The John A. Macdonald Retrospective 2-Book Bundle. Ged Martin
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East, where Allan was rumoured to have driven a hard bargain — campaign cash in return for the contract on his terms. In fact, Allan failed to save Cartier’s seat, but his estimated donations of $160,000 — equal to many millions today — were not likely to have been unconditional. In the last days of the campaign, Macdonald successfully begged “another ten thousand” from Allan. “Will be the last time of calling. Do not fail me,” his telegram pleaded. He had no idea what Cartier had promised, and he would indeed be haunted by fears that he might have incautiously committed himself to some damaging pledge — just as he had trapped Charley Campbell into endorsing that $10,000 loan. Throughout the campaign, so Charles Tupper said, Macdonald was “upon the drink” and Campbell feared that he had “no clear recollection of what he did.”
Macdonald saved forty of Ontario’s eighty-eight seats, but he claimed to have won “as large or a larger majority” overall than in 1867. He regarded thirty-four out of the thirty-seven members from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as sympathetic, whatever their party affiliation. However, Macdonald’s calculation relied on the assumption that “independent members, or loose fish” would back him. When the new Parliament assembled in March 1873, ministers won Commons divisions by sixteen and twenty-five votes, well short of the fifty-six seat majority he had boasted. In reality, his position was barely secure. Just 104 out of 200 MPs labelled themselves as Conservatives. Effectively, Macdonald had given himself a ten-seat bonus, by allocating six constituencies to British Columbia and four to Manitoba, far more than their populations merited. All ten Western representatives sought favours from government, but they faced huge travel problems, and might not attend the entire parliamentary session. Opposition disunity helped him: twenty of the thirty-seven Maritime MPs were Liberals, but many distrusted the “Ontario First” aura around opposition leader Alexander Mackenzie. However, a dramatic issue might unite them in outrage, and a major scandal was about to break. In November 1873, eight months into the new Parliament, Sir John A. Macdonald was forced to resign, and his career seemed to be finished.
6
1872–1877
John A. Beats the Devil
Following his narrow victory in the 1872 election, Macdonald’s priority was the Pacific Railway project. Neither Allan’s election contributions nor Macpherson’s testimonial fund influenced his judgment. Although Macpherson refused to merge with his rival, the contract went to Allan on Macdonald’s terms: the Montreal entrepreneur dumped his American backers and formed the required all-Canadian company. In December, Macdonald assured Mail editor Patteson that “we have no rocks ahead for the next session.” Unfortunately, Allan’s American friends were outraged at their abandonment: they felt they had bought Allan, Allan had bought the election, and they wanted a slice of the contract. Macdonald rebuffed them, so they turned to the opposition. On April 2, 1873, a Liberal MP, L.S. Huntington, charged that the Pacific Railway project had been sold for election funds. Macdonald was able to reject the allegation by a thirty-one vote majority but, seven months later, Canada’s first prime minister resigned in disgrace.
The “Pacific Scandal” (or “Slander” as Macdonald called it) was drawn out in instalments, each fresh wave of revelations fostering the impression of deeper 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,