slanders. It seemed that the men now | possible; and these were the gentlemen holding the position of leaders of the who undertook to purify the Senate, and Government of Ontario, who had stood up to assail the reputation of a body of men for four long years, pledging themselves who were as deserving of the confidence to the principle of striking down Coali- and support of the country as anybody in tions and building up pure party Govern- the world. These were the gentlemen who, ments, when they saw a chance of grasping in order to draw away attention from acts office and position, and the question pre- which had struck them down from the sented itself whether they should stand position they occupied a year ago, and true to their principles and forego office. which had blasted their characters, and found the temptation too strong, and utterly ruined them in the estimation of grasped office at the sacrifice of every every honorable man in the country, came principle they had held most dear. These down to the House with a measure resgentlemen claimed the position of purists. pecting the purest body of men in the Where did they get the idea that every country. He believed they misjudged one else was corrupt? The result showed Ontario, for he knew enough of the peothat it came from their own black hearts. ple of that Province to feel assured that When the temptation came, and when they. in common with the people of they seized power that the people of On- the rest of the Dominion, from the tario licensed them at the polls, and when Atlantic to the Pacific, would know how to the question arose how the power which estimate their professions when contrasted they had obtained by staining their repu- with their acts. He apologized for having tation, and showing that all their past pro- detained the House so long; but he was fessions were utterly worthless, should be sure that under the circumstances, the maintained, what did they do? They House would feel that, having been arcommitted those acts to which the First raigned by the member for Lambton, and Minister referred, and which had made having been tried at the bar of the House, them and their party a scandal throughout and having received a verdict that the the Dominion. (Cheers.) It was known charge was unmanly and undeserved, he to the remotest end of the country that had a right to speak. The member for when a vacant seat had to be filled, the West Durham must have felt that his case member for West Durham got his partner, was weak indeed, when he had to assail his relative, and the man who was in his a gentleman whose only crime was that, confidence, to lend himself to one of the in a great crisis of his country, he had foulest and blackest acts of corruption come forward and thrown himself into that ever stained the reputation of a pub- the great work of building up a magnifilic man. (Loud cheers.) The member cent Province. (Loud cheers.) for Lambton had dared to call the state ment of this transaction an "abominable falsehood." He would ask him to read the report of his own packed committee in the columns of the Globe, and blacker and more damning evidence of corruption could not be found in any record in the world; and the member for Durham was implicated as closely as possible. It was proved most clearly by evidence that they had broken down the administration by overtures of the most corrupt and disgraceful character to members of that administration, and the member for West Durham could only save himself from a report damning and ruinous to his character as a public man, by packing the committee, and ultimately when one member had to leave, stating that he would consider it a vote of want of confidence if a certain gentleman was put on a committee. Those were the measures to which the hon. gentleman had to resort to save himself and his Government from a report of his own party, fastening upon him, as in the case of the Proton scandal, one of the most disgraceful proceedings Mr. BLAKE desired to say that the statements of the President of the Privy Council with regard to himself were absolutely untrue. A vote was then taken on Sir John Macdonald's motion with the following result, yeas, 77, nays, 51. YEAS.-Messrs. Archambault, Beaubien, Bellerose, Benoit, Bertrand, Blanchet, Bown, Brousscau, Cameron (Inverness), Carling, Caron, CarCimon, Coflin, Colby, Costigan, Cumberland, tier Sir G. E., Cayley, Chauveau, Chipman, Daoust, Dobbie, Drew, Ferguson, Fortin, Gaucher, Gaudet, Gendron, Gray, Grover, Houghton, patrick, Lacerte, Langevin, Langlois, Lapum, Howe, Irvine, Jackson, Keeler, Killam, KirkMacdonald, Sir J. A., McDonald (Lunenberg), McDonald (Middlesex), Masson, [Soulanges], Masson (Terrebonne), McKeaghney, Moffatt, Morris, Morrison [Niagara], Nathan, Nelson, O'Connor, Perry, Pinsonneault, Pope, Pouliot, Renaud, Robitaille, Ross (Champlain), Ross (Victoria, NS.), Ryan, (Kings, N. B.), Ryan (Montreal West), Savary, Simard, Sproat, Stephenson, Street, Sylvain, Thompson [Cariboo], Tilley, Tourangeau, Tupper, Wallace [Vancouver's Island], Walsh, Webb, Willson.-Total yeas, 77, NAYS.-Messrs. Anglin, Barthe, Bechard, Blake, Bodwell, Bourassa, Bowell, Cameron, (Huron), Carmichael, Cheval, Coupal, DeLorme [St. Hyacinthe], Dorion, Ferris, Fortier, Fournier, Gec rion, Gibbs, Godin, Hagar, Jones (Halifax), Jones, (Leeds and Grenville), Macfarlane, Mackenzie, Ma gill, McDougall [Renfrew], Merritt, Mills, Munroe. Hon. Mr. CAMPBELL read a telegram from Montreal stating that a deputation was on its way on behalf of the Board of Trade of that city, to ask the Senate to reject the Bill for the repeal of the insol. vency Laws; and adding that the Toronto Board of Trade concurred in the opinion that it was advisable to continue the pre sent law until amended. Hon. Mr. LE TELLIER DE ST. JUST replied at some length to the arguments used by Hon. Mr. Tessier against the Bill for repealing the law. He acknowledged that there were difficulties in dealing with the best course to pursue, but he was nevertheless of the belief that the sentiment of the great majority of the people was in favor of striking off the statute book a law which worked so unequally and so injuriously to the commercial interests of the Dominion. He alluded to the tendency it had to encourage commercial immorality among the community, and to benefit the debtor at the expense of his creditors-a principle not encouraged in any bankrupt system anywhere. He wished to see a check imposed on dishonest bankruptcy, instead of allowing it to be actually fostered by an imperfect law. The country was now in a very prosperous state and could dispense with a law which only stimulated a large class of reckless speculators and dishonest traders. He and not deny that there was a certain condition of things when a bankruptcy law might be necessary; for instance when a monetary crisis arose and persons found themselves suddenly embarrassed and unable to go on with their business; but there was no appearance now of such a contingency, and he thought it was the wisest policy to repeal the law, and take steps to form a new one hereafter in case it should be deemed necessary to do so in the public interests. Hon. Mr. DICKEY said that he had noticed that the debate had evolved some curious features. Not one gentleman who had spoken in opposition to the Bill had ventured to say one word in favour of the Insolvency Law which the House was asked to repeal. All were in favour of a bankrupt law of some sort, but no one attempted to defend the provisions of the one now in operation. In the factious speech from his hon. friend from British Columbia, who had rather tried to amuse than convince the House, he had stated that the Bill was promoted and supported by lawyers. He (Mr. Dickey) believed that members of that profession were as fully entitled to hold and express their opinions on the question as the members of any other learned profession. When hon members discussed a question in the House they did not do so as lawyers simply, though they would naturally give the benefit of their legal and constitutional ore. It could be said with truth at the present moment that all the great interests of the country were represented in the Senate - Banking, Commerce, Agriculture; and after the humorous speech of his hon. friend opposite, he must add Medicine. He might be excused for saying that the Senate was a body, as the debate bad fully shown, as fully capable of discussing a measure like the one under consideration as any other deliberative assembly in any part of the world. It had struck him as a curious anamoly, that whilst the Maritime Provinces had complained that the law had been forced upon them by Ontario and Quebec, those two great provinces were now asking for its repeal, whilst New Brunswick and Nova Scotia supported it. He remembered the time when the law was considered one of the acts of tyranny which his unfortunate Province was obliged to bear as one of the consequences of union. Now, how was he to account for the change of opinion in Ontario and Quebec within three short years. He considered he was warranted in referring to the proceedings in 1869, when every amendment was rejected by large majorities, and deducing the conclusion that the popular objections to the measure must have arisen from its imper fections. (Hear, hear.) It must be admitted that great difficulty had always been found in dealing with the question. It was only necessary to refer to the his tory of legislation on the subject to see that there is an inherent difficulty connect. a the power of any person and his friends to prevent those poor men from taking any steps to obtain payment for their honest claims. He was very much afraid that such a law could never carry out the real object which it was intended to accomplish---an equal division among all the creditors. It had passed into a proverb in the United States that a man can never get rich until he has failed several timessuch was the effect of the present law in practice. It had been said that one of the guiding principles of bankruptcy law should be to enable an unfortunate debtor to get relieved. He believed the present law could only lead to rash speculation, to a species of gambling. The debtor was enabled to say to his creditor "Heads I win, tails you lose," because if he succeeded he pocketed the gains; if he lost he went scot free. It did not accomplish the object of a proper division of the property; it served rather to enable the debtor to get relieved of his debts in the easiest way possible with very little reference to the interests of the creditor. The bill before the House proposed to repeal the existing laws, but it went still further, it prevented the revival of those laws which were heretofore in force in the different provinces. If it were to pass it would leave Nova Scotia without any Insolvency Law at all as regards traders. Whilst there was imprison ed with legislation on the question. The very number of bills that had been enacted, amended and repealed since its first legislation in England was a proof of the perplexity and embarrassment that met all those who had endeavoured to frame a satisfactory law. The regulations that had been made only served to evade the diffi culties instead of grappling with them boldly and plainly. His hon. friend opposite (Hon. Mr. Wilmot) had said with reference to the old law of New Brunswick that so unjust were its provisions that he knew a case of an old man who had re mained in jail at St. John for the whole of his life. He was bound to say that there must be some mistake about that matter; the person in question could not have given an honest statement of his affairs. He contended that under the law of New | Brunswick, of which he had some professional experience, it was not in the power of any man to keep a debtor in jail when he gave an honest account of his property. They had also an Insolvent law in Nova Scotia under which a man who had been guilty of fraud or dishonesty, might be remanded for a term not exceed ing one year; and at the expiration of that period he was entitled to his discharge. They had still the law of imprisonment for debt, but it was a qualified law. The debtor could not be arrested under first process, until it had been shown to the satisfaction of a Judgement for debt in that Province, it would or Commissioner that he was about to leave the country for the purpose of evading his liabilities. He could well under stand that in the large commercial centres, like Halifax and St. John, there might be particular reasons why the merchants and bankers might desire to retain the law; but he was speaking generally of the country districts, and was bound to say that its working has not been satisfactory so far as it had come within his own knowledge either in the mode of its administration or the effect of its operation. He knew a case of a railway contractor who owed a large sum to a great many persons -debts varying from one hundred dollars upwards—and by some mysterious process, some one, not one of the creditors in question, put him into the Bankruptcy Court in Cumberland County; and the result was an attachment which swept away the whole of his property and those debts remain unpaid up to the present time. He might be told that a meeting of the creditors could be called, but had they done so they would in all probability have been met by an overwhelming number of claimants, hundreds of miles distant, who would out-vote them. Practically it was in be in the power of an exacting creditor to put a man into jail and keep him there should the law pass in its present form. Therefore he was not willing to see the bill pass without amendment; he would consent to its second reading, and then he would propose in committee either that Nova Scotia should be exempt, or that the laws repealed by the Bankrupt Law of 1969 shall be revived. Although the law would expire in the course of fifteen months, yet it was best to repeal it at a time when probably more people than ever before would hasten to avail them selves of its provisions. When it died a natural death it would certainly be "unwept, unhonoured and unsung." Hon. Mr. MCCLELAN said that he had no very strong opinions on the subject one way or the other. He found, however, that petitions had been sent from Montreal, Toronto. Quebec. St. John and Hali. fax-the great commercial centres of the Dominion-against any interference with the law now on the statute book. The hon. member for Cumberland had stated that he was not accustomed to practise in the Bankruptcy Court, and certainly had he greater experience of the working of the law he would hardly have said so much against it. He (Mr. McL.) had some experience of the statute, and, indeed had lost a considerable sum of money by a person who had availed hims self of its provisions, but still he had felt it was an honourable discharge and he ought not to oppose it; for he was of the opinion that any man who pursued his business in a proper way, and failed through misfortune, ought not to be kept under the control of creditors who may be very exacting and harsh, if not rapacious. Under all the circumstances he believed a bankruptcy law was necessary to a country engaged in commerce. The only dif ficulty had been to frame such a law as will meet the interests and necessities of had the country. With respect to New Brunswick, he mentioned that the laws formerly passed there been enacted for the most part to meet cases of great individual hardship, and they were hardly intended to have a general application. One objection taken to the Insolvency Act was the large expense it entailed-that the charges were really so excessive that the property was largely depreciated before the credi tors got anything, and that, on the whole, the Assignees were the parties chiefly benefitted; but that had not been his experience. It appeared to him that the costs attending a bankruptcy case, are a fair subject for examinatlon by the judge who gives the final discharge; and if they were excessive there was a mode of reducing them to a proper limit. Any result, however, was better than the accumulation of law suits that would probably arise were we to go back to the old state of things. He felt he would be hardly doing his duty were he to give his vote in favor of repealing the law, at the present time. As respects the remark made by the hon: member for the Wellington Division, with regard to preferential assignments, he must sayathat it appeared strange to him that a stipulation bearing on that subject had not been incorporated into our law; and if the hon. gentleman would set to work to prepare something which would guard the creditors from his difficulty he would find a large support. In fact, that hon. member would probably find himself. before he was done, re-enacting an Insolvency Law or something which would have the effect of conferring those benefits on the commercial community, which there was little doubt the present enactment failed to confer. Hon. Mr NORTHUP said that he thought it his duty as the only representative of the city of Halifax in the Senate, to make a few observations with reference to the measure under consideration. He must confess at the outset that they had received the measure in Nova Scotia under protest. One of the strongest arguments now in its favor was the fact that all the leading merchants, who made up the Chamber of Commerce of Halifax, had unanimously asked that the Act should not be repealed. As respects the rural districts of the province he had not heard any valid objections to its continu ance on the statute book. He was ready to admit that it might be amended ia several essential particulars-for instance that no person should be allowed to put himself into insolvency. The old law of Nova Scotia was in many respects a harsh one-a person doing business could buy £500 of property, and a few days afterwards could hand it over to some friend, and the rest of the creditors could not get a cent. He did not wish to go back to the old condition of things which was injurious to the best interests of the whole commercial community. Those who were engaged in large business had to a great extent the power of preventing rash speculation by exercising more discrimination with respect to those who wish to buy from them. In his opinion it would not be wise to wait until a crisis was anticipated, to pass a Bank ruptcy Law; it would only tend to hasten the very crisis which it was intended to meet. He was quite willing to benefit the honest debtor, and give him every oppor. tunity of restoring his fortunes. He had known not a few cases of men who had failed and afterwards became benefactors of their country. Holding these opinions he must vote against the Bill which had been brought so ably to the consideration of the Senate by the hon. gentleman opposite. He did not believe in breaking down the law before we had something better to put in its place. Hon. Mr. KAULBACK said that he had no hesitation whatever in saying that the present Insolvency Act did not tend to the benefit of the creditor as it ought to be the case. Its whole object was to give relief to the Insolvents and to facilitate their release from their obligations. From his own knowledge as a professional man he considered the law has a tendency to demoralize honest traders and work to the advantage of those who are dishonest. He considered it changed the proper relations that should exist between debtor and creditor, giving the former a very decided advantage over the latter. Numerous law suits had arisen, he could say from experience, from the results of a measure The time. The House then adjourned antil Monday evening. HOUSE OF COMMONS. which was so imperfect in its details. | number of bills were also read a second The effect of the law was to draw men into bankruptcy and create recklessness in the way of conducting business-in fact demoralize the whole community. Gazette was now full of notices of assignments, and not one of them at the instance of the creditor, for when a man failed the creditor knew it was no use for him to move in the matter. If there was any part of the Dominion more prosperous than another it was the Province of Nova Scotia, and he hoped this law would be repealed and not allowed to continue on the statute book to the injury of the commercial interests and the commercial immorality of the country. He believed if the present Bill was allowed to pass, the result would be to bring about the in troduction of another law which would remedy existing evils and promote the commercial progress of the Dominion. Hon. Mr. REESOR said that one reason of the difficulty of legislating on the question was the fact that there was little experience as to the proper mode of deal ing with it at the time the present law was enacted. When the law was passed, it occupied the attention of the best legal minds, and subsequently the same legal talent was required to amend it. The fact appeared to be that while the law was very good in theory, it had failed in practice. The general expression from all parts of the country, in his opinion, was in favour of repealing the law. He believed that it was a very difficult matter to deal with bankrupt laws. In his opinion, the best course was to provide as simple machinery as possible by which the division of the property should be made. The present law had been proved on experience to be inadequate to meet the difficulties, and now the evils were just as great as they were before its enactment. Under those circumstances he was of the opinion that if the House repealed the present law, the country will be prepared to sustain some measure which will be more just and equitable in its operation and conduce to the advantage of the business community. Hon. Mr. HOLMES hoped that the House would after so lengthy a debate come to some conclusion on the subject. In his opinion it was better to leave the matter alone, inasmuch as the law died The House then divided on Mr. Macfarlane's amendment which was carried. Contents 35; non-contents 24. The Public Lands Bill was then read a third time and sent to the Commons. A OTTAWA, Thursday, May 23rd, 1872. The SPEAKER took the chair at 3.25. BILLS INTRODUCED. Hon. Mr. TILLEY introduced a bill to incorporate the St. John Board of Trade. The bill was read a first time. Mr. RYAN (Montreal) introduced a bill to incorporate the Canada Improvement Company. Read a first time. Mr. O'CONNOR introduced a bill to in. corporate the North West Company. Read a first time. Mr. ABBOT introduced a bill to incorporate the Accident Insurance Company f Canada. Read a first time. THE WELLAND CANAL. Mr. LANGEVIN presented the return to the address for copies of the reports, &c., respecting the Welland Canal. THE LUMBER TRADE. Mr. MCDOUGALL (South Renfrew) moved an address for a return showing the tariff of fees under cap. 45, Consolidated Statutes of Canada, now charged to lum. bermen for supplying specification, &c. He said that under this statute the Governor-in-Council had power to charge fees on lumbermen for supplying specifications, and had power to allow cullers certain tees for measuring lumber. Changes had been from time to time in the tariff in these fees, and a year ago a change had been made, the exact nature of which he desired should be shown by this return. At the same time he desired to explain to the House his reasons for thinking that this change in the tariff was unnecessary. had been laid down that the receipts from He quite agreed with the principle that the culling of timber should be made to equal the expenditure. He thought, however, that the Government might have preserve the balance without imposing ad. reduced the receipts in such a way as to ditional burdens upon the lumbermen. Last year about 20,000,000 cubic feet of lumber had been taken to the Quebec |