THE END OF A REGIME
Abbott and Thompson--Tariff reform--Manitoba school question
The strain of a winter campaign proved too great for Sir John
Macdonald's weakened frame. On June 6, 1891, died the statesman who so
long had guided the destinies of Canada. All Canada felt the loss. No
one else voiced the common judgment with such discrimination and
generosity as did the leader of the Opposition. Speaking in parliament
a few days later, Mr Laurier declared:
Sir John Macdonald now belongs to the ages, and it can be said with
certainty that the career which has just been closed is one of the most
remarkable careers of this century.... I think it can be asserted
that, for the supreme art of governing men, Sir John Macdonald was
gifted as few men in any land or any age were gifted--gifted with the
highest of all qualities, qualities which would have made him famous
wherever exercised, and which would have shone all the more
conspicuously the larger the theatre. The fact that he could
congregate together elements the most heterogeneous and blend them into
{154} one compact party, and to the end of his life keep them steadily
under his hand, is perhaps altogether unprecedented. The fact that
during all those years he retained unimpaired not only the confidence
but the devotion, the ardent devotion and affection of his party, is
evidence that besides those higher qualities of statesmanship to which
we were daily witnesses, he was also endowed with those inner, subtle,
undefinable graces of soul which win and keep the hearts of men.
As to his statesmanship, it is written in the history of Canada....
Although my political views compel me to say that in my judgment his
actions were not always the best that could have been taken in the
interests of Canada, although my conscience compels me to say that of
late he has imputed to his opponents motives which I must say in my
heart he has misconceived, yet I am only too glad here to sink these
differences, and to remember only the great services he has performed
for our country--to remember that his actions always displayed great
originality of view, unbounded fertility of resource, a high level of
intellectual conception, and, above all, a far-reaching vision beyond
the event of the day, and still higher, permeating the whole, a broad
patriotism--a devotion to Canada's welfare, Canada's advancement, and
Canada's glory.
Sir John Macdonald had been prime minister of the Dominion for twenty
of its twenty-four years. In the next five years the Conservative
party had four different leaders {155} and the Dominion four prime
ministers. The first was Sir John Abbott, who had lived down the
memory of his early views in favour of Annexation and had become 'the
confidential family lawyer of his party.' A little over a year later,
ill-health compelled him to resign in favour of Sir John Thompson, an
able and honest administrator, who grew in breadth of view with
experience and responsibility.
All Abbott's astuteness and Thompson's rigid uprightness were soon
required to deal with the revelations of rotten politics which
presently claimed the country's attention. It had long been believed
that the department of Public Works, under Sir Hector Langevin, was a
source of widespread corruption, but it was not until Israel Tarte, a
member of the House of Commons and a _bleu_ of the _bleus_, made
charges to that effect during the session of 1891, that the full
measure of the evil was understood. In the investigations and trials
which followed it was made clear that huge sums had been extracted from
contractors in the service of the Government and used in wholesale
bribery. These revelations, as a London newspaper remarked, 'made
Tammany smell sweet.'
But the public indignation at these proofs {156} of the sinister side
of the Government's long hold on power was weakened by similar charges
brought and proved against the Liberal Government of Quebec, under
Honore Mercier. The lieutenant-governor summarily dismissed Mercier,
the Church set its face sternly against his ministry, which it had
erstwhile approved, and the people of the province voted him out of
power (1892). The effect on the public mind of this corruption at
Ottawa and Quebec was an apathy, a lowered standard of political
morality, since it gave point to the common saying that 'one set of
politicians is as bad as another,' by which good men excuse their
unpatriotic indifference to public affairs.
The Conservative party, and the whole Dominion, suffered a further loss
in 1894, when Sir John Thompson died suddenly at Windsor Castle. Sir
Mackenzie Bowell was chosen as his successor.
Meanwhile the fortunes and the spirit of the Liberal party rose
steadily. Mr Laurier's position as leader strengthened as each year
gave proof of his steadfast character, his courage, and his political
sagacity. He gave his time and energy wholly to the work of the party.
During these years he addressed {157} hundreds of meetings in Quebec
and Ontario, and made tours to the maritime provinces and through the
West to the Pacific.
The convention of Liberals from all ends of the Dominion, which met at
Ottawa in 1893, had given fresh vigour to the party. At that
convention, as has already been noted, emphasis was placed upon the
need of lowering the tariff. It was urged that the tariff should be
made to rest as lightly as possible upon the necessaries of life, and
that freer trade should be sought with all the world, and particularly
with Great Britain and the United States.
It was about this time, too, that D'Alton M'Carthy, who was mellowing
in religious matters and growing more radical on other issues, voiced a
demand for a reduction of customs burdens and for the adoption of
maximum and minimum schedules, the minimum rates to be given Great
Britain and British colonies and foreign countries which offered
equivalent terms, and the maximum rates to be applied to countries like
the United States which maintained prohibitive tariffs against Canadian
products. The Patrons of Industry, an organization of farmers which
for a few years had much power {158} in Ontario, also demanded tariff
reform. Even the Government went a little with public opinion and
lopped away a few 'mouldering branches' in 1894. Thus the tariff
remained an issue during the last five years of the Conservative regime.
A more burning question, however, was the revival of the old contest
over provincial rights and denominational privileges. This was the
offspring of the Equal Rights agitation, which had spread to Manitoba.
In August 1889 Joseph Martin, a member of the Manitoba Cabinet,
following D'Alton M'Carthy at a public meeting, announced that his
government would establish a non-sectarian system of education. A few
months later this was done.
When Manitoba entered Confederation, in 1870, there had been no
state-supported system of education. Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and
Presbyterians maintained denominational schools, supported by fees and
church grants. The settlers were about equally divided between
Catholics and Protestants. The Manitoba Act, Manitoba's constitutional
charter, gave the new province in most respects the same powers as the
older provinces. The province was given control of {159} education,
subject, first, to the provision that no law should be passed
prejudicially affecting any right or privilege, with respect to
denominational schools, which any class of persons had by law or
practice at the union, and subject, secondly, to an appeal to the
federal authorities from any provincial act or decision affecting the
rights of any minority, Protestant or Catholic. In 1871 a school
system much like that of Quebec was set up. Protestant schools and
Catholic schools were established, and each was granted half the
provincial appropriation. Later, as the Protestant population grew
relatively larger, the amount was divided in proportions corresponding
to the number of pupils in each class of schools. Now, in 1890, this
system was completely swept away and replaced by a single system of
state-supported schools. At first it had been the intention to make
them entirely secular, but in the end provision was made for some
non-denominational religious teaching. Any Catholic who did not wish
to send his children to such a school would be compelled to pay for the
support of a school of his own, besides paying taxes for the general
school system.
The Catholics, first under Archbishop {160} Tache's firm but moderate
guidance, and later under Archbishop Langevin's crusading leadership,
demanded redress. The provincial authorities would not change their
policy. It was thought that the constitution provided ample protection
for a religious minority deprived of its rights. The provision was
three-fold. First, the Dominion Government might disallow the
offending act. But the Dominion Government saw fit not to exercise
this right, preferring to leave the matter to the courts, if possible.
Secondly, there was the provision of the Manitoba Act forbidding the
province to take away any rights as to denominational schools possessed
by any class of persons at the union. Test cases were brought and
elaborately argued in the courts. The Supreme Court held that the
privilege of paying only for one's own denominational schools existed
at the union, and had been infringed. The Privy Council reversed this
judgment, holding that Catholics were still free to support schools of
their own, and that this was the only privilege which they had before
possessed.
There was still a third string to the bow--the appeal to the
governor-general in council, the Dominion Government, to pass remedial
{161} legislation. Here again the Supreme Court and the Privy Council
differed. The Supreme Court held, but not unanimously, that no right
of federal intervention existed; but the Privy Council maintained, as
the last word in the case, that the Dominion had power to intervene.
This decision put the question squarely before the Bowell Government.
It was a difficult situation. An administration drawing its chief
strength from Ontario, and headed by a prominent Orangeman, was called
upon by the Catholic authorities to use its powers to compel a
determined province to change its policy or, in default, to pass a
federal law restoring the minority's privileges. But Bowell and his
colleagues soon made their decision. Early in 1895 the province was
ordered in uncompromising terms to restore to the minority its former
rights and privileges. The legislature declined, on the ground that
the old system was inefficient and disruptive, and urged the federal
authorities to investigate school conditions in Manitoba, past and
present, before taking the fatal step of coercion. But, after a
commission had failed to induce the province to yield, the Bowell
Government announced that at the next parliamentary {162} session
(1896) a Remedial Bill would be introduced and passed.
On the eve of the meeting of parliament for this last historic session
came the startling news that seven of the members of Sir Mackenzie
Bowell's Cabinet, chief among them being Mr Foster and Sir Hibbert
Tupper, had revolted against their leader. The revolters urged the
supreme need of forming the strongest possible administration in the
crisis, and to that end demanded the resignation of the prime minister.
Bowell bitterly denounced the 'nest of traitors,' and sought to form a
Cabinet without their aid, but the strikers picketed every possible
candidate. Finally a compromise was reached by which the bolters were
to return under Bowell's leadership for the session and Sir Charles
Tupper was to take command at its close.
Meanwhile Mr Laurier had been obliged to face the same difficult issue.
He was a sincere Catholic. He sympathized with the desire of his
fellow-religionists for schools in which their faith would be
cherished, and believed that at the creation of the province all
parties had understood that such schools were assured. He knew, too,
the power of the Church in Quebec, and the fierceness of the storm that
{163} would beat upon him if he opposed its will. Yet he kept a close
grip on fact. He saw clearly that any attempt by the Dominion to set
up a separate school system, which would have to be operated by a
sullen and hostile province, was doomed to failure. He condemned the
Government's bludgeoning policy and urged investigation and
conciliation by minor amendments. Further than this, in the earlier
stages of the agitation, he would not go. In spite of entreaties and
threats and taunts from the opposite camps, he remained, like
Wellington, 'within the lines of Torres Vedras.'
At the session of 1896 the Government introduced its Remedial Bill,
providing for the organization and maintenance of distinctly separate
schools in Manitoba. The Catholic authorities accepted the bill as in
full compliance with their demands, and bent all their energies to
secure its adoption. A _mandement_ was issued by all the bishops
urging electors to support only candidates who would pledge themselves
to restore separate schools. And in January Mr Laurier received a
letter written by Father Lacombe in the name of the bishops and
published in the newspapers throughout Canada. This letter besought
the Liberal leader to support the bill, and warned him that {164} 'if,
which may God not grant, you do not believe it to be your duty to
accede to our just demands, and if the government which is anxious to
give us the promised law is beaten and overthrown while persisting in
its policy to the end, I inform you with regret that the episcopacy,
like one man, united to the clergy, will rise to support those who may
have fallen to defend us.'
Mr Laurier met the challenge squarely. In one of his strongest
speeches he reviewed the whole tangled issue. He admitted the legal
power of Canada to pass and enforce the bill, but denied that the
judgment of the Privy Council made such action automatically necessary.
It was still the Government's duty to investigate and seek a
compromise, not to force through a bill framed in darkness and
obstinacy. The minority itself would be more effectually and more
permanently benefited by amendments made voluntarily by the province as
the result of reasonable compromise. Then he turned to the threats of
ecclesiastical hostility:
Not many weeks ago I was told from high quarters in the Church to which
I belong, that unless I supported the School Bill which was then being
prepared by the government, and which we have now before us, {165} I
would incur the hostility of a great and powerful body. Sir, this is
too grave a phase of this question for me to pass it by in silence. I
have only this to say, that even though I have threats held over me,
coming, as I am told, from high dignitaries in the Church to which I
belong, no word of bitterness shall ever pass my lips as against that
Church. I respect it and I love it. Sir, I am not of that school
which has been long dominant in France and other countries of
Continental Europe, which refuses ecclesiastics the privilege of having
a voice in public affairs. No, I am a Liberal of the English school,
which has all along claimed that it is the privilege of all subjects,
whether high or low, whether rich or poor, whether ecclesiastic or
layman, to participate in the administration of public affairs, to
discuss, to influence, to persuade, to convince, but which has always
denied, even to the highest, the right to dictate even to the lowest.
I am here representing not Roman Catholics alone but Protestants as
well, and I must give an account of my stewardship to all classes.
Here am I, a Roman Catholic of French extraction, entrusted with the
confidence of the men who sit around me, with great and important
duties under our constitutional system of government. Am I to be
told--I, occupying such a position--that I am to be dictated to as to
the course I am to take in this House by reasons that can appeal to the
consciences of my fellow-Catholic members, but which do not appeal as
well to the consciences of my Protestant colleagues? No! So long as I
have a seat in this House, so long {166} as I occupy the position I do
now, whenever it shall become my duty to take a stand upon any question
whatever, that stand I will take, not from the point of view of Roman
Catholicism, not from the point of view of Protestantism, but from a
point of view which can appeal to the consciences of all men,
irrespective of their particular faith, upon grounds which can be
occupied by all men who love justice, freedom, and toleration.
Mr Laurier concluded by moving, not an equivocal amendment, as had been
expected by the Government, but the six months' hoist, or straight
negative. A few Catholic Liberals supported the Government, but the
party as a whole, aided by a strong band of erstwhile ministerialists,
obstructed the measure so vigorously that the Government was compelled
to abandon it, in view of the hastening end of the legal term of
parliament. Sir Charles Tupper dissolved parliament, reorganized his
Cabinet, and carried the question to the country.
A strenuous campaign followed. Mr Laurier took, in Ontario and Quebec
alike, the firm, moderate position he had taken in the House of
Commons. The issue, in his view, was not whether the constitutional
rights of the Catholics of Manitoba had been violated; {167} for he
believed that they had been. The issue was, Could these rights be
restored by coercion? The Conservatives and the Church said Yes. True
to his political faith, Mr Laurier said No. Up and down the province
of Quebec he was denounced by the ultramontane leaders. Here was
sheer, stark Liberalism of the brand the Church had condemned. Bishop
Lafleche declared that no Catholic could without sin vote for the chief
of a party who had formulated publicly such an error, and Archbishop
Langevin called upon every true son of the Church to stand by those who
stood by it. In Ontario and the other English-speaking provinces, on
the contrary, the welkin rang with denunciations of hierarchical
presumption. Sir Charles Tupper fought with the wonderful vigour and
fearlessness that had always marked him, but fought in vain. His
forces, disorganized by internal strife, weakened by long years of
office, weighted down by an impossible policy, were no match for the
Liberals, strong in their leader and in a cause which stirred the
enthusiasm of a united party. The election resulted in a decisive
victory for the Liberals. Strange to say, Manitoba went with the
Conservatives and Ontario gave the Liberals only {168} forty-four out
of ninety-two seats, though seven fell to independents opposed to the
Remedial Bill, while Quebec gave forty-eight seats out of its
sixty-five to the party which its spiritual leaders had denounced.
{169}