Friday, March 1, li)68 is the first year for a number of years that they didn't knock over my mailbox. (Laughter) Hon . George J. Ferguson : Thank you very much. Bruce L. Stewart : First Kings. Mr. Speaker , I think that I shall just begin my speech in reply to the Speech from the Throne and also say something about my trip during the past spring However, I promise you that I will not keep you too long because, in the matter of about another ten minutes I propose to adjourn this Debate to continue on Tues¬ day. However, allow me to take you with me on a visit to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. I had the opportunity, last spring, to attend the Com ¬ monwealth Parliamentary Association in , England , and I consider it was a great privilege for me because this is an opportunity, I think, that comes once in ten years for the Province of Prince Edward Island . This year I had that oppor¬ tunity of representing our Province. I had the opportunity of representing Canada because it was Prince Edward Island 's year to represent Canada . The Common¬ wealth Parliamentary Assoc, is an association, I think, most important not only to our Province but to all of Canada because it is, by and large, non-political. We had representatives there from all the various parts of the Commonwealth and from all of the various parties in the Commonwealth. Each one of those was in¬ terested only in attempting to solve the problems which were peculiar to his own country and problems which were mutual to all countries. So, in June of last year, I had the opportunity of leaving Halifax and five hours and twenty minutes later of being met in by Watson Jamer who is the Provinces rep¬ resentative in and after our usual greetings, the formal greetings, we went to St. Ermin's Hotel, which is located in Southwest and there we met, not the other members of parliament because I'm not a Member of Parliament in the true sense of the word, but they all were, with the exception of myself and there were Members of Parliament there from India, Pakistan and from , from Ceylon and Malta and from the developing countries of Africa and from Jamaica and, of course, from England and Scotland and so forth, 28 of us in all. After the usual rounds of greetings and so forth, we went out to see at first hand how had recovered from the tortures of the last war. We went to visit No. and there we saw at first hand the bigness of the Prime Minister of Greau Britain because at that time there were resting on his shoulders the responsibilities which are associated with the war which was going on in the Middle East. He was also faced with the responsibility of trying to lead his country into the European Economic Community. He was also faced with the responsibility leading up to the devaluation of the pound and even though this great man was faced with all those great responsibilities yet he was able to meet us in an informal sort of way at No. 10 Downing .St. and to swap yarns with us and to tell us something about the problems of his country in relationship to the problems that we had in our own. During the early days of our visit to England, we visited Mary -le-Bone , I suppose many of you, probably none of you are acquainted with Mary -le-Bone but Mary- le-Bone is the pulse centre, the nerve centre, of Great Britain. There they receive the messages from the satellites. There they have their television programs and are in connection with all parts of the world. There they receive simultaneously a hundred and fifty thousand telephone calls at one time. There you are able to dial Canada , or any part of the world and receive an answer in the matter of two minutes. While in we went on tours of course. In the early stages we visited West¬ minster. Westminster, as you know, has the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The institution of Westminster is steeped in general tradition and while there we went to visit the House of Commons while it was in session and in my short, brief experience of this House, the way that this House has carried on in the last few days certainly resembled more the way they do it at the House of Commons in than we did last year. I think there's something to be said with the way that this House is carried on this year and the dignity and aplomb which is here for all of us to see because the business of the nation, or the business of a country, or the business of a province, must be conducted in a way in which the people sitting in the galleries and the people at home that you and I represent, in a way in which we will be the worthy representatives of those areas. (Applause) While in I had the opportunity of attending Westminster Abbey on Canada 's —117—