The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier Part 2

But this prudent step did not avert the wrath of the now dominant ultramontane section. In 1873 a brief pastoral was issued by all the bishops condemning Catholic Liberalism in vague but sweeping terms.

Two years later another joint pastoral, that of September 22, 1875, went into the whole question elaborately. Catholic Liberalism, that subtle serpent, was again denounced. The right of the clergy to intervene in politics was again upheld, whether in neutral matters in which they, like all other citizens, should have a voice, or in matters affecting faith or morals or the interests of the Church. In the latter case the clergy should declare with authority that to vote in this or that way is a sin, exposing the offender to the penalties of the Church. In a letter issued a year later Archbishop Taschereau modified these pretensions, but the a.s.sault went on. Regarding the ident.i.ty of the Catholic Liberals in question both pastorals were silent, but not silent were many of the clergy who interpreted them to their flocks. The cap fitted the Liberal party and its chiefs, they averred, and good Catholics must govern themselves accordingly.

This determined attempt of a section of the {46} clergy to use the influence they possessed as spiritual guides to crush one political party aroused the most moderate sections of the Liberals to counter-attacks. The election law of Canada, copied from that of England, forbade the use of undue influence in elections, and undue influence had been said to include use by ecclesiastics of their powers to excite superst.i.tious fears or pious hopes. Baron Fitzgerald had declared in the Mayo case in Ireland, in 1857, that the priest must not use threats of punishment here or hereafter, must not threaten to withhold the sacraments or denounce voting for any particular candidate as a sin. The Liberals of Quebec had no desire to deny the priest the same rights as other citizens enjoyed, of taking part in the discussion of any political question whatever, and using all the powers of persuasion to secure this end. But, they insisted, for a priest to threaten eternal punishment was as much a case of undue influence as for an employer to threaten to dismiss a workman if he would not vote for a certain candidate, and as just a ground for voiding an election.

The matter was pressed to a decision in appeals against candidates returned in two federal by-elections, in Chambly and Charlevoix, and {47} in one provincial election, in Bonaventure. In these instances the proof of open partisanship and open use of ecclesiastical pressure was overwhelming. 'The candidate who spoke last Sunday,' declared one priest in Chambly, 'called himself a moderate Liberal. As Catholics you cannot vote for him; you cannot vote for a Liberal, nor for a moderate Liberal, for moderate is only another term for liar.' 'The Church has condemned Liberalism, and to vote against the direction of the bishops would be sin,' declared another. 'The sky of heaven is _bleu_, the fire of h.e.l.l is _rouge_,' another more pointedly urged. 'I was afraid,' one witness testified, 'that if I voted for Tremblay I should be d.a.m.ned.' In defence it was urged that, in the first place, the civil courts had no authority over ecclesiastics, at least for acts done in their spiritual capacity, and, in the second place, that the Church had a right to defend its interests against attack, and that in using to this end all the powers at its disposal it was employing no undue influence. Judge Routhier, the author of the _Catholic Programme_, upheld these contentions in the first trial of the Charlevoix case, but the Supreme Court, in judgments delivered by Mr Justice Taschereau, brother of {48} the Archbishop, and by Mr Justice Ritchie, denied the existence of any clerical immunity from civil jurisdiction, and found that the threats which had been made from the pulpit const.i.tuted undue influence of the clearest kind. Accordingly they voided the election. Their action met with violent protests from some of the bishops, who, when Judge Casault in the Bonaventure case followed this precedent, sought, but in vain, to have him removed by the Sacred Congregation from his chair in the law faculty of Laval.

But in spite of protests the lesson had been learned, and the st.u.r.dy fight of the Liberals of Quebec for the most elementary rights of a free people had its effect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOVERNORS-GENERAL OF THE DOMINION

1. VISCOUNT MONCK, 1867-68 2. LORD LISGAR, 1868-72 3. EARL OF DUFFERIN, 1872-78 4. MARQUIS OF LORNE, 1878-83 5. MARQUIS OF LANSDOWN, 1882-88 6. LORD STANLEY, 1888-93 7. EARL OF ABERDEEN, 1893-98 8. EARL OF MINTO, 1898-1904 9. EARL GREY, 1904-11 10. DUKE OF CONNAUGHT, 1911-]

It was when matters were at this acute stage that Wilfrid Laurier came forward to do for his province and his country a service which could be accomplished only by a man of rarely balanced judgment, of firm grasp of essential principles, of wide reading and familiarity with the political ideals of other lands, and, above all, of matchless courage.

Rarely, if ever, has there been delivered in Canada a speech of such momentous importance, or one so firmly based on the first principles with which Canadian statesmen too rarely concern {49} themselves, as that which he addressed to _Le Club Canadien_, a group of young Liberals, in Quebec City in June 1877.

The subject of the address was Political Liberalism. The speaker cleared away many misunderstandings. Liberalism did not mean Catholic Liberalism; it had nothing to do with opinions on religion. Nor did it mean Liberalism of the type still prevalent on the continent of Europe, revolutionary, semi-socialist, openly anti-clerical; the type which had been given brief currency by the young men of twenty who thirty years before had lent the Liberal party an undeserved reputation for anti-clericalism. No, the Liberals of Canada found their models and their inspiration in the Liberalism of England, in the men who had fought the battles of orderly freedom and responsible self-government against privilege and selfish interest. As to the Church, no true Liberal wished to deny its officers the right which every citizen enjoyed of taking a part in his country's politics; they had opposed, and would continue to oppose, every attempt of politicians in clerical garb to crush freedom of speech by spiritual terrorism. The right of ecclesiastical interference in politics ceased where it encroached upon {50} the elector's independence. Any attempt to found a Catholic party was not only a crime against the country but was bound to injure the Church itself; it would lead inevitably to the formation of a Protestant party among the majority. On individual freedom alone could a sound national political system be built up, just as on colonial freedom alone had it been possible to build up a lasting imperial system.

The speech was received with enthusiasm throughout the country. Its renunciation at once of anti-clericalism and of ultramontanism, its moderation and its fearlessness, rallied Liberalism to its true standard and marked out clearly the lines within which party and priest alike should act in the interests of church and of country. It was a master-stroke both for freedom and for harmony.

We are to-day sometimes p.r.o.ne to overlook the services of those who in England or in Canada fought for us the battles of political freedom.

We tend to forget the services of the political leaders of the thirties and forties who won freedom from cla.s.s and racial domination, the services of the leaders of the sixties and seventies who won freedom of thought and speech against heavy odds. It has taken a European war to make us realize {51} how precious are those liberties, how many great peoples are still without them, and the height of our debt of grat.i.tude alike to those who won them for us in the past, and to those who preserve them for us in the present.

A few months after this historic address Wilfrid Laurier entered the Mackenzie Cabinet as minister of Inland Revenue. He had been thought eligible for ministerial rank ever since his first entry into the House, and might have had a portfolio in 1876 had it not been that he objected to serve along with Cauchon. The appointment of Cauchon as lieutenant-governor of Manitoba now having cleared the way, Mr Laurier accepted the office and appealed to his const.i.tuents for re-election.

The tide of opinion had latterly been running strong against the Government, but the great personal popularity of the new minister was deemed an a.s.surance of victory. The Conservatives, however, threw themselves strenuously into the fight, and, much to their own surprise, won the seat by a majority of twenty-nine. The result was due in part to the over-confidence and inactivity of the Liberals, but on the whole it was the handwriting on the wall--a token of the prevailing {52} sentiment against the Government which was shortly to sweep all before it. Another seat was speedily found for the new minister, in Quebec East, and he entered upon a brief year's tenure of office. Though under no illusion as to the failing strength of the Government in the country, he loyally did his best both in the administration of his department and in the campaigning for the party until the _debacle_ came in 1878.

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CHAPTER IV

IN OPPOSITION, 1878-1887

The party leadership--Tariff and railway--Dominion and province--The second Riel rebellion

In the general election of September 1878 the Liberal party suffered not merely defeat but utter and overwhelming rout, as unexpected and disastrous as a tropical earthquake. Only five years before, Mackenzie had been swept into power on a wave of moral indignation. The Conservative leaders had appeared hopelessly discredited, and the rank and file dispirited. Now a wave of economic despair swept the Liberals out of power. Their majority of two to one in 1873 was reversed by a Conservative majority of over two to one in 1878. The defeat was not local: every province except New Brunswick went against Mackenzie.

Edward Blake, Richard Cartwright, Alfred G. Jones, and other stalwarts lost their seats, and though Sir John Macdonald suffered the same fate in Kingston, and though seats were soon found for the fallen leaders, the blow greatly damaged the prestige of the Liberal party.

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Mackenzie was stunned. To the last he had been confident of victory.

In spite of the warnings of Charlton, Cartwright, Laurier, and others, he had underestimated the impression which the campaign for protection, with its lavish promises of work and prosperity for all, made even in old Liberal strongholds. He could not believe that the people of Canada would take up the heresies and fallacies which the people of Great Britain had discarded a generation earlier. He would not believe that they were prepared to send back to power men found guilty of corruption only five years before. For these illusions he paid the penalty, in bitter regrets, in loss of touch with the party, in broken health, and at last, in April 1880, in resignation of the leadership.

Alexander Mackenzie had deserved well of Canada and of his party; but, apparently, both wanted more than the dauntless courage and the unyielding and stainless honour which were all he had to give them.

There was only one possible successor. Edward Blake had for many years been the choice of a large section of the party in Ontario, and he now became leader by unanimous vote. The new chief was a man of great intellectual capacity, of constructive {55} vision, of untiring thoroughness and industry. He stood easily at the head of the bar in Canada. His short term of office as prime minister of Ontario had given proof of political sagacity and administrative power. He, if any one, it seemed, could retrieve the shattered fortunes of the Liberal party.

Mr Laurier's position as first lieutenant for Quebec was now unquestioned. It was not a wholly enviable post. The Liberal representation from Quebec had fallen to twenty. There were few able men in the ranks. The Dorions were gone. Soon to go too were Holton and Huntington, the English leaders who formed the connecting link between the Liberals of Ontario and the French-speaking Liberals of Quebec. In the Eastern Townships John Henry Pope, that shrewdest and most pugnacious of Conservative politicians, was perfecting the organization which later made him the uncrowned king of several counties. True, Sir George Cartier, who for nearly forty years had dominated Quebec politics, was gone, but Langevin, his successor in the Conservative party, though not a strong man himself, had the clergy behind him; and Chapleau, who entered federal politics in 1882, brought a fiery eloquence to his party's aid. It was {56} clear that the young Liberal leader would have no easy task in winning his province.

Yet he was not content with provincial aims. Each year saw him more widely recognized as a man not of Quebec merely but of all Canada. The issues which arose in these trying years were such as to test to the utmost men's power to rise above local and sectional prejudices and see Canada's interest steadily and see it whole. Mr Laurier did not speak often in these early years, but when he did speak it was with increasing power and recognition. And in the councils of his party the soundness of his judgment became more fully appreciated as each of the great issues of the eighties developed.

The chief of these issues were: the Tariff, the Pacific Railway, Provincial Rights, and the troubles which arose out of the second Riel Rebellion. These may now be summarily reviewed.

Victorious on the issue of protection, the Government more than lived up to its promises in the first tariffs framed. 'Tell us how much protection you want,' Sir John Macdonald had promised the manufacturers, 'and we shall give you what you need.' And whether it {57} was cotton or sugar or furniture, needs and wants were judged to lie not far apart. Purely revenue duties on goods that continued to come in freely, purely protective duties on goods which were practically shut out, and duties which served both ends in some degree, all were advanced.

The Liberals, _ex officio_, that is, being out of office, opposed these increases one and all. Neither Blake nor Laurier, however, was an out-and-out free-trader like Mackenzie. Mackenzie had received his point of view from his British upbringing; his colleagues had been brought up on a continent where protection ruled. Blake, after a session or two, seemed content to accept the country's verdict and criticized chiefly the details of the N.P., as the National Policy of Protection to Native Industries was affectionately called by its supporters. Laurier, while admitting that in theory it was possible to aid infant industries by tariff pap, criticized the indiscriminate and excessive rates of the new tariff, and the unfair burden it imposed upon the poorer citizens by its high specific rates on cheap goods.

But in 1880, after a night of seven years, prosperity dawned in America. The revival of business in the United States {58} proved as contagious in Canada as had been its slackening in the early seventies.

The Canadian people gave the credit for the improvement in health to the well-advertised patent medicine they had taken just before the change set in; and for some years all criticisms of the N.P. were fated to fall on deaf ears.

Then came the contract for the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the tariff question was shelved. Both parties were committed to build the road to the coast. Both had wavered between public and private construction. But the Macdonald Government had now decided upon pushing the road through with all speed, regardless as to whether current revenues sufficed to build it, while the Opposition advocated a policy of gradual construction within the country's means, concurrent with a close and steady settlement of the western plains.

The Government's first plan of building the road out of the proceeds of the sale of a hundred million acres of prairie lands proved a flat failure. Then in 1880 a contract for its construction and operation was made with the famous Canadian Pacific Syndicate, in which the leading figures were a group of Canadians who {59} had just reaped a fortune out of the reconstruction of a bankrupt Minnesota railway--George Stephen, Richard B. Angus, James J. Hill, and in the background, Donald A. Smith.[1]

Under Blake's leadership instant and determined attack was made upon the bargain, in parliament, in the press, and on the platform. Blake himself moved against it a resolution of over a hundred clauses, which, as usual, exhausted the subject and left little for his lieutenants to say. Mr Laurier particularly criticized the large land-grant and the exemption from taxation. Had the policy of gradual construction been adopted, he contended, it would not have been necessary to take a leap in the dark and give the syndicate the power of a monopoly in the western country: 'there might have been fewer millionaires in this country, but there would have been many more happy and contented homes.'

The Government was, however, committed, and a party majority ratified the contract. After events justified both the policy of the Government and, to some extent, the criticism of the Opposition. Great national interests were at stake. Nothing short of an {60} all-Canadian railway could bind together the far-flung Dominion. But the building of this railway, and still more its operation, would be a task to daunt all but the most fearless, and to those who undertook it generous terms were a necessity. In their clear understanding and courageous grasp of the facts, and in their persistent support of the company through all the dark days until the railway was completed, Macdonald and Tupper and Pope deserved well of their country. Yet it is equally clear now that in many points the criticism of the Opposition was well founded. The land-grant was of least value when most needed--in the early years.

The freedom of the company to select land where they pleased gave them a mortgage on the West and power to deter possible rival roads. The exemption from taxation of the company's lands for twenty years after the issue of the patents, and of its capital stock and equipment for ever, threw unfair burdens upon the straggling settlers. Still more threatening to national unity was the monopoly clause, guaranteeing the company for twenty years against the chartering, either by the Dominion or by any province afterwards established, of any road enabling United States railways to tap western traffic.

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The issue was decided, as to any immediate effects, by the success of the Conservatives in the general elections of 1882. The country wanted the road, and as usual was not disposed to read too closely the fine print in the contract. But the matter did not end there. Each party had been led by attack and counterattack to take a stronger stand of defence or opposition than was reasonable. For another ten years the Canadian Pacific Railway remained, if not an issue in politics, itself an active partic.i.p.ant in politics. And its great weight thrown against the Liberal party turned the scales more than once.

In every federal state the adjustment of the powers of the central and of the local authorities gives occasion for much friction and difference of opinion. In Canada this adjustment, though never-ending, perhaps reached its climax in the eighties, when question after question as to the rights of the provinces came up for discussion.

We are apt to forget how recent a development the modern federal state is. Save for certain Latin-American countries, nominally federal, the Dominion of Canada is the third oldest of such states; the United States and {62} Switzerland alone are of longer standing. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and the North German Federation were formed in the same fateful year, 1867. There were, therefore, few models before the framers of the const.i.tution of Canada, and the marvel is that they planned so wisely and so enduringly.

In determining what powers should be a.s.signed to the Dominion and what to the provinces, the Fathers of Confederation were led, by the object-lesson which the Civil War in the United States afforded, to give the central government more authority. To the Dominion they a.s.signed several fields of legislation which in the Republic fell to the respective states; and the Dominion was made residuary legatee of powers not specified. The central government, too, was given a right of veto over all provincial laws and empowered to appoint the lieutenant-governors of the provinces. Had Sir John Macdonald had his way, centralization would have gone much further, for he would have abolished the provincial governments entirely and set up a single parliament for the whole country. Fortunately Cartier and Brown prevented that unwieldy experiment from being tried.

Experience has shown that the central {63} government should have full authority to deal with foreign affairs so far as they can be differentiated, and should have a wide measure of control over commerce and industry, which more and more are nation-wide in scope. But, this secured, it has been found equally essential that the provinces should be given wide power and responsibility. Fortunately Canada has only nine provinces, as against forty-eight states in the United States, so that authority is less divided here than in the Republic. In a country covering half a continent, with great diversity of climate and resources and industrial development, centralization of all power would mean the neglect of local needs and the disregard of local differences.

Particularly where, as in Canada, thirty per cent of the people differ in race and language and creed from the majority, and are concentrated mainly in a single province, the need for local autonomy as the surest means of harmony is abundantly clear.

It was in Quebec that the first issue as to provincial rights arose.

The Mackenzie Government in 1876 had appointed Luc Letellier de St Just, one of their most steadfast supporters, lieutenant-governor of that province. It was not long before political and {64} personal antagonism strained to the breaking point the relations between the Liberal Letellier and his Conservative ministers at Quebec. The neglect of the premier, M. de Boucherville, to consult Letellier before introducing some railway legislation proved the last straw, and in March 1878 Boucherville was dismissed and Henri Joly de Lotbiniere was called upon to form a Cabinet. This sudden rupture raised a storm of protest in Quebec, of which the echoes soon reached Ottawa. Sir John Macdonald, then leader of the Opposition, moved a vote of censure upon Letellier, which was defeated on a party vote. A year later, after the change of government at Ottawa, a Quebec ministerialist again moved in the House of Commons the resolution of censure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VICE-REGAL CONSORTS

1. LADY MONCK 2. LADY LISGAR 3. LADY DUFFERIN 4. THE PRINCESS LOUISE 5. LADY LANSDOWNE 6. LADY STANLEY 7. LADY ABERDEEN 8. LADY MINTO 9. LADY GREY 10. THE d.u.c.h.eSS OF CONNAUGHT]

The Liberal leaders at Ottawa were inclined to agree that Letellier had been too sensitive about his dignity as governor, and Sir John Macdonald on his part would have preferred to let the matter rest, since the elections in the province had upheld Joly, had not his Quebec supporters demanded their pound of flesh. But the const.i.tutional issue was clear, and on this the Liberals rested their case. It was for the people of Quebec, they contended, to {65} decide whether or not the lieutenant-governor had violated their liberties. If the lieutenant-governor could find ministers with a legislative majority behind them to uphold his action, there was nothing more to be said: the doctrine of ministerial responsibility covered all his acts. And this support he had found; for the Joly Government, on appealing to the people, had turned a minority of twenty into a majority of one. 'The people of the province of Quebec,' declared Mr Laurier in the Commons, 'who alone are interested in this question, have decided that in their opinion, whether that be right or wrong, the act of Mr Letellier was just and const.i.tutional.... You say No. What are you here for if you say No? If your policy had been supported by the people of Quebec, you would not now be seeking vengeance at the hands of this House.' But logic was in vain. The vote of censure carried, and Macdonald recommended to the governor-general, the Marquis of Lorne, that Letellier should be dismissed. Here again a nice question of responsibility arose. First the question had been whether the lieutenant-governor was to be guided by provincial ministers or by the federal government which appointed him. Now the problem {66} was whether the governor-general should be guided by his advisers in Canada, or by the British Government which had appointed him. With the a.s.sent of the Canadian Cabinet the question was referred to the Colonial Office. Mackenzie's protest against this colonial-minded appeal was in vain, but the upshot proved satisfactory to him. The colonial secretary replied that the lieutenant-governor was undoubtedly responsible to the governor-general for any act, and that equally undoubtedly the governor-general must act upon the advice, in this as in other matters, of his responsible ministers. The governor-general suggested reconsideration, but the Macdonald Cabinet was obdurate and Letellier was dismissed. Fortunately the precedent thus set has not been followed. The principle is now established that a lieutenant-governor may be dismissed only when he cannot find provincial ministers willing and able to support him.