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

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СКАЧАТЬ corruption. The government prudently conceded a parliamentary committee but technical difficulties over its enquiry powers spurred paranoid accusations of a double-cross. On July 4, Huntington released Allan’s correspondence with his American backers, carefully edited to increase its impact. Two weeks later, the Globe and the Montreal Herald published embarrassing documents stolen from the office of Allan’s solicitor, J.J.C. Abbott (who would succeed Macdonald as prime minister in 1891). This scoop included the telegram from Macdonald to Allan begging for election funds: “I must have another ten thousand.” In August, the prime minister established a three-person Royal Commission, with sweeping powers of investigation, but protecting himself by appointing J.R. Gowan, who was noted for his “friendship, almost amounting to affection, for Sir John A. Macdonald.” The commission heard evidence throughout September, with Macdonald personally cross-examining witnesses. There was no formal proof of corruption, but plenty of sleazy detail about how elections were financed. For months, the government was constantly on the defensive.

      The scandal was especially damaging because it could be reduced to a simple issue: even schoolchildren abused the Conservatives as “Charter-sellers.” It also coincided with technical improvements in printing which effectively introduced political cartooning to Canada. The satirical magazine Grip, launched in May 1873, found Macdonald’s huge nose and wild hair an easy target for caricature: a child in the street once pointed him out as “the bad man in Grip.” The Royal Commission was portrayed as three smirking Macdonalds. The prime minister was shown scattering pledges in a drunken spree, and haughtily stating, “I took the money and bribed the electors with it. Is there anything wrong with that?” That charge was unfair: he had begged election funds to pay campaign expenses not to bribe voters, although at ground level the difference was perhaps slight. However, even Macdonald acknowledged that his dealings with Allan looked bad. In England, the two parties raised election funds through arm’s-length organizations, so that Disraeli and Gladstone, the Empire’s great statesmen, never knew who financed their campaigns; in Canada, the party leader was his own bagman. As the October meeting of Parliament approached, the governor general, Lord Dufferin, warned Macdonald that his dealings with Allan “cannot but fatally affect your position as minister.”

      Macdonald alternated between denial and oblivion. In June, 1873, he suggested to his Cabinet colleagues that he should resign, “his idea being to keep them in office from the back benches” but, as Dufferin commented, “his Government would not last a day without him.” His colleagues thought so too. “They almost told me that if I would not fight it out with them, they would not fight at all,” he recalled. “I gave in.” He retreated on vacation to Rivière-du-Loup. Alarmed by rumours of a breaking story, T.C. Patteson travelled from Toronto to ask Macdonald how the Mail should respond to opposition charges. “He laughed and said they knew nothing to tell.” On his return journey, Patteson saw the “$10,000” telegram scoop in the Globe. “I felt very angry with Sir John A. for having deceived me.”

      In fact, Macdonald feared that the opposition knew too much. In May, “terribly over worked and harassed,” he went on a binge. In June, the governor general reported a “very distressing and pitiable” discussion, in which the two men confirmed a death sentence on a woman who had killed her abusive husband — his hangover, her hanging. Early in August, Dufferin reported that “Sir John has been constantly drinking during the last month” and “in a terrible state for some time past.” For a few days nobody — Agnes included — knew his whereabouts, and a story circulated that he had tried to drown himself in the St. Lawrence at Rivière-du-Loup. Macdonald would later cite the tale as evidence of his enemies’ dishonesty, but perhaps it reflected some alcoholic episode of desperate self-harm. He was certainly behaving like somebody with a guilty conscience.

      Two deaths in London, England — one of a colleague and the other of a project — added to his problems. Cartier had travelled to Britain to seek last-ditch medical treatment for his shattered health, and died there in May 1873. Macdonald was devastated, although his claim that they had “never had a serious difference” during their two-decade partnership was a pious exaggeration. As Dufferin noted, Allan was now “at liberty to make any statement he may please” about Cartier’s alleged promises. But Allan, also in England, found himself presiding over the institutional funeral. His Pacific Railway needed British investment, but London financiers were distrustful of the scheme’s murky aura. In October 1873, Allan admitted failure and surrendered his charter. Macdonald had nothing to show for the stench of the Pacific Scandal.

      Even so, many believed the government could still survive when Parliament began debating Mackenzie’s censure motion on October 27. “Macdonald’s hold upon the affection of the people is very strong,” Dufferin had noted. “Personally he is very popular, even among his opponents.” Canadians believed that “the Dominion owes its existence” to Macdonald’s “skill, talent and statesmanship.” If he had spoken early in the debate, some said he would have won by at least ten votes. But having begun the session well, “after two or three days the strain became too much for him” and he took to drink, ignoring “the angry entreaties of his friends.” In a formal debate, MPs could speak only once. Macdonald wanted to reply to the leading opposition orator, Edward Blake, “but — calculating on the effect of his physical infirmities breaking his adversary down — Blake determined to hold back.” Privately, Macdonald feared the disclosure of some further incriminating document. Meanwhile, as an Ottawa diarist put it, “‘ratting’ goes on daily” as MPs fell away “like autumn leaves.” Agnes broke gender restrictions to lobby one wavering government supporter, but he “ratted” too.

      By the time Macdonald spoke, on November 3, his reticence seemed an admission of guilt. Pale and frail from exhaustion and booze, he nonetheless delivered a five-hour oration. A Cabinet colleague was persuaded to pass him glasses of neat gin, a transparent spirit that conveniently resembles water: it was said that Macdonald had two more suppliers, none of them knowing of the others’ existence. For once, alcohol proved not a handicap but a fuel, for he closed with a dignified peroration. “I have fought the battle of Confederation,” he claimed, as he looked beyond the parliamentary vote to the judgment of the people and the verdict of history. Nobody had “given more of his time, more of his heart, more of his wealth, or more of his intellect and power, such as they may be, for the good of this Dominion of Canada.” It was an electrifying finale, but they were the words of a beaten politician.

      Four days later, Alexander Campbell complained that “had Sir John A[.] kept straight during the last fortnight, the Ministry would not have been defeated.” Dufferin regarded Macdonald’s “physical infirmity” as “a source of intolerable embarrassment at every turn, for unfortunately it is when affairs are at a crisis that it overtakes him.” But the alcohol problem was only a symptom. Fundamentally, the crisis stemmed from Macdonald’s failure to win a strong majority in 1872. He had hoped that the six recently arrived MPs from Prince Edward Island, Canada’s newest province, would support the government that now ruled their destinies. The Islanders reviewed the political situation — and four of them joined the opposition. On November 4, the influential Manitoba MP Donald A. Smith sought an interview. Smith had proved a wise negotiator during the Red River troubles, but Macdonald disliked him and agreed to the meeting reluctantly. After twenty minutes, Smith stalked out, complaining that Macdonald had “done nothing but curse and swear at me.” Smith “ratted” that evening. Next day, November 5, 1873, the government resigned, with Macdonald putting his characteristic “spin” on the disaster that most believed would end his career. “I have long yearned for rest and am not sorry to have it forced on me,” he assured Gowan. “I believe Canada will do me justice in the long run.” As Alexander Mackenzie formed the new government, Liberal MPs celebrated by singing their own version of Clementine: “Sir John is dead and gone for ever.” But was he?

      The five years that John A. Macdonald spent in opposition are dismissed by his admirers as a blip that the voters corrected after enduring the inadequate Mackenzie Liberals. In fact, that period divided into three phases. The first, one of wild and ill-advised activity, crashed after four months with a Conservative rout in a snap general election. The second, from 1874 to СКАЧАТЬ