Part 5 (2/2)
Yet now we find the same Howe shrilling forth the very blasts of persecution which he had denounced. Provocation he had--bitter, violent provocation. But he had yielded place unto wrath; his egoism, his wors.h.i.+p of success, were getting the better of his n.o.bler side.
He had his reward. In 1860 his party was victorious at the general election. For the next three years he was in office, outwardly the same cheery Joe as ever, inwardly distracted, rebellious, pining for a wider field. But in 1863 Tupper and the Conservatives {135} swept the province with the cry of retrenchment. In a house of fifty-four Howe had but fourteen followers. For the moment he was glad to be quit of office. 'If ever I can be of use to Nova Scotia, let me know,' were his words to Dr Tupper as he handed over the keys of the provincial secretary's office. Later in the year he accepted from the Imperial government the important post of Fishery Commissioner. He was sixty years of age, and his part on the political stage seemed to have been played. But to the drama of his life a stirring last act and a peaceful epilogue were to be added.
Ever since the American colonies had torn away, the plan of a union, legislative or federal, of the remainder of British North America had been mooted, and nowhere with greater favour than in Nova Scotia.
Geographical difficulties long made it an impossibility, but the steam-engine gave man the triumph over geography, and by 1860 an intercolonial railway, though not built, was evidently buildable. In 1864 the exigencies of Canadian party politics forced federation to the front with startling suddenness. Weary of long jangling, resulting in a deadlock which {136} two elections and four governments within three years had failed to break, the n.o.bler spirits of both parties in Canada resolved to find a solution in a wider federation. In the same year Dr Tupper had brought about a conference at Charlottetown, which met in September to discuss the question of Maritime Union. To this Howe, though a political opponent, had been invited, but pressure of work had prevented his attendance. Delegates from Canada persuaded the conference to take a wider sweep. Howe would now have liked to be present, but the season was getting late, and when he asked for a boat on the pretext of doing some inspection along the Island sh.o.r.e, the admiral on the station refused to furnish it. 'If I had had any idea of why he really wanted that s.h.i.+p, he could have had my whole squadron,' said the rueful admiral in after years. After some preliminary talk, the members of the conference adjourned to Quebec, and there gradually wrought out the resolutions which are at the basis of the British North America Act. They then returned to their homes, to endeavour to secure the adoption of these resolutions by the legislatures and people of their several provinces.
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In Nova Scotia rumours of dissatisfaction were soon heard. The merchant aristocracy of Halifax at once saw that free trade between the provinces, an essential part of the projected plan, would destroy their monopoly of the provincial market. They were wealthy and influential, and an opposition soon was formed, including members of both political parties. Their prospects of success hinged largely on the att.i.tude of Howe.
At first it seemed as though for Joe Howe there could be but one side.
It was taken for granted that he, who had spoken so many eloquent words, all pointing to the magnificent future of British North America, all tending to inspire its youth with love of country as something far higher than mere provincialism, would now be among the advocates of federation, and the wise and loving critic of the scheme to be submitted to the legislatures. Though his ideal had ever looked beyond to a wider Imperial federation, he had at his best always regarded Canadian federation as a necessary preparation for it. In the troublous times of 1849, when the Montreal merchants shouted for Annexation, he had urged Confederation as a n.o.bler remedy. It had been the incentive to his work for the {138} inter-colonial railway. In 1861 he had moved in the legislature a resolution in its favour. As late as August 1864, on the visit to Halifax of some Canadian delegates, he had been convivially eloquent in favour of union. While all this in no way committed him to the details of the Quebec plan, it went far to binding him to its principle. Yet it soon began to be rumoured that he was talking against it, and in January 1865 a series of letters on 'The Botheration Scheme' appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_, in which none could fail to recognize the hand of the veteran.
What were his objections to the plan? He sets them out in a letter to Lord John Russell in January 1865.
1. The Maritime Provinces, and especially his beloved Nova Scotia, are being swamped. A little later he wrote to another friend: 'I have no invincible objection to become an unionist provided any one will show me a scheme which does not sacrifice the interests of the Maritime Provinces.'
2. They will be swamped by Canadians, a poor lot of people, a little eccentric at all times, and at the worst given to rebellion--led by political tricksters of the type of his old enemy Hincks.
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3. A federation is c.u.mbrous, and inferior to a legislative union, such as that of the British Isles.
4. It will involve a raising of the low tariff of Nova Scotia, and ultimately protection.
To these arguments he afterwards added that a union of such widely scattered provinces was geographically difficult, and that it would arouse the suspicion and hostility of the United States.
These reasons, feeble enough at best, were at least political; unfortunately he had other reasons, deeper and more personal.
There can be no doubt that if he had gone to Charlottetown and Quebec, as one of the delegates, he would have thrown himself heartily into the project, and left his mark on the proposed const.i.tution. It galled him that the Quebec scheme had been completed to the minutest detail, and published to the world, without any a.s.sistance from himself. He soon found that the people of the Maritime Provinces generally were averse to the scheme, and that many were already arrayed in downright opposition to it. What was he to do? He paused for a little. Two courses were open, one n.o.ble, one less n.o.ble. Not only in youth has Hercules' Choice to be made. Stern {140} principle called on him to take one course, a hundred pleasant voices called on the other side.
Was he to be the lieutenant of Dr Tupper, the man who had taken the popular breeze out of his sails, who had politically annihilated him for a time, with whom, too, his contest had been mainly personal, for no great political question had been involved between them; or was he to put himself at the head of old friends and old foes, regain his proper place, and steer the s.h.i.+p in his own fas.h.i.+on? In the circ.u.mstances, only a hero could have done his duty. There are few heroes in the world, and it is doubtful if modern statecraft conduces to make men heroic. And Howe was an egoist. Friends and colleagues had known his weakness before, but had scarce ventured to speak of it in public. In his cabinets he had suffered no rival. To those who submitted he was sweet as summer. He would give everything to or for them, keeping nothing for himself. They might have the pelf if he had the power. Proposals that did not emanate from himself got scant justice in council or caucus. This egoism, which long feeding on popular applause had developed into a vanity almost incomprehensible in one so strong, was not {141} known to the outside world. But now, in his hour of trial, his sin had found him out. The real reason of his opposition was given in his savage words to a friend: 'I will not play second fiddle to that d----d Tupper.'
But the egoist was also 'a bonny fighter.' He flung himself into the fray as wild with excitement as any soldier on a stricken field. With every artifice of the orator he wrought the people of Nova Scotia to madness. It was poor stuff, most of it; coa.r.s.e jokes, recrimination, crowd-catching claptrap. Eighty cents per head of population was, according to the agreement, to be the subsidy from the federal to the provincial government. 'We are sold for the price of a sheep-skin,'
was Howe's slogan on a hundred platforms. Dr Tupper had pa.s.sed a measure, inst.i.tuting compulsory primary education, based on direct local a.s.sessment. In his heart of hearts Howe knew that it was a n.o.ble measure, such as he himself had wished to introduce but dared not; yet he did not scruple to play upon the hatred of the farmer against direct taxation. Instead of rousing, as of old, their love of Nova Scotia till it included all British North America and widened ever outward till the whole Empire was within, he made {142} of it a bitter, selfish thing, localism and provincialism incarnate. Yet as an orator he was supreme.
Darkened so, yet shone Above them all the archangel.
When the ablest speakers on behalf of federation met him on the platform, they were swept away in the blast of his ridicule and his pa.s.sion.
In the midst of it his n.o.bler self shone out again. The Reciprocity Treaty between Canada and the United States, negotiated by Lord Elgin in 1854, had been denounced by the government of the United States. To discuss this action, a great convention of representatives of the Boards of Trade and other commercial bodies of the northern and western States met in Detroit in August 1865, and was visited by Canadian delegates, of whom Howe was one. On the 14th of August he spoke as the representative of the British North American provinces. The audience at first was hostile. Gradually the skill and fire of the orator warmed them. At the last these hundreds of hard-headed business men rose spontaneously to their feet, and, amid tumultuous cheering, by a unanimous standing vote pa.s.sed a resolution recommending the {143} renewal of the treaty. Seldom can orator have won a more signal triumph.
For a time his anti-federation campaign went merrily, and received an impetus from the defeat in 1865 of the pro-federation government of New Brunswick. But Howe reckoned without the unflinching will of Tupper, a political bull-dog with a touch of fox. Though the province was obviously against him, the Conservative leader had a majority in the legislature in his favour. That this majority had been elected on other issues, and that the proper const.i.tutional course was to consult the people, mattered not to him. Here was a big thing to do, and he was not the man to be squeamish on a point of const.i.tutional correctness. He held his majority together by the strong hand. In 1866 he succeeded in getting a resolution pa.s.sed, authorizing the sending of 'delegates to arrange with the Imperial government a scheme of union which will effectively ensure just provisions for the rights and interests of the province.' The Quebec Resolutions were not mentioned, but it was to support the Quebec Resolutions that the delegates went.
Howe also visited London, and endeavoured to sidetrack the federation scheme by a {144} revival of his old idea of an organic union of the Empire with colonial representation in the Imperial parliament. To the pamphlet in which he put forward his views Tupper published a smas.h.i.+ng reply, which consisted solely of extracts from Howe's own previous speeches in favour of British North American union. Against Howe he set Howe, and seldom was an opponent more effectively demolished.
Meanwhile conferences between the representatives of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, presided over by the British secretary of state for the Colonies, wrought out the British North America Act. In March 1867 it became law, and on the 1st of July 1867 it came into force.
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