CHAPTER III
OLD AGE
'With the Canadian Pacific Railway finished, and my Franchise Bill become law, I feel that I have done my work and can now sing my Nunc dimittis.'
So wrote Sir John Macdonald to Lord Carnarvon shortly after the close of the arduous parliamentary session of 1885. There can be little doubt that these words expressed his inmost sentiments at the time. He had passed the allotted span of threescore years and ten, had 'sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,' and was beginning to look forward to a brief period of freedom from the cares of state before he should be too old to enjoy it. His great work was done. The scattered colonies had been united into a vast Dominion. The great North-West and the Pacific province had been added and Canada now extended from ocean to ocean, its several provinces joined together by iron bands. The reader of these pages can form some idea of the difficulties, of the labours, the anxieties, and the discouragements encountered in the execution of this giant task; and also of the marvellous courage, patience, and endurance which sustained the master builder throughout, and eventually enabled him to triumph over all opposition. Small wonder that Sir John Macdonald, with the consciousness of duty faithfully performed, sometimes in later life yearned for that rest which he was fated never to enjoy.
Party considerations forbade it. Macdonald's political friends could not reconcile themselves to his retirement, and he, in turn, could not make up his mind to abandon them. They declared that his withdrawal meant the certain disintegration and consequent defeat of the great party which he had built up, the party whose destinies he had so long guided. There were, moreover, at this particular time special reasons which rendered his controlling hand more than ever necessary. It was no secret that the French-Canadian ministers, Langevin, Caron, and Chapleau, were far from showing that spirit of mutual trust and confidence which is supposed to exist among members of the same Ministry. Sir Hector Langevin, the senior of the triumvirate, had been the lieutenant of Cartier, but, in this instance, the mantle of Elijah had not fallen upon his successor. In my experience I never met a man who more neatly fulfilled Bismarck's cynical description of Lord Salisbury—'a lath painted to look like iron.' He was a good departmental officer—but he was nothing more. The moment Sir John Macdonald's support was taken away, he fell. Yet Sir John stood by him against the attacks of his opponents, and generally sided with him in his differences with his colleagues.
During a holiday of 1888 Sir John said to me one day at Dalhousie, N.B., where he was spending the summer: 'George Stephen keeps pressing me to retire, and I think I shall. My only difficulty is about my successor.' 'Whom do you think of as such?' I asked. 'Oh,' replied he, 'Langevin; there is no one else.'[[1]] 'Well,' I remarked, 'I have a candidate—one who lives on the border line between the two provinces, speaks both languages with facility, and is equally at home in Quebec and Ontario.' 'Who is he?' 'Mr Abbott,' I replied. 'John Abbott,' said Sir John incredulously. 'Why, he hasn't a single qualification for the office. Thompson,' he went on, 'is very able and a fine fellow, but Ontario would never endure his turning Catholic. No, I see no one but Langevin.' Yet it was Abbott after all. When asked why he thought so much of Langevin, the reply was at once forthcoming: 'He has always been true to me.' The same thing might have been said of Sir Adolphe Caron, ever a faithful supporter, and from his youth up, equally in prosperity and adversity, a close personal friend of the old chief; but Sir John thought that Caron sometimes allowed his personal feelings to obscure his judgment, or, as he expressed it, 'Caron is too much influenced by his hates—a fatal mistake in a public man, who should have no resentments.' Sir Adolphe Chapleau, with all his attractiveness and charm, Sir John never quite trusted. The relations between these three French-Canadian ministers were hard to define. I frankly confess that, with all my opportunities, I could never master the intricacies of Lower-Canadian politics in those days. In the beginning it seemed to be a case of Langevin and Caron against Chapleau; later it sometimes looked as though Langevin and Chapleau were making common cause against Caron; perhaps most often it resembled a triangular duel. There was absolutely no difference between those three men in respect of public policy, but the personal jealousy and suspicion with which they regarded one another was amusing.
'Langevin,' said Sir John, 'on his way down to Quebec, cannot stop off for lunch at Montreal, but Chapleau writes me that he is interfering in his district, and if he leaves his house in Quebec for a walk down John Street, Caron wires in cypher that a breach in the party is imminent.' Langevin, on his part, was equally vigilant to resent the encroachments, real or supposed, of his colleagues upon his domain, and altogether Sir John had no pleasant time keeping the peace among them.
In the English section of the Cabinet three vacancies had recently taken place. Immediately after the close of the session of 1885 considerations of health compelled Sir David Macpherson to give up the portfolio of the Interior. This in no sense interfered with the personal and political friendship which had long existed between him and his leader. Sir David, albeit over cautious and deliberate in his methods, was a man of good judgment, and wholly animated by a desire for the public good. His administrative record suffered from his delays in settling the grievances of the half-breeds of the North-West. This had afforded Riel the pretext for the second rising, but how far responsibility in this matter properly attached to Macpherson, I am not prepared to say.
Sir David Macpherson was succeeded in the office of minister of the Interior by Thomas White, a well-known Conservative journalist of Montreal, where he and his brother Richard conducted the Montreal Gazette. For many years White had been a faithful exponent of Conservative principles in the press. In his efforts to enter parliament he had been singularly unfortunate. In 1867 he had been defeated in South Wentworth by three votes; in 1874 in Prescott by six votes; in 1875 in Montreal West by seven votes; and in the following year in the same constituency by fifty votes. Finally, he was elected in 1878 for the then existing electoral division of Cardwell, in the province of Ontario. Seven years later he became a colleague of the chieftain whose cause he had so long and so effectively promoted. To the great grief of Sir John Macdonald, White died within three years of taking office. Few statesmen of so great merit have experienced such persistent ill fortune. Had he lived, he might not improbably have become prime minister of Canada.
In the autumn of 1885 the minister of Finance, Sir Leonard Tilley, resigned to become lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick. In another volume I have alluded to his close friendship with Sir John Macdonald. If White was an unlucky politician, assuredly the same cannot be said of Sir Leonard Tilley. In 1867 he gave up the office of prime minister of New Brunswick to enter the Dominion Cabinet; he remained minister until a few days before the downfall of 1873, when he was appointed lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick. This post he held throughout the period when the Conservatives were in opposition (1873 to 1878). Upon the return of the party to power in 1878, Tilley, having just completed his term as lieutenant-governor, became minister of Finance. After holding this office for seven years, he slipped back again into the post of lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick. Sir Leonard's place in the Cabinet was taken by Mr (now Sir) George E. Foster, whose signal ability was thus recognized thirty years ago by Sir John Macdonald.
In May 1884 Sir Charles Tupper relinquished the portfolio of Railways and Canals in order to devote himself exclusively to the office of high commissioner for Canada in London, to which he had been appointed a year before. It is unnecessary to say that the withdrawal of Sir Charles from the Cabinet, in which he had so long exercised a commanding influence, proved a serious loss. Indeed, as the sequel shows, his presence became so necessary that he had to return. Sir John Macdonald's choice of a successor from Nova Scotia fell upon Mr Justice (afterwards Sir John) Thompson, a brilliant man, who will never be appreciated at his true worth because his term of office was too short. The selection was at variance with Sir John's expressed views on the inexpediency of judges leaving the bench to return to political life, but it proved singularly happy, and in time Thompson became prime minister. 'Thompson,' observed Macdonald, 'has just two faults. He is a little too fond of satire, and a little too much of a Nova Scotian.' It cannot be denied that, in spite of Thompson's great ability, his point of view remained provincial to the end. In his heart of hearts Nova Scotia rather than Canada ever held first place. No more upright man ever breathed. He had a fierce intolerance of the slightest departure from absolute rectitude. The case of a chief clerk in the Civil Service, who had committed serious irregularities in connection with the public funds, once came up before the Cabinet. Thompson, always severe in such matters, considered that the gravity of the offence called for dismissal, but to this Macdonald would not consent, holding that reduction in rank to a first-class clerkship, with corresponding loss of salary, would be sufficient punishment. It was seldom that Macdonald, in the ordinary course of administration, interposed his paramount authority as first minister, but, though the Council as a whole rather inclined towards Thompson's view, Macdonald insisted that the more merciful punishment should be imposed. Thompson was angry, but said nothing more at the time. Not long afterwards a third-class railway mail clerk, with a salary of $500 a year, got into similar trouble. 'What shall be done with this man?' asked Macdonald at the Council Board. There was a moment's pause, which was broken by the bland suggestion from Thompson that, 'following precedent, he be made a first-class clerk.'
Thompson had a caustic wit. A certain inventor of Toronto, who had devised an ingenious means for safeguarding level railway crossings, had long bombarded Sir John Macdonald with applications for Government patronage. When Sir John became minister of Railways in 1889, the inventor thought that his day had at last arrived. He went post-haste to Ottawa, obtained the requisite permission, and installed his models in a room belonging to the Railway department. One day Macdonald and Thompson happened to come along the corridor going to Macdonald's office. The inventor, who had been lying in wait, pressed them to step aside for a minute and inspect his models. Sir John, seeing no escape, said to his companion, 'Come along, Thompson, and let us see what this fellow's got to show us.' Thompson hated mechanical contrivances, but there was no way out of it, so he followed the chief. The delighted inventor felt that he had at last realized his desire, and was in great form. He volubly descanted on the frequent loss of life at level crossings and proceeded to show his devices for lessening such dangers. The day was piping hot and he had taken off his coat. He rushed round the table and touched bells here and there, which caused gates to close and open, semaphores to drop, and all sorts of things to happen. As the ministers took their leave, Macdonald said to his companion, 'Well, Thompson, what do you think of that chap?' 'I think,' replied Thompson with great energy, 'that he deserves to be killed on a level crossing.'
Once, while Lord Aberdeen was governor-general, Sir John Thompson was dining at Government House on an evening in June when the mosquitoes were unusually troublesome. Lady Aberdeen suggested the shutting of the windows. 'Oh! thank you,' replied Sir John, 'pray don't trouble; I think they are all in now!'
Sir Alexander Campbell was from youth intimately connected with Sir John Macdonald—as a fellow-citizen of Kingston, as law student and subsequently as partner in a legal firm, as a colleague for many years in the government of the old province of Canada and afterwards in that of the Dominion. Yet the two were never kindred spirits. Sir Alexander Campbell was a Tory aristocrat, a veritable grand seigneur, of dignified bearing and courtly mien. He made an excellent minister of Justice, but he lacked that bonhomie which so endeared Sir John Macdonald to the multitude. I do not think that Sir John's pre-eminence in that direction ever gave Sir Alexander much concern. My impression is that he regarded the multitude as an assemblage of more or less uninteresting persons, necessary only at election times; and if Sir John could succeed in obtaining their votes, he was quite welcome to any incidental advantages that he might extract from the process. It was alleged by Sir Richard Cartwright that in the year 1864 a movement was started in the Conservative party with the object of supplanting Macdonald and putting Campbell in his place, and that Sir John never forgave Campbell for his part in this affair. Something of the kind was talked about at the date mentioned, but the movement proved a complete fiasco, and it is not at all clear that Campbell was a consenting party to it. I doubt too the correctness of Sir Richard's inference, for, leaving the 1864 incident out of account, there never was the slightest political division between the two men. At the time of the Pacific Scandal, Campbell behaved exceedingly well to his chief. Yet, speaking of the period within my own knowledge—that is to say, during the last ten years of Macdonald's life—while ever externally friends, the two in their personal relations were antipathetic. This may in part be ascribed to Campbell's dignified love of ease and disinclination to join in the rough-and-tumble of party politics. When elections were to be fought (I speak only of my own time) Campbell, if he did not find that he had business elsewhere, was disposed to look on in a patronizing sort of way. He seldom took off his coat or even his gloves in the fight, but he always turned up when the victory was won. Sir John resented this. Yet assuredly Campbell had some merits, or Macdonald would not have kept him in successive Cabinets. Sir Alexander was an ideal leader of the Senate, and this qualification alone rendered him of much value. He was, moreover, par excellence the aristocrat of the Cabinet, and such a type of public man is rare in Canada.
The antithesis of Sir Alexander Campbell was John Henry Pope, sometime minister of Agriculture and later of Railways and Canals. Pope was a man of small education and less culture, but of great natural ability, and was gifted with remarkable political sagacity. Macdonald used to say that Pope could have been anything he desired had he only received a good education in his youth. He added that he had never known Pope's judgment to be at fault. In times of stress and difficulty Pope was the colleague of whom he first sought advice and counsel, and upon whose rough good sense he implicitly relied. Pope died two years before his chief, who never ceased to mourn his loss.
Another self-made colleague of the same stamp was Mr Frank Smith of Toronto. Mr Smith was a member of the Cabinet from 1882 to 1891, during which long period his keen business sagacity and sound common sense were ever at his chief's disposal.
Sir Mackenzie Bowell, 'the best Minister of Customs I ever had,' was another old-time friend and colleague for whom Sir John entertained a high regard and respect. Sir Mackenzie's chief claims to prominence are of a date subsequent to the day of Sir John Macdonald and therefore do not fall within the compass of this work; but he is one who in serene old age remains a connecting link with those stirring times.
The pre-eminence of Sir Charles Tupper must not lead me to forget that his son had the honour of being one of Sir John's colleagues in the old chieftain's latter years. Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper became a Cabinet minister at thirty-two, the same age as that at which the youthful John A. Macdonald had entered the Cabinet of Draper, forty-one years before. During the years in which the younger Tupper held the office of minister of Marine and Fisheries he made an enviable record as an efficient and courageous administrator. I fancy Sir John used sometimes to think that he was perhaps more particular about the administration of patronage in his own department than in those of his colleagues. One day, shortly after Mr Tupper (as he was then) had become a minister, he sent a letter from some applicant for office over to Sir John with the request that if possible he would do something for the writer. Sir John took the letter, folded it, endorsed it, 'Dear Charlie, skin your own skunks. Yours always, J. A. M.D.,' and sent it back to the new minister; as much as to say, 'Now that you have a department of your own, look after these people yourself.'
Mr John Costigan was a member of Sir John Macdonald's Cabinet from 1882 till 1891. Shortly after the appearance of my Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald, Mr Costigan publicly stated that I had made a mistake in saying that Macdonald had not been in favour of Home Rule for Ireland. Goldwin Smith declared, indeed, that Sir John Macdonald had no settled convictions upon Home Rule, but was ever ready to propitiate the Irish vote by any sacrifice of principle that might be required. That Sir John reduced the original Home Rule resolutions before the Dominion parliament in 1882 and 1886 to mere expressions of contingent hope, such (to use Goldwin Smith's own words) 'as any Unionist might have subscribed,'[[2]] and that Macdonald voted against Mr Curran's substantive resolution in favour of Home Rule in 1887, when he could not modify it, was as well known to Goldwin Smith as to Mr Costigan. In addition, Goldwin Smith possessed indubitable evidence, at first hand, of Sir John Macdonald's sentiments on the subject of Home Rule. During the political campaign of 1886-87 Goldwin Smith said some hard things of Sir John and the Conservative party. He was at the same time attacking Gladstone very bitterly on his Home Rule policy. Some weeks after the Canadian elections were over, Sir John Macdonald visited Toronto, and stayed at the Queen's Hotel. Among the visitors on the day of his arrival was Goldwin Smith, who, as he entered the room, murmured something about the doubtful propriety of making a social call upon one whom he felt it his duty to oppose in the recent contest. Sir John Macdonald held out both hands saying, 'My dear sir, I forgive you everything for your splendid defence of the Empire,' alluding to his attacks on Home Rule. This remark and the conversation which ensued made quite clear where Sir John Macdonald stood on the question of Home Rule—a position which he never compromised by any word or act. To assert the contrary implies a charge of opportunism; but Goldwin Smith himself, when calmly analysing Macdonald's character sixteen years after his death, deliberately asserted that 'if he [Sir John] was partisan, he was not opportunist.'[[3]] Goldwin Smith knew right well that Sir John Macdonald was just as resolutely opposed as he was himself to the establishment of a separate parliament in Dublin with an executive responsible thereto. On the evening of the day just mentioned Macdonald dined with Goldwin Smith. As we drove to 'The Grange' Sir John asked me if I had ever been there before. I had not.
'Well,' said he, 'you are going to a very interesting house with a charming host, but notice Mr Smith's habit of interlarding his otherwise agreeable conversation with tiresome references to the nobility. Why, to hear him talk, you would imagine he never consorted in England with anybody under the rank of an earl.' Later that evening, as we went to the station to take our train, Sir John said, 'Did you observe what I told you? That's why Dizzy in Lothair called him a social parasite. Strange that so brilliant a man, who needs no adventitious aids, should manifest such a weakness.'
In the autumn of 1886 Sir John Macdonald, accompanied by four of his colleagues—Chapleau, White, Thompson, and Foster—made a tour of the province of Ontario, towards the close of which he wrote thus to Sir Charles Tupper:
I am on my way back to Ottawa after a successful tour in Western Ontario. We have made a very good impression, and I think will hold our own in the Province. We have, however, lost nearly the whole of the Catholic vote by the course of the Mail, and this course has had a prejudicial effect not only in Ontario but throughout the Dominion, and has therefore introduced a great element of uncertainty in a good many constituencies.
In Nova Scotia the outlook is bad, and the only hope of our holding our own there is your immediate return and vigorous action. It may be necessary that you should, even if only for a time, return to the Cabinet. M'Lelan, I know, would readily make way for you. Now, the responsibility on you is very great, for should any disaster arise because of your not coming out, the whole blame will be thrown upon you.
I see that Anglin is now starring it in Nova Scotia. I send you an extract from a condensed report of his remarks which appeared in the Montreal Gazette. This is a taking programme for the Maritime Provinces and has to be met, and no one can do it but yourself. But enough of Dominion politics.
I cannot in conclusion too strongly press upon you the absolute necessity of your coming out at once, and do not like to contemplate the evil consequences of your declining to do so.
I shall cable you the time for holding our election the moment it is settled.
That the general elections of 1887 were fought with exceeding bitterness may be inferred from a paragraph in a leading Canadian newspaper of the day:
Now W. M. Tweed [the criminal 'boss' in New York] was an abler scoundrel than is Sir John Macdonald. He was more courageous, if possible more unscrupulous, and more crafty, and he had himself, as he thought, impregnably entrenched. Yet in a few short months he was in a prison cell deserted and despised by all who had lived upon his wickedness—and there he died.
This of course is a mere exhibition of partisan rage and spite. It contains no single word or phrase in the smallest degree applicable to Sir John Macdonald, who, far from being dishonest, was ever scrupulously fair and just in all his dealings, both public and private. This, I am persuaded, is now well understood. What is not so well known is that he disliked extravagance of any kind. He was, it is true, a man of bold conceptions, and when convinced that a large policy was in the interest of the country, he never hesitated at its cost. Thus he purchased the North-West, built the Canadian Pacific Railway, and spent millions on canals. But in the ordinary course of affairs he was prudent, even economical, and as careful of public money as of his own. At the close of a long life he spoke of the very modest competence he had provided for his family as having been 'painfully and laboriously saved.'
If Sir John's critic, quoted above, meant to convey the idea that in 1887 Sir John thought himself firmly entrenched in power, he was far from the mark. For Sir John went into the elections of 1887 believing that he would be defeated. The Riel movement in the province of Quebec had assumed formidable proportions, and the fatuous course of former Conservative allies, Dalton M'Carthy and the Mail newspaper, in raising an anti-French and anti-Catholic cry threatened disaster in Ontario. The friendly provincial Government in Quebec had been overthrown in October 1886, and in the following December Oliver Mowat, in the hope of strengthening the hands of Blake, then leading the Ottawa Opposition, suddenly dissolved the Ontario legislature. Mowat was successful in his own appeal. But, strange to say, the local triumph probably injured rather than aided Blake. At least such was Sir John's opinion. He held that his attitude on the Home Rule question had alienated a goodly proportion of the Irish vote which usually went with him, and that these people, having taken the edge off their resentment by voting Liberal in the provincial elections, felt free to return to their political allegiance when the Dominion elections came on two months later. This sounds far-fetched, but it was the opinion of a man who had been studying political elections in Ontario all his long life. At any rate, Sir John Macdonald carried fifty-four out of ninety-two seats in Ontario; and Edward Blake was so discouraged by the result that on the meeting of the new parliament he resigned the leadership of the Opposition in favour of Mr Laurier.
Of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his subsequent career it does not devolve upon me to speak. I will only say that if his predecessors in the leadership of the Liberal party, for one cause or another, failed to realize the hopes of their political followers, he amply made up for their shortcomings by achieving signal success. Fortune, no doubt, was kinder to him than to them, but, apart from all other questions, Sir Wilfrid's personal qualities had no small influence in bringing about his party triumphs. Alike in Opposition and in power, his unfailing tact, old-fashioned courtesy, conciliatory methods, urbanity, moderation, and unvarying good temper evoked the sympathy of thousands whom Blake's coldly intellectual feats failed to attract and Mackenzie's rigidity of demeanour served only to repel. Simultaneously with Mr Laurier's advent to the leadership of the Opposition in 1887, a moderating influence began to be felt in the House of Commons, which gradually affected the whole tone of political life in Canada, until the old-time bitterness of party strife in a large measure passed away.
About a month before Sir John Macdonald died Mr Laurier came to his office in the House of Commons to discuss some question of adjournment. When he had gone, the chief said to me, 'Nice chap that. If I were twenty years younger, he'd be my colleague.' 'Perhaps he may be yet, sir,' I remarked. Sir John shook his head. 'Too old,' said he, 'too old,' and passed into the inner room.
I must not omit an amusing incident which happened in the autumn of 1888. During the summer of that year Honoré Mercier, the Liberal prime minister of Quebec, had called upon Sir John at the Inch Arran hotel at Dalhousie, New Brunswick. It was the first time they had met, and Mercier, who showed a disposition to be friendly, asked Sir John if he would give him an interview with himself and his colleagues at Ottawa in order to discuss some financial questions outstanding between the Dominion and the province. Sir John promised to do so, and when he returned to town fixed a day for the meeting. In the preceding July the Quebec legislature had passed the once famous Jesuits' Estates Act. This Act was then before Sir John's Cabinet and he was under strong pressure to disallow it. While Sir John had no love for Mercier or his Government, and while he thought the preamble of the Jesuits' Estates Act, with its ostentatious references to the Pope, highly objectionable, he had no doubt that the Act was wholly within the competence of the Quebec legislature and was not a subject for disallowance. Obviously Quebec could do what it liked with its own money. Sir John was having much trouble at the time with several of the provincial legislatures, which were showing a disposition to encroach upon the federal domain. It was necessary that he should walk warily, lest he should put himself in the wrong by interfering with legislation clearly within the power of provincial legislatures. He was persuaded that the obnoxious phrases in the preamble of the Jesuits' Estates Act had been inserted with the express object of tempting him to an arbitrary and unjust exercise of power which would react disastrously upon him, not only in Quebec, but also in Ontario, Manitoba, and elsewhere. It was all too palpable, and, as he used to say, 'in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird.'
Mercier's visit, however, had no relation to this matter, but had been arranged for the discussion of purely financial matters with Sir John and his colleagues. The appointed morning arrived, and Mercier, frock-coated and very formal and precise, was shown into Sir John's office. A meeting of Council had been called for the occasion, and while the members were gathering the two leaders exchanged a few remarks of a purely conventional character. At length, when all was ready, Sir John rose and, with a stiff bow and 'Will you follow me, sir?' led the way along the hall towards the council chamber, with Mercier close behind him. As they turned into the corridor leading to the chamber, Mercier, feeling some constraint and wishing to make a little conversation, said, half jokingly, 'Sir John, I wish you would tell us whether you are going to disallow our Jesuits' Estates Act or not.' Suddenly the old man unbent, his eyes brightened, his features grew mobile, as he half looked back over his shoulder and said in a stage whisper, 'Do you take me for a damn fool?' In a second it was all over, his figure again became erect, all trace of expression died out of his face, and with measured pace and serious mien the two men passed into the council chamber.
My recollections of the day of Sir John Macdonald are chiefly connected with official, as distinct from parliamentary, life. At the same time I recall many amusing incidents which took place in the House of Commons. Of all the members of that assembly I thought Sir Richard Cartwright the most accomplished debater. He was perhaps the only member of the House who could afford to have his words taken down and printed exactly as he spoke them. Uniformly a kind and considerate minister towards his subordinates, his attitude towards his opponents in parliament was ferocious, though perhaps this ferocity was often more simulated than real. One illustration of his savage humour occurs to me. About the year 1883 a life of Sir John Macdonald appeared written by a certain John Edmund Collins. Sir John did not know the author, nor had he any connection with the book. It was merely a well-ordered presentation of facts already known, and did not profess to be anything more. Some of the government departments bought copies and the title appeared in the public accounts, which came before parliament. This gave Sir Richard one of those opportunities to attack Sir John of which he never failed to take advantage. After saying some disagreeable things, he concluded thus: 'However, Mr Speaker, I am bound to say that I think it quite fit that a gentleman who in his day has done justice to so many John Collinses, should at last have a John Collins to do justice to him.' To the uninitiated it may be explained that 'John Collins' is the name of a rather potent beverage.
This pointed allusion to Sir John's convivial habits leads me to say, in all candour, that his failings in this regard were greatly exaggerated. There is no doubt that at one time—in an age when almost everybody drank wine freely—he was no exception to the general rule. This was particularly true of the period of his widowerhood, between 1857 and 1867, when his lapses were such as occasionally to interfere with his public duties. But certainly during the last ten years of his life (and probably for a longer period) his habits were most temperate. His principal beverages were milk and at dinner a glass of claret. I rarely knew him to touch spirits, and if he did so now and then, it was in great moderation.
Sir John Macdonald never seems to have felt towards Sir Richard Cartwright the degree of bitterness that marked Cartwright's pursuit of him. I do not pretend to say that he liked him, but he was always fair. This letter to an over-zealous supporter may perhaps serve as an illustration.
OTTAWA, 28th March 1891.
DEAR SIR,—I have yours of the 23rd instant informing me that Sir Richard Cartwright is going to Kingston to inquire into some matters with regard to the Provincial penitentiary. He has a right to do so as a member of Parliament, nor do I think that any impediment should be thrown in his way. If there be any irregularities committed in the penitentiary, there are no reasons why they should be hidden, and the parties committing irregularities properly dealt with.—I am, dear sir, yours very truly,
JOHN A. MACDONALD.
No sketch of the House of Commons of those days, however brief, should omit mention of Alonzo Wright, the 'King of the Gatineau,' as he was commonly known. Wright was a genial, whole-souled plutocrat of the old school. He represented the county of Ottawa, and resided on the banks of the Gatineau river, where his hospitable doors were ever open to his many friends. He was an old-fashioned Tory, but never took politics very seriously. Sometimes, indeed, he showed symptoms of independence, but, as Sir John used laughingly to say, 'while Alonzo's speeches are sometimes wrong, his vote is always right.' Sir John, of course, was quite satisfied with this arrangement. Once a year, to the great entertainment of the House, Wright would make a characteristic speech, felicitously phrased and brimful of humour. One of these harangues in particular remains in my recollection. Like all good-natured members residing near the capital, 'Alonzo' was much plagued by office-seekers of all classes. Among these was a certain Madame Laplante of Hull, whose aspirations did not rise above a charwoman's place. She was unusually persistent. One day, as the 'King' was driving over the Sappers Bridge, he saw a woman in front of his horses waving her arms wildly as a signal to stop. He pulled up, and saw that it was Madame Laplante. Being rather hazy as to her present fortunes, he ventured to express the hope that she liked the position which he had been so fortunate as to obtain for her. Madame Laplante, with sobs, said that she was still without work. At this the 'King' feigned unbounded indignation. The rest must be told in his own words.
'Impossible,' I made answer. 'It cannot be.' Upon receiving renewed assurances that so it was, my resolution was taken in an instant. Turning my carriage I bade the weeping woman enter, and drove at once to the Public Departments. Brushing aside the minions who sought to arrest our progress, I strode unannounced into the Ministerial presence. 'Sir,' said I, 'I have come to you as a suitor for the last time. You may remember that you promised me that this worthy woman should be employed forthwith. I learn to-day that that promise, like many others you have made me, is still unfulfilled. There is a time when patience ceases to be a virtue. Sir, my resolution is taken. I am as good a party man as lives, but there is something that I value more than my party, and that is my self-respect. This afternoon my resignation shall be in the hands of the Speaker, and I shall then be free to state publicly the sentiments I entertain towards all violators of their word, and by the aid of this victim of duplicity, to expose your perfidious treatment of one of your hitherto most faithful supporters.' My arguments, my entreaties, my threats prevailed, and Madame Laplante that day entered the service of her country, which she continues to adorn!
Many delightful stories are told of Macdonald's ally, Lord Strathcona. I have room for only two. A seedy-looking person named M'Donald once called at the high commissioner's office in London. When asked the nature of his business, he replied that he was in straitened circumstances, and that when Lord Strathcona, as young Donald Smith, had left Forres in Scotland for America, he had been driven to the port whence he sailed by his present visitor's father. When the secretary had duly informed Lord Strathcona of this, word was given to admit M'Donald. Presently the bell rang, and the secretary appeared. 'Make out a cheque for £5 in favour of Mr M'Donald,' said Lord Strathcona. This was done, and M'Donald went on his way rejoicing. In a month or so he turned up again; the same thing happened, and again he departed with a five-pound cheque. This went on for several months; but M'Donald came once too often. On the occasion of his last visit Lord Strathcona did not happen to be in a complaisant mood. When M'Donald was announced he said to the secretary: 'Tell him I'll not see him. And as for Mr M'Donald's father having driven me from Forres when I went to America, it is not true, sir! I walked, sir!'—the last three words with tremendous emphasis.
During one of Donald Smith's election contests in Manitoba he felt some uneasiness as to the probable course of a knot of half-breeds in his constituency, but was assured by his election agent that these people were being 'looked after,' and that he need not have any apprehension in regard to them. This agent belonged to a class of westerners noted for the vigour rather than for the correctness of their language. Smith himself, as is well known, was always most proper in this respect. Now, it so happened that in the last hours of the campaign the half-breeds who were the objects of his solicitude were beguiled by the enemy, and that they voted against Smith, who lost the election. He felt this defeat very keenly, and so did his agent, who had to bear the additional mortification of having unintentionally misled his principal. When the results of the polling were announced, the agent relieved his feelings by denouncing the delinquent half-breeds in true Hudson's Bay style, and at every opprobrious and profane epithet Smith was heard to murmur with sympathetic approval, 'Are they not, Mr ——? are they not? are they not?'
During the period between 1887 and 1891 the Opposition developed the policy of unrestricted reciprocity with the United States, which they made the chief feature of their policy in the general elections of the latter year. Sir John Macdonald opposed this policy with all the energy at his command. He held that it would inevitably lead to the absorption of Canada by the United States, though he did not believe that this was the desire or the intention of its chief promoters. Sir John feared too that the cry would prove seductive. In the hope of arresting the movement before it had more fully advanced, he dissolved parliament prematurely and appealed to the people in mid-winter. In this resolve he was perhaps influenced by a growing consciousness of his failing physical strength. He was less pessimistic as to the result of the election than in 1887, yet he considered his chances of success not more than even. As on previous occasions, he had recourse to Sir Charles Tupper, to whom he cabled on January 21, 1891: 'Your presence during election contest in Maritime Provinces essential to encourage our friends. Please come. Answer.'
The old war-horse, who doubtless had scented the battle from afar, was not slow in responding to his leader's appeal. The contest was severe, and on Sir John's part was fought almost single-handed. His Ontario colleagues were too busy in defending their own seats to render him much assistance in the province at large. It was on this occasion that he issued his famous manifesto to the people of Canada containing the well-known phrase: 'A British subject I was born, a British subject I will die.' In this manifesto he earnestly exhorted the electors to reject a policy which, he was persuaded, would imperil their British allegiance. The people who had so often sustained him in the past responded to his fervent appeal, and again he was victorious. Nor had he to wait long for a signal confirmation of his estimate of the policy of his opponents. On the day after the polling Edward Blake published a letter to his constituents in West Durham, unsparingly condemning unrestricted reciprocity as tending towards annexation to the United States—'a precursor of political Union'—of which he was unable to approve, and in consequence of which he retired from public life.
Macdonald had won, but it was his last triumph. The wheel had gone full circle, and he, who in the flush of youth had begun his political career with the announcement of his firm resolve to resist, from whatever quarter it might come, any attempt which might tend to weaken the union between Canada and the mother country, fittingly closed it forty-seven years later by an appeal to the people of the Dominion to aid him in his last effort 'for the unity of the Empire and the preservation of our commercial and political freedom.' He won, but the effort proved too great for his waning vitality, and within three months of his victory he passed away.
In The Times of September 1, 1903, Dr L. S. (now Sir Starr) Jameson published this letter from Cecil Rhodes to Sir John Macdonald:
CAPE TOWN, 8th May 1891.
DEAR SIR,—I wished to write and congratulate you on winning the elections in Canada. I read your manifesto and I could understand the issue. If I might express a wish, it would be that we could meet before our stern fate claims us. I might write pages, but I feel I know you and your politics as if we had been friends for years. The whole thing lies in the question, Can we invent some tie with our mother country that will prevent separation? It must be a practical one, for future generations will not be born in England. The curse is that English politicians cannot see the future. They think they will always be the manufacturing mart of the world, but do not understand what protection coupled with reciprocal relations means. I have taken the liberty of writing to you; if you honour me with an answer I will write again.—
Yours,
C. J. RHODES.
PS. You might not know who I am, so I will say I am the Prime Minister of this Colony—that is the Cape Colony.
Sir John Macdonald never received this letter. It was written in South Africa in May, and Sir John died on June 6.
Sir John Macdonald's resemblance to Lord Beaconsfield has often been remarked. That it must have been striking is evident from Sir Charles Dilke's comment:
The first time I saw Sir John Macdonald was shortly after Lord Beaconsfield's death and as the clock struck midnight. I was starting from Euston station, and there appeared at the step of the railway carriage, in Privy Councillor's uniform (the right to wear which is confined to so small a number of persons that one expects to know by sight those who wear it), a figure precisely similar to that of the late Conservative leader, and it required, indeed, a severe exercise of presence of mind to remember that there had been a City banquet from which the apparition must be coming, and rapidly to arrive by a process of exhaustion at the knowledge that this twin brother of that Lord Beaconsfield whom shortly before I had seen in the sick room, which he was not to leave, must be the Prime Minister of Canada.[[4]]
At an evening reception in London, Sir John, who was standing a little apart, saw a lady attract another's attention, saying in an earnest whisper, 'You say you have never seen Lord Beaconsfield. There he is,' pointing to Sir John.
Sir John Macdonald's underlying and controlling thought was ever for the British Empire. That Canada should exist separate and apart from England was a contingency he never contemplated. The bare mention of such a possibility always evoked his strongest condemnation as being fatal to the realization of a united Empire, which was the dominant aspiration of his life.[[5]] To see Canada, Australia, and South Africa united by ties of loyalty, affection, and material interest; to see them ranged round the mother country as a protection and a defence—to see the dear land of England secure, to see her strong in every quarter of the globe, mistress of the seas, 'with the waves rolling about her feet, happy in her children and her children blessed in her'—such was Sir John Macdonald's dearest wish. As his devoted wife has most truly written of him:
Through all the fever, the struggles, the battles, hopes and fears, disappointments and successes, joys and sorrows, anxieties and rewards of those long busy years, this fixed idea of an united Empire was his guiding star and inspiration. I, who can speak with something like authority on this point, declare that I do not think any man's mind could be more fully possessed of an overwhelming strong principle than was this man's mind of this principle. It was the 'Empire' and 'England's precedent' always, in things great and small—from the pattern of a ceremony, or the spelling of a word, to the shaping of laws and the modelling of a constitution. With a courage at once fierce and gentle, generally in the face of tremendous opposition, often against dangerous odds, he carried measure after measure in the Canadian Parliament, each measure a stone in the edifice of empire which he so passionately believed in and was so proud to help build and rear.[[6]]
A parliamentary federation of the Empire he considered impracticable. He did not believe that the people of Canada—or of any other dependency of Great Britain—would ever consent to be taxed by a central body sitting outside its borders, nor did he relish the idea that the mother of parliaments at Westminster should be subordinated to any federal legislature, no matter how dignified and important it might be. He believed in allowing Canada's relations with the mother country to remain as they are. To use his own words, spoken within a year or so of his death:
I am satisfied that the vast majority of the people of Canada are in favour of the continuance and perpetuation of the connection between the Dominion and the mother country. There is nothing to gain and everything to lose by separation. I believe that if any party or person were to announce or declare such a thing, whether by annexation with the neighbouring country, the great republic to the south of us, or by declaring for independence, I believe that the people of Canada would say 'No.' We are content, we are prosperous, we have prospered under the flag of England; and I say that it would be unwise, that we should be lunatics, to change the certain present happiness for the uncertain chances of the future. I always remember, when this occurs to me, the Italian epitaph: 'I was well, I would be better, and here I am.' We are well, we know, all are well, and I am satisfied that the majority of the people of Canada are of the same opinion which I now venture to express here.... I say that it would bring ruin and misfortune, any separation from the United Kingdom. I believe that is the feeling of the present Parliament of Canada, and I am certain that any party, or the supposed party, making an appeal to the people of Canada, or any persons attempting to form a party on the principle of separation from England, no matter whether they should propose to walk alone, or join another country, I believe that the people of Canada would rise almost to a man and say, 'No, we will do as our fathers have done. We are content, and our children are content, to live under the flag of Great Britain.'[[7]]
Macdonald did not believe in forcing the pace. He looked for a preferential trade arrangement with the United Kingdom, and the establishment of a common system of defence. In all other respects he desired the maintenance of the status quo, being content to leave the rest to the future. So much for the Imperial relations. That in all matters relating to its internal affairs Canada should continue to possess the fullest rights of self-government, including exclusive powers of taxation, he considered as an indispensable condition to its well-being.
Nearly twenty-three years have passed since Sir John Macdonald died, and to-day his figure looms even larger in the public mind than on that never-to-be-forgotten June evening when the tolling bells announced to the people of Ottawa the passing of his great spirit. When one takes into account all that he had to contend against—poverty, indifferent health, the specific weakness to which I have alluded, the virulence of opponents, the faint-heartedness of friends—and reflects upon what he accomplished, one asks what was the secret of his marvellous success? The answer must be that it was 'in the large composition of the man'; in his boundless courage, patience, perseverance; and, above all, in his wonderful knowledge of human nature—his power of entering into the hearts and minds of those about him and of binding them to his service. His life is a great example and incentive to young Canadians. Sir John Macdonald began the world at fifteen, with but a grammar-school education; and, possessing neither means nor influence of any kind, rose by his own exertions to a high place on the roll of British statesmen; laboured to build up, under the flag of England, a nation on this continent; and died full of years and honours, amid the nation's tears.
Looking o'er the noblest of our time,
Who climbed those heights it takes an age to climb,
I marked not one revealing to mankind
A sweeter nature or a stronger mind.
[[1]] It was commonly understood at this time that Sir Charles Tupper, whose name would naturally first occur in this connection, preferred to remain in England as high commissioner, and, consequently, was not in the running.
[[2]] Letter to The Times, September 1, 1886.
[[3]] Weekly Sun, April 17, 1907.
[[4]] Problems of Greater Britain, p. 44.
[[5]] 'Some few fools at Montreal are talking about Independence, which is another name for Annexation. The latter cry, however, is unpopular from its disloyalty, and the Annexationists have changed their note and speak of the Dominion being changed into an independent but friendly kingdom. This is simply nonsense. British America must belong either to the American or British System of Government' (Sir John Macdonald to the Hon. R. W. W. Carrall, dated Ottawa, September 29, 1860).
'A cardinal point in our policy is connection with England. I have no patience with those men who talk as if the time must come when we must separate from England. I see no necessity for it. I see no necessity for such a culmination, and the discussion or the mention of it and the suggestion of it to the people can only be mischievous' (Liberal-Conservative Hand Book, 1876, pp. 22-3).
'As to Independence—to talk of Independence is—to use Mr Disraeli's happy phrase—"veiled treason." It is Annexation in disguise, and I am certain that if we were severed from England, and were now standing alone with our four millions of people, the consequence would be that before five years we should be absorbed into the United States' (ibid., p. 24).
'The solid substantial advantage of being able to obtain money on better terms than we could on our own credit alone is not the only benefit this guarantee will confer upon us; for it will put a finish to the hopes of all dreamers or speculators who desire or believe in the alienation and separation of the colonies from the mother country. That is a more incalculable benefit than the mere advantage of England's guarantee of our financial stability, great and important as that is' (Debates, House of Commons, 1872, p. 339).
'Gentlemen, we want no independence in this country, except the independence we have at this moment' (Report of the Demonstration in Honour of the Fortieth Anniversary of Sir John A. Macdonald's Entrance into Public Life. Toronto, 1885, p. 103).
'Those who disliked the colonial connection spoke of it as a chain, but it was a golden chain, and he for one, was glad to wear the fetters' (Debates, House of Commons, 1875, p. 981).
[[6]] Montreal Gazette, October 25, 1897.
[[7]] Pope's Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald, vol. ii, pp. 220-1.