The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

tl "I?! in; No argument is need, Mr. Speaker, to fortify us in our resolve that we must not by meagre grants stint the gwork of our high schools. (Cheers) iNo less than nine.per cent. of all the )money we spend for purposes of edu- ication consists of payments to super- annuated 'teac? ers. These payments in 1898 amounted to $M.532. This is the largest amount we have paid as yet during any one year. This is one of several similar legacies which the Sandileld Marvdnnnld Government be- queathed to Its successors; _ The Public! Institutions. We spent last year to maintain our .public Institutions $815,746. This very large sum represents more than 21 mi- cent. of our total expenditures for the year. In 1898. ten years ago, the total expenditures for this purpose ammmtcd to $721,602. In 1883, five years previously, the full amount expended was $649,995, while In 1878 it was only 8482.466. So vast an increase in twenty years. amounting, as it does, to $833,279 a year, demands more than ordinary attention. The bare fact that the maintenance of these Institutions consumes almost one-fourth of all our expenditures Corn- pels me to speak at some length con- cerning them. The daily average of the number of our insane cared for by the Province in our seven insane asyl- lums has been steadily increasing from '2,006 in 1878 to 5.004 in 1838. This in- [creaeza it will be observed. is at the irate of 150 a. year. A bare statement 1of the fact demands serious and Lthoughtful attention. Official re- ftirms of other countries disclose a. i lute steady Increase similarly alarming. An over-expenditure also appears un- der the head of education. About' one- fifth of all our expenditures is devoted fo the work of aiding our schoo's and increasing their usefulness. (Cheers) Last year's expenditure was the largest to keep well within the appro- Pr%itton if he had not found it absolute- 1y necessary to expend the large sum of 319.289 in his attempts to check the pelt known to nurserymen as the San Jose scale. Hon. memrers will doubt- less during the session review with some detail our expenditures under this head/and therefore in my general sur- vey I need not at bresen't say more about them. q as iet inéhe history or the Province. We épent t5,000 more than weldid last year. $73,000 more than We "did fivo years ago. and $158,000. more than We did ten years ture-a. vert considerable in- crease. Mr. Speaker, illustrating once again the fact that the grown"; needs of a. growing Province demand from time to time Increased expenditures. A eomparatively new Item, first appearing in 1892, and a large one, too, is that providing for the grant "we give for the public school leaving examination. amounting last year to $15,091. School inspection alone cost us 853.280. and every thoughtful man nowadays cou- ples together inspection and efftebsrtt service. (Cheers.) Our normal schools cost us last year $46,000, and our hlgh schools. $106,000. . - __ M - w thier over-expenditure. IriiRRiir," str. I fear that he 'may, "as te, his custom, ask for tttill more liberal add for purposes of Hrrhylture. He Would have been able tnrio the taxpayers would have saved $346,950 and $107,040 respectively. and that the ratepayers of the State of New York paid in direct taxes during'1896 for the Care oi." its insane $3,057,057, and in 1897 nearly $5,000,000, while our rate- payers are relieved completely from this burden. / Expenditures on Capital Account. Continuing, Hon. Mr. Harcourt said: Our capital expenditures alone in con- nection with these institutions have been enormous. Our opponents, includ- ing all my hon. friends opposite, have since I last addressed this House been addressing audiences throughout the country, and in their addresses -they have pretended to explain our exact tin- ancial condition. Is it not surprising, Mr. Speaker, that on these occasions they never allude to the manifest and Very pertinent fact that the Province has from year to year been making very large permanent investments out of its yearly revenues in erecting pub- lic buildings, the usefulness and im- mediate necessity of which no one at any time seeks to deny ? . . Hon. Mr. Harcourt quoted the returns of Costmer capita in Pennsylvania and VVlsconsin, showing that had those States bonducted their Institutions as cheaply last year as were those of On- 'iff animus" 'it'.tieort of the State at Wisconsin has: been In- creasing at the ttte'tyf'Gtrh your; that ot the State' pf Pennsylvania at the rate of 552 a. year, and that of New York State at the rate of 668 a year. This increase of necessity Involves a rapidly-growing public expenditure for this purpose. The number of the in- sane for each 1,000 of the population in Ontario is 2.11, m. Pennsylvania 2.25, in New York State 2.42, and in England 3.20. Our per capita cost of mainten- ance is surprisingly low. In 1893 it was $135 71 per patienCper year ; in 1897 it was $126 28, and last year it was lower still, viz., 312619. Our weekly per capita cost last year was $2 43 ; in Pennsylvania it was $3 57, in New York $3 75, and in Wisconsin $4 54. The House will be glad to learn that we continue to manage these. institutions more econ- ornfvaily than they do elsewhere. (Cheers.) l Hon. gentlemen opposite take special Pains to state that We collect large re- venues from our forests. but they rc- ligiously conceal the tact that the sums thus collected have been expend- ed in providing accommodation for our atnicted classes and' in maintaining them 45mm year to your, and in this way relieving the municipalities oi what would otherwise be 4 very serious burden. My hon. friends know well that these large expenditures have been made in the public interest, that they have been wholly unavoidable,and they do not pretend to name a single m- stitutlon which to-day could be dis- Densed with. There has been expended, sir, on capital account for buildings alone for the insane and idiotic since the Mowat Government first assumed otf1ce $3,104,616. Iram not now including the buildings erected for the blind or for the deaf and dumb. MreutaTre ex- pended during the last ten years for these buildings $1,850,013. These amounts would be increased by $264,191 If I were 29