FAREWELL TO CANADA
Lord Elgin assumed the governor-generalship of Canada on January 30th,
1847, and gave place to Sir Edmund Head on December 19th, 1854. The
address which he received from the Canadian legislature on the eve of
his departure gave full expression to the golden opinions which he had
succeeded in winning from the Canadian people during his able
administration of nearly eight years. The passionate feeling which had
been evoked during the crisis caused by the Rebellion Losses Bill had
gradually given way to a true appreciation of the wisdom of the course
that he had followed under such exceptionally trying circumstances,
and to the general conviction that his strict observance of the true
forms and methods of constitutional government had added strength and
dignity to the political institutions of the country and placed Canada
at last in the position of a semi-independent nation. The charm of his
manner could never fail to captivate those who met him often in social
life, while public men of all parties recognized his capacity for
business, the sincerity of his convictions, and the absence of a
spirit of intrigue in connection with the administration of public
affairs and his relations with political parties. He received
evidences on every side that he had won the confidence and respect and
even affection of all nationalities, classes, and creeds in Canada. In
the very city where he had been maltreated and his life itself
endangered, he received manifestations of approval which were full
compensation for the mental sufferings to which he was subject in that
unhappy period of his life, when he proved so firm, courageous and
far-sighted. In well chosen language--always characteristic of his
public addresses--he spoke of the cordial reception he had met with,
when he arrived a stranger in Montreal, of the beauty of its
surroundings, of the kind attention with which its citizens had on
more than one occasion listened to the advice he gave to their various
associations, of the undaunted courage with which the merchants had
promoted the construction of that great road which was so necessary to
the industrial development of the province, of the patriotic energy
which first gathered together such noble specimens of Canadian
industry from all parts of the country, and had been the means of
making the great World's Fair so serviceable to Canada; and then as he
recalled the pleasing incidents of the past, there came to his mind a
thought of the scenes of 1849, but the sole reference he allowed
himself was this: "And I shall forget--but no, what I might have to
forget is forgotten already, and therefore I cannot tell you what I
shall forget."
The last speech which he delivered in the picturesque city of Quebec
gave such eloquent expression to the feelings with which he left
Canada, is such an admirable example of the oratory with which he so
often charmed large assemblages, that I give it below in full for the
perusal of Canadians of the present day who had not the advantage of
hearing him in the prime of his life.
"I wish I could address you in such strains as I have sometimes
employed on similar occasions--strains suited to a festive meeting;
but I confess I have a weight on my heart and it is not in me to be
merry. For the last time I stand before you in the official character
which I have borne for nearly eight years. For the last time I am
surrounded by a circle of friends with whom I have spent some of the
most pleasant days of my life. For the last time I welcome you as my
guests to this charming residence which I have been in the habit of
calling my home.[23] I did not, I will frankly confess it, know what
it would cost me to break this habit, until the period of my departure
approached, and I began to feel that the great interests which have so
long engrossed my attention and thoughts were passing out of my hands.
I had a hint of what my feelings really were upon this point--a pretty
broad hint too--one lovely morning in June last, when I returned to
Quebec after my temporary absence in England, and landed in the coves
below Spencerwood (because it was Sunday and I did not want to make a
disturbance in the town), and when with the greetings of the old
people in the coves who put their heads out of the windows as I passed
along, and cried 'Welcome home again,' still ringing in my ears, I
mounted the hill and drove through the avenue to the house door, I saw
the drooping trees on the lawn, with every one of which I was so
familiar, clothed in the tenderest green of spring, and the river
beyond, calm and transparent as a mirror, and the ships fixed and
motionless as statues on its surface, and the whole landscape bathed
in that bright Canadian sun which so seldom pierces our murky
atmosphere on the other side of the Atlantic. I began to think that
persons were to be envied who were not forced by the necessities of
their position to quit these engrossing interests and lovely scenes,
for the purpose of proceeding to distant lands, but who are able to
remain among them until they pass to that quiet corner of the garden
of Mount Hermon, which juts into the river and commands a view of the
city, the shipping, Point Levi, the Island of Orleans, and the range
of the Laurentine; so that through the dim watches of that tranquil
night which precedes the dawning of the eternal day, the majestic
citadel of Quebec, with its noble tram of satellite hills, may seem to
rest forever on the sight, and the low murmur of the waters of St.
Lawrence, with the hum of busy life on their surface, to fall
ceaselessly on the ear. I cannot bring myself to believe that the
future has in store for me any interests which will fill the place of
those I am now abandoning. But although I must henceforward be to you
as a stranger, although my official connection with you and your
interests will have become hi a few days matter of history, yet I
trust that through some one channel or other, the tidings of your
prosperity and progress may occasionally reach me; that I may hear
from time to time of the steady growth and development of those
principles of liberty and order, of manly independence in combination
with respect for authority and law, of national life in harmony with
British connection, which it has been my earnest endeavour, to the
extent of my humble means of influence, to implant and to establish. I
trust, too, that I shall hear that this House continues to be what I
have ever sought to render it, a neutral territory, on which persons
of opposite opinions, political and religious, may meet together in
harmony and forget their differences for a season. And I have good
hope that this will be the case for several reasons, and, among
others, for one which I can barely allude to, for it might be an
impertinence in me to dwell upon it But I think that without any
breach of delicacy or decorum I may venture to say that many years
ago, when I was much younger than I am now, and when we stood towards
each other in a relation somewhat different from that which has
recently subsisted between us, I learned to look up to Sir Edmund Head
with respect, as a gentleman of the highest character, the greatest
ability, and the most varied accomplishments and attainments. And now,
ladies and gentlemen, I have only to add the sad word--Farewell. I
drink this bumper to the health of you all, collectively and
individually. I trust that I may hope to leave behind me some who will
look back with feelings of kindly recollection to the period of our
intercourse; some with whom I have been on terms of immediate official
connection, whose worth and talents I have had the best means of
appreciating, and who could bear witness at least, if they please to
do so, to the spirit, intentions, and motives with which I have
administered your affairs; some with whom I have been bound by the
ties of personal regard. And if reciprocity be essential to enmity,
then most assuredly I can leave behind me no enemies. I am aware that
there must be persons in so large a society as this, who think that
they have grievances to complain of, that due consideration has not in
all cases been shown to them. Let them believe me, and they ought to
believe me, for the testimony of a dying man is evidence, even in a
court of justice, let them believe me, then, when I assure them, in
this the last hour of my agony, that no such errors of omission or
commission have been intentional on my part. Farewell, and God bless
you." Before I proceed to review some features of his administration
in Canada, to which it has not been possible to do adequate justice in
previous chapters of this book, I must very briefly refer to the
eminent services which he was able to perform for the empire before he
closed his useful life amid the shadows of the Himalayas. On his
return to England he took his seat in the House of Lords, but he gave
very little attention to politics or legislation. On one occasion,
however, he expressed a serious doubt as to the wisdom of sending to
Canada large bodies of troops, which had come back from the Crimea, on
the ground that such a proceeding might complicate the relations of
the colony with the United States, and at the same time arrest its
progress towards self-independence in all matters affecting its
internal order and security.
This opinion was in unison with the sentiments which he had often
expressed to the secretary of state during his term of office in
America. While he always deprecated any hasty withdrawal of imperial
troops from the dependency as likely at that time to imperil its
connection with the mother country, he believed most thoroughly in
educating Canadians gradually to understand the large measure of
responsibility which attached to self-government. He was of opinion
"that the system of relieving colonists altogether from the duty of
self-defence must be attended with injurious effects upon themselves."
"It checks," he continued, "the growth of national and manly morals.
Men seldom think anything worth preserving for which they are never
asked to make a sacrifice." His view was that, while it was desirable
to remove imperial troops gradually and throw the responsibility of
self-defence largely upon Canada, "the movement in that direction
should be made with due caution." "The present"--he was writing to the
secretary of state in 1848 when Canadian affairs were still in an
unsatisfactory state--"is not a favourable moment for experiments.
British statesmen, even secretaries of state, have got into the habit
lately of talking of the maintenance of the connection between Great
Britain and Canada with so much indifference, that a change of system
in respect to military defence incautiously carried out, might be
presumed by many to argue, on the part of the mother country, a
disposition to prepare the way for separation." And he added three
years later:
"If these communities are only truly attached to the
connection and satisfied of its permanence (and as respects
the latter point, opinions here will be much influenced by
the tone of statesmen at home), elements of self-defence,
not moral elements only, but material elements likewise,
will spring up within them spontaneously as the product of
movements from within, not of pressure from without. Two
millions of people in a northern latitude can do a good deal
in the way of helping themselves, when their hearts are in
the right place."
Before two decades of years had passed away, the foresight of these
suggestions was clearly shown. Canada had become a part of a British
North American confederation, and with the development of its material
resources, the growth of a national spirit of self-reliance, the new
Dominion, thus formed, was able to relieve the parent state of the
expenses of self-defence, and come to her aid many years later when
her interests were threatened in South Africa. If Canada has been able
to do all this, it has been owing to the growth of that spirit of
self-reliance--of that principle of self-government--which Lord Elgin
did his utmost to encourage. We can then well understand that Lord
Elgin, in 1855, should have contemplated with some apprehension the
prospect of largely increasing the Canadian garrisons at a time when
Canadians were learning steadily and surely to cultivate the national
habit of depending upon their own internal resources in their working
out of the political institutions given them by England after years of
agitation, and even suffering, as the history of the country until
1840 so clearly shows. It is also easy to understand that Lord Elgin
should have regarded the scheme in contemplation as likely to create a
feeling of doubt and suspicion as to the motives of the imperial
government in the minds of the people of the United States. He
recalled naturally his important visit to that country, where he had
given eloquent expression, as the representative of the British Crown,
to his sanguine hopes for the continuous amity of peoples allied to
each other by so many ties of kindred and interest, and had also
succeeded after infinite labour in negotiating a treaty so well
calculated to create a common sympathy between Canada and the
republic, and stimulate that friendly intercourse which would dispel
many national prejudices and antagonisms which had unhappily arisen
between these communities in the past. The people of the United States
might well, he felt, see some inconsistency between such friendly
sentiments and the sending of large military reinforcements to Canada.
In the spring of 1857 Lord Elgin accepted from Lord Palmerston a
delicate mission to China at a very critical time when the affair of
the lorcha "Arrow" had led to a serious rupture between that country
and Great Britain. According to the British statement of the case, in
October, 1856, the Chinese authorities at Canton seized the lorcha
although it was registered as a British vessel, tore down the British
flag from its masthead, and carried away the crew as prisoners. On the
other hand the Chinese claimed that they had arrested the crew, who
were subjects of the emperor, as pirates, that the British ownership
had lapsed some time previously, and that there was no flag flying on
the vessel at the time of its seizure. The British representatives in
China gave no credence to these explanations but demanded not only a
prompt apology but also the fulfilment of "long evaded treaty
obligations." When these peremptory demands were not at once complied
with, the British proceeded in a very summary manner to blow up
Chinese forts, and commit other acts of war, although the Chinese only
offered a passive resistance to these efforts to bring them to terms
of abject submission. Lord Palmerston's government was condemned in
the House of Commons for the violent measures which had been taken in
China, but he refused to submit to a vote made up, as he satirically
described it, "of a fortuitous concourse of atoms," and appealed to
the country, which sustained him. While Lord Elgin was on his way to
China, he heard the news of the great mutiny in India, and received a
letter from Lord Canning, then governor-general, imploring him to send
some assistance from the troops under his direction. He at once sent
"instructions far and wide to turn the transports back and give
Canning the benefit of the troops for the moment." It is impossible,
say his contemporaries, to exaggerate the importance of the aid which
he so promptly gave at the most critical time in the Indian situation.
"Tell Lord Elgin," wrote Sir William Peel, the commander of the famous
Naval Brigade at a later time, "that it was the Chinese expedition
which relieved Lucknow, relieved Cawnpore, and fought the battle of
December 6th." But this patriotic decision delayed somewhat the
execution of Lord Elgin's mission to China. It was nearly four months
after he had despatched the first Chinese contingent to the relief of
the Indian authorities, that another body of troops arrived in China
and he was able to proceed vigorously to execute the objects of his
visit to the East. After a good deal of fighting and bullying, Chinese
commissioners were induced in the summer of 1859 to consent to sign
the Treaty of Tientsin, which gave permission to the Queen of Great
Britain to appoint, if she should see fit, an ambassador who might
reside permanently at Pekin, or visit it occasionally according to the
pleasure of the British government, guaranteed protection to
Protestants and Roman Catholics alike, allowed British subjects to
travel to all parts of the empire, under passports signed by British
consuls, established favourable conditions for the protection of trade
by foreigners, and indemnified the British government for the losses
that had been sustained at Canton and for the expenses of the war.
Lord Elgin then paid an official visit to Japan, where he was well
received and succeeded in negotiating the Treaty of Yeddo, which was a
decided advance on all previous arrangements with that country, and
prepared the way for larger relations between it and England. On his
return to bring the new treaty to a conclusion, he found that the
commissioners who had gone to obtain their emperor's full consent to
its provisions, seemed disposed to call into question some of the
privileges which had been already conceded, and he was consequently
forced to assume that peremptory tone which experience of the Chinese
has shown can alone bring them to understand the full measure of their
responsibilities in negotiations with a European power. However, he
believed he had brought his mission to a successful close, and
returned to England in the spring of 1859.
How little interest was taken in those days in Canadian affairs by
British public men and people, is shown by some comments of Mr.
Waldron on the incidents which signalized Lord Elgin's return from
China. "When he returned in 1854 from the government of Canada," this
writer naively admits, "there were comparatively few persons in
England who knew anything of the great work he had done in the colony.
But his brilliant successes in the East attracted public interest and
gave currency to his reputation." He accepted the position of
postmaster-general in the administration just formed by Lord
Palmerston, and was elected Lord Rector of Glasgow; but he had hardly
commenced to study the details of his office, and enjoy the amenities
of the social life of Great Britain, when he was again called upon by
the government to proceed to the East, where the situation was once
more very critical. The duplicity of the Chinese in their dealings
with foreigners had soon shown itself after his departure from China,
and he was instructed to go back as Ambassador Extraordinary to that
country, where a serious rupture had occurred between the English and
Chinese while an expedition of the former was on its way to Pekin to
obtain the formal ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin. The French
government, which had been a party to that treaty, sent forces to
coöperate with those of Great Britain in obtaining prompt satisfaction
for an attack made by the Chinese troops on the British at the Peilo,
the due ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin, and payment of an
indemnity to the allies for the expenses of their military operations.
The punishment which the Chinese received for their bad faith and
treachery was very complete. Yuen-ming-yuen, the emperor's summer
palace, one of the glories of the empire, was levelled to the ground
as a just retribution for treacherous and criminal acts committed by
the creatures of the emperor at the very moment it was believed that
the negotiations were peacefully terminated. Five days after the
burning of the palace, the treaty was fully ratified between the
emperor's brother and Lord Elgin, and full satisfaction obtained from
the imperial authorities at Pekin for their shameless disregard of
their solemn engagements. The manner in which the British ambassador
discharged the onerous duties of his mission, met with the warm
approval of Her Majesty's government and when he was once more in
England he was offered by the prime minister the governor-generalship
of India.
He accepted this great office with a full sense of the arduous
responsibilities which it entailed upon him, and said good-bye to his
friends with words which showed that he had a foreboding that he might
never see them again--words which proved unhappily to be too true. He
went to the discharge of his duties in India in that spirit of modesty
which was always characteristic of him. "I succeeded," he said, "to a
great man (Lord Canning) and a great war, with a humble task to be
humbly discharged." His task was indeed humble compared with that
which had to be performed by his eminent predecessors, notably by Earl
Canning, who had established important reforms in the land tenure, won
the confidence of the feudatories of the Crown, and reorganized the
whole administration of India after the tremendous upheaval caused by
the mutiny. Lord Elgin, on the other hand, was the first
governor-general appointed directly by the Queen, and was now subject
to the authority of the secretary of state for India. He could
consequently exercise relatively little of the powers and
responsibilities which made previous imperial representatives so
potent in the conduct of Indian affairs. Indeed he had not been long
in India before he was forced by the Indian secretary to reverse Lord
Canning's wise measure for the sale of a fee-simple tenure with all
its political as well as economic advantages. He was able, however, to
carry out loyally the wise and equitable policy of his predecessor
towards the feudatories of England with firmness and dignity and with
good effect for the British government.[24]
In 1863 he decided on making a tour of the northern parts of India
with the object of making himself personally acquainted with the
people and affairs of the empire under his government. It was during
this tour that he held a Durbar or Royal Court at Agra, which was
remarkable even in India for the display of barbaric wealth and the
assemblage of princes of royal descent. After reaching Simla his
peaceful administration of Indian affairs was at last disturbed by the
necessity--one quite clear to him--of repressing an outburst of
certain Nahabee fanatics who dwelt in the upper valley of the Indus.
He came to the conclusion that "the interests both of prudence and
humanity would be best consulted by levelling a speedy and decisive
blow at this embryo conspiracy." Having accordingly made the requisite
arrangements for putting down promptly the trouble on the frontier and
preventing the combination of the Mahommedan inhabitants in those
regions against the government, he left Simla and traversed the upper
valleys of the Beas, the Ravee, and the Chenali with the object of
inspecting the tea plantations of that district and making inquiries
as to the possibility of trade with Ladâk and China. Eventually, after
a wearisome journey through a most picturesque region, he reached
Dhurmsala--"the place of piety"--in the Kangra valley, where appeared
the unmistakable symptoms of the fatal malady which soon caused his
death.
The closing scenes in the life of the statesman have been described in
pathetic terms by his brother-in-law, Dean Stanley.[25] The
intelligence that the illness was mortal "was received with a calmness
and fortitude which never deserted him" through all the scenes which
followed. He displayed "in equal degrees, and with the most unvarying
constancy, two of the grandest elements of human character--unselfish
resignation of himself to the will of God, and thoughtful
consideration down to the smallest particulars, for the interests and
feelings of others, both public and private." When at his own request,
Lady Elgin chose a spot for his grave in the little cemetery which
stands on the bluff above the house where he died, "he gently
expressed pleasure when told of the quiet and beautiful aspect of the
place chosen, with the glorious view of the snowy range towering
above, and the wide prospect of hill and plain below." During this
fatal illness he had the consolation of the constant presence of his
loving wife, whose courageous spirit enabled her to overcome the
weakness of a delicate constitution. He died on November 20th, 1863,
and was buried on the following day beneath the snow-clad
Himalayas.[26]
If at any time a Canadian should venture to this quiet station in the
Kangra valley, let his first thought be, not of the sublimity of the
mountains which rise far away, but of the grave where rest the remains
of a statesman whose pure unselfishness, whose fidelity to duty, whose
tender and sympathetic nature, whose love of truth and justice, whose
compassion for the weak, whose trust in God and the teachings of
Christ, are human qualities more worthy of the admiration of us all
than the grandest attributes of nature.
None of the distinguished Canadian statesmen who were members of Lord
Elgin's several administrations from 1847 until 1854, or were then
conspicuous in parliamentary life, now remain to tell us the story of
those eventful years. Mr. Baldwin died five years before, and Sir
Louis Hypolite LaFontaine three months after the decease of the
governor-general of India, and in the roll of their Canadian
contemporaries there are none who have left a fairer record. Mr.
Hincks retired from the legislature of Canada in 1855, when he
accepted the office of governor-in-chief of Barbadoes and the Windward
Islands from Sir William Molesworth, colonial secretary in Lord
Palmerston's government, and for years an eminent advocate of a
liberal colonial policy. This appointment was well received throughout
British North America by Mr. Hincks's friends as well as political
opponents, who recognized the many merits of this able politician and
administrator. It was considered, according to the London _Times_, as
"the inauguration of a totally different system of policy from that
which has been hitherto pursued with regard to our colonies." "It gave
some evidence," continued the same paper, "that the more distinguished
among our fellow-subjects in the colonies may feel that the path of
imperial ambition is henceforth open to them." It was a direct answer
to the appeal which had been so eloquently made on more than one
occasion by the Honourable Joseph Howe[27] of Nova Scotia, to extend
imperial honours and offices to distinguished colonists, and not
reserve them, as was too often the case, for Englishmen of inferior
merit. "This elevation of Mr. Hincks to a governorship," said the
Montreal _Pilot_ at the time, "is the most practicable comment which
can possibly be offered upon the solemn and sorrowful complaints of
Mr. Howe, anent the neglect with which the colonists are treated by
the imperial government. So sudden, complete and noble a disclaimer on
the part of Her Majesty's minister for the colonies must have startled
the delegate from Nova Scotia, and we trust that his turn may not be
far distant." Fifteen years later, Mr. Howe himself became a
lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, and an inmate of the very
government house to which he was not admitted in the stormy days when
he was fighting the battle of responsible government against Lord
Falkland.
Mr. Hincks was subsequently appointed governor of British Guiana, and
at the same time received a Commandership of the Bath as a mark of
"Her Majesty's approval honourably won by very valuable and continued
service in several colonies of the empire." He retired from the
imperial service with a pension in 1869, when his name was included in
the first list of knights which was submitted to the Queen on the
extension of the Order of St. Michael and St. George for the express
purpose of giving adequate recognition to those persons in the
colonies who had rendered distinguished service to the Crown and
empire. During his Canadian administration Lord Elgin had impressed
upon the colonial secretary that it was "very desirable that the
prerogative of the Crown, as the fountain of honour, should be
employed, in so far as this can properly be done, as a means of
attaching the outlying parts of the empire to the throne." Two
principles ought, he thought, "as a general rule to be attended to in
the distribution of imperial honours among colonists." Firstly they
should appear "to emanate directly from the Crown, on the advice, if
you will, of the governors and imperial ministers, but not on the
recommendation of the local executive." Secondly, they "should be
conferred, as much as possible, on the eminent persons who are no
longer engaged actively in political life." The first principle has,
generally speaking, guided the action of the Crown in the distribution
of honours to colonists, though the governors may receive suggestions
from and also consult their prime ministers when the necessity arises.
These honours, too, are no longer conferred only on men actively
engaged in public life, but on others eminent in science, education,
literature, and other vocations of life.[28]
In 1870 Sir Francis Hincks returned to Canadian public life as finance
minister in Sir John Macdonald's government, and held the office until
1873, when he retired altogether from politics. Until the last hours
of his life he continued to show that acuteness of intellect, that
aptitude for public business, that knowledge of finance and commerce,
which made him so influential in public affairs. During his public
career in Canada previous to 1855, he was the subject of bitter
attacks for his political acts, but nowadays impartial history can
admit that, despite his tendency to commit the province to heavy
expenditures, his energy, enterprise and financial ability did good
service to the country at large. He was also attacked as having used
his public position to promote his own pecuniary interests, but he
courted and obtained inquiry into the most serious of such
accusations, and although there appears to have been some carelessness
in his connection with various speculations, and at times an absence
of an adequate sense of his responsibility as a public man, there is
no evidence that he was ever personally corrupt or dishonest. He
devoted the close of his life to the writing of his "Reminiscences,"
and of several essays on questions which were great public issues when
he was so prominent in Canadian politics, and although none of his
most ardent admirers can praise them as literary efforts of a high
order, yet they have an interest so far as they give us some insight
into disputed points of Canada's political history. He died in 1885 of
the dreadful disease small-pox in the city of Montreal, and the
veteran statesman was carried to the grave without those funeral
honours which were due to one who had filled with distinction so many
important positions in the service of Canada and the Crown. All his
contemporaries when he was prime minister also lie in the grave and
have found at last that rest which was not theirs in the busy,
passionate years of their public life. Sir Allan MacNab, who was a
spendthrift to the very last, lies in a quiet spot beneath the shades
of the oaks and elms which adorn the lovely park of Dundurn in
Hamilton, whose people have long since forgotten his weaknesses as a
man, and now only recall his love for the beautiful city with whose
interests he was so long identified, and his eminent services to Crown
and state. George Brown, Hincks's inveterate opponent, continued for
years after the formation of the first Liberal-Conservative
administration, to keep the old province of Canada in a state of
political ferment by his attacks on French Canada and her institutions
until at last he succeeded in making government practically
unworkable, and then suddenly he rose superior to the spirit of
passionate partisanship and racial bitterness which had so long
dominated him, and decided to aid his former opponents in consummating
that federal union which relieved old Canada of her political
embarrassment and sectional strife. His action at that time is his
chief claim to the monument which has been raised in his honour in the
great western city where he was for so many years a political force,
and where the newspaper he established still remains at the head of
Canadian journalism.
The greatest and ablest man among all who were notable in Lord Elgin's
days in Canada, Sir John Alexander Macdonald--the greatest not simply
as a Canadian politician but as one of the builders of the British
empire--lived to become one of Her Majesty's Privy Councillors of
Great Britain, a Grand Cross of the Bath, and prime minister for
twenty-one years of a Canadian confederation which stretches for 3,500
miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. When death at last
forced him from the great position he had so long occupied with
distinction to himself and advantage to Canada, the esteem and
affection in which he was held by the people, whom he had so long
served during a continuous public career of half a century, were shown
by the erection of stately monuments in five of the principal cities
of the Dominion--an honour never before paid to a colonial statesman.
The statues of Sir John Macdonald and Sir Georges Cartier--statues
conceived and executed by the genius of a French Canadian
artist--stand on either side of the noble parliament building where
these statesmen were for years the most conspicuous figures; and as
Canadians of the present generation survey their bronze effigies, let
them not fail to recall those admirable qualities of statesmanship
which distinguished them both--above all their assertion of those
principles of compromise, conciliation and equal rights which have
served to unite the two races in critical times when the tide of
racial and sectional passion and political demagogism has rushed in a
mad torrent against the walls of the national structure which
Canadians have been so steadily and successfully building for so many
years on the continent of North America.