LATER YEARS
In the preceding chapters it has been necessary to follow closely the
numerous public movements with which Brown was connected. Here we may
pause and consider some incidents of his life and some aspects of his
character which lie outside of these main streams of action. First, a
few words about the Brown household. Of the relations between father
and son something has already been said. Of his mother, Mr. Alexander
Mackenzie says: "We may assume that Mr. Brown derived much of his
energy, power and religious zeal from his half Celtic origin: these
qualities he possessed in an eminent degree, united with the
proverbial caution and prudence of the Lowlander." The children, in
the order of age, were Jane, married to Mr. George Mackenzie of New
York; George; Isabella, married to Mr. Thomas Henning; Katherine, who
died unmarried; Marianne, married to the Rev. W. S. Ball; and John
Gordon. There were no idlers in that family. The publication of the
_Globe_ in the early days involved a tremendous struggle. Peter Brown
lent a hand in the business as well as in the editorial department of
the paper. A good deal of the writing in the _Banner_ and the early
_Globe_ seems to bear the marks of his broad Liberalism and his
passionate love of freedom. Gordon entered the office as a boy, and
rose to be managing editor. Three of the daughters conducted a ladies'
school, which enjoyed an excellent reputation for thoroughness.
Katherine, the third daughter, was killed in a railway accident at
Syracuse; and the shock seriously affected the health of the father,
who died in 1863. The mother had died in the previous year.
By these events and by marriages the busy household was broken up.
George Brown, as we have seen, married in 1862, and from that time
until his death his letters to his wife and children show an intense
affection and love of home. After her husband's death Mrs. Brown
resided in Edinburgh, where she died on May 6th 1906. The only son,
George M. Brown, was, in the last parliament, member of the British
House of Commons for Centre Edinburgh, and is one of the firm of
Thomas Nelson & Sons, publishers. In the same city reside two
daughters, Margaret, married to Dr. A. F. H. Barbour, a well-known
physician, and writer on medicine; and Edith, wife of George Sandeman.
Among other survivors are, E. B. Brown, barrister, Toronto; Alfred S.
Ball, K.C., police magistrate, Woodstock; and Peter B. Ball,
commercial agent for Canada at Birmingham, nephews of George Brown.
From 1852 George Brown was busily engaged in public life, and a large
part of the work of the newspaper must have fallen on other shoulders.
There are articles in which one may fancy he detects the French
neatness of William Macdougall. George Sheppard spoke at the
convention of 1859 like a statesman; and he and Macdougall had higher
qualities than mere facility with the pen. Gordon Brown gradually grew
into the editorship. "He had" says Mr. E. W. Thomson, writing of a
later period, "a singular power of utilizing suggestions, combining
several that were evidently not associated, and indicating how they
could be merged in a striking manner. He seems to me now to have been
the greatest all-round editor I have yet had the pleasure of
witnessing at work, and in the political department superior to any of
the old or of the new time in North America, except only Horace
Greeley." But Mr. Thomson thinks that like most of the old-timers he
took his politics a little too hard. Mr. Gordon Brown died in June,
1896.
Mr. Brown regarded his defeat in South Ontario in 1867, as an
opportunity to retire from parliamentary life. He had expressed that
intention several months before. He wrote to Holton, on May 13th,
1867, "My fixed determination is to see the Liberal party re-united
and in the ascendant, and then make my bow as a politician. As a
journalist and a citizen, I hope always to be found on the right side
and heartily supporting my old friends. But I want to be free to write
of men and things without control, beyond that which my conscientious
convictions and the interests of my country demand. To be debarred by
fear of injuring the party from saying that--is unfit to sit in
parliament and that--is very stupid, makes journalism a very small
business. Party leadership and the conducting of a great journal do
not harmonize."
In his speech at the convention of 1867 he said that he had looked
forward to the triumph of representation by population as the day of
his emancipation from parliamentary life, but that the case was
altered by the proposal to continue the coalition, involving a
secession from the ranks of the Liberal party. In this juncture it was
necessary for Liberals to unite and consult, and if it were found that
his continuance in parliamentary life for a short time would be a
service to the party, he would not refuse. It would be impossible,
however, for him to accept any official position, and he did not wish,
by remaining in parliament, to stand in the way of those who would
otherwise become leaders of the party. He again emphasized the
difficulty of combining the functions of leadership of a party and
management of a newspaper. "The sentiments of the leader of a party
are only known from his public utterances on public occasions. If a
wrong act is committed by an opponent or by a friend, he may simply
shrug his shoulders." But it was otherwise with the journalist. He had
been accused of fierce assaults on public men. "But I tell you if the
daily thoughts and the words daily uttered by other public men were
written in a book as mine have been, and circulated all over the
country, there would have been a very different comparison between
them and myself. I have had a double duty to perform. If I had been
simply the leader of a party and had not controlled a public journal,
such things would not have been left on record. I might have passed my
observations in private conversation, and no more would have been
heard of them. But as a journalist it was necessary I should speak the
truth before the people, no matter whether it helped my party or not;
and this, of course, reflected on the position of the party.
Consequently, I have long felt very strongly that I had to choose one
position or the other--that of a leader in parliamentary life, or that
of a monitor in the public press--and the latter has been my choice
being probably more in consonance with my ardent temperament, and at
the same time, in my opinion, more influential; for I am free to say
that in view of all the grand offices that are now talked
of--governorships, premierships and the like--I would rather be editor
of the _Globe_, with the hearty confidence of the great mass of the
people of Upper Canada, than have the choice of them all."
Of Mr. Brown's relations with the parliamentary leaders after his
retirement, Mr. Mackenzie says: "Nor did he ever in after years
attempt to control or influence parliamentary proceedings as conducted
by the Liberals in opposition, or in the government; while always
willing to give his opinion when asked on any particular question, he
never volunteered his advice. His opinions, of course, received free
utterance in the _Globe_, which was more unfettered by reason of his
absence from parliamentary duties; though even there it was rarely
indeed that any articles were published which were calculated to
inconvenience or discomfort those who occupied his former
position."[21]
Left comparatively free to follow his own inclinations, Brown plunged
into farming, spending money and energy freely in the raising of fine
cattle on his Bow Park estate near Brantford, an extensive business
which ultimately led to the formation of a joint stock company. The
province of Ontario, especially western Ontario, was for him the
object of an intense local patriotism. He loved to travel over it and
to meet the people. It was noticed in the _Globe_ office that he paid
special attention to the weekly edition of the paper, as that which
reached the farming community. His Bow Park enterprise gave him an
increased feeling of kinship and sympathy with that community, and he
delighted in showing farmers over the estate. It would be hard to draw
a more characteristic picture than that of the tall senator striding
over the fields, talking of cattle and crops with all the energy with
which he was wont to denounce the Tories.
Brown was appointed to the senate in December, 1873. Except for the
speech on reciprocity, which is dealt with elsewhere, his career there
was not noteworthy. He seems to have taken no part in the discussion
on Senator Vidal's resolution in favour of prohibition, or on the
Scott Act, a measure for introducing prohibition by local option. A
popular conception of Brown as an ardent advocate of legislative
prohibition may have been derived from some speeches made in his early
career, and from an early prospectus of the _Globe_. On the bill
providing for government of the North-West Territories he made a
speech against the provision for separate schools, warning the House
that the effect would be to fasten these institutions on the West in
perpetuity.
In 1876 Senator Brown figured in a remarkable case of contempt of
court. A Bowmanville newspaper had charged Senator Simpson, a
political ally of Brown, with resorting to bribery in the general
election of 1872. It published also a letter from Senator Brown to
Senator Simpson, asking him for a subscription towards the Liberal
campaign fund. On Senator Simpson's application, Wilkinson, the editor
of the paper, was called upon to show cause why a criminal information
should not issue against him for libel. The case was argued before the
Queen's Bench, composed of Chief-Justice Harrison, Justice Morrison,
and Justice Wilson. The judgment of the court delivered by the
chief-justice was against the editor in regard to two of the articles
complained of and in his favour in regard to the third. In following
the chief-justice, Mr. Justice Wilson took occasion to refer to
Senator Brown's letter and to say that it was written with corrupt
intent to interfere with the freedom of elections.
Brown was not the man to allow a charge of this kind to go unanswered,
and in this case there were special circumstances calculated to arouse
his anger. The publication of his letter in the Bowmanville paper had
been the signal for a fierce attack upon him by the Conservative press
of the province. It appeared to him that Justice Wilson had wantonly
made himself a participant in this attack, lending the weight of his
judicial influence to his enemies. Interest was added to the case by
the fact that the judge had been in previous years supported by the
_Globe_ in municipal and parliamentary elections. He had been
solicitor-general in the Macdonald-Sicotte government from May 1862 to
May 1863. Judge Morrison had been solicitor-general under Hincks, and
afterwards a colleague of John A. Macdonald. Each of them, in this
case, took a course opposite to that which might have been expected
from old political associations.
A few days afterwards the _Globe_ contained a long, carefully prepared
and powerful attack upon Mr. Justice Wilson. Beginning with a tribute
to the Bench of Ontario, it declared that no fault was to be found
with the judgment of the court, and that the offence lay in the
gratuitous comments of Mr. Justice Wilson.
"No sooner had the chief-justice finished than Mr. Justice Wilson
availed himself of the occasion to express his views of the matter
with a freedom of speech and an indifference to the evidence before
the court and an indulgence in assumptions, surmises and insinuations,
that we believe to be totally unparalleled in the judicial proceedings
of any Canadian court."
The article denied that the letter was written with any corrupt
intent, and it stated that the entire fund raised by the Liberal party
in the general election of 1872 was only three thousand seven hundred
dollars, or forty-five dollars for each of the eighty-two
constituencies. "This Mr. Justice Wilson may rest assured of: that
such slanders and insults shall not go unanswered, and if the dignity
of the Bench is ruffled in the tussle, on his folly shall rest the
blame. We cast back on Mr. Wilson his insolent and slanderous
interpretation. The letter was not written for corrupt purposes. It
was not written to interfere with the freedom of elections. It was not
an invitation to anybody to concur in committing bribery and
corruption at the polls; and be he judge or not who says so, this
statement is false."
The writer went on to contend that there were perfectly legitimate
expenditures in keenly contested elections. "Was there no such fund
when Mr. Justice Wilson was in public life? When the hat went round in
his contest for the mayoralty, was that or was it not a concurrence in
bribery or corruption at the polls?" Mr. Justice Wilson had justified
his comment by declaring that he might take notice of matters with
which every person of ordinary intelligence was acquainted. Fastening
upon these words the _Globe_ asked, "How could Mr. Justice Wilson in
his hunt for things which every person of ordinary intelligence is
acquainted with, omit to state that while the entire general election
fund of the Liberal party for that year (1872) was but three thousand
seven hundred dollars, raised by subscription from a few private
individuals, the Conservative fund on the same occasion amounted to
the enormous sum of two hundred thousand dollars, raised by the
flagitious sale of the Pacific Railway contract to a band of
speculators on terms disastrous to the interests of the country."
In another vigorous paragraph the writer said: "We deeply regret being
compelled to write of the conduct of any member of the Ontario Bench
in the tone of this article, but the offence was so rank, so reckless,
so utterly unjustifiable that soft words would have but poorly
discharged our duty to the public."
No proceedings were taken in regard to this article until about five
months afterwards, when Mr. Wilkinson, the editor of the Bowmanville
paper, applied to have Mr. Brown committed for contempt of court. The
judge assailed took no action and the case was tried before his
colleagues, Chief-Justice Harrison and Judge Morrison. Mr. Brown
appeared in person and made an argument occupying portions of two
days. He pointed out that the application had been delayed five
months after the publication of the article. He contended that
Wilkinson was not prejudiced by the _Globe_ article and had no
standing in the case. In a lengthy affidavit he entered into the whole
question of the expenditure of the two parties in the election of
1872, including the circumstances of the Pacific Scandal. He repeated
on oath the statement made in the article that his letter was not
written with corrupt intent; that the subscription asked for was for
legitimate purposes and that it was part of a fund amounting to only
three thousand seven hundred dollars for the whole province of
Ontario. He boldly justified the article as provoked by Mr. Justice
Wilson's dictum and by the use that would be made of it by hostile
politicians. The judge had chosen to intervene in a keen political
controversy whose range extended to the Pacific Scandal; and in
defending himself from his enemies and the enemies of his party, Brown
was forced to answer the judge. He argued that to compel an editor to
keep silence in such a case, would not only be unjust to him, but
contrary to public policy. For instance, the discussion of a great
public question such as that involved in the Pacific Scandal, might be
stopped upon the application of a party to a suit in which that
question was incidentally raised.
The case was presented with his accustomed energy and thoroughness,
from the point of view of journalistic duty, of politics and of
law--for Mr. Brown was not afraid to tread that sacred ground and
give extensive citations from the law reports. His address may be
commended to any editor who may be pursued by that mysterious legal
phantom, a charge of contempt of court. The energy of his gestures,
the shaking of the white head and the swinging of the long arms, must
have somewhat startled Osgoode Hall. The court was divided, the
chief-justice ruling that there had been contempt, Mr. Justice
Morrison, contra, and Mr. Justice Wilson taking no part in the
proceedings. So the matter dropped, though not out of the memory of
editors and politicians.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Mackenzie's _Life and Speeches of the Hon. George Brown_, p. 119.