CHAPTER XXVI. CLOSING YEARS-THE LAMP GOES OUT. BRIEF RIEF must be our summary of the events in the closing years of Sir John Macdonald's career. Nor is there need, while our space rapidly contracts, to take up time with the recital of matters of political history with which most readers are familiar. Contemporary themes, moreover, are of less interest to the nation than to the individual. The chief topics yet to be discussed are the General Election of 1887 and that of the present year, the readjustment of representation in the Commons, the Ontario Boundary Question, the North-West Rebellion, and the diplomatic correspondence with the Home Government concerning Canada's relations with the United States. Before coming to these topics, let us clear the sheet of those, minor though they be, that claim some attention. During the session of 1882, Sir John Macdonald brought in a Bill providing for a readjustment of representation in the House of Commons. By the British North America Act it is provided that a census shall be taken every ten years; that Quebec shall have the fixed number of sixty-five members; that there shall be assigned to each of the other provinces such a number of members as will bear the same proportion to the number of its population, ascertained at each census, as the number of sixty-five bears to the number of the population of Quebec, so ascertained. The census of 1881 showed that Quebec contained a population of 1,359,027, which divided by sixty-five gave 20,908 as the limit of representation, Ontario which was found to contain 1,923,228 souls was, therefore, entitled to ninety-two members. By virtue of an expected rather than an actual population it was decided to give one additional representative to Manitoba.* It was therefore necessary, according to law, to reconstruct and redistribute a number of elective ridings in Ontario, but months before the bill was brought in, reform speakers and writers declared that Sir John, in view of the pending general election, would carve the constituencies in such a way as to strengthen his own hands. They even averred that he had declared to several of his friends that he was going to "hive the Grits." So when the measure was brought in, the opposition set up a shout of dissent. They declared that every principle which should have guided in readjustment had been ignored; that in taking away from one riding and adding to another, topographical and municipal considerations were utterly disregarded, the only plain aim kept in view being the strengthening of doubtful constituencies, the adding of strongly reform sections to other districts where the liberal vote conspicuously predominated, thus agglomerating or "hiving" their opponents, while, wherever practicable, a sure majority-according to the election returns-was left to the Conservative riding. Mr. Blake believed that Sir John had dishonestly taken advantage of his position to recast, in his own favour, the whole political geography of the province, so that it was with a pardonable indignation that he characterised the action of the Ministry as "high-handed, arbitrary and unjust." Mr. Blake moved, in amendment to the Bill, the following, but the motion was lost by a vote of 111 to 51: "That the principle of observing, as far as possible, the limits of the municipal counties in adjusting the Parliamentary representation is sound * In Ontario the small electoral divisions of Niagara and Cornwall were merged respectively in the counties of Lincoln and Stormont, their names being retained in the desiguations, "Lincoln and Niagara" and "Cornwall and Stormont." In the following manner were the six new constituencies created: Essex was divided into two, Lambton into two, Bruce instead of two divisions was given three; Middlesex instead of three was given four; Simcoe and Ontario, which had previously been divided into two, were now, each divided into three. The greater number of the other constituencies were readjusted; or "carved" as the Reformers described it. In Manitoba the old constituencies were slightly rearranged; and the added member was given to Winnipeg. and should be followed in the said Bill for the reason given by Sir John A. Macdonald (in a recited speech on the subject in 1872), and approved by Parliament; and also because it affords some safeguard against the abuse of power by the party in office to adjust the representation unfairly towards their opponents. That the said Bill is framed in utter violation and total disregard of the said principle, since it takes away territory from the municipal counties for electoral purposes, and conjoins for electoral purposes territories having no municipal county relations with each other in a very large proportion of the constituencies of Ontario; while, at the same time, it does not effect the proposed object of equalising the population of the electoral districts." It has to be admitted that the ministerial reply to Mr. Blake's powerful review of the question was somewhat unsatisfactory. Sir John's chief defence was this :-" The measure is a fair one; it is a Bill which equalizes the population, which acknowledges the principle (representation by population), which was pressed to a successful completion by the liberal party-the old reform party of Canada-and which since that time has been adopted by all parties, having the true principle, the real basis of representative institutions." Opponents of government exhibited maps showing the newly-constructed ridings, and they much more resembled the work of nature than of man. Some supporters of government affected to see nothing unfair or irregular in this political map-making, but declared the Act, which came to be called the "Gerrymander," a "blunder as well as a crime." Although one year of the usual Parliamentary term was yet unexpired, Sir John resolved to make an appeal to the country. The Opposition declared that his fortunes having touched the meridian were now sadly on the decline, and that he feared to encounter the likelihood of defeat by waiting another year. But the Prime Minister was ready with two reasons for the proceeding, contained in the closing paragraph of the speech from the throne: "I heartily congratulate you on the rapid and successful development of our manufacturing, agricultural and other industries. I am, however, advised that their progress would have been still greater were it not that capitalists hesitate to embark their means in undertakings which would be injured, if not destroyed, by a change in the trade and fiscal policy adopted by you in 1879 In order, therefore, to give the people, without further delay, an opportunityf o expressing their deliberate opinion on this policy, and at the same time to bring into operation the measure for the readjustment of the representation in the House of Commons, it is my intention to cause this parliament to be dissolved at an early day.” All through the summer we find the old Chief potent, as of yore, through the constituencies. He was not at this period as vigorous physically as he used to be, but his intellectual force, his tact, his fertility of expedients, and his power to compel zeal in his cause have in nowise forsaken him. "There he is in the thick of the fray with the light of other days in his eyes, still wielding that subtle and irresistible fascination over the crowds who have gathered to hear him. Always clear-voiced, always turning, always watching; he pours out that succession of argument, of wit, of joke and of story, many of them old, of flashes of thought, many of them new and bright, of political reminiscence and political fact, rambling yet not unconnected, and always bearing straight on the point, all of which have, for many a long year past, among Canadian populace or in Canadian legislature, been more powerful than the voice of other living man." Though the ideal politician of the majority, yet the old chief's welcome was far from being as warm, the crowds that gathered around him were far from being as large or as enthu siastic as in 1878. But the reason was plain. In 1878 depression had touched everything, and the crowds who gathered to hear Sir John were often largely composed of men who wanted bread, and who could only find employment by expatriation. They did not want work or bread now, and if, for a moment, they forgot the past, the unforgetful chief did not chose to permit them to disremember. "The last time I addressed you, he said, you cried out for work. I told you that better times would come, if legislation could bring them, if you would elect us. old You did elect us. The better times have come, whatever brought them. I recognize before me the faces of my friends; but you have better coats on, better hats on, better boots on than when you assembled to hear me last." Conservative speakers every where stood fast upon the good ship National Policy which had before carried them on the wave's-top to office. In the party led by Mr. Blake there was lacking loyalty to one another, there was discord upon the question of National Policy, some declaring their preference for the fiscal system of the Government. "Mr. Blake went out to Durham and told the people that 'free trade is for us impossible.' Mr. Mackenzie raised his voice in East York and assured the electors that any doctrine but that of free trade was pernicious, retrogressive, and a relic of commercial barbarism. And so, an era of Reform speech-collisions began all over the country, and the enemy made the most of the clashing declarations. Thus it came to pass that the leader of the Opposition could scarcely make utterance on any question that a counter statement made somewhere else by Mr. Mackenzie, by Mr. Mills, or the Toronto Globe, did not rise like the ghost of Banquo to confront him; and vice versa. Each party pressed into service everything that could do duty as a conjurer of religious or provincial prejudice; the Reformers carried through the land a huge Bleu Frenchman, who, they said, was at once the master of the ministry and the ministry itself, and this Bête Bleu, they affirmed, to be jealous of the growth of Ontario, and bent on preventing her further development. It was at his dictation, they declared, that the ministry refused to ratify the boundary award, and they called upon the "men of Ontario" to come to the polls and defend their Province from the jealousy of 'these domineering Frenchmen.' Another important Opposi tion cry was the alleged tendency of the Premier to a centralization of all important political power at Ottawa; and proof of this allegation, they averred, was found in the disallowance by the federal parliament of certain provincial acts of purely local importance. It was pointed out, too, that Sir John, at a meeting of Conservatives held in Toronto, had spoken with marked contempt of the functions of local legislatures, and described Mr. Mowat, the Premier of the most important Pro DD |