The John A. Macdonald Retrospective 2-Book Bundle. Ged Martin

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СКАЧАТЬ mission just six years earlier to woo the Maritimers into Confederation at Charlottetown. He spent two months incommunicado in the Gulf, but likely had informal discussions with pro-Confederation politician John Hamilton Gray, who welcomed him to the island. In late September, feeling “nearly as strong as before my illness,” Macdonald returned to a “gratifying” welcome in Montreal. His resolve to take things easy “for some months” did not last long: the following April, he admitted that “after my long illness, I was overwhelmed with arrears of work.”

      As Macdonald faced death, admirers became aware of his losses in the Commercial Bank crash. Toronto businessman David Macpherson organized a testimonial fund, to ensure that Agnes would not be left a penniless widow. Macdonald was not unique in being the beneficiary of such generosity: D’Arcy McGee and Liberal leader Alexander Mackenzie also received public subscriptions, and even the ultra-virtuous George Brown accepted supporters’ cash to develop the Globe. Formally launched in November 1870, the campaign raised two-thirds of its $100,000 target. To safeguard his wife and child — not least from Macdonald’s own financial recklessness — the fund was controlled by trustees. “All the men whom John A. has helped into office are expected to subscribe,” sneered the Globe. In fact, the indirect relationship spared Macdonald from conflict-of-interest issues. Far from encouraging “a lively sense of favours to come,” he took a tough line with Macpherson over the Pacific Railway soon afterwards. Indeed, the big loser from Macdonald’s health crisis was the Globe itself, furious — as a rival newspaper put it — that its target had been “snatched from the very mouth of the grave.” Twice in four years, it had broken the taboos and denounced his weakness for the bottle. Twice Macdonald had escaped. He still had to tackle his alcohol problem, but it was now less likely that journalists would risk raising the issue.

      Despite the wave of goodwill, Macdonald’s political problems remained challenging. While he was ill, a delegation from British Columbia had arrived, via California, to agree terms for admission to Confederation as Canada’s sixth province. During the negotiations, carried on just yards from Macdonald’s sickroom, Cartier offered to build a transcontinental railway. Macdonald would have approved. The Red River crisis had persuaded him that the Americans would “do all they can” to grab the Northwest, and Canadians must “show unmistakeably our resolve to build the Pacific Railway.” But the expansive Cartier added a condition that the cautious Macdonald later downplayed: the railway would be started within two years and finished within ten. This timetable was unrealistic: no route had been surveyed, and nobody knew how to build through the mountains. For British Columbians, of course, Cartier’s promise was engraved in stone, and would cause problems in the years ahead.

      Macdonald’s weakness in his home province was greater than ever, and his coalition strategy was coming apart. Of the three Ontario Reformers appointed to Cabinet in 1867, Fergusson-Blair had died (aged only fifty-two), Howland had become Ontario’s lieutenant-governor and McDougall had gone to the Red River and off the political rails. Opponents gibed that the stray Reformers Macdonald gobbled up since 1854 rarely lasted long, and now he found it hard to attract replacements. In 1869, he resorted to the ploy of recruiting Francis Hincks, who had been out of politics (indeed, mostly out of Canada) since ceasing to be premier fifteen years earlier. Macdonald explained away his 1854 slating of Hincksite corruption as a criticism of his Cabinet, not of Hincks himself. Appointed to the demanding portfolio of finance minister at the age of sixty-one, Hincks had little energy for political campaigning, and his resurrection struck few chords among Reformers.

      The addition of the veteran Hincks cost Macdonald the support of thirty-three-year-old Richard Cartwright, nephew of John S. Cartwright, the Kingston Tory of his early years. Although a Macdonald supporter since his first election in 1863, the younger Cartwright could not swallow Hincks. Cartwright’s defection highlighted another weakness. Macdonald and Campbell, the only two Ontario Conservatives in Cabinet, were both from Kingston, now a far smaller city than Toronto. In 1866, Macdonald had told an importunate supporter that “as soon as Toronto returns Conservative members, it will get Conservative appointments, but not before.” Toronto had indeed elected hungry Conservatives to the first Dominion Parliament, and Cartwright had no chance of ever becoming the third Cabinet minister from Ontario’s fifth largest city. In 1873, in a logical trajectory, Cartwright became Kingston’s minister in a Liberal Cabinet.

      The alliance of the two Macdonalds was also under strain. In 1869, a revolt in the Ontario legislature forced Sandfield to support a motion condemning Nova Scotia’s “better terms,” but he was still widely condemned as the puppet of his Ottawa namesake. In March 1870, Sandfield even talked of reuniting the Reform party, but the blunt truth was that he was now more valuable to the Grits as a fall guy than as a friend. Yet Sir John A. still needed him. As he put it, “Confederation is only yet in the gristle, and it will require five years more before it hardens into bone.” To make that happen, both Macdonalds would have to win fresh terms of office in elections due by 1872.

      The prime minister needed to spend 1871 strengthening his political base. Instead, he spent several months of that year in a triangular diplomatic struggle, defending Canada’s interests in Washington against the United States and Britain. During the 1861–65 Civil War, Britain’s aristocratic elite had openly sympathized with the South — even foolishly allowing the Confederates to build two warships in British shipyards. One of these, the Alabama, inflicted much damage on Northern commerce, and American politicians demanded reparations. Canada had its agenda too: compensation for the Fenian raids plus a trade pact to replace the Reciprocity Treaty that the United States had ended in 1866. That treaty had opened Canadian inshore waters to American fishermen, who continued to make incursions even after the agreement lapsed. Empire and Republic agreed to negotiate their differences, and London saw a simple solution: American grievances could be appeased by Canadian concessions. The British duly invited Canada’s prime minister to accept the unprecedented honour of inclusion in the imperial diplomatic mission.

      Macdonald saw the trap: he would be outvoted in the negotiating team. He was also wary about leaving Ottawa while Parliament was sitting. “My experience has been that when the Directing mind is removed, things always go wrong.” But Canada’s prime minister could not refuse to protect Canada’s interests. Accompanied by Agnes, he spent almost three months in Washington. He complained that “the embarrassments & difficulties of my position were almost … beyond endurance.” The Americans refused to discuss the Fenians and offered no trade concessions. Relations with the British delegates were also tense, especially when Macdonald went over their heads to force London to agree that the Dominion Parliament must ratify Canadian concessions: “treachery” grumbled the head of the mission; “struggling in muddy water with sharks” was Macdonald’s description. Since the Dominion had no navy to enforce its rights, he had to accept a cash payment permitting Americans to access the fisheries. Disgusted with the terms, Macdonald considered refusing to sign the Treaty, but he realized this would have guaranteed its rejection in the U.S. Senate.

      Even before he left Washington, Macdonald launched a two-pronged strategy to turn a dire situation around. In a remarkable piece of Dominion-wide news management, he persuaded pro-government papers not to comment on the agreement “until the Globe commits itself against the treaty.… if Brown finds I am opposed to the treaty, he may try to find reasons for supporting it.” Simultaneously, he pressured the British, demanding a “liberal offer” to persuade Canada’s Parliament to ratify. British politicians were outraged: this was ungentlemanly, it was blackmail — but, eventually, they agreed to guarantee a $2.5 million loan, money that Macdonald needed as a cash grant to launch the Pacific Railway. In an impressive marathon speech in May 1872, he persuaded Parliament to accept the Treaty “with all its imperfections … for the sake of peace,” as a patriotic sacrifice to “the great Empire of which we form a part.” He could now turn to the transcontinental railway. Two syndicates were bidding for the project — one based in Montreal and headed by Hugh Allan, the other from Toronto led by David Macpherson. Worryingly, Allan was also backed by American investors but Macdonald hoped to persuade him to drop them and form an all-Canadian company by merging with Macpherson. As he remarked, “I have always been able to look a little ahead.” СКАЧАТЬ