The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier Part 8

In 1837 a young girl of eighteen had come to the British throne. Many had wished her well, but few had dreamed that, as the best beloved of British sovereigns, she would prove an essential factor in a great imperial movement which was to mark the close of her reign. The extraordinary length of that reign, her homely virtues, and her statesmanlike prudence had made her Queen indeed in all her vast domains and the one common, personal rallying-point for all her people.

The year 1897 marked the sixtieth anniversary of her reign, her Diamond Jubilee, which the whole Empire now planned to celebrate in fitting fashion.

The prime minister sailed for England early in June, accompanied by Madame Laurier. It was his first voyage across the Atlantic. It can be imagined with what interest he looked forward to seeing both the land from {177} which he had imbibed his political ideals and the land from which his ancestors had come to New France more than two centuries before. But his interest and his mission were more than personal. He had great tasks to perform. The most immediate purpose was to secure the denunciation or revision of the Belgian and German treaties. He was to sit in the third Colonial Conference which had been summoned for the occasion and in which all the self-governing colonies were to be represented. There it would be his mission to interpret to his colleagues from overseas the new imperial and national ideals which were taking shape in Canada. To the general public he desired to make better known the vast opportunities Canada had to offer both for the venturing settler and for the trader who stayed at home. Perhaps less purposed, but, as it proved, no less successful, was a desire to bring together more closely the land of his allegiance and the land of his ancestry.

From the landing in Liverpool in June until the sailing from Londonderry in August, the Canadian prime minister pa.s.sed through a ceaseless whirl of engagements, official conferences and gorgeous state ceremonies, public dinners and country-house week-ends. He {178} made many notable speeches; but, more than any words, his dignified bearing and courtly address, the subtle note of distinction that marked his least phrase or gesture--with the striking proof which he gave, as the French-Canadian ruler of the greatest of the colonies, of the wisdom, the imperial secret, which Britain alone of nations had learned--made him beyond question the lion of the hour. The world, and not least Britain herself, realized with wonder, in the pageant of the Jubilee ceremonies, how great and how united the Empire was; and, at this moment, when all eyes were focussed upon London, the prime minister of Canada seemed to embody the new spirit and the new relationship. The press rang with Canada's praises. 'For the first time in my experience,' declared a shrewd American observer, 'England and the English are regarding the Dominion with affectionate enthusiasm.' When the tumult and the shouting died and the Captains and the Kings departed, Sir Wilfrid Laurier[1] had a proud accounting to give his people.

{179}

The Belgian and German treaties, so long a stumbling-block in the path of closer imperial trade relations, were at last denounced. The definite, concrete offer of the Canadian preference proved effective, for it was given freely, in no huckstering spirit, with no demand for any equivalent or that Britain should reverse her whole fiscal system for the benefit of a small fraction of her trade.

The Colonial Conference was an important incident of the Jubilee year.

Mr Chamberlain, the new colonial secretary, made the chief address and laid before the members the proposals for discussion. He suggested the desirability of setting up an Imperial Council, with more than advisory power, and bound 'to develop into something still greater.' But, as only the prime ministers of New Zealand and Tasmania gave any sympathy, the suggestion was not pressed. He spoke in laudatory terms of the contribution of the Australasian colonies towards the British navy, and invited the other colonies to make similar offers. As to trade relations, the colonial ministers decided to consider whether they could follow Canada's example of a free preference. No definite step by Great Britain towards _zollverein_ or protection and preference was suggested. Fruitful {180} discussion took place on Asiatic immigration, the Pacific cable, and imperial penny postage. All these discussions, though without immediate results, served to outline the problems which were to face the Colonial Conference in the future--after the Boer War had given a new turn and a new insistence to these problems. It was not until then, and not until Australia spoke with one voice rather than with six, that the Colonial Conference was to come into its own as an established body for inter-imperial discussion.

Outside the Conference there was much discussion of imperial relations.

It was for the most part vague and rhetorical, but it showed clearly the new-born interest which was stirring wide circles in the United Kingdom. As yet Imperial Federation was the only scheme for closer union which had been at all clearly formulated, and, though it had been discredited by the failure of its advocates to find and agree upon any feasible plan, its phraseology still held the field. Sir Wilfrid himself sometimes expressed his vision in its formulas. In a striking pa.s.sage in his first speech at Liverpool he pictured Macaulay's New Zealander coming not to gaze upon the ruins of St Paul's but to knock for {181} admission upon the doors of Westminster. Yet even these earlier speeches forecast the newer conception of the Empire as a partnership of equal states. 'A colony,' he described Canada, 'yet a nation--words never before in the history of the world a.s.sociated together.' Making a dramatic contrast between the rebellion and discontent which marked the beginning of the Queen's reign in Canada, and the willing and unquestioned allegiance which marked it now, he showed that the secret lay in the ever-wider freedom and self-government which had been claimed and granted.

From London Sir Wilfrid pa.s.sed to Paris. It was before the days of the _entente cordiale_. In Egypt, in Soudan, in Siam, in Newfoundland, the interests of Britain and those of France were clashing, and there was much talk of age-long rivalry and inevitable war. The reports which had reached Paris of the strong expressions, uttered by a son of New France, of attachment and loyalty to the Empire and the Queen had made still more bitter the memories of the 'few acres of snow' lost in 1763.

There was much wonder as to what Laurier would say on French soil. His message there was the same. The French Canadians, he said, had not forgotten the {182} France of their ancestors: they cherished its memories and its glories. 'In pa.s.sing through this city, beautiful above all cities, I have noted upon many a public building the proud device that the armies of the Republic carried through Europe--Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Very well: all that there is of worth in that device, we possess to-day in Canada. We have liberty absolute, complete, liberty for our religion, our language, for all the inst.i.tutions which our ancestors brought from France and which we regard as a sacred heritage.... If, on becoming subjects of the British Crown, we have been able to keep our ancient rights and even acquire new ones, upon the other hand we have undertaken obligations which, descended as we are from a chivalrous race, we recognize in full and hold ourselves in honour bound to proclaim. May I be permitted to make a personal reference? I am told that here in France there are people surprised at the attachment that I feel for the Crown of England and which I do not conceal. Here that is called _loyalisme_. (For my part, may I say in pa.s.sing, I do not like that newly coined expression, _loyalisme_: I much prefer to keep to the good old French word _loyaute_.) And certainly, if there is one thing that the story {183} of France has taught me to regard as an attribute of the French race, it is loyalty, it is the heart's memory. I recall, gentlemen, those fine lines which Victor Hugo applied to himself, as explaining the inspiration of his life:

Fidele au double sang qu'ont verse dans ma veine, Mon pere vieux soldat, ma mere vendeenne.

That double fidelity to ideas and aspirations, quite distinct, is our glory in Canada. We are faithful to the great nation which gave us life, and we are faithful to the great nation which has given us liberty!'

A little later to a brilliant gathering he uttered a prophetic wish: 'It may be that here in France the memories of the ancient struggles between France and England have lost nothing of their bitterness, but as for us, Canadians of whatever origin, the days we hold glorious are the days when the colours of France and of England, the tricolor and the cross of St George, waved together in triumph on the banks of Alma, on the heights of Inkerman, on the ramparts of Sebastopol. Times change; other alliances are made, but may it be permitted to a son of France who is at the same time a British subject, to salute those glorious days with a regret which will {184} perhaps find an echo in every generous mind on either side the Channel.' Long cheering followed these words. Echo, indeed, they have found in these later days of new battlefields, of a n.o.bler cause and of bravery no less than of old.

At last this close-pressed summer was over, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier returned to a country that for a brief time knew no party. Every Canadian felt that his country stood higher than before in the world's regard, and the welcome given to the prime minister on his return fittingly marked that nation-wide feeling. Canada's hour at last was come.

In 1899 the outbreak of the war with the Boer republics gave occasion for a new step in Canada's national and imperial development. By inst.i.tuting the British preference Canada had made a distinct advance towards closer union along the line of trade. Now, by sharing for the first time in an imperial war overseas, the Dominion made an equally momentous advance along the line of closer union for defence.

The conflict in South Africa had been brewing for years. Over and above the racial antagonism between Boer and Briton there was the strife unavoidable between a primitive, {185} pastoral people and a cosmopolitan, gold-seeking host. The Transvaal burgher feared that, if the newcomers were admitted freely to the franchise, he and all things that he cherished would be swamped. The Outlander was equally determined to have the dominant voice in the country in which he was rapidly gaining the majority. And what with corruption rife in the little oligarchy that surrounded Paul Kruger at Pretoria; what with the Anglo-German-Jewish mining magnates of Johannesburg in control of a subsidized press; what with Rhodes and Jameson dreaming of a solid British South Africa and fanatical Doppers dreaming of the day when the last _rooinek_ would be shipped from Table Bay, and with the Kaiser in a telegraphing mood--there was no lack of tinder for a conflagration.

Even so, the war might have been averted, for there were signs of growth among the Boers of a more reasonable party under Joubert and Botha. But, whatever might have been, Paul Kruger's obstinacy and Joseph Chamberlain's firmness collided; and when, on October 9, 1899, Kruger issued his ultimatum, demanding that Great Britain should withdraw her troops from the Transvaal frontier and submit the dispute to arbitration, the die was cast.

{186}

What of Canada? She had never before taken part in war beyond the American continent. Yet no sooner was the ultimatum launched than offers of service from individuals and military units began to pour into Ottawa, and press and public to demand that a Canadian contingent should be sent. It was a startling change from the day when Sir John Macdonald had declined to take any step towards equipping a Canadian contingent for the Soudan. It was not because Canada was deeply convinced that in the Boer War Britain's cause was more just than in the Egyptian War. The vast majority, indeed, believed that the cause was just, that Britain was fighting to free a population suffering under intolerable tyranny. When neutral opinion the world over condemned Britain's policy, Mr Balfour urged in its defence that the colonies believed in its justice. True; not because, in Canada, at least, there was at the outset any real knowledge of the tangled issue, but simply because of the reputation which British statesmen had acquired in the past for probity and fairness. Nor was it that Canada believed the Empire's existence to be at stake. Many a time leaders of both parties had spoken fervently of coming to {187} Britain's aid if ever she should be in serious straits. But few, if any, in Canada believed this to be such an occasion. In the phrase of a fervent Canadian imperialist, it seemed as if a hundred-ton hammer was being used to crush a hazel-nut. Faith in the greatness of Britain's naval and military might was strong, and, even more than in Britain, public opinion in Canada antic.i.p.ated a 'promenade to Pretoria,' and was only afraid that the fighting would be all over before our men arrived. It was just another of Britain's 'little wars.'

The real source of the demand that Canada should now take a part lay in the new-born imperial and national consciousness. The crisis served to precipitate the emotions and opinions which had been vaguely floating in the Canadian mind. The Jubilee festivities and the British preference had increased imperial sentiment; and, with returning prosperity and rapid growth, national pride was getting the better of colonial dependence. A curious element in this pride was the sense of rivalry with the United States, which had just won more or less glory in a little war with Spain. All these sentiments, fanned by vigorous newspaper appeal, led to the wish to {188} do something tangible to show that the day of pa.s.sive loyalty was over and the day of responsible partnership had begun.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier was faced with a difficult problem. He had not expected war. 'I had hoped to the last,' he said later, 'that there would be no war ... that the Uitlanders would get their rights from Mr Kruger's Government, not by the use of force but simply by the means of reason applied to the case.' Now he was suddenly called upon to decide one of the most momentous issues that had ever confronted the Canadian people. He had to decide it in the midst of a rising tide of popular enthusiasm in the English-speaking provinces. Equally he had to take into account the lukewarmness or hostility of Quebec. The majority of French Canadians stood where their English-speaking fellow-citizens had stood ten or twenty years before. They were pa.s.sively loyal, content to be a protected colony. The instinctive sympathies of many would be for the Boer minority rather than for the English Outlanders in the Transvaal. We may read the prime minister's thoughts on this aspect of the problem from his own words, addressed to an audience in Toronto:

{189}

Blood is thicker than water, and the issue may not appeal to my fellow-countrymen of French origin as it appealed to you.... Still we are British subjects, and claim the rights of British subjects, and we a.s.sume all the responsibilities this entails. There are men foolish enough, there are men unpatriotic enough, to blame us and to say that I should have rushed on and taken no precautions to guide public opinion in my own province. That is not my way of governing the country. I told you a moment ago that I would not swim with the current, that I would endeavour to guide the current, and on this occasion I tried to do so.

Moreover, parliament was not in session, and British precedent required the consent of parliament for waging war.

In an interview given on the 3rd of October, a week before the war broke out, Sir Wilfrid denied a report that the Government had already decided to send a contingent, and stated that it could not do so without parliament's consent. On the same day a dispatch was received from Mr Chamberlain expressing thanks for individual offers of service, and stating that four units of one hundred and twenty-five men each would gladly be accepted, to be equipped and sent to Africa at their own or Canada's cost, and thereafter to be maintained by the Imperial Government. {190} Ten days later, three days after the declaration of war, the Government at Ottawa issued an order-in-council providing for a contingent of one thousand men.[2]

The decision once made, the Government lost no time in equipping and dispatching the contingent. On the 30th of October the troops sailed from Quebec. A week later the Government offered a second contingent.

Already it was becoming clear that there would be no 'Christmas dinner in Pretoria.' Mafeking, Kimberley, and Ladysmith were besieged, and the British were retiring in Natal. Six weeks pa.s.sed before the British Government accepted. This time the Canadian authorities decided to send a regiment of Mounted Rifles and three batteries of artillery. Later a battalion of infantry was raised to garrison Halifax and thus release the Leinster regiment for the front, {191} while Lord Strathcona provided the funds to send the Strathcona Horse.

In the last year of the war five regiments of Mounted Rifles and a Constabulary Force, which saw active service, were recruited. All told, over seven thousand Canadians went to South Africa.

The course of the war was followed with intense interest in Canada.

Alike in the anxious days of December, the black week of Stormberg, Magersfontein, and Tugela, and in the joyful reaction of the relief of Kimberley and Ladysmith and Mafeking and the victory of Paardeberg, Canadians felt themselves a part of the moving scene. Perhaps the part taken by their own small force was seen out of perspective; but with all due discount for the patriotic exaggeration of Canadian newspaper correspondents and for the generosity of Lord Roberts's high-flown praise, the people of Canada believed that they had good reason to feel more than proud of their representatives on the veldts of Africa.

After Zand River and Doornkop, Paardeberg and Mafeking, it was plain that the Canadian soldier could hold his own on the field of battle.

In the words of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, replying to an attack made by Mr Boura.s.sa:

When we heard that our volunteers had justified fully the confidence placed in them, that they had {192} charged like veterans, that their conduct was heroic and had won for them the encomiums of the Commander-in-Chief and the unstinted admiration of their comrades, who had faced death upon a hundred battlefields in all parts of the world, is there a man whose bosom did not swell with pride, the n.o.blest of all pride, that pride of pure patriotism, the pride of the consciousness of our rising strength, the pride of the consciousness that on that day it had been revealed to the world that a new power had arisen in the west?

Nor is that all. The work of union and harmony between the chief races of this country is not yet complete.... But there is no bond of union so strong as the bond created by common dangers faced in common.

To-day there are men in South Africa representing the two branches of the Canadian family, fighting side by side for the honour of Canada.

Already some of them have fallen, giving to the country the last full measure of devotion. Their remains have been laid in the same grave, there to lie to the end of time in that last fraternal embrace. Can we not hope, I ask my honourable friend himself [Mr Boura.s.sa], that in that grave shall be buried the last vestiges of our former antagonism?

If such shall be the result, if we can indulge that hope, if we can believe that in that grave shall be buried our contentions, the sending of the contingent will be the greatest service ever rendered Canada since Confederation.

Meanwhile another war, much less honourable than that on the plains of Africa, was {193} being waged against the Government on the hustings of Canada. The general elections of 1900 gave countless opportunities for the unscrupulous and reckless appeals to racial prejudice and for the charges of disloyalty which have unfortunately marked so many Canadian political contests. Sir Wilfrid Laurier had to face the attacks of extremists in both Quebec and Ontario. In Ontario he was denounced for hesitating to send the first contingent, and particularly for retaining in his Cabinet Mr Tarte, who was reported to have made anti-imperial speeches in Paris. Blissfully unaware that before the next general election they would be lauding the same Tarte to the skies, the chiefs of the Opposition made their war-cry for Ontario, 'Shall Tarte rule?'

Concurrently in Quebec the prime minister was denounced for sending the contingent at all, both by Conservatives and by one of the ablest of his former followers, Henri Boura.s.sa, who had broken with his leader on this issue and on other more personal grounds. Even the veteran leader of the Opposition, Sir Charles Tupper, played a double role. 'Sir Wilfrid Laurier is too English for me,' he declared in Quebec, and inveighed against the prime minister, whom he characterized as {194} an advocate of imperialism. But at Toronto, some time later, he strove to explain away these words and to convince his hearers that Sir Wilfrid was 'not half British enough.'

Nevertheless, when polling day came in November, the Government was sustained by an enlarged majority. In Ontario it lost fourteen seats, but it gained in the maritime provinces, while Quebec still further increased its overwhelming contingent of Liberals in the House of Commons. The country as a whole evidently approved the Government's policy in the war, and was not unmindful of the long-sought prosperity which was coming under a vigorous administration at Ottawa.

Sir Charles Tupper, now over eighty, but still aggressive and full of enthusiasm, decided to give up the leadership of the Conservative party. He was succeeded by a fellow Nova Scotian, Mr Robert Laird Borden of Halifax. The new leader had been only four years in parliament, but his ability and straightforwardness had won instant recognition. Few changes had occurred in the ranks of the 'Ministry of all the Talents' of 1896. Sir Oliver Mowat and Sir Henri Joly de Lotbiniere had retired to lieutenant-governorships, and their places had been taken respectively {195} by Mr David Mills and Mr M. E.

Bernier. The permanence of this Ministry was in strong contrast to the incessant changes which had marked the last Liberal Cabinet, that of 1873-78.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR ROBERT BORDEN From a photograph by Montminy, Quebec]

The questions of imperial relationship raised by the Boer War lent especial interest to the Colonial Conference of 1902. Again the formal occasion for inviting the representatives of the Dominions to Great Britain was a royal ceremony. Good Queen Victoria had died in 1901, and the coronation of Edward the Seventh was to take place in June.

The sudden illness of the king postponed the festivities, but the meetings of the Conference went on as arranged.

The United Kingdom was represented by Mr Chamberlain, Lord Selborne, and Mr Brodrick. Sir Edmund Barton and Sir John Forrest represented Australia, now a single Commonwealth. To speak for the smaller colonies appeared their respective prime ministers--Mr Richard Seddon for New Zealand, Sir Gordon Sprigg for Cape Colony, Sir Albert Hime for Natal, and Sir Robert Bond for Newfoundland. Sir Wilfrid Laurier represented Canada. He was accompanied {196} by Mr Fielding, Sir Frederick Borden, Sir William Mulock, and Mr Paterson. The sessions were more formal than on previous occasions. Only the prime ministers of the Dominions spoke, except when questions arose affecting the special department of one of the other ministers. The earlier conferences had been in a sense preparatory, and the issues raised had not been pressed. Now the dramatic pressure of events and the masterful eagerness of Mr Chamberlain alike gave to the meetings a much more serious aspect.

English imperialists were intensely interested and intensely hopeful.

'I cannot conceal from myself,' declared Mr Chamberlain in his opening address, 'that very great antic.i.p.ations have been formed as to the results which may accrue from our meeting.' The enthusiasm of Canadian and Australian and New Zealander for the cause of the mother country in the war had led many to believe that the time was ripe for a great stride toward the centralization of the Empire. The policy of autonomy as the basis of union was attacked as obsolete. According to the new imperialism, the control of the Empire should be centralized, should be vested in the British Government, or in an Imperial Council or {197} parliament sitting at London, in which numbers and the overwhelming force of environment and social pressure would give Great Britain unquestioned dominance. Mr Chamberlain himself shared these hopes and these limitations. He was, indeed, more popular in the colonies than any other British statesman, because he had recognized more fully than any other their strength and the value of their support. Yet he, too, laboured under the delusion that Australia and Canada were simply England beyond the seas. He not only looked at imperial questions from the point of view of one who was an Englishman first and last, but expected to find Australians and Canadians doing the same.

These expectations were destined to be rudely shattered. The new imperialism did not give scope for the aspirations of the Dominions.

Its apostles had failed to recognize that if the war had stimulated imperial sentiment in the Dominions it had also stimulated national consciousness. The spectacular entry upon the world's stage involved in sending troops half-way across the globe, the bravery and the steadfastness the troops had displayed, had sent a thrill of pride through every Dominion. The achievement {198} of federation in Australia and the new-found prosperity of Canada gave added impetus to the national feeling. And, as a cross-current, opposed alike to the rising nationalism and to any kind of imperialism, there was still the old colonialism, the survival of ways of thought bred of the days when Englishmen regarded the colonies as 'our possessions' and colonials acquiesced. These three currents, colonialism, nationalism, and imperialism, ran strong in Australian and Canadian life, and none of them could be disregarded. A free imperialism, consonant with and allied to national ambitions, the Dominions would have, had indeed already, but the idea of Mr Chamberlain and his followers, which contravened both the new nationalism and the old colonialism, could not prevail.

As before, the chief subjects dealt with by the Conference fell into three fields--political relations, commercial relations, and defence.

In opening the Conference Mr Chamberlain declared that the problem of future political relations had been simplified by the federation of the Australian colonies and the coming closer union of South Africa. The next step would be the federation of the Empire, which he believed was within the limits of {199} possibility. This might come by sending colonial representatives to the existing House of Commons at Westminster, but perhaps a more practical proposal would be the creation of a real Council of the Empire, which in the first instance might be merely advisory but in time would have executive and perhaps legislative powers. Elsewhere Mr Chamberlain had made more clear the extent of the power which he hoped this central council would in time acquire: he had defined it as 'a new government with large powers of taxation and legislation over countries separated by thousands of miles.'

The appeal met with little response. The prime ministers seemed in no haste to abandon the policy by which they had already acquired powers so many and so wide. No resolution was moved in the direction Mr Chamberlain urged. Instead, a step was taken towards making the Conference itself a more organic body by providing that it should meet at intervals not exceeding four years. The vital difference between the Conference and the Imperial Council which Mr Chamberlain desired, was that the Council when full-fledged should be an independent government exercising direct control over all parts of the Empire, {200} and with a dominating representation from the United Kingdom; whereas the Conference was simply a meeting of governments in which all the countries met on an equal footing, with no power to bind any Dominion or to influence its action otherwise than by interchange of information and opinion.

As to defence, a determined attempt was made to induce the colonies to contribute to the support of the British army and navy. Mr Chamberlain submitted a memorandum showing that the United Kingdom spent annually for military and naval purposes 29s 3d per head--while Canada spent 2s, New Zealand 3s 4d, and Australia 4s--and urged that it was inconsistent with the dignity of nationhood that the Dominions should thus leave the mother country to bear the whole or almost the whole cost of defence.