SIR WILFRID LAURIER AND THE ALASKA BOUNDARY
I
The name of Empire-builder is used freely of late, perhaps too
freely. It is so great a name that it ought to be kept for the great
men, for the real builders and creators; for Clive, for Rhodes, and
their like. There is another class, somewhat more numerous, but not
much, who keep together the great Imperial patrimony which others
have handed down to them. They might perhaps be called Wardens of
Empire, of whom Sir Wilfred Laurier may stand for an example.
My memories of Sir Wilfrid Laurier go back to those years when the
Alaska boundary dispute between Canada and the United States
approached its crisis. Lord Minto was then Governor-General of
Canada; Mr. McKinley was President of the United States; Mr. Hay was
the American Secretary of State. There was strong feeling on both
sides. It appeared later that it was stronger in Canada than in the
United States, but in both countries there was hot blood and in both
the controversy turned in part upon gold. We were {261} carrying on
under a _modus vivendi_; a state of things which tended to
tranquillize the minds of men. But the _modus vivendi_ did not cover
the whole of the Alaskan territory then in dispute, and there was
anxiety both at Washington and Ottawa.
I went to Ottawa on a visit, spent a week at Government House, and
there first came to know Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who had been Prime
Minister of the Dominion since 1896. First impressions are best and
I set down my first impressions, though they do not much differ from
the last, and though, in one way, they were wholly deceptive and
misleading.
For Sir Wilfrid came so softly into the drawing-room at Government
House that you would never have thought him a leader of men. He had
something of the ecclesiastic about him, and something of the
diplomatist. The first perhaps suggested itself because he was a
Roman Catholic, and to that faith all my Puritan prejudices were
alien. As I think it over, I know of no fact in the current history
of the British Empire more significant than the fact that the
greatest Dominion of this great British and Protestant Power should
have been governed for thirteen years by a Roman Catholic and a
Frenchman. That is Catholicism in its broadest sense, and not in the
sense of mere loyalty to a Pope and to a particular Church. Taking
the population of Canada as something over six millions to-day,
nearly one half are Roman Catholics. The other half are implacable
Protestants. How are they to live together in amity? But they {262}
do, and one of the reasons of this amity is Sir Wilfrid Laurier. If
he were a leader of men in the military sense, or as Chatham was a
leader, one of two things would have happened. Quebec and Ontario
would have quarrelled, or Sir Wilfrid would have ceased to be Prime
Minister. Booted and spurred and in the saddle--not so is Canada to
be ruled, nor are the conflicting interests and sentiments of the
eastern and western sections of the great Dominion so to be
harmonized. But the smooth subtlety of the priest and the suavity of
the diplomatist are means of conciliation. Thus, I imagine, has Sir
Wilfrid worked.
Thus does he present himself to the company at Government House. He
glides into the room. He is not humble; far from it, but his is
perhaps the pride which apes humility. Sweetness enters with him,
and light, if I may once more unite rather overworked substantives
which have come down to us from Swift. He does light up the room as
he enters, and the faces of those who are already in it. His coming
is a delight to everybody and now we know what is before us.
His manner as he receives and returns the greetings of his friends is
distinctly French. After all the guests have arrived and the
Governor-General and Lady Minto have entered the room, Sir Wilfrid's
homage to the representative of the sovereign and to Lady Minto has
an essentially Parisian elegance. Nobody would mistake him for an
Englishman by birth or race. He is English politically and
officially; none more loyal to {263} the King of England and England
herself than he; but personally he is French; taller, however, than
the average Frenchman, and of a larger frame. The head is well set,
the forehead broad and high, a soft light in the eyes till something
is said which sets them burning, the mouth firm, and the whole face,
in contour and expression, quite as much that of the man of thought
as action. There are not many men of whom another man uses the word
charm but Sir Wilfrid is one; and women use it of him more freely
still.
He talked easily and well. He speaks English and French with equal
fluency, with finish also, and is never at a loss for an idiomatic
phrase. Yet the English is not quite the English heard to-day in
London, nor is his French Parisian. The Canadians have, in addition
to many other kinds, the patriotism of language. Quebec has its own
French, the French of the eighteenth century or of Touraine to-day;
and Toronto its own English, also now and then slightly archaic. Yet
in Toronto dwells, and has long dwelt, the first of living writers of
living English. I mean Mr. Goldwin Smith; the fires of his
intellectual youth still, at eighty-three, unquenched, and by another
paradox the English author of the best political history of the
United States. Canada does not like his Canadian views, but they
remain his views, just as he, for all his Canadian residence remains
English.[1] Perhaps it is part of Sir Wilfrid's diplomacy that he
practises both these varieties of French and English speech. He
takes liberties {264} with each language, as a man who is master of
both is entitled to, and in each his soft tones are persuasive.
[1] Mr. Smith died, June, 1910.
Nothing seemed to come amiss to him. The social topics of Ottawa
have not quite the same range as in London, but to the people of
Ottawa they are not less engrossing. Even scandal was not unknown in
those days, and gossip floated about, and sometimes politics came to
the top, as they will anywhere when they are not too trivial, and
even when they are. Ottawa was, at any rate, with its fifty thousand
people and its lumber trade, the capital of Sir Wilfrid's kingdom.
Parliament was sitting in that finely placed Parliament House
crowning the cliff on the river, and all Canada was there, in the
substantial persons of its delegates and Ministers. Before I left I
came to know all, or nearly all, the Ministers. Lunching one day
with Sir Wilfrid at the Rideau Club, I found myself in a group of a
dozen or more political personages, all, I think, in office. They
struck me as able men with a gift of businesslike talk. But there
were not two Sir Wilfrid Lauriers. The long reign of Sir John
Macdonald had not proved fertile in new men. Sir John was a sort of
Canadian Diaz, and had done for the Dominion not what the President
of the great Central American Republic had done for Mexico, but a
service not less personal and individual. Both had been dictators.
Both had known how to use the forms of representative government in
such a way as to consolidate and perpetuate arbitrary personal {265}
power, and for something like the same period. In a way, Sir Wilfrid
has done a similar thing, only you never could think a Minister of
these endearing manners arbitrary. There is a more important
difference still. Sir John Macdonald had organized political
corruption into a system. Sir Wilfrid is free from any such
imputation as that. Charges have been heard against some of his
Ministers; never against Sir Wilfrid.
It was perhaps by accident that we began to discuss the Alaska
boundary; or perhaps not by accident. I do not know. Thinking the
matter over afterward, it seemed possible enough that Sir Wilfrid had
shaped events in his own mind from the first. He may have been glad
of an opportunity to communicate with Washington indirectly and
unofficially, or desirous that the President should know what was in
his mind and learn it otherwise than via London. He was very anxious
as well he might be. I had lately been in Washington and knew pretty
well the views of the President and of Mr. Hay. I had made two or
three visits to Ottawa before the Alaska conversations with Sir
Wilfrid took place. In the interval Mr. McKinley had ceased to be
President. He had been murdered by a foreigner with an
unpronounceable name, and while the murderer was waiting in his cell
to be executed the American women, suffragists of the militant kind,
had sent him, to quote an American writer, "flowers, jellies, books,
and sympathy." The discipline of the prison did not forbid these
gifts. Mr. Roosevelt {266} had become President. Mr. Hay remained
Secretary of State, perhaps with a hand less free than he had under
Mr. McKinley, who was aware that he himself was not master of all
subjects or perhaps of any subject not essentially American.
When the moment came Sir Wilfrid began casually enough, in a way that
would have allowed him to stop whenever he chose. But he went on,
and after a talk at Government House one day asked me to call on him
at Parliament House on the morrow.
There again the talk continued, and it was followed by one still
longer when Sir Wilfrid came back to Government House next day with
papers and maps. Over these we spent some hours. There were few
details in all the complicated Alaska business which were not
familiar to him; and of the whole question he had a grasp which made
details almost unimportant. His view struck me as reasoned,
detached, with a settled purpose behind it. He was quite ready for
compromise. I never knew a statesman anywhere who was not, with the
possible exception of the ninety-two statesmen who compose the United
States Senate. For myself, I had to look two ways. I was obliged,
that is, to understand both points of view, the Canadian and the
American, for I was then the representative of _The Times_ in the
United States.
When we had gone over the whole matter I said to Sir Wilfrid that I
thought I understood his opinions and the policy he desired to
follow. But what was I to do? Not a word of what he had {267} said
to me could have been intended for print, nor can it be printed now,
even after all these years and after the settlement. But some object
he must have had, and I asked him if I was at liberty to draw any
inference from these interviews. I was leaving Ottawa the next day.
"Are you going to Washington?"
"Yes."
"Shall you see the President or Mr. Hay?"
"Both."
"Well, if you think anything you have heard here likely to interest
the President or Mr. Hay, I don't see why you should not discuss the
matter with them as you have with me, if they choose."
The story of what happened at Washington I reserve for another
chapter. But Sir Wilfrid's way of dealing with the subject on this
occasion may perhaps stand for an example of what I have called his
diplomatic manner. He was not over-solicitous about precedents or
formalities. He was quite ready to avail himself of such
opportunities as chance offered him, and of such instruments as came
in his way. His absolute good faith was beyond question. If his
suggestions, or rather the frank statement of his own view and of
what he was ready to do had proved acceptable at Washington, he would
have put them into official shape, and there would presently have
been a dispatch from the Foreign Office to the State Department, and
history would have been differently written. Why this did not happen
will appear when the Washington end of the story is told.
{268}
II
Leaving Ottawa the day after the last of these conversations with the
Canadian Prime Minister, I went to Washington. There I saw both the
President and Mr. Hay. I said, of course, I had no authority to bind
Sir Wilfrid Laurier to anything, but I had a strong impression and
this impression I laid before them. As a matter of convenience I had
drawn up a memorandum, of which I had sent Sir Wilfrid Laurier a
copy. When Mr. Hay asked me whether I had any notes of my
conversations with the Canadian Prime Minister I handed him this
memorandum; rather a long document. He wished it read to him, and it
was. Then we talked it over. Mr. Hay said:
"I suppose you will see the President. I shall see him also, but I
think it will be better you should make your statement to him
separately."
My belief is that both of them would have been disposed to consider
the Canadian Prime Minister's attitude a reasonable one, and if an
official proposal in that sense had been made, and if it had rested
with the President to say yes or no, he would have accepted it. But
acceptance involved a treaty, and what was the use of agreeing to a
treaty which had to run the gauntlet of the United States
Senate--"the graveyard of treaties"? The Senate at that time was in
one of its most irreconcilable moods. In truth, the President had
found himself more than once in collision with the Senate, and the
moment was not propitious. Certain {269} Senators, moreover, had
fixed opinions as to the proper disposition of this Alaska dispute,
and from these opinions it was known they would not depart. At
another time, when I hope to have something to say about Mr.
Roosevelt, I may add a little, though not much, to this brief
account. It can never be treated except with great reserve.
I had told Sir Wilfrid when I said good-bye that I feared the Senate
would prove an invincible obstacle to an agreement. I saw the
President several times, and the whole matter was gone into. After
my last conversation with him, which did not end till past one
o'clock in the morning, I wrote Sir Wilfrid that I saw no chance at
present of carrying the matter further. He answered very kindly but
regretfully, and so all this ended; without result for the time
being. I add only that the sagacity of the Canadian, the
statesmanlike sagacity, impressed the President and Mr. Hay alike.
If it had been possible to lay the whole story before the Senate, it
might have impressed that body also.
But Jefferson's phrase about government by newspapers applies, or
part of it applies, to the Senate, or shall I say to part of the
Senate? Whatever is known to the Senate soon becomes known to the
newspapers. A single illustration will suffice. The Senate
transacts executive business in secret session. The galleries are
cleared; the Press gallery as well as the others. But within an hour
of the close of an executive session a full abstract of its
proceedings is in the hands of the {270} Press agents. Besides, I
had no authority to repeat what Sir Wilfrid had said to anybody but
the President and Mr. Hay. Sir Wilfrid is a man so free from
official pedantry or even conventionalities that I think it likely he
would have agreed to an informal communication to the Senate, but he
was not asked. There was no occasion to ask him. The objections
were too evident. Mr. Hay said: "Anything I favour the Senate will
oppose."
Of the President some very leading Senators were not less suspicious.
There was to be no agreement until the Senate could dictate terms.
The subsequent agreement for an Alaska Boundary Commission was a
Senate agreement. It did not provide for arbitration. If it had,
the Senate would have rejected it. It was not supposed that a
tribunal composed of three members from each side would reach a
decision. All men now know that if it did it was because the Lord
Chief Justice of England conceived it to be his duty to vote in
accordance with the facts and the law. He had not laid aside his
judicial character when he became a Commissioner.
As it was Lord Alverstone's vote which turned the scale in favour of
the United States, the Canadians attacked him with bitterness. He
made one reply, and one only, and even this had no direct reference
to Canada. Speaking at a dinner in London he said: "If when any kind
of arbitration is set up they don't want a decision based on the law
and the evidence, they must not put a {271} British judge on the
commission." Writing as an American I think it due to Lord
Alverstone to say that nothing ever did more to convince Americans of
British fairness than his act. It was his act also that put to rest
a controversy which, in the opinion of Canadian statesmen and
American statesmen alike, contained elements of the gravest danger to
peace. If he had done nothing else he would take his place in
history as a great Lord Chief Justice.
The Briton is so constituted that it is probable he admires Lord
Alverstone, formerly Richard and then Sir Richard Webster, almost as
much for his renown in sport as for his professional eminence, of
which to be Tubman and then Postman in the Court of Exchequer was one
part. He was, and is, an athlete, and used to win running races, and
perhaps still could, being now only sixty-seven years of age. You
used always to hear him spoken of as "Dick Webster." At Cambridge
University he had such eminence in the study of mathematics as
entitled him to be thirty-fifth Wrangler; and in the more humane
letters so much proficiency as made him third-class classic. In the
Schools, that is, he was less energetic than on the track.
But success at the Bar does not depend on the Differential Calculus
or on Latin and Greek. Within ten years after being called he was
Q.C., and having found a seat in Parliament, became Attorney-General
in Lord Salisbury's Government in 1885-6. Within seventeen years he
had reached the highest unjudicial place in his profession. {272} He
held the same office three times; then was made Master of the Rolls;
the judge who in point of dignity comes next after the Lord
Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice, and finally, in 1900, Lord
Chief Justice of England. During his service at the Bar he had been
a great patent lawyer; with an income which rumour put at £30,000, or
$150,000; for this country perhaps the maximum, outside of the
parliamentary Bar. Such is a bare outline of the career, in all
respects distinguished, honourable, stainless, of the man on whom
Canada poured out criticisms which did not stop short of
vituperation. They need no answer. If they did, it is not my place
to answer them. Not one human being in England believed Lord
Alverstone capable of the dishonesty which the Canadian papers
imputed to him.
I am afraid I must add that Sir Wilfrid Laurier was one of Lord
Alverstone's critics. The feeling throughout Canada was so strong
that he had perhaps no choice, or no choice but between that and
either resignation or defeat. No pilot could weather that storm.
The feeling of Canada was emotional. What he said, he said as Prime
Minister. Yet whether as Prime Minister or as Sir Wilfrid Laurier he
must have rejoiced in the settlement; even though it were at the
expense of Canadian claims. I do not think Canada had any valid
claims, or had a case which before any impartial tribunal could have
been maintained. But whether she had or not, it was for her interest
to see them once for all swept away and peace {273} and good feeling
established between her and her neighbour.
Our Canadian friends must have been aware at the time that they stood
alone. In their attacks on Lord Alverstone they had no backing in
England. No English newspaper ever suggested that Lord Alverstone
had voted otherwise than according to his conscience. England knew
him to be incorruptible and unassailable, and laughed at the
suggestion that he did not understand the Canadian claims. It was
because he understood them that he decided against them.
The English, it is true, have thought themselves unlucky in
arbitrations, and have fallen into the habit of expecting an adverse
decision from an arbitration tribunal. The Geneva tribunal instilled
into them that reluctant expectation. But as this was not an
arbitration but simply a Commission for determining the true boundary
line of Alaska, they accepted in a sporting spirit the judgment of
their own Lord Chief Justice. How could they do otherwise? On the
constitution of the tribunal, and on the claims of Senator Lodge and
Senator Turner to be impartial, they had remarks to make. On the
other hand, were the Canadian members impartial?
There can be no harm now in saying that Sir Wilfrid looked upon the
Alaskan situation with gloomy forebodings. So did everybody on both
sides of the border; everybody who understood the situation and would
give himself the trouble to think, and had a sense of responsibility.
In the {274} disputed belt of territory, Alaskan territory which the
United States claimed and Canada claimed, gold might at any moment be
discovered. There would come a rush from both sides. We all know
what the gold-miners are--a rough lot, not always recognizing any law
but the law of the strongest and the most covetous. They make laws
for themselves, and even those they do not keep. Many of them are
desperate, many ruined, many outlaws; many have no other hope than in
finding gold somewhere and getting it anyhow. They are all armed.
Revolvers are the arbitrators whose decisions they respect. In the
presence of new-found gold, what are boundaries or titles or
international relations? Inevitably they would cross the border into
the debatable land, Canadians and Americans alike. What would the
flag mean to bankrupt gamblers who saw once more the hope of riches?
There would be disputes. There would be collisions. At any moment a
shot might be fired, and then what? The risk was awful.
This, I have no doubt, was the risk Sir Wilfrid had in mind. It
meant nothing less than the possibility of war between Great Britain
and the United States. Gold once discovered, the possibility became
a probability. Could a Canadian statesman, could an American
statesman, think of that hazard and not be willing to do much, or
even to concede much, in order to avert it? Yet of all the men of
both nationalities with whom, then and after, I have talked about
Alaska, Sir Wilfrid alone had a clear view of the danger, and he
alone {275} was willing to do what was absolutely necessary to make
war impossible. For that reason he stands forth a great patriot, a
great Canadian, a great Englishman. World-wide as is his fame he
deserves a greater. It is not yet possible to do him full justice.
It may never be. But his views and proposals and large wisdom, as
they were set forth in these conversations, put him, in my opinion,
in the very front rank of statesmen of his time. The impression they
made on the President and Mr. Hay was profound. They too were
statesmen but their hands were tied.
It is further to be borne in mind that the North-western border was
in a ferment. That great belt of powerful States conterminous with
Canada had long nursed its grievances. The Alaska question did not
stand alone. It never has. There were questions of duties, of
tariffs, of lumber rights, of the rights of lake and canal
navigation, of fisheries, Atlantic and Pacific, and many
others--thirteen specific subjects in all. They had once been all
but settled. The High Commissioners in the last conference at
Washington had come to terms on all but Alaska when, in an unlucky
moment, Lord Herschell, believing he could force the hand of the
Americans, put forth an ultimatum out of a blue sky. It must be all
or none. There must be no settlement which does not include Alaska.
Lord Herschell had been thought of a contentious mind all through.
Americans bore with that, but to an ultimatum, an agreement at the
mouth of a gun, we would not submit. So {276} the whole went off.
What was the result? There came a time when Sir Wilfrid himself had
to announce that there would be no more pilgrimages to Washington.
Nor have there been.
{277}