THE FIRST DOMINION MINISTRY
Before the delegates left London the governor-general privately invited
John A. Macdonald to form the first ministry of the Dominion. A month
later the same offer was made more formally in writing:
I entrust this duty to you as the individual selected for their
chairman and spokesman by the unanimous vote of the delegates when they
were in England, and I adopt this test for my guidance in consequence
of the impossibility, under the circumstances, of ascertaining, in the
ordinary constitutional manner, who possesses the confidence of a
Parliament which does not yet exist. In authorizing you to undertake
the duty of forming an administration for the Dominion of Canada, I
desire to express my strong opinion that, in future, it shall be
distinctly understood that the position of first minister shall be
{138} held by _one_ person, who shall be responsible to the
Governor-General for the appointment of the other ministers, and that
the system of dual first ministers, which has hitherto prevailed, shall
be put an end to.[1]
The selection of Macdonald was inevitable. When George Brown by his
action in 1864 made Confederation possible and entered a Cabinet where
his great rival was the commanding influence, he must have foreseen
that, in the event of the cause succeeding, his own chances of
inaugurating the new state as its chief figure were not good. And by
leaving the coalition abruptly before union was accomplished he had put
himself entirely out of the running. In a group of able men which
included several potential prime ministers Macdonald had advanced to
the first place by reason of gifts precisely suited to the demands of
the hour. Lord Monck's choice was therefore justified. Nor was the
resolve to abolish the awkward and indefensible system of a dual
premiership less open to question. It may have given pain to Cartier,
but it was a wise and necessary decision.
{139}
Lord Monck, however, does not rank high in the list of talented men who
have filled the office of governor-general. The post had gone
a-begging when he accepted it in 1861. It had been offered to and
refused by Lord Wodehouse, a former viceroy of Ireland; Lord Harris,
once governor of Madras and a contemporary of Elgin; Lord Eversley, who
had been speaker of the House of Commons; and the Duke of Buckingham.
Lord Monck had scarcely arrived in Canada when the _Trent_ Affair
occurred. Later on the St Albans Raid intensified the bitter feelings
between Great Britain and the United States. On both occasions he
performed his duties as an Imperial officer judiciously and well. But
his relations with Canadian affairs were not so happy. He became
dissatisfied with the political conditions as he found them; and his
petulance over the slow progress of Confederation led him to threaten
resignation. He contrived, moreover, to incur much personal
unpopularity, which found vent, during the first session of the
Dominion parliament, in a measure to reduce the salary of the
governor-general from L10,000 to $32,000. That this unparalleled
action was, in part, directed at Lord Monck is shown in the
determination {140} to put the reduction in force at once. The home
authorities, however, disallowed the bill. In his speech in the House
of Lords on the British North America Act, Monck failed to rise to the
occasion, owing to a sympathy with the views of the Manchester School.
To remain long enough in Canada to preside over the new Dominion had
been his own wish. But it does not appear that he utilized his
opportunities to marked advantage.
A unique political situation confronted Macdonald. It was natural to
suppose that, as the federation leaders belonged to both parties, the
first Cabinet should be composed of representative men of both. This
was the line Macdonald proposed to take. By this policy a strong
national party, with larger aims, would arise, and the old prejudices
and issues would be swept away. This statesmanlike conception involved
certain embarrassments, because the number of ambitious men looking for
Cabinet appointments would be increased and the expectations of
faithful Conservative supporters must suffer disappointment. These
problems, however, were not new to Macdonald. He had faced similar
dangers before, and his skill in handling them was equal to his
experience.
{141}
Meanwhile, Brown set himself to prevent a plan which would detach a
section of the Liberals from their former associates and permanently
range them under a Conservative leader. He cannot be blamed for this.
Confederation being now a fact, he considered himself under no
obligation to continue an alliance proposed for a special object.
Although Macdonald might be able to enlist the support of some maritime
Liberals, Brown strove to reunite his party in Ontario and present a
solid phalanx to the enemy.
A Liberal convention met in Toronto on the 27th and 28th of June 1867.
There was a good attendance, and impassioned appeals were made to men
of the party throughout the province to join in opposing any ministry
which Macdonald might form. It was generally understood that the three
Liberal ministers--Howland, McDougall, and Blair--were to continue in
the government, which would be renewed as a coalition with a certain
degree of Liberal support in the House. To strict party men this was
obnoxious. George Brown denounced any further coalition of parties:
If, sir, there is any large number of men in this assembly who will
record their votes {142} this night in favour of the degradation of the
public men of that party [the Liberals] by joining a coalition, I
neither want to be a leader nor a humble member of that party.
[Cheers.] If that is the reward you intend to give us all for our
services, I scorn connection with you. [Immense cheering.] Go into
the same government with Mr John A. Macdonald! [Cries of never!
never!] Sir, I understood what degradation it was to be compelled to
adopt that step by the necessities of the case, by the feeling that the
interests of my country were at stake, which alone induced me ever to
put my foot into that government; and glad was I when I got out of it.
None ever went into a government with such sore hearts as did two out
of the three who entered it on behalf of the Reform party--I cannot
speak for the third. It was the happiest day of my life when I got out
of the concern. [Cheers.]
These were warm words, designed to rally a divided party. In due time
the tireless energy of the speaker and his friends reawakened the
fighting strength of their followers. For the moment, however, a
considerable number of {143} Liberals were disposed to give the new
conditions a trial. Howland and McDougall were invited to address the
convention, and they put their case in temperate and dignified
language. Howland pointed out that in the new ministry there would be
several Liberals from the lower provinces, and these men had requested
their Ontario friends not to leave them. McDougall's address was
especially apt and convincing:
We think that the work of coalition is not done, but only begun. We
think that British Columbia should be brought into the confederacy,
that the great north-western territory should be brought in, that
Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland should be brought in. I say that
the negotiations of the terms upon which these provinces are to be
brought in are important, and that it is as necessary that the
government in power should not be obliged to fight from day to day for
its political existence, as when Confederation was carried up to the
point we have now reached.... I think the coalition ought not to cease
until the work begun under Mr Brown's auspices is ended.
{144}
It was evident from these remarks that the arguments--what his critics
called the blandishments--of Macdonald had prevailed.
The first Cabinet, which was announced on July 1, began on a non-party
basis. This commended it to moderate men generally. But the task of
getting it together had been herculean. To secure a ministry
representative of all parts of the country seemed a reasonable policy
at the beginning. With time this has grown into an unwritten
convention of the constitution which cannot be ignored. In 1867 the
Cabinet representation had to be determined by geography, race, creed,
and party. None but an old parliamentary hand could have made the
attempt successfully. Ontario claimed and was assigned five ministers,
Quebec four, and the Maritime Provinces four. So much for geography.
Then came race and creed. It was found necessary to give the Irish
Catholics and the English minority in Quebec each a minister. The
French demanded and were granted three ministers. Finally, the fusion
of parties imposed another difficulty upon the cabinet-maker. He could
not find room for all the really deserving. There were thirteen
ministers--too many, {145} thought Brown and the _Globe_--and of these
six were Liberal and six Conservative, while Kenny of Nova Scotia had
once been a Liberal but had lately acted with the Tupper party. The
surprises were the absence of the names of McGee and Tupper from the
list. To have selected McGee as the Irish Catholic minister meant five
representatives for Quebec, and Ontario would not consent. This
threatened a deadlock, and Macdonald was about to advise the
governor-general to send for George Brown, when McGee and Tupper, with
a disinterested generosity rare in politics, waived their claims, and
Edward Kenny became the Irish representative and second minister from
Nova Scotia. The first administration was thus constituted:
JOHN A. MACDONALD, Prime Minister and Minister of Justice.
GEORGE E. CARTIER, Minister of Militia and Defence.
S. LEONARD TILLEY, Minister of Customs.
ALEXANDER T. GALT, Minister of Finance.
WILLIAM McDOUGALL, Minister of Public Works.
WILLIAM P. HOWLAND, Minister of Inland Revenue.
ADAMS G. ARCHIBALD, Secretary of State for the Provinces.
A. J. FERGUSSON BLAIR, President of the Privy Council.
{146}
PETER MITCHELL, Minister of Marine and Fisheries.
ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, Postmaster-General.
JEAN C. CHAPAIS, Minister of Agriculture.
HECTOR L. LANGEVIN, Secretary of State of Canada.
EDWARD KENNY, Receiver-General.
The two men who had stepped aside in order that a ministry might be
formed under Macdonald were actuated partly by personal regard for
their leader. It was not a small sacrifice. Macdonald wrote to McGee:
The difficulties of adjusting the representation in the Cabinet from
the several provinces were great and embarrassing. Your disinterested
and patriotic conduct--and I speak of Tupper as well as yourself--had
certainly the effect of removing those difficulties. Still, I think
you should have first consulted me. However, the thing is done and
can't be undone for the present; but I am very sure that at a very
early day your valuable services will be sought for by the government.
McGee was to have retired from political life and to have received the
appointment of commissioner of patents at $3200 a year, a sinecure
which would have enabled him to pursue his literary work. His
assassination in the {147} early morning of April 7, 1868, on returning
to his lodging after a late session of the House, is one of the most
tragic episodes in the annals of Canada.
The ministers having been sworn of the Privy Council, Lord Monck
announced that Her Majesty had been pleased to confer upon the new
prime minister the rank of Knight Commander of the Bath, and upon
Cartier, Galt, Tilley, Tupper, Howland, and McDougall the companionship
of the same order. No previous intimation had been given to any of
them. Cartier and Galt, deeming the recognition of their services
inadequate, declined to receive it. This incident is only worthy of
mention because it tended to disturb the personal relations of men who
should have acted in complete harmony at a time of national importance.
No Imperial honours had been conferred in Canada since 1860, and it was
unfortunate that the advice tendered the crown on this historic
occasion should have been open to criticism and have engendered ill
feeling. Cartier thought that his race had been affronted in his
person, and his reasons for protest were political. He told his
colleagues: 'Personally I care nothing for honours, but as a
representative of one of the {148} two great provinces in Confederation
I have a position to maintain, and I shall not accept the honour. I
regret that such an action is necessary, because it may be construed as
an insult to Her Majesty. I feel aggrieved that I should not have been
notified in advance, so that I should not now have to refuse, but I
shall write to Her Majesty myself explaining the reasons for my
refusing the honour.'[2] The error was soon rectified and Cartier was
made a baronet. A number of persons, including Charles Tupper and
Edward Watkin, a member of the Imperial parliament, interested
themselves in the matter, pointing out to the London authorities the
unwisdom of bestowing titles without due regard to the Imperial
services of the recipients. The reputations of Galt and Cartier as
serious statesmen were not enhanced. Explain it as we may, there is a
flavour of absurdity about their proceedings. Galt was offered a
knighthood in 1869, and would not accept until the Imperial government
had been made aware of his views upon the ultimate destiny of Canada.
In a letter to the governor-general he thus placed himself on record:
{149}
I regard the confederation of the British North American Provinces as a
measure which must ultimately lead to their separation from Great
Britain. The present connection is undoubtedly an embarrassment to
Great Britain in her relations to the United States and a source of
uneasiness to the Dominion, owing to the insecurity which is felt to
exist from the possibility of a rupture between the two nations. It
cannot be the policy of England, and is certainly not the desire of the
people here, to become annexed to the United States; but I believe the
best, and indeed the only way to prevent this, is to teach the Canadian
people to look forward to an independent existence as a nation in the
future as desirable and possible. Unless such a spirit be cultivated,
the idea will become engrained in the public mind, that failing the
connection with Great Britain annexation must ensue.
Galt went on to state that he hoped separation would be postponed as
long as possible. The reply of the secretary of state, Lord Granville,
was private, but it appears to have been in effect a declaration that
Galt could hold {150} any views he pleased about the future of the
Empire. He accepted the K.C.M.G. and worthily wore it to the end of an
honourable and public-spirited career. Thus was vindicated the freedom
of speech which is the birthright of every British subject. But Galt,
in exercising it, showed lack of stability and a tendency to take an
erratic course, which crippled his influence in the young state he had
done so much to found.
It was an enormous burden of duty which now fell upon the executive.
The whole machinery of state required recasting. The uncertainties of
a situation wherein party bonds sat lightly and diversities of opinion
lingered, taxed all the resources of the leader of the government.
Although different views are held as to the particular stage in his
long career in which the remarkable qualities of Sir John Macdonald
displayed themselves most conspicuously, the first five years of the
union may well be regarded by future historians as the period when his
patience, tenacity, and adroitness were especially in evidence.
The provincial governments had to be constituted; and in Ontario
Macdonald scored again by persuading Sandfield Macdonald to form a
coalition ministry in which party lines {151} were effaced and the
policy of coalition was defended by an erstwhile Liberal leader.
Sandfield Macdonald was a man of talent and integrity. His attitude of
mind was rather that of an oppositionist, upon whom the functions of
independent critic sat more easily than the compromises and discipline
entailed by party leadership. He bore restraint with impatience, and
if his affiliations had always been with the Liberals, it was not
because his sympathies were radical and progressive.[3] In the Liberal
caucus of 1864 he had moved the resolution requesting George Brown to
enter the coalition government, without recognizing, apparently, that
he thereby incurred an obligation himself to support federation. Both
in the Ontario legislature, where he was loth to follow any course but
his own, and in the Dominion parliament, where he ostentatiously {152}
sat on an Opposition bench, he presented a shining example of that type
of mind which lacks the capacity for unity and co-operation with
others. He illustrated, too, one of the difficult features of
Macdonald's problem--the absence of unity among the public men of the
time--a condition which complicated, if it did not retard, the
formation of a homogeneous national sentiment.[4]
The general elections were impending, and everything turned upon the
verdict of the country. The first elections for the House of Commons
took place during the months of August and September, the practice of
holding elections all on one day having not yet come into vogue. The
three provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick sustained the
government by large majorities. But in Nova Scotia the agitation
against the union swept the province. Tupper was the only Conservative
elected. His victory was the more notable in that he defeated William
Annand, the chief lieutenant of Howe and afterwards the leader of the
repeal movement. Adams Archibald, the secretary of state, was {153}
defeated in Colchester by A. W. McLelan, and Henry, another member of
the Quebec Conference, was rejected in Antigonish. In Ontario there
were losses. George Brown was defeated in South Ontario by a few
votes, and did not again sit in parliament until he was appointed to
the Senate in 1874. In the early years of the Dominion a member might
sit both in the House of Commons and in the legislature of his
province. So it was that at this election Edward Blake was returned
from South Bruce to the Ontario legislature and from West Durham to the
House of Commons. Other members who occupied seats in both bodies were
Sandfield Macdonald, John Carling, Alexander Mackenzie, and E. B. Wood.
Cartier's success in Quebec left his opponents only fifteen seats out
of sixty-five. The stars in their courses fought for the government;
and had it not been for Nova Scotia, where the victorious and hostile
forces were pledged to repeal, the consolidation of the Dominion could
have gone forward without hindrance.
To deal with 'that pestilent fellow Howe,' to use Macdonald's phrase,
was a first charge upon the energies of the government. The history of
the repeal movement in Nova Scotia, {154} with all its incidents and
sidelights, has yet to be written. It was but one of the
disintegrating forces which Macdonald found so hard to cope with, that
in a moment of discouragement he seriously thought of withdrawing from
the government and letting others carry it on. A large portion of the
year 1868 was occupied with the effort to reconcile the Nova Scotians.
Instead of abating, the anti-confederate feeling in that province grew
more bitter. A delegation headed by Howe and Annand went to England to
demand repeal from the Imperial authorities. To counteract this move
the Dominion government sent Charles Tupper to present the other side
of the case. None of the passages in his political life reflect more
credit upon him than his diplomacy upon this occasion. He had already
declined, as we have seen, a seat in the Cabinet. Later, he had
further strengthened his reputation by refusing the lucrative office of
chairman of the commission to build the Intercolonial Railway. This
fresh display of independence enabled him to meet the repeal delegates
on ground as patriotic as their own, for it had shown that in this
crisis they were not the only Nova Scotians who wanted nothing for
themselves.
{155}
Tupper's first step on reaching London was to call on Howe. 'I said to
him,' writes Tupper, 'I will not insult you by suggesting that you
should fail to undertake the mission that brought you here. When you
find out, however, that the Government and the Imperial Parliament are
overwhelmingly against you, it is important for you to consider the
next step.'[5] This was to put the finger upon the weakest spot in
Howe's armour. After his mission had failed and the Imperial
authorities had refused to allow the union to be broken up, as they
most assuredly would, what could Howe and his friends do next? A
revolution was unthinkable. A province 'on strike' would have no
adequate means of raising a revenue, and a government lacking the power
of taxation soon ceases to exist. The extremists talked Annexation;
but in this they counted without Howe and the loyal province of Nova
Scotia. The movement, noisy and formidable as it appeared, was
foredoomed to failure. All this Tupper put to Joseph Howe; and when
Tupper proposed that Howe should enter the Dominion Cabinet, not as his
docile follower but as his leader, it {156} can readily be believed
that he was 'completely staggered.'
True to Tupper's forecast, and due in part, at least, to his powerful
advocacy of the cause of union, the home government stood firm against
the cry from Nova Scotia. The delegates and their opponents returned
home. Then the rapid development of events compelled Howe to face the
issue: when legal and constitutional methods were exhausted without
avail, what then? The crisis came. Howe was obliged to break with his
associates, some of whom were preaching sedition, and to take a stand
more in accordance with his real convictions and his Imperial
sentiments. Early in August 1868 Sir John Macdonald went to Halifax
and met the leading malcontents. 'They have got the idea into their
heads,' wrote Howe in a private letter, 'that you are a sort of wizard
that, having beguiled Brown, McDougall, Tupper, etc., to destruction,
is about to do the same kind of office to me.' Howe was not beguiled,
but a master of tactics showed him the means by which Nova Scotia could
be kept in the union; the way was paved for a final settlement; and a
few months later Howe joined the Dominion government.
Long after Joseph Howe had passed to his {157} rest, echoes of the
repeal agitation were heard in Nova Scotia; and it was frequently
asserted that the question of union should have been submitted to a
vote of the people. Such a course, owing to the circumstances already
narrated, was impracticable and would have been fatal to Confederation.
But the pacification of the province was a great feat of statesmanship;
for to maintain the young Dominion intact was essential to its further
extension.
[1] _Memoirs_, vol. i, p. 319.
[2] _Sir George Etienne Cartier, Bart; His Life and Times_, by John
Boyd. Toronto, 1914.
[3] Sir James Whitney, prime minister of Ontario from 1903 to 1914, who
was a young student in Sandfield Macdonald's law office in Cornwall and
shared his political confidence, assured the present writer that
Ontario's first prime minister was not a Liberal in the real sense, his
instincts and point of view being essentially Conservative. After
Robert Baldwin's retirement Sandfield Macdonald's natural course would
have been an alliance with the progressive Conservatives under John A.
Macdonald, but his antipathy to acknowledging any leader kept him
aloof. His laconic telegram in reply to John A. Macdonald's offer of
cabinet office is characteristic: 'No go!'
[4] A conspicuous case in point is the entire want of sympathy between
Brown and Galt, men of similar type, whose opinions on several
questions coincided.
[5] _Recollections of Sixty Years in Canada_, by the Rt. Hon. Sir
Charles Tupper, Bart.
{158}