The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier Part 5

The Jesuits, or members of the Society of Jesus, do not now for the first time appear in the history of Canada. In the days of New France they had been its most intrepid explorers, its most undaunted missionaries. 'Not a cape was turned, not a river was entered,'

declares Bancroft, 'but a Jesuit led the way.' With splendid heroism they suffered for the greater glory of G.o.d the unspeakable horrors of Indian torture and martyrdom. But in the Old World their abounding zeal often led them into conflict with the civil authorities, and they became unpopular, alike in Catholic and in Protestant countries. So it happened that 'for the peace of the Church' the Pope suppressed the Society in 1773, and it remained dormant for forty years. After the Conquest of Canada it was decreed that the Jesuits then in the country should be permitted to remain and die there, but that they must not add to their {115} numbers, and that their estates should be confiscated to the Crown. Lord Amherst, the British commander-in-chief, made an unsuccessful attempt to have these estates granted to himself; but in the Crown's possession they remained, and fell to the province of Quebec at Confederation. This settlement had never been accepted. The bishops contended that the Jesuits' estates should have been returned to the Church, and the Jesuits, who had come back to Canada in 1842, a.s.serted their own rights to their ancient lands. Thus the th.o.r.n.y question as to what disposition should be made of these lands baffled the provincial authorities until 1888, when Honore Mercier, himself a pupil of the Jesuits, and now a most aggressively faithful son of the Church, grappled with the problem, and pa.s.sed an act embodying a compromise which had been found acceptable by all parties concerned.

The sum of $400,000 was to be paid in satisfaction of all claims, to be divided among the Jesuits, the Church authorities, and Laval University, in proportions to be determined by the Pope. At the same time $60,000 was voted to Protestant schools to satisfy their demands.

In Quebec the measure was accepted with little discussion. All the Protestant members {116} in the legislature voted for it. But in Ontario the heather was soon on fire. It was not merely that the dispossessed Jesuits, whom some Protestants regarded as the very symbol and quintessence of clerical intrigue, were thus compensated by the state, but that the sanction of the Pope had been invoked to give effect to an act of a British legislature. The Protestant war-chiefs, D'Alton M'Carthy, Colonel O'Brien, and John Charlton, took up the tomahawk, and called on the Dominion Government to disallow the act.

But Sir John Macdonald declined to intervene. A resolution in the House of Commons calling for disallowance was defeated by 188 to 13, the minority being chiefly Conservatives from Ontario.

In opposing the resolution Mr Laurier congratulated the Government on its tardy conversion from the vicious doctrine of centralization. The revolt of its followers from Ontario was the inevitable retribution due to a party which had pandered to religious prejudices in both provinces--due to 'that party with a rigid Protestant face turning towards the west and a devout Catholic face turning towards the east'; and which at the same time had proclaimed the right to disallow any provincial {117} act. He did not, however, base his position solely on the plea of provincial rights. In itself the legislation was just and expedient, a reasonable compromise between seriously conflicting claims. Nor would he listen to those who called upon the Liberals to emulate the Liberals of continental Europe in their anti-clerical campaigns. He preferred to take tolerant Britain as his model rather than intolerant France or Germany. Once more he declared, as he had declared in Quebec twelve years before, that he was a Liberal of the English school, not of the French.

Outvoted in parliament, the champions of militant Protestantism found strong support in the country. An Equal Rights a.s.sociation was formed to resist the danger of Catholic domination which many believed imminent. It had less influence in the politics of the Dominion than in the politics of Ontario, where Oliver Mowat was solemnly accused of having conspired with Honore Mercier to raise the Jesuits to power. It contained many able and sincere men, yet its influence soon ceased. By 1894 its place was taken by the Protestant Protective a.s.sociation, or P.P.A., a boycotting organization imported from the United States, which had a deservedly short {118} life. But, while the fires burned low in the East, the torch had been pa.s.sed on to the far West--from D'Alton M'Carthy to Joseph Martin. Of the conflagration which ensued we shall learn in a later chapter.

Men will sometimes pray, or may try to prevent others from praying as they list; but they must always eat. The pendulum of public interest swung back to trade relations with the United States. Depression still pervaded farming and manufacturing centres alike, though the abandonment of the policy of federal coercion had lessened political discontent. The return of the Republicans to power in 1888, it has been seen, appeared to put freer trade relations out of the question.

The M'Kinley tariff of 1890 slammed the door in Canada's face, for in order to delude the American farmer into believing that protection was in his interest, this tariff imposed high and often prohibitive duties on farm products.

Should Canada retaliate, or make still another effort at a reasonable arrangement with its unneighbourly neighbour? The possibility of adjustment was not as remote as might have seemed probable. After all, reciprocity is as much a protective as a {119} free-trade doctrine, since, as usually interpreted, it implies that the reduction in duties is a detriment to the country making it, only to be balanced by the greater privilege secured at the expense of the other's home market.

James G. Blaine, secretary of state in President Harrison's Cabinet, was strongly in favour of reciprocity, particularly with Latin-American countries. In the same session which saw the pa.s.sing of the M'Kinley Act, the House of Representatives agreed to the Hitt resolution, providing that whenever it should be certified that Canada was ready to negotiate for a complete or partial removal of all duties, the president should appoint three commissioners to meet the Canadian representatives, and report their findings.

This was the position of affairs when, early in 1891, Sir John Macdonald suddenly decided to dissolve parliament, in spite of an explicit promise to the contrary made a short time before. With the dissolution came an adroit attempt to cut the ground from under the feet of the Liberal party. It was a.s.serted that, on the initiative of the United States, negotiations had been undertaken to settle all outstanding disputes, and to renew the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, 'with the modifications {120} required by the altered circ.u.mstances of both countries and with the extensions deemed by the Commission to be in the interests of Canada and the United States.' This announcement greatly strengthened the Government's position. Since the United States had taken the initiative there was likelihood of a successful outcome. Many who favoured reciprocity but felt doubtful as to the political outcome of the more sweeping proposals of the Opposition were thus led to favour the Government.

The announcement proved too audacious. Secretary Blaine indignantly denied that the United States had initiated the negotiations, and Sir Charles Tupper so admitted after the elections. Mr Blaine further made it plain that no treaty confined to natural products would be entertained. In the face of this statement the Government executed another sharp turn, and appealed to anti-American sentiment and protected interests, denouncing vigorously the Opposition's policy as sure to lead to ruin, annexation, and--the climax--direct taxation.

Sir John Macdonald issued a skilful address to the electors, and the cry of 'the old flag, the old man, and the old policy' appealed to n.o.ble feelings and to deplorable prejudice alike.

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In his address to the Canadian people Mr Laurier arraigned the National Policy for its utter failure to bring the prosperity so lavishly promised. Reciprocal freedom of trade with the United States would give the larger market which had become indispensable. The commercial advantages of such a plan were so clear that they were not disputed, it was attacked entirely on other grounds. The charge that it would involve discrimination against Great Britain could not have much weight in the mouths of men whose object was to prevent the importation of English manufactures. If it did involve discrimination, if the interests of Canada and the motherland clashed, he would stand by his native land. But that discrimination was involved he did not admit.

It was not essential to a.s.similate the Canadian to the American tariff: 'Should the concessions demanded from the people of Canada involve consequences injurious to their sense of honour or duty, either to themselves or to the motherland, the people of Canada would not have reciprocity at such a price.' Direct taxation might be averted by retrenchment and revision of custom schedules. The charge that unrestricted reciprocity would lead to annexation was an unworthy appeal to {122} pa.s.sion and prejudice, and, if it meant anything, meant that it would 'make the people so prosperous that, not satisfied with a commercial alliance, they would forthwith vote for political absorption in the American Republic.'

The Government's appeal to the flag was greatly aided by some letters and pamphlets of Mr Farrer and Congressman Hitt and other leaders in the commercial union movement, which were made public and which gave colour to the cry that unrestricted reciprocity was only a first step towards annexation. It was in vain that Oliver Mowat and Alexander Mackenzie, the latter now soon to pa.s.s from the scene, voiced the deep-lying sentiments of the Liberal party in favour of British connection, and indignantly denied that it was at stake in the reciprocity issue. Sir John Macdonald's last appeal rallied many a wandering follower on grounds of personal loyalty, the campaign funds of the party were great beyond precedent, and the railway and manufacturing and banking interests of the country outweighed and outmanoeuvred the farmers. The Government was returned by a majority of thirty. In Ontario it had only four seats to the good and had a minority {123} of the popular vote, while in Quebec the Liberals at last secured a bare majority. The other provinces, however, stood by the party in power, and gave the Government another lease of life for five years.

The smoke of battle had not cleared when a remarkable letter from Edward Blake, the late leader of the Liberal party, was published. It was a curiously inconclusive doc.u.ment. It began with a scathing indictment of the Conservative policy and its outcome: 'Its real tendency has been towards disintegration and annexation.... It has left us with a smaller population, a scanty immigration, and a North-West empty still; with enormous additions to our public debt and yearly charge, an extravagant system of expenditure and an unjust tariff, with restricted markets whether to buy or to sell.... It has left us with lowered standards of public virtue and a death-like apathy in public opinion, with racial, religious, and provincial animosities rather inflamed than soothed.... It has left us with our hands tied, our future compromised.' A preference in the English market was out of the question. Unrestricted free trade with the United States would bring prosperity, give men, money, and {124} markets. Yet it would involve a.s.similation of tariffs and thus become identical with commercial union. 'Political Union,' he added in a cryptic postscript, 'though becoming our probable, is by no means our ideal, or as yet our inevitable, future.'

Mr Blake had persistently withheld his aid and advice from the leaders of the party since his resignation. His action now was resented as a stab in the back, and the implication that the Liberal policy was identical with commercial union was stoutly denied. If, as Mr Laurier had made clear in his electoral address, negotiations proved that reciprocal arrangements could not be made except on such terms, they would not be made at all. Yet the letter had undoubted force, and materially aided the Government in the by-elections.

The Government formally carried out its undertaking to open negotiations with the United States. Sir Charles Tupper, Sir John Thompson, and George E. Foster went to Washington and conferred with Secretary Blaine. But the negotiators were too far apart to come to terms, and the proposals were not seriously pressed. Later, when the tide of reaction brought the Democrats back to power in 1892, the Conservatives made no {125} attempt to renew negotiations; and later still, when the Liberals came to power in Canada, the Republicans were back in office on a platform of sky-high protection.

Meanwhile, the increase of exports of farm products to Great Britain promised the larger markets sought, and made admission to the United States of less pressing importance. When, in 1893, the Liberal party met in national convention at Ottawa, limited reciprocity, 'including a well-considered list of manufactured articles,' was endorsed, but it was subordinated as part of a general demand for a lower tariff, now again prominent in the party programme.

[1] Sir Alexander T. Galt, Sir John Rose, and Sir John Abbott.

[2] _Memoir of Sumner_, vol. iv, p. 409.

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CHAPTER VII

AN EMPIRE IN TRANSITION

The secret of empire--The old colonial system--Partner nations--Achieving self-government--Building up the partnership--The High Commissioner--New foreign problems--First colonial conference--Political federation--Inter-imperial defence--Inter-imperial trade

When Canada's problems seemed too great for her to solve unaided, many had looked to Washington for relief, in ways which have been reviewed.

Others looked to London. The relations between Canada and the other parts of the Empire did not become the central issue in any political campaign. Until late in the period now under survey they aroused little systematic public discussion. There were few acute episodes to crystallize the filial sentiment for the motherland which existed in the country. Yet throughout these years that readjustment in the relations between the colonies and the mother country, which is perhaps the most significant political development of the century, was steadily proceeding. Steadily and surely, if for the most part unconsciously, the transformation of the Empire went on, until in the following period it became a fact and a problem which none could {127} blink, and the central theme in public interest and political activity.

The story of this transformation, of how the little isles in the North Sea ventured and blundered into world-wide empire; of how at first they endeavoured to rule this vast domain in the approved fashion, for the power and profit of the motherland; of how this policy was slowly abandoned because unprofitable and impossible; of how, when this change took place, most men looked to the ending of a connection which no longer paid; of how acquired momentum and inherited obligations on the one side and instinctive loyalty on the other prevented this result; of how the new lands across the sea grew in numbers and strength and national spirit and, withal, in the determination to work out a permanent partnership on the new basis of equality--this is the most wonderful story political annals have to tell. The British Empire of to-day, tested in fire and not found wanting, is the paradox and miracle of political achievement, full of hope for the future of the rest of the world. In shaping the policy which made the continuance and growth and adjustment of the Empire possible, Canadian statesmen of both parties played a leading part. That {128} long story cannot here be told, but a few of the significant steps must be recalled, to make clear the development of yesterday and to-day.

In the expansion of Europe over all the five continents and the seven seas which has marked the past five centuries, the Englishman found a roomy place in the sun. By luck or pluck, by trusted honesty or sublime a.s.surance, and with little aid from his government, he soon outdistanced Frenchman and Dutchman, Spaniard and Portuguese, in the area and richness of the regions over which his flag floated and in which his trading-posts or his settlements were established. This empire was ruled, as other colonial domains were ruled, to advance the power and the profit of the motherland. The colonies and dependencies were plantations, estates beyond the seas, to be acquired and guarded for the gain of the mother country. They were encouraged by bounty and preference to grow what the mother country needed, and were compelled by parliamentary edict to give the mother country a monopoly of their markets for all she made. Great Britain never applied these doctrines with the systematic rigour of the Spaniard of the seventeenth century or the German of the twentieth, but monopoly of {129} the direct trade with the colonies, and the political subordination of the colonies to secure this end, were nevertheless the cardinal doctrines of imperial policy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR WILFRID LAURIER From a photograph by Topley]

Slowly this old colonial system broke down. It became impossible to keep in political subjection millions of men across the seas of the same vigorous race. This the American Revolution drove home and the Canadian insurrections of 1837 again made unmistakable. In the views of most men it came to appear unprofitable, even if possible.

Gradually the ideas of Adam Smith and Pitt and Huskisson, of Cobden and Bright and Peel, took possession of the English mind. Trade monopolies, it now was held, hampered more than they helped, even if costless. But when maintained at heavy expense, at cost of fortification and diplomatic struggle and war, they became worse than useless, a drag on the development of both colony and mother country.

So the fetters which impeded trade and navigation were discarded.

There followed, from the forties onward, a period of drift, of waiting for the coming separation. When the trade monopoly which was the object of empire ceased, most men in Britain reasoned that the end of the Empire, {130} in so far as it included colonies settled by white men, could not be far distant. Yet the end did not come. Though Radical politicians and publicists urged 'cutting the last link of connection'; though Conservative statesmen d.a.m.ned 'the wretched colonies' as 'millstones about our necks'; though under-secretaries said farewell to one 'last' governor-general after another and the London _Times_ bade Canadians 'take up your freedom, your days of apprenticeship are over'; in spite of all, the colonies lingered within the fold. Some dim racial instinct, the force of momentum, or the grip of inherited obligations, kept them together until gradually the times changed and the stage was set for another scene.

Alike in the motherland and in the colonies men had stumbled upon the secret of empire--freedom. Expecting the end to come soon, the governing powers in London had ruled with a light rein, consenting to one colonial demand after another for self-government. In these years of salutary neglect the twofold roots of imperial connection had a chance to grow. The colonies rose to national consciousness, and yet, in very truth because of their freedom, and the absence of the {131} friction a centralizing policy would have entailed, they retained their affection and their sympathy for the land of their ancestors. Thus the way was prepared for the equal partnership which it has been the task of these later years to work out.

Two lines of development were equally essential. It was necessary to secure complete freedom for the colonies, to abolish the old relation of ascendancy and subordination, and it was necessary to develop new ties and new instruments of co-operation. Nowhere in early years do we find a more nearly adequate recognition of this twofold task than in the prophetic words of Sir John Macdonald: 'England, instead of looking upon us as a merely dependent colony, will have in us a friendly nation, a subordinate but still a powerful people, to stand by her in North America in peace as in war. The people of Australia will be such another subordinate nation.... She will be able to look to the subordinate nations in alliance with her and owing allegiance to the same sovereign, who will a.s.sist in enabling her to meet again the whole world in arms as she has done before.'[1] It was Sir John also who urged that the new {132} union should be called the 'Kingdom of Canada,' a name which the British authorities rejected, ostensibly out of fear of offending the republican sensibilities of the United States.

Had that name been chosen, the equality of the status of Canada would have been recognized much sooner, for names are themselves arguments powerful with wayfaring men. Both in act and in word the Conservative chieftain oftentimes lapsed from this statesmanlike view into the prevalent colonialism; but he did much to make his vision a reality, for it was Macdonald who, with the aid of political friend and political opponent, laid the foundations upon which the statesmen of the new generation have built an enduring fabric.

The first task, the a.s.sertion of the autonomy of the Dominions, had been largely achieved. So far as it concerned domestic affairs, practically all Canadians accepted the principle for which Liberals had fought alone in the earlier days. In the thirties a British colonial secretary, replying to Howe's demand for responsible government, had declared that 'to any such demand Her Majesty's Government must oppose a respectful but at the same time a firm declaration that it is inconsistent with a {133} due adherence to the essential distinction between a metropolitan and a colonial government, and it is therefore inadmissible,' and a Canadian Tory Legislative Council had echoed that 'the adoption of the plan must lead to the overthrow of the great colonial Empire of England.' But now, since Elgin's day (1849), responsible government, self-government in domestic affairs, had been an unquestioned fact, a part of the heritage of which all Canadians, irrespective of party, were equally proud.

In foreign affairs, too, some progress had been made. Foreign affairs in modern times are largely commercial affairs. In part such questions are regulated by laws pa.s.sed by each country independently, in part by joint treaty. Complete autonomy as to the first mode was early maintained by Galt and Macdonald. In 1859 Galt affirmed the right to tax even British goods, 'the right of the Canadian legislature to adjust the taxation of the people in the way they deemed best, even if it should unfortunately happen to meet the disapproval of the Imperial Ministry.' And twenty years later, in spite of British protests, Sir John Macdonald went further in his National Policy, and taxed British goods still {134} higher to encourage production at home. The tariff of 1879 was the last nail in the coffin of the old colonial system.

Here was a colony which not only did not grant British manufacturers a monopoly, but actually sought to exclude from its markets any British wares it could itself produce.

Self-government in the regulation of foreign commercial affairs, so far as treaties were essential to effect it, came more slowly, and with much hesitation and misgiving.

Negative freedom was achieved first. After 1877 Canada ceased to be bound by commercial treaties made by the United Kingdom unless it expressly desired to be included. As to treaties made before that date, the restrictions lasted longer. Most of these treaties bound Canada to give to the country concerned the same tariff and other privileges given to any other foreign power, and Canada in return was given corresponding privileges. Two went further. Treaties made in the sixties with Belgium and Germany--history discovers strange bedfellows--bound all British colonies to give to these countries the same tariff privileges granted to Great Britain or to sister colonies.

In 1891 the Canadian parliament sent a unanimous address to {135} Her Majesty praying for the denunciation of these treaties, but in vain.

It was not until the Laurier administration had forced the issue six years later that the request was granted.

Positive freedom, a share in the making of treaties affecting Canada, came still more gradually. When in 1870 Galt and Huntington pressed for treaty-making powers, Macdonald opposed, urging the great advantages of British aid in negotiation. A year later, however, Macdonald gave expression to his changed view of the value of that aid.

As one of the five British commissioners who negotiated the Washington Treaty (1871), he declared that his colleagues had 'only one thing in their minds--that is, to go home to England with a treaty in their pockets, settling everything, no matter at what cost to Canada.' In 1874 George Brown went to Washington as one of the two British commissioners in the abortive reciprocity negotiations of that year.

In 1879 the Macdonald Government made Galt amba.s.sador at large to negotiate treaties in Europe, but he was hampered by being compelled to 'filter' his proposals through the various resident British amba.s.sadors. When in 1882 Blake moved in the House of {136} Commons a resolution in favour of direct treaty-making powers, Sir John Macdonald opposed it as meaning separation and independence, ending his speech with the declaration, 'A British subject I was born, a British subject I hope to die.' Yet action moved faster than the philosophy of action.

In 1883 Sir Charles Tupper signed the protocols of the Cable Conference in Paris on Canada's behalf; and at Madrid, in 1887 and 1889, the same doughty statesman represented Canada in the conduct of important negotiations. It was in 1891, only nine years after Sir John Macdonald's reply to Blake foreboding separation and independence, that the House of Commons and Senate of Canada, praying for the abrogation of the Belgian and German treaties, unanimously declared that 'the self-governing colonies are recognized as possessing the right to define their respective fiscal relations to all foreign nations.'

The first task had been practically achieved; freedom had been won; but it still remained to rise through freedom to co-operation, to use the newly won powers to work out a lasting partnership between the free states of the Empire. This was the harder task. There was no precedent to follow. Centralized {137} empires there had been; colonies there had been which had grown into independent states. But of an empire which was not an empire, of colonies which had achieved self-government only to turn to closer union with the parent state, the world had as yet no instance.

It had not even a model in idea, a theory of how it should be done.

Such a forecast as that already quoted from Sir John Macdonald[2] came as near as might be, but this long remained a peroration and no more.

No man and no school divined absolutely the present fact and theory of empire. It has worked out of the march and pressure of events, aided by the clash of the oppositions which it has reconciled.

In the eighties and nineties four possible futures for the Dominion were discussed. The first was the continuance of the colonial status, the second Annexation, the third Independence, and the fourth Imperial Federation. Colonialism had only inertia in its favour. Annexation ran counter both to filial sentiment and to national hopes, but its discussion served to show the desperate need of change and forced the advocates of other ideals to set forth their creeds. Independence meant {138} the complete severing of the ties which bound Canada to the rest of the Empire. Imperial Federation proposed to set up in London a new authority with representatives from all the white Dominions and with power to tax and bind. Each played its needed part. The advocates of Imperial Federation did much to prevent a drift towards Annexation which might otherwise have set in. The advocates of Independence expressed the national aspirations which must be satisfied in any solution that would be enduring. The resultant of these forces was of a character none had precisely antic.i.p.ated. Empire and Independence were reconciled.