FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT
In the Provincial Legislature--In federal politics--The Mackenzie
government--The Riel question--Protection or free trade--The Catholic
programme--Catholic liberalism--The clergy in politics--Political
liberalism--In the administration
Less than five years had passed after Wilfrid Laurier came to
Arthabaskaville, a boyish, unknown lawyer-editor, when he was chosen by
an overwhelming majority as member for Drummond-Arthabaska in the
provincial legislature. His firmly based Liberalism, his power as a
speaker, his widespread popularity, had very early marked him out as
the logical candidate of his party. On many grounds he was prepared to
listen to the urging of his friends. His interest in politics was only
second, if second it was, to his interest in his profession. The
ambition to hold a place in parliament was one which appealed to
practically every able young lawyer of his time in Quebec, and, thanks
to the short sessions of the provincial assembly and the nearness of
Arthabaska to Quebec, membership in the legislature would not greatly
interfere with his work at home. Yet his health was still {33}
precarious, and it was with much hesitation and reluctance that he
finally consented to stand for the county in 1871, at the second
general election since Confederation. Though ill throughout the
campaign, he was able to make a few speeches, and the loyal support of
his friends did the rest. His opponent, Edward Hemming, a barrister of
Drummondville, had been the previous member for the riding. At the
close of the polls--those were still the days of open voting--it was
found that, while the Liberal party in the province was once more badly
defeated, Wilfrid Laurier had won his seat by over one thousand
majority.
When the legislature met at Quebec in November, there was a lively
interest on both sides of the chamber in the young man of thirty who
had scored such a notable victory. At that time the legislature had an
unusually large number of men of first rank in eloquence and
parliamentary ability, including Cartier, Chapleau, Cauchon, Holton,
and Irvine. All these except Chapleau were also members of the House
of Commons, since at that time no law forbade dual representation, and
the standards were relatively high. The Government under Chauveau, the
prime minister, {34} was too firmly entrenched to be shaken by any
assaults from the Opposition leader, Henri Joly de Lotbiniere, and his
scanty following. In the criticism, however, the member for Arthabaska
took a notable part. He did not speak often, but when he did his
remarks were fresh and constructive. In the debate on the Address he
scored the Government for its backward educational policy, urged active
steps to check the exodus of French Canadians to the mills of New
England, praised the ideals of British Liberalism, and called for a
truce in racial and religious quarrels. In a later speech he presented
the keenest constitutional criticism yet made of the system of dual
representation, showing that it tended to bring the provinces too
completely within the orbit of the central power and confuse local with
federal issues. Three years later, it may be noted, the system was
abolished.
The vigour and yet moderation of these first efforts, so aptly phrased
and so admirably fitted to the peculiar requirements of parliamentary
speaking, the grace and flair of the orator, gave the member for
Arthabaska at a stroke high rank in the party. He was very soon urged
to seek the wider opportunities of federal politics. Ottawa, it was
clear, would {35} make much greater demands upon his time than Quebec,
yet his health was now improving. Accordingly he determined to make
the change, and in the general federal elections of 1874 he was
returned for Drummond-Arthabaska by a majority of two hundred and
thirty-eight.
In 1874 the Liberal Government at Ottawa, under Alexander Mackenzie,
seemed assured of a long term of office. It had been given an
overwhelming majority in the election just concluded; its leaders were
able and aggressive; and the Opposition was still crushed by the
indignation which followed on the exposure of the Pacific Scandal.
Yet there were many weaknesses in its situation, which time was to make
clear. The Government's forces were not closely united: the only bond
holding together several of the groups which made up the majority was
that of common opposition to the late administration. Many stragglers
on the flanks were waylaid and brought back into their old camp by that
arch-strategist, Sir John Macdonald. The question of leadership was
not fully determined. In Ontario Edward Blake divided allegiance with
{36} Alexander Mackenzie, and Blake's inability to make up his mind
definitely to serve under Mackenzie greatly weakened the party. In
Quebec the situation was even more serious. Dorion was the man whose
constructive ability, admirable temper, and long years of fighting
against heavy odds marked him out as chief, but family and health
considerations determined him to retire to the quieter if not less
heavy labours of the bench. Fournier soon followed. Laflamme, in
whose office Laurier had studied, was hardly a man of sufficient
weight. Holton, leader of the small group of English Liberals in
Quebec, was also in very poor health. To fill the gap Mackenzie
summoned Joseph Cauchon, a former Conservative who had left his party
on the Pacific Scandal; a man of great ability, active in the campaign
for Confederation, but weakened by an unfortunate record of corruption
in earlier days, a record which his Liberal opponents of those days had
painted in startling and unforgettable colours.
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[Illustration: PRIME MINISTERS OF CANADA, 1867-1915
1. ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, 1873-78
2. SIR JOHN ABBOTT, 1891-92
3. SIR JOHN THOMPSON, 1892-94
4. SIR WILFRID LAURIER, 1896-1911
5. SIR JOHN MACDONALD, 1867-73, 1878-91
6. SIR MACKENZIE BOWELL, 1894-96
7. SIR CHARLES TUPPER, 1896
8. SIR ROBERT BORDEN, 1911-]
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These difficulties were, however, not insuperable; and doubtless the
party would have drilled into working cohesion under definitely
acknowledged leaders, had it not been for two more serious sources of
{37} weakness. The first of these was the commercial depression which
fell upon Canada, in common with the rest of the world, in 1873, and
made it possible for an Opposition, itself most courageous in promises,
to hold the Government responsible for all the country's ills. The
other was Mr Mackenzie's high-minded but mistaken idea of his duty.
Somewhat lacking in imagination though he was, Alexander Mackenzie had
in him the stuff out of which party leaders are made. He was a man of
vigour and ability, a hard-hitting debater, a thoroughgoing democrat,
and he had a well-earned reputation for downright frankness and
unswerving honesty which could easily have rallied the country's trust
and affection. But while prime minister he gave to the details of
departmental administration the care and thought and time which should
have gone in part to his other duties as leader in constructive policy
and chieftain of the party. He failed to keep in touch with public
opinion, and so was caught unawares.
In spite of these drawbacks the Mackenzie administration left a notable
record. It passed the law which introduced voting by ballot and
required all elections, in a general contest, to be held on one day.
It brought {38} forth the Scott Act, which proved a useful if not a
final measure of temperance reform. It established the Royal Military
College and the Supreme Court of Canada. It pushed the Pacific Railway
forward steadily, if somewhat slowly, as a government work. Had the
stars been favourable, the Government might well have thought itself
secure on its record of legislative progress and administrative
efficiency.
The questions which roused most debate both in parliament and in the
country were the Riel Amnesty, the National Policy, and, in Quebec, the
perennial issue of the relations of church and state. These may be
noted in turn, particularly in so far as Mr Laurier took part in the
discussions.
For nearly twenty years the Riel question in its various phases
bedevilled Canadian politics and set race against race and province
against province. Had it been only the resistance offered by the Red
River settlers to Canadian authority which was in question in the
seventies, time would soon have brought understanding and
forgetfulness. That the half-breed settlers had just grievances, that
the Canadian authorities bungled badly their first experiment in
national expansion, all {39} would have admitted. But the shooting in
cold blood of Thomas Scott, an Orangeman of Ontario, by the order of
Louis Riel, lit fires of passion that would not easily die. And
politicians fanned the flames for party ends. Neither party was
guiltless. At the outset in Ontario the Liberals played to the Orange
gallery, while in Quebec they appealed to French prejudices. Sir John
Macdonald could attack Blake for frightening Riel out of the country
and beyond the reach of justice, by offers of reward for his arrest, at
the very time that Macdonald himself was paying Riel out of the secret
service funds to keep away from Canada.
During the Mackenzie administration the question twice gave rise to
full-dress debates. Early in 1874 Mackenzie Bowell moved that Riel,
who had been elected a member for Provencher, should be expelled from
the House; Holton moved an amendment that action be deferred until the
committee, then inquiring into the whole matter, reported; while
Mousseau demanded immediate and unconditional amnesty. In the debate
that followed Mr Laurier made his first parliamentary speech in
English. He supported Holton's amendment, while making it clear {40}
that in his view of the evidence the country had been pledged to
amnesty by the action of the former Government. It was a forceful and
well-reasoned argument, in both its felicitous phrasing and its
moderate tone an appropriate introduction to the parliamentary career
which was just beginning. Again in 1875, when Mr Mackenzie moved that
full amnesty be given to all concerned in the rebellion save Riel,
Lepine, and O'Donoghue, and that the former two be pardoned, subject to
five years' banishment, Mr Laurier defended this reasonable compromise
against both the Quebec extremists who demanded immediate pardon and
the Ontario opponents of any clemency whatever.
Protection was an even more fertile topic of debate in these and
following years. It was only recently that it had become a party
issue. Both parties had hitherto been content with the compromise of
'tariff for revenue, with incidental protection,' though in the ranks
of both were advocates of out-and-out protection. In Ontario the
Canada First movement, which looked to Blake as its leader, had strong
protectionist leanings, and in Quebec the _Parti National_, under which
name the _Rouges_ had been reorganized and made {41} ultra-respectable,
were of the same tendency. But Mackenzie was a staunch free-trader,
while the Liberals from the maritime provinces were opposed to any
increase in the tariff on the many things they consumed but did not
produce. Accordingly, after much hesitation, the Liberals in 1876
declined to raise the tariff beyond the existing average of seventeen
and a half per cent. At once the Conservatives, who, it was alleged,
had been prepared to advocate freer trade, came out for protection. On
this question Laurier was more in agreement with Blake than with
Mackenzie. In early years he had been influenced by Papineau's crusade
for protection, and believed that in the existing crisis an increase in
the tariff to twenty per cent would aid the revenue and would avert a
demand for more extreme duties. Time proved, however, that the
appetites of protectionists could not so easily be appeased; and all
wings of the party presently found themselves in harmony, in resisting
the proposals to set up extremely high barriers.
But it was on the vexed question of the relations of church and state,
and particularly of the Catholic hierarchy and the Liberal party in
Quebec, that Mr Laurier gave the most distinctive service. This
question had become {42} more acute than ever. In 1870 the
ultramontane element in the Roman Catholic Church had won a sweeping
victory by inducing a majority of the Vatican Council to promulgate the
doctrine of Papal Infallibility. There followed a wave of ultramontane
activity throughout the world, and not least in Quebec. Bishop
Bourget's hands were strengthened by Bishop Lafleche of Three Rivers,
and by other prelates and priests of perhaps less relentless temper;
while a cohort of journalists, in _Le Nouveau Monde, La Verite, Le
Journal de Trois Rivieres_, and other papers, devoted themselves
whole-heartedly to the ultramontane cause. On the other hand,
Archbishop Baillargeon of Quebec and his successor, Archbishop
Taschereau, the priests of the Quebec Seminary and of Laval University,
and the Sulpicians at Montreal, were disposed to live at peace. They
would all have denied sympathy either with Gallicanism or with Catholic
Liberalism, but they were men of tolerance and breadth of sympathy,
very doubtful whether such militant activity would advance the
permanent interests of their Church.
There broke out a violent struggle between the two political parties in
1871, with the issue {43} of the _Catholic Programme_. This famous
document was a manifesto prepared by a group of editors and lawyers,
who, in their own words, 'belonged heart and soul to the ultramontane
school'--Trudel, Desjardins, M'Leod, Renault, Beausoleil, and
others--and was drawn up by A. B. Routhier, then a lawyer in
Kamouraska. It sought to lay down a policy to govern all good
Catholics in the coming elections. The doctrine of the separation of
church and state, the document declared, was impious and absurd. On
the contrary, the authorities of the state, and the electors who chose
them, must act in perfect accord with the teachings of the Church, and
endeavour to safeguard its interests by making such changes in the laws
as the bishops might demand. To secure this end the Conservative party
must be supported. When two Conservatives or two Liberals were
running, the one who accepted the _Programme_ was to be elected; where
a Conservative and a Liberal were opposed, the former would be
supported; if it happened that a Conservative who opposed the
_Programme_ was running against a Liberal who accepted it, 'the
situation would be more delicate'--and Catholics should not vote at all.
{44}
This frank declaration of war on the Liberal party, this attempt to
throw the solid Catholic vote to the Conservatives, at once aroused
violent controversy. Bishops Bourget and Lafleche announced that they
approved the manifesto in every point, while Archbishop Taschereau and
the bishops of St Hyacinthe and Rimouski declared that it had not their
authorization.
The Liberal party was sorely pressed. In the emergency some of its
moderate members determined to throw off the incubus of their
anti-clerical traditions by reorganizing and renaming the party. So in
1871 Louis Jette and other leading Quebec Liberals undertook to secure
a fresh start by organizing the _Parti National_, and the result of the
following elections gave some ground for hope. 'This evolution of the
Liberal party,' declared Bishop Lafleche later in a memorial to the
Cardinals of the Sacred Congregation, 'had the success expected from
it; it made a number of dupes not only among our good Catholics but
even in the ranks of the clergy, who had hitherto been united against
the Liberal party.... It is from this development that there dates the
division in the ranks of the clergy on the question of politics.'
{45}
But this prudent step did not avert the wrath of the now dominant
ultramontane section. In 1873 a brief pastoral was issued by all the
bishops condemning Catholic Liberalism in vague but sweeping terms.
Two years later another joint pastoral, that of September 22, 1875,
went into the whole question elaborately. Catholic Liberalism, that
subtle serpent, was again denounced. The right of the clergy to
intervene in politics was again upheld, whether in neutral matters in
which they, like all other citizens, should have a voice, or in matters
affecting faith or morals or the interests of the Church. In the
latter case the clergy should declare with authority that to vote in
this or that way is a sin, exposing the offender to the penalties of
the Church. In a letter issued a year later Archbishop Taschereau
modified these pretensions, but the assault went on. Regarding the
identity of the Catholic Liberals in question both pastorals were
silent, but not silent were many of the clergy who interpreted them to
their flocks. The cap fitted the Liberal party and its chiefs, they
averred, and good Catholics must govern themselves accordingly.
This determined attempt of a section of the {46} clergy to use the
influence they possessed as spiritual guides to crush one political
party aroused the most moderate sections of the Liberals to
counter-attacks. The election law of Canada, copied from that of
England, forbade the use of undue influence in elections, and undue
influence had been said to include use by ecclesiastics of their powers
to excite superstitious fears or pious hopes. Baron Fitzgerald had
declared in the Mayo case in Ireland, in 1857, that the priest must not
use threats of punishment here or hereafter, must not threaten to
withhold the sacraments or denounce voting for any particular candidate
as a sin. The Liberals of Quebec had no desire to deny the priest the
same rights as other citizens enjoyed, of taking part in the discussion
of any political question whatever, and using all the powers of
persuasion to secure this end. But, they insisted, for a priest to
threaten eternal punishment was as much a case of undue influence as
for an employer to threaten to dismiss a workman if he would not vote
for a certain candidate, and as just a ground for voiding an election.
The matter was pressed to a decision in appeals against candidates
returned in two federal by-elections, in Chambly and Charlevoix, and
{47} in one provincial election, in Bonaventure. In these instances
the proof of open partisanship and open use of ecclesiastical pressure
was overwhelming. 'The candidate who spoke last Sunday,' declared one
priest in Chambly, 'called himself a moderate Liberal. As Catholics
you cannot vote for him; you cannot vote for a Liberal, nor for a
moderate Liberal, for moderate is only another term for liar.' 'The
Church has condemned Liberalism, and to vote against the direction of
the bishops would be sin,' declared another. 'The sky of heaven is
_bleu_, the fire of hell is _rouge_,' another more pointedly urged. 'I
was afraid,' one witness testified, 'that if I voted for Tremblay I
should be damned.' In defence it was urged that, in the first place,
the civil courts had no authority over ecclesiastics, at least for acts
done in their spiritual capacity, and, in the second place, that the
Church had a right to defend its interests against attack, and that in
using to this end all the powers at its disposal it was employing no
undue influence. Judge Routhier, the author of the _Catholic
Programme_, upheld these contentions in the first trial of the
Charlevoix case, but the Supreme Court, in judgments delivered by Mr
Justice Taschereau, brother of {48} the Archbishop, and by Mr Justice
Ritchie, denied the existence of any clerical immunity from civil
jurisdiction, and found that the threats which had been made from the
pulpit constituted undue influence of the clearest kind. Accordingly
they voided the election. Their action met with violent protests from
some of the bishops, who, when Judge Casault in the Bonaventure case
followed this precedent, sought, but in vain, to have him removed by
the Sacred Congregation from his chair in the law faculty of Laval.
But in spite of protests the lesson had been learned, and the sturdy
fight of the Liberals of Quebec for the most elementary rights of a
free people had its effect.
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[Illustration: GOVERNORS-GENERAL OF THE DOMINION
1. VISCOUNT MONCK, 1867-68
2. LORD LISGAR, 1868-72
3. EARL OF DUFFERIN, 1872-78
4. MARQUIS OF LORNE, 1878-83
5. MARQUIS OF LANSDOWN, 1882-88
6. LORD STANLEY, 1888-93
7. EARL OF ABERDEEN, 1893-98
8. EARL OF MINTO, 1898-1904
9. EARL GREY, 1904-11
10. DUKE OF CONNAUGHT, 1911-]
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It was when matters were at this acute stage that Wilfrid Laurier came
forward to do for his province and his country a service which could be
accomplished only by a man of rarely balanced judgment, of firm grasp
of essential principles, of wide reading and familiarity with the
political ideals of other lands, and, above all, of matchless courage.
Rarely, if ever, has there been delivered in Canada a speech of such
momentous importance, or one so firmly based on the first principles
with which Canadian statesmen too rarely concern {49} themselves, as
that which he addressed to _Le Club Canadien_, a group of young
Liberals, in Quebec City in June 1877.
The subject of the address was Political Liberalism. The speaker
cleared away many misunderstandings. Liberalism did not mean Catholic
Liberalism; it had nothing to do with opinions on religion. Nor did it
mean Liberalism of the type still prevalent on the continent of Europe,
revolutionary, semi-socialist, openly anti-clerical; the type which had
been given brief currency by the young men of twenty who thirty years
before had lent the Liberal party an undeserved reputation for
anti-clericalism. No, the Liberals of Canada found their models and
their inspiration in the Liberalism of England, in the men who had
fought the battles of orderly freedom and responsible self-government
against privilege and selfish interest. As to the Church, no true
Liberal wished to deny its officers the right which every citizen
enjoyed of taking a part in his country's politics; they had opposed,
and would continue to oppose, every attempt of politicians in clerical
garb to crush freedom of speech by spiritual terrorism. The right of
ecclesiastical interference in politics ceased where it encroached upon
{50} the elector's independence. Any attempt to found a Catholic party
was not only a crime against the country but was bound to injure the
Church itself; it would lead inevitably to the formation of a
Protestant party among the majority. On individual freedom alone could
a sound national political system be built up, just as on colonial
freedom alone had it been possible to build up a lasting imperial
system.
The speech was received with enthusiasm throughout the country. Its
renunciation at once of anti-clericalism and of ultramontanism, its
moderation and its fearlessness, rallied Liberalism to its true
standard and marked out clearly the lines within which party and priest
alike should act in the interests of church and of country. It was a
master-stroke both for freedom and for harmony.
We are to-day sometimes prone to overlook the services of those who in
England or in Canada fought for us the battles of political freedom.
We tend to forget the services of the political leaders of the thirties
and forties who won freedom from class and racial domination, the
services of the leaders of the sixties and seventies who won freedom of
thought and speech against heavy odds. It has taken a European war to
make us realize {51} how precious are those liberties, how many great
peoples are still without them, and the height of our debt of gratitude
alike to those who won them for us in the past, and to those who
preserve them for us in the present.
A few months after this historic address Wilfrid Laurier entered the
Mackenzie Cabinet as minister of Inland Revenue. He had been thought
eligible for ministerial rank ever since his first entry into the
House, and might have had a portfolio in 1876 had it not been that he
objected to serve along with Cauchon. The appointment of Cauchon as
lieutenant-governor of Manitoba now having cleared the way, Mr Laurier
accepted the office and appealed to his constituents for re-election.
The tide of opinion had latterly been running strong against the
Government, but the great personal popularity of the new minister was
deemed an assurance of victory. The Conservatives, however, threw
themselves strenuously into the fight, and, much to their own surprise,
won the seat by a majority of twenty-nine. The result was due in part
to the over-confidence and inactivity of the Liberals, but on the whole
it was the handwriting on the wall--a token of the prevailing {52}
sentiment against the Government which was shortly to sweep all before
it. Another seat was speedily found for the new minister, in Quebec
East, and he entered upon a brief year's tenure of office. Though
under no illusion as to the failing strength of the Government in the
country, he loyally did his best both in the administration of his
department and in the campaigning for the party until the _debacle_
came in 1878.
{53}