THE GRAHAM DIVORCE BILL. THE GRAHAM DIVORCE BILL. FIRST READING. HON. MR. KAULBACH introduced Bill (A)" An Act for the relief of John Graham." The Bill was read the first time. HON. MR. KAULBACH moved That the said Bill be read a second time on Thursday, the Fourteenth day of February next, and that Notice thereof be affixed on the doors of this House, and Senators summoned, and that the said John Graham may be heard by his Counsel at the second reading, to make out the truth of the allegations of the said Bill; and that Sarah Ann Graham may have a copy of the said Bill, and that notice be given to her of the said second reading, or sufficient proof adduced of the impossibility of so doing, and that she be at liberty to be heard by Counsel what she may have to offer against the said Bill, at the same time; that the said John Graham do attend this House on the said Fourteenth day of February next, in order to his being examined on the second reading of the said Bill; if the house shall think fit whether there has or has not been any collusion directly or indirectly between him and his wife or any other person or persons touching the said Bill of Divorce, or touching any action at law which may have been brought by him against any person for criminal conversation with her, the said John Graham's wife, and also whether at the time of the adultery of which he complains she was by deed or otherwise by his consent living separately and apart from and released by him, as far as in him lay, from her conjugal duty, or whether she was at the time of such adultery, cohabiting with him, and under the protection and authority of him as her hus band. He said:-This resolution is in conformity with the 76th rule, and also with the precedents on the Journals of the Senate. The motion was agreed to on a division. THE SENATE. Ottawa, Wednesday, Jan. 30th, 1884. The SPEAKER took the Chair at three p. m. Prayers and routine proceedings. That the Order for the second reading of the Bill intituled: "An Act for the relief of John Graham" on Thursday, the Fourteenth day of February next, be discharged from the Orders of the Day for that day, and that the said Bill be read a second time on Friday, the Fifteenth day of February next, and that notice thereof be affixed on the doors of this House, and the Senators summoned; and that the said John Graham may be heard by his Counsel at the second reading to make out the truth of the allegations of the said Bill; and that Sarah Ann Graham may have a copy of the said Bill, and that notice be given to her of the said second reading, or sufficient proof adduced of the impossibility of so doing, and that she be at liberty to be heard by Counsel what she may have to offer against the said Bill, at the same time; that the said John Graham do attend this House on the said Fifteenth day of February next, in order to his being examined on the second reading of the said Bill, if the House shall think fit, whether there has or has not been any collusion directly or indirectly on his part relative to any act of adultery that may have been committed by his wife, or whether there be any collusion directly or indirectly between him and his wife, or any other person or persons, touching the said Bill of Divorce, or touching any action at law which may have been brought by him against any person for criminal conversation with her, the said wife of the said John Graham; and also whether at the time of the adultery of which he complains she was by deed or otherwise by his consent living separately and apart from and released by him, as far as in him lay, from her conjugal duty, or whether she was at the time of such adultery, cohabiting with him, and under the protection and authority of him, as her husband. The motion was agreed to. AN EXPLANATION. HON. SIR ALEX. CAMPBELL moved that the Senate do now adjourn. HON. MR. BELLEROSE-Before the motion is agreed to I have a complaint to lay before this hon. House. The hon. Minister of Justice has misrepresented me, and I am sure that you will allow me to correct him, and vindicate my character. The hon. Minister in his reply to my remarks last Thursday said, (I quote from. the official report) :— "The hon. gentleman is rather apt to vaunt was the first one made, he having asked "his courage in asserting the rights of his to be the first speaker. It was arranged "nationality in this Chamber. I do not know 66 "what the hon. gentleman may think on that between my friends and myself that I point, but I know in the ways and habits of should follow him, I had with me all docu"thought in which I have been brought up, ments which I thought would be necessary "we do not consider it a proof of courage to for the occasion. Mr. Chapleau spoke for "attack absent men. We consider it the re- one hour, and did not attack me at all. "verse, and we are restrained by a feeling of "honor and delicacy from attacking those In fact he never mentioned my name until "who have not the means of replying. We the close of his speech, and then it was to "would fain see before us the men that we appologize to me, and pledge me his honor "attack." Now, I will not impute motives to the hon. minister, but he knew I had no right of reply, and that any statement of his, whether right or wrong, I could not dispute, but this did not prevent him from repeating this year the same charges against me for which last year I rebuked him in the following words; I quote again from the official report: that he had never had any intention of attacking me in his New York speech. I was bound to accept Mr. Chapleau's word, and did so, and consequently the personal question between us, was at an end. The next day a report of the meeting appeared in the newspapers, and in some of them I find the following: "Mr. Chapleau complained of the attacks "made against him by his old conservative "friend. He never had any intention whatever of attacking the hon. Mr. Bellerose in his speech in New York. "Wicked wretches no doubt, contend that "Mr. Chapleau preferred that Mr. Bellerose would not speak and that he made such an apology to prevent him from doing so." "I had a perfect right to take this course" "because Mr. Chapleau is no longer an ordi"nary member of Parliament, but a minister "of the Crown. If that gentleman "does not understand that he must treat his supporters properly, as they deserve, then "it is necessary he should be told so. It is "true Mr. Chapleau is not here, but in answer "to that argument, I may say, neither was I, "nor were the other gentlemen who were at "tacked in New York. "Had I spoken of Mr. Chapleau to-day as "he has spoken of me in New York, and not "named him, I would have been a coward "indeed, but I am not accustomed to that "kind of dealing. I always face a man and "tell him what I believe of him, and if Mr. "Chapleau had been here I would have told "him the same thing as I have already told "him under other circumstances." "This is the first time, either in this or in "the other House, that a word has been utter"ed by me against the hon. Secretary of State, "and I have only spoken now because I have "been attacked and slandered." Such was my answer last year. Such would have been my answer this year, had not the hon. Minister taken exception to my being heard by the House. I leave it to hon. members to appreciate this conduct in the part of the hon. leader of the Senate, and will add some more evidence: during the recess of Parliament, last summer a grand meeting was called at St. Laurent, in the County of Jacques Cartier. It was announced that Mr. Chapleau would be there to meet his opponents, and any of those who had attacked him. I attended the meeting and stood on the platform near Mr. Chapleau during his speech which 64 Those few sentences clearly show that I exercised all due diligence during the last electoral campaign in Quebec to meet Mr. Chapleau and settle the personal difficulties existing between us, and that the hon. leader of this House misrepresented me when he gave it to be understood that I dared not meet Mr. Chapleau face to face. So much for the personal question, to which I did not even allude this year as I confined myself entirely to the political question, and to them the hon. Minister referred in the following words : "If the hon. gentleman, (Mr. Bellerose) "wished to attack Mr. Chapleau, why did he "not seek a position in the other House, and meet him face to face." "I say that the attack is uawarrantable, and "if made in the other House, he would be "called upon to answer for it." As to the advice contained in these words, that I should seek a position in the other House and meet Mr. Chapleau there, or that I should not attack him, I would certainly be called to order if I was to appropriately qualify this advice of the hon. Minister-advice which seems to convey the idea that no member of this House should attack in his official capacity any individual minister of the Crown who has not a seat in this Chamber. It is true that the hon. Minister tried to be bribed, but surely that is not what a strengthen his position by adding that I gentleman occupying the position the hon. had not stated," that anything had been member holds, intended to criticize and "done by Mr. Chapleau, since he became belittle. a member of the Government, or since "he has been given a seat in the other "branch of this Legislature, calling for any remark such as he (Mr. Bellerose) had used." I frankly admit that during the eight years I have had the honor of holding a seat in this Senate, I never have had occasion before the hon. Minister took the floor on Thursday last, to notice any act But this argument of the hon. Minis- of cowardice in this House, except once. ter only shows the weakness of his posi- That was, when a few years ago, a promition. Did I not state when Mr. Chapleau | nent member rose in his place and in viowas received into Sir John Macdonald's lation of all the rules of this House did Cabinet, he obtained a promise from the his best to humiliate an hon. Senator Premier that Mr. Mousseau would be ele- whose state of health inspired every memvated to the Bench, at a later period. | ber of this body with compassion and sorWill the hon. leader of the Senate pre-row. I do not know what the hon. gentend that no member of this House has a tleman I allude to may think on that point, right to criticize such acts of the Government? Certainly not. I may state for the information of the hon. Minister and of the Senate that I have had now and then, during the last sixteen years, several occasions to meet the hon. Secretary of State at public meetings, and that I would not at all be surprised if I was told that it was the recollection of what had then resulted, that determined this hon. gentleman to come to St. Laurent, on the 6th September last, with an escort of some few hundred men, some of whom were employed in several parts of the Province by government contractors, such as Messrs Beemer, Connoly, McNamee, &c., while others were comm.on sailors who had been found in Montreal and brought to St. Laurent, the whole of them at a great expense. Yet after making all those efforts, Mr. Chapleau could not boast of having controlled the meeting, as he could not crush his adversaries by brute force, but on the contrary had to apologize, as I have already shown. There are within the reach of my voice at this moment some hon. Senators who were present at that meeting. They saw all that passed during that memorable day. I invite them to deny those facts if they can. but I know that according to the ways and habits of thought in which I have been brought up, we do not consider such conduct a proof of courage. We consider it rather the reverse, and we are restrained by a feeling of honor and delicacy from attacking those who deserve pity and not anger. I regret that the hon. Minister has seen fit to use such language the more so as I feel sure it has been inspired by men who are no truer to their friends than they have been to their country. The motion was agreed to and the House adjourned at 3.45 p. m. THE SENATE. Ottawa, Thursday, January 31st, 1884. THE SPEAKER took the Chair at 3 o'clock P. m. Prayers and routine proceedings. AN ADJOURNMENT. MOTION. HON. MR. MCKAY moved that when this House adjourns on Friday next it do stand adjourned until Wednesday the 13th February at 8 o'clock p. m. Before resuming my seat I beg to add that I am the last man in this House to vaunt my courage. On the contrary I have always acknowledged that I was no bully and that I left it to dogs to fight, reserving myself for the discussion of quesHON. MR. POWER said it was unusua tions in a proper manner. I do take a for a motion of this kind to be made withcertain pride in shewing some independ-out either the mover or seconder giving ence as a public man and that I cannot good reasons for asking the House to support it. HON. MR. HAYTHORNE protested against these annual adjournments in the early stage of the session. There never was a greater reason for protesting against the practice than at the present time, for besides the business of which notice had been given by private members, there was the ordinary routine business of the House and the public business must necessarily suffer by so long an adjournment as was proposed in this motion. For instance, he held in his hand a summons to attend the Joint Committee on Printing to take into consideration the important question of the printing of Parliament, the contract for which was about to expire, and it was quite necessary that timely measures should be taken to provide for the printing in the future. A meeting of the Committee had been called for to-morrow, and no one could tell whether there would be a quorum present, or whether there would not be an adjournment until a future day, and the adjourned meeting might take place during the recess of this House when the Senators would be scattered over the country. thought these lengthy adjournments were not at all calculated to increase the prestige of the Senate, or to enable it to maintain that standing which, in his judgment, it ought to possess in the eyes of the people. He HON. MR. KAULBACH endorsed the remarks of his hon. friend from Prince Edward Island. Such motions as these should emanate from the leader of the Government, and unless the Minister of Justice would say that the business of the House would not be injured by this prolonged adjournment, he would vote against it. He regretted to find that this motion had come from an hon. member from Nova Scotia. The Nova Scotians had never heretofore asked for anything of this kind; they were exemplary in their devotion to the public business, and he did not believe the motion originated with the hon. member from Colchester, but had emanated from some other source. HON. MR. MASSON said the Government should know in what position the business of Parliament was at present, and if the leader of the House would say that the public business would suffer in the least degree by the adjournment he would vote against it. HON. MR. READ said the adjournment only covered seven of the sitting days of this House. It was customary every session since he had the honor of a seat in the Senate, to have an adjournment in the early part of the session until business began to come up from the Lower House. HON. SIR ALEX. CAMPBELL assured the House that the public business would not suffer by this adjournment; if he thought it would, he should at once advise the Senate not to assent to the resolution; but the truth was the public business would not suffer at all, and he was in a position to judge, nor did he believe it would have the effect of prolonging the session. It did occur to him that it might be some inconvenience to private business, and thinking it his duty to ascertain what that effect would be, he had made some inquiry with regard to it. He found that there had been presented since the beginning of the session 25 petitions for private Bills. Of these, six had been dealt with, and four more would be dealt with tomorrow. Of the remaining 15 the notices had either not expired, or the newspapers containing the notice had not been sent in. It was a choice now between meeting daily and having very little to do, and adjourning. HON. MR. POWER said that as the hon. Minister of Justice had assumed the responsibility on behalf of the Government, and had stated that the public business would not suffer by the adjournment, he would not say very much against it, but he wished to ask the hon. Minister of Justice if the resolution of the hon. member from Colchester should not be amended to provide that the committees of the House could sit during the adjournment. HON. SIR ALEX. CAMPBELL said it was not necessary, as the Committees of the House had the right to sit during re cess. HON. MR. PLUMB said that in the absence of any explanation from the Leader of the Government as to the state of business, he would have opposed the resolution, but after the explanation just given he did not see that anything could privileges of Parliament on Friday the 8th Orders of that day, and placed on the Orders day of February next, be discharged from the of the Day for Tuesday the 19th day of February next. be gained by doing so. He would ask the orders and customs of the House, and whether the time for receiving petitions for Private Bills would not expire during the period of this adjournment as if so, some provision ought to be made to meet this difficulty. HON. SIR ALEX. CAMPBELL said there were several matters which required to be taken notice of in case the resolution before the House carried, and for which he had some motions prepared. The motion was agreed to. The motion was agreed to. SOREL BARRACKS PROPERTY. MOTION. PETITIONS FOR PRIVATE BILLS. His Excellency the Governor-General, praying MOTION. HON. SIR. ALEX. CAMPBELL moved: That the time limited for presenting petitions for private bills which expires on Saturday the 9th of February, be extended to Tuesday, 19th day of February next. The motion was agreed to. PRIVATE BILLS. MOTION. HON. SIR. ALEX. CAMPBELL moved: That the time limited for presenting private bills to the Senate which expire on Saturday the 9th of February, be extended to Tuesday the 19th day of February next. HON. MR. POWER asked if the attention of the Minister of Justice had been called to the declaration made by the Chairman of the Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills of the other House, that the committee had positively decided not to recommend any further extension of the time for receiving private bills beyond the 9th of February next. HON. SIR. ALEX. CAMPBELL said he was not aware of that fact but as the Senate would not be sitting on the 9th of February it would be wiser to extend the time. The motion was agreed to. SENATOR DICKSON. MOTION. HON. SIR. ALEX. CAMPBELL moved: That the order for the consideration of the report of the committee appointed to consider HON. MR. GUEVREMONT moved : That an humble Address be presented to that His Excellency will cause to be laid be fore this House, a copy of the Lease, in virtue of which the Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company is in possession of the land upon which are built the Barracks situated in the Town of Sorel, in the Province of Quebec. HON. MR. MACPHERSON --I can give the hon. gentleman the information for which he asks now, and probably it will be more acceptable to him, at all events he will get it earlier than if he waited until the Address is considered. The site of the wharves and barracks property at Sorel, is leased to the Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company for 21 years, newable by mutual consent. from July first 1874, the lease being reThe annual rent is $300.00 payable half-yearly, and it is paid up to November first, 1883. Con sent was given to the Company on the tenth of October, 1882, to sub-let a portion of the land included in the lease above mentioned, to the Corporation of the municipality of the town of Sorel for the purpose of street extension, subject to the terms and conditions of the original lease, and for the purpose mentioned by the corporation. The Senate adjourned at 3:30 p.m. THE SENATE. Ottawa, Friday, February 1, 1884. The SPEAKER took the Chair at 3 o'clock p.m. Prayers and routine proceedings. |