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CHAPTER XIII

IN OPPOSITION

OW comes a long day of adversity for the Liberal party of Canada. On October 9th, 1878, Mr. Mackenzie and his colleagues resigned office, and the head of the first Liberal ministry under Confederation had passed to his honoured grave long before his party was enabled to regain the confidence of the people. As some one has aptly quoted, “neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us.' "But while for successive elections the Liberal party was to know unbroken defeat, it never became a mere political remnant, nor ever degenerated into a faction. It was always a powerful, aggressive, and thoroughly energized political organization; and during all the long period of its exclusion from office, the record is distinguished for patriotic endeavour and fruitful service to the commonwealth. No doubt the story has its errors and its blemishes, reveals occasional false steps, and covers seasons alike of exaggerated gloom and of fretful impatience. But the party always stood for a distinct and intelligible programme; and in the long and stubborn conflict to determine under the Constitution the due distribution of powers between the local

and the federal authorities, these years of opposition witnessed a signal triumph of Liberal contentions and a signal vindication of Liberal principles. The great events which mark the period between Mr. Mackenzie's resignation of office and Mr. Laurier's election to the leadership of the Liberal party were the establishment of the system of protection, the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the settlement of the north-western boundary of Ontario, the successful assertion of provincial authority over the issue of liquor licenses, the redistribution of constituencies in 1882, the adoption of the federal Franchise Act, the elimination by purchase of the monopoly provisions of the Canadian Pacific Railway charter, the North-West rebellion, and the negotiation of the abortive Fisheries Treaty between Canada and the United States. Many of these questions were of the first importance; and the political leaders who held office during this great creative and formative period, could not fail to leave an enduring impress upon Canadian history, fashion the character of many Canadian institutions, and appreciably affect the thought and spirit of the Canadian people.

One question which arose under the Mackenzie Administration reappeared in the session of 1879. A few months before the fall of the Liberal ministry at Ottawa, Mr. Letellier de St. Just, LieutenantGovernor of Quebec, had dismissed the local Conservative Administration mainly on the grounds

that the Quebec Ministers had shown contempt for his prerogative, had submitted measures to the Legislature without consulting the executive head, had appended his name to proclamations and other instruments without his knowledge, and generally had subjected him to unceremonious and contumelious treatment. Letellier had had an honourable career in the Legislature of united Canada, as well as in the new federal Parliament. Although the son of a private soldier, he had all the pride and spirit of the old seigneurs, combined with their social ease and chivalrous temperament, and just that exquisite sensitiveness which could not brook the studied contempt of his arbitrary and ungracious advisers. It was argued by many Conservatives that the federal Government was privy to the Lieutenant-Governor's proceedings against the provincial Ministers, and that his summary dismissal of his Cabinet was the culmination of a partisan plot to establish a Liberal Government in Quebec.1 This, at least, has been successfully controverted. No one who examines the evidence furnished by Mr. Mackenzie's biographers

"It is useless to deny that Mr. Letellier came to the administration with an exaggerated sense of his functions and powers; but what was worse still, he believed that he had, and he really did have, the countenance of the Mackenzie Ministry in his feeling and attitude toward his Cabinet, while he was egged on to hostilities by the rash counsels of George Brown and many other Upper Canada Reformers, as well as by the leading Rouges of his own province."-J. E. Collins, "Life and Times of Sir John Macdonald," page 423.

can doubt that Letellier acted on his own sole responsibility, and that Mr. Mackenzie questioned the wisdom, if he could not admit the unconstitutionality of the Lieutenant-Governor's conduct.1 Mr. Joly succeeded to the Premiership of Quebec, formed a Ministry, and accepted full responsibility for Letellier's action. This at least the Constitution required, and nothing short of this could even seem to legitimize the Lieutenant-Governor's position.

However, on April 11th, 1878, Sir John Macdonald brought on a motion in the House of Commons declaring "that the recent dismissal by the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec of his Ministers was, under the circumstances, unwise and subversive of the position accorded to the advisers of the Crown since the concession of the principle of responsible government to the British North American colonies." Mr. Laurier spoke on this motion, and argued substantially that while the will of the people must prevail, the Crown had its rights as well as the people. The best regulated state was that in which the rights of the Crown and the rights of the people were clearly defined and greatly respected. It was neither the duty nor the province of the central Parliament to criticize the conduct of Letellier. The adoption of the

1 "The Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, His Life and Times," by William Buckingham, private secretary, and the Hon. George W. Ross, pages 478 to 485.

motion would be a direct invasion of the federal system. It was the federative system which gave to Quebec its autonomy, and the Dominion Government had no power to interfere with a question which affected the provincial constitution of Quebec alone. The people of Quebec had the remedy in their own hands. They could overthrow the present legal advisers of the Crown, and thereby effectually rebuke the Lieutenant-Governor. While it would be the duty of the Dominion Government to interfere in order to redress a wrong which the people could not themselves remedy, in this instance interference would be an invasion of the rights of the people of Quebec. Under all the circumstances, therefore, it was not for the federal Parliament to say whether the Lieutenant-Governor had acted judiciously or injudiciously, wisely or unwisely.1

It is manifest throughout the debate that the federal Ministers were reluctant to justify Letellier's extreme exercise of his prerogative, and that Sir John Macdonald was equally reluctant to declare the absolute unconstitutionality of the Governor's action. His motion of 1878 did not go beyond the declaration that Letellier's conduct was unwise and subversive of the position accorded to the advisers of the Crown under the system of responsible government, and although directly challenged by Mr. Mackenzie he refused to enlarge the 1 Hansard, April 11th, 1878.