The Day of Sir John Macdonald / A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion

by Sir Joseph Pope

There is imminent danger of sudden crisis unless we can find means to meet pressing demands.... It is clear as noon-day, Sir John, that unless you yourself say what is to be done, nothing but disaster will result. The question is too big for some of our friends, and nothing but your own authority and influence can carry anything that will accomplish the object.... I endeavoured to impress upon him again [the finance minister] that the object of the present application to the Government is to save the life of the Company....

I do hope something will be done to-day that will have the effect of saving the life of the Company. I stayed over here [Ottawa] to-day in case I might be wanted. It is impossible for me to carry on this struggle for life, in which I have now been for over four months constantly engaged, any longer. Although I have done my best to save the life and the honour of the Company, I cannot help feeling that I have failed to impress the Government with a full sense of the extreme urgency of the necessities of the Company, and yet I do not know anything further that I can say or do to enable the Government to realize the extreme gravity of the position in which the Company is now placed. If the Company is allowed once to go to the wall, the remedial measures proposed will be useless because too late. I shall be within reach if wanted. Mr Pope, your secretary, knows where to find me.

The following is part of a telegram from the general manager to the president:

Have no means paying wages, pay car can't be sent out, and unless we get immediate relief we must stop. Please inform Premier and Finance Minister. Do not be surprised, or blame me, if an immediate and most serious catastrophe happens.

The application referred to was for a further loan of $5,000,000. The request was ill received by the Cabinet. Ministers were decidedly averse to any further assistance out of the public treasury. The prime minister was told that it could not be done. On the other hand, if it were not done, irretrievable disaster stared Canada in the face. For if the Canadian Pacific Railway went down, what of the future of the North-West? what of the credit of Canada itself? This was perhaps the supreme moment of Sir John Macdonald's career. With a divided Cabinet, an unwilling following, and a hostile Opposition, it is no wonder that even his iron resolution shrank from going to parliament with this fresh proposal, which seemed an absolute confirmation of the prophecies of his opponents. He had, I believe, almost if not altogether, made up his mind that further assistance was impossible. But he looked once again, and appreciated the herculean efforts that his friends George Stephen and Donald Smith were making to avert the ruin of the great enterprise, apparently tottering to its fall. He realized what such a fall would mean to his country, to his party, and to himself; and, summoning all his courage, he called a final Cabinet council and placed the issue fully before his colleagues. The master spirit prevailed.[[19]] One minister withdrew his resignation, and he with other ministers abandoned their opposition. The ministerial supporters in parliament, cheered and encouraged by the indomitable spirit of their chief, voted the $5,000,000, and the road was carried forward to completion. From that day all went well. Both loans were speedily repaid by the company; and the Canadian Pacific Railway, to-day the greatest transportation system in the world, was launched.

It is the infelicity of statesmen that one difficulty is no sooner overcome than another arises to take its place. And so it now happened. In 1885 Louis Riel led an armed rebellion of half-breeds on the banks of the Saskatchewan, as fifteen years earlier he had led one on the banks of the Red River. The causes were similar. The half-breeds were alarmed at the incoming of new life, and could not get from the Government a title to the lands they occupied that they regarded as secure. The rebellion was quickly crushed and Riel was taken prisoner. This opened up a fresh chapter of embarrassments for the Ministry. From the first there could be no doubt as to the course which should be pursued with regard to the unfortunate man. His offences of fifteen years before had been suffered to pass into oblivion. Even his great crime—the atrocious murder of Thomas Scott—had gone unwhipped of justice. His subsequent effrontery in offering himself for election and attempting to take his seat in parliament had been visited with no greater punishment than expulsion from the House of Commons. Now he had suddenly emerged from his obscurity in the United States to lead the half-breeds along the Saskatchewan river in an armed revolt against the Government. At the same time—and this was incomparably his worst offence—he had deliberately incited the Indians to murder and pillage. He had caused much bloodshed, the expenditure of large sums of money, and the disturbance of an extensive region of the North-West.

Riel had been caught red-handed. Whatever excuses might be put forward, on behalf of his unfortunate dupes, that the Government had refused to heed their just demands, it is certain that Riel himself could plead no such excuses, for he was not at the time even a resident of the country. But, unfortunately, his case gave the opportunity of making political capital against the Government. Since he was of French origin the way was open for an appeal to racial passions. The French-Canadian habitant, recalling the rebellion of 1837-38, saw in Riel another Papineau. A wretched malefactor, thus elevated to the rank of a patriot, became a martyr in the eyes of many of his compatriots. Sir John Macdonald fully realized the danger of the situation, but from the first he was resolved, whatever the political outcome, that if proved a culprit Riel should not a second time escape. There should be a fair trial and no more clemency, but rigorous justice, for the man who had added new crimes to the murder of Scott fifteen years earlier. Four able lawyers, including Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, the present chief justice of Canada, were assigned to Riel's defence. The trial opened at Regina on July 20, 1885, and on August 1 Riel was found guilty of high treason and sentenced to be hanged on September 18. In deference to those who professed to doubt Riel's sanity, a stay of execution was granted. Sir John Macdonald sent to Regina two medical men, who, with the surgeon of the North-West Mounted Police, were instructed to examine into Riel's mental condition. They reported that, except in regard to certain religious matters on which he appeared to hold eccentric and foolish views, he was quite able to distinguish between right and wrong and that he was entirely responsible for his actions. On November 16, 1885, Riel paid upon the scaffold the last penalty for his crimes.

During Riel's imprisonment Sir John Macdonald received from him several letters. From various other quarters he was informed of the blasphemies, outrages, and murders of which Riel had been guilty. There were many petitions, some for justice, others for mercy, chiefly from people living in the eastern provinces. These, however, counted for little, since for the most part they merely represented the political or racial sympathies of the writers. But there are among Macdonald's papers some original statements in respect to Riel of the highest importance, from those of his fellow-countrymen who best knew him. The Catholic missionaries living in the districts specially affected by the rebellion—St Laurent, Batoche, and Duck Lake—in a collective letter dated March 12, 1885, denounced in the strongest language 'the miscreant Louis David Riel' who had led astray their people. The venerable bishop of St Albert, while pleading for Riel's dupes, had no word of pity for the 'miserable individual' himself. Under date July 11, 1885, the bishop writes thus to Sir John Macdonald: