CONFEDERATION AND THE PARTIES
We are to consider now the long-vexed question of the connection of
Mr. Brown with the coalition of 1864. Ought he to have entered the
coalition government? Having entered it, was he justified in leaving
it in 1865? Holton and Dorion told him that by his action in 1864, he
had sacrificed his own party interests to those of John A. Macdonald;
that Macdonald was in serious political difficulty, and had been
defeated in the legislature; that he seized upon Brown's suggestion
merely as a means of keeping himself in office; that for the sake of
office he accepted the idea of confederation, after having voted
against it in Brown's committee. A most wise and faithful friend,
Alexander Mackenzie, thought that Reformers should accept no
representation in the cabinet, but that they should give confederation
an outside support. That Macdonald and his party were immensely
benefitted by Brown's action, there can be no doubt. For several years
they had either been in Opposition, or in office under a most
precarious tenure, depending entirely upon a majority from Lower
Canada. By Brown's action they were suddenly invested with an
overwhelming majority, and they had an interrupted lease of power for
the nine years between the coalition and the Pacific Scandal.
Admitting that the interest of the country warranted this sacrifice of
the interests of the Liberal party, we have still to consider whether
it was wise for Mr. Brown to enter the ministry, and especially to
enter it on the conditions that existed. The Lower Canadian Liberals
were not represented, partly because Dorion and Holton held back, and
partly because of the prejudice of Tache and Cartier against the
Rouges; and this exclusion was a serious defect in a ministry supposed
to be formed on a broad and patriotic basis. The result was, that
while the Liberals were in a majority in the legislature, they had
only three representatives in a ministry of twelve. Such a government,
with its dominant Conservative section led by a master in the handling
of political combinations, was bound to lose its character of a
coalition, and become Conservative out and out.
A broader question is involved than that of the mere party advantage
obtained by Macdonald and his party in the retention of power and
patronage. There was grave danger to the essential principles of
Liberalism, of which Brown was the appointed guardian. Holton put this
in a remarkable way during the debate on confederation. It was at the
time when Macdonald had moved the previous question, when the
coalition government was hurrying the debate to a conclusion, in the
face of indignant protests and demands that the scheme should be
submitted to the people. Holton told Brown that he had destroyed the
Liberal party. Henceforth its members would be known as those who once
ranged themselves together, in Upper and Lower Canada, under the
Liberal banner. Then followed this remarkable appeal to his old
friend: "Most of us remember--those of us who have been for a few
years in public life in this country must remember--a very striking
speech delivered by the honourable member for South Oxford in Toronto
in the session of 1856 or 1857, in which he described the path of the
attorney-general [Macdonald] as studded all along by the gravestones
of his slaughtered colleagues. Well, there are not wanting those who
think they can descry, in the not very remote distance, a yawning
grave waiting for the noblest victim of them all. And I very much fear
that unless the honourable gentleman has the courage to assert his own
original strength--and he has great strength--and to discard the
blandishments and the sweets of office, and to plant himself where he
stood formerly, in the affections and confidence of the people of this
country, as the foremost defender of the rights of the people, as the
foremost champion of the privileges of a free parliament--unless he
hastens to do that, I very much fear that he too may fall a victim,
the noblest victim of them all, to the arts, if not the arms of the
fell destroyer."
There was a little humorous exaggeration in the personal references to
Macdonald, for Holton and he were on friendly terms. But there was
also matter for serious thought in his words. Though Macdonald had
outgrown the fossil Toryism that opposed responsible government, he
was essentially Conservative; and there was something not democratic
in his habit of dealing with individuals rather than with people in
the mass, and of accomplishing his ends by private letters and
interviews, and by other forms of personal influence, rather than by
the public advocacy of causes. Association with him was injurious to
men of essentially Liberal and democratic tendencies, and
subordination was fatal, if not to their usefulness, at least to their
Liberal ideals. Macdougall and Howland remained in the ministry until
confederation was achieved, and found reasons for remaining there
afterwards. At the Reform convention of 1867, when the relation of the
Liberal party to the so-called coalition was considered, they defended
their position with skill and force, but the association of one with
Macdonald was very brief, and of the other very unhappy. Mr. Howland
was not a very keen politician, and a year after confederation was
accomplished he accepted the position of lieutenant-governor of
Ontario. Mr. Macdougall had an unsatisfactory career as a minister,
with an unhappy termination. He was clearly out of his element. Mr.
Tilley was described as a Liberal, but there was nothing to
distinguish him from his Conservative colleagues in his methods or his
utterances, and he became the champion of the essentially Conservative
policy of protection.
But the most notable example of the truth of Holton's words and the
soundness of his advice was Joseph Howe. Howe was in Nova Scotia "the
foremost defender of the rights of people, the foremost champion of
the privileges of free parliaments." He had opposed the inclusion of
Nova Scotia on the solid ground that it was accomplished by arbitrary
means. At length he bowed to the inevitable. In ceasing to encourage a
useless and dangerous agitation he stood on patriotic ground. But in
an evil hour he was persuaded to seal his submission by joining the
Macdonald government, and thenceforth his influence was at an end. His
biographer says that Howe's four years in Sir John Macdonald's cabinet
are the least glorious of his whole career. "Howe had been accustomed
all his life to lead and control events. He found himself a member of
a government of which Sir John Macdonald was the supreme head, and of
a cast of mind totally different from his own. Sir John Macdonald was
a shrewd political manager, an opportunist whose unfailing judgment
led him unerringly to pursue the course most likely to succeed each
hour, each day, each year. Howe had the genius of a bold Reformer, a
courageous and creative type of mind, who thought in continents,
dreamed dreams and conceived great ideas. Sir John Macdonald busied
himself with what concerned the immediate interests of the hour in
which he was then living, and yet Sir John Macdonald was a leader who
permitted no insubordination. Sir Georges Cartier, a man not to be
named in the same breath with Howe as a statesman, was, nevertheless,
a thousand times of more moment and concern with his band of Bleu
followers in the House of Commons, than a dozen Howes, and the
consequence is that we find for four years the great old man playing
second fiddle to his inferiors, and cutting a far from heroic figure
in the arena."[18] What Holton said by way of warning to Brown was
realized in the case of Howe. He was "the noblest victim of them all."
From the point of view of Liberalism and of his influence as a public
man, Brown did not leave the ministry a moment too soon; and there is
much to be said in favour of Mackenzie's view that he ought to have
refused to enter the coalition at all, and confined himself to giving
his general support to confederation. By this means he would not have
been responsible for the methods by which the new constitution was
brought into effect, methods that were in many respects repugnant to
those essential principles of Liberalism of which Brown had been one
of the foremost champions. At almost every stage in the proceedings
there was a violation of those rights of self-government which had
been so hardly won by Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The
Quebec conference was a meeting of persons who had been chosen to
administer the affairs of the various British provinces under their
established constitutions, not to make a new constitution. Its
deliberations were secret. It proceeded, without a mandate from the
people, to create a new governing body, whose powers were obtained at
the expense of those of the provinces. With the same lack of popular
authority, it declared that the provinces should have only those
powers which were expressly designated, and that the reserve of power
should be in the central governing body. Had this body been created
for the Canadas alone, this proceeding might have been justified, for
they were already joined in a legislative union, though by practice
and consent some features of federalism prevailed. But Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick were separate, self-governing communities, and it was
for them, not for the Quebec conference, to say what powers they would
grant and what powers they would retain. Again the people of Canada
had declared that the second chamber should be elected, not appointed
by the Crown. The Quebec conference, without consulting the people of
Canada, reverted to the discarded system of nomination, and added the
senate to the vast body of patronage at the disposal of the federal
government. The constitution adopted by this body was not, except in
the case of New Brunswick, submitted to the people, and it can hardly
be said that it was freely debated in the parliament of Canada, for it
was declared that it was in the nature of a treaty, and must be
accepted or rejected as a whole. In the midst of this debate the
people of New Brunswick passed upon the scheme in a general election,
and condemned it in the most decisive and explicit way. The British
government was then induced to bring pressure to bear upon the
province; and while it was contended that this pressure was only in
the form of friendly advice it was otherwise interpreted by the
governor, who strained his powers to compel the ministry to act in
direct contravention of its mandate from the people, and when it
resisted, forced it out of office. It is true that in a subsequent
election this decision was reversed; but that is not a justification
for the means adopted to bring about this result. It is no
exaggeration to say that Nova Scotia was forced into the union against
the express desire of a large majority of its people. There are
arguments by which these proceedings may be defended, but they are not
arguments that lie in the mouth of a Liberal. And if we say that the
confederation, in spite of these taints in its origin, has worked well
and has solved the difficulties of Canada, we use an argument which
might justify the forcible annexation of a country by a powerful
neighbour.
Again, there was much force in Dorion's contention that the new
constitution was an illiberal constitution, increasing those powers of
the executive which were already too large. To the inordinate strength
of the executive, under the delusive name of the Crown, may be traced
many of the worst evils of Canadian politics: the abuse of the
prerogative of dissolution, the delay in holding bye-elections, the
gerrymandering of the constituencies by a parliament registering the
decree of a government. To these powers of the government the
Confederation Act added that of filling one branch of the legislature
with its own nominees. By the power of disallowance, by the equivocal
language used in regard to education, and in regard to the creation of
new provinces, pretexts were furnished for federal interference in
local affairs. But for the resolute opposition of Mowat and his
colleagues, the subordination of the provinces to the central
authority would have gone very far towards realizing Macdonald's ideal
of a legislative union; and recent events have shown that the danger
of centralization is by no means at an end.
It was a true, liberal and patriotic impulse that induced Brown to
offer his aid in breaking the dead-lock of 1864. He desired that Upper
Canada should be fairly represented in parliament, and should have
freedom to manage its local affairs. He desired that the Maritime
Provinces and the North-West should, in the course of time, be
brought in on similar terms of freedom. But by joining the coalition
he became a participant in a different course of procedure; and if we
give him a large, perhaps the largest share, of the credit for the
ultimate benefits of confederation, we cannot divest him of
responsibility for the methods by which it was brought about, so long,
at least, as he remained a member of the government.
In the year and a half that elapsed between his withdrawal from the
government and the first general election under the new constitution,
he had a somewhat difficult part to play. He had to aid in the work of
carrying confederation, and at the same time to aid in the work of
re-organizing the Liberal party, which had been temporarily divided
and weakened by the new issue introduced into politics. In the Reform
convention of 1867 the attitude of the party towards confederation was
considered. It was resolved that "while the new constitution contained
obvious defects, it was, on the whole, based upon equitable principles
and should be accepted with the determination to work it loyally and
patiently, and to provide such amendments as experience from year to
year may prove to be expedient." It was declared that coalitions of
opposing political parties for ordinary administrative purposes
resulted in corruption, extravagance and the abandonment of principle;
that the coalition of 1864 could be justified only on the ground of
imperious necessity, as the only available means of obtaining just
representation for Upper Canada, and should come to an end when that
object was attained; and that the temporary alliance of the Reform and
Conservative parties should cease. Howland and Macdougall, who had
decided to remain in the ministry, strove to maintain that it was a
true coalition, and that the old issues that divided the parties were
at an end; and their bearing before a hostile audience was tactful and
courageous. But Brown and his friends carried all before them.
Brown argued strongly against the proposal to turn the coalition
formed for confederation into a coalition for ordinary administrative
purposes; and in a passage of unusual fervour he asked whether his
Reform friends were to be subjected to the humiliation of following in
the train of John A. Macdonald.
It is difficult to understand how so chimerical a notion as a
non-party government led by Macdonald could have been entertained by
practical politicians. A permanent position in a Macdonald ministry
would have been out of the question for Brown, not only because of his
standing as a public man, but because of his control of the _Globe_,
which under such an arrangement would have been reduced to the
position of an organ of the Conservative government. There were also
all the elements of a powerful Liberal party, which soon after
confederation rallied its forces and overthrew Sir John Macdonald's
government at Ottawa, and the coalition government he had established
at Toronto. Giving Macdougall every credit for good intentions, it
must be admitted that he committed an error in casting in his
political fortunes with Sir John Macdonald, and that both he and
Joseph Howe would have found more freedom, more scope for their
energies and a wider field of usefulness, in fighting by the side of
Mackenzie and Blake.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Longley's _Joseph Howe_, "Makers of Canada" series, pp. 228, 229.