one of the old timers of Winnipeg, who was at Fort Garry in 1869,
‘that Donald A. Smith saved the northwest of Canada. On December
10, 1869, he was appointed a special commissioner to explain to
the people of the Red River settlement the principles on which
the government of Canada intended to govern the country and to
take such steps as he might consider necessary to bring about a
peaceable transfer from the Hudson’s Bay Company to the Dominion.
At that time everything was in confusion; Mr. McDougall had been
refused admission, Riel was king, an American element was trying
to bring about the annexation of the settlement to the United
States and last but not least the Indians were disaffected. When
he reached Fort Garry Mr. Smith was virtually made a prisoner,
Riel would not allow him to go outside the fort and kept an eye
on his correspondence. In January, 1870, a mass meeting was held
at Fort Garry and Mr. Smith was allowed to state his case and
tell what he wanted the people to do. Riel was present, together
with O’Donoghue and other insurrectionaries. It was a critical
moment, I assure you; in fact, when Mr. Smith got up to read his
commission from Sir John Young most of those present expected to
see him arrested or shot on the spot. As it was he had a stormy
time, but managed to impress many of the hot-headed with the
belief that the interests of the settlement would be properly
safeguarded by Canada. Riel was afraid of Mr. Smith’s influence
and at once hurried on preparations for having himself made
president of a provisional government. Then came the wholesale
arrests culminating in the murder of Thomas Scott. Mr. Smith
risked his life in an attempt to save Scott. Notwithstanding
Riel’s antipathy to him, he went boldly to Riel and pleaded for
Scott, even going so far as to warn Riel that if Scott was shot
his blood would be upon his head. Riel was intoxicated with power
and more than half disposed to shoot others on the loyal side,
but Mr. Smith told him to his teeth that such a crime would not
go unpunished.
“‘In the discussions that took place over the Bill of Rights to
be sent to Ottawa, the chief part was borne by Mr. Smith. His
coolness and sagacity undoubtedly prevented the collapse of the
negotiations. “This man Smith,” said O’Donoghue at one stage,
“knows too much for us, he is too able for us. We must get rid
of him or the northwest cannot be made either an independent
republic or part of the United States. He is a Hudson’s Bay
Company officer and as such a friend of the half-breeds, and
will be able to persuade them that union with Canada is to their
interest.” It was a wonder all along that Mr. Smith was not
shot. He was warned often enough that his life was in danger,
but seemed quite willing to risk it in behalf of the cause he
represented. A good many English-speaking settlers, while loyal
enough, did not at first care to belong to Canada; they thought
Rupert’s Land would be better off as a crown colony than as
a Canadian province and Mr. Smith had to convince them that
they were mistaken. In reality, therefore, he was between two
fires--the Riel or disaffected party and the loyalists who did
not favor the idea of confederation--whilst, as I have said,
there was an American element working for annexation.
“‘At a later period when Governor Archibald came in (September
2, 1870), Mr. Smith rendered services to Canada of the highest
moment. The Governor did not receive a very cordial reception,
but Mr. Smith, who accompanied him, set about the work of
conciliating the French, the old time English-speaking settlers
and the new or Canadian settlers, who constituted three distinct
factions. Mr. Archibald frequently told me that but for Mr. Smith
the little community would have been torn to pieces by intestine
strife. He was the one man who brought the northwest into Canada,
who, indeed, saved it to the British empire, and we think he
should get credit, even at this late day, for so great a work.’
“Many are the anecdotes concerning Mr. Smith’s dangerous mission
to Fort Garry during the first Riel rebellion and of the
commencement of his political career in the far west.”
With Sir Garnet Wolseley were Captain Buller, afterward General
Sir Redvers, and Lieutenant Butler, afterward General Sir
William. The tyranny of Riel had become irksome to the people,
who received the newcomers joyously, and at the approach of the
“red coats” Riel, with his co-conspirators, fled, taking up his
position on the shores of St. Boniface. All was now quiet in
the settlement, the purchase price of one million, five hundred
thousand dollars had been paid and the territory transferred to
Canada.
Donald A. Smith was by this time recognized as the most powerful
man in the west. The governor general thanked him for his
services and in 1870, after the organization of the province of
Manitoba, he was returned to the legislature for Winnipeg and St.
John. He was also called to the Northwest territorial council and
was returned for Selkirk to the house of commons. He supported
the conservative government then under direction of Sir John A.
Macdonald and the party soon found that in him there was another
man fit for leadership. It was found that the builders of the
railway from ocean to ocean had trafficked with contractors and
taken money for election purposes. This became known as the
Pacific Scandal and the intense feeling manifest throughout the
country centered in the house of commons. The house divided upon
a motion of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, the leader of the
liberal opposition to Sir John Macdonald. Feeling was intense.
At one o’clock in the morning of November 5, 1873, Mr. Smith
arose and uttered what became an oracular speech, for the people
he represented were vitally interested in the building of the
railway so necessary to the development of their country. It is
said the house became deadly calm; no one knew whether he would
adhere to his party’s policies or otherwise. He said: “For the
honor of the country no government should exist that has a shadow
of suspicion resting upon it, and for that reason I cannot give
it my support.” These were his closing words, greeted by frantic
cheers by the opposition, and the government was doomed. Feeling
ran high and was most intense and bitter, but in later years the
two leaders, the great statesman and the great financier, built
together the Canadian Pacific Railway. Both were master builders
and the executive capacity of the financier was necessary to the
constructive genius of the statesman. It was in no idle spirit of
laudation that Sir Charles Tupper stated that “had it not been
for Mr. Smith’s indomitable pluck, energy and determination the
road would never have been constructed.”
Mr. Smith thoroughly understood the fact that colonization could
not be carried forward in the west without the building of the
railroad. Another has written concerning this:
“It must have been with profound reluctance that he voted for
the overthrow of the Macdonald government. He knew that the
fall of that administration would set back the construction of
the Pacific Railway and of the necessity of that great work to
the unity and stability of the confederation he was thoroughly
convinced. He was not well satisfied with the slower and less
heroic policy of Mackenzie, although it is said he believed the
road should be built by the government and ‘not by any company,
however honorable or competent.’ He said in 1876, ‘Nothing short
of a guarantee from the government of interest on the whole
amount of the bonds could induce capitalists to embark on the
enterprise.’ He, therefore, well understood the magnitude of the
contract into which the syndicate entered in 1880 and the peril
to his fortune and reputation involved in the assumption of that
gigantic undertaking.
“There is no doubt that the syndicate received great subventions,
but Mr. Smith and his courageous associates undertook to build
a railway through thousands of miles of unknown and uninhabited
country, along the sterile shores of Lake Superior and across the
Rocky mountains. They had to go out in advance of settlement.
They had to lead the march of civilization across leagues of
unsettled prairie. They had to seek a silent port on the Pacific.
It was a more daring idea than the Cape to Cairo Railway, which
united two great centers of world activity. The Canadian Pacific
was a plunge through nothing to nothing. It was a stupendous
guess at the future. As we look back we recognize that few human
achievements rank higher than the construction of the Canadian
Pacific Railway across this enormous stretch of territory, its
operation during the first ten years of its history and the
maintenance of its credit in face of persistent attack, slow
growth of population and unpromising national outlook. The
whisper goes that when the great enterprise hung on the verge
of collapse, Mr. Smith pledged his private fortune to the last
dollar in support of its credit, as he held his associates to the
scrupulous performance of every detail of their contract with the
country.”
One of the initial steps of the work was the purchase of the
bankrupt St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway, which,
extending over Minnesota and Dakota had a branch line to Pembina,
Manitoba. Built by Dutch capitalists, it became bankrupt in 1873,
yet Messrs. Smith and Hill recognized that with the return of
prosperity this would become a profitable undertaking. These two,
together with George Stephen, later Lord Mount Stephen, and N. W.
Kittson purchased the road.
Sir John Macdonald returned to power in 1878, but he could not
secure the cooperation of London financiers in the building of
the railroad. When it was seen that it was impossible to carry
the project through as a government railroad, in 1880 the four
men who had made the old Minnesota railroad a paying investment,
undertook the other task. A syndicate was formed, known as the
Canadian Pacific Railway Company, ultimately capitalized at
seventy-five million dollars, with twenty-five million dollars of
land grant bonds, and this company built the railroad from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. The task accomplished was a gigantic
one. The movement had the support of the conservative government,
but was bitterly assailed by the opposition, both in the house
and through the press. Again and again the word went out through
the papers and through party utterances that the railroad could
never be made a paying investment. It was almost impossible to
get investors to buy stock. At times the treasury seemed utterly
exhausted. It is said that one day Donald A. Smith came late to
a directors’ meeting. He looked into the faces of his colleagues
and said: “Nobody has any money; let’s adjourn until tomorrow.”
The following day he smilingly entered the room. “Has anybody
raised any money?” he asked. Everyone replied: “Not a cent.” “I
have raised another million,” announced Mr. Smith, “and that
will last us until somebody gets more money.” Never for a moment
did he lose faith in the ultimate triumph of the venture. He
inspired others with much of his own contagious enthusiasm. Again
and again when his associates seemed utterly discouraged he
inspired them with hope and when he was in Great Britain and the
directors wrote him a long letter indicating their utter despair
he cabled back one word “Craigellachie,” recalling at once the
old Highland clan cry “Stand Fast, Craigellachie,” and once more
inspired by their chieftain the men did stand fast and on the 7th
of November, 1885, at Craigellachie, British Columbia, Donald A.
Smith, then a white haired man, drove a golden spike into the
cedar tie upon which the rails met from east to west. The weight
of the Herculean task which he had accomplished between 1880 and
1885 had changed the strong, black bearded, sturdy man to a white
haired veteran. Before night came on the Marquis of Lansdowne,
governor general of Canada, had received a telegram from Queen
Victoria congratulating the Canadian people on an event “of
greatest importance to the whole British empire.” Speaking of the
Canadian Pacific Railway Sir Charles Tupper said:
“The Canadian Pacific Railway would have no existence today,
notwithstanding all the government did to support that
undertaking, had it not been for the indomitable pluck and energy
and determination, both financially and in every other respect,
of Sir Donald Smith.” Mr. James J. Hill, president of the Great
Northern Railway of the United States, also said that “the one
person to whose efforts and to whose confidence in the growth of
our country, our success in early railway development is due is
Sir Donald A. Smith.”
The splendid work done by Mr. Smith won him imperial honors. He
was created a knight commander of the Most Distinguished Order
of St. Michael and St. George by Queen Victoria in 1886 and a
decade later received a knight grand cross in the same order,
being privately invested by Her Majesty at Windsor Castle. At
the time of the Diamond Jubilee in 1897 Queen Victoria bestowed
a further mark of royal favor upon Mr. Smith by elevating him to
the peerage of the united kingdom as Baron Strathcona and Mount
Royal of Glencoe, in the county of Argyll, and of Montreal, in
the province of Quebec and Dominion of Canada. In 1908 he was
appointed a knight of the grand cross of the Royal Victorian
Order and was also elected a fellow of the Royal Society,
while in 1910 he became a knight of grace of the Order of the
Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem.
In the meantime he had become identified with so many financial
interests that it would be impossible to enumerate them. He also
remained active in politics, unyielding as ever in all matters
where subserviency was demanded by party exigencies. It has been
said:
“He was not a legislator; he was not a statesman; he never wanted
office; and he seldom spoke. He was forced into the house by his
commanding personality and he sat there representing the silent
power of the empire builder. But it is not to be supposed that
he was not a working member. Probably few men did more valuable
parliamentary work, while he remained a member of the house.”
In 1874 Mr. Smith resigned his seat in the Manitoba legislature,
but remained a representative of the province at Ottawa, sitting
for Selkirk until 1880. In 1887, at the general election, he was
returned to the house of commons as member for Montreal West,
now St. Antoine division, by a majority of fourteen hundred and
fifty, and was reelected in 1891 by a majority of thirty-seven
hundred and six, remaining the representative for Montreal
West until 1896. In 1892 he was an active participant in the
commercial congress held in London and in March, 1896, he served
as a delegate to the Manitoba government to aid in deciding the
Manitoba school question, his colleagues being Messrs. Dickey
and Desjardins. In April of the same year he was sworn of the
queen’s privy council of Canada, and he was commissioner to the
Pacific cable conference held in London in 1896, in which year he
once more attended the commercial congress. During the existence
of the Imperial Federation League he was vice president of that
organization for Quebec. In April, 1896, ere the conservative
administration went out of power, he was appointed Canadian high
commissioner in Great Britain, succeeding Sir Charles Tupper,
who had filled the office since its creation in 1884. The high
commissionership combines all the functions of an ambassador and
financial agent but has no diplomatic standing. The appointment
as high commissioner is a political one, but when Sir Wilfrid
Laurier came into power Lord Strathcona still retained the
position as if there had been no change in government. When the
conservatives returned to power in 1911 he remained in London,
with the approval of all Canada. When the expenses of the high
commissioner’s office in London were being discussed in the
Dominion house of commons the late Sir Richard Cartwright said:
“I believe that Canada has in very important respects been
extremely well served by Lord Strathcona since he has represented
us in Great Britain. It is a matter of no small moment to Canada
that our representative should be well and favorably known on the
London Stock Exchange as a man of the highest honor and probity,
and a man whose word is universally admitted to be his bond.
I need not tell the house that the emoluments are absolutely
naught to Lord Strathcona. I need not tell the house that in all
probability, in the exercise of hospitality which he has indulged
in during a single London season, he will vastly exceed all that
is nominally assigned to him as the representative of Canada. I
think every member of the house who has occasion to visit London
will testify that, whether or not the office in other respects
comes up to all that he desires, Lord Strathcona, at any rate, is
worthy of upholding in every possible way the honor and dignity
of Canada. I may further add that Lord Strathcona is a man whose
advice is eagerly sought and has very great weight, indeed, with
the British government and with Englishmen, Scotsmen and Irishmen
of every rank and station. As regards his influence in what I
may call the diplomatic circle and the ministerial circle and on
the Stock Exchange, Canada would find it pretty hard, indeed, to
replace Lord Strathcona.”
Lord Strathcona’s name stands high on the roll of those who have
figured most prominently in financial circles in the Dominion. He
was one of the large shareholders of the Bank of Montreal, became
its vice president in 1882 and president in 1887. It was only
after many years’ residence in London that he resigned in 1905,
whereupon he was immediately elected honorary president for life.
He studied banking from every possible standpoint and in all of
its relations to other business interests. His first address to
the shareholders after he became president was a notable one. He
spoke of the bountiful harvests in Canada and in the American
northwest and recognized the fact that shipping interests must
bring the grain to Montreal and that the bank would benefit
thereby. Few men would have considered the question in so wide
a scope. Year after year during his presidency Lord Strathcona
continued to call attention to the wealth of the nation as
provided by the agricultural districts of the northwest and time
has proven the wisdom of his judgment in this regard.
Not only was Lord Strathcona a railroad builder, a distinguished
financier and a political leader, but he was also one of Canada’s
most generous philanthropists. He never for a moment forgot
his own struggles and his hand was ever out-reaching to assist
another. His munificence was princely, yet his giving was most
unostentatious in its character and no one will ever know the
extent of his private charities. Some of his gifts, however, he
could not conceal. In association with Lord Mount Stephen he gave
one million for the erection of a great hospital in Montreal
to commemorate the queen’s jubilee. Later, when the building
had been erected on the mountain side, they gave equally in the
sum of eight hundred thousand to endow the institution and the
Royal Victoria is today one of the best equipped hospitals on
the continent. Modern science has been exhausted to furnish it
adequately and the large endowment makes it possible to keep pace
with the newest discoveries and inventions. McGill University has
again and again been the beneficiary of Lord Strathcona until
the sum total of his gifts reaches two million dollars, and in
addition he has presented to the university the land on which
to erect the new medical building and the site and building of
the Royal Victoria College. He also gave the income of a million
dollars as an endowment to the Royal Victoria College and the
chair of zoology. The former was founded for the higher education
of women and is one of the most popular and useful of his
bequests to McGill. Lord Strathcona was early chosen a governor
of McGill and was elected chancellor of the university in 1889.
The gifts to the university for the faculty of medicine included
the Leanchoil endowment, in memory of his mother, fifty thousand
dollars; for endowment of the chair of pathology, fifty thousand
dollars; for endowment of the department of hygiene, fifty
thousand dollars. The faculty of applied science benefited by the
endowment of its pension fund, fifty thousand dollars, while the
faculty of arts also benefited by a like amount for the same
object. Of the five hundred thousand dollar gift, given in 1909,
it was stipulated that fifty thousand should go for augmenting
the salaries of the professional staff. To the Trafalgar
Institute, affiliated with McGill University, he gave thirty
thousand dollars. Together with Lord Mount Stephen he endowed a
Canadian scholarship in the Royal College of Music, London, and
subsequently endowed a second scholarship on his own account.
Lord Strathcona took an active interest in the cooperative scheme
put in operation in 1912 by the Montreal Theological Colleges
affiliated with McGill and in the summer of 1913 contributed one
hundred thousand dollars to a half million dollar fund raised
by the friends of the four institutions concerned--Anglican,
Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational--to place the joint
work upon a permanent basis. As honorary chairman of the
Western committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association Lord
Strathcona gave one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to funds
for the Young Men’s Christian Association buildings in Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
Lord Strathcona’s patriotism and generosity found expression in
the equipment of the famous Strathcona Horse, a military force
of five hundred and forty men completely equipped and sent to
the front at a critical period of the war. He paid the expenses
of equipment, pay and transport until the regiment reached Cape
Town. The service of the regiment was, indeed, a credit to
its founder and has become a part of the military history of
Canada. Another of Lord Strathcona’s beneficent gifts was the
contribution of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to create
an annual fund of ten thousand dollars for the encouragement
of physical and military training in the public schools of the
Dominion. In writing upon this subject Lord Strathcona said:
“While I attach the highest importance to the advantages of
physical training and elementary drill for all children of
both sexes, I am particularly anxious that the especial value
of military drill, including rifle shooting for boys capable
of using rifles, should be constantly borne in mind. My object
is not only to help to improve the physical and intellectual
capabilities of the children by inculcating habits of alertness,
orderliness and prompt obedience but also to bring up the boys
to patriotism and to a realization that the first duty of a free
citizen is to be prepared to defend his country. The Dominion at
the present time and for many years to come can hardly hope to be
able to give so long a period of training to her military forces
as by itself would suffice to make them efficient soldiers, but
if all boys had acquired a fair acquaintance while at school with
simple military drill and rifle shooting the degree of efficiency
which could be reached in the otherwise short period which can be
devoted to the military training of the Dominion forces would in
my opinion be enormously enhanced.”
Among other evidences of his generosity was a gift of one hundred
thousand dollars in June, 1913, through the minister of militia,
for the purchase of a site on Lorne Crescent for a drill hall for
the exclusive use of McGill students.
Lord Strathcona has been equally generous in his assistance of
Scottish institutions. He gave to Marischal College, Aberdeen,
one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars and to Aberdeen
University fifty thousand dollars. He became chancellor of the
university in 1903 and held the office throughout his remaining
days, while from the students came the honor of election as lord
rector of that university. He founded the Leanchoil Cottage
Hospital in his native town of Forres and gave generously to
other charitable and educational institutions of his native land.
In 1902 he gave a million dollars to the fund for King Edward’s
Hospital and about the same time gave fifty-two thousand, five
hundred dollars to Queen Alexandra’s fund for the unemployed.