by John Buchan
“The Prime Minister, in view of the well-known desire of a great many Canadians who are ready to take service on such conditions, is of opinion that the moderate expenditure which would thus be involved for the equipment and transportation of such volunteers may readily be undertaken by the Government of Canada without summoning Parliament, especially as such an expenditure, under such circumstances, cannot be regarded as a departure from the well-known principles of constitutional government and colonial practice, nor construed as a precedent for future action. Already, under similar conditions, New Zealand has sent two companies, Queensland is about to send 250 men, and West Australia and Tasmania are sending 125 men each. The Prime Minister therefore recommends that out of the stores now available in the Militia Department the Government undertake to equip a certain number of volunteers, not to exceed 1,000 men, and to provide for their transportation from this country to South Africa, and that the Minister of Militia make all necessary arrangements to the above effect.”
In his letter to Mr. Chamberlain of 14th October, Minto describes the situation as he saw it: —
“I think it is clear that the troops would not have been offered unless the manifestation of public feeling had strengthened the hands of the Ontario member of the Cabinet, and this outburst of public dissatisfaction was no doubt brought about by the sense of the cable of 3rd October becoming known, and by the natural irritation caused here by seeing other colonies sending their contingents while Canada was left out in the cold. . . . Sir Wilfrid’s position has been a peculiar one. I understood from him originally that, as I think I have told you, he personally was rather inclined to make the offer; but latterly he seems to have changed his ground. He says now that, though he thoroughly approves the action of the Imperial Government in South Africa, and admits the undoubted necessity of war, he has not been inclined to admit the policy of this colony accepting pecuniary liabilities for the old country. He says that it is contrary to the traditions of Canadian history, and that he thinks Canada would render imperial service in a better shape by contributing to such works as the Canadian Pacific Railway and the defences of Esquimalt, etc. He considers, however, that the acceptance of your offer to contribute to pay and transport of troops so minimizes the expense that the principle of non-acceptance of pecuniary liability is hardly departed from . . . He is thoroughly imperialistic, though he may have his doubts as to colonial action. I like him very much. He takes a broad view of things, and has an extremely difficult team to drive. But he is a Frenchman, and in saying that I think one covers almost the entire reason for the Quebec opposition. Quebec is perfectly loyal, but you cannot on such an occasion expect Frenchmen to possess British enthusiasm or thoroughly to understand it. . . . I have myself carefully avoided any appearance of pressing for troops, but I have put what I believe to be the imperial view of the question strongly before Sir Wilfrid, and I have pointed out to him the danger of a refusal being looked upon in the old country as want of sympathy here, particularly at a time when we must depend so much upon her good offices re Alaska, and no doubt in many other future questions.”
The Government had capitulated to popular opinion. To preserve their existence they had done reluctantly what they had declared to be indefensible in principle and beyond their competence. Such a decision carried no honour with it, and incontestably they lost in prestige, for Canada had appeared last in the list of imperial contributaries. Their hand had been forced by the logic of events, and not by the Imperial Government, though Mr. Chamberlain’s telegram had played a part for which it had probably not been designed. In March 1900 Sir Wilfrid told Mr. Bourassa in Parliament: “No, we were not forced by England; we were not forced by Mr. Chamberlain or by Downing Street to do what we did. . . . We acted in the full independence of our sovereign power. What we did we did of our own free will.” In the Cabinet there was much bitter feeling — against the home authorities who had landed them in the dilemma;* against the Governor-General, who was suspected of having been in league with these home authorities; above all, against Hutton, who was credited with every kind of Machiavellian plot. It is clear that such suspicions were wholly unjustified; Hutton was indeed largely responsible for the result, but it was because in carrying out the strict duties of his office he had educated and stimulated that Canadian public opinion which carried the day against the inertia of Ministers.
* The Canadian Government were entitled to complain of an apparent lack of candour in Mr. Chamberlain’s attitude. His letter to Minto of 4th October expressly ruled out the kind of contribution accepted enthusiastically in his telegram of 3rd October, and the fact that the contents of that telegram were allowed to leak out to the British press naturally suggested an attempt on the part of an astute man of business to manoeuvre the Dominion into the decision he desired.
Minto had played a difficult part with complete correctness, and this was presently recognized by his critics. Mr. Scott confessed to him that the Government had made a blunder, and Mr. Tarte, that pedantic devotee of imperial federation, accepted the inevitable and promised the Governor-General to do his best for the success of the contingent. There was something about Mr. Tarte’s fire and gusto which appealed to Minto. “It is pleasant,” he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain, “to find one man with the courage of his opinions even though he is wrong.” It is difficult for the forthright and simple man to sympathize greatly with the embarrassments of a party leader, or for one unversed in the niceties of constitutional law and practice to grasp the importance of what seems to him a trivial debating point. In addressing the first contingent as it was leaving Quebec, Minto declared that “the people of Canada had shown that they had no inclination to discuss the quibbles of colonial responsibility.” It was his only unguarded word on the whole matter, and it was unjust to the genuine constitutional difficulty which Sir Wilfrid Laurier had to face, and which Minto himself had repeatedly acknowledged. It is true that Sir Wilfrid shirked that difficulty and decided on grounds of party expediency, but there is no reason to believe that it did not weigh heavily with him in determining his original policy of refusal.
The first contingent crossed the sea,* to be followed soon by a second contingent; the Government raised an infantry battalion to garrison Halifax and so released the Leinsters for active service; Lord Strathcona, as a private contribution, furnished three squadrons of mounted rifles who won fame as Strathcona’s Horse. Canada played an honourable and distinguished part in the South African War, as Paardeberg testified, and Hutton, then commanding a mounted brigade in the field, saw with pride the prowess which he had helped to create. In everything that concerned the contingents Minto took the keenest interest, and it was largely due to him that they were kept intact as separate units, and not split up among British regiments, and that in the selection of the officers military competence and not politics prevailed.** The whole incident was an episode — a creditable and heartening episode, with a good moral effect — but no more. No constitutional precedent was created, no political conundrum was solved, no principle was established. Statesmen on both sides of the House agreed to treat it as an isolated and unrelated effort, marking no advance in imperial theory. The vital questions — the future provision of Canada for her own defence and her relation to the defences of the Empire — were by general consent never raised. When Mr. Bourassa in the spring of 1900 asked Parliament to put on record that the sending of the contingents did not create a precedent, he was heavily defeated, but his motion represented the facts. Indeed, looking back after the lapse of a quarter of a century, it may be argued that Canada’s participation in the South African War was a movement retrograde in its results. It tended to increase her particularism and foster a baseless sense of security. The praise justly given to her troops was naturally unqualified by insistence upon their weak points, and the mistakes made by British generals and the defeats suffered by British regulars gave her a wrong idea of her own powers of self-defence, and — combined with the spectacle of Boer success — made
her underestimate the value of regular training. She was more inclined than ever to trust to improvization and to cavil at any attempt to standardize the military system of the Empire. The South African War was destined to produce a harvest of false generalizations, and the vision of a Canadian national army lapsed into forgetfulness.
(* Footnote: Minto wrote to his wife describing the departure:-
“Everything was a magnificent success; the service in the Cathedral most impressive; the whole centre full of soldiers in uniform: the singing was splendid, every one joining in. About five hundred took the sacrament, the General and I going up first. The troops were drawn up on three sides of a square on the esplanade, just in front of the Garrison Club, with their backs to the ramparts, close to the St. Louis Gate. The Stand faced the Square. My procession — self in blue uniform, cocked hat, etc.-was formed at the Club. We walked on to the ground and I went straight to the saluting point, and the band played ‘God save the Queen’; then I made my speech, then came Sir Wilfrid, then the Mayor’s address; then Otter replied, and the General said a few words. At the close of my speech I told Otter to tell the men to take off their helmets, and to give three cheers for the Queen, taking the time from me. It was a very fine sight.”)
** Footnote: Wolseley wrote to him: “I wish you were there in command of all our mounted troops, and, I have no doubt, so do you; but you are too much needed where you are. I know how much we have to thank you for the Canadian contingent. It is not because it adds to our strength so much as because it serves to draw the Dominions and the mother country together, that I value this move.”
IV
The Laurier Government, angry at their damaged prestige, and irritated at being compelled to carry out a policy which had not been theirs, found a scapegoat in Hutton. The conduct of the Governor-General had been too correct for criticism, but that of the General commanding the Militia gave many chances to his ill-wishers.
Lord Minto as Governor-General of Canada, 1899
Hutton, instant in season and out of season, was too single-hearted in his purpose to walk warily. His ardour had made him many friends, but not a few implacable enemies. He had carefully refrained from flirting with the Opposition, but his constant speeches, tuned to a high pitch of imperial sentiment, and his frequent direct and indirect communications to the press were bound to be interpreted as a criticism of Ministers. Ill-advised utterances in private conversation, much magnified by gossip, reached their ears and increased their annoyance. It is fair to recognize that he was for the Government a most uncomfortable subordinate, though he cannot be said to have exceeded the formal limits of his duties; it is not less fair to grant that in the pursuit of these duties he met with no encouragement from the Government and every kind of vexatious obstacle. The Minister of Militia had, as Lord Rosebery said of Addington, the indescribable air of a village apothecary inspecting the tongue of the State. He had fitful moments of vigour and reforming zeal, but au fond he was a politician, studying earnestly the political barometer. Suspicion of Hutton was soon changed to direct antagonism. Various disciplinary questions were settled in the General’s favour owing to Sir Wilfrid’s wise habit of consulting Minto; but presently the air became electric, the General was kept in the dark about vital matters concerning his command, and had to suffer much incivility. He kept his temper surprisingly well, but daily the position became more uneasy. He longed to be in the field, but when he asked for leave of absence for that purpose he was told curtly that he must first resign his post. The Cabinet would gladly have seen him in South Africa, because they wished him out of Canada, and they waited anxiously for the chance to dispense with his services.
That chance came in January 1900 on the question of buying horses for the second contingent. Hutton had appointed, with his Minister’s approval, a committee under Colonel Kitson, the commandant of the Royal Military College at Kingston, to supervise purchases in the open market. It seems to have been suspected that the arrangement would be favourable to horse-dealers of the Conservative persuasion, so, without consulting the General, Dr. Borden appointed a Liberal member of Parliament, connected with the horse trade, to report upon all purchases. Hutton took the slight well, but the subsequent letters from the Minister were so elaborately rude that it seemed as if they were intended to force his resignation. He had an interview with the Prime Minister, who could not be other than courteous, but it was made plain to him that his whole work and attitude met with the disapproval of the Government. “I plead guilty,” said Hutton, “only to having roused the latent military enthusiasm through all ranks of the Militia, and having strengthened the innate feeling of patriotism towards the old country and the Empire, which already existed in all parts of the Dominion.” To this Sir Wilfrid made the significant answer that “he could see little difference between inculcating patriotism and arousing military enthusiasm, and party politics.”
The next step was an interview between the Prime Minister and the Governor-General. Sir Wilfrid did not accuse Hutton of more than want of tact in dealing with Ministers and injudicious expressions in public speeches, and admitted that the horse-coping episode might easily have been smoothed over; but he declared that matters had come to a deadlock, and that there was no other course left to him but to ask for Hutton’s recall. Minto replied vigorously that in his view Hutton was in the right, that the latter had fought against political influence in Militia administration, and that in this lay the secret of the whole trouble. If the Cabinet asked for his recall he would, of course, transmit the request to the Imperial Government, but he would feel bound in a covering dispatch to state strongly his own opinion; a course which Sir Wilfrid said might compel the resignation of his Government. The Prime Minister suggested that Hutton might be allowed to go to South Africa in command, say, of Strathcona’s Horse, but Minto declared that that would be a “palpable makeshift” which he could not accept. As he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain, he considered that the question of the G.O.C. in Canada should be put once for all on a proper basis, and that he ought, if necessary, to accept the Government’s resignation, “I do not admit any right on the part of any Government to expect me to refrain from commenting to you adversely on their action.”
On 20th January Minto submitted a memorandum setting forth his views; it was meant to be for the confidential information of the Prime Minister, but by some mistake it was submitted to the Cabinet. In it he pointed out the mischief of political interference with the Militia, the ineptitude of Dr. Borden’s behaviour in the horsedealing case and the discourtesy of his whole attitude, and the difficulty of finding a successor to Hutton, unless the position of the G.O.C. was properly maintained. He added the incontrovertible truth that, while by statute the Minister of Militia was supreme, yet, by accepting the G.O.C. as his military adviser, he placed matters of military routine and detail in his hands, and that interference in matters thus delegated would make the post of G.O.C. untenable by any self-respecting man. The Cabinet replied with an immensely long discourse on constitutional law, drawn up by the Minister of Justice, which Sir Wilfrid handed to Minto with some amusement. The reasoning of the discourse was impeccable, but it was wholly irrelevant to the question at issue. Minto drily rejoined that he accepted every word of the document; but that the dispute was not as to constitutional principles but as to the “best practical adaptation of them and as to the proper line of demarcation between civil and military authority in regard to the smooth working of the mechanism of an army;” and expressed his “surprise at the suggestion that he could possibly advocate for any military officer a position independent of responsibility to a Minister of the Crown.”
Further discussion with Sir Wilfrid did not alter the position. Minto laboured hard to bring about a settlement, for, apart from other reasons, he saw that Hutton would be hard to replace during the war, and that, with his military secretary, Laurence Drummond, serving in South Africa, he would be left alone to grapple with the Militia Department. But the Cabinet was adamant,
and on 7th February an order-in-council was passed asking for Muttons recall. Minto had hesitated for a little as to whether he should sign this order, but on reflection, as he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain, the wiser course seemed to be to sign it, to make his protest to the Council, and to forward the whole correspondence to the Imperial authorities. “‘It would be a great mistake to push an advocacy of the General’s position to extremes. Though he has many supporters, anything like an attempt to over-press the Government to retain him would in all probability be taken as unjustifiable imperial pressure and be resented accordingly, so that there seemed to be no doubt as to my signing the request to H.M.’s Government for the General’s recall. But it also appeared to me that, considering the manner in which other generals have disappeared from Canada with no apparent reason placed before the public, it was right that my Government should accept the official responsibility for their General’s removal.”
On 3rd February Minto had submitted to the Council a formal statement of his views; on 8th February he put them before Mr. Chamberlain in a dispatch covering the order-in-council and copies of the correspondence; on 9th February Hutton was informed by Lord Lansdowne of his selection for active service in South Africa and ordered home. Next day he sent in his resignation, which was at once accepted, and on the 13th took a friendly farewell of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. He left Canada amid many demonstrations of popular regret, which did much to salve his wounded pride. From New York he wrote to Minto: “Personally I can never forget all your Excellency’s kindness and thought. It has been your sympathy and constant encouragement which have alone enabled me to stand the discourtesies and annoyances extending over so many months.” To complete the tale: Mr. Chamberlain’s dispatch of 17th April recorded his deep disappointment “that Ministers should have found themselves unable to allow General Hutton to complete the work he had begun,” and expressed the view that “although the responsibility to Parliament must be maintained, it is desirable that the officer in command of the defensive forces in Canada should have a freer hand in matters essential to the discipline and efficiency of the Militia than would be proper in the case of an ordinary civil servant even of the highest position.”
