Getting into Parliament and after

Front matter

the estate of

J. Stuart Fleming

BY

Preface

This book was written during the Parliamentary recess of 1911, but owing to the writer’s illness its publication was unavoidably delayed. Chapters XVI and XXI have been added, but no substantial change has been made in the original text of the other chapters. My readers will kindly observe that I have not followed the course of party politics in the House of Commons beyond my retirement in 1883, except so far as was necessary to complete a character sketch of the leaders on the stage at that time, or of their probable successors. My references to Provincial politics, for obvious reasons, close with the change of Government in 1905.

3 Elmsley Place, Toronto, 1913.

G. W. R.

v

Chapter I. Politics In The Germ

My interest in Canadian politics was first awakened by the stirring events which preceded the Federal Act of 1867. During the ten years preceding that notable epoch in our history I was engaged in teaching a public school in my native county of Middlesex. In the isolation of the little red schoolhouse the teacher is comparatively free from the intrusion of the great world outside. His own little world, with its throbbing hearts and, peradventure, aching hands, fills up pretty fully the limited orbit of his life. And as to politics he is apt to say with Hamlet, “ What is Hecuba to me and what am I to Hecuba?” Besides, the district in which my lot was cast was not the campingground of the political spellbinder. The electors were so decidedly Liberal that a Tory missionary could make no converts and a Liberal missionary would find nobody to convert. The political pervert and backslider were negligible quantities. It was a case of a-x—o.

Up to 1867 I heard but three political speeches. The first was in 1857 by the late Mr. Archibald McKellar (he was not the Honourable then) in 2 1 which he scored the Tories for their extravagance, corruption and maladministration and their subserviency to the bigoted French-Canadians. The speech was received with great applause, for reasons which I did not quite perceive, so meagre was my knowledge of Canadian politics. I remember well the sprightly, humorous manner of the happylooking rotund orator and the fervid appeal which he made to the electors to smite the enemy “ hip and thigh ” at the approaching election.

The second speech I heard was in 1862. It was delivered by Mr. John Wilson, of London, afterwards Judge Wilson. The occasion was an election to the Legislative Council of the old Parliament of Canada — a body corresponding to the Senate of the Dominion. The contest was between Alex. Vidal, the Conservative candidate, and F. W. Davis, Liberal, both from the town of Sarnia. It was the first election for the Legislative Council for the district after the elective system was substituted for the nominative for the Upper House. Mr. Wilson was a speaker of excellent address, manly in his appearance, and very genial and respectful to his audience. He discussed the advantages of popular election to the Upper House, and the necessity, under responsible government, of direct control by the electors over their representatives in both Houses of Parliament. I remember the address as being exceedingly moderate in tone, without any appeal to party prejudices or any attempt to disparage political opponents.

The third political address, or rather the third address on public issues, was by the Hon. Thomas D’Arcy McGee in the City Hall in London in 1865.

His subject was “ The Future of British North America.” Confederation was then in the air. I had not grasped fully what it signified, but my interest was aroused enough to borrow a horse and saddle from a neighbour. After a ride of fifteen miles on a summer evening I found myself in front of one of the great orators of the day. I had never heard or seen Mr. McGee before that day — or since. I am not sure that I had even read any of his speeches, unless it might have been in the condensed reports of the debates in Parliament. I had no preconception of oratory as a fine art or what were its essential elements. I had a vague idea, however, that there was something in it beyond the reach of ordinary mortals, which, if not exactly supernatural, had a spark of divine power or a sanctity peculiarly the gift of the gods. But whatever it was, I was there to see and learn for myself. My first reflection as McGee rose to speak was that oratory was not necessarily associated with personal attractiveness. Mr. McGee, I observed, was not a handsome man. His face was flat and heavy — a face which no one would turn around to look at a second time. My second reflection was that physical action in oratory was not essential for effect. During the whole course of his two hours’ address he stood fixed to one spot on the platform, with his hands clasped behind his back. Only once did he unlock them, and that was when, carried away by the enthusiasm of a quotation from Tennyson’s “ Brook,” he repeated in thrilling tones the words, “ Men may come and men may go, but I go on forever.”

This he applied to the British Empire. It was a glorious climax to his argument, felt and remembered to this day. The mellow richness of Mr. McGee’s voice, and the rhythm and cadence of the Queen’s English as it flowed from his lips, greatly impressed me. I noted also the finish of his sentences, coupled with a poetical glow which awakened emotions and feelings never before touched by the human voice. Of course argument and fact and history were there, all beautifully blended. But it was not by these I was affected so much as by the white heat of the mental crucible from which they issued, and the cadence — never monotonous — of the lofty rhetoric with which they were adorned. It was a noble speech, I thought — the product of an exalted being — a revelation of the power of articulate language and passion and poetry all combined. Next morning as I returned to deliver the horse, whose contribution to my enjoyment was greatly appreciated, I reflected upon the unlimited power of the human mind when aided by the gift of genius. I never heard McGee again, but in reading his speeches even now I see him as in a mirage, standing before me, rolling out his beautiful sentences with the same grace and affluence of language and voice as he did in the “ leafy month of June,” A.D. 1865, in the City Hall at London. Three years later, as proprietor of a newspaper, it was my painful duty to announce by an “ extra ” his assassination in the city of Ottawa as he was entering his lodgings after a late sitting of Parliament.

Although not a pupil of the political platform, I was nevertheless a regular reader of the political press. Every Saturday’s mail brought me the Weekly Globe, the Montreal Witness, and the London Advertiser. From these I derived all, or nearly all, my knowledge of public affairs. In the schoolroom we had a textbook on Canadian history from which myself and pupils gathered certain knowledge as to the discovery of Canada, the names of its Governors from the days of Champlain, its constitutional changes, etc., but these facts to me had no connection with the politics of the day. It seemed easy to understand why the Clergy Reserves were abolished and why we had entered into a Reciprocity Treaty with the United States, but why the press was editorially a slaughter-house of personal and political opponents, for resisting this or that public measure, was something I did not then understand. Like old Kaspar,

“ But what they killed each other for I could not well make out.”

I said my political teachers were the weekly newspapers; dailies then were a luxury beyond the reach of a schoolmaster on a salary of $300 per annum. The Montreal Witness was the most moderate in its criticisms of political opponents. The Globe had all the intensity of its great editor, George Brown, and its perusal was a “ liberal education ” in the double sense of the term. The news of the world, the doings in Great Britain, speeches in the House of Commons, in the Congress at Washington, the progress of the Civil War in the United States, the massive and melancholy figure of Abraham Lincoln seen through the smoke of battle at Antietam and Gettysburg, his manumission of four millions of Africans from the brand and bondage of slavery, his assassination and the nation’s sorrow, all came before me in the intervals of pedagogic activity, and I gradually became an interested citizen of the world’s great forces, whose control was as mysterious to me as the shimmering of the stars. The power of the press is said to consist in its influence in shaping public opinion on questions of statecraft and theology beyond the personal touch of the platform and the pulpit. This view is doubtless correct as far as it goes, but its service in giving its readers a wider outlook of the world, in correcting misconceptions regarding forms of government, in destroying the egotism of national and religious preconceptions, in its simple and uncriticized statements of general events, in its collection of what might broadly be called “ unvarnished news,” is quite as educative as its editorial thunder or its political diatribes.

But, whether right or wrong in its criticism of men and events, who in those early days of credulous adolescence could doubt the journalist? What the papers said must be true. It was no hearsay. There it was in cold print. To doubt would be treason ; and so the newspaper was all but infallible as an exponent of politics, education and religion, and the “ noncontents ” were a band of prejudiced and ill-informed citizens who had no standing-room in a well-regulated community. To be fed on such weekly rations of food, often highly seasoned and perhaps more stimulating than nutritious, had but one effect — to make me a Liberal with strong prejudices and a certain “ cocksureness ” that Liberal doctrines were as sound as the theorems of Euclid, Q. E. D.

Moreover, my personal associations in the school district were largely Liberal. My trustees were Liberals, and they were “ noble Romans,” all of them. The religious element, whether Baptist, Methodist or Presbyterian (there were no Anglicans or Roman Catholics in the district) was also Liberal. What a paradise for the young recruit! How could he make a mistake if he joined a procession in which everybody marched one way without misgivings as to route or destination? I was fed from the master’s table; how could I question the quality of the cuisine?

And here I may be allowed a brief digression. As an incident of my vocation, I associated myself with a division of the “ Sons of Temperance,” which held weekly meetings for propagating temperance principles and wresting, if possible, the victims of alcoholic stimulants from the bondage of strong drink. The membership of the division covered a larger area than my school district, and so brought me into a larger constituency. The business of the division was conducted according to well-defined rules of procedure and debate, which gave it an air of dignity and self-restraint not unlike a parliament in miniature. The ceremony of initiation, the reports of committees, the prescribed duties of different officers, the deference to the presiding officer, and the usual incidents of a self-governing brotherhood, were all instructive, and to a teacher, whose word was law in his own sphere, suggestive of mutual rights which teachers too often overlooked. As a member, it became my privilege to share in the honours of the organization and to work side by side with men many years my senior. Moreover, it gave me an opportunity of studying character and no little training in business which greatly modified the crystallizing tendencies of the schoolroom. But perhaps its greatest advantage, apart from the pledge of total abstinence, was the practice of addressing my fellow members on matters arising in the ordinary course of business. Then occasionally there was a field-night “ for the good of the Order,” which meant a debate on some prearranged topic, with essays and speeches on temperance or other non-political subjects. In these field-nights the schoolmaster, as the highest authority on all literary and polemical questions, was by virtue of his office a designated exponent. So from necessity, more frequently than from choice, I was obliged to wrestle, not always logically, I fear, with the protagonist of every proposition on which it was possible for opposites to contend.

In addition to my practice in speaking before my fellow members of the Temperance Society, I acquired some reputation for public speaking at the school picnics of my fellow teachers, and so when the first general election under the British North America Act was about to take place some of my too ardent friends proposed to put me in nomination for a seat in the House of Commons. Why should I continue to blush unseen? This was early in 1867. The thought was appalling. What did an obscure teacher know about politics? How could he discuss great questions of state before men old enough to be his grandfather, and without any convictions except those obtained by proxy? How could he wrestle against men who had fought the beasts at Ephesus, and who carried the scars of victory as proudly as royalty wears its crown? “ But why should I not run for Parliament ?” my friends said. Young men were wanted. Old men had their day. And even if I would not run, I might attend the Liberal convention about to be held in North Middlesex, address the electors, and try my luck at political roulette. If not nominated, I would at least be advertised as a “ coming man,” and that was an important consideration. All I had to do was to prepare a speech that would “ astonish the natives,” and my future was assured. Well, I yielded so far as to promise to attend the convention. And then began a searching of books and papers for pointers. What could I say to qualify even for a decent advertisement? I had read that Disraeli, in his first contest for a seat in the British House of Commons, after his opponent had declared the platform on which he sought the support of the electors, was asked, “ And now we want to know what you stand on, Mr. Disraeli.” His answer, quick as thought, was, “ I stand upon my head, sir !” Good enough in his case, but alas ! for my empty head and its vacant cells. I had no experience of public life, no wealthy patron to vouch for me, no fortune to place at the disposal of the electors, and if my head failed me then I was undone. Although I had prepared diligently for the ordeal, it was with feelings of the utmost dread and trepidation that I entered the public hall where the delegates were assembled. There they were, about one hundred and fifty sturdy old yeomen, who had voted in many elections before I was born, and among the younger were many of my old ^schoolmates, who looked upon my aspiration for a seat in Parliament as the outcome of a disordered brain combined with a sublime conceit not warranted by their knowledge of my attainments as a fellow-pupil.

Presently the convention was organized, with an old friend of my family (Squire Wells) in the chair. After some routine business was transacted, the nomination of candidates for Parliament was called for. The sitting member (as the one last occupying the place is usually called), Mr. Thomas Scatcherd, a lawyer from London, was first nominated, and his name received with great applause. He opposed Confederation, but was nevertheless personally popular, and had several years’ experience in the Parliament of Canada before the Union. Then my name was presented as “ a fit and proper person ” to represent the yeomanry of North Middlesex. How fit, and why proper, were the questions which I knew were being excogitated by the delegates present. “ Any other nominations?” asked the chairman. There was no response. “ Then I declare the nominations closed.” Immediately the audience called “ Scatcherd ! Scatcherd!” and from a secluded part of the hall a man emerged in response to this call, proceeded to the platform, and in a very businesslike and modest way began to give an account of his stewardship and to ask for the support of the convention. Strange to say, in his address he took up nearly every topic on which I had prepared myself, and before he was through I sat in a cold sweat, half dazed with the embarrassment of the situation. A prisoner waiting for the sheriff, with the gallows in sight, could hardly feel worse than I did. Mr. Scatcherd’s speech wTas well received, and the applause which followed the close of it only added to my wretchedness.

Then the chairman, in a few kind words, called me to the platform. Great Caesar! what an audience, and how menacing everyone looked! For a few moments there was an uproar, and it seemed as if I would not be heard, when a stalwart — one Sandy Hutson — shouted “ Order !” and demanded that the young man be heard. Then there was silence more terrible than the uproar, and every delegate as well as myself “ held his breath for a time.” With true maiden-like modesty I apologized for my appearance before the convention. I said I could not prevent my friends from nominating me. If the convention preferred Mr. Scatcherd, that settled the matter, and I would heartily accept its decision. I then told the convention how I had prepared a speech, but Mr. Scatcherd, lawyer-like, had appropriated the greater part of it, even without power of attorney. This remark was received with a round of sympathetic applause, and with that I found myself and adapted the fragments of the speech I had prepared as best I could for the occasion. My speech was moderately successful, but the vote of the convention was ten to one for Scatcherd, just as it ought to have been. How could I expect to reap where I had not sowed? But if little was gained I felt that nothing was lost. I was “ advertised ” as an aspirant for Parliamentary honours. For the first time I became known to the leaders of political opinion in a great constituency, all of which might be of service some day. On the whole it was a strange experience. It was my first encounter with that curious abstraction called the “ public,” which was a force to be reckoned with. What was the secret of its power? Could it be placated, coaxed, wheedled, bullied, or browbeaten? Had it human sympathies to win or affections to cultivate? Was it a roaring lion or a sucking dove? What were its likes and dislikes? These were questions which I asked of myself for many days after, as I was trying to cast the horoscope of the future and decide whether “ the cobbler should stick to his last ” or seek some other occupation with a wider outlook and more promising expectations. I had caught the infection of publicity, for which the remedy seemed to be more publicity — similia similibus curantur. Why not try journalism? I said to myself. That will fill the aching void. Who so conspicuous as an editor? Who will dare question his right to be heard? Who can steal his thunder? With one dash of his editorial pen he can make havoc in the enemy’s ranks and at the same time win the admiration of a confiding public. That’s the golden fleece to be sought at once. Therein lies the way to the heavenly heights from which Ambition beckons with smiling countenance, and it may also be the remedy for an attack of Bacillus Parliamentum, with which I was evidently infected.

While tortured with these thoughts I was unexpectedly offered the proprietorship of the Strathroy Age , a paper founded about a year previously by W. F. Luxton, afterwards founder of the Winnipeg Free Press. It was a small four-page weekly with a circulation of about three hundred and fifty, and valued — presses, type and equipment — at $600. Cheap as it appeared to be, its price was quite up to the limit of my finances; and so, finding a substitute for my school, I took possession, on the 14th day of June, 1867, of this comprehensive printing plant and waited for the obeisance and applause of the vast multitude, to whom an editor was, or ought to be, the object of profound reverence and respect. Well, I waited — that is all that need be said.

At the time that I assumed the control of the Age , the first elections under the Confederation Act were in full swing. I took no part in platform work, but attended many meetings in the three ridings of Middlesex for the benefit of my great “ Weekly.” My more immediate concern was for the election of the Liberal candidate in West Middlesex, where my weekly was printed and published and read, of course. The candidates were Dr. George Billington, Liberal, and A. P. McDonald, Conservative — my opponent in 1872. Dr. Billington was of English origin, a splendid speaker, but without any of the accomplishments of Vivian Grey. Mr. McDonald was of Scottish origin, a poor speaker, but exceedingly affable in manner, and personally a great favourite. The Duke of Wellington once said “ that he had no small talk and Peel had no manners.” Dr. Billington had manners but no small talk, and small talk, like small coin, often serves a useful purpose. Mr. McDonald had small talk and coin large and small, and in spite of the great forensic ability of his opponent, won the seat by nineteen of a majority. The Liberals were beaten, the great weekly was beaten, and the intelligence of the electors was graded accordingly. Journalists must not be too sensitive. Even the London Times has been found in the minority.

The character of the weekly newspaper has greatly changed since my first connection with the press in 1867. Then it aimed at directing public opinion with the same wide outlook as the daily newspaper of to-day. Its patrons, in most instances, had no other source of information on public questions. There were only a few who supplemented the local papers with the larger metropolitan dailies. The editor of the weekly was, therefore, “ a guide, philosopher and friend/’ as well as the medium of news within the orbit of his subscription lists. And so he had editorials on matters of public policy, on politics national and municipal, and on the many questions of wider interest than the minutes of the town council or the proper location of the town pump. It might be invidious to name the weeklies of those days whose editorials on public affairs would do credit to many of the dailies of to-day. Some still fortify their editorial columns with opinions well expressed on public questions, but the majority aim simply at collecting news of their town and vicinity, leaving the larger field of politics to the daily journal and the magazine. For this evolution of the weekly there are many good reasons. In this age of activity and quick communication who could wait a week without knowing what was going on in Britain and Japan? Besides, the daily has been greatly cheapened in price. In fact, many dailies are cheaper

POLITICS IN THE GEKM now than weeklies were forty years ago. Moreover, the great dailies are the exponents of the political principles of the two militant parties of the country, and every loyal party man wants to drink from original sources of supply. But while this relieves the editor of a weekly from much labour and responsibility, he is, nevertheless, in other respects a great factor in the education of the public. Locally the weeklies are a sort of vigilance committee, and many a municipal councillor and school trustee act and vote with an eye to the paragraphs in the weekly paper which his conduct may suggest. On the other hand, a word of praise for any form of public service wisely rendered is just as much appreciated and as helpful as ever. While the editor cannot be directly quoted for his opinion on such questions as the Hague Conference or the election of Senators by popular vote, he has opportunities to keep the moral atmosphere of the community in which he lives sweet and to make the trifler and the knave and the meddler ashamed of himself. Even the lighter society gossip of the town, the arrivals and departures, the home visits of old citizens and the gayety of the young brides passing out into the world, have about them human touches which appeal to everybody and which relieve the monotony of shop and office and fireside. The weekly has still its place in the newspaper economy of the world, and to use it for the highest good is an ambition not unworthy of the altruist and the educationist.

My journalistic experience was comparatively brief, not exceeding three years, and embraced some service in every department of newspaper work. I wrote editorials, reported political meetings and all other kinds of meetings, collected society notes, solicited advertisements, pulled at the old-fashioned hand-press on which William Lyon Mackenzie had printed his most violent denunciations of the Family Compact, made out accounts, canvassed for subscriptions, addressed the mailing list, and so on, in all its variations and permutations, and as a multum in parvo sort of an editor did many things in a little way. In spite of these multitudinous duties rolled in one for the sake of economy, the income little more than balanced the expenditure, and so I parted at a small profit with my exacting charge, took a partnership in the Seaforth Expositor, parted with that after a short time, and in 1871 became Inspector of Public Schools for the Eastern Division of the County of Lambton.

Vale, journalism! vale! Agreeable in all your associations, profitable by a new experience in business and a larger acquaintance with the activities of life, and useful in the wider range of knowledge to which you compelled attention. Vale!

Chapter II. First Election Under Confedera- Tion

I have already stated that I entered on my jour nalistic career in 1867. This was the year of the first general election for the Dominion Parliament and the Provincial Legislatures under the British North America Act, and so the political atmosphere was doubly charged with excitement. As the campaign for both Houses was conducted simultaneously, we had a compote of Dominion and local issues — both very indefinite, and more speculative than real. Sir John Macdonald had been called to form a Government for the Dominion and the Hon. John Sandfield Macdonald to form a Government for the Province of Ontario, and both appealed to the country with the declaration that Confederation had dissolved the old parties, that there were no political issues before the country, and that they had a right under the circumstances to a “ fair trial.” Neither of them promulgated a new policy or party platform. As the Hon. Wm. Macdougall said, they were beginning with a tabula rasa , and were entitled to public confidence till proven unworthy. From this view the Liberal party, through its leader, the Hon. George Brown, dissented, claiming that although the two great parties coalesced for bringing Confederation into effect, this accomplished, they automatically 3 17 resumed their former positions, and therefore the elections should be conducted on the party record of pre-Confederation days. The answer to this from the Conservative party was that the coalition formed to effect Confederation still existed, as the Hon. William Macdougall and the Hon. W. H. Howland, two Liberals, were still members of the new Dominion Government, and that Sandfield Macdonald, an old Liberal, had formed a Government for Ontario composed of three Liberals and two Conservatives — what better proof than this could be afforded that old issues were dead, and that Canada had entered on a new career, where the voice of the partisan would be stifled and the patriotic fervour of the new-born citizens would substitute for effete party cries the broader spirit of a new nationality? The new political shibboleth was well chosen. The party rancour which prevailed during the ten years preceding Confederation “ had overleaped itself,” and many of the moderate men who usually followed their party as a matter of loyalty, responded to the call for a “ fair trial.”

The Hon. George Brown refused to accept the declaration of his quondam political opponents. Sir John Macdonald, he argued, was simply playing his old game of personal and political aggrandizement— the Ethiopian could not change his skin, no matter how he attempted to conceal its real colour amid Liberal colleagues. Place him in power and he would be a Tory as of old, in spite of all declarations to the contrary. Even the selection of Sandfield Macdonald as Premier of Ontario did not placate the Liberal leader — his appointment was of sinister origin; his Tory companions, like the fly in the ointment, gave his Government a had odour; there must be no alliance with the enemies of “ Rep. by Pop.” and non-sectarian schools. So with characteristic force and energy he appealed to the Liberal party to repudiate both coalitions as dangerous and unreliable.