Canada under British Rule by Sir John George Bourinot (story reading txt) 📖

legislature of the province or of any provincial authority, affecting any right or privilege of the Protestant or Roman Catholic minority of the Queen's subjects in relation to education."

The ultimate result of this reference was a judgment of the judicial committee to the effect that the appeal was well founded and that the governor-in-council had jurisdiction in the premises, but the committee added that "the particular course to be pursued must be determined by the authorities to whom it has been committed by the statute." The third subsection of the twenty-second section of the Manitoba act--a repetition of the provision of the British North America act with respect to denominational schools in the old provinces--provides not only for the action of the governor-in-council in case a remedy is not supplied by the proper provincial authority for the removal of a grievance on the part of a religious minority, but also for the making of "remedial laws" by the parliament of Canada for the "due execution" of the provision protecting denominational schools. In accordance with this provision Sir Mackenzie Bowell's government passed an order-in-council on the 21st March, 1895, calling upon the government of Manitoba to take the necessary measures to restore to the Roman Catholic minority such rights and privileges as were declared by the highest court of the empire to have been taken away from them. The Manitoba government not only refused to move in the matter but expressed its determination "to resist unitedly by every constitutional means any such attempt to interfere with their provincial autonomy." The result was the introduction of a remedial bill by Mr. Dickey, minister of justice, in the house of commons during the session of 1896; but it met from the outset very determined opposition during the most protracted sittings--one of them lasting continuously for a week--ever known in the history of the Canadian or any other legislature of the empire. On several divisions the bill was supported by majorities ranging from 24 to 18--several French members of the opposition having voted for it and several Conservative Protestant members against its passage. The bill was introduced on the 11th February, and the motion for its second reading was made on the 3rd March, from which date it was debated continuously until progress was reported from a committee of the whole house on the 16th April, after the house had sat steadily from Monday afternoon at 3 o'clock until 2 o'clock on the following Thursday morning. It was then that Sir Charles Tupper, leader of the government in the house, announced that no further attempt would be made to press the bill that session. He stated that it was absolutely necessary to vote money for the urgent requirements of the public service and pass other important legislation during the single week that was left before parliament would be dissolved by the efflux of time under the constitutional law, which fixes the duration of the house of commons "for five years from the day of the return of the writs for choosing the house and no longer."

In the general election of 1896 the Manitoba school question was an issue of great importance. From the commencement to the close of the controversy the opponents of denominational schools combined with the supporters of provincial rights to defeat the government which had so determinedly fought for what it considered to be the legal rights of the Roman Catholic minority of Manitoba. It had looked confidently to the support of the great majority of the French Canadians, but the result of the elections was most disappointing to the Conservative party. Whilst in the provinces, where the Protestants predominated, the Conservatives held their own to a larger extent than had been expected even by their sanguine friends, the French province gave a great majority to Mr. Launer, whose popularity among his countrymen triumphed over all influences, ecclesiastical and secular, that could be used in favour of denominational schools in Manitoba.

The majority against Sir Charles Tupper was conclusive, and he did not attempt to meet parliament as the head of a government. Before his retirement from office, immediately after his defeat at the elections, he had some difference of opinion with the governor-general, the Earl of Aberdeen, who refused, in the exercise of his discretionary power, to sanction certain appointments to the senate and the judicial bench, which the prime minister justified by reference to English and Canadian precedents under similar conditions--notably of 1878 when Mr. Mackenzie resigned. Soon after the general election, and Lord Dufferin was governor-general, Sir Charles Tupper considered the subject of sufficient constitutional importance to bring it before the house of commons, where Sir Wilfrid Laurier, then premier, defended the course of the governor-general. The secretary of state for the colonies also approved in general terms of the principles which, as the governor-general explained in his despatches, had governed his action in this delicate matter.

On Sir Charles Tapper's defeat at the elections, Mr. Laurier became first minister of a Liberal administration, in which positions were given to Sir Oliver Mowat, so long premier of Ontario, to Mr. Blair, premier of New Brunswick, to Mr. Fielding, premier of Nova Scotia, and eventually to Mr. Sifton, the astute attorney-general of Manitoba. Sir Richard Cartwright and Sir Louis Davies--to give the latter the title conferred on him in the Diamond Jubilee year--both of whom had been in the foremost rank of the Liberal party for many years, also took office in the new administration; but Mr. Mills, versed above most Canadian public men in political and constitutional knowledge, was not brought in until some time later, when Sir Oliver Mowat, the veteran minister of justice, was appointed to the lieutenant-governorship of Ontario. A notable acquisition was Mr. Tarte, who had acquired much influence in French Canada by his irrepressible energy, and who was placed over the department of public works.

When the school question came to be discussed in 1897, during the first session of the new parliament, the premier explained to the house that, whilst he had always maintained "that the constitution of this country gave to this parliament and government the right and power to interfere with the school legislation of Manitoba, it was an extreme right and reserved power to be exercised only when other means had been exhausted." Believing then that "it was far better to obtain concessions by negotiation than by coercion," he had, as soon as he came into office, communicated with the Manitoba government on the subject, and had "as a result succeeded in making arrangements which gave the French Catholics of the province religious teaching in their schools and the protection of their language," under the conditions set forth in a statute expressly passed for the purpose by the legislature of Manitoba[7]. The premier at the same time admitted that "the settlement was not acceptable to certain dignitaries of the church to which he belonged"; but subsequently the Pope published an encyclical advising acceptance of the concessions made to the Manitoba Catholics, while claiming at the same time that these concessions were inadequate, and expressing the hope that full satisfaction would be obtained ere long from the Manitoba government. Since the arrangement of this compromise, no strenuous or effective effort has been made to revive the question as an element of political significance in party contests. Even in Manitoba itself, despite the defeat of the Greenway government, which was responsible for the Manitoba school act of 1890, and the coming into office of Mr. Hugh John Macdonald, the son of the great Conservative leader, there has been no sign of the least intention to depart from the legislation arranged by Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1897 as, in his opinion, the best possible compromise under the difficult conditions surrounding a most embarrassing question.


[7: This statute provides that religious teaching by a Roman Catholic priest, or other person duly authorised by him, shall take place at the close of the hours devoted to secular instruction; that a Roman Catholic teacher may be employed in every school in towns and cities where the average attendance of Roman Catholic children is forty or upwards, and in villages and rural districts where the attendance is twenty-five or upwards; and that French as well as English shall be taught in any school where ten pupils speak the French language.]


In the autumn of 1898 Canada bade farewell with many expressions of regret to Lord and Lady Aberdeen, both of whom had won the affection and respect of the Canadian people by their earnest efforts to support every movement that might promote the social, intellectual and moral welfare of the people. Lord Aberdeen was the seventh governor-general appointed by the crown to administer public affairs since the union of the provinces in 1867. Lord Monck, who had the honour of initiating confederation, was succeeded by Sir John Young, who was afterwards raised to the peerage as Baron Lisgar--a just recognition of the admirable discretion and dignity with which he discharged the duties of his high position. His successor, the Earl of Dufferin, won the affection of the Canadian people by his grace of demeanour, and his Irish gift of eloquence, which he used in the spirit of the clever diplomatist to flatter the people of the country to their heart's content. The appointment of the Marquess of Lorne, now the Duke of Argyll, gave to Canada the honour of the presence of a Princess of the reigning family. He showed tact and discretion in some difficult political situations that arose during his administration, and succeeded above all his predecessors in stimulating the study of art, science and literature within the Dominion. The Marquess of Lansdowne and Lord Stanley of Preston--both inheritors of historic names, trained in the great school of English administration--also acquired the confidence and respect of the Canadian people. On the conclusion of Lord Aberdeen's term of office in 1898, he was succeeded by the Earl of Minto, who had been military secretary to the Marquess of Lansdowne, when governor-general, from the autumn of 1883 until the end of May, 1888, and had also acted as chief of staff to General Middleton during the North-west disturbances of 1885.

Since its coming into office, the Laurier administration has been called upon to deal with many questions of Canadian as well as imperial concern. One of its first measures--to refer first to those of Canadian importance--was the repeal of the franchise act of 1885, which had been found so expensive in its operation that the Conservative government had for years taken no steps to prepare new electoral lists for the Dominion under its own law, but had allowed elections to be held on old lists which necessarily left out large numbers of persons entitled to vote. In accordance with the policy to which they had always pledged themselves as a party, the Liberal majority in parliament passed an act which returned to the electoral lists of the provinces. An attempt was also made in 1899 and 1900 to amend the redistribution acts of 1882 and 1892, and to restore so far as practicable the old county lines which had been deranged by those measures. The bill was noteworthy for the feature, novel in Canada, of leaving to the determination of a judicial commission the rearrangement of electoral divisions, but it was rejected in the senate on the ground that the British North America act provides only for the readjustment of the representation after the taking of each Decennial census, and that it is "a violation of the spirit of the act" to deal with the question until 1901, when the official figures of the whole population will be before parliament. The government was also called upon to arrange the details of a provisional government for the great arctic region of the Yukon, where remarkable gold discoveries were attracting a considerable population from all parts