It was in the years that followed the concession of responsible
government that a new era dawned on Canada--an era of intellectual
as well as material activity. Then common schools followed the
establishment of municipal institutions in Ontario. Even the province
of Quebec awoke from its sullen lethargy and assumed greater confidence
in the future, as its statesmen gradually recognized the fact that the
union of 1841 could be turned to the advantage of French Canada despite
it having been largely based on the hope of limiting the development
of French Canadian institutions, and gradually leading the way to the
assimilation of the two races. Political life still claimed the best
talent and energy, as it has always done in this country; and, while
Papineau soon disappeared from the arena where he had been, under a
different condition of things, a powerful disturbing influence among
his compatriots, men of greater discretion and wider statesmanship like
Lafontaine, Morin and Cartier, took his place to the decided benefit
of French Canada. Robert Baldwin, a tried and conservative reformer,
yielded to the antagonistic influences that eventually arrayed
themselves in his own party against him and retired to a privacy
from which he never ventured until his death. William Lyon Mackenzie
came back from exile and took a place once more in legislative halls
only to find there was no longer scope for mere querulous agitators
and restless politicians. Joseph Howe still devoted himself with
untiring zeal to his countrymen in his native province, while Judge
Wilmot, afterwards governor like the former in confederation days,
delighted the people of New Brunswick with his rapid, fervid, scholarly
eloquence. James W. Johnstone, long the leader of the Conservative
party in Nova Scotia, remarkable for his great flow of language and
argument; William Young, an astute politician; James Boyle Uniacke,
with all the genius of an Irish orator; Laurence O'Connor Doyle, wit
and Irishman; Samuel J. W. Archibald with his silver tongue, afterwards
master of the rolls; Adams G. Archibald, polished gentleman; Leonard
Tilley with his suavity of demeanour and skill as a politician;
Charles Tupper with his great command of language, earnestness of
expression and courage of conviction, were the leading exponents of the
political opinions and of the culture and oratory of Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick. In the upper provinces we had in addition to the names
of the distinguished French Canadians I have already mentioned, those
of John A. Macdonald, at all times a ready and incisive debater, a
great party tactician, and a statesman of generous aspirations, who was
destined to die very many years later with the knowledge that he had
realized his conception of a federation uniting all the territory of
British North America, from Sydney to Victoria, under one government.
The names of Allan McNab, Francis Hincks, George Brown, George Etienne
Cartier, Alexander Galt, D'Arcy McGee, Louis Sicotte, John Hillyard
Cameron, Alexander Mackenzie, Seth Huntington, William McDougall,
Antoine Dorion, Alexander Campbell, and of other men, eminent for their
knowledge of finance, their powers as debaters, their graceful oratory,
their legal acumen, their political skill and their intellectual
achievements in their respective spheres, will be recalled by many of
those who hear me, since the most eminent among them have but recently
disappeared from the stage of active life.
As long as party government lasts in this country men will be divided
into political divisions, and objection will be of course time and
again taken to the methods by which these and other political leaders
have achieved their party ends, and none of us will be always satisfied
with the conclusions to which their at times overweening ambition
has led them; but, taking them all in all, I believe for one who has
lived all my life among politicians and statesmen that, despite their
failings and weaknesses, the public men of our country in those days
laboured on the whole conscientiously from their own points of view
to make Canada happier and greater. Indeed, when I look around me and
see what has been done in the face of great obstacles during a half
century and less, I am bound to pay this tribute to those who laboured
earnestly in the difficult and trying intellectual field of public life.
But this period which brought so many bright intellects into the
activities of political life was distinguished also, not merely for
the material advance in industry, but notably for some performance
in the less hazardous walk of literature. The newspaper press with
the progress of population, the increase of wealth, the diffusion of
education, the construction of railways and telegraph lines, and the
development of political liberty, found itself stimulated to new energy
and enterprise. A daily press now commenced to meet the necessities
of the larger and wealthier cities and towns. It must be admitted,
however, that from a strictly intellectual point of view there was
not in some respects a marked advance in the tone and style of the
leading public journals. Political partisanship ran extremely high in
those days--higher than it has ever since--and grosser personalities
than have ever characterized newspapers in this country sullied the
editorial columns of leading exponents of public opinion. No doubt
there was much brilliant and forcible writing, despite the acrimony
and abuse that were too often considered more necessary than incisive
argument and logical reasoning when a political opponent had to be met.
It was rarely that one could get at the whole truth of a question by
reading only one newspaper; it was necessary to take two or three or
more on different sides of politics in order to obtain even an accurate
idea of the debates in the legislative halls. A Liberal or Conservative
journal would consider it beneath its legitimate functions even as a
newspaper to report with any fulness the speeches of its political
adversaries. Of course this is not newspaper editing in the proper
sense of the phrase. It is not the English method assuredly, since the
London _Times_, the best example of a well-equipped and well-conducted
newspaper, has always considered it necessary to give equal prominence
to the speeches of Peel, Russell, Palmerston, Derby, Disraeli,
Gladstone--of all the leaders irrespective of party. Even in these days
of heated controversy on the Irish question one can always find in the
columns of the London press fair and accurate reports of the speeches
of Gladstone, Balfour, McCarthy, Chamberlain, Morley and Blake. This is
the sound basis on which true and honest journalism must always rest
if it is to find its legitimate reward, not in the fickle smiles of
the mere party follower, but in the support of that great public which
can best repay the enterprise and honesty of a true newspaper. Still,
despite this violent partisanship to which bright intellects lowered
themselves, and the absence of that responsibility to public opinion
expected from its active teachers, the press of Canada, during the days
of which I am speaking, kept pace in some essential respects with the
material progress of the country, and represented too well the tone
and spirit of the mass in the country where the rudiments of culture
were still rough and raw. Public intelligence, however, was being
gradually diffused, and according as the population increased, and the
material conditions of the country improved, a literature of some merit
commenced to show itself. The poems of Crémazie,[25] of Chauveau,[26]
of Howe,[27] of Sangster[28] and others, were imbued with a truly
Canadian spirit--with a love for Canada, its scenery, its history and
its traditions, which entitled them to a larger audience than they
probably ever had in this or other countries. None of those were great
poets, but all of them were more or less gifted with a measure of true
poetic genius, the more noteworthy because it showed itself in the
rawness and newness of a colonial life. Amid the activities of a very
busy period the poetic instinct of Canadians constantly found some
expression. One almost now forgotten poet who was engaged in journalism
in Montreal wrote an ambitious drama, "Saul," which was described at
the time by a British critic as "a drama treated with great poetic
power and depth of psychological knowledge which are often quite
startling;" and the author followed it up with other poems, displaying
also much imagination and feeling, but at no time reaching the ears of
a large and appreciative audience. We cannot, however, claim Charles
Heavysege[29] as a product of Canadian soil and education, for he
was a man of mature age when he made his home in this country, and
his works were in no wise inspired by Canadian sentiment, scenery or
aspiration. In history Canadians have always shown some strength, and
perhaps this was to be expected in view of the fact that political
and historical literature--such works as Hamilton's "Federalist" or
Todd's "Parliamentary Government"[30]--naturally engages the attention
of active intellects in a new country at a time when its institutions
have to be moulded, and it is necessary to collect precedents and
principles from the storehouse of the past for the assistance of the
present. A most useful narrative of the political occurrences in Lower
Canada, from the establishment of legislative institutions until the
rebellion of 1837-38 and the union of 1841, was written by Mr. Robert
Christie, long a publicist of note and a member of the assembly of the
province. While it has no claim to literary style it has the great
merit of stating the events of the day with fairness and of citing at
length numerous original documents bearing on the text.[31] In French
Canada the names of Garneau[32] and Ferland[33] have undoubtedly
received their full meed of praise for their clearness of style,
industry of research, and scholarly management of their subject. Now
that the political passion that so long convulsed the public mind
in this country has disappeared with the causes that gave it birth,
one is hardly prepared to make as much a hero of Papineau as Garneau
attempted in his assuredly great book, while the foundation of a new
Dominion and the dawn of an era of larger political life, has probably
given a somewhat sectional character to such historical work. Still,
despite its intense French Canadian spirit, Garneau's volumes notably
illustrate the literary instinct and intellectual strength which have
always been distinguishing features of the best productions of the able
and even brilliant men who have devoted themselves to literature with
marked success among their French Canadian countrymen, who are wont to
pay a far deeper homage to such literary efforts than the colder, less
impulsive English Canadian character has ever shown itself disposed
to give to those who have been equally worthy of recognition in the
English-speaking provinces.