LIFE AND LETTERS
OF
SIR WILFRID LAURIER
VOLUME II
WILFIID LAUIIEI
Prime Miister of Canada, 1896-1911
(1907)
LIFE AND LETTERS
OF
SIR WILFRID LAURIER
BY
OSCAR DOUGLAS SKELTON
ILLUSTRATED WITH
PHOTOGRAPHS
VOLUME II
S. B. GUNDY
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
TORONTO
191
Copyright, 1921, by
TIIE ENTURY Co.
CONTENTS
CHPEB PAGB
X J THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY ........ 3
XI J THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM ....... 59
XII ,JTHE UNITED STATES: 1896--1903 ....... 119
XIII THE 1VASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION .... 161
XIV SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS ......... 220
XV NATION AND EMPIRE ......... 284
XVI RECIPROCITY ..................... 346
XVII IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION ............. 384
XVIII THE GREAT WAR ............... 426
XIX THE CLOSING YF_.ARS ............ 491
APPENDIX . . .. .......... 556
INDEX .............................. 559
LIST 01 ILLUSTRATIONS
Wilfrid Laurier ........ Frontlsplece
AOEN
PAG]
Group of Ministers ..... 32
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain and hi Colonial Preaiers . . 64
A Pilgrimage to Hawarden ...... 80
Group of Ministers ......... 128
Cartoon by Henri Julien ....... 192
Henri Julien's "'By-Town Coons" . ....... 208
Group of Ministers ........... 256
Lady Laurier ......... 272
Laurier's Last Imperial Conference ..... 304
çampaigning in Western Ontario ........ 352
Campaigning in Quebec ....... 868
Sir Robert Borden .......... 400
]Ir. Laurier's Home in Arthabaska ..... 432
]Vlr. Laurier's Law Office in Arthabaska ...... 432
Their Golden Wedding Day ..... 528
Sir Wilfrid Laurier ...... 544
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR
WILFRID LAURIER
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR
WILFRID LAURIER
CHAPTER X
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
Speeding the Parting GuestForming the MinistryThe
Laurier-Greeway SettlementAn Episcopal Challenge--An Ap-
peal to RomeThe BeginnJxtg o,f Pvosperity:--The Opening of the
WestThe British Preference.
FTER eighteen years' wandering in the wilder-
ness of opposition, for half the time under Wil-
frid Laurier's leadership, the Liberal party had
corne fo power. For fifteen years, the longest un-
broken stretch of authority in the country's annals,
Mr. Laurier was destined to remain prime minister of
Canada. They were to be years crowded with oppor-
tunity and with responsibility, a testing-time sufllcient
to seareh out every strength and every weakness of the
leader or of his administration. It was Mr. Laurier's
fortune, and Canada's, that he was to be in eontrol of
the eountry's affairs af the most er___ea_tive and fol_/native
period in its history, in the years when the I)ominion
was attaining af once industrial mturity and national
status.
3
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
In June, 1896, these things lay hidden in the future.
The immediate question was, when would the defeated
ministry resign? Since Mackenzie's resignation in
1878, if had been accepted doctrine that in the event
of a decisive defeat a ministry would not await the
assembling of parliament and a formal vote of want of
confidence, but would resign af once. Sir Charles
Tupper made no undue haste in retiring. If was neces-
sary fo wind up the work of the departments. If was
still more necessary fo use the vanishing powers of ap-
pointment to reward past service and to buttress future
positions. A long list of new senators, judges, Queen's
Counsel, revising oflïcers, inland-revenue collectors, was
drawn up and presented fo the governor-general, Lord
Aberdeen, for his formal approval. Lord Aberdeen
hesitated fo sanction the more important nominations.
As the last parliament had voted supplies only until
lune 30, and as Sir Charles Tupper had not formed his
government until af ter parliament had prorogued, "the
acts of the present administration," the governor-gen-
eral held, "are in an unusual degree provisional." The
Senate, af ter twenty-four years of Conservative and
rive of Liberal appointmelîtS, was overwhelmingly Con-
servative, and to fill ail the remaining vacancies with
Sir Charles's nominees would not only keep the scales
loaded against the new-government for many a year,
but would embarrass if seriously af the very outset,
blocking Sir Oliver Mowat's accession to the cabinet.
The Bench, again, would be overwhelmingly Conserva-
rive. On this grotmd the governor-general, using the
,THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
discretion the constitution gave hlm, finally declined to
aecept his advisers' advice. Sir Charles, after a vigor-
ous protest against this "unwarranted invasion of re-
sponsible government," and an endeavour fo buttress
up his position by appeals to Todd's authority and
Mackenzie's example, treated the governor-general's
refusal fo sign the appoinbments us an indication of
want of confidence; on July 8 he resigned the seals of
office, but he never forgave the speeding of the parting
guest. The next day Lord Aberdeen called upon llr.
Laurier to form a new adminstration.
It was not a diflïeult task fo find suflïcient cabinet
timber. The diflïeulty was rather an embarrassment
of riches. There were many potential ministers, and
few portfolios,--fewer, alas, than might bave been, had
hot Lîberals in the unrecking days of opposition de-
nouneed as extravagant the creation of every new de-
partment. 1 There were many interests to weigh.
x Replying some time later to a Liberal member, James McMullen, who
had in opposition been a stern critic of government expenditure, counting
every year the silv¢r spoons in Rideau Hall, and who now queried the
establishment of ministers of Customs and of Inland Revenue of full cabi-
net tank, Sir Wilfrid wrote:
"I know, my dear McMullen, that you have always taken a very strong
view on this subject. You have always been of the opinion tht the number
of cabinet ministers ought to be reduced. You know that this is a subject
as to which I could hot agree with you. I have always holden to the view
that to govern effectively a country like Canada with a population spread
over such a very large territory, and with the necessity of giving cabinet
representation to ail sections, no prime minister could undertake to reduce
the cabinet .... Supposing you were to drop one cabinet minister, that
would be an economy of $7,000, but if the reduction was from the province
of Ontario, I do not believe that the people of Ontario would be satlsfied.
The comparison is often made between Canada and the United States in
this respect. The United States bas only seven cabinet ministers, but you
must remember that these ministers have no legislative duties; they can
give all their rime to the administration of their departments.
5
IFE AD ETTERS O1 R WIIRID LAURIER
Mr. Laurier had to hold the balance fairly between his
own parliamentary followers and the men in the pro-
vineial administrations, between the old Liberal war
horses and the eleventh-hour eonverts, between past
service and future eapaeity, between debating skill and
exeeutive power, between province and province and
between section and section, alloting Quebee its Eng-
lish-speaking Protestant minister and Ontario its Irish
Catholie minister. But the range of choiee had been
elosely narrowed before the eleetion, and it was only
neeessary now to make some last-moment shifts be-
cause of eleetion fatalities or personal idiosyneraeies.
By Jul2¢ 18 all the new ministers but three had been
sworn in.
Mr. Laurier, profiting by the experienee of Maeken-
zie and of Maedonald, determined not fo take charge of
a department. That would have meant that either, as
in Maekenzie's day, the work of poliey shaping and
party guiding or, as in Maedonald's day, the work of
the department would often go undone. As tresident
of the Couneil, he would be free to give to all the tasks
of the government the general supervision he had
planned.
For the important pOloEfolios of Justice, Finance, and
Railways, Mr. Laurier turned to the provinces. Sir
Oliver Mowat, appointed to the senatorial vaeaney
whieh Sir Charles Tupper had sought to preëmpt, be-
"I bave given this question very ample consideration, and as I ara re-
sponsible for the guidance of the party in these matters, I think I can
claire that our friends generally should give way to my own judgrnent in
this instance, the amount involved after all not being verï ¢onsiderable."
6
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
came Minister of Justice. Thirty-three years before,
young Oliver Mowat had joined the short-lived Sand-
field Macdonald-Dorion ministry as Postmaster-Gen-
eral. It vas a strange turn of the wheel that brought
him back to tbe central government after a generation's
work in other fields, and stranger still the lot which gave
him charge of the department against which he had
waged so many persistent and so many suceessful eon-
stitutional battles. Though he no longer had the force
or the interest in affairs which had marked his prime,
Sir Oliver was still full of sage counsel. In the cabinet,
his half-eentury's experience and his shrewd knowledge
of men helped a dozen strong ministers of individual
ways and training to become a team; while to the Seoteh
t'resbyterian voters, his presence in the ministry was un-
impeachable proof of its thorough soundness and re-
spectability. Villiam Stevens Fielding, for, twenty
years a Halifax newspaper man, for another ten pre-
mier and unquestioned toaster in his native province,
gave up his Nova Seotia post to beeome Minister of Fi-
nance. In central and western Canada he was not well
known, but it was not long before his caution and effi-
ciency in administration and his hard-hitting power in
debate had given him a foremost place in parliament and
in party council. I Andrew George Blair, premier of
New Brunswick, who had been equally at home in
Liberal and in coalition ministries, was a more uneertain
quantity, shrewd, undoubtedl, y experienced in all the
ways and wiles of the most efficient sehool of polities
(New Brunswick) in America, and as a Maritime-prov-
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ince man, he was thoroughly familiar with the trafic
and patronage potentialities of the Intercolonial, now
assigned to his charge as Minister of Railways and Ca-
nals. From the West it was understood that a member
of the Manitoba administration might be chosen to take
charge of the Department of the Interior, but for the
rime the post was left unfilled.
From his Quebec followers in parliament, Mr.
Laurier chose three men for portfolios. Israel Tarte,
defeated in Beauharnois, but elected later by acclama-
tion in St. Johns-Iberville, took charge of the largest
spending department, Public Works, the department
which he had assailed and exposed in his Langevin
charges. Henri Joly de Lotbinière, member-elect for
Portneuf, premier of Quebec for a brief space after
the Letell.ier coup dëtat, leader of the provincial
Liberals until Mercier's union with the Castors in the
Riel days, a Protestant who had won the confidence of
a Catholic province, a seigneur who embodied the fmest
traditions of courtesy and honour of his order, a man
for whom Wilfrid Laurier had profound respect and
natural sympathy, became Controller of Inland Reve-
nue. Sydney Fisher, one of the few men of leisure in
Canadian politics, who had followed his university
training by public service in politics and in progressive
farming in the :Eastern Townships, was now back in
parliament af ter a term's absence spent largely in the
politieal organization of Quebee. Though labelled by
his erities "gentleman fariner," he was still a farmer,
and immensely better fitted for his new post as Min-
8
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
ister of Agriculture than the lawyers and doctors and
brewers and near-farmers who had preceded him. Two
members joined the cabinet without portfolio: C. A.
Geoffrion, a leader of the Montreal bar, and professor
of civil law in McGill, fellow oflïce-bearer with Wilfrid
Laurier thirty years before in L'Institut Canadien,
brother of the Felix Geoffrion who had been his col-
league in Mackenzie's ministry, and son-in-law of An-
toine Aimé Dorion, and R. R. Dobell, head of the well-
known Quebec lumbering firm, who had been half
detached from the Conservative party by the McGreevy
scandais, and had fully accepted the Liberal platform
on the trade and school issues in the late election.
Charles Fitzpatrick, another citizen of old Quebec who
had won fame as counsel for Riel in 1885, and for Mer-
cier and for McGreevy and Connolly in later days, and
had held a seat in the provincial house from 1890, when
he had declined a post in the De Boucherville Conserva-
rive ministry, until 1896, took the Solicitor-Generalship,
which by custom formed part of the ministry but not of
the inner cabinet where general policy was determined.
Among Ontario members of the federal party, Sir
Richard Cartwright stood foremost in service and re-
pure. It had been assumed by many that upon a Lib-
eral victory he would return to his old post of Finance.
:But he had made many enemies. Though it was not
true, as rumour ran, that a deputation of bankers had
protested to Laurier against his reappointment, in the
eyes of the business world he was identified, rightly or
wrongly, with a poliqy of doctrinaire and ruthless free
9
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
trade. In determining to offer the portfolio of Finance
to lielding rather than fo Cartwright, Laurier was in-
flueneed not so mueh by the desire to reassure the busi-
ness world as by his conviction that for this most im-
portant of all the ministry's tasks, the tried administra-
tive eapaeity and balaneed judgment and the younger
years of Vrilliam lielding were the qualifies most
needed. Mr. lielding's .eeeptanee was contingent on
Sir Riehard's assent. To Sir Richard the post of Iin-
ister of Trade and Commerce was offered. He took the
post, and gave loyal service to the country and fo the
party for many a year, but never again with the old j oy
and confidence in combat, and never with eomplete con-
fidence in all his colleagues. Villiam 1V[uloek, Toronto
lawyer ,and York farmer, known af eleetion rimes as
"Fariner Bill," the most vigorous and able of the On-
tario group, a good fighter, a good hater, of dominating
will and high ambition, beeame Postmaster-General.
Richard V r. Seott, member of Assembly and Commons
and Senate sinee 1857, and famed as the maker of the
A_et of 1868 whieh firmly established Upper Canada's
separate sehools, and of the A_et of 1878 whieh gave
eounties local option fo prohibit the retail sale of liquor,
was ehosen Seeretary of State. William Paterson, a
sueeessful manufacturer who had coined the ery whieh
had done mueh service, "Has the N. 1 . ruade flou rieh ?"
a speaker of stentorian power, slashing in debate, but
too kindly ever to leave a smarting wound, beeame Con-
troller of Customs. His post, like Sir Henri Joly's, was
not of cabinet rank, representing, as it did, Thompson's
10
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
experiment in under-secretaryship, but af the first ses-
sion both were made full ministerial and cabinet posi-
tions.
From the Maritime provinces, besides Fielding and
:Blair, two ministers were chosen. Louis H. Dav]es,
lawyer, bank president, premier in the Island, member
at Ottawa since ]882, hl been for many sessions the
foremost Maritime Liberal, and so predestined for the
portfolio of Marine and Fisheries. Frederick Borden,
doctor, banker, militia surgeon, had held a seat in every
parliament but one since 187, and by his long interest
in military matters had qualified for new honours as
Minister of Militia and Defence.
When all the posts were filled, there were seventeen
ministers, including two without portfolio, or one
ministerial place for every seven Liberal members.
:Even so, many men of outstanding ability and service
could not be included. Of the Quebec members, many
were young, and were yet fo earn their spurs. From
Ontario there were men of experience and personality,
John Charlton, lames Sutherland, lames Lister,
George :E. Casey, George Landerkin, M. C. Cameron,
John Macmillan, V. C. :Edwards, Thomas Bain, who
continued fo give effective service as whips or private
members. lames D. Edgar, one of the most aggres-
sire of the Ontario delegation, was elected Speaker of
the Commons. One expected name was missing,--that
of David Mills. His long service, his rank as the senior
Ontario member and his mastery of eonstitutional is-
"sucs, had marked him out for cabinet tank again. But
11
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
he had been defeated in his old riding. It would have
been possible fo find a seat for him in the Senate, as was
done for Sir Oliver, or in the Commons, as was done for
William Paterson, who also had gone down in his home
eonstitueney, if Mills had been deemed indispensable.
As if was, assurance was given of a cabinet post later;
and when in November, 1897, Oliver Mowat resigned fo
beeome Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, ]:)avid Mills
was appointed Minister of Yustiee. Perhaps more
serious, for the party's future, was the inability fo find
cabinet place for Dr. :Benjamin Russell or for ]2). C.
Fraser, of the Nova Seotia contingent. One ey
interesting experiment was bloeked by death. ]:)'Alton
MeCarthy, fo whom in earlier days the Freneh tongue
and the Catholie religion had been anathema, had in
rime so broadened and mellowed that he came fo look
forward with pride fo searing under a Freneh-speaking
and Catholie premier. It had just been arranged, in
1898, that he should enter the Laurier government, as
Minister of Justice, when his death, resulting from a
runaway accident, ended an alliance whieh might have
had a material bearing on the future of Liberalism in
Ontario. 1
As if was, the ministry was an extraordinarily able
one,--none so strong before or sinee. In individuality,
1D'Alton MeCarthy af Owen Sound, April 30, 1896: "I am no longer
a Tory; I was kieked out of the party. I am not a Liberal, for they will
not let me in. I stand, however, fo do right, and I do not eare a straw
whether I bave to oppose Grit or Tory .... I want to see that government
voted out. I would be well pleased fo see Mr. Laurier eome in. Any
change must be for the better. No change ean be for the worse. If the
Liberal party goes in, and I think it will, I shall do what lies in my power
to keep t.hem straight as I did the Conservatives."
12
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
in varied ability, in administrative capacity, in construc-
tive vision, in internal unity and in integrity, it could
safely challenge comparison. Time was to dull the
edge of zeal, to emphasize differences, to sap moral re-
sistance, in more than one case, but that was in the twi-
light hour; the monaing was full of high promise.
The cabinet's first task was fo settle the Manitoba
sehool question. Until this was done, there eould be
no peaee, no opportunity for constructive work. The
eleventh-hour negotiations between Ottawa and XVinni-
peg and the result of the eleetions had ruade elear the
bounds within which agreements must be sought. It
was elear that a federal remedial law was out of the
question exeept as an absolutely last resort; that relief
for the minority must eome by provincial legislation;
that the province would not eonsider for a moment the
re-establishment of separate schools, but that there was
a possibility of securing provision for separate religious
teaching and similar adjustments within the framework
of the existing system. Preliminary discussions with
Mr. Greenway and Mr. Sifton indicated the possibility
of agreement, and accordingly if was considered unnec-
essary to appoint the conmfission of inquiry suggested
when the two governments stood apart.
In August, after some preliminary correspondence,
Messrs. Sifton, Vatson .and Cameron, of the Manitoba
government, came fo Ottawa, and there threshed out
the solution with a sub-committee of the cabinet. If
became apparent that the three points upon which con-
13
LIFE .AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
cession might be ruade were: separa_te religus exer-
ciscs, a tcachcr of.thc minority's faith, and the use of the
Frcnch language in the schools. To reach agreement
upon dctails, as for cxamplc, whether thc minimum at-
tendance cssential to secure the first two privileges
should be sixty, as the province proposed, or a smaller
number, and to debate thc possibility of furthcr conces-
sions as fo tcxt-books, teachers' licenses, and adminis-
tration wccks of consideration wcre required. It was
hot until the middlc of November that a scttlemcnt was
cffcctcd.
In thc mcantimc the question had arisen as fo how far
thc minority could be brought into thc agreement. It
was desirable fo sccure their asscnt fo an agreement
madc in thcir bchalf; yet it was plain that so far as their
ecclesiastical spokcsmcn wcre concerned they would
hot formally asscnt fo anything short of the impossible.
Vhcthcr consultcd or hot consultcd, thcy would make
trouble. One of the leading represcntatives of the mi-
nority, Mr. Prendergast, who had resigned his post in
the Grccnway cabinet whcn the measures of 1890 were
passcd, was consulted, and agreed that the compromise
proposcd was the best attainable. Through Israel
Tarte, Mgr. Langcvin was sounded, with results less
happy than thc sanguine Minister of Public Works
foretold:
( Israd Tarte to Wilfrid Laurier--Translation)
Winnipeg, 8 November, 1896.
. . This s how things stand : Archbishop Langevin stands
irm for the rght OEo organize Catholc school districts. In
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
other words, he demands the re-establlshment of separate
schools, which, s you know, is out of the question. I have
hot shown him the agreement, for I believe that he would im-
mediately bave taken advantage of if fo. raise a row. The
priests who surround him are fanatical and full of prejudice.
The Archbishop, however, seems fo me fo be coming back fo a
more moderate position, and I do hot tbink he will make a
disturbance. Out relations have been very cordial. I bave
tried fo learn his views and fo pacify him, by making him
realize more clearly the unfortunate side of the present situa-
tion for Catholics. In fact, half the French schools are
closed and about 1500 French-Canadian childrcn are to-day
without instruction.
Prendergast and the most intelligent among the French-
Canadians will support out arrangemcnt. I cnclose an inter-
view prepared by Mr. Prcndcrgast which should be given fo
the press the day of the publication of the agreement--not
belote.
A long habit of absolute submission fo the clergy has made
my mission here very dif[icult. Everyone .is scared. Further,
we bave no support in the Catholic press of Manitoba, and
our frlends are left fo the mercy of 'he "Manitoba" and of
the "North-West Review," which .is edited by Fathcr Drum-
mond and is extremely violent ....
In brief, the position is this: The French Liberals, guided
by Prëndergast, w_ill support__us, and within a year af latest,
practically the whole community will have accepted the situa-
tion effected by the present agreement.
Mr. Tarte found it necessary also to keep an eye on
the provincial ,ministers. tte writcs the next day:
I have just telegraphed you not fo adopt any order-in-
council regarding the Manitoba schools until I return. I hope
you will adopt my suggestion. If is in fact essential fo the
success of the work of conciliation whicll we have under-
taken and which above everything calls for good faith. If
the proposed amendments are put into effect in a spirit of
15
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
friendship and good will, ail will go well. If, on the contrary,
they are enforced in a niggardly spirit, nothing good will
come of them. I have met all the ministers, including Mr.
Greenway, and they seem to me to realize the necessity of
understanding and conciliatory action.
There is no reason why the Federal government should
express satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Leti the legislature
adop.t the proposed amendments; let them be put in force.
If, as I have no doubt, the Catholics express themselves as
satisfied, the last word will have been said. But it would
bc cxtremely imprudent to tic ourselves now, and thercby fo
give our adversaries in parliament ground for attack. Our
rôle hitherto has been to act as amici curie. Let us stick
to that. This is the position which I have taken with the
Catholics here. I have promised them fo continue out good
offices in the application of the law .... Sifton will ask you
for an order-àn-council approving the settlement. Let him
wait, telling him that it will not be advisable to do anything
before my return ....
The settlement embodied three concessions. First,
religious teaching was to be carried on between half-
past three and four o'clock, by any Christian clergyman
or his deputy, when authorized by a resolution of the
local board of trustees or requested by the parents of ten
children in a rural or twenty-five in an urban school.
Different days or different rooms might be allotted
different denominations; no children were to attend un-
less at the parents' desire. Secondly, at least one duly
certificated Roman Catholic teacher was to be employed
in urban schools, where the average attendance reached
forty and in village and rural schools where it reached
twenty-five, if required by parents' petition; similarly,
non-ttoman Catholic teachers were to be emp]oyed
16
TH/ IIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
when requested by a non-Catholic minority. Thirdly,
"when ten of the pupils in any school sleak the French
language or any language other than English, as their
native language, the teaching of such pupils shall be
conducted in French, or such other language, and Eng-
lish upon the bilingual system." The provincial govern-
ment also agreed that fair Catholic representation in ad-
visory council, inspectorships and examining boards
would be lept in mind in the administration of lhe act.
In essence, the agreement left the system of public
schools intact, but secured for the minority distinct
religious teaching, and, where numbers warranted.
teachers of their own faith and the maintenance of the
French tongue. The language clause was framed in
general terms by the provincial authorities in order to
make it apply to the German Mennonites as well as to
the French Catholics.
The question af once arose,--how had the settlement
been effected? Which side had given way? Had the
Manitoba government p]ayed politics and made con-
cessions to lVilfrid Laurier which if had refused to
Mackenzie Bowell? Had the Laurier government ac-
cepted for the minority less than the Bowell govern-
ment would have secured for them? The fact was that
the terms, as was inevitable, were a compromise, but a
compromise consistent with the essential principles of
both parties to the negotiation. The Manitoba govern-
ment was doubtless readier fo negotiate with a Liberal
than with a Conservative government, and with expo-
nents of sunny ways than with the wielders of "big
17
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
stieks." Yet it had adhered toits essential position, re-
ïusing to agree either to the restoration of a Catholie
sehool system wholly separate and independent in or-
ganization, as the Remedial Bill had provided, or to the
establishment, as the Diekey proposais involved, of a
system within a system, the segregation of Catholie
ehildren, in towns and eities, in separate sehool build-
ings or rooms, for seeular as well as religious purposes.
This agreed, if had assented fo all the other concessions
for whieh the Diekey delegation had stood out, and
which others now proposed. The Laurier government
believed that the agreement was of more real value to
the minority than any whieh eould previously bave been
seeured. The Remedial :Bill would have been unwork-
able; the Diekey proposais in part were equally im-
praetieable, while in important details they fell short of
what was now secured. Definite religious teaching in
the tenets of the Roman Catholic or any other faith was
ruade possible in the only way compatible with unity in
secular instruction, by optional instruction af the close
of the day. The representation in practice, though not
by statute, of Roman Catholics on administrative bod-
ies, and an understanding as fo text-books, were com-
mon ground. The provision for a Roman Catholic
teacher was a modification of one of the I)ickey pro-
posais. The new agreement went beyond the I)ickey
proposais in providing that Roman Catholie ehildren
might in all cases be exempted from the standard reli-
gious exereises. If added the provision, arising, euri-
ously enough, out of an arnendment to the Remedial
18
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
Bill moved by D'Alton McCarthy himself, for instruc-
tion in Frcnch.
The announccmcnt of tle scttlcment, Ol November
19, met vcry wide approval. Mr. Prcndergast, in thc
interview to whîch Mr. Tarte rcfcrs, pointcd out that
fifty-onc Catholic schools wcrc closcd, somc sicc onc,
somc sincc two, somc sincc four ycars; that twcnty-
rive othcrs had comc undcr the Public Schools Act, with
its standardizcd rcligious instruction; and that of the
thirty-two schools supported by privatc contributions as
parish schools, half would havc to be abadoned or
turncd into public schools within a ycar; thc new agree-
ment, while not all that could be desircd, was worth a
fair and honest trial; much would dcpcnd upon the
spirit of its administration. Thc Anglican archbishop
of Rupcrt's Land, an upholdcr of denolninational
teaching, agrccd the settlcmcnt was thc best that could
be ruade. Dr. Brycc, Isaac Campbcll, R. T. Rilcy and
othcr lcading Winnipeggcrs cndorscd it. In Ontario,
D'Alton McCarthy and E. F. Clarkc spoke for the
Conscrvative opponcnts of thc Rcmcdial Bill in approv-
ing it as a reasonable and satisfactory conpromisc:
"Laurier has kcpt faith," Mr. Clarke declared. "La
latrie '' wclcomcd the passing of cvil days. Fron East
to West the ovcrwhelming opinion was approval of a
settlemcnt reasonably fair in itsclf and likcly to cnsurc
pcace at last.
But approval was far from unanimous. As usual,
extrcmcs met. The Grand Orange Lodgc of Mani-
toba denounccd the settlemcnt as a bctrayal of thc
19
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
national schools, an insidious recognition of denomi-
national pretensions. Senator Bernier and A. C. La-
Rivière, leaders of the French-Canadian Conservatives
of Manitoba, ata mass meeting in St. Boniface attacked
it as a wholesale and disgracef'ul surrender of the
minority's rights; no settlement could be accepted
which had hOt previously been approved by the arch-
bishop. Father Cherrier, OE St. Boniface, declared
that the Church was hOt content with half an hour for
God. Archbishop Langevin sounded a call fo arms:
"I tell you there will be a revoit in Quebec which will
ring throughout Canada and these men who to-day are
trimnphant will be cast down. The settlement is a
farce. The fight has only begun." The next week
he opened ten parish schools. In the far :East, Arch-
bishop O'Brien, whose flock enjoyed privileges much
less extensive, attacked "the cynical injustice . . . of
this feeble compact of unscrupulous expediency."
In Quebec, Archbishop Begin, in a crcular letter,
declared:
No bishop wants nor tan approve the so-called settlement
of the Manitoba school question, which, in a word, is based
upon the indefensible abandonment of the best established and
most sacred rights of the Catholic minority. His Grace the
Archbîshop of St. Boniface has sounded an immediate and
energetic protest against this agreement; in so doing he bas
done nothing but fulfil his duty as a shepherd and followed
the directions of the Holy See. He could hot but defend
his flock.
"La Semaine Religieuse," the oflïcial organ of the
20
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
:Archbishop of Montreal, voiced the prevailing ec-
clesiastical opinion:
The Manitoba school question is not settled; it merely
enters a new phase .... In Manitoba, Catholics and French-
Canadians are not beggars nor strangers, tobe content with
crumbs. We will demand the Catholic school, school districts,
books, teachers, and exemption from taxes. All constitutional
and legal means of defence will be used before consenting fo thc
rising generation being led into religious and national apos-
tasy. There is no danger of His Eminence the Holy Father
assenting: tbe signal for retreat will never corne from Rome.
To one bishop of moderate views Mr. Laurier ad-
dressed a reasoned defence of the settlement:
(Translation)
30 November, 1896.
/ONSFI«NEUR :
. . Your Grace may perhaps tell me that these conces-
sions do hot go far enough. Was if possible to secure more?
That .is the first point to determine.
In the first place, I mst meet the objection so often urged,
that it is not a question of knowing whether it was possible
to secure more: "the constitution as interpreted by the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council declared that the Catholics
had the right to the complete re-establishment of separate
schools." I submit tbat on this point there is complcte misun-
derstanding, and I believe this will be easy 4o demonstrate.
. . The text of the j udgment authorises merely an amend-
ment to the eisting law, and not the abrogation of that law.
It is clear hat separate schools could not bave been re-
established without as a preliminary rcpealing the Act of 1890,
of which the express purpose was to put an end to thc system
of denominational schools. The text of the judgnmnt states
explicitly that in order to remedy the grievance of which
21
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Catholics complained it was hot essential to give them back
all the rights which had been taken away from them, but
simply to add to the existing law provisions sufficient to protect
the conscience of Catholics.
. . But that is not all. Even supposing that the judgment
of the Privy Council had declared that Catholics were entitled
to the restoration of separate schools, was if possible to attain
this result by a federal law? . . . Three things are indispen-
sable in what is understood by separate schools: 1 ° exemption
from public school taxes; 2 ° a distinct school organization;
3 ° a proportionate share in the appropriations voted by the
]tgs]ature for education. These three conditions werc found
in the remedial order, but as your Grace knows, they were
hot round in the bill. The bill did hOt ensure a cent from
the public grants for education. What was the rcason for
his retreat? Why af ter having declared in 1895 that sep-
arate were, ]ike public schools, entitled to a grant from the
provincial treasury, dld the saine government leave the sep-
arate schools which it pretended to re-establish without this
grant? The rcason giron by Mr. Dickey, the Minister of
Justice, was that there were very serious doubts as to the
:power of the federal parliament to appropriate the moneys
of a provincial ]egslature. In other words, the Bowell govern-
ment did hot recognlze this power as existing in the federal
government.
Even assuminng that the government had this nominal power,
I submit o your Grace that in the state of opinion, in face
of the steadily growing feel.ing in favour of provincial au-
tonomy, there is hOt now and there never will be any govern-
ment strong enough to induce parliament to lay violent hands
on the treasury of a province ....
. . Now, fo pretend o re-establish separate schools with-
out a public grant, would be simply a fraud.
This being the situation, I submit fo 2cour Grace that the
concessions offered by the government of Manitoba wi!l be
intïnitely more effective han the so-called remedial bill could
ever bave been, if it had become law.
As amended, the Manitoba law will give, hot separate schools
22
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
in name---for that marrer they were called public schools
before 1890--but an equivalent which I believe acceptable.
It will give us Catholic schools, taught by Catholic teachers,
in all the districts where the number of Catholic pupils is
forty in the city and twenty-five in the country, and these
schools will be aided by the government like all other public
schools. :Further, the law as amended will provide Catholic
teaching for Catholic pupils in schools where the teachers
are not Catholics, at certain fixed hours.
So much for the amendments to the law. The questions
of control and administration remain. I bave undertaken
fo deal with them also, and bave secured from the Manitoba
government an undertaking to grant Catholics fir representa-
tion in the educational staff, the inspectors and the examining
boards. With this representation, if good understanding and
harmony are re-established, as I hope, and if the agreement
which bas been effected is carried out in the loyal and broad
spirit which bas been promiscd, the Catholics can easily reach
a good understanding with the majority as fo the qualification
of teachers and the school curriculum.
I ara ready to adroit that thc concessions ruade by the
government of Manitoba do not include all that the Catholics
looked for, but to seek to re-establish separate schools by
federal intervention and .o carry things through by main
force, is a task which six years of agitation, of struggle, of
bitterness, seem fo me fo have rendered impossible. Without
dwelling on this point, I ask your Grace to consider the
situation of the country, taking into account its races, ifs
creeds, the inevitable passions, and the nobler sentiments which
make lrovincial autonomy the foundation of our political
system, and I believe that your Grace will come fo the same
conclusion as myself.
Religious teaching should be re-established in the schools.
On this point, there is no doubt. I do hot believe that it
can be re-established by a federal law, and I am sure that
it can be by mutual concessions, to which the provincial
legislature will give its sanction.
:Even admitting that it might be possible to obtain from
23
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the existing parliament, or from another tobe elected by the
people, a law completely restoring separate schools, which
would be better, such a law administered by a hostile govern-
ment, or a law less perfect, but passed by the provincial
lcgislature itself, and admlnistered by a government which,
from belng hostile, had become friendly?
The proverb, dictated by popular common sense, that the
worst agreement is better than the best law-suit, may be ap-
plied with as much force to political as fo private affairs.
If seems fo me on every ground that in this case more than
ever conciliation will be more effective than compulsion.
I have presented fo you briefly, Monseigneur, the consider-
ations which, as if seems fo me, determine this burning question.
My colleague, M. Tarte, with the saine end in view has
af my request visited his Grace of St. Boniface. His mission
has hOt been successful.
. . I do not ask your Grace fo express satisfaction with
the proposed arrangement. I simply ask you fo consider
whether if will not be better to give the arrangement a loyal
trlal.
I could hOt ask his Grace of St. Boniface to renounce the
rights which he believes are guaranted by the constitution,
but there is ground for hoping that a trial of the new régime
of conciliation will give him the most complete satisfaction,
reserving the right fo renew the struggle, to break the truce,
if these hopes prove baseless.
I ask your Grace to consider that in our system of govern-
ment there are two principles perpetually in antagonism--the
prlnclple of centralization and the princlple of provinclal au-
tonomy. Do you not think, as I do, that the safety of Con-
federation, the interests particularly of the province of Quebec,
lie in the firm maintenance of provincial autonomy? Not
that federal intervention should never be exercised, but only
as a last resort, when every other means has been exhausted,
and when all hope of conciliation and of understanding with
the provincial authorities bas been round vain ....
Accep, Monseigneur, etc.
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
While some members of the episeopaey were con-
vineed of the soundness of Mr. Laurier's contention,
others eontinued fo denounee him and all his works.
The Inonths that followed brought not ealm, but ris-
ing storin. If was not surprising that fo Inen of ultra-
rnontane views or uneoinprornising teinper, the situa-
tion was hot acceptable. F.irrnly persuaded of the
right and duty of the Chureh to direct the politieal
actions of Catholie voters and legislators, eonvineed
that an intolerable wrong had been done their eoreli-
gionists in Manitoba and that the constitution pro-
vided 8 eoinp]ete remedy, if only statesinen had the
will to use it, surprised and angered by the disregard
of their ediets shown by the eleetors of Quebee, they
deterinined fo use every means fo reassert their author-
ity and erush all opposition. A reign of eeelesiastieal
terror began, partieularly in the arehdioeese of Quebee,
in the east of the province. Arinand Tessier, editor
of Liberal journal, "Le Protecteur du Samaenay,"
was ealled to the episeopal palaee of Chieoutimi, given
his ehoiee between making an abject apology for pub-
lishing articles questioning the right of the bishops fo
intervene in polities and having his newspaper put
under the ban; he signed the apology. The leading
Liberal journal of the province, "L'Eleeteur," of Que-
bec, still edited by the Ernest Paeaud of the Baie de
Chaleurs episode, was hOt given this ehoiee. Despite
the faet that in earlier days, when Mercier was in his
priine, Paeaud had reeeived the blessing of the Pope fo
the third generation, "L'Eleeteur" was banned by bell,
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
book and eandle. In a pastoral signed by Archbishop
Begin of Quebec, Bishop Laflèche of Three Rivers,
]3ishop Gravel of Nicolet, ]3ishop Biais of Rimouski,
and Bishop Labrecque of Chicoutimi, .and read in
every church in the archdiocese in the last week of
December, "L'Electeur" was condenmed for its denial
of the episcopal right of intervention in politics, its
"abusive, fallacious and insulting" comments on the
action of certain bishops during the elections, its re-
printing of the David pamphlet, and particularly, for
an article published in November, which denied the
bishops the right fo decide what amount of religious
instruction should be given in schools or to forbid chil-
dren to attend mixed schools; all Catholics were there-
fore "forbidden formally and under pain of grievous
error and refusal of the sacraments, fo read the journal,
'L'Electeur,' fo subscribe for it, fo collaborate with
it, to sell it, or to encourage it in any way whatsoever."
Pacaud evaded the issue: that day "L'Electeur"
ceased to appear, and next day "Le Soleil" was issued
from the same press. Again, when Mr. L. O. David,
a lifelong and intimate friend of Mr. Laurier, published
a pamphlet, "The Canadian Clergy, their Mission and
their Vork," in which, af ter a solemn profession of
his Catholic faith, he criticized the policy of the episco-
pare from the days of their opposition to the Patriotes
of '37 down to their arbitrary stand on the school ques-
tion, the rive bishops of eastern Quebec sent it post
baste to I{ome, charging that it was undermining their
authority af a moment when the Church had need of
26
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
all its power. Early in Sanuary, Igr. Begin was able
to announee in a circuler letter that the offending
pamphlet had been eondemned by the Saered Congre-
gation of the Index Expurgatorius, that "each and
every believer is held, under pain of grave disobedience
to the I-Ioly See, fo destroy this book, or remit if to
his eonfessor, who will do so," and that the author had,
like a good Christian, submitted without reserve to this
decree.
Tlfis high assertion of episeopal authoriy was a chal-
lenge no merely to the Liberal pary but to the self-
respee of individuals and the libery of fle Sate.
I-Iow was it to be met in its political bearings? There
were some Liberals who wished to bow before the
storm, and await whatever erumbs of future favour
the elergy might give. In eounties where there were
not a score of Protestants, where the parish was the
community, it was not easy to face a condemnation
which virtually meant ostracism, barring of social
intercourse and of public service. 1 On the other
hand, there were some old Rouges who were more than
ready to take up the challenge and to fight to finish.
Ex-Mayor Beaugrand of Montreal declared in his
1Speaking in parliament in Match, 1897, Mr. Tarte deelared: "In the
diocese of Chicoutimi there is hot one Roman Catholic who goes fo con-
fession without being asked if he is a subscriber to my sons' paper, 'La
Patrie'.... If the answer is in the affirmative the man is told that he bas
fo senti back the paper or that lac will be refused the sacraments of the
Church .... My honourable friends of Protestant persuasion may hOt
understand fully the meaning of those words. A man to whom the sac-
raments are refused is a man who cannot be buried in consecrated ground.
He is a disgraeed man before his countrymen and cannot lire among them.
Practically he is a doomed man."
27
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
journal, "La Patrie," that Quebee was the Spain of
Ameriea; the episeopal attaek was the beginning of a
struggle fo the death between the hierarehy and the
government; no compromise was possible, and if
"L'Fleeteur" was too eowardly or too poor fo continue
the struggle others would do so for if: "$Ve have had
out vietories of June 28,-as out fathers had the vietories
of St. Denis, St. Charles, St. Eustaehe, in spire of the
hreats of the religious authorities. I fight not for my-
self but for poltroons who do not date to raise their
heads."
Laurier faeed the erisls squarely. I-Ie would not
submit, and he would not be led into a war against the
Church. Once more, as twenty years earlier, he deter-
rnined to uphold the right of Catholies fo be af once
free eitizens and faithful sons of the Chureh. In par-
liament, belote the publie, and af Rome itself, this was
the poliey he and his eolleagues had already pursued,
and it was the poliey they determined fo continue.
In parliament there was surprisçngly little discussion
of the issue. The government urged its followers not
fo taunt the losers, and fo give the parties eoncerned in
the settlement an opportunity fo work it out in quiet.
On occasion, however, their position was ruade clear
beyond question. Israel Tarte put if with his usual
frankness and lucidity in debate in Match, 1897:
Some of out honourable friends opposite do hot seem fo
realize the currents of public opinion. The days are gone
by when the people of Quebec could be deceived and treated
as my honourable friends opposite would wlsh them to be
8
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
treated. I say that more progress in the ideas of liberty and
freedom has been made in the province of Quebec in the past
ten years thon in any other province of the Dominion. When
I started out from my parents' farm I entrtained then and
entertained later many of the doctrines now held by many of
my Roman Catholic frîends in the clergy, and if is on that
account I forgive them many things. Sir, the Roman Cath-
olic clergy of the province of Quebec is composed of good
men, of moral men, there is hot a more moral body of men
than the priests of the province of Quebec, but I ara bound
to add at the same tlme that those men bave been brought
up, as if were, within closed walls, and some of them bave
become the unwilling tools of such men as those who sit on
the opposite side of the House.
The Conservatives were quite as reluctant to make
the settlement a party issue. The Conservative sur-
vivors from Quebec still demanded "justice, not a
sham," and taunted the Liberal members who had signed
the bishops' pledge, but the Conservatives from other
provinces washed their hands of the whole question.
The bishops had not delivered the goods in the last
election; why worry further? Sir Charles Tupper
frankly refused to pull any more episcopal chestnuts out
of the tire; while denying that he had made any compact
with the bishops of Quebec, he admitted he had natur-
ally expected more support than he had received:
I am free to confess that I entirely overrated the importance
of this question .... I find there has not been that deep
importance attached to this question by a very large part
of that denomination that I had previously supposed. I make
this admission frankly to the House, and I cannot but feel
that it is not unllkely that it will be much more difficult in
the future than if was in the past . . . to induce gentlemen
29
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
fo sacrifice their own judgment fo some extent and the fee|-
ings of their constituents 4o some extent, fo mainta[a a
policy which when subjected fo the test of actual experience
is not round to bave the importance attached to it that was
previously supposed .... I am glad to know that the respon-
sibility tests no longer on my shoulders but upon those of
the gentleman who is now the First Min]ster of the Crown.
In Quebec, the Liberals stood fo their guns. They
pressed fo a successful conclusion their protest against
the election of Dr. ]Iarcotte in Champ]ain, on the
ground of undue influence of curés who had declared
if a nmrtal sin to vote for a Liberal. When in a by-
election in Bonaventure in March, 1897, hIgr. Blais
asked both candidates to sign a pledge to vote in the
House against the Laurier-(reenway settlement or
any other settlement not approved by the bishops, and
fo forbid their fellow-campaigners "fo speak one single
word in favour of the Laurier-Greenway settlement or
of giving it a trial," the Conservative candidate agreed,
but the Liberal candidate, hlr. J. F. Guite, flatly re-
fused: he would lîke fo see still better terms for his com-
patriots, but must use his own j udgment as fo the best
means: "I am a Catholic, and in ail questions of faith
and morals I am ready fo accept without restriction the
decisions of the Church. In ail political questions I
clahn the freedom enjoyed by every British subject ....
I cannot before God and my conscience renounce the
freedom of exercising my privilege as a member, to the
best of my judgment." He was elected by
double the prevous Liberal majority,--though pos-
sibly the prospect of gove,zunent railwav extension
8O
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
through the country had some influence on the result.
At the height of the erisis Mr. Laurier ruade his own
position elear. At a banquet held by the Club National
in Montreal, on Deeember 80, a few days after "L'Elee-
teur" had been banned, he defended the sehool sertie-
ment as the best praetieable solution, and then, in tertres
whieh revealed the strain and tension of the hour, re-
ferred to the elerieal erusade:
I have devoted my career to the realization of an idea.
I have taken the work of Confederation whcre I found if
when I entered political lire, and determined to give it my
life. Nothing will deter me from continuing to the end in
my task of preserving at all cost our civil liberty. Nothing
will prevent me from continuing my efforts to preserve that
state of society conquered by our fathers at the price of so
many years and so much blood. It may be that the result
of my efforts will be the Tarpeian Rock, but if that be the
case, I will fall without murmur or recrimination or complaint,
certain that from my tomb will rise the immortal idea for
which I have always fought ....
It is to you, my young friends, that I partlcularly address
myself. You are at the outset of your career. Let me give
you a word of good counsel. During your career you will
have to surfer .many things which will appear to you as
supreme injustice. Let me say fo you that you should never
allow your religious convictions to be arfected by the acts
.of men. Your convictions are immortal. Their foundation
is eternal. Let your convictions be always calm, serene and
superior to the inevitable trials of life. Show fo the world
that Catholicism is compatible with the exercise of liberty
in its highest acceptation; show that the Catholics of the
country will render to God what is God's, to Coesar what
is Coesar's.
While defending himself resolutely from attack,
31
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Laurier was strongly opposed to any counter campaign.
He wanted no anti-clerical movement of the Iguropean
model. With some diflïculty he restrained the ardour
oï Mr. Beaugrand and his fellow-stalwarts, some of
whom were in close touch with ail'airs on the Continent
and were quite ready fo follow Continental Liberalism
in its attitude to the Church. In 1897, as in 1877, ,Vil-
frid Laurier interpreted Liberalism otherwise. In a
letter fo Mr. Beaugrand he refers fo the diflïculties he
met in making his policy prevail:
Wilfrîd Laurier to H. Beaugrand.--( Translation)
Ottawa, February 8, 1807.
MY DIAlt BI.UGIAlqV:
. . Let me say how much I thank you for all you say in
your letter. I cannot adequately express to you how deeply
I was touched by the interview I had with you. Between such
friends as we are, there cannot be a break, though there may
be diierences. I ara a Liberal, like yourself, but we do hot
belong to the saine school. I ara a disciple of Lacordaire.
I regret that on one or two occasions I expressed my disagree-
ment with you in terms much too strong. Now that we have
frankly threshed the marrer out, our old friendship will only
be the better for if.
I am pleased to sec that the sale of "La Patrie" has gone off
well, 1 and that, now that you are freed of the press of business
you are going to be able to give your health ail the attention
that it requires ....
But it was hot enough to take this stand before his
countrymen. It had become essential to take it in
Rome as we]l. It was necessary fo appeal from those
who spoke in the name of Rome fo Rome itself, to ask
a To a group of Liberals, with Mr. Tarte's sons in charge.
32
Sir Oliver Mowat
Sir lichard Cartright
Sir William Mulock
Williara S. Fielding
Andrew G. Blair
Henri Joly de Lotbinière
Israe| Tarte
Williara Paterson
GROUP OF hlINISTERS
Sir Louis Davies
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
the head of their church whether Catholicism involved
a loss of political independenee, to avert by timely in-
formation action from Rome supporting the agga-essive
bishops in their stand. A steady stream of ecclesias-
tical visitors from Canada had presentëd at Rome their
side of the case; the laity had not been heard. Iimnedi-
ately af ter the general elections, therefore, a group of
Quebec Liberals determined to state their case. Abbé
Proulx of St. Lin des Laurentides, who had supported
the Liberals on the school issue, and Chevalier Drolet,
who had been a member of the crusader hand of Zou-
aves who had rallied fo the defence of the papacy
nearly thirty years belote, were despatched to Rome.
A semi-private letter from Mr. Laurier fo M. L'Abbe
Proulx provided his credentials:
( Trandation )
Ottawa, 9 September, 1896.
Mr ER M. PROULX:
The attitude taken during the recent elections by Mgr.
Laflèche and some other members of the episcopate, was, in
my opinion, a great mistake. If seems fo me certain that
this violent intervention of the ecclesiastical authorities in the
electoral arena cannot but have harmful consequences for the
position that Catholics hold in the Confederation, and that it
is equally likely to trouble the consciences of the faithful.
If may seem unseemly on my part fo speak thus. I persist,
however, in believing that the attitude which my political
friends and I have taken in the question which was then
submitted fo the electors was much more in conformity with
the ideas frequently expressed by his Holiness Leo XIII than
he attitude of Mgr. Laflèche and of those who acted with him.
It is not, I think, presumptuous to believe that if the
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
question is submitted fo the pontifical authorities af Rome,
we may expect a statement of doctrine which would have the
efl'ect of bringing regrettable abuses fo an end, maintaining
peace and harmony in our country and reassuring the con-
sciences of Catholics.
As you are about fo sail for Rome, you will render a great
servîce to the Catholics of this country who unfortunately
have incurred the disfavour of certain members of the episco-
pare, because of their political opinions and for no other
reason, if you would state their case and represent fo the
pontifical authorities that all they seek in this country is fo
exercise their duties as citizens in accord with the recognized
principles of the British Constitution, irinciples recognized
equally by his Holiness Leo XIII.
In a more personal letter of the saine date Mr. Laurier
gave further suggestions for guidance:
(Translation)
I am sending you herewith a private letter hot intended
for publieity, but which may however be shown as a eredential.
Mr. Drolet will leave shortly for Rome. My eolleagues in
the House of Commons are sending him as their advocate and
interpreter fo state their case ofl]cially belote the pontifical
authorities. I would like you to keep in touch with him, in
order fo inform him as fo all useful steps that should be
taken fo attain the end in view.
In a short rime I shall send you a memorandum relatlve 4o
the settlement of the sehool question, but the first thlng fo
do is to make the pontifical authorities understand that we
are Catholics and that we wish fo remaln Catholies but that
in a constitutional country such as ours the attitude taken
by Mgr. Laflèche and certain other members of the episcopate,
if approved at Rome, would place us in a position of inferiority
sueh that a Catholic could never become prime minister nor
even form par of a government like the Canadian, in which
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
:Protestants are necessarily in a majority, since the Protestants
are in a majority in the country.
I must repeat fo you also what I bave said already, that
while disapproving the conduct of members of the episcopacy,
to which I have just referred, if is not the intention of any of
ts to expose them to the slightest humiliation. If you con-
sider it advisable that a delegate should be appointed for
Canada, you will please inform me. I need not say to you
that the selection of such a delegate would be of very great
importance.
Accept my best wlshes for your voyage.
The two envoys made their way to Rome, finding
"half ecclesiastical Canada there before us or on the
way." In Rome, progress was slow. The affairs of
ail the ends of the earth met there; rules of etiquette
and udienee were stiff; there were so many personages
to see. "The impossibility of making rapid progress,"
writes M[r. I)rolet, "often the neeessitay of making no
progress at all, with the Congregations, with this Black
Inonde, jealous, oh so jelous, ineddling, old, old above
11." In moments of despair he ws prepred to believe
Zol's "Rome" not wholly false. It was not esy to
eonvinee Rome that Bishops were in error and laymen
right. The bishops had long had the er of Cardinal
and Congregation. I-Iad not the Queen in Couneil
eommanded that separte sehools be restored? Hd
not Protestant Tupper tried to restore them and hd
hot Catholie Laurier resisted? Vas not this Laurier
a bad Catholie, a Free Mason? 1 And perhaps the
1 Replying fo aletter of Mr. Drolet, reeounting on urdmpeachable author-
ity a statement to this effeet ruade in high places by one of the Canadian
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
good Mr. Drolet was not the most tactful of envoys,
unduly suspicious and belligerent, laying emphasis on
his long dossier eontaining two hundred elarges of
intimidation against this bishop and that curé, rather
than on the danger of the recoil to the Church itself.
"The old gentleman is rather a light weight," wrote
a critic, "a kind of Monsieur Tartaran, who got on the
wrong track from the first and anaong the wrong set."
bishops then in Rome, iIr. Laurier ruade this unusually full confession
of faith:
"Ottawa 15 Deeember, 1896.
"... The settlement which we bave obtained from the government of
Manitoba satisfies every sensible man in Canada, but the elergy of the
province of Quebee will hot pardon us for.what it ealls their check of
last summer. They want revenge af ail eosts, and unless the Holy Sec
intervenes in rime, we are threatened with a religious war whose con-
sequences alarm me. But we cannot drawback. Certain members of
the clergy are blind: if thelr way of thinking is fo prevail, hOt only will
we have a war of religion, but thousands upon thousands of good Catholies
will be brought to hold religion responsible for the faults and excesses of
its ministers. That must be avoided at ail costs ....
"I bave rend with regret the remarks which Mgr. N. ruade about me, in
the Vatican itself. I ara astonished, even though I have corne to expeet ail
manner of attacks. However, I would never bave believed there was
so much malice in the heart of a certain set. My dear Drolet, you bave
known me for well on to forty years; you know that I bave never paraded
my religious convictions, but that they exist; I ean appreciate to-day
how much influence they bave over me, when I say that they bave hot
been shaken by the attacks of those whose mission it is to preach
Christian charity.
"Whatever cornes. 'il faut marcher droit son chemin.' That was your
old Pontifical Zouave motto; it is mine to-day. We must keep the
straight road. I sec clearly and distinctly the goal. I do hot know
whether we tan reach it, but I ara full of hope and courage.
"lt is a singular thing, that these violent aets, this ignorance of con-
ditions in our own country, this war to which we are going fo be
exposed, far from estranging me from the Church, draws me eloser to
it. I feel how superior religion is fo all that often is donc in the
naine of religion.
"W.
It is conceivable that, knowing the chevalier's impulsive diplomacy,
Mr. Laurier was hot altogether surprised fo hear that he had read this
letter to all the high ecclesiastical authorities he met,---one of whom de-
clared in eestasy, "Why, your Mr. Laurier is the only Christian in Canada 1"
86
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
I-Ie fared somewhat better when he turned from Cardi-
nal Ledochowski, head of the Propaganda, and thus
the champion of the bishops under his charge, fo the
Secretary of State, Cardinal Rmnpolla.
Whatever the reason, progress was low. If became
necessary fo take more direct and more effective steps.
If was decided fo make a formal and collective state-
ment of the case, fo send other representatives to Rome,
and to press for the appointment of an apostolic dele-
gare. These conclusions were not reached without
debate. Tarte opposed Laurier's suggestion of a joint
petition fo his Holiness, as likely fo be twisted or mis-
construed by Protestants, but when Laurier made if
clear that if was not the political question, not the sertie-
ment of the school issue, but the conflict within the
Catholic Church in Canada that the Pope was to be
asked fo consider, he became an ardent supporter of the
plan. Forty-five members of the Commons and the
Senate, SVilfrid Laurier's name leading, signed a peti-
ton and protest. 1 There was also some question as
1TO HIS HOLINESS LEO XIII:
"Most Holy Father,--We, the undersigned, members of the Senate and
members of the House of Commons of Canada, and representing therein
the Liberal party, prescrit ourselves before your Holiness as respectful and
devoted children of Holy Chureh, to complain of the existence of a state
of things which, if allowed to continue, might be extremely dangerous fo
the constitutional liberties of this country, as well as fo the interests of the
Church itself.
"Your Holiness has already been marie aware of the eonduet and atti-
tude of certain prelates and of certain members of the secular clergy who,
during the general elections in this country; in the month of June las, in-
tervened in a violent manner in restraint of electoral freedom, taking sides
openly for the Conservative party against the Liberal party, and going so
far as to declare guilty of grievous sin those of the eleetors who would vote
for the eandidates of the Liberal party.
87
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
"Sincerely attached to the institutions of our country, which insure to us
Catholics the most complete liberty, we respectfully represent to your Flo-
liness that these democratic institutions under which we lire and for which
your Holiness has many rimes expressed sentiments of admiration and confi-
dence, can only exist under perfect electoral freedom.
"Far be if from us fo refuse fo the clergy the plenitude of civil and polit-
ical rights. The priest is a citizen, and we would not, for a single instant,
deprive him of the right of expressing his opinion on any marrer submitted
to the eleetorate; but when the exercise of that right develops into violence,
and when that violence, in the naine of religion, goes to the extent of mak-
ing a grievous sin out of a purely political act, there is an abuse of author-
ity of which the consequences cannot but be fatal, not only to constitu-
tional liberty, but to religion itself.
"If, in a country such as ours, with a population consisting of persons of
various creeds and wherein the Protestant denominations are in the major-
ity, Catholics did not enjoy, in all matters relating fo legislation, the saine
political freedom as their Protestant fellow-countrymen, they would ipso
facto be placed in a position of inferiority, whieh would prevent them from
taking the legitimate part which they are entitled to take in the government
of the country, with the possibility, moreover, of conflicts between the
various groups of the population which history shows fo be very fraught
with danger.
"Then again, an active and violent intervention of the elergy in the do-
main of political questions submitted to the people must, of necessity, pro-
duce against the great mass of the Catholic population a degree of irrita-
tion manifestly prejudicial to that respect which religion and its ministers
should ever inspire and command.
"Some twenty years ago, .his Holiness Plus the IX, your illustrious and
lamented predecessor on the Pontifical Throne, acting through the Sacred
Congregation of the Propaganda, deemed it his duty to put a stop fo cer-
tain abuses of a similar character, and forbade the intervention of the
clergy in politics. This prohibition was generally respected so long as his
Eminence Cardinal Taschereau was able to guide the Chureh in Canada,
but since old age and infirmities have paralyzed his guiding hand, the
abuses to which your illustrious predecessor had put a stop, have begun
again, and threaten once more fo create trouble among us and to compro-
mise, not only Catholic interests in this country, but the peace and har-
mony which should exist between the various elements of Çur population.
"Again affirming our absolute devotion to the faith of our fathers and to
the Church of which you are the Supreme Head; afllrming our respect and
attachment for the person of your Holiness, our attachment to the interests
of our country and fo the Crown of Great Britain, ifs oegis and protector,
we beg that your Holiness will renew in our behalf the most wise prescrip-
tions and prohibitions of your predecessor; protect the consciences of
the Catholic eleetors, and thus secure peace in our country by the union
of religion and liberty,--a union which your Holiness bas many rimes
extolled in those immÇrtal encyclic«ls whose precious teahings we de-
sire in ail things fo follow; and, lastly, grant fo the children of the
Church, now addressing your Holiness, the Apostolic Benediction.
"Ottawa, October, 1896."
88
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
fo the eoming of a papal legate. True, the visit of
Cardinal Satolli fo the United States in 1892, and the
visit of Mgr. Conroy fo Canada in 1876 had brought
peaee and liberty, but mueh depended on the man.
An Ontario bishop foresaw Protestant denuneiations
of Papal interferenee, and feared "that a delegate sent
from Rome or France who, being prepossessed, as all
Continental eeelesiasties are, with the idea that Liber-
alism in polities is synonymous with infidelity, eould not
grasp the idea that Liberalism here bore no relation fo
what is known by that naine on the Continent." Yet
the risk seemed worth running. The new envoys were
Charles Fitzpatriek and Charles Russell, son of Lord
Russell of Killowen, whose family spent the winters
in Rome. Fortified by a strong statement from Ed-
ward Blake, eounsel for the minority, that the Judieial
Committee eould not, and did not, eommand the res-
toration of the sehools as they were before 1890, and that
the terres of the Laurier-Greenway settlement were
more advantageous fo the Catholie minority than any
remedial bill whieh if was in the power of the parliament
of Canada fo force on the province of Manitoba, and
with letters from Cardinal Vaughan and the Duke of
Norfolk, the envoys went fo Rome. Af once progress
was rapid. Mr. Russell's wit and knowledge of Anglo-
Roman polities opened many doors. Mr. Fitzpatriek's
piety was "the wonder and the awe of Rome." XVith
the Secretary of State,
the other cardinals who
Cardinals Vannutelli,
Cardinal Rampolla, with all
were likely fo be eonsulted,
Vieenti, Jaeobini, Ferratta,
89
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Ledochowski, Gotti, ad Mazella,of whom oly
Igr. Ledochowski refused a fait hearing, all the others
impressing the visitors as "me of strog intelligence
and judgment who were anxious to learn the truth,"--
with Mgr. Merry del Val, the Pope's companion and
attendant, and finally in an audience with His Holiness
himself, the case was urged. It was necessary to make
it clear not merely that the judgnent of the Privy Coun-
cil had no mandatory effect, but that Canada was not,
as seemed to be assumed in Rome, a predominantly
Catholic country, and that not ail the bishops, but only
six out of twenty-nine had committed themselves to the
war against the Liberal party. The promise to make
lu:Il inquiry through a special commission of cardinals
was readily given. The appointment of an apostolic
delegate, 5igr. Merry del Val, followed a few weeks
later.
Mgr. Raphael Merry del Val was then only thirty-
two, but he had already made his mark in Europe. In
the household of his father, a Spanish nobleman of Irish
descent who was ambassador in turn to London, to
:Brussels and to Rome; in schools in :England and in
]3russels; in the Papal Court, where he soon became
confidential chamberlaîn, Mgr. Merry del Val proved
his abîlity and his judgrnent. His striking presence,--
"the most truly prince-like man, I ever met," Mr.
Laurier afterward termed him,mhis searching but
kindly eye, his polished but somewhat reserved address,
his mastery of :European tongues, his shrewdness,
thoroughness, and, above all, the complete confidence
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
he inspired, made him a diplomat predestined to success.
I-Ie arrived in Canada late in Match; in the next few
months he met the bishops and many of the clergy of
Quebec and Ontario, and leading Catholic and Prot-
estant hymen. It did hot take long for him to realize
how dangerous a policy Mgr. Laflèche and his friends
had been pursuing. Archbishop Walsh and the major-
ity of the Ontario bishops strongly confirmed his read-
ing of the situation. Not least, the instant friendship
and confidence which developed between Mgr. Merry
del Val and Mr. Laurier contributed to firm under-
standing. I-Ie issued no mandement, ruade no public
rebuke, but gradually agitation ceased, and Mgr. Merry
del Val returned to Home.
After hearing the apostolic delegate's report, and
after consulting further with members of the Canadian
episcopacy, including the new Archbishop of Montreal,
Mgr. Paul Bruchesi, the Pope issued an encyclical,
given at Home on December 8, 1897, and read in Cana-
dian pulpits a month later. The encyclical noted with
regret the obstacles which had been placed in the way
of the Church's efforts in a country which owed to it
the first glimpse of Christianity and civilization, and
emphasized the importance of morals in education, and
the necessity of gTounding morals in religion. The
bishops had therefore been right in protesting against
the Manitoba law, which struck a blow at Catholic
education; the laity should have sunk differences of
party and stood united for justice. True, something
had recently been done to alleviate the grievances; no
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
doubt these efforts had been inspired by laudable in-
tentions and a love of equity, but the fact remained
that "the law which has been enacted for the purpose
of reparation is defective, împerfect, insucient." The
concessions stopped far short of justice; they might
hot be carried out effectively, when local circumstances
changed. Complete justice must be sought. How-
ever, there was room for difference of opinion as to the
best tactics to follow; "let no one therefore lose sight
of the rules of moderation, of meekness and of brotherly
charity." Meanwhile, "until it shall be granted them
to obtain the full triumph of ail their claires, let thenl
not refuse partial satisfaction. $Vherever the law or
the situation or the friendly disposition of individuals
offer them some means of lessening the evil, and of
better averting its dangers, itis altogether becoming
and useful that they make use of these means and draw
from them the utmost possible advantage." The
greatest tare should be taken to improve the quality
of teachers and the scope of the work of the schools;
the Catholic schools should rival the most flourishing in
methods and eflîciency: "from the standpoint of intel-
lectual culture and the progress of civilization there is
nothing but what is great and noble in the plan con-
ceived by the Canadian provinces of developing public
instruction, of raising its standards constantly, and
making it something higher and ever more perfect;
there is no kind of study, no advance in human knowl-
edge, which cannot be ruade to harmonize with Catho-
lie doctrine."
a2
THE :FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
In this moderate and enlightened utterance, both
sections of opinion within the Church in Canada found
ground for satisfaction, but the general effect was dis-
tinctly in support of the moderates' position. The
Laurier-Greenway settlement had been pronounced im-
perfect and inadequate as a final settlement, but its
acceptance as an instalment of justice had been com-
mended, moderation and a recognition of the good-
will of ifs framers enjoined, and emphasis laid on the
qua]ity of instruction to be given in the schools.
Nothing further could have been expected in a public
statement, and Mr. Laurier and his Quebec friends
had not desired more. The school question was by
no means yet ended, but the ecclesiastical war was
halted, and the political tension eased. Once again, as
a score of years before, the firmness and moderation of
Wilfrid Laurier and the Catholic Liberals of Quebec,
and the sagacity and fairness of the highest authorities
in the Church, had averted a struggle which would bave
involved both Church and country in difficulty and
disaster.
The failure of the crusade was made evident when in
the spring of 1897, the rime came for the provincial
elections in Quebec. The Conservative government
of Hon. E. J. Flynn, who had become premier when
Mr. Taillon had entered the Tupper administration,
absolutely declined to make the school question an issue
in the local contest. The prestige of Laurier's name
and the rout of the Conservatives in the federal contest
gave an overwhelming victory to the Liberal leader,
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Felix Gabfiel Marchand, a man lacking the oratorical
gifts and the personal magnetism of many of his prede-
cessors but shrewd and solid, trusted of ail men, and
firmly progressive in his policies. When, however, Mr.
Marchand endeavoured to put educational reform in
the forefront of his legislative programme, and to re-
verse the policy adopted twenty years before, whieh
had taken control of the schools from a government
department and entrusted if wholly to denominational
conmfittees, Catholic and Protestant, he found himself
blocked. The truce was held to bind both parties.t
The Archbishop of Montreal, Mgr. Paul Bruchesi,
who kept in dose toueh with Vilfrid Laurier, soon
proved that sunny ways and personal pressure would
go further than the storms and the thunderbolts of the
doughty old warrior of Three Rivers.
The settlement of the Manitoba school eontroversy
ruade it possible to eoneentrate attention upon polieies
of eeonomie development. For years the country had
marked rime. The depression whieh had set in with the
"nineties" had hot yet passed. The priees of farm pro-
duets were low, farms hard to sell and burdened with
mortgages. Railways, banks, wholesale houses, re-
tailers had to serateh hard for eustom. Faetories
stirnulated by the N. P. round the home market too
small and sought remedy in combines and selling agree-
ments. Foreign trade advancecl slowly anc[ uneer-
tainly. Few immigrants came and fewer remained; the
exodus of the native-born to the United States bled the
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
country white. /-Iomestead entries in the West had
fallen to four thousand a year in the early "nineties,"
and to eighteen hundred in 1896; in that year only rive
hundred and seventy Canadians had suflïcient faith in
their own country to seek a Western homestead. SVest
of Lake Superior there were only some three hundred
thousand people, one-third of them Indians. "The
trails from Manitoba to the States," declared West-
ern Conservative newspaper, "were worn bare and
brown by the wagon wheels of deprting settlers."
The causes of this econornic stagnation were not
wholly Canadian. World-wide factors had played a
part. World peace and rapid railway-building had
opened vast areas of new lands to settlement,mthe
western United States, Argentina, Australia, Russia,
--and had flung their products on a falling market.
Canada's severe and testing climate, exaggerated in
foreign repute, and perhaps her subordinate colonial
status, had played a part in deterring scttlcrs. But
there were other causes more readily removed:la pro-
tective tariff which sought to isolate and make self-
suflïcient a population too sparse and scattered for the
experiment; facial and religious bickerings (for which
both parties had a share of responsibility) draining and
distracting energy; and a government weak and di-
vided in cabinet council and permeated with dry-rot in
the general administration.
The turn of the ride after 1896 was of course not due
solely to the change of government. Vorld-wide
forces played a part in revival as in depression. The
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
filling up of other new lands, the growth of urban as
against 'ural population, he rapid increase in the
world's gold supply, raised prices of all goods and par-
tieularly of farm products. Within Canada, again,
forces beyond the government's control ruade for better-
ment. Most notable were the development of the
gold-eopper and silver-lead ores of Southern British
Columbia (the prospector, if is truc, being helped by
the building of the Canadian Pacifie), and particularly
the diseovery of fabulously rieh placer-mines in the
Klondike in 1896 and the stampede from all corners of
the world whieh followed in 1897 and 1898. Perhaps
less wealth was taken out of the ground than was put
in, but these diseoveries at least primed the pump of
prosperity, and arrested the world's attention long
enough to make evident the more enduring wealth that
lay beyond.
Yet the new government were not merely "files on
the wheel," as Sir Richard Cartwright had once rashly
rated the Maekenzie cabinet during the depression of
the seventies. "Fhey had confidence in Canada and
in themselves, energy, constructive vision. The poli-
eies they developed in the next few years were real and
indispensable factors in the new prosperity. They did
not ereate the opportunity; they did seize if when it
offered. The immigration poliey, the land poliey, the
railway poliey, the tariff and fiscal poliey of the Laurier
administration were essential elements in making Can-
ada what Mr. Laurier was soon to term it, in a quota-
a6
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
tion now as hackneyed as "Hamlet,"--"the country of
the twentieth century."
The land and immigration policy of the administra-
tion was developed by its youngest and sole Western
member, Clifford Sifton. He had entered the govern-
ment as Minister of the Interior, in November, 1896, as
soon as agreement had been reached between Ottawa
and Winnipeg on the school question, securing election
for Brandon by acclamation. He knew the West; he
was ambitious for himself and for his country; his
shrewd insight, his administrative capacity, bis power of
quick decision, were qualities rare at Ottawa. In deal-
ing with the public lands of the prairie provinces, the
chief action taken was to end at once, as Liberal policy
had long demanded, the lavish grants of land to rail-
ways. Before 1896 some fifty-six million acres had
been voted and some thirty-two million acres earned as
railway subsidy; after 1896, hot an acre was voted.
Homestead regulations were eased and simplified.
Then a campaign for settlers began, unparalleled in
Canada or elsewhere. From Continental Europe the
I)oukhobor and the Ruthenian were brought or wel-
comed, filling Western wastes but creating difflcult
problems of social or national harmony. From the
United States came the immigrants most immediately
helpful in themselves, farmers as most were, with no
little capital, skilled in the ways of Western land, and
most effective in advertising to the rest of the world the
fact that Canada had now more to offer the settler than
7
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
any other country. Advertisements in six thousand
weekly newspapers in the United States, agents and
sub-agents stationed in every likely centre, exhibits af
autunm faits and free excursions for pressmen and
farmer delegates, ready aid in land-seeking and home-
shifting, soon set going a migration that rejoiced Can-
ada, puzzled the States and aroused Europe. From
seven hundred in 1897 the settlers from the South rose
fo fifteen thousand in 1900,--and one hundred thou-
sand in 1911. Then Mr. Sifton tunaed to the United
Kingdom, the schools, the press, the patriots who
wanted Britons kept within the Empire; the British
ride mounted more slowly, but soon surpassed the Con-
tinental and American movements,--thirty thousand in
1904, a hundred and twenty thousand in 1911. The
exodus fo the more dazzling eity opportunities of the
United States, the return fo Europe of the men who had
hOt found gold lying in the streets of their New Jeru-
salem, eontinued, but were far outbalaneed by the in-
eoming ride. Homestead entries leaped fo seven
thousand eight hundred by 1900, twenty-two thousand
by 1902, and forty-one thousand by 1906.
In Canada, if had beeome aeeepted doctrine that the
State should not merely aid settlement, but should aid
in developing the means of communication. No great
new railway was built in these early years; the country
was still growing up to the Canadian Pacifie. Three
minor and supplementary projects were given aid. In
the East the government, in 1897, sought fo extend the
Intercolonial, by lease and purehase, from the wayside
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
village of Pointe Levi to the natural terminus af
Montreal; the details of Mr. Blair's plan were open to
criticism, but some such policy was an obvious business
necessity. In the West, the discovery of coal, copper,
gold, silver, and lead in southern British Columbh and
Alberta, called for railway service, and none the lcss so
when "Jim" ttill thrust a spur of the Great Northern
up into the boundary country.| Gencral opinion fav-
oured an indepcndent road, but in 1897 the government
concluded the most feasible policy was to seel an exten-
sion of the Canadian Pacific. A subsidy of eleven
thousand dollars a toile was voted to its Crow's Nest
Pass branch, from Lethbridge to Nelson; in return,
freight rates on the main line were cut substantially, and
one-fifth of the coal lands granted improvidently by the
British Columbia government were transferred fo the
Dominion. Western hostility to the Canadian Pacific,
Eastern suspicion of Toronto capitalists intcrcsted alile
in Crow's Nest coal and in the Toronto "Globe," the
foremost advocate of extension, led to wide criticism,
but the bargain was carried through. A third project,
brought forward in 1898 for the building of a railway
from the Stiline River to Teslin Lale, and thus giving
access to the Klondile through Canadian territory in-
stead of through the Alaslan panhandlc, involved a
grant of twenty-fivc thousand acres of Yulon lands per
toile to the enterprising contracting firm of Maclcnzie
and Mann, now first coming into public faine. In the
light of Eldorado visions, the hnd grant secmed extrav-
agant, and the Senate felt suflcient public bacling to
49
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
throw out the government's measure. The completion
of the St. Lawrenee canal system fo a fourteen-foot
level was less controversial, and the abolition of all canal
tolls was welcomed on all sides, hOt least in the Maritime
provinces where if furnished a precedent for demands
for low rates on government railways. The Post-
Office Department, hitherto inefficient and a source of
large deficits, was transformed under the management
of SVilliam Muloek, one of the strongest administrators
in the cabinet; a great improvement in service and a re-
duction of postal rates by one-third were justified by in-
creased business antt steadily rising surpluses.
As regards state aid to production, little had been
done directly for the fisherman, the lumberman or the
miner. Fishing-grounds had been eonserved by close
seasons, restocking, protection against outside poachers;
now, instruction in curing and packing, and later
eold-storage and fast-shipping facilities were added.
The lumberman and the miner had shared the benefits
of railway facilities and the two-edged gift of tariff
protection; now fresh efforts were made to open foreign
markets and to lessen tariff burdens on mine and mill
machinery. The fariner had been aided by experi-
mental fatras; now, under Sydney Fisher's direction,
the work of experiment and instruction was greatly
widened, and, with the eo-operation of the Saunders,
James iRobertson and J. A. Ruddiek, the Eastern
farmer was aided in that shift from wheat and barley
fo eheese and baeon whieh has transformed Canadian
agriculture.
50
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
One great field of state aid to production remained,
and that the most controversial. The use of the tariff
to stimulate and protect industry, particularly manu-
facturing, had been the most distinctive of Conserva-
rive policies for nearly twenty years. What was the
Liberal policy to be? In the Ottawa convention in
1893, in repeated speeches, notably during Mr. Laurier's
Western tour in 1894, and in open letters exchanged
on the eve of the general eleetion between Mr. Laurier
and a Toronto manufacturer, George H. Bertram,--
a grandson of his old friend of New Glasgow days,
John Murray,--the policy of the Liberals had been
deelared. They denouneed protection, urged the re-
duetion of the tariff fo bear lightly on the necessaries
of life and "to promote freer trade with the whole
world, particularly with Great Britain and the United
States," reiterated the demand for "a fair and ]iberal
reciproeity treaty with the United States," and set as
their goal "a tariff for revenue only." There was a
distinct reviva] of low-tariff sentiment in the "nineties,"
following the failure of protection fo proteet, and on
this current even an "ineidental proteetionist" like lr.
Laurier was once swept on to prophesy that "free
trade as they have it in England" would be Canada's
ultimate goal, while Mr. Davies denounced protection
as bondage, robbery, a system aeeursed of God and man.
Yet Mr. Laurier ruade it plain, partieularly in the
Bertram eorrespondenee, that change must be gradual;
there would be no tariff revolution; one advantage of a
tariff primarily for revenue, would be its stability.
51
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
The first step of the new administration ereated con-
fidence. Instead of meeting protected manufacturers
secretly in "Red Parlours," the government appointed
a committee--Sir Richard Cartwright, Mr. Fielding,
and Mr. Paterson--to hear in public ail who had views
fo present. Sittings were held in the leading centres;
not many others but manufacturers gave evidence, but
their demands were marie in the open.
Mr. Fielding brought down his first budget in April,
1897, in a speech which revealed his power of lucid
statement and readiness in debate. If was a modest
budget, as budgets go nowadays. In the first twenty
years of Confederation, the ordinary expenditure had
grown threefold, from the original thirteen millions,
and then for ten years had stood stationary. Mr.
Fielding forecast for 1897'-98 ar ordinary expendi-
ture of 39,000,000, and a total outlay of $5,000,000. x
To raise this amount, if was still customary fo rely al-
most wholly on tariff and excise duties. Mr. Fielding
stiffened the excise duties on spirits and tobacco, but
the main interest lay in the customs changes. The
tariff revision was substantial and comprehensive. Im-
portant additions were ruade fo the free list, notably
corn, fente wire, binder twine, cream separators, min-
ing machinery; reductions were made in sugar, flour,
farm imp!ements, and coal-oil. The schedules were
simplified and specific duties largely changed to ad
valorem. Power was taken to abolish duties on goods
1 In 1910-11, the last year under Mr. Fielding's direction, the ordinary
expenditure was $88,000,000 and the total $123,000,000; in 1920-21, the
ordinar 7 expenditure .was 362,000,000 and the total, $533,000,000.
52
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
produced by trusts or combines. The duties on iron
and stecl were lowered, but in compensation the boun-
ries on pig-iron, puddled iron bars and steel billets were
increased, and made to apply to iron manufactured in
Canada from foreign ore. Most important, the prin-
ciple of a maximum and minimum tariff, with special
reference to Great Britain, was introduced.
The first Fielding budget was a masterly achieve-
ment. It was a careful and informed endeavour to
harmonize and reduce the tariff. It was not wholly
consistent: the increase of the iron and steel bounties
and the retention of the duty on coal, in face of Mr.
Laurier's declaration af ter the elcction that raw materi-
als such as coal and iron would be frce, revealcd the
pressure of Nova Scotia interests. If lcft the tariff
still protectionist; and while Sir Charles Tupper de-
clared that the tariff would ruin and paralyze the in-
dustries of the country, and the columns of the Montreal
"Gazette" were filled with announcements from manu-
ïacturers that their mills would be forced to close, Mr.
Foster insisted that "the Liberal party has cmbalmed
the principle of protection in the tariff" and that "there
is to-day, in this parliament, as between the two sides,
practically no difference upon the expediency of the
principle of protection as the guîding principle of our
fiscal system." John Ross Robertson, a sturdy inde-
pendent Conservative who had broken from his party
on the sehool question, but was a confirmed protee-
tionist, gave a middle view when he deelared that while
the Liberals rnight be eonsidered half-seas-over on the
53
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
way to protection, he feared their gradual attack as
the most dangerous strategy and could not fully Crust
them even if they did steal the Opposition's clothes:
"the Opposition is the mother of protection and loves
the policy for ifs own sake; the government is a sort
of nurse that takes protection and suckles if in order
fo earn a living for ifs party." Yet the weight of con-
temporary opinion ad later experience have stamped
the Fielding tariff as a sound and moderate revision.
As a first practical step toward freer trade it could
not well have been bettered. Unfortunately, if was
also, save for extensions of the British preference, and
the attempt in 1911 fo secure reciprocity with the United
States, fo be a last step.
The feature of the new budget which had most polit-
ical importance and popular appeal was the adoption
of a minimum and maximum tariff, with the purpose
of restricting the minimum tariff mainly to British
wares. Imperialists seeking a counter-cry fo unre-
stricted reciprocity, Conservatives trying fo reconcile
protection with imperialism, had urged reciprocal ¢ariff
preference between Great Britain and the colonies, but
so long as Britain cleaved to free t-rade, any such pro-
posals were an idle dream. In 1892, the Liberal party
had unanimously voted for a resolution moved by Louis
I)avies, demanding that as Britain already admitted
Canadian products duty-free, Canada should reduce
ber duties on goods mainly imported from Britain.
I)'Alton cCarthy and his Equal Rights League had
urged a minimum and maximum tariff, the mimimum
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTR¥
rates for Britain, the British colonies and other coun-
tries prepared to give fait terres. But any poliey of
tariff discrimination was barred by the existence of
British treaties binding on Canada and eonferring on
oreign eountries rights to equal treatment. These
treaties were survivals from eolonialism. In early days
Britain had ruade colonial tariffs and bound the colo-
nies by her treaties. Slowly the larger colonies, with
Canada leading, had been emerging from this subor-
dinate status. Galt and Maedonald had ruade it elear
that Canada eould and would make her own tariffs. In
treaty-making, negative freedom for the future had
been attained in 1878 when the Colonial Offlee had
agreed to make colonial adherenee to Britis.h commer-
cial treaties optional; a beginning in positive freedom
had eome with the inelusion of Canadian with British
plenipotentiaries in drafting trade treaties affeetirg
Canada. But the old treaties survived. Some, as with
France or Argentina, entitled these powers to any tariff
privilege aeeorded any other foreign power. The
treaties concluded with Belgium in 1862 and *che Ger-
man Zollverein in 1865 were still more burdensome, as
thcy callcd for the granting of any tariff privilege ac-
corded even to British goods. Repeated requcsts from
Canada, in 1881, 1890, 1891, had failcd to induce the
British governmcnt, which adrnittcd the impolicy of the
latter treatics, to dcnotmce them and so face the pros-
pect of a tariff war for no certain return, i'
The new government detcrmined to satisfy irnperial
sentiment and keep its lower tariff pledges by granting
55
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
a tariff reduetion on the exports of Britain and other
low-tariff eountries. If the treaties stood in the way,
they would first try to get round them, and if that failed,
to break them down. The Fielding tariff provided
that a reduetion of one-eighth, tobe inereased a year
later to one-fourth, should be granted on imports from
"any country" whieh admitted the produets of Canada
on terres equally favoursble. If was expeeted that as
a marrer of faet Great Britain and New South SVales
would be the only eountries whieh eould so qualify.
Sir Charles Tupper at once denouneed the proposal
as futile, the deviee of blundering amateurs: the aet
would be disallowed in Britain; Germany would de-
mand ifs rights; the government eould not play fast
and loose with solemn imperial obligations. That the
position taken by the government was legally preeari-
ous was obvious, but, as Sir Richard Cartwright de-
elared in answer, "we were not born yesterday."
The position taken by the Laurier government is
best summarized in a memorandum of eouneil in May,
sent in response to a request from the Colonial Seere-
tary, Joseph Chamberlain. It was eontended that the
Belgian and German treaties did not apply to Canada,
sinee by 1859 the old province of Canada had been taken
out of the eategory of the colonies referred fo in those
treaties by _A_. T. Galt's deelaration of tariff indepen-
denee; that in any case, while "Canada had undoubt-
edly been aetuated by the faet that the mother country
was the only nation in a position fo enjoy the advan-
56
THE FIRST LAURIER MINISTRY
rages fo be reaped from the minimum tariff," 1 yet if
was also true that the off er was ruade fo the whole
world, no favour was extended fo any speeial country,
and if Belgium or Germany eould not share, the fault
lay with them, sinee af any moment they eould qualif3z
simply by eomplying with the conditions; if, however,
a different view of the effeet of the treaty bonds was
taken by the British authorities, it would be neeessary
to ask that "the treaties be denouneed in so far as Can-
ada is eoneerned."
Vhatever doubts there might be as fo the legal
soundness of the government's arguments, there were
none as fo the popularity of ifs poliey alike in Canada
and in Great Britain. In Canada, it was weleomed by
free or freer traders as a first step toward Britain's
poliey, and by imperialists as a return for British pro-
rection and a pledge of eloser unity. In the mother
country, Lord Farrer and the Cobden Club hailed if
as an advanee on Canada's part toward free trade
while Sir Howard Vineent, the veteran Fait Trader,
hoped if marked t.he beginning of inter-imperial pref-
erenees and the commercial federation of the Empire.
The London correspondent of the "New York Times"
fairly summarized British opinion when he deelared:
For the first rime in my experienee, England and the English
are regarding Canadians and the Dominion with affeetionate
enthusiasm .... The spirit of preferenee for the Mother
Country appeals fo the imagination here. Thls change will
1 A sentence inserted in the draft memorandum, in Mr. Laurter's hand.
7
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
make Mr. Laurier, when he cornes here in June, far and away
the most conspicuous and popular of all the visiting premiers
of the Empire.
The government had done all that could be done
in Canada. The next step must be taken in London.
lVhen in June, 1897, Mr. Laurier sailed for ]ngland
to take part in the Jubilee demonstrations, his first
task was fo ensure that in one way or another the pref-
erence should stand, and that the "rash and amateur"
policy of the government in acting first and consulting
later should be justified.
58
CHAPTER XI
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
The New Imperialism--From Disraeli to Chamberlain--Imperial
Sentiment in Cnada--Laurier's Imperialist Trend--The Jubilee
Pageants--An Unwelcome Title--Lattrier and the British Public--
The Colonial Conference---The Denunciaton of the Treaties--A
Pilgrimage to Hawarden--Canada ,and France--Imperial Military
Oranization--Boer and Briton--Agitation in Canada-- C,amadian
Contilagent--L,aurier arl Tupper--Lauxier axtd Borassa--The
Elections of 1900.
HEN Vilfrid Laurier sailed for Englan,d
on June 5, 1897, a new stage in Canada s
development had begun. For thirty years
Canada had been preoccupied with her internal tasks of
railway-building and settler-planting, and except for
line-fence disputes with her great neighbour, had taken
little part in world affairs. Now, with a fait measure
of unity and consolidation attained at home, and with
prosperity giving new confidence fo ber own people and
new importance in the eyes of the outer world, the
Dominion entered upon that unknoum way which was
to bring ber sons in the next venty years to the battle-
fields of Flanders and the council chambers of Geneva.
For the first part of this way, Canada was to follow
closely in the wake of Britain, under the flag of imperi-
alism. The next three years were fo witness the flood-
ride of imperial sentiment. In the gorgeous pageants
of the Jubilee year, in the business discussions of the
59
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR ILFRID LAURIER
Colonial Conferenee, and in their sequel in participa-
tion in the Boer Var, Canada seemed fo the world fo
bave eommitted herself indefinitely fo the laudation
and support of the new imperialism which was domi-
nating the policy of Britain.
The new imperialist movement was not peeuliar to
Britain or fo Canada. The whole white world was
well in the grip of a passion for expansion, an absorp-
tion in welt-politik, a seramble for prestige and profit,
whieh was fo sweep it on fo bankruptey and chaos.
The hopes of world peaee and eeonomie harmony men
had entertained in the brief interlude of sanity in the
sixties, had been shattered and laughed fo seorn.
National rivalry was yearly growing more interse.
The spirit of nationalism drove subj eet peoples fo seek
freedom, defeated states fo regain their lost provinces,
and free and sueeessful nations fo find fresh fields for
the pride and energy developed in their struggle.
lVationalism went fo seed in imperialism. It offered
a sanction for proteetionism at home and economic ex-
ploitation abroad. It provided a stimulus to the growth
of armaments, needed to proteet each state from its
neighbours, and eonfirrning in their growth military
castes and armament eliques; the dominanee Germany
enjoyed in Europe after the victory of ifs eflïeient mili-
tary machine over _A_ustria and France, the weight
which her invincible navy gave Britain in the eouneils
of the world, stirred emulation. The consolidation of
the great states of Europe, attained after eenturies
of struggle, set them free fo j oin in the scramble for
ô0
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
overseas possessions in which for a century Britain had
had no competitor. In Africa and Asia and the isles
of the sea--with America barred by the Monroe Doc-
trine---great states and some of the small ruade haste
to stake out fields for exploitation. In the crowded
years since 1880 Germany had appropriated a million
toiles, Portugal and Belgium, or her monarch, each
nearly as much, and France more than ail three, while
Russia rolled remorselessly across Asiatic plains, and
even the United States was soon to enter on its career
of Philippine expansion and Caribbean imperialism.
It is not surprising that Britain shared in this more-
ment. She entered it more slowly; satiated with world-
wide possessions, experienced in the drawbacks and delu-
sions of empire, checked by vigorous and independent
criticism at home, her statesmen never annexed more
than their next neighbour's lands, a trille, in these fif-
teen years, of some two and a half million miles, ranging
from Nigeria to New Guinea. But steadily, as Af ri-
tan hinterlands overlappec[ and states crowded together,
as competition in the world's markets grew keener and
British trade failed to advance, as the jostling of newer
rivais, the preaching of professor and poet dervishes of
Anglo-Saxondom, the Seeleys and the Kiplings, left
their mark, the British people were stirred to a more
aggressive and more conscious share in the race. The
decline and defeat of the Liberal party and Liberal
opinions was one manifestation of the new tendency;
it had been the Liberal policy of granting self-govern-
ment which had held the white empire together, but
61
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Liberalism had little in common with this new expansion
in tropical lands and among subj ect peoples. Still
more significant was the decision of Joseph Chamber-
1-.in, the most forceful character in British politics, on
the formation of the new Unionist government of Lord
Salisbury in 1895, to choose the hitherto secondary and
routine post of Secretary of the Colonies.
As Disraeli had typified the imperialism against which
Gladstone had fought, the imperialism which strutted
in European council chambers and Indian pageants
and cared little for kinsmen overseas or markets for
surplus goods, so Chamberlain personified the newer
imperialism, with its emphasis on the sublime virtues
of the Anglo-Saxon, ifs reviving interest in the Eng-
lishman overseas, its assumption of a mission toward
the darker rates, and its keenness for new markets.
Ir. Chamberlain's imperialism was narrowly racial;
there was no room in his empire for Frenchmen or
Dutchmen save as they were transformed into English-
men, while the lesser breeds of Afriea and Asia must
accept the rule of their trustees for ail rime: he glorified
the Anglo-Saxon race,--"that proud, persistent, self-
asserting and resolute stock," he declared in Toronto
in 1887 on his way to the fisheries arbitration af Vash-
ington, "that no change of climate or condition tan
alter, and which is infallibly destined to be the pre-
dominating force in the future history and civilization
of the world .... I am an Englishman. I refuse to
make any distinction between the interests of English-
rnen in :England, in Canada, and in the United States."
62
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
His other dominating conviction was the need of secur-
ing markets overseas if Englind was to hold her place
and ber prosperity. In Birmingham in 1894 he in-
sisted,
For these reasons, I wou|d never lose the hold which we
now have over our great Indian dependency, by far the great-
est and most valuable of ail the customers we have or ever
shall have in this country. For the same reasons I approve
of the continued occupation of Egypt; and for the same
reasons I have urged upon the government and upon previous
governments the necessity for using evcry lcgitimate oppor-
tunity fo extend out influence and control in that great African
continent which is now bcing opencd up fo civilization and fo
commerce; and lastly, if is for the same reasons that I hold
that out navy should be strengthened until ifs supremacy is
so assured that we cannot be shaken in any of the possessions
which we hold or may hold hereafter.
Sueh was the frank and arrogant gospel whieh was
now to be pushed with ail the vigour of the successful
]3irmingham merchant and ail the adroitness of the
most skilful politician in Britain.
In Canada if seemed that the new imperialism was
to find full acceptance and justification. The desire
for closer imperial unity had greatly strengthened dur-
ing the nineties. Among English-speaking Canadians
pride of race was strong, pride the unchallenged
might of England's navy, pride in the valour and effi-
ciency of ber army, pride in the justice and firmness
which had nmrked her foreima policy, pride in the hon-
out and capacity of her Gladstones and Salisburys.
The long reign of Queen Victoria had furnished im-
perial sentiment a rallying-point; her domestic virtues,
68
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
her sorrows, her womanly symlgathies, the reflected
glories of the Vietorian era, and, perhaps not least, the
linking of her naine with the h«ppiest holiday of all
the year, the elimax day of springtime, had given her
portrait the post of honour in hundreds of thousands
of Canadian homes; distance, and the dazzling light
that surrounds a throne, had eoneealed her weaknesses,
ber persistent and futile efforts fo restore the personal
eontrol of the sovereign, ber jingoism, her dynastie and
pro-German view of European politics, and had left
the legend of perfection unquestioned. A natural re-
sentment against the aggressive and unneigh]3ourly
poliey of the United States had strengthened imperial
feeling; traditions of the sufferings and the heroism of
the United Empire Loyalists were still fresh in many
minds, there were still Canadians who were fighting the
battles of 1812, and the Venezuela message of Seere-
tary Olney and the pro]fibitive Dingly tariff played in-
fo their hands. Not least important, was the effeet of
reviving prosperity and confidence, in making Cana-
dians feel they must take a more active and independ-
ent part in the world, and must eease fo be a eolony. It
was really a sFirit of nationalism that was stirring, but
for a rime it took the ehannel of imperia]ism. Imperial
9artnerhip might be a permanent ideal, or it might be
only a step toward nationhood, but in any case it repre-
sented a distinct advanee over eolonialism.
As the imperialism of these ds was distinetly facial,
if was not surprising that the Freneh-Canadian popula-
tion did not enter into it with enthusism. It has alredy
6
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
been observed that the politicians foremost in advocacy
of imperial federation were foremost also in the attempt
to anglicize Canada, to narrow the use of the French
tongue,--the McCarthys, the McNeills, the Tyrwhitts,
the Wallaces. x To expect active enthusiasm for an
Anglo-Saxon empire was absurd. Here and there
French-Canadian public man, notably Israel Tarte,
had joined the Imperial Federation League, but the
great body stood aloof. rith their own mother coun-
try, France, they had little contact; immigration had
ceased two centuries before, the France of revolutions
and anti-clericalism was not file France of old, and the
Church had combined with the British government fo
eut off intercourse with this dangerous land. Frenc.h-
Canadians could not escape from passive colonialism by
the road that was being taken by the English-speaking
Canadians, and the way of nationalism was hOt yet
open. These oldest sons of Canada could not become
Anglo-Saxon, they did not want fo become French,
they were not encouraged fo become Canadian, and
so they remained for the present Qébecquois and Can-
adiens.
Mr. Laurier's attitude toward the issue showed a sig-
nificant development in these years. His earlier ideal
had been an independent Canada. That was "the polar
star of out destiny." Nationhood followed on colonial-
ism as manhood after childhood. Only in an indepen-
dent Canada could the full equality of the two races be
attained which was indispensable for lasting unity.
* Sec page 392.
65
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Now he displayed much more sympathy with the imper-
ialist solution. I-Ie had t.he orator's susceptibility fo the
sentiment about him. The vision of a French-Cana-
dian standing in the mother of parliaments at Vest-
minster appealed to his imagination, tIe was deluged
with advice from Ontario friends, editors, preachers,
politicians, who felt strongly the inspiration or the expe-
diency of imperial unity; Quebec was not vocal.
was deeply anxious to meet Ontario more than half-
way, to understand and interpret its sentiments, to re-
view and sacrifice any personal convictions which were
not vital and which might stand in the way of harmony.
He had a profound admiration for the standards of
English public lire and for the principles of English
liberalism. For the rime it seemed to him, as to many
other Canadians, that perhaps the share in world affairs
'hich young Canada demanded, might sooner corne
through some form of limited imperial partnership than
through a precarious and burdensome independence.
For the present, then, fo tack northeasterly rather than
point for the polar star.
The Golden 3ubilee of Queen Victoria's accession to
the throne had been royally celebrated in 1887, but it
had been distinctly an affair for the British Isles. In
the new retaper of the rime if was natural that the Dia-
mond 3ubilee should be made an imperial festival, a
stock-taking and display to the world of the Empire's
resources. The premiers of ail the colonies were invited
fo take part in the ceremonies and to discuss in confer-
ence with the Colonial Secretary problems of empire,
66
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
dcfcnce and tradc and organization. Contingcnts of
soldiers from evcry colony and dcpcndcncy wcrc aslcd
to sharc with British troops thc honours of thc Jubilcc
march. Evcry premier acccptcd and evcry colony
cnthusiastically sent forward its contincnt.
Mr. Laurier, who was accompanicd by Mme. Laur-
ier, sailcd for England on the fifth of Junc. tic lookcd
forward kccnly to thc expcricnces of thc comin wccls.
It was a curious fact that thouh now in his fifty-sixth
ycar, and for tw«nty ycars in public lire, hc had ncvcr
bcforc crosscd the occan. Thc work of his profession,
thc dcmands of political campaigns, thc attractions of
rcstful village home, a dislikc for travclling, paoEicu-
larly on thc occan, had lcpt him fro,n any first-hand
lmowlcdc of British or Frcnch mcn and affairs. Now
that occasion dcmandcd hc purposcd to probe thc cxpcr-
ience to the full.
The weeks in Britain were erowded and memorable.
A lavish and kindly hospitality filled the visitor's days
and nights. "I ara not sure whether the British Empire
needs a new constitution," Mr. Laurier wrote to a Ca-
nadian friend, "but I ara certain that every Jubilee
guest will need one." Dinners and luneheons, balls and
reeeptions, Vindsor Castle and Buekingham Palaee,
Cordwainers' and Fishmongers' banquets, Empire
Trade League and National Liberal Club, Dublin and
Derry, Edinburgh and Glasgow, the Mansion House
and Lineoln's Inn, the gallery of the House of Coin-
ruons and the naval review at Spithead, garden-parties
and eountry-house week-ends, endless addresses to give
67
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
and endless addresses to receive, D. C. L.'s from Oxford
and LL. D.'s from Camnbridge ("Larea doads
apollizar," as Dr. Sandys, Publie Orator, pardonably
punned from his Horaee), brought the guests into close
if fleeting toueh with English life, or at least the Eng-
land of the governing classes; the other England
shouted in the streets or sat down fo the dinners whieh
the Prineess of SVales provided for "three hundred
thousand of my poor."
The Jubilee pageant was a moving and memorable
seene. The princes and potentates in searlet and gold,
the magnifieent Lire Guards and Her Majesty's Prus-
sian Dragoons, the troops from every corner of the Em-
pire,--Maori, Dyak, Haussa, and Sikh, following Ca-
nadian, Australian, and Afrikander,--the vast, good-
humoured, eheering erowds in the streets, the genuine
and warm-hearted enthusiasm that greeted the central
figure, the Queen, whose message that morning had
been marked with the simplieity of deep emotion,--
"From my heart I thank my beloved people; may God
bless them,"all impressed the beholder with the might
and vigour of England, the range and the unity of her
empire, the greatness that .had been and that yet would
be. In the long proeession the popular favour singled
out Sir SVilfrid Laurier. Followed by the Canadian
contingent, the troopers of thç governor-general's Body
Guards and the Royal North-West Mounted Police în
their searlet j aekets, the Toronto Grenadiers with their
long busbies and the Royal Canadian Highlanders in
bearskins and kilts, Sir rilfrid was reeognized by the
68
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
thronging crowds, and next to the Queen herself carried
off the honours of the day.
"Sir Wilfrid Laurier": Mr. Laurier no more. On
the day before the Jubilee pageant if had been oflàeially
announeed that tter Majesty had been pleased fo be-
stow the honour of Knight Grand Cross in the Most
I)istinguished Order of St. Miehael and St. George
upon the Canadian premier as the representative figure
a.mong the colonial visitors. Two years earlier, when a
heekler at a politieal speeeh in the town of Renfrew had
inadvertently ealled him "Sir Wilfrid" he had eheeked
him sharply: "Not Sir Vilfrid; plain Mr. Laurier; I
ara a demoerat to the hilt." ow this demoerat fo the
hilt rejoieed his Conservative erities and the whole
tribe of those who take joy in human frailty and ineon-
sisteney by aeeepting knighthood. In some sorrowing
Grit quarters in Canada it beeame neeessary fo explain
that the chier had taken the honour only after earnest
pressure from the Queen, and Tory earieaturists
pietured Victoria on bended knee beseeehing Wilfrid fo
aeeept. The truth was less pieturesque but not widely'
different. The honour had eome unsought and un-
wished. Wilfrid Laurier was frequently ealled an
aristoerat by men who thought that demoeraey meant
medioerity and vulgarity, tte was sueiently an
aristoerat to doubt whether a knighthood eould add
honour. Earlier in the year he had explieitly and em-
phatieally deelined an offer of knighthood, in spire of
the urgings of Sir Oliver Mowat, who set gTeater store
on sueh things. But now the offer came in embarras-
69
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
sing guise. If had been plan-ned by Lord Aberdeen and
Sir Donald Smith, who was himself about tobe indueed
fo aecepta peerage. Sir Donald inforIned Mr. Laurier
of the proposal shooEly af ter he reaehed England. Mr.
Laurier strongly objeeted, insisted he Inust deeline.
Sir Donald, and later Mr. Chainberlain, deelared that
his refusal would disarr-ange the whole Jubilee-honours
seheine, that no other preinier eould be eonsidered repre-
sentative, and that if would be diseourteous to the
Queen to deeline an offer whieh had already reeeived
ber approval, and had already been intiinated to the
publie. Irritated by what he eonsidered oflîeiousness
on Sinith's part, but not wis.hing to Inar the harmony of
the Jubilee week by a refusal, Mr. Laurier assented.
tIe had hot even the usual excuse, for Mine. Laurier
had no desire tobe Her Ladyship.
Not Inerely in the Jubilee pageants, but on every oc-
casion Sir Vilfrid was the central colonial figure. He
stood for Canada, his fellow-preiniers stood for a single
/kustralasian or South Afriean eolony. The prefer-
ential tariff offer had warined all hearts. The presenee
of a Freneh-Canadian as a ruler of the greatest British
eolony touehed the imagination. Not least, his own
striking appearaee, his dignity and eourtesy of bearing,
his eloquenee, of a Inore glowing and fervid kind than
English audiences were wont to hear, and, it Inust be
added, Inore extended in seope than English after-din-
ner speeehes were wont fo be, aroused an overshadowing
interest whieh inust at tiInes have soinewhat piqued his
ten colonial eoim'ades. "For the first rime on record,"
70
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
declared the London "Daily Mail" in a burst of extreme
condescension, "a politician of out New World has been
recognized as the equal of the great men of the Old
Country."
In his publie addresses Sir Wilfrid emphasized three
themes,--that the Empire had endured because based on
liberty, that with the growth of the colonies some change
in imperial organization, possibly through representa-
tion in a central parliament or eouncil, would become
essential, and that the Canadian offer of a preferenee
did not call for any preference in return, any abandon-
ment of Britain's free-trade poliey.
To drive home the lesson that the concession of self-
government alone had saved the Empire, Sir Vilfrid
had only to point to the contrast between the rebel Ca-
nada of 1837 and the loyal Canada of 1897. The Irish
press was quick to apply the moral, but Sir Wilfrid him-
self, though keenly sympathetie to Irish Home Rule,
»vas careful to avoid on this occasion any direct refer-
ente fo a question on vhieh British parties were bitterly
divided. _As to the future, his utterances were less
clear. On more than one occasion he took a definite
stand in favour of some form of federation. In his first
address, given af Liverpool, he referred fo Macaulay's
forecast of the traveller from New Zealand gazing at
the broken arch of London Bridge, and continued:
Those melancholy forebodings have hot been realized. The
traveller from New Zealand we have here to-day. He is here
to-day among us, not fo gaze upon a spectacle of ruin and
desolation but fo be a witness in lais own person fo a develop-
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ment of British power fo the extent of which the imaginative
Maeaulay could never have dreamt. And the ime may eome
when a New Zealander may stand a the gare of Westminster
Palaee asking for New Zealand's admission-into that historie
hall which, having been the Cradle of Liberty . . . [Loud
cheers in whieh he remainder of he sentence was inaudible.]
Later, belote the National Liberal Club, he dechred
that, "if would be the proudest moment of my lire if I
could see a Canadian of French descent affirming the
principles of freedom in the parliament of Great
Britain," and, belote the members of the Colonial party
in a Commons committee room, observed that the na-
tional sentiment was growing stronger every dy, and
would demand expression in representation in the im-
perial parliament or in some grand national council or
ïederal legishtive bod'y representative of the Empire as
an organized entity. Yet in these very speeches, and in
other phrases he emphasized the national phase: "Colo-
nies are born fo beeome nations .... Canada is a
nation... Canada is ïree and freedom is ifs nation-
ality .... Canada is practiclly independent; in a
few years the earth will be encircled by a series of inde-
pendent nations, recognizing, however, the suzerainty of
England .... The first place in out hearts is filled
by Canada.': Addressing the Canada Club, he ruade if
clear that if was only in the future that constitutional
change was desirable; that for the present Canada was
satisfied. The fact doubtless was that conflicting ideas
were struggling for expression and that the formulas of
imperial federation were usually readiest fo hand. A
:New .York journal surmised that Sir Donald Smith's
7
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
champagne had been responsible for Mr. Laurier's im-
perialist utterances; in reality it was to more subtle
and intoxicating vintage that something of the credit
was tobe given,--the pride of imperial might, the ap-
plause of tumultuous crowds, the hospitality of famous
men and gracious women.
lor ail the growing activity of the Fait Traders and
Mr. Chamberlain's coquetting with an imperial Zol!ver-
ein, Britain was still a free-trade nation. Mr. Laurier
kept that basic fact in mind in both his public and his pri-
rate campaign for the denunciation of the treaties.
"The colonies who desired closer commercial relations
with Great Britain," he declared at Manchester, "had no
idea that this country should abandon free trade; free
trade had done too much for England fo make a return
fo protection necessmT." The Canadian goverlment,
he told a Liverpool audience, had given the preference
fo Britain out of gratitude, and in the belief that trade
begat trade; they had no wish fo disturb in any way the
system of free trade that had done so much for England.
But if the treaties were held fo apply, what then?
Then "either Canada will have fo retreat or England
will have to advance." YVhen the Cobden Club, guard-
ian of the ark of Free Trade, presented him with its gold
medal for "distinguished services fo the cause of interna-
tional free trade," he replied, on this occasion after the
denunciation of the treaties, in still sturdier free-trade
tones:
I was a free trader belote I came to England. I ara still
more a free trader having seen what free trade has donc for
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
:England. If is true the dream of Cobden bas hot been real-
ized. You bave what is sometimes termed one-sided free
trade. If is true that if is one-sided, but the advantage is
not for those nations that bave not adopted free trade ....
In Canada we have had the protective system, and we have fo
dcal with if gradually and carefully. The only reform of a
permanent character we have achieved is this, that no duty
shall be levied simply for protection, but for revenue. :Further
than that wc cannot go af this moment, but the principle is
laid down upon which larger measures can proceed .... There
are parties who hope fo maintain the British Empire upon
lines of restricted tradc. If the British Empire is fo be main-
tained if can only be upon the most absolute freedom, political
and commercial .... The more the Empire is free, the
strongcr if will bc. The day will never corne, I hope, when
the great principlc of freedom which prevails in this country,
which England has promulgated ail through the world, es-
pccially through her colonies,--freedom of thought, freedom
in religion, civil freedom, and freedom of trade,--the day will
never corne when this great principle shall decline.
Little did either the Cobden Club or Canada's prime
minister dream that in six short years Britain would be
swept by a campaign to overthrow freedoln of trade, or
that, looking backwar.d from that vantage-point, the
Canadian preference would be recognized as being not
the first step toward Canada's adoption of free trade so
much as the first step toward Britain's adoption of pro-
tection.
From festivity and feasting the premiers turned to
the more serious business of the summer. The premiers
of ail the self-governing colonies met Mr. Chamberlain
in private conference. It was the third of the informal
meetings which were eventually to develop into the Im-
perial Conference. In 1887, at the suggestion of the
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
Imperial Federation League, Lord Salisbury had
agreed fo summon a conference in London of represen-
tatives of ail the colonies, Crown and self-governing.
Af the conference Lord Salisbury referred fo the three
lines along which progress might be ruade in what
seemed the prevalent ideal of nmking over the British
Empire on the German model: a political federation like
Germany's was out of the question for the moment; a
Zollverein vas probably not yet feasible, but a Kriegs-
vereitt was praetieable and essential. Little progress
was ruade in either direction, though the Australian
colonies promised a contribution for the support of a
]3ritish squadron in _Australian waters; the Canadian
representatives, Sir Alexander Campbell, then Lieuten-
ant-Governor of Ontario, and Mr. Sandford Fleming,
held aloof from the discussion of defenee, urging only
a state-aided Pacifie table. Seven years later a second
eonferenee had been held at Ottawa wherein the chier
issue was the development of intereolonial trade. Now
a further stage in the shaping of this new organ of the
Empire was taken. Only the self-governing colonies
were represented, and they were represented by their
premiers: government spoke fo government. 1 Mr.
Chamberlain, who presided, laid the emphasis on the
first of Lord Salisbury's three paths: a federal eotmeil
whieh eould speak authoritatively and without further
1 The premiers present were: Canada, Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier; New
South Wales, Rt. Hon. G. H. Reid; Victoria, Rt. Hon. Sir George Turner;
Queensland, Rt. Hon. Hugh M. Nelson; South Australia, Rt. Hon. C. C.
Kingston; Western Australia, Rt. Hon. Sir John Forrest; Tasmania, Rt.
Hon. Sir Edward Braddon; New Zealand, Rt. tion. R.. J. Seddon; Cape
Colony, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Gordon Sprigg; Natal, Rt. Hon. Harry Escombe;
Newfotmdland, Rt. Hon. Sir Wlliam Whiteway.
75
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
reference fo local par]iaments shou]d be established.
But Mr. Reid wou]d bave none of such an inroad upon
colonial autonomy and Sir Vilfrid, while prepared to
considcr such a solution some indcfinite years ahead,
was hOt prepared fo endorse any immediate change;
on]y Mr. Seddon and Sir Edward Braddon lent any
support. As fo a ZoI[v«r«{n, private discussion had
alrcady ruade plain the diflïcu]ty in the way of inducing
Great Britain fo put a protecfive tariff on forcign goods
or Canada to abolish comp]ete]y ber ariff on British
goods, so tha Mr. Chamber]ain did no now press his
solution. Ail the representatives joined in recommend-
ing the denunciation of the treaties. As fo a Kriegs-
verein, if was agreed, with Mr. Kingston dissenting,
that the Australian naval subsidy should be renewed,
but the statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty
that they would be very glad fo open up similar negotia-
tions with Canada brought no response from Sir Vil-
frid, who had already stated in public his dissent from
any scheme of naval expenditure for the present. The
chief outward result of the rive meetings was a resolu-
tion approving the periodical holding of similar confer-
entes in the future; the most important outcome, some
beginning toward an understanding, on ail sides, of the
personal factors-and the local twists in imperial prob-
lems.
It was not until after the conferenee was ended tha
the British government announeed its deeision as fo
the treaties. "i'he law oflïeers of the Crown had re-
lorted that under the treaties Belgium and Germany
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
were undoubtedly entitled to the minimum tariff. If,
then, Canada was hOt to retreat, Britain had to ad-
vance. On July 80 if was announced that the govern-
ment had given the year's notice required for the end-
ing of the treaties. On this very day, as the irony of
rate would bave if, Sir Charles Tupper, who had just
arrived in England, gave an interview in which, af ter
declaring with some reason that "the idea proclaimed
by Sir Vilfrid Laurier of a great imperial parliament
is hopelessly behind the times, and could hot succeed,"
had gone on to denounce the course of the Laurier
ministry as "a declaration of independence, an insult
rather than a compliment, an absurd scheme." Now
the Canadian policy had won. British governments
who would hot commit themselves on a hypothetical
question had met an actual situation; free traders who
would not denounce the treaties to permit Canada to
grant lower tariff rates in return for a preference from
Britain, welcomed a preference given gratuitously.
The tactics of the Canadian government in making its
decision without consulting the imperial government,
the policy of Sir SVilfrid in refraining from demanding
what in any case could not have been secured, tariff
favours in return, were more than j ustified by the out-
corne. 1 "A great triumph for Laurier" was sub-
x In accordance with the opinion of the law officers, the Canadian govern-
ment applied the minimum tariff on goods from Belgium, Germany,
France, Spain, the Argentine, and other most favoured nations for the
rest of the year. The next budget repealed the reciprocal tariff and
established, as from August 1, 1898, a straight British preferential tariff,
granting a reduction of one-fourth of customs duties on wares from the
United Kingdom and certain of the low tariff British colonies.
77
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
stantially thc heading next day in every newspaper in
Great Britain.
Bcfore lcaving tngland Sir Wilfrid ruade a pIgrim-
age to ttawarden fo pay his tribute to thc man who for
him and for tens of thousands ovcrseas ,vas the living
cmbodimcnt of liberalism, tte was accompanied by
MI-. Scddon and by Mr. Reid, as well as by Sir Louis
Davies, who had corne to tngland on departmcntal
business. Thcy had a long and animatcd conversation
with Mr. Gladstone. No incident in the whole ycar
gave to Sir Wilfrid such genuine pleasure or such last-
ing mcmorics. Vhen, a year later, Mr. Gladstonc
dicd, that Julv afternoon gve an added touch of feel-
ing to tbc words Sir Wilfrid spoke in the Canadian
ttouse of Commons, certainly not least among ail the
tributes paid to the memory of the tnglish statcsman
who had donc more than any othcr to makc tngland
honoured overseas.
a May 26, 1898: "... It is no exaggeration to say that he has raised
the standard of civilization .... Indeed, since the days of Napoleon no
man has lived whose name has travelled so far and so wide over the
surface of the earth; no man has lived whose name alone so deeply moved
the hearts of so many millions of men. This last half-centnry in which
we lire has produced many able and strong men who in different walks
of life have attracted the attention of the world at large, but of the lnen
who ha'e il]ustrated this ae, it seems to me that in the eyes of posterity
four wil] outlive and outshine all others: Cavour, Lincoln, Bismarck, and
Gladstone .... Mr. Gladstone undoubtedly excel]ed every one of these
men. He had in his person a combination of varied powers of the human
intellect rarely to be found in one sintvle individual. He had the imag-
inative fancy, the poetic conception of things, in whieh Count Cavour was
deficient. He had the aptitude for business, the financial ability whieh
Lincoln never exhibited. He had the ]ofty impulses and generous inspira-
tions which Prince Bismarck always disearded even if he did not treat
them with seorn ....
"He ennobled the eommon realities of life .... May I be permitted
78
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
Canada had two mother countries. Sir Wilfrid was
eager to see the land of his own aneestors. Franee--
that is, the Paris of the Quai d'Orsay and the journals
--was not so eager to see M. Laurier. The relations
between Britain and France were strained; regret over
EoTpt, rivalry over the Soudan, had put Paris in no
mood fo read with pleasure of this son of New France
praising the England that had taken away the .first
empire of France and was now barring the way in her
effort to create a second. It was difficult situation,
but Sir Vilfrid met if frankly. In an interview with
President Faure, and in two public addresses, he re-
peated in Paris the assurances of fidelity to British
connection he had given in London, and at the same
rime revealed a sympathy with France which deeply
moved his hearers. Incidentally, his French of Quebee
without any impropriety fo recall that it was my privilege to experlence
and to appreeiate that eourtesy made up of dignity and gTace whieh
was famous all over the world but of which no one eould have an
appropriate opinion unless he had been a reeipient of it ....
"In a eharaeter so eomplex and diversified, one may be asked, what
was the dominant feature, what was the supreme quality, the one ehar-
acteristie which marked the nature of the man? Was it his incomparable
genius for finance? Was it his splendid oratorical powers? Was it his
marvellous fecundity of mind? In my estimation it was not any one of
these things. Great as they were, there was one still more marked, and
if I have to give my own impression I would say that the one trait which
was dominant in his nature, which marked the man more distinetly
than any other, was his intense humanity, his paramount sense of right,
his abhorrenee of injustice, wrong, and oppression wherever to be round
or in whatever shape they might show themselves. Injustice, wrong,
oppression, aeted upon him as it were mechanically, aroused every fiber
of his being, and from that moment to the repairing of the injury, the
undoing of the wrong, the destruction of the oppression, he gave his
mind, his heart, his soul, his whole life with an energy, with an intensity,
with a vigour, paralleled in no man unless if be the first Napoleon."
79
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
seemed to pass withou question in Paris; in fact, he
round occasion fo correct a Parisian usage:
Separated from France, we have never forgotten the honour
of out origin ; separated from France, we bave alwavs treasured
ifs culture; separated from France, if we have lost our share
of ifs glories, we have ruade a conquest always dear to French
hearts .... In passing through this city, beautiful beyond
ail cities, I have noted upon many a public building the proud
device that the armies of the Republie carried through
Europe,--Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Very well ; ail
that there is of worth, of greatness, of generosity in that device,
we have to-day in Canada: that is out conquest. We have
liberty, absolute, complete, more complete--pardon my
national pride for the affirmation I am making--more complete
than in any country whatsoever in the world; liberty for out
religion, with its worship, ifs ceremonies, its prayers, ifs cos-
tumes ; liberty for our language, whicb is the oflïcial language
as English is; liberty for ail the institutions that our ancestors
brought from France, and which we regard as a sacred heritage.
Equality is ours. What other proof of if could I give you
than this? In this country, where the maj ority is of English
descent and of the Protestant religion, the .last general elections
bave brought fo power a man of French descent and Catholic
religion, who has always strongly afiîrmed his race and lais
religion. Fraternity is ours. There is with us no domination
of one race over another ....
If, in becoming subjects of the British Crown, we have been
able fo keep our ancient rights and even acquire new ones, upon
the other hand we have undertaken obligations, which, de-
scended as we are from a chivalrous race, we recognize in full
and hold ourselves in honour bound to proclaim. May I
be allowed a personal reference? I am told that here in France
there are people surprised af the attachment which I feel for
the Crown of England and which I do not conceal. Here that
is called loyalime. (For my part, may I say in passing, I
do not like that newly coined expression, lo!]alsme: I much
13refer fo keep to the good old French word lol]aztté. ) And
8O
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
certainly, if there is anything that the story of France has
taught me fo regard as an attribute of the French race, if is
loyalty, it is the heart's memorics. I recall, gentlemen, those
fine lines which Victor Hugo applied to himself, as explalning
the inspiration of his lire:
Fidèle au double sang qu'ont versé dans ma veine,
Mon père vieux soldat, ma mère vendéenne.
That double fidelity to ideas and aspirations quite distinct,
is our glory in Canada. We-are faithful to the great nation
which gave us /ire, we are faithful to the great nation which
has given us liberty.
Sir Vilfrid touchcd on many thcmcs, from the hope
tlat tlc close friendship that had unitcd France and
]ngland in the Crimc would rcvivc, to a prosaic
prcscntation of thc possibilitics of trade in tituber, pulp,
and tanning cxtracts, tic ruade it clcar that it was by
cmphasizing the new nationality thcy had in common
that the two raccs in Canada wcrc fincling unity: "The
strcngth of out race has bccn not to follow a policy of
race .... I share fully thc opinion of M. LFon-
taine, that isolation is always an crror nd that for us
particularly, isolation would have mcant sinking in the
quicksands of infcriority." Particularly notcworthy
was thc shdc of diffcrcncc, of qualification, in his ref-
ercnce to Canada's future; in a spccch, in Fnglish, bc-
fore thc British Chambcr of Commerce in Paris, while
hc still uscd thc formula of impcrial rcprcscntation, his
thought was clarifying, and hc now emphasizcd a ncccs-
sity for prcserving lcgislativc autonomy which in rcality
put parlimcntary fcdcration out of question:
I axa t)rofoundly attached fo Brltish institutions .... Af
the lresent moment our relations with the mother country
suit us absolutely. .We are satisfied with our position. We
81
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
are in fact a nation, virtually independent. If is, however,
manifest that these relations cannot permanently remain
what they are. A day will corne, in a future more or less dis-
tant, vhen by Hm mere fact of out growth in numbers, the
colonial tic, light and tenuous though if be, will become heavy
because if will no longer correspond fo out national aspirations.
When that state of affairs arrives, if is evident that the colonial
connection must become more intimate or if must break com-
plctely. The solution will lie mainly in the hands of England.
If may be that this solution will be round in the great principle
of imperial representation. The colonies of France are rep-
resented in ber parliament. Out situation is very different.
We have not mcrely local autonomy, but the most complete
legislative independence. If, as the price of imperial repre-
sentation, we had fo renounce our autonomy, out legislative
independence, we would have none of if. If imperial repre-
sentation is fo be the solution, if tan be only as the com-
plement and hot as the negation of that which exlsts to-day.
More tentative, too, was his favourite dream of a
French-Canadian in Westminister, which followed:
Permit me, gentlemen, fo add, that if the dream of imperial
representation is tobe realized, I should regard if as a glorious
day when Canada would be represented in the historie halls of
the Commons of England by a French-Canadian, who would
bring into those new surroundings, along with frank loyalty
to British institutions, the logical spirit, the ardour of feeling,
the lively imagination, the artistic instinct, the poetic concep-
tion of affairs, which from ail rime has characterized the lerench
genius.
Sir Wilfrid left Paris in better mood than he had
round it. The ribbon of the Grand Officer of the
Legîon of Honour was added to lais G. C. M. G. and
his Cobden Club medal. In personal discussions with
French public men, with M. Faure, M. Cochery, M.
82
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
ttanotaux, M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, M. Jules Sieg-
fried, M. Nisard, be took occasion to urge t.hat good
understanding between France and England wbich was
not mercly essential for the peace of the world but,
what was to a Canadian of more direct concern, essent-
ial for the preservation of racial good-will and national
unity in Canda. Then, wearied of speech-making and
public addresses, with Lady Laurier he spent a few
quiet days in country rest, paying a visit fo the home of
Iris aneestors in Charente. From France, they went on
to Switzerland, and from Switzerland fo Rome, where,
aeeompanied by Mr. Charles Russell, tbey had an hour's
cordial interview wit.h His Holiness. Then France
again, a brief visit fo Ireland,--Dublin, Galway, and
I)erry,--and home to Canada.
When Sir Wilfrid reached Canada in August, he
found a country that for the moment knew no earty.
Never before and never again was publie opinion so
united in his favour. There had been Opposition eriti-
eism beeause of his failure fo demand preferenee for
preferenee, but discussion had sbown that this eritieism
was based on misreading alike of English polities and
of human nature. His striking aehievement in ending
the treaties, the leading part he had taken in ail the
summer's affairs, the new interest in Canada which his
visit had awakened in Europe, the felicitous expres-
sion he had given of Canada's homage to the Queen
and her attachment to Britain, ruade friends and op-
ponents join to do him bonour. In public and political
banquets in Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto, approval
83
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of his course and pride in his sueeess were given warm
and spontaneous expression, ttis attitude on imperial
relations was widely endorsed in English-speaking
Canada; Quebec gave little heed. If anything, if was
not sufficiently imperialistic for Canada's prevailing
mood. Some Toronto newspapers growled at his ref-
erences to Canada's being a nation; religious journals,
the "Witness," the "Westminster," the "Christian
Guardian," in thei.r fervent protestations that imperial
unity was the goal and imperial federation or defence
contributions the way, made it even clearer than the
comments of the seeular press how the ride was running.
It was two years before the sequel to the .lubilee
festivities followed in Canada's participation in an im-
perial war. On the surface, there was little fresh de-
velopment of imperial interest or organization.
)tbroad, the relations with the United States whieh
culminated in the sittings of the Joint High Commis-
sion, narrated in the following ehapter; at home, the
development of the Klondike and of charges gainst
the Yukon administration, the growth of immigration
and prosperity, the holding of a plebiseite upon pro-
hibition of import, manufacture, or sale of intoxieating
liquors, carried by a slight majority but held of no
effect because of the small vote and Quebec's over-
whelming opposition, engrossed attention. Yet signs
were not wanting that Mr. Chamberlain purposed to
push his programme in Canada as well as in other quar-
ters of the Empire. Canada had outdone Britain it-
self in ifs expression of împerial sentiment; it would
8a
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
be folly not to seek to translate sentiment into action,
to fill out and cash blank eheques given over so lavishly.
Mr. Chamberlain was not content to wait on Providence,
nor wholly content with the trend of Sir X¥ilfrid
Laurier's thinking. ¥.hile protesting in publie that
any step toward eloser unity must eome from the colo-
nies, he negleeted no opportunity of preparing the
ground.
In the summer of 1898 a new governor-general and
a new commander of the Canadian militia were ap-
pointed. Lord Aberdeen had been governor-general
for rive years; he had shown himself a well-meaning,
public-spirited oflïeial, and Lady Aberdeen's organiz-
ing power and interest in social work had given an en-
during stimulus to many women's activities. But he
was a Liberal, not inelined to press his own views ex-
eept in an interregnum sueh as followed the defeat of
the Tupper ministry or on some innoeuous subjeet
sueh as civil-service reform; he would hot serve 1Vit.
Chamberlain's purpose; on ]ay 18, 1898, he was in-
formed that his "resîgnation" would be announeed in
the London press next day. In his place the Colonial
Secretary chose a man more after his own heart. The
Earl of Minto had not been known fo the public save as
a soldier; he had seen service under Lord Roberts in
Afghanistan, had been military seeretary to Lord Lans-
downe during his governor-generalship of Canada from
1888 to 1885, and General Middleton's ehief of staff
in the Riel rebellion. But those who knew him were
aware that he was a man of shrewd eommon sense, of
85
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
serious purpose, strong will, and, not least, imperial
enthusiasm, admirably fitted to carry through a Colo-
nial Office programme with iïrmness and tact. Major-
General Hutton, who was selected fo succeed General
Gascoigne as general officer commanding the militia
about the sanie rime, was also a man of st,'ong views on
colonial participation in imperial defence, and, as rime
was to show, not hesitant in urging them. '
Half-way round the world, the conflict was brewing
1 Sir Wilfrid's conversational comment on the governor-generals he
had known may be noted here:
"The Çanadian governor-general long ago ceased to dctermine policy,
but he is by no means, or need hot be, the mere figurehead the public
imagine. Hc hls the pri'ilege of advising his advisers, and if he is a
man of scnse and experience, his advice is often tkcn. Much of his
rime may be consumed in laying corner-stones and listening fo boring
addresses, but cornel'-stones must be laid, and people like a tonch of
colour and ceremony in life; some men, particularly mayors, even lile
making formal addresses to governor-generals or any one else who may be
compelled to listen.
"Lord Dufferin was in many ways an ideal governor-general for the
early stages of the Dominion. H_is touch of the blarney gave us the
good eonceit of ourselves needed fo help us through out first awkward
hobbledehoy years. He had tact and a quick shrewdness that carried him
far. He was prone to magnfy his office and incidentally Dufferin. He
was always spealdng to the galleries. He had no special oratorical gift,
but a pleasing literary gra¢efulness. His fellow-Irishman, Lord Lans-
downe, was a man of another mould, a strong mind, of cler-cut judgment,
distinctly out ablest governor. Lord Stanley was an affable gentleman,
no more, but Lady Stanley was an ble and witty woman; she did hot
seek the lime-light, content to shine in the family circle. The warm
heart and unresting energy of the Aberdeens are hot forgotten in Canada.
Lord Minto had much sound sense, a stronger man than was thought.
Vhen he came to Canada first, he was absolutely untrained in constitutional
practice, knew little but horses and soldiering, but he took his duties to
heart, and became an effective governor, if sometimcs vcry stiff. Lord
Grey took lus duties still more seriously, but scattered his efforts. The
Duke of Conrtaught, the last governor in my day, was the rigidly trained
and repressed constitutional monarch, correct and loof, inowing nothing
of Canadian political affairs and caring less; he might well have talen oc-
casion fo give a lunt fo Sir Robert Borden about lUs dismissals of office-
holders."
86
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
which was fo give occasion for testing the new forces.
In South Afriea the relations of Boer and Briton were
daily beeoming more strained. To the memories of
past facial eonfliets, galling British memories of
Maj uba, sullen Boer memories of treks ever northward
to eseape British domination, there was added the
strife between a primitive pastoral people and a eos-
mopolitan host of gold-seekers. The Outlander had
just ground for eomplaint: the Transvaal administra-
tion was unprogressive, corruption was undoubtedly
rife in the little oligarchy which surrounded Paul Kru-
ger at Pretoria, partieularly among the imported Hol-
landers, and the fourteen-year franchise shut the new-
eomers out from a share in the government of the coun-
try in whieh they were fast beeoming a maj ority. Yet
the grievanees were hOt so serious as they were repre-
sented by the unserupulous subsidized press of Johan-
nesburg and Cape Town; the Orange Free State, per-
haps the best-governed small state in the world, showed
what the Boer could do under favouring eireumstances;
the corruption whieh existed was hardl'y suffieient fo
warrant the Canada of Pacifie seandals and MeGreevy
lootings going Sir Galahading aeross the world to re-
dress if; and the burgher's fear of being swamped in
his own country by a transitory swarm of aliens was not
hard to understand. A peaeeful way out was not be-
yond hope; the progressive party among the Trans-
vaalers, led by men like Fraser, Joubert, Botha, was
gaining ground against the reaetionary forces. Time
and good-will would bave brought reform. But rime
87
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
and good-will were lacking. In the new imperial rem-
per of Britain and the British in South Afriea, the
Boer had fo be taught his place, and that soon, the map
of Africa must be painted red from the Cape fo
Cairo; on the other side, the stubbornness and slim-
ness of Oom Paul, the conviction among many baek-
veldt Boers that the victors of Majub could once
more sweep the rooineks from the field and give all
South Africa to their kindred, were serious obstacles
to peace. The reckless Jameson raid, the warm
greeting given his imperial heroes in London, the
whitewashing of Rhodes by a ttouse of Conmons
committee,--with :Edward Blake vigorously dissent-
ing from the policy of hushing-up adopted by both
Front Benches,--the press campaign, the Prussian
stiffness of the proconsul, Sir Alfred Milner, revealed
the new aggressiveness of British policy. Vhen in
the spring of 1899 the British authorities concentrated
on the reform of the franchise as the fundamental con-
cession which would ensure other grievances being
righted, the Kruger government af ter much hesitation
and wriggling and hair-splitting gave way and accepted
substantially what Chamberlain had demanded. But
at once the ground of controversy shifted to the vague
issue of British supremacy in South Africa, now held
fo be threatened by Boer plots; new demands were ruade
or foreshadowed, reckless "squeezed-sponge" speeches
hurled from Highbury, the anti-jingo British general
on the spot, who insisted that South Africa needed
rest, hot surgical operation, recalled, and fresh troops
88
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
ordered to Africa. The Transvaal and Free Stae
Boer refused the advice of his Cape Colony cousins
to make furt.her concessions. He was convinced that
Chamberlain would be content with nothing short of a
humiliating surrender and permanent control, and that
his country was doomed unless he fought. On Octo-
ber 9 Kruger launched his ultimatum, demanding arbi-
tration and withdrawal of British troops, or war. On
October 12 the Boers fired the first shot.
Canadians, absorbed in their own affairs, had given
little heed to the rumblings of war until a few weeks
before the outbreak. Of the few who were in touch
with the situation, some sympathized with the British
policy; others, including men so divergent in view as
Goldwin Smith and Principal Grant, until the issue of
the ultimatum, had questioned Mr. Chamberlain's tac-
tics. But the great mass of citizens knew little and
believed much. They believed that Britain was fight-
ing to free the Outlander from intolerable tyranny.
When neutral opinion the world over condemned
British policy, Mr. Balfour urged in its defence that
the colonies had endorsed it. True, but that approval,
so far as Canada was concerned, was not so much an
independent and informed judgment on the merits of
the issue as an indication of the eflïciency of the anti-
Boer press service, and still more an expression of
trust in British statesmen and in British policy in the
past.
Sir l¥ilfrid had marie no special study of the situa-
tion. He had followed the development of the crisis
89
LIFE AND LETTERS 0F SIR WILFRiD LAURIER
in the press despatches, with what eare the demands
of his own duties would permit. I-Ie had no small
measure of sympathy with the South African I)utch
in their resistance fo the inroads of Rritish settlement
and German-Jewish finance, .but believed that with
reasonableness a solution could be round in a eonfedera-
tion of South Africa under the Crown. The considera-
tion which turned him strongly against the Roers in
the immediate crisis was their denial of the franchise;
like many another Liberal, Sir Vilfrid was influenced
by Mr. Chamberlain's clever tactics in clothing im-
perialist policies in radical formulas.
When war became certain, offers of individual or
company service and demands for the despatch of a
Canadian contingent rapidly developed. The crisis
had precipitated imperial sentiment. The desire fo
repay Rritish protection in the past, fo rival the United
States, which had just had a more or less glorious little
war with Spain, and those Australasian colonies which
had already offered contingents; the wide-spread feel-
ing that with increasing strength and prosperity the
I)ominion should take a more active part in imperial
and world affairs; the spirit of adventure and profes-
sional military zeal, called for action. Newspaper ap-
peals, particularly on the part of the Montreal "Star,"
fanned the flames. Sir Charles Tupper, newly re-
turned from England, put himself af the head of the
movement for Canadian participation.
The movement was powerfully stimulated by the
British authorities and their agents in Canada. Lord
90
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
Minto in the spring of 1899 had conveyed to Sir Wil-
frid inquiries from Mr. Chamberlain and the War
Oflàee as to the interpretation of the Militia Aet:
Can the irnperial military authorities aeeept paragraph 79
as suffieiently binding on Canada to j ustify them in reekoning
olciall!l upon the availability of Canadian troops outside the
Dominion in case of war with a European power? . . . I am
inelined fo draw a distinct line between the offieial ealling out
by the Qaaeen of Canadian troops-for foreign service [i. e.
outside the Ameriean continent], and the offer of Canadian
troops by the Dominion, whieh I feel certain would be en-
thusiastically ruade if the Empire were threatened,--the latter
would, however, be a sentimental offer, whieh eould hot be
eonsldered with purely business calculations.
To which Sir SVilfrid reptied that the decisive point
ws not whether the theatre of war was at home or
abroad, but whether the action was for the defenee of
Canada. Again, on July 19, in a letter frank and
enthusiastie fo the point of na'iveté, the governor-general
had written urging an offer of immediate mteril
assistance in South Afriea, an offer which would def-
initely commit the Dominion to participation in im-
perial wars:
The acceptance of the proposal would be a proof to the
world that the eomponent parts of the Empire, however scat-
tered, are prepared to stand shoulder fo shoulder to support
imperial interests. In this partieular erisis a demonstration
of such strength would be invaluable, but its effects would,
I think, reach far beyond the difficulty of to-day'; it would
signify the acceptance of tf principle which I believe would
tend not only enormously to strengthen the Empire generally,
but which would also consolidate the individual strength, credit,
and security of each of the offspring of the Mother Country.
91
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
. . . It is a principle which appears to me .fraught with great
possibilities, and personally, as an old .friend of Canada, noth-
ing would please me more than seeing her first in accepting if.
'But as I have said fo. you already, if is ail-important that
any such offer as that under consideration should be sponta-
ncous and not merely the result of a desire fo meet the hopes
expressed at homc.
A fortnight later, on July 31, the aetivities of an
agent of the South African League resulted in the
ttouse of Commons passing unanimously a resolution,
moved by Sir Wi|frid and seconded by Mr. Foster,
expressing sympathy with the efforts of Her Majesty's
government to obtain justice for the British subjeets
in the Transvaal. Sir Wilfrid declared:
The object fo be sougt is that we should extend fo
our fellow-countrymen in South Africa the right-hand of
good-fellowship, that we should assure them that our heart
is with them and that in our judgmert they are in the right;
the object would be fo assure the imperial authorities, who
have taken in hand the cause of the Uitlanders, that on that
question we are af one with them and that they are also in the
right; and perhaps the effeet might be also that this mark
of sympathy, of universal sympathy, extending from continent
fo continent and eneircling the globe miglff ause wiser and
more humane counsels fo prevail in the Transvaal and lpossibly
avert the awful arbitrament of war.
Lord Minto, in aeknowledging the resolutions, ex-
pressed his personal regret that "an offer of material
assistance" had not been ruade instead, though he added:
. . . There has been no question of England asking for
troops and no expression of opinion in any way that she could
deem herself j ustitïed in expecting such assistance; I know,
..however, privately, as I told you, that if any recluest was
92
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
Inade by Canada fo send a force fo serve with H. M.'s troops,
the authorities ai home wou]d welcome such a request.
... You know my own views but I quite recognize the
serlous considerations connected with such an offcr. _.
1Ieanwhile, General Hutton's activities in attempting
to frame policy and shape opinion, and conflict of
views on matters x)f administrative detail, had brough¢
about very strained relations with tbe 1'linister of
Militia, which Lord 1Iinto had sought in vain to ease.
:No narrow conception of his office, therefore, prevented
him from discussing vith mi]itia officers detailed
proposais for a Canadian contingent.
On October 3, the "Canadian 1li]itary Gazette," an
unoflïcial publication, announced tbat in case of war
the Canadian government wou]d offer a force from the
militia for service, and gave ifs composition in detail.
War had hot yet broken out and. despatches from
London and the Cape he]d out some hopes that it might
still be averted. In an interview the saine day with
the Ottawa correspondent of the "(]obe," Sir Vi]frid
denied the rumour as "a pure invention." He madc
it clear that under the Mi]itia Act the volunteers might
be sent to a foreign land to fight, provided Canada
was menaced. In the case of tbe South African Repub-
]ic thcre was no menace; "Thougb e may be vi]]ing
to contribute troops, I do not see how we can do so."
:Nothing could be done without a grant from par]lainent.
"There is no doubt," he continued, "as 4o the attitude
of the government on ail questions that mean menace
to :British interests, but in this present case out ]im-
itations are very clear]y defined. And so if is that
98
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
we have not offered a Canadian contingent fo the home
authorities. The Mihtia Department duly transmitted
individual offers fo the Imperial Government."
On the saine day Mr. Chamberlain took a hand in
the game by a cable fo Lord Minto, which was not
received until two days later. 1 In this message,
whether from baste or design, Mr. Chamberlain, if he
did not accept an offer which had hOt been ruade, at
least as'sumed that government action would be forth-
coming. No further action was taken for some days.
In forwarding the despatch, Lord Minto observed:
So far as I know there has been no off'er fo raise troops
in Canada except that of Colonel Hughes, and the question
is whether the Canadian government will itself officially off'er
troops or whether if will allow individuals to raise them as
2 "Secretary of State for War and Commander-in-Chief desire to ex-
press high appreciation of signal exhibition of patriotic spirit of people
of Canada shown by offers to serve in South Africa, and to furnish
following information to assist organization of force 6ffered into units
suitable for military requirements. Firstly, units should consist of about
125 men; secondly, may be infantry, mounted infantry, or cavalry; in
view of numbers already available, infantry most, cavalry least, service-
able; thirdly, all should be armed with .B0:t rifles or carbines, which
can e supplied by Imperial Government if necessary; fourthly, ail must
provide own equipment, and mounted troops own horses; fifthly, not
more than one captain and three subalterns each unit. Whole force may
be commanded by ofllcer hot higher than major. In considering numbers
which can be employed, Secretary of State for Wr, guided by nature
of offers, by desire that each Colony should be fairly represented, and
limits necessary if force is to be fully utilised by available staff as
integral portion of Imperial forces, would gladly accept four units. Con-
ditions as follows: Troops to be disembarked at port of landing South
Africa fully equipped at cost of Colonial (3overnment or volunteers.
From date of disembarkation Imperial Government will provide pay at
Imperial rates, supplies and ammunition, and will defray expenses of
transport back fo Canada, and pay wound pensions and compassionate
allowances at Impcrial rates. Troops to embark not later than 31st
October, proceeding direct to Cape Town for orders. Inform accordingly
ail who bave offered to raise volunteers."
94
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
volunteers on their own responsibility .... Up to the present
this [a government offer] has not been thought advisable,
and you know my views about it, but it may be better fo
reconsider the question rather than fo allow an irresponsible
call for volunteers. I can hot thînk if advisable that Colonel
Hughes should be allowed to raise an expedition on his owa
responsibility representing Canada .... I think it would be
best that any definite action should stand over till you can
see me on your return from Chicago.
In accordance with an arrangement of long standing,
Sir Wilfrid had left on October 7 to attend an inter-
national gathering in Chicago. At the dedication of
the new federal buildings, President McIçinley, the
Vice-President of Mexico, and the Prime Minister of
Canada had been invited to oflïciate. Sir Wilfrid had
planned to use the occasion to make a plea for better
relations and at the same rime to explain why Canada
could not give way on its Alask boundary stand.
While his addresses were effective and warmly wel-
comed, the event was overshadowed by the news from
Africa and from home, and he hastened to return to
Ottawa.
Sir Vilfrid found a divided country and a divided
cabinet. In English-speaking Canada, the war con-
tagion was spreading with the approaching certainty
of conflict and the excitement of war preparations over-
seas. The Opposition, with high imperial patriotism
and thirst for office mingled in varying proportions,
attacked the government for delay and began to appeal
to anti-French-Canadian sentiment. In Quebec, active
enthusiasm was almost wholly lacking. The French-
95
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
'Canadian did not share the racia sympathy of his
compatriots, and had more appreciation of the diflïcul-
ries of a non-]nglish people surrounded by ]nglish
folk. "La Patrie," Mr. Tarte's organ, took its stand
on the British principle, no taxation without rep-
resentation; no share ir Britain's wars without a share
in Britain's councils. "La Presse," the leading in-
dependent journal, emphasized very clearly the fun-
damental difference which determined the attitude of
French-Canadians to imperial aff.airs, and which it took
]nglish-Canadians many a year fo understand. "Ve
French-Canadians belong to one country, Canada;
Canada is for us the whole world; but the ]nglish-
Canadians have two countries, one here and one across
the sea."
The cabinet had to consider the situation more care-
fully than irresponsible individuals. Granting that
Britain's cause was just, was aid necessary. It was
assuredly no life-and-death struggle,--merely, in the
eyes of British statesmen themselves, a "promenade to
Pretoria"; "Punch" was picturing the Boers as clumsy
louts falling over their own rifles; as that fervent im-
perialist, Alexander McNeill, had declared in the ttouse
in 3uly, it was hardly necessary "to tender assistance
to a hundred-ton hammer to crush a hazlenut." Can-
ada had never taken part in any of Britain's "little
wars'? overseas; Macdonald had declined in 1885 to
raise a contingent for the Soudan campaign, ttad
the government power to act without the consent of
parliament? What would be the effect on facial feel-
96
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
ing of action? of non-action? Weighing ail these con-
siderations in two days' council debate, a compromise
was finally reached. The government would not send
a contingent, but it would equip and transport volun-
teers up to one thousand men, organized as proposed
in Mr. Chamberlain's cable. The order in council tan:
The Prime Minister, in view of the well-known desire of
a great many Canadians who are ready to take service under
such conditions, is of opinion that the moderate expenditure
which would thus be involved for the equipment and trans-
portation of such volunteers may readily be undertaken by
the Governmént of Canada without summoning Parliament,
especially as such an expenditure under such circumstances,
cannot be regarded as a departure from the well-known prin-
ciples of constitutional government and colonial practice, nor
construed as a precedent for future action.
A few days later this action was referred to oflïeially
as the despateh of a contingent.
The prime minister had never faeed a more diflïeult
situation. His handling of it w«s eritieized by both
extremes--by one side for delay and half-heartedness,
by the other for sending a contingent at all. h'lore
impartial erities, in the light of af ter events, urged
that he should have antieipated the situation and pre-
pared a definite stand. It is true the government lost
something of the temporary kudos that attends deeisive
and speetaeular action and suffered the disparagement
that attaches to all compromise, but it gained in ret-
rospeet in the judgment of all who realized what great
issues were at stake. Until the last moment it was
not certain that the emergeney would arise. Sir
97
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Wilfrid was not himself given fo enthusiasm, and he
did not like fo be stampeded by the enthusiasm of
others. 1 Before committing Canada fo a new policy
which might carry her in far and unseen paths it was
indispensable to await a clear and overwhelming pop-
ular demand. Sir Wilfrid's belief, albeit conventional,
in the justice of the cause and his imperial sympathies,
were balanced by his distike of war and all that it
entailed. It was another factor that turned the scale.
For him the essential question was not aid to England,
for both the public and the British cabinet had made
if clear that it was not aid but a binding precedent
that was wanted. In that case the question became,
what would be the effect on the cause nearest his heart,
national and racial unity? Concluding that with Eng-
lish-speaking Canada blazing in its demand for action
and French-speaking Canada lukewarm or silent in its
hesitancy, action would best advance that unity, he
took the stand he did.
In the country, the decision was substantially ac-
cepted. Conservative critics, with some non-party sup-
port, continued to rail against the decision not to bear
the full cost of the contingent. In Quebec, the careful
t His cautious attitude is well revealed in a speech in Bowmanville,
on October 17, replying to the criticism that the government had hot
done enough: "My only answer to that is this: VCe as a government and
especially I as the head of the government have in all these matters
to think and go slowly and to act formally and with due consideration.
For my part, so long as I have the honour to occupy my present post,
you shall never see me carried away by passion or prejudice or even
enthusiasm. I have to think and consider. I have to look to the right
and the wrong. I have to see what will be the effect of any action that
we take:'
8
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
phrasing of the offer brought acquiescence; the Liberal
mcmbcrs hastened to announce their support of the
government's policy. The chier exception, Mr. Henri
Bourassa, grandson of Papineau and member far La-
belle, who resigncd in protest, was more ominous for
the future than influential in the present, i Mr. Tarte
repeated directly, in a correspondence with a former
colleague in the Imperial Fedcration League, Mr.
Castell Hopkins, his contention against "being called
upon to raise troops and to pay money without having
any right of rcprescntation in imperial councils," but
nothing followcd more serious than the burning of Mr.
Tarte in cffigy in sundry places. But criticism soon
was overborne by the rush of preparation and the news
from the front.
In some fcw quarters criticism was directed not so
much against thc Canadian government as against the
British government for forcing its hand. Mr. Tarte
volced this plainly: "It is all very well to say that the
people of Canada or of other colonies have made this
rime a voluntary offcr. In point of fact the Secretary
of State for the Colonies has sent a circular to all the
colonies, the meaning of which is an invitation to send
troops." Lord Minto resented this charge, virtuously,
because technically no demand had bccn ruade; uneasily,
because beyond question in fact pressure had been put:
"I have always carefully explained to you," he now
wrote Sir Wilfrid in a delightful phrase, "that any offer
from Canada must be spontaneous." Therc did not ap-
pear to be much ground for complaint. Mr. Chamber-
99
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
lain was only doing his duty as he saw it in trying fo
conmait the colonies permanently fo the support of
British policy and British arms. If any Canadians
had doubts whether that was well for Canada, if was
for them to show the same .energy and the same single
eye to their own country's interests. "Mr. Chamber-
lain and others," declared a clear-sighted contemporary,
"are not academical imperialists, but rather practical
men, who use means as well as frame policies ....
English imperialists have been working for years fo
bring about imperial co-operation in defence; they did
not stop working just when they had the chance fo
accomplish something signal." 1 No pressure from
Mr. Chamberlain or from Lord Minto would have had
any effect had not Canadian sentiment met them half-
way. Vith some reason, they considered that they
were lnerely providing an opportunity for the practical
expression of a sentiment and a purpose deeply rooted
and often proclaimed.
Once the decision was ruade, no rime was lost in
recruiting and despatching, on October 30, a battalion
of some 1,150, ail ranks, under Lieutenant-Colonel
Otter. In accordance with public opinion, which was
strongly shared by the governor-general and the Min-
ister of Militia, if was arranged, af ter consultation
with the War Office, that the Canaitian troops should
form a permanent unit, instead of being attached fo
various British regiments. A week after it had sailed,
1 W. Sanford Evans, "The Canadian Contingents and Canadian
perialism," 1901, 13. 60.
100
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
the government offered n second contingent: the sue-
eess of the :Boers in foreing the fighting on :British
territory, the evidenee of their skill in marksmanship
and entrenehing, made it elear the war was to be n
serious affair and hardened the determination fo see
it through. Not until the "black week" of mid-Deeem-
ber, when Gataere was ambushed at Stromberg and
Methuen's men mowed down at Magersfontein and
:Buller repulsed at Tugela River, was the offer aeeepted :
the second contingent eonsisted of four squadrons of
mounted troops and three batteries of artillery. Vith
gesture worthy of feudal seigneur or railway
magnate, Lord Stratheonn bore the eost of raising the
six hundred mounted rifles known as Stratheona's
ttorse; other forces, mounted rifles and eonstabulary
reeruits, were enlisted through the Department of
Militia but af the cost of the British government. All
told, some 7,800 Canadians sailed to South Africa, of
whom one-third were in the offlcial eontingents. In
addition, the government raised a battalion fo garrison
tIalifax and relieve the Leinsters for active service.
The total direct outlay of the Donfinion was some
2,800,000. The eontingents were enlisted for a year;
once the baek of the Boer resistanee seemed broken,
the men were unwilling fo prolong their service.
The Canadian people shared with their British kins-
men the weeks of doubt and dazed surprise that fol-
lowed Boer victory and British surrenders, the new
hope that came with the sending of Lord Roberts and
Lord Kitchener fo take eommand, the relief that greeted
101
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the raising of the siege of Kimberley and Ladysmith
and Mafeking, and the wild delirium that marked the
capture of Pretoria. They had their special pride and
their special sorrow: pride in the showing their men
ruade in many a skirmish from Sunnyside fo Mafeking
and Hart's River, and particularly in the post of honour
Canadians held in the capture of Cronje af Paardeberg,
the turning point of the war, and sorrow in the
lists of casualties that were the price of victory.
Perhaps the politic compliments of English statesmen,
the kindly references of Lord Roberts, and the warm
eulogies of Canadian correspondentswwho proved
themselves as efficient as their fighting kin--tended
fo put their achievement somewhat out of perspective.
Anticipating a day when rôles would be reversed,
American observers asserted that 'Canada seemed fo
think she had won the war: " '_Are the Canadians pres-
ent?' asks Lord Roberts before every battle. 'Then
let the advance begin,' " was the summary of a ]3uffalo
paragrapher. But if there was warm pride and in-
tense interest, there was little boasting.
The Canadian government had no share in the
direction of the war. If did not shape policy; if did
hot control strategy. Ifs work ended when the con-
tingents were landed in Cape Town. Canada's rôle
was distinctly that of supporting the mother country.
The Conservatives who attacked the government for
hot doing more did hOt suggest any share in policy
but merely an undertaking fo repay the full cost of
the 'Canadian .eontingents. Ineidenta}ly this mean
102
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
that Canada had little direct share in the eontroversies
which soon were waging in the country where the
responsibility did lie, the charges of blundering incom-
petency and the counter charges of treason, the recrim-
inations over concentration camps and "methods of
barbarism," the disputes as fo the terms of peace. In
Canada the discussion over the war was more limited
in range but more fundamental in character. The
question of Canada's external policy, of her place in
the Empire, had now been raised by a concrete issue,
and in parliament and in the general elections which
followed debate was vigorous if not always fo the point.
lVhen parliament met in February for its fifth ses-
sion, each party was preparing ifs fighting ground for
the coming contest. The session was long-drawn-out
and bitterly personal and partisan. The only new
legislation of importance w«s the budget measure in-
creasing the preference on ]3ritish goods from 25 per
cent. to 33½ per cent., with Conservative attacks upon
the government for not demanding from ]3ritain a
preference in return. The war overshadowed ail other
issues. The government was attacked for doing too
little and for doing too much. Israel Tarte faced al-
most daily assaults because of his own utterances and
"La Patrie's" editorials. Echoes of student riots or
newspaper controversies were reflected in discussions
in the ttouse which frequently rose fo fever heat. For
a quarter-hour, despite the speaker's efforts, Messrs.
Foster, Wallace, and McMullen experimented in how
often one could call one's opponent "liar" and "black-
:108
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
guard" without infringing the niceties of parliamen-
tary debate. Sir Wilfrid himself was stung into eon-
demnation of the "vile sheets," the "reptile press" that
were tradueing him. _All in all, it was an interesting
proof of how war, in Mr. Foster's phrase, "lifted the
country fo higher plane with broader ideals and a
renovated lire."
Sir Charles Tupper attaeked the government, and
Sir Wilfrid in partieular, for doing too little and doing
that little late. If had done nothing until foreed by
the publie opinion it had tried and failed to form; if had
been niggardly when af last if had aeted; out of the ful-
ness of ifs prosperity Canada eould afford fo take the
honourable, the self-respeeting course, and meet the
full eost of her eontingents. Sir Vilfrid Laurier, one
of Sir Charles' lieutenants added, "had been first in the
Jubilee parades, and last in the test of action."
In reply, Sir Wilfrid showed eonelusively that the
saine finaneial poliey, in aeeordanee with the request
of the British govermnent, had been folloved by ail
the "colonies. Instead of defending Tarte he attaeked
Tupper, quoting his strong eondemnation of imperial
federation and imperial war outlays before this present
sharp eurve. No rime had been lost, once the die was
east. Sir Charles had ealled him lukewarm:
Sir, I have no hesitation in admitting that I was not en-
thusiastic for that war or for any war. I have no sympathy
for that mad, noisy, dull-witted and short-sighted throng who
elamour for war, who shouted "On fo Pretoria," who eom-
t)laeently prophesied that General Buller would eat his Christ-
10
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
mas dinncr in the capital of the Transvaal. Wir is the
greatest calamity that can befall a nation.
Ite was not prepared to go to war automatically.
Canada was ready to aid Britain in any life-and-death
struggle, but not in every secondary war:
Whilst I cannot adroit that Canada should take part in all
the wars of Great Britain, neither ara I prepared fo say
that she should not take part in any war at all... I
claire for Canada this, that in future she shall be at liberty
to act or not act, to interfere or not interfere, to do just
as she pleases.
While the war might perhaps bave postponed or made
impossible the one solution which he believed would
solve South Africa's problems,--confederation,--he
still hoped that after the war, confederation of ail the
F, nglish and Dutch communities would corne.
It was nearly six weeks later when Mr. Bourassa
ruade the main attack .from the other base. In these
weeks temper had been rising both in the House and
out; the student riots in Montreal, though exaggerated
by rumour, had been serious enough to reveal the abyss
.of facial passion toward which the country was drift-
ing. The tenseness of feeling and prevailing hostility
did not prevent Mr. Bourassa from making fully and
coolly an analysis of Canada's position, in a brilliant,
closely reasoned, provocative speech. 'Canada was
threatened with ceaseless wars and unbearable burdens;
her farmers and workmen would one day be crushed
like he peasantry and wor-kmen of Europe. Why had
Canada taken part in this war. Because it was just.
105
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Let British Liberals answer. Because iG was nec-
essary? RYecessary Go aid forty million people Go
crush fotrr hundred thousand? Because public opin-
ion demanded? Every French-Canadian newspaper,
Rouge and Bleu, had been opposed; was parliament to
abdieate in favour of yellow journals? The action of
other British colonies? Their action had been, mis-
represented; the table news had been manipulated to
make if appear Ghey had all eagerly offered men; if
took months for Ghe mails to reveal that in several
Australasian parliaments action had been closely fought
and in one case carried only by the Speaker's vote.
was said no precedent had been created: "the accom-
plished fact is the precedent," as Mr. Chamberlain had
ruade clear in bis "insolent reply" to the order in council.
In reply, Sir Wilfrid, af ter citing some rather dubious
precedents for action wiGhout parliamentary sanction,
rested the case on the demand of public opinion: "Public
opinion has many ways of expressing itself. There
is not only Ghe press, there is what is heard in Ghe street
and in private conversation, and what one can feel in
tbe air." But Mr. Bourassa had considered it weak
fo be guided by public opinion; Grue, "if public opinion
were fo ask something against one's honour or one's
sense of right or one's sense of diffnity"; not so, if
iG demands what is right and honourable, tte differed
with Mr. Bourassa as to the right of the war; England
O' '
never had fought in a more just cause; Kruer s refusal
of the franchise was intolerable. They had not been
îorced Go act by Downing Street: "What we did we
106
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
did of our own free will .... My honourable friend
says the consequence will be that we shall be ealled
upon fo take part in other wars. I have only this to
answer, that if it should be the will of the people of
'Canada af any future period to take part in any war
of England, the people of Canada will bave fo bave their
own way." I-Ie agTeed with F[r. Bourassa that if it
were to be admitted that Canada should take part in all
Britain's wars, if would be necessary fo make new eon-
stitutional terms; they would bave fo say to Britain,
"If you want us to help you, call us to your eouncils."
But that contingency had not arisen.
The heart of Sir Wilfrid's defenee of his action lay
in his reference fo the threatened cleavage of race:
I put this question fo my honourable friend. What would
be the condition of this country to-day if we had refused
to obey the voice of publie opinion? It is only too truc
that if we had refused our imperative duty, the most dangerous
agitation would have arisen, an agitation which, according
to ail human probability, would have ended in a cleavage in
the population of this country upon racial lines. A greater
calamity could never take place in Canada. My honourable
friend knows as well as any man in this House that if there
is anything to which I bave given my political lire, it is fo
try to promote unity, harmony and amity between the diverse
elements of this country.
In the same spirit, but positive rather than negative,
was his elosing appeal:
My honourable friend reads the consequences of this action
in sending out a military contingent to South Africa. Let
me tell you from the bottom of my heart that my heart
is ftdl of the hopes I entertain of the beneficial results which
107.'
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
will accrue from that action. When our young volunteers
sailed from our shores toj oin the British army in South
Africa, great were our expcctations that they would dis-
play on those distant battle-fields the same courage which
had been displayed by their fathers when fighting against
one another in the last century. Again, in many breasts
there was a 'fugitive sense of uneasiness at the thought that
the first facing of musketry by raw recruits is always a severe
trial. But when the tclegraph brought us the news tht
such was the good impression made by our volunteers that
the Commander-in-Chief had placcd them in the post of honour,
in the first rank, to share thc danger with that famous corps,
the Gordon Highlanders ; when we heard that they had jus-
tificd fully the confidence placed in them, that they had charged
like veterans, that their conduct was hcroic and had won for
thcm the encomiums of the Commander-in-Chief and the un-
stinted admiration of their comrades, who had faced death
upon a hundred battle-fields in ail parts of the world--is
there a man whose bosom did not sweil with pride--the pride
of pure patriotism, the pride of consciousness of our rising
strength, the pride of consciousness that that day it had beert
revealed to the world that a new power had arisen in the West ?
Nor is that all. The work of union and harmony betweert
the chief races of this country is not yet complete. We know
by the unfortunate occurrences that took place only last
week that there is much to do in that way. But there is no
bond of union so strong as the bond created by common dangers
faced in common. To-day there are men in South Africa
representing the two branches of the Canadian family, fight-
ing side by side for the honour of Canada. Already some of
them have fallen, giving to their country the last full measure
of devotion. Their remains have been laid in the same grave,
there to rest to the end of rime in that last fraternal embrace.
Can we not hope--I ask my honourable friend himself--that
in that grave shall be buried the last vestiges of oaar former
antagonism? If such shall be the result, if we can indulge
108
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
that hope, if we tan believe that in that grave shall be buried
the former contentions, the sending of the contingents would
be the grcatest service ever rendered fo Canada since Con-
federation.
Nine Quebec members, rive Liberal and four Conserva-
rive, supported Mr. Bourassa.
Sir Wilfrid had refused to comanit himself to any
permanent policy or doctrinaire position. The debates
had developed three distinct attitudes toward the Em-
pire among his compatriots. There were those, like
the distinguished Bleu veteran, T. C. Casgrain, who
were grateful for British protection and for the liberties
accorded Roman Catholics, and were prepared to con-
tinue the colonial connection indefinitely, giving mod-
erate aid when Britain desired. There were those,
like Dominique Monet, who looked forward to clear-
cut independence, and wanted neither colonial pas-
sivity nor imperial entanglements. There were those,
like Mr. Tarte, who still looked forward to some form
of political imperial federation, but opposed in the
meantime any support of military policies they had no
responsibility for shaping. To none of these positions
did Sir Wilfrid coInmit himself; only one situation
could be met at a rime; in every situation, how best fo
conserve Canadian unity must be the determining
motive.
A year later, Mr. Bourassa returned to the fray,
and once more gave Sir Wilfrid occasion to set out
his own views more comprehensively than in the day-
to-day discussion. On M:arch 12, 1901, Mr. ]ourassa
109
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
moved a resolution in the House requesting His
Maj esty's government to eonelude an honourable peaee
in South Afriea on a basis of independenee, and deelar-
ing against any further despateh of eontingents from
Canada. If was not, he deelared, solely for the Brit-
ish goverrunent to tdvise His Majesty, partieularly
when 'Canadian blood and money had been spent in
a war not of out making. The Chamberlains of to-
day, seeking power and profit out of aggression, had
little in eommon with the men of the past who had
ruade England great. Quebee had been and still was
a unit against the war, and elsewhere in Canada the
wave of jingoism was reeeding. It was rime for Can-
ada to make her position elear. In reply, Sir Wilfrid
noted with surprise that the man who had been opposed
fo sending troops was so ready fo send adviee.
was unneeessary fo diseuss the question of sending fur-
ther troops, for the war was over, exeept for guerilla
efforts. As fo the proposal fo restore the two repub-
1Cs to independenee, that was now too late: "These
men [Kruger and Steyn] appealed to the God of
battles, and the God of battles has pronouneed against
them. They invaded British territory, their territory
was invaded in turn, and if was annexed fo the Brit-
ish domain in eonsequenee of the terrible logie of war."
Iffe went on to review the Boer poliey, eondemning
the mereiless taxation and the refusal of franchise
privileges in the Transvaal. Not Chamberlain but
Kruger was responsible for the war. To his mind the
strongest evidenee of that crucial faet was the eritieism
110
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
of the ]3oer policy contained in the published letters
of Sir Henry de Villiers, Chier Justice of Cape Colony,
to President Steyn. i I-Ie eoneluded:
The prollem of South Africa is this,---that you have in
that country two races, so linked and si intermingled that
if is not possible to separate them. These two races must be
a Sir Wilfrid, in the early stages of the conflict, had been influenced
in his opposition fo Kruger's position by the knowledge that Chier Justice
de Villiers, whom he had met and corne fo regard very highly in London
during the Jubilee, was a strong critic of Kruger's conservatism and had
publicly and privately--as intercepted letters afterward showed--urged
the Boers to yield fo the Br4tish demands. He was, therefore, the more
impressed, as was Lord llinto, by letters of the Chief Justice giving
another angle:
13 May, 1901.
«... I quite agree with you that President Kruger ought to bave dis-
played more liberality toward the newcomers but I fear that the exag-
gerated and distorted accounts which bave been sent over of Boer oppres-
sion have affected your judgment in the saine way as they bave affected the
judgment of the great majority of the British people. 'The policy,' you
say, "of admitting settlers simply to make helots of them, is intolerable.'
I bave traveled a good deal over the world and bave nowhere seen a more
flourishing people than these so-called 'helots' were before the war. They
looked with utter contempt upon the President and his people, and I
quite agree with Lionel Philips that the great majority of them did not
'tare a fig' for the franchise. Be that as it may, the President did induce
the Volk»rand fo passa law conferring the franchise on outlanders after
seven years' residence. That law was somewhat clogged by undesirable
conditions, but before the negotiations were closed the President con-
sented to a proposal which had been ruade br Mr. Chamberlain him-
self that the law should be submitted fo a joint commission for amend-
ment. The answer he received was that the offer now came too late and
that the Brflfish government would îormulate their own demands. Mean-
while troops were being moved from ail directions toward the Transvaal.
Thirteen eventful days passed during which both Presidents implored
of the British government fo state their demands for consideration. No
answer came and in a fit of frenzy, which I for my part would not wish
to excuse, Kruger issued his arrogant ultimatum. But can any one doubt
that the issue was forced upon the Transvaal government? The informa-
tion before them was such as to convince them that their independence
was aimed at. Chamberlain of course did not wish for war if he could
attain his objects without war, but those objects were utterly incon-
sistent with the continued independence of the state. No British Colony
111
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
governed by the same power and the saine authority, and that
power has either tobe the power of England or the power of
the Dutch. It bas either tobe the liberal and enlightened
civilization of Eng]and to-day or the old bigoted and narrow
civilization of the Dutch of two hundred years ago. Let
Mr. Bourassa forger for a moment that he and I are British
subjects, and in the name of civilization, in the name of human-
ity, I ask him, which is the power fo govern in that distant
land? . . . There is but one future for the Dutch. They have
enjoying responsible government would have borne with the interference
with ifs internal affairs to which this nominally independent state was
being subjected. The negotiations should bc read by the light of the
historical events which preceded them and if so read I cannot understand
how any impartial pcrson, with any sense of justice or fairness, can
support Chmnberlain's action. The chief argument that I now find adduced
on the British side is that the unpreparedness of Great Britain shows
how little its rulers wished for war. 'rhe real fact, however, is that the
government believed itself to be prepared and never expected that it
would require more than 20 or 30 thousand men to promenade to Pretoria
and reduce the Boers to subjection. Believe me, dear Sir Wilfrid, that
a supreme tragcdy is being enacted in South Africa. The British pcople,
who deplorcd the fate of Dreyfus, are unjustly accusing and punishing
a whole people. Their minds have been poisoned by a venal press and
by lies which bave been sown broadcast over the land at the bidding
of a capitalist clique which owes ail its wealth to the liberal gold-mining
laws bf the republic. Up to the commencement of the war Hcr Majesty
had no more loyal or law-abiding subjects than thc Dutch of the Cape
but their sense of loyalty and of affection for the Empire bas been
completely destroyed by the unjust attack upon the liberties of a neigh-
bouring people to whom they are related by the closest ries of kinship.
The abuse heaped upon the Dutch since the war by the English press
bas tended still further to alienate thcm ....
"You suggest in your letter that I should try to influence the leaders
of the republics to put an end to a needless war. Even if I were in
South Africa there would of course be no means of communicating with
the enemy. Knowing, myself, the benefits of British rule, I should be very
glad if I could induce the Boers to submit and cordially accept such rule.
But with these people the preservation of their independence is a sacred
mission. It may be a foolish sentiment but I cannot help respecting it.
To us it may seem foolish and indeed wicked to prolong a war which
can bave only one issue, but to them submission, especially after the
declarations of the British government, probably appears tobe nothing
short of a crime:'
112
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
been conquered, but I pledge my reputatlon and my name
s a British subject that if they have lost their independence
they have not lost their freedom. There is but one future
for South Africa, and that future is a grand confederation
on the pattern of the Canadian confederation. If is a federa-
tion in which Cape Colony and Natal and the Orange Free State
and the Transvaal and Rhodesia shall be united together under
a federal consititution, undcr the British flag, and under the
sovereignty of England. Mr. Bourassa will agree with me
that when they have the British flag over South Africa they
shall bave that which has been found everywhere during the
last sixty years under the British flagliberty for all, equality
for all, justice and civil rights for English and for Dutch
alike. For these reasons I bave to ask the House that they shall
hot agree to this motion but shal vote it down.
The resolution was defeated by a vote of 1 to 8.
Before this second debate, the general elections, in
which the war was fought over at the polis, had been
held in November, 1900. Canada's prosperity, the
question of a free or a bargained ]3ritish preference,
the administrative record of the government, were ail
in debate, but in Ontario and Quebec the war issue
was dominant. The campaign was intensely personal.
The apparent victory of British arms had eased the
tension somewhat, but racial appeals were still tempt-
ingly easy. Undoubtedly English-speaking extremists
had been responsible at first for the rise of racial bit-
terness, greeting wholly legitimate arguments on tbe
merits of the war and Canada's participation with
shouts of disloyalty and threats, in the words of the
Toronto "News," that ]3ritish Canadians would find
means, through the ballot-box or otherwise of "eman-
118
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
cipating theinselves froin the doIninance of an inferior
people that peculiar circumstances have placed in
authority in the Dominion." But Quebec extremists
also had their share of responsibility, picturing all On-
tario as Inade up of such fanatics, and urging Frcnch-
Canadians to stand solidly behind a" lrench and Cath-
olc preinicr. A curious twist in the cainpaign caine
with Sir Charles Tupper's endeavour to prove fo Que-
bec that Sir Wilfrid was the real imperialist, and that
he himself had chief credit for smashing the Iinperial
Federation Lcague. "Sir Wi]frid Laurier is too Eng-
lish for me," Tupper declared in a speech at Qucbec.
Whilc it was true that a strong nationalst, such as Sir
Charles vas, night with some consistency oppose iin-
perial ccntralizaton and at the same rime urge an active
part in an iinperial war as an evidence of growth fo the
responsibilitics of nationhood, yet the double attack and
the appeal to the prejudices of both sections was a hard
position to defcnd fo fair-inindcd men.
During the session a scvere illness of Mr. Tarte had
inade it impossible for him to carry on his duties; to
secure a change of climate and lighter work he undcr-
took to act as Canadian commissioner at the Paris Ex-
position of 1900. Yct not even wth the ocean interven-
ing could Israel Tarte keep out of poltics and of trou-
ble; spceches in Paris, which grew by the tiine they
rcached Canada, rouscd Ontaro by their critcism of
British policy and Quebec by their advocacy of imperial
fedcration. In correspondence with him Sir Wilfrid
reflectcd the campaign:
114
THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM
( Wilfrid Laurier to Israel Tarte.--Translation )
Ottawa, April 6, 1900
Mv DEAR
. . Here things are going well. Fielding's budget speech,
as you may have gathered from the echoes which reached you,
was a very great success. The financial situation is excellent,
and it was presented with the clearness and the nervous force
which characterize Fielding. Thc Opposition do not know
which foot fo put forward, and are trying to makc protection
and the preferential tariff march abreast. If is a task too
great for them and too great for anybody clse.
I am sending you the specch that Sir Charles Tupper made
at Quebec, with the obvious purpose of catching our province.
You will sec that the outstanding featurc of thc new pro-
gramme is to identify us, af any cost, with imperial fcderation.
I cabled you yesterday on this subject, and you will under-
stand bet'eer now the purpose of my cable. Imperial federa-
tion, at the present rime, is hot a practical question, and
there is no use in our playing our adversar]cs' game. All
that we have fo do is to set things prcciscly as they are before
the public of our province and-to sec that the attention of
the electorate is not turned from serious things to be affrighted
by chimeras ....
In referring to incorrect interviews in "Le Matin,"
and the Montreal "Star's" inaccurate translation of
what he had really sad to "Le Journal"--opinions
"which are true and are not impolitic"mMr. Tarte
showed himself gifted with prophecy, or perhaps only
a good memory:
Bear in mind that I ara hOt complaining of anything. I
bave been in j ournalism too long fo be hurt. Only, if is
annoying for me fo think that perhaps the Liberal party is
belng hurt by ail t'hese attacks directed against me. And
yet, how great a man I would become, in the Tory press, if
I were fo leave your cabinet to-morrow!
115
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Sir Wilfrid replies:
( Transla'.tin.)
Ottawa, Apri 30, 1900
. . . A word now as fo the evolution that Tupper is trying
fo go through in the province of Quebec. If is hot being
done af ail in the way you assume. The campaign in Quebec
is hot against military imperialism but against parliamcntary
imperia|ism. Many of your speeches and a few of mine are
the fodder they are throwing fo our province. I do hot, how-
ever, believe that the movement will be serious ; so far, if is hot.
If nay procuce a ccrtain alarm, but the position in which
Tuppcr "bas placed himself is a false one. If has bcen very
well analyzed by Tardivel in "La Vérité." Tardivel does hot
love us ; me especially he hand]es without gloves, but he makes
very clear the distinction that exists between what he calls
parliamentary imperialism, wbich, for that marrer, he declares
impossible, unrealizable, and the military imperialism of
Tuppcr, which ho regards as a reality.
. . Nothing is more dangerous, in my opinion, than the
reporters. They take a t'hought on the wing and develop
if in the direction of their own opinion. I fancy that some-
thing of the kind is what happened with you and the "Le
Matin" reporter.
( Israel Tarte to Wilfrd Laurier.--Translation)
Paris, May 7, 1900
Mv D«R SIR WILVmD:
Although I have enough here fo keep me busy, I will hot
conceal from you the fact that I ara beginning fo be bored.
Either one is in politics or one is n't; that becomes more and
more clear fo me. If I were fo leave the cabinet to-morrow,
my interest would taarn in other directions. But so long as
I a.m a minister, I shall worry about my department and my
party whenever I am hOt in the thick of the fight.
Sir Charles Tupper's volte-face has completed his discredit
in London. Your government is very popular in England,
but less so on the Continent, and especially in France. Af
116
TH FLOOD TID OF IMPRIALIS
a reception the other day af the Department of Commerce,
M. Delcassé accosted me with the remark: "Ah, you bave been
giving a preference of 33% to England." I replied that we
are very rich, and that we are always pleased to grant favours
to countries t'bat admit our products free.
( Wilfrid Lu.rer fo Israel Tarte.--Tramdatio)
Ottawa, May 20, 1900
The session is now distinctly in out favour. The Op-
position played a last card on the unfortunate West Huron
and Brockville arfairs [charges of by-election corrupt prac-
tices]. We bave got around the lifllculty by granting a
commission which will not merely concern itself with Brock-
ville and with West Huron, that is to say with our peccadillos,
but will look into the peccadillos of out adversaries. They
will inquire into ail the arfairs of this kind whether on the
Conservative or on the Liberal side, which have adorned the
political history of Ontario for some years past. Out policy
on the marrer was a surprise fo the Opposition ; I bdieve it
was a happy inspiration. I expect that a few of out friends,
fortunatcly not in high places, will be more or less sprayed,
but out adversaries should surfer more than we as the result
of the inquiry. However that may be, the system in vogue
in Ontario is deplorable ; if must be ended. :For my part,
I am ready to put an end fo it, even if that involves exposing
ourselves fo blows. That is the only honourable means of ex-
tricating ourselves from a deplorable situation in whictt we
have been involved by contemptible j obbers.
Despite the vigorous Opposition assault, the elee-
tions resulted in a distinct gain for the government.
In Ontario if lost fourteen seats; the lzrger cities and
the constituencies in which in 1896 the strong Prot-
estant vote had gone against the Tupper cabinet, now
swung back. Quebec, largely for the reverse of the
reasons that brought loss in Ontario, voted nearly
solidly Liberal, the Conservatives retaining only seven
117
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
seats out of sixty-five. The Maritime provinces were
not carried away by facial cries as much as either of
the larger provinces,--"Imperialism is a local issue,"
one Maritime politician had parodied--and the SVest,
thankful for the new prosperity, went strongly govern-
ment. Sir Charles Tupper, Mr. Foster, and Hugh
John Macdonald, who had given up his Manitoba
premiership fo aid them, were 11 defeated. The
government was given a new lease of life.
CHAPTER XII
THE UNITED STATES: 1896--1903
Colony and RepublieA policy of Friendship--The Dingley
Tritf--The Joint High CommissionnSuecess and Failure--The
Alaska Boundary--Negotàations for Settlement--Arbitration and
Arbitrators--A Diplomatie Decision--Canalian ProtestsnLaurier
and the Treaty-Making Power.
N the Laurier government's early years, as in its
last years, the relations of Canada with the
United States were a constant preoccupation.
They presented a double difficulty. One was the ques-
tion of status,--the question how far, if at all, a colony
could have dealings with a foreign country. The other
was the difficulty of the specific issues, the boundary
controversies which from time to time threatened the
peace of the continent.
The question of status complicated every issue. The
course of transition from eolony fo nation was slow
and uneven, and the control of foreign affairs was its
last stage. In its participation in the South African
War, Canada had ruade its first venture into overseas
foreign affairs. With its own continent, its relations
were of much longer and more intimate standing, so
much so that many Canadians then as later failed to
reeognize in these familiar line-fente disputes with its
neighbour the very controversies which were the staple of
diplomacy in older lands. Canada, it was held, had no
119
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
voice in foreign affairs: foreign affairs meant the pomp
and circumstance of formal diplomacy, the gold and
lace of ambassadors, bristling cannon along the border.
There was measure of justification in this failure
to see that Canada was in fact dealing every day with
"foreign affairs," sinee her political intercourse with
the United States was for the most part indirect, filtered
through British agencies. Miss Ottaw had a voice,
but etiquette forbade her speaking to Mr. Vashington
except through Papa London. Yet slowly this con-
vention was giving way. Canadian representatives
had corne to share in British negotiations with the
United States on Canadian issues, first as subordinate
purveyors of information, later as full if minority
plenipotentiaries of the Crown. Sir Charles Tupper's
masterful insistence had even threatened to short-
circuit the triangular intercourse, Ottawa-London-
Washington. Now further advnce was fo be
effected.
The specific issues which faced the Laurier govern-
ment in its relations with the United States were many.
_A_long a three-thousand-mile boundary there was ample
room for differences. In the mood that had marked
public opinion during the years tht had passed, the
assured self-suflàciency of the United States, the in-
difference of Great Britain, the petulant suspicion
of Canada,--these differences had .hardened into
antagonisms. Not a single old issue had been finally
settled, and new ones were constantly rising. The
question of the rights of United States fishermen in
190
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
Canada's Atlantic waters had been met in 1888 by a
modus vivendi, but the Canadian fishermen still sought
a permanent settlement on the basis of free fishing for
free fish. The rights of Canadian sealers in Bering Sea
had been upheld by a court of arbitration in 1893, but
the five-year experiment in restricted pelagic sealing
then effected was drawing near ifs close and chaos
loomed again. The reciprocal privilege of transport-
ing goods across the frontier in bond to seaport, or to
another part of the country of origin, rested on no
firm treaty basis. The desire of United States ship-
building plants on the Great Lakes to share in building
the new navy had led to demands for revising the Rush-
Bagot gentleman's agreement of 1817, limiting arma-
ment in boundary waters. The eongressmen who
had enaeted, and the De Barrys who had administered,
the Alien Labour Law barring the ineoming of workrnen
under eontraet had ereated in Canada a demand for
repeal or retaliation. The diseovery of gold in the
Klondike was soon to give new urgeney to the settle-
ment of the last undetermined boundary, along the
panhandle strip of Alaska through whieh Canada had
fo seek aeeess to its own hinterland. Liberal poliey
in the past and threatening United States developments
in the present gave a new angle to the eternal trade
and tariff issue. /kll told, no laek of diflïeulties, or
opportunities.
The retaper of the rime was unfortunately not favour-
able for a frank and friendly settlement. In the
United States, the unreeking, provincial assurance of
121
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
a people unpreeedentedly sueeessful, isolated, flag-
worshipping, the anti-British twist whieh history and
the Irish vote had naturally given ifs diplomaey, and
the division of treaty-making power between the Ex-
eeutive and the Senate, ruade negotiation thorny and
ratification a gamble. As fo trade, the irony of fate
was bringing tbe I)emocratic low-tariff régime to an
end just when the Liberal low-tariff régime was be-
ginning; the new President, Villiam McKinley, was
the chier apostle of high protection, and a swinging
tariff had been the foremost Republican campaign
plank. In Canada, public opinion was little more
auspicious. Ail the old anti-America.nism born of
U. E. L. and 1812 traditions and of uneasy jealousy
of ifs neighbour's worldly prosperity had flamed into
new tire. The McKinley tariff, with its prohibitive rates
upon Canadian farm products, lmd roused antagonism,
but it was the Venezuela episode,--Olney's "the fiat of
tbe United States is law," and "any permanent union
between a European and an American state unnatural
and inexpedient," and Cleveland's ultimattma,--and that
in spire of, or because of, the certainty that if war came
Canada would be the bttle-field, that hardened Cana-
dian opinion. The opening of the British market for
Canadian dairy and bacon products and the new
prosperity that followed the development of the ,Vest
were giving an assurance and self-reliance which ruade
it possible for Canada fo be baughty in her turn.
The cabinet shared in some degxee this attitude of
resentment and growing indifference, but ifs leading
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
members were strongly convinced of the need of clear-
ing away all possible sources of friction. Sir Richard
Cartwright was espeeially insistent, lor many years
he had given to international affairs more study than
any other member of the House. He had been able
to rise above the prejudiees of the moment and had
beeome one of the earliest and most persistent
voeates of an alliance of ail the English-speaking
peoples as the soundest basis for the peaee of the world.
To Mr. Laurier this ideal did not make so strong
sentimental appeal, and its achievement seemed to him
beyond the range of pr,ctieal polities in his generation,
but he was equally determined to nmke every effort
consistent with the eountry's interests and ifs honour
to end the era of pin-pricks and misunderstanding.
At one of the first meetings of the cabinet he had de-
elared that the establishment of close and friendly rela-
tions with the United States must be a cardinal feature
of Canadan poliey, and that wlmtever the United
States authorities might do, the Canadian government
must not eater to prejudiees. _As a means to this end,
he insisted that Canada must more a.nd more take nego-
tiations with Washington into her own hands. In Lon-
don in 1897 he ruade this elear to Mr. Chamberlain,
who acquieseed.
lrom the point of view of the Canadian government,
the question of trade poliey required first eonsideration.
The presidential elections of November, 1896, had ruade
it elear that $.Vashington would be strongly protee-
tionist, but it was desirable to. learn the extent and
details of the pending tariff changes. There was no
128
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Canadian minister af Washington, and it was hot desir-
able fo invoke the aid of the :British minister, Sir
Julian Pauneefote, until more formal stage in ny
possible negotiations should be reached. At this
juncture, Mr. ,loln Charlton, who had been born in
the United Sttes and still had close business relations
aeross the border, offered his services to visit Vash-
ington and sound Mr. Dingley, the chairman of the
Ways and Means Comnfittee, and other friends in
Congress. Mr. Laurier agreed, impressing the need
of making if elear tbat he had no offieial standing,
a warning whieh it was soon neeessary to emphasize:
(Wilfrid Laurier to John Charlton)
Ottawa, January 18, 1897
MY DEAR CHARLTON :
There is a report current in all the newspapers that you
have been sent fo Washington on an official mission. I depend
on you to contradict this report yourself. In the correspond-
ence exchanged bctween us, you remembcr that you told me
that if was absolutely useless fo send anybody on an official
mission to Washington until the new Administration had been
installed in office. This seemed fo me perfectly reasonable,
and my colleagucs shared in the saine opinion. But while it
was inadvisable fo send a Commission fo Washington, it is
quite proper that as many prominent Canadians as possible
should visit Washington and corne in touch with the leaders
of the Republic. In that connection if is therefore quite
advisablc that you should go, but I wish you would be careful
to let if be known that you came slmply as a citizen of Can-
ada, and in no other capacity. I wish also that you would
utilize your stay there fo obtain information and for nothing
else ....
We must hold our hands free fo deal in any direction which
the interests of Canada may demand, and whilst for my part
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
I am strongly impressed with the view that our relations with
our neighbours should be friendly, at the same rime I am
equally strong in the opinion that we may have fo take the
American tariffaif conceived in hostility fo Canada--and
make it the Canadian tariff.
Mr. Charlton, after a conference with Sir Julian
Pauncefote, irterviewed official SVashington. The
retiring Secretary of State, Richard Olney, was very
friendly and regretted that the Democratic administra-
tion was not fo have the opportunity it would have
desired of framing a reciprocity agreement with Can-
ada. $Ir. Sherman, who was to be the nev secretary,
was equally friendly but more vague. 1 It was soon
apparent that the high protectionists were in the saddle.
The Dingley tariff, passed during the special session
in the spring and summer of 1897, proved to be the
most extreme measure in American annals, out-Mc-
Kinleying even the McKinley tariff. It was therefore
not surprising that the first Liberal budget, instead
of proposing reciprocity with the United States as
Mr. Charlton found Mr. Edward Farrer also in Washington on a
mission of inquiry. After observing the need of publicity fo dispel the
ignorance of Canadian affairs prevalent in the United States, he continucd.
"In this connection I may say that Mr. Edward Farrer is in a position
fo rentier us very important services, and is doing st-at the present
rime. While it would not be prudent or judicious in my opinion to as-
sociate Farrer publicly with any work in connection with negotiations,
or for you to hold direct public communication with him to any con-
sIderable extent, yet it is well, I imagine, to let him know that his services
are appreciated, and that the value of the service he is capable of render-
ing is thoroughly understood. I find he stands well with newspaper men
in Washington, and is intimately acquainted with the leading newspaper
correspondents in that city. He also has wide acquaintance with American
public men, and I think that he is disposed fo use his influence loyally
for the benefit of Canada, and that he bas given up the idea of persisting
in the presentation and urging of his political union sentiments."
125
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
would bave been the poliey of a Liberal government
rive years earlier, ruade the preference fo British and
]ow-tariff eountries its central feature.
The first step toward a more formal discussion of
the situation .came from Washington. The five-year
restriction on pelagie sealing was drawing fo a close,
and the United States government was anxious to re-
new and extend the agreement. Mr. I)avies, who had
diseussed the question with file Foreign and Colonial
offices in London during the summer, and Sir Vilfrid,
aceompanied by the experts who had been studying the
case, visited Vashington in November. Out of the
discussion there emerged a proposal fo refer not merely
the sealing but ail outstanding questions fo a joint com-
mission for settlement. Four months later, in May,
1898, Mr. I)avies, with Sir Julian, met General Foster
and Mr. Kasson of the State I)epaloEment and drew
up a protoeol for the organization and terms of ref-
erence of the commission.
I)espite the frankness and eourtesy of the weleome
given by President MeKinley and the offieers of the
State Department, Sir Vilfrid was not sanguine of the
outeome. "We have had a warn weleome and some
cool proposais," he wrote a friend in Canada. "I eon-
fess," he wrote in July, "tiret I bave very serious doubts
as t« any praetieal results fo be expeeted from the
Commission." Yet these doubts did not lessen the
endeavour fo form the strongest possible commission,
and fo press the opportunity fo the utmost. As rep-
resenting Her Majesty, Lord I-Iersehell, the British
126
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
Lord 'Chancellor, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir Richard
Cartwright, Mr. Louis Davies and Mr. John Charlton,
of Canada, and Sir ,lames Winter of Newfoundland,
were appointed, while Senator Fairbanks, Senator
Gray, and Mr. Dingley, with General Foster, Mr.
,l. A. Kasson, and Mr. T. ,l. Coolidge of the State
Department, were named for the United States. Sir
Wilfrid had grave doubts as to the advisability of
taking a personal part in negotiations which might in-
volve months of absence, but the importance of the
issues and his desire to obtain a rst-hand knowledge
of Washington men and ways, guided his decision. It
was significant of President McKinley's friendliness
that he had expressed the personal wish that Sir Vilfrid
might find it possible to take part. Significant, also,
of the changing place of "Canada in the Empire was the
fact that while bn the Joint High Commission of 1871
there had" been four British and one Canadian melnber
--though, it is true, the dominant issue was then a Brit-
ish one--and in 1887 two British and one Canadian,
proportions were now reversed.
The commission met first in Quebec--another rec-
ognition of eotuality--from August 23 until October
10, 1898, and latcr in Washington, from November
9, 1898, until February 20, 1899. Dcspitc conflicting
duties and the illness and later the death of Mr. Dingley,
it made good progress. "The atmosphere at Vash-
ington had moderated. "There is no doubt," Sir
Vilfrid wrote in November, "that there is a new and
general good-will observable here." During the Span-
127
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ish-American War (April to August, 1898), the United
States had suddenly realized that Continental Europe
was not merely in sympathy with Spain but bitterly
and dangerously antagontistie to this audaeious and
aggressive republie, and further, that Great :Britain
was genuinely anxious fo be a friend. Af ter the war,
embarked upon a poliey of imperialist expansion, with
hostages given to fortune in the laeifie and the Carib-
bean, Washington round ifs old poliey of .solation
and eheerful disdain of all foreign powers somewhat
harder to maintain. The eommon sharing of the SVhite
Man's Burden and the eommon ideals of lire and poliey
drew the United States and Great Britain eloser to-
gether, so the Anglo-Saxon version tan. "The old
lirate and the young pirate are joining forces for
moral support," was a $¥ashington diplomat's version
fo Sir SVilfrid. Alike in London and in ¥ashington
the personal factors ruade for friendship; Lord Salis-
bury and John Itay, who beeame Seeretary of State
in September, 1898, were friends and were both eon-
vineed that Anglo-Ameriean friendship was essential
for the peaee of the world. Canada, eonsidered as
yet merely an adjunet to ]ritain, shared in the new
favour as it had shared in the disfavour of other days.
Even so, this. new friendfiness had its limits. The
State I)epartment was quite prepared to take advan-
rage of its friend's greater eagerness to be a friend.
What was more, Congress and the general publie had
hot shifted as far as the diplomats whose eyes were in
the ends of the earth. Senators were still jealous of
128
Rodolphe Lemieux
Sir Clifford Sifton
Sir Frederiek Borden
David hIills
ydney l«isher
ir Richard 8cott
Sir Charles Fitzpatrick
William Templeman
GROUP OF 5IINISTERS
Hon. M. E. Bernier
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
their treaty-making powers, and still suspicious of
Rritish wiles. "One dubious consolation," wrote Sir
Wilfrid, "is that if the Senate sometimes irritates us,
if irritates the Secretary of State still more." And
again: "I reminded the Senator [Sir. Fairbanks?] of
the Canadian saying that the Senate's power of ratify-
ing or rejecting treaties which he Executive has nego.-
tiated gives the United States the saine advantage
as a horse-trader who has the privilege of going back
on his bargain if his wife does n't like the nag when
she sees if. He replied, 'Why cannot European powers
take a wife?' Perhaps their .secrets-are not such as
may safely be risked fo a wife."
The relations of the members of tbe commission were
frank and friendly. Sir $¥ilfrid round his United
States colleagues straightforward if stiff negotiators.
lIr. Dingley, wbo had been somewhat of a bogey, he
round fo be honestly anxious for an equitable settlement.
His chief complaint was that they were tied and ham-
pered by local interests: "The Commission is bounded
on the eas by Gloucester cod and on the west by
Indiana lambs, no, sometimes on tbe west by Seattlc
lions." If may be recalled that lIr. Hay, considering
Canada merely a local subdivision in the British Empire,
had somewhat the same complaint of localism fo make of
Sir SVilfrid. 1 One comfor¢ing feature was the abiliy
1 To Joseph A. Choate, April 28, 1899: "You are by this rime probahly
aware of the great diIicuRies that surround Che arrangement of any con-
troversy in which Canada is concerned. The Dominion politicians care
litle for English in:eres[s. Their minds are complctely occupied with
their own party and fac[ional disputes, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier is far
more afraid of Sir Charles Tupper than he is of Lord Salisbury and
129
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
and zeal displayed by Lord I-Ierschell in advancing
Canadian interests. His activity drew from Mr. Hay
petulant complaints to London and from Sir Vilfrid
warm testimony in private and in public: "I-Ie was hot
only a great judge, he was not only a great statesman,
he was hot only a clever diplomat, but he was as true a
friend of Canada as ever crossed the Atlantic .... I-Ie
fought for Canada not only with enthusiasm but with
conviction and devotion." 1 Vhen, at the close of the
negotiations, Lord Herschell met with an accident in
Vashington which resulted shortly in lais death, his
fellow commissioners felt the loss as a personal blow.
OEhe extent of the agreement reached may be indicated
by two letters, from Sir Vilfrid to Principal Grant,
President McKinley combined; while the habit of referring everything
from the Foreign Office to the Colonial, followed by a consultation of
the Canadian authorities by the Minister of the Colonies, produces inter-
minable friction and delay."--W. R. Thayer, "The Life and Letters of
John Hay," II, 205.
x House of Commons, Match 31, 1899. The Canadian Commissioners
found one instance of local interests in their own body. One of the most
controverted tariff questions was a long-standing lumber war, the United
States admitting Canadian logs free but taxing its lumber, Canada reply-
ing with an export duty on logs, the United States rejoining with an extra
fax on lumber equal to the export duty. Then Ontario, in 1897, took a
hand, its Liberal government forced in ifs growing wea-kness to accede to
the Conservative proposal of compelling licenses on Crown land timber-
limits fo manufacture in Ontario. Mr. Charlton, who had told Sir Wilfrid
on his appointment that flaey could only do their best, "believing that
Higher Power will shape events;' and who incidentally was a large
exporter of logs from Ontario to Miehigan, decided to take a hand him-
self in shaping events, carrying on an indiscreet newspaper campaign
which led Mr. Hay to protest that he was making the irreconcilables in
his own camp more irreconcilable, and even seeking, without the knowledge
of his colleagues, fo have the British government intervene against the
Ontario law. Sir Wilfrid lost little time in bringing these aetivities to
an end.
130
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
with whom he was in constant touch, and from Senator
Fairbanks fo Sir Wilfrid at a later date:
Ottawa, 27 February, 1899
DV.AR PRINCIPAL GltAIT :
There has been a great deal of raisconception as fo the
character of the negotiations af Washington. The impression
was that we were struggling with raight and raain fo obtain
a wide raeasure of reciprocity. The reverse is the truth. We
struggled fo obtain reciprocity in lumber, because the con-
dition of things in so far as lumber is concerned is acute
and raay bècome worse. I raay say, however, that in this we
raade no progress whatever. We also endeavoured fo obtain
a fair raesure of reciprocity in rainerals, in which we were
altogether successful; in quarry products, in which we were
also quite successful; and in a few agricultural products
in which we,had some partial success. On the whole, with
reference fo the reciprocity question, I ara quite satisfied with
the progress which we ruade, barring the sole article of lumber,
and we can af any raoraent raake a very fair treaty.
Our chier efforts, however, were directed fo three subjects:
the Atlantic fisheries, the Pacific seal fisheries, and the Alaska
boundary.
With regard fo the Atlantic fisheries, we raade no progress
whatever. Concerning the Pacific seal fisheries, we would have
obtained a very valuable treaty. Efforts have been raade,
as you know, fo discredit our action on this subject as imply-
ing a surrender of national rights. As fo this, the seal fish-
ermen are the best judges, and we kept ourselves, af every
step, in close contact with them. I have no hesitation fo say
that the arrangeraent that we would bave ruade, and with
which they were satisfied, would have been acceptable fo the
whole country and would have shown that we ruade no sur-
tender.
The sturabling-block was the Alaska boundary. In this, our
American fellow Comraissioners were af first and almost fo
the last disposed fo corne fo a reasonable compromise. I raay
131
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
tell you confidentlally that the compromise was that they gave
us Pyramid Harbour on the Lynn Canal with everything but
the offlcial sovereignty in naine; in other words, the arrange-
ment whlch we had practically concluded was that we should
have Pyramid Harbour under our jurisdlction, our laws and
our administration, but that if, at any moment, we chose no
longer to occupy it, it would revert to the United States.
This arrangcment provoked such a storm in the Pacific states
that our fellow Commissioners withdrew their consent. There
was nothing lcft but to arbitrate. We wantcd to arbitrate
upon the terres of the Venczuela treaty. This they would not
conscnt fo. Thcre was nothing else to do but to stop
thcn and thcrc. They offercd fo go on with the other subjects
rcfcrred to us, but thls we declined to do, and insisted, bcfore
we proccedcd with the other articles, that they should either
settle thc boundary question by agreement or by reference to
arbitration.
Therc is the position. But whether we meet again or not,
I sce no reason not fo press forward the three subjects to which
you call my attention [thc Pacific cab/e, river and ocean trans-
portation, the Newfoundland French shore dispute]. I differ
from you only on one point. I do not think that Canada
should share in the compensation to be paid to France for the
relinquishment of her treaty rights in Newfoundland. On
this question, I think that the burden ought to be taken up by
the Imperial govcrnment. The first point is to get the French
to relinquish thcir treaty rights. I rather fear that Chamber-
lain has hot facilitated this most desirable object by his recent
speechcs. Those speeches of his bave conslderably rubbed the
pride of the French, and perhaps, in consequence, for a few
years, they may turn a deaf ear to any suggestion of a
compromise.
I fully agree with you that the chief problem is the problem
of transportation, but I go further than you do. I do not
want to give up the project of the fast Atlantic service. We
ean and ought fo have the most popular route for tourists.
In addition fo that, while I agree with you that the harbours
of Quebee and Montreal must be equipped, the one thlng on
132
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
which I have now set my heart is winter navigation of the St.
Lawrence fo Quebec. This is a subject which I have had in
mlnd for years, and I have been constantly investigating if.
I am now very near fo be absolutely satisfied that itis perfectly
feasible, and I propose fo have the experiment made next sure-
mer. On the whole, you will sec that there is very little
difl%rence between you and ae. The present opportunity
must hOt be lost, and Canada must undertake an immense step
forward. If can be donc.
Believe me, dear Principal Grant, with great respect,
Yours very sincerely,
WI.»'aID LAVIUEm
(Senator Fairbaks to Wilfrid Laurier)
Indianapolis, July 18, 1901
. . If may be well briefly fo rcview the progress made by
the Commission in the determination of the questions submitted
to it. There were twelve principal questions cmbraced in the
protocol of May, 1898. Most of them wcre vexatious and of
long standing. Many of them had bccn the source of friction
and annoyance fo the two governmcnts for many years. The
Commission devoted much rime and serious consideration fo
and practically reached conclusions as to most of them. I
will refer fo them briefly in tlle order of their submission:
1. Bering Sea seal fisheries: substantially solved.
2. Other fisheries: good promise of ultimate adjustment
as fo coast fisheries; Great Lakes regulations substantially
agreed upon.
4 and 5. Bonding privileges: agreement reached except as
to trafic passing from points in the United States through
Canada fo other points in the United States.
6. Alien labor laws : agreement reached and articles drafted.
7. Mining ,'ights: agreement reached and articles drafted.
8. Reciprocity in trade: tentative agreement, though sat-
isfactory conclusion hOt probable on many articles, chiefly
lumber and farm products, on which Canadians urged very
considerable concessions.
133
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
9. Naval vessels on the Lakes: amply considered and
conclusion reached.
10. Frontier definition and marking: substantially agreed.
11. Conveyance of prisoners through other country's terri-
tory: agreement reached and article outlined.
12. Reciprocity in wrecking and salvage: agreement reached
and article draftcd.
I have omitted until fhe present, .mention of article number--
8. "Provisions for the delimitation and establishment of
the Alaska-Canadian Boundary by legal and scienfific experts,
if the Commission shall so decide, or otherwise."
This article, as we are well aware, is unsettled, and by the
action of the Commission was remitted to the two governments
for thcir further consideration, pending which the Commission
adjourned ....
The Alaska boundary dispute, which the commission
proved unable fo solve, was the last in the long series of
controversies over the determination of the bouuda T
between Canada and the United States. The vague-
ness of early maps and the looseness of diplomats'
phrasing as usual gave ground for difference in treaty
interpretation, and as usual national pride, touched to
the quick by any suggestion of giving up the sacred soil
over which the sacred flag had floated, or should have
floated, ruade cool settlement difficult. In 1825. Britain
and Russia had concluded a treaty delimiting the
boundaries of their territories in North-Vest America;
Canada had succeeded to Britain's claires and the
United States to Russia's. From time to rime minor
incidents urged the necessity of a definite interpretation
and demarcation, but settlers were few and governments
184
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
busy, and matters drifted till the Klondike discoveries
compelled action.
Through what channel was the boundary to run from
Prince of Wales Island to the mainland? What line
was the boundary thence to follow? The crest of the
mountains parallel to the coast, and, if so, which moun-
tains, or--the alternative provided in the treaty when
these mountains should prove more than ten leagues dis-
tant from the ocean--a line parallel to the sinuosities
of the coast and never more than ten leagues distant?
Canada contended that mountains did exist near the
coast and that a line drawn along their crests would
leave well within Canadian territory many deep inlets,
and especially Lynn Inlet, from which access to the
Yukon was chiefly sought. The United States insisted
that the coast strip or lisière was meant to be a solid
barrier, and that the boundary, whether following moun-
tains or the ten-league line, nmst run around the head of
every inlet and shut Canada out of any harbour along
the coast. The Canadian case was weak in that for
seventy years the assumption of Russia and the United
States-that the lisière was unbroken had gone virtually
unchallenged, and ]3ritish maps as well as Russian and
American had shown the boundary running around the
heads of the inlets. 1 It was well arguable as regards
1 British and Canadian statesmen had frequently pressed for demarca-
tion, but save for an informal referenee by Dr. Dawson in 1886, had not
claimed the inlets. "We round ourselves hampered to the most extreme
degree," declared Sir Richard Cartwright in the House (Mareh 22, 1899),
"by the extraordinary apathy and indifference which the government of
Canada for the period of eighteen years from 1878 fo 1896 had manifested
135
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the intention shown in the long-drawn-out negotiations
preeeding the treaty. It was very strong on the basis
of the final wording of the treaty itself. It was unan-
swerable on the ground of relative need, but this was not
eommonly reeognized as a basis of international adjust-
ments. Meanwlfile, the United States was largely in
possession.
In the discussion in the commission, the Canadian
members sought first to seeure a compromise, generally,
by linking this with other questions on whieh the United
States wished concessions, and speeifieally, by propos-
ing to aeknowledge the right of the United States to
the settled harbours on Lynn Inlet, Dyea, and Skag-
way, if the United States would aeknowledge that
lyramid Harbour was Canadian. The United States
eommissioners ruade light of the whole Canadian elairn
as a case trurnped up in view of the Klondike diseoveries,
but through various pre]iminary stages they advaneed
to a proposal to grant to Canada for fifty years the full
in regard fo this question:' As fo the government of the 1873-78 period,
Sir Richard ruade no comment. Itis plain, in Mr. Christopher Robinson's
vords, that "until the completion of the Canadien Pacific, Canada knew
more of Egypt than she did of British Columbia itself." The one protest
which the Canadian government had attempted to make, and which, if
ruade, would greatly bave strengthened its position, had been foozled by
the British ambassador af Washington. In 1889 Sir John Macdonald
raised a definite protest against the occupation of territory bordering
on the Lynn Canal, but in view of the fact 'that the Foreign Office dis-
approves of communication from Ottawa fo Washington direct," he asked
Tupper to ask Salisbury to instruct the British minister to convey the
protest fo the State Department; Sir Lionel Sackville-West, writing from
a comfortable summer hotel veranda, informed Mr. Bayard that some
Canadians had raised some objection fo some action of Americans about
a charter somewhere in the Alaska region, whereto Mr. Bayard had nat-
urally replied it was hot so, ,nd the marrer endeà.
186
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
use, but not the sovereignty, of Pyramid Harbour and
a strip of land behind it; later, they qualified this pro-
posal by insisting that for purposes of the eoasting
trade the harbour must be eounted a part of the United
States,--and thus barred to vessels trading from Cana-
dian ports; then, as Sir SVilfrid's letter to Dr. Grant
indieates, a storm of protest from Seattle and Taeoma,
whieh flourished on the Yukon trade, foreed the aban-
donrnent of this reasonable and friendly plan. Failing
agreement, the Canadian delegates urged arbitration
of the whole boundary, on the Venezuela basis, by a
tribunal of three members, one to be seleeted by the
,ludieial Committee of the Privy Couneil, one by the
19resident of the United States, and the third eo-optated
or otherwise ehosen, with power fo eonsider occupation
and other equities as well as the wording of the treaty.
The United States delegates were strongly opposed to
arbitrating what they insisted was indubitably and for
seventy years unquestioned Ameriean territory. In
view, however, of their own insistenee on arbitration
in Venezuela, they were eompelled to make some con-
cession, but still endeavoured to avert any chance of
losing. They aeeordingly proposed a tribunal of six
impartial jurists of repute, three appointed by eaeh
party, and a regulation that in any case any tide-water
towns or settlements then under United States juris-
diction should so remain. The Canadian eommissioners
deelined a proposal whieh might mean dead-lock and
would in any case guarantee the United States the
most important matters in question. The United
187
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
States declined to accepta European umpire; Canada,
"in view of the poliey long maintained and recently
reasserted by the government of the United States
toward the other countries on the American continents,"
declined a South American umpire. Neither side
would give way, and the commission was forced to ad-
journ without a solution.
Failure to agree on the Alaskan question involved
suspension of action on the other issues. The United
States members urged concluding what could be settled,
but, for the reasons clearly expressed in a memorandum
by Lord I-Ierschell, the Canadians could not agree.'
The commission never met again, but its efforts were
not in vain. The tentative conclusions it had reached
were, at a later period, embodied in separate treaties
and for the most part ratified.
For over four years the Alaska question hung tire.
It had been agreed that the discussion would be con-
tinued through the regular diplomatie channels. For
these four years, in a constant exchange of despatches
I *qr e bave hot suggested that unless every one of the questions sub-
mitted to the Commission can be settled none of them should be, but if
appears to us that the Alaska boundary is the one of ail others which it
is most important to have settled if good relations are tobe maintained
between Great Britain and the United States. The nature of the diî-
ferenee is such that from cireumstanees wh,ich may arise at any moment.
and whiel are too obvious to need statement, acute controversy and even
the risk of eonfliet may arise. Moreover, itis a question which there
will be no belter chance of settling ata future rime than there is now,
and one whieh, in our opinion may be settled without diflàculty by nations
aeting in a friendly spirit. On other points we are to make concessions
with a view to avoid friction and differenees in the future. We are willing
to do so, but we eannot feel it reasonable that we should be required to
take such a course, if this far greater cause of danger is fo remain in
existence when in our opinion if might quite well be removed."
188
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
from London to Washington, with subsidiary consul-
rations between London and Ottawa, the effort was
made to find common ground. Besides the professional
diplomats, amateurs tried their hand; Mr. Farrer had
frequent interviews with Mr. Hay and leading senators,
and George W. Smalley, the Vashington correspond-
ent of the London "Times," in 1902, carried a message
from Sir Vilfrid to the President and Mr. I-Iay.
Neither professional nor amateur found the task easy.
In 1899 the Boer Var broke out, reviving popular
hostility to Britain in the United States, and in Septem-
ber, 1901, the assassination of Villiam McKinley
brought Theodore Roosevelt and his incalculable im-
petuosity into the equation.
The anxiety of the United States to secure control
of an Isthmian canal, and, as a means fo this end, fo
secure the revocation of the Bulwer-Cla.vton treaty giv-
ing Britain joint rights with the United States in any
Isthmian undertaking, seemed to offer an opportunity.
Vhy not barrer concessions in Central America for
concessions in Alaska? I-Iere was an opportunity to
test the value of the imperial connection, the diplomatie
resources of a far-flung Empire. Lord Lansdowne
agreed, and sought to make a bargain, but without
success. The Bulwer-Clayton treaty was replaced by
the I-Iay-Pauncefote treaty, the United States was
given a free hand in Central America, but no conces-
sion was secured in return. As published despatches
had ruade it evident that Lord Lansdowne at one stage
had favoured this policy, it was assumed in Canada that
139
:LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WI:LFRID :LAURIER
the failure to press the opportunity was due to the
:Lauricr government's remissness. In a debate
the House in March, 1902, Mr. Robert Borden and Mr.
V. F. Maclean strongly condemned the government
for its laxity and neglect of Canadian interests in fail-
ing to urge that the United States sbould give as well
as take. Sir Vilfrid said no word in reply, but the
fact was that the responsibility did not rest on his shoul-
ders. In February, .1900, when the first ttay-Paunce-
fore treaty was under consideration, the Colonial Office
was mformed that in deference to the strong]y expressed
views of the imperial government that in the interests
of the Empire, Her Majesty's government should agree
to sign the convention modifying the Bulwer-Clayton
treaty at once, and realizing the gravity of those views,
the Canadian government would not continue to press
the objections to such action contained in their order in
council of April previous, but they would still express
the hope that Her Majesty's government would strongly
urge upon the United States government the con-
siderations tere indicated. Probably those observers
were right who asserted tht with the loss of prestige
and the growth of Continental enmity entailed by the
Boer XYar, the British government could not well press
any view hard.
In 1901 a modus-vivendi boundary was effected for
the Dalton trail, in the Lynn Inlet region. With this
breathing-spell secured, Mr. Hay prepared in May,
1901, drafts of two treaties, one to provide for arbitra-
tion on the boundary issue, and the other to settle
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
the remaining questions except trade reciprocity and
the Atlantie fisheries. The Canadian government took
the stand that all the latter questions should be referred
fo the commission; as fo the draft of the boundary
treaty, the provision for an even number of arbitrators
prevented finality, and the questions were so framed
as fo involve surrender of the Canadian daim on im-
portant points; the government therefore respeetfully
but unequivoeally dee]ined assent fo the treaties, partieu-
lady as no concession had been ruade to balance the
Bulwer-Clayton concession. In February, 1902, the
British government endorsed and transmitted these
objections. Then suddenly opposition arose from
another quarter. :Pesident McKinle:y had left the
negotiations wholly in Mr. Hay's hands, but President
Roosevelt had a policy and a will of his own in foreign
as in home affairs. Through the oflïcial channels it was
reported that Mr. Hay wa.s despondent, that the
President was being pressed by Pacific coast interests
and by sympathizers with the Boer Republic, and that
he had expressed his determined opposition to arbitrat-
ing the unquestionable rights of the Uuited States, snce
arbitration almost certainly involved compromise; and
that af most he would consent fo appointing a tribunal
merely fo record a reasoned opinion. Through semi-
oflàcial British channels if was reported that Canada
must give up ail claire to the sea-coast, in which case she
might be gn-anted some small concession af the Portland
Canal end of the frontier; that the President and Mr.
Hay were being attacked for their British proclivities
11
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
and that the sooner Canada came fo terms the better.
Through unoflïeial ehannels the same diflïeulties were
noted; Mr. 17arrer reported:
The Republicans under any circumstances would hesitate fo
draw the Demoeratic tire by granting arbitration, and as
matters stand it would be suicidal fo do so belote fle fall
eongressional eleetions .... A good many of the leaders are
favourable fo arbitration; the trouble is they are afraid of the
tank and file and of the people af large, who are hall disposed
fo suspect that Mr. Hay is too pliant so far as England is
eoncerned. He himself feels that this suspicion is in the air
and is rather nervous about if.
Finally, in the winter of 1902-08, agreement was
reacbed. The election.s and the Boer Var were over.
Mr. Hay had eommitted himself to arbitration and
strove honourably and tenaeiously fo earry his point.
In Deeember, Sir Vilfrid, who had been convaleseing
at Hot Springs, Virginia, after a severe illness, by re-
quest had an interview with Mr. tIay and Mr. Roose-
velt. Fina|ly, the 19resident was won over. Af the
last moment the negotiations were nearly broken off by
Britain's sudden flirtation with Germany in the joint
debt-eolleeting expedition against Venezuela. Mr.
17arrer reported in January, 1908:
Much bitterness has been created in Washington against
England by the Anglo-German expedition against Venezuela.
I am to]d on high authority that the President has indulged il
some very plain speaking fo Sir Michael Herbert and that Sir
Michael, whose wife is an American, has been warning Lord
Lansdowne ail along that an explosion of popular opinion may
occur af any "cime which might hurry the President into rash
action. I had a talk with Senator Cullom, chairman of the
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
:Fore[gn Affalrs Committee, and he frankly sald that while he
should like fo accommodate you, he was af raid that tle
Venezuela affair had for tle moment pretty well undermincd
¢he good understanding between the United States and
England.
Lord Lansdowne's frank reversal of his Venezuela
poliey cleared the air, and the treaty deferring the
boundary to arbitration was submitted fo the Senate,
and eventually ratified.
From the Canadian point of view, the treaty was a
distinct improvement over the earlier drafts. The
whole boundary line vas inchlded; the questions as now
framed were not question-begging; the decision of the
tribunal was to be final; there was no reservation of
territory to the United States whatever the decision.
The one drawback was the composition of the tribunal,
--six "impartial jurists of repute," three appointed by
each party. In the opinion of the government, this
meant that no decision could be reached unless one
member ca,st his vote with the other side, and it did not
seem highly probable that one of the United States
members would choose this rôle; if there was dead-lock,
the United States remained in possession of the most
important territory. Yet if vas apparent that no
better terres were to be had. The tribunal was fo be a
j udicial body to interpret the treaty, not a conference of
diplomats to strike a bargain. The treaty provided
that the members should "consider j udicially the ques-
tions submtted fo them" and that each "should first
subscl'ibe an oath that he would impartially consider the
13
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
arguments and evidence presented." The :British
ambassador foreshadowed agreement upon thrce oz" af
least two j ustices of the Supreme Court ("who are here
all regarded as Coesar's wives") and the Chief Justice
of England, a j udge of the British High Court, and a
Canadian Supreme Court judge. Undcr these condi-
tions, the Canadian government expressed ifs accept-
ance of the proposa].
ttopes were high for a fair and final settlement, whn
on February 13 if was unofficially and on 5larch 6 offi-
cially announced from lrashington that the United
States me,nbers of the tribunal were fo be Secretary
Root, Senator Lodge, and Senator Turner. Ail were
]awyers of eminence, men of outstanding capacity, hon-
ourab]e men, but fo term them "impartial" was a wrench
fo the English ]anguage. Secretary Roof had been a
member of the cabinet which had defended the Ameri-
can case; Senator Lodge had public]y denounced the
Canadian contention as a "base]ess and manufactured
c]aim"; Senator Turner, who .had formerly been a mem-
ber of a state supreme court, represented the state of
Washington, which throve on the toll of Yukon trade,
and had himself in the Senate debate opposed any arbi-
tration. If was not surprising that public and govern-
ment opinion coincided with that of the :Brook]yn
"Eagle," that there was as much chance of convincing a
tribunal so constituted of the soundness of the Canadian
case as there was of "a thaw in Hades." On February
18 the British government inquired whether the Cana-
dian government had any comments fo make. The
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
Canadian government strongly protested fo London,
and was eonsidering, so London was notified, whether in
the ehanged situation if should withdraw from further
participation; the ]3ritish government agreed if was awk-
ward, but eould not be helped; perhaps ]3ritish members
eould be ehosen fo match. $¥ithout waiting for n def-
inite reply from Canada, the ]3ritish goventrnent ex-
ehanged formal ratification of the treaty. SVhen fle
cabinet expressed displeasure af being thus flouted by
London as well as by Washington, the Colonial Office
blandly replied that no diseourtesy had been intended
but that the ]3ritish government had eoneeived itself
bound by its announeement in the Speeeh from the
Throne on tebruary 17 that the treaty would be rati-
fied,--that is, by an announeement whieh had been
ruade a day before the Colonial Office had gone through
the form of asking if the Canadian Government had
any opinion fo offer.
The failure of the United States government fo
earry out the understanding as fo the members of the
tribunal was not due fo Mr. I-Iay. In letters to Sir
Wilfrid, Sir Miehael I-Ierbert, after stating how sore
[sorry ?] he himself was over the seleetion, reported that
Mr. I-Iay hd been overruled by the President, "who
bas got his bael up," and that Messrs. Lodge and
Turner had not been appointed until af ter the j ustiees
of the Supreme Court had all been invited and had all
deelined on the ground that if would be incompatible
with their position to sit on a diplomatie and politieal
tribunal. Mr. Charlton, who was then in Washington,
145
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
urged in defenee of the t'resident the fact that if was
not until the reluetanee of the Senate to ratify the treaty
had beeome apparent, that Mr. I{oosevelt, anxious to
have the marrer settled, but more in toueh with
politieal realities than Mr. I-Iay, came to an under-
standing with the leaders of the Senate as to the com-
position of the tribunal. The appointment of Senator
Lodge and Senator Turner was therefore the priee of
any treaty. This was true, but not the whole truth.
Mr. t{oosevelt was himself as determined as any hostile
senator to prevent any risk of losing an ineh of the
United States claire. He had agreed to arbitration
merely "to enable Great Britain to save her face," but
if not by the letter of the treaty, then by the composi-
tion of the court, he was determined to guard against
sueh a eontingeney. A further evidenee of his attitude
was given in a blustering letter whieh was eonveyed to
the notice of the British government during the stmuner
through a United States Supreme Court judge, appar-
ently persuaded for once to aeeept "diplomatie and
politieal" errand. 1 So far as the aetual deeision of the
1 The letter ran, in part:
"'... The claim of the Canadians for aeeess to deep water along any
part of the Alaskan coa.st is just exactly as indefensible as if they should
now suddenly claire the island of Nantucket.
"'I believe thoEt no t],ree men in the United States eould be found who
would be more anxious than out own delegates to do justice to the British
claire on all points where there is even a color of right on the British side.
But the objection raisec by certain Canadian authorities to Lodge, Root,
and Turner, and especially to Lodge and Root, was that they had com-
mitted themselves on the general proposition. No man in publie life in any
position of prominence could have possibly avoided committing himself
on the proposition, any more than Mr. Chamberlain could avoid com-
mitting himself on the question of the ownerhip of the Orkneys if some
16
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
tribunal was concerned, it is doubtful whether the
change in the personnel of the court ruade any material
differenee. Experienee does not show that judges,
however fait in the handling of details of evidenee, are
any more immune than other mortals from the national
or social prejudiees whieh uneonseiously shape inter-
pretation. But Mr. Roosevelt's action did exasperate
Canadian publie opinion, and it did make frank and
confident international dealing by so mueh tbe more
diflïeult in future.
There was no room for ehoiee in aeeepting the treaty
as a settled faet, but there was room for ehoiee in the
eharacter of the Britisll appointments. The Canadian
Scandinavian country suddenly claimed them. If this claim embodied
other points as to which there ,vas legitimate doubt, I believe Mr. Chamber-
lain would act fairly and squarely in deciding the marrer; but if he
appointed a commission to settle up ail these questions, I certainly should
hot expect him to appoint three men; if he could find them, who believed
that as to the Orkneys the question ,vas an open one .... I wish to make
one last effort to bring about an agreement through the Commission which
will enahle the people of both countries to say that the result represents
the feeling of the representatives of both countries. But if there is a dis-
agreement, "I wish it distinctly understood, hot only that there will be no
arbitration of the marrer, but that in my message to Congress I shall take
a position which will prevent any possibility of arbitration hereafter; a
position . . . which will render it necessary for Congress to give me the
authority to run the line as we claim it, by out own people, without any
further regarà to the attitude of England and Canada. If I paid atten-
tion to mere abstract rights, that is the position I ought to take anyhow.
I bave not taken it because I wish to exhaust every effort fo bave the
affair settled peacefully and with due regard fo England's honor.'
"What passed through the minds of the British Ministers when they
heard, confidentially the President's decision, is hot reported. Possibly,
they realized that the claims which the Canadians had pushed for the past
rive years were only a bluff; assuredly they knew that Mr. Roosevelt meant
vvhat he said, and it ,vas no secret that he had already sent troops to
Alaska; af all events, they appointed as England's representative Lord
Alverstone, who, as if turned out, supported the Ameriean contention."--
Thayer, "Lire of John Hay," 11. 209.
147
LIFE .AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
government declined to accept the hint of the Colonial
Oflîee, and adhered fo the intention to appoint impar-
tial j urists. The suggestion that Lord Alverstone, the
Lord Chief Justice of England, should be named, was
aeeepted, but instead of one the government nominated
two Canadians for the other posts, Sir. Justice Armom"
of the Canadian Supreme Coin't, and Sir Louis Jetté,
then Lieutenant-Governor of Quebee and formerly
puisne judge of the Supreme Court of Quebee. On the
death of Justice Armour in London, Mr. A. 13. Ayles-
worth, a leader of the Ontario bar who had declined a
Supreme Court judgeship, and who was in England af
the rime, was nominated in his stead. Mr. Clifford
Sifton aeted as 13ritish agent, assisted by Mr. Joseph
t'ope and V. F. King, with Edward 131ake, and later
Sir Edward Carson, with Sir R. B. Finlay, S. A. 1Row-
latt, John A. Simon of the English bar, and Chris-
topher Robinson, F. C. Wade, Aimé Geoffrion and
L. t'. Duff of Canada, as counsel. I-Ion. John V.
Foster was appointed United States agent, with Messrs.
Dickinson, Watson, Taylor and Anderson as counsel.
During the summer, case and counter case were ex-
changed. In September and October the oral argu-
ment followed. The case was admirably handled on
both sides, alike in the preparation of the briefs and in
the oral presentation. Yet, throughout, the Canadian
members could not escape the feeling that the decision
was settled belote the case was argued. It was hot
merely that the London correspondents of United
States newspapers were forecasting that Lord Airer-
148
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
stone would hold against Canada; the wish might bave
been eonsidered father to that thought. But in London
soeiety, at dinners and in clubs, they found the saine
opinion everywhere prevalent. How far this feeling
was due fo the circulation of 1Vit. Roosevelt's letter is
hOt elear. _As fo Lord Alverstone himself, his Cana-
dian eolleagues, while finding him perfeet in eourtesy,
quiek in argument, fair in attitude, also realized that he
eonsidered himself an umpire between two eontending
delegations; the frequent eonsultations which took place
among the three United States members to decide upon
their course had no eounterpart on the other side. On
Oetober 8 Sir rilfrid reeeived a eable from a member
of the Canadian delegation:
I think that Chief Justice intends j oining Amerlcans deciding
in such a way as to defeat us on every point. We ail think that
Chier Justice's intentions are unjustifiable and due fo predeter-
mination to avoid trouble with United States. Jctté and
Aylesworth are much exasperated and considering withdrawing
from Commission.
Sir Wilfrid replied:
Our Commissioners must not withdraw. If they cannot get
our full rights let thcm put up fight for out contention on
Portland Canal which is beyond doubt: that point must be
decided in Canada's favour. If we are thrown over by Chier
Justice, he will give the last blow to British diplomacy in
Canada. -He should be plainly told this by out Commissioners.
On Oetober 17 and Oetober 20 the members of the
tribunal reeorded their decision. By a majority of four
fo two, Lord Alverstone voting with the United States
149
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
representatives, if was decided, in brief, that the bound-
ary shou]d run around the heads of the inlets and give
the United States an unbroken l{s{ère, that certain
mountains marked "S" upon a map shou]d be consid-
ered those meant by the treaty to form the boundary,
and that the Port]and Cana], which was to form the
southern ]irait of the strip, shou]d be taken to be the
channel running north of Pearse and Va]es and
through Tongass Passage south of Sitklan and Kan-
naghunut is]ands, the former islands thus fa]ling to
Canada and the latter to the United States.
The question most important in itself was the ques-
tion of the inlets. Here the decision went against
Canada, but no one questioned its fairness, if they still
doubted its validity. The opinions given in support of
the Canadian contention b,y Sir Louis and especially by
Ir. Aylesworth were powerful arguments, but the
opinion filed by the three United States members was
also strong, closely-reasoned and effective, and Lord
Alverstone's separate memorandum, if less exhaustive,
also an able judgrnent. A Canadian, reading the evi-
dence and the decisions on this point to-day, may well
consider still that the Canadian interpretation of the
treaty was sounder, certainly that the allegation that it
was a mere bluff was preposterous, and yet may also
admit that the opposite case was equally strong and
that impartial men might well consider it stronger.
The treaty, in brief, was ambiguous and lent itself fo
more than one interpretation.
The other decisions were much less important in
150
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
themselves, but they became important because of the
evidence they presented that a diplonmtic and not a
judicial decision had been arranged. As fo the "S"
mountairs, the line was clearly a compromise. The
United States had contended that no mountains such as
contemplated in the treaty existed and that the ten-
league line should therefore be followed. The decision
on this point admitted that the Canadian contention was
correct, but deprived Canada of any a(lvantage by pro-
ceeding to select mountains in many cases well inland
and beyond the inlet heads. Not a word of explana-
tion as fo why these rather than other mountains were
chosen was vouchsafed by any of the nmjority, and the
contention of Sir Louis that the mountains nearest the
coast and not others farther inland should be selected
was unanswerable. Lord Alverstone's only reply was
that he had had to fight hard to get even this line; true,
but none the less thereby a compromise line.
But it was the clecision with regard to the four islands
in or about Portland Canal (or Channel) which most
aroused controversy. The United States had con-
tended that the Portland Canal of ifs discoverer, Van-
couver, and of the negotiators, was the body of water to
the south of all four islands, whieh would therefore form
part of Alaska; the Iritish had elaimed that the Port-
land Canal tan nooEh of all four. Lord Alverstone
stated during the proeeedings that he eonsidered the
British case unanswerable, and would prepare the opin-
ion. On Oetober 12 he read to the tribunal a memoran-
dura upholding that contention, in whieh his Canadian
151
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
colleagues eoncurred. On the morning of October 17,
when the tribunal had assembled but before the vote was
taken, Sir. Root, Mr. Lodge and Lord Alverstone af
different rimes retired from the cabinet room together.
Then, on putting the question fo vote, instead of asking
whether Portland Canal tan north or south, Lord
Alverstone, as chairman, asked first, whether if tan
north or south of 19earse and SVales, fo which ail six
answered north, and then, w.hether if tan noloEh or south
of Sitklan and Kannaghunut, fo which they answered
south, four fo two. Until that moment, Lord Alver-
stone's Canadian colleagues had had no faintest sug-
gestion that he had changed his mind. Some days later
Lord Alverstone filed as his j udgment a document
which was later shown by Ir. J. S. Ewart, in what has
been considered a classic work of legal reconstruction, fo
be simply the original judgment, slightly and illogi-
cally revised and still containing passages wholly incon-
sistent with the amended conclusion. The United
States members also filed an opinion which, af ter stating
fairly the reasons which led them fo award 19earse and
SVales fo Canada, tapered into exceeding rhin and
scarcely serious arguments for awarding the other is-
lands fo the United States: in sum, that Vancouver
might have been looking up Tongass 19assage when he
named the channel beyond 19ortland Canal, wherefore
T. 19. was 19. C., and that had they themselves done the
naming, they would have considered T. P. better
entitled fo the name.
Mr. Aylesworth and Sir Louis Jetté refused to sign
152
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
the award. In their judgments they attacked the
majority's award as unjudicial. The majority finding
as to the islands, declared Sir Louis, was "totally unsup-
ported either by argument or authority and it was,
moreover, illogical." Mr. AyleswooEh denounced it as
"nothing less than a grotesque travesty of justice," "no
decision upon judicial principlcs" but "a more compro-
mise dividing the ficld bctwcen thc two contcstants."
In a lctter in the "Timcs," they statcd, for thc immedi-
are information of their countrymcn, thcir rcasons for
dissent.
The storm of protest that followcd in Canada was
vigorous, wide-spread, and sustaincd bcyond anything
in t.he country's annals. "Canada again offercd as a
sacrifice on the altar of Anglo-Amcrican friendship,"
was the theme of a hundred journals. The uncritical
assumption which prevailed in most quarters that the
Canadian case was much stronger than it actually was,
an exaggerated estimate of the strategic value of the
islands awarded the United States, as commanding the
probable terminus of the Grand Trunk Pacifie, the
belief, ony partially founded, that in previous boundary
disputes the United States had been presented by
]3ritish diplomats with great areas of Canadian soil, and
particularly the circumstances of the appointment of
the United States j udges and the summer's rumours of
Lord Alwrstone's defection, swelled the .cho'us.
Naturally President R oosevelt's j oyous shout, "It is the
greatest diplomatie victory of our rime," did not help
matters. Not that it was against the jm-ists chosen by
158
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the President of the United States that the Canadian
ery was raised. If was not the petulant eomplaint of
poor loser. It was the just anger of the man who eon-
sidered himself the vietim of a confidence gaine. Upon
Lord Alverstone's head there deseended a stream of
epithets, and the stock of British .statesmen fell far
below par. Men began fo talk of independenee as less
dangerous than imperial eonneetion. When Mr. Ayles-
worth returned, had he given the word, an agitation
that nfight have earried far would have been begun.
]3ut Mr. Aylesworth wanted no agitation; af a banquet
in Toronto early in November, while reiterating his
view of the award, he spoke of his pride and pleasure in
British connection; "'Civis Romanus sure,'" was now bet-
tered by Macdonald's "British subj ects we were born,
British subjects we will die." "Had he told the whole
story," declared the Toronto "Globe" next day, "sueh a
tire would have been kindled as neither imperialistic
exhortation nor trade preferenees would soon put out.
That Mr. Aylesworth under, stood is plainly the secret of
his restraint and moderation."
Parliament was about fo adjourn after a long and
lively railway session, when the decisions were rendered.
On the last day, October 23, a short but signifieant de-
bate was held. Af that rime few details of what had
oecurred were avaîlable. Mr. Bourassa, who raised
the question, defended Lord Alverstone, contending
that Canada had no case as to the inlets; the island ver-
dict, however, was plainly diplomatie; Canada could hot
expeet more from British connec¢ion. Mr. lober
15¢
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
Borden attacked Sir Wilfrid in a robustly Canadian
speech, because he had not linked up the Alaska boun-
dar.y and the Istlunian canal, because he had accepted an
even number of commissioners after previous protests,
because he did not appoint three Canadians, and partic-
ularly because he did not insist on the findings being
subject to ratification by the Canadian parliament.
Sir Wilfrid declared the outcome was a deep disap-
pointment fo him. As fo the inlets, while there was
much to be said on both sides, he had thought, after read-
ing both cases, Canada had the better; but as fo the is-
lands, the judgment was simply inexplicable. When
he had agreed fo the suggestion that the Lord Chief
Justice should be appointed, he had believed him fait
and sound, and would continue in this faith until he
had an opportunity fo read his reasoned judgment in
full. The treaty was good, better than ansr previous
draft. The United States appointments, however,
transformed the situation. The government had pro-
tested, but the treaty was ratified over their protest.
Then he continued, in an outburst of unusual vigour:
What wcre we fo do? I have often regretted, Mr. Speaker,
and never more than on the prescnt occasion, that we are living
beside a great ncighbour who I believe I tan say without being
deemed unfricndly fo thcm, are very grasping in their national
actions, and who are determined on every occasion fo get the
best in any agreement whieh they make. I have often regretted
also that while they are a great and powerful nation, we are
only a small eolony, a growing eolony, but still a eolony. I
have often regretted also that we have not in out own hands
the treat:y-making power whieh would enable us to dispose, of
155
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
our own affairs. But in this marrer we are dealing with a
position that was forced upon us--we have hot the treaty-
making power. I am sorry fo say that the whole correspond-
ence which we bave had upon this question since 1896 has
hot yct been placed before parliament. I ara sorry hot only
that we have hot the treaoEy-making power, but that we are
not în such an independent position that it is in my power to
place before parliament the whole of the correspondence as
if passed between the Canadian government and the British
government. But we shall have that correspondence and it
will be p]aced before parliament at the next session,--the whole
of if, no marrer what protest may come from abroad, we shall
bave the whole of it, and then this country may know exactly
what has takcn place and what share of responsibility must
rcst upon each of the parties concerncd in this marrer. But
we bave no such power. Our hands are ticd to a large extent,
owing to the fact of our connection--which bas its benefits,
but which has also ifs disadvantages--the fact of our con-
nection with the mothcr country making us not free agents
and obliging us fo deal with questions affecting ourselves
through the instrumentality of British ambassadors ....
The difflculty as I conceive it is hot there [with Lord Alver-
stone]. The difficu]ty as I conceivc it fo be, is that so long as
Canada remains a dependency of the British Crown the present
powers that we bave are hot sufficient for the maintenance of
our rights. If is important that we should ask the British
parliament for more extensive powers so that if ever we bave
to deal with matters of a similar nature again, we shall deal
with them in our own way, in our own fashion, according to
thc best light that we bave.
qaen the full facts arrived, Sir Wilfrid expressed
his opinion frankly fo Lord Alverstone in eorrespond-
enee. Lord Alverstone began by sending on Oetober
29 a lengthy defenee of his stand. Sir Wilfrid replied,
aeknowledging Lord Alverstone's good intentions, but
156
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
insisting that "the reasons whieh you have given in
support of your conclusions eannot be reeoneiled with
sueh a judieial interpretation of the Treaty of 1825 as
was imposed upon and expeeted from the Commission";
and again, that "the deeision rendered in regard to Port-
land Channel eannot be supported on judieial grounds."
"The eonsideration," he eontinued, referring to the
Chier Justiee's letter, "that the two islands of Sitklan
and Kannaghanut have no value whatever either strate-
gie or otherwise is not a judieial eonsideration and has
simply to be set aside." Lord Alverstone replied: "I
desire fo state most emphatieally that the deeisions,
whether they were right or wrong, were j udieial and
ïounded on no other eonsiderations. I alone am re-
sponsible for them, and while I fully reeognize your
right to hold the opinion that they were wrong, and to
express that opinion, you must forgive me pointing
out that you are not entitled to suggest that I aeted on
other than judieial grounds, be the deeisions right or
wrong." :But euriously, he went on, in reply fo Sir
Wilfrid's last remark, fo illustrate his interpretation of
a judieial deeision: "I wholly dissent from this view.
I ara elearly of opinion that in determining judieially
the questions submitted to the Tribunal . . . it was
out duty to take into eonsideration the value and im-
portance to the parties negotiating of all parts of the
territory fo which the Treaty applied."
Not all Lord Alverstone's publie or private protests
eould meet the indietment. The eonferenees with the
United States eommissioners, the failure to diseuss with
157
LIFE AND LETTER$ OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
his Canadian colleagues his change of heart, the fram-
ing of the Portland Channel question to permit the an-
swer agreed upon, the evidence of his own amended
judgrnent, the failure of the majority to offer any
reasoned argument for either the island or the "S"-
mountain finding, were eonclusive. If might be that
"that was the only way there could be any award."
That was a marrer for diplomats, not for judges, to
decide. There was no question of his motives. If was
simply that he had conceived himself as umpire, hOt
j udge, charged with securing an agreement af any cost.
It was absurd to charge that his verdict was a deliberate
betrayal; in part it was a judicial finding, in part an
illustration of the subtle and unconscious effect of a
social and political atmosphere in shaping men's opinion
of what is expedient and just. Granting that the
position of an arbitrator representing his oaa country
in an international dispute was ambiguous, that he was
in point of fact considered sometimes a judge, some-
rimes an advocate or diplomat, the difficulty remained.
A j udge would presumably seek a j udicial finding, not
a political compromise; a diplomat would presumably
consult his diplomatie colleagues.
If was urged in Lord A_lverstone's behalf, by men
who admitted that his action was diplomatie, that the
diplomacy was sound, since the whole A_laskan strip was
hOt worth a war between Great Britain and the United
States. True, but even assuming that a stiffer adher-
ente to what he himself considered just would not have
forced the United States commissioners to grant the
158
THE UNITED STATES: 1896-1903
point, a failure fo agree, followed by the publication
of the deliberate judgments, would not bave meant war.
Canada, which had never involved Britain in war with
the United States on ber own behalf, and had been in-
volved in a war of Britain's was quite as near and quite
as aware of the danger and quite as eager to avert it
as Lord Alverstone. The Canadian government would
hOt bave dreamed of pressing insistence to the point
of war, but neither were they prepared fo make all the
concessions for the sake of peace, or to yield to an argu-
ment or a bluff which might with equal force be urged
in every difference between the two countries and com-
pel surrender before discussion began.
The Alaska lisière was never again so important.
With the deeline soon after of the Yukon gold-fields,
aceess through ifs ports beeame of less moment. Dyea
and Skagway soon beeame as dead as Tyre and Sidon.
The eontroversy was of signifieanee more for ifs inci-
dental effeets, the occasion if gave for bringing Cana-
dian and United States publie men into intimate con-
tact, ifs effeet in demonstrating that the national eurrent
in Canadian opinion would not neeessarily run there-
after in the saine ehannel as the imperial; and the ira-
puise if gave fo independent eontrol of foreign affairs.
Sir Vilfrid did not earry out the threat of his Octo-
ber speeeh. After discussion, he did not press for
publication of the eorrespondenee; there were, if was
agreed, some eomments whieh if might be as well for
international and imperial amity not fo make publie.
_As for the treaty-making powers, no immediate and
159
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
formal demand was matie. Nothing was more foreign
fo Sir Wilfrid's ruling bias than fo urge any policy on
general and theoretical grounds; hOt until a concrete
issue arose would the demand for wider powers be
renewed. When the occasion did arise, in the SVater-
ways treaty with the United States, in the trade con-
ventions with European powers, in the immigration
negotiations with Japan, Canada's control over foreign
relations was fo be quietly, un-dogmatically but surely
and steadily advanced.
160
CI-IAPTER XIII
TH ]¢IASTER OF TH ADMINISTRATION
Laurier as Leader--His Objectivity and Freedom from Resent-
rncnt--Thrce Challcngcrs--Isracl Tarte--A Livcly Past--Qucbcc
and Ontario CriticshTartc's Campaign for Protection--Laurier
ActsAndrcw BlairRailway Rivalry and R«ilway PolicyAt-
tempts at Co-opcration--Thc Grand Trunk Pacifi.6---Blair's Opposi-
tion-Lord Dundonald and the Mflitia--Indiscrction and Dismissal
--Thc Montrcal Railway PlotIts FailurcBThc Elcctions of 1904.
N the Laurier government's second terre of office
three men put to the test the question who was to
be master. Supported by powerful forces in the
country, they raised within the cabinet or within the
outer administration, the banner of defiance. Israel
Tarte, backed by the embattled manufacturers, chal-
lenged Vilfrid Laurier on the issue of protection. An-
drew Blair, backed by railway promoters and ambitious
newspaper magnates, challenged him on the transcon-
tinental railway policy. Lord Dundonald, with all the
force of imperialist sentiment and militia zeal behind
him, raised the question whether the cabinet or military
oflïcers were to be supreme in determining the country's
policy. Vhen the smoke had cleared away, there was
no longer room for question.
One challenge proved serious. His ]lealth, sustained
by unceasing care, broke down during his visit to Eu-
rope in 1902. In the following session, he concluded
161
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
that if would hot be possible to go on, and wrote out his
resignation for Couneil. I-Ie was persuaded fo with-
hold it, and round reprieve.
Vhen SVilfrid Laurier had first taken the teins of
oflîee, there were many who doubted, even af ter his
aine years of party leadership, whether he would be
more than the titular head of the government. They
did not think if possible that a man so courteous could
show himself firm when firnmess was ealled for.
Could a leader who had ruade his lame by his oratory
develop the qualifies needed fo eontrol a ministry and
fo guide a distraeted country through diflîcult days?
The men nearest him in parliament had little doubt,
and fo many observers outside ifs walls his skilful
handling of the school issue had given the answer. For
the others, his first months in power eompleted the
demonstration. A leader in oflîee, with power fo bind
and fo loose, bas in any case a surer seat than a leader
in opposition, with only hope and disappointment fo
divide. If was not long until the crities had shifted
their attack, and begun fo eomplain of Laurier's master-
ful and self-willed ways.
The Laurier administration eontained many men of
strong will who had for years been autocrats in their
own fields. Yet from first fo last the prime minister
was first in faet as in form. His authority was more
than once challenged; on one occasion he was foreed
fo compromise after a publie announcement of his
policy, but fo the end he remained the one indispensable
man in the government.
162
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
As prime minister, Sir Wilfrid was not a hard task-
toaster, tte did not intervene in the details of the ad-
ministration of his eolleagues, tte believed in giving
every minister wide latitude and large responsibility.
A Whig by conviction, he was not eager to govern over-
mueh, and this theoretieal leaning was reinforeed by
the quality of his temlaerament. He had little of
]31ake's devouring and constructive interest in detail.
"I 'm a lazy dog," he was aeeustomed to say to his
friends in his ]ast years. The saying did hot do
justice to himself even in the days of failing health,
mueh less in the years of unrelenting effort he had given
to party and to country in his prhne. He gave eonsei-
entioos and punetilious eare to every question that came
belote him as n»inister; day and night he sat Ixatiently
tllrougll endless debates. But it was true that he was
not deeply and vitally interested in more than a few
questions, and that in this indifferenee there was rooted
a certain indolence and easy-going trust. He would
often defer dealing witb a rising question or diseiplin-
ing a eolleague whose publie poliey or private eonduet
ealled for a check, until a erisis foreed action. Unfail-
ingly and serupulously honourable in his own dealings
with men and women, he was tolerant of other men's
ïailings when they di.d not direetly affeet the State.
Nor was he hasty and arbitrary in determining gen-
eral poliey. In cabinet eouneils he never played the
dietator. :Eaeh minister in turn would state his point
of view on this side and on that, while he himself sat
silent or with only a guiding or inquiring word, until
168
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
every opinion had been set out, when he would sum up
tbe discussion, with rarely erring faculty for getting to
the .heart of the issue, and give his conclusions as to the
course to follow. Men came to criticize him for oppor-
tunism, and it was true that he was an opportunist as
to means; on principles he would not compromise an
inch. Perhaps no more significant judgment has been
passed upon his methods than the words uttered in
scornful criticism by tf Nationalist leader in whose vo-
cabulary there was no such word as half-a-loaf: "He
will ask this minister and that his view, and then he
gives his own; he never asks what is ideally best, but
merely wlmt is tbe best that will work." But once his
opinion was formed, if was not easily shaken. I-Ie
never came rashly fo a conclusion, but neither, once
deeided, would he allow his firmness of action to be
hampered by vain doubts and reeonsiderings.
In the eontroversies inside and outside the party in
whieh he became involved, Wilfrid Laurier retained the
extraordinary objeetivity that had marked his judg-
ment and his eonduet from early years. I)ifferenees of
opinion eould not disturb his serenity of spirit or his
impartiality of judgment. Personal prejudice played
little part in shaping his course. I-Ie never cherished
resentment against a foe who attacked or a friend who
failed him. When one in his household who was a much
better Laurierite than he was himself would express in
good round terres condemnation of some scheming oppo-
nent or some faithless friend, he was always ready to say
a word in defence. It was not that he did not feel criti-
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
cism, for he was a sensitive man, but he was genuinely
charitable and sympathetic in his interpretation of the
motives of others, and he had schooled himself to bear
serenely the misinterpretation of his own motives by
other men. The practice of authority, the bua'den of
responsibility, the disillusionment of experience, gave a
greater wariness to his wary eye, a greater firmness to
Iris firm features, a deeper inscrutability to his inscruta-
ble face. Yet to his intimates he remained the simple,
unaffected, kindly friend of the days before power had
brought its opportunities and ifs tasks.
The first challenge to SVilfrid Laurier's authority
came from his old school-fellow, Joseph Israel Tarte.
Mr. Tarte was not merely the most vivacious and spec-
tacular member of the ministry; he was one of the most
remarkable personalities in Canadian political life. A
rhin, wiry, dapper little man, a bundle of nerves, al-
ways on the verge of a complete breakdown in health,
he had the restless energy and the reckless courage of
a score of physically stronger men. He was never so
fil that a taunt would not rouse him from a sick-bed to
combat. He loved a fight; he lived for excitement and
the applause of the galleries; he delighted in intrigue
and in the making and unmaking of ministers and repu-
rations. Keen and nimble of wit, volatile in temper,
frank to the point of indiscretion, imperturbable in
defeat, he was feared by his enemies and still more by
his friends. Notary by profession, he found scope for
his qualities in the business of j ournalism and the game
of politics.
165
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
As editor of "Le Canadien" in Quebec and of "Le
Cultivateur" in Montreal, he had beeome one of the
pwers and institutions of his province. Journalism
in Quebee had this in eommon with the j ournalism of
lranee, that views eounted more than news, literary
style more than dry faets, personalities often more than
party and government, and patronage more than ad-
vertising. Israel Tarte's trenehant pen and his knowl-
edge of the innermost secrets of eurrent polities made
him toaster in this art. Vhile he had a power of
fiery oratory, he was never as sueeessful on the plat-
form as in his editor's chair; on the platform he was
often earried to reekless lengths by his own imagination
and the applause of his hearers, but with pen in hand
he was as shrewd and cool as the surgeon with his knife.
In the game that polities appeared fo him, Israel
Tarte had played many parts. Never in Canadian
polities bas even a eontraetor or a railway promoter
ruade so many and so sharp curves; "ehameleon,"
"weather-eoek," were the standard epithets of whoever
happened to be his enemies of the moment. Af St. Lin
in 187 he had been a Conservative of the Cartier school,
leaning to Gallieanism and launehing editorial broad-
sides against "Le Nouveau-Monde." In Quebee in
1875 he was ultramontane, programmist, out-Veuillot-
ing Veuillot, swearing by Mgr. Bourget and Mgr. La-
flèche, "every day offering up heeatombs of Liberals,
Gallicans, lree Masons in the eolumns of 'Le Cana-
dien.' " Then he turned upon the ultramontanes of his
13rovinee, but still held to Rome: "Mon étoile c'est Rome;
166
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
ma boussole, c'est le Saint-Siège," and then when the
Jesuits' Estates question arose, Rome itself lost favour.
He denounced Messieurs Sénécal and Dansereau as a
shameless and befouling clique, and then in 1883 he
ruade a visit to :Paris in their company and came back
sénécaleux. He denounced Chapleau as corrupt, faith-
less, disloyal, incapable of friendship, and then became
his intimate friend. In 1880 he worked with Langevin
to unhorse Chapleau; in 1890 he worked with Chap-
leau to expose Langevin. He put his flag at half-mast
when Riel was hanged and next week dcfended the bang-
ing. He attacked Laurier as a man without principle,
without conviction, without patriotism, without ideals,
but with a certain astuteness and ability to bide his lack
of principles, and then he became Laurier's lieutenant
in Quebec. He was against Mercier; for him; against
him; for him again. He accepted McGreevy's money
to support "Le Canadien" and later coolly exposed
McGreevy and the boodling from which these very
funds had been drawn. It was not surprising that such
a career exposed him in his turn to merciless tire, as
when Thomas Chapais, son-in-law of Sir Hector, in
"Le Courrier du Canada," in 1896, depicted Joseph
Israel as "renegade . . . sophist . . . dragging after
him, like a galley-slave, the long chain of his treasons,
his shameful recantations, his covetousness, now glutted,
now balked; burning with desire for men's esteem in
spite of his past, and raging within under the cruel
prick of the scorn with which he feels himself covered
even by those who make use of him." To all which Mr.
167
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Tarte would jauntily reply that the man who never
changed his mind never used his mind.
When in 1891 Mr. Tarte began to print his petits
papiers, and beeame for the first rime a Canadian figure,
he was doubtless more eoncerned to drive Sir Heetor
Langevin out of the Conservative party than to leave
it himself. But a politieal quarrel is easier to start
than to stop, and soon Sir John Thompson was able to
"wish Mr. Lam5er joy of lais black Tarte and his yellow
Martin." Mr. Tarte adopted the Liberal poliey on
the tariff and on the school question, and in 1896 threw
himself vigorously into organizing western Quebee.
The portfolio of Publie Vorks was his reward.
Few men knew Israel Tarte better than lVilfrid
Laurier. Few men had less sympathy with lais indul-
gence in personalities and his cynical and sudden
changes of front. Mr. Laurier was warned that he
too would be betrayed: "who has drunk will drink; who
has betrayed will betray." Yet he insisted on giving
lais old enemy a foremost place in the cabinet. Like
Honoré Mercier, he "never asked whence a man had
eome but whither he was going"; he was anxious to win
over those men of the old Cartier school who were truly
Liberal-Conservatives; he knew that Mr. Tarte was
personally honest; he wanted a vigorous fighter; he
believed that office would be a better cernent than oppo-
sition, and, af bottom, he had no little personal liking
and esteem for the o11 sehoolmate whose path had
erossed his own so often.
The old stalwarts in the Liberal ranks in Quebee
168
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
could not regard the marrer so philosophically. On
principle, the men in the Montreal district questioned,
as usual, the promotion of arty men from the Quebec
district, while the Quebekers could not forger old feuds
and aching wounds. Uncompromising Radicals wanted
no Conservatives of the school of Cartier or of any
other. Either Raymond Préfontaine or Dr. Beauso-
leil or M. E. Bernier could easily have suggested one
better choice. But when not only Tarte but all his
friends were seen fo be in favour, and particularly when
it was rumoured that Sir Adolphe Chapleau was to be
given a renewal of his term as lieutenant-governor,
for his neutrality in the 1896 election, the dissatisfac-
tion broke into open revolt. François Langelier, mem-
ber, minister, bâtonnier-gééral, Dean of the Law
Facult2¢ in Laval, who had fought for the party and
for freedom of speech against heavy odds, and who,
it was claimed, had himself been promised the lieuten-
ant-governorship in a letter from lr. Laurier in July,
1896, publicly denounced the Tarte ascendancy in the
following I)ecember: "I am sorry to sec the Tartes,
I)ansereaus, I)eCelles, I)rolets, Patersons, Chapleaus,
and others of that ilk discussing the party's affairs;
they were Conservatives yesterday and they are Coa-
servatives still, while we old Liberals are in the dark.
. . A coalition with Chapleau is under way." When
from attacking Tarte and Chapleau, François Lan-
gelier's younger brother, Charles, fonnerly minister in
the Mercier government, went on in the following au-
tumn to attack the prime minister in public, and to
169
LIF AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
write him privately to eomplain o] the ostraeism of the
Langelier family and the folly of rewarding treason by
honouring Chapleau, Sir Vilfrid took the position suflï-
ciently indicated ir the following letter fo Charles
Langelier:
(Wilfrid Laurier to Charles Langelier.--Translation)
Ottawa, October 5, 1897
Mv nE«g CrALES:
.... :Let nae say first tha I am far frona finding anything
fo criticize in the renaarks that you have naade in opposition
fo the idea of giving Chaplcau a second terna. I appreciate the
naotive which prompts you, and I appreciate equally the reason-
ing by which you support your case. I regret that you did
hot write me this letter a month ago, or out relations would
aot have taken the turn they have ....
What I have fo complain of in your conduct is that you
did not sec fit fo write nae . . . but instead did your best.
fo stir up public opinion and arouse discontent among my
constituents. I am the chier of the party and I bear the
responsibility. I ana far from pretending to infallibility, and
I am ready, on every occasion, fo receive the advice and counsel,
and even the remonstrances of my friends. I do hOt say that
I will always conform fo their way of thinking, but I do assert
stoutly that I will always be happy fo rcceive thcir remon-
strances and their counsd and advice, and that I will not make
up nay own mind until aftcr I bave weighed ail their repre-
sentations with tare ....
I regret quite as nauch as you do the differences I have had
with François. If is truc that I did not take him into the
cabinet in July, 1896, but I do not think that the fault was
naine. You must be hunting grievances and ready to create
them when you write nae that "he was discarded from the
ministry, by naeans of intrigues as fo whlch I have nay suspi-
cions, and Mr. Dobdl, who a day before had called himself
170
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
a Conservatlve, became a mlnister." I never understood that
François wished to be a minister without portfolio. What
I have understood since the formation of the cabinet was that
he wished fo be a minister with portfolio, probably in the
place of Sir Henri Joly, but as he had told me belote that
rime of his desire to go on thc bench, I thought he would not
object fo waiting for an opening. I was wrong, and I must
bear the responsibility. I regret more than any one that
François did not confide fo me, belote the elections, any in-
tention he may have had fo stay in politics. In the only
communication that I had with him on this subject he declared
to me positively that he intendcd fo withdraw. No one has
more esteem than I for François, no ont rccognizcs more
fully than I do the great services he has rendered the party.
Vith François Langelier appointed j udge of the
Superior Court in 1898,--and knighted in 1907 and
ruade lieutenant-governor in lgll,--and with Charles
appointed sheriff of Quebec in 1901, the storm died
down in that quarter, 1 though there remained many
another Quebec Liberal, and particularly Ra.ymond
19réfontaine of Montreal, unreconciled to the Tarte
régime. On the positive side, the policy of conciliating
the old Cartier wing of Conservatism had only a tempo-
rary success. _As to Sir Adolphe Chapleau, the rela-
x Mr. Tarte writes November 21, 1898: "Then there is the 'kicking' of
Paeaud. M. Langelier 'a kickC' he has been named j udge; M. Choquette
'a kickC' he has been named judge; Paeaud is wondering why he should
hOt arrive somewhere 'en kickant.' Be assured that is the frarne of mind
dominant in the district of Quebee." To whieh Sir Wilfrid replies: "If
was good tactics to put Langelier on the bench; if was good taetics fo
do the satne for Choquette; the best taetics for us to use toward Paeaud
would be to give hitn a newspaper rival. His claires do not laek jus-
tiee . . . but if he uses that tone and makes war on us, there will be no
alternative."
171
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
tions were close and friendly. Sir Adolphe never
found if hard fo prefer a Liberal fo a Castor, Itis atti-
tude is indieated in a letter of this period:
(Sir Adolphe Chapleau to Vilfrc Laurler.--Tra/aton)
Montreal, February 21, 1897
MY DEAR LAUIIEIt:
I ara going to comlnunicate to-day to your colleague, Mr.
Tarte, the information I bave gathered as to the position in
Quebec. I do hot think that the newspapers are correct in
forecasting a hostile declaration on the part of the episcopate ;
the bishops realize now that a movement is impossible, even
in the Housc of Commons, and the clear-cut declaratlon which
will, I hopc, be made by thc Qucbec cabinet as soon as the
proclamation is issued for the general provincial elcctions, will
give a finishing stroke, in excluding fedcral questions entlrely
from the elcctoral programme of the government of Quebec.
The election in St. Boniface has surprised no one and will,
I think, bave no result other than to quiet retaper by the
satisfaction it will glve fo the amour propre of the Archbishop
of St. Boniface. If the result of the provincial elections is
what I expect, not to say what I ara preparing, I believe
that the Manitoba school question will soon become, from the
polltical point of view, a thing of the past, which the modera-
tion, tolcrance and good-will of your frîends in Manitoba
may lcad the people to forger before they are once more called
upon to choose new representatives in the Commons. We
have seen many of these burning questions cool down and
settle themselves merely by the passing of tlme and by the
oblivion into whlch the rapldity of modern life hurls every-
thing. The "Castors," in the battIe of June 23, lost their
head and their rail; their teeth and c]aws are worn down;
even breath is failing for their cries and their movements,
and I hope that before the date of the Queen's Jubilee we
shall be able to say that thls race of rodents is extinct and
figures henceforth only in catalogues of extinct species.
172
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
And later, in April:
I have asked Dansereau to tell you that if my wltness to
the Ablegate can be of service in the cause of conciliation,
I shall consider it a duty fo give it fo hirn.
The appointment of Sir Adolphe to a second term
was considered, but finally rejected. Other arrange-
ments were under discussion when his death in 1898, at
the age of fifty-eight, ended his ambitions of this world.
Others of his sehool remained, of whom the most influ-
ential was Arthur Dansereau, another sehoolmate of
L'Assomption, and for many a year the most influential
Conservative j ournalist in the Montreal district. Ap-
pointed postmaster of Montreal by the Conservatives,
he had stil! eontinued to take a hand in polities, and had
joined Chapleau in the new orientation. In 1899 this
situation was suddenly disturbed by William Muloek,
who, knowing nothing of Dansereau in his rôle as a po-
]itieal power behind the seenes, and knowing only that
he was a very eareless and ineoEeient head of the most
important post-ooEee in Canada, summarily dismissed
him. Sir .Vilfrid at once insisted on a reversal: ap-
point an assistant with more business eapaeity, enlist
Dansereau's own interest, but do not dismiss him out of
hand. Dansereau's pride was salved, but the incident
set him thinking once more of j ournalism, and journal-
ism of a Conservative trend. In Montrea], the chier
:Freneh-Canadian newspaper, "La :Presse," owned by
:Y[. :Berthiaume, for many years Conservative with in-
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
dependent leanings, had latterly been indcpendent with
Liberal leanings; now the situation was changing again.
"La Patrie," founded by an uncompromising Radical,
M. Beaugrand, had been purchased in 1897, mainly by
]Aberal party funds, and was then put under the control
of Mr. Tarte's two sons: if was filling the Liberal field.
The old Conservative organ "La Minerve," now that
the stream of patronage had been diverted, could not
make ends meet, and was about fo disappear. Natur-
ally, the owner of "La Presse" found it expedient fo
lean toward Conservatism, and its old editor felt again
the call of the chair. Vriting fo Sir Vilfrid at Vash-
ington, Mr. Tarte explained the situation:
( Israel Tarte to Wdfrid Laur$er.--Translation)
Ottawa, February 7, 1899
.. tIere is the situation as I understand it. «La
Minerve," which Nantel, Leblane and others have taken over,
is af its last shift. It cannot last much longer. Nantel,
who has lost ±wenty thousand in «Le Monde," "Le Canadien"
and «La Minerve," has made arrangements with Berthiaume
and Dansereau by which he goes in with "La Presse." This
settled, Berthiaume's task is 4o prevent the establishment of
another Conservative journal. Taking Dansereau as editor-
in-chief, he circulates the rumour that «La Presse" will be in-
dependent, which means that if Sir Charles, Beaubien and
others establish a journal, he will fight them. While these
rumours are being circulated in the street, negotiations are
going on with Sir Charles Tupper. In other words, if no
other Conservative journal is founded, it will be because "La
Presse" has given guarantles to the Conservative party.
«La Patrie" is beginning fo eut very seriously into the
circulation of «La Presse." This rivalry is causing intense
w-rry to Ber.h;aume, who, in the past, has been master of the
17
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
field, and has imposed his terms on the Conservative party
belote every general election, and on the City Council.
And again, a day later:
The Dansereau incident cause's me more chagrin than alarm.
. . I do not blame Mulock, with whom I have always been
and ana still on thc besf of terres. The radical element in
Quebec has forced us to treat Chaplcau as if he had been a
common valet. We have refused him even thc respire which
we gave fo the Lieutcnant-Governor of the smallest of out
provinces, who had always been our opponent. And now the
man who, with me, exercised thc greatest influence over
Chaplcau, is dismissed--for that is the meaning of his lcavc
of absence--without you or me being informed. I repeat I
have more chagrin than fear. In my day I bave not feared
many things or many men. But I have always tried, in pol-
itlcs as elsewhere, fo cherish gratitude.
To which Sir Vilfrid replied:
(lVilfrid Laurier to Israel Tarte.--Translation)
Washington, February 11, 1899
. . I agree with you that Mulock was too prccipitate with
regard fo Dansereau, but he retrieved that initial crror with
much address and savoir vivre .... In brief, if was not
he who provoked Dansereau's dismissal, but Dansereau
himself ....
I am convlnced from the correspondence I have had with
I)ansereau that he is not going into "La :Presse" with the
purpose of combatting us. But this result is inevitable. He
will be led on by a word, an act, steadily and step by step into
a path first of friendly criticism but which will end in open
hostility. Ail that will go on unconsciously and if will ordy
be when fhe rupture is irreparable that if will be perceived.
What I regret in ail this, is that we are going fo lose in ail
probability, certainly in great part, ail the sanest and most
reasonable elcment in the school of Cartier, which was on the
point of joining definitely with us ....
175
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
All that you say of the radical school and of the difficulties
if eaused us in the autumn of 1897 has nothing fo do with
the situation wh|eh nov presents itself. If Chapleau had lived,
if would have been easy enough fo prove out gratitude, I be-
lieve, for what he did for us, and I knov that the proposition
of a post on the International Commission would have been
acceptable fo him. As fo Dansereau, he has nothing fo coin-
plain of in out eonduct, and the factis that he has not
eomplained. More, I ara sure that if is still possible fo induee
him fo go along with us openly and squarely, but this subjeet
would be too long fo discuss here and must await my return
fo Ottawa.
But if was hot long until ]Ir. Tarte's er|ries in Quebee
were forgotten in the storm raised by his er|ries in On-
ratio. During the South Afriean Var, Israel Tarte
was the heaviest eleetoral liability the Liberals earried in
English-speaking Canada. In his stand on the sending
of the eontingents he had shown immensely more cour-
age, more sense of eonstitutional order and of national
self-respect than the mobs that howled at him, and in
eooler rimes his position came to be appreeiated, but at
the moment it eost the party many votes. His utter-
anees in Paris and in London in 1900 were impromptu
indiscretions more difficult fo defend, and very service-
able fo his enemies. "Shall Tarte rule?" was the Con-
servative war-ery in Ontario in 1900.
Vith the government returned for a second terre and
old issues were forgotten in the rush of unaecustomed
posperity, Mr. Tarte began to expand in new direc-
tions. His dut|es as Minister of Publie Works took
him from end fo end of the Dominion, and turned his
thoughts to eeonomie programmes. The ride of inmli-
176
THE MASTER O17 THE ADMINISTRATION
gration had brought to Canada new prosperity and new
confidence; the tariff attitude of the United States had
quickened the spirit of economic nationalism, and traflïc
congestion was stimulating programmes of canal- and
railway-building. Mr. Tarte constituted hbnself the
chief apostle of a new gospel of transportation and tar-
iff: "Outbuild the _Americans in canals, harbours, ships;
build a tariff wall as high as Dingley's," became the bur-
den of his speeches. 2k tariff figbt or any other fight
appealed fo his pugnacity; to promise lavish harbour
facilities to cheering audiences in every lake or ocean
town, or fo let it be gathered that only the short-sighted
and small-minded parsimony of bis colleagues prevented
a definite promise, was a labour of love.
:For a time, this progranme raised no serious diflï-
culty. Colleagues complained that Mr. Tarte was en-
croaching on their departmental preserves or affecting
fo determine the policy of the whole cabinet on inport-
ant issues, but af ter all, Israel Tarte was Israel Tarte,
and a certain amount of effervescence was inevitable.
In the summer of 1902 the situation became more crit-
ical. The prime minister was overseas, attending tbe
Colonial Conference in London and interviewing :French
ministers in Paris. _Alarming newspaper reports began
to be published of his illness and obvious fatigue. Pri-
rate reports intimated that the illness was more serious.
:As a matter of fact, it proved fo ;be touch and go.
To Israel Tarte the news, from a private and reliable
source, of Sir Wilfrid's illness, doubtless brought
regret, but it also spelled opportunity, ttere was a sit-
177
AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
uation made fo the hand of an adroit and ambitious poli-
tieian. If Sir Wilfrid was foreed by ill-health fo retire,
upon whom would his rnantle fall? Ir. Fielding had
been eonsidered by the publie the natural sueeessor, but
that was by no means inevitable. Mr. Tarte felt that
he himself belli the winning eards. Quebee was his,
writhing and grumbling if might be, but with opposition
beaten down. Ontario eould be ruade his. If might
hot like his imperial views, but in the long run poeket
would eome before prineiples; make himself the cham-
pion of high protection, and his politieal heresies would
be forgotten. Aeeordingly Mr. Tarte speeded up his
protectionist campaign. ¥e must have a strong tariff,
he told the cheering Canadian Manufacturers' Associa-
tion at ifs annual banquet in August. At Bowman-
ville he declared that if he were really the "Master of the
Administration," as the Conservatives loved to call him,
he "would take the tariff item by item and adjust if so as
to save to Canada the profit of the exportation of her
resources and build up a nation here." At Toronto in
September he pictured the benefits of a protected home
market fo farmers, and urged following the United
States' example; in Montreal he repeated "my belief
and the belief of the Manufacturers' Association in
ligher protection." In the same month he began a
royal progress, investigating cotton-mills, woollen-mills,
boot and shoe factories, receiving municipal addresses,
and replying in vigorous protectionist appeals. "From
the first of September to the autumn equinox," declared
"Le Soleil," "we count over one hundred speeches, one
178
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
hundrcd harangues, one hundred pronunciamicntos,
cvcry one as incoherent as the rest .... Sweating,
puffmg, panting, he did not merely run, he flew,
he whirled, from North Bay to Esscx,--for On-
tario was the kcy to success." 1
Naturaly, this audacious campaign did not go unre-
bukcd. Mr. Sfton announced in an interview that aly
attcmpt to rcvive the "discrcdited Tory policy" of high
protection would mect with the strcnuous opposition of
evcry Liberal clcctcd wcst of Lake Supcrior." The
Toronto "Globe," the "Manitoba Frce Prcss," the Hal-
ifax "Chroniclc," "Le Soleil," thc Moltrcal "Hcrald"
and the "Witness," defcndcd thc tariff as a fair and
rcasonablc adjustmcnt and insistcd that it was not for
Mr. Tarte to spcak thc mind of thc cabinet or of the
party: to which Mr. Tarte rcplicd in a tclcgram to the
editor of thc "Vïtness": "May I ask you to state in
your papcr that I will bc in thc Libcral party long after
you are dead and buricd? If your vicws on thc fiscal
policy of the country werc loeown to bc thosc of the
party, we would be defcatcd at the next gcneral clec-
tions by the saine overwhclming majority that the same
vicws rcceivcd in 1878.".
October came, and Sir Vilfrid. He had bcen kept
informed how things were going, and lost no rime in act-
ing. He rcached Qucbcc on the morning of Octobcr 18
and Ottawa late that night. Ncxt day he called on Mr.
Tarte, and the following morning had a second inter-
vicw. Sir Wilfrid did not temporizc; hc considcrcd
1 January 27 1903.
179
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Mr. Tarte's course unpardonable and demanded his
resignation. On Oetober 20 Mr. Tarte plaeed a letter
of resignation in lfis hands:
(Israd Tarte to Wlfrcl Laurier)
Toronto, 00ctober, 190
Mv D_ Sm
I feel it is my duty to place my reslgnation in your hands,
and to ask 2Cou to bc good enough to bave if accepted by
ttis Excellency thc Govcrnor-Gencral ....
You told me that my uttcrances are causing you trouble.
I bave no right and no desire to be a source of embarrassment
to you or to the party with which I havc bcen connectcd
since 1892.
My views on thc tariff are well known to you. I have on
scvcral occasions statcd thcm publicly in 2cour presence, and
discusscd thcm oftcn privately with 2cou.
Entertaining thc opinion that the intercsts of the Canadian
pcoplc make if our duty fo rcvise, without delay, the tariff
of 1897, with thc view of giving a more adequate protection
fo our industries, fo our farming community, to our work-
ingmen, I cannot possibly rcmain silent.
I prefer my freedom of action and of speech, under the
circumstances, even to the great honour of being your colleague.
Before severing my official relations with you, allow me to
express my sincerest hope that 2cou will soon be restored to
.2cour health of former days.
You would greatly oblige me by conveying to my colleagues
my best wishes for their welfare and their happiness. My
personal relations with most of them, have been of a pleasant
and cordial nature. I hope they will continue to be the saine
in future.
Believe me, my dear Sir Wilfcid,
Very sincerely yours,
J. ISRA.L TAIT..
In a personal note, Sir Wilfrid replied: "I thank you
180
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
for your good wishes; and you may be certain that I
regret very sincerely that our offlcial relations are end-
ing in this manner, but the separation was inevitable."
In a formal reply he gave his reasons for his course:
(Wilfrid Laurier to Israel Tarte)
Ottawa, 21 October, 190
MY DAR TARTe:
After having seen you on Sunday las and having expressed
o you my well-sett]ed opinion upon the consequences of your
recent atitude, my rst duty was fo wait upon His Excellency
the Governor-General fo inform him that I was obliged o
demand the resignation of your portfolio.
After having seen His E.xcellency, I had fo acquaint my
colleagues of the interview which I had had with you.
In accepting your resignation, if is well fo emphaslze the
points of difference between us.
During my absence in Europe, wlthout any communication
with me, and without any previous understanding with your
colleagues, you began an active campaign in favour of an im-
mediate revision of the tariff in the direction of high protection.
I regret having been obligcd fo observe fo you that this
attitude on your part constitutes a self-evident violation of
your duty towards the government of which you were a member.
I repeat fo you here what I told you on Sunday: I do not
wish fo discuss, af this moment, the economic theory of which
you have made yourself the champion. This question, how-
ever importan't it might be, is subordinate to one still more
important.
If you had reached the .conclusion that the interest of the
country demanded without delay, an increase of the custom
duties, the first thing for you fo do as a member of the govern-
ment, before addressing your views fo the public, would have
been fo place them before your colleagues, with the object of
obtaining that unanimous action of the cabinet which is the
very-foundation of responsible government.
If you had not been able to obtain from your colleagues
181
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
their assent to the course which you recommended, you would
bave been obliged then either fo accept their own views or to
sever your connection with them, and then for the first rime
would you have been free fo place your views belote the public.
Such was the very simple course which was binding upon
you; but fo remain a member of the govcrnment, and, af the
saine rime, fo advocate a policy which bas hot yet been adopted
by thc government, was an impediment to the proper working
of our constitutional system, and implics a disregard for that
]oyalty which all those who are members of the same admin-
istration owe fo each other and bave a rlght to expect from
each other.
I thank you for the good wishes which you express for the
improvemcnt of my health, and I will make it my duty fo
convcy to your old collcagues those that you formulate for
thcir wclfare and thcir happiness.
A sequel to this exchange may be appended:
(Israel Tarte to lVilfrd Laurier.--Translatlon)
Montrea], January 26, 1903
IY DEAI SIR WILFIID:
. . I am convinced that a good majority of the Liberal
party in the Province of Ontario is in favour of protection.
You say that I am wrong. We bave reached what in English
is called "the parting of the ways." One or other of us
is mistaken. My firm conviction is that if i you who are
wrong. Questions of fact are in the end the easiest to decide.
(Wilfrizl Laurier to Israel Tarte.--Tralatlon)
Ottawa, January 7, 1903
MY DEAR TAItTE:
I bave j ust recelved your letter of yesterday. You forger
that Ontario is hot the only province in Confederation, and
you forgot equally that if is not good politics fo try to force
the hand of the government. You bave thought good to make
yourself the champion of protection à outrance. I have no
more fo say on that point, as we bave exhausted it. But
182
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
I belleve more firmly than ever that in your own interest and
in the interest of the party, you were a thousand rimes wrong.
There is no more reason now "chan there was three months
ago for us fo launch out into a new policy whcn nothing
has happened fo warrant a different orientation from that we
have followed hitherto. If is not, as you contend, merely
a question of fact; if is also a question of seasonableness.
The question of the tariff is in good shape, if no one seeks fo
force "che issue.
The incident was closed. Israel Tarte went out and
Raymond :Préfontaine came in. Sadly Mr. Tarte
realized how much he had owed fo his pedestal. The
realization had been driven home the first day. Leav-
ing Ottawa on October 19, he had gone fo Toronto fo
attend a banquet given in the National Club the follow-
ing day to Colonel Denison, president of the British
Empire League, of which he was himself a member.
Men were there who had cheered and backed him in his
recent crusade, and they cheered him now when he arose,
until his frank words, "I am hot here as a member of
the Dominion government. /km I a member of the
Dominion cabinet? Being a minister is a very tempo-
rary occupation," explained the situation. Then the
cheering broke and died away and if Israel Tarte as he
gazed about him had never been cynical before, he must
have been cynical then as he saw how suddenly men lost
interest when he could no longer serve their cause. Not
all, for he eould make and keep warm friends. The
manufaeturers, keen fo support him when if was
thought the whole cabinet might be indueed or bludg-
eoned into a pledge of higher protection, eooled when if
183
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
was found he stood alone; they waited for a more prom-
ising season.
Mr. Tarte went baek fo journalism, beeoming politi-
cal direetor of "La Patrie." When a group of leading
Liberals, Senator Béique, Senator Dandurand, Vietor
Geoffrion, M. 19, and Lomer Gouin, M. L. A., re-
quested him to return "La Patrie" for a finaneial eon-
sideration, fo the Liberal party whieh had developed it,
Mr. Tarte replied lofti that his pen was not for sale;
that "La Patrie" had originally been founded by a few
friends who were not represented among those who now
approached him; that he was now its political director
but had no financial interest, and that he wished them
joy if they founded a new organ, tobe, like other or-
gans, "purchased, nourished and gorged." Mr. Tarte
remained in control and "Le Canada" was established
by the Liberal party with Godefroi Langlois as editor.
In the next few months he drifted steadily back to lais
old camp; before the year was over he was contesting
F. D. Monk's daim to the Conservative leadership in
Quebec, and early in 1904 Mr. Monk felt himself forced
to retire. Sir Wilfrid remained friendly, though no
longer intimate. XVhen Mr. Préfontaine had an elabo-
rate brochure prepared, raking up ail Israel Tarte's
past, Sir Wilfrid, despite the fact that Mr. Tarte was
criticizing the party vigorously, requested its suppres-
sion. He would not fight any man with personalities,
least of aH one who had been a friend.
The second challenge fo Wilfrid Laurier's authority
186
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
came from his Minister of Railways. Andrew George
Blair had not the picturesque personality nor the acro-
batie record of Israel Tarte, but he knew as much as any
man in Canada of the seamy side of politics. Entering
the New Brunswick legislature in 1878 as a Liberal in a
hopelessly Conservative house, he succeeded in becom-
ing leader of the Opposition in 1882 and premier after
the general elections a year later. For thirteen years
he gave New Bamswick cautiously progressive admini-
stration. A capable man of business, a plain and some-
what prosy speaker, his chief power lay in .lais capacity
for silence. In the federal cabinet, the importance of
transportation questions ruade his position pivotal.
The opening of the West, with the inpouring of set-
tiers, file shipping out of grain, the quickening of East-
ern industries and not least the growth of national
confidence if involved, gave fresh urgency and a new
angle to canal and railway development: railways fo
open up new areas of plain and prairie, railways to de-
velop the unknown nlïning and forest treasures of
nooEhern Ontario and Quebec, railways to carry the
w.heat of the Vest fo Eastern ports, canais and river
and harbour betterments to funnel this traflïc fo the sea,
railways to bind the country together, railways to give
fat cbntracts fo promoters and merchants, railways to
keep the price of real estate soaring, railways to wind
through the constituencies of as many M. P.'s as con-
ceivable, were once again demanded. After 1902,
"railways are out politics" became truc once more.
,The transportation policy of the Laurier government
185
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
was in many respects progressive and eflïcient. In
establishing an independent railway commission of wide
powers to eontrol rates and service, in bringing to an
end the praetiee of granting huge areas of Vestern
land as subsidy, and eompelling the eompanies to whieh
land had already been granted to ehoose and patent
their allotment instead of holding, as before, a blanket-
mortgage on vast areas, and by extending the Inter-
colonial to Montreal and doing something fo improve
ifs administration, the government lived up toits
promises and the eountry's needs. The problem of en-
suring that Canada should bave the new roads it needed
fo serve its new estates, and not more than it needed,
was more involved, and the government's sueeess in
handling it then and now a marrer of more eontroversy.
In dealing with this problem the government was not
working in a vacuum. Its ends and ifs means were
largely predetermined. The politieal end of welding
into one a country which geography had marie many,
ealled for new links between East and Vest, roads far
to the north to give breadth as well as length to Canada,
roads that would earry Canadian goods to Canadian
ports. The eeonomie ends, a network of railways
spreading settlers through the prairie Vest, roads fo
develop the unknown north of Ontario and Quebee,
roads to bridge the gap between Vestern wheat-fields
and Eastern faetories, were equally matters of general
agreement. Of the means which might serve these
ends, the Canadian laeifie was ruled out by the publie's
18ô
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
fear of monopoly and the hesitancy in new enterprise
which had marked the road since the early nineties; the
Canadian Northern had not yet fully revealed ifs am-
bitions and ifs potentialities, and the Intercolonial or
any othcr government agcncy was barrcd by the dis-
trust of state opcration on the part of the majority in
the Cabinet. There rcmained the Grand Trunk, a
well-established system serving an excellent territory,
long water-logged and under abscntee control, but now,
undcr Charles M. Hays, taking fresh lcase of life.
Tbe Grand Trunk in 1902 had dcternfincd to seek ifs
share of Vestcrn traffic. It had already some share in
this traffic; a branch from Toronto fo North Bay tapped
the main line of the Canadian Pacific and served as the
link with Ontario towns. But this conncction was
secondary and precarious; the new management was
convinced that the Grand Trunk must build ifs own
feeders in the prairies and ifs own bridge across the
Lake Supcrior wildcrness if if was to share in the grow-
ing fortunes of the ¥est or evcn hold ifs own. Accord-
ingly in Novcmber, 1902, George A. Cox, a Libcral sen-
ator and successful business man, C. M. Hays and Wil-
liam Vainwright, vice-president of the Grand Trunk,
petitioned the government fo grant cash subsidy of
six thousand dollars and a land subsidy of rive thousand
actes, per mile, with tax exemptions, for the construc-
tion of road of twenty-five hundred mlles running
from North Bay to the Pacifie toast. The proposal
was not cceptable. The government had determined
187
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
to make no more land grants to railways; the Grand
Trunk plan did not provide for the development of the
Hudson Bay basin; it would mean that the existing
Atlantie terminus of the Grand Trunk,--Portland,--
or one of the southern New England ports toward
whieh I-Iays was feeling, rather than a Canadian port,
would be built up by the traflïe of the Canadian West.
Negotiations eontinued, resulting in the summer of
1903 in an agreement upon a projeet whieh ineluded the
essential features of both the government's and the
Grand Trunk's programmes. _A new transeontinental
was tobe built running from Moneton in New Bruns-
wiek through Quebee eit.y, and the timber-lands and elay
belt of northern Quebee and Ontario, to $¥innipeg and
thenee through Edmonton fo the Pacifie. The west-
ern hall from Winnipeg to the eoast was to be built by a
new eompany, the Grand Trunk Pacifie, aided by a
partial government guarantee of bonds; the eastern
hall, known as the National Transeontinental, was to be
built by the governmen through a commission, and
leased for 8 per cent. of its cost by the Grand Trunk
Pacifie.
It was known that negotiations were under way, but
before any offlcial announcement had been ruade the
public were startled by the resignation of Mr. Blair
because of dissent from the government's policy. The
G. T. P. agreement ha.d been accepted by the cabinet,
Mr. Blair alone dissenting, and endorsed in a party
çaucus, before the resignation was definitely tendered
188
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
and aecepted. On July 16 the e)rrespondence ex-
changed between Mr. Blair and the prime minister was
ruade public and explanations offered in the House.
There were specific differences of policy between Mr.
Blair and his colleagues. Every member of the cabinet
had a railway policy, and the Minister of Railways could
not be behind. During the winter of 1902-03, he had
declared himself in favour of an immediate extension of
the Intercolonial fo Georgian Bay, linking up by water
in summer with the Canadian Northern, and the
gradual building of a new government-owned road from
Quebec fo a Vinnipeg junction point and perhaps even-
tually through fo the Pacifie. He was opposed fo the
Moncton extension, opposed fo immediate construction
of the Quebec-lVinnipeg section, and opposed, not so
much to entrusting the enterprise fo any private com-
pany as to entrusting if to the Grand Trunk. While in
favour of state construction, he was not committed fo
state operation, holding open the alternative of lease to
any private company. Vhile his colleagues were pre-
pared fo enter partnership with the Grand Trunk, Mr.
Blair preferred to link up with the Canadian Northern.
Still more fundamental as a cause of the break was the
lack of complete confidence. Mr. Blair declared to Sir
Wilfrid in his letter of resignation:
The Grand Trunk proposition had been ruade to you, and
you had consulted with other ministers and these ministers
had met Mr. I-Iays on several occasions, as I am advised, with
your knowledge and approval, long belote you ruade me aware
that negotiations or discussions on this subject had been en-
189
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIEI
tered upon or were being prosecuted .... I reconciled myself
fo the very obvious slight which had been cast upon me on the
ground that probably your knowledge of my views on the
general questiort did not encourage you fo expect I would look
'ith much favour upon, or render much assistance toward
carrying out, the object you had in view.
Certainly this ignoring of the Minister of Railways in
framing a railway policy required an explanation, but
the explanation was hOt the one Mr. Blair supplied.
The reason for thus ignoring him in the earlier stages
and the ultimate reason for the retirement was simply
that in view of the character and ambitions of some of
the men who had ruade Mr. Blair their friend, Sir SVil-
frid was not prepared fo confide fo him the power fo
determine the general question of policy, or the privilege
of allotting or guiding any contract that might require
fo be let. He was determined that there would be no
second 19acific scandal.
No more serious blow could have been inflicted upon
the government than the resignation of the Minister of
Railways a fortnight before ifs railway policy was fo be
submitted fo the House. Yet there could be no draw-
ing back, and on July 80 Sir Wilfrid laid the plan be-
fore parliament.
That a transcontinental road should be built, Sir SVil-
frid declared, all were agTeed; agreed further that it
must be wholly on Canadian soil. But that it should be
built immediately hot all were agreed:
To those who urge upon us the pollcy of to-morrow and
to-morrow and to-morrow, fo those who tell us, wait, wait,
190
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
wait; fo those who advise us to pause, fo conslder, fo reflect,
to calculate and fo inquire, our answer is: No, this is not a
rime for deliberation, this is a rime for action. The flood-
ride is upon us that leads on to fortune; if we let it pass it
may nevcr recur again. If we let if pass, the voyage of our
national life, bright as if is to-day, will be bound in shallows.
We cannot wait because rime does not wait; we cannot wait,
because in these days of wonderful development, rime lost is
doubly lost ; we cannot wait, because at this moment there is
a transformation going on in the conditions of our national
life which it would be a folly to ignore and a crime to overlook;
we "cannot wait because the prairics of thc North-West, which
for countless ages have been roamed over by wild herds of the
bison or by the scarcely less wild tribcs of rcd men, are now
invadcd from all sidcs by the white race. They came last year
one hundred thousand strong and still they come in still greater
numbcrs. Already they are at work opening thc long-dormant
soil; already they are at work sowing, harvesting and reap-
ing .... We consider that it is the duty of all who sit witlfin
these walls by the will of the people to provide immediate means
whereby the products of those new settlers may find an exit
fo the ocean af thc least possible cost and whereby likewise a
market may be found in this new region for those who toil in
the orests, in the fields, in the mines, in the shops of the older
provinces. Such is our duty; if is immediate and imperative.
If is not of to-morrow but of this day, of this hour and of this
minute. Heaven grant that if is hot already too late; Heaven
grant that, whilc we tarry and dispute, the trade of Canada is
not deviated fo other channels and that an evcr-vigilant com-
petitor does not take fo himself the trade that properly be-
longs fo those who acknowledge Canada as their native or their
adopted land.
Vith this somewhat perfervid beginning, indicating
the strain of expected critieism not only from the Op-
position but from his former eolleague, Sir Vilfrid pro-
eeeded in more matter-of-faet terres to analyze in detail
191
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the terms of the contract, and fo meet objections.
was charged that the Moncton-Quebec line paralleled
the Intercolonial: if must be remembered that the route
of the Intercolonial had been determined by military,
hOt by conmaercial considerations, that the new route
would be a hundred toiles shorter and from thirty fo
seventy toiles distant, with mountain range interven-
ing. The short line built by the C. P. R. through Maine
to St. John could hot serve: if might at any rime be
rendered useless by a denial of the bonding privilege;
only a week belote, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, in a letter fo
the London "Times," had threatened this withdrawal if
the policy of inter-imperial preference in t-rade was con-
tinued and extended. That menace could hOt be borne;
a commercial route wholly within Canadian territory fo
Canadian seaports must be secured: "I have found that
the best and most effective way to maintain friendship
with our American neighbours is to be absolutely inde-
pendent of them." If was urged the cost would be pro-
hibitive: the cost would not be more than seven years'
interest on the mountain section and seven years' rental
on the eastern section,--S18,000,000, or a single year's
surplus; for the test, "We give out credit and nothing
else." If was urged that little was known of the wilder-
ness through which the government was calmly propos-
ing fo build a standard road: hot so, as detailed and
authoritative reports on the climate, resources and to-
pograp.hy of this new Northern empire made abun-
dantly clear. Why should hot the country itself build
192
tt..lul«rt : Lb. Beauchemtrt
CARTOON BY HENRI JULIEN
After a Visit to Paris
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
and operate the whole road if if was to be so profitable ?
Could any government or any government commission
develop the elastieity, the wide range of subsidiary en-
terprises, from steamships fo hotels, and the arrange-
ments with shippers under foreign flags, essential for
the sueeess of sueh an enterprise? "I ara well aware,"
he eoneluded, "that this plan may seare the timid and
frighten the irresolute, but, sir, I may claire that every
man wbo bas in his bosom a stout Canadian heart will
weleome if as worthy of this young nation, for whom a
heavy task ha no terrors, which has the strength fo face
grave duties and grave responsibilities."
The debate thus launehed was long and animated.
Mr. Borden .ruade a detailed and effective eritieism, but
his alternative poliey, though eommendably eautious in
some respeets, was too ineomplete and too patehwork a
progranune fo strike the imagination; af a later stage he
emme out flatly for a government-owned transeontinen-
tal road. Mr. Blair insisted that "not rime but Cox
eannot wait." Every cabinet minister, l[r. Fielding,
5[r. Sifton, Sir Villiam l[ulock, who had had a deeid-
ing part in .shaping the new poliey, Sir Richard Cart-
wright, Mr. Fisher, Mr. Fitzpatriek, defended the pro-
posals strongly. It was the end of September before
the Commons passed the measure, and the end of Oeto-
ber before the Senate approved, in both cases substan-
tially on a party vote.
In the country, the eomplexity of the projeet af first
stood in the way of aeeeptanee, but very soon ifs sweep
193
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
and comprehensiveness touched the interests of great
numbers and the imagination of many more. The coun-
try wanted new roads and felt if could afford them.
reaknesses were round in the government's plan, but
no feasible alternative was steadily urged in ifs stead.
The poliey whieh rime bas shown should have been fol-
lowed--a union of the Grand Trunk, with its wide-
reaehing connections and terminals in the East, and the
Canadian Northern, wîth its well-planned prairie
feeders, with goret .mnent aid to bridge fle gap--was
not then so obvious. Sir lVilfrid had the insight to
realize that this would be the wisest plan. He brought
Mr. Hays and Mr. Mackenzie together in his office in
the attempt to fin4 a basis of union or co-operation.
Sir Charles Rivers-Wilson, ehairman of fle Grand
Trunk, and Mr. Hays held conferenees with Messrs.
Mackenzie and Mann of the Canadian Northern in
1902 and 1903, looking fo this end, but in vain. The
old road, proud of its four hundred millions of debt, de-
spised the upstart; the new, eonseious of towering ambi-
tions and of local influence and knowledge, underrated
the old. Common ground could not be round volun-
tarily, and neither government nor Opposition eould see
far enough into the extravagant rivalry and dupliea-
tions, the subsidies, guaranties, lobbying of the future
to urge compulsion.
The Laurier ministry felt that in the G. T. P. project
they had a policy whieh would ensure triumph in the
eoming eleetions. Before the winter of 1903-0 was
over, their ealeulations were rudely disturbed by the
19
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
failure of the Grand Trunk to finance the project on the
government's terres. :Plans for an immediate election
were stayed and another session «ummoned. Some
members of the cabinet urged that the Grand Trunk
conn¢ction should be dropped and the road built
throughout by the state, but the contrary opinion pre-
vailed. Amendments were effected, lightening the load
both for th¢ Grand Trunk and for the Grand Trunk
:Pacific, notably by removing the fixed limit beyond
which the government's guaranty of 75 per cent. of the
funds necessary fo build the mountain section was not to
go. Debate was vigorous but changed few views.
Blair was no longer counted in the ranks of the critics;
toward the close of 1903 he had accepted the chairman-
ship of the first Board of Railway Commissioners ap-
pointed under the act he himself had sponsored, and
seemed to have bidden farewell fo politcs and contro-
versy. An echo of the dispute of the previous session
came with lavish quotations by Mr. Borden from a pri-
rate memorandum which Mr. Blair had circulated
among the members of the cabinet in December, 1902,
which had now fallen into other hands by means which
were not explained. The halt in the negotiations, at
first welcomed by the Opposition as evidence that "the
bubble had burst," soon reacted in the government's
favour. Blessings brightened as they took their flight,
and a wide-spread demand for immediate action fol-
lowed the fear that the project was to corne to an end.
]3efore the general elections were held, a third ehal-
195
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
lenger had joined Mr. Tarte and Mr. Blair. Lord
Dundonald's attack was direeted not so mueh against
Sir Vilfrid or even his cabinet, as against the principle
of civilian control and of complete Canadian home rule
in military matters, but if was upon the prime minister
that the brunt fell.
Vhile Canada had step by step taken over the control
and organization of her own defence on land, and the
]3ritish regiments stationed in Canada, save in Italifax
and Esquimalt, had long since departed, it was still the
law and the practice that the general officer command-
ing the Canadian militia should be an imperial soldier.
This practice ruade it possible to secure men of greater
professional experience than were available in Canada,
but it was proving incompatible with the new national
aspirations. Vhile the G. O. C. was unquestionably
subordinate to the Minister of Militia, as ]3ritish com-
manders were subordinate to the Secretary for xVar,
the fact that he was still a British officer, possessed of
the old ideas of imperial supremacy and latterly chosen
by the British XVar Office fo advance ifs policy of cen-
tralizing the military resources of the Empire, ruade it
difficult for a man of strong will fo accept his constitu-
tional limitations.
After General Itutton's recall, General O'Grady-
I-Ialy had held the post two years without serious fric-
tion. After an Englishman and an Irishman, a Scotch-
man was next appointed. Major-General the Earl of
Dundonald, twelfth of his name, came of a famous fight-
196
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
ing family. I-Ie had no little of the spirit of his grand-
father the admiral, daring, resoureeful, imprudent,
I-Ils eavalry work in South _Afriea and his share in the
relief of Ladysmith, had eommended him to soldiers,
and his frankness, his adaptability, and his keenness in
his task soon won wide popularity in Cana'da. He did
mueh good work, studying the situation earefully and
endeavouring to adapt his theories fo the needs of a pio-
neer country without militarist neighbours. The gov-
ernment aeeepted a large part of his reeommendations,
as of his predeeessor's; largely owing to the experienees
of the Boer War, the expenditures for miliia purposes
had tripled between 1896 and 1904, and the eflïeieney,
while still far from satisfaetory, bad mueh inereased.
Even so, friction soon developed. Lord I)undonald
was impatient of what he eonsidered the slow progress,
and inelined to place the responsibility not so mueh
upon Canadian conditions and publie sentiment as
upon the ministry whieh for the rime represented the
country. The government did hot share his views as
to the proportion that military preparations should bear
in the eountry's aetivities, and in partieular his plans for
large capital outlays, ineluding fortifieations upon the
United States border. The impatience frequently felt
by the military commander against eivilian and inexpert
eontrol was intensified by Lord I)undonald's own tem-
perament, the adviee of some militia and imperial offi-
eers, and partieularly by the inherent anomalies of his
dual post as a British offieer and a Canadian offieial.
197.
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
More than once during the two years of Lord Dun-
donald's service friction arose betwen the Minister of
Militia and the G. O.C. ]3elleville and St. Catharines
regimental squabbles, an unauthorized visit of Lord
Dundonald to Port Simpson followed by speeehes on
the Alaska boundary award, gave cause for differenee.
Then came the revision in 1904 of the Militia Act, per-
mitting the appointment of a Canadian militia offieer as
G. O. C., empowering the government to appoint a mili-
tia eouneil whieh, with a ehief of staff, might take in time
the place of the G. O. C., and restrieting the power to
eall out the militia for active service in rime of war,
whether in or outside of Canada, to service for the de-
fenee of Canada. The aet met little eritieism in the
House and less in the country, but the rejeetion of
Lord Dundonald's adviee on various clauses nettled
him further, and was undoubtedly the main reason for
his outburst. The episode whieh finally brought an ex-
plosion was the action of Mr. Fisher, while aeting Min-
ister of Militia, in seratehing the naine of an active
Tory politician in his own Eastern Townships baili-
wiek from the list of offieers of a new regiment of dra-
goons. Speaking at a military banquet in Montreal,
on June 4, Lord Dundonald denouneed this "gross
instance of politieal interferenee," this "extraordinary
laek of etiquette," and added: "Laek of etiquette
affeets me little; I bave been two years in Ottawa,
gentlemen. It is not on personal grounds that I inform
you of this, but on national grounds. I feel, gentle-
198
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
men, anxious, profoundly anxious, that the militia of
Canada may be kept free from party politics."
This outburst was followed by a prompt inquiry by
the Minister of Militia as to whether the newspaper
reports were correct, and on this being admitted, by
a vigorous debate in the House on $une 10. Mr.
Fisber insisted that he had not cancelled Dr. t'ickel's
appointment for partisan reasons, but in order to de-
feat a partisan movement, the attempt on the part of
the Baker familymhis chief political opponents in the
Townships--"to turn that squadron, if not the whole
regiment, into a political Tory organization." Sîr
Frederick Borden confirmed his colleague's statements.
Colonel Hughes read a memorandum which Lord
Dundonald had sent him in his own defence. Mr.
Borden eulogized Lord Dundonald. Sir Wilfrid, in
a brief speech, admitted the good motives of the G. O. C.
but questioned his discretion; the cabinet was not obliged
to accept his recommendations. "We are not ac-
customed fo being dragooned in this country; Lord
Dundonald, with all the respect I have for him, must
learn that this is a responsible government." In pass-
ing, be referred to Lord Dundonald as "a foreigner,--
no, a stranger,"--étranger in both cases in French.'
1 "Lord Dundona]d in his position is eharged with the organization of
the militia, but must take eounsel here when organizing a regiment. He
is a foreigner,no .... "
So»r HoN. MEIIBERS,. "No, no."
SIR WLm LAVREm "I had withdrawn thc expression beforc honour-
able gentlcmcn intcrruptcd. Hc is not a foreigncr but hc is a stranger."
Son Ho. M.»azs. "No."
199
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Lord Minto, whose term as governor-general was
expiring, had continued to take a very direct and per-
sonal interest in military affairs. He had depreeated
the passing of the Militia Bill, beeause the minister had
deelined to inelude various clauses suggested by the
British War Office and to await further suggestions.
Now his sympathies were warmly with Dundonald, but
in his rive years of office he had eome to appreeiate
better both his prime minister and his own eonstitutional
limitations. On June 9, Sir Wilfrid had apprised him
of Lord Dundonald's "unpardonable indiseretion,"
whieh if eonfirmed would probably mean that "his use-
fulness will be gone." The governor-general agreed
af once that Lord Dundonald's utteranee was inde-
fensible, but he was inelined to shift the issue to what
he held to be the still less defensible eonduet of Mr.
Fisher. When the cabinet deeided fo take drastie
action and dismiss the G. O. C. from his post, Sir ,Vil-
frid sought the governor-general's signature for the
order in eouneil. 1 Lord Minto deelined to sign with-
Sm WLFnm LAVnlZR. "Yes, he does not know the people of the Eastern
Townships, where these light dragoons are tobe enlisted. I doubt if he
was ever in the town of Sweetsburg or in the county of Brome or the
county of Missisquoi."
Sir Wilfrid's mastery of English was complete, in readiness and felicity
of phrase, though when ill or fatigued the English word came to him less
easily than the French. To the end, his pronunciation of English was
frequently distinctly French in the placing of accent.
It was a habit of his when debate in the House was ted.ious to snap his
fingers and bid a page bring a large English dictionary from the Library,
and then to sit absorbed for an hour running his long finger down col-
umn after column of words.
1The order, after defending Mr. Fisher's action, eontinued: "Even if
Mr. Fisher's action had been as erroneously stated, there would still bave
been no justification for the course pursued by Lord Dundonald. Lord
200
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
out rime for reflection. During the day Major Maude,
his military secretary, and a group of Conservative poli-
ticians urged the governor-general to withhold his
signature, and thus to force the resignation of the minis-
try and an appeal to the country which would put the
"disloyalists" in their place. Feeling was running high,
pressure was keen and insistent, and Lord Minto's own
convictions tan with it. He endeavoured fo induce Sir
Wilfrid to abandon or postpone the dismissal; Sir Wil-
frid declined to alter the order in council and declared
that if necessary the government would go to the coun-
try on the issue. Finally, Lord Minto acquiesced, but
while signing the ortier he put on record his own clissent.
:Lord Dundonald was relieved of his command that
night.
Lord Dundonald's outburst and the government's
vigorous action were followed by a lively controversy.
Twice during June the question was debated in the
:House. Sir Vilfrid made the issue one between mili-
tary and civil power: "so long as there is a Liberal gov-
ernment in Canada the civil power shall rule the mili-
tary." tte denounced the bitter personal attack which
unscrupulous newspapers in Ontaria were making upon
Dundonald is an officer of the Canadian Government, a high officer, it is
true, but still an officer of the Government, subject to ail the limitations
which are usually imposed upon public officiais in regard to the action of
their superior officers. For an oflicial to make a public attack upon
Ministers of the Government under which he serves is a proceeding so
totally at variante with the principles which must necessarily obtain in the
administration of military as well as civil affairs tha[ it cannot with
propriety be overlooked. It is impossible fo do otherwise than characterize
the speech of Lord Dundonr.ld as a grave act of indiscretion and insub-
ordinance."
201
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
him for his reference to Lord Dundonald as a "for-
eigner" or "stranger," and nade a staternent of his own
standards in eontrovers¥ whieh shamed his erities. 1
Outside parliarnent a vigorous effort was ruade to turn
the incident to the government's hurt, and partieularly
to rouse the voters of Seottish blood fo resent the dis-
missal of the distinguished Seot. Mass-rneetings were
held in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Lord I)un-
donald gave interviews and speeehes dealing with "the
diffieulty between myself and the Governrnent of Can-
ada," in whieh he deelared that he had been balked in his
plans throughout, and that Canadians were living in a
fool's paradise as regards military preparedness. "Keep
both hands on the Union Jack," he repeatedly told the
erowds. There was some question of his eontesting a
seat in the eoming eleetions, but eventually prudence or
a hint from Britain prevailed, and he left Canada late in
July.
1 "Sir, I have been told that my meaning was contemplated, was offen-
sive and insulting. I have been in this House for many years, I have
seen some of the veterans of former combats pass away, I bave been
engaged in combats with some of them, I bave fought a good many hard
struggles, but I ara hot conscious in ail the years of my life, in all the
struggles in which I have been engaged with gentlemen on the other
side of the House, I ara hot conseious that I ever deliberatëly used an offen-
sive word toward any man or toward any elass. I never sought a fight,
but I was never afraid of a fight. Whenever I had to fight, I think it will
be admitted by friend and foe that I always fought with fait weapons.
I have been told to-day on the floor of this House twice, that when I
used the word 'foreigner,' there was in my heart a sinister motive, there
was in my heart a feeling which round expression. Sir, I bave only this
fo say.- I disdain fo make reply fo sueh an insinuation. If sixty years of
what I believe fo be, after ail, an honourable life, a lire which has eertainly
been one of loyal devotion to British institutions, is nota suflicient answer
to such an insinuation, I will hot attempt to make an answer."
202
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Tarte, who "held Quebec in the hollow of his
hand," Mr. Blair, who had ruled New Brunswick un-
challenged for nearly a score of years, Lord Dundonald,
with alI the prestige of an honoured naine and, if was
hoped, the clannishness of the Scot to back him, had one
by one measured strength and one by one departed.
Vhat would be the cumulative effect of these incidents
il the general elections which were to be held on No-
vember 3. It soon became clear that the Dundonald
episode, whatever the sensation if created for the mo-
ment, would bave little electoral effect, and that without
the manufacturers Mr. Tarte would count little in On-
ratio, and, against Sir Wilfrid, little in Quebec. :But
Mr. Blair, or the powerful forces which appl'oved Mr.
Blair's stand, was hot so easily ignored. The Grand
Trunk Pacifie was the outstanding issue of the cam-
paign, and while its magnificent promises of benefit to
every section of the Dominion were certain to rally wide
support, it was also clear that rival railways and disap-
pointed promoters, as well as many disinterested
doubters of the soundness of the plan, eould be eounted
on to oppose.
The discussion in the country on the railway issue fol-
lowed much the lines taken in parliament. It was be-
hind the scenes that the real interest of the campaign
developed. During the autumn an extraordinary con-
spiracy against the government and its railway poliey
was hatched in Montreal, w.hich for sheer melodrama
and sheer fatuity has never been equalled in Canada.
208
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
The moving spirits were David Russell, a well-to-do
promoter of St. dohn and Montreal, and d. N. Green-
shields, a Liberal lawyer of Montreal who was solicitor
for Mackenzie and Mann. Hugh Graham, the pro-
prietor of the Montreal "Star," which then had the larg-
est circulation of any English newspaper in Canada,
and who, af ter some preliminary coquetting with the
Liberals in 1896, had fought them then by every means,
and fought them again in 1900, with iii success but with
what consolation could be derived from the memory of
having done more than any other agency to stampede
and discredit the government in connection with the
South African War, was also involved. A fourth fig-
ure was Arthur Dansereau; Sir Wilfrid had foreseen
the possibility of a gradual weakening of "La Presse's"
support, but he had never dreamed of the sudden blow
that was now in preparation. The plan, in brief, was to
defeat the government by the purchase of important
Liberal or independent newspapers, by a scandal cam-
paign against members of the cabinet, by buying off
Liberal candidates in Quebec, and by inducing Mr.
Blair to take the stump against his former chier. The
purpose, so far at least as Russell and Greenshields were
concerned, was to secure control of the new government
in order to unload bankrupt railways upon it and to se-
cure fat contracts for government railway construction;
other-railway interests
would also be served.
The plot began well.
of more permanent character
Mr. Russell secured control of
204
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
the St. John "Tclegraph," a Liberal newspaper which
had been Mr. Blair's special organ, and of the St. John
"Evening Times." In October, "La Presse," the chief
French-Cana.dhn newspaper, with the largest circula-
tion of any newspaper in Canada, and which was still
continuing its policy of indepcndence with a friendly
leaning toward Sir Vilfrid, was acquired from its
owner, I-Ion. Tree Berthiaume, for a sure slightly over
one million dollars. Rumours of the transfer at once
leaked out, only fo meet vigorous denial. Early in
October, a very elaborate public dinner was tendered
I-Ion. Mr. Pugsley, Attorney-General i the New
Brunswick cabinet, organized by Messrs. Russell and
Greenshiel.ds, and presided over by Mr. Blair, avowedly
as a forerunner of Mr. Pugsley's entrance into a federal
cabinet, the existing--or some other. Then on Octobcr
18 a message from Mr. Blair appeared in the "Tele-
graph": "I authorize the announcement that I have re-
signed my position as Chairman of the Railway Com-
mission and have notified the premier that beyond re-
affirmhg my strong objection to the Grand Trunk Pa-
cific scheme, I have no present intention of re-entering
political life." The "Telegraph," on Mr. Russelrs au-
thority, announced two days later that Mr. Blair would
take the stump against the government. Mr. Blair
himself informed his fellow-commissioners that he was
about fo accept much more profitable employment.
Mr. Blair's announcement, following the Pugsley
banquet, and the newspaper purchascs, created a na-
205
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
tional sensation. It was evident that an audacious and
aggressive movement was on foot. Both Liberals and
Conservatives waited for the next development. But
day after day passed and nothing happened. Mr. Blair
did hOt take the stump. "La Presse" did not mate-
rially change its tone. Mr. Pugsley did hOt eontest a
seat. No more newspapers were bought. No scandal
charges were launched. Somèhow the bomb had failed
to go off. Sir Wilfrid had taken a hand with "La
Presse," informing its managers that if if changed its
policy he would expose the sale of the chier French-Ca-
nadian journal fo a group of English-speaking specu-
lators, and denounce it throughout the province. I-Ie
had an interview with Mr. Blair, but, contrary fo ru-
mours, did not seek fo bring any pressure as fo his future
course. I)avid Russell had induced lIr. Blair fo resign,
by inducements which were never ruade public, but
which must have been weighty fo lead fo the abandon-
ment of the most desirable post in the gift of the govern-
ment; a cog slipped in the further negotiations;
Blair did hOt receive the important appointment he an-
ticipated, and he did not say a word in the campaign.
Mr. Borden, who had evidently been counted upon to
implement some of the wild promises given, flatly and
vigorously deelined fo have anything fo do with the
conspirators; in a significant statement issued on
October 24, he gave a warning that the Conservative
party would not regard campaign subscriptions as
giving any daim fo consideration in matters of policy,
206
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
and that if any subscriptions had bccn givcn in othcr
spirit thcy would bc rcturncd on application. Bcforc
elcction day had comc it was plain that thc amateur and
lcaky conspirators had over-reachcd themsclvcs, and
that thc net rcsult of thc incident was to confirm con-
fidcncc in thc leader whosc unqucstioncd honour and in-
tcgrity and straightforwardness affordcd a rcfrcshing
contrast to thc fatuous and tortuous plottings on which
a corner of thc curtain had becn raiscd.
Aftcr thc clection, more light was givcn, but somc
aspects rcmaincd shroudcd in mystcry. "Le National-
istc" of Montrcal, which had first amounced thc "La
:Presse" dcal, thc Toronto "Vorld," in a startling article
which minglcd fact and rumo.ur, and the Toronto
"Globe," in a scrics of rcports by a spccial Montrcal
correspondent, laid barc somc of thc incidents. 5If.
Blair dcnicd that hc had bccn paid or promiscd any sure
for his rcsignation; Mr. Russell insistcd that hc had
mcrcly bccn looking for good business invcstmcnts; "La
Presse" proclaimcd itsclf "thc organ of thc pcoplc"; thc
"Star," making no dcnial of thc charges, suggcsted,
quitc safcly, that cithcr thc govcrnment or thc Opposi-
tion should makc full inquiry. Thc Opposition wantcd
no publicity for a conspiracy in which thcy wcrc cast
for the rôle of tool. Thc govcrnment, as victors, wcrc
prcparcd to forgivc. More accuratcly spcaking, Sir
Wilfrid, as usual, was more concerned with making cer-
tain that the weapons would hot be turned against him
in future than with seeking vengeance for the attempts
207
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
that had failed. As to "La Presse," a further transfer,
or rather a reshuffling among the new owners, followed
in January, 1905. In eontrast with the amateur leaki-
ness of the Oetober transactions, these later endeavours
fo save what eouId be saved out of the wreek of failure
were earried on with extraordinary eare, with elaborately
easual suggestions of desire for conciliation conveyed
through third parties, eorrespondenee in the third per-
son, and with cryptogrammatie referenees fo Sir Wil-
frid as "Roberts" and Mr. GreenshieIds as "Peters" and
so on; eventually the new owners undertook to keep "La
Presse" independent but "giving Sir Vilfrid Laurier
a generous support." The trend of the negotiations and
their conclusion are suffieientIy indieated by two brief
documents:
(Wilfrid Laurier to Hugh Graham)
Ottawa, January 1, 1905.
DEAR MR. GRAHAç:
I would much prefer to deal with that whole marrer on the
lines which you suggested in our interview of Tuesday, the
lOth, or even on those of your letter of the same date. Such a
course would be much more in accordance with my own incli-
nation. If is, however, preferable that the business part of the
question should be disposed of in more tangible and concrete
form. I have therefore asked a friend of mine who was ap-
proached by D. M. fo take charge of this subject. I have no
doubt that D. M. will confer with you. For my part, I will
agree with what my friend accepts. When this part of the
difficulty bas been removed, the rest will be easily disposed of.
You already know ray views.
Yours very truly,
WILFRID LAUII.
2O8
Hon. J. Israel Tarte
Hon. A. (3. Blair
Sir Richard Seott Hon. W. S. Fielding Sir Frederiek Borden
" ,. ' .. _ ,- I-
Sir Charles kïtzpatrick Sir Wilffid Laurier Hon. Sydney Fisher
Sir L. H. Davies Hon. CIifford ifton
{ H. Julien: Ltb. Beauchemtn
HENRI
Sir William Mulock
JULIEN'S "BY-TOWN COONS"
Hon. C. A. Geoffrion
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
St. James Club,
Montreal, January 18, 1905.
It is distinctly understood as a condition of procuring the
consent of the holder of the majority of the stock of La
Presse Company fo sell fo us, that the paper "La Presse" is hot
fo be a Tory organ, that it is fo be independent, and that if is
to give Sir Wilfrid Laurier a generous support.
Mackenzie, Mann & Co.
[Signed] Wln. Mackenzie, President.
D. D. Mann, Vice-President.
Shortly before this rime Mr. Edward Farrer had in-
vestigated the conspiracy; his interim report fo Sir SVil-
frid may suflïce fo make clear the ramifications of the
plan, and incidentally Mr. Farrer's reportorial powers:
The Montreal conspiracy to overthrow the Government
appears fo have been formed early in September. Messrs.
Grcenshic]ds, Dansereau, and Russell were the moving spirits
from the first ....
[Af ter referring fo suqdry stock-market speculations, n
some of which Mr. Blair was interested on joint accourir with
Mr. Russell, Mr. Farrer continues :]
From all that I an gather from inside sources Mr. Hugh
Graham of the "Star" and Mr. Greenshields were the first fo
get together. Greenshields then brought in Russell and
Dansereau. Graham on his part brought in the Canadian
Pacific, Mackenzie and Mann, and the Forgets. The project
which was developed bit by bit finally took this shape :--
"A." To defeat the Government and hang up the Grand
Trunk Pacific scheme.
«B." To make Mr. Blair 5Iinister of Railways under Borden.
"C." To lease the Intercolonial fo the C.P.R.
"D." To bring about the purchase by Che Government of
the Canadian orthern lines west of Lake Superior at a good
figure.
209
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
"E." To purchase from Russell and Greenshields derelict
railways in the Maritime provinces, such as the Caraquet and
Temiscouata, on which Russell had options, and make them
part and parcel of the Intercolonial.
"F." Also to purchase through them the Dominion Atlantic
Railway in Nova Scotia and the South Shore Railway of
Nova Scotia now being built between Yarmouth and Hlifax
by Mackenzie and Mann.
"G." To extend the South Shore from Halifax eastward
fo connect with the Cape Breton extension, the road built
a few years ago by Da-. Seward Webb, and now controlled
by Mackenzie and Mann.
"H." In short, ail the independent lines in the Maritime
provinces were tobe bought by the Government, either through
Russell and Greenshields, or Mackenzie and Mann, and annexed
to the Intercolonial which was tobe leased in whole or in part
to the Canadian Pacific.
"I." As said above, the Grand Trunk Pacific project was
tobe suspended indefinitely on the ground that the surveys
did not warrant the construction of the line, the country
traversed being too poor, while construction in some places
between Quebec and Moncton would be impracticable ....
The means that were tobe adopted were as follows:--
"A." Russell was to get Mr. Blair fo resign and take the
stump against the Government.
"B." "La Presse" newspaper was tobe purchased and turned
against the Government.
"C." Shortly before nomination day scandais were tobe
sprung against the Government in the Tory press. The chief
scandal affected Mr. X ....
"D." Immediately after the publication of these scandais
a number of Liberal candidates in the Province of Quebec, who
were to have been bribed in advance, were to retire. This
part of the business was suggested by Greenshields and Dan-
sereau. They said they could induce af least twenty Liberal
candidates to retire on nomination day on accourir of the
210
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
scandais j ust mentioned. For this service they would require
$250,000 or something over $10,000 for each Member. In a
memo to Graham on the subject Greenshields said tha'c he
could bring influence fo bear on Mr. Z. to get him to resigrt
from the Cabinet af the same rime. I-Ie did not suggest that
Mr. Z. was fo be bought like the twenty members, but merely
that he could be got fo resign because of his ill-health, his dis-
like of Senator Choquette, and for other "private reasons."
This programme, if must be allowed, reads like the pro-
gramme of a parcel of lunatics. Nevertheless, stripped of
detail, if is precisely what was proposed. Ail sorts of minor
suggestions reaehed Graham from Greenshields Dartereau
and t{ussell .... They were drawing frcsh agreements, or
making fresh suggestions of a wild character to Graham.
Graham himself is cool-headed enough in his own business, but
in politics he is excitable, almost hysterical, and tan be made
fo believe anything that promises to bring the Conservative
party into power.
In due course Russell got Mr. Blair fo withdraw, and to
send a telegram "reafiïrming his hostility fo the Grand Trunk
Pacifie." Blair's friends say that while he undoubtedly wired
the Premier his resignation, he did not of his own volition
use the words j ust quoted, that they were inserted in the
telegram furnished to the newspapers by Russell. They allege,
in short, that Blair's telegram fo the Premier was merely an
announcement of his resignation to the Premier, whereas the
telegram as furnished by Russell to the newspaper correspond-
ents ruade Blair "reaflïrm my hostility," etc.
I have nothing fo say on this point. In fact I have hOt
been able as yet to devote any attention to the part Mr.
Blair played in the conspiracy.
«La Presse" was purchased according fo the programme.
X)ansereau was employed fo manipulate Berthiaume. They
met af the concert of the Garde Républicaine irt the Arena
on the night of October 11, and went from there to Green-
shields' house, where they remained until six o'clock in the
211
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
norning of the twelfth. Russell and Mr. A. J. Brown, of
Hall, Cross & Co., lawyers, were also present together with
Mr. Beaudin, lawyer for Berthiaume. A draft agreement for
the purchase of the paper had been prepared in advance by
Brown. A good deal of liquor was consumed during the night.
Berthiaume says hc had hOt drunk liquor bcfore for a long
rime, that two or three glasses of champagne overpowered
him and that his mînd was a perfect blank when he signed
the contract about rive in the morning. He signed if, he says,
bccause Dansereau told him that everything was all right. In
the draft contract ruade by Brown, no provision was made for
Dansereau. If was hOt until the party had assembled at
Greenshields' house that a separate clause was drawn--drawn
on a separate sheet of paper--whereby Russell covenanted fo
pay Dansereau $1,000 per month for ten ycars, whether he
worked for "La Presse" or whether he did hOt. If would ap-
pear that the drafting of this special clause satisfied Danser-
eau, as well if might, and thereupon he told Berthiaume fo sign.
But the story told by Berthiaume, that his mind was a blank,
that he imagined Russell and Greenshields were acting for
Sir Wilfrid Laurier in purchasing "La Presse," and so on,
is rldiculous and false on ifs face. The sure of $10,000 was
paid fo Berthiaume that morning, when he signcd the contract.
A further sum of $240,000 was paid fo him later on when
a clean copy of the contract had been preparcd with the
Dansereau provision inserted. Berthiaume was sober then
and must have known when he read the contract that Sir
Wilfrid Laurier was not the purchaser, but, on the contrary,
that the paper was falling into the hands of persons hostile
fo Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
Immediately after thls, Russell and Greenshields, through
Godin, Business Manager of "La Presse," caused that paper
fo abandon ifs attacks on the Forger interests, and fo lean in
ifs news columns, particularly in ifs reports of political meet-
ings, towards Mr. Borden and the Conservative Party.
Articles reflecting on the Grand Trunk Pacific project were
sent by A. J. Brown, who seems fo have acted for Greenshields,
212
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
fo Godin for insertion in "La Presse," but these and other
attempts fo turn the paper against the Government were
frustrated by the action of Mr. Thos. Coté, Managing Editor
of the newspaper. Greenshields and Russell attempted fo buy
up Coté in the saine way, but he refused to bave anything fo
do with them unless if could be shown fo lais satisfaction that
the paper was fo remain as before, that is, independent in
politics with a friendly feeling for Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
I)uring one of Coté's visits fo Greenshields, whom he met af
1Russell's room af the Windsor Hotel, Coté was told by
Greenshields that Mr. Melville of Boston had been selected as
the per'son who should instruct "La Presse" as to the course
if should take relative fo railway and other matters. Coté
saw Melville in the room af the rime, and recognized him as one
of the promoters of the Great Northern Railway of Canada
in which Messrs. Mackenzie and Mann have an interest.
Melville is also mixed up with Mackenzie and Mann in the
Chateauguay and Northern Railway. Berthiaume told Coté
more than once that Mackenzie and Mann were the chief
parties if hot the sole parties for whom Greenshields and
Russell were acting.
The contract of purchase of "La Presse" I bave hot as
yet been able fo obtain. I ara able, however, fo say that
over and above the I)ansereau clause it contained some curlous
provisions. Thus Berthiaume bound himself to deny in the
paper that "La Presse" had been sold; he was fo make if
appear that the paper had merely passed into the hands of
a new company composed of old friends and that he (Ber-
thiaume) was still in control. In order further fo laide the
transaction Russell furnished I)ansereau with a letter, dated
Oetober 12 (the day the paper was purchased by Russell and
Greenshields).
This letter was fo enable I)ansereau fo say that the policy
of the paper was hot fo be changed, not af any rate until
after the elections ....
By the contract with Berthiaume, Russell and Greenshields,
having paid the '50,000 in the two sums mentioned, were
213
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
fo assume absolute control of "La Presse" newspaper on and
after Nov. 13.. Before the elections took place they shipped
:Dansereau to France in company of a friend. Dansereau had
given out, had indeed stated in "La Presse" itself, that he was
about to go fo France fo act as agent for a French syndicate
in New York. This was untrue. Russell bought him his
ticket for France via New York, gave him $500 in cash and
a draft for $3,500 more, with alcttcr granting him leave of
absence from "La Presse" until the end of the year.
One of the strangest fcatures of this strange transaction
îs the purchase of "La Presse." A ncwspaper property is
wholly unlike any othcr form of propcrty. Its value rests
on ifs circulation, that is fo say, on the sentimental attach-
ment of its clientcle. If that attachment is weakened or
dcstroycd in conscqucnce of the propcrty passing into hands
objcctionable fo ifs readcrs, the value is at once greatly
impaired and may easily be wiped out altogcther. One can
hardly imagine how Grccnshiclds and Russell, still less how
Graham, Forger and the rcst, could have supposed that "La
Presse" could be bought and sold in this cold-blooded fashion
and transferred to the control of persons hostile to Sir Wil-
frid Laurier and his Administration, without putting the
property in grave j eopardy. Obviously a statement by Sir
Wilfrid setting forth the bargain and sale would at once rob
the paper of all ifs Liberal readers, besidcs weakcning the
attachment of ifs independent readers. In this way the value
of the paper eould be redueed by fully one-half in the twinkling
of an eye. Russell and Greenshields possibly did hot realize
this danger, but Graham must have donc so...
Where did the money corne from? The $10,000 and the
$240,000 paid fo Berthiaume for "La Presse" came through
the Bank, of whieh all the directors are Tories ....
The best information I ean obtain from the Bank is fo this ef-
fect: The $350,000 was furnished fo the Bank by a crcdit from
New York, from the Morton Trust Co. The conspirators
were hOt obliged fo make a second paymcnt until six months
from October 1, 1904. They had agreed to pay for "La
214
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
Presse" $350,000 in cash on the signing of the deed of purchase
and $450,000 in six months. They had further obligated
themselves fo assume the debts of "La Presse" consisting of a
mortgage on the building of over $300,000, an indebtedness
fo the Canada Paper Co. of $113,000, and some other small
liabilities. But they had so arranged matters that, had the
Laurier Government been defeated, they would have paid the
$450,000 within a month of the installation of Mr. Borden,
and at the same rime would have redeemed the mortgage on
"La Presse" building and the debt fo the Canada Paper Co.,
besides which they were t pay in $100,000 as working capital
for the newspaper and fo improve ifs news service and circula-
tion by every available means. This, if will be seen, pre-
supposed the possession of a very large sum of ready
money ....
That Mackenzie constantly visited Graham is beyond doubt.
He also saw Greenshields af the latter's office on Notre Dame
Street on a Sunday evening at 8 o'clock immediately on his
return from a distant j ourney--possibly on his arrival from
Europe--as he was staying af the rime at the Windsor with
a lot of baggage without being registered. There is the best
authority for saying that on the occasion of this visit fo
Greenshields he left with Greenshields a large envelope con-
taining securities, designation and amounts not known. While
he was conversing with Grecnshields a person described as
a stout man with red hair and wearing blue glasses was wait-
ing for him in the hall. The only person whom this description
fits is Mr. Lukes, the accountant for Mackenzie and Mann.
It is not often that one comes across such a description--red
hair and blue glasses--and certainly Lukes is the only person
answering to that description who travels with Mackenzie;
indeed, he is possibly the only man in Canadn to whom the
description would apply.
The statement obtained from an official of the Bank
that the funds were pooled in New York seems to be well
founded. An investigation in New York bas already been
set on foot with the object of ascertaining, if possible,
215
LIF/ AND L/TTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURI/R
how much was contributed by each of the interested parties.
Greenshields, Russell and Dansereau made several visits to
New York during the progress of the conspiracy, stoppinff
at the Manhattan Hotcl. On November 8 last, information
was obtained from Russell's office in the Windsor that a meet-
ing of the conspirators was tobe held in New York forthwith
to determine what was tobe donc with "La Presse" newspaper,
and to discuss other matters, now that the plot had failed.
On Thursday night, November 10, Greenshields started for
New York. Mr. Carrington, Chier of the Montreal Branch
of the Thiel Detective Agency, was enployed to go fo New
York and watch events. He was told nothing regarding the
facts of the case, but merely instructed to watch the persons
with whom Greenshidds might communicate. His report is
appended herewith .... Such in brief are tlte facts furnished
by the detective. They go to confirm what has been ascer-
tained from other sources.
The unearthing of a plot of these dimensions is necessarily
a slow and difficult task. Every effort is being ruade to get
complete details. Meanwhile this interim report shows that
the conspiracy was probably a more formidable one than any
of us af first supposed.
In the eleetion campaign, Sir SVilfrid, in spire of
growing fatigue, did not spare himself in Ontario and
Quebee. His fortnight's tour through Ontario in Octo-
ber was a triurnphal proeession. _Af publie rneetings
in Harnilton, Guelph, Toronto, Chatham, SVingharn,
Uxbridge, Orillia, Peterborough, Cornwall, Carleton
Ilaee, _Alexandria, and in rnany an irnprovised word
from the train platforrn, Sir $,Vilfrid defended the re-
cord of the past and urged the new railway poliey as
the assurance of eontinued prosperity. The welcorne
he reeeived was enthusiastie and whole-hearted. To-
216
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ronto accorded him what many observers considered
the most striking demonstration in its history: "You
eheer me," he told a Toronto audience later, "but you
do not vote for me." There was no question of the
pride that Canadians, irrespeetive of party, felt in the
leader under whom Canada had attained new place
in the world, new prosperity, and a higher level of
political lire. Among thousands of party followers,
the blending of dignity an.d distinction with frank and
unfeigned kindliness and fl'iendliness in his bearing, his
remarkable memory for old friends' faces, the twinkle
in his eye as he ruade a friendly thrust at some of his
eompanions in the informal reeeptions that followed
every meeting, quiekened pride to what was not far
from adoration. In Montreal, Three Rivers, Valley-
field, larnham, Sherbrooke and Quebee the saine story
was told. No one had any question after his Quebee
tour that his native province would not merely eheer
but vote for Laurier. East and West he was foreed to
leave wholly to his lieutenants, particularly Mr. Iield -
ing in Nova Scotia and Mr. Sifton in the Vest.
The result of the polling on November 3 was yet
another overwhelming Liberal vietory. The maj ority
in the House increased by eleven, nearly doub]ing the
majority of 1896. The most notable changes oeeurred
in the East and the Vest. The ten additional seats ac-
eorded the ¥est in redistribution had in effeet all fallen
to the government, ]3ritish Columbia going solidly and
the prairies predominantly Liberal. The deeline in the
217
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
representation of the Maritime provinces, four seats,
had virtually been deducted from Che Conservative col-
umn. While New Brunswick was slightly Liberal and
the Island distinctly Conservative, the surprise of the
election was the clean sweep made in Nova Scotia, with
eighteen Liberals and not one Conservative returned,
even Mr. Borden failing fo retain his seat. Quebec
gave the Opposition four seats more than in 1900, and
Ontario seven seats fewer. Toronto remained solidly
Conservative, and St. John followed Mr. Blair into
opposition, but I-Ialifax, Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa,
Kingston, London, Winnipeg, Victoria and Vancouver
made it clear that the cities were predominantly with
the government. It had a majority of over forty in
Quebec and of over thirty, omitfing Quebec altogether.
The margin in the popular vote was much less than in
the House, conspicuously so in Nova Scotia. 1
The unquestioned prosperity of the country, the glow-
ing prospects opened up by the construction of a new
transcontinental, the prestige and popularity of Sir
Wilfrid, the strength of his colleagues, and the lack of
x FEDERAL ELECTIONS, 1904,
Seats
Liberal Conservative
Prince Edward Island ......... 1 3
Nova Scotia .................... 18 0
lew Brunswick ................. 7 6
Quebec ......................... 54 11
Ontario ........................ 38 48
Manitoba ........................ 7 3
North West Territories ........ 7
British Columbia ............... 7 0
Yukon ......................... 0 1
149 7
218
THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION
any comparable group of leaders on the other side had
given the Liberal party its third opportunity. The
government's polieies had reeeived tbe emphatie en-
dorsement of the eounty. Ineidentally, the departure
of the Minister of Public Works, the Minister of Rail-
ways and the G. O. C., had evidently bad little perma-
nent and general effect. The Master of the Adminis-
tration had met ail ehallenges.
219
CItAPTER XIV
SCH00LS AND SCANDALS
Af the Height of Power--Decline ef the AdministrationwThe
North-Vest School Question--A Crisis and a CompromisewThe
Crisis Passes--The Lord's Day Aet--Sbarretti and Shearer--
Changes in file C.abinetProvincial Party FortunesParliamentary
Standards and Administrative Reeords--Personal Charges and
Couhter Charges--The Patronage Systom--The Award of Titles
Laurier Refuses Peerage---Cleaning House--The Eleetions of 1908.
N the election of 1904 the Laurier administration
reaehed the height of ifs power. From 1896 fo
1904 it had steadily advaneed in parliamentary
majority and popular prestige. From 1904 fo 1911
if marked rime or went baekward. In great measure
the deeline was inevitable. The country was prosper-
ous, the administration progressive, its leader pre-
eminent, but the swing of the pendulum eould not be
averted. Af ter eight years of active government,
touehing the interests of classes and eommunities from
/ktlantie to Pacifie, grievanees and diseontent began to
aeeumulate: the memory of benefits faded and the mem-
ory of hurts remained. Some slaekening of energy in
the administration, some earelessness in party organiza-
tion and negleet of the never-ending work of popular
edueation in the prineiples of the party, some growth of
personal demoralization and departmental corruption,
gradually sapped strength and confidence,
220
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
The de'line of the administration did not at once
involve a decline in the power of its leader. Sir Wil-
frid Laurier had now become an institution of the coun-
try. In the eyes of Canadians and of outsiders alike
he was the embodiment, if he was not the maker, of the
new position Canada held in the world. He stood
head and shoulders above all other men in public life.
The subtle note of distinction in all he said or did, in all
he was, the blending of reserve and of friendly interest
which fascinated and gripped the men who came in
personal contact with him, the adroitness in handling
a tangled situation, the prestige of nearly thirty years
in high place, ruade him an incomparable leader. He
was more indispensable to his party in 1911 than he had
been in 1896. But this very strength of his was the
party's weakness. It was becoming too much a one-
man party. Neither in parliament nor in the party
organization were sufficient new recruits being en-
rolled and trained. And one man's smile could not
hold a party together indefinitely from ttalifax to Van-
couver.
The Liberal party was going through the saine evolu-
tion as its predeeessor in power. The Conservative
administration had held and tightened its grip on the
country from 1878 to 1887; if deelined rapidly .from
1887 to 1896. Sir John l,Iaedonald had grown in
authority and indispensableness as his party had
weakened, and with his death the party had dsinte-
grated. I-Iistory was hOt fo repeat itself exaetly. The
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
demoralization of the Liberal party did not go fo the
lengths suffered by the Conservatives. Laurier held
power for a longer unbroken streteh than his great rival,
and was destined to remain for a further terre af the
head of a strong Opposition. Yet as Sir Wilfrid looked
btck fo the eareer of his predeeessor, as he often did,
some premonition of eoming titres, some memory of the
fiekleness of the eleetorate, must rime and agtin have
flitted through his mind. 1
In the Dominion's tenth ptrliament, whieh met for
the first rime in January, 1905, this deeline seemed far
in the future. The government was sustained in the
first test of the session by a vote of 93 to 47. The
Grand Trunk Pacifie and the National Transeonti-
nentd were well under way, the stream of immigration
was still mounting fast, and the prosperity whieh had
1 Sir Wilfrid could face this outlook unflinehingly for himself, and
equally for others, as this letter to a witness Liberal member who had
lost his convention, owing, he elaimed, to wire-pulling and the family
fluence of Ms rival, and who proposed to run as an independent:
(Translation)
Ottawa, Sept. 18, 1909
"My dear X:
"I bave just received your letter. I must express my regret in having
to tell you frankly that I do not at ail agrce with you: I know the county
well enough personally to be informed exactly on the situation.
"'You forger that you, and I as well, are no longer as young as we
used ho be wher we campaigned together. The young are coming up and
taking the place of the old fellows. That is what has happened to you
in your county, and that is what will happen fo me before long in Canada.
Let us submit with good graee fo the inevitable.
"The convention was like ail other conventions. Your friends eould
have been there as well as L's, and if they were hot, it is beeause they
do not exist or because they have less zeal than L.'s partisans. In either
case the decision of the convention settles the point. It is impossible
to maintain a party without discipline. I hope that you will recognize
this voluntarily."
222
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
come in with the Laurier régime was still unclouded.
The prospect of any shift in public opinion seemed
remote.
It was the very success of the Laurier administra-
tion in opening up the West which led incidentally to
its first serious check. The growth of population in the
,Western territories ruade it necessary to advance them
fo provincehood, and the framing of provincial con-
stitutions raised once more the issue of separate schools.
The Manitoba school question had broken one govern-
ment; the North-West school question threatened for
a rime to break its successor.
The Western Territories which had been purchased by
the Dominion from the Hudson's Bay Company had
for a generation been evolving from dependence to
equality. In the beginning, with only a handful of
white men scattered over a vast wilderness, it was plainly
necessary to rule the territories from Ottawa as the
Western areas of the United States had in the beginning
been ruled from Vashington. Riel and his Red River
comrades compelled the grant of home rule and the
founding of the province of Manitoba earlier than had
been planned. The territories farther west acquired
self-government step by step as they acquired popula-
tion and local confidence. A council of outsiders, a
lieutenant-governor with a resident but nominated
council, in the Chartering _A_et of 1875, the addition, as
provided in that charter, of elected members in 1881, and
the substitution of an elective assembly in 1888, the
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
practical control of the executive in 1891 and the full
control in 1897, were the chieï stages in the evolution of
responsible government, as Frederick Haultain, Frank
Oliver and James H. Ross were the chief figures in the
achievement. Now the building of the Canadian
Northern and the Grand Trunk Pacific, and the Sifton
immigration policy were doubling and trebling the
population in rive years, and lcading to demands for
complete provincehood. The Territories had a parlia-
ment and a premier, but they could not borrow money,
they could not charter railways, they could not admin-
ister criminal justice. These powcrs and the formal
status they now sought. And j ust as in the United
Statcs where the dividing line in the older states ran on
geographic and economic lines, the admission of new
territories involved a contest betwecn North and South
as to whether the new states were fo be bond or free, so
in Canada, where the dividing lines in the older prov-
inces were lines of race and creed, the admission of new
territories involved Eastern quarrels as to whether the
new territories were to have national or denominational
schools.
During the election of 190 Sir Vilfrid announced
that in aeeordanee with the repeated requests of the
people of the North-West, he would, if returned to
power, introduee a measure providing for autonomy, t
1 In the summer of 1904, the Toronto "News" and a few other Ontrio
newspapers declared that the concession of provincehood was being deferred
until after the elections because the hierarchy was demanding separate
schools. Writing fo a former Ontario supporter, who in 1905 was one
224
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
After the election, lIr. Haultain, the Conservative pre-
mier of the Territories, and Mr. ]3ulyea, his Liberal
Commissioner of Public SVorks,--party lines had not
yet been drawn in the territorial government,--came fo
Ottawa and urged their case. The federal government
was represented by Sir SVilfrid Laurier, Sir William
Mulock, Mr. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Scott. Mr. Sifton,
who naturally would have taken a leading part in these
negotiations and in the drafting of the resultant meas-
ures, was absent in the South, on account, if was stated,
of ill-health.
On February 21, 1905, Sir Wilfrid Laurier intro-
duced the Autonomy Bills, providing for the establish-
ment of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
All but the last step in the development of the Terri-
tories had been taken: "The metal has been in the cru-
of the leading figures in the attack upon the Autonomy Bills, Sir Wilfrid
ruade lais position clear:
Ottawa, June 7, 1905
... "Why, in the naine of patriotism, attempt to resurrect the now
dormant separate school question? 33,Thy, when we bave profound peaee,
attempt fo prejudge public opinion? The school question will corne up
again ail too soon. It will corne in a very different form from what it
was in 1896, but with the same bitter passions on both sides, and again
it will be my lot to fight extremists and to place and maintain the question
where it bas been placed by the British North America Act. If is not
my intention here and now to argue with you .... Let me tell you that
I sec my way clear before me. My policy is ail ruade up in my mind.
I will go into the struggle with no misgivings as to its soundness and with
no apprehension as to the results.
"In tbe meantime I would only ask you to remember that Confederation
was a compromise, and that for the great object of bringing together
the disjointed provinces, George Browr ruade great sacrifices of private
opinion. Let me also ask you to remember that the work of effecting
the union, is far from complete. The work must be continued in the
same spirit in which it was conceived, and I certainly indulge the hope
that you and I wfll aiways fmd if easy to stand on that ground."
225
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
cible and ail we have to do now is to put the stamp of
Canadian nationality upon if." Four questions pre-
sented some difficulty: the number of provinces, the
ownership of the public lands, the financial terres, and
the educaional provision. The territory was too large
for a single province, and the diversity of climate, soil
and resources warranted division; if had been decided to
create two provinces with the dividing line running
north and south. As to the public lands, the bills
would continue federal ownership, in accordance xvith
Canadien tradition, United States precedent and the
need of linking land policy with immigration policy.
The financial terms would be generous, providing an
initial subsidy of over one million for each province.
The exemption from taxation promised the Canadian
:Pacifie by the Macdonald government, unwise and op-
pressive though it was, must be continued: faith must
be kept.
There remained the school question. :Past experi-
ence and recent rumblings had shown the dangers that
lay in this question; it must be approached with care, in
the light of history, in the spirit of tolerance through
which Confederation had been achieved. :Protection
for minority rights had been an essential feature of that
compact: George Brown, lifelong opponent of separate
schools, had agreed fo guarantee their preservation in
the constitution as an indispensable condition to any
union. XVhen, in 1875, Alexander Mackenzie intro-
duced a measure for the government of the Territories,
it made no mention of separate schools, but Edward
226
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
]31ake, warned by the :New ]3runswick controversy of
the dangers of vagueness or omission, urged that some
general principle should be laid down; settlers should
know beforehand fo what conditions they were going; as
the general character of the population would be like
that of Ontario, a school system like Ontario's should
be provided. Mr. Mackenzie agreed, a clause was in-
serted, and passed unanimously by the ttouse. In the
Senate if had met some objection,--notably from Mr.
:Brown, on the ground that if now introduced, separate
sc.hools would be established for ail time,--but had been
passed by a large majorit.y of both parties. To-day,
the government proposed to continue this tradition.
The bills provided that the minority should have the
right to establish their own schools and fo share in public
funds, as was the law to-day, tte concluded with an
unexpected defence of religious teaching in schools and
a comparison between Canadian and United States
sehool and social conditions:
Irt everything tha I have said I have refralned from saying
a single word uport th.e abstract principle of separate schools.
I approach the question upon another and broader ground, I
approach the question not from the standpoint of separate
schools, I approach it uport the higher ground of Canadian
duty and Canadian patrlotism. Having obtained the consent
of the minority to this form of government, having obtained
their consent to the giving up of their valued privileges, and
their position of strength, are we to tell thym, now that Con-
federation is established, that the principle uport which they
consented fo this arrangement is to be laid aside and that we
are fo. ride roughshod over them? I do not think that is a
227
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
proposition which will be maintained in this House, nor do I
believe it is the intention of the House. I offer at this
moment no opinion af all upon separate schools as an abstract
proposition, but I have no hesitation in saying that if I were
to speak my mind upon separate schools, I would say that I
nêver could understand what objection there could be to a sys-
rem of schools whcrein, after secular matters have been at-
tended to, the tenets of the religion of Christ, even with the
divisions which exist among his followers, are allowed fo be
taught. We live in a country where ixt the seven provinces
that eonstitute our nation, either by the will or by the tol-
erance of the people, in every school, Christian morals and
Christian dogmas are taught to the youth of the country.
We live by the side of a nation, a great nation, a nation for
which I have the greatest admiration, but whose example I
would not take in everything, in whose schools, for fear tha¢
Christian dogmas in which ail do not believe might be taught,
Christian morals are not taught. When I compare these two
countries, when I compare Canada with the United States,
when I compare the sta'tus of the two nations, when I think
upon their future, when I observe the social condition of civil
society in each of them and when I observe in this country of
ours, a total absence of lynchings and an almost total absence
of divorces and murders, for my part, I thank Heaven that we
are living in a country where the young children of the land
are taught Christian morals and Christian dogrnas. Either
the American system is right or the Canadian system is right.
For my part I say this and I say it without hesitation. Time
will show that we are in the right and in this instance as in
many others, I have an abiding faith in the institutions of my
own country.
Sir Wilfrid had anticipated criticism. I-Ie was not
prepared for the outburst of denunciation that followed.
Mr. Borden was mild, and expressed the hope that the
school question would not be ruade a party issue. In
228
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
the West itsclf, thcre was little excitcment; the new
measures were wclcomcd, evcn if not in all respccts con-
ceding all that had bcc hopcd. Mr. Haultain
]aunched a vigorous attack, demanding a single prov-
ince, provincial ownership of public lands and no re-
striction on the provincc's control of cducation, but if
did not come until thrce wecks later, as an appcndix to
the Eastc agitation. It was in Ontario, as might
bave been anticipatcd, that the ch]cf outcry arose.
Orange lodges denounced the measure as reactionary,
iniquitous, insidious, vicious. Dr. Carman, General
Supcrintcndcnt of the Methodist Church, termcd it
mad, monstrous, hidcous and oppressive, and Goldwin
Smth, who retained little of his Protestant faith save a
rooted d}strust of ccclesiastcs, dcclarcd ]t bound the
new provinces for ever to maintain and propagate the
Roman Catholic religion. Presbyteries, Baptist con-
ventions, mnisterial associations demanded its with-
drawal. Thc Toronto "News," now owned by Mr. J.
W. Flavclle and editcd by the fo, mer helmsman of the
"Globe," Mr. J. S. Villison, vicd with the Toronto
"Tclegram" in biffer attack upon this "endowment of
clcrical privilcge," this "fastening thc dead hand of de-
nominational control" upon the young provinces.
Of more immediate concern was the criticism from
within the ranks of the party. The "Globe" voiced
much Ontario clissent in ifs insistence that while the fed-
eral parl}ament might set up separate schools in a terri-
tory, it had no power to perpetuate them in a province:
229
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the Liberal princip|e of provincial rights must be main-
tained and the educational clause unflinchingly opposed.
]tut it was within the cabinet that the serious diflîculty
developed. Mr. Sirop had been in toueh with the
prime minister by eorrespondence, and the draft bills
were in harmony with his wishes and in some clauses
drawn af his suggestion. He had not, however, seen
the proposed edueational clauses, and had hOt expected
that the bills would be introduced before his return.
Now he hurried baek to Ottawa, and expressed his dis-
sent in an interview with the prime minister. Sir Wil-
frid gathered that the differenee was one of words and
assumed that it eould be adjusted; he was surprised on
February 27 to reeeive Mr. Sifton's ation from
the cabinet. Two days later the resignation was an-
nounced in the ttouse, Mr. Sifton stating that he dis-
sented from certain prineiples set forth in Sir X¥ilfrid's
speech and from the speeifie provisions made in the edu-
eational clauses. Af the same rime it became known
that Mr..F_i_elding, who had been absent in Europe dur-
ing the negotiations, was out ofs,ympathy with these
provisions, and migh follow Mr. Sifton's example.
Rumours that the Western and Nova Seotia members
would take the same stand filled the air. There was no
question that the government was faced with a serious
erisis.
Sir Wilfrid was af a loss to understand the attack up-
on the bills, tte had no doubt as fo the constitutional
power and duty of parliament: the Imperial Aet of 1871
280
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
gave parliament power to frame a constitution for new
Vestern provinces; the compact of Confederation was
to apply to ail provinces, to protect all minorities; par-
liament, while bound to apply Section 93 of the British
North America Act in spirit, was free to vary it in detail
to meet local conditions, as the precedent of Manitoba
and the countless variations in the constitutions of the
other provinces ruade clear. It was nonsense to say
that education was a matter falling wholly to the prov-
inces; the very section which gave this power to the prov-
inces limited it by restrictions in the interest of the mi-
nority, whether Protestant or Catholic. Provincial
rights must be protected, but equally so minority rights,
and the rights of Catholic minorities equally with those
of Protestant minorities. Minority rights conferred
by action of parliament itself and made the basis of
policy and of settlement for thirty years were fully as
much entitled fo protection by parliament as rights con-
ferred by local action. He was particularly surprised
by the criticism within the Liberal ranks, since the bills
were merely continuing a compromise introduced by
Alexander Mackenzie and Edward Blake. The bills
safeguarded the existing system, which was essentially
a system of national schools with very moderate provis-
ion for separate religious teaching, and was accepted in
the West with practically no dissent on the part of
Protestants.
At an early stage in the controversy, Sir Wilfrid's
position was expressed clearly in letter to an old
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
friend, the editor of the Iontreal "Witness," militant
champion of Protestantism, but none the less fair and
tolerant:
(Wilfricl Laurier to J. 17. Dougall.)
Ottawa, Match zb, 1905.
DAe M. DOVGALL:
The «Witness" has always been so generous fo me that you
must not be surpriscd if I attach fo ifs criticism a greater
wcight than to that of any other paper.
Will you permit me therefore fo place bcfore you the views
which bave influenced me in the educatiin clauses of the bills
for the admission of the new Provinces of Albcrta and Sas-
katchewan into the Dominion?
I nced not remind you that upon many questions, Confed-
eration was a compromise. If is doubtful if Confederation
could have been established witahout importartt sacrifices of
opinion on many points.
The education clause of the B. N. A. Act was the most re-
markable of ail and in that clause George Brown, who was a
most dctermined opponent of separate schools, agreed hot only
fo adroit the system in his own province, but fo make ifs con-
tinuance part of the constitution. Nor is this ail, but a sim-
ilar provision was nade for the minority of any province
which might enter the Dominion with a system of separate
schools. Can you doubt tha if the provinces of Alberta and
Saskatchewan had been admitted into the Domir.ion in 1867
instead of 1905, they would have received the saine treatment
as was given to Ontario and Quebec? I do not think that
this can be denied.
The proposition in the bill is to give the minority the guar-
antee of the continuance of their system of schools as they
would have had i't in 1867.
I am well aware that the idea of having schools partaking of
ecclesiastical domination is repugnant to the spirit of our age.
Even such an objection could not hold against the spirit of the
constitution, but I truly believe the grue character of the
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
schools in the North-West Territories .is not known ; under the
naine of separate schools, they are really national.
The law of the North-West Territories subjects separate
schools fo the following conditions:
1. All teachers must hold their diplomas from the Board
of Public Instruction.
2. All schools must be examined and controlled by In-
spectors appointed by the Board of Public Instruction.
3. All books used therein must be the books approved by
the Board of Public Instruction.
4. The tuition of the pupils must be in the English language.
This secular instruction is absolutely under the control of
the provincial authorities. The only privilege in religious
ma'tters is that af 3:30 1,. »., such religious instruction can be
given fo the pupils as is thought advisable by the trustees of
the schools.
Do you not believe that children so instructed can make
good Canadians? Why, then, refuse fo do for this minority
what has been donc for the minority of Quebec and the minor-
ity of Ontario? If this be refused, the minority of the North-
West Territories wil smart under a sense of wrong and injus-
tice. They will believe that the publie faith of the country is
violated against them and fo their prejudice, and who will pro-
nounce their complaint unfounded?
For my part, I feel very strongly that it is essential, as es-
sential now as if was in 1867, fo make all parties feel sure that
under our British constitution, in our Confederation, the first
duty is fo keep faith, with all classes in the very manner which
was set down as the basis of our Dominion. If this is hot the
idea that ought fo guide us in this marrer, I confess that I
ruade an error, but if if is, you will agree with me that I ara
following the rlght course.
Believe me, as ever, dear Mr. Dougall,
Yours very sincerely,
[Signe&] WILFRID LAURIER,
I-le denied any inconsistency between his stand in
283
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
1896 and his stand in 1905. On both occasions he sup-
ported the right of the minority to religious teaching;
his opposition in 1896 had been to the method of safe-
guarding this right. He was not overriding any local
action. The degree of separation in the North-Vest
schools was even less than in the Manitoba schools under
the Laurier-Greenway agreement. On both occasions
he had opposed intolerance, then the intolerance of
Roman Catholic ecclesiastics who would deny freedom
of thought to their co-religionists, now the intolerance
of Protestants who were willing to accept privileges for
a Protestant minority in Quebec, privileges always hon-
ourably preserved, but who were unwilling to carry out
their .share of the compromise when a Catholic minority
was involved. He sympathized with the ideals of those
who urged the need of national schools to hold together
a country of many diverse origins and creeds, but he
could not agree that in the schools or out national unity
involved a drab and compulsory uniformity. :For the
most part, he had changed his front but not his base.
Not w.holly so: there was undoubtedly in his present
stand a more lively sympathy with the minority's posi-
tion than in 1896, born of growing conservatism, or of
the irritation at Ontario's insistence, as in the South
African War, that Quebec must provide all the sacrifices
on the altar of harmony. 1
There were two points where exception could legiti-
1 In a letter to a Regina friend, written on March 1 and made public
during the provincial election in 1905, Mr. Walter Scott, after referring
to the "almost unpardonable bungling" over the affair, and expressing
234
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
mately be taken. It was undoubtedly a mistake fo in-
troduce the bill before consulting Mr. Sifton as to the
educational clause. In the clause itself there was an
undesirable ambiguity. Under the federal Act of 1875,
empowering the maj ority of the ratepayers in any dis-
trict to establish such schools as they thought fit and the
minority therein fo establish Protestant or Roman
Catholic separate schools, local ordinances had been
passed, establishing dual or denominational schools
much as in Quebec or Manitoba, with complete ecclesi-
astical control of the separate schools, 'in finance, inspec-
tion, teaching and text-books. Then in 1892, as a
consequence of the agitation in Manitoba, the Territorial
Assembly had passed other ordinnces, limiting the
right to establish separate schools to those sections in
the belief that a compromise could be effected, commented on this phase
of the situation:
"It was impossible fo evade the issue. To leave the subject wholly
within the provincial control was bound to be objected to by Roman
Catholics because they were bound o look then to very quickly sec
the last vestige of their Separate Schools disappear. Laurier hatl induced
Quebec to swallow twice,--in 1896 and again in 1899 over the South
African business. Neither Manitoba nor Ontario thanked him very em-
phatically on either occasion. In the prescrit case the hierarchy would
have too much reason behind their contention. I don't for a moment
think that the case for the Separate School is legally or constitutionally
binding, but morally the case is pretty strong and in my view it would
simply be going beyond ail reason to expect Laurier to induce Quebec
to swallow a third rime with the weight of the moral argument so
strongly against him.
"I do hOt believe that Laurier or any other member of the cabinet
beyond Seott and Fitpatrick thought other than that Section 16 of the
bill simply provided to continue existing conditions. We North-West
members advised this provision and we were told that out adviee would
be followed. Laurier's speech indicated nothing further to me...
Sifton's analysing acumen quickly picked out the meaning of the clause
which without question would remove the separate schools from public
regulation."
235
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
which the Catholics were in minority, and limiting
religious teaching in ail schools to an optionl hlf-hour
af closing; later ordinances and regulations provided
for uniform teachers' qualifications, eurriculum and
inspection in ail schools, public or separate. Sir John
Thompson had questioned the validity of these ordi-
hantes, but as the rime for disallowing an earlier instal-
ment of the changes had been permitted fo go by, he
did hot disallow them. In 1901 the law was further
consolidated. It had been Sir SVilfrid's understanding
that the school system which was fo be maintained was
the system de facto, but under the clause which Mr.
Fitzpatrick had drafted, repeating verbatim the words
of file Act of 1875, there was some ground for believing
that the minority could daim the re-establishment of the
out-and-out denominational schools which had af first
existed. In file later debate on the question, able con-
stitutional lawyers expressed the most widely varying
opinions as to the possible effect of the original Clause
16. If was certainly desirable that the new act should
provide a settlement, not litigation.
If is not likely that either pique af not being consulted
or doubt as to the scope of the clause would of them-
selves bave led Mr. Sifton fo resio-n. Sir SVilfrid had
nmde it clear in their interview that if there was ambi-
guity, if could be cleared up. The personal antagonism
between Mr. Sifton and Mr. Fitzpatrick, and the per-
sonal attacks which were being ruade or prepared
against Mr. Sifton from other quarters doubtless had
236
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
their part in his decision. The Autonomy Bill gave an
opportunity to withdraw with kudos.
Nearly a Inonth of private discussions followed. Sir
¥ilfrid was Inoved at rimes to seek to earry through the
bill as it stood rather than Inake even noininal conces-
sions; and again he considered offering his resignation
as leader. Mr. Sifton's resignation did not faeilitate an
ainendinent; if added fresh eoinplieations by arousing
personal antagonisins and by making any ainendment
appear an unwilling result of pressure rather than a
voluntary atteinpt fo Inake the real meaning elearer.
Eventually an agreeinent was effeeted. A_ new clause
was drafted, stipulating that the Ininority rights to be
safeguarded were those arising out of the ordinanees of
1901. In explaining the new clause on the second read-
ing, Sir Wilfrid, af ter einphasizing the fact that the
original Ininority clause had been introdueed af the in-
stance and in the interest of the Protestant minority of
Quebec, declared that in view of the changes Inade in
1892 and 1901, fo enact Section 93 or the original
clause of the Autonomy Bill would create confusion and
litigation: "We therefore thought it was preferable to
have the law Inade absolutely certain and in order to do
that we have incorporated the ordinances under which
the law as it is to-day, has been established. If Inay
be disappointing to some but we believe that on the
whole itis preferable to have a clear understanding." 1
a 1. NORTra-WEsT TE'oRn.s Ac'r, 1875
When, and so soon as any system of taxation shall be adopted in any
237
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
district or portion of the North-Wes Territories the Lieutenant-Governor,
by and with the consent of the Council or Assembly, as the case may be,
shall pass ail necessary Ordinances in respect to education; but it sball
therein be always provided, that a majority of the ratepayers of any
district or portion of the North-West Territories, or any lesser portion
or subdivision thereof, by whatever naine the saine raay be known, may
establish such schools therein, as they may think fit, and make the neces-
sary assessment and collection of rates therefor; and further, that the
minority of the ratepayers therein, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic,
nay establish separate schools therein, and that, in such latter case, the
ratcpayers establishing such Protestant or Roman Catholic separate schools
shall be liable only to assessment of such rates as they may impose upon
themselvcs in respect thereof.
2. ORIGINAL CLAUSE 16 IN THE AUTQIOMY BILLS.
1. The provisions of Section 93 of the British North America Act, 1867,
shall apply to the said Province as if, at the date upon wtfich this Act
cornes into force, the territory comprised therein were already a province,
the expression "the Union" in the said section being taken to mean the
said date.
2. Subject to the provisions of the said Section 93 and in continuance
of the principlc heretofore sanctioned under the North-West Territories
Act it is enacted tha the Legislature of the said Province shall pass ail
necessary laws in respect of education and that it shall therein always
be provided (a) that a majority of the ratepayers of any district or
portion of the said Province or of any less portion or subdivision thereof,
by whatever name it is known, may establish such schools therein as they
think fit, and make the nccessary assessments and collection of rates
therefor, and (b) that the minority of the ratepayers therein, whether
Protestant or Roman Catholic, may establish Separate Schools therein,
and makc the necessary assessment and collection of rates therefor, and
(c) tat in such case the ratepayers establishing such Protestant or
Roman Catholic Scpavate Schools shall be liable only to assessment or
such rates as they impose upon themselves with respect thereto.
3. In the appropriation of public moneys by the LegisIature in nid of
cduction and in the distribution of any moneys paid to the Government
of thc said Province arising from the school fund established by "The
Dominion Lands Act" there shall be n discrimination between the Public
Schools and the Separate Schools, and such moneys shall be applied to
the support of the Public and Separate Schools in equitable shares
of proportion.
3. CLAIYSE lA .eS A»EVEV
Section 93 of the British North America Act, 1867, shall apply to
the said Province, with the substitution for paragraph 1 of the said Section
93 of the following paragraph.
(1) Nothing in any such law shall prejudicially affect any right or
privilege with respect to Separate Schools which any class of persons
have at the date of the passing of this Act, under the terres of Chapters
238
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
In parliament, the arnendment, reunited the party.
llr. Sifton emphasized the difference between the orig-
inal clause and the anaendment, as the difference be-
tween a system of eomplete ecelesiastieal control and a
system with seeular control of seeular teaehing, and
ecelesiastical provision of religious teaching after hours.
I-Ie eould not forbear from remarking that "when my
honourab]e friend, the Minister of Justice, employed a
draughtsman to draught this clause with instructions to
maintain only the existing state of affairs in the North-
SVest Territories, the draughtsman either wholly misun-
derstood his instructions or possessed a most remarkable
faculty for covering things which were not covered by his
instructions." tte was prepared to accept the new ver-
sion, as it retained the essentia] principles of a national
school system and removed "the taint of eeelesiasticism."
Mr. Fielding, while declaring that he did not like the
principle of separate schools, added that there was some-
thing tobe said in these lax days for re]igious instruction
in the schools; the system in the North-Vest was virtu-
29 and 30 of the Ordinances of the North-rest Territories passed in the
year 1901 or with respect to religious instruction in any Public or Separate
School as provided for in the said Ordinances.
(2) In the appropriation by the Legislature or distribution by the
Government of the Province of any moneys for the support of schools
organized and carried on in accordance with the said Chapter 29 or any
Act passed in amendment thereof, or in substitution therefor, there
sall be no discrimination against schools of any class described in the
said Chapter 29.
(3) Where the expression "by law" is employed in paragraph 3 of
the said Section 9"3 it shall be held fo mean the law as set out in the
said Chapters 29 and 30, and where the expression "at the Union" is
employed in the said paragraph 3, it shall be held to mean the date at
which this Act cornes into force.
239
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ally national system, and certainly there was not
enough to whieh objection eould be taken fo warrnt
governmental erisis and eonsequent struggle on reli-
gious lines. Sir ¥illiam Muloek emphasized the varia-
tions in provincial eonstitutions whieh ruade if impossible
fo apply Section 93 automatieally, as Mr. Haultain him-
self had proposed. Mr. Bourass broadly defended
the tolernee and the patriotism of the Freneh-Can-
dian and insisted that if the people of Quebee were
sometimes provineialists, if was beea.use outside their
province the Freneh-Canadian was denied liberty, equal-
ity, full respect; Mr. Fitzpatriek, deelaring that he him-
self had drawn the original section, "with my own hand,
line by line, clause by clause, word by word," defended
it as simply eontinuation of the poliey laid down in
1875, and explained the privileges guaranteed under the
new clause as the right of a minority, Protestant or Ro-
man Catholie, in an existing publie-sehool district, to
separate building and a separate trustee-board whieh
would ehoose the teaeher, and the right, eommon to Pro-
testants and Roman Catholies, and fo publie and sepa-
rate sehools alike, fo hall an hour's religious instruction.
Mr. Borden ruade an able and aeute analysis of the eon-
stitutional issue, and Mr. Foster slashing attack on the
government's ineonsisteneies. A munber of their fol-
lowers, Mr. Herbert Ames, Mr. Pringle, and Mr.
Bergeron, defended the government's poliey; Mr.
Monk, urging the need of positive enaetment fo safe-
gurd nd make elear the megre privileges left to
240
SCIIOOLS AND SCANDALS
the minority, and protesting against the tendency to
imitate the drab uniformity of the United States, eon-
eluded by attaeking the myth that the voter in Quebee
was to any greater degree under elerieal influence than
his fellow-Canadians: "if the parish priests of my
eounty were to unite to seek my eleetion, I would lose
my deposit." Throughout, the debate was of a very
high order, moderate in tone, aeutely reasoned, often
eloquent, distinetly superior to the discussion of press
and platform. It was no surprise that the second read-
ing was earried on May 3, by a vote of 140 fo 59. One
Liberal, Mr. L. G. MeCarthy, voted against it, and
thirteen Conservatives, of whom ten were from Quebee,
voted for it: the government had a majority of twenty
outside Quebee and a majority of fourteen exeluding
all Catholie members.
Outside of parliament, the erities were less ready to
aeeept the compromise. From the Toronto "News"
and the Winnipeg "Tribune" to the "Christian Guard-
Jan," the "Presbyterian" and the "Canadian Baptist,"
the cry was still for eomplete exclusion of any referenee.
fo the sehools. The "Globe," now under the editorial
control of the Rev. J. A. Macdonald, accepted the com-
promise reluetantly and uneertainly; the influence of
I-Ion. G. V. Ross and of Mr. John A. Ewan ruade for
aeeeptanee, but the new editor was a man of strong im-
pulses, and the "Globe" eonsequently followed a some-
what zigzag course. A few Conservtive j ournuls,
sueh as the Montreal "Gazette" and "Star," approved
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the government's course. Fresh fuel was thrown on
the tire by an effort of Mr. Robert Rogers, of the
Manitoba government, fo implieate t.he government in
an indisereet attempt by the new Papal I)elegate, Mgr.
Sbarretti, to induee Manitoba fo restore Catholie sehool
privileges as the priee of the extension of her boundaries
to Hudson Bay. Sir Vilfrid at once deelared that if
Mgr. Sbarretti had ruade any sueh proposais he had
done so wholly of his own motion, and without any shade
of authority or knowledge on the part of the federal
government.
If soon beeame elear that there was no wide-spread
popular revolt in the English-speaking provinces, and
that the erities, though not without influence, eould not
inspire a erusade. Protestant opinion eould be stirred
as ever, but in the absence of any strong eomplaints
from the Vest itself, the tire soon burned out. If was
diflïeult to keep passion af white heat over the teaehing
of the Roman Catholie eateehism from half-past three
to four o'eloek. In two hotly eontested by-eleetions in
Ontario--London and North Oxford--the Autonomy
]3ills were made the issue. The sueeess of the Liberals
in both seats, with an inereased majority in London and
a deereased majority in Oxford, was variously inter-
preted, but at least it showed that no tidal wave of opin-
ion was rising against the government.
In the V¢est itself, where Toronto prophets had fore-
told a rebellion, the eleetors, partieularly after the modi-
fication of Clause 16, showed a disappointing ealm.
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
When Frank Oliver, the most charaeteristic old-thner in
publie lire, was appointed Minister of the Interior in
Mr. Sifton's place, he was returned for Edmonton by
acclamation on April 25. It was not easy to oppose a
minister in a by-eleetion, and partieularly a minister
with Frank Oliver's personal hold on his eonstituents,
but all the explanations left something still to explain.
Then followed the eleetion of the new provincial legis-
latures. In September, Mr. A. E. Forger was installed
as lieutenant-governor of the new province of Sas-
katehewan and Mr. ]3ulyea in Alberta. Mr. Bulyea,
on his own diseretion, ealled upon A. C. Rutherford, a
Liberal member of the Territorial Assembly, to form
a government in /klberta, while R. B. Bennett was
ehosen leader of the Conservative Opposition. lValter
Seott, a Liberal member af Ottawa of mueh promise, for
whom Sir ¥ilfrid had a very warm affection, was sum-
moned in Saskatehewan, and Mr. I-Iaultain, who, but
for his active hostility to the Autonomy Bills, would
have been the natural ehoiee, organized a Provincial
lights party in opposition. 1 In the eontests whieh fol-
1 In a letter to Mr. Bulyea Sir Wilfrid stated the reasons for passing
over 1Mr. Haultain, and, in consequence, for suggesting that Mr. Bulyea
himself should take the lieuten.ant-governorship of the other province
rather than oppose his old friend:
"Ottawa, 25 July, 1905
«... Af the outset, I had indulged the hope of an easy solution, a
solution that seemed so natural as not even fo suggest the possibility
of another and different one.
"V(hen you and Haultain came fo Ottawa, in the early part of January
last, I thought, and indeed every one thought, that as soon as the two
provinces came into existence, the then existing government of the 'er-
ritories would naturally become the government of Saskatchewan.
243
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
lowed late in the year, the Liberals had the advantage
of governrnent prestige and oflïeial favour, but this was
eounteraeted by Mr. I-Iaultain's personal popularity
and by the eornprornising support whieh Arehbishop
Langevin, who in April had vigorously denouneed the
arnendrnent as "a eonseeration of robbery," " sacrifice
once more fo seetarian fanatieisrn," now tendered fo
Mr. Scott by ealling upon aH Saskatehewan Catholies
fo vote for hirn. The result was .an overv¢helming
Liberal vietory, 16 seats fo 8 in Saskatehewan and 23 fo
2 in Alberta. Clearly, the West was eontented. 1
"The attitude of Haultain has ruade this, in my judgrnent, an im-
possibility. When in the early part of the struggle whieh followed the
introduction of the bills, Haultain went out of his way fo openly take
sides with the Opposition, I am free to admit that I was keenly disappointed
but even then I did hot eome to the conclusion that the breach was
irreparable. When, 'however, he threw himself into the contests of London
and North Oxford and especially when he announced his intention of
carrying on the provincial eleetions on the avowed policy of destroying
the school system of which, some weeks belote, he had said that if he
were a dictator, lae would not change a single disposition of it, he left
us no alternative, but to accept the declaration of war.
"I realize that such a condition of things must be particularly painful
and embarrassing to you. On the one hand I know full well that you
never approved Haultain's course. On the other hand, the ries of friend-
ship which bave grown between you and 'him, resulting from long
association in the saine administration, would make ita most invidious
task for you, to have to oppose him and fo fight, with ail the firmness
which a political contest means in this country, and especially such a
contest as is involved in the policy of which he bas declared himself
OEhe champion..
"I bave thought it therefore my duty to place at your disposal, one
of the two lieutenant-governorships, that is fo say the Lieutenant-
governorship of Alberta as the other is already filled...."
l(Geor#e H. Bul!tea to Wil[rid Larier)
"Edmonton, Dec. twenty-six, 1905
"The eleetions of Alberta and Saskatehewan are over and I think
tlaat you will adroit that my judgment in both cases bas hot been very
244
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
The crisis had evaporated. Manitoba's schools had
troubled Canadian politics for serez: years, the North-
West schools for seven months. Sir Wilfrid had his
acts through, the principle of accepting the Confedera-
much at sea. In this province there were no complications, and the
result was a clean sweep for the Liberals ....
"As I told you before, I thought the question of sympatly for Haultain
would be a serious factor; there is no question that this was more serious
than his policy as fo schools, and unfortunately, qu.ite a number of our
Liberal fricnds refused fo withdraw their support from him. Toward
the end of the campaign, however, this was more or less forgotten, and
had no furthcr complications arisen, Scott would probably have carried
21 out of the 25 seats. Our friend at St. Boniface, however, in his mis-
taken zeal, issued the memorandum which, unfortunately, became public.
It was absolutely unnecessary, as Haultain had alienated the Catholic
vote, and the distorted use and colouring that was given fo this document
by Haultain and his friends had a most disastrous effect on the non-
Catholic vote. I have very little hesitation in saying that had Haultain's
manifesto been issued a week or ten days sooner, Scott could hOt bave
carried the province. However, it is hot for the purpose of referring
to this question that I take the liberty of writing you. You are no doubt
aware in a general way, of the attitude of the C. P. R. in both provinces.
In the constituencies of Banff, Calgary and Gleichen in this province,
the C. P. R. had practically charge of the campaign and every influence
they could use, fair or unfair, was brought to bear on the Liberals.
"Mr. Whyte issued instructions that his officiais were not to interfere,
and I may say I believe Mr. Whyte was sincere and that these instruc-
tions were issued in good faith. However, it ruade no difference to the
officials, and when Mr. Cushing at Calgary protested to Mr. D. about
his interference, after said instructions had been issued, D. practically
told him that he did hot care a for Whyte, that he took Iris instruc-
tions from some one higher than he was.
"The influence of the C. P. R. can be felt, also, in every point in Sas-
katchcwan province where they had a pull. They voted all their officials
and most of their men, particularly their section-gangs ail over the
southern portions of the province .... Tbey have shown their hand, and,
I think, if I might presume fo offer you this advice, I would make
it war fo the knife from this out .... My suggestion would be to take
the revised version of the golden rule: 'fo do unto otbers as they would
do to you, and doit first.' . . ."
1 (Wlfrd Lau'er fo G. E. Bulyea)
"Ottawa, ! January, 1906
..."The result both in Alberta and Saskatchewan is quite satisfac-
tory. I ara hot, however, without anxiety for the future on account of
245
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SER WILFRID LAURIER
tiçn compromise accepte/l, and his majority, and, save
for Mr. Sifton, hi cabinet intact. Yet the resu]t had
been to shake Ls position nota little. No exp]anation
cou]d f,]]3 exp]ain. Critics contended that if he had
intended fo re-establish denominationa] schoo]s of the
ear]ier type, then for the first rime he had been forced fo
retire from a position which he had de]ibertely taken;
and if he had mere]y meant fo continue the existing
schoo]s, this shou]d have been ruade c]ear beyond ques-
tion. In Ontario and in some measure in the other
iEng]ish-speaking provinces, the suspicion had been
p]anted that he ws under fle thumb of the hierarchy,
and though thus far the harvest had disappointed the
industrious sowers, they had hopes of beter days.
Equa]]y important, the exremists in Quebec were
given an opportunity which they did not neg]ect. Mr.
gurass.a, who had voiced no dissent from the amend-
ment in the House, held a great mass meeting in Mont-
real in Airi], and found ardent support for his uncom-
promising defence of separt_ç_e schoo]s and his denuncia-
tion of the amendment as sacrifice of the minority's
the unfortunate action of the Archbishop. The bad impression which
was created by lals unwarranted interference may still be revived at any
moment as it may give Haultain and his friends a permanent opportunity
of holding before the public the scare of clerical interference. This is
a constant danger and similar breaks can always be expected from this
impetuous man. Out friends in the West, however, should know by this
rime that he is no friend of ours and must be closely allied with Haultain
as with the Manitoba Tories, either in Dominion or Provincial politics.
"The suggestions which you make with regard to the C. P. R. are
certainly worthy of consideration, and I am sure there is no mistake
in believing that they have tried a double gaine, protesting their innocence
af this end, and working with ail their might af the other .... "
246
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
rights, a ratification of the "unjust, illegal and o'"res-
sive territorial ordinances." It was the first ieçne in
ten years that a criticof__Sir Wilfrid had found a popu-
lar follo__wing in Quebec. The Nationalist movement
had begun. 1
A_ year_l_ater rçligious differences once more disturbed,
but in a minor degree, the course of legislation. For
some years a vigorous agitation had been carried on,
particularly by the Lord's Day Alliance, for more effec-
tive legal protection of Sunday as a day of rest. Slack-
ening religious faith, Continental immigrants, United
States Sunday newspapers, tbe speeding up of industry,
golf and country clubs, were making inroads upon the
quiet Sabbath of earlier days. A recent Privy Council
decision had tbrown doubt upon the power of the prov-
inces to legislate comprebensively in a field covered in
some measure by tbe federal control over criminal law.
The cabinet agreed to introduce federal legislation, and
af ter full consideration had been given in committee, a
bill was drafted. Tbe measure broadly fo___rbad_9__w_ork-
ing_for gain on Sunday; tbere were many exemptions in
favour of transportation and other public services, and
(Wilfrid La«rier to tto,. J. P. B. Casgrain.--T.ranslatn)
"'Ottawa, April 20, 1905
"My dear Senator:
"I ara not as optimistic as you are. I believe that I shall pull through
this difficulty, but I am hot sure that I shall pull through, as you sug-
gest, stronger than at the beginning. Matters are going hot too badly
at the moment in the English-speaking provinces. I believe that there
is in fact a distinct reaction in our favour. But our friend Bourassa
has begun, in Quebec, a campaign which tnay well cause us some
trouble... 2'
LItFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
pro acal laws present and to corne were validated, but
r.r,
even the provisions were strict enough fo r__up_ CO__unter
to many industrial and transportation interests as well
as to the social convictions of many communities. In
Quebe__.c, where Sunday, after mass was over, had long
been regarded as a day for political tournaments, fam-
ily visiting and friendly gaines, the feeling was strong.
Mr. Tarte, in one of his last utterances, attacked the
bill as a retrograde and autocratie invasion of the liberty
of the individual, while M_r. Bourassa denied that any
man who tried to force sueh iniquitous legislation down
the throats of the people eould eall himself a Liberal;
Archbishop Bruehesi, on the other hand, joined the
maj ority of the Protestant elergy in warm .support.
Sir .yilfrid defended the measure as not merely in ac-
cord with the religious convictions of the vast maj ority
of the people, but essential to pr_Loteet t__hç_ _worki__ng-man
from the persistent eneroaehments of industry upon his
day of rest. When Mr. Bourass attacked the govern-
ment for eapitulating we'akly fo agitators and lobbyists,
and partieularly to 1Rev. Dr. Shearer, the general
secretary of the Lord's Day Alliance, and thereby put-
ring a premium hOt merely on agitation but on "hypoe-
ri{y, drunkenness, idleness and the vices that deve]op
in any country where the attempt is ruade to make
people virtuous by law, instead of relying on the indi-
vidual conscience and the moral quality of the Chureh,"
Sir Wilfrid adroitly turned the attaek to his own ad-
vantage. If enabled him to take up his favorite rôle
248
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
of the moderate man attacked by the extremists. "Last
year the cry was Sbarretti; this year itis Shearer."
The measure passed the House without substantial vari-
ation, but it was modified by a Senate amendment,
later accepted by the House, making pro_s_ecutions de-
pend_on the initiative of the attorney-general of the
province concerned; eventually Quebec and British
Columbia contracted themselves out. Even so, the
l)resbyterian General Assembly the year following was
able to endorse the measure as "the best piece of Lord's
Day legislation ever passed by ary parliamcnt."
The le.gislative achievement of the third Laurier
parliament was not limited to autonomy and Lord'.s
Day acts. The t_ariff was revised in 1907, with the
addition of intermediate or negotiat_ing tariff rates half-
way between the general and the British preference
rates. A Civil Service Conmfission wa established to
control the inside or Ottawa service. The Election Act
was revised to make more stringent the enactments
against corruption, and incidentally to prevent hostile
local Tory governments abusing the good Liberal
principle of accepting the provincial franchise lists for
federal elections: a warmly debated measure, which,
as. Sir ¥ilfrid frankly stated, "reduced itself to this,
that you gentlemen on the other side of the House do
not want to go before the country on eleetoral lists pre-
pared by your opponents and we, on this side of the
House, do not eare fo go to the country on eleetoral lists
prepared by out opponents." The Railway Commis-
249
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
sion wtts reorganized, and telegrph and telephone com-
panies brougbt under ifs jurisdiction. F:resh ground
was broken by the establishment, under Sir Richard
Cartwright's guidance, of a sys_tem of government old-
age annuities, on a voluntary basis, and by tbe passing
of measure for compulsory investigation into labour
disputes in public utilities, framed by Mr. Lemieux and
his young deputy-nfinister, Mr. Mackenzie King.
If was hOt, however, in legislation, nor in the determi-
nation of foreign and imperial policy that the political
interest of this period eentered. The ql?_anges__in the
personnel of the federal government and in tbe provin-
eial situation, and partieularly the charges of maladmin-
istratign and corruption brought against tbe Laurier
government, were of mueb greater poli_tical moment.
Time had transformed the Laurier cabinet of 1896.
Many of the original stalwarts bad departed; others had
lost their earlier zeal; new men had eome and gone, and
younger lieutenants were taking their place.
From the Maritime provinces, only Mr.______F_içldi___ng and
Sir Frederiek B_orden remained. Sir Louis Davies had
gone to the Supreme Court in 190.9; Mr. Blair had re-
tired a year later, and Henry R. Emmerson, wbo bad
given up his New Brunswiek premiership fo take hîs
place, resigned in 1907. The New Brunswiek post in
the cabinet, after mueh joekeying, had fallen to Mr.
¥illiam Pugsley, Attorney-General in the Tweedie
cabinet whieh had sueeeeded Mr. Emmerson, and pre-
mier for a brief spaee untiI a seat in tbe Commons and
250
SCH00LS AND SCANDALS
the portfolio of Public Vorks fell to him in 1907. 1V[r.
Fielding's skilful and prudent handling of the country's
finances, and his moderation, j udgment and probity in
ail relations, had steadily strengtbened his position in
the House and in the country. Sir Frederick Borden
had proved an effective administrator of militia affairs,
but had of late been under tire on grounds of personal
conduct. Mr.. Pusley, shrewd, suave, resourceful, a
relentless fighter on occasion, brought with him ail the
experience and ail the feuds of a lifetime of New Bruns-
wick politics.
In Quebec, only _Si__l- Vilfrid and Sydne_y_ Fisher re-
mained of the original six nfilfisters. Mr. Geoffrion
bad die__d in 1899 and Mr_. D___obell in 1902; Sir Henri
3o_11 had gone to Govermnent House in Victoria in
1900, and Mr. Tarte had read, or rather spoken, hfinself
out in 1902. Mr. Fitzpatrick, after six years in the
junior legal post and four in the senior, had taken the
Chier 3ustieeship of the Supreme Court in 1906. Nor
had the second generation of ministers had a longer lire;
M. E. Bernier had gone on the Raihvay Commission
af'ter four years, Henry Carroll had held the Solieitor-
Generalsbip for only two years, and Raymond Préfon-
taine's stormy career wts eut short by death in 1905.
But the Quebee delega__tion was strong, and the younger
men who took their place added streno'th and distinction
to the government,--Rodolphe Lemieux as Solicitor-
General in 190 and Postmaster-General and Minister
of Labour two years later, 3. aeques Bureau as his sue-
251
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
cessor in the Solicitor-Generalship, Louis P..Brodeur,
as Min'ister of In!.nd Revenue in 1904 and of Marine
and Fisheries in 1906, and Henri S. Béland af a slightly
later period. The Ontario representation had not
fared so well. 1 Sir Richard Cartwright, Sir Richard
Scott and William Paterson still held their posts, but
none of these veterans was now able fo take the active
part in parliamentary debate or pa.rty organization of
the days of old, though Sir Richard, who had refired fo
the Senate in 1904, was still potent in council and an
alert critic of all doubtful expenditure. Sir Oliver Mo-
wat had rounded off his career by a six year term in Gov-
ernment House and David Mills, by a seat in the Su-
preme Court. The severes blow came with the retire-
ment of Sir SVilliam Mulock, who was not only an un-
usual[y effective administrator, but was strong with the
general public, and able fo rally the old Reformers.
Impaired health compelled him in 1905 to take a less
1 The discontent within the party as fo the Ontxarîo leadership may be
gathered from a public interview of one of the whips, George D. Grant,
early in 1906: "We 0_nflj_Q_Liral.__memb_ers are very much dissatisfied.
n, Ve feel great regret on accourir of Sir William M_ulock_'s reljx_Jat; he
bas held the confidence of the Liberals of the old school. The only
members of the cabinet from Ontario in whom we lmve confidence are
Alesworth_nd Hyaman."
Early in 1908 the Toronto Reform Association voiced a similar complaint
fo Sir Wilfrid: "The Liberal party in the province is in an extremely
apathetic and comatose condition. The old Liberals are becoming discour-
aged and disinterested and the leaders of the party in the province are not
putting their claims before the people in such a way as fo hold their own
with the young men .... We appreciate fully the great services and
sacrifices rendered the party by the senior Ontario representatives in your
Cabinet, but notwithstanding these, af the present rime, age and physical
disabilities prevent some of your ministers from taking such a part in the
coming campaign as a Cabinet Minister is expected to take."
252
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
onerous position on the Ontario beneh. James Suther-
land and Charles Hyman in turn filled a terre, whieh ill-
health ruade brief, as minister without portfolio and
Minister of Publie Works. Fresh strength came when
A. B. Aylesworth agreed to give up his flourishing legal
praetiee to enter federal polities; Postmaster-General in
1905 and Minister of Justice a year later, his intelleet-
ual vigour and distinct individuality proved invaluable
assets. The Ontario delegation was still further
strengthened in 1907 by the appointment of George P.
Graham, who had sueeeeded George SV. Ross as Liberal
leader in Ontario, and had proved his quality in that
diflïeult post, as Minister of Railways in 1907, and of
Charles Murphy, a vigorous and outspoken Ottawa bar-
rister, with a fresh viewpoint, to sueeeed Sir Richard
Seott, on the eve of the 1908 eleetions. From the West,
whieh had had one representative in the nineties, and two
after 1902, Frank Oliver had sueeeeded Clifford Sifton,
and SVilliam Templeman had given British Columbia
its first full cabinet post.
The situation in the provinces had change& That
this affeeted federal fortunes was plain; in what way,
was marrer for dispute. A party vietory in a provincial
eontest eneouraged the party workers, ensured the local
government's moral or other support, and had its influ-
ence on those who wished to swim with the ride. Yet
there were observers who eontended that there was a po-
litieal law of compensation, whether due to the different
adjustment of pendulum swing in the federal and in the
258
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
provincial timepieces, or fo the desire of independent
electors fo hold the balance even, which gave the party
in opposition in the province a better chance in the fed-
eral contest. There was some ground for this interpre-
ration in the political history of Ontario and the Mari-
rime-provinces, but on the whole experience told
against it. Certainly the Liberal leaders at Ottawa
round little consolation in the growing power of the
Conservative pa.oEy in the provinces.
Five out of the nine provinces were still Liberal. In
Nova Seotia, George H. Murray still led invineibly
the administration he had organized on Mr. Fielding's
retirement in 1896, and in 1908, a year of elections,
Franeis Haszard e,ontinued, though with a redueed
majority, the Liberal tenure in Prince Edward Island
whieh had begun in 1891. In Quebee, after Mr. Mar-
ehand's death in 1900, Simon Napoleon Parent had sue-
eeeded to the premiership and an overwhelming Liberal
majority. Four years later, when the premier dissolved
the Assembly suddenly the day after the Liberal vie-
to T in the Dominion, the Conservative in protest
ofl%ially abstained from "che eontest; during the elee-
tions and in the new Assembly a bitter eontest between
two wings of Liberals took place, and Premier Parent
gave way in 1905 fo Lomer Gouin. The new premier
eontinued the reform of administrative methods, begun
by Mr. Marchand, whieh soon ruade Quebee the best in-
stead of the worst administered province in the Domin-
ion; the Conservative party was able to offer little resist-
SCH00LS AND SCANDALS
ance in 1908, though the new Nationalist group gave
some trouble. In the West, the Rutherford govem-
ment stql held eontrol of power in Alberta, and Pre-
mier Seott had seeured a new lease of power in Sas-
katchewan in the eleetion of Augttst, 1908.
Elsewhere the prospeet for the Liberal party was less
eneouraging. In New Brunswick, where Mr. Blair
had been followed by a rapid succession of Liberal or
faintly coalition premiers,--James Mitchell, Henry
EmInerson, L. J. Tweedie, William Pugsley, Clifford
Robinson,--the end of a twenty-five-year Liberal
régime came with the decisive victory of Douglas
Hazen, the Conservative leader, early in 1908. In On-
tario, af ter Oliver Mowat's retirement, Arthur Sturgis
Hardy and George W. Ross in turn endeavoured to
earry on, but despite their ability and the quality of the
new men they gathered around them in the cabinet, the
fight was a losing one. After thirty-two years' un-
broken power, the eleetors were prepared fo listen fo
the ery, "It is rime for a change," and the more so sinee
in the last years of Liberal government, when numbers
were desperately close, disreputable machine methods
gained the ascendancy. The Ross governrnent was
swept out of power in January, 1905, and in June, 1908
a Conservative vietory with 86 seats to 19 ruade it elear
that Sir James XYhitney's progressive adnfinistration
assured him in turn of a long vista of office. 1,1 Mani-
toba, the Greenway government had gone down to
defeat in 1900, and though the Roblin government was
255
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
fast building up a reputation as the most shamelessly
and eolossally eorrupt administration in provincial rec-
ord, it was still able to secure or fo count a majority of
the voters. In British Columbia, after a period of
chaos in which Joseph Martin played a spectacular
part, the non-party basis of government, with ifs in-
stability and constant personal intrigue, was abandoned,
and a frankly Conservative government under Richard
McBride held power from 1908. The provincial swing
was distinctly toward the Conservative camp.
If was hOt, however, the indirect influence of Con-
servative gains in the provinces that the Laurier govern-
ment had to fear so much as the attacks ruade upon ifs
own conduct of public affairs. Its administration of
the country's business was constantly and vigorously
under tire in this period. The sessions of 1906, 1907
and 1908 were largely scandal sessions, and the general
election that followed was a scandais election. The
government was attacked as wasteful, demoralized, cor-
rupt, false to ail the principles and promises of the
sanctimonious Liberalism of Opposition days. The
government forces retorted in kind. If half what each
side alleged of the other was true, Canadian public lire
had sunk below the depths it had reached ha the nineties.
How much tire was behind the campaioaa smoke?
So far as the conduct of parliament itself was con-
cerned--or af least of the Commons, for the Senate
changed not--there was no question that the years had
brought a marked and welcome raising of standards.
256
Sir A[len A.vlesworth
William Pugsley
George P. Graham
W. L. Mackenzie Iing
LOlliS P. Brodeur
Frank Oliver
Charles Murphy
Henri Béland
' GROUP OF MINISTERS
Jacques Bureau
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
The amenities of debate were better observed, personali-
ries were less extreme, the possibility that the other
side of the House might not all be imbeeiles or seoun-
drels more freely reeognized. At rimes when a long
session had frayed men's nerves or the discussion of
seandal charges had eome close home, there were out-
bursts whieh did the House little eredit, but they were
fewer than of old, and rarely shared in by the front
benehes. How mueh of the change was due to the
lessening use of whiskey, how much to the guidance of
a notable succession of Speakers, J. D. Edgar, Thomas
Bain, Louis Brodeur, N. A. BelcomoE, R. F. Sutherland,
and later, Charles Marcil, if would be difficult to
assess. There was no doubt that if was in very large
part due fo the character and example of the leader of
the House. His dignity and courtesy pervaded the
whole Commons; the standards of a great gentlemn
became part of the traditons of parliament. The in-
fluence of Mr..Borden, always fait and always more in-
terested in principles thon in personlities, ruade
strongly in the saine direction.
As regards administration, stock-taking did not
reveal such steady progress. There was mudl fo set
fo the government's credit. It had shown an energy
and competence in many fields in refreshing contrast
fo earlier days. In the administration of the Treasur.y,
in immigration and settlement, in agriculture, in the
post-office, and in less degree in the public works, the
country had received progressive and careful service.
257
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
The work of the Railway Commission had given stabil-
ity and fairness to transportation. Yet there wa.s also
another side. There was an uncordfoloEable mnount
of inefficiency, of waste, and of misuse of public funds.
Some of the abuses were due to individual wrong-doing,
from which any corporation might surfer. Some were
due to broader causes, particularly fo Che effect of party
organization and methods on the country's business.
Vho shall muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn?
It was difficult to prevent occasional ocials, high and
low, from making use of their opportunities for illicit
gain, and yet so far as came to light, there was not any
substantial degree of peculation within the administra-
tion. Extensive petty graft was found in the Marine
and Fisheries Department, upon investigation by a
commission in 1907, due in pmoE fo the wasteful and
careless methods in force in that depa-ment in the past
dozen years, and partly, so the Liberals replied, to mis-
taken leniency in permitting practically ail the old
Conservative oce-holders to retain their posts.
Vholesale graft was charged in the affairs of the In-
terior DepaoEment under Mr. Sifton's régime; tituber
and -azing leases that yielded rich profits to the conces-
sionaires, sales of land to colonization companies af un-
duly low rates, a contract with the North Atlantic Trad-
ing Company, a group of European shipping agents,
for bonussing immigrants, kept secret because of Con-
tinental laws against emigration propaganda, were ail
charged to be devices for enriching men on the inside.
958
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
The North Atlantic contract was never proved to be
other than what if purported, and the Saskatchewan
Valley Land Company's operations were shown fo have
brought settlement and prosperity to a wilderness.
There was ground, however, for the charge that in some
timber and grazing contracts, if there had not been
collusion, there had been neglect of the country's inter-
ests. The Liberal tactics were to deny any wrong-
doing, to dig up old Conservative deals, and to attack
prominent members of the Opposition, paloEicularly
Messrs. Foster, Fowler, Bennett, and Lefurgey, for
abuses of private trust or for seeuring secret information
from railway magnates as a basis for speeulation in
Western lands. An investigation into life insuranee
conditions by a royal commission in 1906-07, follow-
ing upon the revelations ruade by the Hughes inquiry
in New York, revealed mueh waste, instances of in-
defensible manipulation in some of the smaller eom-
panies, and a dangerous interloeking between trustee
and private interests in some of the larger, and provided
the basis for substantial ilnprovements in insuranee
legislation the following session. By many Conserva-
rives, however, the ehief purpose of the inquiry was
eharged to be the diserediting of Mr. Foster for his
handling of the funds of a fraternal soeiety and ifs sub-
sidiary trust eompan:ç. The debates on the question in
1906 and 1907 were prolonged, the attaek pointed, Mr.
loster's defenee vigorous and eireumstantial.
If was not merely the eighth commandment but the
259
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
seventh that was claimed to have been broken by Liberal
ministers and by Conservative members. I)uring de-
bte in February, 1907, on these charges, Mr. G. W.
Fowler, Conservative member for Kings, New Bruns-
wiek, j umped fo his feet and threatened reprisais:
I want thls House and the Right Honourable the First Min-
istcr and the government fo understand that if matters in eon-
nection with my private business are fo be discussed in this
House, I shall take an opportuniy .o discuss the private char-
acter of members of the Administration and members on that
side; . . . I shall call o, spade a spade and when I speak of
the indisposition of an honouIable minister which keeps him out
of the House, I shall tell exactly what if was and how if was
brought on .... I shall discuss the charo, eter of honourable
members opposite, whether they be ministers or private members
and their eonnection with wine, women and graft.
Mr. Fowler earried the marrer no further, but Mr.
Bourassa, professing to voiee an outraged publie opin-
ion and fo be anxious to defend the honour of the House,
repeatedly urged investigation into these and the other
charges; he himself had no evidenee, but the rumours
were thiek and strong; there should be no saw-off; the
prime minister should intervene as Mr. Gladstone had
done in the case of Sir Charles I)ilke. Sir Wilfrid, in
reply, on Match 26, refused to pay heed to "insinuations
and the tittle-tattle of the street": "The House of
Commons bas never either in this country or in the
mother country ordered an investigation exeept upon
a charge whieh the man against whom it is levelled ea.n
face and to whieh he ean give an answer." The insur-
anee inquiry was eomplete; if did hot require to be
260
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
repeated. Mr. ]3ourassa had referred to certain gossip
and had declared that if he had the proof he would bring
it: "if he has not the proof, why does he mention it at
all? The rumours which have been floating in the air
at last fell into the gutter, and the honourable gentle-
man gropes in the gutter and brings those rumours into
the tIouse." There had been rumours about an absent
minister: "Last fall, a certain rtnnour came to me, and
I spoke to a mutual friend who is now in this House and
hears my words, and I said to him: I have been a friend
of Hyman for many years; you are still more a frieud
of his than I am . . . ; go to him and tell him he must
let me know what truth there is in this." Then and
afterward his colleague had sent direct and circumstan-
tial denial. Mr. Gladstone had advised Parnell's
friends to compel his withdrawal from public life; but
when? When his offences had been revealed in court,
when they were no longer a private affair but a public
scandal. It was not his duty to act as a detective: when
facts as to other men were brought to his knowledge
he would act as he had done in I-Iynmn's case. Let
direct and responsible charges be made and the freest
and fullest investigation would be given. The debate
ended, and the discussion was continued in the Calgary
"Eye-Opener." A week ]ater one minister resigned
and fought an unsuccessful libel suit. A second had
already retired. A third fought the charges and re-
tained Sir Vilfrid's confidence and his seat.
It was hot a pleasant episode. Undoubtedly in
261
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
some quartexs power and prosperity were relaxïng
moral standards, or at least encouraging men to flaunt
their personal miseonduet in publie. The wave of
speeulation whieh was sweeping over the whole country,
and partieularly the opportunities for getting rieh quiek
in Western real estate, had affeeted the whole country;
the eity banker, the village storekeeper, the Vestern
fariner, eaeh had lais filer, and members of parliament
were not immune. The lime-light on the politieal
stage revealed the misdoings of publie men, but when-
ever a corner of the eurtain whieh eoneealed private
business was lifted, it was round that graft and turned
heads were hot eonfined fo politieians. If was the
seamy side of prosperity, paoE of the priee the country
paid for the sudden development of the unexploited
wealth of hall a continent. Fortunately, the infection
did hot wholly pervade either publie or private lire, and
af ter the first intoxication there came a sober return to
simpler ways. In other cases the eritieism was the out-
corne, rather, of rising publie standards. Thirty years
earlier, it would have eaused little comment had a nfinis-
ter appeared, drunk, in the House, much less out of it.
Sir Wilfrid was blamed for not intervening earlier as
regards the personal charges against his eolleagues.
He did intervene whenever definite statements reached
him, and after 1908 this phase of polities troubled the
country little. 1
1 Sometimes graee was given, as in the following unique documerts,
drawn up in Sir Wilfrid's handwriting, an signed by the erring minister:
(1) "I 'hereby tender you my resignation as member of your admin-
262
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
Sir IVilfrid's position may be gathered frorn a letter
to one of the guardians of the Liberal conscience, Sen-
ator McMullen:
Quebec, 28 July, 1908
I have your letter of the 25th instant. I never knew any-
thing of the charge made by Boyce until it was brought in the
House. I admit that it has a look upon it which I do not like
at all, but before making" up my mind I shall wait until Sifton
has had an opportunity of giving his version of it.
Boyce could and should bave prcferred that charge when
Sifton was in the House and as Sifto.n was Minister a.t the rime
the transaction took place and is primarily rcsponsible for it,
it seems to me Boyce should bave given notice of his intention to
bring the marrer up, so as to give Sifton an opportunity of
meeting the charge. Whatever may be Sifton's faults he is no
coward, and he has denied thc personal charge made against
him, it seems to me only reasonable and fair to suspend j udg-
ment.
Moreover, let me tell you frankly that in this marrer you take
a very unfair and unjust position toward the govemmaent.
You say that once thc impression gcts abroad that corruption
exists in the ranks of any government, it is sure to end disas-
trously. I do not dispute tht by any means, but is it fair,
istration and Minister of ..... , and ask you fo place the saine in the
hands of His Excellency."... Ottawa, ------, (signature).
(2) "I hereby pledge my word to Sir Wilfrid Laurier that I will
never again faste wine, beer, or any other kind of intoxicating liquors,
in token of which engagement, I place in Sir W. L.'s hand my
resignation as member of the cabinet and minister of .... , with the
date blank, leaving it to him fo fill the blank and act upon it, should
I fail in my promise."
Alas for human promises--a year later Sir Wilfrid filled in the blank.
If was perhaps as a result of the confusion caused by the two favourite
lines of attack by Conservative statesmen that a Simcoe County farmer,
a staunch old Grit, declared that he had not been surprised fo hear
about some of the ministers, but he was really shocked by Wilfrid
Laurier's goings on with that Italian hussy, Mary del Val: a story which
Sir Wilfrid much enjoyed.
263
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
reasonable or just to apply it to the present government? If
Sifton were 'still in office, in view of the charge whieh is made
against him, I could understand your construction, but as he is
no longer a member of the Governmen't I do not see how we ean
reasonably be ruade to surfer for an offence whieh took place
seven years ago. If the orfence were such as you represent it
and if Sifton were still in the Government, I would be bound to
ask him an explanation, and if the explanation were not satis-
factory, the responsibility would be on the Government either
to kecp him or to force him out.
I know that we are weak in the Province of Ontario and one
of the causes of our weakness there is that our friends are
prone to bclieve everything bad of us without preliminary in-
vestigation and to hold us responsible even for things which it
is not in out power to remedy ....
Allow me to say in conclusion that there is in your letter a
pessimistic tone which ought not to exist. Governments are
born to die, but I do not think that we have yet tome to our end
and certainly we can win again and win easily, if our friends
will not be stampeded by the attacks of the Tories. The
Tories are very virtuous when they are in opposition ; when they
are in office they tan swallow anything without wincing.
These charges and counter charges had fo do with
individual and more or less incidental wrong-doing.
More serious were the charges of wrong-doing in the
interest of the party, of fraud or waste or inefflciency
declared fo be inherent in the party system, as that
system had developed in Canada in recent years. Elec-
total corruption, the waste, unfairness and demoraliza-
tion of the patronage system, the sinister aspects of
campaign funds, were ruade the ground of vigorous
indictments of the Laurier administration, and of
tu quoque replies. The methods adopted fo secure a
victol T at the polis, the sources of the aid required, the
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
patronage and privileges given in return, were widely
debated.
That democracy involved the party system, no man
with practical experience questioned. That it involved
the two-party system seemed a j ust deduction from the
last half-century of Canadian politics. With political
power divided among a million voters, how were half a
million plus one to be induced to act together? The
leader's personal prestige, the instinct of loyalty, of
hero worship, would gd far. Thousands of electors
cheered and voted not for the Liberal party but for Vil-
frid Laurier, as thousands had cheered and voted for
John A. Macdonald before him; "Follow my Vhite
Plume," Sir ,Vilfrid called not in vain to young Quebec,
as age silvered his black locks. Party spirit was strong,
the group prejudice, the combative instinct which
shared with the larger loyalty of national patriotism a
good side and a bad, an unquestioning cleaving to the
flag of Grit or Tory under wlfich one had chanced to
be born, a readiness fo stand by one's party, right or
wrong. Principles moved a few, disinterested convic-
tions on one's own side, rooted prejudices on the other.
With judicious stimulus or from the accident of events
the interest, or what was considered the interest, of a
religious body or an economic class or a local community
could be rallied, and with skill and the favouring dis-
tances of a continent, opposing groups could some-
rimes be induced fo support the one party. The policy
of state aid to industry inevitably brougtIt the parties
265
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
into close touch with ever.y large and organized econ-
omie group; the transition from aid in the eountry's
interest to aid in the party's interest was easy. Parties
eould give or promise tariff or botnty privileges to
manufacturers, railway extensions to a mining-camp or
a prairie settlement, a post-office or an ai'mory or a
harbour wherever it would do the most good. The
Laurier government ruade less political use of the tariff
than its predecessors; the manufacturers at best were
neutral, and the new publieity of tariff hearings was a
marked advance on the old Red Parlour days. Publie
works were used more freely, for money was more
abundant, and it came easily, extracted painlessly in
tariff dues. A_ hostile constituency could not ask for
more than "cold justice," and members unblushingly
recited the wharves and custom-houses and bridges they
had secured for their constituents. "I obtained two
years ago $174,500 as government subsidy for your
railroad, and this year nearly $100,000; $90,000 for the
construction of the dam; $7,500 for ice-breakers, $3,000
for an iron bridge; in all, I have obtained for the two
counties more than $875,000. Does that count for
nothing?" was one candidate's account of his steward-
ship, while another calculated that his st-ring equalled
$125 per head of the voting population. Sometimes
this wholesale bribery with the people's own money
shredded into retail bribel3,, as where in the 1908 election
a defeated candidate reported meeting on election day
the free and independent voters on their way to the
266
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
polis, each hauling his share, three logs for the new
breakwater.
To drive home these arguments, fo instil true prin-
ciples, to rouse the indifferent, to convert the hesitating,
to stiffen the backsliding, to counteract the machina-
tions of the enemy, all the resources of press and plat-
form and poster were called into action. Of late years
there had been less political discussion between elections.
Members met their constituents in single or in joint
debate less often than of old. The newspapers gave
less of their space to politics, more to business, sport,
society and personal news. A more concentrated and
strenuous campaign at election rimes, increased reliance
on organization, head-lines and posters and cartoons
which he who tan might read, a shriller note in all the
contest, became inevitable.
There remained the hopelessly indifferent and the
hopefully corrupt. Manhood suffrage had increased
their numbers, the single-member constituency main-
tained their importance, the gerrymander increased it.
A few score of purchased rotes (retail) would turn
many a riding. For this situation the Liberals had a
share of responsibility. They had championed man-
hood suffrage, and they still believed that in the long
run their faith would be justified. They had not taken
any definite step toward proportional representation.
Sir Richard Cartwright, with Mr. Monk, warmly urged
it, but tradition was too strong for them; Sir Vilfrid
had corne suflàciently to their view to declare that if
267
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
in power, hc would ask its considcration at thc ncxt
redistribution. They had, however, donc away with
the gerrymander; the redistribution of seats in 1908
had been the fairest sinee Confederation, effeeted by a
eommittee representing both parties. The extent to
whieh bribery prevailed varied from eonstitueney to
eonstitueney. If was probably less than a generation
earlier, despite a greater floating vote. A few close
eonstitueneies, sueh as London, where a paoEy fight was
a family vendetta and men were ready to go great
lengths for victory, were badly demoralized. Sometimes
teanfs were hired or eattle bought af high priees where
rive dollar bills would not le taken: in one eonstitueney
a hotel keeper kept open house for all eomers and sent
in the bills to the two eandidates on the basis of the votes
finally polled for eaeh; boxes of whiskey labelled
"Choiee Tomatoes" did duty for the Conservatives in
Colehester, and also for the. Liberals in eampaign retort.
A newer phase of eleetoral corruption was the manip-
ulation of the ballot. The hiring of bogus deputy re-
turning offleers in West ]lgin; the spoiling of ballots
by thumb-nail peneil erosses in North Grey; in the
Sault, the voyage of the Minnie M. with a boat-load of
personators, sworn, to save their consciences, on spe-
eially provided bogus Bibles; the resort in West Hast-
ings fo boxes with secret eompartments to switeh the
ballots as desired;' aroused the publie more than
t The importer of these boxes, which were labelled "Beehives," was
asked af a little country station by a Hornerite preacher for a contribution
fo the church funds; in his nervousness he handed over twenty dollars»
268
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
bribery. Pzactically ail these and shnilar incidents
took place in Ontario, which was frequently too busy
saving the souls of the other eight provinces to have
rime for its own; though it was long experience of Que-
bec that had led Israel Tarte to declare that "elections
are not won by prayers." The bulk of the offences lay
at the door of the provincial Liberal party, which hl
permitted the most brazen machine in Canadian annals
fo take control of its electoral affairs. The federal or-
ganization was relatively free from these gross abuses,
but not wholly, and federal offices sometimes rewarded
provincial offenders.
For all these efforts, the work of canvassing and
organization, the work of honest persuasion, the work
of loud propaganda and lowly whispers, the work of
the briber and ballot-box stuffer, workers and payers
were required. Many men worked for loyalty, for prin-
ciple; many worked for office or for glory; many took
the cash and let the credit go. Some newspapers gave
free and independent support; others had to be sus-
tained by government printing or advertising; 1 others
were maintained directly out of party funds. As busi-
ness outweighed politics, there came a gratifying in-
whereupon the preacher declared to the bystanders that he must return
immediate thanks: looking about, he chose the "beehives" to kneel on,
and prayed the Lord to bless the good and generous brother in his
work.
aYet the printing would never go round. T'o a prominent member
who complained he had never been able to secure any contracts for his
paper, Sir Wilfrid replied: "I am hot surprised that you cannot get
any printing from the departments; I have never been able to get any
for a paper in which I take an interest in Quebee."
269
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
crease in newspaper independence, but in many cases
a journal became independent of party only fo become
dependent upon advertisers, or the organ of railway or
corporation interests, t'ayers, too, were needed; there
were men who subscribed fo local or central campaign
funds as they would to their church funds, without
hope of gain in this world, and there were others who
subscribed fo one or both parties on a business basis,
expecting thousands per cent. profit.
The sequel was the patronage system. If workers
and subscribers would hOt work and pay for loyalty or
principle or class or community interest, they must be
rewarded by direct individual gain. Seats in the Com-
mons, judgeships, senatorships, knighthoods, clerkships
af Ottawa, jobs as postmasters, excise oflïcers, customs
landing waiters, immigration inspectors, must be filled
and where possible filled by the faithful. Supplies
must be bought from firms on the patronage list. Sub-
sidy-hunters, contract-seekers, found the way smoother
if they had subscribed fo campaign funds.
The distribution of patronage was the most impor-
tant single function of the government. Sir Wilfrid
frequently repeated the story of Lincoln, asked during
a crisis in the Civil Var whether it was a change in the
army command or complications with foreign powers
that wrinkled his forehead, and replying, "No, itis that
confounded postmastership af Brownsville, Ohio." No
other subject bulked so large in correspondence; no
other purpose brought so many visitors to Ottawa. If
270
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
meant endless bombardment of ministers, ceaseless ef-
forts to secure a word from the friend of a friend of
the premier, bitter disappointment for the ninety and
nine who were turned away. While the members of the
cabinet from each province usually determined the ap-
pointments which could be localized, all the more impor-
tant came to Sir lVilfrid before decision, and to him the
prayers of most of tbe seekers were turned. Some of
his supporters tried to save themselves trouble for the
moment by reeonmending to him each candidate in
turn; in reply to a protest, one such praetitioner naïvely
replied: "True, I recoinmended both C. and D. It
was C. I really wished eonsidered. D. is one of a class
of people who hound my office, ask me for letters of
recommendation, exalt their services or the services of
their friends, whom they often bring along, and offer
tbemselves to put the letter in the post-box. What am
I to do. v' 1
Some men worked through their friends, some ap-
plied direct. ZParticularly in applying for the higher
posts, it was comme il faut to make if clear that it was
only the insistence of the general public that had over-
x It was in a similar situation that a former toaster dispenser of patron-
age, Sir Charles Tupper, had devised an ingenious plan. Sir William
Van Home eomplained fo Sir Charles that he was sending a preposterous
numb'er of recommendations for passes on the Canadian Pacific. "True,"
Sir Charles replied, "but itis diflicult to decline what people eonsider
¢osts me nothing. Hereafter, when I send you aletter recommending
a pass, and sign it q'ours truly,' throw it into the waste-basket; when
I sign it 'Yours sincerely,' please give it eonsideration; but when I sign
it 'Yours very sincerely," you simply must not refuse it." "And," added
Sir William, "after that, every blessed letter from Tupper asking for
a pass was signed, 'Yours very sincerely.'"
271
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
corne the candidate's reluctance: "It has been repre-
sented to me that the Liberals of Ontario with whom the
name of Z. is a household word would be much gratified
if I were appointed to Government House," or "My
friends insist that my tact and diplomatie talents would
find suitable seope in the High Commissionership."
For the Senate, the orthodox grounds were being "the
only one left of the old guard who stood so loyally to
their eolours in the dark days of the eighties when there
was no silver lining," or having "run six eleetions and
paid ail my expenses out of my own poeket."
Roman Catholie bishop would write to note that all the
last rive appointments, formerly held by his eo-religion-
ists, had gone to Protestants, or a layman would argue
that beeause the last holder was a Catholie so should
the next be, or that as the last holder was a Protestant,
if was a Catholie's turn; a Methodist friend would
write to point out that there were only two Methodist
eounty j udges out of eighty, and a Presbyterian to
eomplain that the pereentage of Presbyterian senators
was falling. It was a Quebee follower who wrote Sir
Vilfrid shortly after the eleetions of 1896: "If anyone
had told me when I was fighting the battles of Liberal-
ism in my eounty, striving without fear of attaek or
hope of favour to advance the cause of the people,
determined that no designing elerie and no eorrupt
politician would be allowed to shackle our noble eoun-
try,--if anyone had told me that six months after you
took offlee, I would still be without a job, I would not
272
LADY LAURIER
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
bave believed him." It was an eastern Ontario seeker
who wrote: "To think that af ter naming my on]y son
William Lyon Mackenzie, I am still denied any post by
a government that ca]]s itself Liberal." Acquaintance
in youth; descent from two United Empire Loyalist
great grandfathers; having seventeen living children,
one named Wilfrid, and this in Ontario; bcing the
daughter of a Conservative minister and the mother of
ten potential Liberal voters; finding that "if poverty is
not a crime, it is very inconvenient," were typical
grounds set forth in the appeals which poured in upon
the prime lninister.
Posts were limited and many of the applicants were
obviously unsuited for any post whatever. Sir Wilfrid
rarely, if cver, nade a promise until he was sure he
could carr.y it out. To the great majority of his cor-
respondcnts it was necessary o say "no"; o some, fu-
ture consideration could be assured. ]Tet he found
rime to give individual attention to every request that
reached him, and to return a fitting answer. To a
pompous member of an old fanily who was graciously
prepared o honour the party and the country by accept-
ing a high post, the reply was curt and deflating; to an
illiterate old Cape Breton fisherman who had voted
Liberal all his life and had not receivccl even any road
work, and now wished to be relieved of his (municipal)
taxes of eight dollars, the reply was warm and sympa-
thetic. To young lawyer who sought a governmcnt
berth he gave not only refusal but the advicc to stick
273
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
fo his calling and force success by his own endeavours.
Some appeals which had no claire upon the country had
a claim upon his personal sympathy. Out of their own
purse he and Lady Laurier eased the last years of old
friends, and provided the training that an ambitious
boy or a girl with musical girls had hoped for in vain.
If should hOt be assumed that the appointment never
sought the man or that importunity greatly counted.
That the higher appointments should be restricted to
members of the party in power, whether Liberal or
Conservative, might be deplored as unduly narrowing
the range of choice, but within this field public merit
as well as party service was carefully weighed. In
connection with judicial appointments, Sir Vilfrid's
correspondence, particularly with his Ministers of Jus-
tice, reveals a frank and deliberate sifting and an in-
sistence on professional attainments and personal quali-
fies, for which credit was not always given. Sometimes
offers of senatorships or knighthoods were declined:
writing to a colleague of Sir Wilfrid, a generous Liberal
backer explained his reasons:
I am not ambitious. I am for "the house with the narrow
gare which I take tobe too little for pomp fo enter af." Any
interest I take in political afFairs is, I am sure you will believe
me. unselfish. There is no one, however, who benefits more by
good rimes than I do, and I am hot of the foolish ones who can
l'emember the years from 1890-96 and then from 1896 fo the
present, wîthout coming fo the conclusion that the vital in-
terests of Canada are bound up in Sir Wilfrid's government.
I can see the sacrifices made by yourself and confrères; the
strenuous life you are forced fo lead, and the very many
274
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
pleasures of which you deprive yourself. I would be ignoble
indeed if in the face of this I did hot with pleasure rn, ake my
little effort toward lengthening the period of power of the best
government Canada ever had or is likely fo have.
Not often, however, did a wife write one day to urge
the appointment of her husband to the Senate, and the
husband write the next day to urge the selection of a
fellow-townsman.
The letter j ust quoted sers forth a side of the ques-
tion too often ignored by critics of public men. Public
life was an engrossing occupation. Few men could do
justice even to a private member's task and to t.heir own
affairs. XVith the growing complexity of the task of
government, the session lengthened to cover the greater
part of the year: in the parliament of 1873-78, the
average length of a session was 72 days; in 1891-96 if
was 116, and in 1904-08, 178 days. For the minister,
office meant prestige, power, and to some, relative
prosperity, but af the end there often came defeat and
a vain endeavour fo pick up the threads of a broken
professional career. It was this consideration which
led the government in 1905, along with an increase in
sessional indemnities from $1500 to $2500, to propose
and carry a pension for all cabinet ministers, past and
future, who had held office for rive years. The public
outcry led a year later to the repeal of the pension provi-
sion. An innovation which rime has sanctioned was the
establishment of a salary for the leader of the Opposi-
tion, who is as busy and as essential an officer of govern-
ment as any member of the cabinet; despite criticism the
275
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
experiment was continued. It was a recognition of the
sarne faet that led friends of Sir Wilfrid to subseribe
a fund, to which no one in business relations with the
government was allowed to eontribute, fo reeompense
him for lais sacrifices and assure him peaee of rnind in
his deelining years.
Of ail patronage questions, none gave more diflïeulty
than the award of titles. The uneertain division of
authority between the Canadian cabinet, the governor-
general and the ]3ritish cabinet, the eonfliet and inter-
action of radical prineiples, social ambitions, and im-
perialist propaganda, rnade the reeornmendations a
ticklish nmtter. It was one of the few points in whieh
the governor-general retained an independent initia-
tive, and differences of opinion, partieularly with Lord
Minto, were frequent, though not aeute. Few titles
were given to rnen who had not done the country some
service, but the influence of the growing spate of knights
and peers in building up elass barriers and reinforeing
social snobbery, and their frank use by the imperial
authorities fo encourage publie rnen to support im-
perialist views, eounteraeted, in the eyes of rnany Lib-
erals, any value they rnight bave as stirnulating publie
service. Men like Mr. Fielding declined proffered
honours, but others rnoved earth and heaven fo get
thern. The usual alibi was that "this sort of thing does
hot appeal fo me but rny wife thinks if would be fitting."
Or the wife would write: "We really eare nothing per-
sonally about it ourselves, but naturally do not wish not
276
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
fo be appreciated or humiliated before our world."
A member of the Beneh would deelare that "as you
know, I am not anxious for a title; I would rather re-
main as I am," but if one must be aeeepted, why merely
a K. C. M. G. when an Australian in a parallel post
reeeives a G. C. 1ri. G.? The rapid demoralization of
an old guard Liberal is revealed in a series of letters be-
ginning in March with a fiat refusal to aeeepta title,
agreeing in April fo aecept if as an incident of the new
oflïeial position if the prime minister insists, going on in
September fo speak of the "surprise and annoyanee
oeeasioned by the invidious withholding of the honours
that were so generally known to have been suggested,"
insisting on January 4 that "it will be neeessary for you
to take some deeided notice of the Colonial Oflïce's ig-
noring your reeonmendations . . . ; that title has eome
to be a fixed idea in my mind and a eurious sense of in-
jury rankles in my breast about if," and ending happily
on May 25 with grateful thanks.
Sir l¥ilfrid did not propose to abolish all titles. Sir
t{iehard Cartwright urged that ministerial responsibil-
ity should be inereasingly observed in this last survival
of prerogative. Sir Vilfrid was dubious, preferring to
assuIne no responsibility, but gteps were taken in the
direction Sir Richard advised. The governor-general
still took the initiative in preparing the lists, and the
prime minister would make objections or additional
suggestions. Sir Wilfrid did endeavour fo limit the
number. A letter to a colleague in 1901 gives his view
277
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of the inexpediency of too many titles in the cabinet:
his eolleague's reply was, "If two titles in the cabinet
are too many, one is too mny."
Ottawa, 31 August, 1901
MY DEAR X:
In viee of the approachlng vlslt of the Duke of York, I bave
had fo discuss with Lord Minto, the question of honours fo be
distributed by him. I consider it my duty to inform you that
ttis Excellency not only suggested but strongly pressed that
your namc should be on ¢he list. If is also my duty--
though not such a pleasant ont--fo tcll you frankly that this
I opposed.
I do not know what are tbe vlcws which you hold on the
subjcct of acccpting honouræ. I do not remembcr that I ever
discusscd this with you. If is, bowever, quite obvious to me,
that the granting of a dccoration or title under such circum-
stances would bc vcry gratifying to your family, and that for
that reason, if for no other, if might bave proved acceptable
4o you.
I may also add that in my own estimation, there is no one--
I make no exeeption--who is more entitled than yourself fo
reeognit[on of any kind either from the Crown or from the
people. And yet, as I told you above, I strongly objeeted to
the suggestion of Lord Minto, that your naine should go on
the list.
This I did for politieal reasons, whieh I ara sure, are hOt new
fo you. I have not ehanged my own view that the aeceptance
of honours by a publie man in the active and daily struggles
of politieal life, is a mistake. I further believe that we have
enough titles in the Cabinet already.
I ara very mueh in earnest about all this.
Some one, if hot yourself, might perhaps tell me, that I did
hot apply this rule to my own self; but fo this statement I
absolutely demur. The title whieh I now wear, was thrust
on me, without any previous communication to me, and against
278
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
my protest that if was a political mistake. I was then so
situated that if would bave been af the moment, a greater
political mistake to bave refused, for it would bave been most
ungracious, in the enthusiasm of the Jubilee, to meet by a
denial the public announcement of the Queen's favour. Not-
withstanding my course af the rime could not have been else.
I bave often had occasion to realize that this conferring of a
title on me--which was the result of the mistaken kindness to
me of Lord Aberdeen and Lord Strathcona--was a serious
political error, and I bave never ceased fo regret it.
lrom all this I bave made up my mind, that at present we
bave enough titles în the Cabinet. If your views on this point
do not agree with mine, I sincerely hopc, that with your un-
varying friendship to me, you will sacrifice them for my sake.
Sir Wilfrid, it may'be added, twice declined to accept
a peerage. It was strongly pressed upon him by Lord
Minto, but on personal and political grounds he reso-
lutely declirmd to consider it.
Lord Minto thus refers to the first of these occasions:
(Lord Min.to to Wilfrid Laurier)
London, 3 Charles Street,
Berkeley Square, July 7, 0.
MY DEAI SIR WILFRYD'.
I hope that though you refused the peerage whlch I know
was offered fo you, I may all the saine be allowed fo offer you
my sincerest congratulations on the honour. I felt sure from
what you often said to me, that you would refuse if, and I can
fully appreciate your reasons for doing so, but all the saine,
as a frend, I cannot keep fo myself the congratulations on the
distinction which all your frends would bave enthusiastically
rendered fo you and Lady Laurier if you had seen your way
fo accept. At the saine rime, I hope the day s a very long way
off when after having fought and won the battles of public lire
27"9
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
you may feel af liberty fo accept any of the distinctions you
have so splendidly gained ....
As regards our list of "honours, I am surprised af the omis-
sions, which you also will have noticed .... If I had been told
only a certain number of C. M. G.s rere fo be given for Can-
ada, I could have understood if: but I had no such information,
and no comment was made on the names submitted. Those
who bave received the C. M. G. have been selected from the list
I sent in without any communication with me. I am going fo
the Colonial Office this morning to see if I can get any expla-
nation, and believe mb
Yours very truly,
[Signed.] Mrsa'o.
The danger of electoral and administrative corrup-
tion and the unfortunate results of the latronge sys-
rem called for immediate action. The Laurier govern-
ment took energetic and constructive steps to "ensure re-
form. Ministers resigned and peculating cidl servants
were dismissed. In 1907 all patronage lists for pur-
chasing supplies in all the departments were abolished,
and patronage was further restricted by the appoint-
ment of a permanent Civil Service Commission, with
Adam Shortt and M. G. Larochelle in charge, to apply
the merit system to the inside service. An order in
council provided that timber licenses were to be granted
only by public auction af ter survey and advertisement.
Mr. Aylesworth's Election Act of the same year forbade
corporations to contribute to campaign funds, required
publicity of contribuecions, and set heavy penalties for
ballot tampering,--an evidence at least of good inten-
tions. A dangerous corner had been turned.
In the general elections, which were held on October
280
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
26, 1908, the Conservative party was much more
aggressive than in 190J. Mr. Borden attacked the
government's scandal record and emphasized clean
administration and public ownership as lais construc-
tive planks. In view of the disclosures of 190, it
was interesting fo note that a quarrel between Mr.
:Borden and Mr. Hugh Graham as fo the 190 elec-
tion fund led the "Star" fo take a neutral stand,
while the St. John "Times" and "Telegraph" once
more passed to Liberal hands, with Mr. Russell
accommvdatingly assisting. A. other feature was the
issue of a pamphlet--"The Duty of the Hour"--
by the "Orange Sentinel," urging all Orangemen fo
strike a blow against lerical ascendancy by voting
against the Laurier candidates; it was circulated by the
Conservatives where it would do mst good, and re-
printed and circulated by the Liberals where it would
do rnost harm. The Liberals defended Mr. Sifton by
attacking Mr. Foster, "and relied on prosperity and
progress. "Let Laurier finish his work," was the key-
note of their campaign.
Sir Vilfrid once more took an active part in the
campaigning. As in 190J, he confined his efforts fo
Quebec and Ontario. In seven open-air meetings in
western Ontario he spoke to 50,000 people; not all
could hear, for hîs voice, while still silvery and mellow,
could not carry as of old. He touched the personal
chord, as at Sorel: "Not many years now remain to me.
The snows of winter have taken the place of spring, but
however I may show the ravages of rime, my heart still
281
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
remains young," and at Montrea]: "One task finished
but caIIs to a new task. As Cecil Rhodes said, 'So
much done, yet sa much tobe done.' I bave things in
my thoughts and if God grants me life there are many,
many things which I would undertake to do, but un-
happily the years are piling on my head and this is
probably the last rime that I shall appeal to my fellow-
eountrymen of Canada." He met the charges of
wrong-doing: "There have been abuses .... There was
a Judas among the twelve apostles, there nmy well be
one or several black sheep in our flock, but if there
are . . . it is for us and hot for the Conservatives to
rid ourselves of them." The government stood on ifs
aehievement: "¥e have been twelve years in office and
these years will be remembered in the history of Canada.
In them Canada bas been lifted from the humble
position of a eolony to that of a nation. In 1896
Canada was a mere colony, hardly known in the United
States or Europe. In 1908 Canada has become a star
to which is directed the gaze of the civilized world.
That is what we have donc."
:For the fourth rime polling day brought decisive
victory. The completed returns gave a Liberal
majority of forty-seven, as against sixty-twa in 1904.
Ontario and Quebec showed no change in the total,
though there were many shifts in individual constit-
uencies, and the popular majority in Quebec was small;
Nova Scotia was more Conservative, and New Bruns-
wick and Prince Edward Island more Liberal; Mani-
toba and British Columbia decidedly Conservative, and
282
SCHOOLS AND SCANDALS
the mid-West provinces firmly Liberal. 1 Six provinces
gave the government a majority; outside Quebee, if held
a maj ority of four.
a General Electi¢m Results, 1908
Liberals Conservatives
Nova Scot|a 12 6
New Bruswick 11 2
Prince Edward Island 3 1
Quebec 5¢ 11
Ontario 37 49
Manitoba 2 8
askatchewan 9 1
Alberta 3
British Columbia 1 6
Yukon 1 0
13 87
283
CHAPTER XV
NATION AND EMPIRE
National and Imperial CurrentsThe Imperialist Campaign
--Laurier and Col'ordal N,ationalism--The Colonial Conference of
1902--Chamberlain's Disappointment--His T«riff Policy--The
Conference of 1907Laurier and Both The Rise of Quebec
Nationalism--Henri BourtrssawThe Nal Panic of 1909--Thc
Cnnadian Nlavy Resolution--Imperialist and Nationalist Dissent
--The Campaign in QuebecThe Drummond-Arthabaska Elec-
tionwThe 1911 Conference.
ITH the ending of the Boer War, the broad
question of Canada's national status and
particularly its relation to the British
Empire, had ceased to hold a leading place in public
discussion and party programmes, lVith the entrance of
the rivalry of Britain and Germany for eontrol of the
sea upon an acute stage, it beeame once more a warmly
debated issue. I)uring the years that intervened, 1Mr.
Chamberlain's tariff campaign, the recurring Colonial
Conferences, and the activity of propaganda groups had
given occasion for debate and decision, but opinion,
though rapidly developing, was still in the making, and
no minor issue eould preeipitate a definite and nation-
wide conviction.
The currents of sentiment continued t( run much in
the saine ehannels as before, but with varying intensity.
Imperialism was still in the ascendant. The desire for a
doser union of the Empire and for the assumption on
284
NATION AND EMPIRE
Canada's part of a greater share in the eontrol and the
responsibilities of a unified imperial policy, was wide-
spread and vigorously expressed. The world was still
in an imperialist m)od, still being s-wept on toward the
precipice of war by the rivalries of national egotism
and trade interests, and no part of the British Empire
could wholly escape. Pride of race was strong in
English-speaking Canada. School and press em-
phasized th British tradition. The rapid immigration
from the British Isles, of which a disproportionate share
went to the cities, renewed and invigorated the affec-
tion for the mother country. The flood of British
capital pouring in for investment in railways, lands,
government bonds, influenced sentiment, unconsciously
with some, directly and erudely with others. Sympathy
with British Liberal or Labour movements, the dazzling
glitter of royal and aristocratie circles, appealed in one
or other quarter. -R.esentment against United States
aggression or indifference urged in the saine direction.
Canada might be weaker than the R.epublic, but the
:Empire was stronger.
Yet af the same timè, national sentiment was attaining
a new seope and a new power. :Every year that passed
increased the background of national memories and
national eonseiousness. Prosperity gave new confi-
dence and assertiveness. The.attention paid to Canada
by the world outside was refleeted in a new pride which
may not always have observed proportion, but was none
the less a reality for that. The opening of the Vest
and the industrial development of the East brought
285
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
about an internfingling of the people which in same
measure broke down provincial barriers and developed
Canadian feeling. Even participation in the Boer SVar
had ruade for national more than for imperial sentiment.
_A_ popularly exaggerated idea of the achievements of
the Canadian eontingents, friction in Africa with
imperial oflïcers and loss of confidence in the SVar Oflïee
and the staff, the feeling that the slate had been cleaned
of a large part of any debt due to Britain for protection,
quiekened the eonsciousness of Canada as a distinct
national entity.
Nor had the old passive eolonialism by any means
disappeared. Inertia, fear of the unknown, the force of
old traditions, ruade many reluctant fo eonsider any
change. Canada was getting on very well as she was:
why assume any greater share of responsibility and risk
either as an integral part of a centralized Empire or as
a distinct nation within the Empire? Imperial duties,
national responsibilities, meant a share in Europe's
military madness. The ranks of those who took this
position eonsciously were reinforced by the hosts of the
indifferent, the vast proportion of the people who had
no clear-cut co.nvictions or active sentiments impelling
them in any direction.
These tendencies were not embodied in distinct and
organized movements. There was an active group of
conscious and eonvinced imperialists, there was the
beginning of the formulation of a nationalist creed, but
for the most part the tendencies still hung in solution.
The great maj ority of eitizens wore no label. 2k few
286
NATION AND EMPIRE
broad distinctions of sympathy were apparent.
English-speaking Canada leaned more to the imperialist
or the national solution, Quebee more to the colonial.
The eity was mueh more imperialist than the country,
and partieularly keener on the military side of empire;
with the growing concentration of population and
industry and power in a few large centres, and the
greater facilities for organization and publicity that the
eity offered, the eity eounted for more in the nation's
eouncils than the deeper eurrents of opinion warranted.
Canada was not left to work out its own conclusions
unaided. The outstanding feature of these years was
the vigorous and persistent endeavour of oflïeial and
unoffleial eireles in Britain fo reorganize the Empire, to
eentralize authority and reinforee the power and pres-
tige of Britain by the definite and bound support of ber
overseas possessions. Practieal statesmen from Joseph
Chamberlain to Lord Milner, theoretie propagandists
from the British Empire League to the Round Table
group, enthusiastie admirals from Colomb to Beresford,
did all in their power to bring the colonies more elosely
within the irnperial orbit. A unified British Empire,
strengthened by mutual ries of trade and defenee, direet-
ing its vast unused resourees by a single will, keeping
the world's peaee and any unattached trifles in the way
of territory, earrying on its mission as Heaven's chier
deputy, would, they believed, benefit the colonies as well
as Britain, and harmonize with the loyal aspirations
Canada and Australasia had been voieing of late years.
The need was urgent. Britain was losing her suprem-
287
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
acy, rivals were aggressive, the colonies were coming fo
parting ways. Now or never was the Empire's hour.
The eentralizing movement took three ehief forms,
of whieh now one, now another was emphasized. Polit-
ieal eentralization, the establishment of some central
parliament or imperial eouneil or cabinet, was urged
persistently. Military eentralization, the contribution
by the colonies of men and money for imperial fleets
and annies, at the disposal of the British government
or some new joint authority, was another path fo the
saine goal. Eeonomie eentralization, t.he eementing of
the Empire by trade and tariff privileges, found less
universal but more aggressive support.
It was Vilfrid Laurier's fortune fo hold a strategie
and determining post in the settlement of this issue.
As the prime minister of the eolbny fo whieh popula-
tion, prosperity, central position and priority in the
working out of responsible government gave pre-
eminenee, as the senior and seemingly permanent prime
minister of the Empire, outruling the Salisburys, Bal-
fours, Campbell-Bannermans, the Chamberlains, the
Battons, I)eakins, Watsons, the Seddons and the
Jamesons, he held a unique place in imperial eounsel.
As the representative of the non-English-speaking
peoples of the white Empire, he typified a problem
whieh the raeial Imperialist had to solve or abandon his
endeavour. As a Canadian, heir to eight generations
of Canadian pioneers, student of the long struggle for
self-government, builder of the new Canada that was
aehieving its own distinct place in the world, he was
288
NATION AND EMPIRE
the natural exponent of colonial nationalism. As Wil-
frid Laurier the man, toaster of rhetorie but wary of
enthusiasm, shrewd, tenaeious, he was hot likely fo be
moved from a deliberate position by the nod of a states-
man or the smile of a duehess.
In forming his poliey on imperial relations, Sir Vil-
frid did not follow solely his individual preferenee. As
leader of a party and ruler of a country of many shades
of view, he had always to keep in toueh with the central
body of opinion. More important than personal
preferenees was the need of preserving national unity,
or preventing a division on raeial lines. His constant
effort was fo find a poliey and a formula whieh would
keep the country not only moving in what he considered
the right direction, but moving abreast. As a respon-
sible administrator, he was more eoneerned in settling
eoncrete problems than in framing abstraet theories
of empire. His formulas were never very formal. He
was the despair alike of hIr. Henri :Bourassa and of
Fit. Lionel Curtis, who ealled for preeise and eom-
prehensive and neatly labelled programmes. Vhether
or not he could have been positive and constructive, it is
a faet that his most important work in this field was
negative, the bloeking of the plans of the advoeates of
eentralization, who suffered from no shortage of the-
ories. If is an opinion, but an opinion strengthened by
the experiences of later years, that this work, negative
though it may have been, was the work his day
demanded, an essential stage in the development of
'Canadian nationality.
289
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
Writing in 1911 to a correspondent who reported
the criticism of an imperialist friend that Canada and
the Empire were "drifting," Sir Wilfrid replied:
Your crusadirtg friend considers that in imperlal matters we
are drifting. Drifting is a question-begging word. If may be
that we are wîthout a course and wi'thout a pilot, or it may be
anerely that your friend does not greatly like our course nor
greatly trust the pilot. There has been some tacking, there
have beert unexpected rides and currents, but we are making, in
my opinion, rapid and definite progress. At least as we look
back upon it, the course seems steady. We are making for a
harbour which was not the harbour I foresaw twenty-five years
ago, but it is a good harbour. It will not be the end. Exactly
what the next course will be I cannot tell, but I think I know the
general bearing, and I ara content.
In his first year in office, and in the festivals of the
Jubilee, it has been seen, Sir SVilfrid frequently used
words which ruade the supporters of imperial federa-
tion courir him a convert, tIis desire to meet Ontario
t le,st half-way, the lack of any other formul than
that of the federationist to express the policy of imperial
connection, the influence upon his own sentiments of
the imperial surge of the rime and of United States
hostility, undoubtedly carried him for a rime in this
direction. But hot for long. The responsibilities of
office soon made it clear that in any scheme of par-
liamertary federation Cand would give up more
power than she would gain. Experiment broadened
new paths of independent action. The cold douche
of the South African War quickened a realization of
the dangers of imperialist perorations. The stolid
290
NATION AND EMPIRE
resistance of Quebec to that adventure in imperialism
warned him of the danger of too great concession to
Ontario sentiment, or what passed for Ontario senti-
ment. The federation tack soon ended.
The conception of Canada's status which Sir Wilfrid
developed in his later years of office was that of a nation
within the Empire. He became convinced that it was
possible to reconcile what was sanest and most prac-
ticable in the ideals of independence and of imperialism.
Canada might attain virtual independence, secure con-
trol of her own destinies at home and abroad, and yet
retain allegiance to a common sovereign. As for the
Empire, its strength and its only hope of permanence
lay in the freedom of the component parts; centraliza-
tion would prove unwieldy and provoke revoit. The
conception was not new with him; he did not give it
its most definite or detailed or thoroughgoing exposi-
tion; it was a natural, though by no means an inevitable,
outcome of broad forces of interest and sentiment, and
of the trend of events by which he, like his contem-
poraries, was affected. Yet he was the first respon-
sible statesman to seize and hold fast to this idea, and
it was his flexible yet tenacious dvocacy that ruade it
in the end the accepted theory of Empire. He ap-
proached the question in his own distinctive fashion.
He would not draw up any elaborate theory or pro-
grainme; he could meet only one problem at a rime, and
only when occasion compelled. He disliked sudden
changes. His mind lacked what some would term the
constructive, some, the doctrinaire bent. He was a
291
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
responsible poIitician, working out each day's task as
it came. He was anxious, again, to find a policy which
would unite and express the dominant currents of Cana-
dian opinion. Not merely obvious party interests, but
his master passion for reconciliation and unity urged
such a policy, and the compromise of nationhood within
the Empire appeared to afford this basis. At the same
rime he was desirous of keeping the country from being
irrevocably committed as long as might be. This con-
ception might suit to-day and not suit to-morrow. It
might break down on some unforeseen application.
How it could be worked out to the full, particularly
in the field of defence and foreign affairs, he was by
no means sure, and would therefore take one slow step
at a rime. He did not believe that this nicely balanced
compromise would prove an eternal solution. That
Canada's eventual goal would be independence,
remained his conviction. But that was not for his time,
and suflïcient for the day was the principle thereof.
The first occasion for testing and recording the shift
of opinion came with the Colonial Conference of 1902.
It had been agreed in 1897 that it was "desirable to
hold periodical conferences of representatives of the
Colonies and Great Britain for the discussion of mat-
ters of common interest." The stubborn length of the
war in South Africa prevented an early meeting. Then
with peace assured and with the coronation of Edward
VII to provide the pageant background, Mr. Chamber-
lain invited the premiers of the Empire to attend a
conference in June and July, 1902. An agenda was
292
NATION AND EMPIRE
prepared, toward which Canada made no suggestions,
though :New Zealand and the Commonwealth had many
to offer. In acknowledging the proposais, the Cana-
dian government declared that it did not consider any
useful result would tome from discussions of political
change or of imperial defence. The reply gave Mr.
:Borden opportunity for a cautious and non-committal
criticism and a request for a statement of the govern-
ment's policy. Sir Vilfrid in reply emphasized recip-
rocal preferential trade as the subject in which Canada
was chiefly interested. As to defence, he and his col-
leagues felt no useful purpose could be served by dis-
cussing it:
If if be intended simply fo dlscuss what part Canada is pre-
pared fo take in ber own defence, what share of the burden
must fall upon us as being responsible for the safety of the land
in which we were born, and fo which we owe our allegiance, in
which all our hopes and affections are centred, certainly we are
always prepared fo discuss that subject. Nor do I believe that
we need any prompting on that subject, or that our attention
should be specially called fo if .... There is a school abroad,
there is a school in England and in Canada, a school which is
perhaps represented on the floor of this parliament, a school
which wants fo brbg Canada into the vortex of militarism
which is the curse and the blight of Europe. I ara hot pre-
pared fo endorse any such policy.
The Conference began in London on June 80. The
sudden illness of the King delayed both coronation and
Conference, and it was mid-August before the last meet-
ing was held. Mr. Chamberlain was himself in charge,
with Lord Selborne and Mr. :Brodrick representing
the Admiralty and the War Office. Sir Edmund
298
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
:Barton came as premier of a confederated Australia,
with Sir John Forrest as Minister of Defence.
Richard Seddon of New Zealand, Sir Gordon Sprigg
of the Cape, Sir Al.bert Hime of Natal and Sir Robert
:Bond of Newfoundland spoke for the smaller colonies.
From 'Canada came Sir ¥ilfrid Laurier, along with Mr.
Fielding, Sir Frederick :Borden, Sir ¥illiam Mulock
and William Paterson.
Mr. Chamberlain made if clear that a great step for-
ward in imperial organization was expocted from the
Conference. "Fhe blank cheques of imperial enthusiasln
and colonial loyalty were fo be filled out and cashed.
"I cannot conceal from myself," he declared in the open-
ing address, "that very great anticipations have been
formed as fo the results which may accrue from out
meeting." The establishment of an imperial council,
a definite pledge of naval and military contributions
from every colony, some approach fo union in trade,
were the ends toward which the Colonial Secretary was
working.
The political federation of the Empire, Mr. Chamber-
lain declared, was within the limits of possibility. I-Ie
would prefer the demand fo corne from the colonies.
Quoting, out of ifs context, 1 Sir Vilfrid's phrase, "If
you want out aid, call us to your councils," he expressed
Britain's willingness fo grant the colonies a share in the
policy of file Empire proportionate to the share of
the burdens they assumed. "The weary Titan stag-
gers under the too vast orb of his fate": if was rime
a Sec page 107
NATION AND EMPIRE
that her children should assist in supporting the burden.
Such a voice in policy might corne through representa-
tion in the British House of Commons or the Lords;
he himself preferred "a real 'Council of the Empire 4o
which ail questions of imperial interest might be re-
ferred." This council might at first be advisory, but
in rime should be given executive and perhaps legislative
functions. Or, as he had elsewhere defined if, this
central council would develop into "a new government
with large powers of taxation and legislation over
countries separated by thousands of toiles."
:Mr. Chamberlain's appeal awakerted no response.
Not even ardent imperialists like Richard Seddon were
anxious to set up af that moment a body superior to
their own parliaments. The only action as to political
machinery taken by the Conference was in the contrary
direction; a resolution providing that the Conferenee
itself should meet at intervals not exceeding four years
expressed the desire to keep in touch with ail parts of
the Empire, but fo do so through a meeting of govern-
ments responsible to their own peoples, not through a
new body exercising direct control over the whole.
As fo trade, Mr. Chamberlain had expressed sym-
pathy with the proposal of free trade within the Empire.
True, no colony had endorsed that policy; the counter
policy of a colonial preference on British goods had
been adopted by Canada alone, and the value of the
Canadian preference, or of any preferential rates which
though lower than rates on foreign goods were still
prohibitive, he held doubtful. Here again there was
295
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
little concurrence. The imperial Zollverein round no
friends. The Canadian members energetieally eom-
batted Mr. Chamberlain's disparagement of the pref-
erenee, demonstrating that it had arrested the deeline in
Briti'sh trade and given it new life. Greater preferenee
would be given in return for eorresponding concessions
in the British market; the Canadians were prepared to
make definite proposais. A resolution afflrmed the im-
praetieability of imperial free trade, approved the prin-
eiple of a preferenee on British goods, and reeom-
mended reciproeal preferenee to colonial produets "'by
exemption from or reduetion of dutles now or hereafter
imposed."
But it was on defenee that the discussion eentred.
Sinee the last Conferenee, Britain had been at war on
the Indian frontier, in the Soudan, and in South Afriea.
The desire for colonial aid in bearing the burden was
strong. Either imperial poliey must be eurtailed or
imperial burden bearers extended. British authorities
assumed without question that by partieipating in the
South Afriean War the colonies had eommitted them-
selves to a share in all future wars, and that it merely
remained to seeure a formal reeognition of this duty and
tf definite agreement as to details. Lord Selborne
leetured the Conferenee on the strategie heresies of local
defenee and the neeessity of "a single navy under one
eontrol," pointed out that Britain spent fifteen shillings
per head for naval defenee to Australia's tenpenee and
Canada's nothing, and urged eontributions of both
money and men fo the Admiralty, preferably in
scluadrons of the imperial navy trssigned but not tied to
296
NATION AND EMPIRE
local waters. Mr. Brodrick declared Britain needed
a large striking force, ready for instant service abroad,
trained fo compare with European troops, and proposed
that each colony should set aside one-fourth of ifs militia
for intensive training, pledged fo go overseas whenever
their government proffered assistance to the imperial
forces.
The appeal met a measure of response, but little wool
for much cry. The Conmaonwealth premier was per-
suaded to promise a renewal and extension of the Aus-
tralian contribution to the British navy, reluctantly,
knowing, as rime proved, that he would find it difficult
to carry his parliament with lfim. The smaller colonies
all agreed to give unconditional money grants or aid to
local naval reserves. The Canadian representatives
declined to make any offer of assistance, though they
stated they were contemplating the establishment of a
local naval force. The suggestion of military contin-
gents earmarked for overseas wars met with favour
from the smaller and more dependent colonies, but
Canada and Australia would have none of it: "To
establish a special force," they declared in a joint mem-
orandum, "set apart for general imperial service, and
practically under the absolute control of the imperial
government, was objectionable in principle, as derogat-
ing from the powers of self-government enjoyed by
them, and would be calculated to impede the general
improvement in training and organization of their de-
fence forces."
The outcome of the Conference was an intense dis-
297
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
appointment to Mr. Chamberlain. In Sir Wilfrid
Laurier he had met a man of equal firmness, equally
adroit in argument and tactics, and better informed in
the lessons of the Empire's past and in the realities of
colonial interests and opinion. In a long interview he
frankly voiced his surprise. He could not understand
how Canada and Australia failed to see that strength
and safety lay in union, or how they eould eonsistently
with self-respect decline fo bear a fair share of imperial
burdens. Sir Wilfrid was equally frank in reply. I-Ie
was surprised at Mr. Chamberlain's surprise. The
secret of the Impire's strength, he insisted, lay in local
diversity and freedom. Canada was prepared to bear
her just burdens, but aceording to her own conception
of her interest and duty. When the safety of Britain
or the whole Empire was ehallenged, Canada would not
stint aid, but what Mr. 'Chamberlain termed the
Empire's interest and the Empire's poliey, were in most
cases Great Britain's interest and Great Britain's poliey.
Britain was always thinking of war and of the extension
and strengthening of her domain. Canada had a
greater domain than she eould develop in a eentury.
Canada was far from European quarrels, and a uniquely
close neighbour to the United States. She was impelled
by the newness of the country and by the laek of natural
unity to spend vast smns on internal development, on
ber land-ways, as Britain by her position was ealled
upon to spend vast sums to keep open her sea-ways.
:Mr. Chamberlain, still a Little F, nglander in his im-
laerialism, would not agree. I-Ie eonsidered all English-
298
NATION AND EMPIRE
speaking Canadians, Australians, and Afrikanders,
as Englishmen living overseas, and expected French
and Dutch tobe ruade over into more Englishmen. He
ruade no concealment of his belief that Sir Wilfrid was
a very imperfectly assimilated Englishman, and that
his reluctance was due to his French blood. Accord-
ingly Sir Wilfrid suggested that he should have a
private interview with his English-speaking colleagues.
Mr. Chamberlain jumped at the proposal. A dinner
was arranged and a long discussion followed. To his
surprise, the Colonial Secretary found that these four
men of the chosen race, Anglo-Saxons ail, two of Nova
Scotia and two of Ontario birth and breeding, took
substantially the same stand as the son of Quebec.
Mulock and Borden talked particularly straight from
the shoulder. They were loyal fo the King, they desired
to retain Canada's connection with the Empire, but
they were Canadians. Like Mr. Chamberlain him-
self, they believed that the Empire began at home. 1
"A visit fo England," Sir Wilfrid observed one day, "is in man ways
a pleasure, even if it involves an uncomfortable voyage for a poor
sailor. The throb of the world's affairs in London, the stimulus of con-
tact with men of high and disciplined capacity, the comfort of town
and country life in a land cushioned with tradition, where leisure is
an art and hospitality a science, makes a deep appeal. Yet it was always
a strain. The endless round of dinners and receptions would wear
down a body stronger than mine, but there was more than that. Along
with much genuine and spontaneous kindliness one felt the incessant
and unrelenting organization of an imperialist campaign. We were looked
upon hot so much as individual men but abstractly as Colonial states-
men, to be impressed and hobbled. The Englishman is as businesslike
in his politics, particularly his externol politics, as in business, even
if he covers his purposfulness with an air of polite indifference. Once
eonvinced that the colonies were worth keeping, he bent to the work of
drawing them eloser within the orbit of London with marvellous skill
299
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Meeting a few weeks af ter peaee had been signed in
Pre[oria, [le members of the Conferenee had [he fate
of South Afriea distine[ly in mind. No formal discus-
sion was raised, but Sir Wilfrid took advantage of [he
oppor[unity fo m'ge a poliey of faith and eoneilia[ion.
I-Ie had been relue[ant [o in[ervene while the war was
s[ill in progress, and he was eareful now fo avoid any
semblanee of offieial pressure. Xre[ he was so deeply
eonvineed that only [hrough the eonfedera[ion of South
Afriea and [he speedy granting of self-government
eould peaee eome and British poliey find jus[ifieation,
[hat he repeatedly emphasized [his poliey not only to
Mr. Chamberlain but [o o[her publie men.
and persistenee. In this eampaign, whieh no one could appreeiate until
he had been in te thiek of if, social pressure is the subtlest: and most
effective force. In 1897 and 1902 if was Mr. Camberlain's personal
insistenee that was strongest, but in 1907 and after, soeiety pressure
was the ehief force. If is hard fo "stand up against the flattery of a
graeious duehess. Weak men's heads are turned in an evening, and
there are few who ean resist long. "We were dined and wined by royalty
and aristoeraey and plutoeraey and always the talk was of Empire,
Empire, Empire. I said fo Deakin in 1907, that this was one reason
why we eould hOt have a parliament or eouneil in London: we ean talk
cabinet fo cabinet, but annot senti Canadians or Australians as perma-
nent residents to Lonàon, fo debate and aet on their own àiseretion. For-
tunately, there were some good frienàs who seemed fo like us for our-
selves, not least the ehildren ....
"Chamberlain was the first English statesman whom we came fo know
intimately. I was mueh impressed by his force and àireetness. He was
ambitious, but hOt for himself alone. Unfortunately our views often
elashed. There was little serious discussion in the Colonial Conferenee
of 1897, whieh was a mere eurtain-raiser. The debates were aeademie;
we àid hOt eome fo suoEeiently close quarters fo bring out the eleavage
of opinions. But in 1902 a dead set was ruade fo take advantage of
the supposed wave of imperial enthusiasm following the Boer War.
Chamberlain was the heaà and front of the eampaign. He pushed his
own plan of an Imperial Couneil, and baeked Broàriek and Selborne
in their sehemes of imperial defenee. He hanàled the discussion skilfully;
when if was apparent refusal was eoming, he heaàed off Selborne and
Brodriek and took up the questions later in private eonfereneeY
00
NATION AND EMPIRE
The summer months were crowded with banquets, the
eonferring of the freedom of eities, publie reeeptions
and eountry-house week-end paxties. In his publie
addresses Sir Wilfrid emphasized the saine notes. Af
the Constitutional Club, "The British Empire was
founded and must be maintained by the arts of peaee
more than by the arts of war"; at the Guildhall, "The
British Empire is a eharter of freedom, united, pros-
perous; there is no need of organie changes; if would be
a fatal mistake to force events"; in Edinburgh, "Ceeil
Rhodes's one serious mistake was his impatience"; af
the National Liberal Club, "The devolution of legisla-
rive power has been the bond of union of the British
Empire." The long and exhausting smnmer, follow-
ing a wearing session, brought a breakdown in health,
and the treatment followed in Paris, where Lady
Laurier and Sir SVilfrid had gone from London, ae-
eentuated the trouble. It was a mueh shaken man who
returned in Oetober to find Israel Tarte in possession
of the quarter-deek. On the subjeet of the Conferenee,
Canadian opinion showed marked diversity. Conserv-
ative newspapers eritieized Sir Vilfrid's negative
attitude. Premier Roblin deelared a golden opportun-
ity had been thrown away; Principal Peterson reported
that the impression in England was that the Canadian
delegates had gone with the intent of putting a drag on
the Conferenee and had sueeeeded. Yet there was no
general disapproval. There was a eonsiderable meas-
ure of support, and no little indifferenee. The country
was more interested in Tarte than in Chamberlain, in
801
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
box-ears than in battle-ships. Right or wrong, Can-
ada's mood was one of reaetion from the heady imper-
ialism of the Boer War and Laurier wa.s guiding and
interpreting its new mood.
¥hen in Paris, Sir Wilfrid found opportunity for a
quiet but momentous stroke of diplomaey. The Boer
Wax had greatly embiRered Freneh feeling against
Britain. In two long discussions with President Lou-
bet, Laurier deplored this drift and urged Che need of a
close friendship us the basis of European peaee. Three
years la,er, af Raymond Préfontaine's funeral services,
Che President publiely aeknowledged that in bringing
him fo feel this need, no influence had been so great as
'ilfrid Laurier's. Laurier had thus no small share in
effeeting the entente eoliMe between Canada's two
mother eountries.
The Conferenee of 1902 eonvineed lIr. Chamberlain
thrtt the politieal and the military paths to his goal
would grive slow progress. He therefore turned fo the
pathway of trade, along whieh there had been some
greater willingness fo walk together. The launehing
of his imperial preferential trade eampaign in 1903 was
a direct result of the check in the Colonial Conferenee
of 1902. Let Britain adopt a eustoms tariff, useful
ineidentally fo proteet ber own industTies and fo give
bargaining leverage with other powers, and let ber
grant preferential rates on colonial produets in return
for concessions on ber manufactures, and the British
Empire would beeome self-eontained, self-suflàeient,
bound indissolubly by the ries of eommon interest;
politieal and military union would follow.
802
NATION AND EMPIRE
The sudden announeement of this revolutionary
change of course, the dramatic eampaign in whieh Mr.
Chamberlain appealed to his eountrymen, the imperial
motive of the policy, and the glittering possibilities of
a preferenee in the world's greatest market, won Mr.
Chamberlain instant and warm support in Canada.
The Liberal leaders were, however, careful to make it
elear that while they would be ready fo grant reeip-
focal concessions, they considered that it was for Britain
herself to deeide whether or not she wanted to set up
a protective tariff, and that in any agreement each
country must hold itself free to change or withdraw.
From the Conservative leaders and pressa warmer sup-
port was given and in 1903 Mr. Foster, for the rime
without a seat in the Commons, vigorously seconded
Mr. Chamberlain in a platform eampaign in England.
Then as discussion ruade clear the difficulty of reeon-
eiling business and sentiment, reconciling protection
for the local producer, reciprocity with foreign countries
and preference for the colonies; as the free-trade forces
rallied and the fight developed on party lines; as Cana-
dian Liberals realized that a preferenee on Canadian
wheat meant a dearer loaf for England's poor and
Canadian Conservatives saw that English manufae-
turers expected a free field in 'Canada in return, the
enthusiasm lessened. Few in Canada were prepared
to accept the return to the old colonial system which
was in Mr. Chamberlain's mind, a stereotyping of the
existing undeveloped industrial organization, with Can-
ada permanently a grower of wheat and hewer of pulp-
wood to exchange for British manufactures. Canadian
3O3
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
manufacturers expressed general sympathy but ruade
if clear, first, that if was only in the goods that Canada
could not manufacture that any real reduction in duty
could be granted, and later, that they "were not pre-
pared fo adroit that there was any article that could
not af some point in Canada, and in rime, be successfully
manufactured."
As the Chamberlain tariff campaign was a sequel
fo the 1902 Conference, the Conference of 1907 was a
sequel to tbe tariff campaign. British supporters of
Mr. Chamberlain were anxious to have the collective
and formal backing of the colonies as evidenee of the
imperial necessity of their poliey. A second question
whieh if was hoped would be discussed was the creation
of an Imperial Council in place of the 'Conferenee;
supporters of the Conservative government and the
Liberal Imperialist Asquith-Haldane group both urged
this change and eo-operated in a semi-official inquiry
ruade by Sir Frederiek Pollock in Canada in 1905 as fo
its possibility. In April, Mr. Lyttleton, who had suc-
ceeded Mr. Chamberlain as 'Colonial Secretary, formally
proposed the establishment of such a Couneil, with the
saine personnel as the Conferenee, and with a permanent
commission for study of referred questions attached:
if would hOt be well to define at first the constitution of
the Couneil; British history showed the wisdom of
allowing sueh institutions to develop in accord with
need. The proposal was welcomed by Australia, New
Zealand, :Natal and the Cape, but decisively rejeeted
804
NATION AND EMPIRE
by Canada. Any change in the title or status of the
Colonial Conference, declared the Canadian ministers,
should originte from that body itself. A eonference
was an informal body, possessing no power of binding
action; the terre "council" indieated "a formal assembly,
possessing an advisory and deliberative eharaeter, and
in eonjunetion with the word imperial, suggested a
permanent institution which, endowed with a eontinuous
lire, might eventually eome tobe regarded as an en-
eroaelnnent upon the full measure of autonomous legis-
lative and administrative power now enjoyed by all the
self-governing colonies." Following this discussion
came the British general elections, resulting in the over-
whehning victory of the Liberals, and the repudiation
of the Chamberlain proposais.
Vhen the fiftb Colonial Conferenee assembled in
London in April, 1907, it was elear in advanee that the
British government would block any preferential tariff
proposais and the Canadian government would block
the other path, the Imperial Couneil. The Conference
therefore did not change views, but merely registered
them. Sir Vilfrid Laurier, the only member who had
taken part in 1897 and 1902, was aecompanied by Sir
:Frederiek ]3orden and lr. Brodeur, who spoke only
on questions affeeting their departments. Mr. Deakin,
Sir Joseph Ward, Dr. Jameson, Mr. Moor and General
]3otha came from below the line, and Sir Robert Bond
from Newfoundland. The United Kingdom was
represented by the Earl of Elgin, the new Liberal
Seeretary for the 'Colonies, with Sir Henry Campbell-
805
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
Bannerman, Mr. Asquith, Mr. ttaldane, Mr. Churchill,
Mr. Lloyd George and other min]sters appearing on
occasion.
The Conference was marked by oratorical fireworks
and keen debate, passîonate imperial appeals from Mr.
Deakin and Dr. Jameson, resolute aflïrmations of the
British government's policy of "banging, barring and
bolting the door" on imperial preference, a quiet word
from Louis Botha, brief but decided statcments from
Sir Wilfrid Laurier. As to political organization,
Sir Vilfrid maintained his opposition to a council,
chartered hopefu|ly for indefinite expansion cabinet-
or parliament-wards. Accordingly, the project was
dropped. A resolution was adopted providing that the
Conference was hereafter tobe termed "Imperial"; it
was to consider questie.ns as "between ttis Majesty's
Governnmnt and :His Governments of the self-govern-
ing Dominions beyond the Seas"; it was to be composed
of the prince ministers of ttis Majesty's governments.
The resolution was notable for the formal recognition
of the Dominion as opposed to the colonial status, and
of the equality of His Majesty's several governments:
"¥e are all His Majesty's governments," Sir Vilfrid
maintained. Instead of setting up a new authority in
London, the Conference had therefore set ifs sea| on the
independent but co-operating authority of the Domin-
ions. 1 The Empire was to be not one, but many.
(lV.ilfrid Laurier to Eenator Béique.--Translotion)
"London, Ju;y, 1907.
"M Dz e B«uv.:
"I bave just received your letter, and hasten to convey fo you my' very
306
NATION AND EMPIRE
On the tariff question, Sir Wilfrîd said lietle; he
agreed in principle with Mr. Deakin's eloquent ad-
vocacy of imperial preference, but did not wish to
interfere in British politics; as a compromise, he pro-
posed and carried the re-adoption of the 1902 resolu-
tions, the United Kingdom in part dissenting. In
naval defence, Australia now stood for an Australian
navy instead of a cash contribution; the Admiralty was
prepared to accept contributions "not in cash but in
kind," but Canada stood where she had stood in 1902 ....
The Conference was memorable for the presence of
Louis Botha, rive years previously leader of Britain's
enemy in the field, now premier of a British colony
and a member of confidential councils. The British
Liberal government, which had insisted on granting
full responsible government fo the Transvaal in face
of outcries from all the professional imperialists, felt
Chat his presence j ustified their faith in freedom as a
stronger bond than trade or tariffs. Between General
Botha and Sir Wtilfrid Laurier a close friendship sprang
up which lasted fo the end. Some common feeling of
sincere thanks. I dreaded very much the voyage fo England and the work
that awated me there. I believe, however, that ail has gone well, and
even in England the appearance is that the attitude which I bave taken
rneets, hot with general, but with a fairly general, approval.
"As fo the principal point, the question of the creation of an Imperial
Council, there is undoubtedly disappointment in certain quarters, but the
more the question is discussed the clearer it will become that the conclu-
sion that we reached finally was the only possible one under the eircum-
stances, and even from the politieal standpoint. The original proposal
which was submitted fo us and which received the support of several
members of the Conference, was, in tny opinion, a grave error, pregnat,
it may be, with the most deplorable consequenees...."
07
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WIL'RID LAURIER
aloofness from their Anglo-Saxon colleagues may have
brought them together, buec if was eommon prineiples
on imperial poliey and personal liking hat held them
friends. Vilfrid Laurier's friendship, eounsel and ex-
ample played no small part in aiding Louis Botha to
choose and to follow the path of raeial appeasement and
of imperial eo-operation. 1
On his return to Canadg if was plain tha' the prime
minister's course met g wide measure of approval, or,
to be more exaOt, no notable degree of dispproval.
The Liberal press supported his stand throughout, and
no small number of Conservative journals joined Sir
Charles Tupper in eommendation. There was some
vigorous eritieism of what was termed an unworthy
and sponging attitude on the naval question, but his
erities admitted that as yet there was no general publie
support for their cause. It was signifieant that in the
1 To a Montreal author who had sent Mm the proofs of an article, he
wrote, in November, 1907:
"Your article is very well written; there are many things in it which I
sincerely admire, but since you have been kind enough to submit me the
paper you will permit me to take exception to some of your views and
expressions. I would specially call your attention fo this sentence: 'We
are not fooled by Mr. Botha's, "We love England," any more than we
are fooled by Mrs. Parnell's, "Union of Hearts."' I think you do a grave
injustice to a brave man, who, before the war, was opposed fo the policy
of Kruger, and whose views would bave averted the war if followed by
this old and narrow-minded peasant, and who now, having made his peace
with England, is satisfied fo lire a free man under British institutions.
Your sentence implies that General Botha is playing the hypocrite. For
this you have absolutely no reasons that you could show and you base your
opinion simply upon the suspicions which bave been expressed from rime
to rime, and even now, ever since responsible government was given to the
Transvaal. In my opinion the action of the British government in giving
freedom to tbe Transvaal was a bold, mardy act, a well as statesmanship
of the highest kind, and its loyal acceptance by General Botha and those
who were lately engaged in the war with him is equally honourable."
808
NATION AND EMPIRE
gcncral clcctions which followcd, thc leader of thc oflï-
cial Opposition had nota word to say on imperial
issues. Thcre was much discussion and much diffcrcnce
of opinion on impcrial affairs, but thcre was not yct in
English-spcaking Canada a sufficicnt popular intcrcst
or a sufficicnt clcavage on any spccific impcrial issue to
warrant cithcr party making it an clcction cry.
Not so with Frcnch-spcaking Canada. In Quebcc,
imperialism was bccoming a campaign issue. Vhile
ardent apostlcs .of a unificd Empire in London or To-
ronto wcre accusing Sir Wilfrid of bcing a 'wct
blankct" on thc Confcrcnce, a blockcr of all impcrial
advance, a parochial and OEribal leader who could not
sec beyond Qucbcc, still more unmcasurcd critics in
Qucbcc wcrc condemning him for his wcak surrcndcr
to Protestant fanaticism at home and to English jingo-
ism a.broad, his sacrifice of Canadian intcrcsts in Lon-
don and of Frcnch-Canadian intcrcsts af Ottawa.
For tcn ycars thcre had becn no effective opposition
to Laurier in Quebcc. In giving up thc fight in 1905,
a Montrcal Conscrvativc organ, "Le Journal," picturcd
¢he party's prospccts as gloomy and without sign of
bcttcrmcnt. Thc old leaders lingcrcd, but thcy could
makc no hcadway. Yct criticism from some quarter
was incvitablc; if an Opposition had hot cxistcd it would
havc bccn neccssary to invcntit. If arosc of itsclf,
with both gcncral and individual factors in its shaping.
Thc Nationaliste pa'ty, or rathcr thc Nationaliste
movcmcnt, cmbodicd certain convictions and prcjudices
which werc widcly diffuscd in Quebcc. If was cm-
309
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
phatically anti-imperialist, opposed to any share in
Britain's wars and any entanglement in Britain's policy.
This hostility to impcrialism had both a nationalist and
a colonialist side. Thcrc were men in the movcment
who took a passively colonialist attitude, prepared to ac-
cept a permanent subordination in return for :British
protection and exemption from a share in foreign wars.
There were othcrs who took a distinctly nationalist
stand, preparcd to undertake full responsibiliy for the
defence of Canada, but a Canada wholly independent
and untrammcllcd. Tbe movement embodicd, again,
the sentiment of racial and religious separatencss.
With some, this involvcd nothing more than {he de-
sire 4o preservc aganst the encroachmcnts of an Eng-
lish-spcaking continent, the distinctive faith and culture
of New France, and was quite compatible with a will-
ingness to co-operatc freely and fully with thcir Eng-
lish-speaking compatriots in building up a common Ca-
nadian civilization in which the two elements would be
distinct but united. With others, it was a narrower and
more exclusive faith, a determination to withdraw
within the provincial shcll, to build up an exclusive
and isolated French and Catholic communiy. Still
a third ingredicnt was the old ultramontane feeling,
the determination not merely to cxalt the Church above
the State and 4o make the clergy leaders in all national
movements, but to attempt once more fo create in the
political ficld an exclusively Catholic party, a new
Centrum.
310
NATION AND EMPIRE
These Cendencies were not new. They had received
new strength from the sectional controversies of Can-
ada and the imperialist campaigns of London. The
endeavour of men in English-speaking Canada, whether
moved by national zeal or by racial prejudice, to make
Canada a land of one tongue, had hardened the de-
termination of the minority fo hold fast, and had played
into the hands of local extremists. The emphasis of
imperialists upon the call of the blood, the exalting of
the Anglo-Saxon, the appeal to traditions fo which only
half Canada was heir, inevitably lcd men of other blood
and other traditions to draw apart, to emphasize their
own distinct and peculiar heritage. The Nationalism
of Quebec, 1 if not the nemesis of Chamberlain Imperial-
ism, was at least the outcome of the ambiguous position
of a country of two races of which one and one only was
bound by kinship and intercourse to the suzerain power.
:But such forces might long bave lain latent, failing
leaders to evoke and marshal them. The Nationalism
of Quebec found its leaders. Perhaps the pioneer in
Nationalism as a conscious and programmed movement
was Olivar Asselin, a clever young lIontreal journalist
of strong convictions as to the need of a distinctively
:French civilization in America, who in 1903 founded
The Canadian Nationalist League, and in 190 became
elitor of a new weekly newspaper, "Le Nationaliste."
x The term adopted by the leaders of the movement must be used, even
though Nationalists in Quebec as in other provinces who took ail Canada
for their home, protested against the appropriation of the word by what
they eonsiderel a provincialist faction.
811
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
But the ultîmate leader, the man whose personality
bec,me identified with the movement, was Henri
Bourassa.
Mr. Bourassa was the grandson of Louis Joseph
19apineau. "Having known Mr. 19apineau, '' deelared
Sir Vilfrid one day, "I ean in some measure understand
Mr. Bourassa; having known Mr. Bourasst, I ean in
some measure understand Mr. 19apineau. '' tte in-
herited no small share of the great tribune's moving
power of ortory, and no .small share of his inability
to work with other men. Born in Montreal in 1868,
the son of the artist, Napoleon Bourassa, and _Azelie
19apineau, and edueated privately, he had spent a few
years on his grandfather's segniory of Montebello, and
had then entered parliament as a Liberal in 1896, af
the age of twenty-eight. In protest against Canada's
participation in the South Afriean Var he resigned his
seat, but was returned by acclamation. This was the
beginning of the eleavage with Sir Wilfrid, who had
reeognized his young follower's ability and had antie-
ipated for him t leading place in the ranks of the party.
In 1905 the Autonomy Bills and in 1906 the Lord's
Day measure, further widened the gulf. How far the
eleavage was due fo irreeoneilable differenees of opin-
ion, and how far to resentment over the refusal of the
deputy speakership, or the post of Canadian Com-
missioner in Paris, beeame in after years a marrer of
aeute and personal eontroversy. In any case the tre-
mendous popular sueeess of his appeals fo the erowd
against the premier's "weak betrayal of his race and
NATION AND EMPIRE
his faith" encouraged further endeavour. In 1906,
when Mr. Fitzpatrick's appointment fo the Supreme
Court brought on a by-election in Quebec County Mr.
]3ourassa threw his support to an independent, Lorenzo
Robitaille, against the straight Liberal candidate, Mr.
Amyot, who had received Sir Wilfrid's endorsement,
and had the satisfaction of seeing .lais candidate win.
For a rime lais energies were diveoEed. Finding the
task of sapping Quebec's confidence in Sir SVilfrid a
slow one, Mr. Bourassa turned to the provincial field,
and launched an aggressive assault upon the Gouin
government's administration of the Crown forests. He
succeeded in defeating the premier himself in a Mont-
real constituency in the provincial election of 1908, and
with Mr. Armand Lavergne, son of Sir Vilfrid's old
partner in Arthabska, at his side, quite overshadowed
the mild Conservative opposition in the legislature. It
did not prove easy to make any permanent impression
upon Lomer Gouin's disciplined ranks and prudent
administration, and so r. Bourassa's interest turned
once more to federal affairs. I-Ie had taken no part in
the federal elections of 1908, but the navy agitation of
1909 crea¢ed his opportunity.
lVhatever the arena, Mr. ]3ourassa's soute intellect,
his wide reading on public and particularly interna-
tional affairs, his personal charrn and distinction, and
especially the gift of burning speech, sometimes pro-
rotative, sometimes persuasive, always finished, more
than once bringing a hostile Ontario audience to its
feet in unwonted and hearty cheers af ter an hour's
]IFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WÏLFRID LAURIER
magie spell, ruade bim a formidable competitor. As
the years went on, he sought a further power, by mak-
ing himself the champion of the clergy; at first, as
became grandson of Papineau, mildly anti-clerical,
he had become convinced, as his friends declared, that
the only certain means of preserving a distinct French-
Canadian nationality was to rally the people around the
Church, or, as his enemies put it, that the only certain
means of exalting his own power was to rally the
younger clergy around Mr. Bourassa.
Sir Wilfrid's judgment upon Mr. Bourassa at the
rime of his campaign against the Gouin government is
well summarized ,in a letter to a supporter of the
:Nationalist leader:
( Trasla ton)
Ottawa, November 0, 1907
MY Dv.Aa Z. :
Some rime ago my attention was drawn to certain declara-
tions that you made in the course of your campaign against
the local government. Enclosed you will find extracts from
your speeches at Iberville and Three Rivers which were sent
fo me with the suggestion that I ought fo protest against your
language. The silence I have maintained until now indicates
well enough what my reply was.
You were right in saying that I have too lofty an idea of the
truc principles of Liberalism fo condemn you. Nevertheless,
that does not mean that I approve of you, and still less that
I approve of Bourassa, for my firm conviction is that you are
both carrying out a deplorable programme. I am authorized
fo write to you of a recent conversation I had with Jacques
Bureau, who is your friend as well as mine. Bureau reallv
touched me when he reminded me that you had told him tha't
you could hot forger that I had donc you a service. I quote
NATION AND EMPIRE
his words literally, for I must confess that the slight service
I was able fo render you, if if can be called a service, is hot
worth remembering. Doubtless you allude fo the fact that I
helped fo get you into X.'s office, which was the starting point
of your brilliant career at the bar. I repeat, that was too
slight a marrer fo be remembcred. Yet I am none the less
appreciative; this proves that you have a sense of gratitude.
You even added that if I should ask you fo break with Bourassa
and give up the campaign you have undertaken with him, you
would not hesitate to do so. I bave never made this request,
nor would I make if ; that is a point which I leave absolutely
to your conscience. And I flatter myself too--although your
attitude seems to indicate the contrarymthat on every question
on which I bave disagreed with Bourassa, your opinion has
been with me and not with him.
Bourassa differed with me chiefly on three questions: the
sending of contingents to Africa, the Autonomy Bills for the
new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and finally, the
Lord's Day law. Regarding the first two questions my im-
pression that I was absolutely right is stronger than ever;
that if I had followed Bourassa's advice, I would bave plunged
the country into the most disastrous consequences. As regards
the Lord's Day Bill, I have no difficulty in recognizing that
Bourassa's attitude did not lack justice, and when I under-
stood if completely, I had the bill amended in the very way he
had outlined.
No one recognizes Bourassa's talent better than I do. He
has one capital defect: he does hot know how to keep within
bounds. It is impossible that there should not be differences
of opinion among friends, but he fights his friends with the same
violence as his enemies; he becomes intoxicated with his own
words; he works himself up by contradiction; in the end he
overshoots his own mark, and allows himself to be drawn along
unconscously from friendly criticism fo open war.
Just there is the origin of this bitter struggle he is carry-
ing on with the provincial government, and which, unfor-
tunately, you have entered in his train.
815
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Parties are not perfect organizations, but, af ter all, consti-
tufional government founded on the existence of parties is still
the best system which has been invented by man. If may be
that there arc abuses in the local administration, but I believe
these abuses can be remedied by Gouin. I have confidence in
him and I have read in the pressa letter from you expressing
the saine sentiment.
I do not know what was af the back of your mind when you
said af Three Rivers tha coming from Ottawa you could assure
your friends who might have uneasy scruples that if would sfill
be several months before the chier of the Liberal party would
strike you with major excommunicafion. ¥ou did not have
this assurance from me, for if is long sirrce we have met, which
I regret. Your business often brings you fo Ottawa; do corne
and see me the next rime. We shall clear up this affair and
many others.
In 1908, i has been noted, imperial questions had
no place in the platfonn of either political pary in Can-
ada. In 1909, the two parties joined in adopting a
common Canadian policy on the most important problem
of imperial defence the country had yet faced. In 1910
and 1911 the brief harmony ended, and British im-
perialists and 'reneh nationalists eombined in the
endeavour to wreek the Canadian solution.
The mad rivalries of European empires and the strug-
gles of oppressed and oppressing nationalities were
bringing the world nearer the verge of war. States-
manship appeared to be bankrupt; save for the feeble
farce of the Hague and rare individual missions and
mediations, the nations appeared unable fo find or
unwilling to seek any solution, other than the futile
attempt of eaeh to make itself stronger than every other
816
NATION AND EMPIRE
by shifting alliance and mounting armament. ]3e-
tween Britain and Germany the tension grew partie-
ularly keen; Germany, no more ambitious and no more
heedless of morality than the lranee of Moroeeo or
the Italy of Tripoli, was more dangerous beeause more
efficient an.d because aiming .af .supremacy in Britain's
own field. The dependenee of Britain upon sea power,
ber sea traditions and her sea prestige, made her regard
the deliberate challenge Germany had flung down in
its Nlavy Law of 1900 and ifs subsequent naval pro-
grammes with deep uneasiness and mounting anger.
¥hen in 1909 if was announeed that Germany was so
speeding up her building of dreadnoughts, the great
ships whieh so far outmatehed all previous types as fo
make only dreadnoughts eount, that instead of twenty
:British as against thirteen German dreadnoughts by
Match, 1912, there would be, aeeording fo Mr. Asquith,
twenty to seventeen, or, aeeording fo Mr. Balfour,
twenty to twenty or twenty fo twenty-five, a panie
swept over Britain. Germany immediately denied the
reports, but her denial was not believed. As it hap-
pened, for once her spokesmen had told the truth; the
reports of aeeeleration, based on statements of a Brit-
ish munitions-maker, were round tobe baseless; on
Match 81, 1912, Germany had only nine dreadnought
battle-ships and eruisers ready, and it was April, 1914,
before her original thirteen battle-ships were eompleted.
It was long belote this was kn.own, and when it was
known, and when the war had corne, Providence was
held to have been moving in ifs mysterious way fo
817
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
prepare Britain the better for victory in an inevitable
war. 1 The British Liberal government, which had
been urged by a large section of iks followers to eut
down the naval estimates, enlarged them in March by
an additional four dreadnoughts, and in July, af ter the
"We won't wait, we vant eight" campaign of the Op-
position, agreed to lay down four more. In the March
d.iscussion, Mr. McKenna, First Lord of the Admiralty,
Sir :Edward Grey, flaen Foreioaa Secretary, Mr.
Asquith and Mr. Balfour pictured the situation as a
serious and pressing crisis; not merely :Britain's suprem-
acy, but her very safety, ber existence as a nation, was
at stake. In an Imperial Press C.onference organized
by Mr. H. :E. :Brittain, and held in London in July,
no pains were lost by the British statesmen who ad-
dressed the editors to send shivers up colonial sæines by
emphasizing the need of .sea supremacy and the im-
minent danger of ifs loss.
The March debate in the :British Commons echoed
throug'hout the :Empire. The fact that, particularly
in Canada, little attention had been paid to the pre-
monitory rumblings double(] the force of the shock.
:British supremacy at sea had long seemed a law of
nature. Now that this supremacy was challenged and
when at last the heart of the :Empire seemed in vital
danger, the desire to give the aid that so often had been
promised for that emergeney found immediate expres-
x When in the debates in the Canadian House of Commons in 1910 a
Liberal from the Yukon referred to the naval partie as based largely on
"the reckless lying of respectable people," he was considered to bave said
one of the things that one does hot say.
818
NATION AND EMPIRE
sion. l'articularly in Toronto and Winnipeg, in the
press of both parties and from private citizens, the
demand arose for the gift of a dreadnought to the Brit-
ish navy, t.o ineet the pressing emergeney and fo save
Canadian self-respect. I lT, lsewhere, the dreadnought
gift and the building of.a Canadian navy, divided opin-
ion with reluetanee to take any step that would eoinmit
Canada fo a path that had no end. Iartieular interest
attaehed fo an editorial in the Toronto "Globe" of
Match 28, ealling upon Canada "fo fling the sinug
maxims of eoinmereial prudence fo the winds and to do
more than her share in the gaine of turning Dread-
naughts from the stocks .... Vithin the next two
years the Colonies of Britain should be able fo place
three Dreadnaughts af the disposal of the Motherland,
and they should do it. So far as Canada is eoneerned,
sueh vessels would be under the eontrol of the Canadian
government, but that is only another way of saying that
they would always be at the eall of the Empire in every
worthy cause and in every rime of danger." The
"Globe" soon eooled off, but its opinion had no little
weight with the Ontario inembers at Ottawa.
:For some years a vigorous press and organization
campaioaa in the ]nglish-speaking provinces had
endeavoured to eonvinee Canadians that in leaving
Britain fo assuine the whole burden of the lT, mpire's
naval defenee they were aeting an ignoble part, in-
consistent with !either imperialist or nationalist ideals.
:Feeling in favour of action was growing, and nov the
crisis preeipitated the vague sentiment. There had
819
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
been little counter-propaganda. I-Iere and there a
nationalist eritie had questioned the myth of British
proteetion, or repeated Cartwrlght's epigram that "all
that Canada owed England was Christian forgiveness,"
or insisted that the navy was an ageney wholly of
British poliey. Still more rare .had been the more
fundamental eritieism of the whole poliey of armed
rivalry; there .was little first-hand knowledge in Canada
of foreign affairs, or af least of the rivalries of F, uropean
states which appropriated that title, and little likeli-
hood that the cure would eome belote the disease. Sir
Vilfrid had denouneed the vortex of militarism, Sir
Villiam Muloek in 1906 had deelared that "This Can-
ada of ours is the only country in the world worth
living in that is not burdened with great military debts.
Keep it on those lin'es .... Remember that this is the
last spot of refuge on God's green earth where men
ean eonle and not pay tribute for the sins of their
aneestors," and Senator Dandurand had taken an ae-
tire part in the inter-parliamentary peaee movement,
but there had been no organized or systematie diseus-
sion. In the erisis, a few farmers' clubs, labour unions,
and university men opposed any aetion, but they were
in a small minority, so far as opinion was voieed at all.
I-Iitherto parliament had taken no aetion. In 1902
the Canadian government had offered definitely to take
over the eontrol and maintenanee of the British naval
stations at Halifax and Esquimalt, but the Admiralty,
anxious for eontribuions to a eolmnon fleet rather than
any form of loealized action, had not aeeepted, until
320
NATION AND EMPIRE
in 1905 the Fisher policy of concentration in British
local waters ruade the Canadian bases of less moment;
Canada thereupon took charge. Proposais had been
considered in 1905 for the establishment of a Naval
leserve, but nothing had been done. Nothing could
be done so long as the Brit.ish government stood out
for a single navy under its own control, and the Cana-
dian government stood for self-government in naval
defence as in every other sphere. Of late there had
been signs that the Admiralty was changing its poliey,
if not its opinion. Australia, after years of trial of
the contribution poliey, was turning to a local fleet.
This opened the way for Canadian action. In the
session of 1909, before the British revelations, Mr.
Foster gave notice of a resolution in favour of action by
Canada to protect ber coast-line and seaports. Op-
position from 3If. Monk and others within his own
party prevented him for two months from bringing it
up. On March 29, Mr. Foster moved his resolution in
a powerful speeeh which paid a warm tribute to British
policy, opposed a fixed annual contribution to the Brit-
ish navy as smaeking of tribute, a poliey that took no
roots, and advocated a Canadian navy, with, if the
premier desired, an emergeney dreadnought gift. Sir
Wilfrid denied that Canada had donc less than her duty
before, but with changing rimes duties were ehanging:
We are British subjects; Canada is one of the daughter
nations of the Empire, and we realize to the full the rights and
obligations which are involved in that proud title... I hope
that day shall never corne when we will be drawn into the con-
821
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
fllcts of Europe. But I bave no hesltatlon in saylng that the
suprcmacy of the British Empire is absolutely essential, hOt
only fo the maintenance of the Empire but to the civilization
of the world. I have no hesitation in æaying also that if the
day should corne when the supremacy of Britain on the high
scas will be challcngcd, it will be the duty of all the daughter
nations fo close around the old Motherland and make a ram-
art about hcr to ward off any attack. I hope that day will
nevcr corne, but should it come I would deem it my duty to
dcvote what might be left of my lire and energy to stump the
country and endeavour fo impress upon my fellow-country-
men, particularly my compatriots in the province of Quebec,
he conviction that the salvation of England is the salvation
of our own country, that therein lies the guaranty of out
civil and religious freedom and everything we value in this life.
But no panic policy should be adopted. Parliament
must not be stampeded into spectacular action in-
consistent with Canada's settled policy of increasing
self-government. The government stood and would
stand by ifs refusal in 1902 to contribute to the British
army or the British navy. He accordingly moved a
resolution in favour of a Canadian naval service.
Borden followed on much the saine lines, proposing
some minor amendments in the resolution but declaring
for "a Canadian naval force of out own." _A_ few
voices were raised in question, but the resolutions were
adopted without challenge or division. 1 There were,
however, members of the cabinet who were convinced
that undue and unnecessary concessions had been ruade
to imperialist excitement, and that it would have suf-
"This House fully reeognizes the duty of the people of Canada, as they
increase in numbers and wealth, to assume in larger measure the responsi-
bilities in national defence.
"The House is of opinion that under the prescrit eonstitutional relations
822
NATION AND EMPIRE
ficed both to meet the country's needs and fo block
criticism from the Opposition had Mr. Foster's coast-
defence motion been accepted. In view of the discus-
sion in ¢he press, the government had been expecting
from Mr. Foster a much more imperialistic speech
than he actually delivered.
There followed in July a special Imperial Confer-
ence, to deal with defence, with Sir F. W. Borden and
Mr. Brodeur as Canada's representatives. In face of
the Canadian and Australian attitude, the British gov-
ernment, while still insisting on the strategic superiority
of a single British navy aided by colonial contributions,
admitted that other considerations must have weight,
and submitted detailed proposais for the construction
and maintenance of Dominion fleet units.
The unwonted party calm did not long continue.
/-Iow far the agreement between the leaders of the two
FarCies was due to a patriotic conviction of national
danger and how far fo a prudent recognition of the
danger fo the unity of each party if, the issue entered
between the Mother Country and the self-governing Dominions, the payment
of regular and periodical contributions fo the Imperial treasury for
naval and military purposes would not, so far as Canada is concerned, be
the most satisfactory solution of the question of defence.
"The House will cordially approve of any necessary expenditure designed
fo promote the speedy organization of a Canadian naval service in coopera-
tion with and in close relation to the Imperial Navy, along the lines
suggested by the Admiralty at the last Imperial Conference, and in full
sympathy with the view that the naval supremacy of Britain is essential
to the security of commerce, the safety of the Empire and the peace of
the world.
"The House expresses ifs firm conviction that whenever the need arises
the Canadian people will be found ready and xvilling to make any sacrifice
that is required to give the Imperial authorities the most loyal and hearty
co-operation in every movement for the maintenance of the integrity and
honour of the Empire."
828
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
polities, is diffieult to determine: doubfless, both motives
had their paloE. Whatever the motive, the experiment
failed. The unity in parliament did hOt refleet the
real diversity of opinion in the country. Crificism
rapidly developed. It was particularly strong from the
ulra-imperialist wing of Mr. Borden's followers.
Provincial Conservative leaders pronouneed for a
policy of contribution to the British navy, eiher as an
emergency or as a permanent poliey: Premier Vhitney
declared ha parliament had missed ifs opportunity;
Premier Roblin held for one great and undivided im-
perial flee and denouneed the "tin-pot navy"; Robert
Rogers round the resolufions "eheap and wishy-washy";
Premier McBride would combine a Canadian navy and
a dreadnought gift; Premier Hazen, Mr. Haultain, Mr.
Bennett, sood for direct and permanent eontributions.
The ehief Conservative eity newspapers took the same
line. On he other hand, in Quebec, Mr. Monk, Mr.
]3orden's first lieutenant, and every C-onservative
journal attacked both Canadian navy and dreadnought
contributions, and insisted that the people should be
consulted before the country was pledged to so momen-
tous a change of policy. Mr. Borden w.as in a difficult
position. There had been incipient revolts against his
leadership by groups who demanded more tire and more
good old-fashioned adjectives and tub-thumping. The
naval resolutions represented his own confirmed opin-
ion, but evidently his party could not be brought to
support them. If he was to continue to lead, he must
824
NATION AND EMPIRE
follow his party, and follow it even if ifs two wings
went in opposite directions.
In January, 1910, in the absence of Mr. :Brodeur
through illness, Sir SVilfrid Laurier introduced a Naval
Service :Bill in aceordance with the resolutions of the
previous session. It provided for the establishmert
of a naval force eonsisting of a permanent corps, a
reserve, and a volunteer force, on the saine lines as
the militia, except that the provision of the Militia Act
rendering the whole male population from seventeen fo
sixty years liable to service was not included; service
was fo be wholly voluntary. A naval college would
be established, and a naval board set up fo advise the
I)epartment of Marine. The force was fo be under
the control of the Canadian government, but the gov-
ernor-general in eouncil might in emergency place any
or all of it at the disposal of His Majesty, subject to
he immed;iate summoning of parliament if not in ses-
sion. For the present, rive eruisers and six destroyers
would be built, at a eost in England of $11,000,000,
.and would be stationed on both coasts; the annual ex-
penditure was estimated at $3,000,000. If possible,
the ships would be built in Canada, at a probable in-
creased eost of one-third.
In introducing the bill, and again on the second
reading, Sir Wilfrid defended the government's policy
as a timely and moderate measure, a middle ground
on which reasonable men could unite, and yet not a
neutral and eolourless compromise but a logical develop-
325
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ment of Canada's course since half a century. He
rejeeted the solution of the ultra-imperialists, "who
earry abroad upon their foreheads imperial phylaeteries,
who boldly walk into the temple and there loudly thank
the Lord that they are not like other British subjeets,
that they give tithes of everything they possess, and
that in then alone is fo be fotmd the true ineense of
loyalty." For the present, there was no energeney,
little danger of a German war. For the future, the
government would continue to oppose schenes of
centralized imperial defence or of tribute fo London.
T,hese plans were ineonsistent with Canada's interest.
England was one of a circle of European states "that
are always watching one another"; Canada's present
interest was the developnent of ber resom'ces through
public works. They were inconsistent w.ith Canadian
sentiment: "Daughter ara I in my mother's house but
mistress in mine own." Equally he rejected the do-
nothing policy: "There sit the two extrenes, side by
side, cheek by jowl, blowing hot .and cold. I have
dealt with those who blow hot; let ne try a word now
with those who blow cold. They say we have no man-
date, that our policy bas never been discussed. Have
they not read rime and again the memorandum
submitted to the Inperial Conference of 19027 And
Canada bas progressed since 1902. Did these men
forger that Canada was a country with two sea-coasts
and exposed coast cities, a country with a large ocean
trade and with abounding national revenues? You
826
NATION AND EMPIRE
might as well tell the people of Montreal, with their
hall-million population, that they do not need any police
protection."
The government's policy, he eontinued, reeognized af
once the need of taking over a share of imperial bur-
dens, the need of proeeeding on national lines, and the
need of reserving to themselves the decision as fo future
poliey and the rate and degree of naval development.
"I do not pretend fo be an imperialist. Neither do I
pretend fo be an anti-imperialist. I ara a Canadian
first, last and ail the rime. I am a British subject by
birth, by tradition, by conviction, by the conviction that
under British institutions my native land has round a
measure of security and freedom it could not have
found under any other régime. I want to speak from
that double standpoint, for out policy is an expression
of that double opinion." If had been declared that this
position was anabi.guous, that his own utterances on
Canada's position in war were ambiguous. He had
declared in the previous session that "if England is at
war, we are at war," and also that "if we do have a navy,
that navy will not go fo war unless the parliament of
Canada chooses fo send if there." The statements were
not inconsistent; there was a difference between a
formal position in the eyes of international law and an
active participation in war: "If England is at war we
are af war and liable to attack. I do not say that we
shall always be attacked, neither do I say that we would
take part in ail the wars of England. That is a marrer
827
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
that must be guided by circumstances, upon which the
Canadian parliament will have fo pronounee, and will
have to deeide in ifs own best judgment."
Mr. Lemieux, in reply to Mr. Monk, took the saine
stand. Canada eould not submit fo taxation without
representation; neither eould she forger that the main-
tenanee of British naval supremaey was vital for Can-
ada, and not least for the Freneh-Canadians whom Mr.
Monk and Mr. ]3ourassa were seeking to isolate, for-
getful that ]3ritain had guaranteed and proteeted the
rights of the minority.
The Liberal party and the Liberal press, af ter some
temporary stampeding, now stood solidly behind the
government's poliey. The Conservatives were seem-
ingly less fortunate in being divided into two irreeon-
eilable wings, but there were in this division eomforting
possibilities of the very flexible and effective strategy
of playing both ends against the middle. Mr. ]3orden
defended his own Canadian navy position,--a perma-
nent poliey of contribution would make for irresponsi-
bility, friction, eventual separation,--but he ruade con-
cessions fo the imperialist wing by proposing an emer-
geney contribution of two dreadnoughts, and to the
Quebee wing by proposing that no permanent poliey
should be ad.opted until approved 'by the people. Un-
able fo foresee that within ten years he would himself
insist upon inserting in the Anglo-Franeo-Ameriean
draft treaty of alliance a clause authorizing any Domin-
ion fo exempt itself from the alliance, and eonsequently
from any war in whieh the other parties might be in-
828
NATION AND EMPIRE
volved, he attaeked as preposterous the assumption that
under any eireumstanees Canada eould be af peaee or
withhold her fleet when the test of the Empire was af
war. Mr. Monk denounced the bill as a surrender of
Canada's autonomy, a vietory of Chamberlainism; the
label "Canadian" on the fleet eould not eoneeal the faet
that it was a disguised contribution to' the imperial
navy, a pledge of Canadian participation in all Brit-
ish wars, an assumption of all the eonsequenees of a
poliey in which Canadians had little interest and over
which they had no eontrol. Other Conservatives
attaeked the government's proposais as a useless waste,
a stra.:tegie heresy, a declaration of independenee, the
beginning of the break-up of the Empire, a weak con-
cession fo Freneh-Canadian disloyalty: "one flag, one
fleet, one throne," was their ideal.
The debate ranged wide. There were many notable
utterances. Never before had Canada's relation fo the
Empire or ber place in the world been discussed so
thoroughly in parliament. Yet there was an inability
to find eommon ground, or a haziness and uneertainty
of view, that prevented a very helpful or definite con-
clusion. The debate made evident how imperative was
the poliey Sir ¥ilfrid advoeated, of emphasizing Cana-
dian nationhood and af the saine rime seeking fo ree-
oneile nationhood and Empire. British raeialism and
Freneh raeialism, imperialist and nationaliste, were alike
barriers to Canadian unity. Only by emphasizing the
common Canadianism of their sons rather than the
divergent traditions of their fathers eould the lesser
829
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
loyalties be merged in a concordant faith. At the same
time, only in the compromise of "a nation within the
Empire," the alliance of independent nations under a
common king, could the most vital convictions of the
majority of Canadians, for the present af least, be rec-
onciled. But the debate also ruade evident how difficult
this policy was fo work out in practice, how ambiguous
was Canada's international situation, how uncertain it
was where nation ended and Empire began. Given
a country divided by two great races, given the attempt
to work out a new and unprecedented experiment in
political organization, and if was not surprising, or
necessary to assume an undue s|mre of personal blind-
ness or ill-will, if tb_ere were wide cleavage and constant
inconsistency.
Vriting to Senator Dandurand in Decelnber, 1909,
Sir Wilfrid marie light of the opposition:
We are without doubt in for a little agitation on the part
of the Nationalists and Conservatives, who are af last uniting
in a solid party. So far I bave no serious apprehension. I
am quite aware that out policy is not popular; for ail that
I do not think that they tan fool the public about it. The
only effect that I foresee is that it is going fo consolidate
the Opposition in the province of Quebec and probably divide
it in the Dominion; I believe that on the whole ail the sane
dements will stay with us, and if so, we have nothing fo fear.
The clerical journals have already seized on the question
fo make a breach in out ranks. If seems fo me that this is
an obvious blunder and af the proper moment we must fall
on them and tell them fo their faces that this is an abuse of
religion.
As for Borden's speech, it is always easy to obtaln Tory
newspapers. One tan get them here in the library.
830
NATION AND EMPIRE
To an Ontario friend who attacked any naval expen-
diture, he replied, in November, 1909:
I am aware that there is among the farmers no enthusiasm
for the organization of naval defence. Your gcneral ground
is derived from the fact that you do hOt belicvc in armaments,
but in this you arc ahcad of the tilnes. Your policy in that
respect may perhaps be appreciated in .the twcnty-first ccntury,
but certainly not af this date. This consideration, therefore,
cannot weigh af all with me; but you put the case more ac-
curatcly, and vcry accurately, whcn you say that in your
opinion the severance of 'the political tic which binds us fo
Britain would do more fo assure our safety than the building
of war-ships by the score.
In this I perfcctly agree with you. If we were discon-
nectcd with Britain, wc would havc lcss occasion of conflict
with Europe than we bave af the present rime; but if British
connection bas somc disadvantages, in my judgment if has
advantages which far more than outbalance OEhe objections. No
one af this moment thinks or would wish for a severance from
Britain; I certainly do not. We are happy, free, content and
prosperous as we arc, and so long as the nation bas those
blessings, no one will ever think of changing the political con-
ditions. We are ail the same a nation, though under the suze-
ralnty of Great Britain, and we have fo assume the duties
and responsibilities of a nation. Part of these duties is the
keepin/ of some armed force, both on land and af sea.
I ask you fo consider this ; no nation has yet existed wlth-
out somc such protection, but I want fo assure you that I never
will be round fo go into what is known as militarism ....
I would ask you further fo consider this point: out existence
as a nation is the most anomalous that has yet existed. We
are British subjects, but we are an autonomous nation; we
are divided into provinces, we are divided into races, and out
of these confused elcments the man af the head of affairs has
fo sail the ship onwards, and fo do this safely if is not always
the ideal policy from the point of view of pure idealism which
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ought fo prevail, but the policy which can appeal on the whole
fo all sections of the community. This has been my inspira-
tion ever since I assumed the leadership of the party and up
fo the present rime this policy has, if if has donc nothing
else, given fo the people these blessings which I have just
mentioned: peace, harmony and prosperity.
If you were in the position in which I ara, you would have
fo think night and day of these different problems. I do not
think that you would diffcr much from the solution which I
have endeavoured fo find in the prescnt instance. If has been
my lot fo face such problems again and again, throughout
my political career, and on every occasion I bave had fo disap-
point scores of my friends on some point or other. In the
Manitoba sdool question I imposed upon my friends from
Quebec what was to them af that rime a difficult problem fo
face. On the Autonomy Bills of Saskatchcwan and Alberta
I imposcd upon my friends from Ontario what was to them
undoubtedly a similar problem fo face. I do not expect that
the task will be as heavy in the present instance as it was
on thc two last ; still it will be of such a character as fo give
me many troubled hours. If is some consolation fo think,
however, that if will probably be the last one.
When Senator MeMullen protested that the build-
ing of a navy ws wholly unneeessary,m"For two hun-
dred years we have been under the wing of Great
Britain and have never been molested"; better give two
dreadnoughts and end the matter,Dhe replied more
jocularly:
With regard to the naval question, I am shocked and scan-
dalized af your attitude. I always knew you to be a Grit
and a Reformer belonging fo the party which, from the rime
of William Lyon Mackenzie, insisted that we should have the
handling of out own affairs. We daim that af this stage
we have reached the status of a nation, af least I do. AI1
032
NATION AND EMPIRE
nations must have a navy as well as an army, but I tell you
frankly that I do not intend the Canadian army or navy tobe
on a scale to threatcn the peace of the world ....
I bave not missed the passage in your letter in which you
attribute the attitude we have taken to representatlons from
Quebec. I have read that in the Tory press, but was not
prepared to sec it from the pen of an old Grit. 1 The Tory
press is doing its very best to create a prejudice and a cleavage
between Quebcc and the rest of the Dominion. This is not
new; itis as old as the history of Canada under British rule.
It has failed before and will fail again.
Vhen the Naval Service :Bill was carried, after the
defeat of Mr. Borden's compromise amend,nent and
Mr. Monk's proposal of referendum, the issue was
far from settled. In the English-speaking provinces
discussion lessened with the apparent easing of the ten-
sion in England, where the bills for the dreadnoughts
were being presented in Mr. Lloyd George's land-tax
budget, and with the diversion afforded by a revival of
the tariff and reeiproeity issue. But in Quebee the
fight had only begun. Quebee's dominant instinct was
to abstain from any naval action, and it was its view
that had been disearded. Nor was Mr. Bourassa pre-
pared to forego so splendid an opportunity. Vith
Mr. Monk speaking for the old Conservative party, and
with mal new reeruits to Nationalism, Mr. Bourassa
began in 'January a vigorous and effective eampaign.
I
1 If was a favourite device of Laurier, in letter and in campaign speaking,
especi,lly in Ontario, fo stir party loyalty by these fighting words, linking
his opponents with Family Compact days, and stirring his followers fo
emulate the stern unbendin$ Grits of old. How his eyes would twinkle as
he rolled out the r's!
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
A_ Nationalist daily "Le Devoir," was established af
Montreal, with Mr. Bourassa as direetor.
_A striking feature of the agitation was the sueeess of
the appeal to the old ultramontane spirit. The sins
of Laurier as to western sehools were heaped up on
his sins of slavery to Chamberlain. Castorism round
a new champion in Mr. Bourassa. The younger c]ergy
and the college students flocked to his standard. "Le
Devoir," very ably written, was blessed by a thousand
volunteer clerical workers, and set at least on a level
with the catechism. A Catholic party was once again in
the making. Writing in October, 1910, a colleaoe of
Sir ¥ilfrid declared: "How wild that speech of Bour-
assa's at Notre Dame! May one cease to be tactful at
this point and say that their lordships the Quebec bish-
ops do not seem aware that this furiosus is leading them
to the precipice. They want a Catholic Centre and a
Windthorst, in a country where liberty and tolerance
are the foundation of all our institutions!" And
another colleague, a little earlier: "I pointed out to his
Grace that the crusade now in progress in Quebec must
either result in the formation of a Catholic party or
end in smoke. If the latter were to be the result, then
the rest of the community might well be content to wait,
but if a Catholic party were formed, then he .m-ight be
assured that all the rest of Canada would be arrayed
against it, and the resulting in jury to the Catholic
Church in Canada would be irreparable. This prospect
was disposed of by a shrug of the shoulders."
On a hundred platforms the naval policy was at-
tacked as the beginning of the end of peace and good
NATION AND EMPIRE
fortune in Canada. Sir Wilfrid was denounced as
a false leader who had abused the confidence of his
compatriots, had led them step by step fo betrayal for
the glitter of another English decoration, had plunged
Canada into the vortex of militarism. Now Canadians
would be involved in every British war; if navy
existed, the demand that if be used would be irresistible.
It would not be used in Canada's quarrels, but in
Britain's, used to uphold policies in whose shaping
Canadians would have no slightest part; "slaves," as
Mr. Monk declared, "of the English electors." There
was no German peril, declared Mr. Bourassa, and if
there was, England had brought if on herself. "If
we are expected to shoulder all the liabilities of nation-
hood," asked Mr. Asselin, "why should we continue to
drag the fetters of colonlahsm. Particularly was it
insisted that the inevitable next step would be conscrip-
tion. If was futile fo assert that naval service would
be voluntary; if. Canada became ilnplicated in a Euro-
pean war, declared Mr. Monk, Mr. Bourassa and a score
of their followers, the next step would be to make
service compulsory, to drag the habitant to service on
shipboard and in bloody fields.
The assault did not go unanswered. "Le Canada"
and "Le Soleil," "La Presse" and "La Patrie," Mr.
Lemieux and Dr. Béland, Gustave Boyer and J. P.
Turcotte, defended the government's action as in the
interest of Canada and as a return to England for the
protection given the rights of the minority in Quebec.
]3ut it became evident that the Nationalist campaign
885
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
was mking deep inroads into the Liberal party. The
:Eueharist Congress, a great world-wide gathering of
eeclesiastical dignitaries, whieh met in 1V[ontreal in
September, 1910, was ruade the occasion of an en-
deavour to place the Nationalist movement and its
leaders on a lofty pinnaele. 'All of Laurier's power
over his compatriots would be required to stem the ride.
Aecordingly, upon his return from a long tour through
the West, where he had been finding the farmers insur-
gent against tle triff, he arranged fo speak ata great
gahering in Montreal on Oetober 10. Sir SVilfrid
nmde play with the divisions of the Conservatives, the
attaeks from Ontario and the SVest beeause a Canadian
navy meant separation, the attacks from Quebee beeause
it meant jingoism, entanglement in Britain's wars. I-Ie
hated war, but Canada must defend her far-flung
territories. The government's naval' poliey did not
involve a surrender to British eentralizing demands, if
was the logieal eontinuance of the poliey of resisting
those demands which he had maintained steadily sinee
1902:
At that Conference the Secretary for War demanded a con-
tribution of troops. Af the same rime the Secretary of State
demanded that the same Dominions should contribute a sum of
money annua'lly for the maintenance of an imperial fleet.
There, indeed, was the entrance fo militarism. But the Cana-
dian mlnisters who were af London--and I was one of them--
opposed thls demand of the imperial government in a categor-
ical refusal, a refusal respectful in form, but absolute in mean-
ing. But we did more than that ; we placed before the Confer-
ente our own policy, which we intended fo follow. We declared
our intention fo sustain the obligation incumbent upon all
NATION AND EMPIRE
nations of defending their own territory; that we had already
organized a Militia and that we were equally ready fo under-
take our naval defence ; but that we would af all rimes follow
and maintain the principle of our local autonomy. However,
here is the Naval Law and I defy contradiction when I say
that this law is in complete accord with the policy of 190
as defined by us, as approved by Messrs. Monk and Bouras.sa.
Now, I bave simply fo call your attention fo two things
provided by this Naval Law. I,t simply decrees that the gov-
ernment of Canada shou'ld organize another naval service, and
that this seràce «hould remain entirely under the control of
the government of Canada. Outside of this there is not a
single word which would give fo Great Britain that which she
demanded in 190,--the organization of a war service fo be
put af the disposition of the War Offiee,--not one word.
In a vigorous passage Sir XVilfrid paid his respects
fo the new-old Castor:
This violent section--you know itcompriscs the Pharisee
end of Canadian Catholicism ; those who have constituted them-
selves the defenders of a religion which no one attacked; those
who handled the holy-water sprinkler a.s though it were a club;
those who bave arrogated fo themselves the monopoly of
orthodoxy; those who excommunicate right and teft all whose
.stature is a little greater than theirs; those who seem fo
have only hatred and envy for their motive and instinct; those
who insulted Cardinal Tasehereau when he was alive and who,
now that he is dead, attack his memory; those who made
Chapleau's life biffer; those, origina!ly, whom the people with
their picturesque language designated under the naine of
Castors.
Three days after this address, Louis Lavergne,
brother of Sir Vilfrid's former law partner, member
for I)rummond-Arthabaska, was appointed to the
Senate. The by-election which followed gave the
887
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Nationalists their chance. The odds appeared against
them. The riding had been strongly Liberal sinee
1887. If was Sir SVilfrid's old eonstitueney and his
summer home. Yowhere in Quebee would his per-
sonal prestige eount for more. As a marrer of faet,
local eireumstanees were not favourable to the Liberals,
as there had been serious faetional disputes for some
years. The onslaught was ruade. A Nationalist far-
mer, Arthur Gilbert, was nominated against the oflïcial
Liberal candidate, J. E. Perrault. Nationalist or-
ators swarmed into the field. Mr. Monk foretold
banknptcy as the end. Mr. Bourassa laid stress on
conscription, declaring as in Montreal tht "a day will
come when draft officers will be scouring the country
and compelling young men fo enlist either in the navy
or in the army, to go to foreign lands and fight the
battles of Great Britain, to co-operte with Downing
Street in the oppression of weak countries, and to
maintain at the price of their blood, the supremacy of
the British flag in Asia or Africa." Mr. Alfred
Sévigny: '%Vhat has England done for you? You
must protest against helping tgngland in her wars; un-
less you do, conscription will corne next." Mr. Tan-
crède Marsil: "I come from a parish where the church
still bears the mark of British bullets." Mr. Lavergne:
"If is England which is indebted fo us, and not we
who are indebted .fo England." Mr. Blondin: "The
only liberties we bave won are those we won by force,
and to-day England tries to dominate ifs colonies as
Imperial Rome once did." The canvassers on the side
roads had still less restraint: fifty housand fathers of
838
NATION AND EMPIRE
familles would be sent to Asia to fight English battles,
or let sink at sea; "those who disembowelled your fathers
on the :Plains of Abraham are asking you to-day fo
go and get killed for them." larticularly effective was
the trick of sending men in uniform to take a eensus
of the country houses: "I-Iave you a husband?" the
women were asked. "I-Iow many sons? ¥hat ages?"
"Why? Merely to have the lists ready when the
Laurier :Naval Aet goes into force." The Liberals
meanwhile were hOt idle. Jacques Bureau, :Ernest La-
pointe, Dr. Béland, C. A. Gauvreau, L. J. Gauthier,
Senator Lavergne and a score of otber members met
their opponents in warm debate. But the issue was
evidently "For Laurier, or against the navy?"
On :November 8, the polling in this most important
by-election in Canada's history gave a Nationalist
majority of 207. The impossible had happened. The
grip of Laurier on Quebee had been s.haken. The
Liberals were dumbfounded, the Nationalists hysterical.
Conservatives outside Quebec were dubious as patriots,
jubilant as partisans; the chier whip telegraphed con-
gratulations to Mr. Monk on his "great fight and suc-
cess"; Mr. Borden deelared that ehickens were coming
home to roost. In the following session, Sir Wilfrid
", ,
thus referred to the election:
Well, sir, at this moment I have only to say that history
teaches us that there are defeats which are more honourable
than victories. The gentlemen on the other side of this House
are welcome fo ail the comfort they tan get out of the Drum-
mond-Arthabaska election .... That election was won by a
combination of whtrt is left, or what wtrs left, of the once-great
889
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
Conservative party in the province of Quebec and certain y»ung
reactionaries who were brought up in Liberal principles but
for whom, as if turned out, Liberal principles were too broad
and too generous. The election was won by appeals so des-
perate that when the smoke of battle had cleared away the
public conscience was aroused fo shame and indignation.
Here and there men came to realize a little more clearly
the difficulties SVilfrid Laurier had had to face, and here
and there an imperialist halted when he saw his shadow.
Before tbe general elections in 1911, the holding of
an Imperial Conference, the last in which Laurier was
to share, gave opportunity for registering the recent
developments in imperial opinion and policy. The
conference in 1911 met in accordance with the agree-
ment for periodic gatherings effected in 1907. It was
chiefly notable for the concerted attempt ruade by
British im:perialists of the Round Table group, acting
through Sir Joseph Vard of New Zealand, to secure
the adoption of some plan of parliamentary federation
for-the Empire. Sir Joseph had submitted in advance
a proposal for an Imperial Council of State advisory to
the British government. In the Conference he went
the whole road, urging the creation of an imperial par-
liament, with power chiefly over foreign policy and de-
fence. Sir Joseph was evidently extremely hazy as to
what foreign affairs comprised, and as to the limitations
on the existing powers of the Dominions which would
be involved in his plan. His schemes met short shrift.
"The proposal seems to me tobe utterly impracticable,"
declared Laurier for Canada. "Itis nota practical
scheme; our present system of responsible government
840
NATION AND EMPIRE
has not broken down," declared Fisher for Australia.
"The creation of some body with centralized authority
over the whole ]mpire would be a step entirely antago-
nistic to the policy of Great Britain which has been so
successful in the past, and which has undoubtedly ruade
the Empire what itis to-day," declared Botha for South
Africa, now federated in the Union. "Any scheme of
representation--no marrer what you eall it, parliament
or eouncil--of the overseas Dominions must give them
so ver T small a representation, that if would be prac-
tically of no value," declared Morris for Newfoundland.
"$¥e cannot, with the traditions and history of the
British ]mpire behind us, either from the point of view
of the United Kingdom, or from the point of view of
out self-governing Dominions, assent for a moment to
proposais which are so fatal to the vert fundamental
conditions on which out Em'pire has been built up and
carried on," declared Asquith for Britain. Mr. As-
quith went on to declare that the authority of the gov-
ernment ot" the United Kingdom in foreign policy could
not be shared; this was afterwards taken to mean, eould
not be shared with the Dominions, and was much criti-
cized therefor; but clearly Mr. Asquith meant authority
could not be divided between the cabinet and the irre-
sponsible council or super-parliament Sir Joseph pro-
posed. I-Ie saw clearly that the policy of the United
Kingdom must be determined by a government respon-
sible to the parliament of Britain. Laurier simply
adopted the saine position, applying if fo Canada: the
poney of Canada must be determined by a government
841
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
responsible to the parliament of Canada. ]3etween
these responsible governrnents matters of colnmon con-
cern would bave fo be determined by eonferenee and
negotiation.
The verdict of the prime nfinisters was decisive.
Imperial parliamentary federation had reeeived ifs
quietus. 1
The Conference was notable for a less deeisive discus-
sion of another phase of the problern of the control of
foreign affairs. The British governrnent had shared
in drawing up and had signed the new code of rnaritime
international law embodied in the Declaration of Lon-
don. The Australian representatives objeeted on gen-
1Sir Wilfrid observed one day: "Of colonial statesmen, the South-
Africans left the strongest impression. There is no man I ara prouder to
«ail my friend than Louis Botha. tIis massive strength and simple honor,
his unquestioning devotion to duty, his utter lack of thought of self, his
mode'ation and close grip on fact, carried South Africa through desperate
strrdts. He bas high abilities, but it was his character, his calm sincerity,
that rallied men to him. Smuts has not his force, but he bas sympathy,
vision a well-thought-out philosophy of life, that make him a sounder
guide than most of the European public men I knew.
"The Australians for the most part were a dissappointment, distinctly
inferior to the Afrikanders. Perhaps if was their remoteness, perhaps
their racial unity, that gave them a parochial insularity, a lack of per-
spective in world affairs. Barton was the ablest, but lethargic. Deakin
was a very likable man, of brilliant endowments, a splendid orator, with
much tire and force. He was open-minded to new ideas; perhaps too much
so, as he seemed unable to hold any steady course. Hughes appears to
be a cross between Churchili and Lloyd George. Seddon, New Zealand's
'King Dick,' was a powerful leader of men, a man of much rugged force
and shrewdness, but a ward politician rather than a statesman. Sir Joseph
Ward was given prominence i.n 1911 through the exigencies of imperialist
polities. Af each imperial conference some colonial leader" was put for-
ward by the imperialists fo champion their cause. In 1897 it was obvious
that they looked fo me fo act the bell-wether, lmt I fear they were disap-
pointed. In 1902 it was Seddon; in 1907, Deakin; in 1911, ,Vard. He had
hot Dealdn's ability or Seddon's force. His London friends stuffed him
for his conference speeches; he came each day with a carefully type-
written speech, but when once off that, he was at sea."
32
NATION AND EMPIRE
eral principles because the Dominion had not been
consulted in advance and took specific exception fo the
new proposais listing foodstuffs as conditional contra-
band and sanctioning the destruction of neutral vessels.
Mr. Fisher insisted that hereafter the British govern-
ment should consult the Dominions before committing
them by treaties binding the whol'e Empire. To many,
this stand seemed consistent with the pfinciple of colo-
nial nationalism. Not so to Laurier. Ite saw at once
that giving advice meant a pledge to back that advice;
he did not wish to sacrifice Canada's real and growing
freedom of action in order to gain a minor and entan-
gling share in determining British policy. "$Ve may
give advice if our advice is sought," he replied to Mr.
Fisher, "but if your advice is sought, or if you tender
if, I do not think the United Kingdom tan undertake
fo carry out that advice unless you are prepared to back
that advice with all your strenh, and take part in the
war, and insist upon having the rules carried out ac-
cording to the manner in which you think the war
should be carried out. We have taken the position in
Canada that we do not think we are bound to take part
in every war." Mr. 17isher assumed that there was and
must continue fo be one foreign policy for the Em-
pire, and that fo have a volte in their own destinies the
Donfinions must seek first fo advise, and later to co-
operate with Britain in shaping this policy. To Sir
SVilfrid this centralization of policy was no more ac-
cel3table than centralization of parliaments; one would,
if accepted, in rime involve the other. Canada had al-
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ready, as he pointed out, seeured eontrol of the greater
part of the field of foreign poliey eoneerned with com-
mercial affairs. He antieipated that she eould steadily
extend this independent eontrol over the whole field,
effeeting agreements with the other nations of the Em-
pire by negotiation and understanding; in the mean-
rime he preferred that Canada's eontrol over her foreign
poliey should be ineomp]ete rather tlmn that she should
aecept an illusory share in ]3ritain's foreign policy.
I-Ie agreed to a compromise amendment, introdueed by
Mr. Fisher, requesting that future I-Iague conventions
should be submitted to the I)omin[ons before being
signed and that so far as possible and when rime per-
mitted the saine course should be followed in the case of
other international agreements affeeting the I)ominions.
Then, fo illustrate Canada's steady expansion in eon-
trol of foreign poliey en her own lines, he seeured an
undertaking that negotiations would be opened to re-
lease any Dominion whieh desired fl-om the operation
of any of the old most-favoured-nation treaties between
.the Uni.ted Kingdom and foreign powers. Canada had
already seeured the right fo negotiate her own future
freaties; in. 1897, Laurier had seeured the denuneiation
of the most galling of the old treaties, whieh barred a
preferenee to ]3ritain or other low-tariff eountries; now
in 1911 he urged the abolition so far as Canada was
eoneerned, of the remaining old treaties, whieh impeded
tariff negotiations with the United States.
The Conferenee of 1911 set the seal on the prineiple
of alliance between equals and the method of negotia-
NATION AND EMPIRE
tion, as the principle and method of Empire. The
Wilfrid Laurier who in 1897 had dreamed of a parlia-
ment of Empire gathering in Westminster, with a son
of New France among ifs members, had by 1911 played
decisive part in turning development into a contrary
channel. The British Empire was hot to be one,
whether empire or commonwealth; if was to be a league
of free nations. Much yet remained to be done in
working out this conception; it doubtless was not an
eternal solution, but if was the path and the goal of his
own day. Laurier had carried forward the policy of
Macdonald, the policy of Blake, who had declred in
1900:
For rnany years I for my part bave looked fo conference, to
dclegation, to correspondence, to negotiation, fo quasi-dip-
lomatic rnethods, subject always to the action of free parlia-
rncnts herc-and elsewhere, as the only feasible way of working
the quasi-federal union between the Empire and the sister
nations of Canada and Australit. A quarter of a century
past I drcamed the dream of irnperial parliamentary federa-
tion, but rnany years ago I came to the conclusion that we had
passed the turning that could lead to that terminus, if ever,
indeed, there was a practicable road. We have too long and
too extensively gone on the lines of separato action here and
elsewhcre fo go back now.
Or in his own words in 1908, in a Tercentenry ad-
dress af Quebec, given in the presence of the then Prince
of Wales:
We are reaching the day when our Canadian parliament will
claire coequal rights with the British parliament, and when the
only ries binding us together will be a cornmon flag and a
common Crown.
35
CHAPTER XVI
1OECIPROCITY
Canada and Foreign Powers--The Far East--Imperial Respon-
sibilities--Tariff B,argainingswCloscr Relatiorrs with the United
Sates--Fisheries nd VaterwayswThe Payne-Aldrich Tariff
NegtiationshPresident Taft Proposes ReciprocityThe Negoti-
ati0ns--IVttshington Atccepts---Opposition in CanadaThe Eco-
nomic Argument--The Politieal BogeyThe Conse,rvative-Nation-
alist AlliancehDefeat of the Government.
C ANADA'S steady advance toward nationhood,
the transformation of the British Empire into
a Britannic Alliance, was apparent not only
in the relations between Canada and Britain but in the
relations betveen Canada and foreign powers. In the
navy issue, Canada was called upon to decide how far
she would take part in what were predominantly
Britain's foreign affairs. In trade and immigration and
fishery disputes, she had fo decide how far and how
she would decide .her own foreign affairs. As in the
case of most countries, her own foreign affairs were
chiefly economic and were chiefly with her nearest neigh-
bout. A bargain as fo tariff rates, a dispute as fo fishery
or irrigation rights in boundary waters, a protest against
the barring of Chinese or Japanese immigrants, gave
repeated occasion for practice in diplomacy.
As need demanded, Canada slowly acquired the
machinery, for negotiation with forei.a powers. In
1909, following the example of Australia, the Laurier
846
RECIPROCITY
government established a I)epartment of External
Affairs, under Charles Murphy, as Seeretary of State,
and with a deputy minister, Mr. Joseph Pope, fo give
the permanent element desired. "The foreign affairs
with whieh Canad has to deal," Sir lilfrid declared,
"are becoming of sueh absorbing moment as fo neees-
sitate special machinery." No step was taken toward
permanent and distinct diplomatie representation
abroad, lVhen an old Liberal proposal for the appoint-
ment of a Canadian minister or attaché at Washington
was revived in 1909, the prime minister deelared that
so long as James ]3ryee was ]3ritish ambassador Can-
ada needed no special minister; later, conditions nfight
change. For special diplomatie tasks, cabinet ministers
or private eitizens were aeeredited with varying formal-
ity. To negotiate a formal treaty with France, eon-
eluded in the King's naine, Mr. Fielding and Mr.
Brodeur were appointed plenipotentiaries by the ]3ritish
government, along with the ]3ritish ambassaztor in Paris,
whose nominal paloE was eonfined to sharing in sign-
ing the cornçgleted treaty. To negotiate mueh more
important trade agreements with the United States,
direct and informal eonferenee between the Ottawa and
Washington cabinets .suffieed. Mr. Lemieux under-
took a special mission fo Japan, and Mr. King fo India.
In the tariff negotiations with European powers in
1909 and 1910, the consuls-general of the powers eon-
eerned exereised quasi-diplomatie powers, and the agree-
ments vere embodied in conventions, assumed fo be
less formal and less the prerogative of sovereignty than
847
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
treaties, and hence within the power of Canada fo con-
clude without even the formal participation of a ]3rit-
ish plenipotentiary. In the Italian agreement the
parties were deelared fo be "the Royal Consul of Italy
for Canada, representing the Government of the King-
dom of Italy, and the Minister of Finance of Canada,
representing His F, xeelleney the Governor-General
aeting in eonj unetion with the King's Privy Couneil for
Canada." Abroad, a Canadian eonsular service took
shape with the appointment of trade eommissioners in
the more important eountries.
As a Pacifie power, Canada shared with the United
States and Australia the diflàeulties involved in the
possession of vast unpeopled lands fo whieh the erowded
hosts of Asia looked with longing. Neighbourhood fo
the United States gave ]3ritish Columbia, and partie-
ularly ifs workingTnen and small traders, the gospel of
exclusion. Membership in the ]3ritish Empire ruade
doubly delieate any poliey of barring immigrants from
]3ritain's ally, Japan. Sir Wilfrid, while eonvineed that
Asiatie immigration must be rigorously restricted, was
serupulously eareful fo avoid eompromising imperial
interests by an extreme poliey or offensive means. In
the eleetion of 1908 he saerifieed ]3ritish Columbia's seats
rather than eompete with Mr. ]3orden in concessions fo
the exelusionists. The federal veto power was used
fo prevent British Columbia passing measures of ex-
clusion or discrimination on ifs own aeeount. Vhen
in 1900 the head fax on Chinese immigrants was revised,
it was urged that a similar tax should be imposed on
lapanese.
preferring
action on
RECIPROCITY
The government rejected the suggestion,
to have numbers restricted by voluntary
the part of the lapanese government. In
1900 and in the half-dozen years following this assurance
was repeatedly given through the Japanese eonsul-
general, and the restriction was effectively enforced.
When, in 1905, the Dominion determined to adhere to
the commercial treaty which Britain had ruade with
Japan in 1894-95, the Colonial Secretary raised the
question of imposing restrictions on Japanese im-
migrants by some such law as Natal had enaeted, but
the Canadian government declined to make the reserva-
tion, preferring to save Japan's pride by trusting to
her to continue fo enforce the limitation. On this under-
standing the convention was ratified by the Canadian
parliament in January, 1907. A_dvantage was taken
of the government's scruple. Japanese employrnent
associations and Canadian corporations stimulated
swiftly rising tide of labourers, coming in some measure
directly from Japan, but mainly through Hawii. In
1906 three thousand, in 1907, seven thousand came,
and the ideal of a White Canada seemed in peril. In
September, a Vancouver mob, led by Seattle
agitators, invaded the Chinese and Japanese quarters,
doing much damage until the Japanese turned on their
attackers and held rioters and police alike at bay. The
government at once expressed to Japan its deep regret,
and took steps to repair the breach in the dike.
Rodolphe Lemieux hstened to Tokio. His diplomacy,
backed by the efforts of the British ambassador, won
849
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
a brilliant success. The $apanese government gave a
written assurance that it would restriet dire& emigra-
tion to Canada, adopted satisfaetory regulations to that
end, prohibited the emigration of eontraet labourers, and
suppressed the emigration eompany involved. ,lap-
anese inmigrants fell fo a few hundred a year. Japan's
pride and Canada's facial integrity alike were saved.
In the case of China there was no complication of
alliance and no menace of military power. A head
tax of fifty dollars on all Chinese immigrants exeept
officiais, merchants, and scholars had been imposed in
1885; in 1901 the tax had been raised to one hundred
dollars and in 1904 fo four hundred dollars. British
Columbia employers of Chinese servants soon were
clear as to the incidence of the fax. China ruade no
protest, but the Laurier government itself eoneluded
that it was not consistent with international eomity to
subject any people fo this humiliating levy. Vhen it
left oflïee, it had well under way a projeet for giving
to China, as fo Japan, the immediate responsibility for
keeping the flow of ifs people within agreed limits.
Britain had ruade two treaties with Japan. The dif-
ferent position of Canada under the two treaties il-
lustrated the distinction between the commercial and
the military phases of foreign poliey. Canadian
insistence for thirty years had won the reeognition of
the right of the Dominions fo aeeept or fo d'eeline a
share in any commercial treaty ruade by the mother
country with a foreign state. Canada aeeepted Britain's
commercial treaty with Japan of her own volition, and
850
RECIPROCITY
faced independently the consequences, but throughout
gave as close thought to ]3ritain's interests as to her
own. When Lord Lansdowne negotiated a treaty of
military alliance with Japan, in 1902, it was held to
bind the whole Empire; in political issues the old con-
ception of the Empire as a single and undivided unit
gave way to reality more slowly than in trade issues.
Vlaen in 1911 the renewal of the treaty was discussed
af the Imperial Conference, the exemption of any
Dominion from its effects was still unthinkable; ail that
Sir SVilfrid and his Dominion colleagues could effect
was the inclusion of a clause desimaed to make the treaty
inapplicable in case of war between Japan and the
United States.
The Hindu tide first reached large proportions in
1907. If raised still more difficult questions. Vhat
did the British Empire mean if a British subject could
not enter other ]3ritish lands? Had the Empire really
been one, if would have broken under the strain; if
being many, a flexiole alliance, the danger was in a
measure averted, the responsibility shifted from the
]3ritain which ruled India to the Dominion which
]3ritain did hot rule. Following ifs consistent policy
on Oriental immigration, the Canadian government
sought to induce the government of India to adopt the
necessary restraînts itself. The government of India
did hot at that rime consider if advisable fo follow this
advice; a later viceroy, Lord Chehusford, came fo rea-
lize more fully its value. But the government of India,
and the India Office in London, were much gratified af
851
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the considerateness of the policy whieh Canada there-
upon adopted, herself, to avert the influx. A general
clause was inserted in the Immigration Aet, barring im-
migrants who did not eoe from the country of origin
by eontinuous voyage; while not naming India, it ap-
plied fo India, as there was no line of steamships plying
direetly between Indian and Canadian ports. Further,
an order in eouneil was passed requiring all Oriental
immigrants, exeept frcm eountries with whieh special
agreements existed, fo prove possession of two hundred
dollars before being permitted fo land. 1
The negotiations for the settlement of this delicate
issue were entrusted fo Mr. Maekenzie King. He was
sent to London in 1908 to interview Lord Morley, then
Secretary of State for India, and a year later, when
visiting the East as one of the delegates fo the Shanghai
International Opium Commission, he was eommissioned
fo proeeed to Calcutta and discuss the matter at first
hand. The success of the mission is suflîeiently indi-
cated in letters exehanged between Lord llinto, then
Governor-General of India, and Sir Vilfrid. If may
be added that a formal expression of appreeiation from
1Early in 1915 the leaders of the Hindu naionalist movement,
apparently with some German aid, determined to break this barrier or
af least cause some friction in the attempt. A Japanese ship was chartered
fo eam'y four hundred Sikhs, largely former British soldiers, from
Shanghai to Vaneouver. Under the direct-voyage and two-hundred-dollar
rules, as well as a 1913 regulation suspending all immigration of labourers
owing to business depression, the Borden government held them ineligible
fo land, but round diffieulty in enforcing deportation until H. M. C. S.
RoEnbow brought its guns fo bear. By a strange irony, this nucleus of
the new Canadian navy was first used fo prevent British subjects from
landing on British soil. On their return fo India, the deported Sikhs
broke into violent riots leading fo a notable loss of lire.
852
.%
CAMPAIGNING IN WESTERN ONTARIO
(1908}
RECIPROCITY
the government of India, "cordially endorsed" by Lord
Morley and Lord Crewe, the Colonial Secretary, fol-
lowed later.
(Lord Mito to Wilfrid Laurier)
Government House
Caleutta
Ist Match, 1909.
IY DE,R SIR WILFIlID."
I was very glad to renew my acquaintanee with Mr. Mac-
kenzie King and I hope you w-iii think the results of his visit fo
India in every way satisfacto.ry.
Mr. King conferrcd with a member of my Council who d'cals
specially with emigration questions and he has no doubt in-
formed you of the resul of their discussions. The view we
hold here is that measures taken in Canada, prohibiting im-
migration exccpt by continuous journey on through tickets
and requiring the immigrant to produce two hundred dollars,
are likely to prove effectual in putting a stop to the immigra-
tion of Indian labourers. We have publishcd the conditions
imposed by Canada widdy in India, with the result that im-
migration has ceased altogether, and we consider there is
practically no chance of ifs being re-opened.
Mr. King wishes to ascertain out general attitude towards
the whole question of this emigration to British Columbia.
As you are aware, we have ail along said that any restrictions
that might be required must be put on by you. We have ncver
in India taken steps to control the movements of British In-
dians outside the country, except in the case of labourers under
indenture. It would be diflïcult for the government of India to
depart from this policy, especially af the present juncture, so
that action on our part was out of the question. Bat we
ralsed no objections to the methods adopted by Canada, and
we have not any intention of raising any question regarding
them.
We propose telling the Secretary of State for India the re-
sult of Mr. King's visit, nd we shall take the opportunity of
353
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
expressing to him our appreciation of the manner in which
your government has treated the whole of thls diflîcult business.
You lmve all along kept in view the position that faces us here,
and avoided anything that might look like invidious action
against British Indians. And a solution has been found,
which we belicve will be a lasting one, without involving us in
any of the troublesome controversies which have arisen out of
Indian emigration fo some other places. We are grateful fo
you for the attitude that you have maintained throughout the
discussions, and out formal acknowledgment will, I hope,
reach you in due course.
Believe me, My dear Sir Wilfrid,
Yours very truly,
MNTo.
(Wilfrid Laurier to Lord Mito)
Ottawa, April 13, 1909.
MY DEAI LORI) MIlgTO:
I received in due rime your favour of the 1st of March. I
thank you vcry heartily for if.
Mackenzie King is doing excellent work and I believe that he
bas quite a political future belote him. The Hindu question
bas becn very troublesome in British Co'lumbia for some rime,
but thanks fo the excellent dispositions taken by your admin-
istration, things are now easy. You remembcr the trouble we
had with the Chincse immigration when you were in Canada.
Strange fo say, the Hindu and all pcople comlng from India,
are looked upon by out people in British Columbia with still
more disfavour than the Chinese. They seem to be less adap-
table fo our ways and manners than all the other Oriental
races that corne fo us.
Will ),ou atlow me to take this opportunity to off'er you my
very sincere congratulations for the success of your adminis-
tration in India? You bave had your share of troubles, but
you seem fo bave overcome them all most successfully ....
The whole episode afforded an illuminating illustra-
tion of Lauricr's imperial policy. He would not enter
354
RECIPROCITY
into dangerous and entangling new imperial commit-
ments, but he would faithfully and punctiliously per-
form the obligations of the existing bonds. While
noisy imperialists in Australia and elsewhere were
taking steps or advoeating polieies whieh deeply em-
barrassed British rule in India, Wilfrid Laurier quietly,
and at whatever eost of local losses, sought a course of
action whieh, while fully eonserving Canadian interests,
would not involve complications for the imperial
authorities.
With :European powers, Canada had inereasing con-
tact. Politieal and military matters were filtered
through British diplomacy. Immigration raised no
vital question, as no discrimination was enforeed against
any :European people. Trade and tariff were the ques-
tions af issue. The rapid growth in Canada's foreign
trade, complications introdueed by the preferenee fo
Britain, the adoption of a bargaining tariff sehedule,
and shifts in Canada's general tariff poliey, led to impor-
tant negotiations with France, Germany, Italy, and
other Continental states.
The tariff policy established by the Laurier govern-
ment in ifs first years of office did not undergo any
basie alteration until the elosing act. The tariff had
been redueed; if had been ruade more logieal and con-
sistent; if had been tempered by the British preferenee;
if had been ruade more distinetlv a tariff for revenue;
if had been revised in the light of public hearings, not
in the darkness of Red-Parlour eaueuses, but if remained
a national-poliey tariff still. The bounties on iron and
855
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
steel had been renewed and widely extended. The
minimum British preference rates on woollens were
increased in 1904 in response fo protests from Cana-
dian mil/s, and in 1906-07 the uniform horizontal redue-
tion of one-third was replaced by a speeifie preferenee
varying with every item. A stringent :Patent Act, the
adoption of an arbitrary valuation basis on certain
agrieultural implements, and the revision in 1907 of the
postal agreement of 1875 with the United States, in
order to lessen the sale of United States magazines in
Canada and incidentally the circulation of their adver-
tisements of United States products, supplemented the
more direct measures of protection. In 1904 Mr.
Fielding introduced the anti-dumping clause, providing
for special penalty duties on goods sold for export to
Canada af substantially less than the priees prevailing
in the country of origin, which in later years wa, s
imitated by many other countries. If was an ingenious
device fo meet the eomplaints of Canadian manufact-
urers against deliberate, crippling but temporary dump-
ing of a foreign surplus in the Cana,dian market, while
a,voiding the enactment of permanent duties of the
height required fo meet emergency conditions.
Up fo the year 1906, if may fairly be said that the
Liberal party was becoming steadily more protection-
ist and forgetful of the freer trade ideals of Opposition
days. Tbe transformation was not difficult fo under-
stand. The United States had remained definitely
protectionist; and even the United Kingdom, the one
great citadel of free trade, seemed fo be eapitulating.
856
RECIPROCITY
In Canada itself the only other political party was still
more protectionist. The manufacturers were organized
and persistent, the consumers scattered and helpless.
The cities were growing faster than the country, making
the weight of protectionist, city-concentrating sentiment
cumulative. The Maritime provinces, with the growth
of iron and steel industries, began to share in the
largesse and the advocacy of protection. Immigration
was bringing the expanding markets which ruade
protection in a small population endurable. The coun-
try was prosperous: why change?
After 1905 or 19'06, other factors entered. The un-
expected vitality and triumph of free trade in the United
Kingdom, the disfavour into which muck-raking was
bringing every capitalist and corporation in the United
States, had their effect in stimulating Canadian opposi-
tion to manufacturers' demands. The farmers of
Ontario and the West began to organize; the Grange in
Ontario, the Grain-Growers' Associations in Saskatch-
ewan and Manitoba, gave the consumer a voice at last.
The effect was soon visible. When in une, 190, Mr.
Fielding announeed the government's intention to revise
the tariff, he foreeast maximum and minimum sehedules,
the minimum, eorresponding to the existing general
tariff, for low-tariff eountries, and the maximum,
materially higher, for eountries with a hostile tariff
poliey. But during the peraxnbulations of the new
tariff commission, Messrs. Fielding, Paterson, and
Brodeur, in 1906 and 1907, farmers' organization after
farmers' organization gave evidenee of priees and
857
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
profits, dug up old Liberal speeches, and demanded re-
duetion. N) more was heard of a maximum tariff,
direeted against the United States. When the revision
came in 1907, a dual-sehedule tariff, or, ineluding the
British preferenee and the surtax, a four-tier array, was
established. But instead of the existing rates being
ruade the minimum, and higher retaliatory rates set for
the maximum, the existing tariff was made the maximmn
and a new intermediate sehedule for bargain purposes
established half-way between the British preferenee and
the general rates. The Liberal party was returning to
1896.
The first important test of Canada's more positive
and independent eontrol of commercial relations with
European eountries came in the tariff war with
Germany. Angered by Canada's refusal fo accord her
the saine rates as Great Britain, and not without reason
unable to tmderstand how Canada was free to make its
independent tariff agreements and yet the Empire was
to be eonsidered a unit, Germany in 1899 ruade her
general instead of her eonventional or minimum rates
applicable to Canadian goods. The Dominion, af ter
protesting in vain, in 1903 imposed a surtax of one-third
on German imports. Germany suffered most. Her
exports, whieh were highly speeialized, were eut in two;
Canadian exports fo Germany eontinued to grow,
though mainly in eommodities on the free list or on
whieh the eonventional and the general rates were the
saine. Then the prospect of Canadian negotiation with
other European powers and a further handicap upon her
858
RECIPROCITY
wares ruade Germany draw in ber horns. On the
initiative of the German government, and through the
consul-general in Canada, negotiations were resumed.
In February, 1910, an agreement was reached by which
Canada granted Germany ifs general--not ifs inter-
mediate--rates, while Germany in return conceded ifs
minimum rates on Canada's most important dutiable
exports.
lVith hs barganng schedule ready, Mr. Felding
turned first to France. A new treaty was negotiated
in 1907, much more comprehensive than the agreement
effected by Sir Charles Tupper in 1894, but the opposi-
tion of French protectionists prevented ifs ratification
until 1910. France was given the intermediate rates
on her specialties, and in a few cases rates below the
existing British preferenee sehedule, whieh in turn was
eorrespondingly redueed. Canadian live stock, meats,
dairy products, fish, pulp and lurnber, furniture, boots
and shoes, and agrieultural implements were among the
more important Canadian products given the Freneh
minimum rates. In 1910 a somewhat sinfilar but less
extensive agreement was ruade with Italy by convention,
and the benefits of the intermediate tariff were extended
to iBelgium and the Netherlands in reeognition of the
lowness of their general customs rates.
Canada, for ail the growing intercourse with _A_sia
and with Europe, remained an American power. The
isolation of the United States and Canada from other
lands, their eommon border for three thousand miles,
the wide measure of identity in pioneer traditions, in
859
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
social customs, in business methods, in tongue and ereed,
ruade Canada's relations with the republie ineomparably
more close and more important than with all other
powers. The responsibility that came of the United
States' greater share in world affairs, the recognition
of the wide measure of identity of ideals and of interest
between the English-speaking peoples, the ethnie con-
sciousness whieh was being created in the predominan
Anglo-Saxon element by the stubborn refusal of other
facial strains in the republie fo be "assimilated," and
hOt least the new respect for Canada that followed on
her rapid growth and her luring a million settlers over
the border in a dozen years, was making the attitude of
the people of the United States mueh friendlier than of
old. Canada's prosperity and her independenee went
far fo cure the sensitive and querulous note in her
earlier dealings. The presence of James Bryee af
Washington aided no a little in smoothing any dif-
fieulties that arose.
If is easy fo exaggerate the par'c that statesmen
played in determining the relations of two countries so
bound together. Premier and Presiden had their
parts, and pla)ed them in full footlight glare, but
perhaps the final shaping came from hundreds of thou-
sands of humbler and more uneonscious diplomats.
The young Prince Edward Island fisher lad seeking
fame and fortune in Boston, the habitant's daughter
finding a place in a Lowell mill, the Iowa fariner sell-
ing his two-hundred-dollar-an-acre land and buyïng
Saskatchewan prairie af twenty, the Pittsburgher re joie-
860
RECIPROCITY
ing in the trout of a New Ontrio stream and the
l'oronto marron joining in the Easter parade on Fifth
Avenue or the Boardwalk, the Massaehusetts manu-
facturer opening a braneh in Hamilton, the Canadian
railway seeking a terminus in Boston or Chieago, the
baseball hero or the movie aetress worshipped by the
youngsters of a united continent, the journal eir-
eulating on both sides of the border, the international
trade union,--these and eountless other unprofessional
representatives built up the relationships, prejudiees,
friendships, which were the stuff that foreign affairs
were ruade of. Still, the statesmen had their part. At
the least they expressed, in some measure they guided,
public opinion.
In this more favouring atmosphere many of the long-
standing issues of Jknglo-Arneriean diplomaey round
ready settlement. Draft agreements of the Joint I-Iigh
Commission were signed and sealed. The last bit of un-
determined boundary, in Passamaquoddy Bay, was
referred to a commission. In the North Pcifie, Can-
ad agreed to abandon pelagie sealing in return for a
fait proportion of the catch on the United States, Rus-
sian, and Japanese rookeries. Immensely more signif-
ieant was the settlement of the North Atlantie Fish-
eries diflàeulty. Since the adoption of the qnodus vi-
vendi in 1888, the question had slumbered until the at-
tempt of Newfoundland in 1905 to prevent foreign
fishing-vessels from seeuring bait or supplies from the
island had once more threatened eonfliet. In 1909 1V[r.
Bryce and Mr. Roof signed a treaty for the referenee
361
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
of the whole century-old dispute to the newly consti-
tuted Hague Tribunal. The question was really much
more complicated, much more dangerous and much
more important than the Alaska boundary dispute, but
fortunately tbere had been some advance in Anglo-
American relations and in international good sense since
1903, and the conduct and outcome of the arbitration
were wholly creditable to every party concerned. The
Tribunal was constituted at The Hague in June, 1910,
consisting of Dr. Larmnasch of Austria, Dr. Lobman of
ttolland, Dr. Drago, of Argentins, Justice Gray of the
United States Circuit Court of Appeals, and Sir
Charles Fitzpatrick of the Canadian Supreme Court.
Sir Allen Aylesworth was agent for Great Britain,
:Newfoundland, and Canada, with Sir V. S. Robson,
Sir Robert Finlay, Sir Edward Morris, Donald Mor-
rison, Sir James Vinter, John S. Ewart, George F.
Shepley, Sir Erle Richards, A. F. Peterson, V. :N.
Tilley, Raymond Asquith, Geoffrey Laurenee, and
ttamar Greenwood as eouncil, while Chandler P.
Anderson was agent for the United States, with Elihu
Root, George Turner, Samuel Elder, C. B. Varren,
James Brown Seott, Robert Lansing and Otis Cart-
wright as eounsel. Dr. Lanmaasch rightly declared at
tbe first session: "Perhaps no question of such gravity
and involving sueh complications has ever been submit-
ted to arbitration." :But the terres of reference had
been earefully and fairly framed; the tribunal consisted
of impartial jurists; the case was thoroughly prepared
and exhaustively argued, and there was no justice of
862
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the United States Supreme Court journeying fo Lon-
don with a Rooseveltian Big Stick in his baggage.
The result was a masterly, exhaustive and practical de-
cision, absolutely unanimous save for a dissent on one
point by the Argentine member. If was gratifying
that on every important phase the Canadian conten-
tion was sustained, but still more welcome were the
evidences of friendliness and of an honourable desire
on both sides fo ensure a strictly fait and legal decision.
More important than any of these settlements of old
and weary issues was the constructive provision for new
boundary difflculties. The creation of a permanent
Joint High Commission, with three Canadian and three
United States members, to deal primarily vith disputes
as to boundary waters, whether as fo nagivation, power,
irrigation, or fisheries was due fo three men, Wilfrid
Laurier, Elihu Root, and George C. Gibbons. Mr.
Bryce and Sir Allen Aylesworth took an active part in
the drafting, and every clause and every line was gone
over again and again by the whole cabinet. In its
explicit recognition of Canada's international status, in
the optional provision for reference fo the commission
of any subj ect whatever in dispute between the two
countries, in the permanent character of the joint body,
and, not least, in the adoption for the first rime in inter-
national praetiee of the far-reaehing provision that
individual eitizens of either country nfight present their
cases direct, without the State aeting as intermediary,
tl, e experiment was a distinctive North Ameriean con-
tribution toward a sane international polity. "We are
- 363
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
setting up a Hague Tribunal for :North Arnerica," :5Ir.
Root rightly eoininented.
lVone of these questions beeaIne a politieal issue.
That rôle, as usual, was reserved for trade and tariff.
The tariff still held a doininant place in the polities
of both eountries. :No other question eould affeet so
many poekets, prejudiees, traditions. Its importance
may have been absurdly exaggerated, but that did not
alter the faet that tariffs still Inade and unmade govern-
Inents. In four successive eleetions, 1896, 1900, 1904,
1908, the high'er-tariff party had been returned fo power
in the United States. In four successive eleetions,
1896, 1900, 1904, 1908, the lower-tariff party had been
returned to power in Canada. In 1897 the Republieans
]lad produeed tlle Dingley tariff, and then had rested
content. In 1897 the Liberals had enaeted the Fielding
tariff, and had sinee rnade ]ittle change. Now af ter
a dozen years the tariffs were again in the Inelting-pot.
In the 1908 eleetion, the Republieans had proInised
a thoroughgoing revision of the tariff. As to whether
the revision should be upward or downward, there had
been soIne judieious haziness, but the Old Guard in
charge of the party's fortunes had no uneertainty. The
Payne-_A_ldrieh tariff, enaeted in 1909, was distinetly
and aggressively proteetionist. In the United States,
the tariff speedily proved amexpeetedly and deeidedly
unpopular. City eonsuiners wanting lower living eosts,
manufaeturers wanting foreign inarkets, newspapers
wanting eheaper pulp, the raw material of literature,
insurgents wanting to insurge, denotmeed this Bourbon
864
RECIPROCITY
product. Abroad, i threatened complications. For
the first rime Congress had adopted a two-schedule
tariff with minimum rates intended as normal, and
prohibitive maximum rates of an additional twenty-five
per cent. ad valorem for bargaining, or rather for
bludgeoning. The President was directed fo apply the
maximum rates, after March 81, 1910, fo imports from
any country which in any way unduly discriminated in
its own tariff against the United States. It was an
abandonment of the traditional United States principle
of concession for concession in favour of the :European
principle of penalties for discrimination. Formerly the
United States had insisted that if Brazil, for example,
wanted the special tariff rates accorded Argentina, there
must be equality between the concessions which Brazil
and Argentina gave on United States goods; now, it
insisted that Brazil must give the same rates if gave on
Argentina's goods: it had adopted the :European inter-
pretation of the most-favoured-nation clause, plus a
club.
Thus armed, Vashington sought and secured con-
cessions from France, Germany, Austria, Portugal,
Brazil. .Soon only Canad, remained obdurate. The
United States tacitly achnitted that the special rates
Canada granted on British imports did hot constitute
an undue discrimination, but if contended that the con-
cessions recently ruade fo France and other :European
countries would make inevitable the application of the
penalty clause, unless equivalent concessions were ac-
corded. To Canada, this position appeared pre-.
865
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
posterous. The United States was demanding for
nothing concessions for which France had given value.
Canada was prepared, in accordance with the traditional
policy of the United States itself, fo grant the United
States special concessions when it matched the con-
cessions France had ruade. Early in 1910 President
Taft sent Professor Emery and Mr. C. 5I. Pepper to
Ottawa to confer with Sir SVilfrid and Mr. Fielding.
In March he arranged a conference with Mr. Fielding
in Albany; and later Mr. Fielding and Mr. Graham
went to Washington. The President assured the Cana-
dian representatives that nothing was further from his
desire or the desire of his people than a tariff war with
Canada, but that the Payne-Aldrich Act left him no
option in insisting upon concessions. Fortunately, it
did give him power to decide what concessions would be
considered adequate. A compromise was worked out
at the last moment by which each country saved ifs
face. Canada granted fo the United States its inter-
mediate tariff rates on thirteen minor articles from
photographs to prunes, which the President accepted
as "equivalent to the special rates given France. Then
the Canadian parliament immediately made these lower
rates part of its general tariff; the United States ended
where it had begun, its goods subject in every item fo
the general, not fo any special, tariff rates. A phantom
concession had been made to remove an invented griev-
ance, and peace reigned again on the Ottawa and the
Potomac.
l)eace, but not quiescence. From the verge of an
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
unpremeditated tariff war ashington turned to a
deliberate search for fiscal friendliness. Public opinion
had pronounced strongly against the bludgeoning tac-
tics of Congress and a strong Republican seat in
Massachusettes had gone Democratic on a platform of
Reciprocity a week before the March negotiations were
completed. President Taft awoke to the fact that he
had antagonized the progressive movement within his
own party by sanctioning a profiteer's tariff. An
amateur diplomat, Dr. J. A. Macdonald, editor of the
Toronto "Globe," impressed upon hin the opportunity
of snatching credit out of embarrassment and of
establishing, once for all, close and friendly relations
between the two democracies of North Americm I,
a message to the Canadian people, President Taft
declared: "I am profoundly convinced that these two
countries, touching each other for more than three thou-
sand toiles, have common interests in trade and require
special arrangements in legislation and administration
which are not involved in the relations of the United
States with countries beyond the seas."
On the initiative of Mr. Taft, negotiations for a wider
agreement were begun in Ottawa in October, 1910, and
concluded in XVashington in January, 1911. Dip-
lomatic forms were discarded, the discussion was brief
and businesslike, the atmosphere friendly. The Cana-
dian representatives, Mr. Fielding and Mr. Paterson,
to their surprise found the United States prepared to
go much farther than they had expected or were them-
selves ready to agree. A proposal of complete free
867
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
trade was ruade, but could not be considered. The
Canadian representatives were no longer willing fo offer
free fishing for free fish and they insisted that any agree-
ment should take effect by simultaneous legislative
action, which either country would be free fo modify af
any rime, rather than by a binding and inflexible treaty.
It was also ruade clear that any reduction given fo
imports fronl the United States would, if need be, be
extended automatically fo British imports. Vith these
points settled, rapid progress was ruade in drafting a
broad nleasure of reciprocity. The chief products of
the farm, the forest, the mine, the fishery, were put on
the free list or the duties substantially reduced. The
duties were also lowered on a limited list of manu-
factured articles, in most cases to the level of the inter-
mediate tariff. A reduction in the duty on wood-pulp
and paper was ruade contingent upon the removal of
the export restrictions imposed by individual provinces,
the Canadian government declining fo bring any
pressure fo bear upon them. In essence, the agreement
provided for the admission to the United States of ail
Canadian staple natural products free, or at low
duty, while in turn Canada conceded little beyond the
reductions already ruade fo other countries under the
intermediate or conventional tariff.
The governments had agreed; what of the legis-
latures? The United States Senate had proved the
graveyard of many a promising trade agreement. Mr.
Taft faced strong opposition from his own party, and
from the interests threatened with new competition.
868
RECIPROCITY
The :New :England fisherman, the Montana sheep-
raiser, the Dakota grain-grower, and the Washington
lumberman joined the dyed-in-the-wool protectionists
in blocking the bill. It was necessary to call a special
session of Congress in April. Mr. Taft's influence,
Deinocratic support, and a X, Vashington July sun melted
the Senate's obduracy and by the end of July the
measurc had passed both houses of Congress and
received the signature of the President. Washington
had done its part. Vhat of Ottawa? :Neither Sir
lVilfrid nor any member of his cabinet had had any
fear or doubt of the outcoine. The government had
achieved wbat every previous administration had tried
in vain to win. It had reached the goal which had been
the professed ahn of both political parties in Canada
for half a century. It had secured an agreenaent which
opened a market in the United States for Canadian
natural products without giving the Canadian manu-
facturer any legitimate and substantial ground for
complaint. It had provided that in no case would there
be discriinination against Britain. That Canada would
not welcome this triuinph of diplomacy seemed
incredible.
x, Vhen, on Janaury 26, Mr. Fielding laid the agree-
ment before parliament, if the government benches were
jubilant, the Opposition was stunned. The bargain
was better than they lmd imagined possible. It was
strictly in harinony with their own traditions. Western
Conservative members could hot be restrained from
applauding. Outside the House, Conservative news-
B69
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
papers like the "loronto "News" and the Ottawa
"Journal" expressed approval. But suddenly the mood
ehanged. Mild assent ehanged o question, question to
eritieism, and eritieism to a storm of denuneiation and
tierce attaek. Party spirit and party hopes had rallied,
lines of attaek had opened, a chance of vietory had
gleamed. What was more to the point, the industrial
and finaneial and railway interests had taken alarm and
determined to fight the agreement with every resouree
in their power. Manufaetur.ers, though for the most
part untouched, feared the rhin edge of the wedge.
llailway magnates dreaded breaks in their long east
and west hauls. Bankers, intimately linked by their
direetorates and their loans with both manufacturer and
railway, threw their weight into the same seale. "lhe
word went forth, in Sir William Van I-Iorne's frank
phrase, "to bust the damned thing." "lhe Opposition
attaeked it in parliament, bloeked estimates, and
eompelled the government to adjourn until after the
Imperial Conferenee. 'Fen days after the I-Iouse re-
assembled, on July 29, the government aeeepted the
Opposition's challenge, dissolved the parliament, and
appealed to nfillion-headed Coesar.
In the seven-weeks eampaign that followed, the Con-
servatives were emphatieally on the aggressive. I)own
to fighting weight af ter fifteen years of hungry op-
position, inspired by genuine alarm for the national
or imperial interests they eonsidered were involved, or
by a lively confidence in the powers of the great in-
terests whieh were giving them support, they fought
37O
RECIPROCITY
with vigour and without restraint. The Liberals had
lost their fighting edge, prineiples had been dulled by
compromise, party organization worn out and never
repaired. They had corne to trust too mueh to cam-
paign funds, and now they faced an issue where their
opponents could cover their million with three. In the
press, in spire of the vigorous campaign of the Toronto
"Globe" and "Star," the "Manitoba Free lress, '' and
the Hal|fax "Cln-onicle," they could not match the
audaçity and confidence of their opponents, partie-
ularly the "Montreal Star" and the Toronto "News."
Vhile Mr. Borden, in spire of a mutiny in March,
remained the leader .of the party, the real campaign
manager was Clifford Sifton. 1 After his resignation
from the cabinet, Mr. Sifton had remained a member
of the House and of the Liberal party. He had been
in charge of the ¥estern campaign in 1908, with not
very striking results, barely saving his own seat in Bran-
don. In this campaign it was his administration of the
Interior that was chiefly under tire, and he was con-
sidered by many Liberals as more of a liability than
an asset. 2 Now he decided to break with the party.
1 "Mr. Sifton," Sir Wilfrid remarked one day, "was the master mind
in parlament. He eould diseern the current political tendeneies, put his
linger on the popular pulse, better than any other man in my experienee.
His executive eapacity was extraordinary; but not more so than Iris seere-
tiveness. He never told his whole m4nd even to his elosest intinates. I
eould not fathom the reason for his attitude on reciproci .ty."
2 "During my ten years of editorship of the 'Globe' the Hon. Clifford
Sifton, and what the Conservatives ealled Siftonism, was absolutely the
heaviest and most irksome burden we had to earry. Knowing for years,
as we did, that he had earried a knife in his boot for members of the
government, if was nO surprise, but rather an infinite relief when he
joined the ranks of Borden and Bourassa."--J. A. Macdonald at Paris,
Ont., Sept. 19, 1911.
371
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
Sir lVilfrid sent for him when he heard he was going
fo oppose reeiprocity. "Why?" "Beeause I do hOt
believe in if." "You did once." "Yes, but conditions
have changed." "No, itis you who have changed.
Your opposition is personal; what is it?" lVhatever
the reason, patriotie alarm, or a desire for an amenable
government, Mr. Sifton threw himself whole-'heartedly
into the anti-reciprocity campaign. It was Clifford
Sifton, aided by Zebulon Lash, the confidential lawyer
of Mackenzie and Mann, who organized the Revoit of
the Eighteen, a carefully staged and very effective
repudiation of reciprocity by eighteen residents of
Toronto, all eminent in the world of finance, and ail
attached or semi-detached Liberals, and if was Clifford
Sifton who organized the no-popery cry on the back
concessions of Ontario.
To attack the agreement on its economie side was
dif[icult, but the attaek was ruade. The strongest ap-
peal was the cry of "Let well enough alone," the pithy
advice from the tombstone, "I was well, I would be
better, here I ara." Canada, after years of looking
fo $¥ashington, had determined to work out her own
salvation, and had succeeded beyond her dreams, lV'hy
risk this prosperity, why disturb the whole national basis
of the business that had been built up? Laurier
prosperity thus proved ifs own undoing. Much play
was ruade of the precarious basis of the bargain; after
Canadian industry had been adjusted to the new market,
Congress eould, af a moment's notice, abrogate the
RECIPROCITY
agreement, and leave the Canadian producers stranded.
The manufacturer was not hit now, but his turn would
corne. The fariner, the miner, the lumberman, might
think they would gain, but that hope was illusory: the
United States itself was a great exporter of farm and
mine and forest produets; the Canadian truck-fariner
and frtrit-grower would lose their early market; the
dozen eountries with the most-favoured-nation treaties
eould pour in their produets; preferenee in the British
rna:ket vvould be barred.
The advoeates of the agreement eontended that the
government that had given Canada unparalleled pros-
perity eould be trustod fo maintain and develop if. The
prosperity of the manufacturer was a preposterous and
callous ground for den'ying the fariner and the miner,
who had been mueh less fortunate, their chance of
permanent prosperity: let the fariner have his turn. To
the manufacturer, who would rejeet a certain gain fo
the fariner out of fear of a hypothetieal future risk fo
himself, Mr. Fielding gave prophetie answer: "If, per-
chance, the manufaeturers in their great power should
unite in opposing and possibly eondemning or even
defeating this great measure, then there will rise up in
the Vtrestern eotmtry a storm-eloud no bigger than a
man's hand, and the end will be a change in the fiscal
poliey of the country whieh the manufacturers will
find mueh greater than anything they eoneeived of."
The United States market for natural produets, while
not as indispensable as a generation earlier, was poten-
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
tially the richest in the world, and was offered on fair
and generous terres. The United States was rapidly
beeoming an industrial eotmtry; if it exported I)urum
wheat, it needed N,o. 1 I-Iard; if Pennsylvania had eoal
fo spare for Ontario, Massachusetts needed Nova
Seotia's and Oregon British Columbia's eoal. _At the
least, the United States offered an enormous extension
of the "home" market the protectionist glorified. The
most-favoured-nation treaties, if need be, eould be
revised. As for a preference in Britain, that was still
possible; British tariff-reformers intended fo use the
tariff as a basis for retaliation or for reeiprocity with
foreign eountries, as well as 'for concessions to the col-
onies; was Canada fo be denied a like freedom?
It was, however, not to eeonomie, but to politieal
motives that the opponents of reeiproeity ruade their
chier appeal. As in 1891, national existence and im-
perial eonneetion were held tobe jeopardized by "the
treason that barters our birthright for the gold of the
Içings of the South." National unity was at stake.
Only by rail and tariff had Canada been welded into
one; with the tariff wall broken and the railway traflïe
running north and south, the Dominion would break
into its original fragments, eaeh attaehed fo the adjoin-
ing section of the republic. New York and Boston,
Chieago and Minneapolis would become centres for
Canadian interest. XVhere the treasure was, there
would be the leart also. Imperial eonneetion eould
hOt stand the strain. Ifievitably, Canada would be
drawn into ]3olitieal as wèll as commercial union with
874
RECIPROCITY
her dominating neighbour. "If is her own soul that
Canada risks to-day," Rudyard Kipling eabled. These
arguments were illustrated and driven home by rush
propheeies of armexation by advoeates of reeiproeity in
the United States. "We are preparing to annex Can-
ada," the Speaker of the House, Champ Clark, had
deelared, and, more seriously, "I aln for the bill beeause
I hope to see the d,y when the Amrican flag will float
on every square foot of the British North Ameriean
possessions elear to the North Pole." Lesser politi-
eians and obscure journals were quoted to the saine
deadly effect. It was in vain that President Taft and
Seeretary Knox at once denied with vigour any thought
of politieal union. A referenee by Mr. Taft himself,
to Canada's being at "the parting of the ways," was
twisted out of its obvious meaning. SVhen, af ter the
eleetions, he ruade publie an extraordinary letter he had
written to $Ir. Roosevelt while the paet was pending,
pointing out that its effeet would be to make Canada
a mere "adjunet" of the United States, the sinister
interpretation seemed to many to be posthumously eon-
firmed, but Sir SVilfrid Laurier diseounted it as "a
borrowing of shallow rhetorie from Canadian jingoes."
This campaign "did not go unanswered. If was not
commercial unibn but limited reciproeity that was in
question. Ntitional sentiment was now" too strong fo
be in danger:. True, there were annexationists in the
United States, but few as compared with earlier days,
and in any case it was the people of Canada, hOt eross-
roads politieians to the south, who would settle that
375
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
marrer. Reeiproeity in 1854 had killed annexation
sentiment. If mounting imports from the United
States in the past decade had not brought annexation,
hov¢ could mounting exports bring it? Itow could
the Canadian banker with reserves in Wall Street, the
dh'ector seeking terminals in Chicago, the manufacturer
j oining in an international merger, ordain for their
fellow-citizens "no truck nor trade with the Yankees"?
If Mr. Kipling could sell his poetry for hundreds of
thousands of American dollars without injuring the
perfect bloom of'his patented patriotism, could nota
Saskatchewan homesteader sell a beef or a load of wheat
without selling his country and his soul with it? But
the answers were ruade in vain. For ail the close bus-
iness and social intermingling of recent years, there was
still in Canada a deep-rooted political distrust of the
great republic. There were men still fighting the battle
of Lundy's Lane; there were more who had not for-
gotten the arrogance of the Olney doctrine and the
Venezuela message. For fifty years, with rare in-
tervals, the United States had shown itself unneigh-
bourly in its public acts, and particularly in ifs tariff
policy. It was not possible to wipe out these memories
by a single generous gesture. Canadian human nature
found it difficult fo resist retaliating on the United
States in kind for many a rej ection of its trade advances.
If might huloE the Dominion more than it hurt the
tl.epublic, but the country was prosperous and could
afford the luxury,--partlcularly as if was the farmers
876
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who would pay. Ontario Jeshurun, having waxed fat,
kicked.
To divert the fariner from the opening doors of trade,
it was not enough to wave the flag: the red herring of
sectarian suspicion must be drawn across his path. Up
and down the concession roads and the side-lines of
Ontario the whispering campaign against a French and
Roman Catholic premier was pushed with vigour. The
appearance of the Speaker of the House and a Supreme
Court Justice, both in their robes of office, in the Fu-
charistic Congress of the previous year, (though wholly
of their own motion), and the allegation that the
newly issued Ne-Temere decree meant that in Quebec
the Roman Catholic Church had assumed the right fo
annul mixed marriages, were utilized to the full.
or was Quebec neglected. Here reciprocity was a
minor issue; the navy and the Nationalists held the field.
To defeat the government, ultras and antis joined hands.
Mr. Bourassa, who was not himself a candidate, af first
supported reeiproeity as a boon to Canada and a blow
fo Chamberlainïsm, then deelared it a very minor issue,
and ended with direct attaek. The Conservative
eampaign manager eireulated "Le Devoir" throughout
the province. Some twenty-eight eandidates were nom-
inated as Nationalist or as Conservatives with National-
ist support. In New Ontario, where the Freneh-Cana-
dian vote was a factor, two Conservative eandidates sent
for Mr. Bourassa and promised to support his naval
poliey. From end to end of Quebee the ery was raised
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
that the Laurier navy meant conscripfion,--"and neither
Laurier nor ]3orden," added Mr. ]3ourassa, "has a son
of his own." "Fhe Conservative leaders earefully
played into the hands of Mv. ]3ourassa and of Mr.
Monk, who was in charge of a distinct Autonomist or-
ganization. Mr. ]3orden issued his first manifesto to
the country on the day parliament was dissolved,mand
Conservative and Nationalist newspapers in Quebee
pointed out that there was in if not one v¢ord about the
navy. He issued his second manifesto in August; this
rime he did speak of the naval question, but if was hot
to propose eontribution to the ]3ritish navy but fo at-
taek the Laurier naval plans as eostly, ineffieient and
likely to "result in rime of war in the useless sacrifice of
many lives,"mand again Quebee Conservafives and
Nationalists dotted the i's and erossed the t's of this
timely and restrained utteranee.
Into the eampaign, Cor all his seventy years, Sir
Wilfrid threw himself with energy. In four weeks he
addressed over fifty meetings in the rive Eastern prov-
inces, and partieularly in Ontario and Quebee. He had
no illusions as to the uphill fight which faced him.
]3orden and ]3ourassa had enthusiasm and prejudiee on
their side, whieh his poliey eould no longer arouse. In
Quebee if was often apparent that Laurier had the
people's respect, but ]3ourassa had stirred their emo-
tions. In Ontario the eheers were subdued and many
old friends were absent. But his courage never fal-
tered. Af Simcoe he declared Sir John Maedonald
was the Moses of 1Reciprocity who failed to reach
878
RECIPROCITY
the Promised Land; "I am the $oshua who will
lead the people to their goal." He warned the
manufaeturers: "On Thursday I will beat them and on
Friday I will proteet their just interests," but, again:
"The manufaeturers must understand that there are
men who are not as magnanimous as we are, and forces
will be aroused whieh it will be impossib|e for me to
eontrol .... They are preparing for themselves a rod
whieh wi|l some day fall aeross their own shoulders."
He ruade light of annexation talk: "If it be true that
President Taft said that Canada is at the parting of the
ways, I would say to President Taft that he does not
know what he is talking about. I would say, we are
prepared to meet you in business, but if you want to talk
polities keep to your own side of the line and we will
,.keep to ours."
As for the Bourassa-Borden-Monk-Sifton alliance,
"what a salad!" Mr. Monk was the oil, Mr. Bourass
the vinegar, and Mr. Borden had to eat the dose. "A
vote for Bourassa is a vote for Borden." 1 "The day
when England's supremaey on the sea is destroyed," he
told a Three Rivers audience, "your national and relig-
ious privi|eges will be endangered. And where is the
Freneh-Canadian who will say, ':No, I will not partie-
ipate in that war'?" Yet it would be wholly for eaeh
man to deeide for himself: the charge that conscription
would follow was a monstrous and baseless lie. In St.
John he ended a strong address with the appeal:
x In Ontario, it is interesting to note, the Liberal slogan was precisely the
reverse: "A vote for Borden is a vote for Bourassa."
879
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
I am branded in Quebec as a traitor fo the French, and in
Ontario as a traitor fo the English. In Quebec I ara branded
as a Jingo, and in Ontario as a Separatist. In Quebec I ara
attacked as an Imperialist, and in Ontario as an anti-Im-
perialist. I ara ncither. I ara a Canadia. Canada bas
been the inspiration of my lire. I have had before me as
a pillar of tire by night and a pillar of cloud by day a policy
of truc Canadianism, of moderation, of conciliation. I bave
fol]owed if consistently since 1896, and I now appeal with con-
fidence fo the whole Canadian people fo uphold me in this
policy of sound Canadianism which makes for the greatness of
our country and of the Empire.
The appeal was in vain. The night of September 21
brought an astounding Conservative victory. The
Liberal popular majority of 25,000 in 1908 had been
converted into a minority of 47,000. The majority in
the House had been precisely reversed, 133 Liberals to
85 Conservatives, and 3 Independents, in 1908; 133
Conservatives and Nationalists to 88 Liberals in 1911.
Minister after minister had fallen, Mr. Fielding and Sir
Frederick Borden in the Maritimes, Sydney Fisher in
Quebec, George Graham, Mackenzie King, and $¥illiam
Yaterson in Ontario, William Templeman in British
Columbia. In Ontario the Conservative victory had
been beyond precedent,--72 seats to 14. In Quebec the
Liberal maj ority had fallen from 43 to 11: there were
27 Conservatives and Nationalists fo 38 Liberals. The
central prairie provinces had gone strongly Liberal, but
Manitoba and British Columbia nearly balanced them.
Outside of Ontario, the Liberals had a majority both
in seats and in the popular vote, and had Quebee stood
where if had in 1908, Ontario's adverse vote would have
880
RECIPROCITY
been balaneed. But things were as they were, and the
Laurier régime was ended.
The Liberal party had been in power for fifteen
years. They had been years of unparttlleled aehieve-
rnent. Canada held a new place in the world's regard.
Canadian nationhood had advaneed a long stage. The
West had corne into its own. The flow of irnrnigration
had been imrnensely stirnu]ated; t]e ebbing of Cana-
dians southward had been halted. The stagnation and
deeay of the nineties had vanished. A highly developed
and integrated industry was being built up. A new
confidence marked individual and eommunity lire. But
even frorn the standpoint of the Liberal party and ifs
veteran leader, it was not wholly a rnisfortune that
.a change had corne. Hall a generation of power had
slaekened energT¢ and attraeted parasites. It was irn-
rnensely better that t]e Liberals should fall in the
endeavour to earry through a fundamental Liberal
poliey than that they should die ingloriously of dry-
rot like the federal Conservatives in the nineties and
the Ontario Liberals ten years afterward. It was wel],
too, that rnany an eleetor had deliberately set aside the
possibilities of private gain in order to safeguard the
national interests whieh he felt were irnperilled. There
were other aspects not so defensible. It was not well
that an honourable sentiment eould be so easily rnanip-
u]ated and traded upon; it was not well thttt powerful
financial and railway interests--doubt]ess with nmeh
rnixed motive, for honest and warrn convictions here
as elsewhere varied eold-blooded seeking of personal
881
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
gain--should be able by lavish expenditure or raging,
tearing propaganda fo stampede unthinking thousands.
It was not well that the endeavour fo work out a
moderate and middle poliey in imperial and inter-
national affairs, a poliey whieh would prevent a eleavage
on raeial lines, should be halted by extremist assaults.
Nor was it well, even from the standpoint of the victors
in this fray, tha¢ the eity and the eity-eentred powers
should have so flagrantly and blindly subordinated the
eountry's interest. The fariner had had his first lesson.
On one aspect of the eontest, Sir SVilfrid touehed in
a letter to a stalwart and independent Prince Edward
Islander:
Ottawa, October 5, 1911.
If is the province of Ontario which has defeated us. Out
losses elsewhere were hOt very serious and would simply have
redueed our majority, but Ontario went soid against us. If
is becoming more and more manifest fo me that if was not
reciprocity that was turned down, but a Catholic premier.
Ail the information which comes fo me from that province
makes this quite evident.
Accept my very best thanks for your' kind letter.
To the 1891 unrestricted-reciprocity election there
had been a disturbing postscript in the message of
Edvard Blake. Now to the 1911 restricted-reciprocity
election there was another postscript, another message
from the old leader, which comforted instead of disturb-
ing his successor. Mr. Blake had returned to Canada
a short time before, broken down in healtb. A member
of his family wrote Sir Vilfrid on Sept. 22:
382
RECIPROCITY
Mr. Blake expressed entire approval of your recproclty
campaign. 'Ihis morning the nurse told him of the election
and he' said slowly: "I am sorry for Laurier. He is a fine fel-
low and I always fi]ed him." That is a volte almost from the
grave, as I fear we must consider it, the voice of one along
with whom you fought many hard battles. Mrs. Blake wishes
me to send you her love (that was the word she used) and to
say how real are ber regrets but, at the saine rime, how glad
she is that you will bave a period of conparative rest.
383
CHAPTER XVII
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
Resignation of the Laurier Government--The New Ministryw
L,aurier as Opposition Leader--The Navy Issue AgainwLaurier
Opposes Contribution--The ClosureDefeat of the Naval Bill
Business Depression--The Railway Crisis--The Government and
the Canadian Nvrthern.
T IIE verdict of September 21 may have been wise
or it may have been unwise, but there was no
room to doubt its emphasis. If was not easy
to hand over the teins of power. Fifteen years of oflîee
with a prosæerous country and a reasonably united
party, had ruade authority a habit. The sting of defeat,
apprehensions roused by the taeties and the propaganda
of the eampaign, the eertainty that possesses every
government that ifs sueeessors eannot fise to ifs level,
regret for .uneompleted tasks, were far from offset by
the weariness long years of strain had brought. Yet
there was nothing fo do but fo aeeept the fortunes
of war. Af ter winding up routine business, and with-
out attempting to make any eleventh-hour appoint-
ments, the Laurier administration resigned on the sixth
of Oetober.
tIis Majesty's Government had beeome His Maj-
esty's Opposition. The Liberal party had been se-
riously weakened, partieularly in Ontario and the lari-
rime provinces. Sir Allen Aylesworth had been com-
88
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
pelled, by a growing and limiting deafness, fo retire.
Messrs. Fielding, Graham, Paterson, King, Temple-
man, had been overwhelmed by the electoral landslide,
though a seat was soon found for Mr. Graham through
the resignation of an Ontario Liberal member. Charles
5Iurphy was the only minister who succeeded in hold-
ing an Ontario riding but in F. F. Pardee, A. H.
Clarke, A. B. McCoig, D. C. Ross, there was the nu-
cleus of a strong Ontario group. Quebec had been least
affected, lodolphe Lemieux, Henri Béland, Jacques
ureau, El"nest Lapointe, had all reurned, and in J.
A. Robb, and young men who embodied the promise of
old names--Papineaus, Pacaudswthe House had re-
ceived a vigorous reinforcement. Villiam Pugsley and
Frank Carvell upheld New Brunswick's traditions, and
A. K. 5[aclean, D.D. 5Iackenzie, J. H. Sinclair, and
G. V. K)oEe answered for Nova Scotia's Liberalism.
The lYest was particularly rich in promise, with W.
M. 5[artin, W. E. Knowles, Frank Oliver, V. A.
Buchanan, and 5Iichael Clark standing for the prairie
progressivism which was soon to become a distinct fac-
tor in public lire.
The defeat of his government faced Sir Wilfrid
Laurier sharply with the question of h[s continued
leadership. It had been his intention, if returned to
power, fo retire in favour of a younger man within
a year or two. He was now in his seventieth year. He
had spent forty years in legislative halls, thirty-eight
of them in the House of Commons. Not a man of the
two hundred who sat in the Commons when he entered
885
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
was beside him now. I-Ie was the last of his genera-
tion in active public life. The assiduous tare of Lady
Laurier, and his own temperance and control of wasting
emotions had guarded him from serious illness, but he
had httle of the robust energy and the reserves of force
needed for the unremitting campaigning and organiz-
ing and the vigilant criticism of an Opposition leader's
lot. He had other dreams for his last years, the quiet
of his study, the friendship of old comrades and happy
youngsters, the writing of a life of Antoine Aimé
I)orion or a history of Canada sinee Confederation.
Yet he did not wish to give up the fight in the instant of
defeat. There were able and vigorous lieutenants to
aid in the party's work. He was frankly fond of power
and fond of the gaine of polities. I-Ie agreed, in his
objective, dispassionate way, that there was in faet no
other man in the party who eould take his place in
holding the different wings together and holding the
eountry's interest. He proposed resignation at the
opening of the session, but, not wholly loth, aeeeded fo
the loyal and unanimous desire of his followers to re-
main his followers still.
On Oetober 10, the new ministry had been announeed
and duly sworn. Af fifty-seven, after fifteen years
in parliament and ten as leader of his party, Robert
Laird ]3orden was now Prime Minister of Canada. He
brought many admirable qualities fo his high task.
Personally upright, elean, and fair in politieal Caeties,
a serious and diligent student of the eountry's problems,
a reeognized eonstitutional authority, endowed with
886
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
no little patienoe and persistence, he had the respect
of ail his countrymen. His party followcrs had more
han once looked back with longing to the magnctism
of Macdonald and thc aggrcssivcness of Tupper, and
had dallied with thoughts of the picturesquc pcrsonality
of Richard loEcBridc, the robust, downright partisan-
ship of Rodmond Roblin, the gcnial astutcncss of Robert
Rogcrs, but thcy had always comc back to the solid
worth of Robert Bordcn. A certain susceptibility to
pressure was not unwelcome to his party lieutenants,
but it was to provc thc side of his cndowmcnt most
qucstioned in othcr quartcrs in ycars that wcrc to corne.
In his cabinet-making, Mr. Borden, like other pre-
miers, was limitcd by his matcrials, his past commit-
ments and his own charactcr. Thcre was sornc thought
of followlng the Laurier prcccdcn by including thc
lcading Conservativc provincial lremicrs. John D.
Hazcn of New Brunswick acccptcd a portfolio, but
Sir Jamcs Whitncy, Richard McBride and Rodmond
Roblin dcclincd. The public considercd that mcn of
standing in the party and in the country such as Hcrbcrt
Ames, T. Chase Casgrain, .Charles Magrath, Andrew
Broder, and R. B. Bennett would be includcd, and
I-Icnri :Bourassa, Sir I-Iugh Graham, and Sir William
Van Hornc had place in many slatcs. The actual
sclcction brought many surprises. Thcre werc fcw
namcs of outstanding distinction. Mr. Foster gave
fo the govcrnmcnt his splcndid power of aggressive
debate and to the country a lonely insistence, born of
the hard rimes of the ninetics, upon economy. The
387
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
appointment of W. T. White, a former Liberal, one
of Toronto's Eighteen, a xmn of wide culture and
proved finaneial training, as Minister of linanee, was
greeted with some growls from party stalwarts, but
with distinct and inereasing approval in the country.
Mr. Monk, leader of the Quebee wing, had long ex-
perienee and elear-eut convictions. For the rest, some
were highly respectable, some were undoubtedly able,
some were personal friends, and some had eamped for
days on the door-step of the prime minister eleet.
One most signifieant feature was tiret every one of the
lreneh-Canadian ministers was drawn from the Nat-
ionalist or Autonomist camp. The naming of the
Quebee members had been delegated to Mr. Monk.
Later, Mr. Bourassa and Mr. Lavergne revealed the
faet that Mr. Monk had offered them portfolios. They
deelined, but gave their approval fo the men who were
ehosen, Louis Pelletier, and Bruno Nante], with
Blondin as Deputy Speaker. Equally signifieant, in
view of the ]ater railway developments, was the obvious
good fortune of the Canadian Northern in finding so
many of its close friends in high places.
In the year that followed, Sir Wilfrid gave himself
"The Montreal Star," the most violent and influential press opponent
of the Laurier government in the election, thus greeted the new cabinet:
"There were the highest hopes throughout the country that with his
huge majority Mr. Borden would feel free to give us a government wholly
unshadowed by even a question as to the charaeter or reputation of any
of the Miisters. It would be pure hypocrisy for the lllontreal Star to
pretend that this bas been done .... Sinister influences bave been granted
admission to the Privy Couneil Chamber at a rime when they might bave
been rigidly excluded."
888
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
vigorously between sessions to the education of public
opinion. In over a score of public meetings in Quebec
and Ontario and af hall a dozen political banquets
and demonstrations, he defended his own policy and
attacked Mr. Borden's. He called up ail his reserves
of strength and threw his old-time force into his ad-
dresses. "I ara young yet in everything but the arith-
metic of years," he told a Voodstock audience. "I
don't feel ripe for heaven, and af ail events I want an-
other tussle with the Tories." "My orders are fo fight,"
he told a great gathering af the Reform Club in Mon-
treal. He attacked "the frail and puny faith" of those
who had feared to risk their loyalty in friendly inter-
course with their neighbours. "I accept the verdict,
but the problem is still there. To the prairie provinces
larger markets are an indispensable necessity .... Ve
bave lost out friends, power, popularity, but I regret
nothing. ,Ve have sown the seed: we shall yet see it
germinate." Mr. Foster's efforts fo find markets in the
lVest Indies while banging and bolting and barring
the open door into the United States, he declared, was
well as far as if went, but it did not go far: "The Vest
asked for water and Sir. Foster handed them a thimble-
fui; they wanted a full meal and he gave them a pea-
nut." He ruade much of the delay of his opponents in
presenting their naval policy, af ter their perfervid insist-
ence on the imminence of danger and the need of haste.
"There are those wao say to us," he declared af Sher-
brooke, " 'Give up this naval policy,' but no, sir, I will
889
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
hot give it up. So long as I lead the Liberal party,
so long will it do its duty by the nation and by the
F, mpire."
There were not wanting friends who urged the aban-
donment of reeiproeity and the movement for lower
tariffs. A Toronto manufacturer, who had supported
him vigorous]y in the eontest, wrote now:
It seems to me that it is our policy to let the people know
that this issue is now dead, and in future whatever fiscal
changes may be necessary will be ruade îndependently of what-
ever the United States may do, and that any future Liberal
government will, as your government has donc, foster the
growth and prosperity of manufacturing industries, by con-
tinuing a steady fiscal policy which shall at all rimes, afford
them reasonable protection. If the Liberal party does hot
corne out in the way I suggest and announce positively that
neither reciprocity nor the tariff will be an issue in the future,
I am afraid that every Liberal to-day who is directly or indi-
rectly interested in manuf.cturlng will be drlven to the other
side.
Sir Wilfrid replied:
Ottawa, October 4, 1911.
I hasten fo offer you my thanks for yours of the lst. in-
stant, just received. I ara really grateful that you should
have exposed your views fo me in so open and frank a manner.
I do not entirely agree with you in your summing up of the
present situation, though there is one point upon which I al-
together .agree with you, and if is that "our manufactures
have been organized under a system of protection which is fo
be maintained." I have ruade this declaration more than once
during-the last election. Unfortunately, the forces af work
against us were stronger than any words of mine or of my col-
leagues and the manufacturers were convinced that this agree-
men with the United States, which in no way affects them
890
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
would be followed by another whlch would. In tMs ther at-
titude was wrong and unfair fo us. Whether in office or in
opposition, my position upon this point remains the saine.
There might be some temptation fo pay back in their own coin
those who went against us, but this consideration must give
way fo the greater consideration of the needs of the country
at large ; our present system of levying ,thc revenue by customs
duties must be maintained.
I do not mean, however, fo say by thls that the policy of
reciprocity in natural iroducts is dead, as you seem fo say if
is. Your summarizing of the situation, that all the provinces
except -Ylberta and Saskatchewan were against reciprocity,
is not exactly accurate, for, in point of fact, we carried Noia
Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The anti-reciprocity men carried British Columbia, Manitoba,
and Ontario, the latter by a sweeping majority, and Mani-
toba by a bare majority of the actual e|ectoral vote, though
a large majority of seats.
In my j udgment, the manufacturers made a great mistake
in refusing fo glve way ¢o the very legitimate demand of the
farmers, especially the Western farmers who, being balked in
their effort to get the American market for their productsi will
now work for the free entrance into Canada of Amerlcan
manufactured products and especially agricultural imple-
ments.
At present there is nothing to do but fo awalt events. If
the Democrats carry out their policy and open their markets
fo our Canadian natural products, we shall never hear any more
of reciprocity, but if the present American tariff is continued
as it is now, we must be prepared for a serious agitation from
the Western farmers. The danger of the situation is the pos-
sibility of a feeling of distrust between the West and the East,
as outlined in the "Weyburn Herald." This fact bas been
completely overlooked by the Ontario electors, but it is one
which must cause a good deal of concern fo any one who has at
heart the future of the country.
Let me, before I close, thank you most slncerely for the
891
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
grcat support which you have given us in the last election.
Had all out friends donc likewise, the result would have been
different from what it is. I believe that it was not only the
question of reciprocity which operated against us, but that
the Ne Temere decree and the Eucharistie Congress had a
good deal to do with out downfall.
Believe me ever,
Yours very sincerely,
WILFam LAuliV.lt.
Three sessions of the new parliament were held be-
fore the outbreak of the Great War, from November,
1911, fo April, 1912, from November, 1912, to June,
1913, and froln January, 1914, fo the following June.
They were busy sessions and, after the first, conten-
tious sessions. The government suceeeded in enacting
a very fait amount of progressive legislation, partie-
ularly the decennial revision of the Bank Aet, provision
for aiding the provinces in agricultural instruction, and
a trade agreement with the British est Indies. The
boundaries of Manitoba, and ineidentally of Ontario
and (uebee, were extended far northward to I-Iudson
Bay, with some difficulty from Nationalist members
who demanded, but without avail, that the separate
school rights of the minority in a section of Keewatin
now to be incorporated in Manitoba should be safe-
guarded by a special clause.
In some of ifs nost impooEant measures the govern-
ment tan foul of the Senate. An unbroken series of
party appointments had ruade the upper house over-
whelmingly Liberal, and in spire of aeadelnie debates
in the I-Iouse on methods of Senate reform, and of
392
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
movement within the cabinet in 1910 which would
bave led in time fo moderate mesm'e of reform in
appointment and tenure of senators, nothing bad been
done fo change the situation. Now the Borden govern-
ment ws forced fo sit by while the Senate, in the first
session, rejeeted or imposed unaceeptable amendments
upon ifs bills. The Senate rejeeted a measure grant-
ing a federal subsidy to Ontario's government-owned
railwy, the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario.
deelined to sanction a permanent tariff commission un-
less provision vas made, in the case of ail applications
for higher duties, for publicity as fo numbers employed,
production, hours of labour and rates of wages, share-
holders, and dividends. If supported the Opposition's
contention that a measure for granting aid fo the prov-
inces in building highways involved dangerous pos-
sibilities of politieal pressure and federal machines un-
less the division among the provinces was ruade auto-
matie, in proportion fo population. In the following
session, it again rejeeted the highways proposal, insisted
that a sweeping grant of power fo purehase braneh
lines for the Intereolonial should be made contingent
upon ratification by parliament, and filled the eup by
its attitude toward the Naval Bill. For the moment,
there was mueh muttering of mending or ending the
Senate, with the Conservatives ehampioning tbe rights
of the people against this autocratie and unrepresenta-
rive ehamber and the Liberals defending this bulwark
of the nation's interests against hasty. and partisan
legislation, but soon rime solved the problem in the
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
usual way, with the deatli of Liberal senators and the
tmvarying appointment of Conservatives to take their
place.
one of these measures was of dominating interest.
It was the new government's naval poliey, ifs fiscal
poliey in face of business depression, and its railway
poliey that held the centre of the politieal stage. Mr.
Borden's most pressing task was the shaping of a naval
poliey. He had insisted in January, 1910, that the
Empire faeed an emergeney whieh might rend it asun-
der, that the war, the war of construction, had already
begun; "all beyond is chaos and darkness"; "immediate,
vigorous, earnest action is neeessary." Yet in the elee-
tion of 1911 he had been disereetly silent. In power,
he was still more eautious. "It is infinitely better fo
be right than tobe in a hurry," he told parliament in its
first session. Month after month went by and no poliey
was determined. The Naval Service Aet of 1910 was
hot repealed, but no eontraets were let for construction,
and reeruiting for the cadet ships was halted. /r.
Borden stated early in 1912 that the poliey of the
Laurier government would hot be eontinued, but that
no alternative poliey would be determined until af ter
consultation with the British Adrniralty and after full
eonsideration of the problem of seeuring a share in the
eouneils of the Empire. In the summer of 1912, ae-
eompanied by Messrs. ttazen, Doherty, and Pelletier,
he visited England and eonsulted the Asquith govern-
ment. In Deeember, 1912, fiffeen months after his
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
accession fo power, the prime minister announced his
policy to the Canadian parliament.
Well before the government acted, it was plain in
what direction it was tending. Factors in Canada and
Great Britain were making strongly for the abandon-
ment of the policy of a Canadian navy and Canadian
autonomy in foreign poliey, and the adoption of a
policy of contributions to the British navy, with the
assumption by Canada of a more or less real share in
Britain's foreign policy. Mr. Borden's personal opin-
ions had been marked by the outrent combination of
national and imperial .sentiment. Until 1910, the
national tendeney was distinctly stronger. Since that
rime, pressure from his ultra-imperialist lieutenants,
the influence of English missioners, the anti-American
incidents of the reciprocity campaign, the imminence
of rnilitary peril, and the necessity of uniting the two
wings of his party had given the imperial tendency the
upper hand. When the premier reached England in
July, he had already decided on the main lines of his
policy. "The sea defences of the Empire tan best
be secured by one navy"; "we are determined to take
out share in the world-wide mission of the Empire";
"Canada does not propose to be an adjunct even of
the British Empire," were the keynotes of his first
publie addresses. ]3efore he left England he declared
that "the supremaey of the seas must be maintained
by one navy . . . under one central control and direc-
tion." The month in England, the review of the mighty
395
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
fleet, with ifs impressive rive mlles of towering battle-
ships, darting destroyers, snaky submarines, and hover-
ing aëroplanes, the visits fo the British steel works,
the discussions in the Imperial Defence Committee, the
ducal banquets and royal garden parties had ail tended
fo confirm his decisior. Finding Mr. Borden thus
amenable, the Admiralty under Mr. Vinston Church-
ill's impetuous direction had repented of its half-
hearted conversion to the policy of Dominion navies,
and had leaped af the chance fo re-establish ifs ideal
of a single navy under its own control. As recently
as May, Mr. Churchill had declared that
if the main development of the last ten years has been the
concentration of the British fleet in decisive theatres, if seems
fo me not unlikely that the main naval devclopment of the
next ten years will be the growth of effective naval forces in
the great Dominions over seas .... The fact that our fleet
has not only concentrated in the decisive theatre of European
waters, but must be kept concentrated and in a certain sense
tied fo that theatre has been for some years creating a new
situation, a new need, a new opportunity for the great self-
governing Dominions of the Crown.
Yet this had apparently been an outcome of expediency
rather than conviction, as two months earlier he had
stated in the I-Iouse that in the Admiralty view ad-
ditions fo the imperial navy were more effectual than
local navies. Now, with the senior Dolninion ap-
parently ready to recant, Mr. Churchill seized the
opportunity and for two years strained every nerve
in the endeavour to surround the Admiralty with a
humble circle of tribute-bearers from the seven seas.
896
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
In presenting his policy fo parliament, Mr. Borden
quoted a memorandum prepared at his request by the
Admiralty, which concluded a review of the naval sit-
uation by the statement:
The Prime Minister of the Dominion having inquired in
what form any ilnmediate aid that Canada might glve would
be most effective, we bave no hesitation in answering, aftcr
a pro]onged consideration of ail the circumstances, that if
is desirab]e that such aid should include the provision of a
certain number of the ]argest and strongest ships of war which
science can build or money supply.
Mr. ]3orden went on to declare that Canadians were
joint trustees for the security of a vast heritage; this
heritage was now threatened. To meet the emergency,
t.he government asked parliament to vote $35,000,000
to build the three most powerful battle-ships in the
world, to be incorporated in the imperial navy. A
system of regular and periodical contributions would
not be a satisfactory solution of the permanent question,
and it was arranged that if in future it should be
decided to establish "a Canadian unit of the ]3ritish
Navy," the three ships could be recalled. As to the
form of the permanent naval policy, he did not commit
himself, but his own drift was clear from his statement
that Canada could not build up any efficient naval
organization in a quarter or hall a eentury, and even
then it would be a poor, weak substitute for the splendid
organization of the ]3ritish Admiralty. 1)ending the
working out of a permanent poliey of defenee and the
provision for a voiee in the foreign poliey oi the Empire
897
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
which must go with any definite share in Empire bur-
dens, if had been arranged that all meetings of the
Imperial I)efence Committee would be open fo a Cana-
dian minister stationed in London, and that "no impor-
tant step in foreign policy would be undertaken without
consultation with such a representative of Canada."
Sir Wilfrid commented briefly, expressing his pleas-
ure at learning that there was no real emergency in
Europe, but simply the usual tendency towards exces-
sive armament. On the following day a Liberal caucus
decided, without a dissenting voice, to oppose the
contribution policy and fo reiterate the demand for a
Canadian navy on a somewhat larger scale than contem-
plated in 1910. When debate was resumed on I)ecem-
ber 12, Sir Wilfrid led the attack. He referred lightly
to the failure of Mr. Borden to adhere to the agreement
of 1909, and to the divergencies in the two wings of his
part-y, but he did hot dwell on these points: he would
confine himself to the merits of the present proposal,
and not add a word which would fan the flames that had
been kindled. Canada had a duty fo face: "We have fo
take out share in the defence, not only of our native
shores, but of the Empire as a whole." He could not
agree with the Nationalists, who had opposed action
because of the sacrifice of Canadian interests by British
diplomacy in the past; those mistakes only proved the
necessity of local control of local interests. Nor could
he agree with them in proposing to rely on the lIonroe
doctrine; Cuba with its foreign policy controlled by the
398
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
United States was the answer fo that suggestion. But
on what lines should action be taken? Deftly, Sir
¥ilfrid proeeeded to make elear how, on the evidenee
presented by the Admiralty itself, there was no naval
emergeney in the Nrth Sea and that its poliey of North
Sea concentration ruade it imperative for the Dominions
also to guard their local waters:
There was an apprchension far and wide-spread that, somc-
how, somewhere, some mystcrious danger was threatcning
England. And, indced, some went so far as to say that
England was on hcr knees, begging for support,--an assertion
which surcly was more calculated to wound the pridc of those
to whom it was addrcsscd than to create respect for those
who uttered it. All these apprehensions, howcver, have been
removed by the document which has been placed on the table
of the House by my right honourablc fricnd. England is
always England; she bows the knee to no one; she asks no
favour from anybody ; she does hot tome hcre as a suppliant,
still less as a mendicant ; but, fo the enquiry of our ministers,
she answered: Here are the facts set forth in this paper;
j udge for yourselves and act as you please. This is the
language, and it is no other than we might expect from Eng-
lish statesmen and English people.
Sir, in other respects there is cause for rejoicing. This
document shows that there is no emergency, that England is
in no danger, whether imminent or prospective. But the doc-
ument discloses a condition of things of which we knew, but
upon whlch has now been placed the sanction of of[icial eor-
respondence. If shows that there has been going on in Europe
for some years past a certain movement to which we cannot
be indifl'erent. The armament of the great powers has com-
pelled England fo alter the strategie lines which hitherto
have been essential fo her security. The document discloses
the fact that, on account of this increased naval armament,
399
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
England, in ordcr to maintain her security in her own waters,
bas been obliged to withdraw some of her naval forces from
the distant seas ....
Such is the condition; and I ask once more what is the
remedy? In our humble j udgment, the remedy is this, that
wherever, in the distant seas or in the distant countries,--in
Australia, Canada, or elsewhere,---a British ship has been re-
moved to allow of concentration in European waters, that
ship should be replaced by a ship built, maintained, equipped
and manned by the young nation immediately concerned. If
the young nations of the Empire take hold of the equipment
and manning of ships to look after the distant seas, concentra-
tion can easily take place in the waters of Europe, and the
British Admiralty knows what zones it bas to defend. This
is the Australian policy ; this ought tobe the Canadian policy.
I insist once more upon what is stated in the memorandum:
There is no emergency, there is no immediate danger, there
is no prospective danger. If there were an emergency, if
England were in danger--no, I will not use that expression;
I will not say if England were in danger, but simply if Eng-
land were on trial with one or two or more of the great powers
of Europe, my right honourable friend might corne and ask,
not $35,000,000, but twice, three rimes, four rimes $35,000,-
000. We would put at the disposal of England all the re-
sources of Canada; there would not be a single dissentient
voice.
But this is not the condition with which we bave to deal.
The condition that we have fo deal with to-day is simply
what I described a moment ago. This îs not new. The
memorandum which my right honourable friend submitted the
other day disclosed nothing which we did hOt know before.
Every word that is there we knew ; every figure we knew. I
may say more: every word, every figure in that memorandum
we discussed four years ago. We discussed it in the month
of March, 1909; and then we came to the conclusion, the
unanimous conclusion, that the best method of helping England,
400
-£
SIR ROBERT BOIDEN
Prime Minister of Cnad, 1911-1920
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
of diseharging our duty, was hot by contribution, but by the
creation of a Canadian navy ....
Four years affo, my right honourable friend said we must
and will. To-day he no longer says we must and will; but
we on thia side of the House continue fo say we must and will.
Now, sir, I ask, why is if that my right honourable friend and
his first lieutenant, the leaders of the Opposition then, who
to-day bave the responsibility of office, will not go on with the
policy so forcibly put forward by them, instead of a policy
undcr which, in the language of my right honourable friend,
there will be no preparation of the soil or beginninff or grovcth
of the product of defence? The reason, sir, is not far fo seek.
The reason is well known: there is one and only one and if is
because this subject of imperial defence has been ruade the
subj ect of contcntious politics. If is the result of the alliance,
the unholy alliance, which has been formed by the honourable
gcntlemcn opposite ....
What is this contribution that we have to-day before us,
and upon which we are asked fo vote? If is big in money;
if is big in figures. Is if as big otberwise as it ought fo be?
I ask every honourable member of this House; I ask cvery
honourable gentleman sitting there: You ffive England two
or three dreadnoughts, fo be paid for by Canada, but fo be
equipped, maintained and manned by England. Did I say
manned by England? I must qualify that statement. In
justice fo my right honourable friend, I must qualify that
statement; because ho told us that he had secured from the
imperial autlorities the privilege of havinff Canadian officers
serve on those ships. Oh, ye Tory jingoes, is that the amount
of the sacrifice you are prepared fo make? You are ready
fo furnish admirais, rear-admirals, commodores, captains,
officers of ail grades, plumes, feathers, and gold lace; but you
leave if fo England fo supply the bone and sinews on board
those ships. You say that these ships shall bear Canadian
names. That will be the only thing Canadian about them.
You hire somebody fo do your work; in other words, you are
401
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ready to do anything except the fighting. Is that, sir, the
true policy ?
[Some honourable members: No. No !]
Is that the true policy? It is a hybrid policy, it îs a cross
between jingoism and nationalism. Unless I mistake the
spirit of the Canadian people, if they are truc to their ideals,
if thcy are true to their own blood, no matter to what province
they belong, they will not be satisfied with this hybrid policy,
but they will insist that their contribution shall be a con-
tribution of money and of men as well, as was providcd in our
resolution of 1909 ....
But I may be told that is not the policy recommended by
the Admiralty to the prime minister. Sir, I deny that alto-
gethcr. My right honourable friend did not go to England
to consult the Admiralty about a policy. It is evident that
whcn my right honourable friend went to England, he had aban-
doned the policy of a Canadian navy. He went to England--
it is very clear from the last paragraph of the memorandum--
to ask what they would accept for immediate aid. In other
words, he went to England to ask what England would accept
in the case of an emergency, although there was no emergency.
It had been said that a Canadian navy was a sep-
aratist navy. As to that, he w.ould not discuss every
opinion he had held at twenty or even at forty; he had
learned something from observation and experience:
"Any thought of separation from Great Britain, if any
such thought exists anywhere, and I do not believe it
does, would be a foll and a crime." Canada would be
af war when England was at war, but would herself
decide as fo whether her forces would take part in the
conflict. The government's proposais settled nothing:
The ]problem which you have fo deal with is one which
402
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
demands a permanent policy, a policy for to-day, for to-
morrow, and for every day, so long as the armaments grow
in Europe; and the duty which you owe to yourselves, fo
Canada, and to the Empire, is the enactment of a permanent
policy. As regards the creation of a Canadian navy, you
bave apparently decided against ¢hat. In respect fo con-
tribution, does any one imagine that you will have only one
contribution? Conributions must be recurring and again
recurring, and, in the words of my honourable friend from
North Toronto, they leave no trace behind them. As I under-
stand from the speech of my honourable friend, he does hOt
want fo have a permanent policy on this subject, because
he says, "Before we bave a permanent policy we must have
a voice in ail questions of peace or war."...
Whether we shall or shall hot have a voice in all questions
affecting peace and war is a very large proposition, and I
would hot, at the present rime, pronounce flnally upon it ; but
there are certain objections that present themselves at once
fo my mind. The diplomatic service of England is carried
on by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and if is
to-day in as good banals as it ever was. These transactions
are very minute, very serious, and sometimes must be carried
on with great secrecy. I understand that my right honourable
friend proposes to the English Admiralty that there should be
a representative of the Canadian government all the rime in
England to confer with the Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs on all questions on which war may probably arise.
If this is done for Canada, it must be done for Australia, for
New Zealand, for South Africa, and for Newfoundland, and
I doubt very much if the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
would receive much assistance from such a multitude of ad-
visers. Supposing they do hot agree, or supposing they do
agree, how can we pretend to dictate in these matters, or even
to take part? The Foreign Office, only last year, had to
deal with the question of the division of Persia. Are we to
understand tha Canada and ail the other Dominions would
be invited to discuss such question with the Foreign Office?
403
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
A few years ago, the Afghan boundary question was a burning
question with the Foreign Office. Of late years, it has bccn
put in 'che background by the fact that Russia bas not been
in a position tobe aggressive. But that question may bc
revived. Within the last year, when the Gcrman Emperor
sent warships to Agadir, the Forcign Off]ce had to take im-
mediate action upon the question whether Germany should be
allowed a footing in North Africa. Would the Dominion of
Canada also be intcrested in and be consultcd upon this ques-
tion? If so, it seems to me that this is opening a door to
consequences which must be carefully considered bcfore any
action is taken. I do not wish to condemn the view ,caken
by the right honourable gcntleman ; I do not now approve or
condemn it; the subject is too new. But the point upon which
I appeal ,co him, and ,co which I ask the attention of the House,
is this, that we cannot postpone our preparation for dcfence
until this question is settled. It may take a long rime ,co
settle if. Thercfore, lctit be scttled by itself; but, in the
meantime, le,c our preparations go on.
My right honourable friend concluded the argunentative
part of his speech with the statement that, in claiming for the
overseas Dominions 'che power to have a voice in all questions
of peace and war, he was inviting the attention of the states-
men of Great Britain "to 'che real problcm of imperial ex-
istence." I ,chink it would be difficult for my right honourable
friend, or any body else, to convince us that the existence of
the British Empire rests upon so slender a ,chread. We have
been accustomed fo believe, and we wil] continue fo believe,
"chat it rests upon a firmer basis. Sir, I am not indifferent--
far from itmto anything that concerns the unity of the Brit-
ish Empire. This agglomeration of continents under the
British Crown bas something in if which strikes the imagina-
tion, something which has always had, at all events for me, a
great attraction. But I bave always believed, and will con-
tinue to believe, 'chat the tïrm basis of the British Empire is,
next fo the British Crown, the local autonomy of the differen,c
dependencies; that is to say, their working ou,c of their own
0
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
destines fo the central end of the Empire. The Crown is the
great bond, the cernent, which binds together the scattered
continents over the whole world. The Crown is a purely
sentimental bond; but that bond, though purely sentimental,
bas proven itself stronger than aTnies and navies; bas shown
itself fo be equal fo all occasions. I do hOt believe the Empire
is in danger ; I do hOt believe if can be cemented by the means
suggested by my right honourable friend. I believe the rela-
tions of the different parts of the Empire to the mother
country are hOt perfect, but that essentially they are perfec-
tible. You can discuss problems of improvement; there is no
occasion fo discuss problems of existence.
Sir Vilfrid eoncluded by moving in amendment the
construction of two fleet units, to be stationed on the
2ktlantic and Pacifie coasts, uoder the terres of the
Naval Service Act of 1910.
,With these beginnings, the debate ran long and
ranged far. Government speakers attacked the two-
fleet-units policy as expensive, useless, separatist.
Why, if there was no emergency, expand a progranmae
of $11,000,000 in 1910 to a programme of, say,
$50,000,000 in 1912 ? "We pay for the policing of our
towns, why not pay the greatest policeman in the world,
the British navy?" The danger from Germany was
imminent and serious. Canada owed Britain hundreds
of millions for past expenditures on her defence.
Liberal speakers ruade light of the emergency. Britain
did not know it existed; the panic of 1909 had passed;
two general elections had been fought, not on the navy,
but on land taxes and the veto of the Lords; in the past
summer Mr. Churchill had declared that there was no
cause for alarm, the government was absolutely con-
a05
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
rident in the adequacy of its programme; Lord Crewe,
said, "We eonsider the seeurity of the country is
aehieved" and that "any premature building, any splash
of a programme belote the ships are needed, would de-
feat out own ends"; Mr. Asquith, that there was not the
least occasion for panie: "There never has been a mo-
ment and there is not now when we have not been over-
whelmingly superior against any eombination whieh ean
reasonably be anticipated"; Mr. Blfour, that "the
fleets of the triple entente are not inadequate now and
are not going to be inadequate to any strain that is
going to be plaeed upon them"; and Mr. Bonar Law:
"Do any of us really believe that there is danger, any
vital danger? I eonfess that I have the greatest dif-
fieulty in believing it myself." Mr. Borden had denied
that he stood for permanent eontributions, and yet all
his arguments tan that way. SVith no emergeney, and
with Mr. Borden depreeating Canada's ever starting a
navy of her own, the excuse for separating immediate
from permanent poliey beeame a shallow pretenee
to meet the real emergeneymthe exigeneies of the
Conservative-Nationalist alliance. Canada eould build
ships, eould sail them, eould fight them; one thing she
eould not do, pay tribute.
The debate differed from that of two years earlier in
the greater eonsideration given to the eontrol of foreign
poliey, t{oughly speaking, there were three attitudes.
The Nationalists, who had first raised the question,
deelared that Canada should do nothing in the way of
imperial defenee sinee she did not bave any voiee in
06
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
irnperial policy. The Conservatives ruade important
variations: Canada should do nothing in the way of a
permanent policy of imperial defence until she had a
voice in imperial policy. "We say," declared Mr.
]3orden on Fe19ruary 27, "that if we are fo remain an
Empire we cannot have rive foreign policies and rive
separate navies. We say, a just voice of ail the Domin-
ions in foreign policy and the concerns of the Empire
and a united Empire fo face every peril." The Liberal
position, taking shape slowly and without complete and
systematic exposition, was that Canada should decide
her own policy in imperial and foreign matters and
make and control her defence accordingly. There was
no one foreign policy; each Dominion was coming, like
Great Britain, fo have separate interests, distinct rela-
tions, foreign policies of its own. To abandon the con-
trol over its own interests in order fo become involved
in the policies designed primarily to advance the interests
of other parts of the Empire was dubious wisdom.
"Five foreign policies and rive separate navies," policies
coordinated by conference of friendly allies, was in fact
the direction in which Liberal opinion was tending.
"The only voice we can bave," Sir $Vilfrid replied to
Mr. Borden, "must be under the control of the Canadian
parliament, the Canadian government, the Canadian
people." Or, in the more explicit words of Mr. Béland:
"I do not believe that the people of this country want
to share in the foreign policy of Great Britain ....
Af this hour of out history, when we possess the un-
disputed privilege of making out own treaties, when
a07
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
this parliament is in the possession of the undisputed
direction of its military forces; when we have the assur-
ance from the British government that no question
affeeting our Dominions shall be settled without the
consent of the Canadian parliament; when the rime has
eome that out eoasts are uneovered by the withdrawal
of the British squadrons and we are eonfronted with the
manifest duty of supplying the protection the mother
country ean no longer extend to us; at this rime we are
told we must aseend to a place in the temple where the
destinies of Europe are deeided. Canada is to embark
upon the whirlpool of European polities. This move-
ment, I elaim, is a retrograde movement. The status
of Canada is that of a sister nation and hOt that of a
daughter nation."
Ail that eould be said was soon said, but the debate
went on. Fresh tire was given it by two extraordinary
communications from ¥inston Churehill written in
January in response to requests from Mr. Borden for
ammunition. Mr. Churehill demonstrated that Cana-
dians eould not build battle-ships, that they eould not
and Britain would not man their cruisers, and that they
could hot maintain a navy in efficiency. His naïvely
frank argument for the perpetual use of British rather
than Canadian shipyards and for permanent Admiralty
control--"the most irritating document from authority
in Britain since the days of Lord North," Mr.
Elnnlerson termed it--was followed in Match by an at-
tempt to influence Canadian opinion and predetermine
Dominion policy by announcing an Admiralty plan for
zt08
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
an imperial squadron of rive Dominion dreadnough
cruisers, based on Gibraltar. tIis action intensified
national feeling in Canada and stiffened Liberal resist-
ance fo the Borden measure. Amendment after amend-
ment was ruade, only fo be voted down. Every naval
commander from Noah fo Nelson was quoted and
quoted again. Conservatives ceased to speak and
Liberals spoke double rime. Tempers rose, interrup-
tion was fl'equent, the Speaker "named" members, and
still little progress was ruade with the bill. Finally, the
govermmnt decided to force the bill through under
closure.
On April 9, Mr. Borden moved the adoption of rules
of closure. By sharp strategy, debate on this proposal
itself was limited. Sir Vilfrid, stirred for once into
indignation and hot cries of "shame!" was prevented
from moving an amendment, and the new rules of
procedure were j ammed through. There was much to
be said for reform in procedure and for the right of the
responsible majority to carry ifs measures through, as
of late years parliament in many countries had con-
cluded, but particularly in Sir Wilfrid Laurier's eyes
the case for freedom of debate was still stronger:
We have heard if stated that these rules are antiquated.
I do not admit that af all. These rules are not an£iquated.
They were not made for a day or for a period; £hey were made
for the agcs. If can be said of them, as has been said of the
maxims of civil law which have come to us from the Roman
jurists, and which are the basis of the civil law of most of
£hc na£ions of Europe, that they are reason crystallized into
writing. The maxims of the civil law have been applied fo the
409
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
relations of the people in civil lire, and the maxims of our
parliamentary procedure have been accepted as the basis of
the transaction of business in ail deliberative assemblies.
Sir, these rules are fo fo be swept away, they are tobe
ridden over roughshod ; they are fo be put aside, and we are
fo have the gag substituted for them. And what is the pre-
tence? The pretence is that there has been obstruction in
the House .... My right honourable friend has quoted the
opinions of some friends of myself in favour of elosure. But,
sir, I also have the honour to belong to the great Liberal
party of Canada. I have occupîed a position of some im-
portance in it ; nay, I nmy say that for twenty years and more
I have been entrusted with ifs ehief command. During the
fiftcen ycars I was in office if sometimcs happcned that friends
came to me and told me that I was not doing justice to myself
and to the party, but that I should impose closure, as had been
done in many othcr parliaments. Sir, I ara a Liberal of the
old school; I have been brought up in the school of Fox and of
the old leaders of the Liberal party ; and I .could hot bring my-
self to the point of depriving a minorîty in parliament of such
a valuable weapon as it would be deprived of by the introduc-
tion of closure. Perhaps I was wrong: perhaps I was too
generous. Nay I was not; I would rather stand here to-day
having refused, during thc fifteen years of my adminîstration,
to impose closure, and having decided to abide by the old rules.
. . As I bave said, there are some occasions on which there is
a cleavage between the majority and the minority, and then
there is an easy remedy, an easy solution. The remcdy is hot
closure; if is hot the application of brute force. The remedy
is art appeal to the people. The peoplc, aftcr all, are the
j udge and the jury. The people, after ail, are the parties to
pass judgment as between the government and the Opposition,
as between the majority and the minority; and, Sir, the least
I would bave expected on such an occasion as this was that the
government of the day would bave adopted that remedy, and
not have resorted to closure ....
My rlght honourable friend stated, not to-day but the last
10
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
rime when he spoke upon that question, that the remedy which
I suggested was absurd, because, he said, if upon every occa-
sion upon which there was obstruction the government were
obliged to go fo the country we might every year have a general
dection. Let me tell my right honourable friend that there is
no sense in such an objection, because obstruction cannot be of
any avail unless itis backed up by a strong expression of public
opinion, and unless it be on some most important question. If
there were at any rime in this House a political party so obliv-
ious to the respect it owes to itself and to the country as fo
obstruer upon a trivial question, that party would lose all the
confidence it might have in the country and any chance of ever
again creating an impression upon the people. ]]tlt, sir, there
is a better reason than that. When we corne fo discuss these
eonstitutional questions, these questions of public policy, the
best authority after all is the authority of history. Confedera-
tion will bave been in existence forty-six years next July, and
how many rimes has there been obstruction during these last
forty-five years? Just four rimes belote this year. Let me
reeall them. There was obstruction in 1885, in 189.6, in 1908,
and in 1911, and after I have mentioned-the causes for the
obstruction on these several occasions, I shall have furnished
the most complete justification for the attitude we have taken
upon the present occasion .... The other occasion on which
there Was obstruction was in 1911 .... We introduced the
reciprocity measure on the twenty-sixth of January, and on the
twenty-ninth of July we had hot yet been able to obtain even a
preliminary vote upon if. We had been met af every step by
obstruction from the Conservatives, then in opposition ; dilatory
motions of every kind were ruade, speech af ter speech was deliv-
ered day in and day out, even in the dog days of summer. I
did hot complain ; I did not whine. Two courses were open to
me. I could have donc as is donc to-day by the prime min-
ister ; I could have introduced the closure and said that we must
carry on the business of the government and that consistently
with out dignity, we could hot allow obstruction. But there
was another course open fo me and that was an appeal to the
ail
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
people; and I advised my colleagues to give the honourable
gentlemen of t.he Opposition the opportunity of appealing fo
the people. We appealed to the people and we were deîeated.
Heaven is my witnes's that I would rather stand here to-day,
defeated and in opposition by that appeal fo the people, than
stand over there in office by the power of the gag...
Let me repeat to my right honourable friend: As you sow,
so shall you reap; as you" are fait, so shall you meet with
fairness; as .you are unjust, so shatl you meet with injustice.
. . The poison that he offers to us to-day will come fo his
own lips at some future day. We are in the minority; we
tan be gagged; we can be prevented from expressing out
opinions; they can trample upon out rights; Sir, the day of
reckoning will come, and it will come as soon as we have a
dissolution tff he present parlia.ment.
SVith the closure in force, the Naval Bill received its
third reading, on tf vote of 101 to 68, ail the National-
ists but four and one Liberal, Colonel Maclean, voting
with the government. Even yet if had not reached
port; if had still fo navigate the Senate. Government
supporters could not believe that the Senate majority
would be so unpatriotic, so reckless, so bent on suicide,
as fo reject the measure. And was hot Sir George
Ross, leader of the Senate since Sir Richard' Cart-
wright's death the previous year, an Imperialist of
Imperialists? ttad he not opposed reeiproeity and
waved the British flag uneeasingly? It was true that
Sir George Ross in the eyes of many Liberals was more
responsible than any other for the weakening of the
old Ontario Liberal fibre, through his own practice and
his persistent advoeaey of the poliey of catering to the
prejudices of imperialist Toronto instead of fighting
412
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
and educating it, but he now made amends. The
government's bill, he declared, was "empty as an
exploded eartridge, soulless as its plated sides." If
sent empty ships, not men, to fight; it ruade no appeal
to national sentiment; it made for eleavage, not for
unity. Threats had been made that the will of the
people must prevail: very well, let the pçople deeide.
Weakened by the illness whieh was to bring the end a
year later, Sir George eoneluded an address of strained
but stirring eloquenee by moving in the preeise words
Mr. Borden had used in 1910, "that this House is hOt
j ustified in giving its assent to this bill until it is sub-
mitted to the j udganent of the country." Three days
later the amendment was adopted by a vote of 51 to
27, one Liberal siding with the government.
The Naval Bill was killed. There was mueh gnash-
ing of teeth and threat of vengeance, but nothing fol-
lowed. For all the lightning flashes and the booming
thunder, Mr. Borden took no step towards averting the
"emergeney." Sir George Ross had offered to vote
the full $35,000,000 if spent on building vessels under
the A_et of 1910, but his offer was not heeded. 5[r.
Borden himself had threatened to go to the country if
the bill was bloeked, but faith in the reality of the
emergeney or in the eountry's attitude did not prove
strong enough when the test came. In the two years
that followed before war broke out, the Naval Service
A_et remained on the statute-book, the training-ships
were maintained in half-hearted fashion, but no single
step was taken in Canada to provide defenee at sea.
zkl3
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Mr. Churchill, who had previously declared that thc
British programme was ample and that thc Canadian
ships wcrc supplcmcntary, now statcd that thc "gap
would havc tobe fillcd," and threc British ships ac-
celcratcd: whereupon Mr. Borden addcd that thc Cana-
dian govcrnmcnt would at sornc later date takc thesc
ships over. Mcanwhilc Australia, rcalizing that thcrc
was a Pacific as wcll as a North Sca and protcsting
against Canada's "tcaring up thc 1909 agreement,"
prcsscd stcadily on with its own flcet, and even New
Zcaland, thc modcl colony, pronounccd in favour of
an Australasian-Canadian flcct unit in the Pacific.
Canadian Libcralism and Australian Nationalism had
stood firm, and thc policy of contribution had met
enduring defcat.
Onc rcason why the govcrnrnent was nablc to arousc
any substantial agitation against thc Scnatc's action
lay in thc financial dcprcssion which had now fallcn upon
the country. In 1909 a Libcral mcmbcr had rcported
that thc W'est was too eagcr about 1)ox-cars to carc
about battlc-ships; now Vcst and East wcrc too ntch
prcoccupicd with mortgagcs and margins to carc grcatly
about Bordcn-Pcllctier drcadnoughts, or, for that
marrer, about Laurier flect units. Thc long swing of
prospcrity which had begun in 1896 and had haltcd only
for a morncnt in 1907, had now corne to ifs end.
Construction halted, credits tightcncd, British funds
dricd up, factorics slowed down, stock priccs sagged,
land values collapscd, unenploymcnt mountcd. Thc
world over, thc strain on crcdit imposcd by Balkan wars
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
and wars of armament, and the reaction from the spec-
ulative activity of the past dozen years, had forced a
slowing up of trade and industry. In Canada, the crisis
was the more severe because of the heights to which
speculation had soared. "lhere had been a very great
measure of genuine and permanent advance in the coun-
try's productive capacity, but there had also been much
premature, much misdirected, much parasitic activity.
"1oo great a proportion of money and energy had gone
into long-rime capital expenditures, railways, municipal
enterprises, and not enough into immediate production.
Subdivision prices had soared, but farm production had
fallen. Now the accounting had corne.
The sudden shift in the business outlook did not
become a direct parliamentary issue, but it influenced
the whole trend of public affairs. Naturally the Lib-
erals did not hesitate to contrast Laurier prosperity
with Borden depression. More legitimately, they crit-
icized the government for increasing ordinary expend-
iture ten to fifteen million a year in the face of signs
of falling revenue. But it was the halt in railway-con-
struction that chiefly entered into party debate.
An extraordinary era of railway building was ap-
proaching the end. By 1914 there were more than
hirty thousand miles of road in operation, with some
eight to ten thousand more in various stages of com-
pletion: Canada ranked fifth among the world's .coun-
tries in total mileage and easily first in mileage in pro-
portion to population. XVhile mileage had grown by
two-thirds since 1901, train miles had doubled, freight
415
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
carried trebled, and gross earnings more than trebled.
East and VVest had been bound by triple links of steel.
The vast Northern hinterlands of central Canada had
been opened up. The prairies had been covered by a
network of main and branch lines. The roads had been
built when capital was abundant and cheap. So far
as direct outlays were concerned, the federal govern-
ment had financed the payments ont of surplus revenue,
without adding fo the debt. But there was another
side now revealed, lluch of the building had been
without foresight, without study, without plan. Local
pressure and promoters' lobbying had determined
policy. There was much premature building, much
duplication, much unsound financing, much political
corruption. No one political party was responsible for
the mistakes that were ruade. Politicians were no more
responsïble than the public af large. Iunicipalities
were as sanguine in their street-railway and sidewalk
building as the Dominion in its transcontinental pro-
grammes. Bankers, manufacturers, merchants, Vest-
ern farmers, investors and speculators, from end fo end
of the country, ail shared the saine lever, ail were trying
to discount at once a generation's visioned advance.
The railway policy of both the Lam-ier and Borden
régimes centred about the attempt of two raihvays,
the Grand Trunk and the Canadian Northern, fo ex-
pand 'fo transcontinental dimensions. Both railways
sought to achieve their aims mainly through state aid,
and both failed fo provide an independent and sub-
stantial shareholder interest. The result in both cases
416
IN THI SHADES OF OPPOSITION
was a lack of responsibility in boom days, a lack of
reserve support in days of depression. ]3oth roads
were hampered by the sharp fise in priees and construc-
tion costs, and the growing tightness of money as their
plans approaehed, but eould not quite reaeh, eompletion.
The Grand Trunk projeet was erippled, as if had
been erippled for sixty years, by absentee eontrol: be-
fore leaving oflàee, Sir Wilfrid Laurier had arranged to
bring 'in legislation requiring the Grand Trunk and
the Grand Trunk Pacifie fo transfer their headquarters
fo Canada. If was still further hit by the death of the
dominating force, Charles M. I-Iays, in the 7'itanic
disaster, and by quarrels and extravagance among his
Napoleonie understudies. The eost of the construc-
tion of both the Grand Trunk Pacifie and the National
Transeontinental soared a hundred million above the
estirnates. qo evidenee was produeed that the ¢ost of
the government section was swollen by corruption;
charges of collusion with eontraetors ruade against the
eommissioners in charge, in 1908, by a district en-
gineer, Major Hodgins, were not proved and were
withdrawn, and a raking investigation by a strong Con-
servative partisan and a Canadian Pacifie engineer in
1912 fouhd no evidenee of graft, though waste in un-
duly high standards of eonstruetiort was asserted. If
could be urged that the poliey of Sir. I-Iays in insist-
ing upon the lowest grades, the fewest eurves, the
finest road-bed on the continent, in the expeetation that
lower operating eosts would more than offset higher
capital charges, did not take sufficient accourir of the
417
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
long time required to build up full traffic, and it was
also elear that the division of responsibility between
the government and the eompany did not make for
eeonomy and eflïeieney.
The Canadian Northern projeet was marked by the
simplicity of all works of genius. It was merely to
bave the publie build a transeontinental railway with
ail the usual steamship, express, hotel, and land-eom-
pany attachments, and yet to vest ownership wholly in
two promoters who put into it little but their ambition.
Two Ontario boys who had gone from school-teaehing
and lumbering into railway contracting had diseovered
in the West their own eapaeities and the eountry's
opportunities. Villiam Maekenzie, toaster planner and
finaneial wizard, Donald Mann, as foreeful in rounding
up a lobbyful of politicians as in driving a section gang,
joined by Zebulon Lash, the subtlest framer of strictly
legal clauses ,nd financial expedients in Canada's
annals, plamed and worked for a score of years and
saw a little hundred-mile Manitoba road, running from
nowhere to nowhere, all but reaeh by 1914 to both
oceans and ten thousand miles. Throughout, absolute
ownership and control was kept in their own hands by
the most intricate and bewildering corporate financ-
ing Canada had yet seen, the chartering of a score of
separate but related companies, the purchase or lease
of a score of old companies, the organization of trust
companies, construction companies, express companies,
equipment companies, the issue of prepetual consol-
idated debenture stock, income-charge convertible de-
418
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
benture stock, land-mortgage debentures, ftrst-mortgage
bonds and ineome bonds, division bonds and terminal
bonds, secured notes and collateral notes. It was a
project with more than the usual interweaving of good
and evil in conception and execution. The planning
was constructive, the strateo T in the selection of routes
in the early years admirable, the service rendered the
prairie country of immense value. The financing was
radically unsound in its lack of share capital to ride
over a waiting time. The reliance upon the public
treasury for guaranties, subsidies, loans, brought into
Canadian politics the most corrupting single factor
in Confederation rimes, apparent in campaign contribu-
tions, advance information as to location and land deals,
or free passes for members and their families, the buy-
ing of newspapers,mthe whole "long trail," in Mr. Ben-
nett's phrase, "of parliamentary corruption, of lobby-
ing, of degradation of parliamentary institutions, of
the lowering of the morals of public life." :No little
of the decline of the Liberal party from its original
ideals, no little of its overthrow of 1911, no little of
the demoralization of the Borden cabinet, no little of
the Union movement in 1917, can be traced directly
to the manuvres and exigencies of Mackenzie and
Mann or of those who saw gain in their profit or in
their emergencies.
Aside from the initial failure to compel the Grand
Trunk and the Canadian Northern to unite if they
wished state aid in their transcontinental schemes,mand
even in this Laurier had evidenced rare foresight--the
19
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Liberal government's policy down fo 1911 stood the
test of rime. Aid through bond guaranties was given
freely, but restrieted fo the Western country, where
new roads were needed and were immediately revenue-
produeing. Then on the eve of the 1911 eleetion came
a guaranty fo the central link in the transeontinental
plan, the road from :Port Arthur to Montreal, voted
casually by the government forces, questioned per-
functorily by the Opposition, passed without a divi-
sion and with an eye on campaign chests. The Laurier
government, however, did decline to have any share in
the still more unnecessary and more extravagant ex-
tension through British Cotumbia to the coast. On
coming to power the Borden government proved still
more generous than its predecessor. It granted a cash
subsidy to the British Columbia extension, to which
the McBride government had already voted lavish and
reckless millions. In 1913 it voted a cash subsidy of
$15,640,000 on the distinct understanding that this
would make it possible to complete the road, and in
return for the transfer of $7,000,000 of the company's
stock. The stock was simply run off the engraver's
plates, and next session K demand came for a loan of
$45,000,000 as a positively final appeal.
The crisis in the fortunes of the Canadian Northern
led to a crisis in the fortunes of the Borden government.
The government hesitated to grant further aid in the
face of falling revenues, broken promises, and public
suspicion. Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald
Mannmfor the last seal of success had now been se.t
420
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
upon them--camped at Ottawa; the bankers with mil-
lions tied up in loans against unsold securities, the
supply companies with notes unpaid, the sub-contractors
with unmet claims, the lesser federal politicians with fa-
vours in their pockets, the provincial premiers anxious to
avert their own guaranties eoming home to roost,
strongly backed their demands. There was some ques-
tion of the Canadian Pacifie coming to the rescue, but
its price was too high. Finally the government yielded.
Mr. Arthur Meighen, a young Western lawyer, whose
high gift of keen analysis and untiring industry, backed
by a judicious mingling of party usefulness and open
independence, had brought him into the ministry as
solicitor-general a year before, drew up and defended,
with hard and sure power, in caucus and in parliament,
a measure of relief. In return for a gmtrantee of
000,000, the government was to take a mortgage on
company assets and receive an additional 33,000,000
of the common stock of the parent company, set there-
with af $100,000,000.
On May 18, 1914, the prime minister moved the adop-
tion of the resolutions. The road could hot be leff
half-finished; if could not be allowed to go into liquida-
tion; the promoters had not received any profit or
compensation for their years of service other than the
common stock; if the assistance given failed to complete
the road, provision was ruade for summary seizure. Sir
Wilfrid followed. I-Ie declared that he had long
believed that Canada required three transcontinental
railways, and believed so still, tIe had favoured aid
421
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
to Mackcnzic and Mann projccts down to thc ill-con-
ccivcd British Columbia section. Hc agrccd that thc
entcrprisc could not bc allowcd to fail, yct hc could not
agree to thc proposed rcsolutions. Thcy gave no as-
surance that past liabilitics or future nceds would bc
met. The subsidiary companies were not amalgamated.
The security was illusory: "Does any one on the other
side of the House believe that a mortgage on top of
that mortgage for three hundred and twelve million
dollars is worth a great deal to Canada? Why, if we
undertook to execute our rights under that mortgage
we ourselves would simply have fo provide for the pay-
ment of this three hundred and twelve million dollars.
That is the consequence of the mortgage we are taking
now and if is the clearest part of it." Why take forty
per cent. of the stock? "My right honourable friend
says that we are to go into partnership with Messrs.
Mackenzie and Mann and the Canadian Nrthern Rail-
way .... That being so, is if unreasonable fo ask that
in that partnership we should be the leading and not
the junior partner?" I-Ie concluded:
I said a moment ago, and I repeat, that this enterprise must
go on. If bas been conceivcd for the benefit of the Canadian
pcople. We require this railway. My right honourable friend
said we would hot let it go into liquidation. It must hot go
into liquidation, but we should have the control of it. Since
we must go into partnership with the Canadian Northern Rail-
way, let us see that we are the master, hot the servant. Let
the agreement be modified; let the resolution be modified. But,
sir, as they stand af the present rime, they are hOt conceived
422
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
for the benefit of the Canadian people; they are conceived
altogether for the benefit of the f]rm of Mackenzie and Mann
and of the Canadian Northern Railway Company. Sir, we
bave no objection fo hclping them. We havc helped then in
the past. I for my part have been an admirer of their energy
and enterprise. I bave not much in common with them; I can-
not claim them as friends ; but I admire energy, enterprise, and
loluck wherever if is round. Af the saine time thcre is this con-
sideration to be borne in mlnd by the lorime minister, that there
are interests which are transcendent and the primary of those
transcendent interests is that of the country. I bave to repeat
that the interest of the country is hot servcd by the present
resolutions, and as they stand if will become the duty of thc
Opposition to oppose them from first to last.
5Iore tmcompromising opposition came from within
the ranks of the Conservatives themselves. The crisis
had stirred an independence as unusual as it was promis-
ing for the future and futile for the present. Mr.
:Herbert Ames found the Canadian Northern guilty
of past offences, but saw no alternative to the present
proposais. Two other goOernment .supporters wer
much farther. Sir. ,V. F. Nickle of Kingston gave
ail incisive and clear-cut analysis of the development of
the company and the colossal aid received from federal
and provincial governents, exposed the inadequacy
and inconsistency of the data upon which parliament
was asked fo act, referred to Sir Villiam 5Iackenzie's
attempts to browbeat him, and called for immediate
government assumption of the Canadian Northern as
well as the :National Transcontinenta]. "I ara op-
posed," he declared, "to going into partnership with
&23
LIFE AD LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Mackenzie and Mann, just the same as I ara opposed
fo going into partnership commercially with people
I do hot trust. I think they will do the government
in the long run." Mr. R. B. Bennett of Calgary drew
upon his intimate knowledge of Canadian railways,
gained from a C. P. R. angle, and upon all the resourees
of a rieh voeabulary and a two-hundred-word-a-minute
delivery o earry his hearers up and down the Canadian
Northern line, fo probe the organization of subsidiary
eompanies, particularly the "notorious and nefarious
equipment trust," fo trace the relations of the Cana-
dian Nbrthern Railway, Mackenzie and $ann Com-
pany, Limited, and SVilliam Maekenzie and Donald
Mann, o attack the physieal condition of the road
("certain parts of if between Kamloops and the Y'raser
River that do not slip into the river this spring will
get there in the fall"), fo investigate the bogus sur-
pluses and false aeeounts, fo pay his respeets fo the
"boundless ambition" and " shameless mendieaney" of
the two promoters, the colossal but misdireeted intellect
of their legal adviser, the "impertinent interruptions of
this young man" who had framed the resolutions, "the
gramaphone of [aekenzie and Mann," and, in shorL
fo play "he bull in the china shop of party expedieney
and individual caution. The vigour of these two
Conservative members stiffened Liberal opposition.
I)emands followed for a thorough, not a sham, analysis
of the past financing and present situation of the road;
for the pledge of the great private fortunes of the pro-
moters; and for further squeezing or bailing out of the
IN THE SHADES OF OPPOSITION
water in the stock. But all opposition was in vain,
the government was committed, and the resolutions were
voted early in June. The Senate, which now had been
reformed, af once approved, nearly half the Liberals
voting with the maj ority.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE GREAT WAR
A Summer in ArtbabaskaWar in Europe--The Strain of the
War--A United Cvuntry--Election Preparations---Laurier .and
leeruitinglising DiseontentThe Deeline of thé'vovrnment
--Quebec in the WarBotha ,and Bourassa--The Bilingual
Question in Ontario--The Issue in ParliamentLiberal Divi-
sions--Laurier's Proffered Resignation.
W ITH the close of the third session of par-
liament in mid-June, Sir Wilfrid and Lady
Laurier turned to their old /krthabaska
home. It had not been possible for some years to spend
a summer there, and after a tiring session they looked
forward with keen anticipation to its friendly quiet.
They spent ffuly in the pleasant :Eastern Township
village. Cradled among green hills, with white roads
winding through the valleys, the little river running
shallow in the heat of an inland sulnmer, the great
ehureh and the substantial "court buildings dominating
all the neighbourhood, /krthabaska brought baek the
simple j oys and the healing peaee of days long gone.
Sir Wilfrid enj'oyed it to the full. Walking in the
deep, unstudied garden; rea'ding some of the new books
for whieh rime had not been round during the year, and
going baek to the old ones; answering, usually in his
own bold, .angular anal now slightly shaking hand, the
letters which came from Canadians of all deg,rees; giv-
ing to a few visitors the dclights of a perfect and spon-
426
THE GREAT WAR
taneous hospitality; sharing in the lively game of bridge
and the livelier flow of words when old friends came
with the evening; drawing the youngsters about him
in unrelenting raillery, he was himself again.
Suddenly, over this idyllie village seene and over
hundreds of equally unreeking Canadian eommunities,
the elouds of European war lowered black and threaten-
ing. With the end of July if had beeome elear that hot
merely another Balkan war but a catastrophe involving
all European eivilization was imminent. When if be-
came apparent that Britain was likely to be involved,
and that the struggle would be of lire and deuth, there
was no differenee of opinion and no hesitation in any
quarter in Canada. The war was none of Canada's
making. Canada had had no share in the rivalries and
the diplomaey whieh had brought Europe fo this pass.
Canada was no more direetly eoneerned in the outeome
than any other New World state. Yet for Canada
there was in all men's thoughts only one course and one
measure of effoloE. With Britain at war, Canada was
teehnieally af war. With Britain in danger, Canada
would be emphutieally af war. The government on
_August 1 eabled a firm assurance of Canada's resolve
"to put forth every effort and fo make every sacrifice
neeessary fo ensure the integrity and maintain the
honour of out Empire," and asking for suggestions as
fo the form of an expeditionary force. On the morn-
ing of the fourth, the governor-general and the leader
of the Opposition returned to Ottawa. Sir Wilfrid
af once issued the following statement:
a27
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
We all hope and pray that the effort of Sir Edward Grey
may yet be successful in persuadlng the nations of the Con-
tinent fo the restoration of peace. I confess that the pros-
pects are very doubtful. It is probable and almost certain
that Englancl will bave fo take her share in the conflict hOt
only for the protection of her own interests, but for the protec-
tion of France and the higher civilization of which these two
nations are to-day the noblest expression. The policy of the
Liberal party under such pain'ful circumstances is well known.
I bave often elec]ared that if the mother country were ever
in danger, or if danger ever threatenecl, Canada .would render
assistance fo the ful]est extent of ber power. In view of the
critical nature of the situation I have cancelled all my meet-
ings. Pending such great questions, there should be a truce
fo party strife.
At haIf-past eight o'clock on the evening of that
fateful day, the governor-general received a table mes-
sage from London announcing that Britain had declared
war. The four-years struggle had begun. To Europe
it was to bring the victory of the Allies, who, vith all
qualifications made, fought for democracy and freedom;
the victory, if not of white over black, at least of grey.
It was to bring the fall of ancient empires, the bank-
ruptcy of great peoples, the uprooting of the founda-
tions of society, and the death of tens of millions of men
and women and children from war and plague and
famine. To the world in general it was to bring the
shattering of old ries of trade and friendship, epochal
shiftings of wealth and poverty, the contagion of social
unrest, the hardening of class and racial consciousness,
the surging of submerged peoples toward a dubious
liberty, and the dream of a world organization that
428
THE GREAT WAR
would avert anothel: and final lapse into chaos and
barbarism. To Canada it was fo bring imperishable
memories of Saint-Julien and Vimy and the breaking of
the Hindenburg line, fifty thousand graves in France
and Flanders, the heaping up of ineredible debts and
obligations, the diseovery of undreamed-of powers of
individual sacrifice, of eomanunity effort, of industrial
expansion, of finaneial endurance. To Canada if was
to bring also the breaking of politieal parties and the
rise in their stead of elass and sectional groups, a
eleavage of race and bitterness ineonceivable, the seem-
ing erashing of the work of national harmony to whieh
Wilfrid Laurier had given his lire.
The burden of the war and the stirring of passions
good and ill that it involved proved too great a strain
for the unfinished structure of Canadian unity. Even
in rime of peaee the task of seeuring unity in home and
in external affairs had been hard and never-ending.
Given a eountl T settled by one people, eonquered by
another, and still divided between the deseendants of
these two great peoples; given a colony hall emerged
from subordination to the eonquering power aeross the
sea, and struggling toward full nationhood; given one
and one only of the two racial groups linked by blood
and sentiment to this power overseas which still dom-
inated foreign policy, and in so difficult a position, fric-
tion and sometimes tire were hardly to be avoided.
Wilfrid Laurier had striven to lessen and avert the
friction; his consistent home policy of racial equality,
friendly tolerance and a fusing pride in the new and
29
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
comrnon Canadianism, and his irnperial policy of a
cornprornise between nationalisrn and inperialism, the
developrnent of a nation within the Empire, had been
directed to this end. He and those of all parties and
all sections who strove with hirn had been harnpered by
the irnperialists with their facial sympathies and ideals
and their doctrinaire and ready-rnade plans for rrraking
the British Empire a real empire. He had been harn-
lered by the Nationalists who, in reaction frorn these
irnperialist schemes, had sought in their turn to em-
phasize facial ries and to draw Quebec back within a
provincial shell. Yet he had tirne and ride with him,
had persevered, and seerningly with-no small reward.
Now carne the strain of war. A war begun on Can-
ada's own initiative, in the direct defence or pursuit of
her own interests or supposed interests, might bave
unified the country; but in this war Canada was involved
in the first place by her forrnal eonneetion with Britain
and in large part urged on by the facial syrnpathies of
hall her people with Britain. It was truc that rnany a
man who lmd no facial ries or personal sympathy with
]3ritain eherished the lnemory of Britain's gifts of polit-
ieal liberty and of individual freedorn to the world, but
this eould not take the place of the wm-m and unrecking
sympathy of race. It was truc that Canada had vital
interests of her own at stae, in that Gerrnany's ar-
rogant rnilitarism was a danger to the liberty of every
free country in the world, and true that once Canada
was in the war, no matter whose fight it was at the start,
the war became her war, defeat her defeat, victory her
80
THE GREAT WAR
victory. As the months and years went on, this under-
standing widened and deepened, and Inany who had
no sylnpathy with the ilnperial relationship worked and
fought for hulnanity, for Canada, or for the fight's sake.
Yet if was equally truc that Norway, or Chile or the
United States had interests as great as Canada's af
stake, and that they did not enter the war or entered
it only when a united people had been eonvineed by the
logic of the submarine that their direct interests were
involved. If was true, ,again, that France was Britain's
ally, and that if »vas in France and in the defence of
France that Canadians were fighting, but it »vas also
true that this was ,an incident, a happy accident; if
was not sympathy with France but the rie with Britain
that took Canada into the »var. It was true that the
war, unlike the »var against the Boers, »vas a »var whose
justice in the eyes of af least nine out of ten, not only
in Britain and in the Doininions but in the neutral
eountries, was beyond question, but if was true also
that the Inagnitude and duration of the »var brought a
strain, brought the war into every corner, and every
relation of lire, as the lesser if less righteous struggle
had not done. The path of the war was a path in which
all eould walk, a path along whieh the eall of the blood,
.imperialist sympathy with outraged Belgiuln and bleed-
ing France, batred of Gerlnan Inilitarism, pride in Cana-
dian aehieveinent,--all would urge the sons of Canada.
But naturally solne were impelled by one Inotive only
and some by all, and the distance they would walk to-
gether, if the path proved long, was matter for question.
31
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
In thc first flush of cxcitcmcnt and cnthusiasm, these
diflïcultics werc not in vicw. Canada cntcrcd the war
unitcd and wholc-hearted. Thcrc was no party strifc,
no racial cleavagc, and Wilfrid Laurier and Robert
Bordcn vied with cach other in thcir appcals to all Cana-
dians to stand togcther and to stand fast bcsidc Britain
and Bclgium and France.
Thcre was no party strife. Thc governmcnt's »c-
tion was prompt and effective, and thc Opposition con-
curred in cvcry policy. Offcrs of service and of finan-
cial aid pourcd in upon thc govcrnment from cvcry
corner of thc Dominion. Steps wcrc takcn to organ-
izc an army division of 22,500 mcn; to guard the fron-
tier and military posts against possible attacks of
Gcrman agcnts; to man the Ra, inbow and thc Niobe
and two dubious submarines purchascd in hot haste in
Seattle by Sir R..McBridc, .and to place thcm at thc
Admiralty's disposal; to avert, in conjunction with the
banks, a financial panic, and to issue, in accordancc with
thc prcarrangcd war-book, ordcrs in council to rcgulatc
tradc and movcmcnts of aliens. On August 18, par-
liamcnt met in special war session.
Thc Spccch from thc Thronc called for thc sanction
of measurcs alrcady takcn and the passing of furthcr
]cgislation to "rcpel the common danger." After thc
Rcply to¢he Addrcss had bccn bricfly moved and scc-
ondcd, Sir Wilfrid followcd:
Speaking for those who sit around me, s.pealdng for the
wide constituency which we represent in this House, I hasten
to say that to ail these measures we re prepared to give
42
hIR. LAURIER'S HOME IN ARTHABASKA
MR. LAURIER'S LAW OFFICE IN ARTHABASKA
THE GREAT WAR
immediate assent. If in what has been done or in what re-
mains to be done there may be anything which in our judgment
should hot be done or should be differently done, we raise no
question, we take no exception, we oifer no criticism, and we
shall oifer no criticism so long as there is danger at the front.
It is our duty, more pressing upon us than ail other duties,
at once, on this tïrst day of this extraordinary session of the
Canadian parliament, fo let Great Britain know, and to let
the friends and foes of Great Britain know, that there is
in Canada but one nind and one heart, and that ail Cana-
dians stand behind the mother country, conscious and proud
that she bas engaged in this war, hot rom any selfish motive,
for any purpose of aggrandizement, but fo mairrtain un-
tarnished the honour of ber naine, fo fulfil ber obligations
fo ber allies, fo maintain her treaty obligations, and fo save
civilization from the unbridled lust of conquest and power.
We are British subjects, ard to-day we are face fo face
with the consequences which are involved in that proud fact.
Long we bave enjoyed the benefit of our British citizenship;
to-day if is our duty to accept its responsibilities and ifs
sacrifices. We bave long said that wheix Great Britain is af
war we are af war ; to-day we realize that Great Britain is
at war and that Canada is af war also.
Engla.nd to-day is not engaged in an ordinary contest.
The war in which she is engaged will in all probability--nay,
in absolute certainty--stagger the world with its magnitude
and ifs horror. But that war is for as noble a cause as
ever impelled a nation fo risk her all upon the arbitrament
of the sword. That question is no longer af issue; the judg-
ment of the world bas already pronounced upon it. I speak
not orrly of those nations which are engaged in this war, but
of the neutral nations. The testimony of the ablest men of
these natîons, without dissentin, g voice, is that to-day the al-
lied nations are fighting for freedom against oppression, for
democracy against autocracy, for civlization against re-
version fo that state of .barbarism in which the supreme law
is the law of might.
438
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Itis an additional source of pride to us that England did not
seek this war. If is a marrer of history--one of the noblest
pages of the history of England--that she never drew the
sword until every mcans had been exhausted fo secure and
to keep an honourable peace.
If my words can be heard beyond the walls of this House
in the province from" which I come, aanong the rnen whose
blood flows in my own veins, I should like them to remember
that in taking thcir place to-day in the ranks of the Cana-
dian army to fight for the cause of the allied nations, a double
honour rests upon them. The very cause for which they arc
called upon to/ight is to them doubly sacred.
-Sir, there is in this the inspiration and the hope that from
this painful war thc British Empire will emerge with a new
bond of union, the pride of all its citizens, and a living light
fo all other nations.
Sir Robert ]3orden--the prime minister, with Mr.
Foster, had accepted knighthood in Julymafter a tes-
timony to the full and instant co-operation of the leader
of the Opposition, gave an eloquent survey of the origin
of the war and a concise summary of the steps the
government considered Canada should take. In a
brief four-days session every proposal was ratified, new
taxes accepted, a war .appropriation of $50,000,000
ruade, the suspension of gold payments and other emer-
gency financial measures given a statutory basis, a
Canadian 19atriotic Fund incorporated, and sweeping
powers of censorship, deportation, control over trade
and transport granted to the government. There was
hot a word of party recrimi,ation, nota questioning
voice. "The last four days of this session," declared
Sir George :Foster, as the hour of prorogation came,
"bave vindicated Canadian public life and parliamen-
THE GREAT WAR
tary lire for all rime to corne. They have shown that
it is possible for us to forger all mean and petty things
when our country and its higher liberties ,are af stake."
There ws no facial cleavage. The crowds in Mont-
real on the eve of the war were more demonstrative
than the crowds in Toronto. In the ttouse, French-
Canadian and English-Can.adian stood together in back-
ing France and England. Evcn'Mr. Bourass.a declared
in "Le Devoir" in September, that it was "Can,ada's
national duty to contribute according to her resources
and by fitting means of action, to the triumph and espe-
cially to the endurance of the combined efforts of France
and England .... I have not written and will not write
one line, one word, to condemn the sending of Canadian
troops to Europe." It is truc he added a signif-
icant qualification: '"But to render this contribution
effective, Canada must begin by facing her real position
resolutely, by taking an exact account of what can and
wh'at cannot be donc, and ensure her own domcstic se-
curity, before beginning or following up an effort which
she will perhaps not be able to sustain to the end."
From the outsct, Sir W.ilfrid's aire was to support
the war, to support the government in ail policies essen-
tial for carrying on the war, to urge upon his compa-
triots in Quebec a full share in the conflict, and to seek
to avert or to lessen any factors making for misunder-
standing and disunity. Every utterance in public was
confined to the urgencies of the war. The readiness of
the Dominions to tome to the aid of..Britain, he declared
at the Toronto Exhibition in September, was hot acti-
f35
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
dental; it was due to Britain's faith in freedom; no
nation but Britain could bave adopted the audacious
policy which was now winning justification in South
Africa, where Louis Botha was leading her soldiers in
the field. "There can be no peace," he declared belote
the Quadrennial Methodist Conference in Ottawa on
September 23, "until this imperial bully has learnt his
lesson." A few days later he j oined with Rodolphe
Lenfieux, L. T. Maréchal, Senator Belcourt, J. M.
Tellier and Dr. Arthur Mignault in urging upon the
government the organization of distinct French-Cana-
dian regiments; "There is every probability," he wrote
Sir Robert, "that the war will be of long duration ....
May I suggest that as out population is composed of
arious ethnie elements, it might be well fo reeognize
the faet and fo allow the formation of ,units out of these
several elements. The War Oee at ail rimes bas
taken advantage of the force of race sentiment in the
formation of the army .... " Two weeks later, he
spoke with the others mentioned and Sir Lomer Gouin
and Senator Dandurand, at a meeting in Sohmer Park
in Montreal to cal] for reeruits for this French-Canadian
regiment:
This eall ,addressecl fo out race involves a sacrifice. We
are ealling the young men in partieular, and fo you, young men,
I have only one thing fo say: I envy you.
We are asking you for a great sacrifice, and if may be ex-
pected that some few of the regiment will remain over there,
vietims fo their courage, but they shall sleep in the land of
their aneestors. But we shall hot let ourselves be influeneed
by sueh a consideration. When Dollard and his sixteen
36
THE GREAT WAR
companions left to save the young colony, they knew that
they would not corne back and their courage grew with the
hope of a triumphant death. If there are still a few drops
of the blood of Dollard and his companions in the veins of
the Canadians who are present et this meeting, you will enlist
in a body, for this cause is just as sa, cred as the one for which
Dollard and his companions gave their lires.
This is a voluntary sacrifice. Great Britain asks nothing
of us. She accepts with gratitude what we do for her, but
she does hot set any obligation upon us. Once more I repeat,
,Canada is a free country. If some Canadians were frightened
by the monster of conscription in the past, they must now
recognize that this monster was a myth.
And again, before the Montreal Reform Club:
Do not forger that the fact that Britain was at war con-
stituted for Canada a new condition of things, which imposed
new duties upon the government, upon the Opposition .and upon
the whole Canadian people. The moment that Great Britain
was at war, Canada was at war. This is a truth which while
we were in office we had hot only to proclaim, but for which we
had fo provide in a manner consonant with the new con-
dition, a new situation created by the development of Canada,
hot as a colony, but as a nation within the British Empire.
These truths were not accepted by ail. It was the occasion
of a great deal of misrepresentation; if contributed very much
towards the defeat which we suffered in 1911, but for my part
]et me say here that I have no regrets.
We are a free people, absolutely free. The charter under
which we live has put if in out power to say whether we should
take part in such a war or hot. Itis for the Canadian
people, the Canadian parliament and the Canadian government
alone to decide. This freedom is at once the glory and
honour of Britaln, which granted it, and of Canada which
uses it to assist Britain. Freedom is the key-note oi ail
Britlsh institutions. You find if from the lowest to the highest
rng in the ladder. There is no conscription in Britain.
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
There never was, thcre never shall be. We bave heard if
discussed by eminent authorities that Great Britain will be
forced fo follow suit and have recourse fo conscription like
France, Germany and Italy. Conscription is repugnant fo
the British charactcr. The Britlsh are never inclincd fo go
fo war, slow always fo go fo war, never preparing until they
are in if, .but generally they manage fo get on top at the end
of if. There is no compulsion upon those dependencies of
Great Britain which have rcachcd the stature of dominions,
such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Afrlca and
such Crown dcpendencles as Indla. They are all free fo take
part or hot as they think best.
I was asked by some one why should I support the govern-
anent in their policy of sending men fo the front. Vhy should
hOt the Liberal party bave remained quiet and passive and
let all the worries be left fo the governmcnt? My answer
was: "I have no particular love for the government, but I
love my country, I love the land of my ancestors, France.
I love the land of liberty above all, England, and rather than
that I, in my position of leader of the Liberal party, should
remain passive and quiescent, I would go out of public lire, and
lire together."
Party strife began fo show its head in the autumn of
1914. Neither political party could dwell for long on
the heights of August. Tlre dissension was not serious,
for there was as yet little divergence of policy. There
was some difference of opinion as to why hnd how Can-
ada had gone into the war. The Conservative view was
that Canada went and should go automatically into this
as into every British war, with perhaps in future some
share in controlling British policy. The Liberal view
was that it was for Canada to determine when and how
far she would take part in Britain's wars and that in
this case Canada had freely and deliberately decided to
488
THE GREAT WAR
support Britain because in this case Britain's cause was
just and her peril great. The Nationalists, beginning
to revive, agreed with the Conservatives that Canada had
been involved in the war automatically, qua British sub-
jects, but insisted that Canada should not in future
enter such wars, or should engage in theln only so far
as Canadian interests dictated. But these differences
were of more importance for the mola-ov than for the
day. So with the inevitable retrospective references fo
the naval controversy. The Conservatives, or rather
some Conservatives, insisted that their prophecies of
emergency had been fulfilled and that every Calmdian
must h.ang his head in vain regret and shame because no
Canadian dreadnought shared the perilous patrol of the
grey North Sea. The Liberals, or some Liberals, con-
tended that the only emergency vas that which faced
the Kaiser's navy, and that the exploits of Australia's
cruiser, the Sydney, sister ship of Canada's unbuilt
Bristols, in sinking the dangerous l'acific raider the
Emden, revealed the need and the potentialities of
Dominion navies in other seas. But these passing con-
troversies were mere ripples on the surface of public
preoccupation with the war, and certainly gave no
ground for party appeals fo the electorate.
Yet there was an element which strove hard fo plunge
Canada into an election with or without an issue or an
excuse. The section of the government forces led by
1RobeloE 1Rogers was eager fo capitalize fle country's
patriotism for party purposes, to bring on an election
on the platform of "Stand behind the Government,"
439
LIFE AND LF.TTF.RS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
and thus snatch another five-year lease of power. For
a rime :Mr. Rogers carried the cabinet with him. Party
hterature of the usual vigorous type was prepared and
circulated, and nomination and organization meetings
called. In a letter to an absent heutenant, in October,
Sir Wilfrid noted the currents:
(Wilfrkl Laurier to Frank OHver)
Otawa, October 20, 1914
M Da OLva:
I think I ought fo write fo you and glve you what informa-
tion I bave with regard fo the probability of an early election.
There is no doubt whatever that last week the government
had corne fo the conclusion that they would dissolve. This
elicited very strong protests from the best elements of the
community, so strong indeed that the government lmstily can-
celled their determination; but .since last Saturday the mad-
men of the party are making another effort and again beseech-
ing the :Prime Minister who, I understand, is again wavering.
:From my latest information the cabinet is again discussing,
and after .all there is a possibility of dissolution, though, I
believe, the chances are to the contrary.
It is sufficient, however, that there should be a possibility
fo make us awake and lively, so as to be ready should the
îray corne ....
Independent opinion and the anti-machine element
within the government ranks opposed a general election,
when only three of rive years of parliament's life had
expired, as utterly unwarranted--"treachery," in the
words of the Montreal "Star,"--and for the rime their
weight prevailed. When in November Mr. :Pelletier
retired to the bench and Mr. Nantel to the Railway
:Board, no opposition was offered to their successors,
40
THE GREAT WAR
ir. T. Chase Casgrain and Mr. P. l,. Blondin, and six
other vacancies were filled without a contest.
The year 1915 was one of widening range and deep-
ening intensity in the struggle overseas, the year that
Italy and ulgaria came into the war, 19oland and
Serbia were overrun, the Dardanelles vainly assaulted,
the German push to the sea halted in France and Flan-
ders, the submarine campaign begun and checked, and
gas and high explosives employed in tremendous quan-
tities. It was the year of the formation of a coalition
cabinet in Britain after the munitions crisis, and of the
beginnings of compulsory service in national registra-
tion .and the Derby scheme. For Canada, it stood out
as the year of Saint-Julien, where the men of the first
contingent, enormously outnumbered, with the Turcos
to their left in flight, and with clouds of choking and
poisonous gases launched against them for the first
rime in the war, filled the breach and blocked the road
to Calais; the year of Festubert and Givenchy and of
other incidents that thrilled the country wîth pride. At
home, recruiting had been vigorous and successful, the
enlistment rising to over 210,000 within the year. The
community was finding outlet in the work of the Patri-
otic Fund, of the Red Cross, of recruiting, of machine-
gun campaigns and in endless individual devotion. The
demands of the war were pulling business out of the
slough, and Canadian manufacturers were discovering
unexpected ranges of initiative and enterprise in their
development of the munitions industry.
441
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
lolitical eontroversy beeane sharper, but it was not
yet aeute. The renewed endeavour of the fighting
wing of the government fo bring on an eleetion foreed
keener eontroversy and constant preparation îor the
threatened eontest. The government's poliey gave
more openings for differenee and attaek. It had seored
no small measure of sueeess in leading or transmitting
the popular will. The ranks had been well filled; a
begilming had been ruade in munitions; the finaneing
of the war, first by British loans, later by loans in New
York, applied to civil purposes, and by an unpreee-
dented domestie loan of $100,000,000 late in the year,
had been well performed on the teehnieal side. Many
mistakes had been ruade, but many were inevitable in the
press and inlprovising of the gigantie task. Some were
not inevitable, and these the Opposition dragged to
light in eommittee probings. The patrormge lists had
been revived. Bad boots had been supplied the troops;
the sister of one member of parli'ament had ruade extra-
vagant profits in drug supplies, another member had
exaeted a rake-off on bandages and field dressings, and
a third, undertaking to buy horses in the Maritime
provinces, had purehased, usually without vouehers,
every spavined, knee-sprung nag that eould be stood up
long enough for the eheques tobe written, ineluding
one horse lately exehanged for a duek and two drakes
and one rejeeted during the South Afriean war. Mr.
Borden ehided these two erring members, and ruade
pro*ision for wr-purehasing commission for the
future. If was bad business, and though not serious
THE GREAT WAR
in eomparison with the government's real achievements,
if provided ammunition as controversy grew.
When the House met for its fifth session, in Febru-
ai T, 1915, Sir Wilfrid repeated the assurance that the
Opposition would give the government full support in
their great task. That did hOt mean that expenditures
would be sanctioned without accounting; the success and
honour of the country were at stake. The war prom-
ised fo be a long one, process of attrition. It was
proving that "there is greater force than force, and
that the British Empire, resting upon the basis of free-
dom, is more durable than the German Empire, resting
upon the basis of blood and iron." It was not well to
enter now, as the prime minister and his colleagues had
been doing in the recess, upon discussions of altering
¢hat empire "to give the Dominions a voice in ail ques-
tions of peace and war"; those questions must be faced
after the war. "In the meantime," he continued, "for
my part, I hardly believe that any system that tan be
devised or that tan be reduced by legislation to any
complete form applicable to the daughter nations of the
Empire, tan ever have the same inspiring grandeur or
the same .patriotic efficiency, as the action of the Domin-
ions ail over the world, the voluntary spontaneous action
of ail those Dominions, in lining themselves up behind
England in the hour of her trial."
A month later, Sir Wilfrid opposed the new budget
brought down by Mr. White. The Opposition had
been and would continue faithful to their engagement
fo suppol¢ the government in every step which really
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
advanced the common cause. That did not mean ab-
dieating j udgment, aequieseing in what appeared errors
of poliey, in Canada any more than in tngland, where
the Unionists had lately asserted that the right of eriti-
eism and inquiry must hold in war as in peaee. The
government was earrying on this war as if if were
wholly their affair, .a Conservative war:
. . I commend these words fo the attention of the I-Iouse.
You will sec that in Great Britain the Opposition were con-
sulted by the government as fo their finaneial proposais. This
is a marrer of record and history. I might go further than
this newspaper goes and say that af .all stages of the war,
from the .first fo the present day, the Opposition have been
kept in constant; consultation by the powers that be; they
were consulted as fo military operations, and af every step
were asked fo glve their advice. If was hot so in this country.
We were hot consulted. If we had been honoured in the saine
way--not that I claim anything in that respect, but represent-
ing here a great party comprising almost hatf of the popula-
tion, having vlews of their own on many of the finaneial
lroblems which now confront us, claimlng to be as patrlotic
as the other side, and claiming fo bave donc their duty as
amply as was in their power--I say that if we had been con-
sulted, we should have been 'happy fo give out vîews as fo the
policy fo be pursued. I do hot say that out views would have
been aceepted ; but certaiuly there would have been an effort on
my part af all events fo give way on some of my own views,
and I might have felt il; right to ask the other side fo give
way on some of their views also, so that we might bave been
unanimous in policy as we have been unanimous in the objects
whieh policy is fo serve. But we were hot consulted. I do
hot; eomplain of this; I bave no right fo complain. But my
honourable friend the Finance Minlster has no right fo complain
eit;her if to-day we bave fo take issue with him, and take
THE GREAT WAR
issue sharply, upon the resolutions which he bas laid before
the House.
/-Ie proceeded to eriticize the failure to take in sail, the
excessive expenditure on secondary public works, the
failure of the new taxes to make the rich man pay his
due share, the increase of protection rather than of
revenue and the decrease of the British preference by
the horizontal increase in the tariff, and ended by mov-
ing an amendment which Dr. Pugsley seconded and A.
K. Maclean strongly supported. Mr. White replied
in an unusually .aggTessive speech: high civil expend-
itures were due to inherited obligations, due to the mis-
management and recklessness of the late government:
"If obligations were hildren, my Right Honourable
friend is truly like George Washington, the father of
his country."
Af ter mueh criticism of the inadequaey and unfair-
ness of the new taxes, debates on boots and profiteering
eontraets, and the passing of a measure providing for
the taking of soldiers' votes overseas in case of an elee-
tion, parliament prorogued on April 15. A fortnight
later, in a carefully prepared speeeh in bIontreal,
tlogers demanded a dissolution to give the government
the eomplete eontrol essential for doing full service to
Canada, rather than remain "handieapped and erippled
and interfered with at every turn, tarrying and disput-
ing with an Opposition that . . . bas deelared a want
of confidence in out proposais for the carrying on of
out part in this great eonflict." "Is it then any won-
der," this spokesman of "a form of demoeraey" had
a45
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
demanded earlier, "that the cry cornes from every indi-
vidual that one meets and who understands the condi-
tions, in tones louder than thunder, demanding that this
parliament be dissolved, that the rights and liberties of
the people of this Dominion be granted to them under
out form of democracy and that that form of democ-
racy be restored to them." The revelations which fol-
lowed from SVinnipeg, where under the form of a dem-
ocracy Mr. Rogers's old associates had for years been
looting the province, explained, but did not commend
lais hurry. Once again public opinion vetoed a contest.
Sir SVilfrid's views were clearly expressed in the course
of an address fo the Liberal Club Federation in Toronto
on May 15:
I do not disguise that in rime of peace I am a party man.
I have bcen entrusted with the confidence of a great portion
of the Liberal party for a long rime past. We have out
differences with the government of the day. I am anxious
for the return of the party fo which I belong because I believe
we have the truc policy for this country and not the men
who are now in office. I speak honestly that which I believe
in the interests of the country when I say there should be,
there ought fo be, a change of government or a different pollcy
pursued, but I do not care, for my part, so long as the war
lasts, to open the portais of office with that bloody key ....
But I have this fo say fo the Prime Minister and his col-
leagues: I do not tare for an election. Let the Prime Minister
and hls colleagues say that there shall be no election as long
as the war shall go on, and I will pledge myself and the party
that we shall stop ai1 preparations and think of nothing but
the war.
During the summer Sir Wilfrid was far from well.
tIis seventy-four years were beginning to tell. He
446
THE GREAT AR
suffered much pain and eould only with diflïeulty drag
himself through his tasks. I-Ie insisted on keeping an
engagement, early in August, fo attend a great meeting
at his birthplace; eight thousand of his compatriots
gathered af St. Lin fo do him honour. "Whatever be
the vicissitudes and the hazards fo which men of politics
are exposed," he declared, "there is nothing dearer fo
them than the corner of the earth where they were born."
Going on to deal with the war, he declared:
I would hot have my compatriots of French speech take
an attitude diffcrent from the attitude of my fellow-country-
mcn of English speech on this question. England is af war
because she «ishes fo defend the independence of Belgium and
the integrity of the soil of France. Never has a nation drawn
sword for a cause so sacred. We of French origin have a
double duty fo perform. If is true that it is not our land
that is beîng ravaged, and it is not ottr farms that are being
fired by the Germans, but if is the lands and the farms af
lrance. If is not our cathedrals, it is not our churches, that
the German shells demolish, but if îs the monuments and treas-
ures of lrance, and they are French women who are outraged
and massacred. French-Canadians who listen to me, is there
among you one who can remain unmoved before these acts?
In Montrcal there are fo be found men who would prevent
recrulting. I claire for my country the supreme honour of
bearing amas in this holy cause, and if I support the govern-
ment, it is because I bave the heart fo do my duty .... The
fear of conscription in Canada is as groundless now as it was
in 1911, when some of the people of Quebec were told that
the Laurier naval policy involved conscription and the drag-
ging away of peaceful citîzens to be disembowelled in European
conflicts.
Early in September he kept an engagement fo speak
at a recruiting rally in Napanee, but the intolerable
LIFI AND LETTIRS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
heat on the platform was too much for him in his
weakened condition, and he collapsed half-way through
his appeal. A fortnight in an Ottawa hospital and an
operation for the rernoval of an abscess relieved him,
and by the autumn he was once again taking up his
work. I-Ie had been greatly heartened by the countless
messages that poured in fo his bedside from ai1 ends of
the country, and from political opponents as well as
political friends. The Montreal "Star," early in Octo-
ber, voiced the feeling of a large element in the Conser-
vative party:
The rccovery of Sir Wilfrld Laurier ,from his tedious ex-
pcrience in the hospital will be a marrer for genuine rejoicing
throughout the Dominion. Sir Wilfrid is a great, a potent;
and a striking figure in out public lire. Even the temporary
incapacity of so important a factor in out national affairs
creatcs a feeling of uneasiness, a sense of something lacking.
. . Sir Wilfrid's attitude during the war has been a subject
of espccial pride to hls friends and of comfort and satisfaction
fo the whole country. Whatever lesser men bave said or
donc, Sir Wilfrid has laid aside ail party feeling or manoeu-
vring during this supreme crisis in out history. He bas stood
squarely and publicly behind the government .... And he
has raised his eloquent and persuasive voice, again and again,
to assist recruiting, even at rimes of keen physical suffering
on his own part. He may be said to have gone straight from
the firing-line of the recruiting platform to his hospital bed.
Late in Decernber, with rnuch of his old-time vigour
restored, Sir Wilfrid took part, along with Sir Lomer
Gouin, Rodolphe Lernieux, Senator Dandurand,
George P. Graharn, Charles Marcil and loseph Derners,
in a great meeting in the Monument National in Mon-
448
THE GREAT WAR
treal. Liberals, Sir lVilfrid declared, still stood for
the ideals of Bright and Gladstone and O'Connell, of
Baldwin and Blake, Lafontaine and Dorion, stood for
the cause of the weak and the oppressed, for justice and
liberty and the hatred of absolutism. These ideals had
guided Canadian Liberals in peace; they guided them
now in a war for justice and liberty. In Canada, "the
Imperialist wanted parliament to close ifs eyes and fo
fight in any war; the Nationalist wanted parliament
to close ifs eyes and fo fight in no war; we Liberals
asked for nothing more than the liberty fo decide for
ourselves." People in Montreal had said that Canada
should only defend her own soil; there was no merit in
that: "For a noble cause, we must do more than our
duty." If was said Canada's aid would not count in
a vast struggle: well, "af Langemarck Canadians
13roved that they knew not only how to fight but how to
conquer." Canada's own interests were involved: "I
ara hot of opinion that if Germany were to triumph in
this war we should pass under Germanic domination af
once . . . , but if would mean a prolongation, a recru-
descence of the militarism that now is devastating Eur-
ope." Germany and the United States would be left
the only two great powers and the United States would
be compelled to become as militarist as her rival. The
entente cordiale had corne in Europe. If was not com-
plete in Canada; there were many misunderstandings
and collisions: "They who have real patriotism are they
who are working for reconciliation, who are helping fo
sweep .away the old divisions, who are working fo restore
449
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
harmony anaong the people on a basis acceptable to ail."
XVith 1916, the third year of the war, the year of
Verdun and the Somme, of Brusiloff's offensive and
the overrunning of Rumania, of renewed submarine
aetivity and the ]3attle of Jutland, of the adoption of
conscription in Britain and its rejection in Australia, of
the Easter rebellion in h'eland 1 and the Lloyd George-
]3onar Law revoit against Mr. Asquith, the going
became harder, the strain greater, tempers sharper.
The war was lasting longer than any but a rare prophet
had foreseen. The casualties were mounting steadily.
Debt was soaring. The rising cost of living was press-
ing hard on the average household, while the easy gains
and the flaunted luxuries of the profiteer nmde sacrifices
barder to bear. The .drain of two years' enlistment
and the growth of a great munitions industry were
making it hard to find recruits.
1 Writing to a London friend May 13, 1916, Sir Wilfrid perceived at
once the folly of the executions which followed: "What a blunder these
terrible executions bave been, following the foolish attempt at rebellion in
Dublin. I ciuld hot put into words the feeling of horror these executions
inspire, and I cannot conceive a more serious political error. That the
Asquith government should display so much severity at Dublin, while it
leaves Carson in Belfast free to preach and organize rebellion with im-
punity, seems to me an act of the utmost feeblcness. I know that I ara
judging from a distance and that there may be circumstances which justify
these barbarities, but with the light that we bave here, I do not hesitate to
repeat what was said about the execution of the Duc d'Enghien by
Napoleon, 'Itis worse than a crime, it is "a blunder.'"
Two months later, and writing to the saine friend, he declared: "As to
John Bull, I cannot be as severe as you are. It is true that the govern-
ment of Ireland hy England for the past three centuries has been abom-
inable. But consider the endeavours that the Liberals bave been making
for a century to remedy the evil and give Ireland self-government.
Consider also that in a constitutional country like England, reforms are
always and necessarily slow. After all, this very slowness ensures sta-
bility." 450
THE GREAT WAR
These diffieulties, these sources of friction, did not
prevent a treinendous effort, did not abate the deternin-
ation to see the war through to eoinplete vietory. They
did Inake the publie teinper Inore eritieal, the path alike
of govermnent and of Opposition Inore thorny, the heat
of eontroversy Inore intense.
Mueh of the diseontent was direeted against the gov-
ernment, lor a great part it was not fairly responsible.
lor Inueh it was rightly blained. The eonduet of the
inilitia department did not inspire confidence. General
Sir Sam Hughes was a inan of Napoleonie energy, of
an audaeity that overleaped obstaeles, a sturdy insist-
enee on Canadian rights and potentialities, a confidence
that swept all before him, and Inueh of Canada's aehieve-
Inent, partieularly in the Inobilization of the first contin-
gent at Valeartier, was fairly fo be set to his eredit.
But his laek of judginent, his colossal egotisin, his dieta-
torial inanners, his friendship with shady Inunitions spee-
ulators, aroused a storm of eritieisin. Then eaine eon-
troversies over the value of his prized Ross Rifle, over
the questionable seleetion of Cainp Borden as a train-
ing site, and partieularly over the Liberal revelations,
uneovering only a corner at that, of the wholesale waste
and wholesale grafting of favoured shell or fuse con-
traetors. Conservative journals, froin the liontreal
"News" with its attaek upon his "speetaeular stupid-
ity," and the Toronto "Telegrain" with its jibes at his
"extravagant poinp and splendour" to the Vinnipeg
"Post" with its verdict of "stark, staring Inad" and the
Regina "Province" with its insistenee that "he is rem-
451
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
peramentally unfit for any position of responsibility,
and his further retention of his post is a menace to the
country and his party," were among the strongest of his
critics; at the same rime he had strong friends, partic-
ularly among the rank and file.
It was not the federal administration only that was
incurring condemnation. In provincial Conservative
governments wrong-doing was being exposed which
reacted strongly against the federal party. In New
Brunswick, the premier, J. K. Flemming, had been
forced to resign on proof of corruption, but had later
been accepted as the government candidate for the
federal house. In British Columbia, the McBride and
Bowser governments were assailed for reckless extrav-
agance and wide corruption and defeated in September
after an extraordinary overturn; "I ask Conservatives,"
Sir Charles ttibbert Tupper had declared, "to drive
from power this government which has disgraced the
province and which has been the servile tool of adven-
turers." In Manitoba, the most colossal stealing in
Canadian political history had been revealed in an in-
vestigation of the parliament buildings' construction;
the Roblin government had fallen, and its late member
and mentor, Robert Rogers, had been involved, despite
the attempt of Canadian Northern officials to destroy
confidential telegr.ns. Charges against Saskatch-
ewan and Alberta Liberals, and particularly the en-
deavour to make J. A. Calder out a twin brother of
Robert Rogers, while partially proved, did not offset
thc impression thus produced. But more fundamenta.1
THE GREAT WAR
than criticism of Sam Hughes or of Robert Rogers
was the feeling that the cabinet as a whole lacked unity
'and driving-power, that policy was spasmodic, based
on no co-ordinating survey of the country's needs and
capacity, and that the premier, with ail his good-will,
had not been able to enforce discipline in his cabinet or
ensure confidence in the people.
When parliament met in January, 1916, if was fitting
that the first step should be the election as Speaker of
Alfred Sévigny, of Nationalist fame. Characteristic,
too, was the mingling of personal banter and of a sense
of the dignity and importance of parlialnentary tradi-
tions in Sir Wilfrid's greeting:
As extremes always meet, it is fitting that Mr. Sévigny
shou]d follow Mr. Speaker Sproule. What an evolution since
1911!... My honourable friend assailed without measure
the navy . . . opposed every form of participation by Canada
in the affairs of Great Britain. He entered this House still
breathing heavily, threatening still. But when once in this
House he took his seat behind the Treasury benches ....
:l-Ie became a repentant sinner, and I never saw a sinner--and
I have met some sinners in my timewho derived as much
comfort out of repentance. ]Iy honourable friend noyer did
penance in sackcloth and ashes. He was within the rays of
the ministerial sun ; he luxuriated in the tall and fat grasses
of the ministerial pasture. He was the recipicnt of some
marked ministerial favours. I do hot say this by way of
complalning of his conversion; far be if from me to do so.
If I have any .fault to find with him if is that his conversion
did hot go far enough, because I am not aware that he evcr,
in the county of Dorchester, confessed his sins to his electors
and begged pardon for having led them so far astray in 1911.
To-day my honourable friend is to be elected by this House
fo the chier otfiee whieh is in its power. However we may
453
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
have differed from him in the past, the moment he assumes
this chair he becomes Speaker of the House of Commons and
entitled to ail honour and ail respect; and so far as this side
of the House is concerned, if will be out duty, nay, if will
be out pleasure, to do what I-Iis Majesty's Opposition always
hae donc so long as I have been in this House,--we shall
deem it out duty to give him every assistance to maintain the
dignity .and traditions of his office, and as well to maintain
the dignities and privileges and rlghts of the House of
Commons.
The temper of parliament did not long remain af
this piteh. The government had deeided to heed the
adviee of those who depreeated an eleetion in var rime.
Yet the terre of parliament would expire in the autumn
of 1916; an extension would involve an amendment to
the British North Ameriea Aet, passed, as usual in the
case of amendments, by the British parliament upon
the substantially unanimous petition of the Canadian
parliament. The prime minister therefore moved a
year's extension. Sir Vilfrid stated that after a party
eaueus in whieh different opinions had been expressed,
the deeision had been left in his hands. He had deeided
hot to oppose the resolution. It was a grave step to
lay hands on the Ark of the Covenant, to amend the
constitution. He eould not agree to an indefinite ex-
tension. But a year's extension was reasonable, partie-
ularly as it would involve an understanding that par-
liament was not to be dissolved prematurely, that the
constant threat of an eleetion would eease to disturb
the country. He was prepared to support the govern-
ment still in all measures rnaking for the sueeessful
454
THE GREAT WAR
prosecution of the war, but would oppose if in ail
measures of a contrary kind: "To ail wrongs, to ail
frauds, we shall offer determined opposition." The
war was supreme: "I speak my whole soul and heart
when I say that if Germany were to win I would be
thankful that 1)rovidenee should close my eyes before
I saw the sun rising on sueh a day .... I speak again
as I have spoken always, my supreme thought will be
to give all the-assistance in out power fo Britain in the
struggle whieh she has undertaken against the eommon
enemy of mankind."
"To ail wrongs, to all frauds, we shall offer deter-
mined opposition." The parlianentary session of 1916
was a session of exposure and denuneiation of wrong
and fraud. In the purehase of shells for the British
government through a eommittee appointed by the
I)epartment of Militia, there had been, along with mueh
energy and adaptiveness, nmeh loose and devious man-
agement. Charges ruade by William 1)ugsley, Frank
Carvell and G. W. Kyte, of favouritism in granting
eontraets, of inexeusably high profits to favoured mush-
room eontraetors, of millions diverted to needless mid-
dlemen, were proved in every case where full investiga-
tion was permitted. The action of the govermnent in
seeking to bloek inquiry and in aeeeding finally to only
a linfited inquiry, did not strengthen it in the country.
Four government members supported a resolution of
Sir Wilfrid demanding a full investigation. 1 The
x "I went fo the Premier," deelared one of these rnernbers, Mr. Andrew
Broder, "and told him that if investigation were fo be deeided against, I
would have to vote against hirn. He said that if I voted against him if
455
LIFI AND LETTERS OF IR VILFRID LAURIER
revelations of the rake-offs of the Minister of Militia's
"adviser, counsellor 'and guide," l. Wesley Allison,
left a bad taste in the mouth and contributed materially
fo weaken the government's position. This distrust
was intensified when in the closing hours of the session
a bill was forced through, for which the whole cabinet
shared responsibility, for purchasing af an exorbitant
price the Quebec and Saguenay Railway, controlled
by a party lieutenant, Sir Rodolphe Forget. The
amount involved was hOt large, a mere four millions,
but the whole transaction, from the chartering of the
company fo the unloading upon the government, was
beyond defence and bore witness fo the growing
demoralization.
]3y the end of 1916, the stock of the ]3orden govern-
ment had fallen very low. That did not mean that
the Liberal party gained in prestige all that its oppo-
nents lost. If did gain in some measure. The charges
gainst the government brought a strong negative
reaction in its favour. A conference of a National
Liberal Advisory Committee of some fifty leaders of
Canadian life, in Ottawa in July, gave evidence of a
reviving power fo deal constructively with the new war
and after-war problems. Men looked baek with regret
fo the firmness and sureness of administration in Sir
Wilfrid's day. _Tet against him one strong count lay.
would do him more harm than if almost any other member of the party
did so. I replied that I could hot alter my view, at any rime of life, that
I would bave fo go straight to the end. don't believe the Premier quite
realizes what is going on. He doesn't seem fo know the situation. The
people know what is going on. These are hot the days of the Marlboroulh
wars. The people of Canada are on trial for their honesty."
456
THE GREAT WAR
tte was a French-Canadian, and French-Canadians,
it was declared, were not doing their duty in the war.
The resentment fclt in othcr provinces, some of it spon-
taneous, some of it judiciously fostered as a means of
diverting attcntion from the government's failures, was
turncd against Wilfrid Laurier. Vith the increasing
strain of thc war, from th]s rime onward, the racial
cleavage grew deeper, and thanks to thc ceaseless slan-
dering of opponents and the weak-kneedness of friends,
the indiscrimnate passion aroused in Engl]sh-speaking
Canada, flamed to the political hurt of the man whose
whole life-work it had been to avert the situation that
now arose.
There was no question that French-speaking Cana-
dians had enlisted in much smaller proportions than
English-speaking Canadians. That this should have
been so in some measure was inevitable. Quebec was
relatively isolated from Old ¥orld interests. There
was among French-Canadians a real if usually passive
loyalty fo the British Crown; there could not be any-
thing of the personal interest of the new-comer from
the British Isles, nor of the racial sympathy of the men
of British descent and British traditions. Nor could
any one who knew the history and the sentiment of
Quebec expect them fo feel as intense an interest in
the fortunes of France as English-speaking Canadians
felt în the fortunes of England. Two hundred years
before, immigration from France had ceased; the
Roman Catholic Church had endeavoured fo lessen con-
tact with a land of revolution and infidelity; the Brit-
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ish government in early days had striven to the same
end and even as late as Fashoda sympathy with France
would have been regarded as treason. I)eep sentiments
could hot be improvised in day fo meet the shifts of
European diplomacy and the changing interests of
countries overseas. The French-Canadian was a Cana-
dian, and a Canadian only, perhaps not always an ail-
Canada man, but certainly none-but-Canada. Senator
I)andurand put the situation precisely when he showed
that the excess in the proportion of British-born enlist-
ments over native English-speaking Canadians was
greater than the excess of native English-speaking over
native French-speaking enlistments; in brief, interest
and enlistment varied inversely with flae length of res-
idence and the depth of footing in Canada. The fun-
damental fact in the situation, yet a fact that was
persistently ignored, was that the war was hOt initially
and decisively Canada's war, but a war in which she
had been involved by her connection with Britain and
in large measure impelled to greater and greater effort
by facial sympathy with Britain. That the war be-
came in real if secondary fashion Canada's war did
hOt remove that initial barrier fo full and equal interest
and participation. And as the war went on, and the
enlisting of the men from one's own neighbourhood
or one's own family brought in its train anxiously
awaited and precious letters from the front and busy
canvassing for patriotic funds or knitting socks or pack-
ing comforts for the trenches, the difference in interest
became cumulative.
a58
THE GREAT WAR
It was unreasonable to expect the same proportion
of every province or of any other grouping to enlist.
tgnlistment varied not merely with interest in the war
but with many other conditions. It was as necessary
and as easy to explain the statements that the Mari-
time provinces sent only half as great a proportion as
the Western provinces, or why the Anglicans enlisted
a larger proportion than Presbyterians, Presbyterians
than Roman Catholics, Roman Catholics than Method-
ists. The distribution of British-born immigrants,
largely men of military age, town-dwellers, manual
labourers, having personal ries to the old land, was the
chief factor in these variations. Age and sex counted:
Quebec, for example, with her early marriage and large
families, had 28 per cent. of the population of the Do-
minion, but only 28 per cent. of the men of military age;
and the Maritimes, with 57 per cent. as large a popula-
tion as the restern provinces, had only 80 per cent. as
many men of military age. The eities again, with, at
the outset, unemployment, and uneseapable reeruiting
appeals, enlisted more freely than the country, drained
by years of eity-ward drifting down fo the barest work-
ing force. These were obvious faets, but prejudiee
blinded many eyes.
To a Toronto friend, M. K. Cowan, K. C., Sir Wil-
frid wrote in Match, 1916:
I corne now to what you say about recruiting and the
slackness of Quebec in that respect. On this point, the last
word has hot been said and the last bit of information
has not been reeeived. There are some factors fo be taken into
459.
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
accourir in the comparlson of recrulting between Quebec and
Ontario.
Recruiting has been chiefly confined all over Canada to urban
population, very little in rural population. When we deduct
from the figures in Ontario the British-'born, the urban popu-
lation, and compare only the figures in rural districts, the
difference will hot be very great, though I adroit that the
preponderance is in favour of Ontario.
Before I go further let me remind you that Ontario îs dotted
with towns and cities from 5,000 to 500,000. In Quebec we
bave only one large city, Montreal, then a secondary citi,
Quebec, with aot even 100,000 and the next three cities, St.
Hyacinthe, Sherbrooke "and Three Rivers, do hot count each
a population of 20,000. Apart from this, we have nothing
but villages and a purely rural population.
This is a condition of things which must be taken into con-
sideration.
Next, the great factor against recruiting has been the
Nationalist movement, OEhich was coddled by the Conservatives
when we were in oflïce, and which is still strong and powerful.
There were special reasons why recruiting was not
larticularly successful in Quebec. The outstanding
one was that the Quebec members in the government--
the Pelletiers, Blondins, Patenaudes, Nantels, Sévignys,
with the exception of T. Chase Casgrain, appointed
after the war began,--had all been eager Nationalists,
all hand in glove with Bourassa in the fight against
Laurier and any share in F, ngland's wars. Now con-
viction or the exigencies of office brought conversion
and they did what they could to encourage enlistment.
But the turn was too sharp, the motives too open to
attack. No government could have been devised in
Canada better fitted to discourage recruiting in Quebec.
460
THE GREAT WAR
Mistakes in detail which under the circumstances were
more than mistakes added to the diflïculties. With
the general in charge of the Quebec districts unable
fo speak French, with a Methodist clergyman appointed
by thc Minister of Militia as recruiting agent in Mont-
real, there was colour for the suspicions of those who
urged that the government was more anxious for a cam-
laign cry than for recruits.
There was still another factor,--Henri Bourassa.
The contagion of interest would bave spread had thcre
been no active campaign of discouragemcnt. Mr.
:Bourassa and Mr. Lavergne, through "Le Devoir"
and on the platform, from 1915 onward, resolutely op-
posed any-participation in :Britain's wars. Few public
men now stood by thcir side, but their influence with
the masses was undoubted. Day after day the flood of
criticism kept up. All the belligercnts were equally
guilty; _Allied diplomacy was hypocritical, :Britain and
France, Italy and Russia, had been as high-handed in
grabbing territory and as ruthless in governing it as
Germany, nd even nov under cover of fine phrases
about freedom and democracy they were planning in
secret treaties to divide the spoils. British statcsmen
frankly and rightly put :Britain's interests first; when
would Canadian statesmen learn to do the same for
Canada? British connectin had involved Canada in
war and would always do so. France was :Britain's
ally to-day: what of yesterday when thcy had been foes
and to-morrow when they might be so again? There
was much that was valid in Mr. :Bourassa's criticism,
61
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
as the Peace of Versailles and its sequels were to prove,
unpleasant truths that had beon dodged and that must
some rime be faced, but for this discussion the rime had
hOt corne. The constant exaggeration, the refusal to
adroit the immensely greater guilt and greater danger
of Germany's policy, the unwillingness to see that
whether rightly or wrongly, whether of her own will
or at Britain's chariot vheels, Canada was at var and
must first see it through, the suspicion of ail things Brit-
ish that marked every comment, ruade the little
Nationalist group more provocative than persuasive,
a red rag to ninety-nine out of a hundred Canadians
of English speech. Toward Sir SVilfrid Mr. Bourassa
was particularly vindictive, charging him rime and
again vith having involved Canada in this imperialist
web, vith betraying the confidence of his people, with
dragging the country on inevitably toward conscription,
"Sir Vilfrid Laurier is the most nefarious man in the
province of Quebee, in the whole of Canada," he shouted
at a politieal meeting in Ste. Eustaehe in September,
1916.
Of interest in this and other connections are letters
exchanged late in 1916 between Laurier and Botha:
friends who differed much in eireumstanee and ehar-
aeter, but shared a eommon straightforwardness and a
conamon simple dignity; shared a eommon sympathy
with British ideals and a eommon lack of British blood,
and shared as well a eommon rate of violent attaek and
misrepresentation from extreme Nationalists and ex-
treme jingoes:
462
THE GREAT WAR
(Louis Botha fo Wilfrkt Laurier)
Prime Minister's 0ee,
Pretoria.
DEAI¢ SII¢ WILFRID: 20th Octot)er, 1916.
If is many months since I bave heard from you, and since
our last meeting many evcnts of great importance have oc-
curred. I am writing you to-day chicfly because if is quitc
possible that wc shall meet af the next Imperial Conference,
and fo express the hope that we shall both be delegates fo
that Conferencc. I am particularly anxious that you should
make sure of attending, as tbe subject of closer Impcrial Uniort
is certain fo be raised once more and on this occasion with
far better chances of success. I do not know whether you
have changed your vicws on this important subject since the
last conference in 1912, but I ceïtainly have not. I still
think that the scheme suggcsted by Sir Joseph Ward on that
occasion is impïacticable and would interfere with the self-
goveïnment ïights of thc Dominions. In fact, I have rather
the idea of incïeasing those rights and making the self-govern-
ing colonies evcn more indcpendent, while af the smne rime
strengthening the Impeïial connection by economic and tïeaty
obligations, putting in fact the Dominions on an equa.l foot-
ing with the mother country and converting them into sister
states rather than daughteï colonies.
If is difflcult to follow the political issues in Canada, as the
information wc obtain here is so meagre. Still, there is one
marrer which has been receiving attention hcre and that is in
connection with one Borassa. I am unable to follow his at-
titude altogether, because I know too little about if, but some
of my political opponents are quoting him as shewing that
their political views are identical with views held by a large
section in other Dominions. Has he really a large following,
and is he the mouthpiece of a large section of the Canadian
people?
There are some other very important points I would like
fo exchange views upon, but I have hOt the rime fo go into
them ail. There are, however, the resolutions taken ai; the
468
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Paris Economic Conference, resolutions which I certainly can-
hot concur in. They seem to me hot only premature--for my
view is that all energies must be concentrated on winning this
terrible war--but also mischievous and impracticable. They
take no count of the rights of neutals and lose out of sight
altogether the kaleidoscopic nature of European politics and
the grouping and regrouping of European states from rime
to rime.
I trust to hear from you soon, and ara looking forward to
meeting you once more at some future date. My own personal
view is that this war will continue for another eighteen months
af least.
(Wilfrd Laurivr to Louis Botha)
Ottawa, December 1, 1916.
MY D BOTHA :
It WaS a greater p]easure than you can imagine fo bave your
letter of the 20th of October.
I bave foIIowed your career from a,far as close]y as I could,
rea]izing that you had your large share of troubles, and happy
and grateful that you came out of them with such flying
colours.
I may or may not be a member of the next Imperial Con-
ference. The general elections in Canada ought normally to
corne off in the year 1917, but the result of an appeal to the
people is always uncertain in this country, whatever it may
be in South Africa. The present government are losing ground
steadily, but the war «dds very much to the uncertainties of
the contcst.
Shou]d I be a member of the Conference, eny attitude will
certainly be the saine as it was when you and I met there in
1907 and 1911. The same attcmpt which was made by Sir
Joseph Ward will be repeated at the next Conference. This
is evident from the book of Lionel Curtis, "The Project of
a Commonwealth." Such a project, if attempted, instead of
leading to union would tend to separation. The only basis
of union is that which you so well indicate in your letter,
464
THE GREAT WAR
"making the self-governing colonies even more independent,
while at the same rime strengthening the Imperial connection
by economic and treaty obligations." The basis on which the
British Empire has grown to its present position has been
autonomy, and any departure from autonomy would end in
disaster.
Such is your view and my view, but unfortunately Imperial-
ists in England, in their eagerness, close their eyes fo this
patent fact. The last step taken by them in their blindness
is the Paris Economic Conference. They do not seem to have
perceived that by resolving that this war, when it is ended
and peace restored, must be followed by a commercial war
against Germany, they were putting a powerful weapon against
what peace party there may be amongst the German people.
It was putting in the hands of the German Chancellor the
obvious retort which he was not slow to avail himself of, that
Germany must go on fighting since even after the war the
German people must have hostility everywhere, in economics
and commerce. I still .believe, however, that England with
ber abundant common sense will sec through this fallacy.
The relations, economic, commercial and of every nature,
which must follow the war, will depend very much on the ex-
tent of the victory of the Allies. I am fully corrfident that
Germany cannot win. The only doubt is as to the extent of
our victory. The only problem to-day is to win the war, all
thoughts should be to that end and to nothing else.
You ask me about Henri Bourassa, his attitude and his
influence. Bourassa is a man of great ability, but his ability
is negative and destructive. He will never accomplish anything
constructive or of benefit fo any cause which he may espouse.
He was atone rime a close .friend of naine, but we separated.
His aim was to isolate the French population from the test of
the community and make them a separate body, to move ex-
clusively together either against one or the other of the political
parties. My attitude was that the Fench should move on
political questions either as Liberal or Conservatives, and to act
upon political lines alone upon ail questions, as they migh t
865
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
arise. For several yearg before the clections of 1911, he
carried an active campaign against me amongst ray French
fellow-countrymen, on the ground that I w«s too British;
whereas the Tories in the English-speaking provinces accused
me of not being British enough. In 1911, these two extreme
parties, the extrcme French and the extreme British, joined
together and thcir coalition dcfeated the government. Bou-
rassa has lost a great deal of prestige, ever sincc, for evcry
argument which hc uscd amongst the French people has been
falsified by everything that has since takcn place. In the
present war ho bas violently and continuously attacked me
for my attitude, and in his campaign he seems fo be animated
'by an absurd and growing hatred of England. To me, my
course has becn clear from the beginning: the triumph of
Germany would bc a menace fo freedom in every land. Eng-
land has nobly taken ber part in standing af once by Belgium
and France, and I bave constantly and cheerfully exercised
what influence I havc in this country in support of ber cause.
When next you go fo Europe, I hope you will pass through
Canada. You would bc sure of the warmest welcome every-
where, .and perhaps a stay of some weeks .with us might be of
some use fo you, as the condition of things in your country
and in this country is very simitar.
To score a debating point, Mr. Bourassa, in the ear-
lier stages of file war, was wont not merely fo denounce
"taxation and war obligation without representation,"
but to imply that taxation and war obligations might be
acceptable if representation were accorded. Sir XVil-
frid warned him through a letter to Senator Dandurand
that he was playing with tire, in these verbal concessions
to imperialists who might take him af his word, just as
he was later to remind him, more publicly, of the danger
of playing with tire in his unsparing denunciation of
Allied policy:
466
THE GREAT WAR
(Wilfrid Lauroer fo Rooul Dandurand.--Trwnslatioa)
335 Laurier Avenue East, Ottawa.
January 17, 1915.
MY EAR
I wrote fo you lately fo tell you 'the importance I would
tach fo a heart-to-heart talk betwccn yourself and Bourassa.
You bave remained on fricndly terms with him and you can
discuss thoroughly the political situation.
In my last letter I told you that Bourassa is playing with
tire. If ho thinks that he will bc able fo extinguish if he may
bave a rude awakening. Does he believe th.at he can run
away from the conscqucnces which he will bave himself called
forth whenever he thinks that these consequences bave gone far
enough ? He must have rcflccted upon all this.
In his speech of Tlmrsday last he again laboured this ques-
tion, upon which he constantly harps. Here are his words
("Le Devoir" of Friday, 15th Jan.,): "And by effective par-
ticipation we mean that Canada must share with the mother
country, the sovereign .authority which controls the imperial
army and navy as well as treatics of peace and of alliance,
the forcign relations, the government of India and of the Crown
possessions."
Must we understand that Bourassa is willing fo bind Canada
fo all the wars of the Empire in exchange for the privi]ege, or
rather the burden, of a share in the government of India etc.,
etc. ?
Tha privilege he will hot obtain from the Asquith govern-
ment, but from the Unionist government which will succeed
Asquith's he will. Is this the ideal which he pursues? The
balance of his speech seems fo rua counter fo if. Then where
is he leading fo ?
As ever,
Yours very truly,
WIIRID LAUaIX.R.
Sir Wilfrid lost no opportunity fo combat the
2qationalist campaign. Af the Monument National in
467
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Montreal, on June 8, 1916, he was insistent:
This, my compatriots, is what I ask--this is the entente
cordiale I would have us achicve 'by service together. I have
followed the idem of conscience as prompted by my heart. Do
not let us waver from the right line of conduct. I am older
than most of you, and I am more than ever convinced that
there is no real success but that which is .based and has ifs
foundations on right and justice and the generous instincts
of the human heart. Let us unite fo allay and, please God,
to extinguish the prejudices that pull us apart, and do out
utmost like real men and women fo bring together the two
elements in our country ....
Corne, my young compatriots, with these brave young men
who offer thcir services--their lives--that France may live,
that Britain may continue her noble and generous rule and
that heroic Belgium may-be restored fo her standing as a
nation.
Again in Maisonneuve in September, to an outdoor
meeting of fifteen thousand people he repetted his
urging:
There are people who say we will not fight for England;
will you then flght for France? I speak to you of French
origin; if I were young like you and had the same health that
I enjoy to-day, I would join those brave Canadians fightlng
to-day for the liberation of French terri[ory. I would hot
have it said that the French-Canadians do less for the liberatlon
of France than the citizens cri British origln. For my part
I want to fight for England and also for France. To those
who do not want to .fight either for England or for France I
say : Will you fight for yourselves ?
There was one weapon in the Nationalist armoury
of particular effectiveness,the resentment in Quebec
against Ontsrio's limitation of the teaehing of Freneh
468
THE GREAT WAR
in the elementary schools. There were some two hun-
dred thousand Freneh-speaking inhabitants in the prov-
ince whieh their aneestors, first of white men, had trod,
and with the overflow from Quebee their numbers were
steadily growing. In the early days of local autonomy
they had been free fo teaeh mueh as they pleased, but
in the eighties, with the growth of Freneh settlers in
the eounties bordering on Quebee, the eeho of MeCarthy
and Mercier eontroversies, and the growing eentraliza-
tion of provincial eontrol of edueation, the demand for
regulation had grown strong. Mowat and Ross had
met if by a compromise designed to ensure adequate
instruction in Fnglish together with freedom to teaeh
Freneh in addition. On the whole the poliey had sue-
eeeded, but the diffieulties were great, seareity of bi-
lingual teaehers, poverty of frontier seetions, cessation
of attendanee half-way through the elementary sehools,
and in some .cases a deliberate poliey of negleet of F, ng-
lish. Friction between ]nglish- and Feneh-speaking
:Roman Catholies, partieularly in Ottawa and in the
dioeese of the militant ]3ishop of London, Dr. Fallon,
eomplieated the issue. An inquiry was ruade by Dr.
Merehant in 1910, showing for the most part honest en-
deavour and real progress in the teaehing of F, nglish,
but inadequaey still. The Conservative government
of Ontario was pressed espeeially by its Orange fol-
lowers fo bar any language but ]nglish from the sehools.
This extremity they avoided, but the famous Regula-
tion No. 17, of 1912, as amended in 1918, did limit the
teaehing of Freneh; as the language of instnetion
469
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
if could be used only where children did not understand
English and then hOt beyond Form lmthe first two
years of school--except by special permission of the
chief inspector; as a subject of study, if eould be studied
for not more than an hour a day, "in schools where
French has hitherto been a subj ect of study." These
limitations, though enforced with sympathy and caution
by the department, roused a storm of protest from
French-Canadians within the province and without.
School boards refused fo obey; inspectors were barred
out; children went on strike; injunctions and lawsuits
followed fast, and Canada was torn by faction at the
hour of greatest need of unity.
Such a situation was the Nationalist opportunity.
What was the meaning of the alliance between England
and France if the language of France was tobe pro-
scribed? What hypocrisy fo prate of fighting for small
leoples when in Canada the majority was trying to ride
roughshod over the minority! The Boches of Ontario
were worse than the Boches of Prussia; the real firing
line for the defence of French civilization was in On-
ratio, hot in France. With this ranting Sir SVilfrid
had no sympathy. No grievance in the schools of
Ontario could j ustify failure in the urgent duty. Sret,
like most moderate men of French blood, he did resent
the arrogance of many English-speaking Canadians,
their assumption that French-Canadians were citizens
of a lesser order, their calm ignoring of the lessons of
history, their unwillingness fo study the problem and
70
THE GREAT WAR
the case for bilingualism. :Even among moderate men
in Ontario, who joined with him in proclaiming the
ideal fo be, ensure adequate -knowledge of :English and
then wherever feasible permit the adequate teaching
of :French, he found an unwillingness to face the ques-
tion whether this actually was possible under the present
regulations, and a refusal fo run risks by opposing the
19opular mood. Not least, he felt that af this rime of
stress, when if was essential fo maintain harmony and
enlist the enthusiasm of ail sections of the community,
the action of the Ontario government in attempting
to narrow the limits of the teaching of French was
particularly unfortunate.
:Early in 1915 he wrote fo Sir Lomer Gouin:
(Wilfrid Laurier to Sir Lomer Gou,in.--Translation )
Ottawa, January 9, 1915.
. . However, that is only a detail; the most important
thing for the moment is the school question in Ontario. Dan-
durand has doubtless told you of the talk I have had with him.
You are on extremely difflcult ground. Undoubtedly the
French-Canadians have a serious grievance in this province.
The question had been settled to general satisfaction by the
.Iowat government, through the regulations framed by Ross,
his Minister of Education. It seems fo me that it is upon
this ground that the question should be kept.
On the other hand I am more than ever convinced that the
violent agitation stirred up by out Nationalist friends, instead
of aiding in a solution only ma&es the situation orse. That
is what causes embarrassment; as you know, if is hot the first
tlme in the history of out country that a cause has been spoiled i
by the violence of those who make themselves ifs champions.
To Mr. Cowan he wrote freely:
471
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
I notice your special reference fo the bilingual question.
If so happens that George showed me your letter fo him belote
I received yours, and I told him that I would take the liberty
of writing you af once.
Do hot commend me for what I have done, or refrained fo
do, in this mattcr. If has given me more concern than any-
body else in the party, I fecl quite sure. I have about corne fo
the conclusion that I have lived too long and that my useful-
ness has gone. The reason is that I do not find in the party of
to-day the saine feeling that existed when you and I were
younger than we are now. And this is confirmed by your state-
ment that the feeling in Ontario is absolutely in favour of en-
forcing strictly Regulation 17, and "is prepared fo oppose
and slaughter any man or any party who talks of granting
greater privileges to the French in the Province of Ontario."
Will you permit me fo ask you if you have taken the trouble
ever fo read Regulation 17, and to make yourself acquainted
with its purport? I doubt if, and if I ara wrong I ara pre-
pared fo apologize. You and I are too old friends not fo be
perfectly frank with one another. I stand to-day, with regard
fo the privilcges of the French, exactly where I did, and where
you did, and where the whole party did in the rime of Mowat:
and this attitude was that every French child should receive
an English education in the schools of Ontarlo, with the priv-
ilege of being also taught in French.
Are you aware that Regulation 17 has completely revolu-
tionized that policy? In short, Reglation 17 provides that
in all schools in Ontario where French was taught in the month
of June, 1912, it would continue fo be taught, but in a re-
stricted manner; and, further, that in all schools where French
was not then taught, it should not be taught af all. I stated
above that I did not believe that you had read that regulation,
because I ara sure, af least I believe, that if never entered your
mind that in a civilized country the teaching of a second lan-
guage, and such a language as lrench, could be thus ruthlessly
prohibited. If in this I ara wrong, and if really Toryism has
ruade such headway in the province of Ontario that the Grits
THE GREAT WAR
will n5t stand up to the policy o£ Mowat, then, I repeat, I
bave ]ived too long, and my only course would be at once fo
step down and out. I stand to-day by the policy on which we
fought so many elections in Ontario from 1885 to 1896.
I tell you frankly that I have felt and still feel strongly upon
this marrer.
I know th'at I never appealed fo race prejudice in any form
whatsoever and under any circumstances ; and that in my prov-
ince I have had to fight desperate battles against those who
were making direct appeals to the prej.udices of my fellow-
.countrymen. But, if it has come to this, that the language of
the race to which I 'belong is proscribed, then my fellow-coun-
trymen have a j ust cause of complaint. Itis no longer pre-
judice, and their "cause ought to appeal to generous-hearted
men like my friend Mahlon Cowan.
Ottawa, April 15, 1916.
Mv »WAl MAHLON:
lany thanks for your letter.
I am af raid there is too much truth in your statement that
the Liberal party to-day would not stand to the policy of
]Iowat, and this is the very reason which makes me feel to-
day--even more than when I wrote you--that I have lived too
'long,-and that if is rime for me to step down and out.
I am aware that T. C..Casgrain, the Bishop of St. Hyacinthe,
Armand Lavergne and other extremists are creating a good
deal of irritation in Ontario, but itis under such circumstances
that sane and strong mcn bave to stand up.
You are avare that I have fought those extremists all my
lire. I have no intention to relax that tïght, whilst af the same
rime I shall have to tïght the extremists at your end of the line.
I know very well that under these circumstances the party
must surfer. This will always be the case. It was the case
with Gladstone, when he fought for Home lqule in Ireland.
His course was very much impeded by those wild Irishmen
whose mad utterances were gleefully accepted and ruade use of
by Tories to fight him.
73
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
To Mr. Fielding, who deprecated any discussion of
the issue in the federal parliament, he ruade elear how
mueh he felt the reïusal of his English-speaking eom-
patriots to put themselves in his place:
Ottawa, April 26, 1916.
The subject, and the views which you present have given me
more anxiety, I believe, than even fo yourself or fo anybody
e]SPo
I sec no other.solution for it, situated as I ara, than fo step
down and out, as evidently I have outlived my usefulness ....
I believe you will acquit me from race or creed prejudice, but
I confess fo you that I believe that my fellow-countrymen of
my own race here are unfairly and unj ustly treated.
Naturally, feeling that way, I ara entitled fo act accordingly.
What is the remedy fo be sought? I bave steadily and ab-
solutely opposed any attempt'at disallowance. I do hot sec,
however, why I should not make representations, as we did in
the case of Home Rule and the New Brunswick schools in 1872
'and 1875. If I were fo remain silent under such circumstances
I would certainly lose my own self-esteem and respect and, on
the other hand, I know that the moderate action which I pro-
pose will be construed against the party, so long as I remain
the head of if.
I bave discussed the marrer with out leading friends in the
House and suggested fo them that I should withdraw and pass
the reins fo some other hands. You know that I bave always
thought that the leadership of the party should .be in the hands
of one of the majority. This view strongly impressed me a
first, and I ara still of the saine opinion.
My friends, however, are very earnestly, though, I think,
very unwisely, deprecating any other course than my remaining
in the present position.
There the marrer stands at present. I ara not convinced.
My opinion is still very strong that I should step down, as I
feel that in the present emergency the attitude whlch I mus
take will be detrlmental fo the party, though we must recognize
THE GREAT WAR
that Toryism has ruade strong headway in Ontario, and that
the policy of Mowat is now at a discount.
To Mr. N. W. Rowell, who as leader of the Liberal
Opposition in Ontario
more explieit:
was deeply concerned, he was
Ottawa, March 1, 1916.
/Y DER ROWL:
I am j ust as a|armed as you are about he bi|ingual situation
in Ontario. To me, however, the situation is a very smp|e one.
I stand where the party bas a|ways stood for tbe last forty
years, and for the system of bilingual schools established by
Mowat.
The complalnt is ruade, and rightly made, I believe, that in
many schools, under that system, English was hot taught af all
and that the only language taught was French. This was an
abuse which should hot have been tolerated and which could be
easily put an end to, simply by applying the regulations as
ruade by the Mowat government, and insisting that every child
should have an English education. It is the duty of the State,
you say, [to see] that every child in the province receives a
good English education. To this, I agree completêly. S'ou
add that where the parents desire that their children should
also study the French language, there should be no objection.
To this, I also completely agree.
But this is exactly what is denied by Regulation 17. I have
looked af these regulations carefully for the last two days. I
must say .for the Department of Education of Ontario that
they seem fo be much confused, no/on.ly in their ideas but in
their language. As you read the last regulations, those of
August, 1913, the French language can be taught with certain
restrictions in all schools where it was taught in the month of
August, 1912, but is hot to be taught in any other school;
that is fo say, that, henceforth, the Orange doctrine is to
prevail,--that the English language only is to be taught in the
schools. That seerrts fo me absolutely tyrannica.1.
47»
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Your suggestion that a commission composed of three men
should study the situation, is a good one...
With regard to the press report that the Quebec legislature
has authorized municipalities in Quebec to make contributions
towards a fund to carry on bilingual agitation in Ontario, I
believe the case is not stated properly. I would be much sur-
prised if a man of Gouin's prudence has allowed the passing of
a law to carry on 'bilingual agitation. I will look into the
marrer right away, but what I believe is that the legislature bas
authorized municipalities to assist French children in Ontario
in obtaining a French education in addition fo the English
education, which they must receive under the laws of the
province.
Ottawa, April 18, 1916.
I notice what you say about the caucus of last week, and
your hope that if the question was considered the decision was
against introducing a resolution. I cannot refrain from ex-
pressing my strong disappointment. If the party cannot
stand up tq the principles advocated, maintained and fought
for by Mowat and Blake, I can only repeat fo you that if is
more than rime for me to step down and out.
Ottawa, April 28, 1916.
May I add another word to what you may think perhaps a
too prolonged correspondence?
I agrce with you that there were two principles for which
Mowat stood all his life: provincial rights and fair treatment
of minorities. In my j udgment the latter principle, fair treat-
ment of the minority, has been violated by the men now in office
in 0ntario. Do you believe otherwise?
As fo provincial rights, I adhere to the principle. I
strongly dcprecated the idea of disallowance of the legislation
of which the minority complains. Does the idea of provincial
rights go to the extent that it will not receive the complaint of
a minority ?
Again and again, the Dominion parliament, on both sides,
whilst refusing to interfere with provincial legislation, has ruade
representations to leglslatures which in many instances have
476
THE GREAT WAR
produced most salutary effects and a modification of the legis-
lation complained of. I go not further, and I regret exceed-
ingly that even that much will not be granted by our friends in
Ontario.
Ottawa, May 11, 1916.
¥ou and I have renewed a line of cleavage which--I so j udge
from the tone of your letter j ust received---is final and beyond
redemption.
That the powers of the province should .be, and indeed are,
paramount, is not questionable, and not questioned.
What I fail fo appreciate is that the prayer offered for a
reconsideration of the present regulations on bilingualism,
should be harshly treated as an invasion of the rights of the
province. Such a position is hot logically and historically
tenable, and here again the present attitude of the party at
Toronto is at variance with the traditions laid down by the
Jfathers. It is sufficient in this connection, fo refer you fo the
Home Rule resolutions passed in the House of Commons with
the approval of the whole party.
I write with a heavy heart. The party has not advanced;
it has sorely retrograded, abandoning position after position
before the haughty onslaughts of Toryism.
Believe me ever, my dear Rowell, with great respect,
Yours very sincerely,
,rWILFR1D LAURIER.
The question eould not be kept out of federal dis-
cussion. The issue had been created and until in some
way understanding and settlement was reaehed, it would
prevent full national unity. On 5Iay 9, Ernest La-
pointe, himself a brilliant example of the value of bi-
lingualism, moved, in the language he had learned since
his eoming fo Ottawa in 1908, a resolution that "this
Itouse . . . while fully recognizing the prineiple of
provincial rights and the necessity of every child being
477
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
given a thorough F, nglish education, respectfully sug-
gests to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario the wisdom
of making it clear that the privilege of the children of
French parentage of being taught in their mother
tongue be not interfered with." Inunediately, a XVest-
ern Liberal, W. 17,. Knowles, raised the point of order
that the legislation in question was not within the juris-
'diction of the House, and was therefore nota proper
subj ect for debate. The Speaker on the following
day gave his opinion that there was no basis for the
point of order. Mr. W. B. Northrup, an Ontario Con-
servative, thereupon appealed from the Speaker's rul-
ing, but was supported by only eight other rnembers, ail
Vestern Liberals. Mr. Lapointe then presented his
resolution. The debate which followed did credit to
parliament, with Mr. Lapointe, XV. F. Nickle, Paul
Larnarche, Claude Macdonnell, George Graham, and
Frank Oliver,uwho ernphasized the need of one lan-
guage in the polyglot prairie Westumaking the most
notable contributions.
Sir Wilfrid supported the resolution in a speech which
ranks as one of his strongest efforts, lucid, persuasive,
restrained but vibrating with ernotion. "It was,"
wrote the correspondent of the Conservative Toronto
"World," "the greatest speeeh from an oratorieal stand-
point to whieh I have ever listened. Sir Vrilfrid was
in splendid forrn and he spoke with deep feeling. As
he proeeeded, his years dropped frorn him like a gar-
ment, and he seelned as vigorous and resolute as a man
of thirty-five."
478
THE GREAT WAR
I appeal, hot to passion or prejudice, but to the sober reason-
ing and judgment of my fellow-countrymen of all origins. I
discard af once all reference to constitutional arguments. I do
hot here and now bring within the purview of this discussion
the British North America Act. I do hot here and now invoke
the cold letter of any positive law. Still less do I question the
paramount power of the legislature of Ontario fo finally pass
j udgment upon this question and record the final verdict of
its people. I fise, Sir, hot for the purpose of giving advice or
admonition fo the province of Ontario. I rise fo plead before
the people of Ontario, in behalf of his Majesty's subjects of
French origin in that province, who complain that by reason
of a stature passed by the province they have been deprived of
rights in the marrer of education which they have enjoyed
themselves and their forefathers belote them, ever since Canada
became a possession of the British Crown ....
I ara of the old school of Mowat and Blake, the parent school
of Provincial Rights. By that doctrine I stand. The province
of Ontario, and the province of Ontario alone, will and shall
determine for herself the decision. Yet is it forbidden by the
code of the new converts fo the doctrine of provincial rights
that I stand af the bar before my fellow-countrymen of Ontario
and make my plea ? Is it forbidden that I respectfully present
the petition of a humble servant of French rigin? . . .
I know there is in the province of Ontario a sense of irrita-
tion at the position taken by some of my fellow-countrymen of
French blood in the province of Quebec, who have from the first
deprecated the participation of Canada in the present war, and
who bave exerted their influence to attempt af least fo prevent
enlistment. Alas, it is true ; it is only too truc. It is deplor-
able, and, to me, as unintelligi,ble as if is deplorable. It is
true, alas, that there are in my province men of French origin
who, when France is fighting the fight of heroism which stirs
the blood of mankind, remain with their blood cold, who tell us:
"No, we will hot lift a finger to assist Britain in defending the
integrity of France, but we want out wrongs to 'be righted in
0ntario."
79
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
Wrongs or no wrongs, there is a .fidd of honour; there is a
call of duty.
Sir, I am hot prepared to say that my fellow-countrymen of
French origin have no rights in Ontario ; 'but I am prepared to
say this, and I want my words tobe heard throughout the
length and breadth of this land. Whether my countrymen
have rights or no rights in Ontario, whether those rights are
granted or denied, these considerations are no bar to the duty
which the Frcnch-Canadians owe to themselves and fo the
honour of their race fo corne forward in their fullest numbers
and take part in the great struggle that is going on to-day in
the ]and of thcir ancestors for the cause of reedom, and of the
civilization of mankind ....
A journal published in the city of Toronto, edited by a man
of great ability, an eminent writer who has given himself the
mission of being the foremost advocate of a closer bond of
union .for the British Empire [Mr. J. S. Willison, of the
Toronto "News"], has within the last ten days, inaugurated
a new programme, the first article of which is, "One language
and one language on]y." Under the present circumstances,
thls means that only one language shall be taught in the schools
of Ontario. Sir, I wonder if this new thcory for bringing about
unity of the Empire is fo be applied in Wales, . . . and in the
Highlands of Scotland, or in Malta, or in Egypt, or in South
Africa. Sir, if there is one thing which to-day stands fo the
glory of England--a feat unparalleled in the history of the
worldmit is that to-day on the battle-field in Flanders there
are men who do hot speak a word of English 'but who for
England bave corne forward to fight and die. If the Britisher,
when he went fo India, fo 'M?alta, fo South Africa, had im-
planted that new doctrine of "one language and one language
only," and had suppressed the language of the peoples who had
just passed under his dominion, do you believe, sir, you would
bave seen that great and noble spectacle which bas astonished
and is still astonishing the world? No, sir. If is beeause
Britlsh institutions everywhere have carried freedom and re-
spect for mlnorities that England is as strong as she is to-day.
I want fo appeal fo the sense of justice and fair play of the
80
THE GREAT WAR
people of Ontario, and to their appreciation of Brltish institu-
tions-no more. Even if I ara wrong--and I hope I am not--
I am sure that a frank understanding between the majority and
the minority in the province of Ontario, between the two great
elements which compose the Canadian people, may force a solu-
tion of this troublesome question. Every man in the province
of Ontario, every man in this room who cornes from the prov-
ince of Ontario, whêther he sits on that side or on this side, is
determined that every ehild in the province of Ontario shall
reeeive an English edueation. To that, sir, I give my fullest
assent. I want every ehild in the province of Ontario to re-
eeive the benefit of an English edueation. Wherever he may go
on this continent I want lfim fo be able to speak the language
of the great majority of the people on this continent. I want
if, I say, not only because if is the law of the province, but
because of merely utilitarian considerations. No man on this
continent is equipped for the battle of life unless he has an
English education. I want every child fo have an English
education.
After surveying the practice of other countries in
the Empire, emphasizing the unanimous verdict of the
Imperial Edueational Conferenee held in London in
1911, upon the methods to be followed in bilingual
teaehing, and analyzing in detail the Ontario regula-
tions, he eontinued:
Now I tome fo the point where I want fo speak fo my fellow-
eountrymen in the province of Ontario. When I ask that every
ehild of my own race should reeeive an English edueation, will
you refuse us the privilege of edueation also in the language
of out mothers and out fathers? That is all that I ask to-day ;
I ask nothing more than that. I simply ask you, my fellow-
eountrymen, British subjeets like myself, if, when we say that
we must bave an English edueation, you will say: "You shall
have an English edueation and nothlng else." There are men
who say that in the sehools of Ontario and Manitoba there
481
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
should be no other language than the English language. But,
-sir, when I ask that we should have also the benefit of a French
education, will you refuse us that benefita Is that an unnatural
demanda Is that an obnoxious demanda Will the concession
of it do harm fo anybodya And will if be said that in the
grcat province of Ontario there is a disposition fo put a bar
on knowlcdge and fo stretch every child in the schools of
Ontario upon a Procrustean 'bed and say that they shall all be
measured alike, that rio one shall have the privilege of a second
education in a single languagea I do hOt belleve if ; and, if
we discuss this question with frankness, as between man and
man, in my humble opinion, if can yet be settled by an appeal
to the people of Ontario. I do not belîeve that any man will
refuse us the benefit of a French education.
An eloquent appeal, but an appeal made in vain,
both within and outside the House. The government
speakers took the stand that the question did not con-
cern the federal parliament, and that its discussion
would fan, rather than allay, the flames. In detail,
it was urged that the Ontario regulations were not
so drastic as they were represented, that the restrictions
applied only to certain designated schools which had
not been teaching English adequately, and that the
question of teaching French in schools where it had
not been taught hitherto was not determined by Regula-
tion 1Y at all, but by the old Regulation 15, which
limited the teaching of Frend or German as subjects
of study to sections where the French or German lan-
guage prevailed, a regulation which had hot been
ehanged. The OnCario Liberals, while denying the
charges of fanaticism and intolerance which had been
ruade against Ontario outside the House, supported
&82
THE GREAT WAR
the resolution as a step toward reconciliation. The
Westerners opposed. Eleven Vestern Liberals and
one Ontario Liberal voteh against the resolution, and
rive Quebec Conservatives for it.
Outside the House, Conservatives attacked Lam'ier
as a disturber of the peace, an ally of Bourassa, the
man responsible for Quebec's slowness in recruiting,
while even some friends deprecated his stand as un-
timely. He felt the marrer deeply. His stand, he was
assured, whether or not expedient, was in accord with
Liberal principles and Liberal traditions. If Liberals
would not support it, tb.at meant that they were forger-
ring the necessity of tolerance and diversity in Canada's
governing, or were afraid to face popular prejudice
as he had faced it in Ontario in 1886 and in Quebec in
1896. He considered the question a touchstonc of
popular and party attitude, a test of the success or
failure of his lifelong striving for racial sympathy.
The test was not reassuring. It was an evidence of
his concern over the dceper issues at stake that the
defection of the Vestern Liberals forced from him a
rare outbreak of anger. One who saw him in daily and
intinmte intercourse for eight years declarcs that in all
that rime he never heard a sîngle impatient or angry
word pass Sir Vilfrid's lips but twice,--once over some
trifling stupidity of locked and keyless trunks, once now
over the refusal of the resterners to make any con-
cession to him who had ruade so many.
In letters to his friends he had more than once de-
clared that the hesitatior, of the party to follow his lead
483
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
was proof that he should have insisted upon his resigna-
tion being aecepted when last he proferred it. Now the
question had been put to the proof. I)uring the debate
the Liberal menlbers had met in caueus by provinces.
Senator I)andurand brought to him in his office their
report; the Quebee and Maritime-province members
were ail supporting, the Western members opposing;
the Ontario nlen, while in sympathy with the aim of the
motion, doubted its expediency, but they would vote
for if if Sir rilfrid so desired thenl. "No," he replied,
"I shall hot ask them; they should not expect that after
ail these years." He walked to the window, stood look-
ing out in silence a few minutes, and then came back to
his desk. "I bave lived too long, I have outlived Lib-
eralism. The forces of prejudice in Ontario bave been
too much for my friends. It was a mistake for a
French Roman Catholic fo take the leadership. I told
Blake so thirty years ago."--"Yes, but those thirty
years--" l'Ie was silent again and then scribbled a
few lines: "I ara resigning and shall announce my res-
ignation in the House this afternoon. Please give this
fo George." Senator Dandurand took the letter to
George Graham. Immediately the Ontario Liberals
assembled. They had hot realized that "the Old Man"
took if so much to heart. At once they sent word that
they would support the motion, and urgently requested
him fo withdraw his resignation. He was deeply moved
by their warm expressions of confidence, and agTeed fo
continue.
To an Ontario editor, who had ruade the criticism
THE GREAT WAR
that the speech should bave been delivered to the elee-
tors of Ontario, hot fo the members af Ottawa, and had
gone on to insist that English must be taught ade-
quately in every sehool in Ontario he wrote later:
What is the use of my going fo Toronto or anywhere dse
in Ontario if I am fo speak fo deaf ears, ears voluntarily deaf?
What is the use of trying fo convince those whom I would
address, if there is no possibility of changing their minds?
Did I say that I wanted children fo issue from schools of
Ontario without knowing English? Did I, on the contrary, not
say that for every reason I wanted every child of French origin
fo speak English? Did Sir Oliver Mowat, when he established
the system of which Dr. Merchant complained, intend that
ehildren of French origin should hot learn English? If Dr.
Ierchant round that there were schools in which no English
was taught, it was hot as the result of the system established
by Sir Oliver Mowat, but because that system was hot properly
enforced, and the remedy was not fo alter the system but to
insist upon the fulfilment of its regulations.
And again, somewhat earlier:
You add that Howard Ferguson and the extreme Orange
element feel that there is party advantage for them in insist-
ing upon greater restrictions in the teaching of French, j ust
as Bourassa, Lavergne, and the extreme partisans on the other
side feel that there is an advantage for them in insisting upon
the recognition of French as an official language in the province
of Ontario. We, French Liberals of Quebec, are fighting Bou-
rassa and Lavergne; will the English Liberals in Ontario
fight Howard Ferguson and the extreme Orange element ?
To another Ontario friend:
You call my attention to the official interpretations of Reg-
ulation 17 which have recently been given fo the prcss, and
which were quoted in part in the debates in the House. It
a85
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
nay be that the practice of the Department of Education is
sometimes better than ifs regulations, and ifs intentions better
tban ifs grammar. I ara advised that the Department is hOt
altogether happy over ifs position, but is not prepared fo raake
a frank reversal. Can you imagine anything more confused
than these regulations and amendments and inoEerpretations?
. Doubtless tbe minister learned English in one of these
hopelessly backward bilingual schools.
Yet these interpretations, if they show a desire fo hedge,
do hOt in the least explain away the objections which have
been taken. If is declared tbat Regulation 17 does not apply
fo ail schools in which French bas been taught, but only fo
certain specially desigamted ones among them, in which English
bas hOt been taugbt properly. Do you, as a natter of fact,
know of any bilingual schools in which Regulation 17 is hOt
in force? If tbere are any such, is French taught there more
freely and more extensively? If hOt, if is nonsense fo say
that the regulation does hOt apply. If so, then tbe Dpartment
is confessing that if is quite possible fo teach English adequately
and yet fo give French more than the grudgng scope of
Regulation 17 ....
Ontario was hOt the only province in whieh the bi-
lingual issue was alive. In 5Ianitoba, the new Liberal
government of Premier Norris had rescinded the clause
in the School Act, inserted as a result of the Laurier-
Greenway agreement of 1896, which gave the parents
of ten children speaking any language other than Eng-
lish the right fo bilingual instruction The unforeseen
immigration of thousands of settlers from Central
Europe had created an extremely difficult situation in
many sections where Polish, Ruthenian, or German
parents all clamoured for teaching in their mother
tongue. The government insisted on seeurhg a free
hand, though informally undertaking hOt to disturb
486
THE GREAT WAR
the privileges of the French-speaking citizens so long
at least as the schooling was adequate. In a letter to
prominent French-Canadian in Winnipeg, Sir Wil-
frid went at some length into this situation and into the
general facial and constitutional background:
( Tran«lation )
Ott«wa, July 12, 1916.
The transition from winter to spring is always a depressing
period for me, and I bave perhaps felt it more this year than
usually. Yet my health is still very good, and now that the
sun has af last corne back fo us, I ara feeling myself again.
I bave read and reread your letter in rcply to my own.
agree with you on all points but one, to which I refer later.
We have reached a critical period in the development of
Confederation, with regard to the rights of the French lan-
guage. Unfortunately, the B. N: A. Act contains only one
article on this subject, and the rights which are conferred upon
us are very restricted alike in letter and in spirit ....
This article is so explicit that if seems to me impossible
to interpret it judicially otherwise than in a wholly restrictive
sense. The Nationalists, however, maintin that since we bave
the right to spcak French in the federal parliament and before
the courts, we have the right to teach French in the schools
of every province. Even if Section 133 were hot positive and
restricted, as if is, fo conclude that the concession of a privilege
carries with if an obligatory consequence seems fo me a j udicial
heresy ....
If is an historical fact that wlthout the French population
of Quebec the union of the provinces of British North Americ
would have been a lcslative union; the Frcnch population
of Quebec would never have consented to such a form, since
that would mcan ifs disappearance as a distinct element. It
is Quebec that suggested the federal form, and it must be
accepted with all ifs consequences. For the French population
of Quebec the advantages have been immense ; outside Quebec,
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
în face of the positive terms of Section 133, the French tongue
has nothing fo look for aside from whatever sentiments the
justice of the cause rnay arouse and whatever influence rnay
be brought fo bear on the rnajority.
The desire for centralization, which had hot succeeded in
getting entrenched in the constitutional act, was not long in
reappearing and in airning af domination, in spire of the letter
of the law. Then began the struggle between the federal
and the provincial governments, particularly Ontario and
Manitoba. Experience has certainly rnade if clear that, after
all, the division of power between the Dominion and the prov-
inces is the only principle on which the Canadian Confedera-
tion can be worked. The province of Quebec is more interested
than any other in the maintenance of this principle in ifs
absolute integrity.
Yet frorn this cornes also the anguish of the present hour.
What are the rights of the French language other than those
defined in Section 133, and, fo corne fo the question of the
moment, what are the rights of the French language in the
rnatter of education? This question will be decided judicially
by the Privy Council in the case which is now being heard.
If the decision goes against us, what remains to be done, and
fo what tribunal rnust we bave recourse? Here I corne fo the
point where, unfortunately, I do hot agree with you.
You believe in remedial legîslation, but rernedial leglslatioa
is provided for only under Section 93, and Section 93 applies
only fo denominational schools (Roman Catholic rninority and
Protestant rninority). Whatever arguments rnay be devised
fo bring language within the category of denorninational
schools, you are confronted by this positive fact that in the
province of Ontario, if the Catholic rninority of French speech
complains of Regulation 17 as an attack upon separate
schools, on the other hand the Catholic minority of English
speech rnakes no objection and in fact approves. In any
case, were there a basis for rernedial legislation, that rernedy
would be wholly illusory, and the objections which you rec-
ognize yourself seern fo me peremptory.
488
THE GREAT WAR
What remains ? Nothing but the means which has brought
about every reform in British countries and which bas trans-
formed Great Britain itself; which has turned an oligarchy
into a democracy; which has extended the franchise from one
class fo another in turn, until now it is the privilege of every
class in the nation; which has abolished many of the privilegcs
of caste and is on the way to extinguish what remains; which
bas brought about the replacement of protection by free trade ;
which has abolished the privileges of the Church of England
in Ireland and is on the way fo abolish thcm in Wales; which
is proceeding to attack with the saine success all that remains
of the feudal régime; and which, finally, after a struggle of
more than a ccntury, has obtained the concession of Home
Rule for Ireland.
That amounts fo saying that in constitutional countries it is
by persuasion, by modcration that in the end right triumphs.
The struggle for Home Rule in Ireland bas lasted for more
than a century, but the cause has triumphed at last. That
is the only resource remaining fo us. Observe that this
resource has always won, evcn in this country of ours; in Nova
Scotia, where the bilingual method of teaching exists in prac-
tice though hOt by law, and so, too, in the province of New
Brunswick.
To corne now to what concerns Manitoba. I have had several
conferences with members of the cabinet. I have hot been able
fo persuade them to leave the Laurier-Greenway agreement
alone. On this point, they have all taken a stand of blank
refusal, alleging that the regulation bas been abused, on be-
half not so much of the languages, as of the Slav dialects,
which are now met with in Manitoba. All bave dcclared that
they recognize that the French language has rights not based
on law, but which they agree fo respect.
I am informed that so far no change whatever has been ruade
in the French schools. If this is so, is it not best to accept
the régime of tolerance, such as exists in Nova Scotia and New
ltrunswick ?
This is the conclusion fo which I bave come, and I submit
489
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
it to you for your full consideration and for your own opinion.
Not on]y bave I no confidence in the violent methods of
Senator Landry, but I see great danger in them. I have said
so frankly to Landry, whose zeal I respect, 'but who is of too
fiery a temper fo be a sale guide ....
CHAPTER XIX
THE CLOSING YEARS
Canada's Aehievement--The Reeruiting Situation--Conscrip-
tion Propos,als--Imperialist Campaign--Borden ,and Conscription
--Belated Coalition Offers--The Conscription Debate--Cleavage
in the Liberal Ranks---The Western Convention--Rilways, Fran-
chise Act and Union Government--The December Election--
Unionist Victory--The Failure of Conscription--Rallying the
Forces--The End.
T HE bilingual question was a minor issue, but its
discussion revealed, though faintly, some of the
factors that were soon fo shape action on the
more temporary but more aeute issue of conscription.
The lines of eleavage within the party and in the country
were dravn. As yet the wedge was not thrust in as deep
as opponents had hoped and friends had feared. Sir
Wilfrid's attitude undoubtedly weakened his position
in the English-speaking provinces, but the immediate
results were not marked. For the rime, the govern-
ment had no eompetitor in unpopularity. 1 The elee-
1 A trained newspaper observer with an unusually intimate knowledge
of Ontario politics, wrote on Sept. 1-, 1916, of impressions gathered
during two weeks af the Toronto Exhibition:
"Really, Sir Wilfrid, if was a revelation. It took my breath away. I
would not now be surprised fo see anything happen in Ontario. Meeting
the visitors one by one, now one from Barrie, now one from Sudbury,
now from Peterboro, and so on, if was always the saine, discontent and
disgust with the Borden administration. So far as I could diagnose if,
Sam Hughes and Camp Borden play a big part, but no bigger than does
Borden himself. The people have the idea that the premier is a man
without forcefulness or personality and without leadership, and that he
is afraid to make any definite more."
491
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
tion of Hartley Dewart in a provincial contest in south-
west Toronto and of Mr. Wellington Hay in the fed-
eral riding of Perth and partieularly the steady vietory
of the Liberals in the provincial eleetions, resulting
in a change from 1911 of rive Conservative and four
Liberal administrations and of 80 Conservative and
187 Liberal members to seven Liberal and two Con-
servative administrations by the end of 1916, with 336
Liberal as against 180 Conservative seats, indieated a
strong eurrent. Some relief came with the resignation
of General Hughes in November, 1916, for it was
against Sir Sa,n that the most vigorous Liberal and
independent eritieism was direeted. The eorrespond-
enee exehanged at the rime, with Sir Robert's charges
of mismanagement and dietatorialness, "your desire
fo administer your department as if it were a distinct
and separate government in itself," and Sir S«m's
eounter-eharges of muddling ineompetenee, snobbish
favouritism, and petty intrigue, did not in itself do
the government any good. The storm of eritieism was
a sign of frazzling nerves. The government had un-
doubtedly ruade serious mistakes, and was to make more,
but it had a great aehievement to its eredit. :By the
end of 1916, 400,000 men had been enrolled and 280,
000 had gone overseas; a munitions industry employing
300,000 men had been built up; a tardy beginning made
in direct taxation through the assessment of business
.profits, and a second domestie loan of $100,000,000
subseribed twiee over. As to how far the government
and how mueh the people eould elaim the eredit, there
492
THE CLOSING YEARS
was room for debate, but unquestionably Canada's
achievement, in the field and at home, was immensely
beyond any dreaming when the war began, and not
unworthy of the high need.
The clashing demands of the army and of produc-
tion for men led in this year to much scattered discus-
sion of relative needs and of means of holding the
balance right. Recruiting in the beginning of the year
brought in thirty thousand men a month; at the close
of the year, with seasonal expansion, the growth of
the munitions industry and the exhaustion of eligible
men, the numbers fell to six thousand. The counter
currents of opinion were seen in the demand of recruit-
ing leagues for conscription, and from manufacturers
and business men for selective enlistment which would
leave their working forces undisturbed; and in typical
utterances such as Lord Shaughnessy's speech in April
doubting whether the premier's proposal fo raise 500,000
men was practicable except at the cost of a serious
drain on the country's working forces, the resolution of
the United Farmers of Ontario against further drain-
ing of the scanty labour of the farms, and the demand
of the munitions section of the Canadian Manufac-
turers' Association in Match that munitions workers
should be protected against recruiting. There was an
increasing demand for eompulsory service, but the lead-
ing newspapers on both sides of polities opposed it.
In September, the government as a compromise
measure established a National Service Board to encour-
age reeruiting while at the same tirne endeavouring to
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
13rotect essential industries. Unfortunately the plan
was marked from the beginning by the habit of the
government in considering the war as a branch of the
patronage systenl of the Conservative party. Of the
eleven Directors of National Service appointed, ten were
strong Conservative workers. The direetor-general,
Sir Thomas Tait, resigned after three weeks' experience
of government methods. In accordance with a resolu-
tion of the National Service Board, Sir Robert Borden
then requested Sir Wilfrid to name rive Liberal
members to serve on a co-operating parliamentary com-
mittee of twelve, but in view of the conditions of which
Sir Thomas Tait's resignation was only one evidence
Sir Wilfrid declined this belated plea: "I feel, under
the ch'cunlstances, in acceding to your suggestion any
assistance to the cause which I bave endeavoured fo
serve from the first day of the war would not be un-
trammelled and consequently as effective as if I con-
tinue fo serve it according to my own ways as hereto-
fore." Mr. R. B. Bennett succeeded as director-
general, and carried on a vigorous campaign, in which
he took repeated occasion to oppose the suggestion of
conscription as disruptive of national unity. A na-
tional registration in December proved of little practical
value. Sir Wilfrid's attitude to the conscription pro-
posals, and his anticipation of the lengths to vhich the
race cry would be carried, are clear from a letter fo a
British Columbia supporter:
Ottawa, January 8, 1917.
I accept your kind wishes for myself and my wife with great
,$9 .
THE CLOSING YEARS
pleasure, and I adhere fo the old ways of our fathers in that
respect, and I wish we would still follow their example in many
other ways. There was a rime when I thought that with
the inventions of rccent rimes, which have brought the world
more closcly togcther, a feeling of brotherhood would ensue,
but the reverse bas happencd. The nations have opened ways
of communication between them, hot for the purpose of hav-
ing peace and amity, but to assail one another even with more
bitterness than before. The present war is a sad blow to
those who had hoped for an advanced civilization.
Therefore, I come back to the old ways, and hot only do
I receive your greetings as they are sent, but I pray you to
accept all my best wishes for the coming year, for yourself and
your family.
What you tcll me about the nature of the next campaign
is quite true: thc only tactics of the Tories will be "French
Quebec." To talk of civil war in Quebec is simply sheer non-
sense. There is a certain element noisy and bombastic, and
this element is what is lcft of the "parti nationaliste." For
two or three ycars bcfore 1911, and especially in the election of
1911, thcy rouscd a verv dangerous spirit; dangerous, not be-
cause it means civil war, but because it means a cleavage be-
tween Frcnch and British races. The Tories are reaping
now what they sowed, for at that rime they were in open
alliance with the Nationalists.
The feeling in favour of conscription, which undoubtedly
is making headway in the British provinces, is hot a genuine
one. The British people are averse to conscription, but the
attitude which is represented as the attitude of Quebec mad-
dens them, and every one who is in favour of conscription,
except yourself, favours the movement not because he believes
it necessary, but because Quebec is represented to be against
it. On this point, even after reading your careful letter, I
see no reason to change my views. If we bave conscription,
if is a severe blow to immigration, and without immigration
what is to become of the country? Think of all this, and
let me bave your matured consideration.
a95
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
I agree with you in everything that you say as to the
necessity of winning this war. I think we have donc well, very
well indeed. But already agriculture and industry are surfer-
ing for the lack of labour. The acreage under seed in 1916
was less than in 1915 and, I understand, will be less still
in 1917.
With regard to the coming dections, I fear nothing but
the prejudice which will be the only weapon of the enemy.
I have often regretted that I accepted the leadership of the
party in 1887. My judgment was very keen at that rime
that the leader should be of the maj ority. We have not donc
badly, we have even donc well, beyond all out expectations
perhaps, but I have had fo battle ail the rime against the
insidious tactics which will be openly used, and more wickedly
than ever, in the next campaign.
Along with the discussion of the organization of the
nation for the war grew the discussion of a national or
coalition government. The movement had differen
roots, the belief of patriots that ordy with a non-party
or all-party government could Canada fise to the height
of the need, and that only by coalition could a distract-
ing war-time election be avoided, the belief of conscrip-
tionists that only a coalition government could enforce
compulsion, and the unwillingness of Ontario men to
accept as the alternative fo the existing government a
Liberal administration in which Quebec would probably
be strongly represented. The movement developed
chiefty in Toronto and Winnipeg, and largely in inde-
pendent and Liberal circles; the Liberal press, with the
notable exceptions of the Toronto "Star" and the
"Manitoba Free 19ress, '' were for the most part, and the
Conservative press almost unanimously, against if. Sir
496
THI CLOSING YEARS
Wilfrid's attitude fo the movement and his quick appre-
ciation of the personal and facial undercurrents in-
volved, is indicated in a brief letter fo Mr. Rowell early
in 1917:
Ottawa, January 23, 1917.
Mv »EAa RowErr:
Your letter in no way surprises me. It is not the first that
I have had on this subject of a national government.
The situation is simply this, that the government has been
constantly losing ground, but a good many of those dis-
satisfied, and perhaps all, do not want to entrust the direction
of affairs to a leader of French origin. Analyze the situa-
tion any way you plcase, and tell me candidly if this is not
af the present moment the true and only difficulty. The
constant appeals which have been madc on that ground by
the "News," the «Telegram," the "Orange Sentinel," and some
other papers of the same sort have produced their effect, all
the more so that the defence on our side has lacked vigour.
Under such circumstances a national government is proposed.
What is a national government? Is it anything else but
coalition under another name; and after the experience of
coalition in Great Britain during the present war, have you
still much faith in it? The very fact that you and so many
of our friends in Toronto are looking to a coalition govern-
anent is abundant proof that my usefulness is gone. Of this
I do hot complain, especially after what happened to Asquith
less than a month ago.
You want me to j oin a coalition if Borden invites me. Even
in the face of your insistence, I am sure you would not expect
ane to join blindly, without first knowing what would be the
programme of the next administration. There are many ques-
tions now looming up, which cannot be long deferred, and as
to which you cannot expect me to join this or any other govern-
ment, unless I knew .at once where the new government would
stand.
Do you think differently?
.97
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
I write you frankly, and if you would corne to Ottawa any
rime during the week, I would much prefer fo have the occasion
of going over that ground verbally than by letter.
That Sir Wilfrid had hot erred in his analysis of the
motives behind the nlovement was ruade clear in a no-
table address, urging greater war sacrifice, delivered by
an eminent Toronto business man, Mr. J. W. Flavelle,
chairman of the Imperial Munitions Board, belote the
Ottaxva Canadian Club in December, 1916. Mr. Fla-
velle ruade it precisely clear that the group of imperial-
ists for whom he spoke were determined fo preserve,
with or preferably without an election, an :English-
speaking bloc for the after-war making over of the
:Empire:
If a general elec.tlon is held shortly, a raci«l cry will be in-
evitable and English will be pitted against French and French
against English, and there will follow years of bitterness.
Moreover, remember when the struggle is over, the group of
men who will sit round the table in council with the represen-
tatives from other Dominions fo determine what will be the
future of thls Empire will bave fo be a group of men chosen
from this Dominion hot by party guidance-or by party meth-
ods, for if is inconcelvable fo me that a government sustained
by the vote of a section of this Dominion which, no marrer for
what reason or conscience, were unwilling fo bear their share
in this struggle, woud be permitted without civil strife fo de-
termine what part Canada hould take in he Imperial Council
which must follow the war.
The seventh session of the parliament eleeted in 1911
was opened on January 19, 1917. If was fo be a
momentous session, but little was aeeomplished af the
outset. The Speeeh from the, Throne announeed the
498
THE CLOSING YEARS
government's intention fo seek a further extension of
the lire of parliament. Apparently, its intention was
to prolong ifs own power without the risk of an appeal
to the eleetors; there was no announeement and no
appearanee of any intention to offer the Opposition a
share in the eontrol of the administration. Within the
Liberal ranks, the feeling was on the whole in favour
of an eleetion. Some urged the aeeeptanee of exten-
sion on condition of coalition, either beeause they eon-
sidered coalition desirable or beeause they eonsidered
the rejeetion of sueh an offer would put the government
af a disadvantage. Sir Wilfrid's own feeling, whether
beeause of the mismanagement in the war, or the grow-
ing uneasiness in the country and a moribund parlia-
ment's obvious losing of its grip, or beeause of his expee-
ration of a Liberal vietory, leaned toward an eleetion,
but no deeision was ruade, awaiting events.
Parliament had seareely met when if was proposed to
adjourn. The new British prime minister. David
Lloyd-George, had invited the prime ministers of the
Dominions to attend a war meeting of the Imperial
Conferenbe, the first sinee 1911, and also a meeting of
the Imperial War Cabinet. Sir Robert Borden ae-
eepted, but eould not well take his hand from the helm
in Canada. Sir Wilfrid therefore offered to vote the
neeessary war supplies and an interim proportion of
other grants, in order to permit parliament fo adjourn
during the prime minister's absence overseas. This was
arranged and on February 12 Sir Robert sailed for
Britain, aeeompanied by his ehosen eolleagues, Douglas
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
I-Iazen, Minister of Marine, and Robert Rogers, Min-
ister of Public Works and Elections.
The Conference, which consisted, as usual, of the
representatives of Great Britain, of the Dominions, ex-
cept Australia (where the prime minister was in the
throes of a general election), and, for the first rime, of
India, debated the usual inter-imperial issues. The
resolutions provided for the future admission of India
to Imperial Conferences, a self-contained trade and
immigration policy to assist the development of impe-
rial resources, , request to the Admiralty to work out
after the war a scheme of naval defence of the Empire
for the consideration of the various governments, and
the postponement of any constitutional change until a
special conference after the war, with the understanding,
however, that any readjustment, while preserving exist-
ing self-government and recognizing the Dominions as
"autonomous nations of an Imperial Commonwealth,"
should also recognize "the right of the Dominions and
India to an adequate voice in foreign policy and in
foreign relations," and provide for continuous consul-
tation on matters of common imperial concern. The
Imperial War Cabinet, which consisted of the British
War Cabinet and two other British members together
with one representative from each Dominion and two
from India, was an innovation in imperial affairs. It
was devised by Mr. Lloyd-George, on the prompting of
Round Table confidants, to provide a central executive
authority for the whole Empire, dealing with the detils
500
THE CLOSING YEARS
of war policics and war problcms in dccisivc administra-
tive fashion, and hcnce diffcrcd wholly from the Imper-
ial Confcrcncc, which was a mcctig of govcrnmcnts to
considcr gcncral policy. It mcant practically that on
certain days thc Dominion premiers sat in the small
inncr British cabinet to which thc conduct of thc war
had bccn dcviscd. So wcll plcascd wcrc the mcmbcrs
with thc cxpcrimcnt that Mr. Lloyd-Gcorgc dcclarcd it
should bc pcrpctuatcd, that an annual impcrial cabinet
should bc hcld to discuss forcign affairs and othcr as-
pects of impcrial policy; while Sir Robert Bordcn re-
portcd that a new cra in thc history of thc Empire had
dawncd, a notable advancc madc i thc dcvclopmcnt of
constitutional relations which hc was confident would
"gradually but surcly dcvclop into a rccognizcd conven-
tion."
Thc attitude of thc prime ministcr of Canada in thcse
mcctings rcflcctcd thc shifting and contradictory cur-
rcnts-of the rime. tic stood for the national position
in opposing, with Gcncral Smuts, any crcation of an
impcrial parliamcnt, and in urging thc status of "auton-
omous nations." Yct this was contradictcd in the
rccognition of impcrial rights over the natural rcsourccs
of thc Dominions, in thc assumption of a singlc forcign
policy for thc Empire, to bc dctcrmincd in London, and
in thc acccptancc of thc schcmc of an impcrial cabinet,
which, if it mcant anything, mcant thc crcation of a new
cxccutivc authority, not, as Sir Robert tcrmcd if, "a
cabinet of governmcnts," but itsclf a new governmcnt
501
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
for whieh the next effort would be to provide a legis-
lative base,--in fact, the old imperial-eouncil idea which
Chamberlain and Lyttleton had urged and whieh
Laurier had defeated.
Sir Wilfrid was not surprised at these developments.
They were part and pareel of the attempt once more
ruade during the war to erystallize imperial sentiment
into eentralized institutions. The aetivity of the Round
Table groups; the urging of ilnperial parliamentary
federation by their chier apostle, Mr. Lionel Curtis, and
Mr. Lloyd Ge0rge's seeretary, Mr. Philip Kerr; Mr.
lonar Law's pronouneement for an imperial parliament
after the war; Mr. Hughes's vague but voeiferous de-
mands for a share in determîning imperial poliey; the
audaeious endeavour to extend and implant an heredi-
tary aristoeraey in Canada, with the ereation of three
Canadian or ex-Canadian peers in 1916 and 1917,
(Lord Shaughnessy, Lord Atholstan, Lord Beaver-
brook), together with "a baronetey to Sir Joseph Fla-
velle; the paloEieipation by two Canadian members in the
Paris Eeonomie Conferenee, not as representing Can-
ada but as part of a British delegation, and now the
Empire cabinet proposais, all represented the saine
tendeney. To all, he was firmly and inereasingly op-
posed. The war had intensified his admiration for the
English people; it had also intensified his belief that in
free eo-operation and not in a unified empire lay the
hope of effective partnership and enduring friendship.
The negative side of his view is suffleiently indieated in
a letter to the editor of the "Manehester Guardian":
502
THE CLOSING YEARS
(Wlfrid Laurier to C. P. Scott)
Ottawa, February 13, 1917.
MY DEAR SIR :
I bave your letter of
of the American number
I owe fo your kindness
my thanks.
I understand that you
a Cnadian issue of the
the 19th ultimo, as well as the copy
of the "Manchester Guardian" which
and for which I pray you fo accept
are now preparing, on the same plan,
"Guardian," and fo this you would
desire me to contribute an article especially devoted to the
approaching Imperial Conference, and to the future relations
of the Dominions with the mother country.
You will excuse me for not responding aflïrmatively to your
request. I am strongly of the opinion that, af the Conference
as everywhere else, the only questions discussed should be con-
fined fo the winning of the war. I thought the Paris Confer-
ence of last summer, on the subject of trade after the war,
most inopportune, and any discussion af this stage of such a
subj ect as future imperial relations would seem fo me still more
inopportune, not fo use a more severe expression.
I may, however, offer you--if acceptable--my own personal
views on the subi cet, on the understanding that they are merely
for your information, with the sole object of presenting fo
you an aspect of the case which is seldom if ever heard on your
side of the water.
You start with the proposition that everybody in England
is anxious to give fo the Dominions a voice in the dctermina-
tion of peace and war. These words sound well, but they
are mere sound. You assert yourself that foreigrt affairs
cannot be divorced from the domestic politics of the United
Kingdom. If that be so--and I altogether agree---what voice
tan the Dominions have in questions of peace and war, except
fo express pious wishes? Of course, some council may be
organized which may flatter the vanity or, if you prefer, the
pride of the Dominions, but nothing worthy the attention of
serious men, no real power fo aflïrm or negative, since foreigrt
aairs cannot be divorced from the domestic politics of the
United Kingdom.
503
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Nor is that all. If the Dominions are fo have a real voice
in questions of peace and war, two consequences must follow:
foreign affairs must be removed from the exclusive control of
the United Kingdom and placed in the hands of a real council,
and the Dominions must back their voice with a regular and
permanent system of contributions fo a common fund of defense.
This project seems to me very short-sighted. Those who
champion it forger that at present and for many years to
corne, the economic position of Britain and of the Dominions
is not and cannot be on a par. Britain by her geographical
condition and historie traditions must ever maintain a large
war budget. Canada--to speak of Canada alone--must devote
her chief attention to infernal development: railways, canals,
rivers and harbours. To force on her a war budget must
divert from and retard her development and, obviously, instead
of working towards union, must produce the very reverse
result.
Whilst in this war I ara convinced that Canada should assist
to the fullest extent of her power, I ara equally convinced that
no greater mistake could be ruade than to force her into a
permanent military organization, which of necessity must
paralyze her development. And to be perfectly frank with
you, I have more than once in our parliament expressed the
opinion that were England to engage in such a senseless
war as the Crimean War I would resolutely oppose Canada's
participation.
If you tell me that the present connection is loose and un-
safe, I answer that this loose rie put to the test of this war
has proved stronger than any long-planned organization. Im-
perial federation is a great and noble idca. It has almost
irresistible attractions. Whether it ever will be practicable
is still a question. At present if certainly is not, and until
the verdict of rime has pronounccd, the present connection
eems to me the safest and the most promising..
When the prime minister, on his return, referred to
the imperial cabinet as a development which would
504
THE CLOSING YEARS
likely prove permanent, a body to advise the Crown in
matters of common Empire concern, a body having
authority, subject fo ratification, of any action taken by
the several parliaments of the Empire, Sir Wilfrid put
his finger quickly on the inconsistencies of the proposal.
Was the imperial cabinet fo be a conference of govern-
ments or a distinct executive? What was the Crown?
Was not the government of Canada as much His
:Majesty's government as the government of the United
Kingdom? He replied, in the House debate on :May
18:
This cabinet is fo advise the Crown. What Crown? The
Crown in Great Britain, the Crown in Canada, the Crown in
Australia, the Crown in New Zealand, the Crown in South
Africa, the Crown in Newfoundland, the Crown in India,m
because under our present system of govcrnment the Crown is
represented by ministers who advise if in all these different
countries?
The imperial cabinet bas no executive power; it can report,
it can pass j udgment, it can corne fo conclusions upon any
subject, but ifs conclusions achieve nothing; they are simply
reported fo the Crown in parliament in Great Britain, in the
different countries overseas, and in India. And when such
a report has been made it may be accepted by one parliament
and rejected by the other .... I do not object fo it as a
consultative body, but I object to terms being used, which,
in their very nature, cannot accord with the rules of parliamen-
tary govern(nent as it exists to-day in the British Empire,
in the motherland and in the Dominions overseas. I do not ob-
ject fo there being consultations, quite the contrary .... A
great deal of advantage is fo be derived by frequent consulta-
tions betwcen people and people. Ignorance has been, ail
through the ages, the cause of many distords indeed and of
many wars ; and when peoplcs are living under the saine al-
505
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
legiance and are part of the same Empire, undoubtedly noth-
ing but advantage can corne from requent consultation.
:But these were speculative possibilities of the future.
The country and its political leaders wcre now brought
face to face with a grave and immediate crisis. Sir
Robert Borden had returned fo Canada on May 14.
On May 18, after giving to parliament an account of his
stewardship overseas, he announced the intention of the
government fo bring down shortly a plan of "compul-
sory military service on a selective basis." The Cana-
dian troops af the front could hot be maintained without
large and steady reînforccments. It was now apparent
that the voluntary system could hot provide the needed
men. Everything had been done, by government and
people, that could bc done, fo stimulate voluntary re-
cruiting. The sacrifice of the brave men who had died
that Canada might lire must not be in vain. For Can-
ada there could be no hesitation. Sir Vilfrid in reply,
took up Sir Robert's speech point by point, not forger-
ring to conmmnt on his choicc of colleagues, and ended
with a guarded comment on the announcement that had
been made. Canada was in the war fo the end. As to
the method tobe followed to carry the war to the end,
a good deal of considcration must be given before the
settled policy of the country was set aside, lYhenever
the government ruade known its policy, it would be
given due and fair consideration. He would hot say
whether it should be adopted or rejected; he would
say that those who sat beside him would do their duty
to the best of their judgment.
5O6
THE CLOSING YEARS
As to the motives for the government's sudden
change of policy, opinion differed then and will differ
until the files are opened on Judglnent Day. Con-
siderations of military neeessity played their part, a
genuine belief that Canada could not do what her hon-
our, her interest, her duty to the men who had fought
for her demanded, exeept by eompulsion, and that by
compulsion if eould be done. Military considerations
of another sort eounted, but eounted for mueh less,u
the desire of prominent oflàcers overseas to organize a
fifth division in which there would be many high posts,
rather than to send reinforeements under subordinate
offieers to the existing four divisions. The London at-
mosphere had not been without influence. The action
of the United States in adopting conscription immedi-
ately af ter entering the war--it was not a mere coin-
cidence that the prenfier made his announeement on the
day that the Select Draft bill beeame law at Washing-
ton--removed serious praetieal diffieulty to eompul-
sion in Canada. Raeial prejudiee was strong, not so
strong among the leaders as among the tank and file,
but still factor. Politieal neeessity warranted drastic
action. The government had lost its grip on the coun-
try. The probability, in the publie mood, was a Liberal
vietory in any eleetion fought on ifs six-year record.
The alternative was a coalition in whieh the government
would have to give up hall ifs places and half its power,
perhaps the prenfiership. By deelaring for conscrip-
tion, while some risks would be run, the ginger groups,
the for-God's-sake-do-something erities, would be pro-
507
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
pitiated. Quebec, lost in any case to the government,
would be either split among Liberals and Nationalists,
probably of the usual pliable type, or, if a unit, would
provide a basis for attack and for solidifying the
English-speaking provinces.
Sir Vilfrid, vho had known for some days that the
project was brewing, at once consulted his party, but
he had himself no moment's hesitation in deciding to
oppose conscription. It was not merely that he was by
temperament and training a believer in individual lib-
erty; or that he was opposed to fighting the devil with
tire, alarmed lest in conquering Prussia the Allies
would be conquered by the Prussian spirit and the Prus-
sian worship of the State; he had never let a doctrine
stand in the way of reality, and he had in him an iron
strain that would go through unfalteringly with any
policy once proved essential. But he did not believe
that the necessity or the expediency of the step had
been proved. He did not believe that conscription
would bring any substantially greater number of men
than a vigorous voluntary appeal; the falling off in en-
listment was not due to the inherent defects of the vol-
untary method, but to the simple fact that the country
was reaching its limit, that there was no longer any real
great reservoir of available men. True, ]3ritain and
the United States had adopted conscription, but they
had entered the war as principals: it would undermine
the whole basis of the empire, destroy the whole spirit of
free and friendly aid and sympathy, if compulsion were
resorted to in a country which had gone in, not for its
508
THE CLOSING YEARS
own sake, but for Britain's. Britain and the United
States were not divided historieally into distinct and
compact facial groups,--exeept as to Ireland, and no
F, nglish statesman had attempted to apply eompulsion
to Ireland,wwhereas in Canada this division was the
most fundamental and enduring fact in political lire.
Least of all should it have been proposed in Canada by
a government whose eoquetting in turn with Imperial-
ism and with Nationalism had done more than any other
avoidable factor fo bring about the very situation in
Quebee of whieh complaint was ruade. There was no
evidenee in the government's record or in its arguments,
that the whole field had been surveyed, the relative
needs of men, munitions and food eompared, the actual
faets as fo available men studied. ¥hether the motives
were good or ill, the deeision was a gamble; the loss was
certain, great; the gain--af least, the gain of the nation
--a hazard.
Writing to Sir Allcn Aylesworth, the da)- af ter
Sir Robert Borden's return, Sir ¥ilfrid, af ter quoting
the prime minister's emphatic repudiation of conscrip-
tion a year earlier, stated his case succinctly:
Ottawa, May 15, 1917.
He may change, I will not. Qulte apart from this personal
view, and simply from the point of view of winning the war,
bas a case been made out for conscription? There is a short-
age of labour in agriculture and industry, in fact in every
dàeld where brawn and muscles are needed, and in the face of
this condition people there are still yelling for more men being
taken away from occupations in which they are so much needed.
:If we had been in office a survey would bave been ruade at
once as fo how many rnert could be spared from their usual
509
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
occupations, and, having obtained a reliable statistical record,
we would have endcavoured, and I think would have succeeded,
in having in the ficld by voluntary enlistment the number of
men which we could afford to give, and fo that policy we would
have adhered, instead of changing and again changing, with
confusion worse confoundcd as a consequence. Every man
in a certain section is striving to make himself more popular
than the other by shouting for a large number of soldiers. I
say ail this in the full consciousncss that public opinion seems
to have been swayed in 0ntario to a feverish heat without any
serious appreciation of the real situation.
But we are not in office, and what are we to do? I repeat:
in so far as I am personally concerned, the way is clear, but
I ara alarmed as to the future. Toryism has obtained an
enormous influence in 0ntario. In fact, 0ntario is no longer
0ntario: if is again the old small province of Upper Canada,
and again governed from London. There is only one difference
and the difference is only in the narne. Upper Canada was
governed from Downing Street with the instrumcntality of
the Family Compact sitting at York, now Toronto. Canada is
now governed by a junta sitting at London, known as "The
Round Table" with ramifications in Toronto, in Winnipeg, in
Victoria, with Tories and Grits rcceiving their ideas from
London, and insidiously forcing them on their respective parties.
As fo the Tories, I am not surprised, they are in thcir element,
truc fo the instincts of their nature, to the traditions of their
ancestors, but for the Grits, oh! for the old spirit of sturdy
Liberalism which still prevailed in .my youth! Truly, I have
lived too long.
I would have long ago opened battle upon this new organ-
ization of Toryism, which like the serpent sheds its skin, but
ever remains the same reptile, but for my origin. The only
answer would have been my origin, and this alone would have
substituted prejudice for argument.
Now as to the actual situation. The probability is that
ttughes's motion will never corne up, but that the govern-
ment themselves will introduce a conscription bill. As to this,
I have of course no information, but I strongly believe that
510
THE CLOSING YEARS
my surmise is the correct one. Were I to agree, it would be
I, not they, who would be guilty of that "treason and shame-
fui truckling fo Bourassa and Armand" of which you speak,
for Bourassa and Armand have built their strength in Quebec
by accusing me of being a conscriptionist.
The situation is very different from what it was in 1896.
Then when the government attempted fo force upon a prov-
ince the domination of the Canadian parliament, we stood
strongly on the Liberal doctrine of provincial rights. I
appealed to the Liberals of Quebec to stand firm by the tradi-
tions of their party, and they did.
Now, when the government is going to introduce a policy
which is at variante with ail the traditions of Liberalism what
will the Liberals of Ontario do? As to the tank and file, I do
hot know as to the leaders they have already received and
accepted the dictatibn of the "Round Table."
And now fo answer the last thought of your letter. There
is need of more men at the front. How many men will con-
scription bring in? Just a few slackers, exactly the same as in
England. How many men has conscription brought to the
ranks in England? An infinitesimal number, so small that the
actual figures have never been given fo the public. Sir John
,Shnon was supremely right, but Northcliffe and Carson and
Toryism insisted and won their point, and won nothing else.
It will be the same here: the number of men who can be spared
from agriculture and industry is infinitesimally small. Con-
scription will take in a few farmers and school-boys; this will
be the supreme triumph of Toryism, but Toryism will once
more have asserted its undying spirit of domination.
These are the views with which I regard the situation. In
1896 we stood by the truc principles of Liberalism, with the
chance of losing, and won because the Liberals of Quebec
remained truc. In 1917, I, for one, will again remain true
fo Liberalism, again with the chance of losing, but will win if
the Liberals of Ontario remain truc.
Five days later,
compulsory service
ha answer to a forecast that with
the goverlmaent would sweep ail
511
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRD LAURIER
English-speaking Canada, but deelaring, "For myself
I have one word alone fo say; it is 'whither thou goest,
X will go,' " Sir $¥ilfrid replied:
Ottawa, May 21, 1917.
Your last letter touched me very deeply. I am more grate-
ful to you than more words can express for this new manifesta-
tion of your old friendship, and also for the hearty concern
which it betrays for my political welfare.
We are now sure to bave conscription. My course is very
clear, and upon it I have no hesitation and no misgiving.
The rcsult may be my own end, but I will go down with colours
flying at the topmast.
To Sir Lomer Gouin ho wrote, a wee'k later:
( Trangla tion,)
. . As fo conscription, there can equally be no hesitation.
Ater the agitation which has been carried on upon this
subject, if we were fo hesitate af this moment, we would hand
over the province to the extremists; in place of promoting
national unity, if would open up a breach, perlmps fatal.
As for myself, the situation is clear, but I doubt whether
I will succeed in inducing out friends from the other provinces
to accept it. The Eastern provinces will be nearly solid with
us; Ontario solid on the other side, and the West perhaps
divided; there is some ground for hoping for a fairly solid
vote, but I am far from being sure.
The public discussion had made it plain that the
compulsory-service proposais would not have plain sail-
ing. On May 29, Sir Robert Borden proposed to Sir
Wilfrid the organization of a coalition government, with
equal representation for the two parties, aside from his
own premiership, with the enforcement of conscription
as the basis, and with elections postponed if possible.
Later he modified this proposal to provide for the pass-
512
THE CLOSING YEARS
ing of a Military Service )xct with a pledge not fo en-
force it until af ter a general eleetion af whieh the coali-
tion should seek a mandate from the people. The
negotiations eontinued until June 6. While Sir
Wilfrid felt that the offer of coalition af ter the deter-
mination, without a gesture or thought of consultation,
of the ail-important poliey the coalition was to earry out,
,,vas insineere, while he felt that a proposal to have him
join in earrying out a poliey from whieh the premier
would score all the politieal gain and he inettr the
politieal loss and the loss of prineiple, was preposterous,
yet he was anxious to sound out every possibility of eo-
operation, and to eonsult his friends. When the prime
minister ruade if clear that he would not agree fo a
coalition except on the aeeeptanee of eornpulsory service,
Sir Wilfrid definitely deelined to take office. He eould
not take responsibility for a poliey whieh he had no
share in nmking, a poliey devised to eover the failures of
the governrnent, and a poliey for whieh he would bave
to bear the chier brunt of the attaek. With the adop-
tion of conscription, the chier argument for coalition
had vanished: it was obvious to any one who faeed
realities that an election must be held, and that the
country would be bitterly divided.
(Wilfricl Laurier to Premier Murray)
Ottawa, June 5, 1917.
I thank you very sincerely for your letter. I will now pre-
sent the situation as I view if. Permit me to say that the
idea of forming a coalition government sounds very well, but
518
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the situation has been so bedevilled that hitkerto I bave hot
been able fo sec my way to accept.
There is hot only the military situation, but there is «lso
the economic questo,n, the railway question and a multitude
of other problems upon which we would be "considerably at
varianee for, remember that the crowd of Inen with whom
Borden surrounded himself, when he formed his cabinet, will
still continue fo try fo influence him. I would hot suspect
his loyalty fo his colleagues, but I would be af raid that he
would unconsciously be influeneed by .a lot of .men in whom
I cannot have any confidence. That would be my view, even
if conscription were eliminated, though, with the latter ques-
tion eliminated, I nfight perhaps overcome my difficulties. But
coalition is wanted to pas conscription, and to that I cannot
agree ....
To Mr. Rowell he had .written on June 3:
If the present situtlon is distressing fo you, which I tan
very well believe, I think you Inay be sure that itis no less
painful to Inc, perhaps Inore, as I have Inore responsibility
than any other in the unfortunate position in whieh we are.
I am quitias anxiouæ as you are to send as Inany rnen as the
country can afford fo deplete itself of, if we ean obtain them
by voluntary enlistinent; and I have alwa3:s thought, and I
arn Inore than ever confident, that they .ean be had. But if
you are fo resort fo conscription, I cannot agree. By con-
scription, you Inay undoubtedly assist the cause, but you will
injure it Inore than you will assist, beeause you are going
fo ereate a line of eleavage in the-population, the eonsequenees
of whieh I know too .well, and for which I will hot be responsible.
You will tell me, why should I hOt agree fo conscription?
Here are my reasons.
The peoplc, I have no doubt, can be reeoneiled fo the sac-
rifice, here as elsewhere, if they are properly edueated toit.
Itis hot on]y the people of Quebee who are opposed fo con-
scription, but my correspondence satisfies Ine tht in eve,-
514
THE CLOSING YEARS
other province there is amongst the masses an undercurrent
[indicating] that they will be sore and bltter if af the present
moment a conscription law is forced upon them. Remember
that from thc beginning of the war, through the prime min-
ister, the government affirmed and re-atïirmed that there would
be no conscription; and one of the ministers, Mr. Crothers, if
I mistake not, stated with the elegance peculiar fo him that any
such statement was a "Grit lie." To have all of a sudden,
without preparation, without a word of warning, launched the
policy of conscription was, you will adroit, with me, a singular
want of foresight on the part of the government. This is
the general idea. Now as fo my own self.
When I introduced the Naval Policy, with the ull approval
of the Conservative party, as you will remember, I was as-
sailed, viciously assailed, by the Nationalists of Quebec, on the
ground that this Canadian navy--Canadian in peace rime,
Imperial in war time--was nothing short of a national crime ;
that under no circumstances should we fight for England; that
if was the first step to conscription. I had fo face the issue,
and faced it by stating that the navy, Canadian at all rimes, in
war rime might be placed at the service of the imperial author-
ities ; that Canada was a free country, and might, if it so chose,
fight for England, as in certain circumstances if certainly
would; that the navy was in no sense a first step towards
conscription; Shat enlistment for the naval service would be
voluntary, as enlistment for land service. I fought the issue
upon those lines, always protesting that I was opposed fo
conscription.
Now if I were to waver, fo hesitate or fo flinch, I would
simply hand over the province of Quebec to the extremists.
would lose the respect of the people whom I thus addressed,
and would deserve it. I would not only lose their respect, but
my own self-respect also.
I appreciate whatever you say in favour of national unity.
I do not think I can be charged with hot having if in view
during the last three years, from the very day that the war
broke out.
515
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
I have been approached to enter a coalition government.
My friends, especially those from Ontario, bave pressed rae
very warraly to agree to it. If was always repugnant to rae,
but in order fo help the cause, I would bave been willing to put
aside my personal viens, tardy though the off'er was. But the
basis upon wlfich it was off'ered to rae was unacceptable. I ara
not in .a position yet to put it before you, but I sincerely
believe that when it is raade known, if will sa-tisfy neither the
conscriptionists nor the anti-conscriptionists.
I wholly agree with you in the deduction which you raake
frora Balfour's speech, that in a struggle such as the present
one, we raust be prepared to give up the norraal party divisions.
Indeed, so rauch do I believe in this, that I ara quite prepared
to sec ray friends take a different attitude frora my own, and
support conscription whilst I will oppose it. The only solution
seeras fo rae this: bave an appeal fo the people, have it right
away, either in the forra of a referendura or an election. Let
the people decide, and if they decide in favour- of conscription,
as it seeras fo rae they will, under present circurastances, frora
the attitude of our friends in Ontario, whatever influence I
raay have will be eraployed in pleading fo the Quebec people
that the question is settled by the verdict of the raajority, and
that all raust loyally accept the issue and subrait fo the law:
and this will be no light task, but a task to which I will devote
raysel with ail ray energy.
During these discussions Sir Wilfrid was visited by
Sir 'Clifford Sifton. Sir Clifford was no longer in par-
liament, but he was still in polities, with close relations
with Western politieal leaders and wide-spreading busi-
ness interests, q?hey diseussed the proposais. "You
are opposed fo conscription," his visitor summed it up;
"good. You are opposed to coalition; good. rou are
opposed fo an extension of the term of parliament; no,
you should agree fo that." Why? Sir Clifford would
give no answer, other than the general eonsideration
/i16
THE CLOSING YEARS
that the Liberal party would stand a better chance in an
election a year later. The real reasons Sir Wilfrid
could not fathom, though he believed they were con-
nected with the desire to have an amenable parliament
for the enactment of certain plans for meeting the
approaching crisis in the affairs of the Canadian North-
ern and Grand Trunk Pacifie. Once it was clear that
his advice on the really vital one of the three points
would hot be taken, and that an election was inevitable,
Mr. Sifton sought the saine ends another way, seeking,
it might be, a still more amenable parli,ment by sup-
porting coalition and supporting conscription.
On June 11, the prime minister introduced the
Military Service Act, providing for the division of ail
maie British subjects into classes according to age and
family status, for exemption in case of essential war
occupation, serious individual hardship, or conscientious
objections, and for the establishment of tribunals to
deal with exemptions and to hear appeals. Sir Wilfrid
moved an amendment providing for referendum of
the electors before further consideration. In the de-
bate, the Liberal forces were badly split. Graham,
Pardee, Guthrie, :Nesbitt, Charlton, Ross, of Ontario;
Carvell, A. K. Maclean, I-I. H. McLean, Loggie, of
the Maritime provinces; and Clark, Cruise, McCraney,
Buchanan, Turriff, Douglas, Champagne and Neely of
the Vest, spoke and voted" for conscription, while Mc-
Millan, h/cCoig, Truax, German, Thomson, Knowles
and Sinclair voted first for the anaendment and then for
the main motion. Two Quebec Conservatives and nine
517
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
Nationalists voted for the referendum. A six-months
hoist amendment received only nine N'ationalist rotes.
The third reading carried on July 24 by 102 to 44.
Sir Wilfrid wrote during the debate:
(Wilfrid Laurier to Sir Allen Aylesworth)
Ottawa, June 22, 1917.
It is quitc truc: in these recent weeks, I have often thought
of resigning, but whcnever I sat down fo think the marrer out,
my courage rose up against the difficulties which I saw impend-
ing werc I to give up the fight, now especially that the fight
bas become a losing battle. Oh! but what a wrench at all my
hcart's strings !
Ycstcrday it was Pardee, and to-day it will be Graham!
Graham and Pardee as dear fo me as my own brothers! Do
hot, howevcr, think hard of them, for I do hot. They bave
bchaved ail through most honourably, and there is not and there
will not be any loss of friendship between us. The pain is not
lcss acute on their side than on mine, and I know only too well
Che difflculties which faced them.
Those I hold responsible are the Liberals of the "Round
Table" group, who by their alliance with the Tories, bave
forced the government to take up the issue of conscription, at
so much risk to and danger for Che country. How it will all
end, I venture hot to predict. I still hope, perhaps aga]nst
all hope, that whcn this nightmare is over, we may still main-
tain the party together.
To you I owe more gratitude than my words can express.
My courage will not flinch, but your friendship assuages some
painful moments.
:Frequently letters came from Ontario men who
seemed fo imagine that Laurier had only to raise his
finger fo induce Quebec to take any stand he suggested.
518
THE CLOSING YEARS
To one correspondent, ]ater Mr. Rowe]l's succcssor as
leader of the Ontario Opposition, he replied:
(Wilfr{d Laurier fo Wm. Proudfoot)
Ottawa, June 29, 1917.
I slncerely wish that I had the power which you attribute
fo me. If is eas:y for you fo make a suggestion about the prov-
ince of Quebec, and then fo add as you do: "If successful, and
I bave no doubt you would be, you will come out of the ordeal
the strongest public man now or af any previous rime in
Canada."
Permit me to say, with all deference but with absolute
certainty, that you do not know the situation in Quebcc as it is.
You forger that for the last seven years I have been represented
in Quebec by the Nationalist press as a conscriptionist, working
for conscription and preparing if. You forger also that these
slanders were subsidized by the Conservative party, and carried
out by men who are now sitting with the government. If I were
fo flinch in this marrer, instead of coming out the strongest
man in Canada, past or present, as you say, I would simply
lose the confidence and respect of those who believed in me when
I said that I was against conscription. This I will hot do for
any consideration. I would lose my own character, and if
would not help the cause which I have as much af heart as ),ou
bave.
Thîs conscription issue has been thrown to the public with-
out consideration on the part of the government as to the
consequences ; feeling sure, however, that in so doing they would
destroy the Liberal party, which they have partially done
already. When this was done, there was only one salvation
for us: it was a referendum, which would have solved the ques-
tion and which would have silenced all opposition. Our friends
would not take my judgment upon this. I regret it more than
I can say, but if the position is fo be redeemed if is certainly
hot by the way which you suggest.
519
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
To a Winnipeg correspondent he presented tf further
summary of his position:
Ottawa, September 27, 1917.
I ara just as anxlous as you are yourself to win the war.
The only question is which is the best policy: is conscription
the best means fo the end? You may remember that last fall,
when Sir Robert Borden and Mr. R. B. Bennett were touring
the country for the organizatîon of what they called the
National Service, Mr. Bennett disclaimed with great force, in
ail ls speeches, the policy of conscription. This he did in the
presence and full concurrence of Sir Robert Borden; and the
reasons which Mr. Bennett gave, though hot expressed in any
way fo satisfy me, still showed very clearly the conviction then
entertained by the government. You noticed also that as late
as the month of June, when the government had altered their
views and announced that they would resort to conscription,
Sir Clifford Sifton pronounced himself most emphatically to
Dr. Neely, M. P., against any idea of conscription. These
different opinions were ail expressed at a rime when the military
situation was the same as if is to-day, no better and no worse.
What is the reason for the change? The military situation
being the saine, the reason must be sought elsewhere, and else-
where there is no other reason than a purely political one, and
the object hot fo win the war but fo win the elections. Permit
me fo look over the situation with you a moment.
Is it hot truc that the main reason advocated for conscrip-
tion-hot so much publicly as privately, not shouted but whis-
percd--is that Quebec must be ruade to do her part, and
lrench-Canadians forced fo enlist compulsorily since they did
not enlist voluntarily? If this is hOt the main reason advanced
in Winnipeg for conscription, I hope you will tell me frankly
that I am in error, and then I will know that Winnipeg is an
exception to all other centres where conscription is advocated.
It is quite truc that Quebec has hot enlisted proportionately
as the other provinces. No one regrets it more than I do,
but could any other result be expected?
520
THE CLOSING YEARS
Af ter reviewing the Conservative-Nationalist alliance,
he eontinued:
. . Do you wonder that under such circumstances, when
these men appealed for volunteers in Quebec, that such appeals
should have fallen vcry fiat?
You may ask me now, all this being granted, what is the
remedy? My answer is that the remedy cannot be fo apply
compulsion upon people who have thus bcen educated against
conscription. It is always an easy task fo arouse passion and
prejudice, fo quell them is more difficult. To arouse passion
may be the work of a moment, fo quell a storm may be the work
of years.
This is the situation, and I am satisfied that more can be
obtained from the people of Quebec by persevcring appeals
than by compulsion. I make bold fo believe that we Liberals
who were defcated in 1911 can obtain more from the people of
Quebec than the mcn who defeated us by such mischievous
conduct.
If you want any further evldence that the conscription act
was passed for political purposes alone, you find if in the
infamous act just passed for the disfranchiscment of men who
are by the laws of the land our fellow-citizens. By the con-
scription act all British subjccts resident in Canada between
the ages of 20 and 45 are liablc fo be called, but by the War
Timcs Election Act subsequcntly passed, ail naturalized sub-
jects born in enemy countries, and naturalized after the 31st
of March 1902, are disfranchised, unless thcy enlist. Do you
sec in these two acts any evidence that thc government intend
fo win the war, or fo win the elcctions ?
These are the main reasons which have directed my attitude
in the present contcst. We have gone voluntarily into this
war for a noble object, and I still believe that we can reach the
end by adhering fo the principle collectively and individually.
Let me add in conclusion that if there be any further informa-
tion or-further explanation which you desire, it will be my
duty and still more my pleasure fo answer any enquiry with
which :),ou may favour me.
521
LIFE AND LETT:ERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
The long discussion of conscription, in parliament and
in the country, had inevitably widened the cleavage in
the Liberal ranks. Public meetings in Toronto and
,Vinnipeg, addressed by prominent men of ail parties
and none, had vigorously supported the government's
proposal; public meetings in Montreal had voiced an
equally vigorous and more violent and frothy opposition.
lVhether it was that patriotism raised men above party
or that racialism sank them below it, the bonds of party
llegiance slackened. Sir Clifford Sifton and Sir
Robert Borden were quick to sec the renewed oppor-
tunity for coalition, but coalition of a limited kind.
They were met half-way by a group of Liberals, chiefly
of provincial rather than federal activity. It was now
clear that the original arguments advanced for coali-
tion had lost their force; a war-time election could not
now be avoided, and a partial coalition instead of avert-
ing a racial cleavage would intensify if. But other
factors had force. Honest conscriptionists, eager to
have an administration solid and whole-heaoEed in the
policy which they considered indispensable to winning
the war; partisans keen on splitting the Liberal party;
ra6ialists determined to isolate Quebec and put it in its
place; railway financiers and speculators fishing in
troubled waters, aided the movement. 1
a To Mr. Rowell Sir Wilfrid wrote on July 4: "As to a coalition govern-
ment, or, as you call it, a national government, I ara less and less in favour
of it. I have evidences coming to me every day that certain railway
interests are actively at work amongst our friends still, with a view of
forming a coalition. Such sinister influences are hot calculated fo impress
one favourably. Anything which is hot donc openly always seems to me
dangerous."
522
THE CLOSING YEARS
Toronto and Winnipeg were the chier secondary
centres of the new attempt to form a quasi-union govern-
ment, with the West obviously the deterrnining factor.
In Ontario, rnany private and two senti-publie rneet-
ings were held to endeavour to bring the Liberals into
line. On July 20, a meeting of Ontario Liberal rnern-
bers and eandidates w«s held in Toronto. Unexpected
hostility developed. While there was differenee of
opinion, the rnajority present pronouneed against ex-
tension of parliarnent, against coalition with the Borden
government, against the enforeement of conscription
until af ter another voluntary effort, and for the eon-
tinued leadership of Laurier. More suecess was met
with the Liberal editors of the province: .Meeting in
Toronto six days later, they supported conscription of
rnen and conscription of wealth, and called for a union
government on this platform, but not under Sir Robert
Borden's leadership. In the Western movernent, Sir
Clifford Sifton took direct charge. On July 8 he issued
a rnanifesto dernanding union government and conscrip-
tion, with an extension of parliarnent's term if pos-
sible. A_ few days later he arranged more quietly for
the calling of a Convention of Western Liberals in
Winnipeg, and, going West, sought to arouse opinion in
a series of public addresses. His success was limited.
The West held him chiefly responsible for the defoat
of reciprocity and distrusted his financial aflïliations. 1
Then on August 7 the great convention of a thou-
1 A Western minister, who later supported Union government but for
whose honour as well as ability Sir Wilfrid continued fo have the highest
regard, thus wrote on August 4:
528
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
"August, 1917.
"DEAIt Sm
"I cio hot think that you need bave any fears of the influence of Sir
Clifford Sifton in the West. His appearance as an ally of Sir Robert
Borden bas been met'with a storm of resentment which bas donc much to
consolidate the public feeling against the prescrit government.
"I agrce with wbat you say about the desirabiilty of netional unity.
I ara sure this will bc kept before the convention, but in my opinion, it
wll hot be possible to evade dealing with war issues. I think tlds should
be donc in a frank and straightforward manner, and'bope as a result a
policy will be adopted that will be to the best interest of the country as
a whole. I recognize after the war is over and conscription forgotten
that the natural allies of the people of the prairie will be round in rural
Quebec.
"It is hot possible for any one to successfully steer this convention,
but its pronouncements will in ail probability accurately refleet Western
opinion .... "
(Wilfrid Lauri to W. M. Martin)
"Ottaw; July 31» 1917.
".I had hoped after out short interview of the other day that you would
be able to corne again to )ttawa, and we would bave an opportunity of
continuing out exchange of views. I regret it ail the more in view of the
western convention which bas been called by Sifton.
"As to the convention itself, I bave no objection, far from it; I always
favoured it. I thought it would be a good m'ove fo bave the Liberals of
the western provinces put their programme into concrete form. The more-
ment, however, seems to me a dangerous one. It is hot for the purpose
of having the programme of the western Liberals that the convention is
called, but r«ther to split the Liberal party.
"It bas been my policy ail along to keep the Liberal party" together on
broad national lines, appealing to no creed and no race. Bourassa endeav-
oured to split the Liberal party in Quebee and created the Nationalist
platform based upon creed and race. Sifton is attemptin.g to do the very
thing af the other end of the line and remake the Lïberal party upon
creed and race. The only difference is that in one case the party was to
be French and Roman Catholic, and now it should be Protestant and
English. The one is just as mischievous as the other.
"Moreover, the attitude taken by Sifton is not only rschievous, but it
is untrue. He bases his propaganda upon the extreme attitude of the
Nationalists, for hith he makes me responsible, and whieh--even now
I ara fighting in the provirce of Quebec.
"Upon the question of conscription as I early realized that there was a
divided opinion even in the English-speaking provinces, I would hot make
it a part?, question. If Sifton bas his way he will try to commit the
western Liberals to conscription.
"I submit to you that the best poliey is the policy which we adopted here,
fo leave it an open question and to confine your resolutions to the broad
questions for which western Liberals bave long striven, and which will be
52
THE CLOSING Y]ARS
sand delegates met in Winnipeg. The plan was to
form a distinct Western Liberal party which would
endorse conscription, renounee Laurier's leadership,
and support a Union government, if possible under a
Liberal or neutral leader. The majority of the Man-
itoba provincial leaders, dominated by the "Free Press,"
were strongly in support of this poliey; the majority
of the Alberta leaders, not ineluding the premier, A. L.
Sifton, were opposed, with British Columbia and
Saskatchewan divided. But once again the organizers
of the movement had failed to allow for the Old Adam
of party prejudiee and partieularly for the intense
personal loyalty to Laurier. The Alberta delegates,
marshalled by Frank Oliver and C. W. Cross, were
partieularly vigorous, but the whole convention was so
obviously eon/mitted to Laurier's leadership that Dr.
Miehael Clark took the train for home the first day
without attempting to address it. Behind the doors of
the eommittee rooms tierce eontroversy waged, ending
in a platform appearanee of harmony among the leaders
and the adoption of resolutions by unanimity or over-
whelming majorities, eondemning the gross ineom-
peteney of the Borden government, ealling for a
still alive when conscription will be dead, hot to be resurrected,--:ertainly
hot for many generations.
"I submit to you these views in al1 sincerity and the full belief that the
policy here laid down is the policy which will leep the Liberal party
a unit from one end of the country to the other, hot only for this day
but for al1 times.
"Believe me ever, my dear Martin,
"Yours very sincerely,
'Hon. W. M. Martin, "Wiaam
"Prime Minister's Ottice,
"Regina, Sask."
'525
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
vigourous and co-ordinated rallying of all Canada's
forces for the war, including the increased production
of food and munitions, the repression of profiteers, and
"the maintenance, in unimpaired strength at the front,
of out fighting forces and the taking of all steps neces-
sary to secure required reinforcements for this purpose."
To the latter resolution an amendment adding "and
by compulsion if necessary," was rejected, by some on
the ground that conscription _,was implied and by others
because of opposition to conscription. On the follow-
ing day a resolution was enthusiastically carried record-
ing the convention's "admiration of the life and work of
the greatest of all Canadians, Sir Wilfrid Laurier,"
and its hope that his ability and "matchtess statesman-
ship may be utilized in reuniting the people of Canada
in this great crisis, in the successful prosecution of the
war, and in carrying out the platform laid down by this
convention." The second movement had failed. The
West was on the whole for conscription, but aside from
a few quarters there was little of the Ontario bitterness
against Quebec, and a strong affection for Laurier.
The project of union seemed scotched. Yet the
forces that made for it, good and bad, were strong, and
still a third attempt followed. With a patience, a
persistence, and an adroitness for which his critics had
hot given him credit, Sir Robert Borden continued his
negotiations, and, incidentally, Sir Clifford Sifton con-
tinued his. In the SVest, the Manitoba element which
had been defeated in the convention, found expression
526
THE CLO$ING YEARS
in the "Manitoba Free Press," owned by Sir Clifford
but under the direction of J. A. Dafoe, and in meetings
of Liberal supporters. On August 21 :Premier Norris
voiced public opposition to Laurier's leadership and his
readiness to support a Union government under Borden.
:Provincial leaders of the more westernly provinces who
favoured conscription wère not yet prepared to agree.
They were prepared to abandon Lam-ier, but not to
follow Borden. On August 17 the prime minister ac-
cepted the resignation of RobeoE Rogers, who had been
under judicial tire in connection with his Manitoba
career, but had been strongly backed by the Conserva-
rive members at Ottawa; one substantial obstacle to
a Union government was thus removed. _After con-
ferences at Ottawa on August 20 between Sir Clifford
Sifton, his brother A. L. Sifton, and a Vestern member
$. G. Turiff, $. A. Calder, the donfinant figure
in the Saskatchewan government, and T. A. Crerar
and H. V. Vood, leaders of the Vestern farmers'
movement, and conferences in Winnipeg three days
later between Messrs. Sifton, Calder, Crerar and
¥ood, Villiam Martin and C. A. Dunning of Saskatch-
ewan and A. B. Hudson of Manitoba, an offer was
ruade to the prime minister to join a Union government
under the leadership of any one of six other men, three
Conservatives and three Libera]s. At a caucus of the
Conservative members at Ottawa on _August 29, Sir
Robert submitted this proposal, and offered fo retire
altogether or to serve under Sir George Foster. The
caucus would not listen fo this suggestion, and expressed
approval of Sir Robert's past and future conduct.
Meanwhile two significant developments were under
527
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
way af Ottawa. One had to do with the railway situa-
tion which was not far in the background of all the
Union discussion. The Canadian Northern had not
found relief in the government gifts of 1918 nor the
government loans of 1914. The railway, or the bond-
holders and pledgees behind if, were again in straits.
lather than make further advanees, the government
proposed fo take over the road, at a priee to be set by
arbitration. The Opposition did not objeet fo national-
ization, but urged that it was preposterous to pay a
cent for a road confessedly in bankruptey, and that
defalcation proceedings should be taken under the provi-
sions ruade by the government itself in the Act of 1914.
After a vigorous discussion, in which there, was no
element of obstruction, as the government benches con-
tributed more words to the debate than the Opposition,
the bill was jammed through under elosure on 2ku-
gust 29.
The other measures were a revision of the machinery
for reeording the vote of the soldiers overseas, and a
War 'rimes Eleetion Act to establish a new franchise
in Canada. The provisions of the latter measure were
amounced by Mr. l[eighen, its chier framer and
defender, in the Commons on September 6. On the
llea that the soldiers eould not poll their full vote, the
franchise was eonferred upon the women next-of-kin
of all overseas men. On the plea that their sympathies
were with the enemy, all former eitizens of Germany or
Austria, and all former eitizens of other European
eountries whose mother tongue was German, who had
528
THEIR GOLDEN VrEDDING DAY
(May 13, 1918)
THE CLOSING YEARS
become naturalized in Canada since 1902, were to be
deprived of the franchise. This extraordinary measure
was at once attacked by the whole Opposition, but
was forced through. The pretences urged in its
behalf were flimsy and insupportable. There was no
diflïculty, and no reason to anticipate any difficulty, in
polling as large a proportion of the soldiers' as of the
eivilian vote. There was doubtless some lukewarm-
ness or even sympathy with the enemy among some of
the German settlers in the West, but to assume that
the Czech and Slovak, the Ruthenian and the Pole,
who ruade up the 'bulk of the settlers from the enemy
powers, had any love for Austria or Germany vas fo
fly in the face of facts, and to deprive Russians and
Swiss of votes because German was their mother tongue
was even less defensible. The majority of these people,
who had found prosperity under the Laurier régime,
were Liberals, had been so before any international
issue arose, and doubtless would be so still; that was
sufflcient to warrant breaking the solemn pledge of
citizenship. As for the special vomen's franchise, it
was assumed that pride in privilege and the argument
that conscription vould bring relief fo their men over-
seas, would throw this vote wholly fo the government.
It was frankly a stacking of the cards, a gerrymander
on a colossal scale, an attempt without parallel except
in the tactics of Lenin and Trotsky to ensure the dom-
inance of one party in the state. The excuse given
that the end j ustified the means, that any measure was
warranted which would prevent the victory of a leader
529
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
whose policy was traitorous and disastrous, begged the
question and added insolence to highway robbery.
The Var Times Eleetion A_et aehieved Union govern-
ment. It eompelled the Vestern Liberals who had
sought union on their own terms to aeeede toit on Sir
Robert Borden's terres. James Calder held the key to
the Vestern situation and James Calder handed it over
very shortly after this black jack was brandished.
Meanwhile Robert Rogers was foreed to wateh his old
rival Clifford Sifton taking up his original idea and in-
dueing the prime minster, who had refused to use it to
eleet a Conservative government with logers in, to use
it to eleet a Unionist government with logers out.
Before giving in, section of the eonseriptionist
Liberals sought one more solution. Early in Oetober
three Liberals waited on Sir Wilfrid Laurier in his
study to suggest that he resign in favour of an English-
speaking leader. They intimated that the leadership
of a Freneh-Canadian, opposed to conscription, would
be a handicap in their eommunities, and that even in
spite of the Var Times Eleetions Aet, a Liberal party
under a eonseriptionist leader would have a chance for
vietory. Sir Vilfrid, who had more than once sought
in vain to resign, was surprised by this intimation, but
at once replied that if there was any general feeling in
that direction he would immediately withdraw; he
would therefore eonsult his friends. On the way home,
one of the visitors stopped at a news ageney, and stated
that Sir Vilfrid had definitely resigned. The blaze of
580
THE CLOSING YEARS
astounded query and indignant protest from every
quarter next day revealed the fatuity of the suggestion.
The Liberal party was clearly doomed fo defeat, but it
was not doomed fo dishonour; any change in leadership
in that crisis would hot have averted defeat and would
still further have accentuated the racial cleavage. Sir
Wilfrid took the train immediately for Toronto and
Montreal, where he consulted political and personal
friends. Their insistence confirmed his rising pugnac-
ity, and he stayed.
The union negotiations now came quickly to a head.
:For a week Ottawa swarmed with Liberal and ex-
Liberal and near-Liberal politicians, soon to be trans-
formed into Unionist statesmen. The decision of the
Westerners fo enter had made it merely question of
personnel. On October 12, Sir Robert Borden an-
nounced his new Union cabinet. :Even in the face of
certain defeat, few of Laurier's federal colleagues had
accepted office; Charles Murphy, William Pugsley,
D. D. McKenzie, had supported him throughout, and
George Graham, though opposed on conscription, would
not go in. A. K. Maclean and Hugh Guthrie, and
later :F. B. Carvell, were the only members of the
federal gToup to enter the new administration. The
other Liberals were drawn from provincial politics or
private life: Mr. Rowell, General Mewburn and a
Labour representative, Senator Robertson, from On-
ratio; Mr. Calder from Saskatchewan; Mr. Sifton from
Alberta; Mr. Crerar from Manitoba, and Mr. Ballon-
581
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
tyne from Quebec. It was not found possible to induce
any French-Canadian of weight to join Messrs. Blondin
and Sévigny. Unquestionably, the new administra-
tion was individually a strong one, however its members
would succeed in pulling together.
The day after the new cabinet was formed Sir
Wilfrid wrote to his staunchest Nova Scotia lieutenant:
(Wilfrid Laurier to D. D. Mackenzie)
Ottawa, October 13, 1917.
MY »EAX MACKEIZLE :
In the first place let me agaln pray you fo accept my very
sincere thanks for your kind and warm telegram.
The whole story is that if was represented fo me by some
friends that under present circumstances an English-speaking
leader would be more acceptable fo the Liberal party. My
answer was that if such was the wish of the party, I would
undoubtedly resign, but the marrer could hot be decided with-
out reference to the party itself. This was a confidential
talk, but some indiscretion was committed--I do not know by
whom--and a distorted announcement was made in the press
to the effect that I had reslgned. This brought me a shower
of representations, your own included, showing me conclusively
that the feeling was far from unanimous, and if I may judge,
the feeling is preponderant that I should continue af my post.
The formation of the Union government, so-called, has con-
firmed me in this view; and now I am in the fight to face
a murderous winter election, even if I have fo die for it. This
is not the rime fo desert the ship.
I j ust learned that Carvell was sworn this morning. As
to Murray I had a visit from him yesterday accompanied by
Maclean. He told me that he would hot decide anything with-
out previous consultation with his friends and that he was
returning fo Halifax with that object in view. He came and
very frankly asked me, as I thought, my opinion. I told
him that my views were well known, as I had already declined
532
THE CLOSING YEARS
to form part of a so-called Union government: but I would
hot presume to give him any advice. He left the marrer al-
together in the hands of our Nova Scotia friends. I have
the greatest confidence in Murray's judgment and loyalty,
and i.f he were fo accept it would be the worst blow of Ml.
But it is for you and for our other friends fo discuss the
marrer with him.
I can sec no reason to change my attitude. But there have
been so many defections since prorogation that I ara prepared
for the worst every day.
In the meantime I cannot conceal from myself the fact that
the Western defection is a serious one. In Saskatchewan the
whole of our organization passes into the hands of the Con-
servatives, and we bave little hope there. In Manitoba the
local government will be against us, but thcir influence, though
still large, is not what it was. In Alberta the new local govern-
ment will be with us, and we can look to a good account
there. In British Columbia I am not in a position to make
any statement. Our friends are very enthusiastic in that prov-
ince, but the conscriptionist sentimen.t is very strong.
And now, my dear Mackenzie, I have unfoldcd my whole
thought fo you, and my prayer is that the Lord may preserve
me from having to sit face to face and not side by side witb.
my old friend Murray ....
In the election campaign which followed, conscrip-
tion was the dominant issue. The Liberals endeavoured
to shift the fighting to the incompetence and grafting
revealed in the conduct of the war, but the people could
not now be interested. The government forces insisted
it was a plain issue of going on with the war or quitting,
of supporting or deserting the men at the front.
Conscription was necessary; voluntary enlistment had
failed to reach the half-million mark set, to equal the
casualties, particularly now in the heavy fighting in the
588
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
mud of t'asschendaele, or fo equal proportionately the
Australian or New Zealand level; with lussi out, the
emergency was pressing. If was fair; if meant equality
of sacrifice between man and man, between province and
province. If was businesslike: if saved the effort and
the indignity of begging men fo fight for their country,
saved the waste of enlisting unfit recruits, saved the
married man with responsibilities going beeause the
young slacker would not go. The leaders of the Cana-
dian forces ealled for it. It had been adopted by
]3rîtain and the United States and every European
eombatant. Its adoption would eonvince Germany
that Canadt was in the war to the end, and lier resistanee
hopeless. The Opposition leaders denied its necessity:
voluntary enlistment had not failed, running six to seven
thousand a month in 1917 until May; the hall-million
mark was wholly arbitrary; few armies could expect
af ter three years of war fo keep new recruits equal to
wastage, if was not being done in ]3ritain, with conscrip-
tion, and the casualties of t'asschendaele ealled for in-
quiry as to the eonduct of the war rather than for
unlimited new eontingents; Australia and New Zealand
had no munitions industry and with their distance from
the war could not meet hall so well as Canada the
pressing, almost famine, conditions in Europe's food
supply. If Russia was out, the United States was in,
and would have to raise nearly six million men before
if equalled Canada's record by voluntary enlistment;
the trouble was not to find men but, aeeording fo the
]3ritish Shipping Controller, fo find ships fo transport
THE CLOSING YEARS
them overseas and food fo maintain them. It was not
necessary fo form a fifth division; there were ample men
to supply reinforcements for four divisions. If was
signifieant hat in South Afriea conscription for Euro-
pean servie had never been seriously proposed and if
had been proposed in Australia only fo be beaten on a
referendum. As to the urging of the oflïeers, "I have
never heard of a general," Sir Vilfrid declared, "in this
war or any other who did not want more men." Equal-
ity of sacrifice between individuals was impossible, in
face of the accident of age or a fiat foot or early
rnarriage or engagement in an exempt occupation.
Wiser seleetion might have been possible, some had
gone who should have stayed, some stayed who should
have gone, but by and large the composition of the
forces did not greatly differ from what seleetive tri-
bunals would have secured. To seeure equality of en-
listment among eommunities, if would be neeessary to
secure first identity of race, of sentiment, of social condi-
tions, of industrial organization. The proposal would
bring few more men than the voluntary system; if was
lisrupting Canada fo appease a few hysterieal patriots
and fo win an eleetion.
But if was not merely the arguments, but the force
behind them that eounted. The government had prae-
tically the whole English-speaking daily press, save the
London "A_dvertiser," the Calgary "News-Telegram"
and the Edmonton "Bulletin"; it had the organization
of both parties in most of the provinces; if had funds for
advertising and organization. A Vietory Loan eam-
535
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
paign in November provided organization, enthusiasm,
advertising, whieh were diverted to the government's aid
in December. Praetieally every eity-dweller in On-
tario and the Western provinces who admitted he was
in the leading eitizen elass baeked Union. The Protes-
tant pulpits, with a few Ronan Catholic prela.tes like
]3ishop Fallon assisting them, beeame Unionist strong-
holds. On the Sunday before the eleetion, whieh came
on a Monday, three out of four Protestant pulpits, in
aeeordanee with skilfully devised eireulars fron the
Unionist headquarters and with personal promptings,
urged the support of the government as a saered duty;
in the palmiest days of the hierarehy in Quebee, no such
fusillade of eeelesiastie adviee had ever been fired in
Canada. In the eities, the Unionists seemed to have
things their own way. Not so in the country, where
many of the leaders in the farmers' organizations eon-
demned the eampaign as arrogant and hysterieal. A
fortnight before the election the rulnours froln the rural
districts of Ontario brought panie fo Unionist head-
quarters; a speeial Sunday eouncil was ealled at Ot-
tawa, and the final proof that conscription was devised
fo win the war and not to -in the eleetion came with the
public pledge from the Minister of Militia, General
Mewburn, that farmers' sons would be exempted:
"I will give you my word that if any farmers' sons
who are honestly engaged in farm work and in the pro-
duetion of foodstuffs, are not exempted by the tribunals
and are ealled up for military service, I will have them
honourably diseharged."
586
THE CLOSING YEARS
The campaign for conscription enlisted many noble
qualifies. Thc mother, dreaming night and day of thc
boy facing dcath ovcrseas, starting af thc sight of cvery
tclegram, wcaring hcrsclf out knitting for him and othcr
mothcrs' sons, and longing for the day, which she be-
lieved conscription would hasten, when ho would corne
back to her; the honest patriot, determined that his
country vould not weaken in ifs task; the strong party
man, sacrificing old associations and old prejudices at
the call of duty, did honour fo their country. But there
were other motives not so commendable concerned: the
facial hatred against Quebec, the arrogant assumption
of exclusive patriotism; the twisting and suppression of
Laurier's statements; the weak swimming with the ride
of prejudice. The Toronto "News" criticizing Laurier
as "a demagogue, a charlatan and a mountebank," a
Montreal Seoteh-Canadian deelaration that "if Laurier
were to win he would win leading the eockroaches of the
kitchen of Canada to vietory," advertisements of a
Toronto Citizens' Union Committee appealing for "a
solid Ontario to prevent the domination of a solid
Quebee," asserting that "a Laurier vietory will be the
first Canadian defeat," that "Laurier is the tool of
Bourassa," that "our Victory Loan must not be handed
over to Quebee to spend," the posters deelaring that
"a vote for Laurier is a vote for the Kaiser," were
typical instances of the campaign that lashed the
English-speaking provinces into passion in the last few
weeks of the campaign. 1
1 Welcome in the storm of such abuse were letters such as the following
537
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Sir Wilfrid faced the bitter and hopeless fight with
undaunted courage. In his eleetion address, on Nov-
ember 4, he insisted that conscription was hindering
rather than helping to win the war, defended his poliey
of a referendum, showed that Australia had not "quit"
after rejecting conscription, reviewed the Borden-
Bourassa alliance, denouneed the War Times Election
Aet as vieious in prineiple and vieious in detail, "a blot
upon every instinct of justice, honesty and fair play,"
urged generous treatment to soldiers' familles and to
injured men, held the govermnent responsible for un-
checked profiteering, and proposed a constructive pro-
from the chivalrous son of a strpng and prudent father, under whose
leadership no more than under Laurier's, could Canada have been suffered
to drift to the verge of the precipice:
"WIrIrV., Nov. 21, 1917.
"The Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, (t. C. M. (t.,
"Ottawa, Ot.
*«MY DEAR SIR vrILFRID:
"As I learned from this morning's papers that this was tLe anniversary
of your birth, I write, as I bave frequently done before, to tender you my
most hearty congratuIations and to express the hope that you may be
long spared to us in health and strength. Having been brought up in a
different schooI of thought, I bave never seen eye to eye with you in
matters political, but, from the first moment that I met you, to the
present rime, I have received ai your hands nathing but the most cour-
teous treatment, and I tan assure }ou that I prize highly the friendly
regard that you have always shown towards me. It must be gratifying
to you to know that, even at a moment like the present, when we are in
the midst of a General Election, where the.issue involved is one like]y to
excite poIitical passions more than an ordinary contest would, there are
thousands, who think as I do, who entertain towards you nothing but the
most friendly feeling and vho wish you well from the bottom of their
hearts. Indeed, I can say truthflflIy that by far the greater part of the
Conservative party in Canada, although strongly opposed fo your political
views, bave an esteem for you personally that if is hard to overestimate,
and are always delighted fo hear anything fo your advantage outside the
politieal arena.
"With kindest regards and best wishes, I remain, my dear Sir Wilfrid,
"Yours very sincerely,
'«HuoH J. IIAcDOITALD. ss
538
THE CLOSING YEARS
gramme for the rebuilding of Canada after the war.
In the :East he spoke little; one meeting in Quebec, one
in Ottawa and on¢ in Arnprior were all that renewed
illness pernfitted him to make in the month following
his manifesto.
Vith virtually no Fnglish-speaking press, with no
funds, no organization, .and hosts of old supporters
alienated, the task that fell upon himself and the faith-
ful few was overwhelming. In Quebec, the whole
phalanx of Liberals, federal and provincial, French-
speaking and :English-speaking, stood solid; Henri
]3ourassa, who did not run, himself, advised support to
the Liberals as the lesser evil, but Armand Lavergne
contested a seat--in vain--against both a Liberal and a
Conservative. Feeling ran quite as high as h Ontario,
and while there was less of the cheap abuse of opponents
there was much frothy exaggeration and mob attacks on
government speakers. 'rhe 3laritime provinces, as
usual, avoided the worst excesses of the central prov-
inces; Premier Murray gave a eautious blessing fo
Unionism, but did not fight for it; 3Ir. Fielding
supported if with slightly greater warmth; Dr. Pugsley
retired fo the haven of a lieutenant-governorship; E. M.
Maedonald did not run, but the other leaders stood fast.
In Ontario, in spire of the whirlwind of denuneiation,
there were a number of strong eandidates, George S.
Gibbons, A. C. Hardy, Frank Denton, V. D. Gregory,
Gordon Valdron, Herbert Horsey, V. C. Kennedy,
I. E. Pedlow, :E. C. Drttry, Duncan Ross, A. ]3.
:SIcCoig, Reuben Truax, the latter four supporting
539
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
conscription but opposing the government, in addition
to Charles Murphy and Mackenzie King, but the
warmth of the contest left them litt]e opportunity for
work outside their own ridings. Sir AI]en Ay]esworth
and Hart]ey Dewart on the p]atform and John F, wart
with his pen threv themselves into the breach. In
Manitoba, only two former members of parliament, ,l.
P. Molloy and J. E. Adamson, now stood with Laurier;
ail the provincial ministers were opposed. In Sas-
katchewan, Premier Martin gave a moderate sup-
port to Union; lV. R. Motherwell, George Langley,
George Bell and W. F. Turgeon, of the {artin cabinet,
supported Laurier; the organization was in Mr. Calder's
pocket. In Alberta, C. V. Cross, J. R. Boyle, W.
Gariepy, and G. P. Smith, ail local ministers, with A.
G. Mackay, reinforced Frank Oliver, while in British
Columbia, ,l. H. King, F. C. Vade, W. V. B.
McInnes, J. V. deB. Farris, M. A. Macdonald and
,loseph Martin, back in Canada after an erratic course
in the British House of Commons, were active.
Realizing that the West held the deciding voice, Sir
lVilfrid, in spire of illness and December rigours, made
hurried trip through to the Pacific coast accompanied
by Walter Mitchell and Hartley Dewart. At Winni-
peg on December 10, next day af Regina, at four meet-
ings in Calgary on the 12th, and rive in Vancouver on
the lth, he addressed great crowds whose cheers ruade
it clear that in spire of calumny his naine was still a
watchword fo tens of thousands. From Vancouver he
50
THE CLOSING YEARS
turned east, and heard the results of the polling on the
journey.
The result, as modified later by the soldiers' vote,
was an overwhelming vietory for the Union government.
In the Maritime provinces, the Liberals held ten seats,
the Union Liberals seven and the Conservatives four-
teen. In Quebee, there was a solid Liberal bloek of
sixoEy-two against one Union and two Conservative mem-
bers. Ontario returned eight Liberals, twelve Union
Liberals and sixty-two Conservatives. In the West,
only two Liberal eandidates survived against eighteen
Union Libera]s and thirty-seven Conservatives. In the
whole Dominion, there were eighty-two straight Lib-
erals, thirty-eight Union Liberals and one hundred and
fifteen Conservatives, or a government maj ority of
seventy-one. On the government side there was only
one Freneh-Canadian, returned for an Ottawa seat.
The vote of Quebee was not a surprise, exeept in its
emphasis. The equally emphatie vote of the West was
unexpeeted, and to Sir Wilfrid, after his brief but
eneouraging trip, the ehief disappointment. The sol-
diers' vote went twelve to one for the government, as
against fourteen to eleven in the Australian soldiers'
vote on the conscription referendum. The different
tesult in Canada's case revealed the extent to whieh
undisguised oflïeial pressure and facial antipathy against
Quebee supplemented the natural desire of the man in
the trenehes to make his home-keeping fellow do his tutu.
As usual, but in more pronouneed degree, the results did
raot correspond fairly to the popular vote. In Nova
51
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Scotia, the Liberals should have had half, instead of one-
fourth the seats, and in Ontario, one-third instead of
one-tenth, while in Quebee, the government polled one-
fourth the vote and seeured one-twentieth of the seats.
In Ontario, Laurier polled sixty thousand rotes more
than in 1911. [uch of this lack of correspondence be-
tween rotes and seats was due to the system of single-
member eonstituencies, and incurable unless with the
adoption of some method of proportional representation.
Much of it, however, in the case of the soldiers' vote,
was due to flagrant manipulation and wholesale j obbery,
the ballots being assigned to close eonstitueneies regard-
less of the men's real residenee.
Sir Vilfrid took the result with his usual serene
courage. The strain of his Vestern trip eonfined him
to his room for a week, but did not daunt his spirit. To
a member of the Press GalleT, 1 tterbert Chisholm,
who spoke to him of the great ovations whieh had
greeted him in the West, he eheerfully replied from his
iillows: "Yes, they eheered for me, but they didn't vote
for me."
The personal attaeks, deeply as he felt them, unwar-
ranted as he knew them, he magnanimously forgave.
If was harder fo reassure himself that his life-work of
bringing unity to English-speaking and Freneh-speak-
1 Sir Wilfrid never gave an interview for pu'blieation, but he w«s alay8
on close and friendly term wi.h newspaper men, partieularly member8
of the Press Gallery. He would talk freely, nd never had his confidence
bused. While he never followed the eommon praetiee of reading news-
papers during debates in the House, he was very often fo be seen running
through files in he Commons readingroom, while on the table of the
morning-room at home a large number of Canadien newspapers were alwsy
fo be round» ranging from the "Orange Sentinel" o "LeDevoir:'
THE CLOSING YEARS
ing Canadians had not come to ruin. Yet he soon re-
gained confidence. "I still have faith," he wrote, "in
the sound sense of the Canadian people and in the broad
forces that make for national unity on a basis of fait
and respeeting partnership. Once the war is over, no
eleetion, no dozen eleetions, no unserupulous propa-
ganda, ean prevent Canadians more and more beeoming
Canadians first, and when they are so, we shall hear less
and less of Ontario and of Quebee."
A friend wrote him on December 19:
Is there any answer fo the question, "What happened?"
:Possibly I might suggest one. Calder told me, belote Union
Government was formed, that with the Franchise Aet and
Ç100,000, every follower of the government, no marrer what if
was, eould be eleeted west of the Great Lakes. In Ontario
the situation was eomplieated, and had not the government
interfered with the working of the Military Service Aet we
would have had af least 25 seats. As if was, they sent rep-
resentatives through every riding releasing the farmers, sons
from the draft, altogether illegal of course but nevertheless
if was done. The women's vote was largely in favour of the
government. The fact that the Protestant clergy took a
prominent part reached the women voters more than anything
else, and appeals they made in the homes as well as in the pulpit
went straight to the sympathies and sentiments of the mothers
and wives, who were told that unless the government was
returned their relatives would never corne back from the front,
but if Unionism was supported their loved ones would be
allowed to corne home in a few weeks.
Sir Wilfrid replied:
You give me in your letter the truc cause of our defeat.
As it was expressed by Calder, so it was expressed fo me by
him: the government could earry every seat in the West with
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WlLFRID LAURIER
the War-Times Elections Act. Knowing the means and meth-
ods so well, and being in the government himsdf, he has worked
the trick.
My trip westward convinced me that the masses of the people
were with us, but effective means were taken to stifle their
voice and have hot a real but a mechanical majority.
Ontario did not surprise me. Our friends were very con-
fident of electing twenty-five, but if seemed to me that they were
over sanguine, and that the facial cry would work its effect.
To an Ontario candidate he wrote:
Ottawa, December 27, 1917.
The result in Ontario did not surprise me. With the press
of the province ahnost unanimous against us, if would have
been difficult to hope for victory, or even for a fair show.
What the press failed to achieve the women and parsons
completed.
It has been my lot fo run the whole gamut of prejudices in
Canada. In 1896 I was excommunicted by the Roman priests
and in 1917 by Protestant parsons. Let us take it cheerfully,
however, and be prepared to continue the fight for the good
cause.
To Liberal friend in command of regiment
overseas he gave another angle of the situation:
Ottawa, January 18, 1918..
You tell me that in this election you went against me. In
this, let me tell you frankly, you were wrong, but if it be any
consolation fo you, you know that you were not the only one.
The party bas bcen largely with you in the present issue.
¥our reason fo take the stand which you took is: "To us
speedy reinforcements seem to take precedence of all else."
I appreciate the point of view, but you will sec how far wrong
you were. The conscription measure was introduced in the
first week of June. We are now in the third week of January
and not ten thousand men, if indeed half that many, have been
brought into the ranks by this measure. By next June :you
SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Photogrph taken at Senator David's home, .Iontreal, a few weeks
belote his death
THE CLOSING YEARS
will hOt bave one conscrlpted man across the ocean, and I
doubt if you will have any number by the first of January
next. You may perhaps have a few hundred, but never the
figure contemplated.
The wrong of the measure is forcing if upon an unwilling
peop|e; and by this I do hOt mean the l%ench-Canadians alone.
All the labour classes protested against if and asked for a
referendum upon if. In Quebec public opinion had been created
by the alliance of the Nationalists and jingoes in the election
of 1911 when, as you remember, the Nationalists carried on
a campaign upon the cry that under no circumstances should
Canada participate in the wars of Great Britain. But if
would be of no use fo rccriminate. The government has won
hOt upon the merits of the issue but by thc working of the
War Times Elections Act. You are still a Liberal--I bave
no doubt of that whatever--but you will find, whcn the war is
over, that if will be difticult fo undo the mischief which has
been donc. It would have been far casier fo bave the men
by voluntary enlistment, if the government had appIied itseIf
to the task with some judgment.
As Sir Wilfrid indicated in this letter, the Military
Service Act did more to win the election than to win the
war. It failed absolutely in the ostensible aim of
providing greater reinforcements than the voluntary
system. The government had had a free hand in fram-
ing the measure. No effort or expense was spared in
its enforcement. A huge administrative staff was set
up, each oflïce with its full equipment of shining desks
and elaborate files; forms and instructions and regula-
tions rained from the Printing Bureau; medical oflïcers
and reviewing boards, local tribunals, appeal courts and
central appeal judge (Mr. Justice I)uff) were
appointed, with militia representatives fo check exemp-
545
LIFE AND LETTERS OF IR WILFRID LAURIER
tions; police were enrolled to round up defaulters. In
Quebee as elsewhere, once the issue was deeided at the
polls, the aet was aeeepted, and ifs operation given full
seope.
Yet the legions promised did not appear. The first
shoek fo the sanguine supporters of the aet came when
it was round that of the 0,000 of the first elass, un-
married men from twenty to thirty-four, who had regis-
tered by the end of 1917, 880,000 had elaimed exemp-
tion; the next, with the announeement that there were
118,000 claires for exemption from Ontario as against
115,000 from Quebee (out of 125,000 and 117,000 regis-
trants). Local tribunals, partieularly in Quebee, were
eharged with being fareically lax; on the other hand,
the military representatives appealed nearly every
e:emption in Quebee, but allowed 90,000 in Ontario to
go unopposed. Exemptions were reviewed by the
appeal judges and later by Justice Duff; by the end
of Match, some 86,000 out of 872,000 cases had been
deeided. In Quebee 108,000 exemptions had been
finally approved, and in Ontario 10,000. Sir Rober
Borden had insisted in June that it was absolutely es-
sential to have 70,000 men by Deeember 81, 1917. By
Match 81, 1918, the number ordered to report for duty
was only 81,000, of whom 5,000 defaulted, the net yield
being less than 26,000. Supporters of conscription
were slow to adroit its failure, but in the face of this
breakdown eritieism eould not be wholly suppressed.
"The spectacle offered by the operation of the draft
system bas not been eneouraging," the $1ontreal
546
THE CI,OSING YEARS
"Gazette" declared in March; "the government appears
to have established a system which if it gets the men at
all, will get them so slowly that whatever military ad-
vantage depends upon expeditious reinforcement will
be lost." The Toronto "Globe" referred to "the wide-
spread feeling of disappointment," while Mayor Church
of Toronto stated: "The Military Service Act will cost
the country millions and is getting very little results.
If the government had spent one-quarter of the money
in voluntary recruiting, they would have got more men."
Vriting to an Ontario friend, Sir Wilfrid com-
mented:
Yes, if is admitted by foes as well as by friends that the
session opencd as satisfactorily as we of the Opposition could
desire. In the House, the few of us Liberals who have sur-
vived are ail united. We have no ambition to defeat, even fo
harass the government. Quite the reverse: out only aim is fo
help and assist.
It is no" fclt on the Treasury Benches that conscription was
a failure, and that coercion will not produce the results which
its authors anticipated. There are strong reasons for believing
that the government would quietly let the act pass into obliv-
ion, but the blind, the fools and the miscreants who coerced the
government fo coerce still hold the whip high over their heads.
And now the band of the blind, the fools and the miscreants is
being strengthened by those other blind, fools and miscreants
who af this moment are stirring up the people of Quebec to
violence and riot.
Of course violence must be put down and obedlence fo the
law maintained ....
. . I am very much alarmed a.t the situation in Quebec.
Out troubles ho-wever are nothing. The situation in Europe
is alarming almost fo heartbreaking. For the moment the
547
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
German offensive seems tobe arrested. We are thankful, hOt
that we won, but tha.t we did hot lose more. Yet I sec no al-
ternative. The fight must go on. Peace to-day would be a
German peace and after the experience of Russia, we know
what a Gernmn peace means.
Wilson is easily, as you wdl say, the world's Liberal leader.
He is more; he is the leader. The principles and ideals which
he put forth were admirable and admirably expressed. In my
opinion he made a mistake in hoping that the peace ideals of
which he made himself the champion may flnd an echo in Ger-
many, and there rouse the democratic forces. In this I be-
lievehow I would hope that I am wrong!--his judgment was
wrong. So long as Germany is victorious, democracy in Gcr-
many will be impotent, and perhaps silently acquiescent fo
triumphant autocracy. Principles are eternal, but German
democrats bave always shown themselves stronger in theory
than in practice. This has also happencd elsewhere.
In this country public opinion seems at last fo have been
aroused by the scandalous trop of titles with which we are
yearly vexed. Nickle, I ara told, is in dead earnest. ,¥e will
be only too glad on our side, to second his efforts,
¥ours very sincerely,
WILF]ID LAU]IE
The militry crisis caused by the German drive for
the channel ports in Match gave occasion for a change
in policy. The government decided to cancel ail the
exemptions granted to men of twenty, twenty-one and
twenty-two years of age. A resolution sanctioning
an order in council to this effect passed parliament by
a vote of 11 to 65. The validity of the order-in-council
was tested in the courts, denied by the Alberta Supreme
Court,-hose orders were overridden by the rnilitary
authorities, and upheld in a four-to-two division of the
548
THE CLOSING YEARS
federal Supreme Court. So far as the cancelling of
exemptions affeeted farmers' sons, if was a plain breaeh
of the promise given on the eve of eleetion. 2k huge
deputation of farmers, mainly from Ontario, stormed
Ottawa, but met little sympathy and mueh ridicule.
Sir Robert Borden insisted that there was " still more
solemn eovenant" with the men who stood with their
backs to the wall in Flanders. In the eities, the fariner
began to take the place of the Freneh-Canadian as the
target of eriticism, and the fariner on his part learned
the value of election pledges and the weakness of unor-
ganized masses. The fariner had reeeived his second
lesson. City-made tariffs and eity-made standards of
patriotism were very largely responsible for the politieal
organization and victories of the farmers that followed.
rhen the end came in November, 1918, some 83,000
men had been enrolled under the act, or had reported
voluntarily af ter its enaetment; of these, 7,000 were
on compassionate leave and 15,000 on farm leave, so
that the aetual yield was 61,000 men, of whom few ever
saw France. Of these, Ontario yielded more than Que-
bec. The slaeker remained a slaeker still, some 24,000
defaulters escaping apprehension. The aet, even with
the eaneelling of exemption, did not yield as many men
a month as the voluntary system, and even if allowanee
were ruade for the eumulative exhaustion of the supply
of men, and the greater proportion available for infantry
duty, if was elear that the test of experienee had gone
against the measure. It yielded no margin of reinforee-
ments to balance the stirring of passion and the eleavage
59
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of race and province it provoked. It did produce the
Unionist party.
The first session of Canada's thirteenth parliament
was a quiet one. The government had a fah- quota of
important measures to its credit, granting woman suf-
frage, bringing the outside civil service under the merit
system, enacting daylight-saving, and increasing income
and business-profits taxes. Aside from the cancella-
tion of exemptions, the most contentious question was
the nmvement against titles, particularly hereditary
titles. W.F. Nickle, seconded by A. R. McMaster,
moved the abolition of all hereditary titles, to be met by
the prime mkuister with the unexpected statement that
the government had already taken action by order-in-
council requesting that no honour be conferred upon
Canadians, save for service in the present war, except
with the approval of the prhne minister, that no further
hereditary titles be granted, and existing titles be made
to terminate with the present holder: Sir Wilfrid was
prepared to go much further:
Is there any reason why there should be the bestowal of titles
of any kind in Canada ? Everybody will, I believe, agree that
in Canada, badges, titles, honours and trappings will never
take root. We are a democratic country we bave been made
so by circumstances .... If my friends will .]oin me, oI ara
quite prepared, if we can do it without .any disrespect to tle
Crown of England, fo bring our titles fo the market-place and
make a bonfire of them.
There were few open defenders of this exotic device.
Sir Robert Borden, it is true, threatened to resign if
.THE CLOSING YEARS
an amendment involving the abolition of non-heredital T
titles as well, were earried.
Throughout the session, Sir Wilfrid pursued a poliey
of conciliation. I-Ie knew that differences of tradition
and the difl]eulties of reconstruction would inevitably
disintegrate the coalition ranks. I-Ie urged, in vain,
the repeal of the War Time Eleetion A_et, but he ruade
no personal attaek on any of his former supporters.
The light was in the window for the wanderers to return.
To an ardent Western supporter he eounselled toler-
anee:
0ttawa, December 23, 1918.
The situation is a very simple one to me. It is never sound
policy fo harbour a grudge nor even to resent an injury, ex-
cept when inspired by sheer malice. With regard to those
who dcserted us and went into the Union government we shall
be spared the trouble of deciding whether they should be taken
back or kept out, with the exception of one and perhaps two;
they will ai1 remain with the Union and support the Conserv-
ative policy without any shame about it. As to the rank and
ile, when we have the convention--which I think ought fo be
held during the course of the coming year--the platform of
the party will be defined and ail who accept it will be welcome
without any question put as to their past.
As to the Union government, it is very much as your friend
expressed it : they have still lots of support but very few friends.
With regard to the War Time Elections Act, the question
must be put straight to the majority now behind the govern-
ment fo repeal it. If they refuse, they will thereby deem it
essential fo their salvation to keep alive that instrument of
iniquity, and in the next election the contest will be directly
and openly between Might and Right.
In any case, growing weakness would have prevented
551
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
a very vigorous eanapaign. In ,lune and ,luly Sir
Wilfrid faced mueh pain. A visit to Senator Casgrain's
home at Val Morin and to Sydney Fisher's Alva Farm,
restored something of his strength, but every exertion
left him exhausted; he would nod in conference, fumble
for a word. Yet his wonderful memory for men at
least had not yet failed him. As he was sailing down
Lake Memphremagog, in a little steamer, an old man
came aboard from a wayside port, passed along the
gangway, halted, to be greeted by a sharp glance from
Sir Wilfrid, the glad uttering of his naine, a warm
handclasp, and a lively exchange of reminiscences. It
was a friend of law-student days whom he had not seen
for fifty years, and yet through ai1 the disguises of age
and rime he haut instantly recalled him.
Well or iii, Sir Wilfrid never lost interest in books,
and particularly in books bearing on Canadian life;
a letter to a young friend in these months is typical:
( Wilfrid Laurier to Léon Mercier Gouin.--Translation)
Ottawa, September 8, 1918.
MY DF_,AI LEo.; :
Yes, I know quite well Louis Hémon's "Marie Chapdelaine,"
the first and unfortunately the last work of that young author
too soon taken from us. As I was taldng the train af Quebec
one day to return to Ottawa, an enthusiastic friend put it in
my hands. I read if through af a sitting, af first from curios-
ity, and then with growing interest.
It is a very thorough psychological study of the lire of
our pioneers and settlers.
The opening pages are very vlvld and very true to lire.
The worshipping assembly seatterlng after the "Ire Missa est";
the hubbub af the ehurch door; the interjections, the sallies full
552
THE CLOSING YEARS
of wit and malice,--all that is closely observed and well
described.
The characters are excellently drawn, lather Chapdelaine,
eager not so much to farm as to clear the ground and make
a farm; Mother Chapdelaine who would have liked to lire out
her whole reign in the old parishes François Paradis, brave
in toil as in peril, at once adventurous and calculating; Marie
Chapdelaine, strong and valiant,--all these characters have
lived ; a.ll are clearly types which the author has met and has
studied from the lire.
Might I, howevcr, make a further comment? Hémon has
hot bccn as fortunate in grasping the spirit of all this sturdy
folk. He pictures them as striving, but striving joylessly, with
a sort of rcsigned but sombre fatalism, fo snatch from the
soil a wretched existence, regretting their lot and yet persist-
ing in it.
That is not the attitude of the settlers who attack our
forests, not from necessity but from choice ; for proof, Samuel
Chapdclaine himself.
Bcyond doubt, the labour is hard and it must be unceasing.
The soil, in our northern climcs, is not as lavish as in the lands
of the sun, but if responds frecly to labour and effort. In
the humble settler's hut, his log cabin, one must not look for
the abundant comfort of the old parishes, but there are always
bread in the pantry, pork in the salting-tub, warmth and
gaiety at the fireside.
All these pioneers, it is true, love fo dwell on the obstacles
they have to surmount and to exaggerate the rudeness of their
lire. Odilon Desbois, a settler whom I knew very well in Artha-
baska, said one day in my prcsence : "I ara on the eleventh range
of Trivick, far from bread, behind thc meat." That is the
invariable story of our people ; they are pleased to cry poverty
and famine. H5mon should have remcmbered that "the
:Frenchman born a grouscr" remains a grouser.
With this reservation, and it is the only one, Hémon's book
remains a work of worth and beauty.
You have piqued my curiosity with the photograph you have
sent me, and for which please accept my thanks. Some day
553
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
you must explain fo me all the peop|e in the group. If is not
enough that you bave marked Hémon and Chapdelaine; there
is in this photograph a whole story which I should be happy
fo learn.
I should have liked fo reply immediately fo your last letter,
but af that rime I was absolutely incapable of writing a
letter or even of dictating if. I was then absolutely without
strength; my strength had failed me af a stroke, and if bas
taken weeks fo pull me together. Heaven be thanked, I ara
myself again. You will lose nothing by delay: some fine day
I shall send you a reply fo your heresies [on Cederalism].
My best wishes fo your gracious little wife.
Your devoted frlend,
W.L.
During the winter Sir lVilfrid's strength seemed fo
revive. His speeches at meetings of the newly formed
Western Ontario Liberal Association af London in
November and the Eastern Ontario Association in
Ottawa in January were vigorous and in his best vein.
He concluded his London address to the Young Lib-
erals with the memorable words:
As for you who stand today on the threshold of lire, with a
long horizon open belote you for a long career of usefulness fo
your native land, if you will permit me, after a long lire, I shall
remind you that already many problems rise belote you: prob-
lems of race division, problems of creed differences, problems of
economic conflict, problems of national duty and national
aspiration. Let me tell you that for the solution of these prob-
lems you have a sale guide, an unfailing light, if you remember
that faith is better than doubt and love is better than hate.
Banish doubt and hate from your lire. Let your souls be
ever open fo the promptings of faith and the gentle influence
of brotherly love. Be adamant against the haughty, be gentle
and kind fo the weak. Let your aire and purpose, in good
report or ill, in victory or defeat, be so fo live, so fo strive, so
554
THE CLOSING YEARS
fo serve as to do your part to raise ever hlgher the standard of
life and of living.
Yet force was failing fast, and it was only his strong
will that enabled him to persist in the preparations for
the second sessîon, which was to open on February 20,
]921. On the preceding Saturday he attended a Cana-
dian Club luncheon, going on to his office in the Vic-
toria Museum. While alone in his inner rooms, he
had a slight stroke of paralysis and fell, injuring his
head slightly. Recovering, he showed his characteristic
dislike of fuss by saying nothing of it to those about
him, and going home in the street car rather than have
his inotor sent for earlier than the usual hour. Next
morning, as he was dressing for church, a second stroke
came. He rallied slightly, but lapsed into unconscious-
ness at midnight. The end came at three on Monday
afternoon. A pressure from his hand to the hand of
the companion of his life beside him and the whispered
words, "C'est fini," were the only signs of consciousness
in his last hours. Then came a week of a nation's
mourning, the thronging to Ottawa of vast crowds of
sorrowing pilgrims, the tribute of iarliament, voiced
feelingly by Sir Thomas Vhite and Rodolphe Lem-
Jeux, the thousands of messages of sqnpathy and trib-
ute from King and cottager, the State funeral, the
solemn services in the Basilica with orations in French
by Mgr. Mathieu and in :English by Father Burke,
and the laying to test in the cemetry of Notre-Dame.
Wilfrid Laurier's body had gone back to the soil of
his native land and his memory had become its abiding
heritage.
555
APPENDIX I
CONTRACT OF MARRIAGE BETWEEN FRANÇOIS COTTINEAU,
CALLED CHAMPLAURIÉ AND MAGDELAINE MILLOTS
1676--August 24th
Before Benigne Basset, Kings Notary, of the Island of Montreal in New
France, and the undersigned witnesses, appeared François Cottineau called
Champlaurié, resident of the Seigneurie of La Chesnaye, at present living in
this city of Montreal, son of the late Jean Cottineau, formerly a vine-
grower of the borough of St. Clou, near La Rochefoucaut of the diocese
of Angoulesme, and of Jeanne Dupuis, his father and mother, on tbe one
part, and Magdelaine Millots, daughter of Jacques Millots, resident of the
said city of Montreal, and of Jeanne Hébert, her father and mother, on
the other part. These parties, in the presence and wilh the consent of their
parents and friends, for this purpose assembled for both parties, namely,
for the said François Cottineau, Seraphin Marganne, Esquire, Sieur de la
Valtrye, Lieutenant in the Carignan Reglment, Pierre Perthuy called
La Line, resident of the said citer of Montreal, and Bernard Mercier
called La Fontaine, resident of the said seigniory of La Chesnaye; and
for the said Magdelaine Millots, the said Jacques Millots and Jeanne
Hébert, her father and mother, Robert le Cavellier ealled Deslauriers, and
Adrianne du Vivier, her grandfather and grmdmother, Sieur Antoine
Forestier, her uncle, representing Marie Magdelaine Cavelier, his wife
and maternal aunt of the said Magdelaine Millots, Ignace Hébert, her
uncle, Jean Baptiste Le Cavelier, ber uncle on the maternal side; Philippes
de Carion, Esquire, Sieur du Fresnoye, Lieutenant of a Company of
Infantry in the L'Estrade Regiment, Paul Maurel, Esquire, Ensign in the
8ame Regiment, Sieur Abraham Bouat, Nicolas Hubert, Master Tailor,
Pierre Caillé, Sieur de la Rochelle, also Master Tailor, Sieur Gilles Lauson,
Master Copper-smith, Urbain Geté, fariner, Jacques Hubert, also a fariner,
Guillaume Gouranr, Antoine Brunel, all living in the said city of Montreal;
they avowed and confessed having ruade and agreed in the articles and
promise of marriage which follow: that is, the said François Cottineau
has promised to take the said Magdelaine Millots as his wife and spouse,
and likewise the said Magdelaine Millots bas promised to take the said
François Cottineau as her husband and spouse, and fo make and solemnise
marriage in the faith of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome
as soon as may be, and as will be advised and determined among them,
tbeir parents and friends, if God and our Holy Mother Church consent
and agree thereto, and according to the Custom of Paris to be one and
eommon in all goods movable and immovable owned and acquired.
They will hOt be bound by the debts and mortgages of one another
ruade and created before the solemnization of their marriage; those of the
future, if any there are, will be paid and acquitted b]r the person who
556
APPENDIX I
makes and creates them and from his property. In behalf of this marriagz,
the father and mother of the future wife have promised to give and provide
fo the future espoused persons the day after their espousal as part pay-
ment of the marriage settlement, a sure amounting to seventy-five livres,
ineluding a milch cow and other animais as may be estimated for them,
this sure of seventy-five livres to remain with the two parties together in
their eommunity. The future wife will be dowered with the sure of two
hundred livres of Tours aeeording fo the dowry agreed upon before-
hand, and paid once and for ail into the custom«ry dowry according to
the said Custom as she may desire. In the event of the death of the
future husband without living child of this marriage, the said future
husband bas ruade gift on account of death, to the future wife and to
the kinsmen of ail and each, the goods of their said community, to what-
ever value the whole may mount up, to bu enjoyed by her and hers as
their own legal property; and also, if the said future wife happen to dis
before the said future husband, without living child by them two, the said
future husband will enjoy, during his life only, the goods of the said
community, half of it to bu returned to the heirs of the said future wife,
as best qualified to succeed and have share. For thus etc., promising
and binding each in his right etc., renouncing etc., ruade and passed in the
said city of Montreal in the bouse of the said Sieur Forestier, before noon
of the twenty-fourth day of August of the year one thousand six hundred
and seventy-six, in the prescnce of Sieurs Jean Gervaise and Jean
Bousquet, witnesses residing therein, and undersigned along with the said
Sieur de la Valletrie, Ferthuy, Millots, Le Cavelier, Forestier, Igace
Hébert, the Sieurs De Carion, Maurel, Hubert, Caillé, Lauson, the said
Sieur Bouat, the said future husband and wife, their other kinsmen and
friends.
P PEHUI$
A BOUAT
MILLOT8
LE CAVELIER
MAUREL
NICOLAS HUBERT
JAUE HUBERT
GILLES LAUSOIq
A Fons
MLL
CnO
PESP
JE HA2q GERVAISg
APPINDIX II
MESSAGES FROM HIS MAJESTY GEORGE V.,
FEBRUARY, 1919:
To Lady Laurier: "The Queen and I are deeply grieved at the news
of your irreparable loss. We recall the days of more than seventeen
years ago, since which time we have regarded Sir Wilfrid with feelings
of friendship and esteem. We offer you our heartfelt sympathy in your
sorrow."
To the Governor-General, the Duke of Devonshire: "I have received the
news of the death of Sir Wilfrid Laurier with true regret. Canada will
mourn for one who dearly loved his country and will remember with pride
and gratitude his great powers of administrative geaius."
From a Canadian followcr:
"Sir Wilfrid Laurier was the best man I have ever known. His in-
stinctive honour, his kindliness and forgetfulness of self, that shining out
of nobility and distinction of character which men called maaetisn
made every man who entered his presence a better man for it"
558
INDEX
Abbot, J. J. C., professor of iaxv,
i, 37; Canadian Pacifie Solicitor,
271; prime minJster of Canada,
40; retires, 438.
Alaska boundary, origin of dispute,
il, 134; issues, 135; Commission
negotiatiorrs, 136; failure to reach
agreement, 138; modus-vivendi
boundary, 140; draft treaties,
140; arbitration trcaty, 143; im-
partial jurists, 144; commission
constituted, 148; decision, 149;
criticism in Canada, 153; judicial
or diplomatie, 157.
Aiverstone, Lord, appointed to A1-
aska tribunal, ii, 148; verdict,
149; change of opinion, 151; cor-
respondence with Laurier, 156.
/kngers, A. R., mernber of De
]3oucherville administration, i,
229; enters Thmpson minstry,
49; resigns, 462; in Tupper min-
istry, 4.80.
Angus, R. B., in St. Paul Syndicate,
i, 248; in Canadian Pacifie Syndi-
oate, 249, 255 ; sëeks ]oan for rail-
way, 271.
Arbitration-, fisheries, successful, ii,
361.
Archambauit, Oscar, le't/er from W.
Laurier fo, i, 139.
Armour, Justia, appointed to Ai-
aska tribunal, ii, 148; death, 148.
Ar¢.habaskaville, Wilfrid Laurier re-
moves to, i, 40; praetice in, 105;
mayor of, 261 ; last summer in, ii,
426.
Asselin, Olivar, leader of Nation-
alist/e movement ii, 311; navy
campaign, 335.
Aylesworth, Allen, appointed to A1-
aska tribunal, ii, 148; declines to
sign award, 152; opposes agita-
tion, 154; enters mnistry, 253;
fisheries arbitration, 362; water-
ways treaty, 363; retires, 384;
letters to» 509, 512, 518.
559
Baidwin, Robert, leader of Upper
Canada Reformers, i, 54.
Barron, John E., on Jesuits' Estates»
389.
Beaugrand, H., editor oî "La Pa-
trie;' letter to, i, 4; on episco-
pal crusade, il, 27; letter to, 321.
Bidard, 3oseph, first exponent ol
responsible government, i, 50.
Bé|que, Senator, letter fo, ii, 306.
Béland, Henri, in Laurier ministry,
ii, 252; naval debate, 385; on
foreign policy, 407.
Bennett, R. B., opposes Canadian
Northern strbsidy, il, 424; Na-
tional Service Board, 494.
Bernier, M. E., member of Laurier
cabinet, il, 251.
Blair, A.ndrew G., carries New
Brunswick, i, 332; enters Laurier
ministry, ii, 7; career, 184; op-
poses Grand Trunk Pacifie proj-
ect, 188; resignation, 189; "'Cox
cannot wait," 193; appointed to
Railway Cmmission, 195; resigns»
205.
B$ake, Edward, early career, i, 166;
comparison with Mackenzie, 166;
exponent of the new nationalism,
169; unwilling to take ieadership
of Liberal prty, 174; Auror
speech, 175; "Liberal" founded,
178; re-enters ministry, 180; de-
velops Canada's constitutional
powers, 180; resigns, 181; takes
no part in 1878 elections, 219;
Laurier's comment, 223n. ; be-
comes leader of the Liberal
party, 222; atta«ks Canadian Pa-
cific contract, 21; confident of
party outlook, 261; speaking tour,
261; criticizes Orange order, 265;
urges Irish Home Rule, 265; at-
tacks Canadian Pacifie finaneing,
278; condemns government's
North-West policy, 303; no plat-
form out of Regina scaffold,
318; tribute to Laurier» 325;
INDEX
speech on execution of Riel,
326; Toronto speech, 329; con=
fidence in 1887 election, 332;
rnoderate tariff views, 334; resigns
leadership, 336; proposes Laurier
as successor, 340; on imperial
federation, 361; returns to parlia-
Dent, 398 ; attitude to leadership,
400; opposed to party policy, 41;
letter on Canada's position, 419;
goes to British House, 422; re-
lations with Laurier, 422; on
.South African situation, il, 88;
North-West school question, 226;
on imperial federation, 345; mes-
sage to Laurier, 19!1, 382.
Blondin, Pierre, in Drtrmmond by-
election, ii, 338; enters Borden
ministry, 441.
Bordn, Frederick, enters Laurier
cabinet, ii, 11; South African
War, 100; Dundonald episode,
198; position in cabinet, 251; af
1902 Colonial Conference, 294,
299; at 1907 Conference, 305; at
1909 Conference, 323.
Borden, Robert Laird, debate on
Alaska negotiations, il, 140; on
Autonomy bills, 228, 240; in-
fluence in House, 257; position on
navy, 322, 324, 328; off recipro-
city, 371; silence on navy issue,
378, 379; becomes prime minister,
386; forms cabinet, 387; govern-
menus policy, 392; naval policy,
394; introduces closure, 409; war
programme, 434; forms Union
government, 531.
Botha, Louis, seeks reform in
Tratasvaal, il, 87; at 1907 Confer-
ence, 305; friendship with Laurier,
307, 308n.; letter to, 463.
Boucherville, £harles de, Third
premier of Quebec, i, 133; ad-
ministration dismissed by Letel-
lier, 229; dismisses Mercier ad-
ministration, 433.
Bourassa, Henri, opposes South
African War, il, 99; criticizes
goverlmaent policy, 105; urges
peace on basis of Boer independ-
ence, 109; defends I.ord Alver-
stone, 154; opposes North-West
school settlement, 246 ; oppose»
Lord's Day Aet, 247; on scandal
charges, 260; view of Laurier's
imperial policy, 289; takes lead
in Nationaliste movement, 311;
career, 311; Laurier on, 314;
anti-navy campaign, 333; director
of "Le Devoir," 334; in Drum-
mond-Arthabaska, 338; co-oper-
ates with Conservativ.es in 1911,
337; early comments on the war,
435; later, 461; attaclos Laurier,
462; Laurier on, 463, 464; 1917
election, 539.
Bourget, Bishop of Montreal, i, 88;
opposes L'Institute Canadian,
96-102; controversy with Seminary
and Cartier, 126; supports Cath-
olic Programme, 128; pastoral of
1876, 136.
Bowell, Mackenzie, moves expulsion
of Riel, i, 196; becomes prime
minister, 459; in "nest of trai-
tors," 466; condemns bolters,
467n.; retires from ministry, 480.
Brodeur, Louis P., Speaker, mem-
ber of Laurier cabinet, il, 251 ; af
1907 Conferenve, 305; at 1909
Conferertce, 323; French treaty,
347; tariff commiion, 357.
Brown, George, jins Clear Grits,
i, 54; seeks to unite Upper Can-
ada members, 6.1; joins coalition,
outmanoevred by Maedonald, 162;
gives up Liberal leadership, 164;
death, 217; attitude on separate
sehools eited, il, 226, 232.
Bruchesi, Paul, Mgr., Archbishop
of Mon[real, il, 41 ; relations with
Laurier, 44; supports Lord's Day
Act, 248.
Bryc, James, service as ambas-
sador, il, 3¢7; waterways treaty,
363.
Bulyea, George H., in Territorial
government, il, 225; lieutenant-
governor of Alberta, 24,3; letter,
243n.
Bureau, Jacques, enters Laurier
minstry, il, 251; in Drummond-
Arthabaska election, 339.
Calder, J. A., Rogers charges, il,
452; enters Union government,
530.
Cameron, John, editor of London
"Advertiser," i, 172; editor of
"Liberal," 179; editor of "Globe,"
180.
560
INDEX
Canada First movement, i, 171.
Ca.nada, province of, the Union ex-
periment, i, 47; responsible gov-
ernment, 4.8; union incomplete,
52; break-up of parties, 53; fail-
ure of Union, 62; federation a
necessity, 63.
Carignan-Salières, regiment in Can-
ada, i, 11.
Caron, Adolphe, speech on execu-
tion of Riel, i, 324; Edgar
charges, 437; position on school
question, 462; remedial debate,
46 retires from cabinet, 480.
C,rroll, Henry, member of Laurier
ministry, il, 251.
Cartier, Georgc tienne, joins with
Macdonald to form Liberal-Oon-
servative party, i, 61; urges Con-
federation, 63, 78; controvcrsy
with ultramontanes, 127.
Cartwright, Richard, finance min-
ister in Mackenzie administration,
i, 206; on election tactics, 216;
Laurier's comment, 221n.; de-
feated in 1882, 259; speaking tour,
261; parts from Blake on Riel
issue, 327; tariff position in 1887,
335; urged as Liberal leader, 338;
on exodus, 359; on commercial
union, 376; on unrestricted reci-
procity, 378; on Blake's tactics,
402; on "shreds and patches,"
417; controversies, 440n. ; in
Laurier ministry, il, 9; on tariff
commission, 52; on Joint High
Commission, 127; on Alaska ne-
gotiations, 135n.; introduces old
age annuities, 250; in Senate, 252;
favours proportional representa-
tion, 267; on titles, 277.
Carvell, Frank, charges against Bor-
den government, il, 4.54; enters
Union government, 531.
Casgrain, J. P. B., letter fo, il, 247.
Ca.sgrain, T. C., counsel in Riel
trial, i, 302; on imperial relations,
il, 109; enters Borden ministry,
441.
Castors, ultramontane wing of Que-
bec Conservatives, i, 240; Chap-
leau's obituary notice, il, 172;
Laurier on, 337.
Catholic Programme, issued in 1871,
i, 128.
Cauchon, ,l. E., fails fo form pro-
561
vincial administration, in 1867, i,
111; enters Mackenzie govern-
ment, 183; resigns, 200.
Chamberlain, Joseph, in fisheries ne-
gotiation, i, 376; memorandum fo,
on new ta.ritT, il, 56; pushes the
new imperialism, 62; South Afri-
tan negotiations, 88; accepts
Canadian "offer," 94; consistent
in policy, 99; hopes from Colonial
Conference of 1902, 294; disap-
pointment, 298; discussion with
Laurier, 298; with Laurier's
colleagues, 299; turns fo tariff
reform, 302.
Chapais, T.hnms, on Tarte, il, 167.
Chapleau, J. A., at Laurier banquet,
i, 40n.; in Quebec leffislature, 112;
in Drummond-Arthabaska by-
election, 211; premier of Quebec,
240; enters Macdonald cabinet,
240; Laurier's relations fo, 2-$1;
attitude on Riel issue, 311; speech
on Riel's execution, 325; on tariff
prosperity, 379; lieutenant-gov-
ernor of Quebec, 439; friendly to
Liberals, il, 171; death, 173.
Charlton, John, on Riel issue, i, 327;
Dou%ts as to Laurier's leadership,
34.8 n.; on commercial union, 377;
on Jesuits' Estates, 389; remedial
debate, 476; mission in Washing-
ton, il, 121.; Joint High Commis-
sion, 127, 130 n.; on selection of
Alaska tribunal, 145.
Chauveau, P. J. O., first premier of
Quebec, i, 111.
China, emigration from, il, 348; pro-
posed agreement, 350.
"Chronicle," Halifax, on Tarte's
campaign, il, 179 ; reciprocity
campaign, 371.
Church, Roman Caholic, early mis-
sions, i, ô; influence in New
France, 80; opposes intercourse
with France, 77; school question
in upper Canada, 81 ; power under
the French rgime, 82; consoli-
dated under British régime, 84;
policv questioned before 1837, 89 ;
"L'A'venir," 90; attitude of Rouge
party, 93; growth of ultra-
montane feeling in Qnebc, 119;
Gallican and ultramontane, 120;
Catholic Liberalism, L°3; triumph
of ultramontanism in Europe,
INDEX
125; Catholic Programme of 1871,
128; ultramontane legislation, 33;
epis'copal pastorals, 134; attitude
of Protestant minority, 138; Mgr.
Conroy sent to Canada, 146; posi-
tion on Manitoba sehool question,
482; Eucharistie Congress, ii, 336;
377.
Church, Roman Catholic, leaders,
Mgr. Laval, i, 82; MGr. Briand,
85; MGr. Plessis, 85; MGr. Lar-
tigue, 86» Mgr. H.ubert, 87; Mgr.
Baillargeou, 86; Mgr. Taschereau,
88; Mgr. BourGeto 88, 96, 100, 101,
102; Mgr. Laflche, 88, 103, 482,
il, 26, 41; Mgr. Langevin, i, 469,
il, 20; Mgr. Begin, i, 469, il, 20,
26; Father Lacombe, i, 470; MGr.
Cameron, i, 483; Mgr. Bruchesi,
ii, 41, 44; Mgr. Merry del Val,
40, 41; Mgr. Sbarretti, 242.
Churchill, W., naval policy, ii, 396,
408.
Colby, C. C., on Jesuits' Estates, i,
390.
Confederation, necessitated by Un-
ion deadlock, i, 62; coalitior
formed to earry, 63.
Conservative party, mellowed To-
ries, i, 54; joi with moderate
Liberals, 61; in minority in Can-
ada West, 62; coalition with Re-
formers to curry Confederatlon,
63; lose power on Pacifie scandal,
159; sinGle leader, 160; returns fo
power on tariff issue, 217; up-
holds Dominion powers, 226; rail-
way poliey, 247; returned fo
power in 1882, 258; in 1887, 335;
attitude on commercial union,
373; victory in 1891, 417; begin-
ning of break-up, 428; defeat in
.1896, 4.84; drop school issue, ii,
29; recovery in provinces, 255;
victory in 1911, p. 381; naval
policy, 321, 394; war policy, 432;
revival of party strife, 438; de-
cline of confidence, 456; merge in
Unionist party, 531.
Constitution of Canada, party con-
troversies over federation, i, 224;
Letellier case, 227; division of
legislative power, 236; disallow-
ance power, 237; school clause,
452; North-West provinces, ii, 226.
Cottineau, François, dit Champ-
562
laurier, first of Laurier naine in
Canada, i, 11; marriage, 14 and
appendix I., ii, 556.
Cox, George, A., Grand Trunk Pa-
cifie project, ii, 187.
Da, ndurand, Senator, inter-parlia-
mentary peace movement, ii, 320;
letter fo, 330; reeruiting, 436, 4,8;
Laurier sends resignation through,
484.
Dansereau, A., at L'Assomption
College, i, 36; leadinG Conserv-
ative journalist, 242 ; ii, sus-
pended by Mulock, 173; r.eturning
to journalism, 173; in 'La Presse"
deal, 212.
David, L. O., friend of Wilfrid
Laurier in early xtays, i, 40n.;
moderate attitude in Institute
controversy, 138; supports Parti
National, 139; editorial on polit-
ical situation in 1876, 139; on Lib-
eral leaders, 347; pamphlet on at-
titude of clergy, il, 27.
Davies, Louis H., on tariff issue, i,
379; cnters Laurier ministry, ii,
11; preference resolution, 54; ne-
gotiations in Washington, 126;
Joint High Commission, 127; ap-
pointed to Supreme Court, 250.
Deakin, Alfred. at 1907 Conference,
ii, 305.
Des jardins, A., school negotiations,
i, 478; in Tupper ministry, 480.
Dessaulles, L. A., one of founders
of RouGe party, i, 57; editor of
"Le Pays," 60; active in l'Insti-
tut Cnadien, 97.
Dickey, resigns from Bowell min-
istry, i, 466; introduces Remedial
Bill, 469; negotiations with Mani-
toba, 478.
Dingley, Nelson, framer of high
tariff, il, 125; on Joint High Com-
mission, 127, 129.
Dollard, Adam, exploit af Long
Sault, i, 10.
Dorion, Antoine Aim, Roue
leader, advises Laurier to go fo
Townships, i, 40; one of founders
of Rouge party, 57; succeeds
Papineau as chier, 61; modera-
tion, 65; retires from politics,
182; comparison with Laurier,
346n.
INDEX
Dorion, Eric, "l'enfant terrible,"
editor of "Le Dfricheur," i, 40;
one of founders of Rouge party,
57; editor of "L'Avenir," 60.
Dougall, John R., letter fo, ii, 232.
Doutre, Gouzalve, af Laurier ban-
quet, i, 40 n.
Dontre, Josep collaborator of
"L'Avenir," i, 60.
Drolet Chevalier, mission fo Rome,
ii, 33.
Drummond - Arthabaska, Laurier
elected in, i, 108, 158; defeated in,
213; 1910 by-election, il, 337.
Duff, L. P., counsel in Alaska arbi-
tration, il, 148; in charge of Mil-
itary Service decisions, 545.
Dumont, Gabriel, Métis leader, i,
296, 297, 298, 299, 302.
Dundonald, Lord, appointed G. O.
C. in Canada, ii, 196; friction with
minister, 197; explosion, 198; de-
bate on action, 199; dismissed,
201; speechcs, 202; returns to
Britain, 202.
Durham, Lord; hostility to French
Canadian nationality; Laurier's
comment, i, 70.
F.dgar, James D., criticism by
Charlton, i, 38 n.; proposes unre-
stricted reciprocity, 337; charges
against Caron, 437; rcmedial de-
bate, 476; elected Speaker, ii, 11.
Elections, general, rcsults, 1872-8,
i, 217 n.; 1882, 258; 1887, 335;
1891, 417; 1896, 484; 1900, il, 117;
1904, 217; 1908, 282; 1911, 381;
1917, 541.
Emmerson, Henry R., member of
Laurier cabinet, il, 250; on W.
Churchill, 408.
"Empire," Toronto, slogan in 1891
election, i, 413; opposition to Mc-
Carthy, 457.
Ewart, John S., counsel in Mani-
toba school question, i, 453, 460;
1917 contest, ii, 540.
Fairbanks, Senator, on Joint High
Commission, ii, 127; letter on re-
sults, 133.
Farrer, Edward, editorial writer on
'Mail," i, 372; on "Globe," 413;
annexation pamphlet, 413; inquiry
in Washington, ii, 125 n.; inter-
views with Mr. Hay, 139; report
on Montreal railway scheme, 209.
Fielding, William S., sweeps Nov
Scotia, i, 332; enters Laurier min-
istry, ii, 7; on tariff commission,
52; first budget, 52; on Autonomy
issue, 230, 239; strong position,
251 ; at 1902 Colonial Conference,
294, 299; French treaty, 347; tar-
iff commission, 357; tariff re-
vision, 356, 357; French treaty,
359; negotiations with U. S., 36(i;
attitude to Union, 539.
lisher, Sydney, enters Laurier gov-
ernment, ii, 8; Dundonald epi-
sode, 198.
litzpatrick, Charles, counsel in Riel
trial, i, 302; enters Laurier miu-
istry, ii, 9; mission fo Rome, 39;
Antonomy bills, 225, 234, 236, 240;
appointed Chier Justice, 251; on
fisheries arbitration, 362.
Flavelle, J. W., owner of Toronto
"News," il, 229 ; on coalition, 498.
Forger, R., purchase ef Saguenary
road, ii, 456.
Foster, George, on unrestricted reci-
procity, 3ï9; leads bolters in 1896,
466; on Autonomy bills, ii, 240;
insurance charges, 259; raises
navy issue, 321; on war unity.
434.
Fournier, Télesphore, member of
Mackenzie government, i, 183.
Fowler, G. V¢., scandal charges, il,
259, 260.
France, scramble for colonies, i, $;
bars Huguenots, 6; end of régime,
18; lessening intercourse with
New France, 77; Laurier in, il,
79; entente cordiale, 302; treaty
with, 347, 359.
Fréchette, Louis, of kin fo Wilfrid
Laurier, 25 in Drummond«Arth-
abaska by-election, 211; comment
on Laurier's bearing, 214.
Galt, A. T., urges Confederation, i,
63; attacks ultramontanism, 139;
school clause, 455.
Garneau, F. X., influence of his
"History of Canada," i, 90.
Gauthier, Dr., friend of Wilfrid
Laurier in Montreal, i, 4,1.
Ceoff?ion, C. A., at Laurier banquet,
i, 40 n.; remedial debate, 476;
563
INDEX
enters Laurier ministry, ii, 9;
death, 251.
Geoffrion, Felix, mçmber of Mac-
kenzie government, i, 183.
Germany, treaty with, denounced,
ii, 77; tariff war, 358; war, »ce.,
War, European.
Gibbons, George C., waterways
treaty, il, 363.
Gladstone, Home Ru]e policy de-
bated in Canada, i, 265; Laurier
visits, iio 78.
"Globe," Toronto, a power under
the Browns, i, 16g; critical of
Blake, 177; opposed by "LiberaL"
178; Cameron's editorship, 180;
on Riel, 309; prophesies Macdon-
ald's retirement, 337; restrained
in attitude fo new leader, 343;
pioneer of independence within
tle Empire, 366; attitude on com-
mercial union, 373; lnoposes na-
tional conveution, ¢58; interview
on South African contingent, ii,
93; on Tarte's campaign, 179; on
"La Presse" deal, 207; opposes
Autonomy bill, 229; Dreadnought
editorial, 319; reciprocity cam-
paign, 371.
Gouin, Lomer, "La Patrie," negotia-
tions, ii, 18; premier of Quebec,
254; recruiting efforts, 436, 448;
letter fo, 471, 512.
Governors-general, Lord Dufferin,
commutes Lepine's sentence, i,
201; Lord Aberdeen, ii, contro-
versy with Tupper, ii, 6; Lauricr's
comments, 86; Minto appointed,
85; on Canadian participation in
war, 90, 99; Minto on Dundonald
episode, 200; Minto, on peerage
offered fo Laurier, 279.
Graham, George, enters Laurier
government, ii, 253; tariff nego-
tiations, 366 ; bilingual debate,
478; conscription, 517.
Graham, Hugh, in Montreal railway
scheme, ii, 204, 208-215; position
in 1908 election, 281; peerage,
502.
Grant, Principal: on imperial fed-
eration, i, 360; on South African
controversy, il, 89; letter to, 131.
Greenshields, J. N., in ]VIontreal
railway scheme, ii, 204.
Greenway, Thomas, separate school
564
pledges, i, 445; Laurier-Greenway
agreement, ii, 13.
Grits, Clear, rise of, in Upper Can-
ada, i, 54; relation with Rouges,
62.
Guibord, Joseph, member of l'In-
stitut Canadien, i, 101; dispute
over burial in consecrated ground,
102.
Haultain, Frederiek, share in west-
ern development, ii, 224; opposes
Autonomy bills, 229, 243.
Hays, Charles M., General manager
Grand Trunk, 187; Grand Trunk
Pacifie project, 188; Canadian
Northern negotiations, 194; death,
417.
Hay, John, on Joint High Commis-
sion, ii, 128, 129, 130; Alaska ne-
gotiations, 139, 141; anxious for
fair settlement, 145.
Hébert, Augustin, Wilfrid Laurier'3
first Canadian ancestor, i, 8; his
daughter Jeanne, 13.
Herscheli, Lord, on Joint High
Commission, ii, 126, 130; death,
130; memorandum, 138 n.
Hill, James J., in St. Paul Syndi-
tare, i, 248; in Canadian Pacifie
syndicate, 29; retires, 255.
Holton, Luther, eriticizes Hunting-
ton, i, 138; rivalry with Hunting-
ton, 185; Riel resolution, 196;
death, 219.
Hughes, Sain, energy in direction
of war, ii, 451; attacked, 451; res-
ignation, 492.
Huntington, Lucius, OEttacks ultra-
montanism, i, 138; brings charges
against Allan, 158; in Mackenzie
government, 185.
Hutton, General, appointed G. O.
C., i, 86; friction with minister of
Militia, 93.
Imperial relations: Canadian asser-
tion of self-government, i, 49;
Canada First movement, 171;
Blake urges revision, 176; Blake
limits power of governor-gen-
eral, 180; revival of imperial
sentiment, 359; imperial federa-
tion, 360; independence within
the Empire, 366; trade Zollverein,
368; racial basis of imperialist
INDEX
movement, 392; Conference of
1894, 457; British preference, ii,
54; imperialism at flood-tide, 60;
Jubilee festival, 66; imperiaI
titles, 69; colonial conference, 74;
Chamberlain policy, 86; outbreak
of South African War, 86; pro-
posais for Canadian participation,
90; Canadian contingent sent, 97;
friction over Alaskan diplomacy,
153; demand for treaty-making
power, 156; strength of imperial
sentiment, 285; growth of national
sentiment, 285; imperial propa-
ganda, 287; Laurier's position,
288; Colonial Conference of 1902,
293; of 1907, 305; plans for Im-
perial Council, 306; policy of co-
operation approved, 306; Cana-
dian comment, 308; Nationaliste
movement, 311; fise of navy issue,
317; 1909 navy debate, 321, 329;
1911 Conference, 340; rejection
of imperial federation, 342; con-
trol of foreign policy, 342; Bor-
den naval policy, 394; debated,
397; defeated in Senate, 413; for-
eign policy, 403, 406; imperial
connection brings Canada into the
war, 430; Imperial Conference
and Cabinet, 500; imperialist
tivity, 502.
Independence, Canadian, movement
in the eighties, i, 362; Laurier
favours, 363; independence within
the Empire, 366; colonial nation-
alism, ii, 288; control over foreign
policy, 347.
India, emigration from, ii, 351
settlement reached satisfactory to
Indian government, 352.
Indians, North-West, government
treatment, 284; in North-West
rising, 298, 303.
Institut Canadien, literary club, i,
90, 94; Rouge affiliations, 95; con-
troversy with Bishop Bourget,
96; Laurier joins, 96; seeks com-
promise, 98; addressed by Pap-
ineau, 99; judment of Rome,
100; dies out, 102.
Ireland, Home Rule, Blake urges,
i, 265; Laurier on Easter execu-
tions, ii, 450 n.
Italy, commercial convention with,
il, 34.8, 359.
Japan emigration from, il, 348;
Lemieux agreement, 350.
Jesuits, early missions, i, 6; career
in Canada, 381; estates forfeited
382; Mercier deals with estates,
384; measure attackcd in Coin-
ruons, 389; stands, 391.
Jetté, L. A., at Laurier banquet, i,
4,0 n.; organizes Parti National,
130; member of Alaska tribunal,
ii, 148; decIines to sign award,
152.
Joly, Henri, de Lotbnière, Liberal
leader in Quebec, i, 133; forms
government, 229; defeated, 240
opposes coalition, 241 ; opposes
Riel agitation, 315; enters Laur-
ier ministry, ii, 8; lieutenant-gov-
ernor of B. C., 251.
King, Mackenzie, deputy minister
of labour, ii, 250; mission to
India, 352; 1917 contest, 540.
Kirk, family in New Glasgow, i,
29.
Knowles, W. E., opposes bilingual
discussion, il, 478.
Kruger, Paul, eontroversy with
Chamberlain, ii, 87.
Kyte, G. W., charges against Bor-
den government, il, 45-t.
La Patrie, Montreal, opposes par-
ticipation in South African war,
ii, 96; control, 174-184; on navy
issue, 338.
L'Assomption College; Wilfrid
Laurier enters, i, 32; curriculum,
32; discipline, 33; alumni, 36;
anniversary, 33 n.
L'Avenir, village in Eastern Town-
ships, Wilfrid Laurier settles in,
i, 40.
"L'Avenir;' note on Papineau in
Paris, 56 n.; Rouge organ, 60, 78
n.; attitude to Church, 90; forced
to discontinue, 92.
"Le Canada," founded, il, 184; on
navy issue, 338.
"Le IéfricKeur," Rouge journal,
edited by Eric Dorion, i, 40; by
Wilfrid Laurier, 40; attitude to
Confederation, 78; banned by
Bishop Laflèche, 103.
"Le Devoir," Montreal, established,
ii, 33; circulated by clergy, 334;
565
INDEX
by Conservative party, 377; or
the war, 435.
"L'Electeur," Liberal journal in
Quebec, i, 241 ; on Laurier's lead-
ership, 343; banned, ii, 25.
"Le Pays," Rouge organ, i, 60; atti-
tude on Church questions, 92;
comment on Laurier, 118.
"La Presse," Montreal, on South
African war, ii, 96; party posi-
tion, 173; acquired in Montreal
railway scheme, 205; further dis-
position, 208-9; on navy issue, 338.
"La Minerve," Montreal, on anti-
clerical feeling in 1837, i, 90 n.;
condemns Riel agitation, 311 ; ex-
plains it, 312; on Laurier's lead-
ership, 344.
"Le Soleil," Quebec, critàcizes Tarte,
ii, 178; on navy issue, 335.
Labrèche-Viger, Louis, one of
founders of Rouge party, i, 57;
collaborator of "L'Avenir," 60;
editor of "Le Pays," 60.
Laflèche, Bishop of Three Rivers, i,
88; bans "Le I)éfricheur," 103;
supports Catholic Programme,
128; condemns Liberals, 137; sup-
ports remedial law, 482; on
Laurier-Greenway settlement, ii,
26, 41.
La Fontaine, Louis Hippolyte,
leader of moderate Liberals, i,
55; opposes repeal of the Union,
75.
Laflamme, Rodolphe, Rouge leader,
Laurier articled to, i, 37; profes-
sot in McGill law faculty, 38;
Laurier banquet, 40 n.; collabor-
ator of "L'Avenir," 60; member
of Mackenzie goyernment, 183;
defeated, 1882, 259.
Lafontaine, Mlle. Zoë, Wilfrid
Laurier meets, i, 41; marries, 44.
Lanctot, Médéric, partner of Wil-
frid Laurier, i, 39; af Laurier
banquet, 40 n.
Langelier, Charles, criticizes alli-
ançe with Chapleau, ii, 169; letter
to, 170; sheriff of Quebec, 171.
Langelier, François, brings action
for undue influence i, 143; Riel
debate, 319 ; remedial debate,
476; aids in I)rummond-Artha-
baska election, i, 211 ; resents
Tarte-Chapleau influence, il, 169;
566
appointed fo Superior Court, 171.
Langevin, Arehbishop, supports
remedial bill, i, 469; opposes
Laurier influence on Saskatch-
ewan election, 246.
Langevin, Hector, Conservative can-
didate in Charlevoix, i, 137; atti-
tude on Riel issue, 311; Tarte's
charges, 406; loses leadership,
429; report on Tarte charges,
431 ; remedial debate, 476.
Language question, in Ontario
schools in eighties, i, 391; in
North-West, 397; bilingual clause
in Laurier-Greenway agreement,
ii, 16, 486; bflingual schools in
Ontario, 469; Regulation, 17, 469;
Nationalist attack, 470; question
in parliament, 477.
Lapoint, Ernest, Drummond-Artha-
baska by-election, il, 339; moves
bilingual resolution, 477.
Laurier, Canadian aneestors, Fran-
çois Cottineau, i, 11, lû: Jean
Baptiste, 16, Jacques, 14, 21;
Ch»'¢s, son of Jacques, 21.
Laurier, Carolus, father of Wilfrid
Laurier, farmer and surveyor, i,
23; eharacter, 25: first marriage,
26; second marriage, 27; letter,
27; letter, 27.
Laurier, Charlemagne, Carolus, Doe-
forée, Henri, Ubalde, half-brothers
and sister of Wilfrid, io 27.
Laurier, Çharles, grandfather of
Wilfrid Laurier, i, 21; surveyor
and inventor, 22; marriage, 23;
family letters, 23.
Laurier, Malvina, sister of XVilfrid
Laurier, birth, i, 26; death, 27.
Laurier, Marcelle Martineau, mother
of Vvïlfrid Laurier, i, 25; death,
26.
Laurier, Wilfrid, comments, on fel-
low leaders, i, 221 n.; on Macdon-
ald, 425; on imperialist campaign,
ii, 299 n; on Australians and
Africanders, 342 n.; on C. Sifton,
371 n.
Laurier, Wilfrid, letters from, to:
James Young, on Macaulay, i,
108; Oscar Archambault, on elec-
tion fo leislature, 109; James
Young, on ultramontanes, 132; on
taking oflïce, 141; James Young,
on party situation in Quebec in
INDEX
1874, 185; in 1876, 186; James
Young, on Riel amnesty, 200; H.
Beaugrand, on Chaleurs charges,
434; on school settlement, ii, 21;
H. Beaugrand, on clerical contro-
versy, 32; Abbé Proulx, on appeal
fo Romc, 33, 34; Chevalier Drolet,
on religious faith, 35 n.; Israel
Tarte, on 1900 campaign, 115, 116,
117; on Wasbington ncgotiations,
127, 129; Principal Grant, on out-
corne, 131; fo Lord Alvcrstone,
157; Charles Langelier, on party
appointmcnts, 170; Tarte, on
Chapleao-Dansereau relations, 175 ;
Tarte, on resignation, 181, 182; H.
Graham, on "'La Presse" deal,
208; on fortunes of politics, 222n.;
on separate schools in west, 224 n;
J. R. Dougall, on North-West
schools, 232; G. H. Bulyea, on
North-West situation, 24.3, 245n.;
Casgrain, J. P- B., on Bourassa
campaign, 21.7 n.; Sen. McMullen,
on scandal charges, 263; on im-
perial titles, 278; on Botha, 308 n;
on Bourassa, 314; Sen. Dandu-
rand, on opposition fo navy, 330;
on Ontario protests, 331, 332;
1911 results, 382; reciprocity, 390;
F. Oliver, on election possibility,
44.0; on Irish situation, 450 n.; M.
K. Cowan, on Quebee recruiting,
459; Louis Botha, on war policy
and Bourassa, 463; Sen. Dandu-
rand on Bourassa's attitude, 464;
Lomer Gouin on bilingual issue,
471; M. K. Cowan on saine, 471,
473; W. S. Fielding on saine,
N. W. Rowell on saine, 475, 476,
477, 4-85; on Manitoba situation,
487; on coming conscription agi-
tation, 494; N. W. Rowell, on
national government, 497; C. P.
Scott, on imperial relations, 503;
Sir Allen Aylesworth, on con-
scription, 509, 512, 518; Sir Lomer
Gouin, on conscription, 512; G. H.
Murray, on coalition, 513; Rowell,
on situation, 514; W. Proudfoot,
on Quebec position, 519; on forces
behind conscription, 520; Rowell,
N. V., on railway interests in-
volved, 522; W. M. Martin, on
Vinnipeg convention, D. D.
567
Mackenzie on Union government,
532; on causes of defeat, 543, 54;
on need of tolcration, 551; on
"Marie Chapdelaine," 553.
Laurier, Vilrid, letters to, from:
Father Lacombe, i, 470; Israel
Tarte, ii, 14, 15, 115, 171 n.; 174,
180, 182; Lord Minto, 91, 92, 279,
352; Senator Fairbanks, 133;
Lord Alverstone, 155; George H.
Bulyea, 24 n.; L. Botha, 463; H.
G. Macdonald, 538, 543.
Laurier, W.ilfrid, personal: Ances-
try, i, 3; lirst Canadian ancestor,
8; first ancestor of Laurier naine,
11; grandfather, 21; fathcr, 23;
mother, 25; sister, 26; half-broth-
ers and sister, 27; record of birth,
26; death of mother, 2ï; boyhood
in St. Lin, 28; af the parisb
sehool, 29 ; at school in New Glas-
gow, 29; at L'Assomption Col-
lege, 32; college studies, 32; rec-
reation, 33; Liberal lcanings, 35;
classmates, 36; bens study of
law, 37; valedictorian, 38; admit-
ted to bar, 38; p«rtnerships,
38, 39; ill-health, 39 ; removes
fo Eastern Townships, 40;
banquet in Montreal, 40 n.;
meets Mlle. Lafontaine, 41 ;
writes poetry, 4d n.; marriage,
44; joins L'Institut Canadien, 97;
relations with Bishop Bourget,
97-103; his journal banned by
Bishop Laflèche, 104; partnerships
in Arthabaska, 105; edits "Jour-
nal d'Arthabaska," 106; ensign in
militia, 107; friends and reading,
107; libel suit, 241; mayor of
Arthabaska, 261; interview with
Riel, 293; qualities of leadership,
344; character, 345; appearance,
347; oratory, 347; first visit to
England, ii, 59; public hospitality,
67; accepts Knighthood, 69; visit
fo Hawarden, 78; fo France, 79;
to Ireland, 83; welcomc on return,
83; illness, 142, 161; qualitics as
head of administration, 161; char-
acter, 164; command of English,
200 n.; distinction, 221; influence
on House, 257; "follow my White
Plume," 265; refuses peerage, 279;
summer in Arthabaska, 426; iii-
INDEX
ness, 1915, 446; illness, 1919, and
death, 555.
Laurier, Wilfrid, political career:
Early political interests, i, 45;
joins Rouges, 64; opposes Con-
federation schcme, ïS; accepts
Confederation, 79; enters provin-
cial legislature, 108; manifesto of
Liberalism in speech in Quebec,
146; follows English Liberalism,
14.9; on th clergy in politics,
151; ensures victory of-modera-
tivn, 155; enters federal parlia-
ment, 158; speaks on Riel issue,
197; tariff attitude, 207; enters
Mackenzie cabinet, 209; defeated
in by-election, 213; returned for
Quebec East, 215; urges early
election, 216; campaigns in On-
tario, 216; re-elected in Quebec
East, 217; member of dcputation
to Mackenzie, 220; lieutenant of
Blake, 223; supports provinci'al
right.s, 226; re-elected 1882, 259;
pla-fform activity, 261; opposes
Quebec railway subsidy, 275; at-
tacks government's North-West
policy in House, 305; in Champ
de Mars, 314; in House again,
320; in Ontario, 328; chosen leader
of the Liberal party, 343; success,
843; opposed fo commercial union,
37; urges unrestricted reciproc-
ity, 379; opposes disallowance of
Jesuits" E3tates Act, 390; lan-
guage issue creates difficulty, 400;
relations with Blake, 400; mani-
festo, 1S91, 415; defeat, 417; on
Mercier charges, 434; urges joint
redistribution 438; position on
Manitoba school question, 435: in
lines of Torres Vedras, 463;
growing strcngth, 468; urged to
support -Remedial Bill, 47; op-
poses it, 4Ç1; supports attempt
at compromise, 478; tire 1896 eam-
paign, 4.81; victory, 484; forms
ministry, il, 5; school settlement,
16; faces attack, 28; opposes anti-
glerical campaign, 32; appeals to
Rome agairtst bishops' action, 32;
agitation lessens, 43; economic re-
viral, 45; British preference, 54;
first visit to Eng.land, 59; views
on imperial relations, 65, 71, 81;
Knighthood, 69; in colonial con-
568
ference, 74; in France, 79; atti-
tude to South African war, 89,
93, 97, 106, 110; Joint High Com-
mission, 127; part in later nego-
tiations, 139; on Alaskan bound-
ary dispute, 142, 145, 155; does
hOt press treaty power, 159; de-
mands Tarte's resignation, 180;
accepts Blair's, 190; seeks Grand
Trunk-Canadian Northern coOp-
eration, 19; 1906 campaign, 216;
toaster of the Administration,
219; height of power, 220; meets
difficulty in North-West school
question, effects, 2.6; administra-
tion, 257; patronage, 270; atti-
tude to titles, 277; reform of ad-
ministration, 280; in 1908 cam-
paign, 281; policy on imperial re-
lations, 288; b!ocks Chamber-
lain plans, 2.08; urges mod-
eration in South Aftica, 299;
Paris and the entente :ordiale,
302; opposes Nationaliste move-
ment, 314; opposes imperial fed-
eration, 340; control of foreign
.policy, 342; practical imperial-
lsm, 354; rociprocity campaign,
878; government defeated, 380;
resigns, 384; opposes naval con-
tribution, 398 opposes closure,
409; railway policy, 417, 419, 421;
war policy, 435 ; recruiting
speeches, 436, 447, 449, 468; agrees
to year's extension» 454; charges
agairtst government, 455 ; bilingual
issue, 470-490; disappointment,
483; offers resignation, 484;
further extension 499; opposes
conscription, 508, and coalition on
basis of conscription, 513; War
Times Election Act, 528; resigna-
tion suggested, 530; declined, 531;
last campaign, 540; defeat, 541;
conciliation, 551; abolition of
titles, 050: last speeches, 554.
Laurier, WJlfrid, speeches: valedic-
tory, i, 38 ; maiden speech in Que-
bec legslature, 112; on exodus,
115; on dual representation, 115;
on volitical liberalism, 146: second
reply to Speech from Throne,
1874, in French, 196; on motion
for expulsion of Riel, in English,
197; on amnesty, 202; on tariff,
1876, 207; on Letellier affair, 231;
INDEX
on Ontario boundary, 235; on
Quebec subsidy strike, 275; on
Govermncnt's North-West policy,
305; on Saskatchewan muskets,
314; on execution of Riel, 320; on
North-West issue, in Toronto,
328; in wesfern Ontario, 330; at
Somerset, 354, g75; on unrestric-
ted reciprocity, 379; on Jcsuits'
Estates disallowance, 390, 395; on
Freneh in North-West, 398; on
Sir John Macdonald, 425; on
Manitoba schols, 455; on Torres
Vedras -and sunny ways tactics,
463; on Remedial Bill, 471; ii, on
school settlement, 31; in England
in 1897, 71; on death of Glad-
stone, 87 n.; on South A-frican
controversy, ff2; on need for cau-
tion, 98 n.; on war enthusiasm,
104; in reply to Bourassa, 106-
110; on treaty-making power, 155 ;
on Grand Trunk Pacifie, 190; on
I)undonald episode, 199; on Au-
tonomy bills, 225; on scandal
harges, 260; on navy issue, 321;
on naval service bill, 325; on Na-
tioalist campaign, 36; in 1911,
378, 379, 380; on naval contribu-
tion, 398; on foreign policy, 403,
407; on closure, 409; on Canadian
entry into war, 432; on war needs,
436, 447, 449, 468; on the Con-
servative war, 444; on Svigny
speakership, 453: on bilingual
question, 478» on Imperial Cabi-
net, 505» last spceches, 554.
Laurier, Wilfrid, writings: Frag-
ment on Canada under the Union,
i, 47; responsible government, 50;
on Durham's attitude to French-
Canadian nationality, 70; "Tar-
'tuffe:' editorial, 156; "Den of
Forty thieves" editorial, 241.
Lavergne, Armand, anti-navy cam-
paign, il, 333; in Drummond-
Arthabaska, 338; in 1917, 539.
Lavergne, Joseph, partncr of Wil-
frid Laurier, i, 106.
Lavergne, Louis, member for Drum-
mond-Arthabaska, i, 106; remedial
dcbate, ,76; appointed to Senate,
ii, 337.
Lemieux, Rodolphe, enters Lauri_er
government, il, 251 ; Lemieux Act,
250; naval debate, 828, 885; re-
cruiting efforts, 436, 448.
Lemieux, F. X., counsel in Riel
trial, i, 302.
Letclier de Sal.nt-Just, member of
Mackenzie government, i, 183;
lieutenant-governox of Quebec,
.228; dismisses De Boucherville
administration, 229; dismissed in
turn, 233.
Liberal party; Reformers of Upper
Canada, i, 53; PatrioLs of lo-wer
Canada, 53; break-up into Whig
and Radical, 54; Clcar Grit and
Rouges, 62; coalitio fo carry
Confederation, 63; in pwer in
1873, 159; not united, 159; ele-
ments, 163; uncertainty as to
Dominion leadership, 173; Quebec
leadership, 182; face Riel, tariff
and raihvay issues, 188; defeated
as fiscal issue, 217; a new leader,
222; uphold provincial rights, 226;
Pacifie railway policy, 251; de-
feated in 1882, 258; position on
Riel question, 317; Lurier suc-
eeeds Blake as aea'der, 343; at-
titude fo commercial union, 374;
national convention of 1893,
returns to power in 1896, ii, 3;
begins to decline, 221 ; changes in
leadership, 250; achievement, 381 ;
defeat in 1911, 381; naval policy,
21, 394; war policy, 4.32; revival
of p'arty strife, 438; break on con-
scription, 517.
Lincoln, Abraham, Laurier's interest
in, i, 107.
Lodge, Senator, appointed fo A1-
aska tribunal, ii, 146.
Loubet, Presiden't, and Laurier, il,
"Mail," Toronto, attacks Canada
First group, i, 178; on Riel, 309;
anti-Quebec agitation, 327; on
Laurier tour, 331 ; forecasts
Blake's retirement, 336; fair in
references to Laurier as leader,
344; urges commercial union, 371.
Maisonneuve, founder of Montreal,
Manitoba "Free Press," Winnipeg,
on Tarte's campaign, ii, 179; reci-
procity campaign, 371; national
569
INDEX
government, 496; urges coalition,
526.
Marchantl, F. G., premier of Que-
bec, ii, 4; death-, 254'.
Martin, Joseph, separate schools,
plcdges, i, 445; proposes secular
schools, 446; remedial debate, 4,76 ;
in British Columbia, ii, 256; in
1917 contest, 539.
Meighen, Avthur, in charge of
Canadian Nortimr.n bills, ii, 4'21 ;
frames War Times Election Act,
528.
Mcrcier, Honoré, aids in Dr:um-
mond-Arthabaska by-election, i,
211; collaborator '-'n "L'Electeur,"
24'1; takes up Riel issue, 327;
premier of Quebec, 327 ; deals with
Jesuits' Estates, 383; charges
agairrst .Iris government, 433;
]Jaurier on charges, 4'34'; govern-
ment defeated, 4'36.
Meredith, William, leadcr of Con-
servative party in Ontario, i, 262;
declines fo enter Tupper cabinet,
481.
Merry "del Val, Mgr., apostolic delc-
gare to Cmada, ii, 40.
Métis, position disturbed by settlc-
m'ent, i, 285 ; grievances, 287; bring
Riel back, 295; drift into rebel-
lion, 297.
Millot, Madeleine, marries Francois
Cottineau, i,
Mills, David, progressive wing of
Liberalism, i, 172; urges Senate
reform, 178; defeated in 1882, 259;
possible Liberal leader, 34,0; on
commercial union, 377; on unre-
stricted reciprocity, 379; on Jc-
suits' Estates, 390; remedial
debate, 476; defeated in 1896, ii,
12; Minister of Justice, 12.
Monet, D., on imperial relations, ii,
109.
Monk, F. D., leadership challenged
by Tarte, il, 184; on Autonomy
bills, 240; favours proportional
representation, 267; opposes navy,
324', 329.
Montreal, founding, i, 7; Vilfri(!
Laurier student in, 37; law prac-
tice in, 38.
]ioss, Thomas, progressive wing of
Liberalism, i, 172.
]iousseau, J. A., urges dismissal of
57O
Letellier, i, 230; premier of Que-
bec, 24D.
Mowat, Oliver, rivalry with Macdon-
alkl, i, 233; fourt.h success in On-
tario, 333; school question, 393;
avoids endorsing Laurier's stand,
396; enters Laurier ministry, il, 6;
lieutenant-governor of Ontario, 12.
Mulock, William, on tariff, i, 379;
enters Laurier ministry, ii, 10;
efficient administration of post-
office, 50; on Grand Trunk Pacific,
193; on Autonomy bills, 225, 240;
retires fo bench 252; at 1902 Co-
lonial Conference, 294', 299; on
militarism, 320.
Murphy, Charles, enters Laurier
government, ii, 253; hold Ontario
seat, 385.
Murray, G. H., retains Nova Scotia,
ii, 254'; Union government, 513,
539.
Murray; John, merchant in New
Glasgow, i, 30.
McBride, Richard, first party pre-
mier of B. C., ii, 256; on Canadian
navy, 324'; government defeated,
4.52.
McCarth, D'Alton, defenls Cana-
dian Pacific financing, i, 280; ri-
valry with Thompson, 387; on
Jesuits' Estates disallowance, 389;
attacks use of French in North-
West debates, 397; claires to pre-
mierslfip, 4'29 ; rires westera
heather, 445; remedial debatc,
477; agrees fo enter Laurier min-
istry, ii, 12; death, 12; bilingual
amendment, 18.
Macdonald, Hugh John, enters
Tupper Cabinet, i, 481; candi-
date in 1900 election, ii, 118;
letter to W. L., ii, 537 n.
Macdonald, John A., forms Lib-
eral-Conservative coalition, i, 61;
attitude to Confederation, 63; re-
signs offid.e, 159 ; undisputed
leader of party, 160; strength-
ened by Con federation, 162;
dread of states' rights tendencies,
225; seeks control over prov-
inces by personal alliances, 227;
on Letellier affair, 230; rivalry
with Mowat, 233; disallowance
power, 237; National Policy, 242;
railway policy, 247; fourth pre-
INDEX
miership, 260; hesitates to aid
Pacifie further, 271; Métis pol-
icy, 289; defends policy, 304; on
imperial federation, 361; on lan-
guage question, 398; decides on
election, 405; manifesto, 414; vic-
tory in election, 417; death, 424;
Laurier on, 425; declined to par-
ticipate in Soudan war, ii, 96.
Macdonald, J. A., editor of "Globe,"
on Autonomy bills, il, 241; reci-
procity negotiations, 367; on C.
Sifton, 371 n.
McDougall, William, one of found-
ers of Clear Grit party, i, 54;
fails to enter Red River terri-
tory, 190.
McGee, Thomas D'Arcy, the
prophet of Confederation, i, 169.
McGill University, Faculty of law,
Wilfrid I.aurier student in, i, 37.
McNeill, Alexander, on Jesuits'
Estates, i, 389; on South African
War, ii, 96.
Mackenzie, Alexander, on Hunt-
ington's ultr£montanism speoeh,
i, 138; prime minister, 159; early
career in Canada, 164; compar-
ison with Blake, 16; offers to
serve under Blake, 18I; amnesty
question, 201; Pacific raihvay
policy, 203; tariff views, 207;
confidence in 1878 election, 216;
retires from leadership, 220;
later career, 221; Laurier's com-
ment, 222 n., attitude on western
schools, ii, 226.
Mackenzie, William Lyon, Reform
leader, i, 54.
Mackenzie and Mann, Canadian
Northern project, ii, 194; "La
Presse" deal, 209 ; reciprocity
campaign, 372; programme, 418;
aid from government, 420.
McKinley, President, friendly atti-
tude in negotiations, il, 126;
assasination, 139.
Macpherson,. David L., mirfister of
Interior n Macdonald govern-
ment, i, 289.
Nationalisn, French-Canadian, en-
couraged by British government,
i, 66; attacked by Dnrham, 69;
and by Sydenham, 73; tbeir fail-
ure, 74; diverse policies of Papin-
eau and La Fontaine, 75; effect
of colonial status, 77; bearing of
Confederation on, 78; Quebec-
Ontario rivalry, 193; feeling
stirred by execution of Riel, 309;
Nationaliste movement in Que-
bec, ii, 309; nltramontane lean-
ings, 335; in 1911 campaign, 377;
Conservative alliance, 377; rep-
resented in Borden cabinet, 388;
influence on war, 460.
New France, missi6ns, i, 6; Mont-
real colony, 7; era of settlement,
12; encouragement fo early mar-
riage, 13; widening of settlement,
15; farming methods, 15; govern-
ment, 16; cessation of imtnigra-
tion, 17; a homogeneous com-
munity, 18; end of the French
régime, 18; British policy of as-
similation, 19; later changes, 19.
New Glasgow, Wilfrid Laurier at-
tends English schoo], i, 29-31.
Nickle, W. F., opposes Canadian
Northern subsidy, ii, 423; bilin-
gual debate, a,78; moves abolition
of titles, 550.
North-West, Canadian: Dominion
takes over Hudson's Bay do-
mains, 187; situation not properly
handled, 189; outbreak in 1869,
191; buildng of Canadian Paci-
tic, 244; settlement declines, 267;
Canadian frontier administration,
284; Métis grievances, 287; ris-
ing, 297; development under
Laurier régime, ii, a,7; political
'changes, 223; establishment of
new provinces, 225.
O'Brien, Colonel, moves Jesuits'
Estates disallowance, i, 389.
O'Donoghue, Wàlliam, lieutenant of
Riel, i, 191.
Olier, Frank, share in western de-
velopment, il, 224; enters Laurier
ministry, 253; bilingual debate,
478; 1917 contest, 540.
Ontario politics: Mowat's provin-
cial rights' platform, i, 239; sec-
tarian issues, 262-391; Hardy
and Ross régimes, ii, 255; Whit-
ney administration, 255; machine
politics, 269; Liberal revival, 4,92.
Orange order, incorporation contro-
versy, i» 263; Blake's criticism,
571
INDEX
265; demands for punishment of
Riel, 309; on schooi settlement,
il, 19.
"Orange Sentinel," "Duty of the
Hour" pamphlet, ii, 281.
Osier, B. B., counsel in Riel trial,
i, 302; declines to enter Tupper
cabinet, 481.
Pataud, ]rnFst, foun 
