The later const.i.tutional issues were chiefly disputes between the Dominion and the province of Ontario. They were not merely differences of opinion on abstract const.i.tutional points. They were in large part struggles for power and patronage between two very shrewd practical politicians, Sir John {67} Macdonald and his one-time law-student at Kingston, Oliver Mowat, for many years premier of Ontario.
First came a struggle as to the western boundary of Ontario. The dividing line between the old province of Canada and the territories purchased from the Hudson"s Bay Company had never been determined After ten years of negotiations a commission, consisting of one representative of the Dominion and one of Ontario together with the British amba.s.sador at Washington, gave a unanimous award in 1878, an award which the Dominion refused to carry into effect. Other provinces were involved. The Dominion had presented Manitoba with much of the territory in dispute, and the conflict as to jurisdiction between that province and Ontario nearly led to bloodshed; while Quebec was stirred up to protest against the enlargement of Ontario, which would make Ontario, it was said, the preponderant power in the Dominion. Mr Laurier inveighed against what he termed the dishonourable course of the Dominion Government. When negotiating with the Hudson"s Bay Company for its lands, it had contended that the old province of Canada extended far west and north, but now it took {68} precisely the opposite stand. As for Quebec"s interest, he continued: "I do not fear the appeal that will be made against me in my own province. This award is binding on both parties and should be carried out in good faith.
The consideration that the great province of Ontario may be made greater, I altogether lay aside as unfair, unfriendly, and unjust."
The Government, however, persisted in rejecting the award, and forced an appeal to the Privy Council, only to have Ontario"s claim fully substantiated, and the total area of the province confirmed as more than double what Sir John Macdonald would have allowed it.
The next issue put to the test the power of the Dominion to veto provincial laws. It was, in form, merely a dispute between two lumbermen, M"Laren and Caldwell, as to whether the one higher up on the stream could use, upon paying tolls, timber-slides built by the other lower down. But, as Edward Blake declared in 1886, this was "of all the controversies between the Dominion and the provinces, by far the most important from the const.i.tutional point of view, for it involved the principle which must regulate the use by the Dominion Government of the power of disallowing provincial legislation." When in 1881 a court of {69} justice in Ontario held that the lumberman on the lower reaches could prevent the one higher up from floating down his logs, Mowat had an act pa.s.sed providing that all persons possessed, and were thereby declared always to have possessed, the right denied by this judgment.
This measure was at once disallowed by the Dominion Government. Then the Privy Council upheld the contention of the Ontario Government as to what the law had been even before the act was pa.s.sed; and, when in 1884 the provincial legislature again pa.s.sed the same act, the Dominion conceded the point. Thereafter the veto power has been used only when Dominion or Imperial interests were concerned, or when a statute was claimed to be beyond the power of the province to pa.s.s. The wisdom or justice of measures affecting only the local interests of the citizens of a province has been left to the judgment of its own people to determine.
The regulation of the liquor traffic provided the next battle-ground.
In 1876 Ontario had pa.s.sed the Crooks Act, which took the power of granting licences from the munic.i.p.alities and gave it to provincial commissioners. Two years later the Dominion parliament pa.s.sed the Scott Act, giving counties power to {70} prohibit the sale of liquor within their limits. The const.i.tutionality of this act was upheld in 1882 in the Russell case, and Sir John Macdonald concluded that if the Dominion had power to pa.s.s the Scott Act, the province had not the power to pa.s.s the Crooks Act. "If I carry the country," he declared at a public meeting in 1882, "as I will do, I will tell Mr Mowat, that little tyrant who has attempted to control public opinion by getting hold of every office from that of a Division Court bailiff to a tavern-keeper, that I will get a bill pa.s.sed at Ottawa returning to the munic.i.p.alities the power taken from them by the Licence Act." At the next session the M"Carthy Act was pa.s.sed, providing, not for munic.i.p.al control, but for control by federal commissioners. Here again the highest courts held in 1883 and 1884 that the Ontario measure was within the power of the province, but that the M"Carthy Act was beyond that of the Dominion. Once more "the little tyrant" had scored!
The Dominion Franchise Act of 1885 was the last important measure which need be noted in this connection. By the British North America Act the Dominion was to adopt the provincial franchise lists for its elections {71} until parliament should order otherwise. Sir John Macdonald decided, after eighteen years" use of the provincial lists and six half-hearted attempts to change this situation, that the Dominion should set up its own standard, in order both to secure uniformity and to preserve the property qualifications which Ontario and the other provinces were throwing overboard. The Opposition contended that this was an attack upon provincial rights. The argument was weak; there could be no doubt of the const.i.tutional power of the Dominion in this matter. Better founded were the attacks of the Opposition upon specific clauses of the measure, such as the proposal to enfranchise Indians living upon government reserves and under government control, and the proposal to put the revision of the lists in the hands of partisan revising barristers rather than of judges. The "Conservatives" proposed, but did not press the point, to give single women the franchise, and the "Liberals" opposed it. After months of obstruction the proposal to enfranchise the western Indians was dropped,[2] an appeal to {72} judges was provided for the revision of the lists, and the income and property standards were reduced.
Inconsistently, in some provinces a variation from the general standards was permitted. The Franchise Act of 1885 remained in force until after the coming of the Liberals to power in 1896, when it was repealed without regret on either side.
Suddenly the scene shifted, and, instead of the dry and bloodless court battles of const.i.tutional lawyers, the fire and pa.s.sion of armed rebellion and bitter racial feud held the Canadian stage. The rebellion itself was an {73} affair of but a few brief weeks, but the fires lighted on the Saskatchewan swept through the whole Dominion, and for years the smoke of Duck Lake and Batoche disturbed the public life of Canada.
Long years before the Great West was more than a name to any but a handful in older Canada, hardy French voyageurs and Scottish adventurers had pushed their canoes or driven their Red River carts to the foot of the Rockies and beyond. They had mated with Indian women, and when in 1870 the Dominion came into possession of the great hunting preserve of the Hudson"s Bay Company, many of their half-breed children dwelt on the plains. The coming of the railway, the flocking in of settlers, and the rapid dwindling of the vast herds of buffalo which had provided the chief support of the half-breeds, made their nomadic life no longer possible. The economic difficulties of making the needed readjustment, of settling down to quiet farm activities, were heightened by the political difficulties due to the setting up of the new Dominion authority. Then it was on the banks of the Red River that these half-breeds, known as Metis, had risen under the firebrand Riel in armed revolt against the incoming regime. Now, in 1885, {74} it was on the North and South Saskatchewan. There numerous groups of the Metis had made their settlements. And when the Canadian authorities came in to survey the land, to build railways, and to organize government, these people sought to have their rights and privileges accorded them. In Manitoba, after the insurrection of 1870, the dual claims of the old half-breed settlers had been recognized. As part Indian, they had been given scrip for 160 acres each, to extinguish the Indian t.i.tle to the land, and as part white men, they were each allowed to homestead 160 acres like any other settler. The Metis in the North-West Territories now asked for the same privileges. They wanted also to have their holdings left as they were, long narrow strips of land facing the river front, like the settlements on the St Lawrence, with the houses sociably near in one long village street, rather than to have their land cut up into rectangular, isolated farms under the survey system which the Canadian Government had borrowed from the United States.
The requests were reasonable. Perhaps a narrow logic could have shown inconsistency in the demand to be considered both white and Indian at once, but the Manitoba Act had {75} set a precedent. Only a few thousand acres were at stake, in a boundless land where the Government stood ready to set aside a hundred million acres for a railway. The expediency of winning the goodwill of the half-breeds was apparent to Canadians on the spot, especially now that the Indians, over whom the Metis had great influence, were also becoming restless because of the disappearance of the buffalo and the swarming in of settlers.
Yet the situation was never adequately faced. The Mackenzie Government, in 1877, on the pet.i.tion of a hundred and fifty Scottish half-breeds at Prince Albert, agreed, where settlement had been effected on the narrow frontage system, to conform the surveys in harmony with this plan, and the Scottish holdings were so confirmed.
Two years later the Macdonald Government pa.s.sed an act authorizing the giving of scrip to the half-breeds of the North-West on the same terms as it had been given to those in Manitoba. So far so good. Then came year upon year of neglect, of clerkly procrastination, and of half-concessions. The French half-breeds pa.s.sed resolution after resolution, sent to Ottawa pet.i.tion after pet.i.tion and delegation after delegation, but in vain. The Government {76} forgot the act which it had itself pa.s.sed in 1879. Nor were the half-breeds themselves the only pet.i.tioners. Time and again Father Andre and other missionaries urged their claims. Some of the Government"s own land agents on the spot urged them. Charles Mair of Prince Albert, one of the first of Ontario"s settlers in the West, appeared at Ottawa four times before the outbreak, to try to waken the Government to the seriousness of the situation.[3] The North-West Council sent strong memorials backing the requests of the Metis. And still, though some of the grievances were redressed, in piecemeal fashion, no attempt was made to grapple adequately with the difficult questions presented by the meeting {77} of two stages of civilization, to understand the disputes, the real wrongs, the baseless fears. When in 1883 Blake in the House of Commons called for papers, none were brought down for two years; when in 1884 Cameron called for a committee of investigation, the reply was that there was nothing to investigate.
What was the cause of this neglect? At bottom, the Government"s ignorance of the West. There was not in the Cabinet a man who knew its conditions and needs. The Metis were two thousand miles away, and they had no votes, for the North-West Territories were not then represented at Ottawa. For five years Sir John Macdonald himself had acted as minister of the Interior. In taking over the cares of a busy department, added to the office of prime minister, he made the mistake that Mackenzie had made. But while Mackenzie put in ten to fourteen hours a day at departmental routine, at the expense of his duties as leader, Macdonald did his work as leader at the expense of his department. "Old To-Morrow" solved many a problem wisely by leaving it to time to solve, but some problems proved the more serious for every year"s delay. Late in 1883 Sir John gave up {78} the portfolio, but his successor, Sir David Macpherson, effected little change. Late in 1885 Thomas White, an energetic and sympathetic administrator, became minister, but the mischief was then already done.
In its defence the Government urged that no half-breed had actually been dispossessed of his river-front claim, and that many who were demanding scrip had already received land in Manitoba. It contended further that the agitation of the half-breeds was fanned by white settlers in Prince Albert, eager to speculate in scrip, and hinted darkly at mysterious forces and personages in the background, in Canada and elsewhere. No attempt was made, however, to prove the truth of these latter charges or to bring the guilty to justice. Doubtless the grievances were not so great as to justify rebellion; the less excuse, then, for not curing what was curable. Doubtless, also, this was not the first time nor the last that a government lacked energy or vision, and had it not been for the other factor in the situation, Louis Riel, no heavy penalty might have followed. But unfortunately, luck or Nemesis, the other factor was very much to the fore.
Wearied of unending delay, the Metis looked {79} again to Riel, then living in exile in Montana. He was the one half-breed with any measure of book-education and knowledge of the vague world beyond the Lakes.
Early in the summer of 1884 James Isbester, Gabriel Dumont, Moise Ouellette, and Michel Dumas trudged seven hundred miles to Montana, and laid their case before him. He needed little urging. The call appealed strongly to his erratic ambition. His term of banishment had expired, and he hastened to the Saskatchewan to organize the Metis.
Still the Government did not stir, though it knew the reckless daring of Riel and the influence he wielded. Riel at once set to work to fan the discontent into flame. Though the English-speaking half-breeds drew back, he soon gained remarkable ascendancy over his French-speaking compatriots. He preached a new religion, with himself as prophet, threatened to dethrone the Pope, and denounced the local priests who resisted his campaign. He held meeting after meeting, drew up an extravagant Bill of Rights, and endeavoured to enlist the support of the Indian tribes. Still all the Government did was to send, in January 1885, a commission to take the census of the half-breeds, preparatory to settling their claims. Yet, {80} speaking in the House of Commons, on March 26, 1885, Sir John Macdonald made it clear that the half-breeds could not get both Indian scrip and white man"s homestead. On the very day that this refusal was reiterated the first shot had been fired at Duck Lake, where a superior force of insurgents under Riel and Dumont routed a party of Mounted Police and volunteers, killing twelve, and seized the supplies in the government post. Open rebellion had come for a second time.
Now at last the Government acted with energy. On the 6th of April, ten days after Duck Lake, instructions were telegraphed from Ottawa to give the half-breeds the scrip they had sought, and to allow occupants to acquire t.i.tle by possession. At the same time troops were hastily mobilized and speeded west over the broken stretches of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The young volunteers faced danger and hardship like veterans. In spite of the skilful tactics of Riel"s lieutenant, Gabriel Dumont, a born general, the volunteers soon crushed the half-breeds and prevented the much more serious danger of an Indian uprising from going far.
Once the back of the revolt was broken, the storm broke out in Eastern Canada. In one {81} way the rebellion had made for national unity.
Nova Scotia and Ontario and the West had thrilled in common suspense and common endeavour. But this gain was much more than offset by the bitter antagonism which developed between Ontario and Quebec, an antagonism which for a time threatened to wreck the Dominion. The two provinces saw different sides of the shield. Ontario saw the murderer of Thomas Scott--an Ontario man and an Orangeman--a second time stirring up revolt, and cried for summary punishment. Quebec saw the grievances which had stirred the men of French blood to rebel. Riel was tried in Regina in September, and found guilty of treason, with a recommendation to mercy. The Queen"s Bench of Manitoba confirmed the verdict, and the Government, in spite of many protests, refused to grant a pardon or to commute the sentence to imprisonment. On the 16th of November 1885 Riel"s chequered existence ended on the scaffold at Regina.
Now the storm raged with renewed fury. The Liberal party all held the Government responsible for the outbreak, but were not a unit in condemning the execution of Riel. By clever tactics the Government took advantage of this divergence. Early in the session {82} of 1886 a Quebec Conservative, Auguste Philippe Landry, moved a resolution condemning the execution. The Liberals had intended to shift the discussion to the record of the Government, but before they could propose an amendment, the minister of Public Works, Hector Langevin, moved the previous question, thus barring any further motion. Forced to vote on Landry"s resolution, most of the Ontario Liberals, including Mackenzie and Cartwright, sided with the Government; Blake and Laurier took the other side.
The crisis brought Wilfrid Laurier to the front. Hitherto he had been considered, especially in Ontario, as a man of brilliant promise, but not yet of the stature of veterans like Blake and Mackenzie and Cartwright. But now an occasion had come which summoned all his latent powers, and henceforth his place in the first rank was unquestioned.
It was an issue peculiarly fitted to bring out his deepest feelings, his pa.s.sion for liberty and straightforward justice, his keen realization of the need of harmony between French and English, a harmony that must be rooted in sympathy and understanding. He had faced a hostile Quebec, and was to face it again, in defence of the rights of the English-speaking {83} provinces. Now he faced a hostile Ontario, and told Toronto exactly what he told Montreal. In the great meeting of protest which was held in the Champ de Mars in Montreal on the Sunday after Riel"s execution, Mr Laurier took a leading part, and a year later he spoke before a great audience in Toronto and pressed home the case against the Government--that "the half-breeds were denied for long years right and justice, rights which were admitted as soon as they were asked by bullets."
But it was in the House of Commons that he rose to the full height of the theme and of his powers. Seconding Blake"s indictment of the Government in July 1885, and replying to Sir John Macdonald, he a.n.a.lysed mercilessly the long record of neglect. Then, replying to the contention that the grievances were petty and that Riel alone was to blame, he made a pointed contrast:
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 lived who had been more profusely endowed by nature to be the idol of a nation. A man of commanding presence, of majestic countenance, of impa.s.sioned eloquence, of {84} unblemished character, of pure, disinterested patriotism, for years he held over the hearts of his fellow countrymen almost unbounded sway, and even to this day the mention of his name will arouse throughout the length and breadth of Lower Canada a thrill of enthusiasm in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of all, 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 intellect, his pure patriotism? No doubt they all contributed, but the main cause of his authority over his fellow countrymen was this, that at that time his fellow countrymen were an oppressed race, and he was the champion 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 still remained, ceased to be paramount. When eventually the Union Act was carried, Papineau violently a.s.sailed it, showed all its defects, deficiencies and dangers, and yet he could not rouse his followers and the people to agitate for the repeal of that Act. What was the reason? The conditions were no more the same. Imperfect as was the Union Act, it still gave a measure of freedom and justice to the people, and men who once at the mere sound of Mr Papineau"s voice would have gladly courted death on battle-field or scaffold, then stood silent and irresponsive, though he asked from them nothing more than a const.i.tutional agitation for a repeal of the Union Act. Conditions were no more the same.
Tyranny and oppression had made rebels of the people of Lower Canada, while justice and freedom made {85} them the true and loyal subjects which they have been ever since. And now to tell us that Louis Riel, simply by his influence, could bring those men from peace to war, to tell us that they had no grievances, to tell us that they were brought into a state of rebellion either through pure malice or through imbecile adherence to an adventurer, is an insult to the intelligence of the people at large, and an unjust aspersion on the people of the Saskatchewan.
When the debate on the Landry motion came on in the following session, Laurier and Blake again shared the honours, along with the new minister of Justice, John S. D. Thompson, who spoke forcefully for the Government. Mr Laurier"s speech on this occasion was perhaps the greatest of his career, and made a profound impression. He was called upon to speak unexpectedly, late at night, through the tactics of the Government in not putting up a speaker. Two dull speeches had nearly emptied the House. No one rose to follow, and the speaker had asked whether the question should be put, when Mr Laurier rose. The House filled quickly, and for two hours he held it breathless, so that not a sound but the orator"s ringing voice and the ticking of the clock could be heard in the chamber. When he sat down, the opinion of {86} the House was unanimous that this was one of the rare occasions of a parliamentary lifetime. Thomas White generously voiced the feeling of the Government benches when he declared: "I think it is a matter of common pride to us that any man in Canada can make, on the floor of parliament, such a speech as we listened to last night." Edward Blake declared the speech was "the crowning proof of French domination. My honourable friend, not content with having for a long time in his own tongue borne away the palm of parliamentary eloquence, has invaded ours, and in that field has p.r.o.nounced a speech, which, in my humble judgment, merits this compliment, because it is the truth, that it was the finest parliamentary speech ever p.r.o.nounced in the parliament of Canada since Confederation."
Blake and Laurier differed in their view of the tactics to be followed by the Opposition. Mr Blake wished to throw the chief emphasis upon the question of Riel"s insanity, leaving aside the th.o.r.n.y question of the division of responsibility. Mr Laurier wanted to go further.
While equally convinced that Riel was insane, he thought that the main effort of the Opposition should be to divert attention from Riel"s sorry figure and concentrate it on {87} the question of the Government"s neglect. Accordingly in this speech Mr Laurier reviewed once more the conduct of the Government, arraigning it unsparingly for its common share in the guilt of the rebellion. He denied that the people of Quebec were demanding that no French Canadian should be punished, guilty or not guilty. As for Riel, who shared with the Government the responsibility for the blood and sufferings of the revolt, he urged, with Blake, that it was impossible to consider him sane and accountable for his actions. "Sir," he declared, "I am not one of those who look upon Louis Riel as a hero. Nature had endowed him with many brilliant qualities, but nature had denied him that supreme quality without which all other qualities, however brilliant, are of no avail. Nature had denied him a well-balanced mind. At his worst he was a fit subject for an asylum, at his best he was a religious and political monomaniac." True, some of the Government"s experts had reported that, while insane on religious questions, Riel was otherwise accountable for his actions, but other experts had held him insane without qualification. In any event, the same experts for the Government had declared that Riel"s secretary, an {88} English half-breed, William Jackson, was insane on religious questions, and dazed at times, but that "his actions were not uncontrollable"; yet Quebec bitterly reflected that one of these men had been acquitted, sent to an asylum and then allowed to escape, while the other was sent to the gallows. "Jackson is free to-day, and Riel is in his grave."[4]
On wider grounds the Government should have stood for clemency. Who was right in the United States after the Civil War--President Johnson, who wished to try Lee for treason, or General Grant, who insisted that he be not touched? Twenty years after, the unity of North and South proves unmistakably Grant"s far-seeing wisdom. "We cannot make a nation of this new country by shedding blood," Mr Laurier concluded.
"Our prisons are full of men, who, despairing of getting justice by peace, sought it by war, who, despairing of ever being treated like freemen, {89} took their lives in their hands rather than be treated as slaves. They have suffered greatly, they are suffering still, yet their sacrifice will not be without reward.... They are in durance to-day, but the rights for which they were fighting have been acknowledged. We have not the report of the commission yet, but we know that more than two thousand claims so long denied have at last been granted. And more--still more: we have it in the Speech from the Throne that at last representation is to be granted to those Territories. This side of the House long sought, but sought in vain, to obtain that measure of justice. It could not come then, but it came after the war; it came as the last conquest of that insurrection. And again I say that "their country has conquered with their martyrdom,"
and if we look at that one fact alone there was cause sufficient, independent of all other, to extend mercy to the one who is dead and to those who live."
In parliament, for all the eloquence of Laurier and Blake, the Government had its way. In the country the controversy raged in more serious fashion. In Quebec Honore Mercier, the brilliant, tempestuous leader of the Liberals, carried on a violent agitation, {90} and in January 1887 rode the whirlwind into power. Wild and bitter words were many in the contest, and they found more than an answer in Ontario, where the leading ministerial organ, the _Mail_, declared it better to "smash Confederation into its original fragments" rather than yield to French dictation.
[Ill.u.s.tration: HONORe MERCIER From a photograph]
The general elections, held in February 1887, proved that in Ontario the guilt of Riel was more to the fore than the misdeeds of the Government, and the Conservatives lost only two seats. On the other hand, the Liberals gained less in Quebec in the Dominion contest, where the Riel question was a legitimate issue, than in the provincial contest, where it properly had no place. The influence of the Church, though now transferred to Mercier in provincial politics, remained on the side of Sir John Macdonald in Dominion politics. Counting on the Liberal side the former Conservatives who had deserted the Government, the returns showed the province about equally divided; but after it was seen that Sir John was again in power, several of the wanderers returned to his fold, influenced by his personal ascendancy or by the loaves and fishes of patronage and office.
[1] See _The Railway Builders_, chap. viii.
[2] Indians in the eastern provinces, however, were given a vote. This gave rise to one of the most artful, yet amusingly simple, electioneering doc.u.ments on record. In the Haldimand, Ontario, election of 1891 the Conservative candidate, Dr W. H. Montague, afterwards minister of Agriculture, had the following circular distributed on the Indian Reserve, with the royal coat of arms at the top:
FOR INDIANS ONLY
To the Indians: The Queen has always loved her dear loyal subjects, the Indians. She wants them to be good men and women, and she wants them to live on the land that they have, and she expects in a little while, if her great chief John A. gets into government again, to be very kind to the Indians and to make them very happy. She wants them to go and vote and all to vote for Dr Montague, who is the Queen"s agent. He is their friend, and by voting for him every one of the Indians will please
QUEEN VICTORIA.
Liberal (or rather Conservative) supplies of fire-water effectively backed up this touching appeal of "the Queen."
[3] Mair made his last appeal but one in April 1884. Finding it impossible to rouse the Government, he returned to Prince Albert and brought his family back to Ontario, out of the way of the inevitable rebellion. A final visit to Ottawa in December was equally futile. Of the April attempt Lieut.-Colonel George T. Denison writes: "When he returned to Toronto from Ottawa he told me most positively that there would be a rebellion, 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 prevent bloodshed."--_Soldiering in Canada_, p. 263.
[4] "When one considers the ma.s.s of testimony pointing to Riel"s mental defect--paranoia--the undoubted history of insanity from boyhood, with the recurring paroxysms of intense excitement, he wonders that there could have been the slightest discussion regarding it."--"A Critical Study of the Case of Louis Riel," _Queen"s Quarterly_, April-July, 1905, by C. K. Clarke, M.D., Superintendent of Rockwood Asylum (now Superintendent, Toronto General Hospital).
{91}
CHAPTER V
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION, 1887-1896
Dark days--Sectional discontent--Railway monopoly--Exodus and stagnation
The outcome of the elections was an intense disappointment to Edward Blake. His health, too, was failing, and this increased his despondency. He decided to give over to other hands the leadership of his party. Early in June 1887, two months after the new parliament a.s.sembled, he definitely and firmly refused to hold the post longer.