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538 The Last Forty Years.

Government. They produced little or no effect on the electors when the new Ministers returned to their constituents after accepting office. Most of the latter were elected by acclamation, and the rest by large majorities. Mr. Mackenzie felt that there should be a general appeal to the country, in order that an opportunity might be afforded to the constituencies to pronounce upon the events of the past few months. It had by this time come to be matter of notoriety that a number of members had obtained their seats by the grossest corruption—that they had in fact “bribed their way into Parliament with Sir Hugh Allan’s money.” It was right, then, that the House of Commons should be purged by the ordeal of a new election. In compliance with Mr. Mackenzie’s advice to that effect, Parliament was dissolved on the 2nd of January, 1874, and writs for a new election were issued,

The policy of the new Administration was not defined with any great strictness, The agreement with British Columbia to build the Pacific Railway within ten years from 1871 being manifestly impossible of fulfilment, the new Government did not consider themselves bound by it. They announced that the project was not abandoned, but would i: proceeded with as rapidly as might be done consistently with the state of the finances and the requirements of the country. There being no company able and willing to undertake the work of construction, the Government proposed to build the road in sections, and to avail themselves of the “ waterstretches” along the route, until the final completion of the enterprise. The expediency of connecting the more settled parts of Canada with Manitoba and the North-West with as little delay as possible was admitted, and it was declared that the surveys of that portion of the line would be at once proceeded with. Among other important projects to which the new Ministry pledged themselves to devote their best energies were à readjustment of the franchise, and the taking of votes by ballot; the abolition of

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Recent Years. 539

real estate qualification for members of the Legislature; a revision of the Militia and Insolvency laws; the creation of a general Court of Appeal for the Dominion; an improvement of the canal system, so as to attract to Canadian channels the vast traffic of the west; the promotion of immigration on an extensive scale; and the settlement and development of unoccupied territory. Some of these projects were new; others were old; and all of them were of more or less efficacy during the hot election campaign which followed. But the coign of vantage par excellence was the Pacific Scandal. The subject was bad enough, in all conscience, and it must be confessed that the Reform party made the most of it. It proved wondrously effective, and the late Ministerialists sustained a crushing defeat. Sir John Macdonald himself narrowly escaped defeat in his own stronghold of Kingston. Mr. Carling, one of the most prominent of his supporters, was defeated in London, where his position had been supposed to be impregnable, Toronto returned three new supporters of Mr. Mackenzie, whose star was so manifestly in the ascendant that the Opposition, for the time, felt utterly prostrate and broken. When Parliament met on the 26th of March the new Government found themselves supported by a majority of about eighty in a House of 206. The personnel of the Ministry had meanwhile undergone some modification. Mr. Blake had resigned, Mr. Christie had been appointed Speaker of the Senate, Mr. Scott had become Secretary of State, and Mr. Huntington had accepted the Presidencey of the Privy Council. These adjustinents reduced the number of Ministers to thirteen, the customary number under the late régime. Mr. Anglin, member for Gloucester, New Brunswick, was unanimously elected to the Speakership of the :[ouse of Commons.

Mr. Mackenzie remained in power from the 7th of November, 1873, to the 16th of October, 1878. The mc t cursory review of the events of the intervening period is all that can be attempted

540 The Last Forty Years.

in the limited space at the writer’s disposal. From the very outset the Administration were called upon to grapple with difiiculties of a formidable character. The three or four years preceding their advent to power had been a period of speculation. Canadian merchants had imported very largely, and the revenue from Customs duties had become proportionally large. The public expenditure had been lavish, and engagements had been entered into which the incoming Government could not repudiate, though in some cases they were in advance of the country’s needs. In 1874 the financial depression set in in the United States, and it was soon reflected here. Our exports diminished, and our imports fell off at such a rate as to seriously affect the revenue. The lumber market shrank to insignificant proportions, and a large number of people were thrown out of employment. But the financial embarrassment was only one out of a number of serious difficulties that stared the Mackenzie Administration in the face. The questions relating to the New Brunswick School law, the Riel Amnesty, and the bargain made with British Columbia all threatened to produce consequences serious to the peace of the country, if not to Confederation itself. The origin of the firstnamed diffiiculty has already been explained.* It continued to engross publie attention in New Brunswick for several years, and also gave rise to long debates in the Dominion Parliament. The Imperial authorities, however, pronounced the passing of the Act to have been within the jurisdiction of the local Legislature, and the minority were compelled to give way, though the agitation led to considerable relaxation of some of the restrictions most offensive to Roman Catholics. The Riel Amnesty question was a bequest from the Red River Rebellion of 1869-70. Though sentence of outlawry had been passed upon Riel, he had, as already narrated, returned to his home, where he was for some time permitted to

* Ante, p. 517.

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Recent Years. 54l

remain without molestation. His subsequent withdrawal from the Province, and the pecuniary aid received by him from Sir John Macdonald, have also been recorded on a former page.* In 1873 he was elected a member of the House of Commons by the constituency of Provencher, Manitoba, where a vacancy had occurred through the death of Sir George Cartier, the sitting member. He did not at that time venture to present himself at Ottawa to take his seat, but at the general election of 1874 he was again returned for the same constituency, and soon afterwards he secretly proceeded to the capital, where, on the 30th of March, he was introduced to the Clerk of the House, before whom he took the customary oath, and signed the roll of membership. He did not attempt to take paït in the proceedings of the House, but quietly withdrew himself from the public gaze. Many members, however, especially those from Ontario, keenly felt the indignity of sharing Parliamentary honours with a murderer and a rebel. On the 15th of April Mr. Mackenzie Bowell, member for North Hastings, moved his expulsion from Parliament, upon the ground that an indictment for murder had been found against him, and that he was a fugitive from justice. The motion was carried on the following day by a vote of 124 to 68. Riel was afterwards reëlected for Provencher, but he did not again presume to take advantage of the circumstance. Then arose the question of amnesty. All things considered, it would not have been wise to proceed to extremities against him. As has already been seen, the late Government had been committed, at any rate to some extent, on the subject of an amnesty, and it was incumbent upon their successors to respect the obligations thereby imposed. Morcover, such political importance as Riel had ever possessed was entirely gone, and it would have seemed monstrous that he should have been made to answer with his life for his misdeeds, after being secretly supplied with money by the late Govern-

* Ante, p. 516,

ment to keep out of the way of arrest. During the session of 1875, on motion of Mr. Mackenzie, the House of Commons passed a resolution in favour of an address to the Governor-General praying that a general amnesty should be extended to all participants in the Red River Rebellion except Riel, Lépine* and O’Donoghue, and to the two former after five years’ banishment. In compliance with the terms of this address, the amnesty was formally proclaimed on the 25th of April. In 1877 an amnesty was also granted to O’Donoghue, who had been excluded from that of 1875 in consequence of his participation in the Fenian Raïd in Manitoba in 1871. A formal sentence of outlawry having been pronounced against Riel by the Court of Queen's Bench in Manitoba, the member for Provencher was disqualified from sitting in Parliament, and the House of Commons, on motion of Mr. Mackenzie, recorded the fact in its Journals.

The British Columbia difficuity arose out of the dissatisfaction of the people of that Province with Mr. Mackenzie’s repudiation of the late Government’s undertaking to buiid the Pacific Railway within ten years from 1871. The surveys which were in progress brought to light the tremendous obstacles to be encountered, and it was evident that considerably more than ten years must elapse before a railway train could pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific over Canadian territory. With a view to conciliating the British Columbians, and of bringing about a modification of the terms of Union, Mr, James D. Edgar, of Toronto, a prominent member of the Reform party, was sent out to Victoria by the Government in the early months of 1874. Mr. Edgar found the people of British Columbia in a state of much excitement respecting the threatened postponement in building the railway. The situation of affairs was fully discussed between him and Mr. Walkem, the Premier of the

+* Lépine having again returned to Manitoba, he had meanwhile been arrested, tried, found guilty, and condemned to death by the Court of Queen's Bench for that Province,

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Recent Years. 543

Provincial Government, but the discussion came to nothing, and the emissary returned from his fruitless mission. In the ensuing summer Mr. Walkem repaired to England, to urge the matter upon the attention of the Imperial Government. The Colonial Secretary, Lord Carnarvon, tendered his services as an arbitrator between the Dominion and British Columbia. His offer was accepted, and in due course he pronounced his award. The “Carnarvon Terms,” as they are called, put an end to the quarrel. They imposed upon Canada the necessity of immediately building a railway from Esquimault to Nanaimo, on Vancouvers Island; of vigorously pushing on the surveys on the mainland; of expending at least $2,000,000 a year on the construction of the British Columbia portion of the road, after the location of the line; and of completing the road from the Pacific to Lake Superior on or before the 31st of December, 1890. In pursuance of this decision a Bill providing for the construction of the Esquimault and Nanaimo Railway was introduced by Mr. Mackenzie into the House of Commons during the next session. It passed the Commons, but was defeated in the Senate, and was not again brought forward. The British Columbian discontent burst forth afresh, and was not allayed until 1876, when Lord Dufferin visited the Province, and reassured the people as to the intentions of the Dominion Government.

During 1876 the operation of the tenth clause of the Ashburton Treaty* was for a short time suspended, owing to the refusal of Her Majesty's Government to surrender certain fugitives to the United States, unless upon an express undertaking by the latter that the persons surrendered should not be tried for any other offence than that for which extradition had been demanded. Such an undertaking was imposed by an Imperial Act passed several years before, but the Act, of course, did not bind the Government of the United States, who declined to enter into the required

*Ante, Vol, I,, p. 205, and note.

544 The Last Forty Years.

stipulation, and the fugitives were accordingly set at liberty. The authorities at Washington thereupon regarded the tenth clause of the Ashburton Treaty as being practically abrogated, and they ceased either to make or to grant demands for the extradition of offenders. This state of things threatened to lead to unpleasant results to the empire at large, but more especially to Canada, owing to our proximity to the States. Several Canadian criminals escaped across the border, where they were free from all danger of arrest, United States criminals took refuge in Canada, and thus added to a very undesirable element in our population. In view of the great inconvenience arising, and likely to arise, from such an unsatisfactory state of international amenities, Her Majesty’s Government erelong thought proper to recede from the position they had assumed, and the operation of the clause was thereupon restored. A new Extradition Act was passed by the Canadian Parliament in 1877, but by one of its clauses the Act was not to come into force until the Imperial Extradition Act of 1870 should be suspended in Canada. The Order in Council suspending the last-named statute in Canada has not yet been passed, and the Act of 1877 therefore remains a dead letter up to the present time.*

Scarcely had Mr. Mackenzie succeeded to power ere the question of protection versus a revenue tariff began to assume large proportions. Reference has been made to the increase in the amount of public liabilities and the depressed state of trade. The depression continued all through Mr. Mackenzie’s term of office, and was probably the most potent of all the difficulties wherewith his Administration had to contend. The combined efforts of decreasing revenue and increasing expenditure rendered it necessary that some steps should be taken for the replenishment of the public exchequer. During the session of 1874 Mr. Cartwright, Minister of Finance, introduced and carried a measure

“See In Re Williams, 7 Ontario Prac. Reports, p. 275.

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