Provinces. table market in the United States. He did not mean to say that the hon. The Americans, as one gentleman told gentleman would dare to get up and the Committee in 1876, were compropose a tax of a dollar and a-half or pelled to take Canadian_salt whether a dollar and a-quarter on flour. The it was taxed or not. Our salt prolargest amount the hon. gentleman ducers, moreo:er, commanded the had imposed in his own Province was whole of that portion of Ontario lying 25c. and the largest amount im- west of Toronto, or perhaps west of posed afterward by the Dominion, was Port Hope. There was an importation 50c. At the commencement of | of American salt between Port Hope his remarks he had stated that, if a and the Ottawa River which came retaliatory policy were adopted, we into very close competition with our would have to impose upon our people own; but at Montreal, where the seajust the amount of duty which the board was reached, or where ocean Americans impose on theirs. The duty navigation commenced eastward to on flour, consequently, would amount the sea, the largest portion of the salt to something like the sum he had men consumed must necessarily be from tioned, assuming the price of flour to Great Britain. The effect then of the range from five to six dollars per bar policy suggested by hon. gentlemen might possibly be to compel these persons who used American salt in a limited portion of Ontario to buy their salt elsewhere or to pay a duty of from 8c. to 123c. per bushel, and, at the same time, to impose upon the whole people of this Dominion a duty on the three million bushels imported in addition to the duty already charged on flour and coal. Salt was used as raw material in the packing of pork, by farmers in dressing their lard, and by fishermen in curing their fish. More than two million bushels of the salt used in Canada was imported from Great Britain, coming out, like coal, at little more than ballast rates, and so sensible were hon. gentlemen opposite of this latter fact that, when in 1870 they imposed their National Policy on the country, they exempted from thè operation of the duty salt coming from Great Britain and British possessions or salt used in the sea and gulf fisheries. In a word, they were compelled to confess that they could not carry their policy into effect by rel. Well, having taxed the people of the Maritime Provinces to the tune of from $1,000,000 to $1,200,000, assuming the consumption was at the rate of one dollar a head, the hon. gentleman also proposed to impose a duty on salt. Salt, if he (Mr. Dymond) was not mistaken, was mentioned in an incidental way by the right hon the member for Kingston in his speech of the previous evening. Now, what was the case with regard to salt? As in the case of coal, salt was produced in a portion of the Dominion very distant from the point at which which the largest quantity of salt was required. No one needed to be told of the quality of Canadian salt any more than they required to be told of the quality of "Canadian coal. But, at the present time, we imported into Canada about 3,000,000 bushels of salt, and we exported to the United States something like 820,000 bushels. The fishermen of our Maritime Pro vinces required to obtain the raw material for their industry at the a taxing the salt-consuming population | tariff from the Statute-book of the of the Maritime Provinces. The con- United States. That was the policy clusion was this: that the professions of of the hon. gentlemen opposite. But Protection made by hon. gentlemen there was a policy which differed from opposite deserved no confidence at the that of hon. gentlemen o posite. There hands of the country; that, so far as was a policy, for instance, which opened their past career went, it had been new territories to our rule, and which hostile to and not in favour of a pro- gave to those territories the markets of tective tariff, and that, when there was the world. In the terms of the Pacific the greatest justification for the im- Railway contract, it was provided that position of protective duties, these the north-western portion of the Doprotective duties were not imposed. minion should be placed in immediate He thought he had shown as far as he communication with the great comwas able, with regard to what might mercial centres of the United States. be termed a National Policy, that it What did the Pembina Branch Railwould have an injurious effect upon our way mean? Did it mean that barriers relations with the neighbouring coun- were to be raised between the Northtry; that it would really bring West Provinces and the people of the no advantages with it to the United States. Did it mean that we great body of our people, and further, wanted a Rocky Mountain range that it would be thoroughly dis- along our southern boundary, as in loyal and obnoxious towards Great the most westerly portion of the Britain. This late adoption of a Dominion, in order to introduce a Proretaliatory Protectionist policy, was tection which would prevent that free nothing but the desperate act of des- interchange of commodities, those close perate men. He believed it had been and intimate commercial relations with resorted to because other and more the United Statcs which the people of reprehensible means had failed. These the North-West must need as well as hon. gentlemen had not the weapons those of the Maritime Provinces. The to resort to now with which they right hon. member for Kingston (Sir appealed to the country in 1872. They John A. Macdonald) actually spoke of had no longer Pacific Railway contrac- a retaliatory tariff as being necessary, tors to whom they could apply for in order to prevent the Americans from "another $10,000; "they had no longer having access to the North-West. gentlemen who would hand $32,600 as Could anything be more suicidal? a free gift to the Minister of Public Could anything be more certain to Works, any kind of receipt being re- impose a fatal check on the progress of fused. They had no longer the control that country? Could anything be of the Intercolonial Railway, which done that would longer deprive us of one of their own number predicted all the advantages that might accrue would give them a ten years' lease of from that great acquisition. But, forpower. They could no longer resort sooth, in order to put a little money to those expedients which consisted in into the pockets of a few manufacopening hardware stores, in order to turers in Ontario, the progress of the raise money for political purposes. people was to be handicapped, burdens They no longer possessed those argu- were to be laid upon them in return ments by which the Conservative party for every bushel of flour and every in Canada for the last thirty years pound of wheat they raised. The Prohad sought to attain power; and, vince of British Columbia, which was being without those arguments, they SO well represented in that House, were, what he might call, using the was one which was likely to be most interm in a strictly parliamentary sense, juriously affected by this insane policy. shiftless political vagabonds. Being Look at the resources of British driven to the last expedient, they Columbia, in its untold wealth of swallowed their past policy and pro- precious metals, in its timber, its iron fessions, and came down to ask the and coal and limestone, all lying conHouse for a National Policy, which tiguous one to the other, with the should lay the foundations of our own additional advantage that the finest Dominion by servilely borrowing a harbours in the world and one of the |