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

an illegal transaction. Amid the thunderous pounding of Conaervativc desks, Mr. Haney withdrew, but not without a. tilt with the Prime Min- tater, who severe-1y criticized his quatiftcatlon that, "under compul- sion," he mung withgraw. - Mr. Haney brought a brand-new feature into the year-old discussions of Home Bank commissions, and that was the declaration that shortly after coming into office Peter Smith had reported to the Premier (Drury) that he had reason to think there was something irregular about that 04,000,000 loan. A little later on he had come back to the then Premier and said that it seemed in be all right. The amendment also regretted the failure of the said committee "to make any adequate investigation of the alleged payment by the bank of $42,400 by way of special commie- alone on the said transactions as shown by the books ot the bank." Tuner lines the Ministry. So vigorously did Mr. Haney at- tack the subject that he was forced Hop. w. Jr. Raney. Progressive iment with my h'rmorable friend re- Leader in the Le Bl . ' igarding the conduct of the House. . tri atute sprung a Surely he does not think I am sensation in the Budget debate last childish enough to let him spring an night, introducing a resolution con- amendment like that at me last damning the 1919 bond transacti n moment. Surely he doesn't think a O 1 ti r 11 l th d f ith with the Home .. . - reso u on crm eng ng e goo a Bank, and regret at the Government. a charge of ting the failure of the Standing complicity in a dishonest transac- Committee on Public Accounts of 'tion, is to pass unnoticed, except by last year to make any reference to :the silent vote ot the members ot this transaction." The Ferguson gum" House. Government. as a result, abandoned 315 Not Intimidated. any attempt to close the debate with l, "31 Ppfd,",-i-1 stn,l, '2". intimidated the us . .. i y c rme . nsere anguage. Ministeural wind up from the Prime inf)? by theiapprtovzl l has from fl . gcertain sect on o t e ouse. He 5 Besides regretting the failure of (free to close this debate tonight or the committee to ma continue it. I know his code. I it in I',',",'.',,' ort M It reference to. ask no quarter from that side of ' p ' r. aney'tramend- the House. He has 76 members; ment 'condemns the transaction be.. we have 14, but we are not going tween the Treasury Department and to yield one foot on our rights. the Governm .- Instead ot the Premier then fol- ent and the Home Bank lowing Mr. Raney as had 'been in- in September, 1919, whereby the tended in the arrangement made be- Government said a $4,000,000 issue tween the leaders, W. 'Finlayson, of Provincial bonds to the bank at Simcoe East, theCChairiman off {he h . Public Accounts 0mm ttee o ast t 9 price of 94.48. thus enabling the YUM". arose to speak for the Gov- bank to make a profit of $94,800 un- ernment. dor circumstances involving corre- ' , ' (he . sponding loss to the Province." 'ri"r1'"CPlfTt -" , ... on one occasion. to withdraw a com- ment which was interpreted by Pro. vlncial Treasurer Price to mean that he had been a, party IO covering up SENSA TIONAL TURN TO BUDGET DEBATE Premier Ferguson Assails Ethics of Former Attor- ney-General -.. W. E. N. Sinclair Attacks Govern-, ment's Financial Show-' ing, Says 4.4 Beer Seems More Important Than $8,000,000 Deficit Leader of Progressive _ Group Moves in Con- demnation of 1919 Trans- action on Provincial : Securities and Failure of i Public Accounts C om- E mittee to Make Adequate 3 Investigation Into C om. missions SURPRISE AMENDMENT 3 ON HOME BANK BONDS IS SPRUNG BY RANE Y 1/v1ureuvtlars: ms IIVII-v-.. Mr. Reney was promptly taken IO ' task try A. Belanger (Liberal. Bus-i eel). A. C. Wis (Conservative: Northeast Toronto), and later by the t Prime Minister for withholding thisl [information from the Public Ac-i, |counte Committee of last year at a time when they had publicly invited , any light that could be thrown on the leu-bject. Nor, declared the Premier, had Mr. Drury mentioned it in evi- dence, although, he said. he was . i;iaiUexairpineti, in regard to the mat- Iter----? statement which Mr. Raney {disputed declaring that that feature of the trial was not gone into when Mr. Smith pleaded guilty to the charge or receiving $15,000. Premier, Ferguson took former AtiirGLv-qeerN. Raney severely to task for a technical, it not an actual hreach of faith, in introducing his Mr. Raney---1 am not intimidated by the Prime Minister's language. nor by the approval it has from a certain section of the House. He is "He must appreciate the fact," said Mr. Ferguson, speaking of Mr. Raney, "that no Government is go- ing to sit here and allow the amend- ment that has been made to go by without discussion. It you insist upon it, of course this debate will go on, and I will know it is of no use in the future to make any arrange- ment with my h'nnorable friend re- garding the conduct ot the House. Surely he does not think I am childish enough to let him spring an amendment like that at tne last moment. Surely he doesn't think a resolution challenging the good faith of the Government, a charge of complicity in a dishonest transac- tion, is to pass unnoticed, except by the silent vote of the members ot this House." Is Not Intimidated. amendment to the Budget resolu- tion. Agreement had been made. he said, between the three leaders to complete the Budget discussions last night---an arrangement which the amendment made impossible of ac- complishment. wm Not Go Unchallenged. eel). A. h. u-..., Northeast. Toronto), at Prime Minister for w! information from the counts Committee of time when they had r. 7 . .. -x Anuo'l' hp Mr. Sinclair opened with a criti- cism of the short time allowed mem- bers of the House for examination of the bulky Public Accounts volume between the receipt of the book and the Budget debate. He thought, with all the details available to the de- partment some weeks ahead of the delivery of the statistics. there might be some system ot distributing the information. Although Provincial Treasurer} Price had taken credit for the reduc-l tion in the size ot the Public Ac-. counts, thereby saving $10,000 of; public funds, Mr. Sinclair. after per-' using it, expressed the opinion that the Government might better spend the $10,000 and let the members have the information that had been pruned out with a view to saving space. He went on to illustrate that, whereas the expenditure of $864,000 had this year been shown on less than tour pages. $4,000,000 of ex- penditure the year before had been itemized over twice that space. 1 Mr. Sinclair twitted T. A. Thomp- son, Conservative member for North Lanark. with attributing much of the commercial success of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine, which, Mr. Sinclair said, when, he Premier, Attorney-C task for a breach of Hornetsf , Ran eY_W33 arch went to school. had notning to do l with the tariff. .While the Liberal i Leader did not see any call foe tariff , references at all in the Legislature, he suggested. as one time-saving de- vice, that the Monroe Dostrine be eliminated from consideration, Commissions Not Fully Ventilated. ', He passed again over the Home ibank commissions of 1919 to Bay Ithat the matter did not rest in the right place as yet, and that surely it was the duty of the Government to investigate the matter to the full. up, must emphatically deny that the fullest of opportunity had been given the Public Accounts Committeo to investigate the subject, and declared that the responsibility for lifting the veil rested with the Administration. Regrétting the limited discussions that had taken place on the all- important Budget debate, Mr. Sin- clair said that it would seem that 4.4 beer was of more importrrrro than the. $8,000,000 deficit. He went on to show how expenditures had grown from tho days of the old Lib- eral Government from 36.000000 to "50,000,000, and how public debt had increased from almost nil to $350,- :000,000. _ A h Like every other public man, he said, he was sorry that, there had been any necessity for arrests from among tho ranks of public servants. The Provincial Treasurer, however, had said that, due to the audits in- stituted, the revenues of the Prov- ince had been increased, which had left the distinct impression in the . been int-roused, which had 1yi'tetrprtit.firi.'ndr. impression in the fmind of the Liberal Leader that some "leak holes" must have been found. In view of that situation he called upon the Provincial Treasurer to give a clean hill of health to those :departments which had been found iin good condition, in order that no isuspicion should rest in improper fplacea. Mr. Price said that no presumed the people would drink more soft drinks in the hot weather than In winter, and Mr. Raney asked: "What about the beer?" Mr. Price-That is a soft drink. The Treasurer's reply to all Mr. Sinclair's probings as to what was proposed in the O.T.A. amendments On the proposed gasoline tax of three cents per gallon, Mr. Sinclair estimated that more than a third of the commercial and pleasure auto- mobiles of the Province operated Mr. Price was a wizard of finance, declared Mr. Sinclair, it he could estimate ",300,000 of revenues from a beverage tax which was to begin on an unknown date. On how many months did Mr. Price base his cal.. culations? . has} "Waitnfor the bill," and the Liberal Leader had to leave It at that. Mr. Price replied that conditions had not been satisfactory on the for.. mer basis, and that the comparison did not hold. He hoped the Provincial Treas- urer's sinking fund would materialize as had been heralded. and, in regard to the statement of Provincial as- sets, averted that the people of the Province and their ability to pay were the only real asset behind Pro- vincial credit. He accused the Pro.. vincial Treasurer of being unkind to the Savings Ofttee Department, and asked why had the farmers not got the benefit of 5 instead of 5% per cent. money in view of the decrease of 1 per cent. in interest'.' On the subject of the deficit Mr. Sinclair was vigorous in his declara- tion that the Government had to either cut down expenditures or in- crease revenues in order to balance the Budget. There was no use look- ing out the window, said the Lib- eral Leader. and, seeing the beer wagon or the automobile going by, saying to oneself, "Well, I get a tax on that." Mr. Sinclair again expressed the view that Mr. Price had taken too much credit to the Government for tho increase in revenues shown in the public accounts, in view of the fact that last year was a 12-month year and the year previous a 1014- month year. Bald Mr. Sinclair: "The increase is due only to the extra six weeks; the money Just came in." Assuming Undue Credit. on Thirsty Weather.