[CHAPTER VII]
THE INDEPENDENCE FLURRY
The National Club soon ceased to be a political club and the National Association gradually disappeared from public view. I joined it about a year after its foundation, and was President of it in the years 1883 and 1884, and during the existence of the Club it has been the centre of the sentiment “Canada First within the Empire,” which has been the dominant sentiment of the Canadian people for the last twenty years.
Mr. Goldwin Smith in the early years of the Club inaugurated a series of dinners among the members where fifteen or twenty of us would dine together and then discuss some public question of interest. These dinners were popular, and Foster and I were generally present. On one occasion Mr. Goldwin Smith gave out as the subject for discussion the question as to whether “Annexation or Independence would be the best future for Canada.”
Mr. Smith was in the chair at one end of the long table, at which about twenty or perhaps more were seated, and he opened the discussion by pointing out some arguments for and against each alternative, leaving it for the members to discuss as to which would be the best. I was in the vice-chair at the other end of the table, and the speaking began on one side of Mr. Smith, and came down that side of the table one after the other to me. I was struck with the bad effect such a discussion would have, in encouraging Canadians to argue in favour of either Independence or Annexation, and when it came to my turn I simply said that I could not argue in favour of either Independence or Annexation, that I was vehemently opposed to both, and that if ever the time came that either should have to be seriously discussed, I would only argue it in one way, and that was on horseback with my sword. As I then commanded the cavalry in Toronto and had sworn to bear true allegiance to her Majesty, it was the natural way for me to put it. I sat down the moment I had made this statement and the discussion went on. My remarks were received as if I had spoken jocularly, but I think many of those present sympathised with my way of looking at it. Mr. Goldwin Smith saw that I had punctured the scheme, and referred to my remarks in the next issue of his Bystander for October, 1880, in the following terms, which are in his best style:
In Canada we have some curious remnants of the idea, dominant everywhere in days gone by, and still dominant in Islam, that intolerance on certain questions is a duty and virtue. The good St. Louis of France used to say that he would never argue with a heretic who doubted Papal doctrine, but give him six inches of cold steel; and we have lately been told that among ourselves there are questions which are to be debated only sword in hand. There are some special factors in our political composition, such as United Empire Loyalism, Orangeism, and the surviving sentiment of Anglican Establishmentarianism, which may explain the phenomenon without disparagement to our intellectual civilisation.
In a speech at a dinner of my regiment not long after, I spoke clearly to them on the subject—and on the same lines. My views were received with great enthusiasm.
For several years matters progressed slowly, a few young men advocating Independence, among whom were E. E. Sheppard and Charles G. D. Roberts. Mr. Norris and others were writing on the same line. Sheppard, who then edited the Evening News in Toronto, was the ablest of these advocates, and carried on his campaign with great vigour and ability. He designed a new flag and hoisted it over the News office. In 1884 the Independence agitation was probably more in evidence than at any period before or since. That year was the centennial of the arrival of the United Empire Loyalists in Upper Canada, and it was decided to hold a series of celebrations at Adolphustown, Toronto, and Niagara in commemoration of the foundation of the Province. 1884 was also the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of Toronto as a city, and the celebration of the two events was combined in meetings and festivities which lasted several days. On Dominion Day there was a great review of the Active Militia with regiments from various parts of the Province, and one from Montreal. This large force paraded through the principal streets to the Queen’s Park, where they were reviewed, and then they marched to the Exhibition Buildings, where the officers and men were entertained at dinner. At the officers’ dinner, Mayor Boswell, Lieut.-Governor John B. Robinson, and I made the principal speeches. The Toronto Mail of the 3rd July, 1884, contained the following article: