It was not many weeks after this incident that Foster brought in the concluding pages of his lecture and read them to me. I do not believe any of the others knew anything about it. When he had read it all to me, I said to him, “What are you going to call it?” He said, “I think our motto, ‘Canada First.’”
I thought that a good idea, and he wrote “Canada First” at the head of it. I then asked him where he was going to deliver it. He was a very shy fellow and he replied, “I am not going to deliver it.” I said, “Oh yes, you must. We will call a meeting.” I knew we could get up a large public meeting, and I wanted him to agree to read it, but he positively refused. I then said, “You can read it here before our Society, and then we can have it published in the papers”; and I wrote on the top of it in pencil the words “Delivered before the North-West Emigration Aid Society by Mr. W. A. Foster,” and I showed it to him and said, “That will look very well, and I am sure Mr. Brown will publish it.” Foster hesitated, but at last said, “Will you go and show it to Mr. Brown, and ask him, if I read it before the Society, whether he will publish it?” I agreed to do this.
I went to see the Hon. George Brown and explained the matter thoroughly, and told him we were to get the MS. back, and have it read before our Society, and then it would be given to him to be published. Whether Mr. Brown forgot, or whether he thought he had some good matter for his paper and wished to publish it before any other paper got wind of it or not, or whether he thought the chronological order of events was a matter of no moment, I cannot say. The result was, however, that the second or third morning after, Foster came into my office early, in a great state of excitement, and told me that the lecture was published in full in the Globe that morning, and that it had copied in large type the pencil memo, which I had written at the top, “Delivered before the North-West Emigration Aid Society by Mr. W. A. Foster.” Foster was very much troubled about it after his action about Macdougall, but our friends were so pleased with it that no one complained.
This lecture was soon after published in pamphlet form and had a very wide circulation throughout Canada. It was printed in the Memorial Volume to W. A. Foster which was published soon after his death.
[CHAPTER VI]
ABORTIVE POLITICAL MOVEMENT
Shortly after these events some of our committee were anxious to make a forward movement, to organise a political party to carry out our views, and to start openly a propaganda to advocate them. I opposed this strenuously, saying that the instant we did so the newspapers on both sides of politics would attack us, and that they would have something tangible to attack. The late Daniel Spry urged me very strongly that we should come out openly. I opposed the idea and refused to take any part in it, fearing that it would at the time injure the influence we were beginning to exert.
Foster and I discussed the matter at great length, and my suggestion was that we should go on as we had been going, and that if we ever wished to hold public meetings Dr. Canniff, one of the “Twelve Apostles,” and the oldest of them, the author of “The Early Settlement of Upper Canada,” would always make an excellent chairman, and not being a party man would not arouse hostility. I said, “If we organise a party and appoint a particular man to lead, we shall be responsible for everything he says,” and repeated that the party Press would attack him bitterly and injure the cause, which was all we cared for. Foster supported my views, and during 1872 and 1873 we kept quiet, watching for any good opportunities of doing service to the country.