Mr. FOSTER. We got to port all right. have had of addressing the House since I left He has barely kept to windward of the law. before the close of last session, I feel it both a duty and a pleasure to express my acknowledgments and gratitude to the members of Sir RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. You just the House on both sides for their kindness barely kept to windward of the law. The in facilitating the transaction of public busi- right hon. gentleman was good enough to ness at last session in such a manner as to an ce on the part of his colleague, the enable me to proceed to the high duties Finance Minister, that he hoped to deliver upon which I was subsequently engaged. I the Budget speech by Wednesday next, a recognize the fact that it might have been hope I am afraid which he will find to be made almost impossible for me to have entirely fallacious. If the hon. gentleman gone to the discharge of those duties, if the did wish to facilitate the progress of public hon. leader of the Opposition and his friends business, I could understand very well his behind him and around me, including friends having summoned Parliament together at a on this side of the House, who were deeply in- convenient time. I could understand very terested in some public questions, had not well his having taken the House into his given me those facilities. I venture to say confidence, having stated to them what is an that they showed a high sense of patriotism undoubted truth, that the interests of Canand public duty in affording me that opportun-ada and the United States are so very closely ity, and they have conferred an obligation intertwined together that it was important upon me as a public man that I feel bound to recognize this evening. for us to know their policy. There is some reason in this proposition, which is, however, Sir RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. Mr. wholly and utterly inconsistent with his preSpeaker, I must frankly admit that it is not vious professions. There is some reason in often we are called upon to complain of his declaration, that it is a matter of great the levity with which the hon. gentleman importance for us to know what our friends treats important subjects. I would rather on the other side of the border intend to do. be disposed, in a general way, to describe the That much I admit. That, Sir, mighť have hon. gentleman's style as ponderous, than been a good reason perhaps for delaying the the reverse, but still, when I hear the hon. presentation of the Budget, but it was no gentleman speaking of the great work of the reason at all for not calling Parliament toHigh Commissioner, Sir Charles Tupper, as gether at a proper time and pushing the the little French Treaty, the petite French public work ahead. Will the hon. Minister Treaty, Sir, I am in the judgment of the of Finance allow me to make him one suggesHouse if I say that the hon. gentleman has tion? I fear, with all the desire in the not on this occasion manifested a levity much world on my part, and on the part of my at variance, I suspect he will find, with the friends beside me, to help him forward-and great gravity that underlies that subject. The we do not desire to spend a day here more right hon. gentleman, with respect to the than the public duties imposed upon us rerather important question of the time at quire-I fear that it will be utterly and enwhich Parliament was summoned together, tirely impossible for him to introduce his has given us, no doubt, several precedents. Budget on Wednesday next. I would suggest The hon. gentleman is great on precedents. that instead of Wednesday next, he should He has established several very curious pre- name this day fortnight, and thereby he will cedents in the administration of justice in select, perhaps, the most appropriate day in this country, to which I shall allude before I the whole calendar for the introduction into sit down, but I may tell the hon. gentleman this House of a series of tariff resolutions now that he has read these particular pre- which, while adhering to the principles of cedents decidedly amiss. He will find cases protection, will yet restore prosperity to enough, I dare say, within the last dozen the farmers of Canada, seeing that if years, where similar errors have been com- the hon. gentleman defers it until the mitted by his predecessors and himself; but, day I have indicated, the 1st of April, will Sir, he will find no occasion in the seven-and- witness the introduction of the new Budget twenty years which have elapsed since Con- to Canada. The hon. gentleman was good federation, in which eleven months and a half enough to reprove my hon. friend beside me have been allowed to lapse between the ter- (Mr. Laurier) for, as he said, sneering at his mination of one session and the calling of Minister of Agriculture, and he went on to another. The hon. gentleman has sailed very declare that the Minister of Agriculture would closely indeed to the law in not summoning have been a quack, if he had done what? Parliament together until the 15th of March. If he had declared that it was within the when Parliament was prorogued, as we all power of the Government to raise the prices know, on the first day of April, 1893. This of grain or to give prosperity to the farmer. is the law on the subject, with which the Sir, I remember a score-nay, a score of hon. gentleman is well acquainted : scores of similar quacks who made their There shall be a session of the Parliament of way from one end of this Dominion to the Canada once at least in every year, so that twelve other in 1878, who obtained power by premonths shall not intervene between the last sitting tensions, which the hon. gentleman has rightof the Parliament in one session and the first sittingly designated as pretensions, which none but in the next session. quacks and charlatans would ever dare to without regard to the particular legal points involved, I do pretend to understand as well as the hon. gentleman does where that award has left Canada, and what that award has done for our trade and commerce. Sir, I am bound to say that the effect produced on my mind by the perusal of that awardand that effect has been creased and deepened every time I have read it over-has been a feeling of the most profound dissatisfaction. I, for my part, Sir, take upon myself the responsibility of saying that not one of the three principal parties to that award have come out of the business with credit or with honour. In the first place, I say that every line of the award shows clearly, distinctly and conclusively, that the conduct of the United States Government in seizing our ships and imprisoning our sailors when found on the high seas at distances of sixty, seventy or a hundred miles from the nearest point of land, was to the last degree arbitrary and high-handed, was utterly unwarranted by any principle of international or maritime law, was without one shadow of justification, and was utterly and entirely at variance with all the pretensions previously advanced by the United States, whether as regards Behring Sea itself or whether as regards their claims on our fisheries on the Atlantic. But, Mr. Speaker, while I, for my part, will uphold the contention of my hon. friend, partially enforced by the hon. Minister of Justice, as to the conduct of the United States on that matter, I deeply regret to say, speaking here as a British subject, that I feel that the conduct of the British Government in the matter is open to + make. Sir, on the 1st of April or thereabouts we shall probably have to Lear from the mouth of the present Minister of Finance what arrant charlatans and imposters all his predecessors were in making the promises they did to the people of Canada, o utterly and gross a failure in every imaginable at and part has been this same National oy, and how totally they have failed to redeem every pledge and promise they made. Sir, the hon. gentleman is not particularly fortunate in his allusion to the remarks made by my hon. friend on the increase of English commerce with Canada. Does the House want to know what all this flourish of trumpets is about? Well, Sir, according to the Trade and Navigation returns, which I hold in my hand, our total trade with England amounted in the year 1892 to $106,254,000, and in the year just closed to $107,238,- | 000. The increase, therefore, on the total trade was rather less than one per cent. Turning to our exports, I find that we exported to England in 1892 $64,906,000, and in the year just past $64,080,000; in other words, our exports to England were nearly one million less last year than they were the year before. I do ro think, Sir, that that is a very great increase, and I cannot think that it is worth a paragraph in the Queen's speech. However, Sir, the hon. gentleman is now convinced that my hon. friend was not quite in such error as he supposed, when he intimated that while our trade with England had increased hardly a million during the past year, our trade with the United States had increased ten millions. My hon. friend had good reason for calling the hon. gentleman's attention to the vast and enorm-almost equal censure. Mr. Speaker, what ous importance of endeavouring to develop a trade such as that with the United States, which forms very nearly the equivalent to our total trade with the whole of the rest of the world, and which is capable of being increased by a matter of ten millions in the course of one single year. Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman has alluded to one matter of very great importance to the people of this country-a matter which considered and borne in mind by the House I propose to discuss at some length, because I have the misfortune of differing from him from him very widely indeed as to the position in which, under his guidance or under the guidance of his ministry, the people of Canada have been placed with respect to this same Behring Sea award. On one point I can and do congratulate the hon. gentleman, and that is that he has most wisely abstained from any glorification as to the position in which we find ourselves placed by the decision that was come to by the arbitrators who sat at Paris. Now, Sir, I have read that award from end to end many times. I have done more: I have read, I will not say all the speeches, but I have read a very considerable number of the speeches that were delivered by the eminent counsel to whom he alluded on that occasion, and, although I speak of course as a layman, and were the circumstances of the case? I am willing to admit that in the first instance, in the year 1886, there was a considerable excuse or reason-on grounds to which I shall more fully allude later on-for the apathy and indifference manifested by the British Government. The place was distant; the facts required to be verified; moreover, Sir, it is well known-and this has to be carefully in studying this whole question-at that parti- were arbitrarily and violently seized while was but the fitting and natural climax of the pursuing their legal calling on the high seas, policy of the hon. gentleman and his predeand, Sir, to this day, not one particle of cessors towards the United States during the compensation has, through any remonstrance last seven or eight years. Sir, the policy from the British Government, been granted of those hon. gentlemen may be defined in to our people to indemnify them for the these words: it was first to bluster and wrongs they have sustained. This is not snarl, and then to cringe. We have, with the first time this kind of apathy has been respect to this award, three witnesses of very displayed by the British Government. I unequal value_we have the Minister of am old enough to recollect when Canadians Justice, we have the Minister of Marine and were shot down in their own land by marau- Fisheries, and we have the award itself. As ders from the United States, when Canada the Minister of Justice is in an arithmetical was put to considerable expense, and when mood to-night, I may say that if I were to Canadian interests were seriously injured, designate the value of these witnesses by and I am old enough to remember how those algebraical symbols, I would be disposed to interests were put entirely aside as too insig- describe the value of the evidence of the nificant for mention when Great Britain and | Minister of Justice by the sign of zero, the United States came together to adjust of my hon. friend the Minister of Marine their differences over the Alabama claims. and Fisheries by minus zero, but the Sir, the present is a parallel case, and while award remains as a plus and positive quanit is well to practice patience and forbearance tity. Now, Sir, I desire to call the attenand to avoid as far as we honourably tion of this House for a few moments to can aught which may prove a cause of what this award which I hold in my hand, war between two great and kindred nations, declares. First of all, let me say to the Minyet there are worse things than war, and ister of Justice that when he gave the House there is a point where forbearance be- to understand that the United States arbitracomes cowardice. But while I neither tors declined to agree to this same award, I acquit, for my part, the American Gov- think he went too far. I find that five ernment of overbearing action towards separate points were passed upon; I find that us, nor the British Government of un- as to four of these points Mr. Justice Hardue apathy and indifference in protecting lan, the United States Commissioner, conthe rights of Canada and of Canadian sub-curred with the other commissioners; I find jects, I am bound to say that if there be that on the fifth point alone Mr. Justice Harone thing which could excuse or justify the lan dissented. It is true that Mr. Senator indifference of Great Britain, it was the per- Morgan, who has special political exigencies versity and wrong-headedness which marked as well as the hon. gentleman, did not affix the conduct of the present Government and his signature to the award, but the Justice their predecessors in all their dealings with of the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States for the past eight years. if this copy of the award which I hold be a That, Sir, is the sole and only justification correct one, did assent to four out of these which can be urged in defence of the British five propositions. Now, what does that Government, and I deeply regret to say that award declare? That award-and if I they can make out far too strong a case am in error, am in error, the hon. gentleman and his against us in that matter to be pleasant. friends will correct me-that award, as I Now, what are the facts, even on the read it, and I think I can understand Engshowing of the hon. gentleman? He and lish quite as well as the hon. gentleman, the members of his Government go before declares, first of all, that Canadians were the Behring Sea Tribunal with a case which within their legal rights from start to finish, was absolutely unanswerable. What has a position the hon. gentleman will not dare been the result of their conduct of that case ? to controvert. It declares that the United To my mind, looking to that award, remem- States had no ground to stand upon, moral bering their own contentions, bearing in or legal, a position also he will not dare to mind the evidence that has been laid before controvert. It shows clearly and distinctly, us on this subject at various times, it ap- in the facts detailed in the appendix to this pears to me beyond doubt that my hon. award, that Canadian ships, as he said himfriend was strictly and literally correct when self, were illegally seized, that Canadian subhe stated that with an absolutely unanswer-jects were illegally imprisoned, and that the able case we had succeeded in losing everything for which we had contended. We have gained the verdict, yes, but we have lost the property and pay our own costs. Now, I have to tell the hon. gentleman that this may be a moral victory, but it is an exceedingly barren one. I have to tell the hon. gentleman more, that while I am not here in the slightest degree to defend the policy or the conduct of the United States Government towards the British Columbia sealers, in a great number of respects, what occurred at Paris trade of Canada, so far as regards one important portion thereof, was arbitrarily interfered with and stopped for no less a period than eight years. Now, what result should follow from these facts laid down by these arbitrators? Sir, I say that in all reason and conscience two results should follow most assuredly: first of all, that the United States should be ordered to make compensation for the wrong done, and next, that Canadians should be free thenceforward to follow their legal occupation. What was the result? REVISED EDITION. and we will not hurt your feelings by even hinting at compensation for your very high handed proceedings." Then turning to the unhappy representatives of Canada the officer delivering the award should have proceeded as follows:-"Now, as to you Cana no doubt, but you are only a dependency whose good-will or ill-will is of no sort of importance to us, and, what is more, your suzerain state has very solid reasons of her own for wishing to keep on good terms with the United States, so you will please understand that you are to have a moral victory and the United States a material one. Go home and meditate on the great truth underlying Mr. Lowell's celebrated dictum as to the position of the United States in a similar case : We air a bigger nation, and so our rights air bigger. Why, Sir, the result was this most lame and impotent conclusion, that whereas Canada had been within her legal rights all through, that whereas the United States had been wholly without warrant for anything they did, nevertheless that from the date of that award Canadians are forbidden to hunt indians; you have all the right on your side Behring Sea except for a few short weeks, during the rest of the time the sea being shut up by ice; that a tract of sixty miles on either side of the Pribyloff Islands is reserved as a special reserve for the United States; and as I am informed that the Pribyloff Islands cover an area of some sixty miles by twenty or thirty, it follows that a tract of 30,000 square miles is set apart out of the Behring Sea as an exclusive reserve for the United States, within which no Canadian sealer dare to enter at any time. More than that, not merely is this reserve established in Behring Sea, but we are forbidden to hunt in the Pacific, except under restric"You know you have been told if a man tions which, I am informed, as well as my goes to law with you for your cloak let him hon. friend will so enormously reduce the have your coat also-so, as the United States value of the sealing privileges that to all have claimed the Behring Sea, let them have intents and purposes, as he truly said, seal the Pacific Ocean, too—and pay your own ing in Behring Sea by British Columbia fishcosts." Well, Sir, I defy any man, any ermen is practically a thing of the past. It plain, straightforward, honest man, to say may be true, as the hon. gentleman said, whether my version of the award is not the that sealers are fitting out from Vancouver true and literal one and the one that ought or from some port in British Columbia, but to have replaced the somewhat lengthy docuI apprehend, if the truth were known, it ment now in my hand. Mr. Speaker, there will be found that they go, not to fish in are very important issues indeed underlying Behring Sea waters, but to fish in Japanese this whole question. I admit, Sir, that there waters, or in some other region where the is one thing gained and one thing only, hy United States cannot invent a pretext for the course hon. gentlemen have taken. interfering with them? Now, what is the admit it, Sir, and I am not disposed to underresult of all this? It may be summed up in value it, that it is a very important gain to two words: Canada gets the shells and the Canada to have subjects of dspute and diffiUnited States gets the oyster. gets the oyster. I do not culty between her and the United States pretend to say that correspondents of news removed from the arena of contention. But, papers are always accurate in their report Sir, I can tell the hon. gentleman, because I of what happens, especially at the confer- too have had some experience in the conduct ence in Paris, but I do recollect seeing cer- of negotiations with the United States, that tain statements which led me to the sus- he and his Government committed, in my oppicion that during a great part of the time inion, a very gross error of judgment indeed the conference was in progress the Minister in consenting to become parties to the arbiof Justice slept, while the United States tration without securing these two conditions Commissioners were very wide awake. Now, first of all, Sir, that our rights on the as I have said, I have examined this award Atlantic coast should have been conwith care. The award is of some length. sidered by these arbitrators simulI am aware that people at large do not taneously with our rights on the Pacific care to wade through several pages of Coast, and, next, that the broad outlines of legal phraseology, and therefore, for the the principles upon which compensation benefit of the public, I have boiled down should be awarded to our people for the the award into а few lines of plain wrongs they had suffered should be passed English, so that he who runs may read. upon by the arbitrators, and I tell him that Sir, condensed and translated into plain had he fully appreciated the importance of English, the award as I read it, ought rather the position, it would have been infinitely to have been delivered as follows:--" Gentle- better for Canada not to have been repremen of the United States: You are utterly sented at all on that occasion or to have in the wrong and you know it; you have not conceded what the United States originally a shadow of a claim, morally or legally, to asked. Mr. Speaker, I do not arraign the interfere with these Canadians. But you re- hon. gentleman of purposely or dishonestly present a very great power, which must be betraying the interests of this country, humoured. So, while we must for very shame's but I do arraign the hon. gentleman and sake, decide against you on the legal merits his friends of utter lack of statesmanof the question, we will annex such regula- ship in the whole conduct of this matter. tions as will give you everything you desire There were three courses, Sir, open to the I our warnings, were carrying on a vexatious Government of Canada, any one of which these gentlemen opposite, in opposition to might have been adopted with great profit and advantage to this people. They might, in the first instance, have used their position, which was one of indisputable and undoubted strength, so as to have conciliated the people of the United States. They might, had they understood their business, have so used their position as to have placed the Government and people of Great Britain under a very important obligation to them, or they might, in the third place have contrived to obtain substantial compensation. Any one of these three things could have been secured by hon. gentlemen, and they might, if they had been particularly dexterous, have secured them all. What have they obtained? Sir, they have failed in all. We cannot expect, after what has passed, that the United States will entertain any gratitude, or give us thanks for concessions | which we have not made, but which have been wrung from us. So far as Great Britain is concerned, we know only too well what we shall be told if we presume to found a claim upon what has passed-we shall be told: You consented to become parties to this arbitration, you were allowed to name your arbitrator and to appoint your own counsel, and, if things did not go to suit you, you have only yourselves to blame. As for substantial compensation, it is only too clear that substantial compensation for the nation at large is entirely beyond our reach. It may be, as hon. gentlemen have told us, that at some distant day-I suppose eight years from this date or about sixteen years from the commission of these outrages-at some very remote date-a few individual Canadians may possibly obtain some compensation from the United States. But, so far as the nation at large goes, we have given away our birthright and we have got absolutely nothing in return. Sir, the case is clear. The United States wished to appropriate a large slice of Behring Sea, they wished to obtain various other easements. Good. Let them give a fair equivalent, let the Government secure a fair equivalent either on the Atlantic or on the Pacific, I do not care which, and I, for one, would be far indeed from holding them to too severe account. But, otherwise, the bargain ought to be void for want of consideration. Now, Sir, the truth of the matter is this-our rights in Behring Sea have been, to all intents and purposes given away by reason of the mismanagement and folly which , was displayed by hon. gentlemen opposite in their dealings, on the other side of the continent, with the people of the United States. Now Sir, I do not make that assertion, which is a grave one, without warrant. When did these difficulties commence, Sir? For years and years our sealers had prosecuted that industry without disturbance. Not until August, in the year 1886, had the United States attempted to interfere with the just rights of our sealers. It is within the recollection of this House that in August, 1886, |