ROCKS IN THE CHANNEL
In the month of March 1865, as the Canadian debates drew to a close,
ominous reports began to arrive from all the Maritime Provinces. An
election campaign of unusual bitterness was going on in New Brunswick.
The term of the legislature would expire in the following June; and the
Tilley government had decided to dissolve and present the Quebec
resolutions to a newly elected legislature, a blunder in tactics due,
it may be, to over-confidence. The secrecy which had shrouded the
proceedings of the delegates at first was turned to account by their
opponents, who set in motion a campaign of mendacity and
misrepresentation. The actual terms became known too late to
counteract this hostile agitation, which had been systematically
carried on throughout the province. The bogey employed to stampede the
electors was direct taxation. The farmers were told that every cow or
horse they {98} possessed, even the chickens in the farmyard, would be
taxed for the benefit of Canada. Worse than all, it was contended, the
bargain struck at the honour of the province, because, as the subsidy
was on the basis of paying to the provinces annually eighty cents per
head of population, the people were really being sold by the government
like sheep for this paltry price. The trusted Tilley, easily first in
popular affection by reason of his probity and devotion to public duty,
was discredited. His opponent in the city of St John, A. R. Wetmore,
illustrated the dire effects of Confederation in an imaginary dialogue,
between himself and his young son, after this fashion: 'Father, what
country do we live in?'--and, of course, the reply came promptly--'My
dear son, you have no country, for Mr Tilley has sold us all to the
Canadians for eighty cents a head.' Time and full discussion would
have dissipated the forces of the anti-confederates. But
constituencies worked upon by specious appeals to prejudice are
notoriously hard to woo during an election struggle. There existed
also honest doubts in many minds regarding federation. Enough men of
character and influence in both parties joined to form a strong
opposition, while one of Tilley's {99} colleagues in the ministry,
George Hathaway, went over to the enemy at a critical hour. The
agitation swept the province. It was not firmly rooted in the
convictions of the people, but it sufficed to overwhelm the government.
All the Cabinet ministers, including Tilley, were beaten. And so it
happened that, when the Canadian ministers were in the full tide of
parliamentary success at home, the startling news arrived that New
Brunswick had rejected federation, and that in a House of forty-one
members only six supporters of the scheme had been returned from the
polls.
Equally alarming was the prospect in Nova Scotia. On arriving home
from Quebec, Dr Tupper and his fellow-delegates found a situation which
required careful handling. 'When the delegates returned to the
Province,' says a pamphlet of the time, 'they did not meet with a very
flattering reception. They had no ovation; and no illuminations,
bonfires, and other demonstrations of felicitous welcome hailed their
return. They were not escorted to their homes with torches and
banners, and through triumphal arches; no cannon thundered forth a
noisy welcome. They were received in solemn, sullen and ominous
silence. {100} No happy smiles greeted them; but they entered the
Province as into the house of mourning.'[1] And in Nova Scotia the
hostility was not, as in New Brunswick, merely a passing wave of
surprise and discontent. It lasted for years. Nor was it, as many
think, the sole creation of the ambitious Joseph Howe. It doubtless
owed much to his power as a leader of men and his influence over the
masses of the Nova Scotians. But there is testimony that this proud
and spirited people, with traditions which their origin and history
fully warranted them in cherishing, regarded with aversion the prospect
of a constitutional revolution, especially one which menaced their
political identity. Robert Haliburton has related the results of his
observations before the issue had been fairly disclosed and before Howe
had emerged from seclusion to take a hand in the game.
In September and October, 1864, when our delegates were at Quebec, and
therefore before there could be any objections raised to the details of
the scheme, or to the mode of its adoption, I travelled through six
{101} counties, embracing the whole of Cape Breton and two counties in
Nova Scotia, and took some trouble to ascertain the state of public
opinion as to what was taking place, and was greatly surprised at
finding that every one I met, without a solitary exception, from the
highest to the lowest, was alarmed at the idea of a union with Canada,
and that the combination of political leaders, so far from recommending
the scheme, filled their partisans with as much dismay as if the powers
of light and darkness were plotting against the public safety. It was
evident that unless the greatest tact were exercised, a storm of
ignorant prejudice and alarm would be aroused, that would sweep the
friends of union out of power, if not out of public life. The profound
secrecy preserved by the delegates as to the scheme, until an
accomplice turned Queen's evidence, added fuel to the flame, and
convinced the most sceptical that there was a second Gunpowder Plot in
existence, which was destined to annihilate our local legislature and
our provincial rights.[2]
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This was the situation which confronted Howe when he returned in the
autumn from his tour as fishery commissioner. He had written from
Newfoundland, on hearing of the conference at Charlottetown: 'I have
read the proceedings of the delegates and I am glad to be out of the
mess.' At first he listened in silence to the Halifax discussions on
both sides of the question. These were non-partisan, since Archibald
and McCully, the Liberal leaders, were as much concerned in the result
as the Conservative ministers. Howe finally broke silence with the
first of his articles in the Halifax _Chronicle_ on 'The Botheration
Scheme.' This gave the signal for an agitation which finally bore Nova
Scotia to the verge of rebellion. Howe's course has been censured as
the greatest blot upon an otherwise brilliant career. In justice to
his memory the whole situation should be examined. He did not start
the agitation. Many able and patriotic Nova Scotians urged him on.
Favourable to union as an abstract theory he had been: to Confederation
as a policy he had never distinctly pledged himself. The idea that the
Quebec terms were sacrosanct, and that hostility to them involved
disloyalty to the Empire, must be put aside. It is neither {103}
necessary nor fair to assume that Howe's conduct was wholly inspired by
the spleen and jealousy commonly ascribed to him; for, with many
others, he honestly held the view that the interests of his native
province were about to be sacrificed in a bad bargain. Nevertheless,
his was a grave political error--an error for which he paid
bitterly--which in the end cost him popularity, private friendship, and
political reputation. But the noble courage and patience with which he
sought to repair it should redeem his fame.[3]
It was no secret that the governor of Nova Scotia, Sir Richard Graves
Macdonnell, was opposed to Confederation. The veiled hostility of his
speech in Halifax has already been noted; and he followed it with
another at Montreal, after the conference, which revealed a captious
mind on the subject. Arthur Hamilton Gordon (afterwards Lord
Stanmore), the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, also hampered the
movement; although the Imperial instructions, even at this early stage
of the proceedings, pointed to an opposite {104} course. In the
gossipy diary of Miss Frances Monck, a member of Lord Monck's household
at Quebec in 1864, appears this item: 'Sir R. M. is so against this
confederation scheme because he would be turned away. He said to John
A.: You shall not make a mayor of _me_, I can tell you! meaning a
deputy governor of a province.' Macdonnell was transferred to
Hong-Kong; and Gordon, after a visit to England, experienced a change
of heart. But the mischief done was incalculable.
In view of the disturbed state of public opinion in Nova Scotia the
Tupper government resolved to play a waiting game. When the
legislature met in February 1865, the federation issue came before it
merely as an open question. The defeat of Tilley in New Brunswick
followed soon after, and the occasion was seen to be inopportune for a
vote upon union. But, as some action had to be taken, a motion was
adopted affirming the previous attitude of the legislature respecting a
maritime union. There was a long debate; Tupper expounded and defended
the Quebec resolutions; but no one seemed disposed to come to close
quarters with the question. Tupper's policy was to mark time.
Prince Edward Island made another {105} contribution to the chapter of
misfortune by definitely rejecting the proposed union. The Legislative
Council unanimously passed a resolution against it, and in the Assembly
the adverse vote was twenty-three against five. It was declared that
the scheme 'would prove politically, commercially and financially
disastrous'; and an address to the Queen prayed that no Imperial action
should be taken to unite the Island to Canada or any other province.
Newfoundland, likewise, turned a deaf ear to the proposals. The
commercial interests of that colony assumed the critical attitude of
the same element in Nova Scotia, and objected to the higher customs
duties which a uniform tariff for the federated provinces would
probably entail. It was resolved to take no action until after a
general election; and the representations made to the legislature by
Governor Musgrave produced no effect. Although the governor was
sanguine, it required no great power of observation to perceive that
the ancient colony would not accept federation.
The Canadian government took prompt measures. On the arrival of the
bad news from New Brunswick it was decided to hurry the debates to a
close, prorogue parliament, and send a committee of the Cabinet to
England {106} to confer with the Imperial authorities on federation,
defence, reciprocity, and the acquisition of the North-West
Territories. This programme was adhered to. The four ministers who
left for England in April were Macdonald, Brown, Galt, and Cartier.
The mission, among other results pertinent to the cause of union,
secured assurances from the home authorities that every legitimate
means for obtaining the early assent of the Maritime Provinces would be
adopted.[4] But the calamities of 1865 were not over. The prime
minister, Sir Etienne Tache, died; and Brown refused to serve under
either Macdonald or Cartier. He took the ground that the coalition of
parties had been held together by a chief (Tache) who had ceased to be
actuated by strong party feelings or personal ambitions and in whom all
sections reposed confidence. Standing alone, this reasoning is sound
in practical politics. Behind it, of course, was the unwillingness of
Brown to accept the leadership of his great rival. Macdonald then
proposed Sir Narcisse Belleau, one of their colleagues, as leader of
the government. Brown assented; and the coalition was {107}
reconstituted on the former basis, but not with the old cordiality.
The rift within the lute steadily widened, and before the year closed
Brown resigned from the ministry. His difference with his colleagues
arose, he stated, from their willingness to renew reciprocal trade
relations with the United States by concurrent legislation instead of,
as heretofore, by a definite treaty. Although his two Liberal
associates remained in the ministry, and the vacancy was given to
another Liberal, Fergusson Blair, the recrudescence of partisan
friction occasioned by the episode was not a good omen. Brown,
however, promised continued support of the federation policy until the
new constitution should come into effect--a promise which he fulfilled
as far as party exigencies permitted. But the outlook was gloomy.
There were rocks ahead which might easily wreck the ship. Who could
read the future so surely as to know what would happen?
[1] _Confederation Examined in the Light of Reason and Common Sense_,
by Martin I. Wilkins.
[2] _Intercolonial Trade our only Safeguard against Disunion_, by R. G.
Haliburton. Ottawa, 1868.
[3] Howe's biographers have dealt with this episode in his life in a
vein of intelligent generosity. See _Joseph Howe_ by Mr Justice
Longley in the 'Makers of Canada' series and _The Tribune of Nova
Scotia_, by Prof. W. L. Grant, in the present Series.
[4] Report of the Canadian ministers to Lord Monck, July 13, 1865.
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