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.