The Day of Sir John Macdonald Part 7

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 {161} leaders.h.i.+p 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 leaders.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sed 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.' {162} 'Perhaps he may be yet, sir,' I remarked. Sir John shook his head. 'Too old,' said he, 'too old,' and pa.s.sed into the inner room.

I must not omit an amusing incident which happened in the autumn of 1888. During the summer of that year Honore 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 pa.s.sed 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 {163} 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 {164} 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 d.a.m.n 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sembly I thought Sir Richard Cartwright the most accomplished {165} 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 att.i.tude towards his opponents in parliament was ferocious, though perhaps this ferocity was often more simulated than real. One ill.u.s.tration 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 t.i.tle 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 {166} 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 princ.i.p.al beverages were milk and at dinner a gla.s.s 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 ill.u.s.tration.

OTTAWA, 28_th March_ 1891.

DEAR SIR,--I have yours of the 23rd instant informing me that Sir Richard {167} 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 {168} 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 cla.s.ses. 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 a.s.surances that so it was, my resolution was {169} taken in an instant.

Turning my carriage I bade the weeping woman enter, and drove at once to the Public Departments. Brus.h.i.+ng 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!

{170}

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 circ.u.mstances, 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, {171} 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 const.i.tuency, but was a.s.sured 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 cla.s.s 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 princ.i.p.al. 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?'

{172}

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 {173} 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 a.s.sistance 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 const.i.tuents 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, {174} 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 pa.s.sed 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, 8_th 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 {175} 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 {176} 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 {177} 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, {178} 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 {179} 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 const.i.tution. 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 pa.s.sionately 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 {180} 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 {181} 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 {182} taxation, he considered as an indispensable condition to its well-being.

Nearly twenty-three years have pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing 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 {183} 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.