CHAPTER 12
The Years of Thompson 1891–1894
Macdonald was not dead before awful rifts in the Conservative party began to open up. He had been, so to speak, the only political principle Conservatives had. James Edgar, watching them with amusement from the Opposition benches, wrote to his wife, “They are canvassing and caballing in an insane way…. If Sir John doesn’t die in a day or two he will have half-killed his party with suspense.”1 The Liberals were lively and aggressive with only twenty-seven seats separating them from power, and with the McGreevy scandal hot and ready to serve. As Macdonald’s illness began to look serious debate in the House had been upon the role of Sir Charles Tupper who so distinguished himself in the recent election as a vigorous – the Liberals used “shameless” – partisan of the Government.
Tupper was one possible choice as successor to Macdonald, though the Globe alleged that Macdonald would have sooner seen the Liberals in power than have Tupper become Prime Minister.2 And although there were rumours about Tupper, he knew how serious the McGreevy charges were, and that for the moment he was well enough where he was. Eighteen months earlier Langevin would have been the obvious choice; but now, that was impossible. “I know,” wrote Edgar, “that it was the Tarte business alone that prevented the Governor from sending for Langevin.”3 Who was left? Macdonald’s own views were uncertain in his last days. At first he thought of J. J. C. Abbott, and then gave it up.4 A month or so before he had told T. C. Patteson, “The best thing I ever invented is Thompson.” He said it a little sadly perhaps, for he was thinking of D’Alton McCarthy, and what he might have been.5 The Governor General sent for Thompson, who may even have tried his hand at a Cabinet.6 Certainly he was pressed by Lord Stanley to take the premiership in ways that made refusal very unpleasant.7 But his inclination was against it. He said the day Macdonald died that he was unwilling to lead the party, then or in the future.8 And he stuck to his refusal, one reason being McCarthy. The Protestant section might have followed Langevin – even in June, 1891 – but not Thompson, the man who had abandoned Protestantism for the Roman Catholic Church.9 This left as the most likely possibility a man who had not been, up to this time, conspicuous.
Sir John Abbott was not without attractiveness. Venerable and well-mannered, fond of whist and cribbage, an expert in railway legislation and a leading C.P.R. counsel, he was well suited to the Senate. But Abbott hated politics. “I hate notoriety, public meetings, public speeches, caucuses and everything I know of that is apparently the necessary incident of politics – except doing public work to the best of my ability…. My own impression is that Thompson is the man to be sent for….” This on June 4, 1891.10 So Abbott wanted Thompson, and Thompson preferred Abbott, and in the end Thompson got his way. Abbott’s condition was that Thompson should lead in the House of Commons, while he remained in the Senate. It was in some ways a good solution. Thompson acting as House Leader could be a kind of deputy Premier, while Abbott saved the uneasy consciences of Ontario Protestants by serving as Prime Minister from the Senate. Abbott admitted he was a Prime Minister faute de mieux, but he was not without admirers in the House, among them Sir Richard Cartwright.11 And he was soon installed in Earnscliffe, giving dinners in full style. But his guests felt odd, as if Macdonald were still there.12
Yet, all was not well. The Langevin question was making the Conservative party increasingly uneasy. Only Thompson’s determination to have it all out saved the party from worse demoralization. Better to risk what the inquiry would bring forth than the greater risks in trying to cover up. The facts were bad enough.
On the afternoon of Monday, May 11, 1891 Israël Tarte came into the House with his black bag under his arm.*1 He spoke in English, with his marked accent, as though the gravity of his charges required that every English-speaking member of the House understand him. McGreevy’s voice, when he rose to deny the charges, was barely audible. Langevin rose from beside Macdonald to deny them also, and the charges were ordered sent to the Select Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections. The Committee was composed of forty-two members, twenty-three of them Conservatives, with a small working sub-committee of five, both committees under the chairmanship of Désiré Girouard, Conservative member for Jacques Cartier. Tarte’s charges were formulated in sixty-three paragraphs. From the moment the Committee met, May 15, it was clear that the Government, especially Minister of Justice Thompson, were determined that the inquiry would be fair, full, and as expeditious as possible. It was also obvious that the charges were going to cover a great deal of ground and take some time to unravel.13 A month later, B. B. Osler, the leading criminal lawyer in Canada, was brought to Ottawa by Thompson as counsel for the Public Works Department.14 This was not so much to defend, as to get at the truth. Osler and Henry were even sent by Thompson to see Tarte and offered their assistance to get at the facts.15 And the nearly fifteen hundred pages of proceedings and evidence that we now have is indicative of the importance of the Committee in Thompson’s view, and the scrupulousness with which he was determined to proceed.
Like all scandals the McGreevy-Langevin one is complicated, and by no means all the evidence wanted, or witnesses required, were available. The Public Works Department, inexplicably, was unable to find certain documents. Important books of several firms disappeared; a number of people seemed to have the remarkable habit of destroying their business correspondence soon after they received it; several witnesses, not least Sir Hector Langevin himself, had amazing lapses of memory; and others found it convenient to take a respite from the hot Ottawa summer in the United States. The story that emerges from this long enquiry – it lasted until September 16 – is roughly as follows.
In 1876 and 1877 Langevin had had some hard elections to fight on the hustings, and some hard election cases to fight in the courts. All this cost money, so he borrowed $10,000 from Thomas McGreevy, giving notes for the debt. These Thomas obligingly renewed every quarter year or so up to and including 1891; it was always a useful reminder to forgetful politicians, of favours rendered. When Langevin became Minister in 1878 and set up house in Ottawa, McGreevy, M.P. for Quebec West, used to stay there during sessions of Parliament and at other times. He also used Langevin’s room in the Parliament Buildings, and kept some of his papers there. Altogether these arrangements were convenient. McGreevy was Conservative party treasurer for the Quebec district and Langevin, being the political chief of the district, could direct funds where they were most needed. (He denied, later, having had the slightest idea about their disposition.) Then in 1884 Langevin needed a newspaper in Montreal. His son-in-law, Thomas Chapais ran Le Courrier du Canada in Quebec City, but Langevin felt his role as chef in Quebec required a Montreal organ. The Conservative paper there, La Minerve, was Chapleau’s. So Le Monde was acquired, with McGreevy’s money (no notes this time), for about $25,000.
McGreevy was also a member of the Quebec Harbour Commission, established under an 1873 Dominion statute with a majority of its members appointed by Ottawa. By virtue of parliamentary legislation authorizing improvements, the Dominion government paid money to the Harbour Commission on the recommendation of the Department of Public Works. There were several contracts let by the Commission to the Quebec firm of Larkin, Connolly and Co., the shares of which were held by four working principals and one non-working one; Patrick Larkin, Nicholas Connolly, Michael Connolly, Owen Murphy, and the non-working principal, Robert McGreevy. The firm received contracts for work at Quebec and at Esquimalt over the period of 1878–91 totalling $3.1 million. Of this the trading profits of the business were just under $1 million. Net profits for the five principals came to $735,000, with salaries $48,500, and “donations” to political purposes $170,000.
Robert McGreevy’s share of the profits was $188,000, the largest of the five, despite the fact that he neither put capital into the firm, nor did much work for them. His contribution was his influence with his brother in securing contracts from the Public Works Department, and obtaining useful modifications and extensions. Thomas McGreevy did not go unrewarded either. Robert said that Thomas had received $114,000 directly from the firm’s political funds, and that he had also received, as his share of the profits, another $58,000 through Robert. By the end of 1888, Thomas wanted more. The brothers’ estrangement and subsequent law suit probably arose from a bitter quarrel over the division of spoils, especially out of the Esquimalt dry dock contract, which Thomas believed, rightly, had been very lucrative. Apparently Robert also owed money to Thomas for past loans and was not paying up rapidly enough, and Robert doubtless told brother Thomas what he could do if faster payment were insisted upon.16
Of course all Public Works contracts and Quebec Harbour Commission contracts were awarded after public tenders. But with Thomas’ access to the Department of Public Works, it was not difficult for Larkin and Connolly to devise tenders that were publicly acceptable. For the cross-wall contract for Quebec harbour in 1883, which Larkin, Connolly were awarded, the quid pro quo was $25,000 paid by the firm to Thomas McGreevy, all signed and arranged in a picturesque office under a trap-door in the floor of Thomas McGreevy’s regular Quebec office. Occasionally when Larkin, Connolly got a contract that they did not really need, they would offer to sell it. In 1882 Peters, Moore and Wright tendered for a government contract, but it was awarded to Larkin, Connolly. Soon afterward, Owen Murphy went to Edward Moore and offered to decline the contract for a price of $10,000.17
As to Sir Hector, he did not resign from Public Works. He insisted that Tarte’s charges were vague and did not involve him.
Q…. when a charge is made that a member of Parliament procures from the Minister of Public Works, alterations in a contract which cost large sums of money, do you understand the Minister of Public Works to be charged?
A. I had nothing to do with this and don’t know anything about it at all….
Q. I put the question directly to you. Did you understand that it [charge 63] charged you with corruptly receiving money?
A. I did not consider it in that way. It was vague and undeterminate.18
From the time Langevin had first come before the Committee, he maintained this extraordinary air of injured innocence, knowing nothing, nothing of what was paid for Le Monde, for example; and he made desperate efforts to save himself. Poor Henry Perley was dismissed (though all he had got, it seems, was $1,800 worth of jewelry for his wife) and, along with other officers in the Department of Public Works, was freely blamed by Langevin. But as the awful inquiry went on, the Government became increasingly unhappy about Langevin himself. Owen Murphy’s testimony of June 26 implicated Langevin directly. Murphy, an unlovely, unscrupulous, but interesting character, admitted straight out that he had given $10,000 in cash to Langevin’s son, Laforce.19 Both Abbott and Thompson began to consider ways of getting Langevin out of the Government. Thompson said ruefully to his wife, “his scandals are dragging us under every hour.”20 Sir John Abbott wrote Langevin at the end of July, saying that the charges about Langevin’s acceptance of public money probably could not be proved. (Owen Murphy’s testimony was denied by others as bad as he was.) Nevertheless, the inquiry had generated strong doubts about the efficiency of Langevin’s department. The danger for the Government was in a motion of censure being put on going into Supply, or in the House refusing to vote the Public Works estimates. Either motion would be supported by some Conservatives, “and would be most disastrous to us…. I would ask you to consider the position anew, and endeavor to find a solution of this difficulty…. I think we are on the eve of a serious defection from us if something is not done – & we are not strong enough to stand it.”21 Langevin sent in a provisional resignation, though not yet to be accepted. Thus before his appearance before the Committee, on August 11, 1891, his resignation was at least in hand. What seems to have happened was a saw-off. “…if your resignation were accepted,” wrote Abbott on September 5, “there would not be so strong a desire by the opposition to make the report of the committee so injurious to you, as they now wish to do.”22 On September 7 Langevin’s resignation as Minister was accepted; the majority Committee report on September 16 simply said that the conflicting evidence “does not justify them in concluding that the Minister knew of the conspiracy…or that he willingly lent himself to its objects.”23 It was accepted by Parliament on September 24, by a thin margin, 101-86.24 The irony of it all was that McGreevy was left penniless; he failed to give evidence in order to save, not himself, but his political friends.25 McGreevy was prosecuted on a criminal charge and sent to prison early in 1894.
Unfortunately, that was not all of the scandals. There were several others, which went to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts at the same time as the McGreevy one was being heard. These were principally the contract for the Langevin Block, the Government Printing Bureau inquiry, inquiry over payments for extra work in the Department of Interior, and the Post Office.
The Langevin Block contract, dated September 1883, for additional office space opposite the Parliament buildings on Wellington Street, was awarded to A. Charlebois & Co. (less roof, iron joints, and elevators) for $295,000, the work to be finished by May, 1886. It was finished in 1888. Extra claims filed by Charlebois came to $214,000. However it was not so much the extras, as Charlebois’ insistence on kick-backs from the other contractors, failing which he would refuse access to the building or site. For example, in 1886 Charlebois lost the contract for the iron roof to Rousseau & Mather of Montreal. The Government however insisted that Rousseau & Mather make their own arrangements with Charlebois for access to the site, which, in effect, meant buying the privilege. Antoine Rousseau was angry, went to Langevin and said, “If the building belongs to you, you had the right to call for tenders. If it does not belong to you, you had no right to call for tenders.” Langevin’s reply is not known, but Rousseau “saw that Sir Hector was held by the throat by Mr. Charlebois.”26 Rousseau & Mather were compelled to withdraw. The working principle is quite clear from the evidence of John Fensom, of Toronto who got the contract for the elevators. The charge Fensom would have made for the elevators was $32,000; Charlebois wanted a kick-back of twenty-five per cent ($8,000) – for insurance, planking, and the use of his tackle! So the tender went in at $40,000 and was so accepted.27
Ironically the Public Accounts Committee made no comment. They simply presented the evidence to the House. It was the same with the others. Brown Chamberlin, Macdonald’s old friend and former editor of the Montreal Gazette, had been Queen’s Printer since 1870. André Sénécal was Superintendent of the Printing Bureau. Here the issue was presents of cash by successful contractors. P. T. Perrott, vice-president of Barber-Ellis of Toronto, admitted that ten per cent of the value of gross sales was given in presents to Sénécal. “Yes: after each order was completed he would insist upon having something.”28 Brown Chamberlin went aboard Sénécal over rumours he had heard. “Now, Mr. Sénécal, whatever commercial people may do, a civil servant taking a commission is a dead man officially. Put that down in your book.” “Bosh,” said Sénécal.29 When the Committee called for him, he was unavailable.30 On August 13, 1891, Cartwright moved in the House that acceptance of gifts by Ministers was wrong and tended to demoralize other officials. It was accepted in toto by Sir John Thompson.31
Ottawa was hot. The committee rooms were stifling, and some of the scenes in them beggared description, with epithets and insinuations hurled back and forth, and in at least one case, that of Henry Perley, tears, and later fainting.32 When at long last the session came to end and the awful revelations ceased, there was a sigh of relief. The Government was still in power despite the terrific assaults upon its morale. What spared it from worse was the uneasiness among the Liberals with their own house in Quebec. There were problems there as devastating for them as for the Conservatives in Ottawa, the most important thing being the Baie des Chaleurs railway scandal. Mercier had already been accused privately, in the most scathing terms, as early as 1889, by Calixte Le Boeuf, president of the Club National of Montreal:
Here they accuse the Mercier government of being made up of people who are incapable, ignorant, and hare-brained. Everyone agrees with that. And they add, “there is no government: there is only Mercier.” Now…they find that Mercier was poor, and has become rich too quickly…. They say out loud that this administration is the most corrupt that has ever disgraced the halls of the legislature; that everything can be bought; that there is no principle, no honesty, no sincerity, no honour.33
The Baie des Chaleurs Railway begins from Matapedia, on the Restigouche River near the New Brunswick border at the head of Baie des Chaleurs. It winds eastward along the north shore of the bay, and a hundred miles from Matapedia reaches New Carlisle or Paspebiac Bay. This is the southermost point of the Gaspé peninsula; the railway and the coast now turn northeastward toward Percé and Gaspé village, at mile 202.
The scandal is a tangled story. Suffice it that even with subsidies from Quebec and the Dominion the railway had a hard time getting started. After it did, the contractor and a vital sub-contractor fell out; there was a law case, and into the trouble stepped the Quebec government. The contractor, C. N. Armstrong, kept his wits about him, and in effect bought off the Quebec government with $100,000 of their own $175,000 subsidy. Members of that government used the money mostly for paying off election expenses. But it all got out; the sub-contractor, through Toronto banking connections, initiated an inquiry in the Senate, August 4, 1891, a particularly useful antidote to the McGreevy-Langevin inquiry.34 Some witnesses refused to appear before the Railway Committee of the Senate; but the inquiry produced enough to damage the Mercier government seriously. As early as August 17, Laurier said that the Baie des Chaleurs affair had lost the Liberal party the political value of their work on McGreevy and Langevin. “Il n’y a plus à espérer maintenant,” he added to Beaugrand of La Patrie, “de faire de brèches sérieuses dans les rangs de la majorité.”35 Davies of Prince Edward Island was more outspoken. “The cursed luck of these Tories has been with them all thro this Mercier-Pacaud scandal. The fact is it saved the Ottawa Govt.”36
The Conservative papers in Quebec made all they could from the scandal, and that was a good deal. Even Langevin’s scandals had not been quite so brazen. Mercier, now back from Europe, did not deny the transaction; he simply said it had happened in his absence, and even so the money had gone only for election expenses. What was wrong with that? The Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, A. R. Angers, thought there was quite a bit wrong with it. Angers was a Conservative but he was an honest man, and shocked at misuse of public funds.37 He insisted, in the absence of an Assembly sitting, on an inquiry by Royal Commission. Mercier wanted to wait and get a committee of the Assembly. Angers stuck to his guns. The Royal Commission was appointed and opened hearings on October 6, 1891. Pacaud appeared on October 20, and at once shouldered most of the blame. Had he not done so the Government would probably have crashed at once. By December 14 the preliminary conclusions of the Commission were sent to Angers.
Angers took it all very seriously. Mercier was acquitted by the Commission of direct connivance, but Angers believed his government was badly, irretrievably damaged, and on December 16, 1891, he was dismissed. He was furious, and threw bitter accusations of partisanship at Angers; “vous recevrez bientôt de M. Abbott votre maître, le prix de votre trahison nationale.”38 Angers’ appointment to the Senate and his concurrent entry into the Thompson government, in December, 1892, made Mercier’s charge look good, but there was probably nothing in it. His appointment to the Cabinet had been urged before this, both by Macdonald and by Abbott.
Charles de Boucherville, now nearly seventy years old, was asked by Angers to form a government. And he had to have an election, despite the rule in the B.N.A. Act that said there had to be a meeting of Parliament or Assembly first. The election was held on March 8, 1892. The Quebec Conservatives, broken and scattered by l’affaire Riel, now happily joined together in l’affaire Baie des Chaleurs. Laurier himself was hard put to it to support the Mercier régime publicly. He was fond of Mercier, of Langelier, especially of Pacaud, for they were all part of that wonderful salon of Emilie Lavergne, where the mind could “open its wings, & fly about in the arabesques of improvised conversation,”39 But he could not approve of Pacaud, or even stand by him; and the wrench made Laurier’s heart ache.40 He was forced to say in Quebec, on January 18, 1892, that the Baie des Chaleurs scandal was impossible to defend, and was to be condemned out of hand.41 Things continued to go badly for Mercier in that bitterly cold provincial campaign. “A bas des voleurs!” was the cry. The Church came out against him. The news on March 8 was devastating: the Conservatives took fifty-two of the sixty-five seats. Mercier kept his own seat only with great difficulty. The Liberals were out. The damage done to Quebec by the Mercier scandal cannot be overlooked either. J. S. Hall, the new Treasurer, went over to London in June, 1893 to renegotiate a two-year loan of Fr.20,000,000. It had been floated at four per cent in 1891; the best Hall could get was seven and a half. Admittedly the money market was bad; admittedly the Paris banking houses were out for blood; but the legacy of Mercier’s financial dealings brought Quebec close to default in 1893.42
For Mercier there was a sterner mandate. He was already ill with diabetes. The Conservative ministry blamed much on Mercier; but he denied to the last that he personally had ever touched a cent of public money. The scene in the Assembly at Quebec the night of December 28, 1893, almost passes belief. After Conservative accusations, Mercier got up with great effort and spoke with vehemence. The Conservatives were his executioners, he said; and walking to the Clerk’s table, holding on to it with both hands, he looked directly with his dark blazing eyes at Taillon and the others a few feet away:
Vous m’avez ruiné, vous avez voulu me déshonorer et vous voulez maintenant piétiner sur mon cadavre: eh bien! ce cadavre, le voici. Regardez-le en face, car il se dresse….43
The Assembly was struck dumb. Taillon, without a word, got up and gave his hand to Mercier.
So too, a few months later, did Chapleau, who replaced Angers as Lieutenant-Governor in December, 1892. In September, 1894 he asked Mercier if he could visit him. Against all advice, Mercier agreed. There was a great reconciliation. They talked for twenty minutes about the struggles of the old days. When Mercier’s exhaustion enjoined departure, the histrionic but susceptible Chapleau, leaned over Mercier, and in a thick voice said:
“Nous nous sommes portés mutuellement de rudes coups. Nous avons été injustes l’un pour l’autre. Mais le plus injust n’a pas été toi. Mercier, j’ai voulu venir te demander pardon.”
Et il embrassa son ancien ennemi qui ne put répondre, car il éclatait en sanglots. A l’écart de la chambre, Dansereau, bouleversé, pleurait aussi.
Il y a tres peu de gens méchants, vraiment méchants.44
Mercier died a month later.
Sir John Thompson had been Prime Minister since November, 1892. Abbott had done his duty; he accepted office knowing he was merely filling a gap, but privately he was tired and disgusted within a few months.45 And it was difficult, as the Montreal Star insisted, to reconcile the Canadian public to a Senator prime minister.46 Thompson could have assumed more authority than he did, but seems to have been punctilious in deferring to Abbott, and it is fair to say that Abbott was equally careful in dealing with Thompson. Thompson did much of the work.
Early in August, 1892, in the middle of the Sault Ste. Marie canal crisis with the United States, Abbott was suddenly taken ill at his office. It was weakening of heart and circulation and peremptory orders came from his doctor for instant stopping of work. Abbott was so weak he could scarce walk around the lawn at his house at St. Anne de Bellevue. Though disposed to carry on till new arrangements were made, he was determined to shirk as much work as he could.47 He went to London where he decided, on the advice of Macdonald’s old doctor, Sir Andrew Clark, that resignation was inevitable. He suggested Thompson for his successor,48 and on November 24, Thompson was asked to form a Government.
Thompson was now just forty-eight, with seven hard years of parliamentary experience behind him. He had a solid reputation for probity, which even his partial covering for Langevin and Caron had not dissipated, a reputation as solid and portly as he was himself. His wife used to tell him to exercise, but being rowed up the Rideau Canal by young Tupper in the hot Ottawa summer sessions of 1891 and 1892 seems to have been as near to exercise as Thompson ever got. He had sound judgment and a fund of common sense. He also had a useful streak of belligerence. There were fissures in the party that Thompson had not been able to close. He lacked the common touch and any warmth of manner, and in a party so divided, probity was not enough to pull it together. It was not easy to love Thompson, however capable he may have been. With the two vital ingredients of party cement, soft sawder and boodle, Thompson was not very lavish, and he was probably too prone to believe that periodic doses of the latter were a substitute for the former. With Sir John Macdonald it had been the other way round. Not without reason was Thompson called Sir John the Less. Still, whatever his weaknesses, the party utterly depended upon him.
By this time, the Conservatives in Parliament were, on the surface at least, stronger than in March, 1891. They had survived the Langevin scandal, and had since won a remarkable series of bye-elections that had substantially increased their majority. Some fifty-five – the result of an extraordinary series of disputed ones – were held between December 1891 and January 1893. Of these ten Liberal and twenty-eight Conservative seats were unchanged. The Liberals took two from the Conservatives, but the Conservatives won eighteen from the Liberals, thereby increasing by thirty-two the Conservative majority in the House. This accounts for their confidence in 1892. Equally the Liberal party looked woebegone and gloomy. In later years they were to speak of “those dark days of ’92” when the party suffered so much in the bye-elections that it was almost as if the devil sat upon their counsels.49 “The oldest politicians,” wrote The Week’s Ottawa correspondent, “say they cannot account for the reverses which the [Liberal] party have met with in Ontario and elsewhere….”50
Much of it was due to Liberal tariff policy, and moreover the Conservatives were also revising theirs. Sir John Macdonald, in April and May, 1891, was already writing Galt about an Imperial preference. Galt’s reply, written from a transatlantic steamer off Cork, did not reach Macdonald before he died, but it sketches arrangements that both men seem to have had in mind.
If you think 33 1/3% too great a differential duty – make it 25% – it will not affect our Manufacturing interest – whose competition is mainly with the U.S….
I write this on board, not wishing to lose a day – But once more – I will [?] beg you to act now. Do not risk those fatal words “too late” – 51
Abbott was apparently less sympathetic to the idea of an Imperial preference, and Thompson seems to have been uninterested.
The Canadian government was in fact still bemused with the hope of some sort of reciprocity treaty with the United States. The outcome of the 1891 negotiations had been postponement of the meeting of the Canadian government with Blaine until February 1892, when Thompson and Foster went to Washington to discuss the question. The Canadians were willing to extend reciprocity beyond the natural products of the 1854 treaty, perhaps even to something resembling Brown’s draft treaty of 1874, the essence of which it will be recalled, was the willingness of Canada to discriminate against Great Britain. Blaine made this point abundantly clear. Great Britain was, in his view, America’s chief competitor in nearly every line of manufactured goods. Americans expected to have “to compete with Canadian manufacturers in Canadian markets on even terms, but with no others.” In fact, Blaine was obliging enough to add, the Canadian “tariff must be practically the tariff of the United States of America.”52
These views quoted boldly by Foster in the Canadian House of Commons were a tremendous blow to the Liberal party. The wind was quite taken out of their sails.53 In truth the Liberal party was at the end of its five-year flirtation with unrestricted reciprocity. There was no evidence that Cleveland’s election in 1892 would make any substantial difference in the American position. W. S. Fielding, in Boston that December, got the impression that reciprocity was a long term hope of the Democratic party, and that the Liberals of Canada might well read in this signal that too much stress had been laid on it.54 Even the Toronto Globe slacked off. Its editorials on reciprocity fell from two or three a day to two or three a month between 1891 and 1894.55 The Liberal party sadly needed a boost to its morale which had been sagging badly since the beginning of 1892. It also needed to shift its ground on the tariff; and while this might have been managed by party caucus, it was much more useful to have a convention. It was largely John Willison’s idea, and it was held in Ottawa in June 1893. Martin Griffin cheerfully remarked, from the precincts of the Parliamentary Library, that since the Ottawa River was in flood, there would be “no lack of opportunity for getting a bath for those who have not indulged since the last convention.”56 Every province but British Columbia was represented; Sifton came from Manitoba, Fielding from Nova Scotia. Mercier did not come; he was as conscious as Laurier of “l’hostilité féroce des Anglais” toward him. Laurier seems to have urged him, in the best interests of the party as a whole, to stay home.57
The convention watered down the enthusiastic continentalism that had branded the party for the past five years. Reciprocity was not dropped, but it was proposed within the framework of a policy to develop the natural resources of Canada, and with the frank recognition that the tariff was necessary for revenue. There was the expected condemnation of corruption in government, greater need for economy, a denunciation of the Franchise Act, and a declaration in favour of a plebiscite on prohibition.58 And more than anything else the convention made it quite clear that Laurier had consolidated his hold on the party leadership, to a degree indeed that few would have thought possible six years before.59
Meanwhile, Sir John Thompson was making a significant contribution to the settlement of the Bering Sea controversy in Paris. This delightful essay in American aggrandizement cannot be rehearsed in detail. Suffice it that American seizures of Canadian schooners began in 1886, and after a great deal of indignation was generated in Canada, the arbitration in Paris in February, 1893 virtually accepted the British-Canadian case.
The only question remaining was that of compensation for the illegally seized vessels. This the United States was lamentably reluctant to pay. In 1894–95 authorization to pay damages was rejected by a jingoistic United States Senate. Eventually in 1898, the Americans paid $473,000, as settlement for the Canadian claims.
Another of Thompson’s great efforts was not quite so successful, though it can be classed as a near-miss: that of bringing Newfoundland into Confederation. Had he been alive in the spring of 1895 it might have been managed. Newfoundland’s relations with Canada since the decisive refusal of 1869 ran the gamut from the peacefulness engendered by distance and disdain, to acerbitic wrangling over fishing rights, or over relations with the United States. And there was some cussedness on both sides. Not all of Newfoundland’s political leaders were the most tractable of diplomats or the most scrupulous of politicians. Thrown up by a tough, ignorant, and often pauperized electorate, many of them played political games at a level usually regarded as the diplomatic by other colonies. On the other hand many Canadians were belligerent and exploited their sense of outraged righteousness, like Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper. Mixed with this were the ordinary quarrels of fishermen each with their own interests and illusions. Relations were, in short, difficult on both sides; and complicating all other issues was the unswerving purpose of both Sir John Macdonald and Sir John Thompson to bring Newfoundland into Confederation if at all possible. Newfoundland politicians knew this; much of the tortuousness of diplomatic and political relations stemmed from this undercurrent, itself a reason why some Newfoundlanders, wanting to anchor their boat with an extra-heavy anchor, tried to choose, whenever possible on any issue, the best holding ground.
More obvious issues caused more immediate concern to Newfoundland. The French shore was a perpetual source of wrangling. The channels of communication between St. John’s, London, and Paris seem choked with issues raised by the French fishing rights from Port aux Basques to Cape St. John. Was a lobster a fish? The issues that hinged upon that answer bedevilled French-English diplomacy, especially from 1886 to 1891. There was much that was exasperating in this three-cornered quarrel. Two things are obvious: one, the French government was determined to hold on to every right they possessed legally (itself an unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable question), and to insist on rights that they did not have as a measure of insurance; two, the Newfoundland government, by fair means or foul, was determined to acquire full control of her own western shoreline.
What caused the hardening of attitudes on the part of both Newfoundland and France was Newfoundland’s Bait Act of 1887 which came into force at the beginning of January 1888. Changes in tastes, markets, and policies had all weakened the sales of Newfoundland dried cod in the main importing centres of southern Europe, Naples, Genoa, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga. Superior Norwegian processing and French bounties (dating from 1881) on French caught fish exported to Italy and Spain, heavily undercut Newfoundland’s market. Moreover the fishing of 1888–89 had not been good. Newfoundland was thus caught in the double squeeze, of shrinking markets and poor supply. It must be remembered here that the Banks of Newfoundland, despite the name, were international. Labrador was partly Newfoundland’s, but could not be closed to Nova Scotians or Québecois, and her own coast was alienated partly to France, and partly to the Americans by the Convention of 1818. Not without reason did a weary Lord Salisbury describe Newfoundland as the “sport of historic errors.”60 About one-third of Newfoundland’s coast line was shared by treaty arrangements with foreign countries, and the rest was shared by British subjects who were also competitors. What she did have was indispensable fresh bait, particularly in the big bays of the south coast, Fortune Bay and Placentia Bay, near the Banks. Nova Scotia, the Magdalen Islands (Quebec), and St. Pierre and Miquelon (France) had bait, but in nothing like the same profusion.
Thus a hard-pressed colonial government seized upon the one strong card they had to play, saying in effect to France: “We will sell you no more bait whilst you pay a bounty of three quarters of the value of the fish to drive us out of all the open markets of the world.”61 The Act prohibited the catching, sale, and export of bait without a special licence from the Receiver-General of Newfoundland. There was no specific guidance, however, for the Receiver-General’s exercise of this vast discretionary power. It was clearly designed to control the French and American acquisition of bait. It was not clear whether the Act included Canadians. Moreover, it gave exceptional powers to stipendiary magistrates, who, without any regular legal procedure, could seize a vessel and its cargo for violation of the Act. And the informer was given half of the proceeds!
The Act exacerbated Newfoundland-Canadian relations. The Newfoundland government protested that Canadians were not included within its purview, that they were on precisely the same footing as Newfoundland fishermen, who had the right to take bait for their own use.62 This, for the time being worked, although Americans soon complained that Newfoundland was not recognizing the licences issued by Canada to American ships under the interim arrangement of 1887.63
Then in 1890 came further complications. In April, Robert Bond, the Colonial Secretary in Whiteway’s Liberal administration brought into effect, by proclamation, an 1889 revision of the Bait Act. It was brought in without the slightest warning, an action that Sir James Winter, leader of the Conservative opposition, condemned as “utterly, absolutely, wrong unwarranted and foolish, from every point of view….”64 The Bait Act would now apply to all vessels, except those registered in Newfoundland. Furthermore, in addition to a licence, a bond of one thousand dollars was to be posted to guarantee that the bait would be used for the vessel’s own fishing needs. The ostensible reason for this was the charge that Canadian ships (and American ships under licence) were buying bait and selling it in St. Pierre and Miquelon to the French. That was true. But so in fact were the Newfoundlanders of the south coast, though Bond denied it. Despite the Imperial government’s opinion that the new form of the Bait Act was intra vires, Canada protested vigorously.
That summer, while these protests were still echoing, Newfoundland received permission from the Imperial government to negotiate directly with the United States about a reciprocity arrangement. Bond went to Washington, and by the end of October a draft convention had been arranged, giving Amercan vessels the right to purchase bait and trade in Newfoundland waters, in return for free entry of Newfoundland sea products into the United States. Canada, of course, got wind of this almost at once, and proposed promptly that any ratification of a Newfoundland-American arrangement be delayed until a Canadian-American joint commission had considered a reciprocity treaty, a new fishery treaty and the Alaskan boundary, in other words, every outstanding issue between Canada and the United States except for the Bering Sea controversy.65 Canada’s representations to London were successful. The Bond-Blaine convention was blocked, and the Newfoundlanders were now angry. Canada then began the unsuccessful reciprocity talks with Blaine that were to lead directly to the Canadian general election of 1891.66
But no rational settlement of the issues raised by the Bait Act was easily possible; Newfoundland was in no mood to give up a lever against Ottawa. It was hinted if Canada withdrew her opposition to the Bond-Blaine convention, the Bait Act would not be enforced against her.67 But Canada was determined to block the convention, and even added a protective tariff against Newfoundland fish. From November 9 to 15, 1892, a conference was held at Halifax where Whiteway, Bond, and the anti-confederate, A. W. Harvey met with Abbott, Thompson, and Chapleau. No solution emerged to the fisheries and reciprocity issues, though both Whiteway and Bond were interested in finding out Canadian terms for Confederation, if they could do so without committing themselves. So the unhappy impasse went on until 1893, when, after stormy debates in the Newfoundland legislature, the Bait Act was suspended. By this time the whole position of Newfoundland had altered for the worse.
Sir William Whiteway had managed the political leadership of Newfoundland from 1878 to 1897, except for Robert Thorburn’s Conservative administration of 1885–89, and a few wild months following the colony’s election of 1893. His great project had been the trans-Newfoundland railway, which was begun in 1881; but as time went on Newfoundland’s financial position, never very good, became steadily more dangerous. By 1894 the full debt of the colony was nearly $16 million, with a population of only 207,000. Funded debt and other loans were $11.2 million, and $4.6 million had been spent on the railway. The service of this debt took half the annual revenue. Newfoundland revenue derived almost exclusively (95 per cent) from rather steep import duties, which, with an underpaid and understaffed customs service, encouraged a vast amount of smuggling, especially between St. Pierre and the south shore.
The colony’s desperate financial plight was apparent as early as 1891 when the Government appealed to London for an Imperial guaranteed loan of £2 million. The Imperial government was willing only upon condition of a general commission of inquiry into all aspects of Newfoundland finance, an inquiry which Whiteway had good reason to avoid. So the colony staggered into the intractable problems of the early nineties, the first of which was the fire of July 8-9, 1892 which levelled three-quarters of the wooden city of St. John’s. Abbott and Thompson at once sent a steamer with $10,000 in relief supplies.68 This gesture, more than anything else, had probably made possible the discussions in Halifax four months later.
Throughout this tangled history there was always the question of Confederation. It came up again in the mid-1880’s after fifteen years of quiescence. For the next decade the centre of Confederation agitation in Newfoundland was A. B. Morine, a Nova Scotian who had become a Conservative member in the Newfoundland Assembly, and was editor of the St. John’s Evening Mercury. Morine, headstrong and enthusiastic, without much diplomatic sense, had little difficulty in alienating the Newfoundland Roman Catholics from both the Conservative party and Confederation. A delegation to Canada was promised in 1888 by the Thorburn Conservative government, after a visit by Sir Charles Tupper in 1887. But it was postponed and Whiteway’s victory of 1889, with Catholic support, put a new complexion on matters. Whiteway himself was not averse to considering union, but he was playing a canny game, willing to talk about terms, but in effect only shopping.
A letter in 1891 to Lord Stanley’s ADC remarked, “The Colony is drifting into Confederation or bankruptcy as fast as ever it can go.”69
Another letter, in the St. John’s Evening Herald, April 10, 1894 echoes the Confederation movement of the 1860’s and anticipates 1933:
Years ago I have heard the old folks say that the children yet unborn would curse the day Responsible Government was granted to this land of ours, and their prophecy has been fulfilled to the very letter. As a Crown colony we were a happy and prosperous people. No want, no starvation…no public debt, no political thieves…no political or sectarian ranks…. After 40 or 45 years of Responsible Government we are burthened with an enormous public debt, an empty exchequer…. Each year finds us settling down, deeper and deeper into the mire of debt, poverty and wretchedness….70
Within nine months of that letter the Newfoundland crash came. The Commercial Bank failed, with a majority of the directors facing criminal charges. The Union Bank also went; both banks were indebted to the Newfoundland Savings Bank for about $1.5 million, and another $1.5 million of Savings Bank funds were invested in Newfoundland government bonds. This virtually stripped the institution of all its liquid cash, since Newfoundland bonds were unredeemable. The Bank of Montreal stepped in, opened a St. John’s branch, and advanced the Government $400,000. Whiteway and the Liberal party had been temporarily out of power in the last critical months when a furious and unpleasant interregnum prevailed. But in January 1895 he was back in office, and at once cabled Sir Mackenzie Bowell for a Confederation conference. It was convened in Ottawa in April.
It failed. It is easy to blame Mackenzie Bowell – and he has been freely blamed – for being niggardly. Newfoundland was desperate, and Bowell knew she was. At the same time, 1894–95 had not been a particularly opulent time for Canadian government revenues either, and Newfoundland’s debt looked formidable. The debt allowance would have required nearly $80 a head just to break even. Moreover Bowell’s government was as shaky as Whiteway’s had been. Therefore, the Canadian government suggested that the British government subsidize the marriage by dowering the penniless bride. The amount suggested made John Bull balk: £1 million sterling, or nearly $5 million. Not without a full investigation of the lady’s financial delinquencies would the Lord Commissioners of the Treasury consider such an amount. The lady herself declined to be investigated, and was left with only her pride. Whiteway took an enormous gamble and won: Robert Bond made the rounds in Montreal and London, and got enough money to bail out the Savings Bank and save the Newfoundland government. Luck did the rest. 1895 was a good year for the fishing and the seal hunt; and Newfoundland survived intact. The opportunity for Confederation was lost again. And while the Newfoundlanders returned home from Ottawa, the Canadian government was drifting helplessly toward the vortex of the Manitoba school question.
It is possible that too much has been made of the Manitoba school question. Like the school questions in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, the Manitoba school question of 1890–97 (and after) was basically insoluble. The Roman Catholic position and that of the province of Manitoba were logically incompatible. A practical solution – that favourite Anglo-Saxon device – was at best a makeshift and really unacceptable to either side. No doubt it could have been if not solved, at least made reasonable, if there had been reasonableness available in Manitoba. But reasonableness there was not, until six years of war left both sides exhausted and willing to accept, though even then grudgingly, what was basically a shotgun peace. And the Roman Catholics got the worst of it.
What made the Manitoba school question so difficult and so intractable was its effortless metamorphosis from a provincial to a federal problem, made inevitable by the Manitoba Act, and at a subsequent stage by the invocation of the British North America Act. At the national level it was frightful for either party to contemplate. There would always be a few members of Parliament who afforded themselves what in a Canadian context was the luxury of firm political and religious convictions. But broadly speaking both the Conservatives and Liberals feared these difficult, divisive issues, and sought whenever possible to avoid them, or at least to emasculate their effect. There is no better evidence of this than the history of both parties when faced with the Manitoba school question.
That there were political possibilities in the issue no party doubted; but how to realize them without alienating a substantial section of one’s party? With forty per cent of the country Roman Catholic, a Protestant coalition was unthinkable. This woolliness on points of principle, for that is what it is, is endemic in large national parties that cross a diversity of religions and races. Broadly speaking, there is no principle of cohesion save that of loyalty to friends, to a leader, to a tradition, or perhaps to some generalized social principle – conservatism perhaps – so diffuse as to be nearly devoid of positive content. So the Manitoba school question was to confound both political parties: the advantage for the Liberals was in being out of office, and thus not needing a policy; the disadvantage to the Conservatives, unhappily, was that they were in office, and had to have a policy, or to seem to have one.
The policy that guided the Conservative party at the beginning was suggested by Edward Blake. He introduced a motion in April 1890 that legality of provincial acts of education be left to the courts to decide.71 This was accepted by Macdonald; in any case he was in no position to disallow the Manitoba legislation of 1890 even if he had wanted to, not in the face of the Government’s acceptance of the Jesuits’ Estates Act, even though he would have had much better ground for disallowing the former than the latter. It was Sir John Thompson’s determination too that the issue should be settled by law, by constitutional and legal means, not by political means. This was sound. It was wise policy to put the issue to the courts. Unfortunately for the Conservatives, the courts failed to provide an answer. It may have been that the constitution on this point was too nebulous. It may have been that the courts were wrong-headed. But as a policy, it was to end in failure, and finally, after four years, the Manitoba school question came back to roost fairly with the Conservative government, where it had started, but at an extraordinarily difficult time.
It has often been said that McCarthy called this question into existence, with that speech in Portage la Prairie, August 5, 1889. And he has been duly criticized for it. But political storms do not simply arise from intemperate speeches. Unwise and intemperate McCarthy may have been, but there was going to be a Manitoba school question sooner or later. It had been quietly brewing even in the 1870’s during the reaction against the ultramontane movement, at the time when the Manitoba Legislative Council was abolished. It had appeared again in the summer of 1889 as a result of the Jesuits’ Estates Act agitation, in a speech by James Smart at Souris on August 1. Roman Catholics in Manitoba were a dwindling minority, and the French Roman Catholics even more so. The basic problem was that the Catholic schools were not very efficient, they consumed a disproportionate amount of the school money available,72 and they seemed increasingly anomalous in a province where a growing proportion of the racial and religious spectrum was wildly heterogenous. Nothing was easier than to make a case against the Catholic schools.
It will be remembered that from 1889 on the Greenway Liberal government of Manitoba badly needed a good political issue. Disallowance had vanished in 1888; the government was rather a seamy enterprise, Greenway with his peccadilloes with maids in local hotels, Martin with his rabid and headlong policies; there was as yet little solid weight in the régime, and it was going badly. A first class issue that would appeal to a substantial majority of the Manitoba voters was just what was needed to keep them in power; and the school questions offered precisely that.73
Joseph Martin had been on the platform with McCarthy on August 5, 1889, pledging himself, and thus in some sense the Manitoba government, to the abolition, not only of the separate schools, but also of the official use of French in Manitoba. This made the animus of the Government apparent. But on the abolition of French, Greenway was being pulled, against his will, by Martin. Nevertheless, official use of French went by the board early in 1890, at the session of the Manitoba legislature, and with it went the right of a French Manitoban to trial by a jury at least half French-speaking. The famous Education Acts followed, virtually a copy of the School Act of Ontario with the provision for separate schools omitted. The public school system was in effect a system of non-denominational schools, with religious exercises permitted. It passed, after vigorous speeches against it by Roman Catholics, both French and English-speaking, by a vote of twenty-seven to eight.74 And it was assented to by the Lieutenant-Governor, John Schultz, on April 1, 1890.
Whether the Acts were constitutional was a mighty question. Disallowance was urged strongly by Archbishop Taché of St. Boniface. His Catholic constituents even urged him to go to Ottawa to make a personal appeal to all Catholic M.P.’s.75 He refused, chiefly because he was finally persuaded by Sir John Thompson that disallowance in these cases*2 was an impossible tactic for the government, and that the whole question was far better left to the courts. There was also a political consideration. W. B. Scarth, Macdonald’s sturdy right arm in the West, wrote from Winnipeg in January, 1891:
The feeling among lawyers here is that the decision of the full court here on Monday will be against the Catholics on the Separate School question & the feeling…is that if this is the case the disallowance of the Act would hurt instead of helping them, as it would keep Martin their Arch Enemy, as they think, in power for a long time.76
Scarth was often right, and he was right again, on both counts. Ottawa was not to disallow the Manitoba School Acts, and on Monday, February 2, 1891, the decision by the full Court of Queen’s Bench did go against the Roman Catholics, in Barrett vs. Winnipeg.
Dr. John Kelley Barrett had made application in October 1890 before Justice Killam, of Queen’s Bench, to quash two assessment bye-laws of the City of Winnipeg, that had been passed in July 1890, pursuant to the School Act. In Killam’s view the case turned on Section 22 of the Manitoba Act of 1870, wherein the minorities of Manitoba should continue to have after 1870 whatever educational rights they had “by law or practice” before 1870. Did “practice” mean anything at all? Killam thought not. “The position of affairs here before the Union was anomalous. Both the extent of the territorial jurisdiction of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the nature of its authority had been regarded as very doubtful.” Consequently, Killam chose to regard the addition of the words “or practice” as being natural in the absence of any specific law, and thus added nothing to the ordinary sense of the enactment. He found it more difficult to explain the change from the British North America Act to the Manitoba Act on the right of appeal of minorities, which in the British North America Act is given conditionally, and in the Manitoba Act absolutely. Nevertheless, he dismissed Barrett’s case with costs.77 Justice Killam’s position is interesting for it anticipates virtually the whole position of the Privy Council. Whether both were right is, of course, another matter.
Barrett then appealed, (with full backing from Ottawa for his costs) to the full Queen’s Bench, where it was argued on December 13, 1890. Barrett’s counsel was J. S. Ewart, just then well into his remarkable career before the Bar, forty-one years of age, and well connected.*3 T. W. Taylor, the Chief Justice of Manitoba, agreed broadly with Killam, and by a 2-1 vote Barrett’s case was once more thrown out. It then went to the Supreme Court of Canada, where the decision handed down on October 28, 1891, reversed the decision of the Court of Queen’s Bench, and by 6-0 sustained Barrett. The decision was written by the Chief Justice of Canada, W. J. Ritchie, who had written the New Brunswick decision eighteen years before. Justice Ritchie denied any application of that decision to Barrett’s case. There were no legal rights of which the New Brunswick Roman Catholics had been deprived:78 but the case in Manitoba was very different. The Dominion Parliament in 1870 knew full well that in Manitoba there were no schools at all established by law. Was the court therefore to read the words “or practice” as having no meaning whatever?
It is clear that at the time of the passing of the Manitoba Act no class of persons had by law any rights or privileges secured to them; so if we reject the words “or practice” as meaningless or inoperative we shall be practically expunging the whole of the restrictive clause from the statute. I know of no rule of construction to justify such a proceeding…. It is a settled canon of construction that no clause, sentence or word, shall be construed superfluous, void or insignificant if it can be prevented…. What absurdity, inconsistency, injustice, or contradiction is there in giving the words “or practice” a literal construction?…If the literal meaning is not to prevail I have yet to hear what other meaning is to be attached to the words “or practice.”79
These were strong words, cogent words, and his fellow judges concurred.
It was at this point that the Logan case was deliberately launched by the province of Manitoba to show the logical conclusion of the Supreme Court decision vis-à-vis an apparently unaggrieved minority, the Anglicans. The Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench now felt obliged to accept the Supreme Court’s decision in Barrett, and upheld Logan against the City of Winnipeg. Both Barrett vs. Winnipeg and Logan vs. Winnipeg then went to the Privy Council where judgment was handed down on July 30, 1892. On the principle that “evidently the word ‘practice’ is not to be construed as equivalent to ‘custom having the force of law,’ ” they threw out Barrett’s contention. His appeal, and Logan’s, were dismissed, with costs.80
This decision is one of the more curious in the tortured history of Privy Council decisions about Canadian law. One expected that in Manitoba the judges, subject to that kind of “hydraulic pressure before which even well-settled principles of law will bend,”81 would declare for the obvious view of the majority of Manitobans. The Privy Council decision, after the unanimous one of the Supreme Court of Canada, can best be explained upon grounds of a strong a priori prejudice against separate schools, a prejudice which, it is fair to say, the clever appeal in Logan vs. Winnipeg did much to crystalize.82 It is easy however, to read too much into “practice,” and it may be that the Manitoba Act of 1870 simply did not translate into effective legislation what Parliament wanted. Edward Blake, no mean authority, seems to have been of the private opinion that those who wanted separate schools in Manitoba had not a legal leg to stand on.83
In any event, the Privy Council decision put the fat in the fire. Almost at once Manitoba Roman Catholics began to talk of remedial legislation based upon subsections 2 and 3 of Section 22 of the Manitoba Act. In Winnipeg the feeling against any remedial legislation was intense. Even Hugh John Macdonald was opposed. A. W. Ross, in writing Sir John Thompson in August 1892, made an accurate prediction. “The question will – I am satisfied [–] prove to be one of the very worst with which we have been compelled to deal in the House of Commons.”84 Sam Hughes, from his editorial desk in Lindsay, damned freely all clerics, Protestant and Catholic alike, and thought religion ought to be out of the schools altogether. But one thing he was certain of – he was always certain of everything – remedial legislation was impossible.
Sir John, believe me from the bottom of my heart. It would never do. Even if the Grand Orange Lodge of Canada with all its masters and Chief Officers were to hold the Premiership and Cabinet positions, the public would not for one hour tolerate it. Mark what I tell you, it is the truth. Why even roman catholic citizens, not churchmen, do not want it.85
By the late summer of 1892 Roman Catholics and Protestants in Manitoba had moved so far apart as to lose any point of contact. The debate was out of the courts and into the papers. The legal question amplified, and now moved over to the British North America Act, Section 93, subsection 3, which said that where a separate school system was established after the union – the case in Manitoba – and such separate school system were destroyed, then would an appeal lie to the Governor General in Council. This new issue was broached in Parliament in March, 1893. On March 6, Israël Tarte moved an amendment going into Supply, that the House of Commons disapproved of the Government’s handling of the Manitoba school question. Laurier accused the Government of having neither courage nor convictions. But the Government had already made its decision. It referred to the Supreme Court six questions, later known as the Brophy case; these turned upon whether an appeal did lie to the federal government under Section 93, subsection 3, and whether, if it did, the federal government had the power to make remedial legislation. Judgment was handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada on February 20, 1894, deciding all six questions by a narrow vote of 3-2 in the negative, in effect that no appeal either under the British North America Act or the Manitoba Act lay to the Ottawa government. Here the Supreme Court of Canada missed the firm grasp of Chief Justice Ritchie, who had died in September 1892. Chief Justice Strong was able to carry only two of his colleagues with him, in an awkward and curious decision. The six questions were then appealed to the Privy Council, under the name Brophy vs. Attorney-General of Manitoba, where the argument opened on December 11, 1894.
Then, the day after the argument began at the Privy Council in the Brophy case, Sir John Thompson died suddenly at Windsor Castle, December 12, 1894. The 1894 session had been a long, hard one, beginning in March, and going on into July. Thompson had gone to England late in October, partly for a rest, partly to be sworn in as a member of the Imperial Privy Council. He had already been warned that symptoms of heart disease were apparent, and was told to give up work entirely and spend the winter in a warm climate. He compromised by promising to cut down his work, and take a holiday in England and the Continent. This he duly did in November, in the process climbing all the steps to the top of St. Peter’s, Rome. On his return to London he was immersed in the copyright question with the Colonial Secretary and then, with his old colleague and enemy, Sir Charles Tupper, had gone down to Windsor for his installation on December 12. There at one-thirty in the afternoon he was sworn in by the Queen. All went well until at lunch with some Cabinet members he complained of feeling faint. He was helped from the room, and after taking a bit of brandy and water recovered and insisted on going back to the table. The Queen’s doctor was put beside him. Thompson complained that he had been suffering from chest pain for some time; the doctor turned away for a minute and when he looked again Thompson was insensible. He never moved or breathed again.
It is a measure of Thompson’s probity in political life that his estate amounted to only $9,700; with a wife and five children, one of them a cripple, it meant also that his family were left virtually penniless. Among the most devastated by Thompson’s sudden death were the Aberdeens. The new Governor General and his wife had come to Canada in September 1893, and almost from the beginning had taken up Thompson. He appealed to them both. His dignity was only the outward and visible sign of the man within, not put on as seeming to befit his station. What impressed Lady Aberdeen was “the combination of self control and accurate sound judgment.”86
Thompson’s funeral took place in Halifax, Thursday, January 3, 1895. He was buried with more pomp than he (or his widow) would have liked, in the Catholic cemetery a few blocks from where his wife had virtually pushed him from his home to take his election as Minister of Justice, not ten years before.87 The Conservative government of Canada followed in the funeral train. Its motto might well have been an aphorism of Foster’s, uttered the day the news of Thompson’s death reached Ottawa. “Here we are, twelve of us, and every one of us as bad, or as good as the other – Jack is good as his master.”88 An interesting and apt comment; and within four weeks of Thompson’s funeral came the Privy Council decision in the Brophy case, handing to a deeply divided, perplexed, and virtually leaderless Government, that awful poisoned chalice – action.