If on the assembling of Parliament the majority in that body in favour of Confederation shall be found so large as to make it manifest that any reference to the country would simply be a matter of form, Ministers will not, we take it, feel warranted in putting the country to great trouble and expense for the sake of that unessential formality.
When challenged in parliament the government gave its reasons. The question of Confederation had, in one form or another, been before the country for years. During 1864 there had been elections in eleven ridings for the Assembly and in fourteen for the Legislative Council. The area of country embraced by these contests included forty counties. Of the candidates in these elections but four opposed federation and only two of them were elected. Brown stated impetuously that not five members of parliament in Upper Canada dare go before the people against the scheme. No petitions against it were presented, and its opponents had not ventured to hold meetings, knowing that an enormous majority of thepeople favoured it. This evidence, in Upper Canada, was accepted as conclusive. In Lower Canada appearances were not quite so convincing. The ministry representing that section was not a coalition, and the Liberal leaders, both French and English, organized an agitation. But afterwards, in the campaign of 1867, Cartier swept all before him. It was also argued that parliament was fresh from the people as recently as 1864, and that though the mandate to legislate was not specific, it was sufficient. The method of ascertaining the popular verdict by means of a referendum was proposed, but rejected as unknown to the constitution and at variance with British practice.
Parliament finally adopted the resolutions by a vote of ninety-one to thirty-three in the Assembly and of forty-five to fifteen in the Legislative Council. Hillyard Cameron, politically a lineal descendant of the old Family Compact, supported by Matthew Crooks Cameron, a Conservative of the highest integrity and afterwards chief justice, then moved for a reference to the people by a dissolution of parliament. But after an animated debate the motion was defeated, and no further efforts in this direction were attempted. That an eagerness to invoke the judgment of democracywas not seen at its best, when displayed by two Tories of the old school, may justify the belief that parliamentary tactics, rather than the pressure of public opinion, inspired the move.
Fortune had smiled upon the statesmen of the Canadian coalition. In a few months they had accomplished wonders. They had secured the aid of the Maritime Provinces in drafting a scheme of union. They had made tours in the east and the west to prepare public opinion for the great stroke of state. They and their co-delegates had formulated and adopted the Quebec resolutions, on which a chorus of congratulation had drowned, for the time, the voices of warning and expostulation. And, finally, the ministers had met parliament and had secured the adoption of their scheme by overwhelming majorities.
But all was not so fair in the provinces by the sea. Before the Canadian legislature prorogued, the Tilley government had been hurled from power in New Brunswick, Joseph Howe was heading a formidable agitation in Nova Scotia, and in the other two provinces the cause was lost. It seemed as if a storm had burst that would overwhelm the union and that the hands of the clock would be put back.
[1] See the remark of McCully of Nova Scotia that the delegates should take the matter into their own hands and not wait to educate the people up to it—Pope'sConfederation Documents, p. 60.
[2] November 23, 1864.
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 theypossessed, 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'scolleagues 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.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 sixcounties, 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]
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 HalifaxChronicleon '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 neithernecessary 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 oppositecourse. 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 ofme, 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 anothercontribution 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 Englandto 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 Taché, 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 (Taché) 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 wasreconstituted 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. SeeJoseph Howeby Mr Justice Longley in the 'Makers of Canada' series andThe 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.
At the dawn of 1866 the desperate plight of the cause of union called for skilful generalship in four different arenas of political action. In any one of them a false move would have been fatal to success; and there was always the danger that, on so extended a front, the advocates of union might be fighting at cross purposes and so inflicting injury on each other instead of upon the enemy. It was necessary that the Imperial influence should be exerted as far as the issues at stake warranted its employment. Canada, the object of suspicion, must march warily to avoid rousing the hostile elements elsewhere. The unionists of New Brunswick should be given time to recover their position, while those of Nova Scotia should stand ready for instant co-operation.
The judicious but firm attitude of the Imperial authorities was a material factor in thesituation. From 1862 onwards there was no mistaking the policy of Downing Street, as expressed by the Duke of Newcastle in that year to the governor of Nova Scotia. Colonial secretaries came and went and the complexion of British ministries changed, but the principle of union stood approved. Any proposals, however, must emanate from the colonies themselves; and, when an agreement in whole or in part should be reached, the proper procedure was indicated. 'The most satisfactory mode,' said the dispatch of 1862, 'of testing the opinion of the people of British North America would probably be by means of resolution or address proposed in legislatures of each province by its own government.' This course all the governments had kept in mind, with the additional safeguard that the ministers of the day had associated with themselves the leaders of the parliamentary oppositions. Nothing could have savoured less of partisanship than the Quebec Conference; and Mr Cardwell, the colonial secretary, had acknowledged the resolutions of that body in handsome terms.
The home authorities faced the difficulties with a statesmanlike front. They had no disposition to dictate, but, once assured that asubstantial majority in each consenting province supported the scheme, it was their duty to speak plainly, no matter how vehemently a section of opinion in England or in the provinces protested. They held the opinion, that since the provinces desired to remain within the Empire, they must combine. All the grounds for this belief could not be publicly stated. It was one of those exceptional occasions when Downing Street, by reason of its superior insight into foreign affairs and by full comprehension of the danger then threatening, knew better than the man on the spot. The colonial opposition might be sincere and patriotic, but it was wrong. Heed could not be paid to the agitations in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick because they were founded upon narrow conceptions of statesmanship and erroneous information.
Another difficulty with which British governments, whether Liberal or Tory, had to contend was the separatist doctrine known as that of the Manchester School. When George Brown visited England in 1864 he was startled into communicating with John A. Macdonald in these terms:
I am much concerned to observe—and Iwrite it to you as a thing that must seriously be considered by all men taking a lead hereafter in Canadian public matters—that there is a manifest desire in almost every quarter that, ere long, the British American colonies should shift for themselves, and in some quarters evident regret that we did not declare at once for independence. I am very sorry to observe this; but it arises, I hope, from the fear of invasion of Canada by the United States, and will soon pass away with the cause that excites it.
The feeling did pass away in time. The responsible statesmen of that period were forced to go steadily forward and ignore it, just as they refused to be dominated by appeals from colonial reactionaries who abhorred change and who honestly believed that in so doing they exhibited the best form of attachment to the Empire.
Why Mr Arthur Gordon, the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, was at first opposed to Confederation, when his ministers were in favour of it, is not quite clear.[1]However this may be, his punishment was not long in coming; and, if he escaped from the storm without loss of honour, he certainly suffered in dignity and comfort. The new ministry which took office in New Brunswick was formed by A. J. Smith, who afterwards as Sir Albert Smith had a useful career in the Dominion parliament. His colleagues had taken a prominent part in the agitation against Confederation, but it appears that they had no very settled convictions on this question, and that they differed on many others. At any rate, dissension soon broke out among them. The colonial secretary pressed upon the province the desirability of the union in terms described as 'earnest and friendly suggestions,' and which left no doubt as to the wishes of the home government. 'You will express,' said the colonial secretary to the lieutenant-governor, 'the strong and deliberate opinion of Her Majesty's Government that it is an object much to be desired that all the British North American colonies should agree to unite in one government.' In statingthe reasons for this opinion the dispatch continued:
Looking to the determination which this country has ever exhibited to regard the defence of the colonies as a matter of Imperial concern, the colonies must recognize a right, and even acknowledge an obligation, incumbent on the home government to urge with earnestness and just authority the measures which they consider to be most expedient on the part of the colonies with a view to their own defence.
The New Brunswick frontier, as well as Canada, was disturbed by the threatened Fenian invasion, so that the question of defence was apposite and of vital importance.
Presently a change of sentiment began to show itself in the province, and the shaky Cabinet began to totter from resignations and disagreements. By-elections followed and supporters of federation were returned. The legislature met early in March. In the lieutenant-governor's speech from the throne, a reference to the colonial secretary's dispatch implied that Gordon had changed his views and was now favourable to union. Heafterwards explained that the first minister and several of his colleagues had privately intimated to him their concurrence, but felt unable at the time to explain their altered attitude to the legislature. The next step involved proceedings still more unusual, if not actually unconstitutional: the address of the Legislative Council in reply to the speech from the throne contained a vigorous endorsement of union; and the lieutenant-governor accepted it, without consulting his advisers, and in language which left them no recourse but to resign. A new ministry was formed on the 18th of April, and the House was dissolved. The ensuing elections resulted in a complete victory for federation. On the 21st of June the legislature met, fresh from the people, and adopted, by a vote of thirty to eight, a resolution appointing delegates to arrange with the Imperial authorities a scheme of union that would secure 'the just rights and interests of New Brunswick.' The battle was won.
Meanwhile, like the mariner who keeps a vigilant eye upon the weather, the Tupper government in Nova Scotia observed the proceedings in New Brunswick with a view to action at the proper moment. The agitation throughout the province had not affected theposition of parties in the legislature which met in February. The government continued to treat federation as a non-contentious subject. No reference to it was made in the governor's speech, and the legislature occupied itself with other business. The agitation in the country, with Howe leading it, and William Annand, member for East Halifax and editor of theChronicle, as his chief associate, went on. Then the débâcle of the anti-confederate party in New Brunswick began to attract attention and give rise to speculations on what would be the action of the Tupper government. This was soon to be disclosed. In April, a few days before the fall of the Smith ministry in New Brunswick, William Miller, member for Richmond, made a speech in the House which was destined to produce a momentous effect. His proposal was to appoint delegates to frame a scheme in consultation with the Imperial authorities, and thus ignore the Quebec resolutions. To these resolutions Miller had been strongly opposed. He had borne a leading part with Howe and Annand in the agitation, although he was always favourable to union in the abstract and careful on all occasions to say so. Now, however, his speech provided a means of enabling Nova Scotia to enter theunion with the consent of the legislature, and Tupper was quick to seize the opportunity by putting it in the form of a motion before the House. An extremely bitter debate followed; vigorous epithets were exchanged with much freedom, and Tupper's condemnation of Joseph Howe omitted nothing essential to the record. But at length, at midnight of the 10th of April, the legislature, by a vote of thirty-one to nineteen, adopted the motion which cleared the way for bringing Nova Scotia into the Dominion.
Miller's late allies never forgave his action on this occasion. He was accused of having been bribed to desert them. When he was appointed to the Senate in 1867 the charge was repeated, and many years afterwards was revived in an offensive form. Finally, Miller entered suit for libel against the HalifaxChronicle, and in the witness-box Sir Charles Tupper bore testimony to the propriety of Miller's conduct in 1866. Notwithstanding the hostility between Howe and Tupper, they afterwards resumed friendly relations and sat comfortably together in the Dominion Cabinet. In politics hard words can be soon forgotten. The doughty Tupper had won his province for the union and could afford to forget.
Sir Charles Tupper, Bart. From a photograph by Elliott and Fry, London.Sir Charles Tupper, Bart.From a photograph by Elliott and Fry, London.
Sir Charles Tupper, Bart. From a photograph by Elliott and Fry, London.Sir Charles Tupper, Bart.From a photograph by Elliott and Fry, London.
The tactics pursued in Canada during these exciting months in the Maritime Provinces were those defined by a great historian, in dealing with a different convulsion, as 'masterly inactivity.' In that memorable speech of years afterwards when Macdonald, about to be overwhelmed by the Pacific Railway charges, appealed to his countrymen in words that came straight from the heart, he declared: 'I have fought the battle of union.' The events of 1866 are the key to this utterance. Parliament was not summoned until June; and meanwhile ministers said nothing. That this line of policy was deliberate, is set forth in a private letter from Macdonald to Tilley:
Had we met early in the year and before your elections, the greatest embarrassment and your probable defeat at the polls would have ensued. We should have been pressed by the Opposition to declare whether we adhered to the Quebec resolutions or not. Had we answered in the affirmative, you would have been defeated, as you were never in a position to go to the polls on those resolutions. Had we replied in the negative, and stated that it was anopen question and that the resolutions were liable to alteration, Lower Canada would have arisen as one man, and good-bye to federation.
Thus was the situation saved; and, although the delegates from the Maritime Provinces were obliged to wait in London for some months for their Canadian colleagues, owing to the Fenian invasion of Canada and to a change of ministry in England, the body of delegates assembled in December at the Westminster Palace Hotel, in London, and sat down to frame the details of the bill for the union of British North America.
[1] Gordon's dispatches to the colonial secretary indicate that from the first he distrusted the Quebec scheme and that the overthrow of his ministers owing to it occasioned him no great grief. James Hannay, the historian, attributes his conduct to chagrin at the pushing aside of maritime union, as he had hoped to be the first governor of the smaller union.
When the British American delegates met in London to frame the bill they found themselves in an atmosphere tending to chill their enthusiasm. Lord Palmerston had died the year before, and with him had disappeared an adventurous foreign policy and the militant view of empire. The strictly utilitarian school of thought was dominant. Canada was unpleasantly associated in the minds of British statesmen with the hostile attitude of the United States which seemed to threaten a most unwelcome war. John Bright approved of ceding Canada to the Republic as the price of peace. Gladstone also wrote to Goldwin Smith suggesting this course. The delegates were confronted by the same ideas which had distressed George Brown two years earlier. The colonies were not to be forcibly cast off, but even in official circles the opinion prevailed that ultimate separation was the inevitable end. The replyof Sir Edward Thornton, the British minister at Washington, to a proposal that Canada should be ceded to the United States was merely that Great Britain could not thus dispose of a colony 'against the wishes of the inhabitants.' These lukewarm views made no appeal to the delegates and the young communities they represented. It was their aim to propound a method of continuing the connection. Theirs was not the vision of a military sway intended to overawe other nations and to revive in the modern world the empires of history. To them Imperialism meant to extend and preserve the principles of justice, liberty, and peace, which they believed were inherent in British institutions and more nearly attainable under monarchical than under republican forms.
Minds influential in the Colonial Office and elsewhere saw in this only a flamboyant patriotism. The Duke of Newcastle, when colonial secretary, had not shared the desire for separation, and he found it hard to believe that any one charged with colonial administration wished it. He had written to Palmerston in 1861:
You speak of some supposed theoretical gentlemen in the colonial office who wishto get rid of all colonies as soon as possible. I can only say that if there are such they have never ventured to open their opinion to me. If they did so on grounds of peaceful separation, I should differ from them so long as colonies can be retained by bonds of mutual sympathy and mutual obligation; but I would meet their views with indignation if they could suggest disruption by the act of any other, and that a hostile, Power.
The duke was not intimate with his official subordinates, or he would have known that Palmerston's description exactly fitted the permanent under-secretary at the Colonial Office. Sir Frederic Rogers (who later became Lord Blachford) filled that post from 1860 to 1871. He was therefore in office during the Confederation period. He left on record his ideas of the future of the Empire:
I had always believed—and the belief has so confirmed and consolidated itself that I can hardly realize the possibility of any one seriously thinking the contrary—that the destiny of our colonies is independence; and that in this view, the function of the Colonial Office is to secure thatour connexion, while it lasts, shall be as profitable to both parties, and our separation, when it comes, as amicable as possible. This opinion is founded first on the general principle that a spirited nation (and a colony becomes a nation) will not submit to be governed in its internal affairs by a distant government, and that nations geographically remote have no such common interests as will bind them permanently together in foreign policy with all its details and mutations.
In other words, Sir Frederic was a painstaking honourable official without a shred of imagination. He typifies the sort of influence which the delegates had to encounter.
The conference consisted of sixteen members, six from Canada and ten from the Maritime Provinces. The Canadians were Macdonald, Cartier, Galt, McDougall, Howland, and Langevin. From Nova Scotia came Tupper, Henry, Ritchie, McCully, and Archibald; while New Brunswick was represented by Tilley, Johnston, Mitchell, Fisher, and Wilmot. They selected John A. Macdonald as chairman. The resignation of Brown had left Macdonald the leader of the movement, and the nominalCanadian prime minister, Sir Narcisse Belleau, was not even a delegate. The impression Macdonald made in London is thus recorded by Sir Frederic Rogers in language which gives us an insight into the working of the conference:
They held many meetings, at which I was always present. Lord Carnarvon [the colonial secretary] was in the chair, and I was rather disappointed in his power of presidency. Macdonald was the ruling genius and spokesman, and I was very greatly struck by his power of management and adroitness. The French delegates were keenly on the watch for anything which weakened their securities; on the contrary, the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick delegates were very jealous of concessions to thearriéréeprovince; while one main stipulation in favour of the French was open to constitutional objections on the part of the Home Government. Macdonald had to argue the question with the Home Government on a point on which the slightest divergence from the narrow line already agreed upon in Canada was watched for—here by the French andthere by the English—as eager dogs watch a rat hole; a snap on one side might have provoked a snap on the other and put an end to the concord. He stated and argued the case with cool ready fluency, while at the same time you saw that every word was measured, and that while he was making for a point ahead, he was never for a moment unconscious of any of the rocks among which he had to steer.
The preliminaries had all been settled before the meetings with the colonial secretary. The gathering was smaller in numbers than the Quebec Conference, and the experience of two years had not been lost. We hear no more of deadlocks or of the danger of breaking up. There was frank discussion on any point that required reconsideration, but the delegates decided to adhere to the Quebec resolutions as far as possible. For the Liberal ministers from Upper Canada, Howland and McDougall, this was the safest course to pursue, because they knew that George Brown had put his hand and seal upon the basis adopted at Quebec and would bitterly resent any substantial departure from it. This was also the view of the representatives of Lower Canada. Themaritime delegates wanted better financial terms if such could be secured, but beyond this were content with the accepted outline of the constitution.
The delegates were careful to make plain their belief that the union was to cement and not to weaken the Imperial tie. At Quebec they had agreed upon a motion in these terms:
That in framing a constitution for the general government, the conference, with a view to the perpetuation of our connection with the Mother Country and to the promotion of the best interests of the people of these provinces, desire to follow the model of the British constitution, so far as our circumstances will permit.
The saving clause at the close was a frank admission that a federal system could not be an exact copy of the British model with its one sovereign parliament charged with the whole power of the nation. But the delegates were determined to express the idea in some form; and this led to the words in the preamble of the British North America Act declaring 'a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom.' To this writersof note have objected. Professor Dicey has complained of the 'official mendacity' involved in the statement. 'If preambles were intended to express the truth,' he said, 'for the wordKingdomought to have been substitutedStates, since it is clear that the constitution of the Dominion is modelled on that of the United States.' It is, however, equally clear what the framers of the Act intended to convey. If they offended against the precise canons of constitutional theory, they effected a political object of greater consequence. The Canadian constitution, in their opinion, was British in principle for at least three reasons: because it provided for responsible government in both the general and local legislatures; because, unlike the system in the United States, the executive and legislative functions were not divorced; and because this enabled Canada to incorporate the traditions and conventions of the British constitution which bring the executive immediately under control of the popular wish as expressed through parliament. Furthermore, the principle of defining the jurisdictions of the provinces, while the residue of power was left to the federal parliament, marked another wide distinction between Canada and the Republic. Afederation it had to be, but a federation designed in the narrowest sense. In theory Canada is a dependent and subordinate country, since its constitution was conferred by an Act of the Imperial parliament, but in practice it is a self-governing state in the fullest degree. This anomaly, so fortunate in its results, is no greater than the maintenance in theory of royal prerogatives which are never exercised.
It was intended that the name of the new state should be left to the selection of the Queen, and this was provided for in the first draft of the bill. But the proposal was soon dropped. It revived the memory of the regrettable incident of 1858 when the Queen had, by request, selected Ottawa as the Canadian capital and her decision had been condemned by a vote of the legislature. The press had discussed a suitable name long before the London delegates assembled. Some favoured New Britain, while others preferred Laurentia or Britannia. If the maritime union had been effected, the name of that division would probably have been Acadia, and this name was suggested for the larger union. Other ideas were merely fantastic, such as Cabotia, Columbia, Canadia, and Ursalia. The decision that Canada should give up its nameto the new Confederation and that Upper and Lower Canada should find new names for themselves was undoubtedly a happy conclusion to the discussion. It was desired to call the Confederation the Kingdom of Canada, and thus fix the monarchical basis of the constitution. The French were especially attached to this idea. The word Kingdom appeared in an early draft of the bill as it came from the conference. But it was vetoed by the foreign secretary, Lord Stanley,[1] who thought that the republican sensibilities of the United States would be wounded. This preposterous notion serves to indicate the inability of the controlling minds of the period to grasp the true nature of the change. Finally, the word 'Dominion' was decided upon. Why a term was selected which is so difficult to render in the French language (La Puissanceis the translation employed) is not easy of comprehension. There is a story, probably invented, that when 'Dominion' was under consideration, a member of the conference, well versed in the Scriptures, found a verse which, as a piece of descriptive prophecy, at once clinched the matter: 'And his dominion shall be fromsea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth.'[2]
The knotty question of the second chamber, supposed to have been solved at Quebec, came up again. The notes of the discussion[3] are as interesting as the surviving notes of the Quebec Conference. Some of the difficulties since experienced were foreseen. But no one appears to have realized that the Senate would become the citadel of a defeated party, until sufficient vacancies by death should occur to transform it into the obedient instrument of the government of the day. No one foresaw, in truth, that the Senate would consider measures chiefly on party grounds, and would fail to demonstrate the usefulness of a second chamber by industry and capacity in revising hasty legislation. The delegates actually believed that equality of representation between the three divisions, Upper Canada, Lower Canada, and the Maritime Provinces, would make the Senate a bulwark of protection to individual provinces. In this character it has never shone.[4] Its chief value has been asa reservoir of party patronage. The opinions of several of the delegates are prophetical: