The John A. Macdonald Retrospective 2-Book Bundle. Ged Martin
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exertion, I will be next year a rich man.” In fact, two years later, he admitted that he was so over-extended that he could barely meet the instalments on his purchases, and begged creditors not to press him for money. He was naively over-optimistic in his hopes for a quick buck, buying land in Peterborough, Lindsay, and Owen Sound, prosperous communities but hardly boom towns. He owned 175 building lots at Guelph, a town of two thousand people, but by 1868 had sold fewer than a quarter of them. Even in dynamic Toronto, he was still paying city taxes on vacant sites decades later. He survived financially thanks to a growing overdraft from Kingston’s Commercial Bank, although his duty as a director should have included asking hard questions about its indulgent business practices.
For an ex-minister, Macdonald seemed inconspicuous in Parliament: not until 1852 did he act like an opposition front-bencher, relentlessly criticizing the government. However, he championed one explosive issue. In 1848, the Reform ministry established a commission to investigate the Toronto Globe’s charges of cruelty in Kingston Penitentiary. There was certainly a case to answer, but it was a mistake to appoint the Globe’s masterful proprietor George Brown as the enquiry’s secretary. Warden Smith, the target of Brown’s denunciations, turned to his friend John A. Macdonald, who campaigned for another enquiry — into Brown’s conduct. This was dangerous ground. Brown was a very sensitive bully, who smarted under criticism. Reform ministers rejected John A. Macdonald’s annual demand: in 1851, he mocked their “cowardly fear of George Brown.”
Among Upper Canada Reformers, the underlying split between radicals and moderates was revived by the “Clear Grits,” whose rock-hard principles demanded American-style elective institutions. When the 1851 census showed that Upper Canada now had slightly more people than Lower Canada, they also demanded representation by population, “rep. by pop.” for short. The issue flared in 1853, when the Assembly was enlarged from eighty-four seats to 130 — but still equally apportioned, sixty-five from each section. Upper Canada was booming not only demographically but economically: why, demanded the Grits, should the section paying the most taxes tolerate a veto from backward French Canada? Their outcry made life difficult for their francophone counterparts, the Rouges, as most Lower Canadians rallied to the moderate Bleus. With responsible government secured, the Bleus felt increasingly uneasy at being in political partnership with the Grit-dominated Reformers.
Throughout his opposition years, John A. Macdonald struggled to re-brand his party, even calling himself a “progressive Conservative,” a name the Tories only adopted in 1942. Occasionally he despaired, once telling Campbell that the party was “nowhere, damned everlastingly.” However, as the 1854 election approached, moderate Upper Canadian Reformers, followers of Premier Francis Hincks, sought to break with the uncomfortable Grits and find new allies. Hincks had personally profited from insider political knowledge — “rampant corruption,” Macdonald had called it. But even if he did not survive in office, Hincks would act as king-maker — and he disliked Brown’s dictatorial style.
The issue of the clergy reserves potentially blocked a Conservative-Hincksite coalition. In 1791, the British government had reserved one-seventh of the unsettled land in Canada — mainly in the upper province — to support the Anglican Church. In 1840, the reserves had been shared among several sects, but Grits wanted to end all State involvement in the financing of religion and transfer the entire land bank to the community. John A. Macdonald mocked the thought of “those worthy people in the Kingston Penitentiary” paying for their own prison chaplains. However, it was not an issue that he cared about deeply, and he recalled that anger against the clergy reserves had helped provoke rebellion in 1837. In June 1854, the Conservative caucus decided that if Upper Canada voted for secularization they would not resist. Reality was accepted even by Sir Allan MacNab, whose Tory rantings had been blamed for the Montreal riots.
John A. Macdonald had travelled a long way since 1849, when he had supported the slogan “no French domination.” He accepted the necessity to “make friends with the French” and “respect their nationality.” “Treat them as a nation and they will act as a free people generally do — generously. Call them a faction, and they will become factious.” Moving the capital to Quebec City in 1852 had helped him get to know French Canadians: even if he barely spoke their language, he enjoyed their conviviality. Early in 1854, he predicted that a new government would be formed after the elections, “and from my friendly relations with the French, I am inclined to believe my assistance will be sought.” It had taken him ten years to unlearn the toxic lessons of 1844. John A. Macdonald’s second decade in public life would explore the limitations of partnership politics in a divided province.
3
1854–1864
The Dreary Waste of Colonial Politics
In September 1854, John A. Macdonald became attorney-general West (Upper Canada justice minister) in a coalition Cabinet of Conservatives, Hincksites, and Bleus, under the premiership of Sir Allan MacNab. Over the next decade, he rose through Canada’s factional coalitions, then slipped backwards until he faced marginalization in what, in 1864, he called “the dreary waste of Colonial politics.”
Reformers agreed to serve under MacNab, the archetypal fossil Tory, and MacNab himself was prepared to join with French Canadians, whom he had denounced as rebels, because a sudden revolution had plunged Canada into the age of steam. MacNab himself had redefined his politics as “railways.” In 1850, there had been a few kilometres of track near Montreal. By 1856, railways snaked across the entire province. The centrepiece was the 500-kilometre Grand Trunk, planned to link Toronto and Montreal. Political pressure forced the Grand Trunk to extend eastward to Lévis, opposite Quebec City, and also west to Sarnia, in wasteful competition with the Great Western, connecting Hamilton and Windsor. Two north-south lines were also important. A spur from Brockville encouraged backwoods Bytown to adopt a grander name. Rejecting the satirical alternative of “Byzantium,” Bytown became “Ottawa” in 1855. Toronto’s Northern Railway to Georgian Bay inspired the Globe with visions of a western empire to the Rocky Mountains. The new railway age required broader political alliances, thus prompting unlikely coalitions.
There were casualties in Canada’s sudden steam revolution. Officially the Grand Trunk was a private company, but rapid construction wrecked its finances and effectively it was funded by Canadian taxpayers. Communities suffered if the railway bypassed them. With no interest in feeding lake traffic, the Grand Trunk ran its line around the back of Kingston: its refusal to build a station on the waterfront created problems for the city’s MP. Montreal had an ocean outlet through a line to Portland in Maine, but many Canadians feared this dependence upon the United States and argued for an alternative line to Halifax. Unfortunately, the Maritime provinces were too poor to build major railways.
John A. Macdonald’s finances were not much affected by the railway boom. He was associated with a scheme called the “Great Southern,” which was never built. He bought land at Sarnia for a railway station, a controversial speculation which allegedly involved misuse of political influence. Instead, in 1856, he invested in a steamship, which promptly sank. Another aspect of Canada’s steam revolution also impact negatively upon Macdonald. Steam-powered printing presses made possible Canada’s first daily newspapers, and the Globe exploited Toronto’s position as a rail hub to become Upper Canada’s dominant journalistic force. For the rest of his career, Macdonald faced a venomous opponent on his own patch.
Canada was also experiencing an administrative revolution, with bureaucratic reforms setting the foundations for today’s federal civil service. In 1855, Macdonald appointed Canada’s first auditor general, to impose discipline on government spending, while deputy ministers and entry tests were introduced in 1857. However, even routine matters still crossed ministerial desks, and all business was transacted longhand. Macdonald often complained he was “overwhelmed with work,” “working like a beaver.” When Parliament was sitting, his presence was required in the House at all hours. Campbell imagined his former partner keeping supporters in line with combinations of champagne and jokes “of doubtful moral tendency.” Macdonald was the only minister to serve throughout the eight years the coalition lasted, and the workload