CHAPTER IX
ROCKS IN THE CHANNEL
In the month of March 1865, as the Canadian debates drew to a close, ominous reports began to arrive from all the Maritime Provinces. An election campaign of unusual bitterness was going on in New Brunswick. The term of the legislature would expire in the following June; and the Tilley government had decided to dissolve and present the Quebec resolutions to a newly elected legislature, a blunder in tactics due, it may be, to over-confidence. The secrecy which had shrouded the proceedings of the delegates at first was turned to account by their opponents, who set in motion a campaign of mendacity and misrepresentation. The actual terms became known too late to counteract this hostile agitation, which had been systematically carried on throughout the province. The bogey employed to stampede the electors was direct taxation. The farmers were told that every cow or horse they possessed, even the chickens in the farmyard, would be taxed for the benefit of Canada. Worse than all, it was contended, the bargain struck at the honour of the province, because, as the subsidy was on the basis of paying to the provinces annually eighty cents per head of population, the people were really being sold by the government like sheep for this paltry price. The trusted Tilley, easily first in popular affection by reason of his probity and devotion to public duty, was discredited. His opponent in the city of St John, A. R. Wetmore, illustrated the dire effects of Confederation in an imaginary dialogue, between himself and his young son, after this fashion: 'Father, what country do we live in?'—and, of course, the reply came promptly—'My dear son, you have no country, for Mr Tilley has sold us all to the Canadians for eighty cents a head.' Time and full discussion would have dissipated the forces of the anti-confederates. But constituencies worked upon by specious appeals to prejudice are notoriously hard to woo during an election struggle. There existed also honest doubts in many minds regarding federation. Enough men of character and influence in both parties joined to form a strong opposition, while one of Tilley's colleagues in the ministry, George Hathaway, went over to the enemy at a critical hour. The agitation swept the province. It was not firmly rooted in the convictions of the people, but it sufficed to overwhelm the government. All the Cabinet ministers, including Tilley, were beaten. And so it happened that, when the Canadian ministers were in the full tide of parliamentary success at home, the startling news arrived that New Brunswick had rejected federation, and that in a House of forty-one members only six supporters of the scheme had been returned from the polls.
Equally alarming was the prospect in Nova Scotia. On arriving home from Quebec, Dr Tupper and his fellow-delegates found a situation which required careful handling. 'When the delegates returned to the Province,' says a pamphlet of the time, 'they did not meet with a very flattering reception. They had no ovation; and no illuminations, bonfires, and other demonstrations of felicitous welcome hailed their return. They were not escorted to their homes with torches and banners, and through triumphal arches; no cannon thundered forth a noisy welcome. They were received in solemn, sullen and ominous silence. No happy smiles greeted them; but they entered the Province as into the house of mourning.'[[1]] And in Nova Scotia the hostility was not, as in New Brunswick, merely a passing wave of surprise and discontent. It lasted for years. Nor was it, as many think, the sole creation of the ambitious Joseph Howe. It doubtless owed much to his power as a leader of men and his influence over the masses of the Nova Scotians. But there is testimony that this proud and spirited people, with traditions which their origin and history fully warranted them in cherishing, regarded with aversion the prospect of a constitutional revolution, especially one which menaced their political identity. Robert Haliburton has related the results of his observations before the issue had been fairly disclosed and before Howe had emerged from seclusion to take a hand in the game.
In September and October, 1864, when our delegates were at Quebec, and therefore before there could be any objections raised to the details of the scheme, or to the mode of its adoption, I travelled through six counties, embracing the whole of Cape Breton and two counties in Nova Scotia, and took some trouble to ascertain the state of public opinion as to what was taking place, and was greatly surprised at finding that every one I met, without a solitary exception, from the highest to the lowest, was alarmed at the idea of a union with Canada, and that the combination of political leaders, so far from recommending the scheme, filled their partisans with as much dismay as if the powers of light and darkness were plotting against the public safety. It was evident that unless the greatest tact were exercised, a storm of ignorant prejudice and alarm would be aroused, that would sweep the friends of union out of power, if not out of public life. The profound secrecy preserved by the delegates as to the scheme, until an accomplice turned Queen's evidence, added fuel to the flame, and convinced the most sceptical that there was a second Gunpowder Plot in existence, which was destined to annihilate our local legislature and our provincial rights.[[2]]
This was the situation which confronted Howe when he returned in the autumn from his tour as fishery commissioner. He had written from Newfoundland, on hearing of the conference at Charlottetown: 'I have read the proceedings of the delegates and I am glad to be out of the mess.' At first he listened in silence to the Halifax discussions on both sides of the question. These were non-partisan, since Archibald and McCully, the Liberal leaders, were as much concerned in the result as the Conservative ministers. Howe finally broke silence with the first of his articles in the Halifax Chronicle on 'The Botheration Scheme.' This gave the signal for an agitation which finally bore Nova Scotia to the verge of rebellion. Howe's course has been censured as the greatest blot upon an otherwise brilliant career. In justice to his memory the whole situation should be examined. He did not start the agitation. Many able and patriotic Nova Scotians urged him on. Favourable to union as an abstract theory he had been: to Confederation as a policy he had never distinctly pledged himself. The idea that the Quebec terms were sacrosanct, and that hostility to them involved disloyalty to the Empire, must be put aside. It is neither necessary nor fair to assume that Howe's conduct was wholly inspired by the spleen and jealousy commonly ascribed to him; for, with many others, he honestly held the view that the interests of his native province were about to be sacrificed in a bad bargain. Nevertheless, his was a grave political error—an error for which he paid bitterly—which in the end cost him popularity, private friendship, and political reputation. But the noble courage and patience with which he sought to repair it should redeem his fame.[[3]]
It was no secret that the governor of Nova Scotia, Sir Richard Graves Macdonnell, was opposed to Confederation. The veiled hostility of his speech in Halifax has already been noted; and he followed it with another at Montreal, after the conference, which revealed a captious mind on the subject. Arthur Hamilton Gordon (afterwards Lord Stanmore), the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, also hampered the movement; although the Imperial instructions, even at this early stage of the proceedings, pointed to an opposite course. In the gossipy diary of Miss Frances Monck, a member of Lord Monck's household at Quebec in 1864, appears this item: 'Sir R. M. is so against this confederation scheme because he would be turned away. He said to John A.: You shall not make a mayor of me, I can tell you! meaning a deputy governor of a province.' Macdonnell was transferred to Hong-Kong; and Gordon, after a visit to England, experienced a change of heart. But the mischief done was incalculable.
In view of the disturbed state of public opinion in Nova Scotia the Tupper government resolved to play a waiting game. When the legislature met in February 1865, the federation issue came before it merely as an open question. The defeat of Tilley in New Brunswick followed soon after, and the occasion was seen to be inopportune for a vote upon union. But, as some action had to be taken, a motion was adopted affirming the previous attitude of the legislature respecting a maritime union. There was a long debate; Tupper expounded and defended the Quebec resolutions; but no one seemed disposed to come to close quarters with the question. Tupper's policy was to mark time.
Prince Edward Island made another contribution to the chapter of misfortune by definitely rejecting the proposed union. The Legislative Council unanimously passed a resolution against it, and in the Assembly the adverse vote was twenty-three against five. It was declared that the scheme 'would prove politically, commercially and financially disastrous'; and an address to the Queen prayed that no Imperial action should be taken to unite the Island to Canada or any other province.
Newfoundland, likewise, turned a deaf ear to the proposals. The commercial interests of that colony assumed the critical attitude of the same element in Nova Scotia, and objected to the higher customs duties which a uniform tariff for the federated provinces would probably entail. It was resolved to take no action until after a general election; and the representations made to the legislature by Governor Musgrave produced no effect. Although the governor was sanguine, it required no great power of observation to perceive that the ancient colony would not accept federation.
The Canadian government took prompt measures. On the arrival of the bad news from New Brunswick it was decided to hurry the debates to a close, prorogue parliament, and send a committee of the Cabinet to England to confer with the Imperial authorities on federation, defence, reciprocity, and the acquisition of the North-West Territories. This programme was adhered to. The four ministers who left for England in April were Macdonald, Brown, Galt, and Cartier. The mission, among other results pertinent to the cause of union, secured assurances from the home authorities that every legitimate means for obtaining the early assent of the Maritime Provinces would be adopted.[[4]] But the calamities of 1865 were not over. The prime minister, Sir Etienne Taché, died; and Brown refused to serve under either Macdonald or Cartier. He took the ground that the coalition of parties had been held together by a chief (Taché) who had ceased to be actuated by strong party feelings or personal ambitions and in whom all sections reposed confidence. Standing alone, this reasoning is sound in practical politics. Behind it, of course, was the unwillingness of Brown to accept the leadership of his great rival. Macdonald then proposed Sir Narcisse Belleau, one of their colleagues, as leader of the government. Brown assented; and the coalition was reconstituted on the former basis, but not with the old cordiality. The rift within the lute steadily widened, and before the year closed Brown resigned from the ministry. His difference with his colleagues arose, he stated, from their willingness to renew reciprocal trade relations with the United States by concurrent legislation instead of, as heretofore, by a definite treaty. Although his two Liberal associates remained in the ministry, and the vacancy was given to another Liberal, Fergusson Blair, the recrudescence of partisan friction occasioned by the episode was not a good omen. Brown, however, promised continued support of the federation policy until the new constitution should come into effect—a promise which he fulfilled as far as party exigencies permitted. But the outlook was gloomy. There were rocks ahead which might easily wreck the ship. Who could read the future so surely as to know what would happen?
[[1]] Confederation Examined in the Light of Reason and Common Sense, by Martin I. Wilkins.
[[2]] Intercolonial Trade our only Safeguard against Disunion, by R. G. Haliburton. Ottawa, 1868.
[[3]] Howe's biographers have dealt with this episode in his life in a vein of intelligent generosity. See Joseph Howe by Mr Justice Longley in the 'Makers of Canada' series and The Tribune of Nova Scotia, by Prof. W. L. Grant, in the present Series.
[[4]] Report of the Canadian ministers to Lord Monck, July 13, 1865.