IN OFFICE AND OUT OF IT
May 22, 1862, the Cartier-Macdonald government fell. Its career came
to grief on a militia bill which provided for the maintenance of a
force of 50,000 men, at all times available for active service, at a
cost of about one million dollars. The danger to the provinces
consequent upon the events of war in the United States had forced the
government to stake its existence upon such a far-reaching scheme of
defence. But the defection of some Lower Canadian supporters threw
out the measure, and the government resigned. Foley, the Reform
leader, was passed over, and the governor called upon Sandfield
Macdonald to form an administration. In co-operation with Sicotte,
the Reform leader in Lower Canada, he patched together a ministry
which held office for approximately one year, and was known as the
Macdonald-Sicotte government. It contained the leading figures of
the Opposition: James Morris, A. A. Dorion, M. H. Foley, W.
McDougall, W. P. Howland, and McGee. The presidency of the council
was conferred on McGee.
The programme of the new administration had in it a dash of boldness.
It included militia and bankruptcy bills, plans towards opening for
settlement the great north-western territories, and the determination
to set the building of the intercolonial railway on the move. Many
of these measures McGee gladly welcomed as steps towards the
establishment of that for which he laboured, the great new northern
nation. But that stern reformer, George Brown, found one grave
omission in this scheme of legislation. Sandfield Macdonald flatly
refused to carry into effect the principle so sacred to the editor of
the _Globe_, representation by population. He was personally
doubtful of its value as a medicine for Canadian ills, and he felt
that the line of least difficulty would be to leave it alone. In its
place he adopted as the hinge principle of the government's action,
the double majority, begging that it be given a fair trial. But
Brown was not satisfied. In his mind the Reform party existed
primarily to establish representation by population. A ministry that
failed to accomplish this was no reform government. "Better a
thousand times," thundered the _Globe_, "had it been that the
Cartier-Macdonald government with all its wickedness should have been
recalled than that so many leading men of the Liberal Opposition
should have sacrificed their principles and destroyed the moral
influence which they justly possessed with the electors of Upper
Canada." Such hostility was unveiled, although Brown alleged that he
was willing to give the government a chance. His lack of
friendliness was ominous, and the fall of the ministry a year later
was largely due to the fact that George Brown had failed to give it
his blessing.
What was the attitude of McGee? He slipped into office with the
determination to perform something for the cause which he had
advanced by voice and pen, the development of a British-American
nationality. Varied elements entered the task of nation-building.
More was necessary than the territorial union of the colonies,
although that was imperative. In a sparse community, flattened out
over a new and vast country, an impelling need was the encouragement
of immigration. The body of a nation was in its sturdy farmers and
dauntless pioneers. Men were required to labour in field and mine.
The Canadas from the eastern to the western frontier had thousands of
acres of rich farming lands awaiting the plough. The wealth of the
fisheries and mineral resources were no less great, and all these
invited labour. This fact McGee keenly realized, and to the task of
colonization he bent his attention. In his election speech at
Montreal in June, 1862, he declared that in the ministry "all that he
would ask to be judged by was this--what had he done for the
settlement of the country? This was his great political principle,
all others in his estimation being secondary." Canadian
statesmanship, he believed, must be tested by the success with which
it endeavoured to build a great community out of a small one.
Careful settlement was the readiest means to this end. In the past
three years McGee had done much to promote an interest in settlement.
In each of the previous sessions he had obtained a committee to
examine the problem of immigration. The committee of 1860 submitted
a careful report with many recommendations. It drew attention to the
fact that the advantages of Canada as a field of colonization had not
been brought home to the popular mind of Europe. During the season
of 1859 there arrived in the country by the St. Lawrence, not more
than 6,000 English-speaking persons. In the same year New York
received 45,000. There were many obvious reasons for this disparity.
The development of industrial life in the United States gave the
inducement of higher wages. Canada, being almost purely an
agricultural country, could not offer the same wages, and
incidentally the committee recommended that manufactures be
encouraged to widen the appeal to prospective immigrants. But McGee
and his committee emphasized in particular the need of spreading
information concerning Canada's strongest attraction to the European
emigrant, cheap or free cultivable land. They pressed the necessity
of an intimate co-operation between the immigrant service and the
Crown lands' department in order that immigrant authorities be kept
cognizant with all the lands available. The lack of such
co-operation in the past had seriously handicapped the settlement of
the country.
The committee also laid importance upon the building of a suitable
landing place for immigrants with convenient sheds and wash houses in
the port of Quebec on the general plan of the establishment at Castle
Garden, New York. A further recommendation, carried into effect, was
that resident provincial agents be appointed at convenient places in
Europe, such as Christiania, Hamburg, Liverpool, an Irish port, and
also New York. At such strategic points information and guidance
might be given to prospective emigrants, and their faces directed to
the Canadas. The report of 1861 backed up these recommendations with
others of a similar kind. In the spring of 1862, before assuming
office, McGee again brought the question of colonization before
parliament and "in the spirit of a broad, uncircumscribed Canadian
patriotism, which knows in this House, in any legislative light,
neither race, nor religion, nor language, but only Canada, and her
advancement," moved for another committee. The committee was
appointed, but in this year it lacked McGee's enthusiastic
chairmanship. His ministerial duties kept him otherwise occupied.
When the ministry was being formed, he had hoped to get the
Department of Agriculture, which included immigration, the subject in
which he had most interest. Political considerations thwarted this
hope, but on being given the presidency of the council he was
promised that the immigration bureau should come under his
department. The promise was not fulfilled, largely because of the
opposition of Lower Canada. The French-Canadian members feared that
a vigorous immigration policy would, through the inrush of
immigrants, swamp the French-Canadian community with English-speaking
people. _L'Ordre_, a leading French Catholic organ in Montreal,
stated that "McGee's avowed liberality, which looked upon all nations
and creeds alike, would fit him for minister of immigration for Upper
Canada, but totally disqualify him for that office in Lower Canada."
Such agitation was successful. It restrained Sandfield Macdonald
from granting McGee control over the immigration service. It did
more. Much to McGee's annoyance, it checked the government of which
he was a member from doing anything to carry into effect the
recommendations which his committees had suggested. Even the
emigration agents in England and Ireland were withdrawn, and new ones
not appointed. No event of the period gave McGee such chagrin. It
seemed to him that the ministers were juggling with the most vital
subject affecting the country's growth.
A work no less significant than immigration in the creation of a "new
northern nation" was railway construction, and in its advocacy McGee
was quite as ardent. Nature had endowed the British colonies of
North America with a magnificent road system. In the seventeenth
century the French settlements in Canada had clustered round the St.
Lawrence and Richelieu rivers, and these winding watercourses
constituted the one bond of communication. The United Empire
Loyalists later erected their log houses along the wooded shores of
the lakes and rivers further west, and the St. Lawrence waterway was
their means of contact with Quebec and Britain. Without the St.
Lawrence the Canadas would have broken in two like a bridge without
piers. But one gift Nature failed to bestow on the British colonies.
She provided no easy means of transit between the Canadian and
Maritime provinces. Mountain spurs with dense forests constituted an
almost impenetrable wall, blocking overland travel between the two
groups of British colonies. The sea-route through the Gulf was
tediously long, and was closed by ice part of the year. It was
clear, as Lord Durham in 1838 had recognized with quick insight, that
political association between the colonies must await the building of
a railway cutting through the mountain and forest area and bringing
Quebec closer to Halifax. In the years following Durham, the
aspiration for such a line grew among the more far-sighted of
colonial statesmen. It was considered as a necessary basis not
merely for colonial union, but for colonial prosperity. The Maritime
provinces were in need of it to reap the benefits of trade with the
Canadian and American west, and to forge a commercial route which
would make their harbours the winter ports of the northern part of
the continent. The Canadas no less required it in order that they
might have access to the Atlantic frontage of British North America,
and find consumers for their produce amongst the seamen of the lower
provinces.
The attempts to build an intercolonial line have a lengthy and
chequered history. In 1850 Joseph Howe, Nova Scotia's distinguished
champion of responsible government, obtained an imperial guarantee to
support the colonies in financing the project, but the plan collapsed
on account of irreconcilable opinions as to what route the line
should take. In the following years negotiations continued, but a
dismal succession of circumstances made them sterile. What the
provincial governments failed to perform, private enterprise in part
attempted. The Grand Trunk Company took the field, and pushed its
lines west and east. But the vision of a truly intercolonial line
was not lost. The need of it, to relieve Canada's dependence on
American ports, increased in urgency. In 1857 the Canadian
government, co-operating with Nova Scotia, again pressed the question
on the attention of the imperial authorities, but without results.
Nothing daunted, the Macdonald-Sicotte government resumed the
project, and McGee was its warmest advocate. To him the railway was
an instrument of creative statesmanship. "The construction of the
intercolonial railway would have the effect of inducing a union of
the colonies and making them one in interest and importance, whereas
now they were but isolated, lone, undistinguished provinces."
In the Quebec conference of 1862, the first of the important colonial
conferences, he drew up in company with Howe of Nova Scotia and
Tilley of New Brunswick a memorandum concerning its construction and
management. It was agreed that "if it should be concluded that the
work shall be constructed and managed by a joint commission of the
three provinces, it shall be constructed in the proportion of two
appointed by the government of Canada, and one each by the
governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the four to select a
fifth before entering upon the discharge of their duties." It was
also planned that Canada should assume five-twelfths of the risk of
construction, the provinces by the sea dividing up the other
seven-twelfths between them. Intercolonial free-trade was to follow
at once on the making of the railway. But the scheme, like its
predecessors, came to grief. For its adoption, the financial backing
of the imperial government was imperative, and to obtain it Sicotte
and Howland went to England. But British ministers would give a
financial guarantee only on such conditions as would render it in the
opinion of Sicotte of no advantage to the colonial governments
concerned, and the Canadians returned empty-handed. The possibility
of sinking money in the inter-colonial also led to disagreement
within the government party. In hostility to the project Dorion in
January, 1863, left the ministry. This confluence of adverse
circumstances forced the administration to discard its intention of
carrying through the much desired intercolonial line, much to McGee's
regret. Little more was gained than the extension of the survey
which proved useful in subsequent years. The most important step
attempted by the ministry in hastening the emergence of the new
nationality was thus halted.
A thorny issue which had much to do with the fate of the
Macdonald-Sicotte ministry was that of separate schools. Early in
the history of the Canadas a common school system had arisen which
recognized no religious distinctions among those seeking education.
The money of all taxpayers went to the maintenance of the system.
But, in 1841, an Act allowed public support to denominational
schools, and to such institutions Roman Catholic parents sent their
children. The separate school principle was developed by later Acts
in 1843, 1852, and 1855. Yet many Roman Catholics considered that
the status given to their schools was inadequate. In 1860, 1861, and
1862, R. W. Scott of Ottawa introduced legislation to strengthen the
Roman Catholic separate school system of Upper Canada. On each
occasion he found a warm supporter in McGee. Indeed, in his first
election address, in 1857, McGee had chosen this subject for his
special championship. It was the one large issue on which he
differed radically from Brown, and he was ever frank that in it he
would not compromise. He made clear his views. "If you permit the
state to form the minds of the young apart from parental or religious
control, why not allow the same state to establish a uniformity of
belief and worship for the old. The same pretension which justifies
the state school will justify a state church." For youth the moral
guidance received under the impress of religious teaching was
invaluable. "In Scotland, Switzerland, Holland, do they launch men
upon the voyage of life without a strong infusion of dogmatic
religion--without a standard of right and wrong--without an ethical
compass by which they may tell the moral north from the moral south?"
The logical corollary from which he did not shrink was that all sects
should have their separate schools. The followers of Brown viewed
such a doctrine with dismay. To them the common school was the least
expensive and the most likely to alloy sectarian feeling. The
_Globe_ lucidly stated their case. "We need the common school system
more than New England to blend into one homogeneous people all these
races of men. Carry out Mr. McGee's ideas, and we shall never
accomplish that. We shall be a nation of sects fighting for
supremacy; a people backward, unintelligent, unenterprising."
Notwithstanding the hostility of Upper Canadians to the principle of
separate schools, Scott's bill, in 1863, became law. Due largely to
McGee's influence, it was carried as a government measure. This was
fatal to the ministry. Although Scott's Act affected only Upper
Canada, it was carried against the heated opposition of a majority
from that province. The principle of the double majority, to which
Sandfield Macdonald had pinned his colours, was flagrantly ignored,
and Brown with his followers had an ample opportunity to sing
condemnations. The government's action was a confession that its
much proclaimed principle could not always be applied, and that, as a
solvent of political difficulties, it was useless.
The Macdonald-Sicotte government never survived this shock to its
pretensions. In May, 1863, J. A. Macdonald moved and Cartier
seconded a motion condemning the ministry, and it was carried by a
majority of five. "We shall not," declared the Globe, "cry our eyes
out over the defeat of the ministry, whatever the result be.... If
it is destroyed now by its enemies, we may rejoice that the
executioner's task has been taken out of our hands." But the
administration did not immediately die. Sandfield Macdonald
endeavoured to save it by a purgation, and the infusion of fresh
blood. A reorganization of the cabinet took place, with the obvious
aim of making it more acceptable to Brown and Upper Canada. Sicotte
was quietly dropped, and Dorion took his place as leader of the Lower
Canadians and partner with Macdonald. McGee, Foley, and Abbott were
gently pushed out. McGee was removed to make way for a person more
favourable in the eyes of Upper Canada, but many of the prime
minister's supporters considered his removal a serious mistake. The
_Globe_, which blessed the ministerial changes, considered that McGee
had not obtained a fair deal. To himself, the event was one of the
most painful in his public career. Of all men he was least covetous
for office as subsequent events proved, but he craved the confidence
of those with whom he acted. Sandfield Macdonald withheld such
confidence, and never adequately explained to him why he was being
removed from the ministry. The cards were shuffled behind his back.
In any case the affair was momentous, for it jostled him from the
ranks of the Reformers and henceforth he tended to direct his support
to J. A. Macdonald and Cartier.
In the early summer of 1863 the new Macdonald-Dorion government
appealed to the country. Lacking robust strength, its members laid
no very great emphasis upon the principles for which they stood. But
one significant pronouncement was ventured to the effect that the
ministry would consider representation by population as an open
question. This alone was sufficient to win Brown who promised to
wield his lance for the new government. The election gave Sandfield
Macdonald a majority in Upper Canada, but in the lower province his
followers were thinned to a minority. In Montreal three of the
ministers went down to defeat, Young, Holton, and Dorion. This fact
the _Globe_ attributed to the dropping of McGee. The elections
altered only slightly the political situation. The government had
not increased its voting strength, and it therefore lacked the
vitality to carry through vigorous legislation. The evil of
political deadlock remained like a running sore. Thoughtful men
still shook their heads at a hopeless situation, and those with
vision looked forward with more earnestness than ever to some great
constructive measure that would bring salvation to Canadian politics.
McGee made his departure from the ranks of reformers the occasion of
a dramatic utterance in the press. In June 1863 he wrote a public
letter to a friend, Daniel Macarow, of Kingston, proclaiming his
devotion to those principles cherished by Conservatives and
expressing his fear of democracy. He believed that the surest
antidote to the instability and rashheadedness associated with
democratic government would be the establishment of a royal prince,
and the nurturing in Canada as in England of the monarchical
principle. He was confident that a monarchy would save colonial
society from the excesses that seemed to be the natural irruptions of
democratic communities. In the light of subsequent development,
there is something a little bizarre about McGee's suggestion that a
monarch be imported to the British colonies. But in the sixties it
was not as chimerical as might now appear. The political future of
the colonies was then obscure. Popular institutions worked in such a
manner as to inspire despair in the minds of the critical. Partisan
spirit was violent in its bitterness. Political morality, seldom
very high on the American continent, was at a low ebb. The restless
spirit of self-interest, a powerful agent in promoting the
development of a new country, expressed itself in actions predatory
to the community. The outbreak of the American civil war seemed to
rock institutions throughout the continent, and accentuate the sense
of insecurity. It was natural that McGee should look abroad for some
means of bringing stability to Canadian institutions, and he was
merely following a time-worn precedent in believing that a monarchy
was a stabilizing force. All the prominent fathers of Confederation
held a similar opinion, although McGee stood alone in his plea that
the monarch should definitely live within Canada. His letter had no
very practical results. It was little more than a gesture,
transitory in its effects, but sufficiently significant at the time
to arouse controversy.
For some ten months the Macdonald-Dorion government stumbled along
under accumulating difficulties. Without a substantial majority it
could venture on no bold legislation, and its efforts were mainly
concerned with staving off defeat. McGee attacked it with as much
fire as any member of the Opposition. He was merciless in his
treatment of Sandfield Macdonald. The premier on one occasion
taunted him with his rebel past, and McGee replied with a polished
sarcasm that held the house spellbound. "Although there may have
been imprudence and many errors in the early career of one who was an
editor at seventeen, and a public speaker before I was of age, and
although there have been many things that my own judgment at this day
does not approve, at all events, throughout the whole long road, and
it remains for the most part in irrevocable type, the honourable
member will find no art of duplicity, he will find no instance in
which I betrayed a friend or intrigued against an associate. I have
not been fair to men's faces and false behind their back. I have not
condoled with sinister sympathy with the friends of a public man whom
I desired to injure, while at the same time I placed in the hands of
his enemies weapons of attack, forged by malice, and poisoned by
slanderous personalities." The words do little to recapture the
intense atmosphere of the chamber, the young man with pale face and
flashing eyes, and the piercing soprano voice which carried the
barbed phrases to every listening ear. An observer, E. R. Cameron,
wrote that "the members upon the floor, and the spectators in the
galleries, were .... almost breathless during the delivery, and the
merciless flogging of the Premier excited the same feelings as would
be aroused in a gladiatorial combat, in which one party, by the most
exquisite thrusts, is done slowly to death." Notwithstanding the
criticisms of McGee and others, the government staggered on until,
like a spent runner, it resigned in March, 1864. Another _impasse_
was reached.
After the usual political manœuvres Sir Etienne Taché, with the
assistance of J. A. Macdonald, put together a new ministry in which
the chief members were Taché, Macdonald, Cartier, Galt, Foley, and
McGee. McGee became minister of agriculture, an office in which his
chief interest rested, in virtue of its intimate contact with the
work of nation-building through colonization. The ministry had the
same jagged path to follow as its predecessors. With a slender
majority, it worked under the shadow of defeat. It could obviously
venture on no bold policies, and it was forced to shrink from
clear-cut issues. Eventually, on June 14, it fell, the fourth
ministry within four years. The situation had become baffling beyond
description. It mattered not in what manner the political groups
paired and allied, deadlock continued, like an evil spirit, to stalk
the career of each administration. Political ingenuity exhausted
itself without avail. Appeals to the electorate brought no wholesome
results. The continuance of party conflict merely accentuated the
difficulties. Where was the solution? The solution indeed had long
been advocated by McGee and others. But it was now pressed forward
by a stronger force than advocacy, by the intense gravity of the
political situation. George Brown, with an honesty of purpose that
should make his name for ever remembered among Canadians, came
forward to declare that the time had come for establishing a new
system by a union of all parties. His demand constitutes the real
beginning of the federal movement consummated three years later.
Early in October, 1863, Brown and McGee had consulted over the
difficulties of the existing constitution, and Brown was disposed to
approve of a federal union of the Canadas. McGee promised his
support to any motion which Brown might introduce on the subject.
Hence on October 12, Brown introduced a famous resolution asking for
the appointment of a committee to report on the constitutional
difficulties with the purpose of finding a way out. The motion was
temporarily withdrawn, but was reintroduced on March 14. Weeks again
elapsed without anything being done, and throughout this period
Brown's motion encountered the stern opposition of Cartier and
Macdonald, while McGee was its warm champion, seeing in it the
possibility of getting a federal system on the anvil. The committee
was finally appointed, McGee and Brown being its two most prominent
members. On June 13, the day previous to the fall of the Taché
government, it reported in favour of a federation. The fall of the
administration precipitated events. Brown's suggestion was now
gladly accepted, and the formation of a coalition for the carrying of
constitutional changes was agreed upon.
Difficulties strewed the path of forming a coalition. Men who had
assailed one another with the bitterness of fishmongers could combine
only with diffidence. Moreover, feeling in the country was
lethargic. Yet, by the close of June, the administration was formed.
The Reformers, Messrs. George Brown, Oliver Mowat, and William
McDougall were sworn in as ministers, and eagerly looked forward to
their task. Their procedure was shaped for them by events which
matured quickly in the Maritime provinces. The need for union among
the colonies by the sea had become so imperative that their leaders
determined on holding a convention at Charlottetown on September I,
for the purpose of fashioning a federal scheme. Fate in her kindest
mood could not have given a better opportunity to Canadian statesmen.
Why should not the prospective union between Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island include the Canadas? The dream
of a united British North America, which had long dazzled the
imagination of McGee and others, pushed itself to the fore. The
plastic moment had come. Now was the time to shape the destiny of
the British possessions. Fortunately men were in the Canadas ready
to snatch opportunity by the forelock. Eight members of the
ministry, including McGee, departed to Charlottetown to discuss
federal union with the leaders of the lower provinces. They were
successful in their mission. The statesmen of the Maritime colonies
were convinced that the wider union was preferable, and to construct
it they agreed to meet at Quebec in the early days of October.
In the months previous to the historic Charlottetown conference,
McGee had championed his cherished cause, not merely in the
legislature, but in the press and on the platform. The case for
confederation had, in all the provinces, no greater publicity agent.
In the _British American Magazine_ for August and October, 1863, he
eloquently pleaded that the British North American provinces should
insure their future by immediate union. With the faith of Mrs.
Browning that nations are what they will, he believed that all
obstacles would dissolve before the determination of the colonists.
"We are between the Gulf Stream and the Rocky Mountains--British
subjects--professing monarchists almost to a man--four millions. Are
these too few to form a decision on their political future? Our
joint revenues within that range exceed those of the respectable
kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, Bavaria, Portugal, and Saxony. Our
joint civil lists far exceed the cost of the royal governments of
those ancient and considerable nations, cramped as they are, where we
are boundless in point of territory. It is clear, then, that it is
listlessness of will--not lack of means or numbers--which heretofore
has prevented us taking up in a practical shape the alternative of
the fate before us--the establishment of our future, complete, and
permanent constitution."
The reasons for immediate action were those he had adduced in
previous years. There was the elemental need of defence. The
colonies disunited could not defend themselves, nor could they be
expected to fight for one another when they had nothing in common.
They cherished British institutions, but these they could not long
maintain without union. The force of American example was too great.
Moreover, their economic development must inevitably lag behind that
of the states to the south, unless they united to confer upon one
another the benefits of reciprocal trade and mutual assistance. Of
no less importance was the fact that only through confederation could
the colonies shoulder the responsibilities which necessarily clung to
them as communities with self-government as an ideal. It was not
merely in their own interests that they should do so, but in the
interests of the mother state. "We have passed out of the stage of
pupilage, and we have not emerged into the stage of partnership."
The intermediary stage, in McGee's estimation, failed to develop an
adequate sense of responsibility among the colonists, while it
imposed on the imperial state the unfair burden of defence.
But mere reasons for union were not sufficient. The march of
development depended upon another factor. A vital union of any kind
presupposed a common sympathy and understanding, and these could be
created only by intercourse. The colonists by the sea and those of
the Canadas lived under similar institutions, and were of the same
racial stock. But they had little intercourse; they were as divided
as if they lived on different continents. The inhabitants of Nova
Scotia looked upon Canadians with almost as much distrust as they
would view the natives of the South Seas. Business relations might
have done much to dissipate this feeling, but the drift of trade from
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick was southward. Halifax had more
commerce with Boston than with Quebec, which lay away to the west,
and was too distant for intimacy. McGee, who had travelled in all
the colonies and felt as much at home at the friendly firesides of
Halifax as in Montreal, pleaded continually for closer relationship.
It was essential for that future nationality which he ever saw in the
horizon. He expended energy and time to effect the closer contact.
Each year since 1859, he had visited the Maritime provinces, pleading
on every occasion for closer association. In the hot days of August,
1863, he was in Halifax and St. John, painting vivid pictures of the
possibilities in colonial union, and championing the completion of
the intercolonial railway as a means to union. "Your destiny and
ours," he told the people of St. John, "is as inseparable as are the
waters which pour into the Bay of Chaleur, rising though they do, on
the one hand on the Canadian, and on the other on the New Brunswick
Highlands. Geographically we are bound up beyond the power of
extinction."
In the mid-summer of 1864, he attempted something more than a
personal tour. With Sandford Fleming, then chief engineer of the
intercolonial survey, he planned an elaborate excursion of one
hundred leading men from the Canadas. Members of parliament, the
professions, and business men were represented. The boards of trade
in St. John and Halifax welcomed the deputation, banquets were held,
speeches delivered, and the Canadian representatives found through
the fellowship of knife and fork how much they had in common with
their fellow colonists of the lower provinces. McGee made use of the
occasion to plead passionately for federation. The reporter of the
_Canadien_, who accompanied the excursion, stated that at Fredericton
McGee surpassed himself in his plea for united action. At Halifax,
he declared that if the colonies "remained long as fragments, we
shall be lost; but let us be united, and we shall be as a rock which,
unmoved itself, flings back the waves that may be dashed upon it by
the storm." His eloquent campaigning, combined with the social
intercourse provided by the excursion, undoubtedly did much to make
successful the discussions at Charlottetown in the following
September.
Throughout this period, he endeavoured to advance not merely those
material readjustments, such as territorial union, necessary for the
creation of a new nationality. With no less enthusiasm, he sought to
cultivate sympathy and fellowship between all groups, sects, and
parties--the essential basis for a nation. Dissension between the
Roman Catholics and Protestants had long rent the Canadas, and McGee
from the outset of his residence in Montreal had striven to heal it,
frequently at the cost of friction with prominent men of his own
church and race who feared that he was compromising their interests.
In the period, Toronto was the chief hotbed of sectarian strife. The
parades there on St. Patrick's Day had generally ended in rioting and
sometimes in bloodshed. McGee poured oil on the troubled waters. He
persuaded the Catholic body to forego their parades, out of
consideration for public harmony, and also induced them to cease
printing a rather vituperative organ, known as the _Citizen_. In its
place he substituted the _Freeman_, a journal, ably conducted, which
championed McGee's policy of conciliation, and did much to bring
about harmonious relationships between the Catholic and Protestant
sects. With equal fervour he sought to break down the fatal inertia
which lay like a mountain upon colonial leaders. In Halifax in 1863,
he declared that "if we were ever to have a spirit of patriotism
amongst us such as Englishmen manifest with respect to England, and
Frenchmen to France, if we are to feel that we have a country, and
that it is our country, we must obliterate all sectional lines, and
overcome all party and local prejudices, and if in so doing
difficulties present themselves, we must conquer them and assert our
mastery over all obstacles." It was an admirable creed for those who
looked to Confederation as the supreme goal for the colonies.