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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Bought with the income
of the
ALFRED E. PERKINS FUND

SIR WILFRID LAURIER AND THE
LIBERAL PARTY

'J ^<^^^>iAi^t>c^

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
AND THE LIBERAL
PARTY
A POLITICAL HISTORY

By ,L S. WILLISON

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1903

c

^

I

AUTHOR'S NOTE
IN the preparation of this work the writer received
material assistance from Mr. .lohn S. MacLean,
correspondent of the Toronto Globe at Montreal,
who spent many laborious hours in examining the
files of the French papers in the Library of the
Fraser Institute. He is Ukewise indebted to Mr.
W. H. Dickson, The Globe's resident correspon
dent at Ottawa, for similar useful and necessary
work in the Library of Parliament. He has also to
thank Mr. John A. Ewan of The Globe's editorial
staff, and Mr. A. H. U. Colquhoun, former chief
editor of the Toronto Empire, for books and
pamphlets loaned from their private hbraries. He
is further indebted to Mr. Colquhoun for the
preparation of the Index ; and under obligation
to Mr. Avern Pardee, Librarian of the Legislative
Assembly at Toronto, and the officials of the
Toronto Pubhc Library for access to newspaper
files, blue books, and parhamentary papers.
It can hardly be necessary to add that Sir Wilfrid
Laurier had nothing to do with the preparation of
these volumes, and has no responsibility for the
material collected by the writer, for the manner of
its presentation, or for the opinions expressed. J. s. w.
Toronto, June, 1903.

C O NT E N T S
Vol. I
CHAPTER I
THE LIBERAL PARTY

CHAPTER II
THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE . 27
CHAPTER III
THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER 63
CHAPTER IV
QUEBEC AT THE UNION . . , . 77
CHAPTER V
IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM . . .99
CHAPTER VI
IN TWO PARLIAMENTS ... 129
CHAPTER VII
THE RED RIVER TROUBLES . . .161
CHAPTER VIII
THE AMNESTY .... 187

CONTENTS
Vol. I — Continued
CHAPTER IX
IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION . , 211
CHAPTER X
THE CHURCH AND THE STATE . . 263
CHAPTER XI
THE PRIEST IN POLITICS . . .287
CHAPTER XII
POLITICAL LIBERALISM ... 316
CHAPTER XIII
IN OPPOSITION . . . . .349
CHAPTER XIV
THE PACIFIC RAILWAY ... 369
CHAPTER XV
THE BATTLE FOR PROVINCIAL RIGHTS . . 409

CHAPTER XVI
THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION

427

CHAPTER I
THE LIBERAL PARTY
WE may find the sources of the Liberal party of
Canada in the eager enthusiasm and the
heroic purpose of WiUiam Lyon Mackenzie; the
fiery genius and fervent radicalism of Papineau; the
saner counsels and more responsible statesmanship
of Baldwin and Lafontaine; the reforming zeal and
splendid optimism of George Brown; the intellec
tual dominance of Edward Blake; the constitutional
prescience of Oliver Mowat; and the sympathetic
and sagacious nationalism of Wilfrid Laurier. Hol-
ton and Dorion, if we except the issue of Con
federation, were likewise consoHdating and unifying
forces in the creation of the Liberal party; and
Alexander Mackenzie had a zeal for reform equal
to that of Brown, and a prudence in days of stress
and storm which the great journalist did not possess
in equal measure. Many other men also have hon
ourable fame in the Reform party, but these are
the names that history will preserve.
No doubt the character of the Canadian party
was also determined in some measure by the tra
ditions and the tendencies of British Liberalism.
But it is hard to fit an old world policy to new
world conditions, and since the great battle for
1

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
responsible government was fought out both in the
British Islands and in the North American Prov
inces, it can hardly be said that the Liberals of
Canada and of Great Britain have had a common
programme. To-day, it may be, the pohcy of the
Canadian Liberal party is more esteemed by Mr.
Balfour and his colleagues than by the official
chiefs of British Liberalism. It was not quite so
during the great and luminous era of Gladstone. It
would not be quite so if Lord Rosebery were
restored to the leadership of the British Liberal
party. Lord Rosebery pecuharly and pre-eminently
typifies the newer imperial spirit of the Liberal
party of Canada. In his utterances there is that
sympathetic quahty, and in his attitude that sense
of identity with the common people which must
always distinguish genuine Liberahsm.
', No one now disputes that WiUiam Lyon Mac
kenzie and the Reformers of 1837 fought to put
down intolerable evils. The argument that constit
utional agitation would surely have achieved the
reforms that were finally conceded to tumult and
revolt, has been advanced in mitigation of every
abuse that has bred riot and rebeUion among British
freemen. It may be that Mackenzie was impetuous
and turbulent, but the Rebelhon of 1837 was at best
a pitiful expression of the discontent which the
greed and the oppression of the Family Compact
had developed. Too much has been said of the rash
counsels and unhappy adventures of Mackenzie, and
2

THE LIBERAL PARTY
too httle of the crying grievances which an insolent
and autocratic Executive would not redress, and of
the privileges they were resolved to maintain. It is
in such fashion that the decisive blow has been
dealt to tyranny and privilege aU down the splendid
centuries of British history ; and if in the story of
Liberahsm in aU countries there are wild and san
guinary chapters, it is because only in that way
could popular government be established and per
petuated. The main achievements of Mackenzie and his
associates were to subject the Executive to the
control of Parliament and the people, to drive
out of the CouncU the nominees of the Governor,
and to impose substantial checks upon presump
tuous imperial interference in the domestic affairs
of the Canadas. In the green days of his strength,
and through the hard season of conflict, Mackenzie
bore himself bravely, steadUy, and resolutely. Then
came the rash advocacy of constitutional changes,
which ahenated public sympathy and discredited
the cause of the reformers; heartbreaking days of
exile; vagrant and abortive effort in visionary and
impracticable causes ; and, at last, return in shattered
health to the land he had loved and served so weU,
but which in the meantime had outgrown the
temper of revolt, and had not passed into the mood
of gratitude.
But the work of reform was not to go back. The
sceptre of leadership had passed into even stronger
3

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
and more resolute hands. George Brown had come,
and with George Brown the golden age of Liberal
ism in Canada. It was the fortune of this great
figure in Canadian history to submit to exclusion
from office throughout almost the whole of his
strenuous and fruitful public career. Nor could it
weU be otherwise. George Brown was a reformer,
an agitator, and a journahst. All history proves
that office duUs the zeal for reform, and there is
an inevitable conflict between the function of the
journahst and the function of the minister. Fox
was a reformer, and he hardly knew the taste of
office. Cobden was a reformer, and he held no
portfolio. Bright's official days were few and fuU
of trouble. It was not the agitators for freedom
in the United States who formed the cabinets at
Washington. Seward, before the hour was ripe,
proclaimed the "higher law than the Constitution,"
and Lincoln became President. Gladstone among
British statesmen furnishes an exceptional example
of pohtical leadership, as eager and as daring under
the yoke of office as under the easier conditions
of opposition, and Cleveland in America was not
quite silenced by the cares and exigencies of place-
holding, place-making, and place-fiUing. But, in the
main, the battle for reform has been waged by
the unchained spirits who could not submit their
necks to official harness, or were too restless, too
strenuous, or too obnoxious to great social or great
commercial interests to be admitted to cabinets.
4

THE LIBERAL PARTY
George Brown loved to deal sturdy blows. He
loved to fight hand to hand and face to face. He
had no heart for the defensive, and cared nothing
for power except to achieve reforms, and nothing
for place except as a point of advantage from
which to strike down abuses and ameliorate un
satisfactory conditions. It would be probably too
much to say that, hke Cobden, he had never the
desire for office. There is reason to beheve that
there were times when he felt strongly that it was
essential to the complete success of the measures
he had at heart that he should fashion the legis
lation and control the administration of affairs. He
was hurt and angered by the shifty and double-
faced methods adopted to strangle the Brown-
Dorion Ministry at its birth, and, it may be, was
persuaded that he should have had a control
ling voice, if not the first place, in the Cabinet
which organized Confederation. In the first case
his anger was just, and in the second his expec
tations were not unreasonable. If not the chief
architect, he was at least the chief missioner of
Confederation. Sir John Macdonald, on the other hand, was
rather the pohtical beneficiary of the labours of men
who had made Confederation a dominant issue
before he set resolute hands to the movement. He
was sympathetic at heart, he was in touch with the
British North American League which organized in
1849 to resist the annexationists, he gave nominal
5

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
assent to the arguments of academic unionists, and
the Cartier-Macdonald Government of 1858 feebly
countenanced the project. But, hke many another
politician, he preferred to govern under estabhshed
conditions rather than risk the loss of office by the
premature adoption of a revolutionary pohcy, whUe
in view of his Quebec aUiances there was clear
pohtical gain in resisting the Brown school of
federahsts. Wary as always, adroit, surefooted and
sagacious, he did not adopt the child untU it was
weU grown, and he then biUked larger at its side
than the men who had nursed it from infancy. Such
had been the attitude and action of Peel on Catho-
hc Emancipation, and the Repeal of the Com Laws,
and the part was not discreditable to him ; nor do
we, in emphasizing the patient and judicious growth
of Sir John Macdonald's attachment to the cause of
Confederation, mean to deny his great services in
the accomphshment of the union of the Canadian
provinces. But when history deals with Cathohc
Emancipation it does not forget Canning, and Grey,
and O'Connell; nor has the mighty, unfaltering,
irresistible campaign of Bright and Cobden against
the evils and exactions of the old mercantile sys
tem been overshadowed by Peel's parhamentary
services to Free Trade. So, when we estimate the
forces which accomplished the union of the Can
adian provinces, we do weU to remember Macdonald,
and Cartier, and Tupper, but we do far from weU
if we forget Brown, and Gait, and Howe, and
6

THE LIBERAL PARTY
Morris, and McGee, and Cauchon, and Johnson,
and Uniacke.
If it be true, as Mr. Goldwin Smith has said, that
Confederation was the chUd of pohtical deadlock,
then George Brown was responsible for the dead
lock.^ In that very fact we perhaps discover why
the Liberal leader was not the first Prime Minister
of Canada. In the prosecution of the work he found
to do, he had fought long and hard, always with a
sweeping arm and along a straight path, and so had
antagonized influential elements of the population
and bred enmities on every side. He was dreaded
by the timid brood of compromisers in his own
party, and hated by powerful political opponents
whom he had hunted with unsparing vigour.
At least four great measures are inseparably asso
ciated with the name and fame of George Brown:
(1) the abohtion of the clergy reserves, (2) represen
tation by population, (3) the federation of the Can
adian provinces, and (4) the incorporation of the
North- West Territories into the new common
wealth. In one of these propositions considerations
of clerical privilege were directly involved, and
racial and sectarian issues arose in the contest for
representation by population, and in the movement
for Confederation. The question of separate schools
was also an abidiag issue in many of the pohtical
contests which preceded Confederation, as it has
appeared in contests in many of the provinces and
^ " Canada and the Canadian Question," by Goldwin Smith, page 143.
7

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
even in national elections since the union. George
Brown had no toleration for privilege, social, racial,
or clerical. He was a determined opponent of the
separate school system, and had httle consideration
for the racial sensitiveness of Quebec. Hence he was
often in open and deadly quarrel with the Roman
Catholic hierarchy, a sleepless political force in all
countries ; and in the long struggle for representation
by population, as a means of escape from the system
under which the local affairs of Upper Canada were
controUed by an administration maintained in office
by the vote of Quebec, Mr. Brown said many
things which the French province bitterly resented,
and did not readUy forget.^ It seemed for long as
though Mr. Brown had made the Cathohc ecclesi
astics and the French-speaking people the perpetual
aUies of the Conservative leaders, and it is certain
that, to the end of his days. Sir John Macdonald
- ^'z ¦ ' - '^^  *" the electors of the united counties of Kent and
j7- ,;->r -; eorgo Browu advocated total separation of Church
i>nd ^ta«.t« 39 T.nfi loundation of the political structure of Reformers;
i reserves to the support of national common schools,
i'j^ I \i ~ ~ ~ ~-~ -4eg y,y ^Qi of Parliament, and restoring the land to
the people ; naxional education ; abohtion of all money grants for
sectarian purposes; placing all ecclesiastical corporations under one
general act, and clergymen on an equal footing as to the celebration of
matrimony ; parhamentary representation by population ; extension of
the franchise ; free commercial intercourse on a footing of reciprocity
between Canada and the United States, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick
and the West India Islands ; development of internal water communi
cations and throwing them open to all nations on the payment of
moderate toUs ; and a trunk line of railway through Upper Canada
westward from Quebec, with termini at Windsor and Port Sarnia.
8

THE LIBERAL PARTY
profited by the antagonisms which Mr. Brown had
created among the Roman Catholic and French
elements of the population.
To the people of Quebec there was a suspicion
of indecent haste in the demand for representation
by population. When Upper and Lower Canada
were united in 1841, the population of Quebec was
661,000, whUe that of the English province was but
486,000. Quebec, however, submitted to equahty
of representation in the Parhament of United Can
ada, and thus made possible a union which could
hardly have been effected if Upper Canada had
been required to accept a position of inferiority in
the common Legislature.^ What was known as the
double majority also came to be recognized as
necessary to the preservation of good relations
between the two provinces, and the harmonious and
effective working of the machinery of government.
The rule of the double majority required that a
government should have the support of at least
one-half of the representatives from both Upper
1 In the Report on the Affairs of British North America, Lord Durham
said : ''With respect to every one of those plans which propose to make
the English minority an electoral majority by means of new and strange
modes of voting, or unfair divisions of the country, I shall only say,
that if the Canadians are to be deprived of representative government,
it would be better to do it in a straightforward way, than to attempt to
establish a permanent system of government on the basis of what all
mankind would regard as mere electoral frauds. It is not in North
America that men can be cheated by an unreal semblance of representee
tive government, or persuaded that they are out-voted, when, in fact,
they are disfranchised." 9

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
and Lower Canada, and must resign or appeal to
the country in case of failure to command a majority
in either province, no matter how overwhelming
might be its support in the other province, nor how
substantial its majority in a fuU Parhament. We
can easily imagine how precarious was the tenure
of administrations, and how difficult the work of
government under such conditions, and how such a
question as the organization of a separate school
system for Upper Canada must rend the two com
munities apart and arouse passions and prejudices
utterly destructive of the pubhc peace, and whoUy
fatal to aU good understanding between the French
and Enghsh sections.
It was to end these mischievous confhcts and
to secure the balance of power for Upper Canada,
that Brown urged his demand for representation by
population, and it was in order to checkmate the
Liberal leader that John A. Macdonald and George
E. Cartier abandoned the principle of the double
majority, and undertook to govern in defiance of
the dominant sentiment of the larger province and
the votes of a decisive majority of its representa
tives. It was vain to argue that the device of the
double majority was no part of the compact of union,
and, in fact, was inoperative in practical govern
ment, as the Liberals finaUy discovered; and it was
just as useless to insist that Quebec had accepted
equahty of representation while that province had
the larger population, and therefore Upper Canada
10

THE LIBERAL PARTY
could not fairly stand out for concessions which the
Lower Province under hke circumstances had not
exacted. Party feehng ran high, racial and sectarian
passions were roused, the language of press and
platform was bitter and intemperate, and the
Queen's government could hardly be carried on.
At last it became manifest to the leaders of public
opinion, in both Upper and Lower Canada, that only
by a federation of the Canadian provinces and more
elastic constitutional machinery could the deadlock
be broken, and stable conditions of government be
re-established. George Brown had forced a situation
from which there was no escape except by the
adoption of his pohcy — ^the organization of a federal
commonwealth and representation by population.
It was not Mr. Brown who first saw the vision
of federation, and it may be that he contended
for the principle of federahsm rather than for the
organization of a British confederacy in North
America. But he probably saw that a federal union
of Upper and Lower Canada would provide the
only enduring basis upon which the wider con
federation could be estabhshed; and while his first
object was to destroy the grave abuses imbedded in
the old system, and apply the federal principle
to the two Canadas, stiU no other man contributed
so mightily to the final result, even though at
times his stormy advocacy seemed to make for
disunion and disruption. In 1858 he wrote of
Confederation as a desirable, but remote event. In
11

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
1859 he persuaded a great Liberal convention held
in Toronto to declare for the principle of federahsm.
In 1864 he presented to Parhament a report from a
committee on constitutional changes in favour of
the federative system for Upper and Lower Can
ada, or for the whole of British North America,
if the wider union could be accomplished. This
report was resisted by Mr. Macdonald, but it formed
the basis of the negotiations for the coalition; and
although Brown sought to make a federal union of
Upper and Lower Canada the prime object of the
coalition, he finaUy accepted from Gait and Mac
donald the larger scheme of Confederation as an
immediate pohcy, and sacrificed old and dearly
cherished political aUiances in order to carry the
great project to success. He, more than any other
man, exposed and estabhshed the impotency of the
old legislative arrangement, and he, more than any
other man, now stimulated expectations of larger
national hfe, and happier national conditions from
the projected union of the British American com
munities. It is true that the demand for representation
by population involved the violation of a con
stitutional compact. Nothing is clearer than that
equal representation for each province was the vital
feature of the union agreement between Upper
and Lower Canada, and it is not surprising that
Quebec, which accepted equality of representation
when it had the larger population, should resent
12

THE LIBERAL PARTY
the attempt to change the very basis of the com
pact just as soon as the population of Upper
Canada outgrew that of the sister province. The
Enghsh-speaking community would not submit
even temporarily to the rule of a Quebec majority,
nor was it to be expected that Quebec would con
sent to grant the Upper Province an increase of
representation, and accept a position of permanent
mferiority in the united Parhament.
Mr. Brown was met by the appeal to good faith,
and overborne by the argument from the constitu
tional standpoint. WhUe it is now manifest that he
offered the only practical solution for the difficul
ties which had developed, and which were bound
to develop, from the changing conditions of the
country and the dehcate texture of many local
issues, it is weU to remember that in the scheme
for the union of Upper and Lower Canada, as in
the later and larger plan of Confederation, Quebec
displayed an admirable temper, and accepted actual
loss of pohtical power and actual impairment of
pohtical prestige in order to promote the organiza
tion of a Canadian commonwealth. Those among
us who regard Quebec as a province apart from its
neighbours, a separate French community set down
among British states, must admit that with every
extension of the bounds of Confederation, with
every new province added to the Dominion, Que
bec has sustained proportionate loss of power and
influence, has borne the loss with dignity, and has
13

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
sprung always with patriotic ardour to the new
tasks of larger empire.
The legislative union of 1841 could not endure.
From the first the seeds of dissolution were in the
terms of the compact. It was inevitable that as
Upper Canada increased in population it would
demand increased representation, as Quebec sooner
or later would have demanded increased repre
sentation if that province had shown the greater
growth of population. It was impossible, moreover,
for a common Parhament to handle many of the
local issues that were bound to arise in a country
half French and half Enghsh, half Catholic and
half Protestant, with each community very much
of a compact body, occupying its own territory and
separated by a central hne of division. No constit
utional compact can long survive a growth of
adverse opinion. There was no future for united
Canada except dissolution, or evolution into some
such larger union as the leaders of the Confederation
movement proposed. Mr. Brown forced this con
clusion upon the country, and forever took his
place among the great constructive statesmen of
North America. The Liberal leader estabhshed the
necessity for Confederation, the Conservative leader
accepted the situation which his great opponent
had created, and Brown and Macdonald joined
hands to effect the union. ^
^ In his letter of March 9th, 1871, to a committee acting on behalf of
a, meeting of prominent Catholics from all sections of Ontario, Mr.
14

THE LIBERAL PARTY
Mr. Brown had to make surrender and sacrifice
in order to enter the Coahtion Cabinet. We shaU
not find in our history any larger act of patriotism.
It was, in fact, due mainly to very earnest and
persistent pressure from Lord Monck that he at
last agreed to countenance the coalition. It was
easier for Macdonald to coalesce with Brown than
for Brown to unite with Macdonald. The Conserva
tive leader had an administrative record which Mr.
Brown had opposed at weU nigh every step and in
almost every detaU. He had declared with equal
emphasis his want of confidence in the man and in
his public pohcy, and if his words were to be taken
at their face value, Mr. Macdonald should have
been excluded from aU cabinets, and from aU share
Brown said: "Need I remind you how, year after year, the Reform
party stuck to their great purpose ; and how, at last, by a party sacri
fice having few parallels in party history, they won for the people of
Upper Canada — Protestant and Catholic alike — that great measiu-e of
justice embodied in the Act of 1867. Under that Act the people of
Ontario enjoy representation according to population ; they have entire
control over their own local affairs ; and the last remnant of the
sectarian warfare — the Separate School question — was settled forever
by a compromise that was accepted aa final by all parties concerned.
I deny not that in this protracted contest words were spoken and lines
were penned that had been better clothed in more courteous guise.
But when men go to war they are apt to take their gloves off; and
Eissuredly if one side struck hard blows, the other was not slow in
returning them. And looking back on the whole contest, and the ends
it has already accomplished, I do think every dispassionate person must
confess that had the battle been ten times fiercer than it was, and the
words spoken ten times more bitter than they were, the triumphant
success that has attended the long agitation would have sunk all the
evils attending it into utter insignificance. We have obtained our just
share in the administration of the affairs of the Dominion ; we have
15

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
in the government of the country. To unite with
this man for the performance of a great act of
constructive statesmanship was to recognize his
commanding influence and to admit his fitness for
participation in great events. We are not con
cerned to justify Mr. Brown's estimate of his bril-
hant and resourceful opponent. Those were days of
hard and bitter controversy, and Mr. Brown gave
at least as much justice as he received. There can
be no doubt that he was resolutely opposed to
Mr. Macdonald's pohtical methods and to many
features of his pubhc pohcy, and that to a man of
Mr. BroAvn's downright sincerity and profoundly
earnest temperament, Mr. Macdonald's easy humour
and rare arts of pohtical management were thor
oughly distasteful. Not the less so, perhaps, because
obtained exclusive control over our provincial affairs ; we have banished
sectarian discord from our legislative and executive chambers ; and we
enjoy a degree of material prosperity, and have a degree of consider
ation for the religious views and feelings of each other, that no hving
man ever witnessed in Canada till now. I claim that to accomphsh
these great ends was, all through our agitation, the avowed object for
which we fought. I claim that the principles involved in our agitation
were precisely those that the CathoUcs of Canada held and firmly
contended for in the olden time when they worked cordially in the
Liberal ranks. I repeat my conviction that, had it not been for the
intrusion of French Canadian dictation in our affairs, the Reform party
might have remained intact until this day. And I ask those of you
who can do so, to carry your minds back to the position held by
Catholics in times gone by, and say whether any other section of the
people of Upper Canada has such good reason to rejoice in the banish
ment of sectarian issues from the political arena, and the perfect
equality of all denominations now so firmly and so happily enjoyed,
as have the Catholics of Ontario."
16

THE LIBERAL PARTY
the man and his methods were so tremendously
successful Mr. Brown must have known, too, that
such political unions are seldom happy, are soon
terminated, and generally bring loss to the more
scrupulous partners in the compact. But at least
the coalition brought Confederation to birth, and
that was worth all of labour and of sacrifice that
was entailed upon its members.
It was inevitable that Mr. Brown's ministerial
association with Mr. Macdonald should be brief and
unsatisfactory. He could not occupy a subordinate
position to the Conservative leader. There can be
hardly any doubt that such was his position in the
Coalition Ministry. There is a tradition among Lib
erals that if Brown had chosen to lead a movement
against Macdonald, he could have dethroned the
Conservative chief. When his resignation was of
fered, advances to this end were tnade to the Lib
eral leader by a powerful group of his colleagues;
and that Gait and Cartier were active leaders in
this movement seems to be certain, despite the
absence of documentary evidence.
Neither in pohtical craft nor in the management
of men was Brown the equal of Macdonald. The
one was patient, shrewd, and insinuating; the other
blunt, outspoken, and aggressive. The one was con
cerned to buttress his position, solidify his forces,
and bring recruits to his camp by all the arts of a
persuasive personality and a positive genius for
party generalship. The other hardly looked for
17

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
sources of strength outside of the measures he
advocated, and the arguments he addressed to the
country and to Parhament. It is true that Mr.
Brown knew the value of party organization, and,
if we do not mistake, could connive at arguments
in a campaign that were not presented from the
housetops, and found lodgment in the voter's pocket
rather than in his inteUect. It woiUd be sheer cant
to pretend that the electoral practices of the Liberal
party, under Mr. Brown's leadership, were faultless,
and that he was superior to aU the methods of the
practical pohtician. It is also true that he had a
vigUant eye for rising talent in the ranks of his
party. No man ever knew Ontario better than
George Brown, not even Sir John Macdonald or
Sir Ohver Mowat. He searched every comer of the
province for candidates. He knew the tendencies,
sympathies, and prejudices of every constituency.
He knew who might win here, and who must fail
there. He understood the enormous value of strong
candidates, and knew how the best cause could be
wrecked by bad work at the party conventions.
Lacking the softer arts of persuasion, he hteraUy
drove men into the pohtical field, and fired the most
prudent and indifferent with something of his
abounding energy and something of his invin
cible optimism. But while he could move men in
the mass, when he came to deal with men individu
ally he seemed able to work only upon those who
were in natural sympathy with his views of pubhc
18

THE LIBERAL PARTY
policy. He had no consideration for shirkers and
trimmers. He was hard upon mediocrity, and some
times mercUessly, and perhaps needlessly, crushed
men who aspired to positions for which they were
unequal. He would have only loyal comrades.
Treachery and ingratitude he counted as the chief
of pohtical offences, and he waged no fights so
bitter and relentless as those he carried on against
men who had used his favour and his strength to
climb to high position, and then repudiated the debt
they owed, withheld their sympathy and counsel,
and consorted with his opponents. He had, in short,
none of the arts which Sir John Macdonald so
successfuUy employed to lure the wavering type of
pohtician into his camp. When he struck at a
weak or treacherous aUy he struck to kiU, and
without calculation; while Sir John Macdonald
could wait for the opportune moment, provide
fortuitous provocations to slow suicide, and with
hold the fatal blow, until the victim had so ex
hausted his strength and blundered away his oppor
tunities that he became impotent for mischief and
hardly worth the kiUing.
Nothing in aU Sir John Macdonald's remarkable
career quite equals his handling of Confederation.
He evaded active identification with the movement
until it became the dominant issue in the pohtics of
the country. Thenceforward no one was more in
fluential in directing the movement and in settling
the terms of the act of union. He saw Mr. Brown
19

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
withdraw from the Coahtion Cabinet and resign the
leadership of the Liberal party. He held Mr. Mac-
dougaU and Mr. Howland in the ministry, and thus
seriously impaired the unity and effectiveness of the
Liberal forces. He made John Sandfield Macdonald
his political aUy, and established what was practic-
aUy a Conservative government in the Liberal
Province of Ontario. He employed Sandfield Mac
donald, an old Liberal and an anti-unionist, to
persuade Howe to accept the terms of the union.
He emerged from the intrigues, the bargainings, the
compromises, the readjustments which the changing
conditions of the time invited, and perhaps necessi
tated, the unquestioned leader of the Conser^^ative
party, and the dominating force in the new Confed
eration. Mr. Brown, on the other hand, was maimed by
his connection with the coahtion. Not a few of his
Liberal associates foresaw that he would be out
manoeuvred by Sh- John Macdonald. Mr. Mac
kenzie boded disaster to the Liberal party from
Brown's partnership with the Conservative leader.
Holton and Dorion in Quebec were at least con-
ditionaUy hostile to the Confederation project. Be
sides, there has always been in the Liberal party
a destructive element which looks with suspicion
upon new ventures in government, and this element
was always restless under the driving optimism and
bold constructive statesmanship of George Brown.
For Mr. Brown was essentially an optimist, and
20

THE LIBERAL PARTY
essentially a constructive statesman. With pen and
voice he was always planning and building, and
he never sought to puU down except with the
design of rearing a fairer structure on the ruins.
AVhether as champion of a great state university, as
leader of the movement for Confederation, or as
advocate of the acquisition of the West, he was
always progressive, hopeful, courageous, and whole
hearted. On many questions he was in advance of
pubhc opinion, while he was a thorough journalist
in his quick grasp of a situation and profound
appreciation of the value of steady, resolute, and
aggressive fighting. He never hesitated to risk
pohtical loss for a principle or a cause in which his
mind and heart were enlisted. He was superior to
aU mere office-hunting aUiances. He was never the
mere agent of popular opinion. When dissension
was rending and war ravaging the American Re-
pubhc, the current of feehng, at least in Toronto,
set strongly towards the South, and Southern
emissaries were held very close to the social heart
of the community. But Mr. Brown stood out for
the North as boldly even as did Bright and Cobden
in England, and we have no better specimens of his
formidable logic and fine moral eloquence than the
speeches he made in denunciation of the aims and
ambitions of the slave-holding confederacy, and in
iUustration and vindication of the simple verities of
humanity, and the elementary truths of human
freedom. If the virtue of consistency has high value
21

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
in a pubhc career, then few indeed among British
statesmen have maintained their course so surely
and so steadily as George Brown. It is hardly too
much to say that he was reverenced by the Scottish
element of the population, and no pubhc journal
ever addressed its constituency with more authority
than The Globe under Mr. Brown's management.
He was a platform speaker of remarkable power,
exhaustive in detail, logical and direct in method,
with a spacious grasp of fact and incident, and with
aU that infectious enthusiasm which gives the
spoken word its strange power over the hearts and
minds of men. He had that bold and ready courage
which beats the most turbulent audience into sub
mission, and there is no record that he was ever
driven from a platform or ever quite silenced
by a hostile meeting during aU that rough and
tumultuous period in our pohtics which led up to
the Confederation settlement.
During the last twelve or fourteen years of his
hfe he held no office of leadership in the Liberal
party. But to the end he was influential in deter
mining Liberal pohcy and held intimate relation
ships with the official leaders of the party. He
probably advised upon aU important measures initi
ated by the Mackenzie Administration, and to the
hour of his death was the loyal aUy and counseUor
of Oliver Mowat. It is understood that he was in
complete sympathy with the resolve of Mr. Mac
kenzie and Sir Richard Cartwright, not to adopt a
22

THE LIBERAL PARTY
protectionist pohcy, but to increase the revenue
tariff from 17^^ to 20 per cent., in order to meet
the necessities of the treasury in a time of unex
ampled commercial depression. In fact this pohcy
was foreshadowed in The Globe with the fuU know
ledge and concurrence of Mr. Brown, and was
reluctantly abandoned in consequence of the re
presentations of the Liberal contingent from the
Eastern Provinces that any increase of customs
taxation would be fatal to Liberal candidates in
the Maritime constituencies.-' The suspicion that
^ The Globe on February 7th, 1876, said: "No one proposes to
abolish our custom houses, or to fall back upon direct taxation for
all our national revenues. In these circumstances no one can object
to our raising that revenue by duties on imported articles, and that
very much at our discretion. No one could object to this, and no one
will, Britain least of all. If, in order to raise this needed revenue,
a tariff of twenty or even twenty-five per cent, were necessary, no one,
we suppose, would object to its imposition, though they might regret
its necessity. Upon this point there is no diversity of opinion, and
no need, therefore, of either argument or discussion  We
have already practically seventeen and a half per cent, protection,
which the freight and other charges on foreign goods materially
increases. Some very naturally argue that any industry which cannot
live and thrive under that amount of protection does not deserve to
live. If, however, the fiscal exigencies of the country require more
revenue, no one would seriously object to the rate being still further
raised. The range, however, within which this can be done to any
advantage is very limited. Scarcely any would go further than twenty-
five ; while thirty or thirty-five, we should fancy, even our most rabid
protectionist would, in any case, think excessive. After all, then, the
diversity of sentiment on this tariff business is excessively small. On
the one hand, the greatest sticklers for free trade never have objected
to a revenue tariff, and as Uttle have they objected to its increase,
if, after the most rigid economy has been practised, the credit of the
country required it, while they have never fixed upon a maximum tariff
23

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
there was ever any open quarrel or even any gen
eral lack of sympathy between Mr. Brown and Mr.
Edward Blake does not seem to be weU founded.
Mr. Blake was not inferior to Mr. Brown in intel
lectual cahbre, while they were quite dissimUar in
temperament, and very hkely to seek common
ends by different methods. It is too much to expect
that either of two such men could be quite the
echo of the other, particularly when we remember
that each had a resolute strain of independence, and
each the temper of leadership. If we do not mis
take, Mr. Brown was profoundly conscious of Mr.
Blake's remarkable abihty, and largely instrumental
in persuading the great advocate to embark upon a
pubhc career. Mr. Brown and The Globe were just
as loyal to the Blake Administration in Ontario as
to the Mackenzie Government at Ottawa, and Mr.
Brown's counsel was as sympatheticaUy received
and as sohdly considered by the leader of the pro
vincial Cabinet as by the chief of the federal
Ministry.^
for any supposable circumstances. On the other hand, their opponents
are shy about even mentioning taxation at all for purely protectionist
reasons, while even at the worst they would never venture on more
than two or three per cent, higher than what those whom they are con
tinually denouncing as free traders are very willing to acquiesce in,
if the national obligations make it necessary." On February 15th, The
Globe added : "No one in Canada, any more than in England, has any
desire to prevent our revenue tariff from affording such incidental
protection to manufacturers as it can be made to afford without injur
ing it for revenue purposes."
1 In his letter of 1871, to the Roman Catholic Committee, George
24

THE LIBERAL PARTY
No one would suppose, however, that absolute
identity of opinion often exists among a group
of opposition leaders, or even among members
of the same cabinet. There must be differences
of view, discussion, surrender, and compromise.
There need not be disloyalty or intrigue. The
coUective wisdom must determine the final pohcy,
and to secure the triumph of that pohcy the zeal
and the energy of all must be apphed. This is a
necessary condition of the party system, certainly
a necessary condition of the cabinet system. It
is weU that the secrets of council are not often
unveiled, and that historical inquiry should not
degenerate into mere curiosity. Of course neither
a leader of opposition nor a cabinet minister is
bound to accept a pohcy which his judgment and
his conscience condemn. His only legitimate al
ternative, however, is open repudiation of the pohcy
and frank appeal to the judgment and conscience
of the country. This was Mr. Brown's course on
more than one occasion, and here is the best evi
dence that he had no reverence for party except as
an instrument of reform, and that he ranked pro
gressive measures far above stagnant office-holding.
Brown said : "At the convention of 1867, I voluntarily resigned the
leadership of that (Liberal) party, and have not since then taken any
action in that capacity. Mr. Alexander Mackenzie is now leader of the
Liberal party from Ontario in the House of Commons, and Mr. Edward
Blake is leader in the Ontario Assembly ; they have my most cordial
confidence and support, and to them I refer you for an oflicial answer
to your questions."
25

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
But while Mr. Brown was sometimes a restless
and uncomfortable political yoke-feUow, he never
stooped to treachery or intrigue, and he was reso
lutely faithful to accepted co-workers in the great
movements in which he was concerned. The passion
of jealousy he never knew. He cared not how high
men towered at his side, so long as they did not
betray the reforms that were dear to him, in order
to make more profitable aUiances and step ob-
hquely into office and emoluments. He was, in
short, a simple, candid, loyal comrade, a bold re
former, an eager and even tempestuous agitator,
a statesman in scope and vision, an unwavering
champion of British connection and British institu
tions, and in his hfe and achievements are set deep
the roots of Canadian Liberahsm. In undertaking
a study of the work and character of the present
leader of the Liberal party, it has seemed necessary
to make this historical survey in order that we
may better understand the traditions to which he
must appeal, the prejudices he must respect or
overcome, the forces he must unite, the elements
he must concihate, if he is to estabhsh and main
tain the Liberal party as a ruling party and give
the country orderly, stable, and progressive govern
ment.

26

CHAPTER II
THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
A LL down the generations the green and quiet
-^^ country has been the nursery of poets, philoso
phers, and statesmen. It is there that men have
room to grow and time to think. There is comfort
and serenity in the open sky, the wide field, and the
strip of bush, and a spacious leisure in the long,
slow days, and solemn brooding nights. AU there is
of divinity in man ripens under such conditions,
and the elemental simphcities and austerities of life
breed in him high resolves and large ambitions. If
we examine the roUs of the great pubhc schools and
universities, we shaU find that very many of the
leaders in the class-lists have come up from rural
homes, and were reared perhaps in grievous circum
stances. So we shaU find it in the professions, m the
churches, in the parhaments, in great commercial
and financial enterprises. The roar and clamour of
cities seem to produce diffusion and distraction.
Social duties and social ambitions take the best out
of hves that under the steadier conditions which
prevaU in rural communities, would have been
deeper and fuUer and richer in human service.
How much of the strength and sanity of British
statesmanship is the product of quiet Enghsh fields
27

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
and wide ancestral estates! For generations the
spirit of rural New England was the moral force of
the American Repubhc. The rugged hUls and bleak
moors of Scotland are the nursing mothers of im
mortals. Lincoln's wide vision and infinite patience
and high fortitude were caught, perhaps, from the
spreading prairies and enduring hiUs of the West.
We may not say that it is the fashion of the gods
to rear their great ones in the sUences of the plains
and hiUs. But there is at least a half-truth in the
thought that greatness feeds on isolation, and there
is something in the near presence of infinite nature
which begets enduring purpose and indomitable
ambitions. It was the fortune of WUfrid Laurier to be born
in a rural home, set in a quiet land, and if we
would know the man we must remember his early
surroundings, and recaU his later years of serene
companionship with nature and with books. He
was born on November 20th, 1841, at St. Lin, in
the County of L'Assomption. His father was a
land surveyor, and his grandfather a farmer, with a
strong uichnation for the study of mathematics and
technical science. His mother was MarceUe Mar-
tineau, of L'Assomption, who died when he was
four years old. She was a woman of rare gifts, with
a taste for art and a natural talent for drawing and
designing. His father afterwards married Odehne
Ethier, who had been nurse in the family. She had
not the gifts of Mr. Laurier 's mother, but was
28

THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
a kind, helpful, simple-hearted woman, and was
greatly beloved by Wilfrid and his sister, who died
in her early girlhood. Three sons were born of his
father's second marriage. One became a physician,
and died in 1898. Two survive: Charlemagne, a
merchant at St. Lin, and member of the Commons
for the county, and Henri, who is prothonotary at
ArthabaskaviUe. His father died twenty years ago,
and left practicaUy nothing for the famUy. Land sur
veying was not a remunerative profession, nor was
his father of a saving disposition. StUl, he main
tained his eldest son for seven years at L'Assomption
CoUege, as weU as during his law course at Mont
real. In so far as Mr. Laurier represents inherited
qualities, we may look for scientific and mathe
matical susceptibihties from the father, and for grace
and art from the mother. Both parents had the
gracious manner and wholesome simphcity of char
acter which so beautifuUy distinguish the best stock
of the rural parishes of Quebec. The marks of a
happy childhood, the look that is caught at a
mother's knee, never quite pass from the human
face, and the face of Mr. Laurier in his softer
moods suggests that the home in which he was
reared was a centre of all the domestic affections,
and of aU the sweet courtesies of sympathetic family
intercourse. He stiU makes an annual pilgrimage to
the old home at St. Lin, and cherishes an unfailing
affection for the aged stepmother. He has not
29

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
aUowed the increasing duties and responsibilities of
public life to lessen his concern for her welfare, and
has never neglected the frequent visits in which she
delights, and which are among his chief pleasures.
He has hkewise manifested an abiding interest in
the fortunes of his half-brothers, and altogether has
shown an admirable sense of the obhgations, and a
keen appreciation of the intimacies of famUy re
lationship. He first attended the elementary school of his
native parish, and then from September, 1853,
to June, 1854, was a pupil of the Protestant
elementary school at New Glasgow. This viUage is
eighteen miles distant from St. Lin, and his chief
object in attending the Protestant school there was
to learn the rudiments of Enghsh. He boarded
with an Irish Cathohc family named Kirk, and
often visited that of Mr. John Murray, a great
friend of his father, who kept a general store in the
viUage. In his leisure hours he served behind the
counter of Murray's store, not for any salary, but
simply to improve his Enghsh by conversing with
the customers. Mr. Murray was a strict Scotch
Presbyterian, an elder in the church, and had been
educated for the Presbjrterian ministry. He and his
family seem to have been greatly attracted by the
schoolboy, who was made a welcome visitor in the
household. Mr. Laurier stiU cherishes memories of
his school life at New Glasgow, and in his remini
scent moods seems to dweU almost fondly upon
30

THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
the various physical encounters he had with the
Scotch boys of the viUage. The fact that Laurier's
father thus sent the boy from home to learn
Enghsh would suggest that he saw in the son
early promise of his briUiant qualities, and had
sagaciously and correctly estimated the value of
Enghsh, even as a mere commercial asset. There
seems reason to think that the boy's experiences
at New Glasgow had a distinct and lasting effect
upon his character and opinions. Many years after
wards he was asked how it came that he was so
tolerant of the rehgious behefs of Protestants. In
reply, he told the story of his relations with the
family of John Murray, and added, "The pure
family hfe and the godly conduct of the Murrays so
impressed me that I am convinced a Protestant can
be an earnest, true Christian, as weU as a Cathohc."
In September, 1854, at twelve years of age, he
entered L'Assomption CoUege, and for the next
seven years was in the hands of its professors. The
curriciUum embraced a very complete course in
Latin, less Greek, and stiU less Enghsh; a complete
course in French hterature; history, geography,
mathematics, and mental philosophy.
The young Laurier seems from the first to have
excited the special interest of his school-fellows;
and if we may judge by later utterances, more than
one of his classmates saw unmistakable promise of
what the future would reveal, in the easy self-
disciphne, the serious purpose, and the mature
31

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
gravity, which distinguished the youthful student.
Mr. Arthur Dansereau, one of the most accom
plished of Quebec journalists, and a pohtical oppon
ent of Mr. Laurier, wrote some years ago, "the
very appearance of WUfrid Laurier indicated his
future, and for aU those who knew him his success
has never been a surprise." The pohtical atmosphere
of L'Assomption CoUege, as of most Cathohc
schools in Quebec at that day, was Conservative,
but Mr. Dansereau declares that " Wilfrid Laurier
at sixteen exercised a veritable domination within
the waUs of this institution, which, however, did
not share his pohtical ideas." He concedes that the
great majority of the professors and students were
pronounced and even aggressive Conservatives, but
adds that in spite of this violent current which
arose in a classical coUege as in the real arena of
mUitant politics, Wilfrid Laurier always held the
first rank in debate and controversy. We are told
that "his words, sincere, clear and eloquent, im
posed respect and commanded respect, even in the
most passionate." He was, too, "the most popular
pupil, the pupU with the greatest foUowing and the
most influence." His ascendancy, however, was
purely the ascendancy of character and of inteUect.
It seems that he rarely took part in the coUege
games, and neither then nor later was he attracted
by field sports or athletic contests. When it is
remembered, however, that he was by no means
robust, and that in fact up to middle life his health
32

THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
was a constant source of concern to his famUy and
his friends, we can understand why he was more
conspicuous in the school-room than on the play
ground. In the words of his feUow-pupU, from
whom we have been quoting, " He was then, as
to-day, cahn, dignified, reserved, almost timid. But
happy were they who formed the circle around him
to know the charm of his words so musical, vibrant,
grasping, his conversation always lofty, instructive
and penetrating."
Wilfrid Laurier's feet turned in early youth to
wards the law courts and the hustings. We have it on
the authority of Mr. L. O. David that the student
was ptmished more than once for going without
permission to hear cases argued in the viUage court
house, or to listen to the orators at some pohtical
meeting.^ But it was seldom, indeed, that he needed
to be disciphned. He was a first-rate student, and
he had something of that love for the classics
which distinguishes the scholar rather than the
man of affairs. We can easily imagine that if htera
ture in Canada yielded daUy bread, WUfrid Laur
ier would have been quite as hkely to seek a
career in literature as in law and pohtics. But it
was the fashion, and is perhaps stiU the fashion, for
the young men of his stamp in Quebec to go
into law, and through law into pohtics; and it
is not improbable that Mr. Laurier dehberately
adopted law as the more remunerative pursuit, and
1 "Mes Contemporams," by L. O. David, p. 84.
33

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
dehberately intended that the practice of law should
lead on to a pubhc career.
In 1861 Mr. Laurier entered the law office of
Mr. Rodolphe Laflamme at Montreal. Mr. La-
flamme was an advocate of large practice and wide
reputation, and a pohtician of commanding influ
ence in the Montreal district. Perhaps no better
opportunity wiU occur for saying that fourteen
years later the young student was his coUeague in
the Mackenzie Cabinet. Mr. Laurier took the law
course at McGUl University, and he had so profited
from his residence with the Murray famUy, his
term at the Enghsh school, and his persistent study
of Enghsh hterature, that he was able to take
lectures in both French and Enghsh. He was an
earnest and laborious student, and throughout the
three-year course maintained a good place in the
examinations. In his first year, 1861-62, he ranked
second in general proficiency and stood weU in the
respective classes. In the class on Real Estate and
Customary Law he was first, and in that on Obhga
tions and General Principles of the Law of Con
tract, of which Mr. J. J. C. Abbott was professor,
he ranked second. In the second year, 1862-63, he
did not rank in general proficiency, but in the
classes he was second in Bibhography of Enghsh
and French and Canadian Law, and third in Real
Estate and Customary Law. In his third and last
year, 1863-64, for the degree of B.C.L., he was
first in one class and second in two, and for gen-
34

THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
eral proficiency was equal with Mr. Henri L. D^-
sauhiiers, who stood second. His standing in the
respective classes was second in Criminal and Con
stitutional Law, and first in Customary Law and
Law of Real Estate. There were eleven students
in the graduating class, and Mr. Laurier stood
second. Nothing more is required to estabhsh
his standing than the fact that in the first and
third years he was second on the aggregate.
At graduation he was not only second in general
proficiency, but was first in the thesis which had
to be written for the degree. He thus became
valedictorian, and was required to dehver the
address for his class at the convocation of 1864.
This was the first speech he ever dehvered outside
of a coUege debating club, and in its essential
teaching it expresses the spirit and purpose which
have animated aU his political career.
He argued in this address that the mission of the
man of law was to cause justice to reign ; to
separate the true from the false ; to maintain the
rights of citizens ; to preserve the general peace ;
to preserve for famihes the inheritance of their
ancestors, for the individual his honour when as
sailed, and for the pubhc the just repression of
offences; to hold within hmits the audacity of the
powerful, and to reheve the wretchedness of the
weak, without violence for the one, and without
indulgence to the other; to render to each according
to his works. "I know of nothing greater; I
35

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
admire the man who on the field of battle knows
how to die and save his country; I admire the
man who brings all generations under the speU of
the creations of his genius ; I admire the man who
consecrates his whole hfe to the amelioration of
humanity; but I admire him still more who has
taken for the end of his hfe, his studies, and his
labours, to render to each according to his works.
AU glories, all merits pale before these simple and
great thoughts: to render to each according to his
works, to cause justice to reign." He glanced at the
severe training necessary for a profession which, he
declared, was more than a mere bread-winner, more
than an art, and more than a science, because of
the moral obligations it involved. In a free coun
try the places of first importance faU to the men of
law. He gave as examples Eldon and Erskine in
England; Favre, OUivier, BiUault and Rouher in
France. Brougham, he said, began at the foot of
the social ladder and ended on the benches of the
House of Lords. This could not weU be otherwise
under the regime of Liberty. "Liberty is not the
power to say everji;hing and do everything: Lib
erty is the right to act and move at ease and
without hindrance within the circle of the constitu
tion traced by the people, without which that circle
might be enlarged or contracted at wiU by a des
potic hand." He contended that the prerogatives
and the duties of the people and of the Executive
ought to be maintained within the hmits of the
36

THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
Constitution, and the man of law, by the mere fact
of his studies, finds himself best placed to meet the
necessities of this situation, provided that he acts
within the Executive and invokes the rights of
authority, and provided that his voice proceeds
from the breast of the people, to maintain their
prerogatives, or to moderate the encroachments of
the powerful. In passing into the domain of poh
tics, the man of law does not change his mission;
there, stiU, he wiU have to render to each according
to his works, and to cause justice to reign. He only
widens the sphere of his activity. The tribunal to
which he wiU address himself henceforth wiU be
pubhc opinion. The theme which he wiU develop
wUl be the rights or the duties of a whole nation,
and for audience he wiU have aU the echoes of
pubhcity. This, as an eminent pubhcist had said, was an
age in which each must bring his stone to the
social edifice. Canada in the nineteenth century,
when most societies were already old, could scarcely
count a few centuries of existence. ^Tiile in the
old world only the reformer had an occupation,
here all was new, and everything was still to build.
We had the experience of the centuries to guide
us. "The law is caUed upon to play another role in
this country, an immense r6le, and one which
belongs to it nowhere else. Two races share to-day
the soU of Canada. I can say it here, for the time is
no longer, the French and the English races have
37

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
not always been friends ; but I hasten to say it, and
I say it to our glory, that race hatreds are finished
on our Canadian soil. There is no longer any family
here but the human family. It matters not the
language the people speak, or the altars at which
they kneel. We are coming every day upon happy
results of this holy work, and at this celebration
we have had stiU another proof of it. You have
heard French and Enghsh names here, graven on
the tables of honour. You have heard some address
the word to you in Enghsh, and I who am now
speaking, I am speaking to you in my mother
tongue, I am speaking to you in French. There
is in this fraternity a glory of which Canada cannot
be proud enough, for many powerful nations might
come here to seek a lesson in justice and humanity.
To whom do we owe this happy state of affairs?
There may be more than one cause for it, but the
principal cause is the study of law. Two different
systems of law rule this country: the French and
the Enghsh. Each of these systems places under
obhgation not only the race to which it properly
belongs, but each rules simultaneously the two
races, and — a fact worth remarking — this introduc
tion into the same country of two systems of
legislation, entirely different, was carried out with
out violence, without usurpation, but solely as an
effect of the laws of justice. It was natural that
in passing under British domination the inhabitants
of this country should continue to be ruled by their
38

THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
ancient laws in all the ordinary transactions of hfe,
but it was equaUy just that the new government
should repress after its own laws offences against
the pubhc order." Mr. Laurier attributed to this
minghng of legal systems the first great influence
making for the reconcihation of the races. The
work thus begun was continued by the same just
provisions which aUowed to each people the law
that was suited to its traditions and ideas. It
was noteworthy that the union of the races had
not proceeded so far in any class of Canadian
society as among the men of law. "The mis
sion of the man of law in Canada," said Mr.
Laurier, "embraces, in summing up, the fol
lowing: justice, the most noble of all human
perfections; patriotism, the noblest of all social
virtues; the union between the peoples, the secret
of the future. Now we see the end; upon ourselves
depends what our efforts shaU be in mounting to
the height of it."
Among Mr. Laurier's contemporaries in the
faculty of law at McGiU were Mr. J. J. Curran, of
the class of 1862, who became Solicitor-General in
the Ministry of Sir John Thompson, and Sir Mel
bourne Tait, with whom Mr. Curran now sits on
the Superior Court Bench of Quebec; the Hon.
George W. Stephens, and Mr. Justice C. P. David
son, of 1863 ; Mr. L. H. Davidson, K.C., of 1864;
and Mr. Arthur Dansereau, of 1865, his fellow
pupU at L'Assomption CoUege, and the staunch
39

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
friend and aUy of the briUiant Chapleau, in whom
Mr. Laurier was to find the most formidable rival
he has ever encountered in the French province.
Shortly after Mr. Laurier began the study of law
at Montreal, he joined the Institut Canadien, and
thereby struck his first blow for civU hberty, and
registered his first protest against ecclesiastical
domination in the realm of the inteUect and in the
field of pubhc affairs. The Institut Canadien was a
literary and scientific society, with a readuig-room
and hbrary, and was founded in 1844 by a group of
young, progressive, and independent thinkers, eager
for personal distinction and ambitious to do useful
and honourable work for the community. They
adopted as their motto, "altius tendimus," and selected
for their coat of arms the figure of a beehive with the
words beneath, " Travail et Concorde." Incorpora
tion was obtained in 1852, and the act states that
the object of the Institut is to extend and develop
a taste for science, art, and hterature. Among the
incorporators were A. A. Dorion, Joseph Doutre,
Rodolphe Laflamme, Eric Dorion, and other names
of outstanding distinction in the annals of Quebec.
The Institut became the hterary and pohtical work
room of many briUiant spirits, and the source of
influences which penetrated deeply into the social
and pohtical life of the country. It is told that at a
meeting of the Institut in 1854, addresses of con
gratulation were presented to fourteen of the
members upon their election to seats in Parhament.
40

THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
When the association was founded in 1844, there
was no French reading-room or hbrary in the whole
Province of Quebec. But the organization of the
Institut at Montreal furnished the nucleus of a popu
lar and wide-spread movement, and ten years later
there were more than one hundred such Instituts in
the province, and of these, sixty-two were incor
porated. They received a smaU annual grant from
Parhament, and were held in great favour by the
masses of the people. By the clergy, however, they
were regarded with grave and increasing distrust,
and soon indirect measures were taken to accom
plish their destruction, or at least to alter their
character and hmit their activities.
It was first sought to secure the adoption of a rule
by the St. Jean Baptiste Society, under whose
auspices many of the Instituts were conducted,
that only French-Canadians, or those married to
French-Canadian women, could become members.
Mr. Francis Cassidy, although of Irish birth, be
longed both to the St. Jean Baptiste Society,
and to the Montreal Institut, and when it was
desired to make him President of the Institut,
the constitution was amended so as to open the
doors to aU nationalities. This angered the clergy,
and they organized a general attack upon the Insti
tuts throughout the province. They opened many
rival institutions under clerical control, which they
named Instituts Nationaux. Hostile witnesses declare
that some of these societies existed only on paper,
41

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
but that they succeeded, nevertheless, in obtaining
grants from Parliament. Spiritual terrors were also
employed, the character of the libraries attacked,
and loyalty to the Instituts became hardly dis
tinguishable from denial of the Cathohc faith, and
open contempt for the religious authorities. This
was an intolerable situation for many Catholics
who had sought in the Instituts only congenial
companionship, access to good reading, and intel
lectual culture, and they yielded dutiful obedience
to the clerical demand. By 1858 all the original
Instituts outside of Montreal had closed their doors,
or had passed under clerical control.
The Montreal Institut, however, offered a pru
dent but determined resistance to the ecclesiastical
authorities. Its members were reluctant to make
the quarrel, and equaUy reluctant to surrender their
right of private judgment and abandon the institu
tion which they had reared with such high purpose
and such genuine enthusiasm. In 1857 the society
had seven hundred members, and had secured com
modious premises for its meetings and hbrary. The
clergy proceeded to establish ri^¦ al institutions, and
opened the Cabinet de Lecture and Cercle Litteraire
under the auspices of the Sulpicians, and the Union
CathoUque under the auspices of the Jesuits. Each
of these societies had libraries and reading rooms,
and was maintained at very small cost to the
members. It was next attempted to persuade the
Institut to exclude from membership aU who did
42

THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
not profess the Cathohc religion, and also to shut
out of the reading room the Montreal Witness and
Semeur Canadien, two Protestant papers that were
uniformly unfriendly to the extremer pretensions of
the Cathohc clergy. These two propositions were
the subject of heated and protracted debate, but
both were rejected as inconsistent with the spirit of
the Institut, and whoUy foreign to the aims and
purposes of its founders. It was then represented
that the hbrary contained books of an immoral
character, and a petition was circulated declaratory
of the truth of this statement, and pledging the
signers to withdraw from membership. As a result
of this movement one hundred and fifty members
withdrew in a body and organized the Institut
Canadien Franpais. The new society was counten
anced by the clergy and aided by clerical subsidies,
but it was estabhshed by laymen and was not under
direct clerical control. Its main purpose was to
receive aU such members of the Institut Canadien
as could be induced to foUow the example of the
one hundred and fifty who withdrew in conse-
sequence of the clerical condemnation of some of
its books and periodicals.
The long, resolute, and inflexible attack upon the
Institut was led by Bishop Bourget. This resource
ful and aggressive ecclesiastic, whom we shaU meet
again in these pages, was born in 1799, and was
a native of the parish of Pointe Levis. In 1821
he went to Montreal as secretary to Bishop
43

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Lartigue. In 1837 he was made Bishop of Tel-
messe, and coadjutor of Bishop Lartigue, and on
the death of this Bishop in 1840, he became his
successor in the episcopal see of Montreal. He was
distinguished for piety, for courage, for inflexibihty
of purpose, for zealous exaltation of the ecclesi
astical order, for bold assertion of the extreme
pretensions of the Church to supremacy in civil
affairs. He estabhshed the order of the Jesuits at
Montreal, he founded a score of other rehgious
communities and many charitable and educational
institutions, and attempted to estabhsh a Jesuit
university at Montreal as a rival to Laval at
Quebec. He was intolerant of free speech and free
action in public affairs, and was one of the chief
authors of the Programme CathoUque, which re
quired aU Parliamentary candidates in Quebec con
stituencies to conform to the teachings of the
Church, and to give full and entire adhesion to
Roman Cathohc doctrines in rehgion, in pohtics,
and in social economy.
The quarrel between the Bishop and the Institut
arose over the contention that the hbrary contained
immoral books. This, at least was the point selected
for attack, but that the sources of the quarrel lay
deeper, can hardly be doubted. The Bishop was
irreconcilably opposed to free speech . and free
inquiry in the domain of politics, science, and
rehgion, intolerant of the growth of aU influences,
and hostile to the existence of aU moral or intel-
44

THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
lectual agencies that were not directly created and
controUed by the ecclesiastics. Hence, if fault could
not have been found with the books of the Institut,
some other plan for its destruction would have been
elaborated. In 1858, some members of the society,
acting by inspiration of the clergy, asked for the
appointment of a committee to make a list of such
books as should be excluded from the library. The
majority of the members, however, refused to
sanction the proposition, and held that the Institut
contained no improper books, and that it was the
sole judge of the morahty of such works as the
hbrary contained. " The Institut," they said, " has
always been, and is alone competent to judge of
the morality of its library, the administration of
which it is capable of conducting without the inter
vention of foreign influences." This defiant action
was greatly resented by the Bishop, and shortly
afterwards he issued a pastoral letter in which the
course of the Institut was considered and con
demned. He pointed out that its members had
faUen into two great errors, first in holding that
they were the proper judges of the morality of
their books, as that office belonged only to the
Bishop, and secondly in declaring that the library
contained no immoral books, although some of the
works upon its shelves were in the Index at Rome.
He cited a decision of the Council of Trent that
any one who read or kept heretical books became
subject to excommunication, and that any one who
45

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
read or kept books forbidden upon other grounds
was open to censure and punishment. He appealed
to the Institut to recognize the authority of the
Church, and to expunge the resolution declaring
its competency to pass upon the character of
the books supplied to its patrons. Otherwise no
Catholic could be permitted to continue in mem
bership. Thus the quarrel grew, and it broadened and
deepened for years to the ever increasing injury of
the Institut, and to the grave loss and embarrass
ment of many of its most influential supporters.
Such were the relations between the Bishop and
the society when Mr. Laurier, a young Cathohc
student, on the threshold of his career, came to
Montreal, and cast in his lot with the resolute few
who were determined to adhere to its fortunes and
maintain the right of independent thinking and the
prerogatives of inteUectual freedom in the face of
clerical displeasure.
Mr. liaurier had also an active connection with an
association of law students caUed the Institut des
Lois. Le Pays, then the organ of Quebec Radical
ism, in its issue of October 27th, 1863, announces
a meeting at which Gonzalve Doutre would deliver
an address on the subject, " Does rehgious profes
sion in Canada entail civil death ? " The notice is
signed " W. Laurier, President."^ Mr. Laurier him-
^ Le Pays was twice condemned by Bishop Bourget, and finally de
stroyed.
46

THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
self, during this year, dehvered an address before
the Institut des Lois on an equally dehcate and
disturbing question : " Does the farmer or the pro
prietor pay the tithe ? " Many of the papers read
before the association were, of course, on general
legal, literary, and political topics, and there seems
to have been no deliberate purpose to raise issues
that were distasteful to the religious authorities.
On December 3rd, 1863, Gonzalve Doutre de
hvered a lecture before the Instittct Canadien on
the subject, " Is the present system of education
defective ? " Mr. Laurier took part in the discussion.
Le Pays says that aU who participated in the
debate spoke in moderation, and that while they
attacked the educational system which then pre
vailed, they were careful to say nothing that would
give offence, or was calculated to antagonize the
most sensitive and scrupulous among the cham
pions of estabhshed educational methods. It must
be remembered, however, that the system attacked
was under strict clerical control, and all such dis
cussion must have been distinctly unwelcome to
the ecclesiastics. The meeting unanimously resolved
that the system was defective and unsatisfactory.
Mr. Laurier's name appears among the Vice-Presi
dents of the Lnstitut Canadien for 1865 and 1866,
and as he left Montreal in December, 1866, he
doubtless held this office at the time of his re
moval to ArthabaskaviUe.
Mr, Laurier was one of the Committee of the
47

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Institut appointed in 1863 to interview Bishop
Bourget, in the endeavour to reconcile the quarrel
and overcome his interdiction. His associates on
the Committee were the Hon. L. A. DessauUes,
then President of the Institut, Dr. J. E. Coderre,
and the famous Joseph Doutre. They were pohtely
received, but quite failed to ehcit any definite
statement from the unyielding Bishop. They sub
mitted the library catalogue, and urged the Bishop
to specify such books as were objectionable to the
rehgious authorities. They undertook to put such
books under lock and key, and to guarantee that
they would not be read by anyone without his
express permission. In February, 1864, the Institut
stopped a lecture which was advertised to be de
livered on "Reason and Faith," and iri March it
was formaUy resolved to have no discussions in
the Institut that might touch rehgious susceptibU-
ities. But Bishop Bourget could not be concUiated.
He retained the hbrary catalogue for six months,
but kept a stern sUence upon the points on which
the Committee had sought instruction and enhght-
enment. Early in 1864 the Bishop issued a pastoral
letter in condemnation of a lecture delivered before
the Institut by Mr. DessauUes, in which he said:
"We wiU then pray that no evil may result to
anyone from that dreadful monster Rationahsm,
which has anew lifted up its hideous head in the
Institut, and which seeks to spread the infectious
poison in a pamphlet, repeating the blasphemies
48

THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
uttered from that seat of pestilence." The truth is,
that the Bishop was resolved to force the Institut
into an absolute surrender, whUe upon the other
hand the leaders of the Institut M-^ere just as de
termined to maintain the association and assert
their indubitable right to freedom of opinion and
freedom of discussion.
In 1866 Mr. Laurier's active connection with the
Institut ceased in consequence of his removal from
Montreal. But he was still to bear the conse
quences of his identification with the society, and
it therefore becomes necessary to follow its for
tunes further, and to see the end of the conflict
which this resolute group of French Liberals waged
for many long years against the ecclesiastical auth
orities. When the Institut became finaUy convinced that
rehef from the clerical interdiction could not be
obtained by direct appeal to Bishop Bourget, it
was decided to make representations to the Head
of the Church. Before making the appeal to Rome,
a committee again visited the Bishop, and asked to
have the objectionable books specified. The Bishop,
however, rephed that while there were such books
in the hbrary it was not his duty to indicate them,
as it could lead to no practical result. The appeal
was taken by seventeen Catholic members, and
was a private proceeding, in which neither the
Protestant members nor the Institut as a body
were concerned. The Institut waited for four years,
49

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
but Rome returned no answer, and in the mean
time a new phase of the quarrel at home had
developed. At the celebration of the twenty-fourth anni
versary of the Institut in 1868, Mr. DessauUes
dehvered an address on tolerance, eloquent in com
position, noble in teaching, and catholic in spirit.
He said: "We form a society of students, and this
society is purely laical. Is an association of laymen,
not under direct rehgious control, permissible,
speaking from a Catholic point of view? Is an
association of laymen belonging to various rehgious
denominations permissible from a Cathohc point of
view? What evil is there, in a country of mixed
rehgious opinions, in men of mature mind belonging
to different Christian sects, giving one another the
kiss of peace on the field of science? What! Is it
not permissible, when Protestants and Cathohcs
are placed side by side in a country, in a city, for
them to pursue together their career of inteUectual
progress? There are certain men who are never quiet
except when they have made enemies both in the
domain of conscience and of inteUigence. Where do
these men get their evangehcal notions ? Where
then are prudence and simple good sense? There
are those who, themselves a minority in the State,
cannot endure persons of opposite opinions, and in
whose mouth the word ostracism is always to be
found. But we have no difficulty in enduring you
with aU your perversity of mind and of heart.
50

THE STUDENT AND THE INSTITUTE
Imitate, therefore, a good example, instead of set
ting a bad one. We therefore form a hterary society
of laymen. Our object is progress, work our means,
tolerance our connecting tie. We have for aU the
respect which men of sincerity never withhold. There
are hypocrites who see evil everywhere, and who
fear it because they are acquainted with it."
Mr. Horace Greeley, of the New York Tribune,
a great soldier of freedom, also spoke at the meet
ing, and in the course of his address pronounced
this royal creed: "For the true Liberal, in the
century in which we five, there is but one country,
the World; but one religion, love to God and man;
and one patriotism, to benefit and elevate the
human family. We have for adversaries, tyranny,
ignorance, superstition, and everything which op
presses or degrades." These and like utterances of
noble and strenuous import appeared in the Annu-
aire, the annual report of the society for 1868,
and greatly aggravated the quarrel between the
clergy and the Institut.
In 1869 Gonzalve Doutre was sent to Rome
to press the appeal against Bishop Bourget's inter
diction, and the Bishop also visited Rome during
the same year to attend the Vatican Council. Mr.
Doutre was soon convinced that his protest would
be ineffectual, and while he was stiU prosecuting
his business, the Bishop sent out a pastoral letter to
Canada announcing that the Pope had rejected the
appeal and condemned the Institut. The people
51

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
were forbidden to belong to the Institut whUe
it taught pernicious doctrines, or to publish, retain,
keep, or read the Annuaire of 1868; and it was
further declared that aU persons who persisted in
remaining members of the Institut, or in reading
the Annuaire, would be deprived of the sacraments.
When this pastoral reached Montreal the members
of the Institut held a meeting and resolved, "(1)
that the Institut Canadien, the object of whose
foundation is purely hterary and scientific, teaches
no doctrine of any kind, and carefuUy excludes aU
teaching of pernicious doctrine; (2) that the Catholic
members of the Institut Canadien, having learned
of the condemnation of the Annuaire of 1868 of the
Institut Canadien declare that they submit purely
and simply to this decree." But this submission did
not abate the attack nor remove the condemnation.
Bishop Bourget wrote from Rome that these con
cessions were hypocritical and inadequate, and
mainly, " because this act of submission forms part
of a report unanimously approved by the Institut,
in which a resolution is proclaimed, until then kept
secret, which estabhshes the principle of religious
toleration, which has been the principal ground of
the condemnation of the Institut." There was, in
fact, no refuge for the Cathohc members of the
Institut, except in absolute submission and disso
lution of the society.

52

CHAPTER III
THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER
ONE of the charges made against Mr. Laurier in
the political campaigns of later years was that
he was the companion of " apostates of the Chini-
quy breed," of " excommunicated persons," and of
" friends of Guibord." The story of Joseph Guibord
reads like a tale set far back in the despotic ages.
This man Guibord was a printer, a French-Cana
dian Roman Cathohc, of good character, and earn
est rehgious spirit. It is said that for twenty years
he personaUy superintended the composition and
printing of Bishop Bourget's pastoral letters, and
other work connected with the foreign missions of
the Church. For ten years he put into type in the
Indian language the catechism and hymns for the
Roman Cathohc missions in the North- West. The
first book stereotyped in Canada was done under
his supervision. He was, in fact, a scientific crafts
man, greatly esteemed by his co-workers, and weU
considered by many of the Catholic ecclesiastics.
He had, however, that vigour of mind and indepen
dence of spirit which seem to be born of the
handling of types; and when the Church which he
loved sought to control his judgment and crush out
his individuahty, he settled down to immovable 53

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
resistance, and shamed many men who walked in
higher ways by his quiet courage and fine assertion
of the essential principles of human freedom. He
became a member of the Institut two or three
years after it was organized, was one of the two
hundred members who refused to withdraw when
the society was condemned on account of its pos
session of books that were covered by the Index at
Rome, and also one of those who appealed to
Rome against the attitude of the Bishop. He died
suddenly on November 18th, 1869. A few weeks
before his death he sent for a priest, who came and
heard his confession. But, acting under the direct
instructions of the Bishop, the priest refused to
administer extreme unction unless Guibord would
withdraw from the Institut. This he dechned to do,
and the last rites were not administered. He grew
better and for some weeks seemed hkely to recover,
but death came at last so suddenly that it was
impossible to get a priest to his bedside. Apphca-
tion was made for permission to bury the remains
in the cemetery of C6te des Neiges, and was re
fused on the ground that as a member of the
Institut he could not receive absolution, and there
fore could not have ecclesiastical burial. M. Rous-
seUot, the curd of Notre Dame, offered, however,
to inter Guibord in that unconsecrated portion of
the cemetery aUotted to persons who are buried
without rehgious rites. The widow was wiUing to
accept burial in the cemetery proper without
54

THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER
rehgious rites, but this also was refused. The remains
were therefore temporarily deposited in a vault at
the adjoining Protestant cemetery, and proceedings
were immediately begun to cause the Church auth
orities to bury Guibord in the consecrated portion
of Cote des Neiges.
Mr. Joseph Doutre and Mr. Laflamme, with
whom Mr. Laurier had studied, appeared as coun
sel for the petitioners. Doutre was an heroic figure
throughout the long and strenuous controversy in
Quebec for the estabhshment of the principles of
civil and rehgious hberty. His active participation
in public affairs dated back to 1844, and as a young
man he had penned an attack upon George E.
Cartier which led to a meeting with pistols on the
Chambly road, and bred between the two an in
curable personal and political quarrel. He was a
profound constitutional authority, an influential
contributor to many of the pubhc journals, and
one of the most able and skUful advocates whom
Quebec has produced. He was one of the leaders in
the struggle for the abohtion of the feudal tenure,
and was conspicuous in the agitation to destroy the
system of Crown nominations to the Legislative
Council, and to estabhsh an elective body. He was
twice a candidate for election to the Parhament of
united Canada, and twice defeated. His last political
contest was fought in 1861, and thereafter he gave
himself whoUy to his profession. He was one of
the Canadian counsel before the Hahfax Fishery
55

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Commission appointed to determine the amount of
compensation due to Canada under the terms of
the Washington treaty; and he had a knowledge of
the old French law such as few, if any, of his con
temporaries possessed. He was the very soul of the
great contest before the courts and before the
people to force the Cathohc ecclesiastics to bury
Guibord in consecrated ground, and to estabhsh
the civil rights of the members of the Institut Can
adien. We have outgrown many of his opinions.
Some of these he outgrew as weU. It is not the
spirit of Joseph Doutre, in his hot and eager youth,
which informs many of our social and pohtical
fashions and many of our most cherished institu
tions ; but his superb courage and steadfast asser
tion of elementary human rights shine out with
enduring lustre on the pages of Canadian history.
The application for a writ of mandamus to com
pel the burial of Guibord in consecrated ground
was heard before Mr. Justice Mondelet. Seventeen
days were spent in the arguments. It was contended
in behalf of the ecclesiastical authorities that by the
terms of the cession of Canada to Great Britain
the Roman Cathohc religion was to be free of aU
interference from the civil authorities, while counsel
for Madame Guibord held that the right to an
ecclesiastical burial was a civU right which the
Church could not deny. Judge Mondelet, although
a French-Canadian Roman Catholic, sustained the
apphcation and ordered a peremptory writ of man-
56

THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER
damns to issue requiring the cure and fabrique of
Notre Dame to bury the deceased within six days.
The Church authorities appealed to the Court of
Review, and there the decision of Mr. Justice
Mondelet was reversed. It was maintained that action
should have been taken against the curd personaUy,
and that the writ was informal. Next came an
appeal by counsel for the widow to the Court of
Queen's Bench, consisting of one Protestant and
four Roman Catholic judges. Mr. Doutre chal
lenged the fitness of the Court to determine the
issue on the ground that the Catholic judges, if
faithful adherents of the Church, could not do
justice in any cause which involved a conflict
between civU and ecclesiastical laws. This seems
to have been a harsh and ungracious proceeding,
and one which finds smaU justification in the con
duct of many of the Cathohc judges of Lower
Canada in great instances of conflict between the
civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The Court re
jected Mr. Doutre's petition, and held that his
contention was equivalent to an accusation of
treason and perjury against the Cathohc judges.
Doutre then moved for an appeal to the Privy
Council of England, and the money necessary to
prosecute the appeal before the court of last resort
was provided by the Institut Canadien and Catholic
and Protestant citizens of Montreal.
While these proceedings were in progress,
Madame Guibord died. By her will she gave her
57

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
property to the Institut Canadien, and also ap
pointed that body her universal legatee. Leave
was granted by the Privy Council to the Institut
to continue the appeal in her behalf, and on June
17th, 1874, the case came formaUy before the
Judicial Committee. Mr. Doutre appeared for the
Institut, while the chief Canadian counsel for the
Church was Mr. L. A. Jettd, of Montreal, who
once defeated Sir George Cartier in Montreal East,
and is now Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec.
The Privy Council in rendering judgment went
into an exhaustive consideration of many of the
issues involved, and particularly of the status of the
Roman Catholic Church in Lower Canada, and the
contention that under the terms of the cession of
the country to Great Britain, the Church was inde
pendent of the civil authority. The Court held that
there were no regular ecclesiastical courts in Lower
Canada, such as existed and were recognized by the
State when the Province formed part of the domin
ions of France. But it was pointed out that a
bishop is always a judex ordinarius, according
to the Canon Law, and may hold a court and
deliver judgment. Unless such sentences were
recognized there would exist no means of deter
mining amongst the Roman Cathohcs of Canada
the many questions touching faith and disciphne,
which, upon the admitted canons of their church,
may arise. There was, however, no proof that
any sentence of excommunication was ever passed
58

THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER
against Guibord by the Bishop or any other ecclesi
astical authority, and, therefore, the Court was
reheved from the necessity of considering how far
such a sentence, if passed, might have been examin
able by the temporal court, when a question
touching its legal effect and vahdity required to
be determined. It was shown that Guibord had not
wilfuUy abstained from receiving the sacraments of
the Church, but that he was refused the sacraments
when he desired to receive them, because he con
tinued to be a member of the Institut Canadien.
It was pointed out that the et ccetera in the Quebec
Ritual might be, according, to the supposed exigency
of the particular case, expanded so as to include
within its ban any person being in habits of intimacy
or conversing with a member of a literary society
possessing a prohibited book ; any person visiting a
friend who possessed such a book; any person
sending his son to a school in the library of which
there was such a book, or going to a shop where
such books were sold. Moreover, the Index which
aheady forbade Grotius, Pascal, Pothier, Thaunus,
and Sismondi, might be made to include aU the
writings of jurists, and aU legal reports of judg
ments supposed to be hostile to the Church of
Rome, so that the Roman Cathohc lawyer might find
it difficult to pursue the studies of his profession.
Their Lordships declared that they were satisfied
that such a discretionary enlargement of the cate
gories in the Ritual would not have been deemed
59

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
to be within the authority of the law of the Galhcan
Church as it existed in Canada before the cession ;
and in their opinion it was not estabhshed that
there had been such an alteration in the status or
law of that Church founded on the consent of its
members as would warrant such an interpretation
of the Ritual, and that the true and just conclusion
of law on the point was that the fact of being a
member of the Institut did not bring a man within
the category of a public sinner to whom Christian
burial could be legaUy refused.
It was further said that according to the ecclesi
astical law of France, a personal sentence was in
most cases required in order to constitute a man a
pubhc sinner, and that no evidence had been pro
duced to estabhsh the very grave proposition that
Her Majesty's Roman Cathohc subjects in Lower
Canada had consented since the cession to be bound
by a rule which involved the recognition of the
authority of the Inquisition, an authority never
admitted but always repudiated by the old law of
France. Their Lordships, therefore, decided that
Guibord at the time of his death was not under any
such vahd ecclesiastical sentence or censure as would,
according to the Quebec Ritual, or any law bearing
upon Roman Cathohcs in Canada, justify the denial
of ecclesiastical sepulture to his remains. They
accordingly ordered the curd and fabrique of
Notre Dame to permit the burial of Guibord in
that part of the cemetery in which the remains of
60

THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER
Roman Cathohcs who receive ecclesiastical burial
were usuaUy interred, and required the defendants
to pay to the Institut Canadien all the costs of the
widow in the Lower Courts and the cost of the
appeal to the Judicial Committee, and said in
closing: "Their Lordships cannot conclude without
expressing their regret that any confhct should
have arisen between the ecclesiastical members of
the Roman Cathohc Church in Montreal and the
lay members belonging to the Canadian Institute.
It has been their Lordships' duty to determine the
questions submitted to them in accordance with
what has appeared to them to be the law of the
Roman Cathohc Church in Lower Canada. If, as
was suggested, difficulties should arise by reason of
an interment without rehgious ceremonies in that
part of the ground to which the mandamus apphes,
it wiU be in the power of the ecclesiastical authori
ties to obviate them by permitting the performance
of such ceremonies as are sufficient for that purpose ;
and their Lordships hope that the question of burial
with such ceremonies wiU be reconsidered by them,
and further htigation avoided."
Guibord's first funeral took place on Sunday,
November 21st, 1869. Two hundred and fifty
friends and sympathizers accompanied the body to
the Cathohc cemetery. The hearse was one used
by Protestants, and at the gate the coffin was
taken out and carried on a sleigh to the chapel.
Burial was refused except in the strangers' lot,
61

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
unconsecrated ground, where the bodies of suicides,
and criminals dying without confession were interred.
Protest and persuasion were ahke futile to alter
this decision, and the body was therefore returned
to the hearse and conveyed to a vault in the
Protestant cemetery. Here the remains lay untU
September 2nd, 1875, when, in pursuance of the
judgment of the Privy Council, they were once
more carried through the streets of Montreal, to be
deposited in consecrated ground in the Cathohc
cemetery. The hearse was surmounted by a cross,
and the British flag was thrown over the coffin.
But when the procession reached the cemetery, the
gates were found to be closed and barred, and a
hostile mob of three or four hundred persons was
gathered in the neighbourhood. The cortege was
received with jeers and yeUs, the crowd rapidly
increased, the driver of the hearse was forced to
whip up his horses, and a shower of stones
foUowed his retreat. The friends of the Institut,
under the prudent and responsible leadership of Mr.
Doutre, behaved with exceUent judgment, and
avoided a riot which might have had very serious
consequences. Once more the body of Guibord was
returned to the vault in the Protestant cemetery.
During the afternoon the grave dug for its reception
was fiUed up by a few of the rioters. It is not
necessary, nor is it clear that it would be just,
to hold the ecclesiastical authorities responsible for
this outbreak of mob violence, and the tumult and
62

THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER
excitement which the event caused throughout
Montreal. The stubborn contest of the Institut
with the Church had excited intense feeling in the
breasts of many Roman Catholics, the tone of the
clerical press was violent and inflammatory, the
Institut itself had vehement and reckless defenders,
sectarian animosities were thoroughly aroused, and
the fact that the leaders of the Institut were Liber
als, imported a savage partisan spirit into the con
troversy. On every hand fuel for a dangerous con
flagration was provided, and it is only surprising
that no graver consequences resulted.
The Nouveau Monde warned Mr. Doutre that
to desire actuaUy to force the gates of the cemetery
and show his mort to the pubhc was simply to drive
the ' people to revolt. La Minerve suggested that
the funeral had been postponed in order to await
the arrival of "a troop of Orangemen and fanatical
Grits from Upper Canada, who wiU be organized
to strengthen the hands of our Rouges." These
"wretched Rouges and apostates," the Minerve
said, "without heart or patriotism, do not fear
to excite Protestant and Enghsh fanaticism against
their compatriots, and to aUy themselves even with
the sects of Upper Canada to shed the blood of
their brethren." The Rouge party and the Institut,
the paper declared, had dug their own grave in
digging that of Guibord. The Bien Public, a French
Liberal paper, maintained that the case was one
which should never have come before the courts,
63

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
but that to oppose by force the execution of the
judgment of the Privy Council, was an act of un
pardonable folly. Indictments were laid against
fifteen of the rioters, but no bUl was returned by
the Grand Jury, and an attempt to maintain a suit
for damages against the fabrique proved equaUy
abortive. A guard was placed at the Protestant
cemetery in consequence of rumours that the body
of Guibord would be forcibly removed from the
vault wherein it was deposited, but nothing oc
curred to show that this precaution was necessary.
Guibord again reposed quietly in his temporary
resting place until the final burial at Cote des
Neiges, on November 16th, 1875.
On the Sunday before the third and successful
attempt to bury Guibord, the Catholic priests in
the city and district commanded their people not to
go near the funeral, and to refrain from aU disturb
ance. The Rev. V. Rousselot, cure of Notre Dame
however, refused to perform the ecclesiastical rites
over the remains, but attended the burial as a civil
officer. He declared that he could not grant ecclesi
astical sepulture, and the friends of Guibord could
not effect or order his civil interment in the part of
the cemetery consecrated by the prayers of the
Church. "If" he added, "despite aU this, you persist
in your deplorable design, I am obhged to protest
resolutely against the violation of the cemetery, of
the laws of the Church, and of the hberties of
Catholics in Lower Canada." An enormous crowd
64

THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER
thronged the streets of Montreal, through which the
procession passed, from the Protestant cemetery to
Cote des Neiges, but everywhere quiet and decorum
prevailed, and the presence of troops, called out for
the occasion, was whoUy unnecessary. The admo
nitions of the clergy were effectual, and in that
very fact was striking evidence of the authority
of the Church with the masses of its people. The
gates of the cemetery opened to the body, which
once again sought its bed in consecrated ground;
the grave beside that of his wife lay open, the body
was lowered, cement mixed with sheets of tin and
scrap iron was fUled in over the coffin, the top
dressing of earth was added, and Guibord was at
rest, and safe against the unsympathetic hand that
would disturb his repose.
A few days after the attempted burial on Sep
tember 2nd, Bishop Bourget issued a pastoral letter
to the clergy, to the rehgious communities, and to
aU the faithful of his diocese. He said it was a
necessity as weU as a duty to endeavour to appease
a certain agitation which had taken hold of minds,
and which, fermenting from day to day, might lead
to some fatal catastrophe. " That which has roused
you up in such large numbers," he said, "is the
fear that your cemetery, which you justly venerate
as a holy place, might be profaned by the burial of
a man dead in the disgrace and under the an
athema of the Church." He commended the calm
and moderate conduct of his people, and pointed
65

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
out that effusion of blood would be a fresh profana
tion of the cemetery. He said, "If, on the one
hand, we have managed aU things so that the
public peace was not troubled, we were, on the
other, occupied with means to be taken so that the
honour of the holy Church might be respected, and
that the holy place should not be profaned. This
was to declare, in virtue of the divine power which
we exercise in the name of the Pastor of pastors,
that the place where the body of this rebeUious
chUd of the Church would be deposited should be
made separate from the rest of the consecrated
cemetery, so that it would only be a profane place.
For we do not have need to prove to you that in
the solemn act of our consecration to God, fuU
power was given us to bind and to loose, to bless
and to curse, to consecrate persons, places and
temples, and to interdict them, to separate from
the body of the Church the members who dishonour
and outrage her, to hand over to Satan those who
hear not the Church, in order that they may hence
forth be considered as pagans and pubhcans, so long
as they return not to God by sincere penitence.
It is upon these incontestable and uncontested
principles of this divine authority that, desiring to
maintain in aU its integrity the disciphne of the
Church concerning the burial of its children, and
to prevent, at the same time, aU disorder for the
future, we declare by these presents, in order that
no one may be able to plead ignorance, that the
66

THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER
part of the cemetery where the body of the late
Joseph Guibord should be interred, if ever after
this it is buried there, in any manner whatever,
wiU be undone, and wiU, ipso facto, remain inter
dicted and separated from the rest of the cemetery."
He pointed out that under these circumstances
there was no pretext for violent opposition to the
burial of Guibord in any part of the cemetery,
since that part would become interdict and separ
ated from the holy place.
At a meeting of the bishops held at Quebec in
October, the conduct of the Institut and the judg
ment of the Privy Council were considered. The
bishops declared that the Cathohc Church in Can
ada was threatened in her hberty and in her most
sacred rites, and that the first authors of the out
rage had been brought up on the knees of a Catho
hc mother. " To paUiate this criminal usurpation
they have invoked the pretended Galhcan Liber
ties, as if Cathohc unity, founded by Jesus Christ
with the supreme authority of Peter and his suc
cessors, were but an empty name. What authority
is that which by invoking his liberties the subject
can escape ? What prince, what repubhc, would
acknowledge such a principle if appealed to by a
province, notwithstanding the oft-repeated declara
tions of the Constitution and the supreme tribunals
of the State?" In a later pastoral from Bishop
Bourget, issued before the final burial of Guibord
and read in the Cathohc churches, he reviewed in
67

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
detail many of the facts and incidents of the long
and painful controversy, and touched upon the
judgment of the Privy CouncU. He admitted that
Guibord was not warned and denounced by name,
but insisted that he was under the sentence of
excommunication pronounced against aU who be
longed to the Institut Canadien. He pointed out
that by withdrawing the grave from consecrated
ground he had safeguarded the hberty of the
Church without entering into conflict with au
thority. He said that the GaUican Liberties, to
which appeal was made in behalf of Guibord, were
not recognized even in France, and could not be
set up to authorize encroachments on the Church
in Canada. He continued : " This decision might
not have been given if the noble lords who com
pose the Privy CouncU and who advised Her Ma
jesty could have been able to assure themselves
that it would have tended to strangely grieve the
bishops of this country, whose loyalty has never
been denied ; to wound the rehgious feelings of a
devoted people, who have on aU occasions joined
fidehty to their Sovereign with attachment to their
religion ; to cause Cathohcs in this country to fear
that it is wished to deprive them of their rehgious
hberty ; to cast into this province a brand of dis
cord which it might be very difficult to extinguish ;
and to excite between citizens of different races
and religions antipathies and hatreds that might
have very serious results."
68

THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER
On the Sunday succeeding the funeral, stiU
another pastoral letter from Bishop Bourget was
read in the Cathohc churches of his diocese. In this
he rejoiced in the docihty of the people to the voice
of their pastors, and expressed his satisfaction that
the unhappy affair had terminated without blood
shed. He declared that it was respect for the
cemetery and the fear lest it were profaned by the
burial of a man dead in the disgrace of the Church,
which revolted many Cathohcs and led them to
oppose the entrance of his body into Cote des
Neiges. He reminded the people that the threat
which was made had been accomphshed, and that
the place where the rebeUious child of the Church
had been laid was now separated from the rest of
the consecrated cemetery and could be no more
anything but a profane place. He proceeded : "This
is a fact accomphshed with so much solemnity, and
amid circumstances so deplorable, that it will re
main deeply graven in the memory of the numerous
strangers who shaU visit the cemetery, as weU as in
that of citizens who shaU daily go thither to pour
forth their prayers. Each in casting sadly his
regards on that tomb which is not covered with the
blessings of heaven because it is separated from the
holy ground that the Church has blessed, wiU give
way to emotions more or less painful. 'Here hes,'
he wUl exclaim in the recesses of his soul, 'the
body of the too famous Joseph Guibord, who died
in rebeUion against the common Father of the
69

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Church, under the anathema of the Church ; who
oould not pass the gates of this sacred place
save escorted by armed men, as if for battle
against the enemies of the country ; who, but for
the good disposition of his feUow-citizens, would
have caused blood to flow ; who was conducted to
this sepulchre, not under the protection of the
Cross, but under that of the bayonets of the mih
tary ; who has been laid in this grave in two feet of
earth, not to the impressive chant of the prayers
which the Church is accustomed to make for her
ohUdren, but amid the curses contained in the
breasts of the attendants ; for whom the priest
obhged to be present could perform no rehgious
eeremony ; could utter no prayer for the repose of
his soul ; could not say a single requiescat in pace ;
could not, in short, sprinkle a single drop of holy
water, whose virtue it is to moderate and quench
the flames of the terrible fire that purifies souls
in the other world.' "
Two letters from Archbishop Lynch, of Toronto,
which appeared in The Globe during September,
1875, form an interesting chapter in the strange
and stormy history of the Institut Canadien. He
asked if the Fenian organization were estabhshed in
Canada and put under the ban of the Church like
the Institut, and if one of the members at his last
moments refused to renounce the society and ac
cepted in preference to die without the sacraments
of the Church, would the Privy Council of the
70

THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER
Queen absolve the memory of the man and force
the Church to give him ecclesiastical burial ? He
could not think so. Nor, he argued, would the Pro
testants, and especiaUy the Orangemen, wiUingly
acquiesce in what they would consider an unjust
decree of a Cathohc Sovereign, in a hke case where
they would be the aggrieved. He went on to say
that the French Canadian in coming under British
rule had gained one immense advantage in that he
was cut off from revolutionary France when infi-
dehty commenced to permeate and ruin aU classes,
especiaUy the lower, of French society. Hence, the
descendants of the French immigrants grew up a
rehgious and loyal people. But in the course of
time, weU-to-do Canadians revisited France and
brought back the seeds of irrehgion and too much
independence. To foster and perpetuate these evil
plants they formed the Institut Canadien, and fiUed
their hbrary with books fetid with the most rampant
infidehty, such as was destroying the faith and
morality of France. The Bishop of Montreal desired
to have these books removed, and required that a
priest of his appointment should watch over the
morahty of the hbrary and the members of the
Institut. This, he contended, was not beyond the
faculties of a bishop of the Cathohc Church in his
treatment of those who professed to owe him obedi
ence, and who wished to receive from him the
sacraments. But the Institut, wrote the Archbishop, retained
71

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
its hbrary and continued its opposition, and was con
sequently proscribed. The evU ceased to become
greater because good Cathohcs no longer joined
the society. He beheved that Protestants of the
various rehgious communities would hkewise refuse
communion to the man who would disobey the
formal injunction of their synod or conference. He
argued that it would be an outrage for the State to
force any rehgious community to bury with rehg
ious ceremonies the body of one of their members,
who, whUst he was ahve, was excommunicated.
The lot in the cemetery of the C6te des Neiges
was sold with the condition, expressed or under
stood, that it was sold for the burial of those only
who died in communion with the Church. When
that condition was wanting the lot was forfeited.
The Cathohc Church, however, provided for the
burial of those who died out of her fold, and in
every cemetery a place was set apart for the burial
of such persons. The State, in the case of Guibord,
was interfering in matters not of its competency,
but the interference must be tolerated in order to
avoid a greater evil. He declared that if the case
happened in Toronto he would hold himself neutral
The State could use the power of force and bury
the body in the consecrated cemetery, but he would
give no active assistance. He would then order the
grave to be fenced in, and would proceed to con
secrate the rest of the cemetery. He did not think
the ashes of a notorious sinner who died unrepent-
72

THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER
ant would injure the souls or bodies of those whose
bones lay in the cemetery. Nor would the bones of
mad dogs or other unclean animals cause contami
nation. He was not surprised that the Cathohcs of
Montreal were outraged over the desecration of
their cemetery, but they should not expose their
lives in resisting the State. If they were commanded
to renounce their faith, then they should suffer
martyrdom rather than obey imperial mandates, as
the early Christians did.^
Mr. Joseph Doutre, in a letter to The Globe of
September 15th, dealt at length with the state
ments of the Archbishop. He argued that untU
recent changes in the constitution of the Cathohc
Church the old ecclesiastical law of France was
stUl the ecclesiastical law of Lower Canada. From
time immemorial, Cathohc France, both at home
and in the colonies, had maintained that the sepul
ture of the dead, even in the time when ecclesias
tical courts were in fuU operation, was exclusively
cognizable by civU court. The law never aUowed
excommunication unless it were pubhcly denounced
and personal, after admonitions. The French eccles
iastical and pubhc law, as left to Lower Canada
at the time of the treaty of cession, also gave to the
civil courts the right to examine whether excom
munication, when pronounced, was conformable in
its causes with the canons or not. The members of
the Institut Canadien were never excommunicated,
1 Toronto Ghle, September 10th and 11th, 1876.
73

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
even coUectively, and Guibord was never excom
municated, either coUectively with others, or per
sonaUy. He denied that the hbrary was fiUed with
infidel books, pointed out that no such sweepmg
charge had ever been made by Bishop Bourget, and
mentioned that when a similar charge was made by
the Nouveau Monde, an action for hbel taken by
the Institut was maintained. He said that members
of the Institut had not claimed the right to read a
disapproved book, but had held and asserted the
right to be members of a hterary society which
might have condemned books in its hbrary. If they
were wrong, no Cathohc could be a member of
Parhament, inasmuch as the hbrary of Parhament
contained books condemned at Rome. He met
other points raised by the Archbishop, and which
have been covered in the course of this record, and
concluded, " The Guibord case wUl have this bene
ficial influence on the future of this country ; it wUl
teach those who invoke treaties and law that these
facts act both ways ; that rights have their correla
tive duties; that no one has the privUege of using
rights and repudiating duties ; that there is only one
Sovereign over these lands, the civU and pohtical
government ; that any attempt to defy that author
ity may have the support of a few, but wUl be
frowned down by aU men of any worth or standing,
without distinction of creed or nationahty."
The credit and fortunes of the Institut were
greatly shaken by these destructive and tumultuous
74

THE CHURCH AND THE PRINTER
proceedings. A stern and gaUant band heroically
withstood the assaults of the clergy, but few new
members were added, and Cathohcs naturaUy shrank
fi'om identification with the society. By 1875 the
membership had been reduced to 150, and half of
these were Enghsh. Thereafter the support which
the Institut received from the Cathohc people
steadily dechned, and the necessity for Protestant
support was less apparent. FinaUy the books and
papers were handed over to the Fraser Institute, a
free Pubhc Library, founded by the bequest of
Hugh Fraser, a Scottish Protestant citizen of Mont
real, and the active work of the Institut Canadien
terminated. The Fraser Institute has about 41,000
books, and of these the Institut Canadien con
tributed 8,000. The chief hbrarian is French, and
the assistants speak French. There is no other free
hbrary in Montreal except that in the basement of
the Jesuit Church, and that in the Cercle Fille
Marie, controUed by the Sulpicians. These hbraries
are rather for theological students than serious
attempts to supply hterary and scientific works.
The result is that one-half of the patrons of the
Fraser Institute are French Canadians, who read
not only science and hterature which the Jesuits
and Sulpicians might supply, but who may also
obtain there books proscribed by the Index, and
even such books as invited the condemnation of the
Institut Canadien. The Iristitut, however, stiU exists
in name, and meets once a year for the election of
75

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
officers. At the last meeting there were three
members present. It was a long chase, but the
Church was in at the death. ^
1 The material in this and the preceding chapter has been gathered
mainly from the newspapers and periodicals of the time, and from a
pamphlet issued from the office of the Montreal Witness in 1875,
entitled "History of the Guibord Case; Ultramontanism versus Law
and Human Rights." The writer of the pamphlet is, no doubt, un
friendly to the Ultramontanes. The Witness, like Le Pays, was con
demned by Bishop Bourget.

76

CHAPTER IV
QUEBEC AT THE UNION
WHEN Mr. Laurier began the practice of law
at Montreal, pohtical conditions in Canada
were thoroughly unsettled. George E. Cartier had
joined hands with John A. Macdonald and George
Brown to promote Confederation, while the leaders
of the Liberal party in Quebec had broken with
their old aUies of Upper Canada, and assumed the
leadership of the forces opposed to the coahtion
and to Confederation. There was something pa
thetic in the separation of Brown and Dorion.
With a fine and beautiful chivalry Dorion had
borne with Brown's harsh and inconsiderate attacks
upon his church, his race, and his province, and
had set the great pubhc objects which they had in
common far above private resentments and mo
mentary irritations. The pohcy of Brown doomed
Dorion to a hopeless struggle in his own province,
and shut him out even from the sympathetic regard
of the mass of his compatriots. His authority de
clined. He suffered personal defeat. He was super
seded in the leadership of his own party in Lower
Canada. But despite defeat and contumely, loss of
influence, and exclusion from office, his aUegiance
to Brown remained unshaken, and no word of
77

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
reproach or of protest passed his hps. United
by a positive personal affection, and bound to a
common programme, the two men held together
with simple good faith and unflinching tenacity;
and the chivalry of Dorion was the seal of the
compact. Canada has had few nobler pubhc servants than
Antoine Dorion. A man of magnanimous spirit, of
beautiful character, and of rare sagacity, he fought
through a long pubhc career, in a bitter and fac
tious time, without a stain upon his shield, xmsoured
by reverses, and untouched by sordid bargainings
for the spoils or the dignities of office. Though
smaU in stature, his was stiU a commanding pres
ence, and though his manner was grave and re
strained, his gracious bearing invited approach and
confidence, whUe the music of his voice, the no-
bihty of his face, and his clear and reasoned utter
ance, gave grace and authority to aU that he said
in the private circle, in the court-room, and from
the platform. A statesman hardly less great than
any that Canada has produced, he was also a great
advocate, and he furnishes an unusual instance of
authority at the bar unimpaired by continuous
absorption in pohtics. Formidable as he was in
Parhament and on the pohtical platform, his heart
was probably always in his profession rather than
in the business of the State, and it was fitting that
he should close his career as Chief-Justice of his
native province. His separation from Brown and
78

QUEBEC AT THE UNION
the Liberals of Upper Canada was of short
duration. He opposed the terms rather than the
idea of Confederation, and when the union was
accomphshed, and Mr. Brown had withdrawn
from the Coalition Government, aU sections of
the Liberal party reunited under the leadership
of Brown and Mackenzie in Ontario, and of
Dorion and Holton in Quebec. It may be that
the heartiness of the old understanding between
Brown and Dorion was never quite restored, but
to the last they entertained for each other a
sincere friendship and a great respect, and no
sincerer or more impressive mourner stood before
the open grave of George Brown than Sir Antoine
Dorion.^ It was not by the French Liberals alone that the
terms of the union were condemned in Quebec.
Dorion, the French Cathohc, was joined by Joly,
the French Protestant, while Holton and Dunkin
and Huntington, who ranked with Gait as leaders
''¦ The famous "Joe" Rymal, of Wentworth, who, by the way, opposed
Confederation, in a speech at the Reform Convention of 1867, said :
"The Reformers of Upper Canada were called upon to express all the
gratitude possible for the manner in which the Lower Canadian leaders
had stood by them. Of Mr. Dorion no one had cause to complain. If
there had been a statesman in the Canadian Legislature for the past
ten years — if there had been an honest politician in the whole box and
dice of them — Mr. Dorion was the man. When he was enticed to sin
he would not consent — he would not follow the multitude to do evil.
If there was one thing which, more than anything else, made coalition
distasteful, it was the fact that these men whom we were forced to
respect had been excluded. None of them went in, and, thank God,
none of them had to go out."
79

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of the English minority in the Lower Province,
ahke opposed Confederation on the basis of the
resolutions of the Quebec Conference. Cartier, with
exceUent temper and just enough of extravagance
to season the observation, declared during the Con
federation debates that the Quebec resolutions were
accepted by aU men of moderate opinions, and
opposed by sociahsts, democrats, and annexation
ists. He said the Institut Canadien had constituted
itself a champion of religion, and professed to fear
that the rehgious rights of French Canadians would
suffer under the new arrangement. The Montreal
Witness, a mouthpiece of Enghsh Protestantism,
contended that under Confederation the British
Protestant minority would he at the mercy of the
French Canadians ; while the True Witness, founded
to defend the Roman Cathohc Church against the
attacks of John DougaU's paper, held that if Con
federation were estabhshed, the French Canadians
would be doomed and their nationahty and rehgion
destroyed.^ This is perhaps an exaggerated and partisan
account of the situation, but it is nevertheless true
that aU these extreme elements were united against
the project of union accepted by the Coahtion
Govemment. Holton and Huntington were greatly
concerned to provide adequate protection for the
educational and rehgious rights of the Protestant
minority in Quebec ; Cartier was equaUy deter-
1 "Confederation Debates," page 61.
80

QUEBEC AT THE UNION
mined to guarantee the separate schools of the
Cathohc minority in Ontario and the other Enghsh
provinces ; while a group of the younger and more
aggressive French Liberals of Quebec, under the
leadership of Dorion, if not quite of the spirit of
Dorion, denounced Confederation as a conspiracy
to anghcize French Canada and place French Can
adians at the mercy of a majority hostile to their
rehgious and national rights. They argued that the
provision in the new Constitution for a federal veto
over provincial legislation, and the power granted
to the Enghsh provinces to increase their represen
tation according to popiUation, while Lower Canada
was condemned to a stationary representation,
would subject French Canadians to the rule of
a majority that would forever increase, and sooner
or later invite confhcts which must destroy the
pohtical influence of the French element in Lower
Canada. It was, in short, contended upon the one
hand that French Canadian nationality and the
privUeges of the Cathohc Church would be im-
periUed by Confederation, and upon the other, that
Enghsh nationahty and the educational and relig
ious rights of Protestants would be exposed to
danger in Lower Canada under the provincial
Government. It was in order to provide against
these conflicting dangers that the educational
clauses were inserted in the Confederation agree
ment, mainly under the direction and inspiration
of A. T. Gait, and that Cartier and Brown
81

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
successfuUy contended against John A. Macdonald
for a federal rather than a legislative union. ^
The most convincing and destructive arguments
against the plan of Confederation were made by
Mr. Dunkin and Mr. Dorion. Dunkin's speech
occupied two days in dehvery, and must always
rank as a great contribution to the pohtical hterature
of Canada. It is a grave and scholarly treatment of
many phases of the controversy, elevated in tone
and invincibly honest in premise and conclusion. It
is the speech of a pessimist, but of a pessimist
under severe restraint ; the speech of a man deter-
''¦ Mr. A. T. Gait was a son of John Gait, the author and founder
of the Canada Land Company. He spent his early years in the service
of the company, and was one of the pioneer railway and steamship
promoters of Canada. He first entered Parhament as member for
Sherbrooke in 1849. He was Inspector-General in the Cartier-Macdon
ald Government and Minister of Finance in the Coalition Government
organized to carry Confederation. He withdrew from the Government
in 1866 on account of its failure to pass legislation securing to the
English minority of Lower Canada a fair share of the pubhc funds for
Protestant schools and a. Protestant Board of Education. Later, how
ever. Gait consented to be one of the delegates to Great Britain to
perfect the scheme of Confederation, on satisfactory pledges from John
A. Macdonald and his fellow delegates that the rights of the Protestant
minority of Quebec would receive adequate protection. In fulfilment
of this pledge, the clauses guaranteeing Protestant schools to the
Quebec minority, and Separate schools to the Catholic minority of
Ontario were inserted in the British North America Act.
Edward Goff Penny, editor of the Montreal Herald, and afterwards a
Dominion Senator, in a pamphlet issued in 1867 entitled "The Proposed
British North American Confederation : Why it Should not be Imposed
upon the Colonies by Imperial Legislation," said : "After the Confed
eration scheme had taken the form of the Quebec Constitution, a fear
was entertained that it would meet with opposition from a majority in
82

QUEBEC AT THE UNION
mined to eschew the cant and buncombe of parish
pohtics, and reason upon high grounds to logical
results. Much that he predicted has come to pass
with consequences the reverse of what he expected,
and many of his conclusions have been discredited
by events. The acquisition of the West, the admis
sion of British Columbia into the Confederation,
and the construction of a railway from older Canada
across the Rocky Mountains and on to the Pacific
sea, in which he foresaw ruin and bankruptcy, and
classed among the wild dreams of optimistic vision
aries, are accomphshed facts, and the fabric of the
Lower Canada — one of the intended members of the Confederation.
This majority was hkely to be composed of two elements ; one being
the representatives of the isolated English-speaking and Protestant
populations of Canada East. These gentlemen saw clearly that, cut off
from Protestant Upper Canada, they would lose all influence in the
legislation upon such subjects as were to be committed to the local
legislature, and their experience did not reassure them as to the con
sequences, especially in matters connected with schools, where differ
ences of nationality are likely to be widened by difference of religion.
In order to prevent them from voting against the measure, therefore,
it was thought necessary to give them guarantees : but as the avowal of
that intention would have probably destroyed the Catholic majority,
the adhesion of the Protestant members was retained by a secret and
confidential letter addressed to one of them by the Finance Minister on
behalf of his colleagues, containing a promise that the required security
should be given in the local Constitution which was to be enacted in
the next session — a promise which, when the j time came, was broken,
for the same reason which made it necessary to keep it secret when
it was given. The writer has no belief in the efficacy of any such special
guarantees in favour of a class under a system of poptJar government.
He does not complain, therefore, that the promise made was not kept ;
but he records the fact to show the unconstitutionality, and irregu
larity, and deception which has tainted the prosecution of this design
from the beginning and throughout."
83

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
union stands strong and unimpaired. It is just as
true, however, that he accurately foretold many of
the shifts and expedients, in violation of the terms
of union, that have been employed to concihate
dissatisfied communities ; and warned with the voice
of a prophet, against the invitation to excessive
provincial expenditures concealed in the arrange
ment for subsidizing the provinces out of the
federal treasury ; against the temptation to provide
local works at the national expense, for party rather
than for national purposes ; and against the confhct-
ing sectional, racial, and sectarian elements, which
would demand representation in the federal Cabinet.
The speech fails in that it is purely destructive, and
while accepting the legislative union of Upper and
Lower Canada as a desirable condition, offers no
remedy for the humUiating breakdown in govern
ment which precipitated the negotiations for Con
federation, and neglects altogether to suggest any
alternative for the system of provincial subsidies,
which were the only substantial compensation to
the provinces for the surrender of customs duties,
and would seem to have been an absolute necessity
to the creation of the Commonwealth.^
Mr. Holton and Mr. Joly canvassed the agree
ment with skiU and prevision, but their speeches do
not show the insight and power of Dorion. Joly
accepted the contention that Confederation would
be fatal to the interests of Lower Canada, and in
^ " Confederation Debates," pages 482, 544.
84

QUEBEC AT THE UNION
view of his Protestant faith and his subsequent
dealing with racial and religious agitations the
grounds of his antagonism are remarkable. For
example he said : " I object to the proposed Con
federation, first as a Canadian, without reference to
origin, and secondly as a French Canadian. From
either point of view I look upon the measure as a
fatal error, and as a French Canadian I once more
appeal to my feUow countrymen, reminding them
of the precious inheritance confided to their keeping
— an inheritance sanctified by the blood of their
fathers, and which it is their duty to hand down to
their chUdren as unimpaired as they received it."^
Notwithstanding this declaration, no one wiU find
in Mr. Joly's long and distinguished career any
thing savouring of a narrow racialism, or other
than frank acceptance of all the obhgations, and
courageous performance of all the duties, of a
robust Canadian citizenship.
Mr. Holton condemned the project of union sub
mitted from the Quebec Conference as premature
and immature. He contended for adequate guaran
tees for the educational rights of the Enghsh minority
in Quebec. He held that the cost of defence would be
greatly and burdensomely increased. He objected to
the construction of the Intercolonial Railway over
the route suggested, and insisted that the cost must
materiaUy exceed the estimates, and that the Upper
Provinces could receive no adequate return for the
^ "Confederation Debates,'' page 362.
85

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
money that would be sunk in the undertaking. He
was dissatisfied also with the proposed distribution
of the pubhc debt among the various provinces, and
argued generaUy that Upper and Lower Canada
must bear an inordinate share of the burdens of the
new commonwealth, and that under existing cir
cumstances to shoulder the obhgations and assume
the responsibihties which the new arrangement
involved must prejudice aU the future of the British
Colonies in North America.^
Mr. Dorion penetrated the new Constitution with
the eye of a seer and the prescience of a statesman.
He declared himself in favour of a confederation of
Upper and Lower Canada, but was against the
inclusion of the Eastern Provinces upon the onerous
terms proposed. In fact, Mr. Dorion, as far back as
1856, had suggested the substitution of a con
federation of the two Canadas for the existing
legislative union, and in 1859 he had joined with
DessauUes, Drummond and McGee, in a manifesto
which declared that a change in the Constitution of
the country was necessary, and that "the logical
alternative now presented to the people of Lower
Canada would, therefore, seem to be dissolution or
federation on the one hand, and representation
according to population on the other." He had said
also in 1861 that the time might come when it
would be necessary to have a confederation of aU
the provinces, but he could not think that time had
^ "Confederation Debates," pages 17, 148, 661, 704, 769, 940.
86

QUEBEC AT THE UNION
yet arrived. This position he now maintained. He
was stiU favourable to a federal union of Upper and
Lower Canada, but he could not accept the wider
scheme of Confederation, with its excessive financial
generosity to the Eastern Provinces. These terms
would impose greatly increased taxation upon
Upper and Lower Canada, and bring no compen
sating advantages. He protested against the great
cost of constructing the Intercolonial Railway, and
insisted that the route should be definitely deter
mined, before the country was hopelessly committed
to Confederation. He predicted heavy and increasing
expenditures for defence, and mainly for the advant
age of the Eastern Provinces, as under the terms
proposed ten-twelfths of the cost of defence must
be borne by the two Canadas. He was opposed to a
nominated Senate, and pointed out that the Upper
Chamber, if the plan of selection from the exist
ing Legislative CouncUs were adopted, would be
fUled with the nominees of four provincial Con
servative Governments. It would take a century
to secure a Liberal majority in a Senate thus con
stituted, and the appointed Chamber would exist as
a menace and obstruction to Liberal legislation.^
He objected also to the large powers of veto vested
in the Federal Government, and saw in this feature
of the Constitution a certain source of confhct
between the local and central authorities. He
^ From 1878 to 1902 no Liberal was appointed to the chairmanship of
a Senate Committee.
87

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
argued that friction and confusion must arise under
the provision which gave to federal ministers the
nomination and maintenance of judges, while the
Legislatures controUed the constitution of the courts,
and determined the number of judges to be ap
pointed. The whole project, he contended, was
designed to end in a legislative union, and assimUate
the whole people to the dominant population. He
therefore demanded that the question of Confeder
ation, and the terms upon which it was proposed to
estabhsh the new commonwealth, should be sub
mitted to the people, or Parhament dissolved and
the members required to go back to their constitu
encies for approval of their course, before the basis
of union was finaUy ratified.-^
It wiU be admitted that Mr. Dorion touched
many of the weak spots in the new Constitution,
and that many of the confhcts which he foresaw
have arisen in the practical working of the instru
ment. If these confhcts were less destructive than
he predicted, it is because Liberal statesmen and
Canadian and Imperial judges have maintained the
federal character of the Constitution, and widened
rather than restricted the legislative sphere of the
provinces. Thus far, however, his forebodings for the
French Canadian people have had shght verifi
cation, for it is hardly an exaggeration to say that
no Government has existed since Confederation
which was not supported by a majority of the
^ " Confederation Debates," pages 246, 269.
88

QUEBEC AT THE UNION
constituencies of Quebec, and was not charged
with subserviency to the French province. Racial
and rehgious minorities almost invariably exercise
their fuU political weight under a system of popular
government. It wiU be remembered that Mr. John Sandfield
Macdonald and Mr. Malcolm Cameron, both in
fluential and distinguished among the pubhc men
of Upper Canada, joined Dorion and his Quebec
aUies in their resistance to Confederation, and
Joseph Howe, of Nova Scotia, conducted a vio
lent and inflammatory campaign against ratification
of the terms of union without submission to the
people. John Sandfield Macdonald argued weU for
a plebiscite, but in deahng with the actual proposi
tions before Parhament he was often ineffective and
inconclusive. He rather stood aside with a sneer on
his face, and in much that he said there was some
thing very hke contempt for the plans and prophe
cies of the buUders of Confederation. This was his
mood aU through hfe. He had the patience and the
determination to do good work with the tools in
hand, but he had no heart for the fashioning of new
implements, and seemed to feel that constitution-
mongering was a pastime for theorists rather than
the practical business of governing statesmen. Al
though a Roman Cathohc, he was, in the main,
hostUe to separate schools, and, notwithstanding his
acceptance of the Scott measure extending the
privUeges of separate schools in Ontario, he offered

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
an amendment during the Confederation debates
vesting in the provincial Legislatures the absolute
authority over education.^
It is more surprising that Mr. John Hillyard Cam
eron, who had some claims to leadership in the
Orange Conservative element of Upper Canada, and
was himself a supporter of the Quebec resolutions,
should have joined Dorion and John Sandfield Mac
donald in the demand for a constitutional appeal to
the people before the resolutions were submitted for
final action to the Imperial Parhament, and should
have actuaUy offered an amendment to that effect.^
The action must have been displeasing to John A.
Macdonald, and particularly as it was so acceptable
to the opponents of Confederation. The Conservative
leader refrained, however, from any manifestation
of his displeasure, and in discussing the amendment
treated Mr. Cameron with scrupulous courtesy and
respect.^ In fact, nowhere does John A. Macdonald show
to better advantage than during the Confederation
^ " Confederation Debates," page 1026.
^ " Confederation Debates," pages 962, 975.
* John A. Macdonald described Hillyard Cameron's speech as an
eloquent and convincing argument for Confederation. John Sandfield
Macdonald interrupted with the remark, "What a compliment!" John
A. retorted, "It may be a compliment, but it is not flattery. A compli
ment is the statement of an agreeable truth ; flattery is the statement
of an agreeable imtruth. Now, were I to state that the honourable
member for Cornwall delivered an eloquent and convincing speech,
that would be flattery, but when I state in all sincerity, that the speech
of the honourable member for Peel was an eloquent and convincing
one, I may compliment, but I do not flatter."
90

QUEBEC AT THE UNION
debates. This may be said with equal truth of Brown
and Cartier. They were firm in purpose, resourceful
in appeal and argument, and thoroughly equal to
any situation which the controversy developed.
They were hkewise uniformly courteous and con-
cihatory, manifestly conscious of the gravity of the
issues under consideration, and profoundly con
cerned to carry the great business to a successful
and honourable conclusion. No one risked more than
Cartier. No one hke Cartier was under suspicion
among his own people and confronted by a hostile
sentiment in his own province. No one, perhaps,
was more influential in determining the character of
the federal constitution. He put into that instru
ment the principles of constitutional government
which he had learned in the school of Papineau,
and fought for in the Rebelhon of 1837; and he
estabhshed against successful legal or pohtical assault
the ample constitutional powers of the provinces.
No doubt Cartier 's chief rehance against the rising
tide of hostile sentiment in Quebec, was in the
Cathohc clergy. These were distinctly favourable to
the scheme of union, and the fact has profound
significance in the making of confederated Canada.
Without Cartier and the Cathohc ecclesiastics of
Quebec, the union of 1867 coiUd not have been
accomphshed. The demand for a plebiscite on the scheme of
Confederation was very strongly supported in
Lower Canada. A score of French Canadian coun-
91

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ties passed resolutions to that effect, and peti
tions against final action in advance of a popular
vote, signed by more than twenty thousand
persons, were sent in to Parliament. Many pubhc
meetings were held throughout the province, at
which addresses were made by A. A. Dorion, L.
O. David, Mdddric Lanctot. J. B. E. Dorion, and
other active opponents of the plan of Confedera
tion. Mr. Laurier spoke at one of these meet
ings, held at Ste. Juhe in Montcalm County, on
February 22nd, 1865. Le Pays fails to give a
summary of the speech, but says that he supported
the arguments of other speakers, and that resolutions
against Confederation, or at least declaratory of the
policy of Dorion, were unanimously adopted.
During aU but a few months of the two years
that Mr. Laurier practised law at Montreal he
was the junior partner of M. Lanct6t, one of the
chief agitators against Confederation. Upon his
admission to the bar in October, 1864, he formed a
partnership with Oscar Archambault and Henri
L. Desauhiiers, under the firm name of Laurier,
Archambault, and Desaulniers. AU three had
passed through McGiU together, and Laurier and
Desaulniers had ranked equal for the degree of
B.C.L. This partnership was more agreeable than
profitable. They found that chents came slowly,
and that it was a considerable undertaking for
even three briUiant young students to build up a
law business in Montreal. The firm was therefore
92

QUEBEC AT THE UNION
dissolved, and in AprU, 1865, Mr. Laurier entered
into partnership with Lanctot. Of the members of
his first firm only himself survives.
The association with Lanctot was probably not
whoUy conducive to the natural development of
Mr. Laurier's character. Lanctot was a fiery and
turbiUent pohtician, of that class who come upper
most in seasons of great social and pohtical unrest,
urge extreme remedies for evils they unconsciously
magnify, command the noisy adherence of an eva
nescent faction, and then pass into obscurity and
neglect as conditions settle and the saner forces of
the community regain control. His father was a
notary of St. Remi, who was arrested in 1838 for
the part he took in the Rebelhon, and exiled for
many years to Australia. The son was born a few
weeks before his father's deportation, and inherited
the father's spirit and the father's temperament.
He studied law with Joseph Doutre, and at twenty
years of age was selected to edit Le Pays. In 1860
he resigned his editorial office, and established him
self as an advocate. StUl later he founded La
Presse, and in 1865, in order to retain his clients,
took Mr. Laurier into partnership. Lanct6t plunged
into the agitation against Confederation, and in
association with L. A. Jettd, Desird Girouard,
L. O. David, and other young and aggressive
spirits, estabhshed L' Union Nationale as the chief
organ of the anti-union movement. Mr. Jettd,
as was said elsewhere, is now Sir Louis Jettd,
93

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec ; Mr. Girouard,
after many years of distinguished service in the
House of Commons, is a judge of the Supreme Court
of Canada, and Mr. David, the life-long friend of
Mr. Laurier, is City Clerk of Montreal. In 1867
Lanctot ran for Parliament for Montreal East
against Cartier, but was defeated, and subsequently
was ruined by unwise and venturesome speculation.
He then went to the United States, changed his
rehgion, estabhshed a Protestant paper, and made
strenuous war upon the Cathohc Church. This,
like so many other of his journalistic ventures,
had a short life, and he was soon back in Montreal
He formed new pohtical aUiances, and supported
Cartier against Jettd in 1872, when the Conserva
tive leader was defeated by 1,300. In 1875 he
assumed the editorship of the Courrier of Ottawa,
and afterwards became a stenographer for the House
of Commons. When he died in 1877 he was but
thirty-nine years of age. He was an able advocate,
a capable journalist, and a political orator of re
markable skiU and power. But, as the brief record
shows, he was unsteady, erratic, and violent, car
ried on from extreme to extreme by the passions
and prejudices of the moment, and often at the
mercy of his greed for power, fortune and popu
larity.^ During the brief term of Lanctdt's partnership
1 See a sketch of M6d6ric Lanct6t in " Mes Contemporains," by L. 0.
David.
94

QUEBEC AT THE UNION
with Mr. Laurier the firm's clients were received in
the editorial offices of L' Union Nationale, and Mr.
Laurier seems to have devoted himself chiefly to
their interests and to the prosecution of his profes
sion. He seldom contributed to the paper, and had
no responsibihty for its policy on public questions.
The office of L' Union Nationale was on the first
floor of an old house on Ste. Thdrese street, long
since demohshed and replaced by a more modern
structure. Though it was a breeding place of faction
and a nursery of extreme opinions, aU the confusion
and clamour, aU the shouting and stamping, had no
enduring, if indeed any temporary, effect upon Mr.
Laurier's opinions, and stiU less upon his manner
and character. He could not adopt the ways of
even sincere demagogism, and his admirable bal
ance of mind and temper kept him from intem
perate courses and rash decisions.
Although sxuTOunded by an atmosphere of pol
itical pessimism as weU as of racial narrowness, he
spoke even then the language of fervent Canadian
patriotism that he speaks to-day. Since his earhest
utterances he has never said a word that breathes
the spirit of racial bigotry, or warms the idea of a
separate national existence for the people of Que
bec. He seems to have acquired at a very early age
a singularly clear grasp of the main principles of
free parhamentary government, and there is a re
markable maturity in his earhest appreciations of
the spirit and efficiency of British institutions. 95

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
It was here that Mr. Laurier was first introduced
to Dr. Frdchette. One day, writes Dr. Frdchette in
a sketch of Mr. Laurier which appeared some years
ago, as the junior partner was leaving the office on
the way to the Court House, Lanct6t said, " Let
me introduce you to M. Laurier, my partner in
this strugghng firm of lawyers. A future Minister ! "
Laurier smiled, exchanged a few pleasant words
with Dr. Frdchette, and passed out. When he had
gone Lanct6t added with enthusiasm, " There is a
head for you ! Did you notice it ? The young man
who has it on his shoulders is sure to make himself
heard of yet in the world. Why, sir, he is a poet,
an orator, a phUosopher, a jurist — I cannot pretend
to enumerate aU his talents ; but mark my words,
he is a coming man. Do not forget that face."^
He was as much a student during these years at
Montreal and later at ArthabaskaviUe as he had
been at L'Assomption CoUege and at McGUl. His
mastery of the Enghsh tongue and love of Enghsh
books greatly influenced his character and opin
ions. At this time he spoke and wrote chiefly in
French, while he read in Enghsh and even thought
in Enghsh. This imphed no lack of love for the
briUiant language of hterature and diplomacy which
was his birthright. He has always reverenced his
native tongue, and facing an unsympathetic Parha
ment on a memorable occasion in the mid-stream
of his political career he uttered the fine sentence,
^ Tach6's " Men of the Day," 2nd series, page IB.
96

QUEBEC AT THE UNION
" So long as there are French mothers the language
AviU not die."^ But he was quick to recognize the
fact that on this continent Enghsh must be the
language of commerce, of politics, and of hterature,
and that a command of Enghsh speech was essen
tial to fuU and effective participation in the hfe of
the community. Even in youth he had to meet the
taunt that he spoke French with an Enghsh accent,
and it was sought to use the gibe to his discredit
among his compatriots. But he smiled at such at
tacks, perseveringly perfected himself in Enghsh,
and knew weU that he was steadily increasing his
capital both as a lawyer and as a pohtician. He
derived his knowledge of Enghsh mainly from the
study of Enghsh books, and from the habit of
thinking in Enghsh. It is said that he translated
from the French into Enghsh aU of Shakespeare
and much of MUton, while he has dipped deeply
into Enghsh poetry and the great Enghsh essayists,
and has devoted long and laborious study to the
choicest specimens of Enghsh oratory. He is fond
of Burns and of Tennyson. Bright's speeches he
knows as they are known to few Enghsh readers.
Macaulay's history and essays are among his
favourite studies. He finds an enduring charm in
Mr. Goldwin Smith's simple and exquisite Enghsh.
Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg and the second
Inaugural he ranks among Enghsh classics, and
perhaps no other career in history has taken such
1 "Hansard," March 16th, 1886, page 180.
97

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
hold upon his heart and imagination as that of the
inspired and martyred President. He has read every
book that has ever appeared deahng with that
strange priest and prophet of the common people ;
and though of far finer textiu'e than Lincoln, his
own hfe and character reveal something of the
patient purpose and sUent, strenuous endeavour,
which distinguished the American President.

98

CHAPTER V
IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
MR. LAURIER did not easily overcome his
vagrant tendency towards journahsm and ht
erature. According to Dr. Frdchette, he began to
pubhsh, whUe at Montreal, " a narrative, half tale,
half legend, written in clear and vigorous style, and
containing a mingling of interesting historical de
tails with sketches of men and manners, which
disclosed a most original faciUty of observation,
together with a rare mastery of our language."^
This sketch was written in French and appeared
in L' Independance Nationale. As Dr. Frdchette
surmises, it was never completed, and the story
and the journal in which it was printed are ahke
forgotten. Mr. Laurier was now greatly affected by weak
ness of the lungs, and in order to fight the progress
of the disease it was deemed essential that he
should leave Montreal. Mr. David in "Mes Con
temporains" says, "I seem to see Laurier as he was
at that period ; Ul, sad, grave, indifferent to aU the
uproar round about him, he passed in our midst
hke a shadow." Mr. J. B. E. Dorion, or Eric
Dorion, as he was famUiarly caUed, had just died
1 Tach^'s "Men of the Day," 2nd series, page 18.
99

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
at L'Avenir, and his paper, Le Defricheur, was
likely to cease publication. Mr. Laurier saw a
chance to combine law and journalism, so he
formed a partnership with M. Guitte, a printer of
St. Hyacinthe, and bought the paper.
The man whom Mr. Laurier succeeded in the
publication of Le Defricheur was as remarkable in
his way as Lanct6t, but had a steadiness of aim
and a resolution of purpose which Lanct6t whoUy
lacked. Eric Dorion's father was a member of the
Assembly under the Constitution of 1791. He was
the sixth child, and among his brothers were Sir
Antoine Dorion and Judge WUfrid Dorion. The
elder sons were educated at Nicolet CoUege, but
ill fortune overtook the famUy, and at fourteen
years of age Eric was thrown upon his own re
sources. In 1843 he started a paper at Three Rivers,
but the venture did not succeed, and in 1849 he
founded L'Avenir in Montreal.
Perhaps no such revolutionary programme has
ever been advocated elsewhere in Canada as that
championed by L'Avenir. It was the organ of the
Rouge platform adopted in 1848 by a group of
young French Radicals, among whom Doutre,
Laflamme, Papin, Laberge, and Eric Dorion were
conspicuous. They gave at first an uneasy support
to Lafontaine, but when Papineau returned from
exile, re-entered pubhc hfe, quarreUed with La
fontaine, attacked the constitutional settlement of
1841, and declared for repubhcan institutions, they
100

IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
deserted the more conservative statesman, and
accepted Papineau 's irresponsible and revolutionary
leadership. Their programme covered a great hst of
pohtical and educational reforms, and demanded
repeal of the union and a republican form of
government. They were hostUe also to a State
religion, and some among them even to any form
of rehgion, and they looked to union with the
United States as the natural and preferable political
destiny of the British American provinces. Papineau
himself gave his support to the annexation move
ment of 1849, and in 1850 voted in Parhament to
receive a petition in favour of Canadian inde
pendence. The programme was advocated by Dorion in
L'Avenir with passionate and reckless enthusiasm,
and from time to time between 1848 and 1853, new
measures are recommended, and luminous exposi
tions of the various propositions fiU its columns. On
January 4th, 1850, as manager of L'Avenir, he issued
an address to the people of Quebec, and the pro
gramme seems then to have been weU developed.
In subsequent issues he deals with its various
planks, and it is often republished and strenuously
commended to pubhc consideration. In the issue
for May 21st, 1851, the programme appears in
L'Avenir over Dorion's signature, and he points
out in the introductory sentences that the year
promises to be fruitful in struggle and in vigorous
work for the French democracy. The people, he
101

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
says, wiU soon be called upon to elect their repre
sentatives in the Legislative Assembly, and the
Democrats wiU require to use all their energy and
aU their strength in order that they may be repre
sented by men sincerely devoted to the popular
interests, and determined in their soul and con
science to obtain for Canada the social and pohtical
reforms of which she is so badly in need. He says
that with a view of suggesting to the Democrats a
coUection of some of the measures which they
should urge at the next general election, L'Avenir
pubhshes the programme which always has been,
and wiU always continue to be, the programme of
that journal. He invites " aU the friends of progress
to put themselves in frequent communication with
the editors on all the questions which might con
cern the coming elections, and particularly such
questions as the candidates of the different pohtical
parties, their means of success, and the discussions
and results of the meetings held in parish and
county; in one word, aU that may interest the
parties to the cause that we defend."
The programme as it appears in this issue of
L'Avenir, declares that education should be as
widespread as possible ; asks for progress in agricul
ture and for the establishment of model farms;
favours colonization of uncultivated lands within
reach of the poorer classes ; demands free navigation
of the St. Lawrence ; as free exchange of products
as possible; reform of the judicature, decentrali-
102

IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
zation of the judiciary, and codification of the laws;
postal reform, and the free circulation of news
papers ; a less expensive administration of govern
ment than existed, with reduction of salaries in aU
the branches of the Civil Service, and a reduction
in the number of employees; creation of parish
municipahties ; decentrahzation of power; elective
institutions in aU their fullness; an elective Gov
ernor; an elective Legislative Council; an elective
magistracy; election of aU the heads of public de
partments; electoral reform based on population;
universal suffrage ; the summoning and duration of
Parhament to be fixed by law; prohibition by
special statute of the representatives of the people
accepting offices of emolument under the Crown
during the exercise of their mandate, and untU one
year after its expiration ; abohtion of the seignorial
tenure; abohtion of the tithe system; abohtion of
the Protestant Clergy Reserves; abohtion of the
system of State pensions ; abohtion of the privileges
of lawyers, and freedom for every man to defend
his own case; equal rights and equal justice for aU
citizens ; repeal of the union ; and finaUy, and above
all, the independence of Canada, and its annexation
to the United States. "This," says Dorion, "is
what we ask. This is what we wiU ask always
and unceasingly until these improvements and
changes, these liberties, have been granted to the
Canadian people. Without these hberties, without
these reforms and many others, there is no
103

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
salvation for our people. As long as an anti
quated and corrupt Government wiU refuse these,
we consider that there should be no inaction
and no rest for any friend of this country. And so
long as the people have not compelled on the
electoral platform the recognition of their undeni
able rights, they wiU always resemble a band of
helots, that some men may exploit for their own
profit and lead where they please without their
knowing why or how." It may be mentioned that
upon this platform Dorion unsuccessfuUy contested
Chambly for a seat in Parhament, and that during
this year L'Avenir ceased pubhcation.
La Minerve, the Conservative and clerical organ,
said that the Rouge party was formed in hatred of
Enghsh institutions, of the Constitution which it
declared to be vicious, and of responsible govern
ment, which it thought to be a farce; that it pro
claimed revolutionary ideas in rehgion and pohtics,
was inspired by a profound hatred of the clergy,
and formaUy avowed the intention of annexing
Canada to the United States. Dorion's platform
goes to sustain the indictment. The authors of the
programme, in fact, adopted many of the opinions
of the revolutionary agitators of old France, who
had just estabhshed the Second Repubhc on the
final ruin of the Bourbons, and some of the chief
spokesmen of the group exhibited aU the enthusiasm,
the extravagance, the effervescent optimism, and
reckless irresponsibility of their continental proto-
104

IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
types. They contributed, however, to the achieve
ment of many necessary and useful reforms. It
is true, as Mrs. Humphry Ward teaches in "Mar-
ceUa," that pohtical extremists improve the old
rather than create new conditions. Many of these
young Rouges sobered and steadied as the years
passed, and ripened into moderate and responsible
statesmen, while they remained "strenuous to the
uttermost of hberty." But for the time they put
the Liberal party of Quebec under suspicion of the
more conservative elements of the community, they
widened the breach between the French and Eng
hsh populations, and they arrayed against the Liberal
party the tremendous force of the Roman Catholic
Church. Eric Dorion was one of the founders of the Institut
Canadien at Montreal and a persistent advocate of
popular education. He was active in organizing
branches of the Institut throughout Quebec, and
his fiery zeal and invincible enthusiasm were power-
fuUy enlisted in the desperate struggle with Bishop
Bourget. It was in the prosecution of this burning
controversy that he was named "L' Enfant Terrible,"
and the term fitted his thin frame and dehcate
features so admirably that it clung to him as long
as he hved. He was as deeply interested in coloni
zation and in farming as in education, and in order
to stimulate to better methods of agriculture in
Quebec, he founded a model French colony in the
Township of Durham. He caUed the colony
105

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
L'Avenir, either after his paper or as significant
of "the future."
It is characteristic of the man that he should
have estabhshed his colony in the centre of an
Enghsh population, and should have selected
a township called Durham. Many of the more
aggressive leaders among the French people resent
ed the tone of Lord Durham's report of 1839, and
particularly the statements that Lower Canada
must be governed by the Enghsh element, and
that the only power that could obhterate the
nationality of the French Canadians would be that
of the numerical majority of a loyal and contented
Enghsh population. It wiU be remembered that
Lord Durham had described the French Canadians
as an old and stationary society in a new and pro
gressive world, and said: "The institutions of
France, during the colonization of Canada, were, per
haps, more than those of any other European nation,
calculated to repress the inteUigence and freedom
of the great mass of the people. Those institutions
foUowed the Canadian colonist across the Atlantic.
The same central, Ul-organized, unimproving, and
repressing despotism extended over him. Not merely
was he aUowed no voice in the government of his
province or the choice of his rulers, but he was not
even permitted to associate with his neighbours for
the regulation of those municipal affairs which the
central authority neglected under the pretext of
managing. He obtained his land on a tenure singu-
106

IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
larly calculated to promote his immediate comfort,
and to check his desire to better his condition ; he
was placed at once in a hfe of constant and unvary
ing labour, of great material comfort and feudal
dependence. The ecclesiastical authority to which
he had been accustomed estabhshed its institutions
around him, and the priest continued to exercise
over him his ancient influence. No general provision
was made for education; and, as its necessity was not
appreciated, the colonist made no attempt to repair
the neghgence of the Government. It need not
surprise us that, imder such circumstances, a race
of men habituated to the incessant labour of a rude
and unskiUed agriculture, and habituaUy fond of
social enjoyments, congregated together in rural
communities, occupying portions of the whoUy un
appropriated soU, sufficient to provide each family
with material comforts, far beyond their ancient
means, or almost their conceptions ; that they made
httle advance beyond their first progress in comfort,
which the bounty of the soil absolutely forced upon
them; that under the same institutions they
remained the same uninstructed, inactive, unpro-
gressive people."^
Eric Dorion laboured to remove these reproaches,
to preserve French Canadian nationahty, and to
rouse the spirit of emulation and enterprise in the
French population. It was in direct pursuance of
^ "Report and Despatches of the Earl of Durham," London, 1839,
pages 16, 17.
107

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
these objects that he established his French colony
in Durham, and undertook to supply a practical
example of progressive agriculture in the face of an
Enghsh community. One of his first performances
in the new colony was to build a church with his
own hands in order to show that he was opposed,
not to the Church as a moral and rehgious institu
tion, but to its intermeddling in pubhc affairs, and
practical patronage of popular ignorance. In 1854
he was elected to Parhament for Drummond and
Arthabaska, and was re-elected in 1861, and 1863.
In 1862 he founded Le Defricheur. The word
" ddfricher " means " to turn up the virgin soil " and
"Ddfricheur" maybe translated "settler." It was
not so translated, however, by one of the speakers
during the Confederation debates. Mr. Denis took
the word to mean " clearing " and declared that the
paper had never cleared anything except govern
ment advertisements when the elder Dorion was
Attorney-General for I^ower Canada.^ Eric Dorion
opposed Confederation, and his speech in the House
is remarkable for a phUosophical examination of
the position Quebec wovUd occupy as a state of the
American Union, and the contention that Confed
eration must tend to drive Canada into the arms
of the Republic.^ In Le Defricheur, however, he
sought mainly to inculcate habits of thrift and
1 Paul Denis, M.P. for Beauharnois, in the "Confederation Debates,"
page 879.
2 " Confederation Debates," pages 866, 871.
108

IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
industry, to estabhsh the dignity of labour, and to
awaken the people to the necessity for better edu
cational methods, and the more general diffusion
of inteUigence. The early fervour of his spirit had
passed, and he avoided the semi-rehgious topics
which led to confhcts with the Church and invited
clerical interference in pohtical contests. He died in
1866, and Le Defricheur passed into the hands of
Mr. Laurier.
In the winter of 1866, Mr. Laurier left Montreal
to take charge of the paper. He received his first
pubhc banquet on the eve of his departure. His
plans seem to have been weU matured. He had
decided to open a law office at ArthabaskaviUe,
and to remove Le Defricheur to the seat of the
judicial district. The first issue of Le Defricheur
under the new management appeared on November
28th, 1866, and its pubhcation was continued at
L'Avenir, imtU the first weeks of 1867, when the
plant was removed to ArthabaskaviUe. Le Pays of
December 11th, 1866, says: "Le Defricheur has
resumed its regular pubhcation. Mr. Laurier, if we
may judge by his programme, whUe retaining in
Le Defricheur its spirit, its turn of thought, and
occupying himself, as did Dorion, vidth pohtical
economy, agriculture and industrial education, w4U
give to it aU the hterary care for which Dorion had
no time. Mr. Laurier knows weU the pohtical
history of Canada; he is a sincere and enlightened
patriot, distrusting exaggeration and false Liber^l-
109

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ism as much as mere routine ; he is studious and
subdued ; he is an energetic and distinguished
writer; his views are broad, his mind upright and
loyal ; in a word, he is one of the most solid, and at
the same time most briUiant young men we know.
With aU his qualities, and moreover, his legal mind
and love of work, Mr. Laurier is in a position
to render important services to the Eastern Town
ships and to the Liberal party while preparing
himself for a glorious career."
Le Defricheur, however, was on the verge of
collapse when Dorion died, and Mr. Laurier could
not command the capital necessary to repair its
broken fortunes. The utmost that he could do was
to postpone the burial for a season. Besides, the
hberal spirit of his writing brought down upon Le
Defricheur the censure of Bishop Lafleche, of Three
Rivers, and many of his clergy; and under the cir
cumstances of the moment he was powerless to
wage successful battle against the strong arm of the
Church. After a few months of struggle, the effort
to maintain the paper was abandoned in April,
1867, and Mr. Laurier was free to devote himself
to the practice of his profession. But he had more
than his share of iU fortune at this period. Just as
Le Defricheur succumbed he was stricken with a
serious iUness, and many weeks passed before he
was restored to anything like physical vigour. Even
if Le Defricheur had lived, Mr. Laurier would
probably have found it difficult to maintain an
110

IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
active interest in its pubhcation. He could not be
expected to settle down to the unromantic drudgery
of rural journahsm, and absorption in editorial
duties could only have diverted attention from his
profession. He was finding himself in those days,
and the brief experience with Le Defricheur was at
best but a halt by the wayside. Many a young
advocate in other provinces than Quebec has found
his first earnings at the bar pitifuUy inconsequential,
and has dreamed of by-paths to fame and fortune.
It is unfortunate that the files of Le Defricheur
were accidentaUy destroyed by fire many years ago,
and it is therefore impossible to quote at length
from Mr. Laurier's editorial writings in exposition
of the views he then held on social, economic and
pohtical questions, and the temper and method
of his journahsm.
One, however, and it is beheved, one only copy
of Le Defricheur survives. It is the issue of De
cember 27th, 1866, and is addressed to "Chas.
Pacaud" in the handwriting of Mr. Laurier. It
retains Eric Dorion's motto, " Work ennobles " ;
to the left the words, " Read ! people of the fields,"
and to the right, " Read the great popular book."
In the left-hand upper corner of the first page are
the words " Wilfrid Laurier, Redacteur." It wiU be
remembered that Eric Dorion was a determined,
even a violent opponent of Confederation, and
much of his writing was vehement, passionate and
tempestuous. In the issue of December 27th two
111

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
articles deal with the question of union. The spirit
of the writing is that of Le Defricheur rather than
that of Laurier. It is not in keeping with his vale
dictory at McGiU nor with his earher speeches in
the Quebec Legislature. There is no doubt that he
was in sympathy with the elder Dorion's campaign
against Confederation, and probably beheved that the
main object of the Enghsh advocates of union, out
side of Quebec, was to restrict the privileges and
curtaU the pohtical power of the French population.
That was undoubtedly the hope and expectation of
George Brown, and John A. Macdonald's prefer
ence for a legislative rather than a federal union
tended to support the conviction of the French
Liberals. Moreover it would be difficult to abandon
summarily the pohcy of Eric Dorion and impose
upon Le Defricheur's constituency opinions and
arguments hostile to aU its life and teaching. A
public journal, hke an individual, develops character
and personahty, and only by gradual steps can it
deny its past and repudiate its own utterances. At
least it is true that if Mr. Laurier at twenty-five
years of age opposed Confederation on the basis of
the Quebec resolutions, he heartily accepted the
union when it became an accomphshed fact;
and no one man in Quebec was more influential in
reconciling the dissentient elements in the French
Province to acceptance of the settlement and in
infusing into his French compatriots the broader
spirit of Canadian nationahty. But, however that
112

IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
may be, the writing in this vagrant copy of Le
Defricheur has historical interest, and it is necessary
to give the evidence as it exists. It is noticeable
that in these articles the phrase "the Enghsh
Colonies" is sometimes itahcized, and that through
out there is a hvely fear of the effects of Con
federation upon the French population. The chief
article reads : —
"Le Journal des Trois Rivieres has put the
foUowing question to us : —
" ' WiU not the union of aU the provinces of
British North America place them in a better posi
tion to escape the dangers of the future than their
present isolation ? '
"Le Journal des Trois RiviSres is one of the
zealous advocates of Confederation. The manner in
which it has put the question shows fuUy what it
thinks, and gives us the secret of its sympathies : if
it preaches Confederation, it is for the welfare of
the Enghsh Colonies in British North America!
The welfare of the Enghsh Colonies ! That is its
first thought !
" Let us first say this in justice to Le Journal
des Trois Rivieres, that its ideas are in perfect
conformity with those of its masters.
" When the Ministers undertook their Confedera
tion, they had in view only the Enghsh Colonies ;
the basis of aU their calculations, of aU their hopes,
of aU their projects, was always the Enghsh Colo-
nies. 113

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
" WeU, that is not the way we politicians of the
Papineau school look at the matter ; when any
change whatsoever is proposed in our political or
social institutions, we do not look to see whether
this change wiU be of use to the English Colonies
or to any other neighbour ; we think only of Lower
Canada and of the French race.
"What have we in common with the English
Colonies ? WTiat interests, what relations bind us to
them ? Is it a matter of origin ? rehgion, language,
national aspirations ? No ! Not at aU !
" We have nothing in common with the English
Colonies, except that we are aU dependent upon
the same metropohs.
" That is the reason of the servihty of Le Jour
nal des Trois Rivieres and of the ministry. For
what other name can be given to the conduct of
him who, in the constitutional changes which are
imposed upon his nation, sees only the danger,
more or less, or the benefit which is drawn there
from by those with whom he shares the honour of
the colonial yoke ?
" Le Journal des Trois Rivieres and the other
advocates of Confederation have forgotten that
they were French Canadians in order that they
might not lose sight of the fact that they were
Enghsh colonists.
"Therefore, before examining whether Confed
eration wiU place the Enghsh Colonies of British
North America in a position to escape the dangers
114

IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
of the future, we shaU examine whether Confedera
tion is of use to Lower Canada and to the French
race. " We do not care a fig for the Enghsh Colonies,
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Is
land, Newfoundland. We have the same relations
with them as with Australia; we are colonies of
England, that is aU. The only difference is the
distance, greater or less, which separates us.
"Le Journal des Trois Rivieres is an advocate
of Confederation because it wiU place the English
Colonies of America in a position to escape the
dangers of the future ; we are the opponents of it
because it wiU be the tomb of the French race and
the ruin of Lower Canada.
" Working in Lower Canada, that is to say in its
natural sphere, the French race exercises its in
fluence to the whole extent of its strength. When
it wUl be mingled with a race five times larger,
whose tendencies are diametricaUy opposite, either
one of two things wiU happen : either it wUl foUow,
like a docUe slave, the Enghsh and Protestant
majority, and before long become Enghsh and
Protestant as it is, or else it wiU struggle, a power
less minority, and in place of being swaUowed up
and drowned peacefuUy, slowly, with a fuU know
ledge of the situation, it wUl be reduced to mercy
by violence.
" The project of Confederation binds us hand
and foot to the Enghsh Colonies. We can do
115

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
nothing, absolutely nothing. AU important ques
tions are within the sphere of the federal Govern
ment, that is to say, the Government of the Enghsh
Colonies, and aU the acts of our little local Parlia
ment can be modified, corrected, cut, enlarged,
annuUed by the same Government. It has fuU
power over our institutions, our laws, our acts.
" It is not even a Confederation ; the federal
form attributes to the central Government only
the direction of affairs common to aU the states;
the affairs pecuhar to each state are left to its own
control, and no one — neither the central Govern
ment nor any one else — has the right to intervene.
Here everjrthing is quite the contrary ; the central
Govemment has the upper hand over everything —
remember, over everything. That is a badly dis
guised legislative union which in a few years wiU
not be even that.
" It would be idle now to discuss the question
whether the union of the provinces woiUd place
them in a position to escape the dangers of the
future, but as we do not wish to be behind in
the matter of pohteness towards our confrere, who
has promised us a reply, we are going to approach
his question.
"Before formulating this question oxu: confrere
triumphantly hurled at our head this cry : ' Union
is strength,' in a tone which meant ' Answer that if
you can.'
" We rephed at once and we reply again : Union
116

IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
is strength, yes, but only when the elements united
are homogeneous. It wiU be in vain for you to
throw together incongruous elements ; there wiU
be no strength, there wiU not even be union.
"The union of Ireland and England has been
neither strong nor happy any more than the imion
of Hungary and of Italy to Austria. If there was
any identity whatever between Ireland and Eng
land, between Himgary and Italy and Austria, they
would have been formidable powers. Far from that,
these unions have been weak and deplorable.
"Are the provinces of British North America
homogeneous ? Let Le Journal des Trois Rivieres
reply. "What are these dangers which the union of the
provinces would place us in a position to escape ?
"These dangers can come only from the aggres
sion of the United States. Would Confederation be
a match for that powerful colossus ? Could our five
mUhons of confederated people cope with the thirty
mUhons of men who make up the American union?
That idea is chimericaL We said before in another
article, and we repeat it: it is necessary to see
things as they are, and to speak as we see; when
you wUl have made Confederation you wiU be
armed with an egg-sheU to stop a buUet, you wiU
have placed a wisp of straw in the way of a giant.
"Very far from placing the colonies in a position
to escape the dangers of the future. Confederation
AviU create new dangers. 117

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
"In this strange union every contrary element
will meet face to face; the Cathohc element and
the Protestant element, the Enghsh element and
the French element. From this moment there will
be strife, division, war, anarchy; the weakest ele^
ment, that is to say, the French and Cathohc
element, wiU be dragged along and swaUowed up
by the strongest.
" From whatever point of view it is regarded, the
project of Confederation is false and fuU of dangers.
There is not one man, not even M. McLeod, editor
of Le Journal des Trois Rivieres, who is not forced
to admit that.
"M. McLeod asks us merely for a reply, but we
wiU go farther; we wiU teU him frankly, bluntly,
why he and the thorough-going Conservatives give
their support to such a radicaUy bad project: it is
not because they believe that the union of the
provinces will put them in a position to escape the
dangers of the future, that is only a miserable pre
text ; the real reason is hatred of the Liberal party
and of Liberal ideas.
"When in 1864 the Conservative party lost
power, the Liberal party was going to take posses
sion for a long time. The Conservative ministry
suddenly turned around and aUied itself with Mr.
Brown and the Clear Grits, who demanded Con
federation as the price of this aUiance. The sacrifice
of principles cost M. Cartier httle; the former (Mr.
Brown) placed in his hands a portfolio which was
118

IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
ardently sought; he did not hesitate ; a large num
ber of his pohtical foUowers left him from that
time, but an equaUy large number — among them
M. McLeod — accepted the new aUiance of their
master and the pohcy which foUowed. This aUiance,
this pohcy, they detested from the bottom of
their heart, but it was the only means of throw
ing into opposition the Liberal party and Liberal
ideas. "You have succeeded, gentlemen; you have ob
tained a temporary triumph ; but you have kiUed
nationahty!" The second article is headed, "A new project of
Confederation," and reads : "The foUowing despatch
was received from London last week: 'The dele
gates from the English provinces of North America
have agreed upon the basis of a project of Confed
eration. The project wiU be submitted for the
sanction of Parhament as soon as it is drawn up.'
According to this despatch, we may expect to see
nothing less than a new project for Confederation
substituted for the old one. What can be the reason
for this modification? The delegates from the prov
inces are the same men who drew up the project
with which we are acquainted; the idea of changing
it, therefore, cannot come from them. This altera
tion must then have been demanded by the Gov
emment of the Metropolis. WiU the people at last
understand that the Canadian ministry are the
valets and slaves of the Colonial Office?" 119

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
There is a third article weU worth quoting.
Charles Pacaud, of Stanfold, had quarreUed with his
clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Duhaut, and had refused
to pay the tithe which aU Cathohcs in Quebec are
obliged to pay their curds. The tithe, or as it is
caUed in French, le livre, is nominaUy one-tenth of
aU the grains harvested. In practice, however, this
amount is never levied. The tax is reaUy one
twenty-sixth. . Pacaud refused to pay this tithe for
various reasons. He contended that the clergyman
in question was not a curd or rector but only a
missionary, and that only a curd or rector perman
ently appointed was entitled to the tithe. He
claimed that the property on which it was sought
to coUect was only recently cultivated, and did not
yield sufficient return to pay the labourers employed
thereon. There were also various other aUegations,
and finaUy the contention that the clergyman did
not acknowledge the supremacy of the Queen. The
chief objections urged, however, were the title of
Rev. Mr. Duhaut to the position and to the tithe.
At the Court of Review in Quebec, Judge Stewart
maintained the plea of Pacaud that the clergyman
was not entitled to the tithe inasmuch as he was a
missionary and not a permanent curd. But Chief
Justice Meredith and Judge Taschereau held, as
Le Defricheur says, "that the curd was entitled
to the tithe from the simple reason that he occupied
the parsonage." The amount involved was not more
than twenty doUars. It was the principle which was
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IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
at stake. Pacaud was condemned by the Court to
pay the tithe for the past, and the only way in
which he could escape the obhgation for the future
was formaUy to renounce the Cathohc religion.
This he did; and until his death in 1895 he was
a Protestant, and his family are stiU Protestants.
The case excited extraordinary interest in Quebec.
Pacaud was a wealthy merchant and money-lender
at Stanfold. His wife was a sister of Judge Mon
delet, who gave the first judgment for Madame
Guibord and the Institut Canadien against the
cure and fabrique of Notre Dame at Montreal,
and one of the most independent and fearless
judges that have ever sat on the bench in Quebec.
Under the heading, " Insulter," the surviving copy
of Le Defricheur thus deals with the judgment
pronounced against Mr. Pacaud, and with the
comments of a contemporary journal : —
" Le Journal des Trois Rivieres reports a case
of Duhaut against Pacaud in which the Court of
Revision at Quebec decided that ' the tithe is due
to the curd from the simple fact that he is in
possession of his parsonage.'
" We do not know the facts of the case, but from
the httle knowledge we have of the matter, and
independently of the high authority of Judges
Meredith, Stewart and Taschereau, we beheve
their decision perfectly conforms to the principles
of the old French jurisprudence.
"That, however, is no reason for insulting Mr.
121

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Pacaud, the condemned party, as does Le Journal
des Trois Rivieres.
" If Mr. Pacaud maintained the contrary of the
thesis sanctioned by the judgment, he certainly
had a plausible cause, and there was nothing in it
but a pure question of law. Every party who
prosecutes before a court a htigious claim, whether
weU founded or not, provided that it be plausible,
exercises a legitimate right, and to make it a
reproach to him that the court did not see as he
did is foohshness, if not bad faith.
" But it is not enough for Le Journal des Trois
Rivieres to insult the hving ; it attacks the dead ;
it rummages the tomb. After its tirade against Mr.
Pacaud it exclaims : " Ah ! if the late Defricheur
stiU hved you would hear it cry, ' Pay ! Baptiste,
Pay!' " Notice aU the scarcely veUed hatred against
Mr. Dorion which pierces through this paraphrase !
Do you not see glee, barely hidden, that the ' late
Defricheur ' has ceased to exist ? Let Le Journal
des Trois Rivieres understand weU if the 'late
Defricheur' stiU lived it woiUd not say 'Pay!
Baptiste, Pay I '
"Mr. Dorion attacked vicious institutions, waste,
squandering; he denounced these things to the
people, but he never discussed the apphcation of
the existing law.
"This malevolent insinuation hurled at Mr.
Dorion when he was ahve, would have been only
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IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
one more calumny added to those of which he was
the victim ; to-day it is simply cowardice.
"There were insiUters of tombs before Le
Journal des Trois Rivieres, but they displayed their
hatred openly. To foUow to the tomb the memory
of a man by malevolent insinuations and half formu
lated accusations is a depth of meanness hitherto
unknown."^ Outside of Quebec or Montreal, Mr. Laurier
could not have selected a better centre for the
practice of his profession than ArthabaskaviUe;
whUe it was fortunate for the man and fortunate
for Canada that he was to pass so many years of
his hfe among a mixed French and Enghsh popu
lation. He was in daily contact with one of the
crucial problems of government in Canada, and
the conditions were altogether favourable to a sane
and tolerant study of the sympathies, the preju
dices, and aU the social and pohtical ideals of both
French and Enghsh. Twenty-five or thirty years ago
ArthabaskaviUe was a straggling viUage of a few
score houses, a few primitive industries, a parish
church, and a Cathohc coUege, set in a vaUey and
surrounded by a wide sweep of farming country.
And ArthabaskaviUe has slept on down the years,
and is to-day very much what it was a generation
ago. The Judicial District of Arthabaska covers the
counties of Drummond, Arthabaska and Megantic.
^ The copy of Le Ddfricheur from which these quotations are taken
was obtained from Mr. Charles A. Gauvreau, M.P. for Temiscouata.
123

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
The seat of the Superior Court is at Arthabaska
viUe, and there are circuit courts at Drummond-
ville, in the County of Drummond, and at Inver
ness, in the County of Megantic. The population
of Drummond comprises French, Enghsh, Irish,
Scotch, and American elements, whUe that of
Megantic is chiefly French and Scotch, and especi
aUy Scotch in the townships of Leeds and Inverness.
Mr. Laurier soon acquired an exceptional popularity
in this community, and rose steadUy to a position
of leadership in its public concerns. His French
neighbours took a vast pride in his gifts and attain
ments, and he soon won an abiding place in the
esteem and confidence of the Enghsh-speaking
people, and particularly of the Scotch element.
The severe candour, the shrewd, keen wit, the simple
direct logic of the Scotch mind, have always
fascinated Mr. Laurier. He said once that if he were
not French he would choose to be — Scotch.^ A
pregnant pause just before he pronounced the last
word gave a pecuhar rehsh to the jest and a
flavour of Scotch shrewdness to the observation.
He was speaking at Toronto, and the natural
thought of his audience was that he was feehng for
the native sympathies and proper racial self-esteem
of the Enghsh-speaking people of Ontario. But he
gave a deft turn to the sentence, and one saw
behind the speaker that great host of Scotsmen
^ Speech at the Banquet of the Toronto Board of Trade, January 5th,
1893.
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IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
in Canada who constitute such a powerful element
in the voting strength of the Liberal party. Nothing
was further from his thought than to use a social
occasion for a party purpose, or to estimate cheaply
the good quahties of Enghsh or Irish. He knew
that the ingratiating word would be understood,
but his audience could not know so weU that
behind the chaffing humour of the moment was
a downright sincerity. Mr. Laurier's hking for the
Scotch is the growth of years and the fact of a hfe-
time. It is the product of his home life with the
Murrays of New Glasgow and his long social and
business intercourse with the Scotch settlements of
Drummond and Megantic.
For some years Mr. Laurier practiced his profess
ion with zeal and distinction. He was fond of the
work of circuit, and was successful in the conduct of
many important cases. He was tenacious in argu
ment, aggressive in defence, and fair and moderate
in prosecution. He advised with caution, he had
no greed for fees, and was never a maker of
htigation. NaturaUy, office work to a man of his
genius and temperament was drudgery, and he
probably turned sometimes vsdth pathetic weariness
from the petty detaUs of business. It is not true
that Mr. Laurier ever lacked industry, but he
sometimes lacked interest in questions that were
not of pith, size and consequence. His heart was in
the thrust and parry, the heat and vigour of debate
in open court ; and no one who has cared to learn
125

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of his life and work in the court-rooms and on the
hustings of Quebec wiU understand just how he
acquired his early reputation in the other provinces
for excessive amiabihty and lack of aggressive quah
ties. Courtesy is not weakness. A man is not neces
sarily strong and aggressive simply because he is
iU-mannered. Mr. Laurier could always set him
self to a great task with high courage and unflag
ging enthusiasm, and has probably always had to
flog himself into adequate interest in the smaUer
concerns from which no poor man in this practical
world can escape. During these years he was poor
in purse and fraU in health, and with aU his splendid
dowry of inteUect and personahty he had to know
both labour and sacrifice before he got free of debt
and thoroughly estabhshed in his profession.
Two years after Mr. Laurier settled at Artha
baskaviUe, on May 13th, 1868, he married Miss
Zoe Lafontaine, of Montreal, and, if we except the
good gift of children, aU of blessedness that mar
riage yields has been reahzed from this union. Ma
dame Laurier is as admirable and efficient as the
wife of the Prime Minister as she M^as as the
helpmeet of the strugghng barrister of Arthabaska
viUe. With something of her great husband's phUo-
sophic disposition, with good sense, good taste, and
exceUent social tact, she has been equal to the
onerous social duties and responsibihties which have
increased with every onward step in his successful
and influential career. We dweU with unction upon
126

IN LAW AND IN JOURNALISM
the labours and sacrifices which faU upon men who
devote their hves to the pubhc service, but seem to
have httle thought for the burdens which faU upon
the wives of pohticians. It is the fact, however, that
the wife of a party leader bears a load only less
heavy than that her husband must carry, and can
know few of the consolations of the statesman who
finds his recompense in useful and honourable pub
hc service. Official hfe means for women an in
tolerable social strain, and often an intolerable
domestic isolation, and it is not surprising that the
influence of so many women is exerted to turn
their husbands from pubhc pursuits.
Mr. Laurier's marriage set fresh spurs to his
ambition, and insured that sohcitous care for his
health which was essential to his restoration to fuU
physical vigour. His popularity and his fame were
steadUy increasing. He was trusted ahke by French
and Enghsh, and pohticaUy was no doubt stronger
with the Enghsh-speaking electors than with his
French compatriots. Cartier was at the zenith of
his power in Quebec. There was a suUen and
enduring quarrel between the Reform party and
the Cathohc Church. The influence of the clergy
with the French population was formidable. Mr.
Laurier was neither a courtier nor a sycophant,
and could enter Parhament only as an outspoken
and mdependent Liberal, bound by no pledge other
than that of reasonable loyalty to the Reform
party, and recognizing no duty in pubhc hfe except
127

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
to serve the State and promote the common wel
fare. At any rate, aU surrounding influences, and
probably his own inclination, were driving him on
towards pubhc hfe, and the question of his entrance
into the Legislature now rested upon his own
decision and upon the caU for an election.

128

CHAPTER VI
IN TWO PARLIAMENTS
MR. LAURIER had not long to wait for the
opportunity to enter Parliament. The first
Legislature of Quebec after Confederation was dis
solved on May 27th, 1871, and in June and July of
that year a new house was elected. Mr. Laurier was
the Liberal candidate for the electoral division of
Arthabaska, and was opposed by Mr. Edward John
Hemming, who had held the seat during the first
Parhament. Mr. Hemming was a barrister and prac
ticed at DrummondviUe. He was Enghsh and of
some talent, but was not remarkable for sound poh
tical judgment. Le Nouveau Monde, of Montreal, a
clerical organ, founded to combat Liberal tenden
cies and to promote the Cathohc programme, took
notice of the contest in Arthabaska, and said in one
of its issues : " Mr. Hemming has rendered great
services to the county by his devotion to the Sorel
and DrummondviUe road. Unfortunately he has not
always shown himself just and impartial to the
French Canadians and Cathohcs. Mr. Laurier is
personaUy esteemed, but his advanced Liberal
theories wUl prevent Cathohcs from giving him the
cordial support which a Conservative would have
received. It is regrettable that a more acceptable
129

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
candidate is not in the field." The general result
of the election was to maintain the Conservative
administration in office, but Mr. Laurier carried
Arthabaska by a majority of 1,000. His was one of
the notable achievements of the contest, and it is
not surprising that when he went down to the
meeting of Parhament at Quebec, he was heartily
welcomed by his Liberal coUeagues, and excited the
very special interest of his pohtical opponents. His
signal electoral triumph had carried his name all
over the province, and the fact that a new and
striking figure had appeared in pubhc life was
widely recognized.
But he had stiU to meet that crucial test which
checks the progress and breaks the heart of many a
pohtician. Mr. Laurier had proved that he could
impress a judge, move a jury, or sway a pubhc
meeting. These, however, were not conclusive
evidences that he had the manner and the method
of the successful parhamentary debater. The most
effective platform speakers are often unsuccessful
in Parhament. The best parhamentary debaters
often fail on the platform. Life hardly holds a more
poignant humihation than that which comes to the
orator with a great popular reputation, Avhen he
finds that he is impotent and ineffective on the
floor of Parhament, and recognizes that he cannot
adapt himself to the new conditions. No man of
his generation in Canada exceUed Mr. Chapleau in
the arts and graces of popular oratory. His mag-
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IN TWO PARLIAMENTS
netic presence, fiery eloquence, flashing eye, and
sweeping gesture, had a tremendous power over
Quebec audiences, and he was hardly less efffective
when he appeared at great pubhc meetings in the
Enghsh provinces. But as a rule he could not move
the House of Commons. For that audience the
performance was too shriU and strenuous, and he
suffered in comparison with inferior men who had
no platform reputation to maintain. Mr. Laurier
was but thirty years of age when he took his seat
in the Quebec Legislature, and, of course, had then
no platform reputation such as Mr. Chapleau
enjoyed when he entered the House of Commons.
But he had achieved distinct success as a pubhc
speaker, and he must now repeat that success in
Parhament if he was to hold the ground he had
won, and justify his electoral triumph.
The Legislature met on November 7th, and
three days later Mr. Laurier rose to speak on the
Address. It wiU be remembered that the system of
dual representation stiU prevailed, and that many
of the men who were conspicuous figures in the
old parhaments of united Canada and some who
had high rank in the new Federal Legislature had
seats in the Assembly. Among these were George
E. Cartier, Luther H. Holton, George Irvme,
Joseph E. Cauchon, Theodore RobitaiUe, H. G.
Joly, Telesphore Foumier, Joseph G. Blanchet,
and Hector L. Langevin. Such a House could
have no mean debating standard, and only a speech
131

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
with body, spirit, and finish, could make an impres
sion in such surroundings. Contemporary writers
agree that Mr. Laurier scored an unequivocal
success. No doubt the bearing and manner of the
young orator were material factors in this initial
parhamentary triumph. No speech that Mr. Laurier
has ever made reads quite as weU as it was spoken.
The rich, musical voice, the erect form and classic
face, the simphcity and candour which are the out
standing characteristics of the man, cannot be
transferred to paper, and without these the speeches
of Wilfrid Laurier are mere shadows of the actual
performance. This speech, as it has come down to
us, has some of the noteworthy characteristics, but,
of course, does not take rank with the best of his
later dehverances. It has, however, no hint of the
petty quarrels of the hustings. It has none of the
flavour of the scrap-book. There was no threshing of
dead straw in order to prove the fibre of the
speaker's partisanship, and estabhsh his devotion
to inherited party feuds. It is, in fact, not an
echo, but an original utterance, and unquestion
ably reveals independent thinking and matm*ity of
judgment. It is true he does strike one sadly famihar note.
The Speech from the Throne, in dutiful fulfiUment
of the ordained function of such speeches, declared
that the Province was exceptionaUy prosperous,
and in reply Mr. Laurier remarked that Tantalus
was rich, but in sight of abundance was eternaUy
132

IN TWO PARLIAMENTS
starving. Optimism goes with the offices in Canada,
and pessimism with divorce from place and pat
ronage. But there was sound reason for Mr. Lau
rier's lament over the slow settlement of the vacant
lands, and the laggard development of the natural
resources of the coimtry. There was sagacity and
penetration also in his recognition of the industrial
quahties of the people of Lower Canada, and he
was probably not far wrong in his contention that
they could manufacture twenty-five per cent, more
cheaply in Quebec than in any other part of the
American continent. His idea of an industrial im
migration was probably derived from the old Rouge
programme. He argued that it was possible to
check the exodus to the United States by intro
ducing into Quebec the master mechanics and
smaU capitahsts of the cities of Europe, the master
miners of Wales and the north of England, the
mechanics of Alsace, the Flemish weavers, and
the German artisans. There is one sentence in the
speech which has often been quoted as evidence
that he had an early leaning towards the theory of
protection. " It is," he said, " a humUiating confes
sion to make, that after three centuries of existence
this country is stiU unable to supply its own
wants, and that it is stiU obhged to have recourse
to foreign markets, though nature has lavished
upon it aU the gifts necessary to make it a manu
facturing country." He said again, " It is a duty,
especially for us Canadians of French origin, to
133

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
create a national industry. We are surrounded by a
strong and vigorous race, who are endowed with a
devouring activity and have taken possession of the
entire universe as their field of labour." He con
fessed that he was pained to see his own people
eternaUy exceUed by their feUow-countrymen of
British origin, and he insisted that this was due to
purely political reasons. He pointed out that after
the cession the French Canadians, in order to main
tain their national inheritance intact, feU back upon
themselves and held no relations with the out
side world, and that the result was " to keep them
strangers to the reforms which were constantly
taking place beyond their boundaries, and to fataUy
shut them up within the narrow circle of their old
theories." On the other hand, much of the new
blood that was poured into the colony came from
the great British centres of trade and industry, and
this progressive element was ceaselessly renewed
by a constant current of immigration equipped
with fresh information and furnished with new
ideas. "We need, therefore," he said, "have no
shame in admitthig that we were beaten by such
men and under such circumstances." Then he spoke
the message which has always been upon his hps,
which breathes the spirit that has animated aU his
pubhc hfe, and reveals the cathohcity of his pat
riotism, and the depth of his devotion to the ideal
of a united Canada. The times had changed, he
proceeded, and the hour had struck for French
134

IN TWO PARLIAMENTS
Canadians to enter the hsts with their Enghsh-
speaking feUows. " Our respective forefathers were
enemies, and waged bloody war against each other
for centuries. But we, their descendants, united
xmder the same flag, fight no other fights but those
of a generous emulation to excel each other in
trade and industry, in the sciences and the arts of
peace." This was a good rock on which to rest a
career, and to this ideal he has been true in aU his
later teaching.
That he then inclined to protectionism cannot be
doubted. Others of his earher speeches contain very
direct declarations in favour of temporary protec
tion for the undeveloped industries of a new coun
try. For the moment, however, his aim was not so
much to declare a preference for any particular
economic pohcy, as to awaken in the French Cana
dian people an appreciation of their own admirable
industrial quahties, and to lure Quebec into a more
active participation in the industrial and commer
cial hfe of the country. This appears stiU more
clearly in the closing sentences of his address. It
seems that when Mr. Pierre Chauveau took the
office of Premier in 1867, he had been for twelve
years Superintendent of Education in Quebec, and
had just returned from Eiu-ope, where he had gone
to study the various educational systems of the old
world. Mr. Laurier found fault because he had not
embodied in legislation the results of his observa
tions and experience, and emphasized the grave
135

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
necessity for a reform of the existing system of
education. Here he was upon dehcate ground, but
he knew the word which needed to be said, and his
utterance is distinct, straightforward, and unequi
vocal. "In a free state," he said, "everything is
connected and hnked together, legislation, trade,
industry, arts, sciences and letters. All are members
of the same body, the body social. When one of
the members suffers, the entire body is affected;
when there is an abuse anywhere, the entire body
social is more or less paralyzed ; when there is
anywhere something left undone which should be
done, the normal order is thereby disturbed." He
buttressed this position by a sympathetic eulogy of
the reforming zeal of British statesmen, and coun-
seUed Ministers to show equal determination in
overthrowing abuses, and the same high fidehty to
the cause of the people.
It may be that this was not a great speech, but
it wUl probably bear comparison with any speech
that has been made by a man of his years in a
Canadian Parhament. It exhibits at least three
features that are conspicuous in many of his later
addresses : (1) The appeal to British ideals in states
manship, and the assertion of the unequaUed free
dom and efficiency of British institutions ; (2) the
apt classical aUusion, the flavour of hterature, the
ghmpse of the wisdom of the books and the au
thority of the past ; (3) the eager plea for unity and
cooperation among aU elements of the Canadian
136

IN TWO PARLIAMENTS
people, and the solemn prayer for a final truce to
ancient quarrels and inherited prejudices.
As has been said, the speech was weU received.
It was received with enthusiasm by his party
associates, and with respect by his pohtical oppon
ents. In this particular the French Canadians are
more generous than we more phlegmatic and self-
contained Enghsh people. It is a common obser
vation at Ottawa that the social relations of the
French members are substantiaUy unaffected by
pohtical differences ; and surely if our party contests
are fairly waged and there is integrity in our pubhc
hfe, that is the saner and the better fashion. It
was recognized from this moment that Mr. Laurier
must become a force in the pubhc hfe of the
country, and that in his own province he had no
serious rival among the younger men in the Liberal
party. Holton and Dorion were stiU in harness, but
death was soon to strike the one, and the other was
shortly to pass to the Bench for which he had such
natural and such eminent qualifications. Keen-eyed
students of men and affairs saw in Mr. I^aurier
one who seemed to combine the fine and strong
quahties of both these veterans, and marveUed at
his surefootedness and remarkable equipment for
pubhc service. He was, however, not an exception
aUy active member of the Legislature, and only
two or three of his important speeches have been
preserved. In fact, he has never been a frequent
speaker, even in the House of Commons. Until his
137

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
assumption of the Liberal leadership, he was rarely
heard, except when great questions were in issue,
or local interests demanded his attention. His heart
was in the fine old hbrary, rather than in the heated
party quarrels which too often disturbed the seren
ity of the Legislative Chamber, and, except when
he felt the real pressure of pubhc duty, he was care
less whether or not his name figured in Hansard.
Just two weeks after he spoke on the Address,
the question of dual representation arose in the
Legislature, and he made a speech which reveals a
close study of the Canadian Constitution, and a
thorough grasp of the essential features of the
federal system. He argued that dual representation
was not compatible with the federal principle, and
must be fatal to the freedom and independence of
the Legislatures. The sphere of the Legislature was
the protection and conservation of local interests,
and that of the federal Parhament the conservation
and protection of general interests. The represent
ative who was aUowed to sit in both Houses must
have divided duties and conflicting interests, and
the inevitable tendency must be for the local body
to sink into a position of subordination to the
central Parhament. This was sound reasoning, and
the position is amply supported by subsequent
developments in our pohtical history. A few years
later the argument prevailed both in Quebec and in
Ontario, and it is long since any one has thought
that our Constitution would be a workable pohtical
138

IN TWO PARLIAMENTS
instrument if federal ministers or members could sit
in the local parliaments, or local members proceed
from the consideration of provincial interests in the
Legislatures to the consideration of questions which
know no provincial boundaries, and which could
not be profitably involved in the exigencies of local
pohtics. We owe to the free action of the local parha
ments the final interpretation of the Constitution in
the spirit of its founders, and the ultimate triumph
of the federal principle, for which the Liberal
leaders contended at Confederation. This speech,
much more clearly than the speech on the Address,
revealed the young member for Arthabaska as
an earnest student of constitutional questions, a
keen and sagacious observer of political tendencies
and conditions, and an accomphshed master of
the art of debate.^
Le Pays discussed the speech with positive en
thusiasm. The Montreal Herald, the chief Liberal
paper of Quebec, said: "Mr. Laurier, the young and
talented member for Arthabaska, made the speech
of the evening. It was remarkable for lucidity and
power of argument. Many gentlemen accustomed
to parhamentary debates, pronounced it the ablest
address given this session. His French is remarkably
pure, and gives evidence of the highest culture and
education." Le Nouveau Monde again took occasion
^Mr. Laurier's speech on the Address in the Quebec Legislature, and
also that on Dual Representation will be found in the collection of his
speeches, published at Quebec in 1890, and edited by Mr. Ulric Barthe.
139

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
to combat his Liberal opinions, but freely recog
nized the strength, grace, and finish of the speech,
and the distinct impression made upon the House.
Two orators, said Le Nouveau Monde, shared the
attention of the Chamber, — Irvine and Laurier. It
added: "Mr. Laurier speaks with an elegance and
purity of style unknown in the Legislative As
sembly. Mr. Chauveau alone can dispute the palm
with him in this respect. His voice, sonorous and
supple, knows every variety of inflexion. In debate
he is cahn, and goes back to first principles. Un
fortunately, his studies have lain along Liberal, not
to say Sociahst, hues. In his speech he brought out
the theory of Rousseau on the social contract. To
hear him, society is nothing else than the result of
a contract by which each of its members divests
himself of his rights. Now this theory is false from
every point of view, and cannot be admitted in
Christian society. It is from that theory that every
revolution has sprung. Rousseau wished that mem
bers of society could never resume the rights they
gave up. But his disciples rephed, rightly enough,
that one generation could engage only itself, and
that the contract could be kept only so long as the
majority consented. From the point of view of the
social contract, this argument is irresistible. When
armed with this principle, men sapped the bases of
society, or overthrew every government in suc
cession, untU at last it covUd be said that Europe,
and particularly France, became ungovernable. On
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IN TWO PARLIAMENTS
studying the Christian theory closer, and comparing
it with that he appears to embrace, Mr. Laurier
wiU see that the first is infinitely superior to the
second in every respect. But we have wandered far
from the double mandate." Le Nouveau Monde, in
truth, would wander far from any mandate in order
to attack the Liberal party of Quebec, and the
principles of government which Mr. Laurier repre
sented. It is interesting to remember that the
resolution against dual representation, for which
Mr. Laurier spoke so long ago, was introduced by
Mr. F. G. Marchand, who represented the fine old
Liberal county of St. Johns in the Quebec Legis
lature for an unbroken term of more than thirty
years, and has left a memory of private virtue, and
a record of pubhc service as pure and as blameless
as any that Canadians are permitted to cherish.
But it was not in the Quebec Legislature that
Mr. Laurier was to find his sphere of service. The
Liberal leaders were not slow to perceive that his
natural field was in federal affairs, and he was easily
persuaded to seek election to the federal Parha
ment. He therefore resigned his seat in the Legis
lature, and at the general election of 1874, as
stormy a time as our pohtics have known, he stood
for the Commons for Drummond and Arthabaska,
and was returned with 238 of a majority. He took
his seat in the first Liberal Parhament returned
after Confederation, and the only Liberal Parlia
ment which Canada knew untU he himself led the
141

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Liberal party to victory nearly a quarter of a
century afterwards. His desk mate was Dr. Louis
Frdchette, and though that briUiant scholar and
writer soon wearied of the stress and strain of party
warfare and returned to his books, there was then
formed between the two a friendship as close as
it has proved to be enduring. Dr. Frdchette thus
describes Mr. Laurier's introduction to the House
of Commons : "As the resounding triumph of his
ddbut in the Legislative Assembly of Quebec had
placed him in the highest rank among the most
briUiant French orators of his own province, so
that which marked his entry into the House of
Commons, in 1874, carried him at one bound to
the distinction of being almost without a peer
among the Enghsh-speaking debaters of the Domin
ion."^ There is, perhaps, a touch of extravagance in
this burning eulogy, but it is quite tiue that he
spoke with extraordinary acceptance, and from the
outset was greatly hked and profoundly respected
by the House of Commons.
His first speech was made in French as seconder
of the address in reply to the speech with which
Lord Dufferin opened Parhament on March 30th,
1874. It was not until the next session that Han
sard was estabhshed, and the press reports of Mr.
Laurier's speech are imperfect and inadequate. The
mover of the address on that occasion was Mr.
Thomas Moss, who represented West Toronto for
'^Tach^'s "Men of the Day,'' second series, page 21.
142

IN TWO PARLIAMENTS
three sessions and then resigned his seat in order to
accept a judgeship. Mr. Moss was a man of briUiant
attainments, whose untimely death was a grievous
loss to the Canadian judiciary. The pride which the
Liberals of Ontario took in Mr. Moss was probably
quite equal to that which the Liberals of Quebec
had in Mr. Laurier. It is seldom indeed that two
such interesting figures have been found among
the new members of a Canadian Parhament, and
rarely, if ever, has the task to which they were
assigned been so weU performed. Three years
later the one was a Minister of the Crown, and
the other Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal
for Ontario.
Mr. Laurier said that under our Constitution we
had freedom, privilege, and the power of a great
nation, combined with the advantages of connec
tion with the British Empire. He did not beheve
the Constitution could be replaced by another as
good. Some of them had been opposed to Con
federation years ago because they doubted if the
scheme of union was practicable. But the moment
they were defeated in 1867 they set to work to
make Confederation a success. The French Cana
dian Liberal party were not hke the Liberals of
France or other nations of the continent of Europe,
who were at any time ready, by violence, to over
turn existing Governments. They resembled rather
the Liberals of England, who for so many years
worked and voted for reform, and by constitutional 143

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
means achieved the grand results which they saw
to-day. From the moment the opponents of Con
federation in Canada were defeated they bowed to
the decision, and frankly and earnestly endeavoured
to advance the interests of the new Dominion.
Their programme was based upon the principle of
respect for authority and fuU acceptance of the
obligation to labour for the general good of the
country. Our Constitution was founded upon the
British Constitution, and that was the finest under
which men ever hved. It secured to every man his
hberty, and enabled him to exercise his constitu
tional rights without fear and under the protection
of authority. There was nothing on this continent
to equal that great Constitution. It was particularly
fitted to unite citizens of different races, nationah-
ties, and rehgions, and in these respects even the
Constitution of the United States had been less
successful. There was not a man in Canada who
did not support the union, and the process of
welding into one the different provinces had been
so successful that they were aU proud to be Cana
dians, while equaUy proud to be subjects of the
British Empire. If to-day there was a man among
them who woiUd seek or desire to sever the union,
he deserved no place in the community, and was
unworthy of the privUeges and advantages of Brit
ish citizenship. He affirmed, he said, without fear
of contradiction, that we presented a spectacle of
civil and rehgious hberty not surpassed in the
144

IN TWO PARLIAMENTS
world, and we had none of those questions to
trouble us which excited the passions of people, and
disorganized society in European nations.^
According to the Toronto Mail's report, Mr.
Laurier declared that he " gloried with Mr. Moss
in the connection of this Dominion with the Em
pire. The Liberals of Quebec were not of the same
school as the Radicals of France, but of the Liberal
school of England, who desired to accomplish re
forms in a constitutional manner. They did not
wish to effect a change which had not the sanction
of the majority. It was in such a way that the
British Constitution had been framed and handed
down to us in aU its perfection after the wisdom of
centuries had been employed in the great work."
The Mail adds that he concluded " with a briUiant
peroration." This was spoken twenty-seven years
ago, but it is in spirit and in letter exactly what
Mr. Laurier has said aU down the years, and it
would be hard indeed to overestimate the services
which this eloquent French Canadian has thus
rendered to the cause of Canadian unity, and to
the integrity and sohdarity of British institutions
on this continent.
Mr. Laurier also discussed the questions raised
in the Speech from the Throne, and we shaU find
in his other observations some declarations of pohcy
to which he has tenaciously adhered, and glimpses
of that courageous programme of development
1 Reports of the Toronto Globe and Montreal Herald,
145

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
which is the characteristic feature of his Adminis
tration. He rejoiced that it was proposed to im
prove our commercial facUities, and to increase our
industrial resources, and that among the measures
promised, those relating to commercial development
were so prominent and so important. He argued
that the desire of the Liberal Government to have
a raUway constructed to the Pacific was quite as
strong as that of their predecessors, but that commer
cial rather than pohtical reasons should determine
the route, and measure the scale of expenditure.
He was glad, too, that the Govemment had pro
mised the enlargement of our harbours and canals,
and these he described as the real source of the
greatness to which Canada was destined. This ques
tion, he said, had been before the country for years,
but the work had never been vigorously prose
cuted, and he contended that in determining our
pohcy we should look not simply to the next few
years but to " the great future." He passed on to
the question of reciprocity, and spoke strongly for
better trade relations with the United States. He
hoped that the Commissioners then at Washington
would succeed in negotiating a treaty, and argued
that Canadians generaUy favoured reciprocal trade
relations with the Repubhc. This no one then dis
puted. At that time the leaders of both the great
pohtical parties in Canada would have heartUy
accepted the widest measure of reciprocity with the
United States, so long as discrimination against
146

IN TWO PARLIAMENTS
Great Britain was not involved ; nor would anyone
have discovered that treason was practised or the
British Empire endangered by the consummation
of such a natural and beneficial arrangement. Politi
cal exigencies did not yet require new tests of
loyalty and new statutes of treason. He spoke also
for amendment of the election laws, for simul
taneous polhng, and for the creation of a Supreme
Court for the determination of legal and constitu
tional questions which had stiU to be submitted for
consideration to the law officers of the Crown in
England.^ The speech was undoubtedly successful, or at
least as successful as a French speech can be in the
House of Commons. But no man who speaks only
in French can make a reputation in the Canadian
Parhament, largely influence the deliberations of
that assembly, or appreciably determine the course
of events in the country. If Mr. Laurier's speech
on this occasion had been made in Enghsh, it
would have excited general attention throughout
the Enghsh-speaking provinces, and have set him
at once in the front rank of the debaters of the
Commons. At it was, the speech was almost un
noticed outside of Quebec, and his eloquent
interpretation of the attitude of French Canadian
Liberals towards the Confederation and the Empire
was imperfectly heard and imperfectly understood.
Z%e Globe's parhamentary correspondent had
''¦ Reports of the Toronto Globe and Montreal Herald.
147

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
this reference to the speech : " Mr. Laurier, the
seconder, spoke in French, a circumstance that
deprived many members of the pleasure of fuUy
understanding a speech that those who could enjoy
it declared to be of the highest order. Mr. Laurier's
appearance is youthful, but he is already weU known
as an eloquent pubhc speaker, and he addressed the
House with the quiet but earnest manner of a prac
tised debater. He, hke the mover of the Address,
was warmly cheered by both Ministeriahsts and
Opposition members when he sat down." On the
foUowing day The Globe made editorial reference to
the speech as foUows : " Mr. Laurier, who spoke in
French, must, judging from the translation which
appeared in our columns, have worthUy foUowed
Mr. Moss, nor was it any wonder that the comph-
ments of the Prime Minister and of Sir John
Macdonald should have been struck in another
than the formal key adopted on such occasions."
A writer in La Minerve, the French Conservative
organ of Montreal, describing the new Parhament,
and more particiUarly the younger French members
from Quebec, said : " Since the name of Mr.
Laurier has faUen under my pen, I must say, at the
risk of causing him to shudder, that his speech, so
eloquent, so conservative, has not placed him in the
odour of sanctity with his leaders. His profession of
political faith, his confidence in our new institutions,
must sound strange in the ears of Dorion, who pro
claimed in the House that Confederation was a
148

IN TWO PARLIAMENTS
failure. If I did not know the independence of
character of Mr. Laurier, I would recommend him
to the good cares of Geoffrion and Paquet." The
Montreal Gazette, also Conservative, in its parha
mentary notes remarked : " Mr. Laurier gave his
friends, the Rouges, a rather hard hit by declaring
that he was of the Liberal party which was based
on the model of the constitutional liberals of
England and not those of France."
Sir John Macdonald, as Leader of the Conserva
tive Opposition, spoke immediately after Mr. Lau
rier, and warmly comphmented the mover and
seconder of the Address on the speeches they had
just dehvered. Mr. Laurier, he said, had "fuUy
justified the reputation which he had brought with
him." He added that " he did not wish to confine
his approbation to the manner of the honourable
gentlemen, but must comphment them mostly on
their matter. He agreed with the seconder when he
said that sociaUy and pohticaUy the Liberals of
Canada were not hke those of France but those of
England, who had raised the people without a
revolution to their present high position." This
reference of Sir John Macdonald to the hkeness of
the Liberals of Canada to those of Great Britain
was heartUy cheered, as was Mr. Laurier's eloquent
assertion of the devotion of Canadian Liberals to
the methods and ideals of the great leaders of
British Liberahsm. It but remains to add the
tribute of the Prime Minister to Mr. Moss and Mr.
149

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Laurier. Mr. Mackenzie heartily congratulated both
members, and declared that during the time he
had sat in Parhament and hstened to similar
speeches he did not recoUect an occasion when
he had heard the gentlemen acquit themselves so
weU as they had upon this occasion. Although both
gentlemen sat as a matter of course upon the
ministerial side of the House — at least so far as the
ministerial benches could hold them — everyone, he
was sure, would be pleased to welcome such an
addition to the debating power of the House. This
in brief is the story of Mr. Laurier's first appearance
in the Parliament of Canada, and these the favour
able circumstances under which he first stood out
in fuU view of the Canadian people.

150

CHAPTER VII
THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
THE Confederation was yet in its infancy when
the negotiations with the Imperial Government
and the Hudson's Bay Company for the acquisition
of the Western Territories were completed. For
many years some of the bolder pohtical and com
mercial spirits of older Canada had agitated for the
abrogation of the great Company's sovereignty over
the West, and for the assertion of Canadian author
ity from the Lake of the Woods to the Pacific.
Speaking in the House of Commons in 1875, Sir
John Macdonald, according to the rather imperfect
Hansard of that period, said: "From the first time
he had entered Parhament, the people of Canada
looked forward to a western extension of territory,
and from the time he was first a Minister in 1854,
the question was brought up time and again and
pressed with great abihty and force by the Hon.
George BroAvn, who was then a prominent man in
opposition to the Government."^ The impulse to
wards the westward march of empire came mainly
from Upper Canada. Quebec, outside the com
mercial interests of Montreal, was hostile or indif
ferent, and the Eastern Provinces shrank from the
1 Hansard, 1875, page 67. 151

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
great obhgations involved in the assumption of
sovereignty over the Western Territories. During
the negotiations for Confederation, the advocates
of territorial extension to the westward found it
necessary to practise reticence and discretion. As
soon, however, as the union was accomplished, the
Hon. WiUiam MacdougaU, who had been trained
under the hand of George Brown, pressed the
question upon the Cabinet and upon Parhament,
and on December 4th, 1867, introduced resolutions
declaring that it would promote the prosperity of
the Canadian people and conduce to the advantage
of the Empire if the Dominion of Canada were
extended westward to the shores of the Pacific
Ocean, and authorizing the Govemment to nego
tiate with the Imperial authorities for the union of
Rupert's Land and the North- West Territory with
the Dominion, and for recognition of the authority
of the Canadian Parhament to legislate for their
future welfare and good govemment. In 1868, in
virtue of these resolutions, Cartier and MacdougaU
proceeded to London to arrange with the Home
Government the terms of settlement with the
Hudson's Bay Company, and the basis of transfer
to Canada.
While the negotiations were in progress, the
Company lodged a complaint against the Canadian
Government for undertaking the construction of a
road between the Lake of the Woods and the Red
River Settlement, without its consent and in con-
152

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
tempt of its authority. There were proposals and
counter-proposals, cautious bargaining on the part
of the Canadian delegates, and determined reluc
tance on the part of the Company to surrender its
sovereignty. But the Imperial authorities steadUy
inchned towards the side of Canada, and at length
terms of settlement proposed by Lord GranviUe
were accepted by the Company and favourably con
sidered by the Canadian Government.
Under this agreement the Company received
a money payment of £300,000 from Canada; the
right to select a block of land adjoining each of its
stations, amounting in the aggregate to 50,000
acres; one-twentieth of the land set out for settle
ment within the fertile belt for fifty years after the
surrender; hberty to carry on its trade without
hindrance in its corporate capacity, and freedom
from exceptional taxes on its land, trade, or servants.
In 1869 the Canadian Parhament ratified this
agreement, and passed an act providing for a system
of territorial government in Manitoba. On Septem
ber 28th, Mr. MacdougaU received the appoint
ment of Lieutenant-Governor, and at once left
the capital for Fort Garry. In advance of his
assumption of office, and at least six months before
the formal proclamation of annexation could issue,
surveying parties were sent up to block out the
new territory, and prepare for its settlement and
administration under authority of the Canadian
Parliament. Mr. MacdougaU reached the Manitoba
153

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
frontier late in October, and it was understood that
on December 1st the transfer to Canada would be
made, and he would enter upon the govemment of
the country. But he found a territory in revolt, an
armed resistance to his advance, and a provisional
govemment estabhshed in the name of the rebeUious
settlers, and under the practical dictatorship of a
vain, rash, and passionate adventurer, about whose
figure centres more of sorrow, of tragedy, and of
confhct, than around any other in the annals of con
federated Canada.
It is now admitted that the Canadian authorities
did not proceed wisely in the negotiations for the
entrance of Manitoba into the Confederation. There
were prosperous and contented settlers in the Red
River country. No one had the right to think that
they could be treated as chattels, and summarUy
handed over to Canada by the Hudson's Bay
Company. It was natural, when Canadian officials
were sent out to take over the government of the
territory, and new surveys were undertaken with
out adequate consultation with these people, that
they should become apprehensive and restless and a
ready prey to adventurers and demagogues. AU the
conditions were ripe for revolt, and the temper of
the settlers was altogether unfavourable to serious
consideration of the possible consequences of rash
proceedings. A Council of Defence was organized
under the leadership of John Bruce, Louis Riel,
and Ambrose Lepine ; the stores of the Hudson's
154

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
Bay Company were plundered, arms, ammunition,
and provisions secured, and a force of five or six
himdred half-breeds coUected. Riel was the active
leader of the movement, and however his fitness
for the office may be regarded, he at least acquired
an absolute authority over the insurgents. The
situation was aggravated by the unsatisfactory
relations which seem to have existed between Mr.
MacdougaU and Mr. Joseph Howe, who, as Secre
tary of State, had gone out to the new territory to
arrange with the Hudson's Bay officials for its
transfer to the Dominion, and to make such explana
tions of the intentions of Canada as would over
come the growing uneasiness among the settlers.
The charge was freely made and widely beheved
that Howe fed the disaffection among the half-
breeds, and quietly and secretly encouraged the
organization of the movement to resist Mr. Mac-
dougaU's entrance into the territory. His own
letters to Sir John Macdonald, however, convey
a very different impression.^ But it is at least true
that when Mr. MacdougaU reached Pembina on
his way to Fort Garry he was met by a delegation
of half-breeds, weU instructed in his movements
and sternly hostile to his mission. They opposed his
advance in the name of the Provisional Council,
and the menace was so effectual that after persis
tent and unsuccessful attempts to communicate
with the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company,
1 Pope's "Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald," Vol. IL, pages 51, 62.
155

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
he was forced to withdraw into United States
territory. He then issued a proclamation command
ing the insurgents to disperse, and threatening
reprisals and penalties in case of contumacy and
persistence in rebeUion. But the proclamation was
disregarded and his threats treated with contempt.
The proceeding, in fact, rather aggravated than
improved the situation. He next attempted with
the aid of CoL Dennis, who had been sent West to
superintend the surveys which chiefly precipitated
the revolt, to raise a force of volunteers in order to
put down the rebeUion. In this, too, he faUed, and
at last, baffled and humUiated, he had no recourse
but to make his way back to Ottawa.
It is, perhaps, not wide of the mark to say that
the mass of the Liberal party secretly rejoiced over
the personal discomfiture of Mr. MacdougaU. It
was felt that he had deserted George Brown at
a critical juncture in the fortunes of the Liberal
party, had driven a wedge of disruption into the
Reform ranks, and had carried many waverers over
to Sir John Macdonald. Liberals were, therefore,
hkely to regard any rupture of his new party
relationships as a merited visitation of Providence.
There was also a general suspicion that the Con
servative leader had sent him out to the Western
governorship in order to get rid of an unworkable
coUeague, and this notion but increased the very
human satisfaction which many Liberals had in his
failure and humihation. However this may be, Mr.
156

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
MacdougaU found himself loaded with censure, and
held to the chief responsibihty for the miscarriage
of the plans of the Govemment, and for the out
break of violence at Red River. He never quite
recovered from this crushing blow to his pohtical
reputation, and though he was stiU to work in
harness with Sir John Macdonald, he was never
thereafter a considerable factor in the councils of
the Conservative party.
Mr. MacdougaU was a man of exceptional gifts, a
briUiant and forceful journahst, and a remarkably
effective platform speaker. Up to middle hfe he
ranked as the peer of the greatest of his con
temporaries. Thereafter he did nothing commensur
ate with his talents, and there is a touch of pathos
in his faUure to make new pohtical aUiances and in
his inabUity or disinchnation to make himself an
enduring force in the country. He sat in the
Commons untU 1874, then in the Legislature of
Ontario as member for Halton from 1875 to 1878,
and again in the Commons from 1878 to 1882. He
latterly professed pohtical independence, but during
the protectionist campaign he was in practical
aUiance with the Conservative party, and a vitriohc
and destructive critic of the Mackenzie Administra
tion. He was, however, excluded from the new Con
servative Govemment, and thenceforward moved
steadUy towards greater freedom of utterance and
wider divergence from the pohcy of Sir John
Macdonald. So far had this detachment proceeded
157

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
by the end of the Parhament that in the general
election of 1882 he stood as an independent Liberal
candidate for Algoma, and again, in 1887, received
the Liberal support in South GrenviUe. But he was
unsuccessful in both contests, and finaUy withdrew
altogether from active participation in pubhc affairs.
On his return from the West he bitterly attacked
Howe, and was at no pains to conceal his chagrin
over the singular treatment he had received at the
hands of the Government. It is not clear that he
was altogether responsible for the conspicuous faU
ure of his Western mission ; and if we take only a
surface view of these events, it is hard to under
stand why he was not more heartily supported by
the men from whom he had received his commis
sion. Sir John Macdonald contended that Mr. Mac
dougaU had attempted to exercise authority before
the Queen's proclamation formaUy annexing the
territory to Canada had issued; that when he re
ceived his appointment, the date on which the
union was to be consummated had not been settled;
that he was sent out in advance of the formal rati
fication of the contract in order to ascertain upon
the spot the needs of the country, the course the
Govemment should pursue to avoid taking the
settlers by surprise, and the best means of estab-
hshing friendly relations between the people of the
North- West and the people of Canada.^ Mr. Mac
dougaU, however, seems to have understood that
1 Hansard, 1876, pages 68, 69.
158

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
the proclamation would issue in advance of his
entrance into the country, and that he was to
assume the immediate and active direction of its
affairs. Besides the high-handed and undiplomatic
conduct of Col. Dennis, and the suspected ma
chinations of Howe, then faUing in judgment and
dechning in vigour, there was also suspicion of bad
faith on the part of Governor McTavish of the
Hudson's Bay Company, and even of positive col
lusion with Riel to check and thwart the plans of
the Canadian Govemment. The weight of popular
condemnation feU, however, upon the shoulders of
Mr. MacdougaU, and he had to conduct his defence
almost single handed. He was strongly attacked in
press and pamphlet, and he struck back with vigour
and passion, and sometimes with an approach to
ferocity. The most bitter and destructive of these
attacks were laid at the door of Howe, and upon
that assumption Mr. MacdougaU addressed to
Howe a series of open letters, which for heat,
pungency, and invective, are not exceUed in the
pohtical hterature of Canada.^
He declared that he was disclosing no secret of
the councU room when he affirmed that in Septem
ber, 1868, except Mr. TiUey and himself, every
member of the Government was either indifferent
or hostUe to the acquisition of the North- West.
They were not ready to act untU it was discovered
that a ministerial crisis respecting the route of the
^ Macdougall's ^' Eight Letters to Joseph Howe."
159

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Intercolonial Railway could be avoided only by
an immediate agreement and immediate action to
secure the transfer of the territories to Canada. He
said that the opposing faction in the Cabinet, led
by Sir George Cartier and Peter MitcheU, forced
Sir John Macdonald, as the price of their consent
to the acquisition of the western country, to agree
to select the long route for the Intercolonial RaU
way in order to strengthen their hands in certain
Quebec and New Brunswick constituencies. By
this surrender, according to Mr. MacdougaU, it was
necessary to construct 138 additional miles of rail
way, to abandon the natural commercial route, to
impose upon the country for aU time the burden of
this unnecessary mileage, and to injure perma
nently the Intercolonial as a medium of inter-pro
vincial traffic. In his own words : " They threw eight
miUions of doUars into the sea." He bitterly assailed
the Cathohc clergy, whom he described as "the
Jesuit alhes" of the Government. "Driven and
being driven," he said, " from nearly every country
in Europe, these dark birds of evil omen seem to
have alighted upon the northern shore of the finest
lakes of America, and to have spread themselves
under the name of Oblats over the vast regions and
among the nomadic tribes of the North-West."
He said the biU for the creation of the Province of
Manitoba, submitted by the dominant faction in
the Cabinet, was on the face of it a biU to estab
hsh French half-breed and foreign ecclesiastical
160

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
ascendency in Manitoba. He declared that it was
proposed to exclude from the new province the
important Enghsh and Protestant settlement of
the Portage, and that " Father Richot expected by
this arrangement to secure for himself and his
faction the easy control of the new Government."
Mr. Mackenzie, he said, with his compasses on the
map, had proved the truth of this suspicion, and
many of the supporters of the Government from
Ontario had threatened to vote with the Opposi
tion, and thus forced Ministers to enlarge the boun
daries of the province and take in the Enghsh
settlements on the borders of Lake Manitoba. Mr.
MacdougaU, it may be said, had an old quarrel
with the Cathohc Church, and was apt to suspect
its motives and perhaps to find its hand in transac
tions with which it had httle concern.^
Dealing with other phases of the controversy, he
told Howe that: "The pohcy of the Canadian Gov
emment, as proved by the terms of Sir John
Macdonald's bUl of 1869 for the temporary govem
ment of the Territories, by the sending of a con
siderable number of officials from Canada, and
instructing me to select others from the officials of
^ Dr. George Bryce, in his " Remarkable History of the Hudson's
Bay Company," says that while Bishop Tach^ was absent in Rome,
" one of his most active priests left behind was Father Lestance, the
prince of plotters, who has generally been credited with belonging to
the Jesuit Order. Lestance had sedulously haunted the presence of the
Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company ; he was a daring and extreme
man, and to him and his fellow-Frenchman, the cur^ of St. Norbert,
much of Riel's obstinacy has been attributed." 161

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the Hudson's Bay Company, was well adapted to
excite the indignation and the moral, if not the
physical, resistance of the people of Red River;
while your seditious talk and bibulous fraternization
with the leaders of the conspiracy at Fort Garry,
and your offensive discourtesy to, and open de
nunciation of, the loyal portion of the inhabitants,
were the most effective complement of the original
design that could have been devised. The one pro
voked rebeUion, the other promised it success." He
added: "From the day on which you received notice
at Ottawa of an armed resistance to my entrance
into the Territory as the representative of the
Canadian Government — information which did not
surprise you — until my return to Canada, the pohcy
of the Government was consistent, and Sir Francis
Hincks teUs us harmonious, in one direction, namely,
to abandon the country." He rejoiced that the
authority of the Dominion had been at length
estabhshed over the vast regions of the West, and
could now be endangered only by treason or in
capacity at Ottawa. He averred, however, that
incapacity reigned supreme in every department,
and that treason was more than suspected. "Trea
son," he said, "not to the lawful sovereign of this
Dominion only, but treason to the people of Can
ada, treason to the interests, civil and rehgious, of
the people of the North-West, treason to human
progress, freedom, and civilization in every province
of the Dominion." 162

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
But Mr. MacdougaU's letters were read in the
light of his own failure and humihation, and, it
would seem, rather entertained the country than
convinced it of the wisdom of his own proceedings.
There was a germ of sohd truth in his indictment,
but he spoke with diminished prestige and lessened
authority. He had abandoned one party, and was
now abandoned by the other, and he therefore
faUed ahke to reestabhsh his own reputation, or
greatly to damage the Administration. It requires a
remarkable man, with sympathetic quahties which
Mr. MacdougaU did not possess, to move opinion
single handed, in the teeth of set party views and
active party machinery, and he must champion
a cause which appeals strongly to the sentiment
and even to the prejudices of the community.
MacdougaU, however, is strongly supported by
Dr. George Bryce in his "Remarkable History of
the Hudson's Bay Company." Dr. Bryce insists that
the Company, both in London and Fort Garry,
was thoroughly loyal to British institutions, but
that its govemment had become decrepit, and the
chronic condition of helplessness and governmental
decay was emphasized and increased by the iUness
of Governor McTavish. There was added to this
condition of pitiful weakness, the unaccountable
and ciUpable blundering of the Canadian Govem
ment. Cartier and MacdougaU had leamed in
England that to send in a party of surveyors before
the country was transferred woiUd be offensive to
163

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the Hudson's Bay Company. More offensive stiU
was the method of conducting the expedition. It
was a mark of sublime stupidity to profess, as
the Canadian Government did, that the money
spent on this survey was a benevolent device for
relieving the sufferers from the grasshopper visita
tion. Moreover, the half-breeds engaged upon the
work were harshly treated, and received poor wages,
and payment even of such wages as they were
promised was delayed. "The evidently selfish and
grasping spirit shown in this expedition sent to
survey and buUd the Dawson Road, yet turning
aside to claim unoccupied lands, to sow the seeds
of doubt and suspicion in the minds of a people
hitherto secluded from the world, was most un
patriotic and dangerous." There was thus, upon the
one hand, a helpless moribund govemment, without
decision and without actual authority, and upon the
other, an irritating, selfish and aggressive expedition,
taking possession of the land before it was trans
ferred to Canada, and assuming the air of conquer
ors. Dr. Bryce goes on to say that the action of
certain persons in the United States also con
stituted a potential factor in the rebeUion. For
twenty years and more the trade of the Red
River Settlement had been largely carried on
by way of St. Paul, in the State of Minnesota.
The Hudson Bay route and York boat brigade
were unable to compete with the facilities offered
164

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
by the approach of the railway to the Mississippi
River. Accordingly long hues of Red River carts
took loads of furs to St. Paul and brought back
freight for the Company. The Red River trade
was a recognized source of profit in St. Paul,
and famiharity in trade led to an interest on
the part of the Americans in the pubhc affairs
of Red River. Hot-headed and sordid people in
Red River settlement had actuaUy considered and
discussed a connection between the settlement and
the United States. At Pembina, on the border
between Rupert's Land and the United States,
hved a nest of desperadoes, wilhng to take any
steps to accomphsh their purposes. They had access
to aU the maUs which came from England to
Canada marked "via Pembina." Pembina was an
outpost refuge for law-breakers and outcasts from
the United States. Its people used aU their power
to disturb the peace of Red River settlement.
Many Americans had also settled in the new viUage
of Winnipeg, now rising near the waUs of Fort
Garry, and these men held private meetings looking
to the creation of trouble, and the provocation of
feehng that might lead to change of aUegiance.
" Furthermore," Dr. Bryce says, " the writer is able
to state, on the information of a man high in the
service of Canada, and a man not unknown in
Manitoba, that there was a large sum of money,
of which an amount was named as high as one
milhon doUars, which was available in St. Paul for
165

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the purpose of securing a hold by the Americans
on the fertUe plains of Rupert's Land." Here then.
Dr. Bryce points out, was an agency of most
dangerous proportions, an element in the viUage of
Winnipeg able to control the election of the first
delegate to the Settler's Convention, a desperate
body of men on the border, who with MachiaveUian
persistence fanned the flame of discontent, and a
reserve of power in St. Paul ready to take advant
age of any emergency.
Dr. Bryce proceeds: "A stiU more insidious and
threatening influence was at work. Here again the
writer is aware of the gravity of the statement he is
making, but he has evidence of the clearest kind
for his position. A dangerous rehgious element in
the country — ecclesiastics from old France — who
had no love for Britain, no love for Canada, no love
for any country, no love for society, no love for
peace I These plotters were in close association
with the half-breeds, dictated their pohcy, and
freely mingled with the rebels. One of them was an
intimate friend of the leader of the rebeUion, con
sulted with him in his plans, and exercised a marked
influence on his movements. This same foreign
priest, with Jesuitical cunning, gave close attend
ance on the sick Governor, and through his family
exercised a constant and detrimental power upon
the only source of authority then in the land.
Furthermore, an Irish student and teacher, with a
Fenian hatred for aU things British, was a 'famihar'
166

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
of the leader of the rebelhon, and with true
Milesian zeal advanced the cause of the revolt. Can
a more terrible combination be imagined than this?
A decrepit government with the executive officer
sick ; a rebeUious and chronicaUy dissatisfied Metis
element ; a government at Ottawa far removed by
distance, committing vsdth unvarying regularity
blunder after blimder ; a greedy and foreign cabal
planning to seize the country, and a secret Jesu
itical plot to keep the Governor from action and to
incite the fiery Metis to revolt !" Dr. Bryce adds:
"Probably the real attitude of Bishop Tachd wiU
never be known, though his strong French Canadian
associations and love of British connection make it
seem hardly possible that he could have been
imphcated in the rebeUion."^
From the first the manifest desire of federal
ministers was to overcome the revolt at Red River
by concUiation and explanation. Upon the return
of Mr. MacdougaU they sent up Vicar General
Thibault, for thirty-seven years a missionary in the
West, Colonel de Salaberry, of Quebec, and Mr.
Donald A. Smith, Chief Factor of the Hudson's
Bay Company at Montreal, to "inquire into the
causes of the rebeUion and to explain to the people
the intentions of the Canadian Government." Bishop
Tachd, who had large influence with the half-breeds,
was recaUed from the (Ecumenical Council at Rome
i"The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company" by
George Bryce, M.A., LL.D., pages 457-468.
167

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
and persuaded to aid the Commission to secure a
pacific settlement. This desirable result would pro
bably have been reached through the tact and
sagacity of Mr. Smith and the good offices of Mgr.
Tachd, if other influences had not intervened to
excite Riel and precipitate open hostilities. Many
of the Enghsh settlers resented Riel's assumption
of authority, and from the Portage, where English
influence was dominant, a force started out to
subdue the Metis and overthrow the rule of the
provisional govemment. The expedition was led by
Major Boulton, and was joined by a contingent of
Enghsh half-breeds from Kildonan. This move
ment drove Riel to extreme measures in order to
assert and maintain his authority. He set up
a dictatorship, seized the federal commissioners,
threatened and imprisoned the settlers who re
fused to recognize his leadership, overcame the
weak remnant of the Portage expedition which
reached the neighbourhood of Fort Garry, and
finally put Thomas Scott to death with vulgar
bravado, stohd heartlessness, and reckless con
tempt of consequences. Scott, one of the most
impetuous and aggressive of western loyahsts, was
condemned without trial, or at least tried in his
absence, and whoUy without opportunity for de
fence, and shot down within an hour after he
had learned that his death was decreed. He was
a member of the powerful Orange Association,
and the fact tended greatly to precipitate upon
168

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
the country one of those infernal sectarian quarrels
which so often divide and bedevil the Canadian
people. The Government stiU held to counsels of pati
ence and methods of concihation. Mr. Donald
A. Smith, who was captured with other loyalists,
soon regained his hberty, and with Mgr. Tachd
laboured strenuously to pacify the settlers and rec
oncile Riel to the rule and authority of the Cana
dian Parhament. Father Richot, Mr. John Black,
and Mr. Alfred H. Scott, were selected by a coun
cU of settlers to go to Ottawa and lay their griev
ance before the Government. In order to give
confidence to the resident population and remove
misapprehension, it was determined by the federal
authorities to estabhsh a provincial instead of a
territorial govemment, and thus give the people of
the settlements the fuU management of their local
affairs. In March, 1870, a biU to this effect was
introduced in Parliament by Sir John Macdonald,
and the Province of Manitoba thereby created.
The Liberal leaders argued that if this plan of
responsible government had been adopted at the
outset there would have been no revolt. But while
they charged lack of vigUance and rashness of
procedure against the Government, they insisted
that a force must be sent out to subdue the rebel
hon and establish and enforce Canadian authority.
Mr. Mackenzie, speaking for the Liberal party in
Parhament, insisted that we must restore order in
169

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the West peremptorily, "or cease to be a nation."
He contended, in opposition to a motion by Mr.
Masson of Quebec affirming the inexpediency of
sending Imperial and Canadian troops to the North-
West, that "they should send five, ten, twenty
thousand men if necessary, but order should be
restored." The Liberal leaders in Ontario vigor
ously emphasized Mr. Mackenzie's demand, and
the murder of Scott and the vindication of Cana
dian authority in the West became burning issues
in provincial pohtics.^
Mr. MacdougaU, however, received his best sup
port, and the agitation its keenest incitement, from
the Canada First group, which now first set its
impress upon the pubhc hfe of the country. In
1869, five young men, aU of whom were to achieve
distinction, met at Ottawa, and with aU the ardour
and enthusiasm of youth and of a vigorous and
sensitive patriotism, resolved to labour for the
moderation of pohtical partisanship, the mitigation
of locahsm and sectionahsm, the purification of
pohtics, and the cultivation of a Canadian national
sentiment. The five who formed the nucleus of
the movement which developed into the Canada
First Party, were Col. George T. Denison, W. A.
Foster, R. G. Hahburton, Charles Mair, and H. J.
Morgan. These were soon joined by John Schultz
^ "The Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, His Life and Times," by William
Buckingham, private secretary, and the Hon. George W. Ross, LL.D.,
page 263.
170

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
of Manitoba. Their first meetings were held in Mr.
Morgan's room at the capital. Recruits were later
added at Toronto, and something hke a formal
organization was effected. Early in the history of
the movement the original half dozen were joined
by J. D. Edgar, Thomas Walmsley, Joseph E.
MacdougaU, Hugh Scott, George R. KingsmiU,
WiUiam Canniff, Richard Graham, and George M.
Rae. These constituted the directing committee
of the organization, and when Scott was murdered
and Mair and Schultz arrested at Tort Garry,
they set to work to excite pubhc opinion against
the timidity and vaciUation which prevailed in the
ministerial councUs at Ottawa, and to force the
equipment and despatch of a mihtary expedition
for the suppression of the revolt. Col. Denison was
undoubtedly the leader of the movement as Foster
and Hahburton were its most eloquent spokes
men. KingsmiU was then editor of the Toronto
Telegraph, and Foster had free access to its
columns. When Scott was murdered the Telegraph
appeared with the "turned rules" and the black
borders of mourning. The spirit and passion of
Foster's editorial utterances, joined to the soberer
but aggressive and unequivocal articles of The
Globe, set Ontario aflame, and powerfuUy in
fluenced the course of events. When Mair, Schultz,
Dr. Lynch, and J. J. Setter, after their escape from
Fort Garry, arrived at Toronto, they were made
the guests of the city, and at the instance of the
171

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Canada First group a pubhc meeting was called
to voice Toronto's sympathy for the refugees,
and to express the popular demand for prompt
and adequate measures to vindicate Canadian
authority. The meeting was called for April 6th, 1870, at
St. Lawrence Hall, but such a vast crowd assem
bled that it was necessary to adjourn outside, and
from the portico of the hall the speakers addressed
eight or ten thousand people. Mayor Medcalf
presided, and speeches were made by the Hon.
Matthew Crooks Cameron, Schultz, Mair, Lynch,
and Setter, and the active leaders of the Canada
First movement. The resolutions adopted by the
meeting welcomed Dr. Shultz and his companions
from the Red River, "who fearlessly and at the
sacrifice of their hberty and property have nobly
resisted the usurpation of power by the murderer
Riel " ; affirmed that the state of anarchy and
rebeUion prevailing in the North-West Territories
called for the prompt and energetic action of the
Dominion Government ; expressed the strongest
indignation at " the cold-blooded murder of poor
Scott " ; and declared that " it woiUd be a gross
injustice to the loyal inhabitants of Red River,
humihating to our national honour, and contrary to
aU British traditions for our Govemment to receive,
negotiate, or treat with the emissaries of those who
have robbed, imprisoned and murdered loyal Cana
dians whose only fault was zeal for British insti-
172

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
tutions, whose only crime was devotion to the old
flag."^ A few days later a great Liberal demonstra
tion was held on Front Street opposite John
HaUam's premises, and an audience of six or seven
thousand persons was roused to enthusiasm and
excitement by simUar trenchant condemnation of
the murder of Scott and the conduct of federal
ministers. The delegates from Riel's Provisional Council
were then on their way to Ottawa to lay the griev
ances of the settlers before the Dominion Govern
ment, and the Telegraph of April 8th had an
article by Foster, headed "The Messengers of the
Murderer — ^Are they to be Received?" The writer
asked if Sir John Macdonald proposed to bring the
Govemment and the people of Canada down to the
level of Riel and his feUow rebels, to treat with,
and make himself and his coUeagues the equals of
murderers, and to shake the hands that were red
with Canadian blood ? Were a thousand commis-
ioners to come down from Riel, their presence
should not prevent the Government from sending a
force to the country. A force must be sent under
any circumstances. Our law and our authority must
be firmly estabhshed. The country must be opened
up to our people, and loyal men must be protected
in the enjoyment of their rights for aU time to
1 During the troubles at Red River, a paper called the New Nation,
issued as the organ of the Provisional Government, openly advocated
union with the United States.
173

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
come. This could be done only by the exercise of
military power. Even though Riel should make an
unconditional surrender, the country would stUl be
compeUed to send soldiers to the territory in order
to prevent further trouble, and in order to see that
when once hoisted over Fort Garry, the old flag
should never again be hauled down. What could
Sir John Macdonald hope to gain by receiving the
rebels? Was the strange announcement that the
Premier had made on the floor of the House
another proof of the power of Sir George Cartier?
Must this be taken as more evidence of the fact
that Sir George was the leader and Sir John the
follower? Cartier, in order to satisfy the people of
his province was determined to receive the rebel
emissaries. Was Sir John Macdonald, the repre
sentative of the Province of Ontario, compeUed to
bow to that determination, and forced to prepare
the public for the coming disgrace by announcing
his intention in the Parhament of the country? Sir
John Macdonald, Foster said, must be breathing an
atmosphere vastly different from that which pre
vailed at Toronto, or he could not dare to talk of
trifling with the national honour. He would not dare
to hint at this national disgrace. During that self
same hour that his sohtary voice proclaimed the
coming disgrace, ten thousand voices in the capital
of Ontario united in declaring that there should be
no treaty with traitors, no intercourse with mur
derers, and the shouts of these ten thousand voices
174

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
found an echo in the hearts of aU the loyal people
throughout the length and breadth of the land.
This was no question of party. This was a question
of patriotism, and the man who trifled with it trifled
with the honour and fair fame of Canada. The higher
his position the greater his crime. Sir John Mac
donald must remember that if these messengers of
murderers were received it would be an everlasting
and intolerable disgrace to the Canadian people.
He must remember that by holding communication
with them for one moment he would give his
opponents fresh power, and drive from his side
thousands who had ever been his friends. He must
remember that what ten thousand people in Toronto
had said a miUion people in Ontario would repeat.
He must remember that the Canadian people
valued their national honour as they did their lives,
and were prepared to sacrifice their lives rather than
that their honour should be tarnished by one spot
or blemish. And let him remember that to the
people who thus held their honour with their
hves, he and his colleagues had soon to render an
account. A few days later, under the caption "Riel's
Ruffians," Foster wrote; "The First Minister of the
Crown announced in the House a few days ago
that these men are to be received by the Govern
ment, their complaints are to be heard, their biU of
rights is to be carefuUy perused, and probably every
demand they make is to be granted. In the whole
175

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
history of the Empire we can find no paraUel for
this disgrace. It has never been the policy of Great
Britain to treat with rebels in arms against her
authority. It has been her pohcy, and the pohcy of
aU other civihzed nations as weU, to trounce them
into submission first, and hsten to their complaints
afterwards. But we do things in another fashion in
Canada in this nineteenth century. We aUow rebels
to kiU and rob our people, to laugh at our authority,
to insult our representative, to trample our flag
in the dust, and then, after they have done aU these
things, nay, whUe they are actuaUy committing
these outrages, we receive their agents and treat
with them for terms  It is not too late to
prevent this disgrace. The ruffians have not yet
arrived in our country. It is an easy thing to send
them word to the effect that their visit wUl be
fruitless, and advise them to return to the man who
sent them."
The statement of Sir John Macdonald in the
House of Commons to which Foster took such
strong exception, was ehcited by a question from
John HiUyard Cameron. He had asked how a
delegation coming with their hands red with the
blood of a feUow Canadian would be treated. The
Prime Minister in reply eulogized Judge Black, the
leader of the delegation, and intimated that he
and his companions would be received by the Gov
ernment. Mr. Mackenzie promptly dissented. He
agreed with Sir John Macdonald's estimate of
176

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
Black, but urged that Richot and Scott were ac
complices of Riel and ought not to be received.
This was the general feehng in Toronto and
throughout Ontario. Pubhc meetings hke those
at Toronto were held at Ottawa, at Hamilton,
at London, and at other centres in the pro
vince, and one also at Montreal. Everywhere
energetic protests were entered against the pro
jected negotiations with the agents of the insur
gents. There were even threats that Richot and
Scott would not be aUowed to pass through To
ronto, and Hugh Scott, a brother of Riel's victim,
had a warrant issued for their arrest as accomphces
in the murder. When it was found that the dele
gates had taken alarm and had proceeded to Ottawa
by way of Ogdensburg, the warrant was sent on
to the capital, and there, on April 14th, Richot
and Scott were arrested. They came before Mr.
Justice Gait on a writ of habeas corpus. John
HiUyard Cameron appeared for the delegates, and
was thought to have been directly inspired by Sir
John Macdonald. Denison and Foster were active
in these proceedings. They had gone to Ottawa
with Schultz and his companions from the Red
River, and remained at the capital to press the
prosecution. The delegates were remanded again
and again, but it was manifestly impossible under
the circumstances to secure adequate evidence to
justify the charge. They were at length released,
and the proceedings abandoned. 177

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
The Government seemed, however, to bow to
pubhc opinion, and towards the middle of May a
punitive expedition, under the command of CoL
Wolseley, started by way of Colhngwood and Thun
der Bay, over the old fur traders' route for the Red
River. But the despatch of the mihtary contingent
did not silence nor abate the activity of the faction
in the Cabinet which was determined to compose
the quarrel by concihation rather than by force.
Just at this time Sir John Macdonald was pros
trated by a long and serious iUness, and Sir George
Cartier, who held the portfoho of Mihtia and De
fence, became the Leader of the Govemment. In
July, Lord Lisgar was at Niagara Falls, and Mr.
Hahburton, one of the leaders of the Canada First
party, who was leaving for England by way of
New York, sought an interview with the (Jovernor-
General in order to urge that vigilance should be
exercised against a possible attempt to introduce
the French laws of Quebec into the North-West.
His suspicions were excited when he found that
Lisgar and his suite had moved from the Clifton
House to a small hotel at the Suspension Bridge.
Suspicion deepened into alarm when in the course
of conversation the Governor-General mentioned
thai within a few days he would be joined there
by Sir George Cartier, Mgr. Tachd, and Mr.
Archibald, who had succeeded IMr. MacdougaU
as Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba. Hahburton
said nothing to Lisgar, but he jumped to the con-
178

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
elusion that a particular and important action was
contemplated. He assumed that an amnesty for the
Red River insurgents was to be proclaimed, and Mr.
Archibald and Mgr. Tachd were to be sent west
through United States territory with the writ of
clemency. He wired Shultz, who was then at Lon
don, that mischief was afloat, and urged by letter
that active steps should be taken to defeat the
plans of Cartier and force Archibald to go west
through Canadian territory in rear of the Wolseley
expedition. Shultz communicated with the Canada
First group at Toronto, and a call was sent out for
a public meeting to protest against the suspected
intention of the Government, and check the pre
mature grant of amnesty to the insurgents.^ The
meeting was fixed for July 22nd, and in addition
to the formal posters the fences and bill-boards of
Toronto were decorated with a series of inflammatory
placards. One of these asked, " Shall French rebels
rule our Dominion ? " ; another, " Shall our Queen's
representative go a thousand miles through a for
eign territory to demean himself to a thief and
a murderer ? " Other placards read : " Will the
volunteers accept defeat at the hand of the
Minister of Militia?"; "Orangemen, is Brother
Scott forgotten already?"; "Men of Ontario,
shall Scott's blood cry in vain for vengeance?"
It is hardly necessary to observe that in Toronto
1 See an article on Robert Grant Hahburton by Col. Geo. T. Denison
in the Canadian Magazine for June, 1901.
179

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
such placards were likely to secure a successful
meeting. The chief speakers on this occasion were Mr.
MacdougaU, Mr. D'Arcy Boulton, Mr. Kenneth
Mackenzie, Q.C., Mr. J. D. Edgar, Captain Ben
nett, Col. Denison, and Mr. Foster. A resolution
moved by Mr. MacdougaU declared that the pro
posal to recaU, at the request of the rebel govem
ment, the expedition on its way to Fort Garry
to establish law and order, would be an act of
supreme folly, an abdication of authority, des
tructive of aU fitness for the protection afforded to
loyal subjects by a constitutional govemment, and
a death blow to our national honour. Another,
moved by Mr. Edgar, recited that the overthrow
by the rebels of the existing government in the
Red River Territory by force of arms, the seizure
and appropriation to their own purposes of private
property, the imprisonment and iU treatment of
Canadians and loyal natives, the barbarous murder
of one of their prisoners, Thomas Scott, the cruel
expulsion in mid-winter of those who refused to
join them in their unlawful project, and their
extravagant demands upon the Canadian Govem
ment, under threat of further outrages and the
transfer of their aUegiance to a foreign country,
deprived the leaders of the conspiracy of aU sym
pathy, and caUed for the prompt punishment of
the perpetrators of such crimes. Still another,
moved by Col. Denison, affirmed that in view of
180

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
the proposed amnesty to Riel, and withdrawal of
the expedition, it was necessary to declare that
"The Dominion must and shall have the North-
West Territories in fact as well as in name, and if
our Government, through weakness or treachery,
cannot or will not protect our citizens in it, and
recalls our volunteers, it will then become the duty
of the people of Ontario to organize a scheme of
armed immigration in order that those Canadians
who have been driven from their homes may be
reinstated, that with the many who desire to settle
in new fields they may have an assured guarantee
against the repetition of such outrages as have dis
graced our country in the past, that the majesty of
the law may be vindicated against all criminals, no
matter by whom instigated or by whom protected,
and that we may never again see the flag of our
ancestors trampled in the dust, or a foreign emblem
flaunting itself in any part of our broad Dominion."
The protest was so spirited and so emphatic, and
pubhc opinion in Ontario responded so promptly,
that Cartier was forced to halt, and Mr. Archibald
took his way over the " snow road," as it was called,
in the rear of the Wolseley expedition. The journey
was long and difficult, and beset with such formid
able obstacles that it was well on towards the end
of August when the expedition reached Fort Garry.
It was then found that Riel and his comrades had
fled, and that all resistance to the peaceful occu
pation of the Territory by Canada had collapsed.
181

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Mr. Archibald, more fortunate than Mr. Mac
dougaU, reached Fort Garry early in September,
and on the 6th of that month entered upon his
duties as Lieutenant-Governor of the new provuice.
A year later Manitoba was threatened with a
Fenian invasion under O'Donoghue, who had been
associated with Riel in the Red River insur
rection, and there was grave fear that the French
half-breeds of Manitoba would join hands with
O'Donoghue and his confederates. Archibald made
overtures to Riel and Lepine who were still the
recognized leaders of the Metis. They responded to
his appeal, and organized the inhabitants for the
defence of the country.
The Governor set a high value upon the
services performed by Riel and Lepine in this con
nection, and used language that was afterwards
construed as a promise of immunity for the offences
committed during the Red River outbreak. But in
Ontario, the agitation for the punishment of Scott's
murderers was vigorously maintained, and the
argument of Ministers that the federal authorities
ceased to have jurisdiction when the provincial
government was constituted, was neither weU re
ceived nor generaUy accepted. The common opinion
of Ontario was that the execution of Scott was
hardly distinguishable from dehberate murder ; and
separated as we now are from the passion and
clamour of that time, it is not easy to reach any
other conclusion. But even if this be admitted, the
182

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
fact does not constitute an adequate justification
for the action of the Ontario Legislature in offering
a reward of $5,000 for Riel's apprehension. The
question lay within the province of the federal
authorities, and no good purpose was served by
making the death of Scott an issue in local pohtics,
and enmeshing legitimate provincial questions in
the incidents of a revolt in Manitoba.^ But pubhc
feehng was greatly excited, the Orange Association
was in a vengeful temper, and it was natural that
the Liberal pohticians, who had so often felt the
force of that powerful body at the poUs, should
take advantage of the unusual situation, and profit
by the keen and far-reaching anger Scott's execution
had evoked.
On the other hand, the French-Canadians of
Quebec were hnked to the Metis of the Red River
by the sympathetic ties of blood and speech, and
pohticians in that province industriously exploited
^ In 1871, on the eve of the general election, the Ontario Legislature,
on motion of Mr. Blake, adopted a resolution declaring: "That the
cold-blooded murder for his out-spoken loyalty to the Queen, of
Thomas Scott, lately a resident of this province, and an immigrant
thence to the North-'S^''est, has impressed this House with a deep
feeling of sorrow and indignation, and in the opinion of this House,
every effort should be made to bring to trial the perpetrators of this
great crime, who as yet go unwhipt of justice." In January, 1872,
after Mr. Blake had become Premier of Ontario, a second resolution
was adopted, aifirming : "That this House feels bound to express its
regret that no effectual steps have been taken to bring to justice the
murderers of Thomas Scott, and is of opinion that something should be
done to that end." In accordance with this resolution, at the request of
Mr. Blake, $5,000 was appropriated as a reward for Riel's apprehension.
183

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
this sympathetic relationship for personal and party
advantage. It is true that only thirteen members of
the House of Commons voted to strike out the sum
of $1,460,000 put into the Supply BiU to meet the
costs of the Red River expedition, and to open up
the western country. But this vote did not repre
sent the real state of feehng in Quebec, nor
stay the agitation for clemency for Riel and his
associates. There is hardly any doubt that Sir
George Cartier was a determined champion of Riel
in the Cabinet, and it seems clear that he sought a
way to baulk the Wolseley expedition. In the
general election of 1872, Cartier was defeated in
Montreal East, and aside from other exceptional
influences contributing to that result, it is beheved
that the mUitia vote was cast for his opponent in
almost a solid body in protest against his attitude
towards the Canadian mihtia, his excessive consider
ation for Riel and his aUies, and his iU-concealed
opposition to the employment of force against the
insurgents. It was, however, mainly due to the
active intervention of Bishop Bourget and his ec
clesiastical subordinates that Cartier was beaten.
This intervention was provoked partly by his al-
hance with the Sulpicians against the Bishop's
project to divide the old parish of Notre Dame, of
which the disciples of St. Sulpice were pastors by
right of their charter, and partly by resentment
at Sir John Macdonald's refusal to disaUow the
New Brunswick School BiU of 1871, by which the
184

THE RED RIVER TROUBLES
separate school system of that province was abol
ished in law, even if it still exists in practice.
Cartier was afterwards returned for the western
constituency of Provencher, which contained the
bulk of the French population of Manitoba, and
Riel's name was signed to one of the telegrams of
congratulation he received from his new parlia
mentary borough. Ill-health, however, forced him
to go abroad, and he died in England in May, 1873.
In the general election of January 22nd, 1874,
which brought the Liberal party into office, Riel
was elected as his successor in the representation of
Provencher. Notwithstanding that he was now
under indictment in Manitoba for the murder of
Scott, he came to Ottawa and managed to sign the
roll of the Commons and subscribe the oath. When
his presence at the capital became known, a warrant
for his arrest was procured, but it is doubtful if it
was intended to be executed. If he had directly
invited arrest, he would hardly have been accom
modated. There was general suspicion, and possibly
in high quarters particular knowledge, that his free
dom had been at least equivocaUy guaranteed by
the Queen's ministers, and that the pledges of am
nesty, if not legally conclusive, were too clear and
too direct to be lightly violated. But it was at least
permissible to question his right to sit in Parlia
ment, and necessary to make some concession to
pubhc opinion. Besides, the Conservative party had
passed into opposition, and a subject which had
185

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
given infinite trouble to the Conservative leaders
was now available for the harassment of the Liberal
party. Accordingly, on March 31st, 1874, Mr.
Mackenzie Bowell moved that Riel be ordered to
attend in his place in Parliament on the next day.
As he failed to appear, he was expelled two weeks
afterwards by a vote of 124 to 68, and a new writ
issued for Provencher.^
''¦ The principal sources of this chapter are Hansard ; the newspapers
and pamphlets of the time ; "^"^ Canada under the Administration of the
Earl of Dufferin," by Dr. George Stewart; "The Remarkable History
of the Hudson's Bay Company," by Dr. George Bryce; the "^'History
of Canada," by Dr. W. H. Withrow; "^The Great Company," by
Beckles Willson; Pope's "Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald," and the
Buckingham-Ross "Life of Alexander Mackenzie."

186

CHAPTER VIII
THE AMNESTY
IT was on the question of Riel's expulsion that
Mr. Laurier first addressed the House of Com
mons in English. The main issue to be determined
was whether or not Riel had received an explicit
and unconditional promise of amnesty. There was
abundant evidence to support this contention. In
March, 1870, Mgr. Tachd, professing to speak for
both the Canadian and Imperial Governments,
gave Riel an assurance of amnesty wide enough to
cover the murder of Scott and aU other offences
committed dm'ing the outbreak. In June, 1870,
Richot, Black, and Scott, who laid the grievances
of the settlers before the federal Ministers, assured
Mgr. Tachd that they had received an equally
definite promise of complete amnesty for Riel and
his associates. A letter from Sir George Cartier
to Mgr. Tachd confirmed the promise of amnesty.
Parhament was also bound to consider the accept
ance by Mr. Archibald of the services of Riel and
Lepine when Manitoba was threatened with a
Fenian invasion, and the Governor's pubhc recog
nition of their timely and useful work in organizing
the people for defence. There were three motions
before the House. Mr. Mackenzie Bowell moved
187

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
for Riel's immediate expulsion. Mr. Holton moved
to defer action until a report on the question of
amnesty could be had from the committee which
had just been appointed to inquire into the causes of
the Red River troubles. Mr. Mousseau moved for
immediate and unconditional amnesty.
Mr. Laurier's speech was made ia support of the
Holton amendment. He said that amendment laid
down the only course that the House should
pursue, and that he would be guilty of an act
of cowardice if for any motive whatever he allowed
himself to be turned away from the defence of the
opinions which he regarded as the soundest and
safest on the subject. He said that between Riel
and himself there was no bond of sympathy. The
House was called upon to exercise strictly judicial
functions. There was no proof before Parhament of
an indictment against the member for Provencher.
It was impossible, therefore, to pretend that he was
a fugitive from justice. A warrant that was not
executed was no legal proof of an indictment. He
pointed out that over and over again Riel had
claimed that the old Administration had promised
him an amnesty, that this claim was repeated and
emphasized by his friends and sympathizers, and
that ministers then in office could not be induced
to confirm or deny these statements. If Riel had
this promise of amnesty in the Queen's name for
all acts committed in Manitoba, as head of the
provisional government, it was not reasonable that
188

THE AMNESTY
he should now desire to go before the courts, and it
was not just to brand him as contumacious and
a fugitive from justice. The committee which had
been appointed to determine finally whether or not
an amnesty had been promised had just begun its
work, and it would be inconsistent and illogical for
the House to come to any decision upon the ques
tion until the committee had reported. He dealt
with the case of Saddlier before the Imperial
Parhament in 1857, which Mr. BoweU had cited
in support of his motion. Saddlier was charged
with fraud in connection with a Tipperary Bank,
and had fled before a warrant for his arrest could be
executed. Mr. Laurier showed that a motion for
expulsion was rejected because the member under
attack could still come before the courts to stand
his trial, and it would, therefore, have been pre
mature to declare him contumacious. He detailed
the careful and methodical steps taken to notify
Saddher of the order commanding him to appear
in his seat, showed that no action at all had been
taken to serve Riel with the order for his appear
ance in Parliament, and contended that until this
was done or attempted, Mr. Bowell's motion ought
not to prevail. The opportunity to make defence
was the right and privilege of every British subject.
Many decisions, just in themselves and wholly
equitable, had been reversed by the higher courts
of England solely because the party condemned
had not been notified to defend himself. 189

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
He opposed Mr. Mousseau's motion with equal
logic and vigour. He showed again that the House
had unanimously named a committee to inquire
into the whole question of the amnesty, pointed
out that at that very hour the committee was
sitting, and Mgr. Tachd was giving his evidence,
and argued that to declare an amnesty before the
committee had well entered upon its work, would
be premature, irrational, and absurd. He contended
that Mr. Mousseau's chief object was to com
promise the Administration, but confessed that
his own mind leaned towards amnesty in view of
the recognition Riel had received from the former
Administration. He showed that at least Sir George
Cartier had treated with Riel as the head of an
organized government, and had received from
Riel's delegates their letters of credit signed with
his own hand. If this were true, then the logical
consequence must follow, and the amnesty must be
granted. He admitted that the execution of Scott
was a crime, but argued that it was a political act,
and that Riel in signing the warrant for Scott's
execution simply gave effect to the sentence of
a court. However illegal was the court, or however
iniquitous the sentence, the fact alone that the
sentence was pronounced by a court, and that that
court existed de facto was sufficient to impart
an exclusively political character to the execution.
He refused to regard Riel as a rebel. "How,"
he asked, "was it possible to use such language?
190

THE AMNESTY
What act of rebellion did he commit ? Did he ever
raise any other standard than the national flag?
Did he ever proclaim any other authority than the
sovereign authority of the Queen ? No, never. His
whole crime and the crime of his friends was that
they wanted to be treated hke British subjects, and
not to be bartered away like common cattle." He
said that he would regard the events at Red River
as constituting a glorious page in our history if
they had not been stained with the blood of Scott.
" But," he said, " such is the state of human nature
and of all that is human ; good and evil are con
stantly intermingled ; the most glorious cause is not
free from impurity, and the vilest may have its
noble side." He closed with these words: "We
have no proof of the facts on which the motion for
expulsion rests, and to adopt that motion would be
not only to commit an arbitrary act, but to estab
hsh a precedent which will be a perpetual danger
to our free institutions."^
The speech did not change the mind of Parlia
ment, but it greatly enhanced the speaker's reputa
tion. The argument was strong, consistent, and
logical, the English hmpid and classic, the manner
restrained and elevated. It was this speech which
Dr. Frdchette said " carried him at one bound to
the distinction of being almost without a peer
among the Enghsh-speaking debaters of the Do
minion;" and at least the performance definitely
1 See "Wilfrid Laurier on the Platform," Quebec, 1890, pages 21, 40.
191

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
determined his right to an influential voice in the
public councils. The Montreal Herald said: "Mr.
Laurier made a magnificent speech in support of
Mr. Holton's amendment. It was the best of the
whole debate — calm, logical, and thoughtful. He
has made his mark and placed himself in the front
rank of our debaters." It is fair to say that the
speech was not well received in Ontario, nor was it
satisfactory to the more turbulent elements in Que
bec, which Mr. Mousseau represented.
It would seem at this distance, and in the hght of
all that has been revealed, that Riel's expulsion was
a natural proceeding, while the evidence which Mr.
Laurier advanced to show that he had received
assurances of amnesty was conclusive. It is worth
while, perhaps, to quote here Earl Carnarvon's des
patch to Lord Dufferin in this connection. The
Secretary of State for the Colonies said : " Although
a murder such as that of Scott cannot be allowed
to go unpunished on the ground that it was con
nected with political disturbances, yet in so far as
it did result from pohtical circumstances those who
were guilty of it may be deemed to have earned a
merciful consideration through their subsequent
good service to the State, and that for these services
their life should be spared. While this is no doubt
the judicial construction of evidence reported by
the special committee, it is quite evident that it
was not the sense in which the Government was
understood either by Archbishop Tachd or by the
192

THE AMNESTY
delegates from the provisional government. That the
impression was left upon their minds that a full and
unconditional amnesty would be granted if they
recognized the authority of the Dominion Govern
ment there cannot be the slightest doubt on reading
the evidence."
It was not until the session of 1877 that Parlia
ment saw the end of this unfortunate and em
bittered controversy. In 1875, Mr. Mackenzie
asked Parliament to grant a full amnesty to all
persons concerned in the insurrection except Riel,
Lepine, and O'Donoghue. For Riel and Lepine
he recommended five years' banishment from the
country. But as O'Donoghue had attempted to
throw a body of Fenians into the North-West,
no measure of clemency in his behalf was sug
gested. Lepine had been arrested at the instance
of the provincial authorities, convicted of com
plicity in the murder of Scott, and sentenced to
death. Lord Dufferin, however, intervened to save
him from the gaUows. He undertook, under the
Royal Instructions which gave the Governor-
General power to dispense with the advice of his
ministers under special circumstances, to say that
the case had passed beyond the province of depart
mental administration, and that he was empowered
" to exercise the prerogative of the Crown according
to his independent judgment and on his own per
sonal responsibility." Mr. Blake, at a subsequent
session, persuaded Parliament to demand from the
193

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Imperial authorities such amendment of the Royal
Instructions as would prevent the Governor-Gen
eral exercising the prerogative of pardon except in
accordance with the advice of his ministers. In the
meantime, however. Lord Dufferin did act on his
own responsibility, and commuted the sentence of
death passed upon Lepine to two years' imprison
ment and permanent forfeiture of political rights.
This sentence Lepine served out, and was therefore
less fortunate than his leader. Mr. Mousseau, in
1875, renewed his motion for unconditional am
nesty, but it received only twenty-three votes, and
only fifty votes were cast against Mr. Mackenzie's
motion for amnesty to Riel and Lepine, conditional
upon five years' banishment, and unconditional par
don for all other participants in the insurrection.
Mr. Laurier also spoke during this debate, and
some of his sentences are worth quoting. He said :
" The question would be decided at once and for
ever if decided in a sense of leniency, but not if
decided in a harsh sense, in a sense of mistaken
justice; for there was no more certain fact, as proved
by the most unerring testimony of historical events,
than that pohtical offences must sooner or later be
forgiven." He said: "The Liberal party of Quebec
did not make it a question of race or religion, but
dealt with it solely as a question of justice. For his
part he regretted that it was so often deemed
necessary to remind the House that our nation is
composed of different creeds and races, and that
194

THE AMNESTY
the law gives to each and all in this Dominion a
full and equal share of liberty and happiness. It
was true they were separated by their origin and
religion, but they were united by a common aim
and common interests." He insisted that these were
the principles of the Liberals of Quebec, and they
" intended not only upon the floor of this House,
but also throughout this Dominion, to put dovni
questions of race and rehgion." He accepted the
conditional amnesty proposed by the Govemment as
embodying the view of the Imperial authorities, he
recognized that complete amnesty could not be
had, and he held that the loyal acceptance of Mr.
Mackenzie's motion by the people of Quebec "would
have the effect of burying the past in obhvion, and
of promoting a pohcy of self-respect between the
two great provinces of the Dominion."^
The formal expulsion of Riel from Parliament in
April, 1874, was not final. He was returned again
at the new election for Provencher that was held
five months afterwards. On February 15th, 1875,
Mr. Mackenzie laid before Parliament the sentence
of outlawry which had been passed upon Riel by
Chief Justice Wood of Manitoba five days before,
and then on February 24th asked the House to
declare that Riel, according to the record, had been
adjudged an outlaw for felony. The motion was
accepted, the seat thus vacated, and Riel was
not again a candidate. In the session of 1876, and
^ Hansard, February 12th, 1875, Pages 116, 119.
195

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
again in 1877, Mr. Costigan moved that O'Donoghue
be included in the conditional amnesty granted
to Riel and Lepine. In each case the motion was
opposed by the Government, and therefore defeated.
But if Mr. Costigan did not succeed in Parliament,
he undoubtedly damaged the Administration in the
country. Persistent appeals were made to the Irish
Catholic element to revenge the Government's
treatment of O'Donoghue, and even Sir John Mac
donald turned the rejection of Mr. Costigan's
motion to excellent political account.
There is hardly any better illustration of Sir
John Macdonald's remarkable capacity for the man
agement of diverse elements than is revealed in his
method of presenting O'Donoghue to the Irish
electors. For example, he said at Cobourg, where
there is a considerable Irish Catholic population:
"O'Donoghue, by his industry and speculation had
got together lands and money in Manitoba, but he
was only an Irishman and must stay out of the
country. He was proud to say that he and his
friends had voted to have O'Donoghue treated as
the others, and he would call the attention of his
Roman Catholic friends to the fact that the most
prominent men who had claimed rights for O'Don
oghue were his friends, Mackenzie Bowell and
John White, both of them Grand Masters among
the Orangemen." This series of parliamentary events
furnishes a striking illustration of the glorious free
dom of opposition. Mr. Mackenzie Bowell attacked
196

THE AMNESTY
the Government for recommending even conditional
amnesty for Riel and Lepine. Mr. Mousseau de
manded unconditional amnesty. Mr. Costigan in
sisted that the leader of a Fenian invasion should
be covered by the Crown's clemency. Each damaged
the Administration, while the unity and strength of
the Opposition were hardly affected.
It is not now contended that the insurrection in
Manitoba was consciously provoked by the Cana
dian authorities. It was never intended to disturb
or dispossess the Red River settlers. It was not
intended to imperil any man's possessions, or abridge
any man's rights. But ministers were careless and
badly advised. They did not see far, if they saw at
all, into conditions in the West. They did not
understand that the settlers were peculiarly favour
able to the easy lordship of the Hudson's Bay
Company. They forgot that the Metis spoke another
language, and could not know what status they
would acquire under a territorial government, and
had small comprehension of the genius of British
institutions. They forgot that these men had the
right of birth on the soU, that they must be appre
hensive of their security of tenure, and would
naturally resent any arbitrary transfer of their
aUegiance to an authority which was still alien,
remote, and misunderstood. So the more adequate
punishment of Riel and Lepine for the execution
of Scott could have been very easily accomplished.
But the Govemment of Sir John Macdonald was
197

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
hampered by party considerations, and unwilhng to
estrange Quebec by the adoption of prompt and
stem measures against the insurgents, or even by
too ready submission to the vehement clamour of
the English-speaking provinces. When it is remem
bered that Riel was sent out of the country by
arrangement between Archbishop Tachd and Sir
John Macdonald, and that I^epine was the benefi
ciary of a similar arrangement between the Arch
bishop and Sir George Cartier, and that both were
maintained abroad upon funds supplied by Cartier
and Macdonald, an element of comedy is introduced
into a series of events which in other respects are
grave and sombre enough.^ The record, as Mr.
Laurier said, is indelibly stained by the blood of
Scott, but outside of that wanton and brutal mur
der, the Red River settlers showed only the spirit
of British freemen, and contended only for those
rights and privileges which no race of men worth
foothold in the earth have ever tamely surrendered.
^On December 27th, 1871, Sir John Macdonald addressed a letter' to
Archbishop Tach6, marked "private and strictly confidential," in
which he said, "I have been able to make the arrangement for the
individual that we have talked about. I now send you a sight draft on
the Bank of Montreal for $1,000. 1 need not press upon your Grace the
importance of the money being paid to him periodically (say monthly
or quarterly), and not in a lump, otherwise the money would be wasted,
and our embarrassment begin again. The payment should spread over a
year." Inhis evidence before the Parliamentary Committee, Archbishop
Tach(5 said that he had received a letter from Sir George Cartier in
which an allusion was made to the draft which had been sent him
by Sir John Macdonald, and stating that it would be advisable that
Lepine should leave also. He then saw Lieutenant-Governor Archibald
198

THE AMNESTY
The Red River insurrection was not provoked by
deliberate intention to ignore the rights, or even the
susceptibilities of the French settlers, but by the
premature action, the blunders and misadventures,
which marked the final steps of the negotiations for
the incorporation of the West into the Canadian
Confederation. As Lord Lisgar said in the last
speech which he dehvered as Governor-General of
Canada: "The troubles which ensued in Manitoba
were due rather to misunderstanding and misappre
hension, arising from ignorance, than to any rooted
pohcy. They were overcome by steadiness, patient
explanation, and the occasional display of an ade
quate armed force to sustain civil authority."* It
cannot be said that Riel was worthy of his position
of leadership. But it often happens that men of just
such intemperate zeal and vagrant impulse seize
the direction of sudden enterprises, and take on
something of the dignity and consequence of events
which are long shaping, and at last spring spon
taneously from ripened conditions. He is not a
figure that history will put among its gods, or that
on the subect of money. The Lieutenant-Governor and the Archbishop
called on Mr. Donald A. Smith, and Mr. Smith furnished £600
sterhng on the understanding that he would be re-imbursed by the
Canadian Government. The Archbishop added to the amount from the
$1,000 previously provided, $200, and thus made up $1,600 each for
Riel and Lepine, which he gave them in accordance with their demand,
to enable them to go and live outside the Territory. The remainder of
the $1,000 he kept in the bank, to be used as required for the support
of their families.
1 Speech at Montreal, January 20th, 1872.
199

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
democracy will deify in other generations, however
the patient, deep-searching historian may esteem
the events with which his name must always be
associated. It is worth while to look still more closely into
the objects and achievements of the Canada First
party. The movement set deep marks upon the
politics of Canada, and its story forms a more
significant chapter in our history than any historian
has yet recognized. Foster's fame does not rest
upon the inflammatory articles in the Daily Tele
graph, nor even upon his energetic management of
public opinion in Ontario during the crisis of the
Red River insurrection. He has left some admirable
hterary remnants and some political documents
of distinct and permanent value. In 1871 he sent
out an inspiring and scholarly address which stands
as the truest interpretation of the aims of this
group of patriots, and the best expression of the
hopes and aspirations which were then moving
in the breasts of the younger and more ambitious
citizens of the new Confederation. Foster said in
the course of this sagacious and eloquent deliver
ance : " Let but our statesmen do their duty, with
the consciousness that all the elements which con
stitute greatness are now awaiting a closer com
bination ; that all the requirements of a higher
national life are here available for use ; that nations
do not spring Minerva-like into existence; that
strength and weakness are relative terms, a few not
200

THE AMNESTY
being necessarily weak because they are few, nor a
multitude necessarily strong because they are many;
that hesitating, doubting, fearing, whining over
supposed or even actual weakness, and conjuring
up possible dangers, is not the true way to
strengthen the foundations of our Dominion, or
to give confidence in its continuance. Let each of
us have faith in the rest, and cultivate a broad
feehng of regard for mutual welfare, as becomes
those who are building up a fabric that is destined
to endure. Thus stimulated and thus strengthened
by a common belief in a glorious future, and with a
common watchword to give unity to thought and
power to endeavour, we shall attain the fruition
of our cherished hopes, and give our beloved
country a proud position among the nations of the
earth. "^ This teaching is still necessary in Canada,
and was doubly so in the infancy of Confederation,
when the flame of national sentiment burned low,
when sectionalism was rife and faction strong and
relentless, when the hearts of many failed them for
fear, and all the good promise of the Common
wealth was obscured by the difficulties and per
plexities of the immediate hour, and the half-
conscious apprehension of the formidable tasks of
the future.
During four or five eventful years Canada First
thrived, and from time to time the pioneers were
1 Canada First ; a Memorial of the Late W. A. Foster, Q.C., pages
46, 47.
201

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
joined by other young Canadians of like eager spirit
and single minded purpose to foster national senti
ment, and establish faith and pride in the new
institutions and the new conditions. Among these
might be mentioned W. H. Howland, Thos. Moss,
W. G. McWilliams, Nicol KingsmiU, Hugh Blain,
W. B. McMurrich, J. K. Macdonald, Frederick
Fenton, G. W. Badgerow, C. R. W. Biggar, James
R. Roaf, A. S. Irving, A. M. Rosebmgh, W. T.
O'Reilly, James H. Morris, Frank McKelcan, and
James H. Coyne. It is said that the motto,
"Canada First" was evolved from a suggestion
made by J. D. Edgar; and it is likely that the
spirit of protectionism, which was to find expression
in the formal platform adopted in 1874, represented
the increasing influence of W. H. Howland in the
councils of the movement. In the autumn of 1873,
Thomas Moss became the Liberal candidate for
West Toronto for the House of Commons, and
the Canada First group, whUe declining identifi
cation with the Liberal party, gave Moss a hearty
support, and greatly assisted in securing his election.
His declaration, " Canada before any party ; the
country before any faction," breathed the very
spirit of the movement.
In 1874, the Canadian National Association was
formed and the National Club of Toronto estab
lished. Mr. W. H. Howland was the president
of the new Association, and Mr. W. G. Mc
Williams its secretary, while Mr. Goldwin Smith
202

THE AMNESTY
was the first president of the National Club.
The platform of the Association embraced: — (1)
British connection, consolidation of the Empire,
and in the meantime a voice in treaties affecting
Canada ; (2) closer trade relations with the British
West India Islands, with a view to ultimate pohti
cal connection ; (3) an income franchise ; (4) the
ballot, with the addition of compulsory voting;
(5) a scheme for the representation of minorities ;
(6) encouragement of immigration and free home
steads in the public domain ; (7) the imposition of
duties for revenue so adjusted as to afford every
possible encouragement to native industry ; (8) an
improved militia system under command of trained
Dominion officers ; (9) no property qualifications in
members of the House of Commons ; (10) re
organization of the Senate ; (11) pure and economic
administration of public affairs.
It is interesting, and perhaps not unprofitable, to
compare this platform with the programme an-
noimced in 1872 by a body of Quebec Rouges.
The Rouge platform also contained eleven planks,
and while more radical in its minor features, shows
less breadth and less faith than that of the National
Association of Ontario. The Rouges demanded :
(1) Election of Senators by the people or by the
Local Legislatures ; (2) reform of the electoral
laws ; (3) reduction of the number of ministers ;
(4) diminution of the Governor-General's salary;
(5) reduction of the number of public employees ;
203

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
(6) reorganization of the militia by taking for basis
the maintenance of internal order ; (7) amelioration
of the means of communication so as to induce the
commerce of the West to take the way of the
St. Lawrence ; (8) postponement of the construc
tion of the Pacific railway until the North-West
was sufficiently colonized ; (9) the absolute right of
regulating our own commercial relations with other
countries in such a way as to insure the establish
ment of manufactures in Canada ; (10) development
of the resources of each of the provinces composing
the Confederation ; (11) protection to home indus
try. It was once attempted in the House of Com
mons to bind Mr. Laurier by this programme of
1872. But he declared that it had never' received
his sanction, and that he could not adopt some
of its provisions.
There probably was more complete sympathy
between the Canada First party and the Quebec
Rouges than the platform of the National Associa
tion would suggest. While the platform spoke for
British connection and consolidation of the Empire,
some of its influential spokesmen undoubtedly
looked to ultimate political separation, and to the
independence of Canada. Denison and Foster made
the platform, but Goldwin Smith and Howland
had small reverence for either the letter or the
spirit of its provisions. Its growing toleration for
independence, and Mr. Goldwin Smith's active
identification with its propaganda, explain The
204

THE AMNESTY
Globe's uncompromising opposition to the move
ment. Doubtless The Globe was also concerned
to maintain its own authority and to avert dis
ruption of the Reform party, while Mr. Goldwin
Smith was impatient of authority, and most of all
of the authority of George Brown, careless of the
disruption of parties, and a willing patron of pohti
cal and inteUectual revolt. Mr. Goldwin Smith
in England belonged to that school of publicists
which desired to set the colonies adrift. Here he
consorted with the Canada First group, but rejected
the policy of Imperial Federation. As he said him
self, at a National Club dinner in 1874, he could
club with Imperial Confederationists, but could not
agree with them in opinion. He stated his attitude
clearly in a letter which he addressed to The Globe
on November 5th, 1874. He there explained that
he looked to gradual emancipation as the natural
end of the colonial system. " Gradual emancipa
tion," he said, "means nothing more than the
gradual concession by the mother country to the
colonies of powers of self-government. This process
has already been carried far. Should it be carried
further, and ultimately consummated, as I fi'ankly
avow my belief it must, the mode of proceeding
will be the same that it has always been. Each step
will be an act of Parliament passed with the assent
of the Crown. As to the filial tie between Canada
and England, I hope it will endure forever." These
views were undoubtedly held by other adherents of
205

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the Canada First movement, notwithstanding the
platform declaration for consolidation of the Em
pire, and hence The Globe's denunciation of the
party as a nursery of independence sentiment, and
a camping ground for annexationists. The Imperial
ists, however, were the dominant factor when they
chose to show their strength, and their zeal far out
lasted that of the less aggressive and less outspoken
wing of Independents.
Among the names most dearly cherished by the
Canada First party was that of Thomas D'Arcy
McGee, while its best hopes for the future were
centred in Edward Blake.* Perhaps the fear that
Mr. Blake's sympathies would be alienated from
the Liberal party through association with the new
propaganda gave a still keener edge to The Globe's
hostility to the movement. There was ground for
its apprehension, and reason for the high hopes of
Canada First. Mr. Blake's celebrated speech at
Aurora, on October 3rd, 1874, is substantiaUy a
presentation and elaboration of the platform of the
Canadian National Association. He there spoke for
federation of the Empire, for reorganization of the
Senate, for compulsory voting, for extension of the
franchise, and for representation of minorities. He
said it was impossible to foster a national spirit
unless we had national interests to attend to, or
among people who did not choose to undertake the
1 See Mr. Goldwin Smith's introduction to the Foster Memorial
Volume. 206

THE AMNESTY
responsibilities, and to devote themselves to the
duties to which national attributes belong. He
described the Canadian people as " four millions of
Britons who are not free," argued that by the
pohcy of England in which we had no voice or
control, Canada might be plunged into the horrors
of war, and pointed out that without our knowledge
or consent the navigation of the St. Lawrence had
just been ceded forever to the United States. He
believed, therefore, that an effort should be made
to reorganize the Empire upon a federal basis, and
that the people of Canada should have some greater
share of control in the management of its foreign
affairs.* This speech was not well received by the chief
journals of either of the great political parties. The
Globe saw in the speech a platform which was not
yet within the field of practical pohtics, and which
menaced the cohesion and stabUity of the Liberal
^In a speech at a Reform banquet in Montreal in January, 1873, Mr.
Blake said : " He believed that the discussions upon the Washington
Treaty, and the feeling with respect to it both here and in the mother
country, in reference to the general colonial question, would tend —
and perhaps in that case good might come out of evil — to some solu
tion calculated to perpetuate what we all desired — the intimate union
of the British Empire. He did not believe that Canada would be
long prepared to have her interests disposed of without her having
a voice in the disposal of them. And he did not believe that she was
prepared to say that the mode in which she was to acquire that voice
was by a disruption of the Empire. We looked to a brighter future — to
the reorganization of the Empire on another basis, which would open
to us a wider ard higher destiny as a member of the great British
Empire "
207

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
party. The Mail and other Conservative journals
exploited the speech to aggravate and exaggerate
differences within the Reform party, and to make an
open quarrel between Mr. Blake and Mr. Brown,
In this they did not quite succeed, but if at any
time the relations between Brown and Blake were
not satisfactory, it was during this period. The
Nation, & weekly journal, to which W. A. Foster,
Charles Lindsey, W. J. Rattray and Goldwin Smith,
a corps of keen and practised writers, contributed,
hailed Mr. Blake as the evangel of a new pohtical
gospel, and a few months later, the Camerons, of
the London Advertiser, estabhshed at Toronto
a new daily journal under the name of The
Liberal, which during its short and brilhant career
of five months was in intimate touch with Mr.
Blake, Mr. Thomas Moss, and Mr. David MiUs, at
steady enmity with The Globe, and under direct
inspiration of the advocates of the Aurora platform.
But the brilliant dawn was soon cast in shadow,
and leader and organ quickly feU away. In May,
1875, Mr. Blake re-entered the Mackenzie Govern
ment, The Liberal was suspended, and the National
Association ceased to be an active, or at least an
organized factor in the public life of the country.
Mr. Blake has recanted his pronouncement for
federation of the Empire. Mr. Goldwin Smith is in
strange company when he consorts with his political
associates of a quarter of a century ago. Foster, of
fragrant memory, sleeps while his work goes on, and
208

THE AMNESTY
his message voices with distincter utterance the
common faith of the Canadian people. The National
Club lives and thrives, loyal to the Imperial sym
pathies, and devoted to the Imperial aspirations of
its founders, and a strong citadel of Canadian
national sentiment. Colonel Denison, too, unchanged
and unchangeable, carrying a green youth into a
serene age, treading the way of his loyalist fore
fathers, proclaiming a united Canada and a united
Empire, aggressive, independent and public-spirited,
has never ceased in the work to which he dedicated
himself so many years ago, and though he has not
sat in the councils of the State, nor worn the
decorations which have fallen to men of less desert
and smaller service, has yet greatly fashioned the
ideals of the Canadian people, and powerfully in
fluenced the course of public policy in British
America. The dying struggles of Canada First were
the birth-pangs of the National Pohcy.

209

CHAPTER IX
IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
THE year 1876 witnessed the defmite adoption of
protection as the fiscal policy of the Conserva
tive party. The idea came with an aUuring name,
and under circumstances signally favourable to its
rapid growth and ready acceptance by the masses of
the people. The country lay under the heavy hand
of commercial depression. Wages were low, fac
tories idle, mercantile houses trembling on the
verge of collapse, the farmers' profits reduced by
stagnant markets at home and low prices abroad.
In the United States, as in Great Britain, conditions
were at least as bad as in Canada. A stream of
surplus goods poured across the border and choked
the natural markets of Canadian manufacturers. In
four years the total volume of trade fell from $217,-
000,000 to $172,000,000. The annual deficit in the
national finances ranged from $1,000,000 to $2,000,-
000. This was an inviting situation for politicians
out of office, and a positive elysium for commercial
theorists and political agents of industrial panaceas.
Bad times greatly increase popular faith in the
efficacy of Acts of Parhament, and incline even
conservative communities to revolutionary political
experiments. 211

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
There seems to be quite conclusive evidence that
Sir John Macdonald was not a protectionist. Mr.
W. F. Maclean, M.P., in a spirited and illuminative
sketch of the Conservative leader, has said that he
was "timid unto death of protection," that he
"had to be bullied into it, led into it, committed to
it by others," and that "when he thought it grown,
he used it as a bridge to reach the power he liked
to wield."* Mr. Maclean had close relations with
some of the chief writers of the protectionist cam
paign, and may be assumed to speak with knowledge.
The late Nicholas Flood Davin, in one of the last
letters he wrote from the Press Gallery of the
House of Commons, quoted words of protest used
by Sir John Macdonald against an article in The
Mail which seemed to commit the Conservative
party to the pohcy of protection. SimUar evidence
has been furnished by Mr. Goldwin Smith, who
during these years was on terms of personal and
political intimacy with the Conservative leader. Mr.
Goldwin Smith has said that shortly before the
election of 1878, he called Sir John Macdonald's
attention to the fact that some of his supporters
were holding protectionist language, and ventured
to point out that, while the United States with
its vast and varied area of production, and its
immense home market, might not suffer so much
from the system, protection would never do for
Canada. "No," was Sir John Macdonald's reply,
^ Canadian Magazine, January, 1895.
212

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
"and you need not fear that I am going to get into
that hole." When he ultimately adopted protection,
Mr. Goldwin Smith rallied him on his conversion,
and his answer was that "protection had done
so much for him that he had to do something for
protection."* There has been an attempt to show
that Sir John Macdonald was a protectionist as far
back as 1859, when the Gait tariff, against which
British manufacturers and the Imperial Govemment
protested, was adopted. But that was a tariff of
15 per cent., according to Gait's own estimate
of 13|^ per cent., and we know that in 1874, when
the duties were raised from 15 to 17|^ per cent, by
the Mackenzie Government, the increase was at
tacked by the Conservative Opposition in Parlia
ment as the thin edge of the wedge of protection.
In fact, it is well understood that the course of
events drove on the Conservative leader to its
advocacy, and that political, rather than economic
considerations were the determining factor in his
conversion.^ Up to this time there were protectionists in both
^ Letter to the Toronto Globe, September 23rd, 1895.
2 Mr. D' Alton McCarthy, in a speech at St. Mary's, on October 22nd,
1893, said : "No doubt in the world that we were out of power, and by
going in for the N. P., and taking the wind out of Mr. Mackenzie's
sails we got into power. We became identified with the protection
policy, and if Mr. Mackenzie had adopted the protective polioy we
should have been free traders. I am willing to make this confession : if
Mr. Mackenzie had been a protectionist there would have been nothing
left for us but to be free traders."
213

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
political parties, and the movement to which Sir
.lohn Macdonald finally adhered, was of commercial
rather than of party origin. Many influential
Liberals were among the group of manufacturers
who forced the issue into Canadian politics, and for
a time it was by no means certain that the Govern
ment would not recognize the growing force of
protectionist opinion and propose a substantial
increase in customs duties. In fact, as was said else
where, the Government had determined to raise the
general scale of duties from 17|^ to 20 per cent, but
yielded to the representations of Maritime Liberals
that such increase would be fatal to ministerial
candidates in the Eastern Provinces. There seemed
every reason to believe that free trade sentiment
was deeply rooted in the eastern communities, and
it will be remembered that one of the favourite
arguments of opponents of Confederation was that
the creation of federal institutions and the necessity
of great public works for the purposes of inter-
provincial trade and general national intercourse,
would require a heavy increase of customs taxation
in order to provide the large revenues necessary to
meet the demands upon the federal treasury. These
prophecies seemed now to be in process of fulfil
ment, and ministers from the Atlantic Provinces
offered a determined resistance to any increase
in the scale of duties. It is interesting in this con
nection to remember that at the general election
which followed, nearly two thirds of the Mari-
214

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
time constituencies were carried by the candidates
of Sir John Macdonald.*
Many of Mr. Mackenzie's supporters from Ontario
and Quebec knew the feeling of the people and
foresaw disaster to the Liberal party as a conse
quence of the Government's immovable adherence
to low tariff. But they were in a minority in the
ministerial caucus, or at least were overborne by
the eastern contingent, and reluctantly surrendered
the advantage of position to the Conservative
leaders. As between a tariff of 17 J per cent, and
duties of 20 per cent., or even of 22|^ per cent., no
serious question of principle was involved. It could
be fairly argued that the necessities of revenue
demanded an increase of customs taxation. A mod
erate increase of customs duties would probably
have conciliated public opinion and prolonged the
existence of an exceptionally economical and effi
cient Administration. If it be held that there is some
peculiar and particular sanctity in a tariff of 17|^
per cent., then it was well to adhere to the position
and stake the fate of the Government on a scale of
duties insufficient to meet the ordinary demands
upon the revenue, and inadequate to provide for
the public works and public services which a grow
ing country demanded. The object of a revenue
tariff is to provide revenue, and incidental
^ The protectionists carried fourteen out of the twenty-one seats in
Nova Scotia, five out of the si.x seats in Prince Edward Island, and five
out of the seventeen seats in New Brunswick.
215

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
protection is necessarily involved. The object of a
protective tariff is to afford protection to home
products and native industries, with revenue as the
secondary consideration. It is just as rational to
argue that a protective tariff may not fall below 50
per cent, as to contend that a revenue tariff may
not rise above 17^^ per cent. The protectionist cam
paign, however, derived much of its force from the
formidable influx of American manufactures, the
destructive effects of this competition upon Cana
dian industries, and the undoubted fact that owing
to the bad conditions of trade in the United States,
the surplus goods of American factories were sold
in the Canadian market at sacrifice prices.
It is, perhaps, surprising that a serious movement
for protection did not arise sooner in Canada. We
shall probably find the reason in the reluctance
of Canada to increase the taxation on British
imports, and in the abiding hope of a renewal of
reciprocal trade relations with the ad.]oining country.
If the United States had not abrogated the Reci
procity Treaty of 1854, Canada would hardly have
adopted the system of protection. If Congress had
ratified the treaty negotiated by Sir Edward Thorn
ton and the Hon. George Brown in 1874, the
election of 1878 would probably have turned upon
other issues. But the statesmen at Washington
were manifestly determined to maintain a policy
which bore heavily upon Canada, and in the bitter
season of depression through which the country was
216

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
passing. Sir John Macdonald's demand for reci
procity of trade or reciprocity of tariffs exactly
gauged the temper of the Canadian people. It was
vain, of course, to think that Canada could coerce
the United States, but an increase of duties against
the Repubhc seemed at least an assertion of fiscal
independence, and a manifestation of Canadian
spirit in the face of an aggressive and powerful
trade rixal. The argument may not sound well
to students of economics, but it touched the senti
ment and the prejudices of the people, and was
deftly and assiduously advanced by the Conserva-
ti\'e leaders and the organized protectionists.
National resentment and industrial depression
constitute a formidable political partnership. The
very term which the Conservative party adopted as
the synonym for protection, seemed to suggest that
the prevaihng commercial distress was due to some
lack of national spirit in the Administration. Mr.
Laurier was not much deceived as to the temper of
the country, although he was not convinced that an
increase in duties was necessary, and was frankly
hostile to any such system of extreme protection as
was illustrated by the policy of the United States.
He spoke in the House on March 10th, 1876, on a
motion by Sir John Macdonald demanding such
a readjustment of the tariff as would aid in aUeviat-
ing the stagnation of business, and " afford fitting
encouragement and protection to the strugghng
manufactures and industries as ^vell as to the
217

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
agricultural products of the country." In this
speech Mr. Laurier said he would not deny that
he had been " a moderate protectionist." He would
not, however, admit that the question was one
of Free Trade versus Protection. It was not a fact
that free trade was a Liberal principle and protec
tion a Conservative principle. It was purely and
strictly a question of social economy. He pointed
out that while in Great Britain free trade was
carried through pohtical action, and was opposed
by the Conservative leaders, stUl when the new
commercial policy was put into operation, and its
beneficent results experienced, the Conservative
party forsook its old prejudices and became hke the
Liberals a unit for the free trade system. In France
the Liberal party was divided on the question.
Thiers was a protectionist, and Gambetta and Say
were free traders. He would not undertake to
define the position of the Conservatives of France.
He had the notion that, like the great body of the
Conservatives of Lower Canada, " they chiefly con
cerned themselves about saving their own souls
and cursing the souls of other people." In the
United States the Conservative or Democratic
party stood for free trade, while the Republican
or Liberal party was intensely protectionist. In
Canada the Liberal party was by no means a unit
for free trade, and he had only just discovered that
the Conservatives had a policy on the question. He
proceeded : " If the view of the subject that free
218

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
trade must be the ultimate policy of any nation be
taken, it yet cannot be denied that protection is
a matter of necessity for a young nation in order
that it may attain the full development of its own
resources." He thought that free trade or protec
tion must be applied according to the necessities of
a country. " The most obstinate Conservative must
admit that freedom is the natural condition of
trade, and the most obstinate Liberal must also
allow that, though it would never do to build a
Chinese wall around the country in order to cut us
off from the outside world, yet sometimes it is both
wise and prudent to establish on our frontiers a
few detached forts to protect our territory against
foreign invasion."
He said further, that if he were in Great Britain
he would avow free trade, but as a Canadian, born
and resident in the country, he had to conclude
that we required a measure of protection. He went
on to argue that protection meant taxation, and
was the price a young and vigorous nation must
pay for its development. He was, however, opposed
to any increase in the existing tariff, and would not
admit that the economic policy of the country was
responsible for the depression which prevailed. The
17|^ per cent, tariff gave the Canadian manufac
turer protection against foreign competition. Besides,
against the English manufacturer he had the differ
ence in freights in his favour, and against the
American competitor he had the difference in the
219

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
price of labour.* " The depression," he said " is not
particular to this country, but is universal, and
affects highly protected as well as free trade coun
tries." In the United States they had a high tariff,
but were suffering even worse than we in Canada,
and the remedy there proposed was a decrease in
duties. It would be xmwise to legislate to meet
exceptional circumstances, and the fact that the
country, under normal conditions, was satisfied
with a moderate tariff was evidence that that was a
satisfactory and beneficial pohcy. At any rate, he
would not vote to declare that every article of
consumption in the Dominion should be taxed.^
Mr. Laurier made no other important speech
during the session of 1876. In fact, outside this
contribution to the tariff debate, his name scarcely
appears in Hansard. In the session of 1877 he was
more active, and again his most important speech
was devoted to tariff issues. It is in the main a re
statement of the position he took in the previous
session, supported by fresh illustrations, and but
tressed with new arguments. It was in this speech
that he described Papineau as a protectionist, not
1 "A fifteen per cent, tariff means more than fifteen per cent, pro
tection to manufacturers. There is the cost of transport of goods from
the other side of the water, which amounts, on an average, to at least
five per cent., so that there is now a protection equal to twenty per
cent. That ought to be sufficient for any industry suited to the country ;
and, as to others, it would be unwise to attempt to sustain them by
fiscal props." — Mr. Thomas WTiite, before the Dominion Board of Trade
in 1873.
2 Hansard, 1876, pages 589, 592.
220

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
so much on grounds of political economy as from
political reasons. He reminded his opponents who
charged the French Liberals with inconsistency,
that in the time of Papineau they were struggling
for responsible government and a larger measure of
political liberty. But they had received "most
ample justice, and the most complete liberty, and
the result was that in all this vast empire there
were no people more attached to British institutions
than French-Canadians." As a young man Mr.
Laurier was manifestly impressed by the economic
rather than by the separatist notions of Papineau,
and in this speech he practically reaffirmed his con
viction of the wisdom of a policy of moderate
protection for Canada. There were some industries,
he argued, which could not be established without
the aid of legislative action. He was quite frank
and straightforward. "I say this openly and in the
face of my own political friends," is the language
of Hansard. He was still convinced, however, that
a tariff" of 172- per cent, gave sufficient advantage to
home manufactures, that excessive protection would
be bad for the consumer and ultimately bad for the
industries, and that no good result could accrue
from a policy of retaliation against the United
States.* The freedom with which Mr. Laurier had dis
cussed some disturbing questions in the Quebec
Legislature subjected him to frequent attack by the
1 Hansard, March 22nd, 1877, pages 920, 924.
221

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Conservative press of his province, and was not
overlooked by his opponents in the House of Com
mons. For example, during the tariff debate of this
session, Mr. A. P. Caron charged Mr. Laurier with
saying that the French-Canadians were inferior to
other races so far as commerce and manufactures
were concerned. The only foundation for the state
ment was that Mr. Laurier had attacked the edu
cational system of the province, and he now told
Mr. Caron that if he were stiU in the Legislature he
would continue the agitation for educational re
form.* He made a characteristic observation during
a discussion as to whether or not prayers in the
House should be read in both French and English.
Mr. Hector L. Langevin had said he was not
wilhng that French members should waive their
rights, and would insist that the prayers should be
read in French. Mr. Laurier observed that "no
rights were involved in the question. It was simply
a matter of reverence and decorum. The Divinity
could be invoked as well in the English language
as in the French. "^
Towards the end of this session he had a some
what ungracious task to perform. He learned that
the firm with which Mr. J. M. Currier, member
for Ottawa, was connected, had had contracts
to supply lumber to the St. Vincent de Paul
Penitentiary and to the Pubhc Works Department,
^ Hansard, 1877, page 962.
'^ Hansard, 1877, page 94.
222

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
and having profited by the contracts, had thus
violated the Act for the Preservation of the Inde
pendence of Parliament. It does not seem that any
particular guilt attached to Mr. Currier. He was
not an active partner in the firm which had the
contracts, and recognizing at once the impropriety
of the position he resigned his seat in Parhament.
Mr. Laurier made the charges with admirable
moderation, and while showing necessary firmness,
acquitted Mr. Currier of deliberate Avrong-doing, and
gave a manly tone and a large spirit to the whole
incident.* But Liberals were facing the enforced re
signation of Mr. James Norris, of Lincoln, and of the
Hon. T. W. Anglin, of Gloucester, N.B., Speaker of
the House, for just such an unconscious impropriety
as was now brought home to the Conservative mem
ber for Ottawa, and they possibly found consolation
and compensation in Mr. Currier's experience.
In caucus and in general association with his
parliamentary colleagues, Mr. Laurier grew steadily
in influence and in popularity. He kept his ambition
well in hand, eschewed all self-advertising, avoided
the fatal fault of much speaking, and exhibited
under all circumstances a simple dignity and an
excellent discretion. No man could have done less
to impose himself upon the country, or to secure
the recognition of the political leaders with whom
he acted. He refused to lobby for personal prefer
ment, and he would have held very cheaply any
1 Hansard, 1877, pages 1482 and 1616. 223

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
honour which came as the result of solicitation or
of intrigue. He simply revealed himself at his best
in Parliament and in the councils of his party, and
was content to make no self- valuation of his claims,
and send out no advertisement of his ambitions.
But almost from the moment that he set foot in
the House of Commons it was recognized that he
was the natural leader of the Liberals of Quebec,
and that sound party policy would require his early
admission to the Cabinet. Two years before he
joined the Ministry, the Hon. George Brown had
counselled Mr. Mackenzie to advance to Cabinet
rank "the young, vigorous, popular and eloquent
man of the present moment." Mr. Brown said: "A
new fresh man is more in harmony with the spirit
of your Government than any other. His elevation
would be hailed by aU his young compatriots, and
he has no antecedents to fetter his action. Of course,
I speak entirely from what I have heard from you
and others as to Laurier, for I have not the ad
vantage of knowing him personaUy."*
It was equally apparent to the Opposition that
Mr. Laurier must soon take office. Now and then a
gibe to that effect was thrown across the floor of
the Chamber. They saw, in the phrase of Mr.
Caron, that "his seat was gradually approaching
the treasury benches." The opportunity for his
admission to the Cabinet came in the autumn
of 1877, when Mr. Cauchon was appointed Lieu-
^ Buckingham-Ross, "Life of Alexander Mackenzie," page 440.
224

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
tenant-Governor of Manitoba, in succession to the
Hon. Alex. Morris. Mr. Cauchon brought no
strength to the Liberal Administration, and the
reasons which led Mr. Mackenzie to include him in
the Cabinet have never been well understood. He
was a man of amiable character and of genial
personal qualities, but as a provincial Minister he
had trafficked in public contracts for direct personal
gain; and when one recalls the chief issue on which
Mr. Mackenzie carried the country, it is strange
that he should have coalesced with this discredited
pohtician. If it was hoped that, as a recreant Con
servative, Cauchon would divide the Conservatives
of Quebec and bring fresh support to the Adminis
tration, the expectation was not realized, while the
elevation of a convicted mercenary to the authority
of leadership over the Liberals of Quebec was
resented by the best element of the old Rouge
party. Cauchon was attacked with exceptional
vigour and persistency by the organs and speakers
of the Opposition throughout the whole term of his
connection with the Ministry, and their indignation
was not even quieted when he accepted the Lieu
tenant-Governorship. There is no doubt that their
relentless pursuit of their old ally had some effect
on public opinion, and many Liberals rejoiced when
he withdrew from the Govemment. It may be that
much of this indignation was simulated. Never was
a Government more bitterly and more unsparingly
denounced than that of Mr, Mackenzie, and never,
225

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
perhaps, have we had a set of Ministers in Canada
who less deserved the merciless treatment they
received at the hands of their political opponents.
But the vulnerability of Cauchon prejudiced the
whole Administration, and greatly impaired its
power to resist the meaner and more extravagant
charges of its opponents.
Mr. Laurier succeeded Mr. Cauchon in the
Govemment, and was assigned the portfoho of
Inland Revenue. His appointment took effect on
October 8th, but the press announcements had
anticipated the event. The Toronto Globe of Octo
ber 6th had a sympathetic and favourable estimate
of the new Minister. " Mr. Laurier," said the writer,
"will prove a decided accession to the Ministry,
and his presence in the Cabinet will be welcomed
by all the Enghsh-speaking Reformers, as weU as
by the Liberals amongst his own compatriots. His
influence among the latter has long been admitted,
and the former have come to recognize him as one
of the rising members of the party to which he
belongs. Whatever differences may once have ex
isted between the Reformers of Ontario and those
of Quebec, no trace of them is to be found in
the utterances of Mr. Laurier. This harmony,
which in his case is perfect, exists also, we beheve,
between those who act with him and their fellow
Liberals of the West, and, therefore, it was
eminently appropriate that as a representative
member of his party he should be invited to
226

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
assume a position which he is otherwise well-
qualified to fill. He is an elegant speaker and
ready debater, he has shown that he is possessed of
that capacity to master details which is so essential
to a successful administrator, and he is unquestion
ably endowed with what is of equal importance in
a statesman, breadth of view and a thorough
mastery of political principles." The article went on
to say that Mr. Laurier was very popular in his
own locality, and that if opposed at all he would be
re-elected by a large majority.
The Toronto 3Iail of October 9th dealt with Mr.
Laurier's elevation to the Cabinet, and indicated
that he would be strongly opposed in his constitu
ency. Its references to the Government were bitter
and intemperate ; its references to the new Minister
not ungenerous. " PersonaUy," The Mail said, "Mr.
Laurier has so far made but few enemies. His d^but
in the House of Commons as a speaker was a success.
He has earned a reputation as a graceful and
accomphshed orator." It quite fairly added: "Should
he fail as an administrator he wiU not be the first
good speaker who has had no aptitude for the work
of a department." "We simply say," The Mail con-
tinued, "that in those quahties which particularly
make a man strong in Parhament he has yet to give
proof of his strength." This was all fair enough,
and there was too good reason for the apprehension
which the next sentence expressed. " We shall be
glad to learn that his somewhat dehcate health will
227

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
not be a bar to his usefulness as a member of the
Govemment." FinaUy, The Mail said: "We have
no wish to see him out of Parliament, but we shaU
rejoice to see the county which he represents
repudiate his entrance into the present corrupt and
impotent Administration." The general tone of press
comment, outside of the fanatical Bleu organs of
Quebec, was considerate and generous, and it is
nothing short of remarkable that in so few years
of public life he should have won this far-reaching
admiration for his character and far-reaching respect
for his opinions. The Globe was led to express satis
faction that " Conservative orators and organs have
at last found an opponent of whom, on personal
grounds, they can speak no evil." It declared that
"in Ontario and the Maritime Provinces, no less
than in Quebec, his advent to office has been haUed
as an event of no common significance, and his
character has been apparently gauged at one and
the same time by the people of all the provinces
with one pleasing and satisfactory result. Such a
man," The Globe said, "would be hstened to, not
as a sentimentahst, nor a bigot, nor a partisan, but
as a statesman. There can be no question as to the
advantage of having such a representative of Que
bec thought, feehngs, and opinion in the Cabinet."
Very different was the tone of La Minerve. The
French Conservative organ said that people were
expecting too much of Mr. Laurier not to be dis
appointed. He could not maintain himself at the
228

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
height to which he was being exalted. — "Mr.Laurier's
past does not warrant these exaggerated eulogies.
It is not because a member of Parliament has made
a very pretty academic speech that we must crown
him as a great man. His friends are rendering him a
bad service. They are making a pedestal for him
which is too exalted. Mr. Laurier has up to the
present time distinguished himself only by his
speeches, and they contained only phrases more or
less well constructed, but not a new idea. Now, one
does not save a party with speeches or phrases. Mr.
Laurier may have the material in him of a states
man, but his talent has not yet manifested itself.
Up to the present time this talent has appeared
to us superficial. He has never shown any depth."
It is interesting to contrast with this judgment of
the leading French Conservative journal the utter
ance of the Montreal Gazette, then edited by Mr.
Thomas White, and perhaps the most sober and
sagacious of Conservative journals in Canada. The
Gazette said: "Against Mr. Laurier personally we
have nothing to say, and it is a pleasure, after
having to deal with such men as Laflamme, and
Huntington, and Cauchon, to realize that in the
case of the new Minister the objection becomes
wholly political. But as a public man he is, under
the Constitution, bound to admit that the question
before his constituents is not whether he is 'a good
fellow' or not, but whether the policy of the Gov
ernment for which, seeing that no change is
229

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
announced, he has assumed the entire responsibihty,
as much so as if he had been a member aU the time,
is such as deserves the support and confidence of
the people."
Le National said: "After a stay of a year in
Montreal, Mr. Laurier established himself in the
county town of the county of Arthabaska. From
that day his future was assured. Chents arrived as
by enchantment, and he became the pet child of
the people. His entrance into Parliament was only
a question of time and opportunity. As a speaker,
and as a scientific man, Mr. Laurier has attained a
very high position in the federal Parhament. We
admire his great facility of elocution, the elegance
of his language, and the serious tone that he gives
to discussion. These qualities have placed him side
by side with Mr. Blake and Sir John Macdonald."
L' Union, of St. Hyacinthe, with equal heartiness,
said: "Mr. Laurier, the brilliant member for Artha
baska, is chosen to replace Mr. Cauchon in Mr.
Mackenzie's Cabinet. The eulogies that the Enghsh
papers and some Conservative papers have passed
upon the new Minister, clearly demonstrate that he
will be a respected and influential chief His conduct
as a Minister will be firm and liberal. The speeches
that he has lately made indicate the course that he
intends to follow. We are convinced that the true
friends of the country will make haste to second
with their efforts the one that the English have
called the ' coming or rising man'!"
230

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
AU these various opinions and estimates are taken
from journals more or less closely identified with one
or other of the political parties. It is plain that the
Liberal press had a great regard for the young
Minister, while the considerate and even generous
treatment he received from many of the Conserva
tive journals is almost without parallel in the
history of political controversy in Canada. The in
dependent press was equally appreciative and eulo
gistic. For example, the writer of "Current Events"
in the Canadian Monthly, said: "The new Minister
of Inland Revenue, the Hon. Wilfrid Laurier, is in
every way a valuable accession to the Cabinet. A
young man, not yet 36 years of age, he has an
amount of ability, coupled with a maturity of
judgment, which marks him out as a leader of party.
The address which he dehvered last June before Le
Club Canadien in Quebec has now acquired new
significance ; it is no longer the able utterance of a
promising legislator, but must serve as the manifesto
of the Quebec Liberals — ^the best expression of
their matured opinions." The writer added: "Mr.
Laurier, in his Quebec address, made light of the
charge of inconsistency, and he was right in doing
so. It is the parrot cry of those who are too obtuse
to learn anything by experience, or too crass and
stubborn to profit by it. The Liberal party of
Quebec is distinctly national in its principles and
aims, and it is, therefore, a great gain to the Admin
istration to have secured the services of its young
231

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
leader, from whose unquestionable force and vigour
of mind, not less than from his oratorical power,
Canada, and especially his compatriots of Quebec,
have a right to expect great things in the future."*
Just as soon as he was sworn into the Cabinet,
Mr. Laurier set out for Drummond and Artha
baska to enter upon the election campaign made
necessary by his acceptance of office. The hope that
he would be returned by acclamation was quickly
dispeUed. The Opposition made immediate prepara
tions for a strenuous contest, proceeded to throw
into the constituency workers and speakers from aU
over Quebec, and even drafted for service in this
remote field a corps of their most active canvassing
and organizing agents from the Province of Ontario.
Mr. Laurier was left to fight the platform battle
almost single-handed against a score of the best
outside speakers the Conservative party could com
mand, while his organization was by no means
equal to that of his opponents. It was thought that
his personal popularity would prevaU against aU
odds, and that pride in his character and career,
and satisfaction with his appointment to office
would be more than a match for duU times and
aU the devices and efforts of his opponents. The
Minister reached ArthabaskaviUe on October 9th,
and was greeted with extraordinary demonstrations
of esteem and good-wiU. Over two hundred carriages
were in procession, the streets were decorated with
^ Canadian Monthly for November, 1877.
232

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
arches, and the trees hung with flags and bunting.
In the presence of such enthusiasm, the defeat of
the Minister seemed quite out of the question. But
his opponents were not daunted. They redoubled
their efforts to accomplish his overthrow, and
showed astonishing resource and vigour in the
prosecution of the campaign. In the private canvass,
Mr. Laurier was subjected to a remarkable series of
accusations and misrepresentations, while the plat
form attack was levelled against the Administration.
It was sought to minimize the popularity of the
Minister by fierce and vehement denunciation of
the Government which he had entered. As it was
put by the chief Conservative journal : " It is the
Government, not Mr. Laurier, which is on trial in
Drummond and Arthabaska, though, of course, you
cannot prevent the Government receiving in a
measure the advantage of whatever popularity Mr.
Laurier may have in the constituency. It is because
he has dared to take upon his shoulders the sins
of the Administration, even to Mr. Mackenzie's
coahtion with Mr. Cauchon, and the latter's eleva
tion to a Lieutenant-Governorship, that he finds
such strong opposition to him on his return to his
old constituency."
The main issue on the platform was the condition
of the country ; the main issue in the canvass the
relations of Mr. Laurier and his party with the
Roman Cathohc ecclesiastics. For many years the
Church authorities had given no quarter to Liberal
233

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
candidates, and had almost strangled the Liberal
party in Quebec. Occasion will be taken in another
chapter to consider this issue, and to present Mr.
Laurier's attitude in face of the bold and deter
mined attempt of the bishops to destroy political
liberalism and civil liberty in Lower Canada. In
this particular contest, however, it was the emis
saries of the Conservative party, rather than the
agents of the bishops, who undertook to estabhsh
that Mr. Laurier was a bad Cathohc, and that he
and his party were under the direct censure of
Rome. It was represented in the French parishes
that Mr. Laurier had become a Protestant min
ister.* It was said he had demanded that priests
should marry. It was declared in one of the
campaign documents circulated by his opponents
that he was the companion of "apostates of the
Chiniquy breed," of "excommunicated persons,"
and of " friends of Guibord." He was denounced by
at least one priest as a Liberal of the worst and
most dangerous character, whUe a second curd
sent out a letter for general distribution declaring
that Mr. Bourbeau, the Minister's opponent, was
" devoted to the interests of rehgion and had shown
great patriotism on many occasions." Another
campaign document undertook to interpret a pas-
^ He had been represented as a Protestant minister ; there was not
one of the canvassers of the honourable gentlemen opposite that did
not represent to the people that he was not a Minister of the Crown,
but that he was a Protestant minister. — Mr. Laurier in the House
of Commons, February 11th, 1878.
234

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
toral letter which had just been issued at the
instance of the authorities at Rome and in response
to the appeal of Liberal Catholics, as meaning the
reverse of what its language implied. The effect of
this pastoral letter was to declare that no pontifical
decree existed condemning any political party, and
therefore, to set Catholics free to vote for Liberal
candidates. But the clerical campaign document
had more specific knowledge of the mind of Rome,
and the judgment of the hierarchy. It said : " This
does not mean that the Liberal party is not con
demned because of its bad doctrines, or does not
deserve to be condemned. It merely shows that the
Church in its wisdom and prudence does not wish
to point out by name any person, class, or party."
But " this party, or at least the leaders, are certainly
under the weight of the clauses condemning Liberal
ism." These men, it was further claimed, were
" Liberals of the worst kind," and Mr. Laurier and
Mr. Laflamme were specifically named as standing
under the direct censure of the Church. It was also
charged against Mr. Laurier, as he said in a speech
in the House during the next session, that when
a youth of twenty he had joined an association
whose members were sworn to "crush out the
Enghsh race from the American continent."* The
Irish Cathohcs of the constituency were told that he
had become an Orangeman, and the French-speaking
electors that he was a Presbyterian. Altogether
1 Hansard, 1878, page 66. 235

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
it was a remarkably resourceful campaign on the
part of the Minister's opponents, and the result
proved that it was as effective as it was remarkable.
When the polls closed on October 27th, he was
found to be in a minority of 29, where he had had
a majority of 238 at the general election. The
result was received by the Conservative press and
party with a roar of exultation, while the Liberal
party felt the blow from one end of the country to
the other, and looked with gloom and apprehension
to the future.
It was a bad defeat for the Administration, and a
bad defeat for the Minister. It was probably the sorest
blow that has been dealt to Mr. Laurier during all his
public career, and he did not disguise the fact that he
was hit hard and that he understood the full signific
ance of the incident. He was beaten in his own home,
beaten just as he had accepted office, and beaten
by the men of his own race and faith ; and in all
three facts he found cause for unaffected regret and
disappointment. It is said that old Liberals in
Drummond and Arthabaska, who were so confident
of his election that they did not even go to the
polls, wept when they learned the result. In the
Enghsh portions of the constituency he ran very
strong and gained heavily on the vote he had polled
three years before. As The 3Iail said, " The Eng
lish vote went heavily for the new Minister." The
causes of his defeat were actively canvassed by
the press of the country, but in the main their
236

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
judgments simply represented party opinion. The
Liberal journals of Montreal, French and Enghsh,
ascribed the result to the active intervention of the
Quebec Government, and to the interference of
the local clergy in defiance of the pastoral of
the bishops. The Montreal Star argued that the
Conservative victory was due to the determination
of the people to pass censure upon Mr. Mackenzie
for taking Mr. Cauchon into his Cabinet. The
Ottawa correspondent of The Mail wrote : " No
stronger man than Mr. Laurier in the Province
of Quebec could be found to contest the constit-
ency. It was a Grit stronghold. Mr. Laurier in a
short time has made a briUiant record. He had
ingratiated himself into the affections of the Eng
lish-speaking party, and secured at least two hun
dred Conservative votes on this occasion ; in fact,
he appealed to the electors with everything in his
favour, and has apparently been beaten, not because
of his own, but rather the utter unpopularity of the
Government of which in an evil hour he consented
to become a member." The Montreal Gazette said :
" No man ever appealed to a constituency person
ally better quahfied than did the Minister of Inland
Revenue. His personal respectability is admitted on
aU hands, and he certainly has no reason to com
plain that this has in any way been questioned. His
ability is acknowledged by his opponents as well as
by his friends. He had just assumed a position of
quasi-leadership, inaugurating his acceptance of that
237

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
position by an address which was avowedly intended
to mark out the policy of the Liberal party for the
future." "It was not," said the Gazette, "Mr.
Laurier, the pohshed gentleman and skilful debater,
who was appeahng to the constituency ; it was the
Minister of Inland Revenue in Mr. Mackenzie's
Government." There were the usual charges of bribery made
against the agents of the Ministerial candidate.
It was likewise alleged, that in the French districts,
Mr. Bourbeau was represented to have the support
of the Orangemen, and that Mr. Huntington's cele
brated speech in the county of ArgenteuU, inviting
the Enghsh-speaking people of Quebec to unite
with the Liberal party in order to overcome the
effects of clerical coercion in behalf of the candi
dates of the Conservative party, was circulated
among the English-speaking electors of the division
in the interests of Mr. Laurier. There seems to
have been small basis for any of these charges, and
at any rate, in these particulars, the Liberals were
hopelessly outclassed by their opponents. There
was neither a free use of money by the Liberals,
nor any organized appeal to race or creed con
siderations. On the other hand, there was some
justification for The Globe's vigorous denunciation
of the methods to which his opponents resorted.
Two or three days after the election that paper
said: "It is evident from the documents circu
lated in the interests of the opposition candidate,
238

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
no less than from the well-known characters of
the men who supported Mr. Bourbeau, that the
grand objection to Mr. Laurier, and the intense
anxiety to defeat him, had their origin in that
bigotry to which the very name of Liberalism acts
as fuel to fire. It is a sentiment quite outside of
and distinct from the faith these men profess; it
has been repudiated and discountenanced by the
authorities they are assumed most to respect; it
would be fatal to the liberties of any people that
acknowledged it." "Mr. Laurier," The Globe said,
"dares in secular matters to exercise the simplest
and most necessary rights of citizenship, he dares
to be a Liberal in pohtics, to be a member of
a Liberal Govemment, to insist on the right of
free judgment; he maintains his views and opinions
with distinguished abihty; he is capable not only of
foUowing, but of leading in the Liberal army. These
are the reasons why he must be beaten at aU
hazards ; these are the motives that urge his assail
ants to strike him down." The Globe added: "Mr.
Laurier might hold every opinion and stand by
every word he has ever expressed, and there is not
a Roman Cathohc in Ontario who would not be
proud to haU him as a worthy representative of his
communion in the Canadian Parhament. Bigotry
itself in Ontario dared not ostracize a man so able
and so distinguished on any such grounds." These
views The Globe repeated in subsequent articles,
and it does not seem that the issue was ever
239

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
squarely met by the Conservative press, or that the
evidence upon which The Globe spoke was ever
seriously impugned. There is no doubt that for
many years clerical coercion was freely employed
against the candidates of the Liberal party in
Quebec, and that during aU that period the Con
servative leaders had the support of the Protestant
organizations of Ontario, and of a majority of the
English-speaking people of the Lower Province.
Moreover, it is doubtful if Mr. Laurier's attitude in
Quebec brought any general support to the Liberal
party, while such a paper as the St. John Freeman,
Cathohc and Liberal, took issue with The Globe,
and intimated that its utterances were unwise and
impohtic. Anger, grief, and disappointment aU find
expression in the Montreal Herald's comment on
the Minister's defeat. The Herald said: "The elec
tors of his late constituency wiU see the day, and
that not in the distant future, when they wiU regret
having rejected one of the most brilhant and
promising men in the Dominion. Mr. Laurier's
defeat is a blow to the Liberal party undoubtedly,
and a blow at the cause of honesty, free thought,
and political morality in Canada, but it would be
absurd to suppose that the verdict of one electoral
division, obtained upon false pretences, can inflict
an injury that cannot be repaired. Mr. Laurier, if
his services are spared to his country, wiU have
a name in history, beside which those of his detrac
tors will be as nothing, and in the future, when the
240

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
accident shaU be repaired, he can afford to laugh at
the stupidity which has been displayed by the
majority of the electors of Drummond and Artha
baska." The Govemment, of course, could not permit
Mr. Laurier's defeat in Drummond and Arthabaska
to interrupt his political career, nor to block his
entrance into the Ministry. It was at once deter
mined that he must be returned for some other
constituency. Mr. Thibeaudeau offered to resign his
seat for Quebec East in the young Minister's favour.
Accordingly on November 7th an influential depu
tation from Quebec went to ArthabaskaviUe, and,
in response to their representations, Mr. I^aurier
accepted nomination for the division. On the next
day he went down to Quebec, and plunged at once
into a contest in which he met from his opponents
as keen and uncompromising opposition as he had
encountered in Drummond and Arthabaska. The
Toronto Globe, if it is permissible to quote from
that paper just one or two additional sentences, in
eulogy of Mr. Laurier and in protest against the
very determined attempt of the Conservative
leaders to keep him out of the Govemment, said:
"Mr. Laurier's entrance into the Cabinet has direct
pohtical significance. He takes, with the assumption
of office, a new and more influential position. He is
sure to exercise that influence in the manner most
distastefiU and most fatal to his reactionary oppo
nents. The substitution of broad, statesmanhke views
241

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
for local and sectarian rivalries and controversies, is
of aU things needed in Quebec at the present time,
and it cannot fail to attract whatever is best, most
enhghtened, and most patriotic in such a community.
So every nerve is being strained to defeat Mr.
Laurier again, and thus, if possible, to disgust him
with pubhc hfe."
The old question of amnesty for the leaders in
the Red River insurrection appeared in the contest.
Two months before, on September 20th, the Gov
ernment had passed an Order-in-CouncU which
placed O'Donoghue on the same footing as Riel and
Lepine, and this was approved by the Imperial
authorities. The fact was announced during the
election, and at once the cry was raised that the
object was to influence the Irish Cathohcs of
Quebec East to support Mr. Laurier. Possibly this
idea was not whoUy absent from the mind of the
Government, and possibly Liberals had very gener
aUy concluded that O'Donoghue had figured long
enough as a hero and martyr for Conservative
pohticians, and strictly for campaign purposes. Of
course, the main issue raised against the Government
in Quebec East, as in Drummond and Arthabaska,
was the tariff, but as Mr. Laurier had the support
of the large manufacturers of the division, the pro
tectionist argument was less damaging than it
would have proved in most industrial communities.
He had the unanimous support of the Enghsh press
of Quebec, as he had had the support of the decisive
242

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
majority of the Enghsh-speaking electors of Drum
mond and Arthabaska.
In a comment on some of his utterances the
Quebec Mercury said: "Mr. Laurier's remarks were
those of the statesman, as distinct from the mere
pohtician, that is, the man of large combinations as
distinct from the man of temporary expedients and
cunning shifts." The Mercury also took occasion to
say that if Mr. Laurier were defeated, "It would
be a misfortune for the province, as it would show
that there was no bridging over the animosities
either of the present or of the past. It wiU, should
it occur, show there is a gulf in our pohtical forum
which no personal devotion, however patriotic and
self-abnegating, can fiU. If Mr. Laurier, on the
other hand, be elected, a new departure wiU result
from it. The sickening or half-maddening iteration
of threadbare rants and worn-out war-cries wiU give
place to real and virile pohtics, worthy of national
attention and enlightened thought." It is true that
this was spoken in the heat of an election campaign;
but it is the habit of election hterature to emphasize
the sahent characteristics of its heroes, and the
common recognition of Mr. Laurier as a man
of unusual breadth of view, and of exceptional
loftiness of character and nobUity of purpose,
could not be altogether the product of campaign
hysterics and partisan imagination. Besides, as
we have seen, if his opponents did not admit
the justice of Liberal estimates, they did not
243

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
deny to Mr. Laurier the possession of admirable
qualities. It is vain, however, to expect that considerations
of mercy or ideas of chivalry shaU enter into an
election contest, and in Quebec East, as in Drum
mond and Arthabaska, Mr. Laurier was fought as
sternly and as unpityingly as if he had been the
most paltry and sordid of professional pohticians.
He faced the battle with serene humour and high
courage, and won a decisive victory. The poUing
took place on November 28th, and Mr. Laurier's
majority over his Conservative opponent, Mr. Tour-
angeau, was 315. The news was received with
rejoicing by Ijiberals throughout Canada, and with
very special satisfaction by the Administration at
Ottawa. In Quebec East a great torch-hght pro
cession celebrated the victory, and at other points
in the province bonfires blazed and Liberal rejoicing
found various and hearty manifestation. Prompt
steps were taken to arrange for a pubhc welcome
to the Minister on his return to the capital. On
December 1st he was accompanied to his home at
ArthabaskaviUe by nearly two thousand of the
citizens of the old French capital. They fUled two
trains. They were accompanied by two or three
bands of music. The cars were gaily decorated with
the Rouge colours. There were several stops by the
way, at which the bands played and the Minister
addressed the people. On December 4th he reached
Montreal, where he was lunched by a representative
244

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
company of Liberals, and in the evening spoke to a
great audience from the balcony of the St. Lawrence
HaU. AU these demonstrations were eclipsed, how
ever, by the welcome he received on the foUowing
day at Ottawa. Notwithstanding heavy rain, he was
met by a great crowd at the railway station, and
presented with an address, to which he spoke in
reply in both French and Enghsh. He was escorted
to the home of the Prime Minister by a procession
which embraced six hundred torch-bearers, four
bands of music, and over one hundred carriages.
His carriage was drawn by four white horses.
He was enthusiasticaUy cheered along the route
of the parade, and again spoke to the people
from the steps of Mr. Mackenzie's residence. Thus
the Liberals strove to accentuate the victory in
Quebec East, and to wipe out the memory of the
defeat in Drummond and Arthabaska. It is note
worthy that throughout these two tumvUtuous cam
paigns Mr. Laurier spoke always with moderation
and discretion, made no inflammatory appeal, and
dehberately overlooked the intrusion into the con
test of certain forces and agencies which angered
and excited many of the Liberal journals. There is,
perhaps, a trace of feehng in his statement at
Montreal that he had gone to the very door of the
Quebec Govemment, and there defied and defeated
his opponents, as there is a determination character
istic of the man in the memorable sentence: "I
have unfurled the Liberal standard above the
245

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
ancient citadel of Quebec, and there I wiU keep it
waving." Almost a quarter of a century has passed
since that prophecy was spoken, but the Liberal
flag still flies over Quebec East, and over aU but
eight of the electoral divisions of the old Con
servative Province of Quebec.
Mr. Laurier served as Minister under Mr. Mac
kenzie for only one session. He introduced no very
important legislation, but although only a few
months in office, he showed an exceUent knowledge
of the work of his department. He handled his
estimates to the satisfaction of his coUeagues, and
was uniformly considerate and courteous in his
treatment of the Opposition. He took a free hand
in the general business of the session, and con
tributed speeches to two or three of its more
important discussions. It was, of course, known
that dissolution must succeed prorogation, and it
was therefore a campaign session, with the tariff
and the condition of the country as the chief
questions of debate. The Administration was now
irrevocably committed to the maintenance of the
17|^ per cent, tariff*, while the Opposition grew
always bolder in the advocacy of undiluted and
irredeemable protection. It is true Sir John Mac
donald told the Eastern Provinces that a readjust
ment rather than an increase of the tariff was
contemplated ; but that historical message was
intended to serve local rather than general purposes,
and was at variance with the general tone of the
246

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
Conservative press, and with the general argument of
the campaign hterature and the campaign speeches.*
The Liberal party, with flags flying and drums
beating, and with brave show of heart and con
fidence, marched on to utter defeat.
It has been argued that if Mr. Mackenzie had
dissolved Parhament immediately after prorogation,
and had gone to the country in June, the Adminis
tration might have been sustained. But the contest
was not brought on untU September, and Sir John
Macdonald and his aUies had aU the summer for
speaking and for organization. There seems, how
ever, no good reason to think that even if the
earher date had been chosen the result would have
been different. The commercial depression was stiU
severe, the protectionist arguments appealed power
fuUy to strugghng manufacturers, impoverished
traders, and idle workmen, and the Conservative
leaders were united and aggressive, and inspired by
phenomenal successes in a long series of bye-
elections. It is fair to say that the Liberal leaders
were equaUy aggressive, but it is not so clear
that they were equaUy united. It is doubtful if
Mr. Mackenzie was ever quite the absolute and
^ In June, 1878, Senator John Boyd, of New Brtmswick, wired Sir
John Macdonald as follows: "The Government press here state that
you propose to raise the tariff generally to thirty-five per cent. Can I
contradict this.''" In reply Sir John Macdonald said: "^It is an absurd
falsehood ; neither in London nor elsewhere have I gone beyond my
motion in Parliament, and have never proposed an increase, but a
readjustment of the tariff."
247

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
unquestioned leader of the Liberal party. There was
an element in Parhament and in the country which
thought that Mr. Blake should have succeeded to
the leadership of the federal party when he resigned
the Premiership of Ontario; and while Mr. Blake
himself advocated Mr. Mackenzie's appointment,
and accepted the subordinate position, not aU of the
group who asserted Mr. Blake's superior qualifi
cations for the leadership could be reconcUed to
Mr. Mackenzie's elevation. A hostUe critic, re
membering the Aurora platform and Mr. Blake's
association with some of the protectionist pioneers
of the Canada First movement, has said that the
National Policy was Mr. Blake's axe, and was
stolen by the Conservatives when out of power
to cut down the Mackenzie Administration. This
writer represented Mr. Mackenzie and George
Brown as bound to the altar of British capital, and
devoted to the principle of commercial dependency,
and Mr. Blake as the friend of nationahty and
commercial autonomy.* The grounds for this con
clusion are not readily apparent, although the
motive of the writers who strove with a dihgence
as great as their ingenuity to set Mr. Blake in
antagonism to Brown and Mackenzie is easily
understood. Mr. Blake, himself, however, had
rather a fitful connection with the Mackenzie
Government, now changing portfohos, now serving
without portfoho, and now for a season refusing
^ The By.ftandcr for April, 1881.
248

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
office altogether — and, most unfortunate of aU,
during the election contest compelled by iU-health
to be absent from the country.
For the greater part of his term of office Mr.
Mackenzie was cruelly overworked. He never
learned to use subordinates in his department nor
in Parhament. A worn-out man cannot always be
concUiatory. A departmental drudge is not always
fit for the dehcate and manifold details of party
management. The country benefited, the Liberal
party suffered, from Mr. Mackenzie's excessive
apphcation to public business. Canada has had
no other Minister of Pubhc Works equal to Mr.
Mackenzie, and perhaps no more powerful debater
ever spoke in the Canadian Parliament. In the
House and in the country he made magnificent
defence of his Administration, and if Providence
had been kind, the crops good, and trade flourish
ing, he could not have been successfuUy attacked,
and his Government could not have been over
turned. It was a violent and bad-tempered campaign.
There were speeches made by men of very
considerable standing in both parties that are
no credit to our pohtical hterature. The press,
too, was savage and sometimes venomous, but
upon the whole its tone was better than that of
the pohticians. Mr. Mackenzie and his coUeagues
knew in advance that they would be badly beaten
in Quebec, but they looked with confidence to
249

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Ontario and to the Eastern Provinces. The Prime
Minister was fuUy satisfied that he would have a
majority in Ontario at least equal to any majority
the Conservatives could take out of Quebec. On
this point he would scarcely hear argument. WhUe
George Brown had moments of doubt and un
easiness, he shared generaUy in the confidence of
the Prime Minister. They could not be persuaded
that Ontario would ever overlook the transactions
which led to Sir John Macdonald's downfaU five
years before.* Mr. Laurier, on the other hand, had
no hope at aU that the Government would survive
the elections. He was convinced before he entered
the Ministry that it was on its death-bed, and was
very reluctant to forsake his fine law business at
ArthabaskaviUe for a few months of ministerial
apprenticeship at Ottawa. He, of course, gave most
of his time to his own province, and spoke in behalf
of Liberal candidates in many constituencies. It
^ In a speech in the House of Commons on March 20th, 1902, Mr.
John Charlton, M.P., for North Norfolk, said that the leader of the
Reform Govemment in 1878, and his Ministers had not the shghtest
anticipation that they were in danger. They did not at all realize the
condition of pubhc sentiment. For his part, he held twenty or thirty
meetings in each year in his constituency, and felt that his position was
critical. He felt that as a supporter of the Mackenzie Government he
was hable to be defeated, and in June, 1878, he wrote to Mr.
Mackenzie, telling him that, in his opinion, the Govemment was in
a dangerous position, was resting in a fancied security, and might
wake up upon the realization of disaster. He advised Mr. Mackenzie
to postpone the date of the elections, take measures to have the fiscal
question thoroughly discussed in every riding, and the protective
policy combated by good speakers everywhere. In reply, Mr. Mac-
250

IN THE MACKENZIE ADMINISTRATION
was a vain fight, he well knew, so far as Quebec
was concerned, but ntn ertheless he fought at his
best, retained his own seat for Quebec East, and
saw Drummond and Arthabaska renew its aUeg
iance to the Liberal party. During the campaign
he visited Ontario and spoke at one or two
meetings. This experience confirmed his impression
that the Government was doomed, and that in
Ontario as weU as in Quebec pubhc feeling was
decisively with Sir John Macdonald and the
National Pohcy. On September 17th, the blow
feU. The Government was beaten in every province
except New Brunswick. Sir John Macdonald came
back to power with a majority of eighty-six at his
back, and the era of Protection dawned for Canada.
kenzie, according to Mr. Charlton, "had the kindness to write me
a long, long letter, to disabuse my mind of the false impressions I had
imbibed ; to show me that really I failed entirely to apprehend
the drift of public sentiment ; to assure me that the Government was
perfectly safe ; that there was no danger at all ; and tliat it was folly
for me to borrow trouble. He went on to enter into details, and to show
me the ridings we were sure to carry, the ridings we might possibly
lose, the ridings we might possibly gain, and he wound up his survey
of the field by the assertion that he would come back to power with a
majority of sixty members in tlie House of Commons. Well, I did not
believe it, but when the thunderbolt fell on September 17th, I
must confess that I was paralyzed, for I had no anticipation that there
would be a majority of sixty on the opposite side. But such was the
case."

251

CHAPTER X
THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
IN order to grasp the fuU significance of the
noteworthy speech on Pohtical Liberahsm
which Mr. Laurier delivered at Quebec in June,
1877, it is advisable to consider the conditions
which necessitated and justified that important
dehverance. We have seen in the condemnation
of the Institut Canadien, in the persecution of
Guibord, in the censure passed upon Le Pays
and other Liberal journals, in the influences ar
rayed against Mr. Laurier in Drummond and
Arthabaska, something of the temper of the
Ultramontanes, and something of the unhappy
relations existing between the Liberal party and
the Roman Cathohc hierarchy of Lower Canada.
It may be that the clergy misconceived the aims,
and misunderstood the spirit of the Liberal party;
and did not, for sinister purposes, maintain a
dehberate alhance with the Conservative politi
cians. The assertion of the supremacy of the State
in civU affairs is an essential feature of Liberal
pohcy. But Liberahsm is equaUy bound to practise
rehgious tolerance, to respect aU honest phases of
rehgious opinion, and to afford equal protection
to aU forms of rehgious faith. The Liberal party
253

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of Canada has never sought to proscribe the
Roman Catholic religion, to make inquisition into
its forms and ceremonies, to restrict in any measure
the propagation of its tenets, or force it into any
subordinate relationship to the great Protestant
denominations. Aside from its assertion of the
supremacy of the State in pubhc affairs, the Liberal
party has had no quarrel with the Cathohc ecclesi
astics, and has never fhnched from the duty of
defence and protest when their legitimate interests
were threatened, or their admitted rights imperUled.
But from 1870 to 1880 Ultramontanism had a
formidable ascendancy in Lower Canada, and as
a necessary consequence of the very spirit and
constitution of the Liberal party it had to wage
a mighty battle for existence against its powerful
ecclesiastical opponents.
The Programme CathoUque was perhaps the first
distinct utterance of pohtical Ultramontanism in
the Province of Quebec. This document was first
pubhshed in Le Journal des Trois Rivieres on
April 20th, 1870. Its chief significance lay in an
extract from a pastoral letter by the Bishop of
Three Rivers. The document, in fact, was an
expansion of the pastoral, and did not bear the
episcopal imprimatur. It developed, however, into
the authorized programme of the Jesuits and
Ultramontanes, directed and inspired by Bishop
Bourget and his aUies, and received the direct
countenance and sanction of the united episcopacy.
254

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
"It is impossible to deny," said the Bishop of
Three Rivers, " that politics are closely hnked with
rehgion, and that the separation of Church and
State is a doctrine absurd and impious. This is
especiaUy true under constitutional rule, which,
assigning the entire legislative power to Parha
ment, places in the hands of those who compose
it a two-edged weapon which might prove terrible "
It was necessary, therefore, that those into whose
hands the legislative power was committed, should
be in perfect accord with the teachings of the
Church. "FuU and entire adhesion to Roman
Cathohc doctrines in rehgion, in politics, and in
social economy ought to be the first and principal
quahfication which the Cathohc electors should
require from the candidate." The Conservative
party were presented as the defenders of social
authority. They were described as a group of men
professing sincerely sound principles of rehgion,
patriotism, and nationahty, inviolably attached to
Cathohc doctrines, and manifesting an absolute
devotion to the national interests of Lower Canada.
StUl, support of the Conservative party was to be
"subordinated to the interests of rehgion." The
laws touching marriage, education, the erection of
parishes, and the compulsory register of marriages,
baptisms, and burials, restricted the freedom and
authority of the Church, hampered its adminis
tration, and could be interpreted in a hostUe
spirit. "This state of things imposes on Cathohc
255

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
legislators the duty of changing and modifying
these laws in the way in which our Lords the
Bishops of the province demand, to the end that
they may be put into harmony with the doc
trines of the Roman Cathohc Church." It was,
therefore, the duty of the electors to give their
votes only to those who were wiUing to conform
entirely to the teachings of the Church in these
matters. If two Conservative candidates appeared,
the one who subscribed to the Programme should
be supported. Where candidates of each party were
in nomination, they should vote for the Con
servative. If a Conservative who rejected the
Programme should be opposed by a Liberal who
accepted its propositions, the position, the Bishop
admitted, "would be very dehcate." Acceptance of
such a Conservative would involve the surrender
of the main object, while by voting for the Liberal
they would put the Conservative party which they
desired to see powerful in perU. In such a con
tingency, therefore, electors were advised to abstain
from voting.*
The Programme was resisted by powerful influ
ences within the Church itself; by all that group of
ecclesiastics who stiU stood for the GaUican hberties;
by the moderate counsels of the Sulpicians ; by the
liberal spirit of Laval university; and even by Sir
George Cartier and some of his pohtical organs.
There is also good evidence that Mgr. BaiUargeon,
^ See " Rome in Canada " by Charles Lindsey, pages 163-166.
256

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
then Archbishop of Quebec, and his successor,
Mgr. Taschereau, sought to curb the zeal of the
Ultramontanes. The Primates, however, were op
portunists rather than disciples of Galhcanism, and
were probably withheld from distinct identification
with the Ultramontanes only by their very aggressive
action and very immoderate demands. Thus, whUe
Archbishop Taschereau was particularly active in
checking and resisting their more extreme preten
sions, he was careful to avoid any attack upon the
vUtramontane doctrines which were then strongly
upheld by Pope Leo XIII. The Church of Quebec,
hke that of France, whence came its form and
temper, maintained the unity of the faith with
Rome, but cherished the spirit of nationahty,
accepted the principle of State sovereignty in civil
concerns, and maintained large rights of self-
government.* Ultramontanism, upon the other
hand, represents those propositions of the Syllabus,
which declare that within the sphere which she
^ Galhcanism is described by Chambers' Encycloptedia as that system
in Roman Cathohc theology, which, while it recognizes the primacy of
the Roman Pontiff by divine right over the universal church, yet
asserts the independence of national churches in many details of self-
government and of local discipline, and limits the exercise of the papal
prerogatives by canons and decrees of general councils and by the laws
of the universal church.
" It has always been the maxim of the French Court that the Papal
power is to be restricted by means of the French clergy, and that the
clergy, on the other hand, are to be kept in due hmits by means of the
papal power." Ranke's "History of the Popes," Bohn's edition. Vol.
IL, page 420.
257

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
chooses to define for herself the Church is superior
to the civU authority.
From this time the war against the GaUican
ideas was waged with uncompromising rigour. The
Sulpicians were crippled by the division of the
parish of Notre Dame and by the introduction
of Ultramontanes into the new parishes thus
created. Laval was attacked, and a determined
attempt was made to estabhsh a rival university in
Montreal under the inspiration and direction of
the Programmists. The Institut Canadien, a centre
of GaUican teaching, was banned and hunted.
The dress of the clergy was changed. The use
of the Roman Mantle and Hat was prescribed.
The old ornaments of the churchwarden's pew, the
crucifix and the candelabra were removed and
described by Bishop Bourget as mummeries. The
old French Ritual was suppressed, with aU the
ancient GaUican ceremonies. AU, in fact, that was
characteristic of the Galhcan Church was abohshed,
and Roman and Ultramontane' dresses and cere
monies substituted. The Jesuits, who had secured
an equivocal incorporation in 1854 as the CoUege of
St. Mary, grew in influence and authority, and
steadily increased their control over the educational
system of the province. The Fabrique, a quasi-
municipal body designed to control the temporahties
of the Church, and to determine the expenditures
of the parishes for church purposes, was practicaUy
abohshed, and the bishop was vested with absolute
258

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
power to dispose of church funds. The Legislature
was subservient, the masses of the people docile,
the Ultramontane arrogant, aggressive, and singularly
able and intrepid.
A year after the appearance of the Programme,
the golden wedding of the priesthood of Bishop
Bourget was celebrated. Archbishops, bishops, and
many of the inferior clergy attended, and advantage
was taken of the occasion to make bold and defiant
assertion of the extreme clerical claims for which
Bishop Bourget contended. Father Braun, a Jesuit
priest, and a faithful representative of his order,
was selected to dehver the sermon. He claimed for
the Church the prerogative of making laws to bind
the conscience, and to which the State was bound
to submit. The Church, he claimed, had the right
to make laws on the subject of marriage, to erect
parishes Avithout the intervention of the civU power,
and to superintend education in the pubhc schools.
The State was bound to yield obedience to the
Church, and the fashion of looking on the majority
as the source of right was a revival of pagan
despotism. He declared that Galhcanism and Liberal
Cathohcism had powerfuUy contributed to the pro
pagation of many and grave errors. Galhcanism was
defined as "insubordination towards the Holy
Father, servUity to the civU power, despotism
towards inferiors." The GaUican refused to obey the
Pope, against whom he armed himself with the pro
tection of the powers of this earth, while he gave
259

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
to the civil power which protected him in his
rebelhon aU the authority which he refused to the
Sovereign Pontiff. Everywhere the GaUicans were
the flatterers of the civil power to which they had
recourse, even in ecclesiastical cases in which the
Bishop or the Pope should have the right of
adjudication. Liberahsm was condemned with the
same unsparing severity. " This," said Father Braun,
"is a so-caUed generosity towards error; it is a
readiness to yield on the score of principles. Liberal
Cathohcs grant to the State the right of requiriag
that parishes, bishoprics, and religious orders be
civiUy incorporated, as a condition of their having
the right to limit the possessions of the Church, and
to make laws for regulating the administration
of church property. They grant to the State the
right of taking possession of church property and
keeping it, thus sanctioning the principle of com
munism. Speak to these sacrilegious usurpers of
restitution : their only answer wiU be a sneer.
Liberal Cathohcs pretend that the State can pre
scribe the form of marriage, define invahdating
impediments, and pronounce upon the conjugal
ties in matrimonial causes. Liberal Catholics con
fide to the State the superintendence and direction
of primary schools, to the detriment of the Church
and fathers of families. They grant to the State the
rights of intervening in the erection of parishes,
independently of any authorization of the Holy
See." AU these fatal errors, he declared, must be
260

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
fought against, the State must be entirely subor
dinated to the Church, must give its civil sanction
to the decrees of the Church, and defend and
enforce aU her claims, both civil and spiritual.
The Roman Cathohc Episcopate of Quebec in a
Joint Pastoral of September 22nd, 1875, declared
that "The Church is not only independent of civil
society, but is superior to it by her comprehensive
ness and by her end." Again, "The State is therefore
in the Church and not the Church in the State."
And again, "The priest and the bishop may and
ought to speak not only to the electors and candi
dates, but even to the constituted authorities."
The clause denouncing Cathohc Liberalism reads:
"Cathohc Liberahsm, says Pius IX., is the most
inveterate and the most dangerous enemy of the
divine constitution of the Church. Like unto the
serpent which crept into the earthly paradise to
tempt and bring to ruin the human race, it presents
to the chUdren of Adam the deceitful aUurement
of a certain hberty, and a certain science of good
and evil: a hberty and a science which end in death.
It seeks to creep imperceptibly into the most holy
places; it fascinates the most clear-sighted, and
poisons the most ingenuous souls, should their faith
in the infaUible authority of the Sovereign Pontiff
waver ever so httle."
Bishop Bourget of Montreal, in promulgating the
decrees of the Fifth Council of Quebec, intimated
that no candidate should be returned to Parhament 261

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
who questioned the right of the priests to employ
spiritual censures in elections, or who rejected "the
intervention of the Pope, the bishops, and the
priests in the affairs of governments." The Bishop
of Rimouski, on the eve of the provincial election
of 1875, issued a letter to the clergy in which he
maintained the right of pastors to influence voters
by spiritual censures, and held that it was not
permissible to practise moral independence in pohti
cal questions. The result of these and simUar
instructions was a very general participation of
parish priests in party contests, and in the main
against Liberal candidates. As a consequence, pubhc
opinion throughout the country was greatly excited,
and something very hke a rehgious war prevailed
in Lower Canada.
On December 22nd, 1875, a meeting was held at
Montreal for the purpose of forming a Protestant
Defence Association. Among the chief promoters
of the movement were the Rev. Dr. WUkes, the
Rev. Professor Mac Vicar, M. H. Gault, the Very
Rev. Dean Bond, and the Rev. Dr. Douglas. It
was set out in the resolutions that such action was
necessary, in order to resist the increasingly aggres
sive spirit of the Roman Cathohc hierarchy as
shown not only in influencing the Government and
Legislature, but in other ways affecting civU and
religious rights and hberties in Canada. The
objects of the Association were declared to be — the
resistance to all efforts on the part of the Roman
262

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
Cathohc hierarchy to violate the estabhshed prin
ciples of civU and rehgious government, and the
guidance and protection of Protestants and others
who might be exposed to the persecution of the
Roman Cathohc priesthood. VigUance committees
were appointed to watch and expose aU attempts of
the Roman Cathohc ecclesiastics to influence unduly
municipal and other pubhc bodies, to pass upon the
character of legislation promoted by the bishops, to
supply legal advice in cases touching the civil and
rehgious rights of Protestants, and generaUy to resist
the intrusion of the hierarchy into the field of civil
affairs. It may be said by hostUe critics that the
organizers of this movement were aggressive
Protestants, and conspicuous opponents of the
dominant church in Quebec, and that they were
animated by motives of sectarian bigotry, rather
than by concern for the pubhc welfare and zeal
for the principles of civU freedom and rehgious
toleration. But a dispassionate examination of the
arrogant claims then advanced by the Roman
Cathohc bishops to supremacy within the reahn of
the State reveals ample grounds for vigilance and
protest, and suggests that the leaders of Protestant
thought could hardly have done less than organize
to resist the pretensions and encroachments of the
Ultramontanes. We shaU better understand the state of pubhc
feeling when we recaU the extraordinary speech
made by the Hon. L. S. Huntington in ArgenteuU 263

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
a few days after this Protestant Defence Associa
tion was formed at Montreal.* Mr. Huntington
had been in pubhc hfe for many years, and must
have acquired some of the caution and discretion
which the practice of politics breeds in even the
most impulsive and intemperate characters. Mr.
Huntington, however, was not noteworthy for
platform indiscretions, and as a Minister of the
Crown, was doubly responsible for the taste and
temper of his utterances. He must therefore have
been moved by immense provocation when he
dehvered at St. Andrews, on December 30th,
1875, the speech which history wUl excuse, if it
cannot wholly justify. A vacancy had occurred in
the representation of ArgenteuU in the House of
Commons, and a new election was ordered for
January 7th, 1876. Dr. Christie was in the field as
an independent Liberal candidate, and it was
understood that Mr. Thomas White, of Montreal,
an able and distinguished journahst, and afterwards
a ministerial coUeague of Sir John Macdonald,
would stand in the Conservative interest.
Mr. White's candidature was in fact definitely
announced, and he and Huntington on the date
named met at a joint pubhc meeting at St.
Andrews. In the course of his remarkable address,
the Minister said the time had come when the
Enghsh Protestants were aUying themselves with
'^ Huntington was Postmaster-General in the Mackenzie Government,
and represented the County of Shefford in Quebec.
264

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
the French Liberals of Lower Canada, and this, he
argued, was the only reasonable aUiance in the
interest of free thought and free speech. He said —
that twenty years of British Protestant Toryism in
Lower Canada had given birth to Ultramontanism,
which might work serious trouble in the future.
He described Mr. White as the tool of those who
were fighting in Lower Canada to make the State
subservient to the Church, and declared that "a
great battle was imminent ; it undoubtedly would
be fought and fought soon. There was nothing for
it but that the Enghsh-speaking people of Lower
Canada must aUy themselves with the French
Liberals who were and always had been the friends
of free institutions." He said further : " Let Mr.
White stand forth in his true colours, and let the
Enghsh-speaking people of ArgenteuU acknowledge
if they desire to send him to Parhament as the aUy
of the Programme and the apostle of Ultramontan
ism; and let them declare that the English-speaking
people of this province are no longer British ; that
tolerance and fair play have no charms for them;
and that their highest pleasure and duty is to make
the State the mere machinery for registering the
decrees of the Church." "But, once let them assert
themselves," he proceeded, " as the friends of British
freedom and justice, and the enemy's guns would
be silenced, and the reactionists or their masters
would return to the European countries where
their opinions are dominant, or elsewhere, to seek
265

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
more hopeful grounds for their operations." He
said that he desired to compromise no one, but he
had always preached those doctrines, and would be
prepared at once to resign his position, if he be
lieved the party with whom he acted was not equal
to their maintenance. It is perhaps impossible now
to determine what effect this utterance had upon
the electors of ArgenteuU, but at least Mr. White
withdrew from the contest, and Dr. Christie was
elected by acclamation.
The speech made a national sensation. It was
pounced upon with positive glee by the Ultra
montane press and many of the organs of the
Conservative party. Here was a dehverance which
seemed to threaten the Church, and therefore to
excuse, if not to justify protest from the great
Cathohc and French elements of the population
against the iUiberal and inquisitorial spirit of the
Liberal party. Mr. Huntington, a Liberal Minister,
caUed on the Enghsh-speaking minority of Quebec
to unite against the Church of the French-speaking
majority, and therefore French and Cathohcs must
stand together in defence of their race and faith.
The speech, in fact, was admirably calculated to
inflame the zeal of the organs and agents of the
obscurantist movement, and was just such a weapon
as the Bleu pohticians could use to advantage in
French and Catholic communities.* There was a
^ "I then read some extracts from Hon. Mr. Huntington's speech
which I now produce ; I then explained what was the bearing of that
266

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
measure of justification, both for Mr. Huntington's
position and for that of his assailants. The Liberal
party had a right to expect that the Enghsh-
speaking people would support its contention for
the supremacy of the State in civil concerns, and
join with the French Liberals to put down undue
clerical interference in political contests. But in
essence at least the speech savoured of appeal
to race feehng, and such appeal was absolutely
inadmissible. We shall better get the point of view
if we conceive an appeal by a French Canadian
pohtician to the French-speaking majority of
discotu-se ; I spoke then of the pastoral letter of the bishops of the
ecclesiastical Province of Quebec, and I said that Catholic Liberahsm
was cor^demned, and that I myself, knowing the meaning of the
bearing of Huntington's speech and of the pastoral letter of the
bishops, I should believe I was committing a sin if I voted for Mr.
P. A. Tremblay." — Evidence of Bev. Francois Cinq-Mars, parish
priest of St. Simeon, in the Charlevoix Election Case.
"I contended that a Minister of the Crown who professed the
principles advocated by Mr. Huntington could not and should not
have Cathohcs as colleagues, and that a Government having this
Minister as one of its members could not be supported by Catholics,
except if these accept the denomination of Liberal Catholics, con
demned by the bishops' mandement. I wanted to cause people to
understand that if Mr. Tremblay supported the Government to
which Mr. Huntington belonged, he was to be considered as
holding the opinions expressed by the Minister, and therefore be
considered as a Liberal Cathohc  Mr. Hunl^
ington still remaining a Minister, I was of opinion that a Catholic
should not and could not support that Govemment, and that Mr.
Tremblay who supported that Administration was therefore to be
classed among the Liberal Catholics who are condemned by the
bishops' pastoral letter." — Evidence of Sir Hector Langevin in the
Charlevoix Election Case.
267

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Quebec to unite upon a religious, or even upon
a more legitimate public issue. Mr. Huntington
had the right to address an argument against
clerical intimidation to English and French electors
ahke, but it was mischievous and dangerous to
limit his appeal to one element of the population,
and, moreover, calculated to prejudice the position
of the French Liberals whose cause he sought
to serve.
The speech seriously disturbed Catholic Liberals
aU over the country. One of these, Mr. Power,
M.P. for Hahfax, on January 17th, addressed a
letter to the Minister in which he admitted that
some Catholic priests, clergymen, and newspapers
might have taken an improper course in politics,
and said that if Huntington had confined his
remarks to these offenders no one could reasonably
have found fault. He contended, however, that
Huntington's remarks were unfortunately not so
confined and were therefore calculated to give
offence to Catholics generaUy. Doubtless the
purpose of this letter was to draw an explana
tion from Huntington, and in his reply of January
28th, the Minister insisted that he did confine
his remarks to "such offenders" and continued:
" So far from dreaming of attacking Cathohcs
as a body, I thought I was defending against
the pohtical action of certain of their co-rehg-
ionists that large proportion of the Catholic popu
lation with which it has been my good fortune
268

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
to act for years." He did not introduce, he said,
but on the contrary, protested against the introduc
tion of rehgious controversy into political conflicts,
and beheved that Cathohc and Protestant might
and should agree to differ on these pohtical
questions, altogether irrespective of their rehgious
opinions, and that any other hne of action would be
subversive of our institutions. Whether this
explanation was or was not satisfactory to Mr.
Power does not appear. It certainly was not
satisfactory to the mass of Catholic Liberals, and
many leading Protestant Liberals felt that some
thing more must be done to overcome the effects
of Huntington's ArgenteuU deliverance.
Parhament met early in February, and during
the debate on the Address, Mr. Holton rose and
caUed on Mr. Mackenzie to accept or disavow
responsibihty for the utterances of his coUeague.
He characterized Mr. Huntington's speech as "a
most unfortunate one," and as an attempt "to stir
up rehgious strife in the Province of Quebec." He
described it as "a very offensive attack upon the
dignitaries of the Church of the great majority of
the people of Quebec, and constituting a very
large proportion of the people of this whole Do
minion." He reminded the House that Mr. Hunt
ington had closed his speech in ArgenteuU with the
declaration that those were his opinions, that he was
satisfied that they were the opinions of his party,
and that if he were not sustained in the expression
269

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of those opinions he would resign his position. He,
therefore, demanded to know if Mr. Huntington
had received instructions to make any such speech,
or whether the Prime Minister "now approves
of the substance of these remarks, or of the good
taste, good judgment, and statesmanship of the
Hon. Postmaster General in making this utter
ance."* From no one could this censure have come with
more crushing effect than from Mr. Holton. He
was the Nestor of the Liberal party in Quebec. The
services that he had performed for Liberahsm in
Canada were matched by few of his contemporaries,
and it might fairly be added, by few of his suc
cessors. His courage, independence, and integrity
were ahke unquestioned, and it is natural to think
that he would not have ventured to pass this stern
judgment upon Huntington, if he had not been
profoundly persuaded that his course in ArgenteuU
was fraught with danger to the Liberal party, and
inimical to the peace and good govemment of the
country. There is, it is fair to say, a tradition in the
Liberal party that the relations between Mr. Holton
and Mr. Huntington were not quite cordial. It
became a question when the Mackenzie Government
was formed whether Holton or Hxmtington should
be selected as the representative in the Cabinet of
the Enghsh minority of Quebec. Under ordinary
circumstances Holton would doubtless have been
'¦ Hansard, February 11th, 1876, pages 19-21.
270

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
chosen. But Huntington was particularly active in
formulating and driving home the charge of corrupt
deahngs between Conservative Ministers and Sir
Hugh AUan over the Pacific Railway Charter, and
into his hands feU the incriminating documents
which revealed Allan's direct contributions to Sir
John Macdonald and Sir George Cartier. In conse
quence of his activity in this memorable prosecution,
he was violently assailed by the Conservative poh
ticians and their press, and it was felt that if he
were excluded from the Cabinet it would be an
intense satisfaction to his personal and pohtical
enemies, and would seem hke an abandonment by
his own party associates. Hence he was admitted to
the Cabinet and Mr. Holton necessarily excluded.
Holton bowed to Mr. Mackenzie's judgment with
exceUent temper, the more easily as he was not
excessively anxious to take a portfolio, and remained
the staunch friend and aUy of the Prime Minister.
But friends of Huntington contend that while
Holton at the moment recognized the expediency
of Huntington's appointment to the Government,
he was not so weU convinced that his rival should
have taken office, and cherished his own superior
claims to the leadership of the English minority of
Lower Canada. This tradition may be unjust to
Holton, but, at least, he was a suspicious critic of
Huntington, and possibly was influenced more than
he knew by the non-recognition of his long service in
the Liberal party and great influence in the country.
271

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
The story of politics is fuU of serious personal dif
ferences developed in just such fashion, and even
very great men have shown that they can be sorely
wounded and influenced in aU their pohtical re
lationships by the loss of personal preferment. If,
however, it be true that Holton and Huntington
were estranged, at least Holton's devotion to his
principles and loyalty to his party were absolutely
unaffected. Mr. Holton's speech put the Prime Minister in a
difficult position. He could not afford to pass direct
condemnation upon a coUeague, and he knew that
Mr. Huntington had spoken the inner convictions
of many thousands of Liberals throughout the
country. He knew also that if not repudiated, the
speech must work great mischief in French and
Cathohc communities, and that these elements
represented forty per cent, of the voting population
of Canada. In reply to Mr. Holton, therefore, the
Prime Minister was necessarUy guarded, and avoided
direct repudiation of the utterance of his Minister.
He said he did not approve of anything that had a
tendency to bring rehgion into pubhc discussion in
the politics of the country. He caUed the attention
of Parliament to the fact that in his published letter
addressed to Mr. Power, of Hahfax, Huntington
had explained that he did not design any attack
upon the Catholic Church in his speech, and de
clared he had no doubt that this was the case,
because he had too much faith in Huntington's
272

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
own generous disposition and correct appreciation
of the pubhc affairs of the country to beheve that
he could be a party to a desire to assail any rehgious
denomination.* Of course the Premier's statement was not satis
factory to Mr. Masson, Mr. Langevin, and other
Conservative leaders from Lower Canada, and the
debate in its wide range covered the more recent
history of public affairs in Quebec, the attitude of
the hierarchy in pohtical contests, and the measure
of obedience due from Cathohc laymen to the heads
of the Church. Mr. Masson declared that as a Con
servative and an Ultramontane, he was ready to
give to the clergy in rehgious questions submission
and confidence, and upon questions relating to the
material progress of the country and its political
affairs that respect for their opinions to which they
were entitled owing to their high inteUigence, their
great virtue, and their disinterestedness, but no
more. He absolutely rejected the doctrine that
the clergy should remain in their vestries, and
asked "whether, if the clergy of Lower Canada had
remained in their vestries we would belong to-day
to the noble Empire of England ?" Further, whether
Cathohcs were priest-ridden or not was none of
Mr. Huntington's business, nor the business of any
man who did not profess the Catholic creed. Mr.
Langevin denounced Huntington's speech as an
"insult aimed at the Catholic population of the
1 Hansard, February 11th, 1876, page 20.
273

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Dominion and the bishops of Lower Canada," and
contended that the clergy had a right to interfere in
elections, and that they claimed only the privileges
of citizens. Neither quite justified spiritual coercion
and intimidation; but they put up a very thorough
defence of their clerical alhes, and had no word of
condemnation for their pretensions to supreme
authority in the realm of the State, and partisan
activity in many of the French constituencies. Mr.
Cauchon also took occasion to repudiate and con
demn his coUeague in the Cabinet. Mr. Mackenzie
BoweU, one of the Orange leaders from Ontario,
was hkewise distressed by the Minister's indiscretion.
In short, judgment was generaUy pronounced
against Huntington, the relations between the
Church and the Liberal party were much aggra
vated, and very considerable capital was made of
the affair by the Conservative pohticians.*
But Huntington was neither silenced nor intimi
dated. He at length intervened in the debate, and
it is manifest that his chief regret was that his
speech at ArgenteuU had bred a difference between
^ The Canadian Monthly of March, 1876, in a comment on Mr.
Mackenzie Bowell's speech, said: "The Grand Master sits in Parlia
ment cheek by jowl with one who boasts himself the 'leader of the
Ultramontanes,' and applauds his utterances without quahfication, and
the Order is at this moment the Ontario wing of the politico-theological
army, of which Mgr. Bourget is the chief, and M. Masson or M.
Langevin the first lieutenant." In consequence, however, of attacks on
his position in Parliament during this debate Mr. Bowell said later, in
a letter to the Christian Guardian, "I never, even by implication,
disapproved of the sentiments in the speech of Mr. Huntington."
274

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
Holton and himself. He told the House that the
speech under consideration was pronounced by him
self in his native Province of Quebec to his own
people, and upon a question in which they were
deeply concerned. No member of the Government
was responsible for the speech, and he had the right
to express his individual opinions to his own people.
" The opinions which I expressed are my opinions.
They were my opinions then and are my opinions
now." He said further: "Looking at the great
conflict going on in Lower Canada, and being
among my own people, the people over whom
I desire to exercise a certain influence, which
intention I then and there described, I spoke to
them of the dread I had of the Ultramontanes,
and I asked them to give to the Liberals their aid.
This is the head and front of my offending. I said
what I say now, that they ought to do it, and I
beheve they wiU do it." He declared that he was
not ashamed of his alhance with the Quebec
Liberals, that they, hke himself, had upheld free
institutions against very powerful influences, that
he had not spoken as a Minister but as a Lower
Canadian and a citizen of that province, and stiU
maintained that the true course of the British
population in Quebec was to aUy themselves with
the French Liberals in their efforts to maintain
free institutions.*
One other speech that was made in this debate
1 Hansard, February 11th, 1876, page 36. 275

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
should not be passed over without mention. Mr.
Bechard represented IberviUe in the Commons for
thirty years, and now sits in the Upper House
for one of the senatorial divisions of Quebec.
Modest in bearing, moderate in statement, of high
character and sohd attainments, he is a fine type of
the old Rouge who stood unflinchingly for freedom
of thought and freedom of speech throughout aU
the stormy era of ecclesiastical despotism in Que
bec. He asked the House to remember that for
years the Liberal party of Lower Canada had been
denounced by the Conservative press and upon the
hustings at each election as composed of men
hostUe to the Roman Cathohc Church. He took
direct issue with the contention of Mr. Langevin
that priests had the right to speak from the pulpit
in favour of particular candidates. " I do not think
so," he said, " else it would be necessary to beheve
that the priests have the right to control the
politics of the country, and at the elections to
impose their wiU upon the electors; and it would
also be necessary to conclude, if the contentions
of the Conservative party in this respect were
admitted to be weU founded, that to be a Cathohc
it is requisite to be also a Conservative." This
sturdy French Liberal proceeded, in his careful
and correct English, to say that for years many
French Canadian Conservatives had spoken more
of religion than of pohtics on the hustings, and had
denounced the Liberal party as hostile to the
276

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
Church, "to sustain whom or elevate to power
would be to materially damage the interests of the
Church." He charged that the Conservatives sought
to make the electors of Quebec beheve that the
Ijiberal party sympathized with "the subversive
and utterly absurd doctrines of the French
sociahsts." At each election this was a plank in
the Conservative platform, and these tactics he
denounced as constituting "a deplorable state of
things." FinaUy he had the courage to declare that
Huntington's speech "was provoked to a certain
extent by the conduct of the Conservative press in
introducing rehgious questions into the discussion
of pohtical matters whenever opportunity offered."*
This was frank speaking, and it cannot be doubted
that Mr. Bechard exactly described the situation
in Quebec, and correctly indicated and properly
characterized the influences which provoked, if
they did not justify, Mr. Huntington's disturbing
utterance in the county of ArgenteuU.
Mr. Huntington was not the only representative
of the Enghsh minority in Quebec to speak out
against the aggressive and intolerant pohcy of the
Roman Cathohc ecclesiastics. Sir Alexander Gait was
not a Liberal, it was not his habit to traffic in race
and sectarian issues for partisan purposes, and he
was weU entitled, by virtue of his high character
and his eminent services to Canada, to address the
Canadian people on any grave question of public
1 Hansard, February 11th, 1876, pages 46-47.
277

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
concern. Just at this time he put out two pamphlets
dedicated to Mr. Gladstone, who was then thunder
ing against the Vatican decrees. These pamphlets
were designed " to oppose and protest against the
efforts now being made by the Roman Cathohc
hierarchy of Quebec to impose upon those belonging
to their communion the extreme doctrines of the
Itahan ecclesiastical school."
In the course of his argument Gait remarked
that it was "eminently suggestive of the hght in
which our Quebec rulers are regarded, to observe
the very different ground occupied by the Roman
Cathohc Church in this province, from that taken
in Ontario and the Maritime Provinces." He con
tended that : "The contradictory attitude of the
Church of Rome in different countries, and at this
moment even in the Dominion, can only be ex
plained by the extraordinary elasticity with which
it adapts itself to surrounding circumstances. Wher
ever it reigns supreme and controls the civU
Government, it is exclusive, despotic, and grasping ;
but when, as in England and untU lately in Canada,
it is unconnected with the State, it confines itself to
its proper functions of teaching piety and morahty."
He quoted at length to prove this pohcy of adap
tation, to show that the Church had never absolutely
withdrawn from any of its aUeged franchises, to
estabhsh that in this age the Church would not
insist upon its extreme claims when vigorously
resisted, and to demonstrate that the hierarchy
278

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
was then striving to introduce into Quebec in
novations equaUy repugnant to the Catholic as to
the Protestant. He contended that for some years
there had been a steady invasion of the Roman
Cathohc clerical body in Lower Canada by "the
energetic spirit of the Ultramontane," and that
"The bishops were brought more directly under
the control of the Sacred CoUege; vacancies in the
Episcopate were fiUed with men more suited to the
requirements of Rome; greater development was
given to the estabhshment of rehgious bodies; and
the control of education, both in its higher and in
ferior branches, was sought to be placed in the
hands of the priesthood."
He quoted various official utterances of the
hierarchy in Quebec inimical to the exercise of free
speech, a free press, and free political action, and
charged that they sought to "rivet the most ex
treme pretensions of the Syllabus on the consciences
of their people, whoUy disregarding the moderate
and wise course of action laid down by Archbishop
Lynch of Ontario and Archbishop ConnoUy of
Nova Scotia." He argued from the evidence pro
duced that the Catholic Church in Quebec extended
its demands to the general assertion of the superi
ority of ecclesiastical over civil authority ; to positive
interference with both voters and candidates in the
elections ; to the exercise of proscription against
the press ; to the condemnation of freedom of
speech in opposition to the judgment of the Privy
279

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Council as declared in the Guibord appeal ; and to
the extraordinary proposition, to use Gait's lan
guage, that the Divine assistance held to be
given to the Pope alone when speaking ex cathedra
on "faith and morals," descended with undiminished
force to the bishops, priests, and curds. He saw
in the attitude of the pohtical leaders forcible
evidence of their conviction that victory would rest
with the party favoured by the Roman Catholic
Church ; declared that the provincial Government
had passed completely under the influence of the
hierarchy; and doubted if language more expressive
of profound submission to the priesthood coiUd
be found than that used by Mr. Masson and Mr.
Langevin when Huntington's speech was under
consideration in the House of Commons. In his
closing sentences he warned the Church that if
"this struggle is aUowed to extend and intensify,
then the day which sees the triumph of the priest
wiU usher in that which wiU overthrow his power
forever. It is impossible that in a province of the
Protestant Empire of Great Britain, on the con
tinent of America, in the presence of forty mUhons
of Protestants, a slavery should be imposed upon
us by the Roman Cathohc hierarchy, which exists
no longer even under the shadow of the Vatican.
Free speech, free thought, and a free press must
have the fuUest scope in America ; and if, in a wild
scheme to reduce them to obedience to the wiU of
the priesthood, they be for the moment repressed,
280

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
aU history teUs us that the torrent when it bursts
wiU sweep away far more than the barrier that
arrested its course, and wiU leave behind the wreck
of many noble Cathohc institutions, to mock the
foUy of those who make unwiUing adversaries of
natural and affectionate friends." FinaUy Gait caUed
for an organization composed of Cathohcs and
Protestants, irrespective of creed, nationality, or
political party, for the maintenance of the civil
rights of the people, and declared his conviction
that "such an organization, thoroughly in earnest,
would bring sufficient pressure on our rulers, both
at Ottawa and Quebec, to insure their comphance,
and to settle for our day at least the proper
and harmonious relations of Church and State."*
Gait repeated many of these arguments in an
address in June, 1876, at Toronto. He emphasized
the great influence which 65 members could exert
in a Parhament of 206 members, contended that
the party which could secure the vote of Quebec
could control the Dominion, and substantiaUy
argued that the party which submitted to the
domination of the Church could control Quebec.
He protested his freedom from mere sectarian
prejudice, and denied that he sought to interfere
with any man's faith, or to create or promote
rehgious dissension in the country. He was con
cerned only with the assertion and maintenance
1 See the pamphlet "Church and State" by Sir Alex. T. Gait,
K.C.M.G., pubhshed at Montreal in 1876. 281

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of the civU rights of the people; opposed to the
increasing measure of clerical control over edu
cation in Quebec ; to the dangerous power vested
in the ecclesiastics for the erection of parishes ; to
the claims of the Church to superior power over
other religious denominations in virtue of the Act
of Capitulation ; and to its arrogant interference in
pohtical contests.
A few weeks after this address was dehvered.
Archbishop Lynch spoke at length on the relations
which, according to Cathohc doctrine, should obtain
between Church and State, and the measure of
interference in pubhc affairs permissible to Cathohc
ecclesiastics. The address is an able and scholarly
review of the history of the Church in its relations
to rulers and governments. WhUe furnishing a
reading of history which perhaps few Protestants
wiU accept, it stUl claims no such hberty and
authority for the hierarchy as the Ultramontanes
of Quebec demanded and exercised. The Arch
bishop contended that when the Pope dethroned
kings, he did so, not as the head of the Church, but
as Chief Executive of the Cathohc confederation
of States, caUed in the middle ages Christendom,
and, by the general consent of the time, as arbiter.
The earher Church never used the power, but it
judged what were heresies and blasphemies, and
handed over those who were guilty of these
offences to be punished by the State authorities.
The divine right of kings was not Cathohc
282

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
doctrine, and the Church was not inimical to
popular government. Where the people framed their
own laws and governed themselves, priests might
instruct them to use their franchise properly and
place men in Parhament who would vote for good
measures. They should instruct the people to abhor
bribery or the sale of votes at elections, and to
avoid calumnies, hes, and everything that would
injure private character or disturb the pubhc peace.
But they ought not to prostitute their sacred
character for merely party purposes, or use the
Church and the altar as the battle ground of
contending factions. In purely temporal matters
the priest had no concern and coiUd act only as
a citizen. " If the State should infringe on the
rights of the Church so as to hinder its free action
in spiritual matters, then the priest, as rehgion and
the peace of the Church are at stake, is to assume
his sacred character, and to oppose by mUd per
suasion a misdirected legislation." When pohtical
questions touched upon the domain of rehgion,
then the priest must defend his Church, imder
the direction of his bishops, with aU prudence
and charity. In mixed rehgious pohtical questions
a great prudence was required. A mutual good
understanding between the Church and a Christian
State would be right and would tend to the happi
ness of a Christian people. But a union of Church
and State such as prevailed in England where the
Church was the handmaid of the State and where
283

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
statesmen through the Queen, whether in the Privy
CouncU or out of it, had sovereign authority over
the Church both in the appointments of its bishops
and in its teachings, or such a union as Bismarck
desired to estabhsh between Church and State
in Germany, was essentiaUy wrong. The State
in its temporal concerns should not be the hand
maid of the Church, but the State should be under
the directive influence of the Church established
by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The so-caUed
union of Church and State had often resulted in
the enslaving of the Church.
There was said to be a certain union between
Church and State in Quebec because the clergy
could coUect their dues from the Cathohc inhabi
tants by the assistance of the courts of law.
Protestants, however, had no grievances to complain
of under this head, and the immense majority of
Cathohcs were satisfied to contribute tx) the support
of their Church in this way. Besides, Cathohcs were
not forced to remain in the Church. They could
give notice of withdrawal at any time and escape
these obhgations. This, however, was no concern of
the people of Upper Canada, and had nothing
whatever to do with the Protestant population
of either province. There was no injustice inflicted,
nor any grievances without a remedy. Protestants
might show extreme kindness in pitying the
Cathohcs who were satisfied with the law as it
existed, but their sympathies might perhaps be
284

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
turned to better account. The Church enjoyed
freedom in Canada, and the interest of rehgion was
to maintain the authority of the State and to
preach loyalty to our weU-ordered government.
There might be parties and difference of opinions,
but aU agreed in unbounded loyalty to the institu
tions of the country.*
1 Lecture in St. Michael's Cathedral, June 25th, 1876.

285

CHAPTER XI
THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
BYE-ELECTIONS m Charlevoix and in Cham
bly came very closely at the heels of the
contest in ArgenteuU, during which Mr. Hunt
ington had made his appeal to the Enghsh-speaking
electorate of Quebec to unite with the French-Can
adian Liberals against undue clerical interference in
pohtical contests. Each election was marked by
an extraordinary exhibition of clerical arrogance
and a ruthless denunciation of the candidates of
the Liberal party. M. Lussier, the curd of Boucher-
vUle, hesitated to read the joint letter of the bishops
which declared the supremacy of the Church in civU
affairs, for fear that it would excite dissent among
his parishioners, but he was forced to submit by
peremptory orders from the Bishop of Montreal.
Dr. Fortier, the ministerial candidate in Chambly,
announced himself a Rouge and a moderate Liberal;
and the fact elicited this statement from Bishop
Bourget: "Our Holy Father, the Pope, and after
him the archbishop and bishops of this province,
have declared that Cathohc Liberahsm is a thing
to be regarded with the abhorrence with which
one contemplates a pestilence ; no Cathohc is
aUowed to proclaim himself a moderate Liberal;
287

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
consequently this moderate Liberal cannot be
elected a representative by Cathohcs."
In Charlevoix, as in Chambly, the priests violently
assailed the Liberal candidate and the Liberal
party. Mr. Hector L. Langevin was the nominee
of the Conservatives, and he was opposed by Mr.
Tremblay in the Liberal interest. One priest
denounced Cathohc Liberals as "ravening wolves
who come to raise a disturbance in the flock, who
come to teU you that the Pope, the bishops, and
the clergy have nothing to do with pohtics. Beware
of their perverse teaching ! they want to seclude
the priests in the church and the vestry, in order
to succeed better in their unchristian work, which
is to scatter and divide the flock of Jesus Christ."
He said to his people : " You greatly need to open
your eyes, my brethren, on the abyss of evils into
which the partisans of Cathohc Liberahsm would
throw you." They should hsten to the salutary
teachings of the bishops in their pastoral letter
upon the tendencies of the self-styled Catholic
Liberal party. They should not aUow themselves
to be fascinated by the deceitful words of "the
serpent Cathohc Liberal." They knew in what
manner the serpent found his way into the ter
restrial paradise. In the same manner Cathohc
Liberahsm wished to find its way into the paradise
of the Church to lead its children to fall. " Be
firm, my brethren. Our bishops teU us that it is no
longer permitted to be conscientiously a Cathohc
288

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
Liberal ; be careful never to taste the fruit of the
tree Catholic Liberal." They were adjured to pay
no attention to those priests who said the clergy
were mistaken and were going too far. These were
not their legitimate pastors. He knew that such
letters were circulated purporting to have been
written by priests in Quebec, but he caUed that
not only undue influence, but also improper and
unbecoming influence. " Beware," he said " of these
false prophets who wish to bring disunion between
you and your legitimate pastors. Do not hsten to
their falsehoods and their calumnies. Obey the
Vicar of Jesus Christ condemning Cathohc Lib
erahsm." Another priest warned his parishioners that to vote
for a Liberal was to set out on the road to heU;
and in a subsequent statement made to the arch
bishop, explanatory of what he had said in his
sermons, he admitted that he had instructed the
electors to "vote according to your conscience,
enhghtened by your superiors. Do not forget that
the bishops of the province assure you that
Liberahsm resembles the serpent which crawls
in the terrestrial paradise to procure the faU of
the human race." He told his flock that "the
Church condemns only what is evil, and as Lib
erahsm has been condemned, Liberahsm is evU;
therefore you ought not to give your suffrages to a
Liberal." A third priest intimated that whoever
voted for the Liberals engaged in the service of
289

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
heU. The curd of the parish of Baie St. Paul
denounced the Liberals as false prophets and false
Christs, and declared that they wished to walk in
the blood of priests. He said : " They wiU do so
much that they wiU unmask themselves, and wiU
show themselves as they are, so as to leave no
doubt as to their aim. There are some whose hearts
are so black that if a rehgious persecution were
to break out at this moment, they would be the
first to hold the rope or the knife that would give
us the death blow. In blaming and criticising as they
do the word of God and of his ministers, in presence
of their children, certain parents assume a terrible
responsibihty before God. When they wiU be dead
and reduced to ashes they wiU have left children
who perhaps wiU be ready to steep their hands
in the blood of the priests, if ever a rehgious per
secution breaks out."
One witness at the memorable election trial
which foUowed this contest, said in evidence: "I
was afraid that if I voted for Tremblay I should
be damned." Another witness understood that one
who voted for the Liberal party was guilty of
a mortal sin, and if he should die in that state
would not be entitled to the services of a priest
Another swore that the cure of St. Fiddle had
declared from the pulpit that Catholic Liberahsm
and political Liberalism were one and the same
thing, and that Liberahsm was condemned by the
bishops. One elector explained that he was old and
290

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
would soon die, and therefore could not vote
against the opinion of his curd. It was sworn that
the curd of St. Hilarion declared from the pulpit
that to vote for the Liberal party was to be against
the curd, against the bishops, and against the Pope
himself; that there were two banners to foUow, the
red one and the blue one ; that the blue banner
represented the Pope and the Church, and the
red one represented Victor Emanuel and Garibaldi.
"He explained to us," said this witness, "that
the blue banner was that of the Conservative party
and the red one that of the Liberal party." Out
of the twelve curds and the two vicaires of the
county eight cures and one vicaire were accused,
and against seven curds and one vicaire evidence
was produced.
Mr. Langevin's right to sit for Charlevoix was
attacked in the courts, and mainly on account of
the exercise of "undue influence" and "spiritual
and temporal intimidation " in his behalf. The trial
lasted for six weeks, and two hundred witnesses were
examined. The defence sought to show that the
priests spoke as citizens, and had not resorted to
spiritual censures, and in any event were not
amenable to the civU tribunals. On aU points they
were overborne by the weight of evidence. Judge
Routhier, however, before whom the case was
heard, refused to annul the election. He argued
that the free exercise of the Roman Catholic
rehgion, guaranteed at the conquest, estabhshed 291

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the ecclesiastical law of Rome in Quebec ; that the
court could not interfere with the liberty of Chris
tian preaching; that voting was a moral act; and
the priests therefore acted within their own proper
domain. Thus he reasoned: "Immunity de persona
is the real privilege of one's own competent court.
It is personal, inherent in every ecclesiastic, and it
consists in this, that the ecclesiastic cannot be
accused or cited before any other than an ecclesias
tical tribunal. This personal immunity of the priest
extends to aU cases of whatever nature, save with
a few rare exceptions which it would take too long
time to enumerate. WTiether he acts as a priest or
as a citizen in pubhc hfe, or as an individual in
private hfe, he is always an 'ecclesiastical person,'
and as such he enjoys the privUege of the competent
tribunal, that is, that he may object to the juris
diction of any lay court." He continued : " Such is
the Cathohc doctrine, and I can explain it in a few
words. I am incompetent in aU cases in which the
question to be decided appertains to dogmatic
doctrine, morals, or disciphne, and also in those
where the person prosecuted is an ecclesiastic. I am
competent to judge the acts of a priest in so far as
they may affect the rights of third parties, provided
these acts be of a temporal nature, and that the
person of the priest is not involved." Religious
preaching, he contended, was one of the most
important parts of rehgion. It would not be free, if
judges could decide that in certain cases it was
292

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
hable to fine and imprisonment. Under such cir
cumstances the religious liberty guaranteed by the
Constitution would be a dead letter. He pointed out
that the bishops of the province had addressed a
pastoral letter to their flocks, strongly condemning
Catholic Liberahsm, and claiming for the clergy
free intervention in pohtics. It was to fulfil this
mission that the curds, " while explaining and com
menting on the pastoral letter of the bishops,
denounced before the electors this condemned
Liberahsm." He was not in a position to say
whether the petitioner was a Liberal in the sense
condemned by the clergy, but the priest could not
abstain from denouncing Liberahsm when that
duty was imposed upon him by his ecclesiastical
superiors. If he maintained the demands of the
petitioner he would be obliged to suppress aU the
condemnations of Liberahsm and of Liberals which
were found in the pastoral letters, in the decrees of
the Councils, and in the evangehcal letters. FinaUy
Judge Routhier declared: "It would be arbitrary
to interdict the clergy from any intervention in
pohtics, and it would be absurd to make this court
judge of the merits of the candidates and of political
parties, and of the orthodoxy of the doctrines
preached by the priests and by the bishops."
The case was appealed to the Supreme Court,
and there upon the subject of undue influence, the
defence maintained that ecclesiastics were answer
able for their conduct only to their ecclesiastical 293

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
superiors and to ecclesiastical tribunals ; that no
ecclesiastic could be summoned before a civil tri
bunal without leave from his ecclesiastical superior;
and that "the Church alone has the right of
judging within what limits, in what circumstances,
and under what forms, the right of preaching should
be used ; otherwise civil society would encroach on
religious society." But Judge Routhier 's decision
was reversed, and the election voided. Judgments
were dehvered by Mr. Justice Taschereau and Mr.
Justice Ritchie. Judge Taschereau emphasized the
fact that Mr. Langevin consented to become a can
didate only on assurances that he would have the
support of the clergy, and pointed out that during
the contest he had had personal conferences with
the clergy, had stated at pubhc meetings that they
were favourable to his candidature, and told the
electors that they should take the advice of their
pastors. The curds denounced the Liberal candidate,
took part in the election with Mr. Langevin's
consent, and therefore became his agents. The
sermons preached in denunciation of the Liberal
candidate created in the minds of many electors a
dread of committing grievous sin and being deprived
of the sacraments. •' There is here," Mr. Justice
Taschereau said, " an exerting of undue influence
of the worst kind, inasmuch as these threats and
these declarations fell from the hps of the priests
speaking from the pulpit in the name of rehgion,
and were addressed to persons iU-instructed and
294

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
generaUy weU-disposed to foUow the counsels of
their curds." The sermons probably had smaU influ
ence on the inteUigent and instructed portion of the
electorate, but must have influenced the majority
of persons void of instruction. It was clear, he
thought, that a general system of intimidation had
been practised, and that the electors were not free
in the exercise of the franchise.
Mr. Justice Taschereau also dealt with the claim
of clerical immunity which had been set up in
behalf of the offending curds. He said: "The tribunal
which is to take cognizance of the contestation of
an election is indicated by law," but as for the
ecclesiastical tribunal, "for me it is intangible,
non-existent in this country, being incapable of
existing effectively therein, but by the joint action
of the episcopacy and of the civU power, or by
the mutual consent of the parties interested ; and
in the latter case it would be only in the form of a
conventional arbitration, which would be binding
on no one but the parties themselves. If this
tribunal exists, I am not aware that it has any code
of law or procedure ; it would have no power to
summon the parties and the witnesses, nor to
execute its judgments. And if it existed, it would
be very singular to see the Jew seeking at the
hands of a Cathohc bishop the justice he can claim
from the civil tribunals, and submitting to corporeal
punishment adjudged by that tribunal; and the
same might be said of any other individual belonging
295

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
to a different rehgion." He could not admit the
extraordinary opinion that a Cathohc priest, speak
ing from the pulpit, might defame whomsoever he
pleased, and then shelter himself from responsibihty
by pleading immunity. "The law," he declared,
"expressly forbids all undue influence, from
whatsoever source it may arise, and without any
distinction." Mr. Justice Ritchie in his judgment said : " On
the principles of common law, on the construction
of the language of the act, of which we entertain no
doubt, we cannot for a moment doubt that it is
our duty to declare that undue spiritual influence is
prohibited by statute." The clergyman, he pro
ceeded, has no right in the pulpit or out by
threatening any damage, temporal or spiritual, to
restrain the hberty of a voter, so as to compel or
frighten him into voting, or abstaining from voting,
otherwise than as he freely wiUs.
Judges Casault, McGuire, and McCord in void
ing the return of a Conservative to the Quebec
Legislature for Bona venture in 1876, unanimously
decided that the clergy were at hberty to express
their opinions on pohtical questions, but that the
menace of spiritual penalties constituted undue
influence. Judge Casault, one of the Cathohc judges
who tried this case, argued that aU the freedom
guaranteed to the Roman Catholic Church in Can
ada by the Treaty of Paris must be understood and
interpreted by the concluding clause of the fourth
296

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
article of that treaty: "His Britannic Majesty on
his side consents to accord freedom of the Cathohc
rehgion to the inhabitants of Canada. He will, in
consequence, give the most effectual orders that his
new Roman Catholic subjects may practise their
religious worship according to the rites of the
Church of Rome in so far as the laws of England
wiU permit." This was to say that the Cathohc
rehgion was not above British law, and that the
Treaty of 1763 gave to the authorities of the Catho
hc Church no rights incompatible with the laws of
England. The judges made it plain also that the
Conservative candidate had endorsed and adopted
aU that was said by the priests during the contest,
and that they thus became his agents ; but intimated
that without reasonable proof of agency no candi
date coiUd be held responsible for the utterances of
the clergy, or even for the attempted exercise of
spiritual intimidation. In this case, however, the
Conservative candidate suffered the severe sentence
of disquahfication, as the Judges found, " that these
fraudvdent manoeuvres were practised with his
knowledge and consent."
There was murmuring and protest by certain of
the bishops against these judgments. The Bishop
of Rimouski particularly denounced the judgment
of Mr. Justice Casault. He condemned as false and
contrary to the teachings of the Church the foUow
ing propositions : (1) That Parhament is omnipotent
and competent to pass aU laws even if opposed to
297

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the exercise of rehgion ; (2) That the hberty of
electors should be absolute ; (3) That it is for the
civil courts to repress the abuses which may occur
in preaching and the refusal of the sacraments;
(4) That the threat of the refusal of the sacraments
with regard to elections is an undue influence,
a fraudulent manoeuvre within the competence of
the civil courts ; (5) That an unjust oath should be
observed. Bishop Langevin also appealed to Arch
bishop Taschereau of Quebec to have Judge
Casault deposed from his law professorship in
Laval University of which the archbishop was
ChanceUor. The demand was referred to Rome,
and a decision in favour of the judge returned.
Some months before, Rome had reported adversely
on the project of the Ultramontanes to estabhsh
a rival to Laval at Montreal. In September, 1876,
a papal buU was sent out and promulgated by the
archbishop, granting canonical esta:bhshment to
Laval, and endorsing its doctrines and practices.
Other evidence indicative of the archbishop's
disapproval of the extreme demands of the Ultra
montanes had appeared. He was probably influenced
by the stern resistance offered by many French
Liberals to the attempt of their spiritual guardians
to destroy their freedom of political action. At any
rate, on May 25th, 1876, the archbishop issued a
pastoral letter which forbade the priests to discuss
pohtical questions in the church or at the church
door, to volunteer advice on the subject of elections
298

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
under any circumstances, or even to give pohtical
counsel while making pastoral visits or in attend
ance on the sick. It was understood that this
pastoral, which seemed to hmit the legitimate
rights of the clergy, was issued in consequence
of representations made to Rome against their
attitude towards the Liberal party, or at least
against the activity of the clergy in elections.
A delegation was therefore despatched to Rome
to make explanations and counter-representations.*
The final result was a papal brief, dated Septem
ber 13th, 1876, in which it is said: "We rejoice
chiefly at the care you take to inculcate among the
Canadian people sound doctrine, and to explain
to them what regards the nature, the constitution,
and the rights of the Church, the conception of
which it is customary to present with great subtlety
for the purpose of deceiving the faithful; and we
have had to praise the zeal with which you have
striven to forewarn the same people against the
crafty errors of LiberaUsme caUed CathoUque, the
more dangerous, that under an exterior appearance
of piety they deceive many honest men, and that,
tending to lead men away from the true doctrine,
especiaUy on questions which at first sight seem to
concern rather the civil than the ecclesiastical
power, they enfeeble the faith, break the unity,
^ Mr. Tremblay, the Liberal candidate in Charlevoix, was one of
those who made representations to the religious authorities against
the political activity of the clergy.
299

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
divide the Cathohc forces, and furnish very effica
cious aid to the enemies of the Church, who teach
the same errors, though with greater display and
impudence, and insensibly lead men's minds to
accept their perverse designs." This was held to
constitute papal approval of the joint letter of 1875,
and of aU the menace, coercion, and intimidation
practised under authority of that document; to set
at defiance the assertion by the Canadian courts of
the power of the law and the supremacy of the
State ; and to justify the unrelenting warfare of the
Catholic ecclesiastics upon one of the great pohtical
organizations of Canada.
There was quoted from Sir Alexander Gait's
pamphlet a reference to the position of Archbishop
Lynch of Ontario. His attitude was in striking
contrast to that of the ecclesiastical authorities
of Quebec, and though vigorously condemned by
the Ultramontanes, his utterance probably had a
considerable effect in dampening the fires of
rehgious animosity in the Enghsh provinces. On
January 20th, 1876, he said in a letter to Mr.
Mackenzie: "I think this an opportune time to
inform you and your Government that priests in
our arch-diocese are strictly forbidden to make
the altar or pulpit of their churches the tribune
of political harangues for or against any party or
candidate for election, or to threaten any spiritual
disabihty for voting with either party." The Prime
Minister, in his reply said it was a fortunate
300

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
circumstance that the form of the Canadian Con
stitution rendered it difficult if not impossible to
bring questions of rehgion into the political arena
where the subjects proper for debate were purely
secular, and where, consequently, men of opposite
religious views found no difficulty whatever in
uniting in the conduct of pubhc affairs.
It is not so clear as Mr. Mackenzie seemed to
think, that "the form of the Canadian Constitu
tion " has made it exceptionaUy difficult to bring
questions of rehgion into the pohtical arena.
Such issues seem to be eternaUy present in our
pohtical contests, and more than once the battle
has raged about the form, the spirit, and the intention
of the Constitution. But at least it is easy to accept
the admirable definition of Liberahsm which Mr.
Mackenzie set out in the concluding sentences of
his letter to the archbishop : " The general prin
ciples," he said, "of the party of which I am the
leader, are weU known and thoroughly settled.
They include the independence of Church and
State; the amplest recognition of civil as weU as
rehgious hberty; and the accordance of impartial
justice and equal rights to every individual, irrespec
tive of his rehgious creed or his pohtical faith."
To these principles rather than to the " form of the
Constitution" must we look for rehgious peace,
and for the harmonious co-operation of aU races
and creeds in Canada.
The clerical opponents of the Liberal party, in
301

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
defiance of the judgments of the Courts, persisted
in the pohcy of intimidation and coercion. In
November, 1876, Mr. Laflamme became Minister
of Justice in the Mackenzie Government, and a
new election in Jacques Cartier became necessary.
Mr. Laflamme was an uncompromising Rouge.
He had been connected with the Institut Canadien,
and had always resisted the extreme pretensions of
the Ultramontanes. He was, therefore, an invitmg
subject for attack. On the Sunday before the
polling, the curd of L'Isle Bizard told his people
that if they did not hsten to the word of God
through him they would be damned. He asked his
congregation to remember that there had been two
sudden deaths in the parish during the week, and to
consider whether or not these people were prepared
for judgment. "You," he said, "may also die
suddenly, and are you going to prepare yourselves
to meet your God, your sovereign Judge, by
voting for the enemies of His Church." There were
similar utterances in other parishes and in other con
stituencies as elections occurred, and, in fact, there
was a general and determined adherence to the pohcy
of clerical interference with the candidates of the
Liberal party. Again appeals were made to Rome
by Liberal Catholics; and finaUy Mgr. Conroy,
Bishop of Armagh, was instructed by the Congre
gation of the Propaganda to proceed forthwith to
Canada, and pronounce upon the attitude of the Can
adian clergy. He made a thorough investigation into
302

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
the conditions in Quebec, and pronounced a definite
condemnation of the clerical antagonists of the
Liberal party. He proclaimed that the two political
parties were equal before the Church, and, acting
under his instructions, the bishops on October
11th, 1877, issued a joint pastoral in which they
said : " The decree of the fourth councU of Quebec
implicitly forbids you to teach in the pulpit or
elsewhere that it is a sin to vote for such a candi
date or such a pohtical party; much more are you
forbidden to announce that you wiU refuse the
sacraments for this reason. From the pulpit you
wUl never give your personal opinion."
But notwithstanding even the instructions of the
apostohc delegate and the joint pastoral of the
bishops, many priests were active in the general
election of 1878, and ecclesiastical censure and
intimidation were freely employed against Liberal
candidates. In Berthier, particularly, the clerical
pohticians set authority and prudence ahke at
defiance. The Liberal candidate was a sound
Cathohc and an exceUent citizen, and from every
standpoint the audacious interference of the clergy
was without excuse or justification. Nothing could
be more painful to Liberal Catholics than appeal
to the civil power against their spiritual superiors.
It required courage of a high order openly to
charge and openly to estabhsh the unclerical prac
tices and unconstitutional assumptions of the priests,
and all who engaged in such proceedings were
303

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
doubly exposed to the censures and anathemas of
the ecclesiastics. But these sturdy French Liberals
determined, while holding their faith inviolate, not
to submit to clerical dictation nor to accept a less
measure of pohtical freedom than their Protestant
feUow citizens enjoyed. They therefore protested
the election on the ground of undue influence, and,
as in Charlevoix, successfuUy estabhshed their con
tention before the judges.
It was shown that out of six curds of the parishes
comprising the County of Berthier, five had used
both the pulpit and the confessional in order to
influence the electors against the Liberal candidate.
They denounced the Liberal party as dangerous,
anti-Cathohc, and condemned by the Church; and
told the electors that to vote for the Liberal candi
date would be to endanger their salvation and
to invite the refusal of the sacraments. One witness
testified that a priest had said from the pulpit that
out of thirteen or fourteen hundred communicants
only five or six hundred were worthy of approach
ing the holy table. "If the head of the family has
voted for the Liberals, the wife and chUdren, hke
the head, are unworthy of coming to it." Another
witness, whose son was temporarily deranged, went
to his priest for spiritual counsel, and was told
that he had always been a Liberal, and therefore
always disobedient, and that in order to obtain the
heahng of Providence he must make a sacrifice and
vote Conservative, as well as increase his contribu-
304

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
tions to the Church. A third witness swore that he
was not permitted to make his Easter communion,
because he persisted in voting for the Liberal
candidate. StiU another elector was told by his
curd: "If you want to go to heU you have a fine
chance. Go and vote on the Liberal side." Liberals
were denounced as the children of the devil and
the children of the demon. One curd said in the
course of his sermon that " the Liberal party was
the party that resembled the fire of heU in colour."
A witness said that after his confession the priest
told him to go to heU with his party. Another
testified that the priest "told us that the Liberal
party was a party condemned by the Church, and
he compared the Liberals to eggs that were put
under a hen to be hatched, when the chicks did not
come out of the sheU. He said that they were hke
addled eggs, and had a rotten heart." A Catholic
writer has said: "A sincere Cathohc, jealous of the
honour of his rehgion and of his rights as a citizen,
cannot read the brochure which contains the facts
proved in this case, without being profoundly hu-
mihated."* These revelations brought from Rome an em
phatic and energetic remonstrance expressed in
language which could not be misunderstood. The
Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda, over the
signature of Jean, Cardinal Simeoni, declared that
^ Mr. L. O. David's pamphlet on "The Canadian Clergy, their
Mission and their Work." Page 47. 305

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
it had come to their knowledge that in the Province
of Quebec certain members of the clergy and of the
lay body were continuaUy interfering too much in
pohtical elections, and were using to this end, in
some cases the pulpit, in others the newspapers and
other pubhcations. It was necessary that the bishops
of Canada should be made to understand that the
Holy See recognized perfectly the extreme gravity
of the facts reported, and that the injury which the
authority of the clergy and the holy ministry was
suffering in consequence was particularly to be
deplored. In order to repair such signal damage, it
was especiaUy necessary to extirpate the root of it.
The cause of such grave inconveniences was to be
found in the divisions of the bishops between them
selves, not so much on the subject of pohtical
matters, as on the subject of other matters which
were being agitated at the moment in Canada. In
order to put an end to these very regrettable dis
sensions, it would be necessary that the bishops, by
common consent with the Apostohc Delegate
despatched to Canada, shoiUd come to an under
standing in order to determine a common hne of
action to be foUowed by each and aU of them in
regard to the political parties. Another cause of the
same inconveniences was to be found in the too
great interference of the clergy in pohtical affairs
without having sufficient regard for pastoral dis
cretion. The remedy adapted to this excess of zeal
was to recaU to these bishops what had already
306

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
been recommended to them by the Supreme Con
gregation on Wednesday, July 29th, 1874, namely,
that on the occasion of pohtical elections they
conform themselves, in their advice to the electors,
to that which was laid down in the provincial
councU of 1868. It would be necessary to add that
the Church, in condemning Liberalism, did not
intend to strike each and every pohtical party
which happened to be caUed Liberal, since the
decisions of the Church related to certain errors
opposed to the Cathohc doctrine, and not to a
certain pohtical party, no matter how constituted;
and that, consequently, those did wrong who, with
out other foundation, declared one of the political
parties of Canada to be condemned by the Church,
the party, namely, caUed " Reform," a party warmly
supported formerly by some of the bishops even. It
would be necessary also to exhort the bishops to
observe in relation to pohtical affairs the greatest
reserve, paying especial regard to the danger which
existed of provoking to a violent war against the
Church, the Protestants, who were already restless
and irritated against the clergy under pretense of
undue interference in pohtical elections. Further,
it was necessary to make provision that the
clergy should always avoid naming any persons
in the pulpit, aU the more so if it were to dis
credit them on the occasion of the elections;
and should not use the ministry of the Church
for particiUar ends, unless when the candidates
307

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
might become hurtful to the true interests of the
Church. Mr. L. O. David, in his pamphlet on "The Cana
dian Clergy, their Mission and their Work," which
was issued in 1896, and was put under condemnation
by the Sacred Congregation of the Index at Rome,
has said: "It was time for Rome to speak, for a
large number of priests, and even some bishops,
were accused of being stricken more or less by the
terrible evil. Liberal Cathohcism. In the bitter dis
cussion aroused by the division of parishes, the
Cathohc Programme, and the estabhshment of a
branch of Laval University at Montreal, the Con
servatives were divided, and finished by mutuaUy
accusing themselves of being Liberal Cathohcs. If
Rome had not interfered, aU the clergy would have
passed over, and there would have been in this
country nothing but suspected Cathohcs. Conserva
tive papers were then seen to claim the right of
differing in opinion with their bishops in writings
of a violence which Liberals never equaUed. When
the Conservatives were gently opposed by the
clergy, they rephed with a vigour which clearly
demonstrated that the day on which they would be
denounced and ostracized hke the Liberals, they
would lose no time in forcing Rome to interfere in
order to impose silence and abstention on the clergy
in pohtical matters."
One of the most remarkable incidents of this
period was the publication of a pamphlet caUed
308

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
"La Source du Mal."^ Undoubtedly of Ultramon
tane origin, its authorship has not been positively
identified. It was, however, too frank even for the
Ultramontanes, and was speedily suppressed. It is
interesting, however, as reveahng in bald and even
vehement language, the intolerant spirit and the
aggressive ends of Ultramontane pohcy. The pam
phlet declares that : " AU those who are at the head
of the Liberal party in the Province of Quebec
work with a persistent energy for the destruction
of Cathohcism. They want the separation of Church
and State, and even assert the supremacy of the
State ; they sow everywhere distrust of the clergy,
whom they represent as greedy for wealth and
power ; they maintain that law, when expressed by
the wiU of the majority, is just and binding, even
when in direct contradiction to ecclesiastical law ;
they deny to the Church and to the Pope the right
to interfere in pohtical questions ; they claim the
hberty of conscience, hberty of the press, and the
hberty of doing everything in pohtical matters ;
they work with aU their might, whilst apparently
acting in concert with the bishops, when appointed
members of the Board of Education by persons
disposed to secularize education ; and they have
already attained grand success in that direction."
These "impious Liberals " were kept at bay by the
Conservatives, who were generaUy weU-disposed,
although tainted with Galhcanism and false notions
1 This pamphlet, "The Source of Evil," appeared in 1882.
309

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
by reason of their defective education. "In our
Parliamentary debates and struggles. Lower Canada
would always have paralyzed the efforts of Protes
tant fanaticism and Upper Canada Orangeism, if
aU our French-Canadian representatives had been
united to defend our true interests." But the
Liberals, numerous enough in Parhament, had
" constantly sided with our bitterest enemies." The
clergy, however, continued to exercise a paramount
influence on the people, and determined to enhghten
the faithful and put them on their guard against
those who claimed their suffrages in the name of
Liberal ideas. "To annihUate the efforts of this
terrible enemy, the Liberals worked with incredible
energy and perseverance to bring Archbishop Tas
chereau to separate from his suffragans the other
bishops." In this they succeeded because the arch
bishop was "anxious to save his popularity and be
agreeable to his famUy, fUled with Liberal ideas."
He served the Liberals admirably by his circulars.
Cathohc Liberals claimed that they were unjustly
judged as to their pohtical aUiances in Ontario.
But, the pamphlet proceeded : " What we exact is
that our representatives should aUy themselves with
those of Ontario who are most favourable to aU
our true interests, and particularly to our rehgious
interests, and this is what the Conservatives have
proved themselves to be. The Liberals have proved
themselves to be quite the opposite." The doctrine
of liberty of conscience and of the absolute authority
310

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
of the State was proclaimed. By virtue of this
pruiciple, three pohtical elections, Gaspd, Charle
voix, and Berthier, were annuUed. This doctrine had
been apphed by three judges, two of whom were
Cathohcs. They had held that they were bound to
decide according to the law of the land, and to
acknowledge no other law; and Mgr. Taschereau, in
whose diocese "these horrors were enunciated," had
aUowed aU this to pass unheeded. The free judgment
of Protestantism had penetrated by the door which
the so-caUed pohtical Liberahsm had opened.
Censure was pronounced upon the GaUican Sem
inary of Quebec and the hberal teachings of Laval
University. Mr. Justice Taschereau, a brother of
the Archbishop of Quebec, in reversing the judg
ment of Judge Routhier in the Charlevoix election,
had "enunciated the most false and impious pro
positions." He had asserted that instructions given
by the priest in the pulpit could reaUy constitute
undue influence, and had even gone so far as to
say that the law of the land was the only rule for
the courts in pubhc matters. Mgr. Conroy " seems
to have made every effort to destroy aU that
Pius IX. had stated in his aUocutions and decrees
on the subject of Liberahsm and particularly Catho
hc Liberahsm." He had pretended that one could
vote for a Cathohc Liberal and even for a doAvn-
right infidel. Such a person was Mr. Rodolphe
Laflamme, for whom Bishop Conroy had absolutely
declared that it was aUowable to vote. He had
311

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
added that " Mr. Mackenzie, Prime Minister in the
federal Govemment of 1877, supported by our
Liberals, was equal to Sir John Macdonald sup
ported by the Ultramontanes." But there was a
great difference, and here was the proof: "When
ever Sir John Macdonald was the head of the
Government, he caUed as Ministers to support him
from the Province of Quebec, the most sincere and
devoted Cathohcs, and whenever it was in his
power he yielded to the Cathohcs in every question
where they had an interest."* Hence it was con
cluded that the visit of Mgr. Conroy to Canada
was a great misfortune. " His mission has made us
retrograde immensely in the path of true progress."
He had prepared horrible disasters which would
befaU in a short time if Providence did not come to
the rescue. FinaUy it was insisted that the Holy
See must interfere ; that the Liberal errors pointed
out by Pius IX. must be condemned for Canada;
that the principles of Christian reform in education
^ "Honest Conservatives will admit that there is no brighter and more
redeeming feature in the political history of this country than the
spectacle of the Rouge party struggling for years in a hopeless minority
for the prevalence of a great political principle which had prevailed in
France and England a hundred years ago ; struggling for the enfran
chisement of the people against the prejudice of the people themselves;
against the temporal and spiritual weapons of the most powerful
of ecclesiastical institutions, allied as the Church always has been in a
most unnatural alliance with the English Protestant Conservative vote,
which has enabled it to perpetuate the enslavement of the people.
The British population cannot look back with anything of pride
on the part it has played in the politics of this province. . . . The
finger of scorn was pointed at every French Liberal at every parish
312

THE PRIEST IN POLITICS
must be maintained ; that rehgious authority must
be affirmed more particularly with respect to the
visitation of the schools and the right to use in
schools only such books as the religious authority
approved ; that the civil authority must be declared
inferior and subject to the ecclesiastical; and the
property formerly belonging to the Jesuits restored
to the legitimate owners, and Montreal permitted
to have its university so that it could organize it on
a Cathohc basis.
In the subsequent history of Quebec but few of
these pretensions have prevailed. It may be that
the Galhcan principle has dechned, and it is true
that the Jesuits have secured compensation for
their confiscated estates. But the civU authority has
not been subordinated to the ecclesiastical, spiritual
intimidation in elections has obtained no legal sanc
tion, education is less subject to clerical control,
pohtical Liberahsm has waxed strong, and the long
and resolute attempt to estabhsh an Ultramontane
university at Montreal has ended in a triumph for
Laval.
church when he came to mass, and the consequence was that many of
them were driven out of the Church, and in their forced antagonism
with the clergy were denounced as bad Catholics. These men were
Liberals at a time when it required a very high order of moral corn-age
in a French Canadian to avow himself a Liberal. Had it not been
for clerical interference the title of Rouge would not have been a title
of opprobrium, and men hke Doutre would have remained good
churchmen, and other able and conspicuous men would still have been
eminent in pubhc life, and still within the pale." — A. H. G. (a Quebec
Liberal), in the Toronto Mail, May 23rd, 1888.
313

CHAPTER XII
POLITICAL LIBERALISM
ON June 26th, 1877, three months before he
entered the Govemment, and at the height
of the Ultramontane reaction, Mr. Laurier spoke
at Quebec in explanation and defence of " Political
Liberahsm." Under aU the circumstances, no more
courageous, more powerful, or more admirably
balanced dehverance has ever been made from the
platform in Canada. He evaded nothing, neither
set down aught in malice, nor shrank at any point
from the legitimate conclusion of his argument.
The address was dehvered in the Academy of
Music, and under the auspices of the Club Cana
dien, which was, although its title conveys no party
significance, an organization of young, active, and
aggressive French Liberals. The audience was one
of the best that could be coUected in the old
French capital. A contemporary writer has said
that "they came from aU parts, from aU districts,
even from St. Hyacinthe and Montreal, to assist at
this unique demonstration, and the spectacle was
as imposing as it was instructive."* Two thousand
persons were crowded into a haU which could
1 From a political pamphlet of the day containing Mr. Laurier's
address on Political Liberalism.
315

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
give comfortable accommodation to only twelve
hundred. The main entrancCj not less than twenty
feet wide, had to be left open, and every foot of
standing room on the steps, on the platform, and
in the corridors was occupied.
Among Liberals there was profound anxiety for
the successful issue of the event. It was felt that
this performance might mar, even if it could not
make the orator's career, and that the whole
situation was hedged about with dangers and
difficulties. He had to face the frowning front of
the authorities of his Church, to respect the
conservative instincts of the Enghsh-speaking
people of his province, to consider the racial
sensitiveness and rehgious feeling of the French
Canadians, and to command the favourable judg
ment of the great body of Liberals throughout
Canada. This was surely no hght task, and the
orator was manifestly conscious of the gravity of
the occasion. He was deathly pale when he came
upon the platform, and as he stood up he searched
the faces of his audience with grave deliberation
before he uttered a word. Slowly and impressively
he spoke his first sentences, feehng for the temper
of the meeting, and watching for the first symp
toms of approval or dissent. Interest deepened in
the faces of the multitude before him ; passed into
the steady glow of sympathy ; kindled into enthus
iasm, and broke into cheering. Then the paUor
passed from his countenance. His rich voice rang
316

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
out fuU and strong. He went on triumphantly, the
absolute master of his audience and of himself, and
scored that night as signal a triumph as ever was
won by a Canadian orator. There is courage in the
speech, and argument, and eloquence, and htera
ture. It reveals none of the tricks of the demagogue.
It has nothing of party rancour, and nothing of
pettiness. It exhibits no temper. It contains not
one sentence that could be turned to the confusion
of himself or his party, or employed to excite the
meaner prejudices of any element of the popula
tion. Mr. Laurier is essentially an orator, and has
achieved many later triumphs on the hustings
and in Parliament, but it is doubtful if any other
speech that he has made ranks above this that he
pronounced at Quebec more than twenty-five years
ago under such exceptionaUy dehcate and difficult
circumstances. He faced the situation squarely at the outset.
He said he did not deceive himself as to the
position of the Liberal party in the Province of
Quebec. He knew that it occupied a false position
from the standpoint of pubhc opinion. " I know,"
he said, " that in the eyes of a large number of my
feUow-countrjonen the Liberal party is a party
composed of men of perverse doctrines and danger
ous tendencies, pressing knowingly and dehberately
towards revolution. I know that in the eyes of a
portion of my feUow-countrymen the Liberal party
is a party of men with upright intentions, perhaps,
317

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
but victims and dupes of principles which are
leading them unconsciously but fataUy towards revo
lution. In fine, I know that in the eyes of another
and not the least considerable portion, perhaps, of
our people, Liberahsm is a new form of evil, a
heresy carrying with it its own condemnation."
The Liberal party, he said, had been more
assailed than any other political party in the
history of the country. Prejudices had been raised
hke a barrier between Liberals and pubhc opinion.
By one class of their opponents they had been
calumniated in good faith ; by another class they
had been systematicaUy slandered. The first duty
of Liberals was to rally to their side aU the
friends of hberty who, before 1837 or after, had
fought for responsible govemment, and who, when
popular govemment was estabhshed, had been
detached from the party through representations
that the realization of Liberal ideas would lead
to the destruction of the government thus estab
hshed. The second point was to force the enemies
of the Liberal party, who were at bottom enemies,
more or less disguised, of hberty, to abandon their
appeals to prejudices and fear, and come frankly
before the people with their own ideas and acts.
AU the charges made against the Liberal party
could be crystaUized into two propositions: (1)
Liberahsm is a new form of error, a heresy already
virtuaUy condemned by the head of the Church ;
(2) a Catholic cannot be a Liberal. He knew that
318

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
Cathohc Liberahsm had been condemned by the
head of the Church, but he insisted that Cathohc
Liberahsm was not pohtical Liberalism. "If it were
true," he said, "that the ecclesiastical censures
hurled against Cathohc Liberalism should also
apply to political Liberahsm, this fact would con
stitute for us, French by origin and Cathohcs by
rehgion, a state of things the consequences of
which would be as strange as they would be pain
ful" Under the Constitution, the French Canadians
had not more rights or more privileges, but they
had as many rights and as many privileges as the
other elements which go to make up the Canadian
famUy. The other elements of the population were
divided into the Liberal party and the Conservative
party. With convincing logic he proceeded : " If
we who are Cathohcs are not to have the right
to have our preferences, if we are not to have
the right to belong to the Liberal party, one of
two things must happen: either we would be
obhged to abstain completely from taking any
share in the management of the affairs of the
State, and then the Constitution, that Constitution
which was granted to us for our own protection,
would be in our hands only a dead letter ; or we
would be obhged to take a part in the management
of the affairs of the State under the direction and
to the profit of the Conservative party, and then,
our action being no longer free, the Constitution
would again be in our hands a dead letter, and
319

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
we would, in addition, have the ignominy of being
regarded by the other members of the Canadian
family composing the Conservative party as tools
and slaves."
He argued that the Liberal idea was as old as the
world, and was written on every page of the world's
history. But it was only in our day, under repre
sentative institutions, that we had come to know
its force and its law, and understand how to utilize
it. "The system of representative government is
the instrument which has revealed to the world the
two principles. Liberal and Conservative, and by
which we get from that form of government aU its
effects." Both Liberahsm and Conservatism were
susceptible of much good, as also of much evil.
"The Conservative who defends his country's old
institutions may do much good, as he also may do
much evU if he be obstinate in maintaining abuses
which have become intolerable. The Liberal who
contends against these abuses, and who after long
effort succeeds in extirpating them, may be a pubhc
benefactor, just as the Liberal who lays a rash hand
on haUowed institutions may be a scourge, not only
for his own country, but for humanity at large."
He went on to say that "the principle of Liberahsm
is inherent in the very essence of our nature, in
that desire of happiness with which we are aU born
into the world, which pursues us throughout life,
and which is never completely gratified on this side
of the grave. Our souls are immortal but our means
320

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
are hmited. We constantly gravitate towards an
ideal which we never attain. We dream of good,
but we never reahze the best. We reach the goal
we have proposed to ourselves only to discover new
horizons opening up which we had not before even
suspected. We rush on towards them, and those
horizons, explored in their turn, reveal to us others,
which lead us on ever further and further. And thus
it wUl be as long as man is what he is, as long
as the immortal soul inhabits a mortal body; his
desires wiU be always vaster than his means, and
his actions wUl never rise to the height of his
conceptions. He is the real Sisyphus of the fable ;
his work, always finished, has always to be begun
again." He spoke with enthusiasm of the reforms achieved
and the abuses corrected by the Liberal party of
Great Britain, without shock, disturbance, or vio
lence. " What," he said, "is grander than the history
of the great Enghsh Liberal party during the
present century. On its threshold looms up the
figure of Fox, the wise, the generous Fox, espousing
the cause of the oppressed. A httle later comes
O'ConneU, claiming and obtaining for his co-rehgion-
ists the rights and privileges of Enghsh subjects.
He is helped in this work by aU the Liberals of the
three kingdoms, Grey, Brougham, RusseU, Jeffrey,
and a host of others. Then come, one after the
other, the abohtion of the ruling ohgarchy, the
repeal of the Corn Laws, the extension of the
321

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
suffrage to the working classes, and lastly, to crown
the whole, the disestabhshment of the Church of
England as the state rehgion in Ireland. And note
well: the Liberals who carried out these successive
reforms were not recruited from the middle classes
only, but some of their most eminent leaders were
recruited from the peerage of England. I know
of no spectacle that reflects greater honour on
humanity than the spectacle of these peers of
England, these rich and powerful nobles, stubbornly
fighting to eradicate a host of venerable abuses, and
sacrificing their privUeges with calm enthusiasm to
make hfe easier and happier for a larger number of
their feUow-beings." He quoted Macaulay's breath
less and exiUtant account of the passage of the first
Reform BiU in the British Parhament, and ex
claimed: "Members of the Club Canadien, Liberals
of the ProAdnce of Quebec, there are our models,
there are our principles, there is our party ! "
He passed on to say that the constitutional Lib
erals of Great Britain had neither sympathy nor
feUowship with the revolutionaries of France, Italy,
and Germany, who aimed at the destruction of
modern society. He protested against the persever
ing attempts of the opponents of the Liberal party
in Quebec to identify Canadian Liberals with the
revolutionary elements of Europe. He pointed out
that down to 1848 the great mass of French Cana
dians were embraced within the Liberal party, and
that the Tory party represented but a feeble min-
322

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
ority of the people. Lafontaine accepted the rdgime
estabhshed in 1841. But when Papineau returned
from exile he assailed the new order; and many
young men of great talent and greater impetuosity
of character, disappointed that they had come on
the scene too late to stake their heads during the
events of 1837, and among the foremost of La-
fontaine's partisans in the struggle against Lord
Metcalf, accepted the pohcy of Papineau, and soon
went beyond their leader. They attacked the social
as weU as the pohtical situation, and issued a
programme of twenty-one articles, beginning with
election of justices of the peace, and ending with
annexation to the United States. The platform as
a whole amounted to a revolution. The only excuse
for these Liberals, he said, was their youth. The
oldest of them was not more than twenty-two
years of age. Besides, the situation in Canada and
in Europe was favourable to such exaggerations,
and these young enthusiasts, not content with the
ambition to revolutionize their own country, greeted
with transports each fresh revolution in the old
world. They, however, had hardly taken two steps
in hfe when they perceived their immense error,
abandoned their organ L'Avenir to the dema
gogues, and sought in a new journal, Le Pays,
with only partial success, the new path which
should be taken by the friends of hberty under the
new constitution. But, he said, "the harm was
done. The clergy, alarmed at these proceedings 323

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
which reminded them of the revolutionaries of
Europe, at once declared merciless war on the new
party. The Enghsh population, friendly to hberty,
but also friendly to the maintenance of order, hke
wise ranged themselves against the new party, and
during twenty-five years that party has remained
in opposition, although to it belongs the honour of
having taken the initiative in aU the reforms ac
comphshed during that period. It was in vain that
it demanded and obtained the abohtion of the
seignorial tenure. It was in vain that it demanded
and obtained judicial decentrahzation. It was in
vain that it was the first to give an impetus to the
work of colonization. It was not credited with these
wise reforms. It was in vain that those chUdren,
now grown into men, disavowed the rashness of
their youth. It was in vain that the Conservative
party made mistake after mistake. The generation
of the Liberals of 1848 had almost entirely disap
peared from the pohtical scene ere the dawn of
a new day began to break for the Liberal party.
Since that time the party has received new acces
sions; calmer and more thoughtful ideas have pre
vailed in it; and as for the old programme, nothing
whatever remains of its social side, while on the
political side there remain only the principles of the
Enghsh Liberal party."
Mr. Laurier went on to show that in consequence
of the split between Papineau and Lafontaine, the
fraction of the Liberal party which foUowed La-
324

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
fontaine was finaUy absorbed by the Tory party of
Upper Canada. The new party became the Liberal-
Conservative party, and as the years passed fresh
modifications ensued. Now some of its leaders would
have the organization described as the Ultramon
tane or Cathohc party. Its principles, hke its name,
had been modified. If Sir George Cartier were to
come back to earth he would not know his party.
Cartier was devoted to the principles of the British
Constitution, while his successors rejected the prin
ciples of that Constitution as a concession to the
spirit of evil. They understood neither their country
nor their time. Their ideas were modeUed on those
of the reactionists of France. They sought to intro
duce ideas which were impossible of application in
our state of society. " I accuse them of laboriously,
and by misfortune too efficaciously, working to
degrade rehgion to the simple proportions of a
pohtical party." It was, he said, the habit of the
opponents of the Liberal party to accuse Liberals ^
of irrehgion, but for his part he had too much
respect for the faith in which he was born ever to
use it as the basis of a pohtical organization. "You,"
he said, addressing the Conservative leaders in Que
bec, " wish to organize a Cathohc party. But have
you not considered that if you have the misfortune
to succeed, you wiU draw upon your country ca
lamities of which it is impossible to foresee the
consequences. You wish to organize aU the Catho
hcs into one party, without other bond, without
325

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
other basis, than a common religion. But have you
not reflected that by this very fact you wiU organize
the Protestant population as a single party, and
that then, instead of the peace and harmony now
prevaihng between the different elements of the
Canadian population, you throw open the doors to
war, a religious war, the most terrible of aU wars."
Again, he said, he accused Conservatives of not
understanding either their country or their time.
It was also charged against Liberals that they
loved hberty, and the tenor of his argument imphes
that it was sought to give a sinister meaning to the
word as associated with the revolutionary upheavals
of France. But whUe the French have had the
name of hberty, they have not yet, he contended,
had hberty itself; and he quoted as his ideal of
freedom those stately verses of Tennyson which
describe England as "the land where, girt with
friends or foes, a man may speak the thing he wUl,"
where "freedom slowly broadens down from pre
cedent to precedent," where "faction seldom gathers
head," and " the strength of some diffusive thought
hath time and space to work and spread." But
while Liberals were denounced as the friends of a
dangerous hberty, it was also charged that they
would deny to the Church the freedom to which it
was entitled. It was not the fact, however, that
Canadian Liberals desired to exclude the clergy
from participation in political affairs. They had the
right to approve or disapprove of public men and
326

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
their measures. They had the right even to say that
if a particular candidate were elected, religion would
be endangered or the interests of the State im-
periUed. But this right was not unlimited. " The
right of interference in pohtics finishes at the spot
where it encroaches on the elector's independence."
It was legitimate to change the opinion of the voter
by persuasion or by argument, but if these faUed
and his mind remained unchanged, and then by
intimidation or fraud men were forced to vote
against their convictions, " the opinion which they
express is not their opinion, and the Constitution is
violated." Under such circumstances we would have
not the government of the majority but the govern
ment of the minority, and, "if after each election
the wiU expressed is not the real wiU of the country,
once more you do violence to the Constitution,
responsible government is no longer anything but
an empty name, and, sooner or later, here as else
where, the pressure wiU culminate in explosion,
violence, and ruin."
He knew there were persons who held that the
clergy had the right to dictate to the people, but
his answer was that we were here under the
government of the Queen of England, and " under
the authority of a Constitution which was granted
to us as an act of justice," and the exercise of such
authority was incompatible with the spirit of that
Constitution. He was reared among priests, and
among them he had some sincere friends, and to
327

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
these at least he could say: " See if there is under
the sun a happier country than ours ; see if there is
under the sun a country where the Catholic Church
is freer or more privUeged than it is here. Why
then should you, by claiming rights incompatible
with our state of society, expose this country to
agitations, of which it is impossible to foresee the
consequences." He said, in closing, that we in
Canada were a free and happy people owing to
the hberal institutions by which we were governed,
and the pohcy of the Liberal party was to protect
and spread those institutions and under their sway
to develop the country's latent resources. "Forty
years ago the country was in a state of feverish
commotion, a prey to an agitation which a few
months later broke out in rebelhon. The British
Crown was maintained in the country only by the
force of powder and baU. And yet what were our
predecessors seeking ? They were asking for noth
ing more than the institutions which we have at
present. Those institutions were granted to us and
loyaUy apphed, and see the result. The British flag
floats over the old citadel of Quebec ; it floats
to-night over our heads, without a single English
soldier in the country to defend it ; its sole defence
resting in the gratitude which we owe it for our
freedom and the security which we have found
under its folds."
Such a speech, frank, persuasive, luminous, and
eloquent, could not fail to make a profound impres-
328

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
sion throughout the country, and particularly to
strike the imagination of the French Canadian
people to whom it was chiefly addressed. WhUe
Mr. Laurier laboured to remove false impressions,
to separate the Liberal party from the errors and
excesses of the past, to establish its constitutional
character and constitutional purposes, he stiU de
clared uncompromising resistance to the arrogant
assumptions of the Ultramontanes, and boldly
affirmed the right of the Cathohc elector to control
his own franchise, rest in his own judgment, and
exercise aU the freedom and authority of inde
pendent citizenship. Here he struck at the very
root of clerical pretension, and calmly confronted
influences before which even Cartier had suc
cumbed, and which aU men deemed invincible in
the Province of Quebec. Here was the vital fact
of the speech, and here the great merit of the
performance. "It was," said a writer of the time, "a striking
and vivid explanation of what are the true Liberal
principles, so unknown, so distorted, so calumniated,
and which it is vainly attempted to compare with
the fatal lucubrations of European Liberalism."
Apart, said this writer, from the striking ovation
which his countrymen had tendered to Mr. Laurier,
they owed him a debt of gratitude. "They must
recognize that he has eased the pubhc conscience
of the terrible doctrines sought to be imposed
upon it, and which are a total denial of every
329

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
constitutional principle ; they are indebted to him
for having opened a road and led the way, an in
estimable boon for a people lost in doubt, and a
prey to every uncertainty; they are indebted to
him, in a word, for having recaUed them to a love
for Liberalism, the glorious and immortal feeling
which has been the salvation of nations, and to
which its enemies have rendered homage, in
every age, by carrying out necessary reforms,
and by acknowledging popular rights, against
which they had long fought, but which are now
inalienable." He proceeded to say, with astonishing frankness,
when it is remembered that education in Quebec
was chiefly in the hands of clerical agencies, that
for French Canadians the events of the 26th of
June were a subject of pride and proud encourage
ment. "TiU now we were thought unfit for a
parhamentary career, and with too good cause,
for our education has httle in its nature to give
us the necessary temperament. Our conduct, under
pohtical circumstances, discloses this want in our
education, while our press is almost solely occupied
with frivolous quarrels or personahties, and seems
to ignore this fact. But inexperience must not be
confounded with inaptitude ; and French Canadians
showed on that ever memorable evening, the 26th
of June, that they could, as weU as their feUow
countrymen of Enghsh origin, understand the
working and appreciate the importance of repre-
330

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
sentative institutions, when they are explained
with the clearness, the luminous method, in the
calm and eloquent argument, in a word, with the
exactness which Mr. Laurier displayed throughout
his lecture." The speech, it was argued, must tend
to free pohtics from aU coteries, and from the
contemptible meanness which was the daily bread
of parties and which quarreUed over trifles for mere
transitory satisfaction. " We now know the route
we are foUowing; it does not lead us to revolution
ary excesses. Liberahsm is divested of its savage
garb, of its anti-social and anti-rehgious character,
and is seen in its true colours, the love of lawful
and necessary hberty, of progressive freedom, which
results from the natural conditions of progress, and
not from sudden shocks which dangerous spirits
would wish to impart to it. Such are the character
istics of Canadian Liberahsm which Mr. Laurier
has pointed out, and which we wUl endeavour in
future to retain."*
The clerical and Conservative organs energeticaUy
combatted Mr. Laurier's arguments, and especiaUy
assaUed his contention that the pretensions of the
Ultramontanes were inadmissible under the Cana
dian Constitution, and incompatible with the con
ditions of society which must obtain in a free
coimtry. Le Nouveau Monde attacked the speech
as setting bounds to the hberty and authority of
^From a political pamphlet of the day containing Mr. Laurier's
address on "Political Liberalism."
331

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the Church. It said that the revolutionary Liberals
of Europe had invented criminal spiritual influence
which was visited with prison and exile, and now
Mr. Laurier had invented undue spiritual influence
which was visited with fines and civil degradation.
Mr. Laurier, Le Nouveau Monde explained, was
not held to be a Liberal Cathohc because of his
attitude on the tariff or on the Canadian Pacific
Railway, but because formerly in Le Defricheur,
and now in this address, he had endeavoured to
give to the State the right of defining the hmits of
Cathohc preaching, and thereby placed the State
above the Church. For these reasons he deserved
to be caUed a Liberal Cathohc, and to be opposed
as such.
Le Courrier de St. Hyacinthe contended that the
doctrine proclaimed by Mr. Laurier was the very
same doctrine expressed by the judges of the
Supreme Court in the controverted election of
Charlevoix. Like the judges, he placed the su
premacy of Parhament above the hberty of the
Cathohc Church. It pointed out that the bishops of
the province, who were the natural custodians of
Cathohc doctrine, in a coUective letter, had unani
mously protested against the judgment of the
Supreme Court, and especiaUy condemned the argu
ment of Mr. Justice Taschereau. Mr. Laurier was
not ignorant of the action of the episcopal body,
yet ventured to appear as an antagonist of the
liberty of the Church, and to accept false in-
332

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
terpretations of the Treaty of Paris, which secured
to Cathohcs in Quebec the free exercise of their
rehgion. He, in fact, placed the authority of the
Queen, or of the Constitution, above the immutable
and imperishable rights of the Church, and the civU
society above the rehgious society. He had therefore
damaged himself and the party to which he be
longed. This journal particularly objected to Mr.
Laurier's protest against the design to organize a
Cathohc party, and said: "This sentence, from the
hps of a leader of a party, is very imprudent. How
now, Mr. Laurier, entrusted as you were with a
mission, with a task, by a large class of your country
men, of asserting their principles, when you are
caUed upon to explain the position of your party
and meet the accusations of irrehgion and of Catho
hc Liberahsm made against it, can you have the
audacity to reproach your adversaries with claiming
their fuU rights as Cathohcs in the person of the
priest ? "
L'Union des Cantons de L'Est said that Mr.
Laurier's speech was nothing less than a lesson to
the bishops. He had dared to say that the right of
dictating to the people at elections, claimed by the
whole episcopal body and secured by treaties, was
incompatible with our state of society. He had
refused to rise in Parhament and make himself the
interpreter of the bishops. He had the courage
to fear the Protestants. He had the courage to think
himself superior to the bishops, and to say so.
333

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
He had the courage to teU the bishops that then-
course was calculated to provoke agitations and
expose the country to consequences impossible
to foreteU. Le Canadien said it was just such a
speech as opponents of the liiberal party wanted,
but dared not hope for. It was the expression of the
ideas of the Liberal party, and the speaker had
dealt squarely with the subject. The gist of the
speech was that the clergy should remain in the
sanctuary, and that rehgion should not form the basis
of any party. While ostensibly a plea in defence of
Liberahsm, it was a denunciation of Ultramontanism
and of the authority of the clergy. The orator's
purpose was to impress upon Protestants that the
Conservative party was led by men who were
under such subjection to the Pope that they could
not respect the British Constitution. He, in fact,
affirmed that they were the enemies of the Consti
tution. "Mr. Laurier we have long known to hold
opinions completely radical. His lecture places him
incontestably at the head of the Liberals who are
anxious to go ahead. He acknowledged that he
beheves the time has come to walk fearlessly and
with flying banners."
The Liberal press, however, received the speech
with enthusiasm, and the French organs of the party
stood out as boldly in defence of his utterances and in
acceptance of his programme as the Enghsh journals
which were naturally expected to welcome and com
mend the dehverance. L'Union de St. Hyacinthe
334

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
described the speech as a masterpiece, and held that
it was as remarkable for the depth and moderation
of the ideas developed as for the pohte and calm
tone in which they were expressed. "This docu
ment," said L'Union, "is a manifesto for our party;
it is the reaffirmation of principles which were
forgotten ; it is a new plan of a weU-known field,
the witness of many battles, but from which in
the heat of the fight we had temporarUy strayed
away. Let us return to it; this plan is the salvation
of the party, and wiU stiU lead us on to important
conquests." L'Evenement said Mr. Laurier had
made known the pohcy of the Liberal party in aU
its truth and candour. He had pointed out its ten
dencies and its real object. The party recognized its
obhgation to him, and was proud to have at its
head a man of so much talent. Quoting from one of
the Conservative journals the statement that it was
desirable to organize a Catholic party and assemble
aU the Cathohcs under one banner, as they would
thus be more numerous than by a mere union
of French Canadians alone, L'Evenement proceeded:
"Such a thought, at a time when Cathohcs enjoy a
free measure of hberty, is a dangerous and vicious
thought. The wish to divide Canada into two
rehgious parties, Cathohc and Protestant, would
infalhbly lead to terrible conflicts, in which we
would undoubtedly be crushed, and in which we
would lose forever the rights and privileges which it
has cost us so much to obtain. This one declaration 335

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of the Conservative idea is sufficient to bring about
its condemnation. Let the Conservatives leave to
Europe this rehgious hate, and let them work
for the future greatness of our country, free from
aU rehgious discord."* Le National discussed at
length the general attitude of the Liberal party
towards the Cathohc Church, and contended that
the historical facts alone, even without Mr. Laurier's
brUhant logic, should be enough to convince every
honest and unprejudiced mind that the Reform
party did not in any way desire to deprive the
Church of its rights, but on the contrary had always
endeavoured to secure to it the fiiU exercise thereof
Mr. Laurier had unmasked the enemies' batteries,
and the hypocrites who usurped the name of Con
servatives had been irrevocably driven from one
of their strongest positions.
The Montreal Herald characterized the speech
as a masterpiece of diction. The young member for
Drummond and Arthabaska, said The Herald, had
already made for himself a national reputation as
an orator, and anything that he might say either in
Enghsh or in his mother tongue was sure to be
said in a manner which left nothing to be desired.
In this case he had fairly surpassed himself, and his
exposition of the origin, progress, and aim of Lib
erahsm in Canada, and his exposure of the hypo-
¦^ The statement which L'J^venement attacked appeared in Le Courrier
de St. Hyacinthe, edited by P. B. de la Bruyere, always an earnest
Ultramontane, and now, as for many years past, superintendent of
Catholic education in Quebec.
336

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
critical pretensions of its adversaries, formed one of
the brightest chapters in the pohtical literature of
the day. The originahty with which he treated the
subject, the logic with which he reasoned out his
course, and the strength of the positions which he
occupied, aU combined to make the speech one of
the most forcible pleas for Liberahsm ever advanced.
The men who controUed the destinies of the Con
servative party in Quebec rehed for their support
not upon the enhghtening of the people, so that
they might see clearly the course most beneficial
to the country, but upon the intimidation of the
electorate through clerical agents and the use of
spiritual threats to prevent it from forming or
expressing opinions. They had been strongly sup
ported in their endeavour by the Ultramontane
element in the Roman Cathohc Church, and it
was but natural that considerable effect had been
produced upon the more ignorant portion of the
population. Mr. Laurier had shown how utterly
subversive to civU hberty were the doctrines of the
Ultramontane school of politicians, how useless and
valueless their general reception would render the
Constitution, and how their promulgation was a
menace to the safety and to the rights of alL The
idea that a Cathohc could not without renouncing
his aUegiance to his Church become a member of
the Liberal party was, no doubt, one which if
widely received would be of great advantage to
Conservatives; but it was so utterly opposed to all
337

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
truth and reason that it was surprising, not only
that there were people stupid enough to beheve it,
but that there were people sufficiently audacious to
seek to inculcate it. The reactionary writers condes
cended to no arguments, but continuaUy denounced
Liberals in pohtics as communists, revolutionaries,
freethinkers, the enemies of God and of man. No
charge of revolution or of irrehgion could be too
hard to hurl against their adversaries. As a matter
of fact, however, the Liberals of Canada had as
httle in common with the ideas of the communists
of Paris as with those of the corrupt Bonapartists
through whose misrule the covimune had its being.
They were the descendants of the great Whig
party of England, and of the old Liberal party in
Canada, through whose noble efforts and sacrifices
constitutional government in England and in Can
ada was estabhshed. These very French Canadians
who were so frantic in their denunciations of Liber
ahsm were the men who would have seen their
compatriots as a conquered people, with no share in
their own government, had it not been for the
brave and eventuaUy successful struggle for consti
tutional government made by the Liberal party in
years gone by. They would hke now to estabhsh
a practical despotism in Canada, and to hand over
the government to the Ultramontane priests and
pohticians. As Mr. Laurier had said, they under
stood neither the country nor the epoch in which
they hved. " The safety of our institutions depends
338

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
upon the Liberal party, a party which is neither
anti-rehgious nor anti-social as its adversaries pre
tend, which does not strive to increase its popularity
by fanning the flames of sectional hatred, or arous
ing the prejudices of creed as do those adversaries
themselves, but which advocates and maintains
those principles of civil and religious freedom
essential to our constitutional form of govern
ment." The Montreal Witness, which had long waged
a strenuous war against the Ultramontanes, and
had stood always in the forefront of the battle for
civU freedom, declared that a master mind had
appeared upon the scene. The speech seemed hkely
to prove an event of no smaU magnitude in its
influence upon pohtical affairs in Quebec. It was
many years since a French Canadian pubhc man
had given to the country a statesmanhke address
on pubhc affairs. The repressive influence of
clericahsm had for a long time discouraged and
prevented any reaUy honest and comprehensive
treatment of those great pohtical principles which
underhe our system of government. Mr. Laurier
had broken the monotony, and the results promised
to be as wholesome as the event was novel. He
was not afraid to caU himself a Liberal. He seemed
rather to glory in the name than otherwise; and the
picture he gave of the achievements of the Liberal
party on behalf of the people in England and in
Canada ought to put new spirit into the backshders 339

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of his own party. It remained to be seen whether
" the renegade section of the Liberal party " would
renounce Mr. Laurier as too extreme and unprac
tical, or whether his noble and courageous stand
would have the effect of inspiring them with some
part of their lost manhood. The Witness continued:
" It is the habit for the French Liberals of to-day
to disown aU sympathy with, or responsibility for,
the pohcy of the young Liberals of 1848, who
pubhshed the Avenir, and later advocated their
principles, considerably modified, in the Pays. Mr.
Laurier has faUen into the habit, and in his refer
ence to them we think he has scarcely done them
justice. Admitted that some of their schemes, such
as annual parhaments and annexation, were Ul-
judged and chimerical, the main features of their
programme were indisputably just and patriotic,
and in harmony with the principles of the Enghsh
Liberal party. Secular education provided by the
State for aU children, and separation of Church and
State, are doctrines of the leading Enghsh Liberals ;
they are doctrines of the Liberals in every country ;
and we have not the slightest doubt that they are
held by every inteUigent French Canadian Liberal
in his ybr intdrieur. The talented and earnest young
patriots who openly advocated these doctrines
thirty years ago, who founded L' Institut Canadien
and other centres of hght for their feUow country
men, were as noble men as this province ever
produced; but in face of the tremendous reaction
340

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
which has overwhelmed them, we are not surprised
that even Mr. Laurier should have failed to do
them justice."
With Mr. Laurier's general position, however^
The Witness was weU satisfied. He had made an
unequivocal declaration against clerical intimida
tion in elections, and had warned the clergy that if
they persisted in dictating to the people in pohtical
affairs, the result would be to deprive them of some
of the privileges which were guaranteed them by
the very Constitution they were striving to over
throw. The effect of the address had been to
revive the spirits of the Liberals and to excite the
Ultramontane press to greater violence of language
than ever. The wise, calm, and generous declara
tions of Mr. Laurier were treated by the clericals
as insults and defiance offered to the Church, and
fresh appeals were made to Cathohcs to umte and
put down the Liberal monster which was bent
upon the destruction of everything sacred. The
effect of these appeals upon the people of Quebec,
The Witness argued, should convince the Liberals
that the first and most urgent reform required was
popular education. This was doubtless also Mr.
Laurier's opinion. He had spoken to that effect
in the provincial Legislature, and while the ques
tion did not come within the scope of his address
at Quebec, there is ample evidence that he recog
nized as clearly as The Witness the necessity of
an instructed democracy to the satisfactory and
341

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
profitable working of free institutions. The speech
at Quebec, however, was designed, not to force
a quarrel with the Catholic hierarchy, but to
remove suspicions and overcome misunderstand
ings, and to assert broadly, but unequivocaUy, the
right of the Cathohc layman to free and inde
pendent citizenship under the Constitution. If he
had cumbered the speech with many issues, and
marked out lines of division for the future, he
would have succeeded only in raising new foes in
his path, and putting fresh weapons into the hands
of his opponents. His purpose was, not to declare
a pohtical programme, but to Uluminate and
expose an actual situation, and clear the ground
for the conflicts of the future.*
^The vn-iter of "Current Events" in the Canadian Monthly for
October, 1877, said : "The able speech of M. Laurier at Quebec is a
landmark in the history of party ; he is a young man not yet thirty-
six years of age, but there are no signs of crudity or juvenility in his
party manifesto. Tracing the history of those with whom he has
acted, he marks with precision every stage of its development, and
clearly defines the position they now occupy. The principles he lays
down are such as no lover of civil and religious liberty, in an Enghsh
sense of the phrase, can hesitate to sanction. The only issue upon
which the electorate of Quebec is divided, is that of illegal influence by
the clergy, and upon that M. Laurier gives no uncertain sound. He is
above all things a friend of freedom, at once from State oppression and
ecclesiastical encroachment. The gradual change in tone which has
come over Liberalism in Quebec has been a result, partly of the
mellowing influence of time, and partly of the reactionary pohcy
of the Ultramontanes. In the one case, the alteration has been for the
better ; in the other, unmistakably for the worse. The Liberal party
has emerged from the mists of revolutionary theory to the clear and
steady light of British constitutionalism, whilst their opponents have
342

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
More than three hundred pages of the Hansard of
1878 are devoted to the debate on the Address, and
much of the discussion centred on Mr. Laurier's
speech at Quebec and the relations between the
Cathohc ecclesiastics and the Conservative party.
A general election was imminent, and every ques
tion hkely to disturb and excite the people was
energeticaUy canvassed by the warring parhamen-
tarians. Mr. Masson attacked Mr. Laurier, but in
discreet and guarded language. He did not venture
in Parhament to adopt the tone of the clerical
press, or to advance the extravagant claims of the
Ultramontanes to supreme and final authority in
civU affairs. He described Mr. Laurier as an honour
sunk deeper and deeper Into the fetid and murky slough of absolutism.
The cause of tyranny, pohtical as well as ecclesiastical, is theirs,
all the world over. To speak of but one instance, it may be fairly
doubted whether the Count of Chambord can boast of as many
supporters in France as are to be found in the Province of Quebec.
From the time when M. Laurier delivered his lecture up to this
moment, the newspaper war has been going on with increasing
virulence on the part of the reactionary press. It is in vain, however,
that the clerical press strives to expose the inconsistency of its
opponents ; whatever it may say, it is the inconsistency of progress
and development, not that which creeps on in the downward course
of decrepitude and decay — a step from youth to manhood, not a
tottering descent on the slope towards the grave. The principles of
Papineau are not those of modem Liberalism ; yet, on the other hand,
the views and policy of Lafontaine, and even of Cartier, were stUl
more dissimilar to the Quebec Conservatism of to-day. It may be that
the hierarchy will be able to force the elections there in its own
interests ; if so, it wiU at once cut off the province from political
communion and sympathy with the rest of the Dominion, and possibly
arouse once more the ill-omened spectre of fanatical bigotry."
343

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
to his party, and admitted that he had deserved to
be elected in Drummond and Arthabaska, and
probably would have been elected if he had not
entered the Govemment. He, however, resented
the young Minister's statement that the Conserva
tives of Quebec sought to create a Cathohc party,
and had cast away the principles of the British
Constitution to which Cartier was devoted. He
contended that he had always objected to pohticians
speaking of rehgion on the hustings. It was a
disgrace to drag such a question into party con
troversy. The proper place to speak of rehgion was
in the churches.* Mr, Laurier, however, adhered to
the position he had taken at Quebec, and showed
how utterly Mr. Masson's argument in Parhament
was condemned by the Ultramontane press and the
practices of his party in the constituencies. He
insisted that for many years the pohcy of the
Conservatives was to represent the Liberals of
Quebec as a party of infidels and heretics. " The
only battle ground upon which they ever attacked
the Liberals before their constituents had been that
ground and no other. "^ Mr. Laflamme, who could
speak from longer experience and with equal au
thority, told Parhament that for many years the
Conservative party of Quebec had made of every
question a rehgious question. "Every pohtical ques
tion was characterized on one side as a holy question ;
^ Hansard, February llth, 1878, pages 46-46 ; 76.
^ Hansard, February llth, 1878, page 65.
344

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
and on the opposite side, those who contested it, who
denied the truth of it, were put down as infidels
and as people who had no other object in view but
the subversion of everything that was sacred ; and
rehgion, order, and society were to be completely
upset if the Liberal party were aUowed to reach the
treasury benches. This was the principle upon
which the pohtics of the country in the Province
of Quebec had been treated. There never was, to
his knowledge, one contested election where there
was a warm contest, but the clergy, and the papers
which denominated themselves the organs of the
clergy, declared that no man could vote con
scientiously or without compromising his eternal
salvation if he did not support the Conservatives."*
But perhaps the most spirited and aggressive
speech of the debate was made by Dr. Frdchette.
He charged that for twenty-five years the Liberals
of Quebec had had to answer on the hustings and in
the press accusations and charges, not against their
pohtical creed, but against their rehgious convic
tions. Their opponents were always hidden "behind
the altar and the priest," and yet they now came
before Parhament, and in order to calm the alarm
that might have been raised in the minds of
Protestants by their fanaticism, said they never
used rehgion as a political tool. He shocked
the decorum of Parliament and angered his
adversaries by declaring bluntly that the men
1 Hansard, February llth, 1878, page 73.
345

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
who uttered these denials were guUty of dehberate
untruth.* But the aUies of the Ultramontanes were mani
festly reluctant to defend their principles, or at
least their practices, on the floor of Parhament.
Their speeches are fuU of evasion and denial, and
marked by a moderate and concUiatory temper, in
striking contrast to the furious devotion to the
Church and fervent exaltation of the ecclesiastical
order which characterized the utterances of their
press in Quebec, and distinguished the proceedings
of their incendiary agents in the French constituen
cies.^ Probably many of the Conservative members
from Quebec, whUe wilhng to profit by clerical
coercion were hardly more willing that the Liberals
to uphold aU the claims and sanction aU the pro
ceedings of the clergy, and so were content to
make only such defence as was necessary to stay
the growth of Protestant feehng in the Enghsh
1 Hansard, February 15th, 1878, pages 263, 264.
- From 1854 to 1896 the Liberal party straggled in Quebec against most
adverse circumstances. There were twelve Enghsh counties, and in
four or five more the balance of power was held by the English,
but 80 to 90 per cent, of the English voters were Tory. Against the
Liberals were a powerful Administration and the most severe undue
clerical influence. But, notwithstanding the combined influence of the
English Tories and of the Ultramontanes, there were still fifteen or
twenty Liberal counties in Quebec, and another fifteen to twenty
counties lost by minorities ranging from 150 do^vn to 20. So that, in
spite of all these combinations, the two parties nearly divided the
province. But in 1872 the Tories fell by their own corruption, and
thereafter the Liberal gain was rational. — From an address by Senator
Dandurand to the Reform Club of Montreal, December 30th, 1901.
346

POLITICAL LIBERALISM
provinces. Besides, the floor of a British Parhament
is not an advantageous position from which to
defend ecclesiastical usurpation and tyranny. Out
side of Quebec this issue hardly entered into the
general election. In so far as it was a factor in the
contest the Liberal party was adversely affected.
Those whose chief business in pohtics was to
maintain ecclesiastical ascendancy could be trusted
to sacrifice aU other considerations to that idea ;
but for the masses of the people in aU great
pohtical contests one question alone absorbs atten
tion. This question in the election of 1878 was
the tariff; and no one in the Enghsh provinces
who desired to vote for protection, however strong
his theoretical devotion to the principles of civil
and rehgious hberty, or however irreconcUably
opposed to the claims and encroachments of Ultra
montanism, was hkely to sink his preferences on
the dominant issue in order to express condem
nation of the conduct of the clerical aUies of the
protectionist leaders in Quebec.

347

CHAPTER XIII
IN OPPOSITION
NOW comes a long day of adversity for the
Liberal party of Canada. On October 9th,
1878, Mr. Mackenzie and his coUeagues resigned
office, and the head of the first Liberal ministry
under Confederation had passed to his honoured
grave long before his party was enabled to regain
the confidence of the people. As some one has
aptly quoted, " neither sun nor stars in many days
appeared, and no smaU tempest lay on us." But
whUe for successive elections the Liberal party was
to know unbroken defeat, it never became a mere
pohtical remnant, nor ever degenerated into a fac
tion. It was always a powerful, aggressive, and
thoroughly energized pohtical organization; and
during aU the long period of its exclusion from
office, the record is distinguished for patriotic en
deavour and fruitful service to the commonwealth.
No doubt the story has its errors and its blemishes,
reveals occasional false steps, and covers seasons
ahke of exaggerated gloom and of fretful impa
tience. But the party always stood for a distinct and
intelhgible programme; and in the long and stub-
bom conflict to determine under the Constitution
the due distribution of powers between the local
349

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
and the federal authorities, these years of opposition
witnessed a signal triumph of Liberal contentions
and a signal vindication of Liberal principles. The
great events which mark the period between Mr.
Mackenzie's resignation of office and Mr. Laurier's
election to the leadership of the Liberal party were
the establishment of the system of protection, the
construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the
settlement of the north-western boundary of On
tario, the successful assertion of provincial authority
over the issue of liquor hcenses, the redistribution of
constituencies in 1882, the adoption of the federal
Franchise Act, the elimination by purchase of the
monopoly provisions of the Canadian Pacific Rail
way charter, the North-West rebelhon, and the
negotiation of the abortive Fisheries Treaty be
tween Canada and the United States. Many of
these questions were of the first importance; and
the pohtical leaders who held office during this
great creative and formative period, could not
fail to leave an enduring impress upon Canadian
history, fashion the character of many Canadian
institutions, and appreciably affect the thought and
spirit of the Canadian people.
One question which arose under the Mackenzie
Administration reappeared in the session of 1879.
A few months before the faU of the Liberal minis
try at Ottawa, Mr. Letelher de St. Just, Lieutenant-
Governor of Quebec, had dismissed the local
Conservative Administration mainly on the grounds
350

IN OPPOSITION
that the Quebec Ministers had shown contempt for
his prerogative, had submitted measures to the
Legislature without consulting the executive head,
had appended his name to proclamations and other
instruments without his knowledge, and generaUy
had subjected him to unceremonious and contu
melious treatment. Letelher had had an honoura
ble career in the Legislature of united Canada,
as weU as in the new federal Parhament. Al
though the son of a private soldier, he had aU
the pride and spirit of the old seigneurs, combined
with their social ease and chivalrous tempera
ment, and just that exquisite sensitiveness which
could not brook the studied contempt of his
arbitrary and ungracious advisers. It was argued
by many Conservatives that the federal Govern
ment was privy to the Lieutenant-Governor's pro
ceedings against the provincial Ministers, and that
his summary dismissal of his Cabinet was the cul
mination of a partisan plot to estabhsh a Liberal
Govemment in Quebec* This, at least, has been
su.ccessfuUy controverted. No one who examines the
evidence furnished by Mr. Mackenzie's biographers
1 "It is useless to deny that Mr. Letellier came to the administration
with an exaggerated sense of his functions and powers ; but what was
worse StiU, he beheved that he had, and he really did have, the
countenance of the Mackenzie Ministry in his feeling and attitude
toward his Cabinet, while he was egged on to hostilities by the rash
counsels of George Brown and many other Upper Canada Reformers,
as well as by the leading Rouges of his own province." — J. E. Collins,
" Life and Times of Sir John Macdonald," page 423.
351

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
can doubt that LeteUier acted on his own sole
responsibihty, and that Mr. Mackenzie questioned
the wisdom, if he could not admit the unconstitu-
tionahty of the Lieutenant-Governor's conduct.*
Mr. Joly succeeded to the Premiership of Quebec,
formed a Ministry, and accepted fuU responsibihty
for LeteUier's action. This at least the Constitu
tion required, and nothing short of this could
even seem to legitimize the Lieutenant-Governor's
position. However, on April llth, 1878, Sir John Mac
donald brought on a motion in the House of
Commons declaring "that the recent dismissal
by the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec of his
Ministers was, under the circumstances, unwise
and subversive of the position accorded to the
advisers of the Crown since the concession of the
principle of responsible government to the British
North American colonies." Mr. Laurier spoke on
this motion, and argued substantiaUy that while the
wiU of the people must prevaU, the Crown had its
rights as weU as the people. The best regulated
state was that in which the rights of the Crown
and the rights of the people were clearly defined
and greatly respected. It was neither the duty nor
the province of the central Parhament to criticize
the conduct of LeteUier. The adoption of the
^ "The Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, His Life and Times," by William
Buckingham, private secretary, and the Hon. George W. Ross, pages
478 to 486.
352

IN OPPOSITION
motion would be a direct invasion of the federal
system. It was the federative system which gave to
Quebec its autonomy, and the Dominion Govern
ment had no power to interfere with a question
which affected the provincial constitution of Que
bec alone. The people of Quebec had the remedy
in their own hands. They could overthrow the
present legal advisers of the Crown, and thereby
effectuaUy rebuke the Lieutenant-Governor. WhUe
it would be the duty of the Dominion Govemment
to interfere in order to redress a wrong which
the people could not themselves remedy, in this
instance interference would be an invasion of the
rights of the people of Quebec. Under aU the
circumstances, therefore, it was not for the federal
Parhament to say whether the Lieutenant-Governor
had acted judiciously or injudiciously, wisely or
unwisely.* It is manifest throughout the debate that the
federal Ministers were reluctant to justify LeteUier's
extreme exercise of his prerogative, and that Sir
John Macdonald was equaUy reluctant to declare
the absolute unconstitutionahty of the Governor's
action. His motion of 1878 did not go beyond the
declaration that LeteUier's conduct was unwise and
subversive of the position accorded to the advisers
of the Crown under the system of responsible
govemment, and although directly chaUenged
by Mr. Mackenzie he refused to enlarge the
1 Hansard, April llth, 1878.
353

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
indictment. There is reason to think that Sir John
Macdonald was not in absolute sympathy with
the extreme pohcy of his Quebec aUies, but was
forced to bow to party exigencies, and consent
against his own sounder judgment to the sacrifice
of the Lieutenant-Governor.*
The motion submitted to Parhament in 1879 was
in the exact language of that offered by Sir John
Macdonald during the previous session; but in this
instance it was moved by Mr. Mousseau, whose
active identification with the local pohtics of Que
bec gave a thoroughly partisan character to the
incident. Sir John Macdonald did not speak during
this debate, whUe a supporter of the Government
moved the previous question in order to shut off
amendments from the Liberal benches. In the
meantime, a general election had been held in
Quebec, and the Joly Govemment, which had
assumed the responsibihty for Mr. LeteUier's dis
missal of his former advisers was sustained by the
narrow majority of one. It was a doubtful triumph;
but at least the people of Quebec had not positively
condemned Letelher, and had, therefore, refused
to ask for the intervention of the federal authori
ties. It was, of course, impossible that the Joly
Government could hve many months under such
circumstances, but for the moment Mr. Joly could
not be disturbed, and the federal Ministry had
^ It has been thought remarkable that Mr. Pope's Life of Sir John
Macdonald has no reference whatever to the dismissal of Letellier.
354

IN OPPOSITION
neither constitutional nor popular warrant to justify
the reversal of the judgment of a previous Parlia
ment, and proceed to the forcible ejectment of the
executive head of a self-governing province.
Mr. Laurier, speaking to Mousseau's motion,
said that if the Conservative party in Quebec had
not been defeated, LeteUier's opponents would not
be seeking vengeance at the hands of the House of
Commons. The fact that the appeal to the Com
mons was necessary was the best evidence that the
result of the Quebec elections was to uphold the
action of the Lieutenant-Governor. It was now
proposed to substitute the wUl of the Dominion for
the wiU of the Province of Quebec. If the conduct
of the Lieutenant-Governor had been extraordinary,
that of the Administration which he had dismissed
was stUl more extraordinary. It had systemati
caUy trampled down the royal prerogative, and had
struggled to substitute government by an ohgarchy
for govemment by the people. This oligarchy was
itself ruled by rings whose greedy appetite had to
be fed from the pubhc treasury, while the treasury
had to be replenished by the people at the price of
their civil hberty. He argued at length that while
the act of the Lieutenant-Governor might have
been unwise, it was within the scope of his functions,
and was covered by ministerial responsibility. We
had, he contended, a federal and not a legislative
form of government, and to force upon Quebec the
judgment of a federal Ministry would be an invasion
355

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of the fundamental principle of Confederation.* But
this reasoning availed nothing. It had been deter
mined in advance that Letelher should be sacrificed,
and Mousseau's motion was accordingly accepted
by the Conservative majority in Parhament.^
Sir John Macdonald then recommended to Lord
Lome that LeteUier should be removed from office.
But the Governor-General did not give immediate
effect to the mandate. It was announced that as he
could find no precedents to guide him to a decision,
and as the conclusion reached would settle for the
future the relations between the federal and the
provincial Governments so far as the office of
Lieutenant-Governor was concerned, he deemed it
expedient to ask instructions from the Imperial
authorities. For a time it was thought that Lord
Lome had sought Imperial counsel in defiance of
his Canadian advisers, and he was therefore violentiy
attacked by the Conservative press and the Con
servative pohticians of Quebec. It transpired later
that he had acted at the suggestion of the Canadian
Government, and under aU the circumstances was
1 Hansard, March 12th, 1879.
^ " Mr. LeteUier's action was no doubt within the scope of his powers,
but it was a most dangerous step. I was sorry he did not assign better
reasons for it. The action of the electors saves him from popular con
demnation, and having acted strictly withiu the scope of his powers, we
could not recall him. I took the line in the House that we had no right
to interfere with a Governor in the exercise of his constitutional
functions by declaring his action to be either wise or unwise." — Letter
from Mr. Mackenzie to a political friend, quoted in the Buckingham-
Ross biography.
356

IN OPPOSITION
clearly entitled to more chivalrous treatment than
he received from the Administration. Whether Sir
John Macdonald desired Imperial sanction for
LeteUier's dismissal, or hoped by appeal to the
Home Government to thwart the design of his
supporters from Quebec, cannot be finally settled
untU his biographer in some later volume discloses
the inner history of this important constitutional
incident. The judgment of the Home Government, as
voiced by the Colonial Secretary, was that: "The
Lieutenant-Governor of a province has an indis
putable right to dismiss his Ministers if from any
cause he feels it incumbent upon him to do so." It
was, however, pointed out that in the exercise of
this right, as of any other of his functions, he should
maintain the impartiahty between rival pohtical
parties, which was essential to the proper perform
ance of the duties of his office, and that for any
action he might take he was directly responsible to
the Govemor-GeneraL These and similar; powers
were intended to be exerised by the Governor-
General, "by and with the advice of his Ministers,"
and though the position of a Governor-General
would entitle his views to peculiar weight, yet the
Imperial Government did not find anjrthing in the
circumstances which would justify him in departing,
in this instance, from the general mle, and dechning
to foUow the decided and sustained opinion of his
Ministers, who were responsible for the peace and
357

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
good government of the Dominion to the Parha
ment to which the cause assigned for the removal
of a Lieutenant-Governor must be communicated.*
This decision in both branches is probably sound;
but it leaves no substantial constitutional power in
the hands of the Governor-General, and gives no
security to provincial Governors against the possible
action of a hostile federal Ministry. If the ministry
which Letelher dismissed had been restored to office
at the ensuing elections, his resignation or removal
from office would then have become necessary, and
this fact was practicaUy admitted by the Liberal
leaders when the conduct of Letelher was under
consideration. But since the Province of Quebec
had failed to condemn his conduct, his dismissal by
the federal Government was an arbitrary and revo
lutionary proceeding.
Twelve years later, IMr. Angers, who was At
torney-General in the Government which LeteUier
turned out of office, held the Lieutenant-Governor
ship of Quebec, and it became his privilege to
dismiss the Mercier Government, and to call upon
his old chief to form a new Administration. In this
instance a Conservative Government held office at
Ottawa, but the severity practised upon Mr. Le
teUier was not thought to be necessary in the case
of Mr. Angers. The Governor was, of course,
strongly attacked by the press and speakers of the
1 See despatch of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Secretary of State for
the Colonies.
358

IN OPPOSITION
Liberal party, but when the people of Quebec voted
confidence in the Ministers to whose hands he had
transferred the administration of affairs, the Liberal
leaders in the House of Commons bowed to the
popular judgment.
British Columbia furnishes a second instance of
the dismissal of a Lieutenant-Governor, but under
what is generaUy regarded as strictly constitutional
conditions. In 1899, Mr. Mclnnes dismissed his
advisers, and caUed upon the Hon. Joseph Martin,
who could not pretend to have the confidence of a
majority of the Legislature, to form a Government.
Mr. Martin succeeded in this task, but only with
great difficulty, and when he appealed to the con
stituencies, was decisively beaten. Mr. Mclnnes was
therefore removed from office, and it does not seem
that any other course was possible under the cir
cumstances. The facts go to show that a Lieutenant-Governor
may at least have great power for mischief. Acting
in coUusion with a sympathetic Administration at
Ottawa, he may produce very unsatisfactory re
lations between a provincial Government and the
federal authority. It is doubtful if in any of the
cases under consideration the interference of the
executive head can be fuUy justified, and it is quite
certain that official autocracy is inimical to the
satisfactory working of free institutions. It wiU,
however, be admitted that a Lieutenant-Governor
should not be dismissed for less adequate cause than
359

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
would involve the recaU of a Governor- General. It
wiU also be admitted that no Canadian Government
would venture to treat the representative of the
Crown in Canada, and no British Ministry would
venture to treat the Sovereign, as LeteUier was
treated by the Deboucherville Government. A great
meeting was held at Quebec to protest against
LeteUier's dismissal, at which Mr. Laurier was one
of the chief speakers ; but with the mass of Conser
vatives partisan considerations obscured the consti
tutional issue, and neither this noteworthy demon
stration nor the protests made at other points in the
province, seriously affected pubhc opinion. LeteUier's
death occurred shortly after his dismissal, hastened
perhaps by the humUiation and degradation to
which he had been subjected; and a bad precedent
was written down irrevocably in the constitutional
history of the country.
There was nothing timid or equivocal in the tariff
measure brought down by Sir Leonard TiUey as a
result of the Conservative party's electoral victory
in 1878. It was not a readjustment of the old tariff".
It was distinct and immitigated protection. The
declared objects of its authors were to estabhsh and
maintain native industries, and to preserve the
home market for Canadian manufacturers and
producers. In order to accomphsh these objects
the duties on imports were materiaUy increased,
specific duties were substituted for ad valorem
charges, and more stringent regulations to prevent
360

IN OPPOSITION
imdervaluation of goods coming in from other
countries were adopted. The new tariff necessarily
bore heavily on many hues of British imports, but
this was incidental rather than deliberate. The
chief design was to hmit the importation of Ameri
can products and American manufactures, and to
encourage by high duties the growth or manu
facture of such products in Canada. The tariff,
however, contained a provision for hmited reci
procity with the United States, under which the
Canadian Government was empowered to admit
animals and aU natural products free of duty, when
the authorities at Washington should consent to
give free admission of similar Canadian products to
the American markets.*
The Liberal leaders in Parliament met the tariff
with the arguments they had unsuccessfuUy
employed to persuade the people to reject the
1 Any or aU of the foUowing articles, that is to say, animals of aU
kinds, green fruit, hay, straw, bran, seeds of aU kinds, vegetables
(including potatoes and other roots), plants, trees, and shrubs, coal
and coke, salt, hops, wheat, peas and beans, barley, rye, oats, Indian
com, buckwheat and all other grain, flour of wheat and flour of rye,
Indian meal and oatmeal, and flour or meal of any other grain, butter,
cheese^ fish (salted or smoked), lard, taUow, meats (fresh, salted, or
smoked), and lumber, may be imported into Canada free of duty, or at
a less rate of duty than is provided by this Act upon proclamation
of the Governor-in-Council, which may be issued whenever it appears
to his satisfaction, that similar articles from Canada may be imported
into the United States free of duty, or at a rate of duty not exceeding
that payable on the same under such proclamation when imported into
Canada. — Statutory offer of reciprocity in natural products in the
Customs Act of 1879.
361

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
protectionist pohcy of the Conservative party. They
contended that protection was a departure from
the economic pohcy of Great Britain, and was
calculated to estrange Canada from the mother
country. They laboured to show that protection
was necessarily partial in its benefits, and must
enrich a favoured class at the expense of the mass
of the community. It was insisted that the farmers
could not be protected, and that they must continue
to seU their products in the world's markets, and pay
increased prices to a league of home manufacturers
protected against outside competition. Mr. Mac
kenzie said the effect of the protection introduced
would be to degrade the working classes, build up
the fortunes of a few manufacturers, and in a short
time ruin even those manufacturers after they
had accomphshed the ruin of the working people.
It was contended that the adoption of protec
tion would create a business partnership between
the Government and the protected interests, and
so tend to corruption in elections, and to the
dependence of the manufacturing classes upon the
favour of Ministers.* Many Liberals doubted
the wisdom of special tariff legislation against the
United States, and were convinced that the cause
^ "I have called a meeting of the leading supporters of the National
Policy at the Queen's Hotel, Toronto, on June 6th, at 1.30 p.m. 1
particularly desire your presence at the meeting, as matters of great
moment will be dealt with. Bring with you such friends of the N.P. as
you may think it is desirable should be present." — Circular letter of
Sir John Macdonald to the manufacturers, June 1st, 1882.
362

IN OPPOSITION
of reciprocity would be seriously retarded by the
new fiscal pohcy of the Canadian Government.
These and many other arguments, with which aU
Canadians are perhaps even wearily famihar, were
ably and persistently advanced by the Liberal
Opposition against the TiUey tariff, and for many
years thereafter were the warp and woof of our
pohtical hterature. It is not impossible that the
tariff issue was invested with exaggerated impor
tance, and that other questions of equal concern
to the people and less inimical to the stabUity of
business conditions were overlooked, during the
long enduring quarrel over the moral aspects and
the national results of the pohcy of protection.
Mr. Laurier's speech in Committee of Ways and
Means on the TiUey tariff was concerned mainly
with the defence of the Liberals of Quebec against
the many imputations of inconsistency and dis
loyalty aUeged against them by Conservative
speakers during the progress of the controversy. It
is hard for a party, and particularly for a party in
opposition, to maintain a moderate attitude. The
Mackenzie Administration had taken definite ground
against increase of customs taxation; the electoral
contest of 1878 had turned upon that issue; and it
was natural that the controversy should drift
towards a direct confhct between the principles of
free trade and the principles of protection. Mr.
Laurier had never thought that absolute free trade
was of possible application under the conditions
363

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
which prevaUed in Canada, and it was inevitable
that many arguments advanced by his associates
should go beyond the ground which he had always
taken in the discussion of fiscal questions. He was
bound to be confronted with the protectionist and
separatist pohcy of Papineau, and his own declara
tions in favour of a moderate measure of protection
for Canadian industries in the earher stages of their
development. But when he was charged with aban
doning the pohcy of Papineau, he told his opponents
that that pohcy was designed to sever the alhance
between Canada and Great Britain, and was adopted
during the struggle of the French Liberals to
secure responsible govemment and constitutional
hberty. When these concessions were granted, that
pohcy was abandoned and ceased to have advocates
in Canada until it was restored by the leader of the
Conservative party. Papineau had never told the
people that they would derive economic benefits
from his policy, but rather that it involved sacrifice
in order that hberty might be obtained. He re
minded his opponents that Cartier was a rebel with
a price set upon his head, but that when responsible
government was secured, he became a loyal subject
and the leader of the Conservative party. He quoted
from a speech made by Cartier in 1871, in which he
said: "Manufacturers often ask for protective duties.
This is absurd; the same may be said of extreme
free trade notions. If you do not pay duties to
the Government upon manufactured goods, you
364

IN OPPOSITION
must have recourse to direct taxation to make up
for the loss out of the abohtion of duties. With
exaggerated protection you kiU your foreign trade,
as the Americans have done, and you must have
recourse to direct taxation. We shaU not commit
such a foUy. We have adopted the pohcy of a
revenue tariff and not a protective tariff."
Mr. Laurier showed how the Conservative party
had been driven by the manufacturers into the
acceptance of protection, and denied that since 1841
the Liberal party had stood for a protectionist
pohcy. It was not true that when the liiberal party
of Quebec was reorganized in 1872 it had made
protection one of the planks of its platform. There
was in that platform no reference to a commercial
programme except the demand for the right to
regulate commercial relations with foreign countries
so as to ensure the estabhshment of manufactures
in Canada. He pointed out that there was a pro
vision in the Tilley tariff for a measure of free trade
with the Americans, but that this benefit was
denied to England, and he declared that "this
pohcy was injurious, and not only injurious in itself,
but unworthy of the Canadian people towards the
Enghsh people." He opposed the tariff also because
it was a universal increase of taxation, disguised
under the name of protection. WhUe there would
be an increase of taxation aU round, there could
not be an increase of labour aU round. Either
the tariff would or would not decrease importations. 365

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
If it did not decrease importations, everything would
be made dearer to the consumers, and there might
not be a day's more labour in the country. If, on
the other hand, importations were decreased, he
admitted that whUe articles would be made dearer
to the consumers, there would be more labour
in the country. In some cases, however, labour
would be destroyed, and particularly in connection
with the shipping industry. FinaUy, he opposed the
tariff because it introduced the abominable system
of taxing aU the necessaries of the poor. Tea, sugar,
bread, and clothing would be put under tribute;
flour and coal were subjected to imposts, and he
predicted that the mothers in Quebec cottages
would curse the day that this tariff was introduced.*
It is quite hkely that we exaggerate the in
dustrial effects of economic pohcies, and it is quite
certain that we exaggerate the responsibihty of
governments for commercial conditions. It is vain
to expect any general agreement as to the results
of the operation of protection in Canada. But the
fact stands that under the protectionist system our
ratio of progress was the most unsatisfactory in aU
our history, and that the sounding prophecies of
industrial prosperity and national growth which
fiUed the mouths of the pohticians by whom the
system was imposed upon the country, had imperfect
and inadequate realization. It is, however, fair to
remember that during this period the West was
» Hansard, April 9th, 1879.
366

IN OPPOSITION
passing through the initial stages of development.
The ingoing settlers had to learn the nature of its
soil, and the moods of its climate, and to determine
the best processes of agriculture over an enormous
area of new territory. During the same period,
farming in the older provinces was passing through
the long agony of low prices, facing stiU more
hostile American tariffs, meeting the increasing
competition of Argentina and Russia, and adapting
itself with loss and pain and travail to the demands
of the British market. These conditions Canada
would have had to face in any event; and thus it is
quite possible to exaggerate the evil effects of pro
tection, even while it is recognized that it failed,
and faUed decisively, to meet the anticipations
of its advocates, and burdened rather than benefited
the great staple industries of the country.

367

CHAPTER XIV
THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
F1871 British Columbia was admitted into the
Confederation. The chief feature of the con
tract was that which stipulated for the commence
ment within two, and the completion within ten
years from the date of union, of a railway connecting
the Pacific Ocean, through British territory, with
the railway systems of Ontario and Quebec. The
leaders of the Liberal party, whUe favourable to the
admission of British Columbia, and by no means
hostile to the construction of a transcontinental
road across British territory, thought that to build
the railway within the time specified would press
too heavUy upon the resources of the Dominion;
and argued that it was enough to proceed with the
surveys in the meantime, and subsequently with
the work of construction, as the state of the finances
would justify. These views, however, were rejected
by Parhament, and the country was committed
to the more heroic pohcy of the Conservative
leaders. Towards the close of the session of 1871, on the
motion of Sir George Cartier, a resolution was
adopted to give effect to the ministerial pohcy.
This provided that the road should be buUt and
369

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
operated by private enterprise, and not by the
Government, and that such aid should be granted
in lands and money as would not unduly press on
the resources of the country, and as Parhament
should thereafter determine. During the session of
1872 the Canadian Pacific Company, with ;Sir Hugh
AUan at its head, and the Inter-Oceanic Company,
organized by Sir David Macpherson, each proposing
to undertake the construction of the railway, were
granted charters by Parhament; and at the same
time the Government took authority to negotiate
for the amalgamation of the two companies, or to
issue a royal charter to a new company. It was
found impossible to effect an amalgamation, and
the Govemment, therefore, formed under royal
charter a company for the construction of the road,
of which Sir Hugh Allan was president, and in
which the several provinces of the Dominion were
represented. The railway was a dominant issue in
the general election of 1872. For the time the
Govemment was sustained, but the discovery of
Sir Hugh Allan's very heavy contributions to
the Conservative campaign fund led to its early
downfaU. It was stated, however, in the Speech
from the Throne, at the opening of the session
during which the defeat of the Ministry was accom
phshed, that "The Canadian Pacific Railway Com
pany, to whom a royal charter was granted, have
been unable to make the financial arrangements
necessary for the construction of that undertaking,
370

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
and have therefore executed a surrender of their
charter which has been accepted."
Mr. Mackenzie, who succeeded to the office of
Premier on the resignation of Sir John Macdonald,
in his address to the electors of Lambton, outhned
the railway policy of his Govemment. He intimated
that he would seek such a modification of the
terms made with British Columbia as would " give
time for the completion of the surveys, the acqui
sition of the information necessary to an inteUigent
apprehension of the work, and its prosecution
with such speed and under such arrangements as
the resources of the country wiU permit, without
too largely increasing the burden of taxation on
the people." In the meantime he would "utihze
the enormous stretches of water communication
which he between a point not far from the Rocky
Mountains and Fort Garry, and between Lake
Superior and French River on the Georgian Bay,
thus avoiding for the present the construction of
about 1,300 mUes of railway, estimated to cost
from sixty to eighty miUions of doUars, and ren
dering the resources of the country available for
the prosecution of those hnks of the Pacific Rail
way which are necessary in order to form a com
plete hne of raU and water communication from
East to West." This, he pointed out,* would involve
the construction of a short hne of railway from the
^See Mr. Mackenzie's "Address to the Electors of Lambton,"
January, 1874.
371

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
mouth of the French River on Georgian Bay to
the south-east shore of Lake Nipissing, and a grant
in aid of extension to that point of the existing
and projected hues in Quebec and Ontario. He
also pledged his Administration to the early con
struction of a branch line of railway from Fort
Garry to Pembina.*
In 1874 the Government obtained authority from
Parhament to construct the railway as a pubhc
work, if it should so decide, and to divide the road
into four sections, the first from Lake Nipissing to
the west end of Lake Superior, the second from
Lake Superior to Red River, the third from Red
River to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and the
fourth from the foot of the Rockies to the Pacific
coast ; or to arrange with contractors for the con
struction of the work on the basis of a subsidy per
mile of $10,000 in money and 20,000 acres of land,
with four per cent, interest for twenty-five years
on a sum to be stated in the contract. It was
provided that the land should be of fair average
quahty, and in alternate sections, and the Govern
ment reserved the right to seU two-thirds of the
^ "No Government that could be found wiU carry on the work of
construction more efficiently and speedily than will that of Mr. Mac
kenzie. It was the Reform party that first advocated the annexation of
the North-West Territory, including British Columbia. It is among
Reformers that are found the most enthusiastic supporters of the Pacific
Railway. And it is by a Reform Government that the work must be
carried to final completion. It is not the people of British Columbia,
therefore, that have cause to regret the advent of Reformers to power."
—Toronto Globe, February 13th, 1874.
372

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
land grant at prices to be arranged with the con
tractors, to whom the proceeds of sales should be
paid half-yearly. It was also provided, in case this
plan of construction were adopted, that the con
tractors should own and operate the road, under
regulations in respect of freight and passenger
charges and the frequency of service; but that
the Government shoxUd have the power to buy
out the whole or any part of the road at a sum
not exceeding ten per cent, above the actual cost,
and subject to a deduction equal to the value
of the land and money subsidies. It was, however,
found impossible to induce capitahsts to undertake
the construction of the road on the terms proposed;
and Mr. Mackenzie, under that clause of the Act
which empowered the Government to construct
the raUway as a pubhc work, placed under contract
114 miles from Selkirk eastward to Rat Portage,
and 113 miles from Fort Wilham westward to
Enghsh River. The construction of the Pembina
branch, from the international boundary to St.
Boniface, was completed in the autumn of 1878, and
railway communication with Winnipeg thus estab
lished. A telegraph hne from Red River to Ed
monton, covering 807 miles of country, was also
erected during 1874 and 1875; and early in 1875 a
contract was entered into for the erection of a
telegraph line from Red River to the Lake Su
perior terminus of the projected railway.
In British Columbia progress with the great
373

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
enterprise was less satisfactory. Unsuccessful at
tempts were made to negotiate with the provincial
Govemment for an extension of the time for the
construction of the transcontinental road " beyond
that provided in the terms of union." Mr. J. D.
Edgar visited the province as commissioner from
the Dominion Government, and undertook to
guarantee continuous construction and the expen
diture on the road within the boundaries of the
province of one miUion doUars annuaUy until it
was completed. The provincial Premier, however,
refused to negotiate with Mr. Edgar untU officiaUy
informed that he was speciaUy accredited as the
agent of the general Government. This was a purely
factious objection, and indicated a spirit inimical
to satisfactory negotiation. FinaUy, the provin
cial authorities appealed to the Imperial Govem
ment against the breach of the terms of union by
Canada, and Lord Carnarvon offered to act as
intermediary between the provincial and federal
Governments. The offer was accepted, both by the
province and by the Dominion, and the " Carnar
von terms " resulted.
These provided for the immediate construction
of a hne of railway from Nanaimo to Esquimault
on Vancouver Island ; the expenditure of a definite
minimum amount on surveys on the mainland; the
abandonment of the proposed wagon road across
the Rocky Mountains; the postponement of the
building of the telegraph line from the mountains
374

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
to the Pacific untU the route of the railway should
be settled; compensation to the province for the
delay, provided the surveys were not completed
and construction commenced within the time to
be agreed upon; the expenditure of at least two
million doUars annuaUy on construction until the
road was finished; and the final completion of
the work in the year 1890. A biU to give effect
to this compromise was passed by the Commons
during the session of 1875, but was thrown out by
the Senate, acting under the influence of paltry
partisan considerations, and thus a thoroughly satis
factory and statesmanhke settlement of the whole
question was prevented. The Hon. Edward Blake
must share with the Senate the responsibihty for
the rejection of the Carnarvon compromise. He
voted against the biU to provide for the construc
tion of the Nanaimo and EsquimaiUt railway,
gravely increased the disaffection among Liberals
over the very onerous terms of the bargain with
British Columbia, and developed by his attitude a
temper in the House of Commons in face of which
Mr. Mackenzie had practicaUy no alternative but
to abandon the Carnarvon settlement.
Mr. Blake, in fact, maintained an attitude of
consistent and inflexible opposition to the fuhUl-
ment of the terms of union with British Columbia.
In his speech at Aurora in 1874, in which occurs
the reference to the Pacific province as a " sea of
mountains," he said: "Speaking conjecturaUy, I am
375

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of the opinion that the British Columbia section of
the railway, even if it turns out to be practicable
as an engineering work, will involve an enormous
expenditure, approximating to $36,000,000, and
after its completion wiU involve an enormous an
nual charge on the revenues of the country for its
running expenses ; and I doubt much if that section
can be kept open after it is built. I think the chief
advantage the British Columbians will derive from
the enterprise will consist in the circulation of
money and the profits of mercantUe operations
attendant on the construction, and that Canada
will be a frightful loser by the affair." He declared
that under aU the circumstances, if British Colum
bia were to demand the construction of the road
according to the terms, or claim the alternative of
release from the Confederation, he would take the
alternative. " If," he said, " these two thousand
men understand that the people of Canada are
prepared, in preference to the comphance with
their ruinous demands, to let them go, and to leave
them to build the Columbia section with their ten
thousand people, their tone wiU be more moderate,
and we shaU hear no talk about secession. The
principal person who has spoken of it hitherto is
Sir John Macdonald, who almost invited it in his
election speech during the late contest. They won't
secede; they know better. Should they leave the
Confederation, the Confederation would survive,
and they would lose their money."
376

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
In the Senate m 1876, Mr. CarraU, one of the
delegates from British Columbia who arranged the
terms of union with the federal Government, de
clared that among the strongest reasons which
prompted other loyal Canadians, as weU as himself,
was that emissaries from the United States had
come amongst them, and were pressing them to
join the Republic. It had been said at Victoria by
one of these agents that the policy of the United
States in purchasing Alaska was to consummate the
absorption of British Columbia. A delegation there
fore visited Ottawa, and the conditions upon which
British Columbia would become a part of the Do
minion were arranged. He said that at that time
Sir John Macdonald was at the point of death, and
was not responsible personaUy for the terms, al
though his Cabinet were whoUy responsible. He
reminded the Senate that he had stated on a
previous occasion in the Chamber, and desired to
repeat it now, and would appeal to the reporter
to take down his words correctly, that ten years
was not put into the terms of union as an absolute
hmit for the construction of the railway, but simply
as a bona fides that the Government would com
mence the road and carry it on to completion as
quickly as could be, without injury to the interests
of the country.*
Sir David Macpherson, in the same debate, said:
" I beheve the people of this Dominion from one
1 Senate Debates, 1876, page 153.
377

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
end to the other desire the construction of our
great national railway, not in an extravagant man
ner; not before the means of the country would
permit of its being constructed without inconveni
ence to the exchequer ; not faster than the settle
ment of the country required ; but as fast as the
interests of the Dominion demanded."* On March
31st, 1876, the Senate by 34 to 24, on motion of
Mr. Dickey, affirmed that, " This House fuUy rec
ognizes the obhgation to secure the construction of
the Canada Pacific RaUway, with the utmost speed
compatible vsdth a due regard to the other financial
requirements of the Dominion, and without unduly
increasing the rate of taxation, and regrets that
the course adopted by the Government in connec
tion with this matter has not met the expectations
of the people of British Columbia, nor has it
been such as to facUitate the development of the
North- West."2 On April 7th, 1876, the House of
Commons declared that the arrangements for the
construction of the Canadian Pacific RaUway should
be such as the resources of the country woiUd
permit without increasing the existing rates of
taxation. For this proposition 149 votes were cast,
as against only 10 in the negative. Among those
voting for the proposition were Baby, Costigan,
Desjardins, Kirkpatrick, Langevin, Masson, Mous
seau, Ouimet, Plumb, and RobitaiUe — aU men of
^ Senate Debates, 1876, page 163.
2 Senate Debates, 1876, pages 236 and 280.
378

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
conspicuous position and exceptional influence in
the Conservative party.*
Mr. Blake's attitude on the Carnarvon com
promise and the original compact with British
Columbia, is clearly stated in a speech dehvered in
Parhament in 1880. He said : "During the session
of 1875, when the Carnarvon correspondence was
brought down, I did ask the leader of the then
Government whether he proposed to invite the
sanction of Parhament to the arrangement. He
rephed that he did not propose to invite the action
of Parhament directly, but that he would rely on
Parhament to enable him to carry it out. WeU,
that answer of itself indicated that the assent of
Parliament was essential. WiU anyone seriously
contend that the executive Govemment of this
country could, not merely without the authority of
Parhament, but in spite of the anti-taxation resolu
tion, make an agreement which would of itself
bind the country to build the Island Railway, to
expend not less than $2,000,000 a year on con
struction in the mainland, and to finish the road by
1890? It was, however, soon made apparent that
the action of Parhament was necessary in order to
carry out the Carnarvon terms. A biU was of
necessity brought in to authorize the construction
of the Island Railway — one of the most important
parts of those terms. I opposed that biU because
I beheved that the Island Railway was not a
1 Hansard, 1876, pages 1,126-1,130.
379

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
judicious undertaking, and also, and chiefly, because
it was part of the Carnarvon terms, which I did not
beheve were such as could be fuUy carried out
consistently with the taxation resolution, to which
I for one was determined to adhere. . . . Shortly
after the close of the session, I entered the Adminis
tration upon a distinct understanding in reference
to the Pacific Railway. That understanding was
that, the Carnarvon terms having faUed by reason
of the action of Parhament, a moderate money
compensation should be offered to the proAdnce for
past and future delays in the construction of the
Pacific Railway ; that it was always the under
standing of the Government, and that it should be
distinctly stated, that any pledge for fixed expendi
ture or for a time hmit was subject to the taxation
resolution, in such sort that the work should not
be necessarUy proceeded with in case it would
involve an increase in taxation; and that any
arrangement made with the province should be
expressly, as it must in fact be, subject to the
sanction of this Parhament."*
In the summer of 1876, Lord Dufferin visited
British Columbia on a mission of concihation. He
was eager to be clothed with ministerial authority,
and sought to wrest from his advisers a right of
independent initiative in the adjustment of relations
between the province and the Dominion. This de
mand Mr. Mackenzie strenuously and successfully
1 Hansard, April 16th, 1880.
380

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
resisted. There were, however, heated and angry
interviews between the Governor and the Prime
Minister, and for some time thereafter the personal
relations between the two men were not quite
satisfactory. But this, hke other serious disagree
ments between Lord Duff'erin and his Canadian
advisers, was finaUy adjusted, and peace and mutual
confidence restored. There is no doubt that this
acute, able, and resourceful diplomat found it hard to
accommodate himself to the hmitations which sur
round the office of Governor of a self-governing
commonwealth, and that he hberaUy interpreted and
freely exercised aU the authority which was covered
by his commission from the Home Government. It
is fair to add that, during the later years of his stay
in Canada, he was on exceedingly cordial and inti
mate terms vidth Mr. Mackenzie; and when the
Liberal Govemment met defeat, no one bore more
generous testimony to the patriotism, integrity, and
high-mindedness of its vanquished leader.
Only good resulted from Lord Dufferin's visit to
British Columbia. His judicious presentation of the
attitude of the Govemment and of older Canada,
coupled with Mr. Mackenzie's energetic prosecution
of the surveys, definite adoption of the Burrard
Inlet route for the British Columbia section, and
active constmction of vital links of the railway, bred
a more moderate temper hi the Pacific province, and
largely reconcUed pubhc opinion to the pohcy of
the national Administration. This was the position
381

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of the great project when the Mackenzie Govern
ment was defeated and the Conservative party
restored to office.
On May 10th, 1879, Sir Charles Tupper an
nounced the railway policy of the new Government.
It was set forth in the resolutions which he laid
before Parliament that in view of the importance
of keeping good faith with British Columbia and
completing the consolidation of the Confederation
of the provinces in British North America, and in
consideration of the national character of the under
taking, the Government should seek the co-opera
tion of the Imperial authorities by guarantee or
otherwise.* It was proposed that 100,000,000 acres
of land and such minerals as they contained should
be appropriated for the purposes of construction.
This land was to be vested in commissioners, and
the Imperial Government was to be represented on
the Commission. AU the ungranted Dominion lands
within twenty miles of the hne of the road were to
be set apart as a railway reserve, and the Commission
was to be authorized to seU from time to time any
portions thereof at the rate of not less than $2 an
acre, and was directed to invest the proceeds in
Canadian Government securities, to be held ex
clusively for the purpose of meeting the cost of
^ Reporting on a Pacific Railway Bill to the Canadian Legislature
in 1851, the Railway Committee said : " Your Committee indulge a
hope that the Imperial Government will be led to entertain the subject
as one of national importance, and to combine with it a general and
well organized system of colonization."
382

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
construction. It was further declared that as it was
desirable to combine the promotion of colonization
with railway extension, the Government should
be authorized to enter into a contract for the
construction of a part of the road from the Red
River westerly, running to the south of Lake
Manitoba, with a branch to Winnipeg, and to
expend $1,000,000 on the work without submitting
the contracts to Parhament. It was also held to be
expedient before commencing the work of building
in British Columbia, to make further explorations
in order to guarantee the construction of the road
through the largest extent of fertile territory.
The selection of the Burrard Inlet terminus was
condemned as premature; but in order to keep
good faith with British Columbia, it was provided
that so soon as further necessary explorations were
made and the route determined, the Government
should place 125 mUes under contract in British
Columbia without the further sanction of Parha
ment. These resolutions reversed the pohcy of
Mackenzie in some essential features, and in con
currence were met with amendments affirming
the general position of his Government on the
various branches of the question, and declaring
once again that the construction of the raUway
should not involve material increase in the rate of
taxation.*
^ In a speech in the House of Commons, on March 18th, 1902, Sir
Richard Cartwright said that the policy of Mr. Mackenzie had three
383

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
But Parliament had not even yet evolved the
proposition under which the Canadian Pacific Rail
way project was at length to be carried to success.
Sir John Macdonald, Sir Charles Tupper, and Sir
Leonard Tilley proceeded to England, but failed to
secure direct Imperial aid or any Imperial guarantee
of less direct support for the enterprise. This neces
sitated material modifications of the pohcy of 1879;
and during the session of 1880, Sir Charles Tupper
introduced resolutions providing that the 100,000,-
000 acres of land proposed to be vested in com
missioners, and held at $2 an acre, should be selected
and reserved by order of the Govemor-in-Council
as railway lands, sold at prices to be fixed from time
to time by the Governor-in-Council, but never at
grand feature.'! — he intended, in the first place, to reserve the land for
settlers, to sell it to settlers only at low rates, and to give money only
to promote the building of colonization railways ; he intended, in the
second place, to construct a number of short line colonization railways,
radiating from Winnipeg ; and he intended in the third place, to use all
the power of the Government to keep the people together and form
a solid state in and about the present Province of Manitoba, from whhic
afterwards, as a base, railways might radiate on every side. Sir Richard
said that he had since discussed this policy with men of great ability
and experience in the North-West Territories, and of all political
persuasions, and they had agreed that it was one of the greatest
misfortunes that had ever befallen the North-West that it was not
carried out. He argued that if this policy had been adopted, in all
probability we should have had 600,000 families, or 2,000,000 of people
settled in Manitoba, Alberta, Assiniboia, and Saskatchewan, and a
volumeof trade not far from $1,000,000,000. Canada, if Mr. Mackenzie
had remained in power to carry out the policy he had devised for
the development of the North-West, would have been something like
one thousand million dollars richer, and the people would have
numbered 2,000,000 more than they did.
384

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
less than $1 an acre, and the proceeds devoted
exclusively to the construction of the railway. In
moving this resolution. Sir Charles Tupper entered
into an elaborate examination of the plans of the
Government, the position of the project, and the
probable expenditure necessary to carry it to com
pletion. He explained that 127 miles of road had
been put imder contract in British Columbia, as
also the first one hundred miles west of Winnipeg.
The cost of construction up to December 31st, 1879,
was $14,000,000, and he estimated that the whole
road could be built for $84,000,000, and that in
view of the estimated sales of lands the work could
be carried through without increasing the burdens
of the people. He argued that both of the political
parties were fuUy pledged to the construction of the
railway, and claimed that whUe the Conservative
Government in 1871 had only pledged itself to
buUd the road in ten years, provided it did not
cause an increase in taxation, the Liberal Govem
ment had gone even further, and had pledged
the country by the Carnarvon terms to complete
the road by 1890, and to spend $2,000,000 a year in
British Columbia, without regard to whether or not
the burden of taxation was increased.
The amended pohcy was adopted by Parliament,
and work proceeded under the plan of Govemment
construction. There is no doubt that the pohcy
of pubhc construction was adopted by the Mac
kenzie Govemment with some hesitation, and not
385

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
without fear as to the final results; and that if
satisfactory terms could have been arranged, Mr.
Mackenzie would have preferred construction by
private capitahsts. The original decision of the
Conservative Government was also for private as
against pubhc construction. The Liberals, however,
were forced to reverse this pohcy; and in his speech
of 1880, Sir Charles Tupper declared that he too had
undergone a change of opinion, and could now
heartily accept the pohcy of construction by the Gov
emment. When the proposal was first made by the
Liberal Administration in 1874, he had considered
that the responsibihty was too great; but now he
thought popular feeling was so strongly in favour of
setthng the North-West, and the certainty of the
large immigration and consequent sales of land was
so great that he did not feel that there was any
danger in proceeding with the work.* This seems to
have been the view of Sir John Macdonald, at least
at the inception of the undertaking. The Baroness
Macdonald, in a contribution to an Enghsh peri
odical in 1897, intimated that the Conservative
leader much preferred Govemment construction,
and reluctantly surrendered to the prejudices of his
coUeagues in favour of construction by a private
company.^
1 Hansard, April 16th, 1880.
^ "During Sir John's absence in Washington, the Govemment had
pledged itself to build the road through the agency of an incorporated
company supplemented by Government aid. I think Sir John regretted
386

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
Mr. Alexander, on March 21st, 1876, submitted
a resolution to the Senate affirming that the pohcy
of building and operating railways as pubhc
works of the Dominion instead of aiding private
chartered companies with bonuses of land and
money, was fraught with disastrous consequences
to the welfare of Canada, and must inevitably
subject the pubhc ti'casury to large annual ad
vances to make good deficiencies in the amounts
required to maintain such railways in working
order, and thereby tend seriously to impair the
pubhc credit.* JNIr. MiUer, speaking to the motion,
declared he was not prepared to say that in a new
country hke Canada, occasions did not arise when
it was the imperative duty of the Government to
construct and own important pubhc works such
as railways.^ Sir David Macpherson also said that
he would not be one to commit the House to
the view that the country shoiUd not construct
railways as pubhc works. He beheved, indeed, that
it was the only way in which a great portion of the
Pacific Railway could be constructed. Government
operation he regarded as much more objectionable.^
this and would fain have had the railway constructed as a Government
work ; but his boldness was not to be communicated, and those in charge
of tlie ship in his absence had judged the concession best, so as not to
endanger the union witli Britisli Columbia." — Baroness Macdonald, in
the Pall Mall Magazine for October, 1897.
1 Senate Debates, 1876, page 170.
2 Senate Debates, 1876, page 173.
» Senate Debates, 1876, page 176.
387

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
In 1873 Senator Macpherson had advocated con
struction by the Public Works' Department, or by
a Board of Commissioners.
But the pohcy which Mr. Mackenzie adopted
through stress of circumstances, and which his Con
servative successors strove to continue, was aban
doned in 1881 for the original plan of construction
and operation by a private company. Many causes
contributed to this decision. The difficulties of
building through a comparatively unknown and
wholly unsettled country were enormous. The cost
of many sections of the work could not be satisfac
torily determined. Both Governments were assailed
with charges of fraud in the letting and manage
ment of contracts. The ultimate cost under pubhc
construction threatened to exceed aU estimates.
The failure to effect a partnership with Great
Britain for the building of the road and the set
tlement of the West voided the chief expectation
upon which the Conservative Ministers depended to
continue Mackenzie's pohcy. Under aU the circum
stances, therefore, it was resolved to reverse the
policy and renew the attempt to interest private
capitahsts in the undertaking.* In June, 1881, the
^ "Our dehverance from Government contracts and their pestilent
influence is almost as great a cause for rejoicing as our deliverance from
the mad undertaking itself. W^e may say so without casting an aspersion
on any particular Government. No Government, however honest, can
control the powers of mischief which are called into activity by
contracting on a large scale. The army and navy contracts in England,
at the time of the war with France, were sources of jobbing and
corruption as prolific as the contracts of the same description in
388

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
country received the first intimation that the plan
of pubhc construction was to be abandoned. In
a speech at Bath, Sir John Macdonald announced
that private capitalists were then at Ottawa negoti-
atmg for the buUding of the railway. A few
weeks later the Prime Minister, Sir Charles Tupper,
and the Hon. J. H. Pope, in pursuance of these
negotiations, sailed for England; and in September
it was announced that a contract, subject to the
ratification of Parhament, had been made with
capitahsts of London, Paris, and America, for the
construction and maintenance of the railway. Thus
the pohcy of public construction was finally aban
doned, and thus was made the gravest national
mistake in aU our history.
The contract with the syndicate, of which Mr.
George Stephen, Mr. Duncan J. Mclntyre, and Mr.
R. B. Angus were the original Canadian directors,
the United States, or railway contracts here. Look at Mr. Sandford
Fleming's letter declining the Chief Engineership of the Intercolonial.
He says he would have to investigate unsettled claims amounting
to several miUions. What an opening for corruption is here! AVhen
the scene of operations is distant, and not under the eye of the Govem
ment, the danger cannot fail to be increased. The very names of some
of the men who are active in connection with the North-West are
enough to prove that corruption is abroad. There must be a carcass,
and a pretty putrid one, where such birds are gathered together. Even
to us materials for creating a sensation on the subject of contracts have
come; but there is no use in creating a sensation; what we want is
to see the source of the evil extinguished. Of the dangers which
threaten free institutions on this continent there is hardly one greater
than the corruption which waits on pubhc works." — The Bystander,
August, 1880.
389

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
provided that they should receive $25,000,000 in
cash, and 25,000,000 acres of land. The grant of land
was to be made in alternate sections of 640 acres
each, extending back twenty-four miles deep on
each side of the railway. In case any such sections
were found unfit for settlement, the company was
to be empowered to make other selections in the
fertile belt necessary to complete the 25,000,000
acres. The Government was to grant to the com
pany lands required for road-bed, station-grounds,
work-shops, dock-ground, and water frontage at the
termini on navigable waters, and aU materials of
construction were to be admitted free of duty. The
company were to have the right to construct branch
roads from any point on the main hne of railway
on filing a map and plan of such branch in the
Department of Railways. For twenty years from
the date of the contract no competing road south
of the main hne of the raUway was to be authorized
by Parliament, and in the estabhshment of new
provinces provision was to be made for continuing
this prohibition until the expiration of the twenty-
year period. All station-grounds, work-shops, build
ings, yards and other property, and aU roUing stock
and appurtenances required for the construction and
operation of the railroad, and the capital stock
of the company, were to be free forever from
taxation by the Dominion or by any province
thereafter to be estabhshed, or by any municipal
corporation therein ; and the lands of the company
390

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
in the Territories, until either sold or occupied,
should also be free of such taxation for twenty
years after the grant from the Crown. The toUs of
the railway were not to be reduced untU the net
profits exceeded 10 per cent, on the capital actuaUy
expended in its construction. The company were
to pay the cost of buUding the portion of rail
way running 100 miles from Winnipeg westward;
whUe the portion of the western section under
contract from Kamloops to Yale was to be com
pleted by June 30th, 1885, and the remaining
portion of the western section between Yale and
Port Moody by May 1st, 1891. These, with the
Lake Superior section, on completion were to
become the absolute property of the company.
According to the estimate of Sir Charles Tupper,
the subventions granted to the company equaUed at
least $78,000,000. This estimate covered 25,000,000
acres of land at $1 an acre, $25,000,000 in cash, and
$28,000,000 worth of completed railway. If we cal
culate original cost, interest, and cost of surveys, the
portions of the road constructed by Government
should be placed at $30,000,000 or $35,000,000,
rather than at the figure quoted by Sir Charles
Tupper, There were, besides, the huge exemptions,
the monopoly provisions, and the absolute control of
an empire of the best lands of the West. The bargain
was fiercely attacked by the Liberal press and the
Liberal pohticians, and as energeticaUy defended
by the Government. The strenuous and masterful
391

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
defence of the contract by Sir Charles Tupper was a
noteworthy feature of the controversy, and divided
pubhc attention with the Hon. Edward Blake's
magnificent attack on the agreement. Mr. Blake
held that according to Sir Charles Tupper's estimate
of the total cost of the enterprise, the company
would have to provide only $21,000,000, and for
this they would receive 25,000,000 acres of land.
He objected to the exemption of the lands
from taxation for twenty years, as calculated to
retard settlement. He argued that the company
would hold the lands until their value had been
enhanced by actual settlers, who would have to bear
an inordinate share of taxation in consequence of
the non-settlement of the exempted sections. He
opposed the monopoly clauses, and the practical
prohibition of pubhc control over freight charges;
and very ably advocated the Sault Ste. Marie route
as affording the best and cheapest and most direct
aU-raU connection with Western Canada.
The Liberal leader, for such Mr. Blake had. now
become, was loyaUy and powerfuUy supported by
Mr. Laurier. In his first speech in the House of
Commons Mr. Laurier had said that the leaders
of the Liberal party were as anxious as their
opponents to have a railway constructed between
older Canada and the Pacific, but that commercial,
rather than pohtical reasons, should determine the
route, the amount of expenditure, and the method of
construction. He said now that they should buUd
392

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
the road as the resources of the country would
permit. But as the Government had determined to
proceed with immediate construction, there was
much to commend the idea of construction by a
company rather than by the Government, and par
ticularly owing to the great uncertainty, not merely
as to the cost of building, but also as to the cost of
future operation. He objected, however, to the
partnership between the syndicate and the Adminis
tration. The country expected that by this contract
the Government would be reheved from the work
of construction. Instead, the company would build
two sections of the road, and the Government two
sections, and these the most difficult; and on com
pletion the whole would belong to the company.
The company could hkewise import as freely as the
Government, and hke the Government were exempt
from taxation. The Government would do the work
of the company, and the company would have aU
the privileges of the Government. He condemned
the provision against reduction of rates until the
company's earnings reached 10 per cent, on the
amount invested in construction, and the exemptions
from taxation and other privileges which would
give the company an almost absolute monopoly
over the western country. They would be the land
lords of the North- West, and could hold their lands
out of use, fix their own toUs, and obtain extortion
ate profits out of the settlers. It was a question
if the road had been graduaUy constructed, as the
393

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
necessities of the country required, if the Govern
ment of Canada would not have done weU to
proclaim that the needy and poor of aU the world
could find free land throughout the whole of
the North-West, and under these favourable cir
cumstances obtain the best market prices for their
products. We should then have had, perhaps, fewer
miUionaires, but vastly more happy and contented
homes. Bye and bye, Mr. Laurier pointed out, municipal
government would be organized in the West, roads
opened, and other facihties of civihzation provided.
The company, however, could not be taxed for
these necessities, whUe their exemptions and privi
leges must be a constant source of htigation and
bitterness in the country. It was the universal
experience that where men were not checked by
positive laws and regulations, they would abuse
their position to the detriment of their feUows.
Every province of the Dominion had had its land
company. There had been one in Ontario, one in
New Brunswick, one in Quebec, and one in Prince
Edward Island; and everywhere they had been
a curse and a bane. Everywhere they had blocked
settlement and pressed heavily upon the energies of
the people. He found fault also with the condition
in the contract which necessitated immediate con
struction of the road along the north shore of Lake
Superior, while he agreed that the road should
be built on Canadian soil. If, however, in the mean-
394

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
time the road to Sault Ste. Marie were constructed,
we should have in two or three years at the utmost
the benefit of the trade of North- Western Canada
and of the north-western States of the Union.
FinaUy, he declared that the contract with the
syndicate was a public danger, inasmuch as it
threatened to create upon the free soil of Canada a
monopoly which might yet become a cause of
trouble to the peace and harmony of the country ;
while if it was to be judged in the hght of modern
British ideas and principles, it carried its death
warrant, and the duty of Parliament was to reject
it on the first opportunity.*
The debate in Parliament was prolonged, and
formidable protests were organized by the Liberals
in various constituencies. Petitions signed by thirty
thousand persons were presented against the rati
fication of the contract. A rival syndicate was
formed, headed by Sir WUham Howland, which
offered to accept twenty-two miUions of money
and twenty-two miUion acres of land; to forego
exemptions from Dominion and local taxation on
lands, and from duties on materials imported for use
in construction; to build the Sault line for a bonus
of $12,000 a mUe; to aUow the Govemment to
postpone construction of the eastern section, of the
western section from Kamloops to Port Moody, and
of the mountain division of the central section; and
to permit the country to assume possession of
^ Hansard, December 21st, 1880. 395

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the road, and of aU the property and assets of the
company, at a price to be fixed by arbitration.
This offer was submitted to Parhament by Mr.
Blake as an amendment to the original contract,
but of course was rejected by the sohd vote of the
ministerial party, as were many other amendments
and propositions offered by Liberal members dur
ing the session. At length the contract was ratified
without any substantial alteration in the original
provisions, and the company proceeded with extra
ordinary energy to the accomphshment of their
great undertaking.
The contract caUed for the completion of the
railway by May 1st, 1891. It was actuaUy com
pleted on November 7th, 1885. The North Shore
Railway, connecting Montreal vsdth Quebec, was
acquired by the company in 1882. Between 1881
and 1884 branch hues totaUing 471 miles were
added to the system in Manitoba, and from time
to time various leased hues were acquired in the
older provinces. The capital stock of the company
had been fixed at $100,000,000, and it was ex
pected that any additional amount required to
complete the road could easily be raised from
land sales or upon the security of the land grant.
But the lands were not readily sold in competition
with Government homesteads; and although land-
grant bonds were received at $1.10 for the com
pany's lands, they could not be freely negotiated.
In 1883, the company purchased from the Govem-
396

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
ment a guarantee of 3 per cent, per annum for ten
years for the $65,000,000 of stock then sold, and
made similar provision for the $35,000,000 stiU
unsold. The cost of this terminable annuity was
$16,000,000, calculated at 4 per cent., to meet
semi-annual payments of Ij per cent. Of this
amount $8,710,240 was paid in cash, and security
given for the early payment of the balance.
StiU the stock coiUd not be sold at a satisfactory
figure, and further pubhc support became neces
sary. In 1884, the Government induced Parhament
to loan the company $22,500,000. This, added to
the balance due upon the annuity purchase, created
a total debt to the country of $29,880,000, and to
secure this amount the Government took a hen
upon the entire property of the company. In con
sideration of this loan the syndicate undertook to
complete the road by May 1st, 1886, and construc
tion proceeded at the rate of five hundred miles
yearly. This necessitated an enormous annual out
lay, and as a natural consequence the loan was
soon exhausted, whUe the first lien of the Govern
ment on aU the company's property prevented sale
of their stock. They found it necessary, therefore,
to make a further appeal to the Government.
Accordingly, in 1885 the $35,000,000 of unsold stock
in the hands of the Govemment was canceUed, and
an equal amount of 5 per cent, first mortgage bonds
was issued. The $29,880,000 of indebtedness to
the country was made payable on May 1st, 1891,
397

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
with 4 per cent, interest. The Govemment accepted
$20,000,000 of the first mortgage bonds as security
for that amount of the debt, and the security of aU
the unsold lands of the company for the balance
of $9,880,000. Of the $15,000,000 bonds remain
ing, the company deposited with the Government
$8,000,000 as security for a temporary loan of
$5,000,000. The remainder they negotiated, and
within a few months paid back the temporary loan,
and thus released $8,000,000 of bonds. In March,
1886, the company returned aU the cash advanced
under the $20,000,000 bonds, and surrendered 6,793,-
014 acres of land at $1.50 per acre for the balance.
The Govemment at this time also surrendered
$5,000,000 of land-grant bonds held as security for
the continuous operation of the railway as provided
in the original contract.
In 1888, stiU another transaction between the
company and the Government became necessary.
In order to release the West from the provision
against the construction of competing roads west
of Lake Superior, the country guaranteed the in
terest for fifty years on an issue of $15,000,000 of
3^ per cent, bonds secured upon the 15,000,000
acres of unsold lands belonging to the company.
This final rearrangement of the financial terms was
forced by the determined struggle of Manitoba to
secure the entrance into that province of the Nor
thern Pacific, and to wrest absolxite raUway free
dom from the federal authority. Sixty-five miUions
398

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
of stock were issued during the progress of con
struction. This reahzed only $31,000,000, and of
this amount $21,000,000 were used to pay and
secure dividends. The ordinary stock was issued in
three series. The first issue was for $5,000,000 at
par to the original shareholders. The next was for
$20,000,000. This was issued at 25 cents on the
doUar, and thus reahzed only $5,000,000 of genuine
capital. The thfrd of $40,000,000, issued at 52^
cents, reahzed $21,000,000 in cash. The actual cash
which the stock represents may be thus recapitu
lated :
stock. Equal to Cash.
First issue  $5,000,000 $5,000,000
Second issue  20,000,000 5,000,000
Third issue  40,000,000 21,000,000
Total  $65,000,000 $31,000,000
Speaking in Parhament in 1885, Mr. Blake
pointed out that the Govemment had built and
handed over to the company 641 miles of com
pleted railway, besides the Pembina branch, at an
estimated cost of $30,000,000. The Govemment sur
veys had cost $3,440,000. The Government subsidy
was $25,000,000 in cash. There was reahzed from
land-grant bonds, from town sites, and from other
minor sources of income, $11,000,000. This made
$69,500,000, besides which there remained 20,000,-
000 acres of land. Estimating the land at $1 per
acre, the company received in pubhc aids — ^not
loans, but gifts — $89,500,000. If the land was
valued at $2, $109,500,000 were obtained. The
399

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
loans of 1884 amounted to $29,810,000. Then
there were gifts as before, $69,500,000 ; loans,
$29,810,000, or cash aids of $99,310,000. Adding
the 20,000,000 acres of land at $2, a total of gifts
and loans of $139,310,000 was obtained. The cost
of the whole hne, according to the company's own
estimate, was $83,500,000 ; the equipment, $8,000,-
000; the total, $91,500,000. The road was to be
the property of the company. Both the company
and the Government declared that it would pay
from the day it was opened. Canada had pro
vided the means, and far more than the means, to
build the road; the First Minister said that it would
carry freights at one-fourth the cost of other roads;
a road that could do that would certainly be a
highly paying concern. Mr. Blake also pointed out
that the $5,000,000 to be given the company by
the resolutions under discussion would increase the
pubhc aid to the project to $144,810,000, estimat
ing the land at $2 per acre; and that $13,827,000
more would have to be spent in aiding the con
struction of the raUway through Maine to the
Atlantic seaboard, and other roads connected with
the transcontinental railway project.
Deahng with the financial methods of the com
pany, Mr. Blake pointed out that by the system
of finance adopted, they had raised on stock $24,-
500,000, and had devoted to dividends $21,000,000.
This gave $3,500,000 to go on with the work, and
$21,000,000 to go into their own pockets. What,
400

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
he asked, was the amount they had actuaUy paid
m dividends up to February, 1885? On the first
$5,000,000 they had paid $1,000,000 ; on the $20,-
000,000, which represented $5,000,000 cash, they
had paid $2,610,000; on the $30,000,000, repre
senting $15,281,000, they had paid $2,640,000; and
on the balance, $10,000,000, representing $4,212,-
000, they had paid $750,000, or a total of $7,-
000,000 already paid in cash to shareholders by this
embarrassed company, which had to come to Parha
ment for help in their urgent need. And having paid
$7,000,000 in cash, they had then deposited with
the Govemment, at 4 per cent, interest, $14,100,-
000 to secure future dividends. The original pro
prietors, who took the additional $20,000,000 of
stock, had received, on their $5,000,000 of cash, for
part of the time 24 per cent, per annum on their
investment, and for the rest 20 per cent. They had
received $3,610,000 in dividends already, and were
to get in eight years and a half $6,875,000 more, or
$10,485,000 in dividends, apart altogether from the
road, the land, and the earnings of the road on
$10,000,000 of capital. If the calculation were
made to include the September, 1885, and Feb
ruary, 1886, extra dividends, there would have
been paid and provided for dividends $24,875,000,
or a sum equal to the whole amount reahzed from
the sale of the company's stock. The shareholders
would have paid $24,500,000 for their stock, and there
would have been paid and provided for dividends
401

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
an equal amount. The net result of the transac
tion had been to invest money with one hand for
the purpose of taking it out with the other. In sub
stance, the proceeds of the stock had been divided
among the stockholders. The Government had to
raise the money to buUd the road, and the country
would have to pay the toUs for aU time in order to
pay dividends upon the stock so divided. AU this
was to be done because the stockholders in this
enterprise had reahzed from $60,000,000 of stock
$24,500,000, and had chosen to appropriate $24,-
500,000 to pay dividends upon their stock.* It may
here be added that in 1885 the stock of the com
pany which now seUs at 135 sold as low as 35f.
The various rearrangements of the terms between
the Government and the syndicate were vigorously
and determinedly opposed by the Liberal party
under Mr. Blake's leadership, and in many of the
debates Mr. Laurier intervened with thoughtful
and eloquent speeches. But with the country com
mitted to the construction of the railway by the
syndicate, the Government was almost bound to
carry the enterprise to a successful issue. Ministers,
however, could have used the various crises in the
affairs of the company to force a modification of the
more obnoxious terms of the original bargain, to
break up their land monopoly, restrict their exemp
tions, and regain the free right of control over
freight and passenger charges. It has to be re-
^ Hansard, June 17th, 1886, pages 2,612, 2,619.
402

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
membered, however, that the construction of the
Canadian Pacific Railway was a formidable under
taking, and that only capitahsts of extraordinary
courage and of extraordinary resource would have
dared to embark in the enterprise. From Vancouver
to Fort WiUiam the road ran through nearly two
thousand miles of territory with a scanty and
scattered population. There were few important
business centres, and a hmited local traffic. There
were five or six hundred miles of barren and un
settled country along the north shore of Lake
Superior. For through traffic there was the keen
competition of the American raUways, and of the
Grand Trunk, with its American connections. Con
struction on the Lake Superior and mountain sec
tions was enormously costly, and the cost of operation
very heavy. There were powerful reasons why the
road should be extended through older Canada, its
American connections estabhshed, and its trans-
Pacific steamship service inaugurated. It could not
exist upon its local traffic, and these extensions and
developments were necessary to its success, even to
its existence as a commercial enterprise. In fact, the
operation of this great railway for the first ten years
of its history was a much greater achievement than
its construction. It was possible to induce Parha
ment to build the road with pubhc money. It was
not possible to induce the country to operate the
road at the pubhc expense for the benefit of a
private corporation. 403

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
The sanguine expectations of rapid settlement of
the West feU lamentably short of reahzation. The
early eighties witnessed a tremendous boom in
Manitoba ; but the era of inflation was brief and
frenzied, and the results disastrous and enduring.
MUhons of acres of land were granted to coloni
zation companies. There was an immense waste of
the pubhc resources upon eager speculators and
greedy partisans. There was a season of dehrious
gambhng in prairie lots, a frantic competition in the
plotting of paper towns, a reckless trading on the
future that occasioned widespread loss and ruin,
and put a positive bhght upon the country for years
afterward. We wasted our patrimony in the West
as a spendthrift wastes a fortune, and created some
grave problems for other generations. As the Hon.
Chfford Sifton told Parhament a few years ago:
"We have 67,000,000 acres of land in Manitoba
and the North-West Territories reserved from
settlement. On that 67,000,000 of acres, I, as the
Minister of the Interior to-day, cannot give a man
a homestead entry. Nor can I seU a single acre of
it, although there are miUions of acres of that land
that never have been and never wiU be nor can
be earned by any railway company. But they are
reserved by order in Council, the good faith of
the Dominion is pledged to that forever, and no
Government can interfere with that reserve vmtil
the bond is hteraUy fulfiUed to the last letter."*
1 Hansard, February 16th, 1898.
404

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
When the charter was granted to the syndicate,
it was popularly understood that the exemption
from taxation was to run for only twenty years, but
it is now held that the exemption obtains untU
the patent is issued to the settler upon raUway
lands. The clause in the charter reads : "The lands
of the company in the North-West Territories,
untU they are either sold or occupied, shaU also be
free from such taxation for twenty years after the
grant thereof from the Crown." If the latter inter
pretation holds good, the clause has the same effect
as if it had simply declared the land free from
taxation until sold or occupied. Hence, the land
question may yet become as crucial and as menacing
to the peace of the West as Mr. Laurier predicted.
Since 1896, however, the taxable area of the West
has been materiaUy increased. Over 10,000,000
acres of railway lands have been patented, and
except where positive exemptions exist, the muni
cipalities have been encouraged to assert the right
of taxation over unoccupied areas. The Dominion
Government has also offered to aid any western
municipahty in carrying a case through the courts
to determine when the Canadian Pacific reserves
become subject to taxation, while properly refusing
to ask Parhament to give an arbitrary interpretation
to this clause of the railway contract.
There is an exceUent prospect that the right
of pubhc regulation of charges over the whole
Canadian Pacific system wiU soon be regained. In
405

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
1897, Parliament granted to the company aid to the
extent of $11,000 per mile, or not exceeding in the
whole, $3,630,000, towards the construction of a
railway from Lethbridge, in the district of Alberta,
through the Crow's Nest Pass to Nelson, in British
Columbia. The agreement provided for a reduction
of rates on many staple articles of consumption in
the West, and reduced the toUs on grain and flour
three cents per hundred pounds, half of the re
duction to be made in 1898, and half in 1899. It
gave running powers over the new road, and aU its
branches and connections, to competing raUways;
and subjected to pubhc regulation freight rates
on aU shipments originating on the Crow's Nest
Pass road, or destined for points on the road and its
branches. Then, in the session of Parhament just
closed, the company were authorized to increase
their capital stock from $65,000,000 to $85,000,000.
It was stipulated that this stock should be issued at
par, and should not affect the clause in the original
contract providing for conditional immunity from
pubhc control. It is imderstood that $9,000,000
wiU be used for locomotives, cars, and other equip
ment ; $2,000,000 for the enlargement and con
struction of repair shops at Montreal and other
points on the system ; $6,000,000 for the reduction
of grades, improvements of ahgnment, and double-
tracking; and $3,000,000 for additional grain eleva
tors, terminals, sidings and other necessary facihties
to meet the increasing business of the country. The
406

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY
company also agreed to a reference to the Supreme
Court, or if necessary to the Judicial Committee of
the Imperial Privy Council, in order to determine
the exact bearing of the section in the original
contract which prohibits reduction of their charges
until their earnings reach 10 per cent, on the amount
expended in construction ; or in other words, to
determine the amount properly and legitimately
expended in the construction of the railway.
The Western land pohcy of the Govemment and
the bargain with the Canadian Pacific syndicate
were outstanding issues in the election campaign of
1882, and on both counts Mr. Blake laid formidable
indictments against the Administration.* He, how
ever, found it difficult to interest older Canada
in the technical detaUs of the land regulations,
whUe the bulk of financial and commercial opinion
was undoubtedly favourable to the railway con
tract. The extraordinary features of the bargain
were recognized, but they were thought to be
measurably offset by the magnitude of the under
taking. The commercial community were eager to
have the road constructed, and there was a consider
able degree of pubhc faith in the abihty of Mr.
^ "I challenge the North-West land policy of the Govemment,
which has in various forms given facilities for speculation, whereby
great areas of the choicest lands are faUing into the hands of middle
men, who wiU hold them until they exact from the immigrant large
profits, thus at once retarding the development of the country and
lessening the prosperity of the settler. Our motto is: 'The land for the
settler, the price for the public.'" — Hon. Edward Blake's address to the
electors of West Durham, May 23rd, 1882.
407

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Stephen and his associates to carry through the
undertaking. Mr. Mackenzie's plan of utihzing the
water stretches as essential parts of the system of
through communication with the West seemed to
suggest timid counsels and patchwork methods,
and had only the hesitating support of many
Liberals ; while the plan of rapid aU-rail connection,
provided in the bargain with the syndicate, was
thorough and heroic to the last degree. The West
was as indifferent as the East to the certain evils
of land monopoly and freight monopoly, which
were inherent in the contract. In fact, the long
and resolute opposition which the Iviberal party
offered to many features of the bargain brought
down upon the Liberal leaders the enduring dis
pleasure of the Western communities, and now
when twenty years have passed there is the very
irony of fate in the attacks which are made upon
the Liberal party for the existence of the evUs
which they strove so hard to minimize and avert.*
1 Morgan's Annual Register for 1879 and 1880 deals in considerable
detail with the various proposals for construction of the Canadian
Pacific Railway. The financial features of the enterprise are presented
in an address dehvered by Mr. Thomas C. Keefer, President of the
American Society of Civil Engineers, and reprinted in the Statistical
Year-Book of Canada for 1894. Mr. Alexander Begg's "'History of the
North-West" enters exhaustively into the whole story of the great
undertaking.

408

CHAPTER XV
THE BATTLE FOR PROVINCIAL RIGHTS
PUBLIC opinion in Ontario was much more
deeply excite'd during the campaign of 1882
by the starthng redistribution of constituencies
which the Govemment forced through Parhament
on the eve of dissolution. In order to increase
the representation of Ontario from eighty-eight
to ninety-two members, the whole pohtical map
of the province was altered almost beyond recog
nition. Respect for county boundaries which had
obtained in former readjustments of population,
and which principle represented the declared pohcy
of Sir John Macdonald, was ruthlessly disre
garded.* Townships were boldly torn from their
natural municipal and historical relationships,
thrown, regardless of their proper geographical con
nections, into new electoral divisions, and the con
stituencies fashioned to the direct aggrandizement
^ When Sir John Macdonald brought in his biU for the readjustment
of the constituencies in 1872, he said : " The desire of the Govemment
has been to preserve the representations for counties and sub-divisions
of counties as much as possible. . . . It is desired as much as
possible to keep the representation within the county, so that each
county that is a municipahty of Ontario shaU be represented, and if it
becomes large enough, divide it into two ridings. . . . It is, I
think, a grand system that the people of Canada should have the
opportunity of choosing for political promotion the men in whom they
409

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of the Conservative party with an audacity un
precedented in Canadian pohtics. Great bunches
of Liberal voters were hived in particular districts,
the natural voting strength of the Liberal party was
materiaUy weakened, and the Liberal leaders, with
rare exceptions, were forced to face hostile majori
ties in their old electoral divisions, or rather in the
new constituencies constructed '\ipon the partisan
specifications of their pohtical opponents. In one of
his speeches during the campaign. Sir John Mac
donald said: "The Grits complain that they are
hived aU together. It seems they do not hke the
association. I told my constituents the other day —
weU, I hope, indeed I know they wiU be my
constituents — a story. When the Reform Club was
built in London it was the finest club-house there,
and the club-room was reaUy a magnificent cham
ber. Theodore Hook, who was a great wit, and the
editor of a Tory paper, was taken into the Reform
Cliib by a friend who desired to show him the
place. When he was in the club-room, the friend
have the most confidence and of whose abihties they are fuUy assvired.
All that great advantage is lost by cutting off a portion of two separate
counties and adding them together for electoral purposes only. Those
portions so cut off have no common interest. They do not meet
together, and they have no common feeling, except that once in five
years they go to the polls in their own township to vote for a man who
may be known in the one section and not in the other. This tends
towards the introduction of the American system of caucuses, by which
wire-pullers take adventurers for their political ability only, and not
for any personal respect for them. . . . When the representation
is increased it should be by sub-dividing the counties into ridings."
410

THE BATTLE FOR PROVINCIAL RIGHTS
said: 'WeU, how do you like our room?' Said
Hook : ' I would rather have your room than your
company.' So it is with the Grits. They do not hke
each other's company. They hke to associate with
Conservative gentlemen such as you. Your being
with them rather gives tone to their society."*
The readjustment struck directly at the Hon.
Alexander Mackenzie, Sir Richard Cartwright, the
Hon. David MiUs, Mr. WiUiam Paterson, Mr.
George W. Ross, Mr. M. C. Cameron, and other
of the more active spirits of the Liberal party. But
it is satisfactory to remember that at least for the
moment the conspiracy was much less successful
than its authors expected. In later years, however,
when pubhc indignation over the measure had sub
sided, the vicious readjustment of 1882 proved a
serious handicap to the Liberal party in Ontario.^
With the exception of the Dominion Franchise
Act of 1885, no other measure of equal partisan
enormity has been introduced into the Parhament
of Canada. Mr. Laurier loyaUy supported his col
leagues from the sister province in their energetic pro
test against this audacious measure, and when he was
returned to power, sought by a fair and equitable
measure of redistribution to restore equal pohtical
rights to the Liberals of Ontario. He was blocked
1 Speech at the Amphitheatre, Toronto, May 30th, 1882.
^ Mackenzie, MiUs, Paterson, Ross, and Cameron were all elected in
1882 in the gerrymandered ridings. Cartwright, whose old constituency
of Centre Huron was abolished, ran in Centre WeUington, and was
defeated, 411

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
by the Senate, which accepted the Act of 1882
with amiable docility. Indeed since the very or
ganization of the commonwealth it has proceeded
on the principle that to question the expediency
and justice of Conservative legislation is flagrant
treason to British institutions in North America.
But the day of redress and restitution cannot be
much longer postponed, even by a Senate whose
chief function is to prevent the hasty repeal of bad
enactments, and aU Canadians wiU hope that the
next readjustment of the constituencies wiU be as
conspicuous for justice and fair deahng as that of
1882 was remarkable for contempt of sound pubhc
opinion and bold disregard of the rights of the
political minority.*
The dispute, long, tortuous, and acrimonious,
over the boundaries of Ontario, was hkewise an
active factor in the elections of 1882. According to
the award made in 1878 by Chief- Justice Harri
son, Sir Edward Thornton, and Sir Francis Hincks,
the territory of Ontario extended north to Albany
River, west to the Lake of the Woods, and south
wards to the Minnesota boundary. Mr. Mackenzie
passed out of office before this decision could be
ratified by the federal Parliament, and direct parha
mentary ratification was refused by Sir John Mac-
1 The redistribution bill presented to Parhament by Mr. Fitzpatrick
in 1899 strictly observed county boundaries, and provided that in such
counties as were entitled to two or three representatives, the boun
daries of the various ridings should be delimited by Superior Court
judges.
412

THE BATTLE FOR PROVINCIAL RIGHTS
donald.* For years the question remained a bone of
contention between the Liberal party and the Con
servative party, and between Ontario as represented
by Sir Ohver Mowat, and the Dominion as repre
sented by the Conservative leader. Various propo
sitions were made by the federal Ministers for a
further arbitration, or an appeal to the courts under
various conditions and hmitations. AU were resisted
and rejected by the provincial Ministers. As a last
resort, in 1881, Sir John Macdonald introduced
and put through Parhament an Act extending the
boundaries of Manitoba, and declaring that the
eastern boundary of that province should be " a
line drawn due north from where the westerly
boundary of the Province of Ontario intersects the
international boundary hne dividing Canada from
the United States of America." This Act, of de
hberate design, did not imdertake to define the
easterly boundary of Manitoba. The purpose was
to embroU Manitoba in the dispute, and to force a
conflict of jurisdiction between the two provinces.
As a result, something hke an incipient rebelhon
arose out of the rival attempts of the officers of
Ontario and Manitoba to exercise authority in the
disputed territory.
1 "I never dreamed for a moment — whether I had succeeded again
in controUing the legislation of the country or not, — I did not beheve
that any Government would have dared to avoid giving effect to any
arbitration solemnly entered into between the two Governments." —
Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, in the House of Commons, March 31st,
1882.
413

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
The Dominion Govemment also undertook to
deal with timber hmits and mineral rights in the
district. Sir John Macdonald laid claim to the land,
timber, and minerals, in virtue of the extinguish
ment of the Indian title by the Dominion, and par-
ceUed out great tracts of the territory under federal
hcenses. In one of his speeches the Conservative
leader said : " The disputed territory was either in
Manitoba or in Ontario. Manitoba was now being
settled by the sons of Ontario citizens, and it was
of no consequence whether that territory belonged
to Ontario or to her sons. As a lawyer — and he had
never given a constitutional opinion that was not
sustained by the highest tribunals in the Empire —
as a lawyer, he told them that the award had no
vahdity whatever, and was simply a piece of waste
paper and would not decide the question." He
added that if aU the territory which Mr. Mowat
claimed were awarded to Ontario, there was not
one stick of timber, one acre of land, or one lump
of lead, iron or gold, that did not belong to the
Dominion, or to people who had purchased from
the Dominion Government.*
The dispute had not reached the last critical
stages during the election of 1882, but the contro
versy was keen and bitter, and partook somewhat
of the nature of a personal struggle between Mr.
Mowat and Sir John Macdonald. The provincial
Ministers stood firmly upon the award of 1878, and
^ Speech at the Amphitheatre, Toronto, May 30th, 1882.
414

THE BATTLE FOR PROVINCIAL RIGHTS
they received the faithful and energetic support of
the Liberal leaders in the House of Commons. Mr.
Laurier, speaking on a resolution by Mr. J. B.
Plumb, of Niagara, proposing to refer the question
to the Supreme Court of Canada or to the Imperial
Privy Council for a final decision, and pending the
reference to vest the administration of the lands in
a joint commission to be appointed by the Govern
ment of Canada and the Government of Ontario,*
took the simple and natural position that an award
of arbitrators is binding on both parties, and cannot
be questioned except for cause. The arbitrators
were appointed imder sufficient parliamentary au
thority, the decision reached was of the nature of a
legal judgment rather than a compromise, and the
award should be received by both parties and
carried out in its entirety. He said : " If you deny
Ontario the boundary she claims, she may deny
Quebec her northern boundary, and those sectional
cries, which at one time were thought to be forever
destroyed, would be renewed. The question having
been settled ought to remain settled. There is no
occasion to open it anew. I do not fear the appeal
that wiU be made against me in my own province
on the vote I intend giving. I have no hesitation in
saying this award is binding on both parties, and
ought to be carried out in good faith. The con
sideration that the great Province of Ontario wiU
be made greater I altogether lay aside as unfair,
» Hansard, March 31st, 1882, page 666.
415

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
unfriendly, and unjust."* Deahng with this speech,
the Toronto Globe said: "To the credit of Mr.
Laurier it must be said that he had the courage of
his convictions, and rose superior to prejudices and
fears. He both spoke and voted against the Govern
ment's fatuous proposal, and by so doing invited a
comparison between himself and the Ontario sup
porters of the Government by no means flattering
to the latter. "2
Two years before this speech was made, Mr.
Laurier had voted against the appointment of a
committee to investigate the award, and in con
sequence was violently attacked by his pohtical
opponents in Quebec. This speech led to a renewal
of the attack, if indeed it had ever been quite
abandoned; and it was vehemently represented that
he was prepared to sacrifice the interests of his own
province for the sake of Ontario. On the other
hand, the incurable suspicion that Quebec is eter
naUy plotting to impair the pohtical power of On
tario found frequent and violent expression during
the contest. It was argued that as Quebec had
opposed representation by population in order to
hold an equal share of power in the old Parhament
of United Canada, and had opposed Confederation
as calculated to diminish her authority and imperil
French Canadian institutions, so she now sought to
prevent ratification of the Ontario boundary award,
1 Hansard, April 4th, 1882.
2 Editorial in the Toronto Globe, April 6th, 1882.
416

THE BATTLE FOR PROVINCIAL RIGHTS
to reduce the proper area of the Enghsh province,
and to deprive her of opportunity for future expan
sion and increase of representation in the federal
Parhament. It may be that provocation came from
the Bleus of Quebec, and even many French Lib
erals voted against the ratification of the award.
But Liberals in Ontario seemed not unwilhng to
renew the old racial quarrel, and as a result inter-
provincial relations were greatly embittered by the
controversy, and the Conservative party derived
material advantage from the situation.*
In the Commons in 1882, Mr. Tasse, an in
fluential Conservative journalist, and one of the
Conservative members for Ottawa, chaUenged the
attitude of the Liberal press and the Liberal party
of Ontario, and entered into an elaborate argument
to show that Quebec did not seek to dominate
the Confederation, that the Enghsh minority of the
province received ample justice at the hands of
the French and Cathohc majority, and that the
only object of Liberals was to divert attention from
^ Sir John Macdonald, finding himself compeUed at length to make
a declaration of his policy in the face of the pending election, throws
off the mask, and his answer to the demands of Ontario for her rights
is : "Not one stick of timber, one acre of land, one liunp of lead, iron
or gold." This is final and conclusive. This is the Bleu ultimatum.
Ontario is to be robbed of territory, until she is reduced to half the
size of Quebec, and her magnificent resources taken away from her,
because our prosperity excites the malignant envy of the French Bleus,
and our annual surpluses offer so striking a contrast to their empty
treasury and heavy taxation. — Editorial in the Toronto Globe, June
2nd, 1882.
417

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
legitimate pubhc issues, and excite sectional jeal
ousies against the Govemment. He described the
French Liberals in Parhament as "the much
mutUated band from Lower Canada," and declared
his surprise that the Liberal party received any
support at aU in the Province of Quebec. He
charged that in order to reach power the Liberal
party were ready "to sow the seeds of civil war, to
set province against province, creed against creed,
Enghshmen against Frenchmen, to shake the very
foundations of our pohtical system, to break up the
union."* In the course of his reply, Mr. Laurier said that
if the Liberal press of Ontario made appeals to the
prejudices of the people, Mr. Tasse did right to de
nounce them, and he could only wish that the
Conservative party in Quebec woiUd profess the
principles which Mr. Tasse professed in Parhament.
He said : " The Liberal party of the Province of
Quebec have no reason to feel ashamed of their
position. If we are but few in this House to-day it
is because we have been decimated in defence of a
noble cause, because we have defended freedom and
constitutional government against the attack of the
party to which he belongs. ... If we are deci
mated, is it not due to the fact that the press
and the party to which he belongs have always
traded on the prejudices of our people ? The honour
able gentleman and his party would not have a
^ Hansard, April 26th, 1882.
418

THE BATTLE FOR PROVINCIAL RIGHTS
standing in this House were it not that for the last
twenty-five years they never dared to meet us
on pohtical questions, but have always appealed to
the prejudices of our countrymen. Who can deny
the fact ? The honourable gentleman objects to the
remark I made somewhere, that if Baldwin and
Lafontaine came back to this country they would
not recognize the party to which they belonged as
their party. Can the charge be denied? Is it not
a fact that the press to which the honourable
gentleman belongs has always represented it a
heresy to belong to the Liberal party or to be called
a Liberal ? When we attack the Government, when
we condemn their principles, when we try to engage
them in a battle on political grounds in the Province
of Quebec, we are always met with the same cry.
These gentlemen are enemies of your rehgion, they
are Liberals, and it is not possible for a Catholic to
be a Liberal. How often have we not found these
words in the press of the honourable gentleman ?
How often could I not find them, if I had time, in
the very paper of which he is the editor? It is
because of such cries that we are so few here
to-day. But, as I said before, few as we are, I would
rather stand here a defender of the rights obtained
for us by our fathers than belong to the so-caUed
Conservative party of the Province of Quebec."*
FinaUy, upon a joint case submitted by Ontario
and Manitoba, the award of the arbitrators was
1 Hansard, April 25th, 1882. 419

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
upheld by the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council, the constitutional position of the Liberals
signaUy vindicated, and Ontario secured in the
possession of territory vastly richer in timber, in
minerals, and in cultivable soil, than even the most
optimistic of her champions then beheved. The long
and determined resistance of Sir John Macdonald
to ratification of the award, was, however, not
whoUy barren of result. He, at least, forced a
reference to the Judicial Committee, and to that
extent could claim a party triumph.
The attempt to estabhsh federal jurisdiction over
the retail hquor trade was also a legacy from the
general election of 1882, and another incident in the
long duel between Sir Oliver Mowat and Sir John
Macdonald. During the campaign the Conservative
leader threatened to wrest the hcensing power from
the Ontario Government, and at the next session of
the Dominion Parhament an Act was passed taking
power to create hcense districts; to appoint com
missioners for such districts; to issue through such
commissioners, hotel, saloon, shop, vessel and whole
sale licenses ; and generally to assume the control
over the liquor trade hitherto exercised by the
provincial authorities. It is perhaps not wide of the
mark to say that the chief design of this law was to
increase the patronage of federal Ministers, or
rather to hmit the patronage exercised by the
Liberal Govemment of Ontario.* It was the pro-
1 If he carried the country, as he would do, he would teU Mr.
420

THE BATTLE FOR PROVINCIAL RIGHTS
duct of intense political partisanship, and but served
to throw the hquor business into confusion in every
province of the Dominion. Looking at such ques
tions from the standpoint of a convinced and logical
federalist, Mr. Laurier never found it difficult to
choose his position. He denounced the bill as a step
towards legislative union, and stUl another develop
ment of Sir John Macdonald's sustained attempt to
destroy the federal character of the Constitution,
and reduce the local Legislatures to the position
of costly ornaments.* But this Act was as short-lived
as it was mischievous. Two years after its adoption,
the Privy CouncU declared that it was not within
the legislative authority of the Parliament of Canada,
and the control of the liquor trade, properly and
advantageously, reverted to the several provinces.
One other measure designed to increase the pat
ronage of the Conservative party and aggrandize
the federal authority at the expense of the Legis
latures, dates back to this period of intense pohtical
rancour. It was intimated in the Speech from the
Throne in 1885, that Parliament would be asked to
consider a measure relating to the representation of
the people, and for the assimilation of the electoral
Mowat, that Uttle tyrant who had attempted to control public opinion
by getting hold of every Uttle office, from that of a Division Court
bailiff to a tavern-keeper, that he would get a biU passed at Ottawa
returning to the municipalities the power taken away from them by the
License Act. — From a speech by Sir John Macdonald at YorkviUe,
June 1st, 1882.
1 Hansard, March 18th, 1884.
421

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
franchises of the several provinces. This was the
last of many intimations that Sir John Macdonald
had such a measure under consideration. Six times,
in fact, the bUl was introduced in Parhament. In
1870 it was carried through a second reading and
then abandoned in committee in face of a motion
by Mr. Dorion declaring for adhesion to the pro
vincial franchises. As now presented, it was one of
the most objectionable biUs ever submitted to a
free Parhament. It was proposed to estabhsh a
uniform franchise throughout the Dominion, to
appoint federal officers for the preparation and
revision of the hsts, and to enfranchise the Indian
population.* There was nothing in the bUl to pre
vent the appointment of the most active Con
servative partisans as revising officers, who were
empowered to make as weU as to revise the hsts, and
^ Mr. MiUs. — What we are anxious to know is whether the honour
able gentleman proposes to give other than enfranchised Indians votes.
Sir John Macdonald. — Yes.
Mr. Mills. — Indians residing on a reservation?
Sir John Macdonald. — Yes, if they have the necessary property
qualificaton. Mr. Mills. — An Indian who cannot make a contract for himself, who
can neither buy nor seU without the consent of the Superintendent
General, an Indian who is not enfranchised ?
Sir John Macdonald. — Whether he is enfranchised or not.
Mr. MiUs. — This wiU include Indians in Manitoba and British
Columbia .''
Sir John Macdonald. — Yes.
Mr. MiUs. — Poundmaker and Big Bear ?
Sir John Macdonald. — Yes.
Mr. Mills. — So that they can go from a scalping party to the polls.
—Hansard, April 30th, 1886.
422

THE BATTLE FOR PROVINCIAL RIGHTS
whose judgment as to the qualifications of voters
was final and absolutely unappealable. The Liberal
party resolved that the measure, as presented,
should not go through Parliament. They resorted
to a dehberate pohcy of obstruction, and adopted
every device that the forms of Parhament would
permit to block its progress. They divided into
relays, and whUe one contingent slept the other
kept the debate going. They forced as many as
twenty-five divisions at one sitting. They read
whole books to the Speaker, and spoke for hours,
even for days, on the most insignificant details
of the measure.
Mr. Laurier was not one of the more active of the
obstructionists, but he was in thorough sympathy
with the pohcy of his associates. He denounced the
biU as bad in principle and vicious in intention.
He moved, perhaps, the chief amendment sub
mitted from the Liberal benches, declaring for the
practice which had prevaUed ever since Confedera
tion of utihzing for federal elections the provincial
franchise and voters' hsts. He said the biU took the
preparation of the hsts out of the hands of the
people, and turned the work over to the henchmen
and parasites of the Government. The Constitution
was based upon diversity, and we had neither uni
formity of territory, of population, nor of institu
tions. We had seven different communities, and it
was best that the right to determine the franchise
should be left to each community. Prince Edward
423

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Island had manhood suffrage, Quebec did not de
sire manhood suffrage, and it was neither necessary
nor expedient to enlarge the one franchise nor
restrict the other in disregard of local sentiment.
The biU was bad from every conceivable stand
point, and would destroy a system which had''given
great and uniform satisfaction. It was an attack on
the federal principle, an invasion of popular rights,
a step towards centralization, and opposed to the
steady conviction of the country that the provincial
franchise was the best suited to our institutions,
and under aU the circumstances was best adapted
to the character of our people.*
The memorable fight of the Liberal party against
the bUl greatly influenced pubhc opinion and
forced the Govemment to make many important
amendments. The enfranchisement of the Indians
of Manitoba, the Territories, and British Colum
bia was prevented. The income franchise and the
property qualifications were reduced. Wage-earners
were enfranchised. The right of appeal from
revising barristers to judges was secured. The
principle of uniformity of franchise for aU the
provinces was abandoned by the authors of the
measure from the sheer impossibUity of giving
effect to their chief argument for its necessity. In
operation the Act infhcted grave injustice upon
the Liberal party, and enormously increased the
cost and labour of pohtical contests. Time and again,
1 Hansard, AprU 17th, 1885.
424

THE BATTLE FOR PROVINCIAL RIGHTS
owing to the great outlay the system imposed upon
pohtical candidates and their agents, its operation
was suspended, and it became necessary to use hsts
two, three, and even four years old for the purposes
of bye-elections. It was never a popular measure,
even with the masses of the Conservative party,
and more than once influential Conservatives joined
in the demand for its repeal. It was one of the first
of the abuses to be struck down by the Laurier
Administration, and not even the Senate could be
persuaded to destroy the Act which decreed its
abohtion. Thus the last of aU that series of meas
ures designed by Sir John Macdonald to circum
scribe the functions of the Legislatures and degrade
the provincial authority joined its predecessors in
the common grave of unconstitutional, impracti
cable, and undesirable enactments.

425

CHAPTER XVI
THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
IT wiU be remembered that the amnesty granted
to Louis Riel by the Mackenzie Government
was conditional upon five years' banishment from
the soil of Canada. In consequence of this sentence
he had settled in Montana; but few in older Canada
understood how much his name was stiU cherished
by the half-breeds of the West, or had any adequate
conception of the conditions which were slowly
breeding the temper of revolt in the Metis, and
surely threatening the peace of the country. Under
the Manitoba Act there was granted to every half-
breed born in the province before JiUy 1st, 1870,
240 acres of land in extinguishment of the Indian
title. No provision, however, was made for the half-
breeds of the Territories, and it was natural that they
also should demand free homesteads and look for as
favourable treatment as was extended to the Metis
of Manitoba.
As early as 1875 they petitioned for such recog
nition. As the years passed their surroundings grew
more unsatisfactory and their demands more urgent.
From the first their claim was strongly supported
by the North-West CouncU. It was represented by
the CouncU that in view of the Manitoba grants
427

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
there would be general dissatisfaction among the
half-breeds of the Territories if they did not receive
like consideration. Grants of land were therefore
recommended, subject to such conditions as would
prevent improvident alienation and secure the
permanent interest of the half-breed settlements. It
is clear that the argument for provision for the
half-breeds of Manitoba was equaUy applicable
to the half-breeds of the Territories. Settlement
was extending westward. The buffalo had disap
peared. Conditions of hfe on the plains were revo
lutionized. The Indians were settled on reserves,
and guaranteed treaty payments. AU the circum
stances made prompt and adequate measures for
the satisfaction of the half-breed demands an im
perative national obhgation. This would seem to
have been the view of Sir John Macdonald, who
had taken charge of the Indian department upon
the defeat of the Mackenzie Govemment. He
instructed Col. Dennis, the chief officer of the
department, to make an investigation and report
upon the claims and circumstances of the half-breed
population. Col. Dennis's report gave unequivo
cal support to the petitions of the Metis and the
representations of the North-West CouncU. The
half-breeds, he said, had a claim to favourable con
sideration. There was uneasiness in consequence of
the non-recognition of their demands. It was im
portant to have that element of the population in
sympathy with the Government when deahng with
428

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
the Plain tribes of Indians, and essential to cultivate
and maintain such relations with both half-breeds
and Indians as would attach them to Canada, and
leave no doubt of the determination of the Govem
ment to fulfU its obligations towards them with the
utmost good faith. Bishop McLean of the Anghcan
Church in the Territories strongly recommended a
pohcy of concihation.* Col. Richardson pointed out
that the former occupation of the half-breeds was
gone, and that they were as a class destitute and
scattered among the Indians.^
Archbishop Tachd, of St. Boniface, represented
that a hberal pohcy towards the half-breeds wotdd
attract to the side of the Govemment a moral and
physical power which in the critical relations of the
various Indian tribes towards each other and to
wards the Government would prove of great value;
whUe the half-breed element, if dissatisfied, would
become a standing menace to the peace and pros
perity of the Territories. He declared that it was
largely owing to the influence of the half-breeds
that we had encountered no formidable difficulties
in dealing with the Indians. But with the disap
pearance of the buffalo, and the extension of settle
ment into the Indian country, the danger of Indian
disturbances became imminent. It would now depend
in a great measure on the treatment the half-breeds
received whether or not this great peril could be
1 Letter of January 18th, 1879.
' Letter of January 18th, 1880.
429

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
averted.* Both Col. Dennis and the Archbishop
urged that the half-breed claims should be settled
without further delay. Accordingly, in 1879, an
Act was passed authorizing the Govemment to
make such grants of land, and on such conditions as
was thought expedient, to the half-breeds of the
Territories in satisfaction of their claim for the
extinguishment of the Indian title.
Thus far, as Mr. Blake said, the Government
acted promptly and judiciously. But here action
ceased. Here the energy of Ministers was exhausted.
No step was taken under this legislation, and
absolutely nothing done to investigate and satisfy
the claims of the half-breeds untU they broke out
into actual revolt six years later. Time and again
the Metis renewed their petitions. Time and again
the North-West Council passed resolutions in sup
port of their demands. Time and again bishops and
clergy pleaded for action at Ottawa, and urged the
dangers of delay. Ministers and officers of the
Government passed up and down the West and
heard the bitter story of the Metis grievances,
and — ^forgot. At Qu'AppeUe in 1884, Sir Hector
Langevin received a deputation of these people,
heard their complaint at first hand, and promised
attention and consideration. The Toronto Mail, stiU
the organ of the Administration, assessing responsi
bility upon the Mackenzie as well as upon the
1 Letter of Archbishop Tache to Col. Dennis, Deputy Minister of the
Interior, January 29th, 1879.
430

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
Macdonald Government, declared later that the
negligence of the officials was "gross and inex
cusable, and contributed to bring about the insurrec
tion." "Had they," said The Mail, "had votes hke
white men, or if hke the Indians they had been
numerous enough to command respect and over
come red tape, without doubt the wheels of office
would have revolved for them, but being only half-
breeds they were put off with an eternal promise
untU patience ceased to be a virtue."* As in Mani
toba in 1869, the work of the Dominion surveyors
gave spur to the fear and irritation of the Metis.
According to their custom they had settled along
the rivers. Each farm had a narrow water frontage
and extended far back in the form of a paraUelo-
gram. The Govemment system of surveys divided
the country into square blocks, and thus rearranged
and practicaUy destroyed the Metis' holdings. This
undoubted grievance, added to the failure to secure
free homesteads, drove them to the verge of des
peration, and at length led to Riel's recaU from
Montana. Col. Geo. T. Denison, in his interesting remi
niscences of soldiering in Canada, deals in blunt
and straightforward fashion with the Government's
responsibihty for the subsequent outbreak. He de
clares that the rebelhon was caused by "a re
markable instance of departmental inefficiency and
stupidity." He describes the location of the half-
1 Editorial in the Toronto Mail, July 8th, 1885.
431

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
breeds on the south branch of the Saskatchewan
River, near Prince Albert, and explains that some
had hved in the neighbourhood for many years,
while others had gone in from Fort Garry during
the years foUowing the Red River rebelhon. Their
farms were laid out and fenced, their houses built,
and the community enjoying comfort and pros
perity, when the Government surveyors appeared
and proceeded to survey the land according to the
uniform plan adopted in the unsettled prairies.
Then the half-breeds took alarm. They pleaded
and protested. The danger, impohcy, and injustice
of the proceeding was urgently represented to the
department at Ottawa. But aU without avaiL As
Col. Denison says : " One can easUy understand
the horror of the officials of the Department of the
Interior at the suggestion that their uniform sys
tem of survey should be varied in the shghtest
degree. Such a breach of red tape regulations could
not even be considered, so the complaints became
more numerous and the department more obstinate.
The months went on, nothing was done, and mut
tering threats were heard."
Mr. Charles Mair, one of the originators of the
Canada First movement, had hved for some years
at Prince Albert. He knew the temper of the
half-breeds, and saw that rebeUion was certain if
their claims were not recognized. " For two years
or more before the outbreak," Col. Denison pro
ceeds, "he had come aU the way from Prince
432

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
Albert to Ottawa, about 2,000 miles, of which 250
miles were traveUed by waggon traU, to impress
upon the Government the danger. He came about
every six months, and was in the habit of staying a
day or two with me on his way to Ottawa and on
his way back. He told me each time he went
down that there would be trouble; each succeeding
visit he became more and more alarmed. He begged
of the Government to make some concessions and
warned them that there would be bloodshed." On
one occasion he visited Ottawa at the head of a
deputation from Prince Albert, and secured an
interview with Sir John Macdonald, and also with
Sir David Macpherson, who had succeeded to the
office of Minister of the Interior. With fuU know
ledge of the local conditions, and animated by no
other object than to promote the contentment of
the half-breeds and the security of the settlers, they
laid aU the facts before the Ministers, and urged
prompt and adequate measures of concession and
concUiation. Sir John Macdonald, at least, was
impressed by their representations. He gave the
deputation a patient and sympathetic hearing, and
asked to have a written statement of the facts
furnished for the consideration of the Government.
Col. Denison says "Mair went back on that oc
casion more hopeful." But six months passed and
nothing was done. In AprU, 1884, Mair came down
once more and made a further appeal to the Gov
emment. Col. Denison continues : " When he
433

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
returned to Toronto from Ottawa he told me most
positively that there would be a rebeUion, that the
officials were absolutely indifferent and immovable,
and I could not help laughing at the picture he
gave me of Sir David Macpherson, a very large,
handsome, erect man of six feet four inches, getting
up, leaving his room, and walking away down the
corridor, while Mair, a short, stout man, had almost
to run alongside of him, as he made his final appeal
to preserve the peace and to prevent bloodshed."
Mr. Mair was then so thoroughly convinced that
a rising was inevitable that he bought a house at
Windsor, returned to Prince Albert, closed out his
business, and in the month of September brought his
family down to Ontario to await in safety the rebel
hon that he so clearly foresaw, and which a fatuous
Administration would not hft a finger to avert.
Not even yet, however, would Mair abandon his
effort to rouse the Govemment to the necessity for
remedial measures. In December he visited Ottawa
once again, and made a final earnest but ineffectual
attempt to open the eyes of Ministers to the immi
nent peril of insurrection which threatened the
peace of the western country. Col. Denison satiri-
caUy observes: "As he had no interest in the matter
in dispute, and was anxious simply that there should
be no disturbance, his representations should have
received some attention, but I suppose it would
have been unconstitutional for a Government to
act upon the verbal report of an outsider. There
434

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
would be nothing to tie up neatly with red tape,
and docket and file away in a pigeon hole."* These
facts, as disclosed by Col. Denison, furnish, per
haps, the most conclusive evidence that has yet
appeared in demonstration of the Government's
responsibihty for the North-West RebeUion. Noth
ing that was charged against the Administration by
the spokesmen of the Liberal party, and nothing that
the official documents reveal, more utterly con
demns the Ministers who had the peace of the
country in their keeping, or goes further in miti
gation and justification of the leaders of the in
surrection. Mair was neither a pohtician nor an
agitator, and Col. Denison is an unprejudiced wit
ness.^ It was under such circumstances, and as a last
resort, that a deputation from the half-breeds of the
St. Laurent settlement undertook a weary foot-
journey of 700 mUes into Montana, and persuaded
Riel to return to Canada and lead the agitation for
redress of their grievances and effectual recognition
^"Soldiering in Canada," by Lieut. -Col. Geo. T. Denison, pages
261-264. ^ "The whole dispute was over some 40,000 or 50,000 acres of land,
in a wilderness of tens of millions of acres, for which the Government
were crying for settlers. It cost Canada the lives of two hundred of
her people, the wounding of many others, the expenditure of about
$6,000,000 in cash, and the losses of time and business that cannot be
estimated. When it was all over, the Government offered free to the
volunteers 1,800,000 acres of the land, if they wanted it to settle on ;
and yet the whole dispute was mainly about some red tape regulations
as to surveying some forty or fifty thousand acres of land on which
435

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
of their demands. This deputation comprised James
Isbester, Gabriel Dumont, Moise OuUette, and
Michel Dumas. Riel seems to have yielded readUy
to the prayer of the deputation. He set up a
partnership in their grievances. He told them that
he was himself entitled to land of which he had
been deprived by the Canadian Government, and
that his claim was stiU vahd notwithstanding the
fact that he had become an American citizen. He
returned with the deputation, and at once entered
upon an active organization of the half-breeds and a
vigorous assertion of their demands. At a meeting
held at St. Laurent in September, a BiU of Rights
was formulated. This comprehensive and extrava
gant instrument demanded : (1) The sub-division into
provinces of the North-West Territories; (2) such
grants of lands for the half-breeds of the Territories
as those of Manitoba had received; (3) the immedi
ate issue of patents to the colonists in possession;
(4) the sale of half a miUion acres of land and the
apphcation of the proceeds thereof to the estabhsh-
people were already settled. It is not often a country suffers so severely
and so unnecessarily. . . . The volunteer corps aU over the country
were volunteering their services, and using every effort to be sent up
to the North-West. Several of my officers came to me and asked me if
I had volunteered the services of the corps. I said, 'No, I had not.'
They asked me if I would not do so. I refused for two reasons, — partly
because a large force was being sent to crush a few people who had
been wronged and practically goaded into rebeUion, but my main
reason was that if they thought I wanted to go they would certainly
not send me. I also said that an officer should wait for his orders." —
"Soldiering in Canada," by Lieut. -Col. Geo. T. Denison, pages 266-266.
436

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
ment in the half-breed settlements of schools and
hospitals, and to the equipment of the poorer half-
breeds with seed-grain, and implements; (5) the
reservation of a hundred townships of swamp-land
for distribution among the chUdren of half-breeds
for four succeeding generations; (6) a grant of at
least $1,000 for the maintenance of an institution
to be conducted by the nuns in each half-breed
settlement; and (7) better provision for the support
of the Indians.
The demands covered by the second and third
paragraphs were supported by Bishop Grandin of
St. Albert, and by the mass of the Enghsh-speak
ing settlers; and whUe other paragraphs of the
resolution set up extraordinary claims, and one at
least was dehberately designed to make mischief
among the Indians, there is hardly any doubt that
the prompt concession of free homesteads and the
issue of patents to half-breeds in legitimate pos
session of holdings would have completely broken
down the agitation, and left Riel disarmed and
impotent to disturb the peace of the Territories.
Riel assured Archbishop Tachd that he would
employ only constitutional rneans in order to
secure a satisfactory adjustment of the half-breed
claims by the federal authorities. But his bearing
was forward and insolent. He resorted to menace
and intimidation. His whole attitude was calculated
to ahenate pubhc sympathy and obscure the sub
stantial merits of the cause committed to his
437

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
guardianship. As yet, however, he had counseUed no
irremediable step, and it was stiU open to Ministers
to take action under the legislation of 1879, and
concede the measure of consideration to which the
Metis were indubitably entitled. But the wheels
of office would not revolve; Ministers and officials
remained dumb, unresponsive, and inactive; and
at last on March 26th, 1885, the suUen and des
perate haU'-breeds forsook prayers, petitions, and
remonstrances, and broke out into open revolt.
In anticipation of trouble, the mounted pohce
force at Prince Albert was strengthened, a detach
ment was posted at Carlton, and 200 men of all
ranks were distributed between Battleford, Carlton,
Prince Albert, and Fort Pitt. It was reported from
Carlton on March 10th that the half-breeds at Duck
Lake and Batoche were organizing to stop the in
going of supphes. On the next day, twenty-five
pohce and a seven-pounder gun were ordered to
proceed from Battleford to Carlton; whUe on the
morning of March 18th, ninety men started out
from Regina for the centre of disaffection. On
March 17th, a meeting of half-breeds was held at
St. Laurent, at which a provisional Government
was formed, with Louis Riel as President, and
Gabriel Dumont as Adjutant- General. This Gov
ernment proceeded to seize stores, take prisoners,
and terrorize the district. Riel demanded the un
conditional surrender of Carlton, and in case of
refusal threatened a war of extermination. The
438

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
Duck Lake Post, with aU the Government and
Indian supphes therein, was captured by the in
surgents. In an attempt to recover the post and to
secure the arms and ammunition, a detachment of
pohce and a company of Prince Albert volunteers
were routed by a superior force of half-breeds and
Indians. Twelve of the pohce and volunteers were
kiUed, and as many wounded.
The news of this disaster created intense excite
ment throughout the country, and moved the
Government to prompt and vigorous measures for
the suppression of the revolt. The 90th battalion of
Winnipeg was started for the front with admirable
despatch, and the caU which went out to the volun
teers of the older provinces was answered with an
enthusiasm and patriotic ardour which revealed an
unsuspected intensity and unity of national feeling.
In Quebec as in Ontario, the troops got into march
ing order with splendid alacrity. Their departure
for the West evoked extraordinary demonstrations
of popular enthusiasm. On the north shore of Lake
Superior the men had to cross over 100 mUes
of uncompleted sections of the railway in sleighs
and flat-cars during the bitter weather of March
and early AprU, and the spirit and endurance they
manifested under the trying circumstances were but
typical of their admirable bearing and behaviour
aU through the campaign. It may seem now that
the country made very formidable preparations
against a few hundred, or at most a few thousand
439

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
half-breeds. But it was not fear of the half-breeds
that sent the shock of alarm throughout Canada. It
was the knowledge of the great influence the half-
breeds exercised over the Indians, and the danger
of a sympathetic Indian rising, which gave the in
surrection its formidable aspect, and made it the
imperative duty of the Government to send out a
force far beyond the needs of the moment.
Older Canada, indeed, was fiUed with wild ru
mours and alarming speculations. As early as March
13th, Superintendent Crozier of the Mounted Pohce
had wired, — " Troops must be largely reinforced; if
half-breeds rise, Indians wUl join them." We heard
later that Riel had an army of 1,500 men and six
American cannon. As it fortunately transpired, Riel
had neither the men nor the cannon, and there was
no extensive Indian rising. But there was ground
for the more serious apprehensions. If Riel had
gained any material successes after the engagement
at Duck Lake, it might have been difficult to keep
the Indians under control. As it was, Poundmaker 's
tribe attacked the fort and plundered the stores at
Battleford, while Big Bear's braves massacred a
group of settlers at Frog Lake, and burned and
ravaged aU along the North Saskatchewan. The
first engagement of the troops under General Mid-
dleton was fought at Fish Creek on April 24th.
The half-breeds were driven out of their rifle pits,
and utterly routed. The loss among the federal
troops was 6 kiUed and 40 wounded out of 350
440

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
actively engaged. On April 25th Battleford was
reheved. On May 1st a stern engagement was
fought with Poundmaker's Indians at Cut Knife
HiU. The result was effective if not decisive. On
May 2nd the relieving column reached Edmonton.
From May 9th to May 12th the decisive battle
was fought at Batoche with losses to the half-breeds
of 51 kiUed and 173 wounded, as against losses
of 8 kUled and 43 wounded among General Middle-
ton's forces. These movements were carried out
under various officers, covered a wide extent of
territory, and involved long and heavy marches by
the pohce and volunteers engaged, and necessitated
much endurance, hardship, and sacrifice. But the
faU of Batoche and the capture of Riel practicaUy
ended the campaign. On May 24th Poundmaker
and his Indians, with about 150 half-breeds, sur
rendered to General Middleton at Battleford. Big
Bear, who fled north before Middleton, released his
prisoners, and was finaUy captured on July 2nd in
the neighbourhood of Carlton. At the close of the
rebeUion there were seventy-three prisoners in the
hands of the Canadian authorities. Many of these
were discharged and others acquitted. Jackson of
Prince Albert, who had acted as Riel's secretary,
was found to be insane and sent to the Selkirk
Asylum, whence he escaped to the United States.
Big Bear, Poundmaker, and various Indians and
half-breeds who had been active in the insurrection,
were sentenced to fitting terms of imprisonment. 441

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Eight of the Indians convicted of the murders at
Frog Lake and elsewhere, were hanged at Battle
ford. Three who had received death sentences
escaped with life imprisonment.
Riel was indicted for high treason, tried at
Regina, and found guilty. The plea of insanity set
up by his counsel was not entertained. After the
Court had received the verdict, one of the jurors
intimated that he had been asked by his feUows to
recommend the prisoner to the mercy of the
Crown, and Mr. Justice Richardson, before whom
he was tried, duly forwarded the recommendation
to the federal authorities. Riel was sentenced to be
hanged on September 18th, and on appeal taken to
the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba, the
judgment was confirmed. It was then sought to
appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council, but leave to prosecute the appeal was
denied. He was, however, reprieved from Septem
ber 18th to October 16th, again to November 12th,
and yet again to November 16th in order that his
mental condition could be considered by medical
experts. But at length aU pleas, protests, and repre
sentations were exhausted, and with calmness and
fortitude he met his death on the gaUows in the
yard of the Mounted Pohce Barracks at Regina.
The medical evidence discredited, or at least did
not support the theory of insanity. Dr. Jukes, senior
surgeon of the Mounted Pohce, who attended Riel
during his imprisonment at Regina, said : " I cannot
442

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
escape the conviction that except on purely religious
questions relating to what may be called divine
mysteries, he was, when entrusted to my care, and
stiU continues to be, sane and accountable for his
actions. ... I therefore record my opinion that,
with the reservation above made, Riel is a sane,
clear-headed, and accountable being before God and
man." Dr. Valade, Government analyst of Ottawa,
reported to the authorities that while Riel suffered
under hallucinations on pohtical and religious ques
tions, on other points he was quite sensible; and Dr.
LaveU, warden of Kingston Penitentiary con
cluded that although Riel held and expressed
pecuhar views as to religion and general govern
ment, he was an accountable being, and capable of
distinguishing right from -wrong. Dr. Wallace,
superintendent of the Hamilton Asylum, in giving
evidence at the trial, said he could distinguish no
evidences of insanity, while Dr. Roy, of the Beauport
Asylum, testified that Riel had been confined in
that institution for nineteen months in 1877 and
1878, and that he was satisfied that his insanity had
returned. Dr. Daniel Clark, superintendent of the
Asylum for the Insane at Toronto, who also gave
evidence at the trial, dealt at some length with Riel's
mental condition in a letter pubhshed by the Toronto
Gbbe a few weeks after the execution. He said:
" I spoke to some of the half-breeds who were in
aU his fights, and they said positively that Riel was
apparently rational enough imtU the Duck Lake
443

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
fight, and that after the excitement of that fight he
seemed to have changed entirely and become a
rehgious fanatic; he organized no opposition, did
no fighting, but was looked upon as inspired — ^ran-
ning about with a crucifix and caUing upon the
Trinity for aid. The organizers of the avowed op
position were Dumont and Dumais. On the ques
tion of the previous history of Riel the defence
was particularly weak in some strong points which
would have told for Riel. There was evidence in
existence of his having been committed legaUy to
an asylum in Washington, also of his having been
committed legaUy to Longue Pointe, Montreal, but
no evidence was given except in the case of the
Beauport asylum at Quebec. . . . My statement at
the trial was to the effect that from the evidence I
would consider him insane, but that I was not
prepared to say so from my short examination. I
watched him closely after this time during the
trial, and had another interview with him. I heard
him address the jury, and saw a number of letters
he wrote, which he had no idea would be made
pubhc. All these examinations convinced me that
had he been an obscure man there is not an asylum
in Christendom but would have committed him on
the evidence, and legally so; but because he had
been the indirect cause of a deplorable outbreak, his
mental condition became of secondary importance,
as pohtical exigencies arose paramount."*
1 Toronto Globe, January 18th, 1885.
444

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
In a further communication to The Globe three
days afterwards, he added: "I never dreamed that
Riel would be executed, knowing so much uncer
tainty existed in respect to his mental state, and
seeing that one speciahst stated he was insane, and
one swore to his insanity."
During the progress of the rebeUion the Liberal
party in the House of Commons acted with moder
ation and patriotism. Even in Quebec the agitation
against the Government did not get quite out of
hand. It was recognized that law and order must
be vindicated, the safety of the Western settlers
secured, and the Indians kept in subjection; and
that under such circumstances to embarrass the
Administration and turn the high court of Par
hament into a forum for useless and dangerous
agitation would be very hke treason to the Con
federation. But the moment the insurrection was
put down, the Liberal leaders regained their free
dom of action, and proceeded to estabhsh the Gov
ernment's responsibihty for the outbreak, and to
hold the guUty and neglectful Ministers to account.
In the Quebec Legislature a mischievous and
premature resolution of censure on the federal
authorities was offered during March, and was
hotly debated whUe the French Canadian regi
ments were on their way to the front to aid in
suppressing the revolt. This resolution declared
that the Legislative Assembly had learned with
the deepest regret of the unfortunate events which
445

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
had occurred in the North-West, but could not
approve of the settlement of the disturbance by
force of arms and bloodshed. It aUeged that the
rising was caused by faUure to settle the equitable
claims of the half-breeds and by the neglect and
incapacity of the federal authorities. It held the
Government to account for the blood which had
been shed in the quarrel, and particularly denounced
the culpable neglect of the Minister of the Interior
and the incapacity of the Minister of Mihtia. It
urged the Lieutenant Governor in Council to con
sider the advisability of recommending a vote of
money to assist the famihes of the volunteers, and
asked to have a copy of the address sent to the
Secretary of State for the Dominion. Only fifteen
out of fifty-six votes were cast for the resolution.
But the division represented the pohtical alhance
between the provincial Govemment and the federal
authorities rather than the sentiment of the Legis
lature or of the province. The tide of sympathy for
Riel and the half-breeds rose steadUy higher in
Quebec, and soon swept aU other issues into the
back-ground. The provincial Govemment sought,
and sought wisely, to avoid entanglement in the
question, while many of the Liberal politicians and
journals strove to excite the prejudices and inflame
the passions of the people against the leaders of the
Conservative party, ahke in provincial and in fed
eral politics, and to burn up all other issues in the
popular wrath over the execution of Riel and the
446

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
Government's long and stubborn neglect of the
western half-breeds.
Mr. Honord Mercier was then the leader of the
Liberal party in Quebec. No more brilhant figure
has ever passed across the stage of Canadian politics.
He was a man of great personal fascination, ardent,
persuasive, bold and resolute. He could move and
mould a Quebec audience to his will with a skill
and power that even Mr. Chapleau never surpassed.
In other days he could have made revolutions.
In his less responsible moments there was even the
hint of revolution in some of his more inflammatory
appeals to the Quebec Nationalists. If he had used
his great powers and engaging quahties to impose a
moderate, conservative, and economical programme
upon his province, he had gifts and capacities to
serve Quebec and Canada which few of our states
men have possessed. But he did not exercise that
control over himself or his Administration which a
proper recognition of his duties and responsibilities
demanded; and consequently his ascendancy in
Quebec was often a cause of uneasiness to the
Liberals of the other provinces, while his ultimate
pohtical downfall and untimely death have all the
aspects of a tragedy. It may be that hke many
other men of equal faults and follies he would have
redeemed his career if he had lived, done useful and
enduring work for his province and his country, and
filled a more luminous chapter in Canadian history.
The execution of Riel was the signal for a
447

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
supreme attack upon Sir John Macdonald and his
French Ministers, and for the precipitance of an
agitation which absolutely revolutionized political
conditions in Quebec. Two days before the death-
sentence upon Riel was carried into effect, sixteen
or seventeen of the French Conservative members
of the House of Commons united in a telegram to
Sir John Macdonald in which they declared that,
"Under the circumstances, the execution of Louis
Riel would be an act of cruelty, for which we
dechne to be responsible." There is no doubt
that up to this time the agitation among the
Conservatives of Quebec was secretly encouraged
by the French Ministers at Ottawa, who hoped
through pressure of Quebec opinion to save Riel
from the gaUows. A few days after Riel's death
a great meeting was held on the Champ de Mars
at Montreal, at which speeches were made in
strenuous denunciation of the execution, and in
terms of unmeasured condemnation of the federal
Govemment. Among the speakers were Mr. Laurier
and Mr. Mercier, as representing the Liberal party,
and Mr. C. J. Coursol and Mr. Alphonse Des
jardins, both supporters hitherto of Sir John
Macdonald, and influential leaders in the Conserva
tive party of Quebec. The resolutions which the
great meeting adopted with wild enthusiasm de
clared that the half-breeds, both French and English,
had grievances which were the occasion of the
political offence for which their chief was executed;
448

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
that civUized nations had practicaUy abandoned
capital punishment for political offences ; that Riel
had been recommended to the clemency of the
court by jurymen of a different race and creed
from his own, and therefore clemency should have
been exercised; that as three respites had been
granted and the execution thrice postponed, this
duty became all the more imperative; that the
Govemment had made of the execution a simple
subject of election calculations, and had cooUy com
puted how many seats would be won by hanging
Riel, and how many lost by a pohcy of clemency
and justice ; that in giving effect to its calculations
it had sacrificed Riel to the hatred of fanatics and
allowed them to stir up against one another the
different races who in this country hved together
under the protection of the British flag; that in
executing Riel the Govemment of Sir John Mac
donald had committed an act of inhumanity and
cruelty unworthy of a civihzed nation, and deserved
the condemnation of aU friends of right and justice
without distinction of race or religion; that the con
sent given by Sir Hector Langevin, Sir Adolphe
Caron, and Mr. Chapleau to the execution consti
tuted a betrayal of their trust, and specially de
served the reprobation of all the citizens of Quebec;
that it had become the duty of the electors of each
constituency to exact from its representative in the
House of Commons a formal pledge to defeat the
Govemment of Sir John Macdonald by every
449

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
constitutional means at their command ; and that the
circumstances demanded that aU divisions of pohti
cal parties, of races, and of creeds be put aside, and
that aU men who were so disposed, whatever might
have been their former differences of opinion, should
unite to accomphsh the objects set forth in the
resolutions, — ^in other words, to overthrow the Mac
donald Government.
These resolutions were adopted by many munici
pal councils and many pubhc meetings throughout
Quebec, and naturaUy the inflammatory utterances
of the press and of many of the pohticians of the
French province nourished the counter-agitation in
Ontario. For a time all that was done for national
consohdation by the blood and sacrifice of the
soldiers on the plains of the West, threatened
to be undone by the warfare of the pohticians and
the intense racial antagonisms which the situation
developed. The Toronto Mail gave energetic voice
to the dominant opinion of Ontario. In a series of
striking and vehement articles it squarely and de
fiantly chaUenged the position of the politicians of
Quebec. It even declared that it would be better
that Confederation should be smashed into its origi
nal fragments than that the country should eternaUy
submit to the dictation of the French provuice.*
1 We chaUengethe press of Quebec and Montreal to point to a wrong
wittingly done, or to name any country in the wide world where the
rights of a minority have been more conscientiously respected. As this
is a time for the plainest speaking, let us add that the sincere desire of
the English provinces to do right by Lower Canada has undoubtedly
450

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
Naturally The MaiFs utterances added fuel to the
agitation in Quebec, and as it was regarded as the
chief mouthpiece of the Government, its attitude
was resented by the French-speaking members of
the Cabinet, and it is beheved was even severely
disapproved and discouraged by Sir John INIac-
donald. It is impossible to know aU the facts that
led to the esti-angement between The Mail and the
Conservative leader, but there is at least no doubt
that from this time dated the misunderstanding
wliich was not healed while the old Conservative
statesman hved. The Mail stood its ground witiiout
flinching, passed by calculated stages into the field
of independent journalism, and remained an in
fluential factor in the pubhc hfe of the country.
The great majority of the Liberal journals and
pohticians of Ontario were slow to demand the
commutation of Riel's sentence, and distinctly hesi
tated to condemn the execution. It is perhaps not
hampered their material progress. The English-speaking majority in
the United States would never hare tolerated the demands which the
British portion of Canada has cheerfuUy comphed with, much less sub
mitted to the maintenance of those peculiar institutions which British
Canada has fostered as though they had been her own. Yet after aU our
efforts to estabhsh amicable relations with them, even at the sacrifice
of prosperity, the French Canadians are now seeking to compel us
to recognize their right to suspend the operation of the law whenever
a representative of their race is in the toils. But let us solemnly assure
them again that, rather than submit to such a yoke, Ontario would
smash Confederation into its original fragments, preferring that the
dream of a united Canada should be shattered forever, than that unity
should be purchased at the price of equality. — Editorial in the Toronto
MaU, November 23rd, 1886.
451

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
uncharitable to suggest that if his life had been
spared the Ministers would have had to meet an
attack in Ontario hardly less violent than that
which the execution brought down upon their heads
in Quebec. In fact, some of the Liberal papers
demanded the execution which they subsequently
condemned. In some of its phases there is no ugher
chapter in our pohtical history. There was over
whelming evidence to prove the Government's
responsibihty for the rebelhon. But Riel was a poor
and sordid figure to set in the forefront of the
agitation, while the violence of the attack in Quebec
reacted to the advantage of the Govemment in the
other provinces. The country did not forget that
Mr. Blake had offered a reward for the punishment
of Scott's murderers, that in past times Riel had
been treated with great leniency, that he had be
come an American citizen, and had ceased to be a
legitimate participant in the grievances of the Metis.
In fact, Riel's leadership of the revolt prejudiced
public opinion against the half-breeds, and the
defence of his record and personality by the Quebec
nationahsts could not command the hearty assent
of the masses of the English-speaking people.
Nor can it be thought that the Liberal party
occupied strong ground in seeking to prove that
Riel was insane. He was equal to the leadership of
the insurrection, and therefore fairly amenable to
the consequences of his action. It is true that his
behaviour in court at Regina was eccentric, that
452

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
his addresses to the court in his own defence,
which the judge permitted, were disconnected,
iUogical, pompous, and puerUe, that he claimed to
be " the prophet of the new world," that he had
used wUd threats against the Canadian authorities,
that he had manifested extraordinary rehgious va
garies, and composed rhapsodical rubbish in prose
and verse of mysterious purpose and texture. But
the evidences of insanity were not obtrusive untU
his neck was in danger, and hardly survived the
conviction that his sentence would not be fuiaUy
commuted. Riel, in fact, was much more blame
worthy than the Metis who foUowed him into
revolt, and the Liberals would have done well if
they had set him in the background, refused to
make him the central figure of a separate issue,
and confined their attack to the Government's
caUous and persistent neglect to remedy the ad
mitted grievances of the Western half-breeds.
Mr. Blake was in Europe when Riel was exe
cuted, and for some time afterwards. There was
profound interest, and even some anxiety, as to the
pronouncement he would make on the execution,
and the agitation which that event had developed
in the Province of Quebec. His first utterance
on these questions was made at London on
January 14th, 1886. He told the country that he
did not propose to construct a political platform
out of the Regina scaffold, or to create or cement
party ties with the blood of the condemned. Other
453

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
features of his address, however, made it plain that he
was disposed to raise the question of Riel's mental
condition, and also chaUenge the wisdom and justice
of the execution. He deprecated inflammatory agi
tation either in Ontario or Quebec, and said: "I
hope and trust that the excitement having somewhat
abated, the further discussion in the press and among
the people may be more tranquU, that rash and
hasty language may be avoided, and that when we
meet in Parliament we may engage in the debate in
a temper and after a fashion suitable to our national
dignity and regardful of our national unity."
In the closing weeks of the session of 1885, Mr.
Blake had brought on a motion in Parhament con
demnatory of the Government's administration of
North-West affairs, and it is not too much to say
that the country was deeply impressed by the
strength and completeness of the indictment. Mr.
Blake's parliamentary career furnishes no better
iUustration of his grasp and thoroughness, and Mr.
Laurier exceUed even his chief in his eloquent, re
sourceful, and masterly arraignment of the Govem
ment. On July 6th, IMr. Blake had moved, "That in
the administration of North-West affairs by the pre
sent Government, prior to the recent outbreak, there
have occurred grave instances of neglect, delay,
and mismanagement in matters affecting the peace,
welfare, and good government of the country."
Mr. Laurier spoke in the debate in reply to Sir
John Macdonald. He produced overwhelming
454

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
evidence to prove that for years the Govem
ment had been deaf to aU petitions and re
monstrances in behalf of the half-breeds, that
their homes were invaded — ^not accidentaUy, but
dehberately — under the pohcy of the Government
for the survey of the country, and that even men
who had settied on their lands before the country
was transferred to Canada had hues run across
their fields, sphtting up farms and fields, putting
the fields on one side and the buUdings on the
other, and yet " delegation after delegation to this
Government for redress had been constantly refused
redress." He argued that Riel would have been
impotent for mischief if the half-breeds had not
had deep-seated and long-felt grievances. He proved
his point by a noble and eloquent reference to Pa
pineau. He described Papineau's wonderful power
over the people of Quebec during the struggle for
responsible govemment, and then showed how in
effective was his agitation for the repeal of the Act
of Union when the grievances of the French Cana
dians had been redressed.
Mr. Laurier's speech on this occasion is a con
spicuous and characteristic example of his oratory.
The extract we quote, fine as it is, is scarcely above
the level of the whole speech: "Few men have
there been anywhere who have wielded greater
sway over their fellow-countrymen than did Mr.
Papineau at a certain time in the history of Lower
Canada, and no man ever hved who had been more
455

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
profusely endowed by nature to be the idol of a
nation. A man of commanding presence, of ma
jestic countenance, of impassioned eloquence, of
unblemished character, of pure, disinterested pat
riotism, for years and years he held over the hearts
of his fellow countrymen almost unbounded sway,
and even to this day the mention of his name wUl
arouse throughout the length and breadth of Lower
Canada a thriU of enthusiasm in the breasts of aU,
men or women, old or young. What was the secret
of that great power he held at one time ? Was it
simply his eloquence, his commanding inteUect, or
even his pure patriotism? No doubt they aU con
tributed ; but the main cause of his authority over
his feUow countrymen was this, that at that time
they were an oppressed race and he was the cham
pion of their cause. But when the day of relief
came, the influence of Mr. Papineau, however great
it might have been and however great it stiU re
mained, ceased to be paramount."
Mr. Laurier examined into the causes of the
rebellion of 1869, and showed that then the half-
breeds had complained, first, that Canada had taken
possession of their country without respect for their
rights as a people, and secondly, that by the system
of survey the Government had invaded their actual
possessions and properties. He declared that Minis
ters had learned nothing from the deplorable events
of that period, and now by neglect, indifference, and
incurable obduracy had caused an uprising on the
456

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
Saskatchewan. He met the charge that the Mac
kenzie Government was equally indifferent to the
claims of the Western half-breeds by showing that
Mr. Laird, who was appointed Lieutenant-Governor
of the Territories by that Government, did not
reach Battleford untU 1877, and that in response to
petitions his Council recommended: "That in view
of the fact that grants of land and issues of scrip
were made to the half-breeds of Manitoba toward
the extinguishment of the Indian title to the lands
of that province, there will be general dissatisfaction
among the half-breeds of the Territories unless they
receive some hke consideration." He pointed out
that the fall of the Mackenzie Government made it
impossible for Liberal Ministers to give effect to
this pohcy, and that in 1879 the Government stUl
in office took power, and power which it failed
to exercise, to deal with the half-breeds after the
manner suggested by Mr. Laird and the North-
West CouncU. He recaUed the adAdce of Archbishop
Tachd, and declared that in faceof all the evidence,
it was his opinion that Sir John Macdonald had
refused to act because he was opposed in principle
and in practice to the extinguishment of the Indian
title in so far as it was vested in the half-breeds.
The pohcy of the Statute book, however, was that
the half-breeds were entitled just as much as the
Indians to the extinguishment of the Indian title,
although as white men they were empowered to take
compensation individuaUy instead of coUectively. 457

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
The Govemment would yield nothing except upon
compulsion. Four days after the fight at Duck
Lake, Ministers came down with an order-in-council
proposing to grant lands to the half-breeds, not,
however, in extinguishment of the Indian title, but
with conditions of settlement. Commissioners were
forthwith appointed and sent out to the disturbed
districts ; and when they advised that conditions of
settlement should not be exacted, but that special
grants should be made, as in the case of the Mani
toba half-breeds, the Govemment finally surrendered
and conceded to violence what it would not yield
to prayers, petitions, and proper constitutional
agitation. It was so also in the case of those half-breeds
who had not been enumerated in Manitoba, but
claimed the right, and doubtless had the right,
to special land grants. They had petitioned the
Government, the North-West Council had peti
tioned the Government in their behalf, and friends
of the Government in the West had petitioned, and
all without avail. But when rebellion broke out on
the Saskatchewan, Ministers came to their knees,
and again conceded to violence what they would
not concede to respectful petitions and legitimate
representations. The Government, Mr. Laurier re
marked, had not even the courage of Falstaff, who
said, "Were reasons as plentiful as berries I would
not give a reason upon compulsion."
He came next to the claim of the half-breeds
458

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
that they should not be disturbed in their holdings,
and pointed out that it was the world-wide and
immemorial custom of the French people to divide
their lands into narrow strips, and to live as close to
one another as the circumstances of the country
would aUow. This was the fashion adopted by the
half-breeds of the Saskatchewan, and he showed
that in a letter to the Lieutenant-Governor of the
Territories in 1877, the Hon. David MiUs, then
Minister of the Interior, had said: "The programme
of the special survey-party provides for the work
being extended during the coining season to inter
sect the Saskatchewan in the vicinity of the princi
pal settlements on that river. It is proposed in
aU cases where settlements have been formed along
the rivers in the territory, to adapt the surveys to
the farms as existing, that is to say, giving a
frontage often of twenty chains on the river, and
running the lots back so as to give 160 acres." This
was to recognize the form of the half-breed holdings
and avoid forcing the rectangular survey upon com
munities which had laid out their farms and estab
hshed their homes after the traditional fashion of the
French people. This policy was reversed by the Con
servative Govemment, and the system substituted
therefor was resolutely pursued in spite of petitions
and remonstrances from the half-breeds, and even
from agents of the Administration. The tyranny was
stiU practised and justice still refused. He declared
that it was not against the Queen but against the
459

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
tyranny of the Canadian Government that the
half-breeds had rebeUed, and he concluded: "This I
say, and I say it coming from a province where,
less than fifty years ago, every man of the race to
which I belong was a rebel, and where to-day every
man of that race is a true and loyal subject, as true
and as loyal as any that breathes, — I say, give these
men justice, give them freedom, give them their
rights, treat them as for the last forty years you
have treated the people of Lower Canada, and by
and by, throughout those territories you vidU have
contentment, peace, and harmony, where to-day
discord, hatred, and war are ruining the land."* This
was able and eloquent advocacy, and it can hardly
be doubted that the case which Mr. Laurier made
out against the Administiation was conclusive and
even overwhelming.
During the session of 1886, Mr. Landry, the Con
servative member for Montmagny, moved, "That
this House feels it its duty to express its deep
regret that the sentence of death passed upon Louis
Riel convicted of high treason, was allowed to be
carried into execution." In amendment Sir Hector
Langevin moved that the question be now put.
Mr. Landry protested his good faith, but the object
of the manoeuvre was very apparent. The member
for Montmagny acted in the interest if not at the
direct instigation of the Government. It was weU
understood that upon the question of the justice
1 Hansard, July 7th, 1885.
460

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
and expediency of Riel's execution there was great
diversity of opinion among Liberals, while they
were absolutely united upon the question of the
Government's responsibility for the insurrection. It
was therefore important that the Landry motion
should not be amended, and that the Liberal mem
bers of the House should be forced squarely to
condemn or approve Riel's execution. This purpose
was accomphshed by Sir Hector Langevin's amend
ment, which under the rules of Parhament shut out
any further amendment, and thus enabled the
Government to frame the indictment and narrow
the issue to the single question of the execution.
Mr. Laurier contributed to this debate one of
the most briUiant and powerful addresses he has
ever dehvered. It is a keen and searching analysis
of the Government's deahngs with the half-breeds,
and a stern arraignment of the fatuity, stupidity,
and inhumanity of its Western pohcy from the
first imwise rejection of the petitions of the Metis
down to the execution of the leader of the insur
rection. Mr. Laurier took occasion in this speech to
protest against the attacks of some of the Con
servative journals of Ontario upon the French
people of Quebec. It was not true, he said, that
"it was the present intention of the French Cana
dian leaders to organize a purely French Canadian
party, to lay aside aU party ties, and to have no
other bonds of party ui this House but the tie of
race. I protest against any such assertion. It is
461

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
calculated to do harm. It is not founded on truth.
It would be simply suicidal to French Canadians
to form a party by themselves. Why, so soon as
French Canadians, who are in the minority in this
House and in the country, were to organize as a
pohtical party, they would compel the majority to
organize as a pohtical party, and the result must
be disastrous to themselves. We have only one
way of organizing parties. The country must be
governed and can be governed simply on ques
tions of pohcy and administration, and French
Canadians who have had any part in this move
ment have never had any other intention but to
organize upon those party distinctions and upon no
other."* This was what he had said ten years before when
the Conservative leaders were striving to organize
the Cathohcs of Quebec into a sohd party ; this is
what he said ten years later when his co-rehgionists
and compatriots in Quebec were asked to condemn
his attitude on the Manitoba school question; and
this is the language he has uttered at every crisis
in the history of Confederation in which considera
tions of race and creed have inflamed the pubhc
temper, obscured the pubhc judgment, and threat
ened the disruption of the Confederation. But he
could not escape the responsibihty for intemperate
utterances in Quebec any more than Sir John
Macdonald could quite evade responsibihty for
1 Hansard, March 16th, 1886, page 176.
462

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
intemperate utterances in Ontario. In Quebec the
Conservative leader had to take the consequences
of the general character of the agitation in the
chief Enghsh province, just as Mr. Blake and Mr.
Laurier had to take the consequences of the general
character of the agitation in French Canada. Free
speech and a free press are stUl the very bulwarks
of British institutions, but sometimes these great
agencies of freedom and progress make the work of
responsible statesmen exceedingly onerous and dif
ficult. Dealing with the disputed question of Riel's
sanity, Mr. Laurier said: "That he was insane
seems to me beyond the possibility of controversy.
When the reports first came last spring and in the
early summer of his doings and sayings in the
North-West, when we heard that he was to estab
hsh monarchies in the North-West, that he was to
depose the Pope and estabhsh an American pope,
those who did not know him beheved he was an
impostor, but those who knew him knew at once
what was the matter with him. In the Province of
Quebec there was not an instant's hesitation about
it. Almost every man in that province knew that
he had been several times confined in asylums, and
therefore it was manifest to the people of Quebec
that he had faUen into one of those misfortunes
with which he was aflhcted. When his counsel
were engaged, and commenced to prepare for his
trial, they saw at once that if justice to him, and
463

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
only justice to him was to be done, their plea
should be a plea of insanity." He argued, as he had
argued on many other occasions, that for this and
other reasons the recommendation to mercy should
have been respected, and that considerations out
side the events on the Saskatchewan should not
have influenced the Govemment. "The death of
Scott," he said, " is the cause of the death of Riel
to-day;" and touching the murder of Scott he ob
served : " I must say that I have always held the
view that it was one of the most painful tragedies
that has ever occurred in the hfe of any country;
it is one of those acts for which there could be no
possible excuse, unless the excuse we now have
that the man's mind was unsound." He insisted,
however, that it was now too late to punish Riel for
that offence, and that the events of 1870 could not
now be used to justify the course of the Govern
ment. He told the House that he could not look
upon Riel as a hero. "At his worst he was a fit
subject for an asylum; at his best he was a rehgious
and pohtical monomaniac." He quoted freely from
notable historical examples to prove the unwisdom
of pohtical executions, urged the speedy release of
rebels stiU confined in North-West prisons, insisted
that the substantial reforms conceded by the Govern
ment were ample vindication of Riel and his asso
ciates, and declared, " Their country has conquered
with their martyrdom, and if we look at that one
fact alone there was cause sufficient, independent
464

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
of aU others, to extend mercy to the one who is
dead and to those who hve."*
The speech made a deep impression upon Parlia
ment and the country. Even Ministers who com
batted his arguments and rejected his conclusions
bore tribute to the charm, the eloquence, the
dignity, and the power of the address.^ The Hon.
Thos. White, then Minister of the Interior, said :
"I think it is a matter of common pride to us that
any pubhc man in Canada can make, on the floor
of Parhament, such a speech as we listened to last
night. "^ Sir Adolphe Caron said: "I think I am
expressing the opinion of all my friends, which
opinion has already been expressed by my honour
able colleague, the Minister of the Interior, in
saying that we aU feel proud in having as a member
of this House the honourable member for Quebec
East in view of the speech which he made last
night It was a speech of which I beheve I am safe
in saying any Parhament could be proud, and in
1 Hansard, March 16th, 1886, pages 175 to 185.
2 We intend no hyperbole, no exaggerated assertion, in saying that
if Mr. Laurier's noble speech of Monday night had been delivered
before a congregation of the Orange Lodges of Ontario, he would have
captured the approbation of his hearers. In saying so we do bare
justice to the Orangemen. They are often bigoted and narrow, and
generaUy intolerant. They cherish memories of old hates. Their
fentastic devotion to what they define as "loyalty" often leads them
astray. But they have free-born heart;sthat thriU to the recoUections of
the glorious days when the founders of their order stood in battle array
for hberty, and helped to beat down forever the doctrme of non-
resistance to tyranny. -Editorial in Toronto Globe, March 18th, 1886.
3 Hansard, 1886, page 191.
465

SIR AVILFRID LAURIER
discussing the question which to him, coming from
the Province of Quebec, as to me coming from the
same pro\Tnce, is one certainly which must have
appealed to his feehngs, as he showed it did during
the dehvery of that speech — I say he has conducted
the discussion in such a way as I hope wiU have a
beneficial effect upon the whole debate."* The Hon.
Edward Blake added this hearty tribute to the
briUiant performance of his deskmate : "I agree in
the observation which was thrown out from the
opposite side of the House the other day as to the
general tone and temper of the debate so far ; and I
haUed with extreme pleasure the courteous and
kindly compliments which were paid to my honour
able friend beside me by two of the Ministers, on
his speech of the other evening. It is to my mind
the crowning proof of French domination. My
honourable friend, not content with having for this
long time in his own tongue borne away the pahn
of Parhamentary eloquence, has invaded ours, and
in that field has pronounced a speech, which in my
humble judgment, merits this compliment, because
it is the truth, that it was the finest parhamentary
speech ever pronounced in the Parhament of Canada
since Confederation."^
JNIr. Laurier bore an arduous part in the campaign
which preceded the general election of 1887. He
addressed tumiUtuous and excited meetings aU
1 Hansard, 1886, page 195.
2 Hansard, 1886, page 237.
466

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
over the Province of Quebec, and spoke with Mr.
Blake at Toronto, London, Windsor, and Peter
borough, in the Province of Ontario. There were
hostile demonstrations at the London meeting, and
an unfriendly element invaded the meeting at
Toronto. But it was hard to resist the courtesy, the
patience, the manly bearing and resolute temper of
the eloquent leader of the French Liberals. On both
occasions he won at last a sympathetic hearing, and
boldly addressed to his audiences every argument in
mitigation of the conduct of the half-breeds of the
West, and in condemnation of the Govemment,
that he had used in Quebec and in Parliament. It
was at Toronto that he said : "We have learned to
love British institutions, because in British institu
tions we have found more freedom than we could
have had as subjects of France; and how many
times in that grand old city which I have the
honour to represent, looking at the banner of St.
George waving over her proud citadel, how many
times have I said to myself that that flag repre
sented the defeat of my ancestors, but at the same
time recaUed the thought that it was the flag
the most precious to the human race, the flag of
hberty." He knew that French Canadians were
reproached with havmg kept their individuality as
a race, and on that account it was charged that they
were "wanting in loyalty." "But," he said, "I fail to
see the justice of the reproach. I admit that we retain
our language, our rehgion, and our characteristics, 467

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
but I cannot see the justice of the reproach; and
more, it seems to me that we would not have
been worthy of any esteem, or of the name of
French Canadians, if we had not kept sacred
the memories of our forefathers. So I repeat,
I love England, I honour and esteem English
institutions. I do not regret that we are now
subjects of the Queen instead of France, but may
my right hand wither at my side if the memories of
my forefathers ever cease to be dear to my heart."
He added : " I am of French origin and have the
pride of my race; in pohtics I am an English
Liberal. The principles which I profess are the
outgrowth of study and reflection, and did not
come to me from the land of my ancestors. They
came to me from England, from the great mother
of modem hberty. I belong to the school of those
men who fill the pages of English history, who
always faced the great to get the right. I belong to
the school of Hampden and Pym, of RusseU and
Somers and of Burke, and of one who did not
hesitate, we read, on one occasion, to say to the
Ministers of the Crown that they had not behaved
as, they should have towards the colonies which
were then in rebeUion, and to say that they had
provoked that rebelhon, just as Ministers since have
provoked a rebelhon."*
Mr. Blake said at London that he would not
seek to make the execution of Riel a party question.
¦^ Speech at Toronto, December 10th, 1886.
468

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
But in the constituencies, if not in Parliament, a
party must accept responsibility for the policy
of its leaders. It is rarely that an independent vote
brings strength to an individual representative.
Before the country the Liberal party stood com
mitted to Mr. Blake's position on the rebeUion and
on the execution. The Government's responsibihty
for the revolt was estabhshed to the satisfaction of
the great body of Liberals in aU the provinces. But
in so far as Riel was concerned, whether the fact be
ascribed to prejudice or to dehberate, independent,
patriotic reasoning, it is stUl true that the mass of
Liberals in the Enghsh speaking provinces secretly
sanctioned, if they did not openly applaud, the
execution. Mr. Mackenzie and Sir Richard Cart
wright were not persuaded that the execution was
a mistake, and in Quebec Mr. Joly resigned his seat
in the Legislature in protest against the more
extreme features of the agitation maintained by
Mr. Mercier and his associates.*
It is hard to think that the events of the North-
West Rebellion constituted legitimate issues in the
local politics of Quebec, any more than that the
murder of Scott was a proper question to introduce
'^ Landry's motion condemning the execution of Riel was defeated by
146 to 62. Twenty-four Enghsh-speaking Reformers voted with the
majority and against Mr. Blake and Mr. Laurier. Fifteen of these
belonged to Ontario, and among them were Alexander Mackenzie, Sir
Eichard Cartwright, John Charlton, James Sutherland, Wilham
Paterson, Thos. Bain and WiUiam Mulock. Only one Enghsh-speakmg
representative from Quebec voted for the motion.
469

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
into the local politics of Ontario. But Mr. Mercier
deliberately elevated these issues above aU other
questions of pubhc pohcy, overthrew the provincial
Conservative Govemment, and up to the hour of
his dismissal from office in 1891, maintained his
alhance with the Conservative Nationalists, by
whom he was enabled to accomplish this result. In
the field of federal affairs, where the issues by which
Mr. Mercier profited were whoUy legitimate, Mr.
Blake was less fortunate, and even in Quebec the
candidates of Mr. Blake and Mr. Laurier received
much less support than the candidates of Mr.
Mercier. The tmth is that Mr. Blake and Mr.
Laurier were constitutional statesmen and unequal
to a pohcy of immoderation on any serious pubhc
question. Altogether, the Liberal party of the Do
minion reaped no substantial benefit from the
Government's deplorable mismanagement of North-
West affairs, and the agitation which swept Mr.
Mercier into office. That agitation weakened Mr.
Blake and Mr. Laurier in the Enghsh-speaking
counties, while the Cathohc bishops, who afterwards
maintained very cordial relations with Mr. Mercier,
manifested smaU sympathy with the movement
against Sir John Macdonald, and exercised upon
the whole a restraining and moderating influence.
It is true that many of the former supporters of Sir
John Macdonald were elected in Quebec on the
platform of the Opposition, but when they had
secured their seats and the Government had again
470

THE NORTH-WEST REBELLION
carried the country, they dropped back into their
old party relationships. Sir John JNIacdonald re
mained the past-master in the science of party
management. The Irish Cathohcs of Ontario were not greatly
influenced by the agitation in Quebec, nor even by
i\Ir. Blake's energetic advocacy of the cause of
Home Rule for Ireland. There has seldom been any
firm aUiance between the French Canadians of
Quebec and the Irish Cathohc element of Canada.
This is probably due, in some measure to a singular
social and racial antipathy, and perhaps also in
lesser degree to the appointment of French
bishops to Irish dioceses, and the estabhshment
of French priests in Irish parishes. It is no secret
that the Irish element feel that the French section
of the Church enjoys an undue share of clerical
patronage, and that the effect upon the relationships
of Irish Cathohcs and French Canadians is not
always salutary. In the main. Sir John Macdonald's
treatment of the Irish Cathohc minority, as also of
the French Canadians, was generous and conciha-
tory, and hence French Canadian and Irish Cathohc
Conservatives were not easUy detached from his
standard. It is due to this fact as much as to the
Franchise Act and the timely distribution of a
heavy campaign fund, that he was not beaten in
1887. If judgment had been dehvered upon the
merits of his pohcy and administration in the North-
West, not all the fiery eloquence of Mr. Chapleau
471

SIR WILFRID LAURIER
in Quebec, nor all the sohd legal skiU of Sir John
Thompson in Parhament and on the platform, nor
even his own bluff, bold, and reminiscent appeals to
the constituencies he knew so weU, could have
turned aside the nation's displeasure, and saved his
Ministry from decisive defeat.*
^ Morgan's Annual Register for 1886 has an exceUent chapter on the
North-West RebeUion.

472

3 9002