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THE course of events
leading up to Confederation and the unquestioned leadership
displayed by Macdonald in the conferences at Quebec and Westminster
had distinctly marked him out as the one man to whom the task of
inaugurating the machinery of Confederation should be entrusted.
Public expectation in this regard was soon realized, and on March
21st, 1867, he writes from London to his sister in Canada that Lord
Monck, who was then in England, had charged him with the formation
of a government.
Meanwhile, a month earlier, his private outlook on life had been
greatly changed by his marriage to Miss Bernard, a daughter of the
Hon. Thomas J. Bernard, of the Jamaica privy council. The wedding
took place on February sixteenth, at St. George’s, Hanover Square,
London. The circumstances of his life gave this event a peculiar
significance. The prolonged illness of his first wife, her death in
1858, and the long periods of necessary residence at the various
seats of government away from his Kingston home, had up to this time
left 131 him without that atmosphere of domestic comfort and care
which means so much in the lives of men absorbed in public affairs.
The circumstances may in a measure account for a lack of
self-control in his personal habits which marked this earlier part
of his life, and furnished to his opponents a weapon of which they
were not slow to avail themselves. Henceforward his political career
and private life were alike deeply influenced by one whose vigorous
and masculine intellect eminently fitted her to share in the toils
and sympathize with the ambitions of a strenuous public life. The
newly married couple were soon after presented at court, the queen
on this occasion granting a special audience to Macdonald and his
four principal associates in the conference in recognition of the
significance of the work they had just accomplished. Macdonald
records his own reply to a remark of Her Majesty in regard to the
importance of the work and the loyal spirit in which the
deliberations had been carried on. “We have desired in this measure
to declare in the most solemn and emphatic manner our resolve to be
under the sovereignty of Your Majesty and Your Majesty’s family
forever.”
Early in the month of May, Macdonald returned to Canada, and began
the critical business of setting in motion the governmental system
created by the Act of Confederation. It will be seen that he had
been very singularly prepared for the larger work to be taken upon
his shoulders. More than twenty years of experience in provincial
legislation had given him an unrivalled knowledge of parliamentary
tactics and consummate skill in carrying through the business of a
popular assembly. His natural quickness of perception in measuring
the character and capacity of those with whom he had to deal had
been sharpened by the years of keen struggle to maintain against
heavy odds the position and influence of his party. The manipulation
of men with whom he had little personal sympathy, but who had to be
reckoned with in the government of a country including in its
population the most diverse elements, had become with him a second
nature. He had learned to find the implements of his purposes in the
passions, prejudices, even the weaknesses of men, no less than in
their higher qualities of mind and character.
In the formation of his first cabinet Macdonald was confronted by
great difficulties. The newly united provinces insisted on the
application of the federal principle in the distribution of federal
offices, and it was finally decided that Ontario was entitled to
five representatives, Quebec to four and the Maritime Provinces to
two each. This, however, disposed of one difficulty only. The Irish
Catholics insisted on having a representative. So did the English
Protestant minority of the province of Quebec. In Ontario the
Liberals claimed 133 three of the five members ; in Quebec the
Conservatives demanded all four. The necessity for satisfying so
many local and religious interests led, as often in Canada, to the
omission from the cabinet of men whom a wider principle of selection
would have included, but Macdonald had to do his best with the
material at his disposal and the parties to be conciliated. As
finally chosen the cabinet was made up as follows:—
The Hon. John Alexander Macdonald—minister of justice and
attorney-general.
The Hon. Georges Etienne Cartier—minister of militia and defence.
The Hon. Alexander Tilloch Galt—minister of finance.
The Hon. Alexander Campbell—postmastergeneral.
The Hon. Jean Charles Chapais—minister of agriculture.
The Hon. Hector Louis Langevin—secretary of state for Canada.
The Hon. Edward Kenny—receiver-general.
The Hon. William MacDougall—minister of public works.
The Hon. William Pearce Howland—minister of inland revenue.
The Hon. Adam Johnston Fergusson Blair— president of the privy
council.
The Hon. Samuel Leonard Tilley—minister of customs.
The Hon. Peter Mitchell—minister of marine and fisheries.
The Hon. Adams George Archibald—secretary of state for the
provinces.
It was a coalition administration, Conservatives and Reformers being
about equally represented. As previously agreed upon, five of its
members represented Ontario, and four Quebec, while Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick contributed two each. Seven belonged to the
Conservative party, and six had been Liberals. Mr. Kenny represented
the Irish Catholics and Mr. Galt the English-speaking minority in
Quebec. “I do not want it to be felt by any section in the country,”
Macdonald said, “that they have no representative in the cabinet and
no influence in the government, . . I desire to ask those who were
in favour of this system of government, and who wished to see it
satisfactorily carried out.”
Such a cabinet prpved, like all coalitions, extremely difficult to
manage. The distribution of patronage, always carried out in Canada
on strictly party lines, was a cause of endless trouble. Accusations
of treachery from old Conservative friends, of perfidy to the
compact from Liberals, soon began to reach the premier. “It is
rather hard on me,” writes Sir John two or three years later, “that
I should be pitched into by Mr. MacDougall for not taking care of
the Reformers, and, at the same time, be grumbled at by my own party
for giving everything to that portion of Her Majesty’s liege
subjects in Ontario.”
There were other difficulties of a more personal nature. Galt, whose
reflective and independent temper had always made him an
unsatisfactory party man, resigned towards the end of 1867 for some
reason never fully explained, and was succeeded by Mr. (afterwards
Sir John) Rose. He too, was for private reasons compelled to resign
a year later, and Macdonald was much perplexed to find a successor.
Just at this time Sir Francis Hincks returned to Canada, which he
had not seen since 1854, having in the meantime filled imperial
offices in several colonies. Like Sandfield Macdonald, he was an old
Reformer, but at open enmity with George Brown. His former triumphs
as inspectorgeneral were remembered, and he was at once given the
vacant portfolio. He made an efficient finance minister, but his
long absence had put him out, of touch with the men and with the
ideals of the new Dominion, and the appointment did not fulfil Sir
John’s hopes of securing a leader in Ontario fearless and energetic
enough to confront George Brown.
The formation of the government was the signal for a determined
attempt on the part of the latter, and those of his party who
sympathized with him, to break up the coalition. The Liberal leader
claimed that, Confederation having been
COALITION MAINTAINED
achieved, the compact made to carry it was at an end. Macdonald held
that the task of setting in motion the new machinery of government
was the most important part of the whole business, and that till
this was done patriotic duty pointed to the maintenance of the
coalition. With this view the other Reform members of the cabinet
from Ontario, MacDougall and Howland, agreed; and on the same
principle Fergusson Blair, also a Reformer, had some months before
accepted the place of Mr. Brown as president of the council. All
three had now taken office in the new Dominion administration.
George Brown denounced their course as political treason, and
Macdonald’s attitude as merely a clever device for keeping himself
in power. MacDougall and Howland defended the position they had
taken before a large Reform convention called in June, 1867, to
consider this and other party questions. The convention decided
against them and against the continuance of the coalition, but the
ministers remained firm, and in the first general election for the
Dominion parliament which came on soon after, they received the
approval of their constituents, while Brown was defeated. The
general result was a large majority for the new government.
It cannot be doubted that keen personal rivalry between the two
leaders was a large factor in the controversy. George Brown found it
impossible to serve under, and very difficult to act with,
Macdonald. The result was that the country was deprived of his
services in the first parliament of that Confederation for securing
which he had made such considerable sacrifices of personal and party
feeling. While continuing, as a journalist, to take an active part
in all political discussions, he did not again seek a seat in the
popular branch of the legislature, although he accepted an
appointment to the senate from the Mackenzie administration in 1874.
While the party which Macdonald led took the name of
Liberal-Conservative to mark its mixed composition, it is scarcely
surprising, after this action of the Reformers, to find his cabinet
taking a more Conservative complexion as necessary changes were
made. Within three years after Confederation, Fergusson Blair was
dead; the career of William MacDougall had ended somewhat
unsatisfactorily in connection with his efforts to fulfil the
mission assigned to him in 1868 as lieutenant-governor of Manitoba;
Howland and Archibald had passed into honourable retirement as
lieutenant-governors of Ontario and Manitoba; Tilley and Mitchell,
formerly Liberals, had yielded to the large national ideals and
personal fascination of Sir John, and were among the most loyal and
efficient of his colleagues. Of the later appointments, Howe, who
might once have counted as a great Liberal force in any cabinet, was
broken in health, and by taking office had lost his old popularity;
while Dr.
THE CABINET
Tupper, the Conservative leader in Nova Scotia, who joined the
cabinet in 1870, soon became recognized, by right of energy and
ability, as Macdonald’s first lieutenant. Meanwhile in these first
years Macdonald’s own leadership was unquestioned. During the early
days of Confederation, no statesman from New Brunswick or Nova
Scotia, however brilliant, could have, aspired to the premiership,
nor indeed could a French-Canadian have hoped for this supreme prize
of political life. In later years two premiers and a leader of
Opposition taken from Nova Scotia; a French-Canadian premier holding
the first place in parliament and the unquestioned leadership of one
of the parties in the State for many years, bear eloquent testimony
to the influence of Confederation in obliterating alike provincial
and racial lines of distinction. They furnish the best evidence of
the genuineness of the national bond created by the British North
America Act.
While Macdonald cannot be absolved from the charge of having
manipulated the coalition cabinet of 1867 in favour of his earlier
political associates, and indeed may fairly be excused for doing so,
no prime minister was ever more free from that fear of able
colleagues which has been so often displayed by political leaders
from Walpole onwards.
Subject to the restrictions entailed by the federal nature of the
cabinet, he always sought to gather round him the ablest men of his
own party.
If complaints were made, he sometimes replied, “Give me better wood
and I will make you a better cabinet; ” and he was quick to
recognize and encourage rising ability. Not the least striking
testimony to his genius is the loyal service given him by men of the
imperious will of Sir Charles Tupper and Peter Mitchell, of the
organizing ability and great local influence of Sir Hector Langevin,
of the unimpeachable integrity of Sir Alexander Campbell and Sir
Leonard Tilley.
The Dominion had its birthday on July 1st, 1867; the first general
election to the new parliament took place during August and
September with the result above noted. No weighty opposition to
Macdonald’s cabinet had yet been or-
George Brown’s impulsive acceptance of office in 1864, and his still
more impulsive withdrawal at the end of the next year, placed the
Liberal party in Ontario in a very awkward position. They stood
committed to Confederation, and had three representatives in the
government which their leader now called upon them to oppose. To the
argument that the coalition had been formed for a definite purpose,
on the attainment of which it was, ipso facto, dissolved,
Macdonald’s reply that the object was not achieved until the new
machine had been made to work seemed conclusive, and appealed to the
common sense of the electorate. Thus when the first session of
parliament of the Dominion of
RESULTS OF ELECTION
Canada met on November 6th, 1867, an Opposition could hardly be said
to exist.
Ontario had returned only fifteen opponents of the government out of
eighty-two ; Quebec twelve out of sixty-five; New Brunswick three
out of fifteen. Nova Scotia had indeed been swept for repeal, and of
its nineteen members Dr. Charles Tupper, representing the county of
Cumberland, alone supported the government. But the other eighteen
refused to coalesce with the Opposition from Ontario and Quebec. The
premier was to have many difficulties and discouragements in his
task of getting the new Dominion under way, but he had the great
advantage of a large majority, and as he himself said “ of a clean
slate.” In the organization of the provincial governments he showed
great judgment and skill.
No one has ever disputed Sir John Macdonald’s knowledge of men, but
even he never did anything more clever than in putting John
Sandfield Macdonald at the head of the local government in the
province of Ontario, and P. J. O. Chauveau in the same position in
Quebec. In Ontario the great question of representation by
population had been settled by the British North America Act, and
the chief desire of the province was for honest and economical
administration. This, Sandfield Macdonald was eminently fitted to
give. A Scottish Catholic, he was usually at issue with the
priesthood on the question of separate schools; a Liberal, his
stubborn will and gibing tongue had brought him into sharp conflict
with George Brown ; his Scottish caution and dislike for theorists
had led him to oppose Confederation, but he was essentially a
practical man, and in the presence of its successful accomplishment
felt no desire to sulk in his tent, or to endeavour to undo the
results attained. For four years he gave to Ontario an honest,
economical and not unprogressive administration, which more and more
assumed a (politically) conservative character.
In the face of Cartier and the Catholic clergy, Dorion had for a
moment come near to swaying the people of Quebec with the argument
that Confederation was a plot of their Protestant foes to anglicize
and americanize the province, to break the triple bond of “Notre
langue, notre religion, nos Ids.” To this the appointment of a
burning “ patriote” like Chauveau, the friend and former follower of
Papineau, but now one of the staunchest upholders of Catholicism as
well as of the best literary and social traditions of French Canada,
was the most effective reply. With Chauveau at Quebec and Cartier at
Ottawa the habitant felt his fears subside.
In Nova Scotia alone was the Opposition triumphant. Joseph Howe with
his magnificent oratory swept the province for repeal. The old
mistrust of Canada rose to white heat, and even to-day it is
impossible not to acknowledge the force of the plea
NOVA SCOTIA AND REPEAL
that so all-important a change in the constitution should have been
submitted directly to the people. Of the nineteen members sent to
Ottawa, eighteen were pledged to support repeal, as were thirty-six
out of thirty-eight members of the local assembly. This latter body
passed an address to Her Majesty praying her not to “ reduce this
free, happy, and hitherto self-governing province to the degraded
condition of a servile dependency of Canada,” and a delegation
headed by Howe was sent to London to lay their petition at the foot
of the throne.
From the early stages of this struggle Sir John wisely held aloof.
The fever had- to run its course, and any outside interference might
have been fatal. Yet assured though he was of the sympathy of the
British government, and of the unlikelihood of its reopening the
question, he felt that Howe’s mission must not be unchallenged. To
send a member of the cabinet to counteract his influence would have
been unwise, as seeming to imply that the Canadian government
considered repeal a subject for discussion. But Dr. Tupper, Howe’s
old and most powerful opponent in Nova Scotia, who had patriotically
waived his own claims to cabinet position in order to solve
Macdonald’s difficulties in balancing interests, was sent to
confront him on the wider field. Both fought magnificently, but
Howe’s struggle, notwithstanding that he enlisted in his favour the
eloquence of John Bright, was from the first hopeless.
An interview in London between the two men, in which Tupper pointed
out the hopelessness of the task Howe had in hand, the ruin that
would be brought by continued agitation to national ' ideals which
both had cherished, and his own de-, termination to fight out the
contest to the bitter end, closing with an appeal to Howe’s
patriotism, was a dramatic episode in the discussion, and probably
did much to open the eyes of the great tribune of the people to the
gravity of the situation and to shake his resolve. He returned to
report to his fellow Nova Scotians that for any movement tending to
break up the Confederation they could not rely upon British
sympathy. The attitude of the British government had convinced Howe
that the question was closed, and he was far too loyal an
imperialist to adopt the cry for annexation which was soon raised by
the baser sort of Nova Scotian politicians.
Now was the time for Sir John Macdonald. He at once determined to
win over Howe to Confederation, and towards the close of July, 1868,
visited Halifax for that purpose, accompanied by Cartier, William
MacDougall, Tupper, and John Sandfield Macdonald, the latter an
intimate friend of Howe. For the Conservative premier of the new
Dominion to bring with him an anti-Confederation Liberal to aid in
enticing Howe within the Confederate fold was a masterpiece of
political strategy. The interview between the two states-
NOVA SCOTIA’S GRIEVANCE
men cleared the way, and was followed up by a correspondence,
printed in full by Mr. Pope, which strikingly illustrates
Macdonald’s diplomatic skill in conducting a delicate negotiation.
Nova Scotia’s most tangible grievance was financial, and this
Macdonald promised to deal with “not in a rigid but in the most
liberal spirit.” The situation was urgent. Howe reported a
widespread feeling in favour of annexation to the United States, “
and the visit of a prominent American politician for the purpose,
scarcely disguised, of encouraging the annexation feeling with
offers of men and money.”
If an additional grant could save the new bom Dominion from
disintegration it was no time for haggling. “ Better terms ” were
promptly conceded by order-in-council on January 25th, 1869, and
five days later Joseph Howe entered the Dominion cabinet. The local
government endeavoured for a time to maintain the agitation against
Confederation which had brought them into power, and things were
said on the floors of the assembly which verged on disloyalty.
Bereft of its leader, however, the agitation soon died away, and
after the general election of 1872, only one antagonist of Macdonald
and Howe was returned.
The strength of provincialism with which the idea of Confederation
had been confronted in Nova Scotia inclined Macdonald to use great
caution in his further efforts to “round off” the Dominion by
drawing in the other Maritime Provinces. The smaller the community
the more strongly entrenched seemed to be the provincial spirit.
Newfoundland had been represented at the Quebec conference, but its
delegates refused to commit themselves to the union. The
negotiations then broken off were renewed in 1868, and in the
following year a delegation from the island visited Ottawa, when
Macdonald succeeded in arranging what seemed to be satisfactory
terms of entrance into the Dominion. They were, however, decisively
rejected on being submitted to the electors of the island a few
months later. A proposal to add Newfoundland to the Dominion by an
Act of the imperial parliament he refused to encourage. “There can
be no doubt of the power to do so,” he says in a letter to the
governor-general, “ but the exercise of it would seem to me very
unadvisable. We have had an infinity of trouble with Nova Scotia,
although both the government and the legislature agreed to the
union, because the question was not submitted to the electors. We
have at a large cost settled that difficulty. The case would be much
worse in Newfoundland, where there was a dissolution and an appeal
to the people for the express purpose of getting their deliberate
opinion for or against the union. They have decided for the present
against it, and I think we should accept their decision.” But he
regretted the result of the election as postponing the completion of
the imperial policy of uniting all the British North American
possessions
CONFEDERATION OPPOSED
under one government, and he looked forward to the “inevitable
reaction that must take place in a year or two.”
In this he failed to gauge accurately the tenacity of insular
sentiment which has kept the “ancient colony” apart from the
Dominion for forty years, in spite of the manifest advantages, both
from a local and a national point of view, that would flow from
union. While he attached no vital importance to the refusal of
Newfoundland in 1868, it can scarcely be believed that, had he been
alive in 1893, he would have missed the opportunity then offered of
adding the island to the Dominion for the sake of the half-million
or million dollars which blocked an agreement.
Opposition almost as vehement presented itself in Prince Edward
Island. The electors had decisively rejected the proposals of the
Quebec conference in 1865, formally declaring that such a union as
was suggested “would prove politically, commercially and financially
disastrous to the rights and interests of the people.” The same
opinion was reiterated still more vigorously in the following year,
when the legislature declared by resolution that no terms Canada
could offer would be acceptable. The overwhelming nature of the
opposition to Confederation at this time may be inferred from the
fact that only ninety-four electors in the whole island could be
found to sign an address of thanks to the seven members of the
legislature who supported the scheme. The colony was therefore not
represented at the Westminster conference which finally settled the
terms of the British North America Act. This rejection of
Confederation seemed to Macdonald a much more serious matter than
that of Newfoundland. He writes to the governor-general in December,
1869, in the letter last quoted : “ Canada is more directly
interested in the immediate acquisition of Prince Edward Island,
from its proximity to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and the extent
of its fisheries. Neither the imperial government nor Canada can
carry out satisfactorily any policy in the matter of the fisheries
under present circumstances, and most unpleasant complications with
the American fishermen may ensue. It will, besides, become a
rendezvous for smugglers, and, in fact, be as great a nuisance to us
as the Isle of Man was in the days of old to England, before its
purchase from the Duke of Athol. We must endeavour to get Her
Majesty’s government to help us as much as possible in our attempts
to conciliate the islanders, of which, I am glad to say, there is
now good hope.”
“Better terms” had been offered in 1866 and again in 1869, but the
proposals were ignored or rejected. It was not till 1872 that the
financial necessities of the island, which had become involved in
heavy railway expenditure, led the electors to realize the
advantages of union with the Dominion. Negotiations followed which
ended in the assumption of the railway debt by Canada, and the
entrance of the island into the Dominion in the following year.
If caution marked the negotiations with Newfoundland and Prince
Edward Island, boldness, almost to the verge of audacity,
characterized those by which British Columbia was induced to join
the Confederation. The acquisition of a frontage on the Pacific and
of the vast country lying between the Great Lakes and the Rockies
was essential to the future of the Dominion. The officers of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, who still retained great influence in the
colony, were opposed to( the entrance of British Columbia into the
Confederation, as they were to the accession of the North-West. The
British governor of the colony was also hostile, and a party had
actually been formed to promote annexation to the United States. But
when the North-West was transferred in 1870 the opposition of. the
Hudson’s Bay officials ceased, and on the death of Governor Seymour,
a successor, Sir Antony Musgrave, known to be favourable to
Confederation, was,' on Macdonald’s suggestion, appointed by the
imperial government, which used all its influence to forward the
work of union.
The chief item in the terms agreed upon was that “ the government of
the Dominion undertake to secure the commencement simultaneously,
149 within two years from the date of the union, of the construction
of a railway from the Pacific towards the Rocky Mountains, and from
such point as may he selected east of the Rocky Mountains, towards
the Pacific, to connect the sea-board of British Columbia with the
railway system of Canada; and further to secure the completion of
such railway within ten years of the date of the union.” At a
general election held in the autumn of 1870 the people of British
Columbia approved of the terms of the union, and the colony became a
province of the Dominion on July 20th, 1871.
The compact thus made with the province for the construction of the
Canadian Pacific Railway, denounced by opponents as ruinous and
impossible, but proved by subsequent events to be not only within
the fair limits of practicability, but also the mainspring of
Canadian development and prosperity, became for the next fifteen
years the pivot of Canadian politics.
Meanwhile the early sessions of parliament were chiefly taken up
with questions of administration and organization. On these matters
the Opposition, led by Alexander Mackenzie, who had been chosen as
leader in succession to George Brown, refrained almost entirely from
mere factious disputation. The acrimonious personal disputes of
pre-Confeder-ation debates were no more heard. Both parties
endeavoured to rise to the level of their new opportunities, and
more than one suggestion from
ORGANIZATION
the opposition side of the House was adopted by the government.
In 1867 the postal rates were reduced and unified, and a system of
post-office savings banks introduced. In 1868 the militia of the
Dominion was organized, the tariff altered and systematized, and an
Act passed to secure the independence of parliament, as well as a
Civil Service Act. A series of Acts culminating in 1871, put the
banking system of the country on a sound footing. From 1868 to 1870
Sir John gradually shaped a bill to establish a Supreme Court for
Canada, but circumstances prevented him from passing this measure,
and the court was not finally organized till 1875 under the
administration of Alexander Mackenzie.
Thus gradually the new machine was put into operation. Larger
measures, in which'a difference of policy was possible, soon came
forward and the Opposition began to gain coherency. Among the most
important of these measures was that relating to the Intercolonial
Railway. Section 145 of the British North America Act had stated
that' “ it shall be the duty of the government and parliament of
Canada to provide for the commencement, within six months after the
union, of a railway connecting the river St. Lawrence with the city
of Halifax.” The government pushed on the work of surveying with
much energy, and during the first session Macdonald announced that
the road would be built “ under the direct supervision of
commissioners appointed by the government, for whose conduct the
administration would hold itself responsible to parliament.” This
method of management was opposed by Dorion, who moved an amendment
that the location of the line should not be settled without the
consent of parliament. This was opposed by Sir John, on the ground
that such procedure would imperil the financial guarantee which had
been given under certain conditions by the imperial authorities, and
the first trial of strength ended in a vote of eighty-three to
thirty-five in favour of the government.
The selection of the route through New Brunswick was not made
without difficulty. The folly of Lord Palmerston in 1833-5, in
refusing the extremely reasonable terms offered by President
Jackson, and the timidity of Lord Ashburton in the treaty
negotiations of 1842 had given to the United States a wedge of
territory thrust up far to northward between New Brunswick and
Quebec. A direct route from east to west was thus im-possible. Three
alternative lines were finally surveyed, one by the valley of the
St. John River, known, owing to its nearness to the American
boundary, as the frontier route; a second along the Gulf of St.
Lawrence and the Baie des Cha-leurs; and a third or central route
directly across New Brunswick. The strained relations existing
between Great Britain and the United States, and the unwillingness
of the former to assist
THE INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY
in the construction of any but a military line, put the first and
most direct line out of the question. The second was supported by
Sir Georges Cartier and Peter Mitchell, in the interest of the lower
counties of Quebec and the north shore counties of New Brunswick ;
the third by Sir Leonard Tilley, William MacDougall and other
ministers, as giving the most direct and least expensive route from
the upper province to the sea. From a commercial point of view the
central route was unquestionably the best. The imperial authorities
approved of the northern route, owing to its greater distance from
the American frontier. A report in its favour, balancing military
and interprovincial considerations, was obtained from Mr.
(afterwards Sir Sandford) Fleming, the engineer in charge, and it
was finally adopted. The struggle over the question within the
cabinet was very keen, and Macdonald found himself at once on the
verge of a ministerial crisis.
In 1870 a quarrel between William MacDougall and Joseph Howe,
growing out of the former’s disappointment in the matter of the
government of the North-West, led to the publication by MacDougall
of a series of open letters, in which he affirmed that Sir Georges
Cartier and Peter Mitchell forced Macdonald to agree to the
selection of the longer route for the Intercolonial as the price of
their consent to the acquisition of the western country. He claimed
that by this surrender it became necessary to construct one hundred
and thirty-eight additional miles of railway, to abandon the natural
commercial route, to impose upon the country for all time the burden
of this unnecessary mileage, and to injure permanently the
Intercolonial as a medium of interprovincial traffic. In
MacDougall’s own words, “they threw eight millions of dollars into
the sea.” He was at the time a disappointed and embittered man, but
there was probably a measure of truth in his allegations. The whole
affair shows the inevitable difficulties which beset a premier in
Macdonald’s position, and the compromises to which he is driven.
Macdonald’s final justification for the course taken must lie in the
conditions imposed by the imperial government which gave the
guarantee for the money required, and which at the time believed
that the military necessity was a real one. Fortunately there has
been no need to test the value of the railway in this respect, and
other fines built for purely commercial ends now connect the upper
provinces with the sea. The construction of the Intercolonial
carried out one of the compacts on which Confederation was based,
and though, under government control, it has not proved altogether a
commercial success, it has had a most important influence in
consolidating the Dominion.
The choice of the northern route, however, and the extravagance
involved in its construction, gave to the Opposition their first
definite plan of attack in the adoption of a platform of economy.
This was carried further in 1869 in their objection to the “better
terms” granted to Nova Scotia, which they also opposed on
constitutional grounds, an indication of the strict and even narrow
adherence to the constitution which was for many years to
characterize them. Their third great principle, the maintenance of
provincial rights, appeared in the discussion of the troubles which
broke out in the Red River Settlement.
If Canada and the Maritime Provinces knew but little of each other,
and felt the necessity of the iron link of the Intercolonial, they
knew still less of the great West on whose acquisition depended the
future of the Dominion. When, in 1868, the Red River Settlement was
overwhelmed by a plague of grasshoppers, and collections were made
for the sufferers, Principal George M. Grant, then a leading
clergyman of Halifax, wrote, “ I could have collected the money
quite as easily, and the givers would have given quite as
intelligently, had the sufferers been in Central Abyssinia.” Yet
there were not wanting statesmen with the eye of faith to look into
the future, and George Brown and Sir John Macdonald were at one in
feeling that the great heritage so long monopolized by the Hudson’s
Bay Company must belong to Canada, and that half a continent was too
large a preserve for the scattered agents of a trading company and a
few thousands of Indians.
To conceive so vast a project as the annexation of a territory more
than seven times as large as the four federated provinces, showed
the high courage to which nothing is impossible ; on the other hand
the details of the annexation present a series of the gravest
errors, only partially excused by the absolute ignorance at Ottawa
of the situation. Admitting that the greater part of the blame falls
on MacDougall and Cartier, it is impossible, nevertheless, wholly to
acquit Macdonald of inattention in the earlier stages of the
business.
Till Confederation the discussion of the surrender of this monopoly
by the company had hardly proceeded beyond the academic stage. The
new Dominion took the matter up with vigour. Provision for the
acquisition of the North-West Territories was inserted in the
British North America Act (section 146) and on December 4th, 1867, a
series of resolutions was introduced into the House of Commons by
Mr. MacDougall, and an address to the queen based upon them was
passed, praying her to unite these portions of her empire to Canada.
On October 3rd, 1868, Sir Georges Cartier and Mr. MacDougall were
sent to London to negotiate. After prolonged discussions and much
delay, with the help of the colonial secretary, Lord Granville, an
excellent bargain was made for Canada. The Hudson’s Bay Company
agreed to transfer to the Crown their exclusive rights to the
North-West Territories and Rupert’s Land, in consideration of the
sum of £300,000, the reservation of one-twentieth of the fertile
belt and a certain area adjacent to each of their trading-posts. The
vast area ceded was inhabited almost solely by scattered tribes of
Indians, and by the officials of the company. But in the vicinity of
the trading-post of Fort Garry, at the confluence of the Red and
Assiniboine Rivers, where now stands the city of Winnipeg, dwelt a
population of about ten thousand persons, known as the Red River
Settlement. Of this little community the majority were half-breeds
or metis, the descendants of Scottish and French trappers and Indian
mothers. They had lived quietly and contentedly under the easy
lordship of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and now viewed with great
alarm and excitement the prospect of their transfer, without their
consent, to the Dominion.
As if to increase their irritation, the Canadian government, in
1869, undertook the construction of a road between the Lake of the
Woods and Red River, and sent a surveying party under an indiscreet
militia officer into the settlement itself. The Hudson’s Bay Company
officials in London protested to the Canadian delegates against
these unauthorized proceedings in a district still in their
possession, but could get no satisfaction. Monseigneur Tache, the
Roman Catholic bishop of the district and the idol of the
half-breeds, on his way to tiie Vatican council turned aside to warn
Sir Georges Cartier of impending trouble and was, so it is said,
greeted with a contemptuous laugh.
The domineering, and in some cases dishonest, conduct of the
contractor for the road excited still further the ignorant and
suspicious metis, who set up a provisional government of their own
under the leadership of Louis Riel. The situation was complicated by
the illness of the company’s governor at Fort Garry ; by the absence
of Archbishop Tach£, whose influence with the halfbreeds might have
prevented trouble ; and by the presence at Pembina and at St. Paul
of an element in the population which openly awaited the opportunity
of annexing the new territory to the United States. “ A decrepit
government with the executive officer sick ; a rebellious and
chronically dissatisfied metis element; a government at Ottawa far
removed by distance, committing with unvarying regularity blunder
after blunder; a greedy and foreign cabal planning to seize the
country, and a secret Jesuitical plot to keep the governor from
action and to incite the fiery metis to revolt! ” is the startling,
but perhaps substantially correct, way in which Mr. Bryce in his
Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company sums up the
situation.
Meanwhile the Canadian government had appointed the Hon. William
MacDougall lieutenant-governor of the territory which they had not
yet taken over. Travelling through the United States, Mr. MacDougall
reached the frontier town of Pembina late in October, 1869, On
crossing the border, he was met by an armed force of half-breeds,
and forced to retire. On December 1st, under the impression that the
formal transfer of territory was to take place on that date, and
urged by a number of the British inhabitants, he issued a
proclamation declaring himself lieutenant-governor and Colonel
Dennis, head of the surveying party, his “ lieutenant and
conservator of the peace.” But Sir John Macdonald had absolutely
refused to take over the country save in a state of tranquillity,
insisting that the company “ stood pledged to convey not only their
title but the territory itself.” MacDougall’s proclamation and the
unsuccessful attempts of Dennis to collect an adequate force among
the loyal settlers only added to the prevailing anarchy.
Sir John Macdonald’s understanding with the lieutenant-governor had
been “ that he was to go as a private individual to report on the
state of affairs at the Red River, but to assume no authority until
officially notified from him that Rupert’s Land was united to
Canada.” On this assumption both he and Joseph Howe, the secretary
of state for the . provinces, had endeavoured to keep in touch with
MacDougall; their endeavours, however, were rendered fruitless by
his hasty assumption of authority, and the slow and uncertain postal
communications of the time.
Macdonald’s position now became most difficult. Whatever the
ulterior objects of their leaders, the demands of the settlers were
most reasonable, and consisted of little else than a demand for the
self-government possessed by other inhabitants of the Dominion. In
this request racial and religious sentiment won them the support of
the Quebec members of the House and of the cabinet, led by Sir
Georges Cartier. Ontario, Protestant and English, was urgent for the
restoration of order by a military force. This demand became
overwhelming when news arrived that on March 4th, 1870, Riel had,
after a mock trial, put to death Thomas Scott, a former resident of
Ontario and a member of the Orange order. Even before this Sir John
had written to his friend the Hon. John Rose : “ The propositions
adopted at the Red River conference, are, most of them, reasonable
enough, and can easily be disposed of with their delegates. Things
look well enough were we only assured of Riel’s good faith. But the
unpleasant suspicion remains that he is only wasting time by sending
this delegation, until the approach of summer enables him to get
material help from the United States. It is believed by many that he
is in the pay of the U. S.—besides, the longer he remains in power,
the more unwilling will he be to resign it, and I have, therefore,
no great confidence in his ratifying any arrangements made here with
the delegates. Under these circumstances the preparations
REBELLION IN THE NORTH-WEST
for the expeditionary force must not be delayed.”
On receipt of the news of the murder of Scott, preparations for a
relief expedition, composed of British regulars and of Canadian
militia under the command of Colonel (now Viscount) Wolseley, were
hurried on, and early in May, 1870, the little force set out from
Collingwood. Meanwhile on May 2nd, a bill for the establishment and
government of the province of Manitoba, had been introduced by
Macdonald and hurriedly passed through the House. Btit the long
strain had been too great; and four days later the premier was
suddenly prostrated by an attack of illness, pronounced by his
physicians to be biliary calculus, so sudden and severe that, to use
the words of his biographer, “ for days he lay between life and
death in the room where he was seized, tended by the supreme
devotion of a loving wife, who nursed him with a solicitude to which
he has repeatedly declared he owed his life.” Not until September
was he again fit for work.
The leadership of the House devolved on Sir Georges Cartier, who had
determined that the “ key to the whole province,” as he justly
termed Manitoba, should be, as far as possible, in French and
Catholic hands. He threw every hindrance in the way of Wolseley’s
expedition, and when it had finally set out, formed a bold plan for
sending Monseigneur Tachd and Adams G. Archibald, the newly
appointed successor to MacDougall, through the American territory to
the Red River. On their arrival a full amnesty covering the
murderers of Scott was to be proclaimed and the new provincial
government organized. What course would have been followed by a
legislature controlled by Riel, and under a pliable
lieutenant-governor, can only be surmised, for the plan leaked out
and so furious was the opposition raised throughout Ontario that
even Cartier quailed, and Archibald went up by the “ snow route ” in
rear of the punitive expedition. After great difficulties,
surmounted by Wolseley with masterly skill, the little force reached
Fort Garry on August 24th, and won a bloodless victory, Riel and his
followers decamping at the sound of the bugles. From that time the
organization of the new province went forward without hindrance.
Riel long remained the storm centre of Canadian politics. In the
province of Quebec he was a hero, contending for British rights and
French privileges; to Ontario he was a murderer and rebel, and the
local legislature offered a reward of five thousand dollars for his
apprehension. In 1874 he was elected by the half-breeds to succeed
Sir Georges Cartier in the representation of Provencher, but was
expelled from the House, outlawed and forced to flee to the United
States. He was to return in after years and again disturb the peace
of the Dominion.
HIGH COMMISSIONER
During the critical months of 1870, as has been said, Macdonald’s
guiding hand was withdrawn from the conduct of affairs. So extreme
had been his illness that little hope was entertained of his
recovery. His return to Ottawa in September was marked by the
warmest demonstrations of feeling on the part of the public. During
the greater part of the following session of 1871 he was absent in
Washington as a member of the high commission. The task imposed upon
him there had such a special importance in his career that it must
be dealt with in a separate chapter. |
