Rise to Greatness

by Conrad Black

  What Roosevelt could not be expected to understand, and which few Canadians could articulate, but what real or adoptive Canadian leaders – from Champlain and Frontenac through d’Iberville and La Vérendrye, Dorchester, Brock, Baldwin, LaFontaine, Macdonald, Cartier, and Laurier – grasped with a romantic intuition that crystallized gradually over the centuries into a full national ambition replete with a sophisticated tactical playbook, was that, to avoid being subsumed into the United States, Canada had to accept the status Roosevelt and his countrymen cordially disparaged, because there was, at the end of the long rainbow, the possibility of creating a society more civilized than America’s in a country that, while smaller, would yet eventually enjoy the instances of mass and distinction that would fully sustain an independent but never chauvinistic national spirit.

  3. The South African War, 1899–1901

  By the late 1890s, Britain, and gradually the whole Empire, had become thoroughly distracted by South Africa. The British held the Cape Colony and Natal (Cape Town and Durban), and the original Dutch, the Boers, had largely migrated to the Orange Free State and the Transvaal with their slaves, to get away from the British, who had abolished slavery and ran a gentler society. Gold and diamonds attracted the British and a disparate retinue of fortune-seekers steadily into Boer territory, where they were eligible for citizenship only if they were at least forty years old and had been resident for fourteen years. The Boers were a hard, hostile, inaccessible, and profoundly isolated people. This was largely Chamberlain’s gig, and he was not only carrying out the colonial dreams of Cecil Rhodes and aiming at a Cape-Cairo railway to provide a British spine to the entire African continent, but also aspiring to bring the whole Empire in a campaign of solidarity to subdue the Boers. He saw it as a civilizing mission and an occasion to awe the world with the power of the British Empire, which had not engaged in even slightly serious combat since the Crimea, and before that since the Napoleonic Wars. He saw it also as a means to pursue his goal of a unitary Empire, the better to face down the German empire, now led by Victoria’s hyperactive and impetuous grandson Emperor Wilhelm II, who was becoming more unstable every year. (Bismarck died in 1898, aged eighty-three, as had Gladstone, aged eighty-nine.) Laurier, as was his nature, regarded all this Imperial bellicosity with cool suspicion, further stirring the antagonism of Chamberlain, as he balanced the aloofness of the French Canadians to Imperial concerns against the Colonel Blimp, Queen-and-Empire pugnacity of the Orange English, personified by his MP for North Victoria, Sam Hughes. Hughes had been a volunteer in some of the actions against the Fenians and was a man of unlimited military affectations. It was as if the British and their Imperial camp followers wanted to emulate the derring-do of the Americans with the Spanish. But the Americans came to the aid of disaffected colonial populations whom the Spanish could not govern and could not suppress. The Boers were primitive, but they were unanimous and they were fierce.

  The Aberdeens, as friendly with Laurier and his wife, Zoé, as they had been frosty with Tupper, departed, and would be much missed, after giving the Lauriers a silver loving cup inscribed with “Oublier, nous ne le pouvons” (“We cannot forget”). They were replaced by Earl Minto, an old Conservative, a veteran of military action in many parts of the Empire, including as Frederick Middleton’s chief of staff in suppressing the Riel Rebellion of 1885, following which he declined Macdonald’s offer of the leadership of the North-West Mounted Police. He would prove an energetic and enthusiastic governor, but never developed much rapport with Laurier.

  Importunings from Westminster to Laurier for indications of solidarity and preparedness to contribute troops to a South African war began in earnest in February 1899 and grew in frequency and urgency. Chamberlain put Minto up to inquiring in March if Canada would be sending a contingent to anticipated military actions. In April, Rhodes’s South African League Congress cabled the Canadian branch of the British Empire League asking for a resolution in support of the British against the Boers. The English-Canadian press, including in Montreal, was almost unanimous in whipping up Imperial sentiment, but French Quebec was glacially unmoved and uninterested. The Liberal caucus and Laurier’s cabinet meetings became tense and sharply divided. Israël Tarte, who knew Quebec sentiment better than anyone and knew all the shadings of opinion, having been an espouser of a full kaleidoscope of them himself at different times, warned Laurier not to touch the issue. On July 31, Laurier tried to put himself at the head of a bipartisan effort to tame surging events with a resolution, seconded by Conservative George Foster, expressing sympathy for the British government’s efforts to obtain justice for the British in the Transvaal. Laurier stated that his resolution was intended to assure the British South Africans that Canada agreed with them and thought that right was on their side, and to express the hope that this mark “of universal sympathy extending from continent to continent and encircling the globe, might cause wiser and more humane counsels to prevail in the Transvaal and possibly avert the awful arbitrament of war.”15 The resolution was unanimously adopted and followed by a stirring rendition of “God Save the Queen.” Minto took the bull by the horns on instructions from Chamberlain, who saw his vengeance on Laurier for what he considered his filibustering of his Imperial solidarity conference in 1897. The governor general informed Laurier in the presence of an unappreciative Tarte and others that once the shooting started, loyal opinion would surge and carry Laurier with it, whatever the prime minister’s personal pusillanimity. For good measure, Minto dismissed Sam Hughes as quite unfit for service as he had not had the benefit of three years’ proper military training.16

  Laurier was quoted in the Canadian Military Gazette on October 3, 1899, as being prepared to assure the dispatch of a Canadian military contingent, and was anxiously questioned on his return from a speaking tour in Ontario by Tarte and the now thirty-one-year-old protégé of Laurier and Tarte, Henri Bourassa. Laurier gave the Toronto Globe an interview (something he very rarely accorded) in which he referred to the assertion in the Military Gazette as a complete falsehood. He punted the issue forward again by saying that no contingent could be promised without a vote of Parliament, which, of course, had not been consulted.

  Laurier went to what had been envisioned as a congenial pan-American occasion with McKinley and the timeless Mexican president, Porfirio Díaz, on October 7, 1899, but it didn’t accomplish anything and America was rife with pro-Boer sentiment, especially in Chicago, a largely Irish and German city. On October 9, the Boer government of Transvaal, led by President Paul Kruger, gave the British an ultimatum to withdraw their armed forces from the borders of Transvaal and the Orange Free State. They had been deployed there to back British demands that the British within those states be granted the rights of citizens (which might confer a majority power to the British newcomers, mainly seekers of gold and diamonds). The British government rejected the ultimatum, and the South African, or Boer, War began on October 12.

  Chamberlain had been misled by the Canadian Military Gazette article and sent Minto a cable and letter accepting the Canadian contingent, which had not in fact been offered and which the prime minister denied had even been officially considered, and Chamberlain sent accompanying instructions that the approximately five hundred men he was expecting should be armed by Canada and embark directly for Cape Town by October 31. There should be no colonial officer higher than a major, and Hughes was specifically told that the Empire did not wish to employ the regiment or brigade he had promised to raise and that he personally would not be welcome. Chamberlain, like the British generally, were massively overconfident, and before they finished with this very messy affair, they would pour 450,000 troops into South Africa and would be a great deal more appreciative of any assistance they could get, even from “that parched glory-hunter” Hughes.17

  Laurier felt his way to the compromise that would keep the country together, as he had over the Manitoba Schools Question. He would not call Parliament after all; after several very agitated cabinet
sessions, in which Tarte, sick and troubled by a speech impediment and by poor English, made the case that Quebec would have none of it, and the English-Canadian ministers made it clear that although they were not as peppy as Chamberlain seemed to think Canada was, they felt that something had to be done. Laurier authorized, with cabinet approval, the outfitting and dispatch of up to one thousand volunteers. Tarte was not seeking to prevent volunteers from going, and the cost of such a small force would not require any special taxation. Laurier met with the Quebec caucus, summoned to Ottawa by Tarte, and showed them the order-in-council which would be promulgated the following day, October 14, and left no doubt that the die was cast. To Bourassa, who asked if he had taken account of Quebec opinion, Laurier replied, with his customary sagacity, “My dear Henri, the province of Quebec does not have opinions; it has only sentiments.” Bourassa peppered him rather irritatingly with questions, which Laurier answered with some patience, until he put his hand on Bourassa’s shoulder and said, “My dear young friend, you do not have a practical mind.” Bourassa said that authorizing this intervention would cause him to resign as an MP or to become an outspoken opponent of the ministry.18 He did resign, contrary to Tarte’s advice, though he was soon re-elected as an independent and was a Laurier opponent thereafter. Bourassa (1868–1952) was Louis-Joseph Papineau’s grandson, and was less violent but not greatly more practical, though he was an ardent Roman Catholic and was never remotely an annexationist, both unlike Papineau. The contrast in personality and career could scarcely have been greater between this grandson of Papineau and William Lyon Mackenzie’s grandson and namesake, William Lyon Mackenzie King, who will soon make his debut, in a very prolonged appearance, in this narrative.

  The Canadian contingent, as it became known after all, sailed on October 30, 1899, one day before Chamberlain’s peremptory deadline. It was already becoming clear that the British had taken on a great deal more than they had bargained for, as the initial Boer attacks were successful, and Mafeking, Ladysmith, and Kimberley were subjected to prolonged sieges. The British commander, Sir Redvers Buller, soon proved incompetent, as British generals at the beginning of wars usually did, and was replaced by Minto’s old chief, Field Marshal Lord Roberts, as reinforcements were sent and solicited. Chamberlain’s tune changed very quickly and perceptibly as the whole Salisbury government realized they had plunged into war with a very doughty opponent which had the gold to pay for sophisticated arms and munitions and, as an underdog against the world’s greatest empire, attracted very widespread moral support, despite the Afrikaners’ porcine habits and attachment to slavery. Instead of the Empire joining in Britain’s cavalier and spirited parade march to Pretoria, Chamberlain found himself earnestly soliciting solidarity in the Imperial cause in, to take a phrase from the satirical Punch magazine of the time in another context, “a voice grown mighty small.”

  The whole world, except for the loyal parts of the Empire, applauded as the Boers gave Chamberlain and Salisbury a very bloody nose. In January 1900, a second Canadian contingent shipped out, and Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, as Donald Smith now was, financed a cavalry regiment.* Hughes finally bulled his way into combat, shouldering aside Chamberlain and Minto and the British commander in Canada, the ludicrous poltroon Major General Edward Hutton, who was so imperious and disdainful and meddlesome that Laurier told Minto if Hutton were not recalled, Laurier would resign and run an election on the backs of the arrogance and stupidity of the British.

  As the trade discussions with the Americans proceeded into 1899, it became clear that Pacific Coast interests in the United States would prevent American acceptance of any sea access to the Yukon by ships from Vancouver. This revelation came as Laurier concluded that a railway to the Yukon would be too expensive to be economical. If no agreement could be found on the Yukon, Laurier adhered to Macdonald’s policy of always taking to a strong line in negotiations with the United States, and there would be no agreement on anything. Traditional Liberal optimism about free trade with the United States gradually wilted, as did notions of Senate reform, which the Liberals had promised. After a good deal of analysis, Laurier considered a method of combining the Senate and House of Commons for some votes, thus diluting the Senate’s capabilities as a legislative retardant. Joseph Chamberlain, from the lofty chair of the Colonial Office, implied that this would be a violation of the guaranty of provincial rights implicit in the federal formula of the British North America Act (a well-founded concern, in fact), and another Liberal pipe dream, so easily embraced and advocated from the Opposition benches, faded.

  An unbidden development that more or less blindsided Laurier was the sudden enthusiasm for prohibition of alcoholic beverages. In Canada, as in the United States, a movement – led by housewives tired en masse of drink-sodden husbands, and the churches militant of congregational and evangelical Protestantism – had suddenly arisen to ban drinking. Laurier, worldly Catholic as he was, could not take the issue seriously, but a Prohibition referendum was held, with one-third of eligible voters casting a ballot, and the prohibitionists carried the country by just thirteen thousand votes. Ontario and Quebec, not for the last time in plebiscitary matters, showed the difference in the cultural and sociological nature of their majorities, as Ontario prohibitionists won 154,000 to 113,000, but in Quebec the prohibitionists were drubbed 122,000 to 28,000. It wasn’t a racially defining issue, but the tipplers of English Canada were grateful for the solidity of their French, Irish, and German-Catholic countrymen, while, to the Low Church Protestants, the evils of Rome were more evident and sinister than ever.

  In December 1899, Sir John A. Macdonald’s capable and well-liked son, Hugh John Macdonald, had defeated Laurier’s fellow Liberal and schools co-contractant, Thomas Greenway, to become the premier of Manitoba. Henri Bourassa, having resigned as a member of Parliament, stood again as an independent in Labelle, and Laurier ensured that there was no official Liberal against him. He was acclaimed and returned to the House of Commons, sponsored by Tarte. Bourassa demanded the relevant correspondence between Chamberlain and Laurier, which the prime minister graciously produced and which caused him no embarrassment. Bourassa opposed raising the pay-scale of the Canadian contingents from Imperial to Canadian rates on the grounds that they were Imperial troops. This raised the hackles of the House, and Bourassa assured in February and March that the parliamentary debates of the new (Canadian, according to Laurier) century were quite acrimonious. The Liberal Quebec bloc held firm behind its leader, and Ontario, though it was more participationist, appreciated that Laurier, in the circumstances, was doing his best, and all regions were very prosperous and disinclined to take an undue interest in Africa. Eastern European immigrants were now responding to Sifton’s inducements and flooded into the West.

  The war issue came to a head on March 13 when Laurier, after careful consideration, declined to move or support the motion Bourassa had conceived of declaring that the dispatch of troops to South Africa did not constitute a precedent, and declaring that there could be no change in the official relationship between Canada and Great Britain without an election and parliamentary approval. Laurier told Bourassa that such a measure would be both superfluous and inflammatory. This was a master stroke by Laurier, as he considered presenting the motion carefully enough to avoid Bourassa’s personal animosity, and Bourassa could be relied upon to present his case forcefully enough for English Canadians to grasp the fervour and even the rigour of the Quebec nationalist position, which they would never have heard so forcefully and clearly formulated as Bourassa would now make it. Bourassa spoke for three hours, mainly in his impeccable English (he was an alumnus of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts), and on this occasion was not at all reminiscent of his grandfather. He accepted the Conquest, was an admirer of the British, proclaimed himself a follower of Burke, Fox, Bright, and Gladstone, and said that he only sought the genuine equality of the founding races and strict adherence to the British North America Act. Canada shou
ld not be an adjunct to a discreditable, repressive, and avariciously motivated attack on the free Boer people, and should not be supporting that action in the indirect, slippery, sophistical way that it was. He told a hushed and respectful, though not an approving, House, “Mr. Chamberlain and his frantic disciples, and his unconscious followers both English and Canadian [i.e., English and French Canadian], are leading us toward a constitutional revolution the consequences of which no man can calculate.… It is our duty as a free parliament representing the free opinion of the people to say what is going to be the policy of the people.”19

  Laurier rose as soon as Bourassa finished. It was the most dramatic moment in the House of Commons since Macdonald’s defence of his conduct in the Pacific Scandal in 1873. The Liberal benches were ready for their leader to assert himself, and Wilfrid Laurier was fully prepared to show his mettle. He referred with exquisite courtesy and without condescension or scorn to Bourassa and won the match cleanly with “I put this question to my honourable friend: What would be the condition of this country today if we had refused to obey the voice of public opinion?” The French Canadians recognized that English Canada demanded that volunteers be allowed to participate and that discouraging that level of support for the Empire would have put an unsustainable strain on Confederation and caused the rejection of the government in English Canada; and the English Canadians recognized, with unaccustomed vividness and disquietude, how strongly dissentient was the French-Canadian nationalist position. The English could see that going much further would stampede Laurier’s Quebec support out from under him, and the French Canadians could hardly complain if people wished to volunteer for such a cause. The division was a solid endorsement for the prime minister, and Tupper’s ultra-loyalist message as Opposition leader did not resonate well.