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diff --git a/24932.txt b/24932.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5be06db --- /dev/null +++ b/24932.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4064 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Tribune of Nova Scotia, by W. L. (William +Lawson) Grant + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Tribune of Nova Scotia + A Chronicle of Joseph Howe + + +Author: W. L. (William Lawson) Grant + + + +Release Date: March 28, 2008 [eBook #24932] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIBUNE OF NOVA SCOTIA*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 24932-h.htm or 24932-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/9/3/24932/24932-h/24932-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/9/3/24932/24932-h.zip) + + +Transcriber's note: + + Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed + in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page + breaks occurred in the original book. For its Index, a page + number has been placed only at the start of that section. + + Footnotes have been renumbered sequentially and moved to the + end of their respective chapters. + + + + + +_Chronicles of Canada_ +Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton +In thirty-two volumes + +26 + +THE TRIBUNE OF NOVA SCOTIA + +by + +WILLIAM LAWSON GRANT + +Part VII +The Struggle for Political Freedom + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: THE TRIBUNE OF NOVA SCOTIA--AFTER A SPEECH IN MASON +HALL. From a colour drawing by C. W. Jefferys] + + + + +THE TRIBUNE OF NOVA SCOTIA + +A Chronicle of Joseph Howe + +by + +WILLIAM LAWSON GRANT + + + + +Toronto +Glasgow, Brook & Company +1915 + +Copyright in all Countries subscribing to the Berne Convention + + + + +{vii} + +PREFACE + +In May-August 1875 my father, the Rev. G. M. Grant, published in the +_Canadian Monthly_ four articles on Joseph Howe, which give, in my +opinion, the best account ever likely to be written of Howe's +character, motives, and influence. Twenty-five years later he had +begun to write for the 'Makers of Canada' a life of Howe, but his death +left this task to Mr Justice Longley. In this he had thought to +incorporate much of his earlier articles, and his copies of them remain +in my hands, with excisions and emendations in his own handwriting. In +the present little book I have not scrupled to embody these portions of +my father's work. + +Howe's speeches and public letters are the basis for any story of his +career. They were originally published in two volumes in Boston in +1858, nominally edited by William Annand, {viii} really by Howe +himself. In 1909 a revised edition, with chapters covering the last +fourteen years of his life, was published at Halifax, excellently +edited by Mr J. A. Chisholm, K.C. The Journals of the Legislative +Council and Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia contain the dispatches +from the Colonial Office quoted in the text. Incidents and anecdotes +have been taken from the biographies by Mr Joseph Fenety and Mr Justice +Longley. I have also consulted the collection of his father's papers +presented to the Canadian Archives by Mr Sydenham Howe, and a +manuscript life of Howe by his old friend the late George Johnson. +Lord Grey, with his invariable interest in things Canadian, has had the +private correspondence of his uncle searched for anything that might +throw light on the railway imbroglio of 1851, but without result. + +W. L. GRANT. + +QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, + KINGSTON, 1914. + + + + +{ix} + +CONTENTS + + Page + + PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii + I. NOVA SCOTIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 + II. BIRTH AND TRAINING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 + III. THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 + IV. THE FIGHT FOR RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT . . . . . . . . 47 + V. RAILWAYS AND IMPERIAL CONSOLIDATION . . . . . . . . 91 + VI. BAFFLED HOPES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 + INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 + + + + +{xi} + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +THE TRIBUNE OF NOVA SCOTIA--AFTER + A SPEECH IN MASON HALL . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ + From a colour drawing by C. W. Jefferys. + +THOMAS CHANDLER HALIBURTON . . . . . . . . . . . . . Facing page 42 + From an engraving in the Dominion Archives. + +SIR JOHN HARVEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " 86 + From a portrait in the John Ross Robertson + Collection, Toronto Public Library. + +JOSEPH HOWE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " 124 + From a painting by T. Debaussy, London, 1857. + Reproduced in Chisholm's 'Speeches and Public + Letters of Joseph Howe.' + +JOSEPH HOWE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " 144 + From a photograph by Notman, taken about 1871. + + + + +{1} + +CHAPTER I + +NOVA SCOTIA + +Joseph Howe was in a very special sense at once the child and the +father of Nova Scotia. His love for his native province was deep and +passionate. He was one in whom her defects and excellences could be +seen in bold outline; one who knew and loved her with unswerving love; +who caught the inspiration of her woods, streams, and shores; and who +gave it back in verses not unmeet, in a thousand stirring appeals to +her people, and in that which is always more heroic than words, namely, +civic action and life-service. 'Joe' Howe was Nova Scotia incarnate. +Once, at a banquet somewhere in England, in responding to the toast of +the colonies, he painted the little province he represented with such +tints that the chairman at the close announced, in half fun, half +earnest, that he intended to pack up his portmanteau that night and +start for Nova Scotia, and he advised all {2} present to do the same. +'You boast of the fertility and beauty of England,' said Howe, in a +tone of calm superiority; 'why, there's one valley in Nova Scotia where +you can ride for fifty miles under apple blossoms.' And, again: 'Talk +of the value of land, I know an acre of rocks near Halifax worth more +than an acre in London. Scores of hardy fishermen catch their +breakfasts there in five minutes, all the year round, and no tillage is +needed to make the production continue equally good for a thousand +years to come.' In a speech at Southampton his description of her +climate was a terse, off-hand statement of facts, true, doubtless, but +scarcely the whole truth. 'I rarely wear an overcoat,' said he, +'except when it rains; an old chief justice died recently in Nova +Scotia at one hundred and three years of age, who never wore one in his +life. Sick regiments invalided to our garrison recover their health +and vigour immediately, and yellow fever patients coming home from the +West Indies walk about in a few days.' 'Boys,' he said on one occasion +to a Nova Scotia audience, 'brag of your country. When I'm abroad I +brag of everything that Nova Scotia is, has, or can produce; and when +they beat me at everything else, I {3} turn round on them and say, "How +high does your tide rise?"' He always had them there--no other country +could match the tides of the Bay of Fundy. He loved and he sang of her +streams and her valleys, her woods and her wild-flowers, most of all of +the 'Mayflower,' the trailing arbutus of early spring, with its fresh +pink petals and its wonderful fragrance, long since adopted as the +provincial emblem. After more than one political fight he retired to +the country for a month or for a year, and there let nature breathe +into his soul her beauty and her calm. Of one such occasion he wrote: +'For a month I did nothing but play with the children and read old +books to my girls. I then went into the woods and called moose with +the old hunters, camping out night after night, listening to their +stories, calming my thoughts with the perfect stillness of the forest, +and forgetting the bitterness of conflict amid the beauties of nature.' + + +But while he was thus the child of Nova Scotia, he was her creator as +well. Early Nova Scotia was rather a collection of scattered little +settlements than a province. To Howe, in great measure, she owed her +unity. + +{4} + +The first settlements in the Acadian peninsula were made by the French, +in the fertile diked lands at the head of the Bay of Fundy. To the +number of six thousand these Acadians were driven out on the eve of the +Seven Years' War, a tragedy told of in Longfellow's _Evangeline_. In +after years many of them crept back to different parts of their beloved +province, and little settlements here and there, from Pubnico in the +south to Cheticamp in the north-west, still speak the speech of Old +France. + +In 1713 the province became British, and in 1749 Halifax was founded by +the British government. From this time on, bands of emigrants from +various countries settled in districts often widely separated, and +established rude farming and fishing communities, very largely +self-contained. Howe knew and loved them all. In one of his speeches +he thus sketched the process: 'A small band of English adventurers, +under Cornwallis, laid the foundation of Halifax. These, at a critical +moment, were reinforced by the Loyalist emigration, which flowed into +our western counties and laid broad and deep the foundation of their +prosperity. A few hardy emigrants from the old colonies and their {5} +descendants built up the maritime county of Yarmouth. Two men of that +stock first discovered the value of Locke's Island, the commercial +centre of East Shelburne. A few hundreds of sturdy Germans peopled the +beautiful county of Lunenburg. A handful of emigrants from Yorkshire +gave animation to the county of Cumberland. The vale of Colchester has +been made to blossom as the rose by the industry of a few adventurers +from the north of Ireland. Half a century ago a few poor but pious +Lowland Scotsmen penetrated into Pictou. They were followed by a few +hundreds of Highlanders, many of them "evicted" from the Duchess of +Sutherland's estates. Look at Pictou now, with its beautiful river +slopes and fertile mountain settlements, its one hundred schools, its +numerous churches and decent congregations, its productive mines and +thirty thousand inhabitants, living in comfort and abundance. The +picture rises like magic before the eye, and yet every cheerful tint +and feature has been supplied by emigration. At the last election it +was said that two hundred and seventy Frasers voted in that county--all +of them heads of families and proprietors of land. I doubt if as many +of the same name {6} can be found in all Scotland who own real +estate.'[1] + +Thus the little settlements gradually expanded into prosperous fishing +and farming communities, on the statistics of whose steadily growing +exports and imports Howe loved to dwell. But they long lacked a common +consciousness, and no man did so much to knit them together as Howe. +Germans of Lunenburg, New Englanders of Annapolis and Cornwallis, +Loyalists of Shelburne, Scottish Presbyterians of Pictou, Scottish +Roman Catholics of Antigonish, French of Tracadie and Cheticamp, and +Irish of Halifax, all learned from him to be Nova Scotians and to 'brag +of their country.' The chief influences making for union were the +growth of roads, the growth of political discussion, and the growth of +newspapers; and to all three Howe contributed. Both as politician and +as editor he toured the province from end to end, walked, drove, or +rode along the country lanes, and in learning to love its every nook +and cranny taught its people their duty to one another and to the +province. In those days when there were few highways, and bridle-paths +were dignified with the name of roads; {7} when the fishermen and +farmers along the coast did their business with Halifax by semi-annual +visits in their boats or smacks; when the postmen carried Her Majesty's +mail to Annapolis in a queer little gig that could accommodate one +passenger; when the mail to Pictou and the Gulf of St Lawrence was +stowed away in one of the great-coat pockets of a sturdy pedestrian, +who kept the other pocket free for the partridges he shot on the way, +we can fancy what an event in any part of the province the appearance +of Joe Howe must have been. + +Halifax, the capital, where Howe was born, engrossed most of the social +and political life of the province; in fact, it _was_ the province. +The only other port in Nova Scotia proper that vessels could enter with +foreign produce was Pictou. A few Halifax merchants did all the trade. +Halifax was an old city, as colonial cities count. It was near Great +Britain as compared with Quebec, Kingston, or Toronto; much nearer, +relatively, then than now. The harbour was open all the year round, +giving unbroken communication with the mother country. Halifax had a +large garrison, and it was the summer headquarters of the North +American fleet. On these and other accounts {8} it seemed to be the +most desirable place for a British gentleman to settle in, and many +accordingly did settle in it. Their children entered the Army or Navy +or Civil Service, and many distinguished themselves highly. + +Halifax was essentially a naval and military town. As such it was +proud of its great traditions. It was into Halifax Harbour, on +Whitsunday 1813, just as the bells were calling to church, that the +_Shannon_ towed the _Chesapeake_. Captain Broke had been wounded and +the first lieutenant killed, and the _Shannon_ was commanded by a +Halifax boy, her second lieutenant. Of these glories no one was +prouder than Howe. 'On some of the hardest fought fields of the +Peninsula,' he said, 'my countrymen died in the front rank, with their +faces to the foe. The proudest naval trophy of the last American war +was brought by a Nova Scotian into the harbour of his native town; and +the blood that flowed from Nelson's death-wound in the cockpit of the +_Victory_ mingled with that of a Nova Scotian stripling beside him, +struck down in the same glorious fight.'[2] + +On summer nights the whole population turned out to hear the regimental +band. One of the great functions of the week was the {9} Sunday church +parade of the garrison to St Paul's Church, which had been built in the +year of the founding of the city. On these occasions the scarlet and +ermine of the chief justice vied in splendour with the gold lace of the +admiral and of the general. Whether this was altogether good for the +town may be doubted. It gave the young men of civilian families a +tendency to ape the military classes and to despise business. The +private soldiers and non-commissioned officers, with little to do in +the piping times of peace, took to the dissipations of the garrison +town. Drunkenness was common, though not more so than in the England +of that day. 'I ask you,' said Howe in his first great speech, 'if +ever you knew a town of the size and respectability of Halifax where +the peace was worse preserved? Scarcely a night passes that there are +not cries of murder in the upper streets; scarcely a day that there are +not two or three fights upon the wharves.' + +Yet along with the drink and the snobbishness went much of finer grain. +Many of the British officers brought traditions and standards of social +life and of culture sometimes lacking in the Canada of to-day. At the +dinner-tables of Halifax in the early nineteenth {10} century, when the +merchant aristocracy dined the officers, the standard of manners was +often high and the range of the conversation wide. + +From the rest of British North America Nova Scotia was cut off by +hundreds of miles of tumbled, lake-studded rock and hill. Its +intercourse with the outer world was wholly by sea. The larger loyalty +was to England across the Atlantic. It was by sea that Halifax traded +with St John and Boston and Portland, which were a hundred times better +known in Nova Scotia than were Montreal and Toronto. The staple trade +of the merchants was with the West Indies, to which they sent fish and +coal and lumber, receiving in return sugar and rum and molasses. Most +of this sea-borne commerce centred at Halifax, rather to the detriment +of the rest of the province, for from Halifax inland the ways were +rough and difficult. But gradually the other coast towns won their +privileges and became ports of entry. At Pictou, especially, the +industry of building wooden ships grew up, which, until knocked on the +head by the use of iron and steel, made Nova Scotian industry known on +every sea, and gave her in the fifties a larger tonnage than all the +other British colonies combined. + + + +[1] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, p. 177. + +[2] See _The War with the United States_, chap. v. + + + + +{11} + +CHAPTER II + +BIRTH AND TRAINING + +Howe was born on the 13th of December 1804, in an old-fashioned cottage +on the steep hill that rises up from the city side of the Northwest Arm, +a beautiful inlet of the sea stealing up from the entrance of the harbour +for three or four miles into the land behind the city of Halifax. A +'lawn with oak-trees round the edges,' a little garden and orchard with +apple and cherry trees, surrounded the house. Behind, sombre pine-groves +shut it out from the world, and in front, at the foot of the hillside, +the cheery waters of the 'Arm' ebbed and flowed in beauty. On the other +side of the water, which is not much more than a quarter of a mile wide, +rose knolls clothed with almost every native variety of wood, and bare +rocky hills, with beautiful little bays sweeping round their feet and +quiet coves eating in here and there. A vast country, covered with +boulders and dotted with lovely lakes, stretched {12} far beyond. Amid +these surroundings the boy grew up, and his love of nature grew with him. +In later years he was never tired of praising the 'Arm's enchanted +ground,' while for the Arm itself his feelings were those of a lover for +his mistress. Here is a little picture he recalls to his sister Jane's +memory in after days: + + Not a cove but still retaineth + Wavelets that we loved of yore, + Lightly up the rock-weeds lifting, + Gently murmuring o'er the sand; + Like romping girls each other chasing, + Ever brilliant, ever shifting, + Interlaced and interlacing, + Till they sink upon the strand. + + +In his boyish days he haunted these shores, giving to them every hour he +could snatch from school or work. He became very fond of the water, and +was always much at home in it. He loved the trees and the flowers; but +naturally enough, as a healthy boy should, he loved swimming, rowing, +skating, lobster-spearing by torch-light, or fishing, much more. He +himself describes these years: + + The rod, the gun, the spear, the oar, + I plied by lake and sea-- + Happy to swim from shore to shore, + Or rove the woodlands free. + +In the summer months he went to a school in {13} the city, taught by a Mr +Bromley on Lancaster's system. 'What kind of a boy was Joe?' was asked +of an old lady who had gone to school with him sixty years before. 'Why, +he was a regular dunce; he had a big nose, a big mouth, and a great big +ugly head; and he used to chase me to death on my way home from school,' +was her ready answer. It is easy to picture the eager, ugly, bright-eyed +boy, fonder of a frolic with the girls than of Dilworth's spelling-book. +He never had a very handsome face; his features were not chiselled, and +the mould was not Grecian. Face and features were Saxon; the eyes light +blue, and full of kindly fun. In after years, when he filled and rounded +out, he had a manly open look, illumined always as by sunlight for his +friends, and a well-proportioned, 'buirdly' form, that well entitled him +to the name of man in Queen Elizabeth's full sense of the word. And when +his face glowed with the inspiration that burning thoughts and words +impart, and his great deep chest swelled and broadened, he looked noble +indeed. His old friends describe him as having been a splendid-looking +fellow in his best days; while old foes just as honestly assure you that +he always had a 'common' look. It is easy {14} to understand that both +impressions of him could be justifiably entertained. Very decided merits +of expression were needed to compensate for the total absence of beard +and for the white face, into which only strong excitement brought any +glow of colour. + +Howe was fortunate in his father. John Howe was a Loyalist, of Puritan +stock which had come to Massachusetts in the seventeenth century. When +the American Revolution broke out, alone of his family he was true to the +British flag. Many years afterwards his son told a Boston audience that +his father 'learned the printing business in this city. He had just +completed his apprenticeship, and was engaged to a very pretty girl, when +the Revolution broke out. He saw the battle of Bunker's Hill from one of +the old houses here; he nursed the wounded when it was over. Adhering to +the British side, he was driven out at the evacuation, and retired to +Newport, where his betrothed followed him. They were married there, and +afterwards settled at Halifax. He left all his household goods and gods +behind him, carrying away nothing but his principles and the pretty girl.' + +In politics John Howe was a high Tory; in religion a dissenter of the +dissenters, {15} belonging to a small sect known as Sandemanians. But +neither narrow orthodoxy in politics nor narrow heterodoxy in religion +can hide from us the noble, self-less character of Joe Howe's father. No +matter how early in the morning his son might get up, if there was any +light in the eastern sky, there was the old gentleman sitting at the +window, the Bible on his knee. On Sunday mornings he would start early +to meet the little flock to whom for many years he preached in an upper +room, not as an ordained minister, but as a brother who had gifts--who +could expound the Word in a strain of simple eloquence. Puritan in +character, in faith, and in devotion to a simple ritual, he gave token +that the Puritan organ of combativeness was not undeveloped in him. As a +magistrate, also, he doubtless believed that the sword should not be +borne in vain; and being an unusually tall, stately man, possessing +immense physical strength, he could not have been pleasant in the eyes of +law-breakers. The story is told that one Sunday afternoon, as Mr Howe +was walking homewards, Bible under his arm, Joe trotting by his side, +they came upon two men fighting out their little differences. The old +gentleman sternly commanded them to desist, but, very {16} naturally, +they only paused long enough to answer him with raillery. 'Hold my +Bible, Joe,' said his father. Taking hold of each of the combatants by +the neck, and swinging them to and fro as if they were a couple of noisy +newspaper boys, he bumped their heads together two or three times; then, +with a lunge from the left shoulder, followed by another from the right, +he sent them staggering off, till brought up by the ground some twenty or +thirty feet apart. 'Now, lads,' calmly remarked the mighty magistrate to +the prostrate twain, 'let this be a lesson to you not to break the +Sabbath in future'; and, taking his Bible under his arm, he and Joe +resumed their walk homewards, the little fellow gazing up with a new +admiration on the slightly flushed but always beautiful face of his +father. As boy or man, the son never wrote or spoke of him but with +reverence. 'For thirty years,' he once said, 'he was my instructor, my +play-fellow, almost my daily companion. To him I owe my fondness for +reading, my familiarity with the Bible, my knowledge of old Colonial and +American incidents and characteristics. He left me nothing but his +example and the memory of his many virtues, for all that he ever earned +was given to the poor. He was {17} too good for this world; but the +remembrance of his high principles, his cheerfulness, his childlike +simplicity and truly Christian character, is never absent from my mind.' +It was John Howe's practice for years 'to take his Bible under his arm +every Sunday afternoon, and, assembling around him in the large room all +the prisoners in the Bridewell, to read and explain to them the Word of +God. . . . Many were softened by his advice and won by his example; and +I have known him to have them, when their time had expired, sleeping +unsuspected beneath his roof, until they could get employment in the +country.' So testified his son concerning him in Halifax. When too old +to do any regular work, he often visited the houses of the poor and +infirm in the city and beyond Dartmouth, filling his pockets at a +grocer's with packages of tea and sugar before setting out on his +expeditions. + + +After the Revolution Great Britain was not regardless of her exiled +children. She treated the Loyalists with a liberality far exceeding that +of the United States to the war-worn soldiers of Washington. John Howe +was rewarded with the offices of King's Printer, and {18} +Postmaster-General of Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, New +Brunswick, and the Bermudas. But in spite of these high-sounding titles, +the family income was small, and all the economies of Joe's mother--his +father's second wife, a shrewd practical Nova Scotian widow--could not +stretch it very far. At the age of thirteen young Joe was told that he +must go to work. His eldest brother had succeeded to his father's +positions, and into the printing-office the boy was sent. He began at +the lowest rung of the ladder, learned his trade from the bottom upwards, +sweeping out the office, delivering the _Gazette_, and doing all the +multitudinous errands and jobs of printer's boy before he attained to the +dignity of setting up type. 'So you're the devil,' said a judge to him +on one occasion when the boy was called on as a witness. 'Yes, sir, in +the office, but not in the Court House,' he at once answered, with a look +and gesture that threw the name back on his lordship, to the great +amusement of all present. + +His education went on while he learned his trade. The study of books, +talks in the long evenings with his father, and intimate loving communion +with nature, all contributed to {19} build up his character. While he +read everything he could lay hold of, the Bible and Shakespeare were his +great teachers. He knew these thoroughly, and to his intimate +acquaintance with them he owed that pure well of English undefiled which +streamed with equal readiness from his lips and his pen. His taste was +formed on English classics, not on cheap novels. His knowledge, not only +of the great highways of English literature, but of its nooks, corners, +and byways, was singularly thorough. In after years it could easily be +seen in his speeches that his knowledge was not of the kind that is +crammed for the occasion. It flowed from him without effort, and gave a +charm to his ordinary conversation. Though living in the city during his +teens, he spent as much of his time at home as he possibly could. He +loved the woods, and as he seldom got away from work on a week day, he +often spent Sundays among the trees in preference to attending the +terribly long-drawn-out Sandemanian service. + +His apprenticeship itself was a process of self-education. He worked the +press from morn till night, and found in the dull metal the knowledge and +the power he loved. One woman--a relative--taught him French. With {20} +other women, who were attracted by his brightness, he read the early +English dramatists and the more modern poets, especially Campbell, Mrs +Hemans, and Byron. He delighted in fun and frolic and sports of all +kinds, and was at the head of everything. But amid all his reading and +his companionships elsewhere, he never forgot home. He would go out to +it in the evening, as often as he could, and after a long swim in the Arm +would spend the night with his father. One evening his love for home +saved him from drowning. Running out from town and down to the water +below the house, he plunged in as usual, but, when a little distance out +from shore, was seized with cramp. The remedies in such a case--to kick +vigorously or throw oneself on one's back and float--are just the +remedies a man feels utterly unable at the time to try. He was alone and +drowning when, his eye being turned at the moment to the cottage upon the +hillside, he saw the candle for the night just being placed on the +window-sill. The light arrested him, and 'there will be sorrow there +to-morrow when I'm missed' passed through his mind. The thought made him +give so fierce a kick that he fairly kicked the cramp out of his leg. A +few strokes {21} brought him to the shore, where he sank down utterly +exhausted with excitement. + +Had he been anything of a coward, this experience would have kept him +from solitary swims for the rest of his life. But he was too fond of the +water to give it up so easily. When working in after years at his own +paper, midnight often found him at the desk or at the press. After such +toil most young men would have gone upstairs (for he lived above his +office then) and thrown themselves on their beds, all tired and soiled +with ink; but for six or seven months in the year his practice was to +throw off his apron and run down to the market slip, and soon the moon or +the stars saw him bobbing like a wild duck in the harbour. Cleaned, +braced in nerve, and all aglow, he would run back again, and be sleeping +the sleep of the just ten minutes after. When tired with literary or +political work, a game of rackets always revived him. There was not a +better player in Halifax, civilian or military. To his latest days he +urged boys to practise manly sports and exercises of all kinds. + +Such a boy, fond of communing with nature, with young blood running riot +in his veins, and with wild vague ideals and passions intertwined in his +heart, inevitably took to writing {22} poetry. But though he had the +poet's heart, he had not the concentration of the great poet. All +through his life he loved to string together verses, grave and gay. Some +of his pasquinades are very clever; some of his serious verse is +mellifluous enough; but as a poet he is not even a minor bard. Yet one +of his early effusions, named _Melville Island_, written when he was +twenty, was not without influence on his future. Such was its merit that +Sir Brenton Halliburton, a very grand old gentleman indeed, went out of +his way to compliment the lad and to advise him to cultivate his powers. +The few words of praise from a man deservedly respected roused in Howe +the high resolve to make letters his career. He deluged the local +newspapers with prose and verse, much of which was accepted. In 1827, +when just twenty-three years of age, he and another lad bought the +_Weekly Chronicle_, and changed its name to the _Acadian_, with Howe as +editor-in-chief. Before the year had ended his young ambition urged him +to sell out to his partner and to buy a larger and more ambitious paper, +the _Nova Scotian_, into possession of which he entered in January 1828. +To find the purchase-money he did not hesitate to go deeply into debt. + +{23} + +In the same month he added to his responsibilities and his happiness by +his marriage with Catharine Susan Ann Macnab. Men's wives bulk less +largely in their biographies than in their lives. Mrs Howe's sweetness +and charm were an unfailing strength to her husband. She moderated his +extravagance, and bore cheerfully with his habit, so trying to a +housekeeper, of filling the house with his friends at all hours and at +every meal. Above all, she never nagged, or said 'I told you so.' She +believed in him and in his work, and cheered him in his hours of +depression. A man of such buoyant feelings, with such charm of manner, +was quick to feel the attractions of the bright eyes of the pretty Nova +Scotian girls. Many a wife would have taken deep offence at her +husband's numerous but superficial flirtations, but Mrs Howe knew better; +and when in 1840 he was called out to fight a duel, he could say with +truth, in a letter which he wrote to her, and which he entrusted to a +friend to be delivered in case he should not return: 'I cannot trust +myself to write what I feel. You had my boyish heart, and have shared my +love and entire confidence up to this hour.' + + +Thus in January 1828 Howe found himself {24} with a wife to support and a +newspaper to establish. He had to fight with his own hand, and to fight +single-handed. When he commenced, he had not 'a single individual, with +one exception, capable of writing a paragraph, upon whom he could fall +back.' He had to do all himself: to report the debates in the House of +Assembly and important trials in the courts, to write the local items as +well as the editorials, to prepare digests of British, foreign, and +colonial news; in a word, to 'run the whole machine.' He wrote +voluminous descriptions of every part of the province that he visited, +under the title of 'Eastern and Western Ramblings.' Those rambles laid +the foundation of much of his future political power and popularity. He +became familiar not only with the province and the character and extent +of its resources, but also with every nook and corner of the popular +heart. He graduated with honours at the only college he ever +attended--what he called 'the best of colleges--a farmer's fireside.' He +was admirably qualified physically and socially for this kind of life. +He didn't know that he had a digestion, and was ready to eat anything and +to sleep anywhere. These were strong points in his favour; for in the +{25} hospitable countryside of Nova Scotia, if a visitor does not eat a +Benjamin's portion, the good woman of the house suspects that he does not +like the food, and that he is pining for the dainties of the city. He +would talk farm, fish, or horse with the people as readily as politics or +religion. He made himself, or rather he really felt, equally at home in +the fisherman's cabin or the log-house of the new settler as with the +substantial farmer or well-to-do merchant; he would kiss the women, +remember all about the last sickness of the baby, share the jokes of the +men and the horse-play of the lads, and be popular with all alike. He +came along fresh, hearty, healthy, full of sunlight, brimming over with +news, fresh from contact with the great people in Halifax,--yet one of +the plain people, hailing them Tom and Jack, and as happy with them as if +in the king's palace. 'Joe Howe came to our house last night,' bragged a +little girl as she skipped along to school next morning; 'he kissed mamma +and kissed me too.' The familiarity was seldom rebuked, for his +heartiness was contagious. He was as full of jokes as a pedlar, and had +as few airs. A brusqueness of manner and coarseness of speech, which was +partly natural, became thus {26} ingrained in him, and party struggles +subsequently coarsened his moral fibre. From this absence of refinement +flowed a lack of perception of the fitting that often made him speak +loosely, even when men and women were by to whom such a style gave +positive pain. No doubt much of his coarseness, like that of every +humorist, was based on honesty and hatred of shams. When he saw silly +peacocks strutting about and trying to fill the horizon with their tails, +he could not help ruffling their feathers and making them scream, were it +only to let the world know how unmelodious were their voices. It was +generally in the presence of prudes that he referred to unnamable things; +and he most affected low phrases when he talked to very superfine people. +Still, the vein of coarseness was in him, like the baser stuffs in the +ores of precious metals; but his literary taste kept his writings pure. + +From his twenty-third to his thirty-first year his education went on in +connection with his editorial and other professional work. He became +intimate with the leading men in the town. He had trusty friends all +over the country. His paper and he were identified as paper and editor +have seldom been. All correspondence was addressed, not to an {27} +unknown figure of vast, ill-defined proportions called Mr Editor, but +simply to Joseph Howe. Even when it was known that he was absent in +Europe, the country correspondence always came, and was published in the +old way: + +'Mr Joseph Howe, Sir----.' He cordially welcomed literary talent of all +kinds, giving every man full swing on his own hobby, and changing rapidly +from grave to gay, from lively to severe. He cultivated from the first +the journalistic spirit of giving fair play in his columns to both sides, +even when one of the sides was the editor or the proprietor. After he +entered the House of Assembly, the speeches of opponents were as fully +and promptly reported as his own. Able men--and the province could boast +then of an extraordinary number of really able men--gathered round him or +sent contributions to the paper, while from all parts of the country came +correspondence, telling Mr Howe what was going on. As he began to feel +his powers, and to know that he had power in reserve; to hold his own +with older and better educated men; and to taste the sweets of popular +applause, that fame which he, like all young poets, had affected to +despise appeared beautiful and beckoned him onwards. He loved his +country from the first, and, as it responded to {28} him, that love +increased, until it became one of his chief objects to excite in the +bosoms of the people the attachment to the soil that gave them birth, +which is the fruitful parent of the virtues of every great nation. + +To promote this object he made sacrifices. He published, between 1828 +and 1839, ten volumes, connected with the history, the law, and the +literature of the province, often at his own risk. Another of his +literary enterprises was the formation of 'The Club,' a body composed of +a number of friends who met in Howe's house, discussed the questions of +the day, and planned literary sketches, afterwards published in the _Nova +Scotian_. Among those who thus gathered round him, such men as S. G. W. +Archibald, Beamish Murdoch, and Jotham Blanchard are now only remembered +by students of Nova Scotian history. Even the Irish wit and humour of +Laurence O'Connor Doyle gives him but a local immortality. But the names +of Thomas C. Haliburton (Sam Slick) and Captain John Kincaid of the Rifle +Brigade are known even to superficial students of English literature, and +no two men were more regular members of 'The Club.' + +Literary rambles and literary sketches were {29} all very well, but what +really roused enthusiasm in those days was the political struggle. +'Poetry was the maiden I loved,' said Howe in after years, 'but politics +was the harridan I married.' In the early nineteenth century aristocracy +and democracy, alike in politics and in society, were fighting their +battle all over Europe, and the struggle had spread to the British +colonies. In the first year of his editorship Howe had a little brush +with the lieutenant-governor and his circle, but not for some time did +the crisis come. On the 1st of January 1835 an anonymous letter appeared +in the _Nova Scotian_ criticizing the financial administration of the +city of Halifax and impugning the integrity of its administrators. Howe +as editor was responsible. With his trial for criminal libel, and his +speech in his defence, his real political life begins. + + + + +{30} + +CHAPTER III + +THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM + +To understand the system of government which Howe assailed, we must go +back to the very origin of the British colonies. In the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries an exaggerated importance was attached to money +as such. A dollar's worth of gold or silver was held to be of more +value than a dollar's worth of grain or timber; not merely more +convenient, or more portable, or more easily exchangeable, but +absolutely of more value. A country was supposed to be rich in +proportion to the amount of money or bullion which it possessed. At +first the only colonies prized were those which, like the Spanish, sent +bullion to the mother country. Later on, when it was found that +bullion need not be brought directly into a country, but might come in +the course of trade, this exaggerated belief in money compelled the +mother country so to regulate the trade of the colonies as to {31} +increase her stores of bullion. To keep as much money as possible +within the Empire the colonies were compelled to buy their manufactures +in the mother country, and as far as possible to restrict their +productions to such raw materials as she herself could not produce, and +which she would otherwise be compelled to buy from the foreigner. In +carrying out this policy the mother country did her best to be fair; +the relation was not so much selfish as maternal. If the colonies were +restricted in some ways, they were encouraged in others. If, for +example, Virginia was forbidden manufactures, her tobacco was admitted +into Great Britain at a lower rate of duty than that of Spain or other +foreign countries, and tobacco-growing in England was forbidden +altogether. + +This system, which was embodied in a series of Acts known as Acts of +Trade, or Navigation Acts, did not, in the state of development they +had reached, hurt the colonies. In some ways it was actually of +advantage to them. A new country, with cheap land and dear labour, +must always devote itself mainly to the production of raw materials, +and to many of these colonial raw materials Great Britain gave a +preference or bounties. At the same {32} time, as was only natural, +the tendency was for the colonies to look on the advantages as no more +than their due, and on the restrictions as selfish and unjustifiable. + +Though attempting thus to regulate the economic development of the +colonies, the mother country paid little attention to their political +growth. There was indeed in each colony a governor, sent out from +England, and a Council, which was supposed to help him in legislation +and in government; but more and more power passed, with but little +resistance from Great Britain, into the hands of an Assembly elected by +the people of the colony. As one Loyalist wrote of them, the Assembly +soon discovered 'that themselves were the substance, and the Governor +and Board of Council were shadows in their political frame.' + +At the American Revolution the revolutionary leaders were, in the main, +men of the people, trained in political arts and eloquence in these +local assemblies; their complaints against the mother country were, in +part at least, against her restrictive colonial system. Hence, after +the winning of American independence, when the mother country +endeavoured to draw lessons from her defeat, it {33} appeared to her +statesmen that the colonies had been lost through too much political +democracy in them and too much economic control by her. Thus after the +Revolution we find a series of favours given to colonial trade. The +timber trade and the shipbuilding of Nova Scotia were aided by bounties +and preferential duties. Her commerce was still largely with Great +Britain, where she purchased manufactured articles, though even here +certain concessions were made; but so important were the favours +considered that not even Howe thought the control a grievance, and when +in 1846-49 Great Britain inaugurated free trade and put the colonies +upon their own feet, Nova Scotians, while not despairing as openly as +did the people of Montreal, yet thought it a very great blow indeed. + +While conferring these favours, Great Britain exercised a growing +control over Nova Scotian political affairs. The Assembly, granted in +1758, was indeed retained, but a restraining hand was kept on it by the +Colonial Office in London, through the governor and the Council. An +attempt was made to combine representative and irresponsible +government. The House of Assembly might talk, and raise money, but it +did not control the expenditure, the {34} patronage, or the +administration, and it could neither make nor unmake the ministry. The +more important House was the Council, which consisted of twelve +gentlemen appointed by the king, and holding their offices practically +for life. This body was at once the Upper House of the Legislature, +corresponding to our present Senate, and the Executive or Cabinet. It +was also to a certain extent a judicial body, being the Supreme Court +of Divorce for the province. It sat with closed doors, admitting no +responsibility to the people. Yet no bill could pass but by its +consent. It discharged all the functions of government; all patronage +was vested in it. It might do these things ill; its administration +might be condemned by every one of the representatives of the people; +but its authority remained unaffected. + +In this Council sat the heads of departments, as they do in our modern +Cabinet. They were appointed in and by Great Britain, and helped to +control the commercial policy. Another member was the bishop of the +Anglican Church, for the seemly ceremonies and graded orders of clergy +of this body were deemed to be a counterpoise to popular vagaries and +vulgarity. Prior to the American Revolutionary War there had been no +colonial bishopric; {35} three years after its close the first bishop +of Nova Scotia was appointed. + +Owing to the favour shown to this Church, education long remained +almost entirely in its hands, and to the political struggle an element +of religious bitterness was added. King's College at Windsor, at first +the only institution of higher learning in the province, was not open +to any person who should 'frequent the Romish mass, or the meeting +houses of Presbyterians, Baptists, or Methodists, or the conventicles +or places of worship of any other dissenters from the Church of +England, or where divine service shall not be performed according to +the liturgy of the Church of England.' It is true that the Church +enjoyed no rights which she did not at the time enjoy in England, and +that King's College was less illiberal than were the Universities of +Oxford and Cambridge; but the circumstances were widely different. In +England the Anglicans comprised the bulk of the people, and almost the +whole of the cultivated and leisured classes; in Nova Scotia they were +in the minority. Yet when, in 1820 and again in 1838, an attempt was +made to found Dalhousie College at Halifax on a more liberal basis, the +opposition of {36} the Church of England led to the failure of the +scheme. + +In the Council the chief justice had a seat. As a member of the +Legislature he made the law; as one of the Executive he administered +the law; and as judge he interpreted the law. + +But the most potent element in the Council was for some time the +bankers. Early in the nineteenth century, when there was no bank in +the province, the government had issued notes, for the redemption of +which the revenues of the province were pledged. In 1825 some of the +more important merchants founded a bank, and issued notes payable in +gold, silver, or provincial paper. The Halifax Banking Company, as +this institution was called, was simply a private company, with no +charter from the province, and that it was allowed to issue notes is an +instance of the easy-going ways of those early days. No less than five +of its partners were members of the Council. Thus the state of affairs +for some years was that there was but one bank in the province, that +its notes were redeemable in provincial paper, and that the Council was +largely composed of its directors, who could order the province to +print as much paper as they wished! + +The Halifax Banking Company was of {37} great benefit to the provincial +merchants, and, though its partners made large profits, there is no +proof that they abused their position on the Council to aid them in +business. But the general feeling in the province was one of +suspicion, and the combination of financial and legislative monopoly +was certainly dangerous. Soon some other citizens endeavoured to found +another bank and to have it regularly incorporated by provincial +charter, with the proviso that all paper money issued by it should be +redeemable in coin. The directors of the Halifax Banking Company +fought this proposal fiercely, both in business circles and in the +Council, arguing that as the balance of trade was against Nova Scotia, +there would rarely be enough 'hard money' in the province to redeem the +notes outstanding. In 1832, however, popular clamour forced the +legislature to grant its charter to the second bank, the Bank of Nova +Scotia. The Halifax Banking Company[1] also continued to do a +flourishing business, and during the struggle of Howe and his +fellow-reformers against the Council, the influence of its partners was +one of the chief causes of complaint. + +{38} + +Thus the Council comprised the leaders in Church and State, among them +the chief lawyers and business men. These formed the 'Society' of +Halifax, and to them were added the government officials, who were +usually appointed from England. Some of the latter were men of honour +and energy, but others were mere placemen in need of a job. When the +famous Countess of Blessington wished to aid one of her impecunious +Irish relations, she had only to give a smile and a few soft words to +the Duke of Wellington, and her scape-grace brother found himself +quartered for life upon the revenues of Nova Scotia. Charles Duller, +in his pamphlet _Mr Mother Country of the Colonial Office_, hardly +exaggerated when he said that 'the patronage of the Colonial Office is +the prey of every hungry department of our government. On it the Horse +Guards quarters its worn-out general officers as governors; the +Admiralty cribs its share; and jobs which even parliamentary rapacity +would blush to ask from the Treasury are perpetrated with impunity in +the silent realm of Mr Mother Country. O'Connell, we are told, after +very bluntly informing Mr Ruthven that he had committed a fraud which +would forever unfit him for the society of gentlemen {39} at home, +added, in perfect simplicity and kindness of heart, that if he would +comply with his wishes and cease to contest Kildare, he might probably +be able to get some appointment for him in the colonies.' + +When the governor came out entirely ignorant of colonial conditions he +naturally fell under the influence of those with whom he dined, and as +all dealings with the British government were carried on through him, +the Council and the officials had by this means the ear of the Colonial +Office. An office-holding oligarchy thus grew up, with traditions and +prestige, and known, as in Upper Canada, by the name of the 'Family +Compact.' Nowhere did this system seem so strong as in Nova Scotia; +nowhere did its leaders show so much ability or a higher sense of +honour; nowhere did they endeavour to govern the province in so liberal +a spirit. Yet it was fundamentally un-British, and it was to be +completely overthrown by the attack of a printer's boy turned editor. + +The leaders of the Family Compact in Nova Scotia were not only men of +ability and integrity, they had also a reasoned theory of government. +Their ablest exponent of this theory and the stoutest defender of the +old {40} system was Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Howe's lifelong +personal friend and political antagonist. + +Haliburton was at once a scholar and a wit. In 1829 Howe published for +him his _Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia_, a work +which, in spite of its mistakes, may still be read with profit. In +1836-37 a series of sketches appeared in the _Nova Scotian_, which were +reprinted with the title of _The Clockmaker; or the Sayings and Doings +of Sam Slick of Slickville_. These were issued in volume form in 1837, +and took by storm the English-speaking world. The book has no plot. +It tells how the author and his friend Sam, a shrewd vulgar Down-East +Yankee, ride up and down the province discoursing on anything and +everything. Shrewd, kindly, humorous, with an unfailing eye for a +pretty woman or a good horse, selling his clocks by 'a mixture of soft +sawder and human natur',' so keen on a trade that he will make a bad +bargain rather than none at all, yet so knowing that he almost always +comes out ahead, Sam is real to the finger-tips. From Haliburton flows +the great stream of American dialect humour. Mark Twain, Artemus Ward, +and a dozen others, all trace their descent from him. + +{41} + +But Haliburton's real object was intensely serious. He desired to +awake Nova Scotians from their lethargy. 'How much it is to be +regretted,' he wrote, 'that, laying aside personal attacks and petty +jealousies, they would not unite as one man, and with one mind and one +heart apply themselves sedulously to the internal improvement and +development of this beautiful province. Its value is utterly unknown, +either to the general or local government.' It is in his writings that +we find the best exposition and defence of the 'Compact' theory of +government. + +'Responsible Government,' says Haliburton, 'is responsible nonsense.' +Some one must be supreme, and as between colony and mother country, it +must be the latter. The governor is sent out by the Colonial Office, +and to that office he must be responsible. Were he responsible to his +ministers or to the local House of Assembly, he might have to act in a +way displeasing to the mother country, and subordination would be at an +end. Responsible Government is a form of government only fit for an +independent country. It is incompatible with the colonial status. + +But not only was Responsible Government impossible for a colony; it +would, in any case, {42} be a bad system for Nova Scotia, because it +would be too democratic. A wise constitution must be, like that of +Great Britain, composed of various elements. Such a mixed constitution +Nova Scotia had. The governor contributed a bit of Monarchy, the +Council a bit of Aristocracy, the Assembly a bit of Democracy. All had +thus their fair share. Under Responsible Government, with all power in +the hands of the Legislative Assembly, the balance would be overthrown +and the democracy would be supreme. To Haliburton, control by the +democracy meant control by the crafty, self-seeking professional +politician, as he saw him, or thought he saw him, in the neighbouring +United States. The people, well meaning, but ignorant and greedy, were +at the mercy of the appeals to prejudice and pocket of these wily +knaves. Government should be the affair of the enlightened minority, +placed, as far as might be, in a position of security and freedom from +temptation. This government would not be perfect, for 'power has a +natural tendency to corpulency,' but it would be far superior to an +unbridled democracy. + +[Illustration: THOMAS CHANDLER HALIBURTON. From an engraving in the +Dominion Archives] + +Speaking of the tree of Liberty, which had grown so splendidly in the +United States, {43} Haliburton makes an American say to Sam: 'The mobs +have broken in and torn down the fences, and snapped off the branches, +and scattered all the leaves about, and it looks no better than a +gallows tree.' Let the people attend to business, build their +railways, develop their water-powers, their farms, and their forests, +secure under the fostering care of the select few. 'I guess if they'd +talk more of _rotations_ and less of _elections_, more of them ar +_dykes_ and less of _banks_, and attend more to _top-dressing_ and less +to _re-dressing_, it 'ed be better for 'em. . . . Members in general +ain't to be depended on, I tell you. Politics makes a man as crooked +as a pack does a pedlar, not that they are so awful heavy, neither, but +it teaches a man to stoop in the long run.' + +Such, then, was the system and theory of government in Nova Scotia. +Well defended as it was, it had one fundamentally weak point: the +people of Nova Scotia did not want it. Howe had no great regard for +the professional politician, whether in the legislature or in the +village store. 'Rum and politics are the two curses of Nova Scotia,' +he said. But he saw that it would be absurd to tell the people to let +well enough alone, when, rightly or wrongly, {44} they were +discontented with their government. The way to put an end to hectic +agitation was not to curse or to satirize poor human nature, but to +remove the cause of the agitation. + +From early days there had been struggles against the oligarchy. In +1830 the speaker of the House, S. G. W. Archibald, protested against an +attempt of the Council to lower the duty on brandy. Apart from the +evident desire of the great merchants on the Council to get brandy in +cheap and sell it dear, he took his stand on the fundamental maxim that +taxation was the affair of the people's House alone, that there should +be 'no taxation without representation.' A man is not necessarily a +village politician because he lives in a village, or a great statesman +because the stage on which he struts is wide. In this petty scuffle in +an obscure colony were involved the same principles on which John +Hampden defied King Charles. The Council gave way, and the old system +went on as before. + +Then, on the 1st of January 1835, a letter appeared in the _Nova +Scotian_, accusing the magistrates of Halifax of neglect, +mismanagement, and corruption, in the government of the city. No names +were mentioned; the tone was moderate; but the magistrates were {45} +sensitive and prosecuted Howe for libel. At this time there was not an +incorporated city in any part of the province. All were governed by +magistrates who held their commission from the Crown. When Howe +received the attorney-general's notice of trial, he went to two or +three lawyers in succession, and asked their opinion. They told him +that he had no case, as no considerations were allowed to mitigate the +severe principle of those days, that 'the greater the truth the greater +the libel.' He resolved to defend himself. The next two weeks he gave +up wholly to mastering the law of libel and the principles upon which +it was based, and to selecting his facts and documents. With his head +full of the subject, and only the two opening paragraphs of his speech +written out and committed to memory, he faced the jury. He had spoken +before, but only to small meetings, and on no subjects that touched him +keenly. Now the Court House was crowded, popular sympathy entirely on +his side, and the real subject himself. That magic in the tone that +gives a vibrating thrill to an audience sounded for the first time in +his voice. All eyes turned to him; all faces gleamed on him; he +noticed the tears trickling down one old gentleman's {46} cheeks; he +received the sympathy of the crowd, and without knowing gave it back in +eloquence. He spoke for six hours and a quarter, and though the chief +justice adjourned the court to the next day, the spell was unbroken. +He was not only acquitted, but borne home in triumph on the shoulders +of the crowd, the first, but by no means the last, time that such an +extremely inconvenient honour was paid him by the Halifax populace. +When once inside his own house, he rushed to his room and, throwing +himself on his bed, burst into passionate weeping--tears of pride, joy, +and overwrought emotion--the tears of one who has discovered new founts +of feeling and new forces in himself. + +On that day the editor leaped into fame as an orator. Early in the +next year (1836) the House of Assembly was dissolved. Howe and his +friend William Annand were chosen as the Liberal candidates for the +county of Halifax, and were elected by large majorities. On taking his +seat Howe was at once recognized as the leader of the party, and +without delay began the fight. + + + +[1] In 1872 it obtained a charter from the Dominion, but in 1903 was +absorbed by the Canadian Bank of Commerce. + + + + +{47} + +CHAPTER IV + +THE FIGHT FOR RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT + +One of the oldest political struggles in the world is that of the people +to control their government. In this struggle the barons faced King John +at Runnymede. In this struggle King Charles I was sent to the block. It +is a struggle of which the end is not yet. In the eighteenth and early +nineteenth centuries the British people worked out what seemed to them a +satisfactory solution of the problem, by making the Executive, or +Government, responsible to the House of Commons, which in its turn had at +certain periods to appeal to the people in a general election. + +In this system the Executive holds office just so long as it can obtain +the support of a majority in the House of Commons. Thus, while certain +members of the Executive may be chosen from the House of Lords or the +Legislative Council or the Senate or whatever the Upper House may be +called, most of its {48} members must sit in the House of Commons, in +order to explain or defend their policy. From this arrangement certain +consequences follow. + +(1) To be endurable a government must be more or less permanent, must +have time to initiate and, partly at least, to carry out its policy. +Constantly shifting governments would be intolerable. But if the +government depends on the will of a majority, then that majority must +also be more or less permanent. Hence we get the party system, by which +the House of Commons is divided into two parties, each with a coherent +policy. The leaders of the party which has the majority at the general +election form the Executive, or Government, and, if they can keep their +majority together, these leaders hold office till the people pronounce +their verdict at the next general election. + +(2) Members of a party will only work together under their leaders if +those leaders have a coherent policy on which they agree, and which wins +the sympathy of their followers. 'It doesn't matter much what we say, +gentlemen,' said a British prime minister to his colleagues on a famous +occasion, 'but we must all say the same thing.' Once a government {49} +under this system has made up its mind, each member must sink his +individual opinion, or must resign. + +(3) But while the Cabinet as a body must 'say the same thing,' its +members must also be heads of departments, for the competent +administration of which they are responsible. One man must have charge +of the Customs, another of Finance, another of Justice, and so on. + +This system of heads of departments, each responsible for his own branch, +but all uniting in a common responsibility for the common policy, and +holding office at the will of a majority in the House of Commons, is +known as Responsible Government. Under it the sovereign, as has been +said, 'reigns but does not govern.' The monarch of England acts only on +the will of his advisers. Once the Cabinet has decided, and has had its +decision ratified by a majority in the two Houses of Parliament, the +monarch has no choice but to obey. Dignified and honourable functions +the Crown still has; but in administration the ultimate decision rests +with the ministers. 'In England the ministers are king,' said a European +monarch. + +To every man alike in Great Britain and in {50} the colonies this form of +government seemed, as has been said, fit only for an independent nation, +and inconsistent with the colonial status. To Howe it was the essential +birthright of British freemen, and he determined to vindicate it for his +native province. + +But Howe was no doctrinaire, bound at all costs to uphold a system. He +was a practical man, fighting practical abuses. When parliament met, +early in 1837, the young editor, already recognized as the Liberal +leader, in company with Laurence O'Connor Doyle, began the fight by +bringing in a resolution against the practice of the Council of sitting +with closed doors. To this the Council replied that such a matter of +procedure concerned themselves alone. Howe replied by introducing into +the Assembly a series of twelve resolutions, embracing a general attack +on the Council for its secrecy, its irresponsibility, and its +ecclesiastical and social one-sidedness, and ending by an appeal to His +Majesty 'to take such steps as will ensure responsibility to the +Commons.' Eloquent though his speech was in defence of these +resolutions, he showed that he did not yet see the line along which +salvation was to come. 'You are aware,' he said, 'that in Upper {51} +Canada an attempt was made to convert the Executive Council into the +semblance of an English ministry, having its members in both branches of +the legislature, and holding their positions while they retained the +confidence of the country. I am afraid that these colonies, at all +events this province, is hardly prepared for the erection of such +machinery: I doubt whether it would work well here: and the only other +remedy which presents itself is, to endeavour to make both branches of +the legislature elective.' Howe had thus diagnosed the disease, but he +was inclined to prescribe an inadequate and probably harmful remedy. + +The debate on the twelve resolutions was hot. On the question of opening +the doors of the Council, Howe had been unanimously followed, but his +general attack on that body roused strong feelings among its friends and +adherents in the Assembly, and though all his resolutions were passed, on +each vote there was a resolute minority. Yet the debate, though hot, was +on a high level, and does credit to the political capacity and the sense +of decorum of early Nova Scotia. + +The Council were prompt to take up the gage of battle. A day or two +after their {52} receipt of the resolutions they returned a message which +ignored eleven of the twelve, but insisted on the rescinding of the one +which spoke of the disposition of some of their members 'to protect their +own interests and emoluments at the expense of the public.' They hinted +in unmistakable terms that, unless this was rescinded, they would refuse +to concur in a bill for voting supply. Their refusal to do so would have +meant that, while they were prepared to vote public funds to pay the +salaries of the officials, they would hold up all grants for roads, +bridges, education, and other public needs. + +Great was the consternation. The members of the majority in the House of +Assembly saw themselves in anticipation compelled to appear before their +constituents and explain that they had been unable to vote this money +because they had joined with a pestilent young editor in an attack on his +elders and betters. + +Howe sat up all night wondering what he should do. Then he determined to +take his medicine like a man. On the next day he entered the House with +cheerful face and buoyant step. He threw back his coat, a gesture +already growing familiar, and stood {53} four-square to the Assembly. 'I +feel,' he said, 'that we have now arrived at a point which I had to a +certain extent anticipated from the moment I sat down to prepare the +resolutions . . . the position in which we are now placed does not take +me by surprise. . . . But it may be said, What is to be done? And I +answer, Sacrifice neither the revenue nor the cause of reform. In +dealing with an enemy who is disposed to take us at disadvantage, like +politic soldiers, let us fight with his own weapons. . . . The Council +ask us to rescind a particular resolution; I am prepared to give more +than they ask and to rescind them all. . . . But I shall follow up that +motion by another, for the appointment of a committee to draw up an +address to the Crown on the state of the Colony. . . . It is not for me +to say, when a committee is appointed, what the address shall contain; +but I presume that having these resolutions before them, and knowing what +a majority of this Assembly think and feel, they will do their duty, and +prepare such a document as will attain the objects for which we have been +contending.'[1] + +{54} + +A motion to rescind the twelve resolutions followed and was carried, and +the revenues were saved. Before the end of the session Howe's thinking +had advanced, and the address to the Crown which his committee prepared +implored the monarch either 'to grant us an elective Legislative Council; +or to separate the Executive from the Legislative Council, providing for +a just representation of all the great interests of the province in both; +and, by the introduction into the former of some members of the popular +branch and otherwise securing responsibility to the Commons, confer upon +the people of this province what they value above all other possessions, +the blessings of the British constitution.' + +Lord Glenelg, at this time the colonial secretary, was a weak but amiable +man. He could not see that in the full grant to the colonies of +Responsible Government lay safety; he deemed it 'inconsistent with a due +adherence to the essential distinctions between a Metropolitan and a +Colonial Government.[1] But he was a kindly soul, who was honestly +shocked at the predominance in the Council of the Church of England and +the bankers, and he went as far as he dared. In August 1837 dispatches +from him arrived, directing {55} the lieutenant-governor to separate the +Legislative and the Executive Councils. Of the wisdom of this step he +was by no means sure, but he yielded to the wish of the Assembly, +'convinced that their advice will be dictated by more exact and abundant +knowledge of the wants and wishes of their constituents than any other +persons possess or could venture to claim.' In the new Executive Council +the chief justice was not to sit, and the banking and Church of England +influences were to be lessened. The Council of Twelve thus became an +Executive merely, while a new Legislative Council, or Upper House, of +nineteen members, came into being. Though no responsibility to the +Commons was acknowledged, and though 'the Queen can give no pledge that +the Executive Council will always comprise some members of the Assembly,' +four members of the new Executive did actually sit in the Lower House and +three in the Upper. Already the fortress was giving way. Instead of +finding out the policy of the Executive by an elaborate interchange of +written communications, the Assembly could now, whenever it so desired, +interrogate such members of the Executive as were chosen from its own +body. + +{56} + +Towards the end of this year broke out the rebellion headed in Lower +Canada by Papineau and in Upper Canada by William Lyon Mackenzie. Its +ignominious failure threatened for a time to overwhelm Howe with charges +of similar disloyalty. Luckily he had in 1835 written to Mr H. S. +Chapman, a prominent Upper Canadian Reformer, a long letter in which, +while sympathizing with the grievances of the Reformers, he had +indignantly denounced any attempt to use force, and had vindicated the +loyalty of Nova Scotia. This letter he now published, and triumphantly +cleared his character. + +The rebellion had at least the merit of awakening the British government. +When houses went up in smoke, when Canadians with fixed bayonets chased +other Canadians through burning streets and slew them as they cried for +mercy, the most fat-hearted place-man could not say that all was for the +best in the best of all possible colonies. The British government sent +out as High Commissioner one of England's ablest men, Lord Durham. His +report, published early in 1839, is a landmark in the history of British +colonial administration. Disregarding all half-measures, he declared +that in Responsible Government {57} alone could salvation for the +colonies be found. In clarion tones he proclaimed that thus alone could +the deep, pathetic, and ill-repaid loyalty of the Canadas be preserved. +But the report had still to be acted on. Lord John Russell, the ablest +man in the government, had succeeded Lord Glenelg, and in 1839 he made a +speech which did indeed mark an advance on the views of his predecessor, +but which fell far short of the wishes of the Canadian Reformers. The +internal government of the province, he admitted, must be carried on in +accordance with the well-understood wishes of the Canadian people, but he +still held Responsible Government to be incompatible with the colonial +status. The governor of a colony can be responsible, he said, only to +the Crown; to make him responsible to his ministers would be to proclaim +him head of an independent state. If the governor must act on the advice +of his ministers, he might be forced to choose ministers whose acts would +embroil the province, and thereby the whole Empire, with a foreign power. + +In answer to this speech Howe wrote to Lord John Russell four open +letters, which were republished in almost every Canadian newspaper, and +which, issued in pamphlet {58} form, were sent to every British newspaper +and member of parliament. Never did he reach a higher level. Vigorous, +sparkling, full of apt illustration and sound political thought, they +grip 'little Johnny Russell's' speech and shake it to tatters. 'By the +beard of the prophet!'--to use one of Howe's favourite oaths--here is a +big man, a man with a gift of expression and a grip of principle. They +should be read in full, for an extract gives but a truncated idea of +their power. + +He ridicules the arrogation to itself by the 'Compact' of a monopoly of +loyalty. 'It appears to me that a very absurd opinion has long prevailed +among many worthy people on both sides of the Atlantic: that the +selection of an Executive Council, who, upon most points of domestic +policy, will differ from the great body of the inhabitants and the +majority of their representatives, is indispensable to the very existence +of colonial institutions; and that, if it were otherwise, the colony +would fly off, by the operation of some latent principle of mischief, +which I have never seen very clearly defined. By those who entertain +this view, it is assumed that Great Britain is indebted for the +preservation of her colonies, not to the natural affection of their +inhabitants--to {59} their pride in her history, to their participation +in the benefit of her warlike, scientific, or literary achievements--but +to the disinterested patriotism of a dozen or two of persons, whose names +are scarcely known in England, except by the clerks in Downing Street; +who are remarkable for nothing above their neighbours in the colony, +except perhaps the enjoyment of offices too richly endowed; or their +zealous efforts to annoy, by the distribution of patronage and the +management of public affairs, the great body of the inhabitants, whose +sentiments they cannot change.'[2] + +He applies Lord John's reasoning to the British towns of London or +Glasgow or Aberdeen, and shows what absurd results it would produce. He +admits fully that Nova Scotia cannot be independent, and that there are +limits beyond which, were her responsible Executive mad enough to pass +them, the governor might rightly interpose his veto. But he shows in +what a fiasco any such situation would necessarily end. The powers which +he leaves to the British government would now, indeed, be thought +excessive. + +'From what has been already written, it {60} will be seen that I leave to +the Sovereign and to the Imperial Parliament the uncontrolled authority +over the military and naval force distributed over the colonies; that I +carefully abstain from trenching upon their right to bind the whole +empire by treaties and other diplomatic arrangements with foreign states; +or to regulate the trade of the colonies with the mother country and with +each other. I yield to them also the same right of interference which +they now exercise over colonies and over English incorporated towns; +whenever a desperate case of factious usage of the powers confided, or +some reason of state, affecting the preservation of peace and order, call +for that interference.'[3] + +But he pleads eloquently that the loyalty of Nova Scotia need not be +maintained by sending over to govern her a well-intentioned military man, +gallant and gouty, with little knowledge of her history or her civil +institutions, with a tendency to fall under the control of a small social +set, whose interests are different from or adverse to those of the great +majority; that it will only strike deeper root if the governor is given +as his advisers not such an irresponsible council, but the popular {61} +leaders, men strong in the confidence of the province. + + +Events moved rapidly. In October 1839 Lord John Russell sent out to the +governors of the various British North American colonies a circular +dispatch of such importance that it was recognized by Sir John Harvey, +the governor of New Brunswick, as 'a new and improved constitution.' In +this it was said that 'the governor must only oppose the wishes of the +Assembly where the honour of the Crown, or the interests of the Empire, +are deeply concerned,' and office-holders were warned that they were +liable to removal from office 'as often as any sufficient motives of +public policy may suggest the expediency of that measure.' A subsequent +paragraph stated clearly that this was not meant to introduce the 'spoils +system,' but to apply only to the heads of departments and to the other +members of the Executive Council. + +Sir Colin Campbell, at this time lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, was +a very gallant soldier of unstained honour and kindly disposition, a +personal friend of the Duke of Wellington, under whom he had proved his +valour in India and in the Peninsula. When {62} in 1834 an epidemic of +cholera ravaged Halifax, Sir Colin went down into the thick of it, and +worked day and night to assuage the distressing agonies of the sufferers. +In politics, however, he was under the sway of the Council. He now +refused to communicate Lord John Russell's dispatch to the House, and +when that body passed a vote of want of confidence in the Executive, Sir +Colin met them with a curt reply to the effect that 'I have had every +reason to be satisfied with the advice and assistance which they [the +Executive] have at all times afforded me.' + +But 'there was the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees.' +Mr J. B. Uniacke rose in the House and stated that, in the conviction of +the absurdity of the present irresponsible system, he had tendered to the +governor his resignation as an Executive Councillor. Mr Uniacke, a man +of fine presence, oratorical gifts, and high social position, had +hitherto been the Tory leader and Howe's chief opponent in the House, and +his conversion to the side of Responsible Government was indeed a +triumph. But there was fierce work still to do. By a large majority the +House passed an address to the governor expressing unfeigned sorrow at +his refusal to administer {63} the government in accordance with Lord +John Russell's dispatch. To this Sir Colin replied that the matter was +of too great moment for him to decide, and that he would refer it to Her +Majesty's government. This in effect meant that he would spin the affair +out for another six months or so, and so shift the burden of decision to +his successor. The patience of the House was at an end, and an address +to the Crown was passed, detailing the struggle and requesting 'Your +Majesty to remove Sir Colin Campbell and send to Nova Scotia a governor +who will not only represent the Crown, but carry out its policy with +firmness and good faith.' + +To ask Her Majesty to remove her representative was an extreme measure. +From one end of the province to the other meetings were held. With one +antagonist after another Howe crossed swords, and was ever victorious. +Lord Sydenham, the governor-general, who though resident in Canada had +authority over all British North America, came down to Halifax to look +into the matter. He had a long talk with Howe and each yielded to the +charm of the other. Such warm friends did they become that during the +rest of Sydenham's short life they exchanged frequent letters, and {64} +Howe called one of his sons by the name of Sydenham. In September 1840 +Lord Falkland was sent out as lieutenant-governor, Sir Colin Campbell +having been 'promoted' to the governorship of Ceylon. It is pleasant to +think of the old soldier's last meeting with Howe. Passing out from Lord +Falkland's first levee, Howe bowed to Sir Colin and would have passed on. +The veteran stopped him, and held out his hand, exclaiming, 'We must not +part in this way, Mr Howe. We fought out our differences of opinion +honestly. You have acted like a man of honour. There is my hand.' The +hand was warmly grasped, and on Sir Colin's departure a fine tribute to +his chivalry and sense of honour was paid by the _Nova Scotian_. + + +With the coming of Lord Falkland the first stage in the struggle was +over. That nobleman endeavoured to carry out in Nova Scotia the policy +of Lord Sydenham in Canada and to remain in a half-way house. Greatly to +their rage, four members of the Executive Council, who held seats in +neither branch of the legislature, were at once informed that their +services could no longer be retained. Three of the places so vacated +were given {65} to Uniacke, Howe, and a third Liberal, and it was agreed +that other Liberals should be brought into the Executive Council as +vacancies occurred. + +This account gives but a poor idea of the excitement in Halifax during +these years. In so small a community, where every one knew every one +else, personal, social, and political questions became hopelessly +intertwined. The fighting was bitter. 'Forced into a cleft stick, there +was nothing left for us but to break it,' was Howe's pithy way of putting +the case. Naturally enough, the stick objected to being broken. And as +in every war, for one man killed in battle five or six die from other +causes connected with the war--bad boots, bad food, bad rum, wet clothes, +the trenches for beds, hospital fever, and such like--so the open +opposition of debate was the least that Howe had to fear. That, as one +of the finest peasantry in the world said of Donnybrook, 'was enjoyment.' +Howe was once asked by an old sportsman, with whom he had gone fishing +for salmon, how he liked that sport. 'Pretty well,' was the answer; +'but, after all, it's not half so exciting as a fortnight's debate in the +Legislature, and a doubt as to the division.' The personal {66} slanders +in private circles--and he could not afford to be wholly indifferent to +them; the misrepresentation not only of motives, but of the actual +objects sought to be attained, which circulate from mouth to mouth till +they become the established 'they say' of society; those ceaseless petty +annoyances and meannesses of persecution which Thackeray declares only +women are capable of inflicting; these were showered about and on him +like a rain of small-shot, and they _do_ gall, no matter how smilingly a +man may bear himself. After all, these people did as most of us would +probably have done. They were taught, and they believed easily, that the +printer Howe was bad, that he spoke evil of dignitaries, that he was a +red republican, and a great many other things equally low. The +dignitaries could not control themselves when they had to refer to him; +to take him down to the end of a wharf and blow him away from a cannon's +mouth into space was the only thing that would satisfy their ideas of the +fitness of things. Their women, if they saw him passing along the +street, would run from the windows shrieking as if he were a monster +whose look was pollution. Their sons talked of horse-whipping, ducking +in a horse-pond, {67} fighting duels with him, or doing anything in an +honourable or even semi-honourable way to abate the nuisance. Nor did +they confine themselves to talk. On one occasion, before Howe became a +member of the House, a young fellow inflamed by drink mounted his horse +and rode down the street to the printing-office, with broadsword drawn, +declaring he would kill Howe. He rode up on the wooden sidewalk, and +commenced to smash the windows, at the same time calling on Howe to come +forth. Howe, hearing the clatter, rushed out. He had been working at +the case, and his trousers were bespattered with ink and his waistcoat +was only half buttoned. He appeared on the doorstep with bare head and +shirt-sleeves partly rolled up, just as he had been working, and took in +the situation at a glance. He did not delay a minute or say a word. His +big white face glowed with passion, and going up to the shouting creature +he caught him by the wrist, disarmed and unhorsed him, and threw him on +his back in a minute. Some years later another young man challenged Howe +to a duel. Howe went out, received his fire, and then fired in the air. +He was challenged afterwards by several others, but refused to go out +again. {68} And he was no coward. There was not a drop of coward's +blood in his body. Even a mob did not make him afraid. Once, when the +'young Ireland' party had inflamed the Halifax crowd against him, he +walked among them on election day as fearlessly as in the olden time when +they were all on his side. He knew that any moment a brickbat might +come, crushing in the back of his head, but his face was cheery as usual, +and his joke as ready. He fought as an Englishman fights: walking +straight up to his enemy, looking him full in the face, and keeping cool +as he hit from the shoulder with all his might. And when the fighting +was over, he wished it to be done with. 'And now, boys,' said he once to +a mob that had gathered at his door, 'if any of you has a stick, just +leave it in my porch for a keepsake.' With shouts of laughter the +shillelaghs came flying over the heads of the people in front till the +porch was filled. The pleasantry gave Howe a stock of fuel, and sent +away the mob disarmed and in good humour. + +We can see the true resolve that was in such a man, but those who fought +hand to hand with him may be excused if they could not see it. He was +the enemy of their privileges, therefore of their order, therefore of +{69} themselves. It was a bitter pill to swallow when a man in his +position was elected member for the county. The flood-gates seemed to +have opened. Young gentlemen in and out of college swore great oaths +over their wine, and the deeper they drank the louder they swore. Their +elders declared that the country was going to the dogs, that in fact it +was no longer fit for gentlemen to live in. Young ladies carried +themselves with greater hauteur than ever, heroically determined that +they at least would do their duty to Society. Old ladies spoke of +Antichrist, or sighed for the millennium. All united in sending Howe to +Coventry. He felt the stings. 'They have scorned me at their feasts,' +he once burst out to a friend, 'and they have insulted me at their +funerals!' + +When Uniacke left the Tory camp, his own friends and relatives cut him in +the street. When Lord Falkland requested the resignations of the four +irresponsible councillors, their loyalty to the Crown did not restrain +their attacks upon himself. His sending his servants to a concert was +spoken of as a deliberate insult to the society of Halifax; and his +secretary was accused of robbing a pawnbroker's shop to replenish his +wardrobe. + +There was too much of human nature in Joe {70} Howe to take all this +without striking hard blows in return. He did strike, and he struck from +the shoulder. He said what he thought about his opponents with a +bluntness that was absolutely appalling to them. He went straight to the +mark aimed at with Napoleonic directness. They were stunned. They had +been accustomed to be treated so differently. Hitherto there had been so +much courtliness of manner in Halifax; the gradations of rank had been +recognized by every one; and the great men and the great women had been +treated always with deference. But here was a Jacobin who changed all +this; who in dealing with them called a spade a spade; who searched +pitilessly into their claims to public respect, and if he found them +impostors declared them to be impostors; and who advocated principles +that would turn everything upside down. + + +Lord Falkland was a well-meaning young nobleman of great good looks and +small political experience. His ruling characteristic was pride. +Shortly before leaving Halifax he had his carriage-horses shot, lest on +his departure they should fall into plebeian hands. His hauteur was +fortified by his wife, {71} daughter by a morganatic marriage of King +William IV. Could such a man carry through a compromise, by which men of +opposite views should sit in his Cabinet? In Canada it had taken all the +skill and political experience of Lord Sydenham; under Sir Charles +Metcalfe the new wine burst the old bottles, bespattering more than one +reputation in the process. That the new governor would soon take offence +at the jovial, self-confident, free manners of Howe was almost certain. + +The new Executive Council was a compromise. Prime minister there was +none. Its head was still the governor, whom Howe himself admitted to be +'still responsible only to his sovereign.' On the question which in +Canada brought about the quarrel between Sir Charles Metcalfe and his +advisers, Howe said in 1840 that in Nova Scotia 'the patronage of the +country is at his [the governor's] disposal to aid him in carrying on the +government.' In 1841 he still accorded him the initiative, saying that +'the governor, as the Queen's representative, still dispenses the +patronage, but that as the Council are bound to defend his appointments, +the responsibility even as regards appointments is nearly as great in the +one case as in the other.' + +{72} + +During these years Howe had a delicate role to play. The extreme and +logical members of his own party attacked him as a trimmer; on the other +hand, any one of the four extruded councillors was considered by Society +to be worth a hundred Howes, and Society was not slow to make its +feelings known. The fight was fiercest in the Executive Council, where +the party of caution, if not of reaction, was led by the Hon. J. W. +Johnston. Tall and distinguished in appearance, with dark flashing eyes +and imperious temper, of fine probity in his private life, and with a +keen, though somewhat lawyer-like, intellect, Johnston was no unworthy +antagonist to the great tribune of the people. Though of good birth, and +recognized in Society as Howe was not, he was a Baptist, and so not +hampered in the popular mind by any connection with the official Church. +Nor were his views on government illiberal. The controversy between him +and Howe was rather of temperament than of principles, between the keen +lawyer, mistrustful of spontaneity, lingering fondly over his precedents, +and the impulsive, over-trustful, over-generous lover of humanity. In +the working out of the new system anomalies soon developed, which +Falkland {73} was not the man to minimize. Howe himself was still a +little misty in his views, and accepted the speakership as well as a seat +in the Executive Council, thus becoming at once umpire and participant, a +position impossible to-day. In the next year, however, he resigned the +speakership to accept the post of collector of customs for Halifax. + +But the great wrangle was over the extent to which Responsible Government +had been conceded. One member of the government said that 'Responsible +Government was responsible nonsense--it was independence. It would be a +severing of the link which bound the colony to the mother country.' +Johnston, at the time sitting in the Upper House, did not go so far, but +said that 'in point of fact it is not the intention to recognize the +direct responsibility which has been developed in the address. To +concede such would be inconsistent with colonial relations.' There was +no fundamental discrepancy between Johnston's views and those of Howe. +Later on in the same speech, Johnston, while considering the subject to +be 'incapable of exact definition,' yet said that 'the change simply is +that it becomes the duty of the representative of Her Majesty to +ascertain the wishes and feelings {74} of the people through their +representatives, and to make the measures of government conform to these +so far as is consistent with his duty to the mother country.' This is +really much the same as Howe's statement that 'the Executive, which is to +carry on the administration of the country, should sympathize with to a +large extent, and be influenced by, and when proper be composed of to a +certain degree, those who possess the confidence of the country'; +especially when this is taken in connection with his other statement that +he had no wish for colonial assemblies 'to interfere in the great +national regulations, in arrangements respecting the army or navy of the +Empire, or the prerogatives of the parliament or Crown.' But the +emphasis was different. Howe insisted on the greatness of the change in +local administration; Johnston on the amount of still surviving control +by the mother country. The little rift in the lute was already apparent, +and was increased by the natural tendency of the governor to consult the +courtly Johnston, and to show impatience at the brusque familiarity of +Howe. + + +The tension became greater and greater. There is no reason to doubt that +both Howe {75} and Johnston tried to play the game. But their +temperaments and their associates were different, and they grew more and +more mistrustful of each other. Accusations of treachery began to fly. +By the autumn of 1842 Howe had ceased to disguise his 'conviction that +the administration, as at present constituted, cannot go on a great while +longer.' The final break-up came over the question of education. It is +sad that this should have been so, for Howe well knew that education +should bring peace and not a sword. We may make education a +battle-ground,' he said, 'where the laurels we reap may be wet with the +tears of our country.' At this time primary education was optional, +given in private schools, aided in some cases by provincial grants. Both +Howe and Johnston would fain have substituted a compulsory system, +supported by local assessments, but both feared the repugnance of the +country voters to direct taxation, and it was not till 1864 that Dr +(afterwards Sir) Charles Tupper took this fearless and notable step +forward. In the mean time both Howe and Johnston supported the increase +of grants to education, the establishment of circulating libraries, and +the appointment of a superintendent of education. + +{76} + +But if schools were too few, universities were too many, and it was here +that the quarrel began. King's College at Windsor was avowedly Anglican. +An attempt had been made in 1838 to revive Dalhousie as undenominational, +but the bigotry of Sir Colin Campbell and of a rump board of governors +under Presbyterian influence refused to appoint as professor the Rev. Dr +Crawley, on the almost openly avowed ground that he was a Baptist. The +aggrieved denomination then hived off, and started at Wolfville their own +university, known as Acadia. The Roman Catholics had for some time had +in operation St Mary's College at Halifax. All these received grants +from the government, and were endeavouring to do university work in a +very imperfectly educated community of three hundred thousand people. + +Theoretically this system was absurd. But each of the little colleges +had its band of devoted adherents, held fast to it by the strongest of +all ties, that of religion. Most of all was this the case with Acadia, +founded in hot and justifiable anger, and eager to justify its existence. +Had Howe been a wary politician, he would have thought twice before +stirring up such a wasp's nest, more especially as the {77} Baptists had +hitherto been his faithful supporters. But Howe was both more and less +than a wary politician, and when early in 1843 a private member brought +in resolutions in favour of withdrawing the grants from the existing +colleges, and of founding 'one good college, free from sectarian control, +and open to all denominations, maintained by a common fund,' Howe +supported him with all his might. In thus differing from his colleagues +on a question of primary importance he was undoubtedly guilty of ignoring +the doctrine of collective Cabinet responsibility. + +The heather was soon on fire. Johnston came vigorously to the rescue of +Acadia. The Baptist newspaper attacked Howe in no measured terms. +Crawley himself in public speeches endeavoured to show 'the extreme +danger to religion of the plan projected by Mr Howe of one college in +Halifax without any religious character, and which would be liable to +come under the influence of infidelity.' Howe repaid invective with +invective. 'I may have been wrong, but yet when I compare these +peripatetic, writing, wrangling, grasping professors, either with the +venerable men who preceded them in the ministry of their own Church, or +in the advent of {78} Christianity, I cannot but come to the conclusion +that either one set or the other have mistaken the mode. Take all the +Baptist ministers from one end of the province to the other--the +Hardings, the Dimocks, the Tuppers,--take all that have passed away, from +Aline to Burton; men who have suffered every privation, preaching peace +and contentment to a poor and scattered population; and the whole +together never created as much strife, exhibited so paltry an ambition, +or descended to the mean arts of misrepresentation to such an extent, in +all their long and laborious lives, as these two arrogant professors of +philosophy and religion have done in the short period of half a dozen +years.'[4] + +In reply to Dr Crawley he contrasted the students of an undenominational +college, 'drinking at the pure streams of science and philosophy,' with +the students of Acadia 'imbibing a sour sectarian spirit on a hill.' 'It +is said, if a college is not sectarian, it must be infidel. Is +infidelity taught in our academies and schools? No; and yet not one of +them is sectarian. A college would be under strict discipline, +established by its governors; clergymen would occupy some of its chairs; +{79} moral philosophy, which to be sound must be based on Christianity, +must be conspicuously taught; and yet the religious men who know all this +raise the cry of infidelity to frighten the farmers in the country.' + +Johnston, in evident alarm at the success of Howe's agitation, persuaded +the governor to dissolve the House and hold a general election. At the +same time he himself, with great courage, resigned his life-membership of +the Legislative Council, and offered himself as a candidate for the +Assembly. A hot election followed, in which both Howe and Johnston were +returned at the head of approximately equal numbers. + +By this time Howe had learned his lesson. A half-way house might be a +useful stopping-place, but could not be a terminus. A unanimous Cabinet +was a necessity, and a unanimous Cabinet was possible only if backed by a +unanimous party. He therefore offered Lord Falkland either to resign, or +to form a Liberal administration from which Johnston and those who +thought with him should be excluded. This Lord Falkland could not see, +nor yet could Johnston. The latter 'unequivocally denounced the system +of a party government, and avowed his preference for {80} a government in +which all parties should be represented.' At last, on Falkland's urgent +request, Howe consented to remain in the government till the House met. +A few days later the governor suddenly appointed to the Executive Council +Mr Almon, a high Tory and Johnston's brother-in-law. It was too much; +Howe and his Liberal colleagues at once resigned. + +Was he in the right? With Almon as a man they had no quarrel. Howe and +Johnston were both well qualified to serve their native province. Why +should one consume his energy in trying to keep out the other? The +answer is that a government is not merely composed of heads of separate +departments. It is a unity, responsible for a coherent policy, and as +such cannot contain two men, however estimable, who differ on political +fundamentals. It is Howe's merit that he saw this, while Johnston and +Falkland did not. After all, their loud cries for a non-party +administration only meant an administration in which their own party was +supreme. Howe was wholly in the right when he said that Johnston's +epitaph should be, 'Here lies the man who denounced party government, +that he might form one; and professing justice to all parties, gave every +office to his own.' + +{81} + +There followed three years of hard fighting. Johnston formed an +administration, which was sustained by a majority varying from one to +three. Debates of thirteen and fourteen days were common. Howe's +relations with Lord Falkland had at first been those of intimate +friendship, and for a time the quarrel was conducted with decorum. +Several months after his resignation he could write, 'personal or +factious opposition to your Lordship I am incapable of.' But a literary +gentleman, in close connection with Lord Falkland, began in the press a +series of fierce attacks on Howe and the other Liberal leaders. Of Lord +Falkland's sanction and approval there could be little doubt. His +Lordship himself said in private conversation that between him and Howe +it was 'war to the knife,' and personally denounced him in his dispatches +to the Colonial Office. Howe was not the man to refuse such a challenge. +Though retaining his seat in the House, he resumed the editorship of the +_Nova Scotian_, which he had abandoned in 1841. From his editorial chair +he not only guided the parliamentary Opposition, but pelted the governor +himself with a shower of pasquinades in prose and verse. Lord Falkland +has practically put himself at {82} the head of the Tory party, said +Howe, and as a political opponent he shall have no mercy. A flood of +Rabelaisian banter was poured upon the head of the unhappy nobleman. He +was attacked in his pride, his tenderest place. It is impossible not to +wish that Howe had shown more moderation. He had, of course, precedent +on his side. Nothing which he wrote was so bad as the language of Queen +Elizabeth to her councillors, or of Frederick the Great to Voltaire. He +was neither more savage than Junius, nor more indecent than Sir Charles +Hanbury Williams in his attacks on King George II. But times had +changed. Mouths and manners had grown cleaner, and much of Howe's banter +is over-coarse for present-day palates. But of its effectiveness there +is no doubt. He fairly drove the unhappy Falkland out of the province. +After all, his raillery was an instrument in the fight for freedom, and a +less deadly one than the scythes and muskets of Mackenzie or Papineau. + +A squib which produced much comment in its day was 'The Lord of the +Bedchamber,' which begins thus: + + The Lord of the Bedchamber sat in his shirt, + (And D--dy the pliant was there), + And his feelings appeared to be very much hurt + And his brow overclouded with care. + +{83} + + It was plain, from the flush that o'ermantled his cheek, + And the fluster and haste of his stride, + That, drowned and bewildered, his brain had grown weak + By the blood pumped aloft by his pride. + +So it goes on, not unamusing, full of topical allusions and bad puns. +The serious Johnston, with some lack of humour, brought the matter up in +the House, and came near to accusing Howe of High Treason. Howe wisely +refused to take the matter seriously, and defended himself in a speech of +which a fair sample is: 'This is the first time I ever suspected that to +hint that noblemen wore shirts was a grave offence, to be prosecuted in +the High Court of Parliament by an Attorney General. Had the author said +that the Lord of the Bedchamber wore no shirt, or that it stuck through +his pantaloons, there might have been good ground of complaint.' On the +more serious question he said: 'The time has come when I must do myself +justice. An honest fame is as dear to me as Lord Falkland's title is to +him. His name may be written in Burke's Peerage; mine has no record but +on the hills and valleys of the country which God has given us for an +inheritance, and must live, if it lives at all, in the hearts of those +who tread them. Their confidence and respect {84} must be the reward of +their public servants. But if these noble provinces are to be preserved, +those who represent the sovereign must act with courtesy and dignity and +truth to those who represent the people. Who will go into a Governor's +Council if, the moment he retires, he is to have his loyalty impeached; +to be stabbed by secret dispatches; to have his family insulted; his +motives misrepresented, and his character reviled? What Nova Scotian +will be safe? What colonist can defend himself from such a system, if a +governor can denounce those he happens to dislike and get up personal +quarrels with individuals it may be convenient to destroy?'[5] + +In 1846 the quarrel came to a crisis. The speaker of the House and his +brother, a prominent member of the Opposition, were connected with an +English company formed for building Nova Scotian railways. To the +astonishment of everybody, a dispatch from Lord Falkland to the Colonial +Office was brought down and read before the speaker's face, in which his +own name and that of his brother were repeatedly mentioned, and in which +they were held up to condemnation as the associates of 'reckless' and +'insolvent' {85} men. Howe was justly indignant at this gross breach of +constitutional procedure, and indeed of ordinary good manners. Leaping +to his feet, he said: 'I should but ill discharge my duty to the House or +to the country, if I did not, this instant, enter my protest against the +infamous system pursued (a system of which I can speak more freely, now +that the case is not my own), by which the names of respectable colonists +are libelled in dispatches sent to the Colonial Office, to be afterwards +published here, and by which any brand or stigma may be placed upon them +without their having any means of redress. If that system be continued, +some colonist will, by and by, or I am much mistaken, hire a black fellow +to horsewhip a lieutenant-governor.'[6] + +In reply to a vote of censure by the House, he defended himself in a +letter to his constituents, of which the pith is in the final sentences: +'"But," I think I hear some one say, "after all, friend Howe, was not the +supposititious case, which you anticipated might occur, somewhat quaint +and eccentric and startling?" It was, because I wanted to startle, to +rouse, to flash the light of truth over every hideous feature of the +system. {86} The fire-bell startles at night; but if it rings not the +town may be burned; and wise men seldom vote him an incendiary who pulls +the rope, and who could not give the alarm and avert the calamity unless +he made a noise. The prophet's style was quaint and picturesque when he +compared the great king to a sheep-stealer; but the object was not to +insult the king, it was to make him think, to rouse him; to let him see +by the light of a poetic fancy the gulf to which he was descending, that +he might thereafter love mercy, walk humbly, and, controlling his +passions, keep untarnished the lustre of the Crown. David let other +men's wives alone after that flight of Nathan's imagination; and I will +venture to say that whenever, hereafter, our rulers desire to grille a +political opponent in an official dispatch, they will recall my homely +picture and borrow wisdom from the past.'[7] + +Later in the year Lord Falkland was recalled, and appointed governor of +Bombay. Soon afterwards Howe wrote to a friend: 'Poor Falkland will not +soon forget Nova Scotia, where he learned more than ever he did at Court. +I ought to be grateful to him, for but for the passages of arms between +us, {87} there were some tricks of fence I had not known. Besides, I now +estimate at their true value some sneaking dogs that I should have been +caressing, for years to come, and lots of noble-hearted friends that only +the storms of life could have taught me adequately to prize.' + +[Illustration: SIR JOHN HARVEY. From a portrait in the John Ross +Robertson Collection, Toronto Public Library] + +Falkland's successor was Sir John Harvey, in old days a hero of the War +of 1812, more recently governor of New Brunswick. Shortly after his +coming he endeavoured to induce Howe and his friends to enter the +government, but Howe now saw victory within his grasp, and had no mind +for further coalitions. To a friend he wrote: 'I do not in the abstract +disapprove of coalitions, where public exigencies, or an equal balance of +parties, create a necessity for them, but hold that, when formed, the +members should act in good faith, and treat each other like +gentlemen--should form a party, in fact, and take the field against all +other parties without. If they quarrel and fight, and knock the +coalition to smithereens, then a governor who attempts to compel men who +cannot eat together, and are animated by mutual distrust, to serve in the +same Cabinet, and bullies them if they refuse, is mad.' + +Foiled in his well-meant attempt, Sir John then consulted the Colonial +Office. Into that {88} department a new spirit had come with the arrival +in 1846 of Lord Grey, who replied with a dispatch in which the principles +of Responsible Government were laid down in the clearest terms, while at +the same time the Reformers were warned that only the holders of the +great political offices should be subject to removal, and that there +should be no approach to the 'spoils system,' which was at the time +disgracing the United States. In 1847 the Reformers carried the +province, and Sir John Harvey gave to their leaders his loyal support. +Mr Uniacke was called on to form an administration, in which Howe was +given the post of provincial secretary. There was a final flurry. For a +month or two the province was convulsed by the conduct of the former +provincial secretary, Sir Rupert D. George, who, amid the plaudits of +fashionable Halifax, refused to resign. But Sir Rupert was dismissed +with a pension, and Joe Howe ruled in his stead. The ten years' conflict +was at an end. The printer's boy had faced the embattled oligarchy, and +had won. + +It was a bloodless victory. Heart-burning indeed there was, and the +breaking up of friendships. But it is the glory of Howe that +responsibility was won in the Maritime {89} Provinces without rebellion. +In the next year, in his song for the centenary of the landing of the +Britons in Halifax, he exultantly broke out: + + The blood of no brother, in civil strife poured, + In this hour of rejoicing encumbers our souls! + The frontier's the field for the patriot's sword, + And cursed is the weapon that faction controls! + + +In conclusion we must ask ourselves, was it worth while? Was the winning +of Responsible Government a good thing? We are apt to take this for +granted. Too many of our historians write as if all the members of the +Family Compact had been selfish and corrupt, and all our present +statesmen were altruistic and pure. Both propositions are equally +doubtful. A man is not necessarily selfish and corrupt because he is a +Tory, nor altruistic and pure because he calls himself a Liberal or a +Reformer. It is very doubtful whether Nova Scotia is better governed +to-day than it was in the days of Lord Dalhousie or Sir Colin Campbell. +Native Nova Scotians have shown that we do not need to go abroad for lazy +and impecunious placemen. But two things are certain. Nova Scotia is +more contented, if not with its government, at least with the system by +which that government is chosen, {90} and it has within itself the +capacity for self-improvement. Before Joseph Howe Nova Scotians were +under tutors and governors; he won for them the liberty to rise or fall +by their own exertions, and fitted them for the expansion that was to +come. + + + +[1] The full text of this speech will be found in Chisholm, _Speeches and +Letters_, vol. i, p. 144. + +[2] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. i, p. 223. + +[3] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. i, p. 252. + +[4] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. i, p. 432. + +[5] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. i, p. 531. + +[6] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. i, p. 594. + +[7] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. i, p. 600. + + + + +{91} + +CHAPTER V + +RAILWAYS AND IMPERIAL CONSOLIDATION + +In 1825 a train of cars, carrying coal, drawn by a steam locomotive, +ran from Stockton to Darlington in Lancashire. In a week the price of +coals in Darlington fell from eighteen shillings to eight shillings and +sixpence. In 1830 the 'Rocket,' designed by George Stephenson, ran +from Liverpool to Manchester at a rate of nearly forty miles an hour, +and the possibilities of the new method of transportation became +manifest. But the jealousy of the landed interest, eager to maintain +the beauty and the privacy of the countryside, retarded till the +forties the growth of English railways. Meanwhile, by the use of +railways the United States altered her whole economic life and outlook. +In 1830 she had twenty-three miles of railway, five years later over a +thousand, and by 1840 twenty-eight hundred miles; and thereafter till +1860 she almost doubled her mileage every five years. + +{92} + +In the meantime Canada lagged behind, though in no other country were +the steel bands eventually to play so important a part in creating +national unity. The vision of Lord Durham first saw what the railway +might do for the unification of British North America. 'The formation +of a railroad from Halifax to Quebec,' he wrote in 1839, 'would +entirely alter some of the distinguishing characteristics of the +Canadas.' Even before this, young Joseph Howe had seen what the +steam-engine might do for his native province, and in 1835 he had +advocated, in a series of articles in the _Nova Scotian_, a railway +from Halifax to Windsor. Judge Haliburton was an early convert; and in +1837 he makes 'Sam Slick' harp again and again on the necessity of +railways. 'A railroad from Halifax to the Bay of Fundy' is the burden +of many of Sam's conversations, and its advantages are urged in his +most racy dialect. But the world laughed at Haliburton's jokes and +neglected his wisdom. Though in 1844 the British government directed +the survey of a military road to unite Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and +Quebec, and though in 1846 the three provinces joined to pay the +expenses of such a survey, which was completed in 1848, British {93} +North America was for the ten years which followed Lord Durham's Report +too busy assimilating his remedy of Responsible Government to have much +energy left for practical affairs. But in 1848, along with the triumph +of the Reformers alike in the Canadas, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, +railways succeeded Responsible Government as the burning political +question, and to no man did their nation-building power appeal with +greater force than to Howe. + +Already he had witnessed one proof of the power of steam. In 1838, in +company with Haliburton, he was on his way to England on the _Tyrian_, +one of the old ten-gun brigs which carried the mails, slow and +uncomfortable at the best, unseaworthy death-traps in a storm. As she +lay rolling in a flat calm with flapping sails, a few hundred miles +from England, a smear appeared on the western horizon. The smear grew +to a smudge, the smudge to a shape, and soon there steamed up alongside +the _Sirius_, a steamer which had successfully crossed the Atlantic, +and was now on her return to England. The captain of the _Tyrian_ +determined to send his mails on board. Howe accompanied them, took a +glass of champagne with the officers, and returned to the {94} brig. +Then the _Sirius_ steamed off, leaving the _Tyrian_ to whistle for a +breeze. On their arrival in England, Howe and Haliburton succeeded in +combining the chief British North American interests in a letter to the +Colonial Office. That much-abused department showed sympathy and +promptitude. Negotiations were entered into, contracts were let, and +in 1840 the mails were carried from England to Halifax by the steamers +of a company headed by Samuel Cunard, a prominent Halifax merchant, +founder of the line which still bears his name. At once the distance +from England to Nova Scotia was reduced from fifty days to twelve. +Certainty replaced uncertainty; danger gave way to comparative +security. It was the forging of a real link of Empire. + +A decade later Howe saw that the railway could play the same part. At +this time the question was being discussed in all the provinces. Nova +Scotia wished to link her harbours with the trade of the Canadian and +American West and of the Gulf of St Lawrence, so as to be at least the +winter port of the northern half of North America. New Brunswick +wished to give to the fertile valley of the St John and the shores of +the Bay of Fundy {95} an exit to the sea, and to unite them with the +American railways by a line from St John to Portland. The need of +Canada was still more pressing; between 1840 and 1850 she had completed +her St Lawrence system of canals, only to find them side-tracked by +American railways. A line from Montreal to Windsor, opposite Detroit, +became a necessity. + +It is characteristic of Howe that he was at first attracted by the +thought of what might benefit Nova Scotia, and that he gradually passed +from this to a great vision of Empire, in which his early idea was +absorbed though not destroyed. His first speech on the subject was +delivered on the 25th of March 1850, and is chiefly notable for his +strong advocacy of government construction. In July a convention to +discuss the matter was called at Portland, to which the Nova Scotian +government sent a more or less official representative. This gathering +passed resolutions in favour of a line from Portland to Halifax through +St John. But Maine and Portland had no money wherewith to build, and +the British provinces could not borrow at less than six per cent, if at +that. Howe had not been present at Portland, but he was the leader at +an enthusiastic Halifax meeting in August, {96} which voted unanimously +in favour of government construction of a line from Halifax to the New +Brunswick boundary, to connect with whatever line that province should +build. Later in the year he was sent by his government as a delegate +to Great Britain, in the endeavour to secure an Imperial guarantee, +which would reduce the interest on the money borrowed from six to three +and a half per cent. It seemed a hopeless quest. Earl Grey, who at +the time presided over the Colonial Office, was a strong believer in +private enterprise, and was opposed to government interference. In +July he had returned a curt refusal to Nova Scotia's request. But Howe +had a strong and, as the result proved, a well-founded belief in his +own powers of persuasion. + +His visit was a triumph, or rather a series of triumphs. Landing early +in November, he had several interviews with Lord Grey, and with the +under-secretary, Mr Hawes. On the 25th of November 1850 he addressed +to Grey a long and forcible open letter, in which he urged the claims +of Nova Scotia. A month later he was met with a refusal. But Howe +knew that there were ways and means of bringing a government office to +terms. He had friends in Southampton, and at once arranged with {97} +them that a spontaneous request to address the citizens of that town +should come to him from the city authorities. Then he wrote to Lord +Grey and requested an interview. The reply came that 'His Lordship +will be glad to see Mr Howe on Monday.' Howe's comment in his private +diary is as follows: + +'Will he, though? He would be glad if I were with the devil, or on the +sea with Hawes's note [of refusal] sticking out of my pocket. We shall +see. Head clears, as it always does when the tug of war approaches. +To-morrow must decide my course, and we shall have peace and fair +treatment, or a jolly row. Message from Hawes: "Don't despair." Never +did: What does the under-secretary mean? If kindness and rational +expectations, it is well; if more humbug, the hardest must fend off.' + +His account of the interview is given in his diary: 'Letters from home; +thank God, all well, but evidently anxious. I am glad they do not know +how this day's work may affect their fortunes. Read letters and papers +and try to divert myself till hour for interview comes. + +'It comes at last: a thousand thoughts go rushing through my brain as, +with a scowling {98} brow and infernal mental struggle to control my +passions, I ride, smoking, down to Downing Street. To be calm and +good-natured, even playful, down to the last, is my policy; to hint at +my resources without bullying and menace will be good taste. The +Ante-Room, the Abomination of Desolation. Enter Mr Howe at last, Earl +Grey and Mr Hawes looking very grim and self-complacent. Two to one is +long odds. But here goes at you: "Ye cogging Greeks, have at ye both." +The interview lasted two hours. What passed may be guessed by the +result. When I entered the room, my all trembled in the balance. When +I came out, Hawes had his letter of the 28th in his pocket, it being +suppressed and struck off the files. I had permission to go my own way +and finish my case before any decision was given. I had, besides, +general assurances of sympathy and aid, and permission to feel the +pulse of the public in any way I pleased. Viva! "Boldness in civil +business," says old Bacon, but as I go down Downing Street my heart is +too full of thankfulness to leave room for any throb of triumph.' + +Thus his threat to appeal from Downing Street to parliament and people +had won; but could he win before the people? On the 14th {99} of +January he faced a crowded meeting at Southampton, which grew more and +more enthusiastic as he went on. Two days later he addressed another +open letter to Lord Grey, the result of six weeks' hard labour, during +which, he says, 'it seemed to me that I had read a cart-load and +written a horse-load.' Three times was it copied before he had it to +his satisfaction. The draft was carefully gone over by Lord Grey, who +suggested certain excisions and additions. Both of his open letters +and his Southampton speech were widely circulated, and attracted great +attention. Howe's name was on every lip. His praises were sung by +members of both parties in the House of Lords. After some delay, due +to a reorganization of the government, on the 10th of March he received +a formal letter from Mr Hawes, of which not only Lord Grey and himself +but also the Cabinet had already seen and approved the draft, pledging +the credit of the British government to the extent of seven million +pounds to an intercolonial railway uniting Canada, New Brunswick, and +Nova Scotia. Very few conditions were attached. As Howe said on his +return to Nova Scotia: 'She virtually says to us by this offer, There +are seven millions of sovereigns, at half {100} the price that your +neighbours pay in the markets of the world; construct your railways; +people your waste lands; organize and improve the boundless territory +beneath your feet; learn to rely upon and to defend yourselves, and God +speed you in the formation of national character and national +institutions.'[1] + +What were the arguments by which Howe brought about this great reversal +of policy? Though knowing Grey to be opposed to the general principle +of public ownership, he began by singing its praises. The best road is +the queen's highway. The toll-bar and the turn-pike are disappearing. +'All our roads in Nova Scotia, made by the industry and resources of +the people, are free to the people at this hour.' The railway should +be built with the same ideal. 'If our government had means sufficient +to build railroads and carry the people free, we believe that would be +sound policy.' This being impossible, government ownership would at +least keep down the rates, and save the people from the private greed +which was at the time so manifest in the conduct of English lines. + +He then went on to show with a wealth of statistics that Nova Scotia +was thoroughly {101} solvent, and that the Imperial guarantee was +almost certain never to be called on. This done, he turned gladly to +the constitutional side. That the road would pay, he believed; but he +advocated it not as a 'paying proposition,' but as a great link of +Empire. British North America must be united, and must be given a +place in the Empire. At present the colonial is doomed to a colonial +existence. 'The North American provinces must,' he wrote to Grey, +'either: + +Be incorporated into the Realm of England, + +Join the American Confederacy, + +Be formed into a nation. + +If the first can be accomplished, the last may be postponed +indefinitely, or until all parties are prepared for it. If it cannot, +Annexation comes as a matter of course. To avert it is the duty of +Englishmen, on both sides of the Atlantic.' It rests with Great +Britain to say which road British North America is to take. 'The +higher paths of ambition, on every hand inviting the ardent spirits of +the Union, are closed to us. From equal participation in common right, +from fair competition with them in the more elevated duties of +government and the distribution of its prizes, our British brethren on +the other side as carefully {102} exclude us. The president of the +United States is the son of a schoolmaster. There are more than one +thousand schoolmasters teaching the rising youth of Nova Scotia with +the depressing conviction upon their minds that no very elevated walks +of ambition are open either to their pupils or their own +children. . . . Suppose that, having done my best to draw attention to +the claims of those I have the honour to represent, I return to them +without hope; how long will high-spirited men endure a position in +which their loyalty subjects their mines to monopoly, their fisheries +to unnatural competition, and in which cold indifference to public +improvement or national security is the only response they meet when +they make to the Imperial authorities a proposition calculated to keep +alive their national enthusiasm, while developing their internal +resources?'[2] There is a balance of power in Europe which British +diplomacy labours incessantly to maintain. Each possible transfer of a +few acres of ground by some petty German princeling is carefully +studied by the Foreign Office. Is the creation of a power in North +America to balance the United States to be forever considered of no +{103} importance? Nova Scotia especially, whose praises he sings with +lusty eloquence, has been unfairly treated. As the result of a +rebellion which cost the mother country millions, Canada had been +granted a large loan. Nova Scotia had kept loyal; had put every man +and every dollar in the province at the service of her sister province +of New Brunswick, when trouble with the United States over the boundary +seemed near. Yet she had received no loan; instead, she had been +burdened by the grant to an English company of the monopoly of her coal +areas. + +Then he turns to the subject of emigration, at the time much in the +public eye, and shows how superior is British North America to +Australia, then highly spoken of. He paints vividly the heart-rending +poverty of the British lower classes, and the fertility of the acres +waiting to receive them. + +'Whence come Chartism, Socialism, O'Connor land-schemes, and all sorts +of theoretic dangers to property, and prescriptions of new modes by +which it may be acquired? From this condition of real estate. The +great mass of the people in these three kingdoms own no part of the +soil, have no bit of land, however small, no homestead for their +families {104} to cluster round, no certain provision for their +children. + +'A new aspect would be given to all the questions which arise out of +this condition of property at home, if a wise appropriation were made +of the virgin soil of the Empire. Give the Scotchman who has no land a +piece of North America, purchased by the blood which stained the tartan +on the Plains of Abraham. Let the Irishman or the Englishman whose +kindred clubbed their muskets at Bloody Creek, or charged the enemy at +Queenston,[3] have a bit of the land their fathers fought for. Let +them have at least the option of ownership and occupation, and a bridge +to convey them over. Such a policy would be conservative of the rights +of property and permanently relieve the people. It would silence +agrarian complaint and enlarge the number of proprietors.'[4] + +To convey such emigrants, to give them work, to find them markets, the +railway was a necessity. To bring them over he urged government +supervised and subsidized steamers, 'the Ocean omnibus.' + +{105} + +These ideas he developed on his return to Halifax in one of the noblest +of his speeches. 'But, sir, daring as may appear the scope of this +conception, high as the destiny may seem which it discloses for our +children, and boundless as are the fields of honourable labour which it +presents, another, grander in proportions, opens beyond; one which the +imagination of a poet could not exaggerate, but which the statesman may +grasp and realize, even in our own day. Sir, to bind these disjointed +provinces together by iron roads; to give them the homogeneous +character, fixedness of purpose, and elevation of sentiment, which they +so much require, is our first duty. But, after all, they occupy but a +limited portion of that boundless heritage which God and nature have +given to us and to our children. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are but +the frontage of a territory which includes four millions of square +miles, stretching away behind and beyond them to the frozen regions on +the one side and to the Pacific on the other. Of this great section of +the globe, all the northern provinces, including Prince Edward Island +and Newfoundland, occupy but 486,000 square miles. The Hudson's Bay +territory includes 250,000 square miles. Throwing aside the more bleak +{106} and inhospitable regions, we have a magnificent country between +Canada and the Pacific, out of which five or six noble provinces may be +formed, larger than any we have, and presenting to the hand of industry +and to the eye of speculation every variety of soil, climate, and +resource. With such a territory as this to overrun, organize, and +improve, think you that we shall stop even at the western bounds of +Canada, or even at the shores of the Pacific? Vancouver's Island, with +its vast coal measures, lies beyond. The beautiful islands of the +Pacific and the growing commerce of the ocean are beyond. Populous +China and the rich East are beyond; and the sails of our children's +children will reflect as familiarly the sunbeams of the South as they +now brave the angry tempests of the North. The Maritime Provinces +which I now address are but the Atlantic frontage of this boundless and +prolific region--the wharves upon which its business will be transacted +and beside which its rich argosies are to lie. Nova Scotia is one of +these. Will you then put your hands unitedly, with order, +intelligence, and energy, to this great work? Refuse, and you are +recreants to every principle which lies at the base of your country's +prosperity and {107} advancement; refuse, and the Deity's handwriting +upon land and sea is to you unintelligible language; refuse, and Nova +Scotia, instead of occupying the foreground as she now does, should +have been thrown back, at least behind the Rocky Mountains. God has +planted your country in the front of this boundless region; see that +you comprehend its destiny and resources--see that you discharge with +energy and elevation of soul the duties which devolve upon you in +virtue of your position. Hitherto, my countrymen, you have dealt with +this subject in a becoming spirit, and, whatever others may think or +apprehend, I know that you will persevere in that spirit until our +objects are attained. I am neither a prophet nor a son of a prophet, +yet I will venture to predict that in five years we shall make the +journey hence to Quebec and Montreal and home through Portland and St +John, by rail; and I believe that many in this room will live to hear +the whistle of the steam-engine in the passes of the Rocky Mountains +and to make the journey from Halifax to the Pacific in five or six +days.'[5] + +The question of the future of British North America had long occupied +his mind. His first recorded speech was a call to young Nova {108} +Scotians to raise their province to a place amid the nations of the +earth. The easy patronage of Englishmen, whose intellectual equal he +knew himself to be, roused him the more because he felt it to be in a +sense justified. America by rebellion had risen to manhood; was Nova +Scotia by loyalty to be doomed to inferiority? At first independence +attracted him, but by the date of his letters to Grey he had come to +believe in 'annexation to our mother country' as a better choice, +though he reiterated that independence would be preferable to the +indefinite endurance of the present position. The change might come +gradually, but come it must. Colonial regiments; a colonial navy, if +only of a few frigates; colonial representation in the Imperial +parliament, the colonies sending 'to the House of Commons one, two, or +three members of their cabinets, according to their size, population, +and relative importance.' + +This idea of Imperial Federation goes back to the days before the +American Revolution, and was brought in with them by the Loyalists. It +was a much greater favourite with the 'Family Compact' than with the +Reformers, and was urged alike by John Beverley Robinson in Upper +Canada and by Haliburton in {109} Nova Scotia, from whom Howe probably +derived it. But though not its originator, Howe was at least its +eloquent exponent, and he did much to rouse Nova Scotians to the +conviction that some remedy for their inferiority must be found. + +At the end of his second letter he boldly speaks in a way which must +have endeared him to Lord Grey's heart. The transportation of +criminals had long been a recognized part of British policy, but at +this time it was breaking down before the growth of the penitentiary +system in England and the colonial dislike of the system. South Africa +had just been brought to the verge of rebellion by the arrival of a +shipload of gallows-birds; armed colonists had forbidden them to land, +and very rough messages had been sent home to Lord Grey. It may be +imagined with what joy the harassed colonial secretary welcomed a +proposal of Howe that selected convicts, confined for light offences, +should be lent to Nova Scotia for work under military supervision along +the more unsettled portions of the line. Their continuance in the +country was evidently expected, for Howe said: 'If a portion of +comparatively wilderness country were selected for the experiment, the +men {110} might have sixpence per day carried to their credit from +colonial funds while they laboured, to accumulate till their earnings +are sufficient to purchase a tract of land upon the line, with seed and +implements to enable them to get a first crop when the period of +service had expired.'[6] + +To this Grey replied that while no convicts would be sent unless +definitely asked for by a colonial government, in that event a moderate +number would be provided 'without any charge for their custody and +subsistence to the province which may have applied for them.' After +returning to Nova Scotia Howe defended his proposal, with the express +proviso that the safeguards were sufficiently strict; but the +experience of other countries tends to show that the idea was +dangerous, and that Nova Scotia did well not to act on it. + +On his return Howe was at the height of his fame. His mission had been +successful beyond the dreams of the most sanguine. His quick dramatic +temper thrilled to the core at his reception. 'The father, in classic +story, whose three sons had gained three Olympic prizes in the same +day, felt it was time to die. But, {111} having gained the confidence +of three noble provinces, I feel it is time to live.' + +'It is clear that, unless done by the government, these great railways +cannot be done at all. Even if companies could make them, they would +cost fourteen millions instead of seven. But, sir, what is a +government for, if it is not to take the lead in noble enterprises; to +stimulate industry; to elevate and guide the public mind? You seat +eight or nine men on red cushions or gilded chairs, with nothing to do +but pocket their salaries, and call that a government. To such a +pageant I have no desire to belong. Those who aspire to govern others +should neither be afraid of the saddle by day nor of the lamp by night. +In advance of the general intelligence, they should lead the way to +improvement and prosperity. I would rather assume the staff of Moses +and struggle with the perils of the wilderness and the waywardness of +the multitude than be a golden calf, elevated in gorgeous +inactivity--the object of a worship which debased.'[7] + +There were still difficulties to overcome. New Brunswick, though +willing to co-operate in his plan, was much more eager for the {112} +Portland line, which would run through her settled southern portion and +link it with her natural market and base of supplies in the United +States. During Howe's absence she had partially committed herself to +the construction of such a line by a private company, but Howe was soon +able to convert her government to the view that it was better to build +both lines with money costing only three and a half per cent than to +build one at six per cent. In June her most influential man, Mr +Chandler, accompanied Howe to Toronto, where an agreement was soon come +to with the Canadian statesmen, of whom the chief was Mr (afterwards +Sir) Francis Hincks. In November the Railway Bills were brought down +in the Nova Scotian legislature. And then, just when the cup was at +Howe's lips, it was dashed from them. A brief dispatch from Lord Grey +announced that there had been a misapprehension. The Portland line +could not be guaranteed. 'The only railway for which Her Majesty's +Government would think it right to call upon Parliament for assistance +would be one calculated to promote the interests of the whole British +Empire, by establishing a line of communication between the three +provinces in North America.' Howe's {113} attempt to have the verdict +rescinded led only to its iteration. + +The blow fell with crushing force. It was at once obvious that New +Brunswick would withdraw from the bargain, and that she would have +right on her side in doing so. With the dropping out of the middle +section, the intercolonial railway and all that it meant must collapse. + +Was success still possible? In January 1852 Hincks and Chandler came +to Halifax with a new proposal. If the route could be changed from the +Gulf shore to the valley of the St John, New Brunswick would still +accept. The change would ensure the support of the southern part of +that province, and would also shorten the route to Montreal. Mr +Hawes's letter had expressly said that the mother country would not +insist on the northern route, if a shorter and better could be found. + +The reception of the two representatives was cold. Halifax feared that +the proposed route would turn to St John both the grain trade of the +west and that of the Gulf of St Lawrence. Howe personally was +depressed and sullen. Probably his latent egoism was beginning to show +itself. He was asked to {114} sacrifice his scheme, his darling, and +to aid in a plan patched up by others. Long conferences were held. +Eventually the financial terms were amended in favour of Nova Scotia, +and her government, Howe included, gave a somewhat reluctant assent to +the new proposal. + +A wretched chapter of accidents followed. Early in March Hincks sailed +for England; Chandler soon followed; on a series of pretexts Howe +delayed his departure. In England, Hincks and Chandler quarrelled with +Sir John Pakington, the Conservative mediocrity who had succeeded Grey, +and Hincks, brusquely turning his back upon plans of government +ownership and control, entered upon negotiations with a great private +company which ended in the construction of the Grand Trunk Railway. Of +the subsequent series of errors in the financing and building of that +line, which left Canadian credit water-logged for thirty years, it is +not necessary to speak.[8] + +Of this fiasco Howe felt, spoke, and wrote very bitterly. He accused +Hincks of having 'ended by throwing our common policy overboard, and +rushing into the arms of the great contractors.' Now, it is true that +in Halifax {115} in February Hincks had favoured government +construction; but he had expressly warned his hearers that if the +present plan did not go through, Canada might be compelled to look +elsewhere. What Canada most of all desired was connection between +Montreal and Portland on the one side and between Quebec and Detroit on +the other. For the construction of a 'grand trunk line' running east +and west she had already voted several millions. Howe's absence and +the quarrel with Pakington had destroyed all hope of success for the +government line; instead of crying over spilt milk, Canada must seek a +new dairy. Into the question of Hincks's motives or of his financial +integrity there is no need to go. The real culprit was Howe, in +refusing to help in the final negotiation. He himself has given his +defence; it is weak and egoistical. He says that he was worn down by +the travel, excitement, and fatigue of the last fifteen months, and +that in the depth of winter his opponents forced him to fight a +contested election. This might indeed have delayed his departure, +while he took a fortnight's holiday; further than that the excuse has +no weight. 'Had he gone, he must either have differed from his +co-delegates, or have {116} been compromised by their acts. By not +going, he left himself free to strike out an independent policy for his +own province, when that which had been forced upon Nova Scotia should, +as he probably anticipated, have failed.' It is the apology of an +egoist. Once again, at Confederation, we shall see him 'striking out +an independent policy for his own province,' and with results equally +disastrous. + +What of his conflict with Lord Grey? On the whole, his Lordship comes +out badly. If there is any meaning in words, Mr Hawes had promised +that the guarantee should include the Portland line. In the very +middle of a paragraph of concessions and stipulations occur the words: +'It is also to be understood that Her Majesty's Government will by no +means object to its forming part of the plan which may be determined +upon, that it should include a provision for establishing a +communication between the projected railway and the railways of the +United States.' Grey afterwards stated 'that nothing further was +contemplated in that passage than that Her Majesty's Government would +sanction such a provision for this purpose as the legislature of New +Brunswick may deem expedient to make {117} upon its own liabilities.' +A lamer excuse has rarely been penned. The whole letter deals with the +guarantee of the British government for 'the plan which may be +determined upon,' and neither by word nor by implication gives any +countenance to the idea that here in the middle of the paragraph, for +one sentence, the idea of an Imperial guarantee is dropped and that of +unaided provincial construction substituted. + +What was Howe's explanation of his Lordship's tergiversation? It was +the same as that which he had for Hincks's _volte-face_. 'A powerful +combination of great contractors, having large influence in the +Government and Parliament of England, were determined to seize upon the +North American railroads and promote their own interests at the expense +of the people.' 'If ever all the facts should be brought to light, I +believe it will be shown that by some astute manipulation the British +provinces on that occasion were sold for the benefit of English +contractors and English members of Parliament.' + +Put thus crudely the charge is absurd. The reputation of some of the +contractors who built the British North American railways is indeed +none too good. Howe scarcely {118} exaggerated when he wrote about one +of them to the lieutenant-governor that 'in his private offices there +is more jobbing, scheming, and corruption in a month than in all the +public departments in seven years.' But whatever Lord Grey's mistakes +in colonial policy, his long career shows him personally incorruptible, +and in some ways almost pedantically high-minded. The charge must be +put in another way. Grey was irritable, strong-willed, and inclined to +self-righteousness. Nothing is easier than for a self-righteous man to +confuse his wishes and his principles. It is probable that he came to +feel that Mr Hawes's letter went further than was desirable. To the +hot fit induced by Howe's eloquence succeeded cold shivers, which the +great contractors naturally encouraged. Of the great firm of Jackson, +Peto, Betts, and Brassey, which eventually built the Grand Trunk and +the early railways of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, two at least were +influential Whig members of the British House of Commons. Very +possibly Lord Grey found that with the Portland guarantee annexed he +would have difficulty in forcing the plan through parliament. He may +have believed that with the guarantee struck out the provinces would +{119} still be able to finance the Portland line. Howe is on sounder +lines when he makes the fiasco an argument in favour of his plan of +colonial representation in the Imperial parliament. 'The interests of +a few members of parliament and rich contractors were on one side, and +the interests of the colonists on the other; and in such a case there +was no great difficulty in giving two meanings to a dispatch, or in +telling a Nova Scotian with no seat in parliament or connections or +interest in England that he had made a mistake. + +'The Provinces were proceeding to fulfil the conditions, when, +unfortunately, two or three members of the Imperial parliament took a +fancy to add to the cost of the roads as much more as the guarantee +would have saved. It was for their interest that the guarantee should +not be given. It was withdrawn. The faith of England--till then +regarded as something sacred--was violated; and the answer was a +criticism on a phrase--a quibble upon the construction of a sentence, +which all the world for six months had read one way. The secret +history of this wretched transaction I do not seek to penetrate. +Enough is written upon stock-books and in the records of courts in +Canada to give us the proportions of that {120} scheme of jobbery and +corruption by which the interests of British America were overthrown. +But, sir, who believes that if these provinces had ten members in the +Imperial parliament, who believes--and I say it not boastingly--had +Nova Scotia had but one who could have stated her case before six +hundred English gentlemen, that the national faith would have been +sullied or a national pledge withdrawn?'[9] + +It was the turning-point in Howe's career. For the first time he had +attempted Imperial work on a great scale; he had put forward his best +powers; and he had failed. His failure wrecked his trust in British +and Canadian statesmen, and in the great business interests of England. +It did more; it hardened and coarsened his nature. Not that the +deterioration was sudden or complete. Some of his most beautiful +poetry, some of his finest speeches, were written subsequently. But +the weakening had set in, and when in after years he was again called +on to face a great crisis, it showed itself with fatal results. + + + +[1] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, p. 169. + +[2] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, pp. 113, 115. + +[3] See _The War Chief of the Ottawas_, chap. iv, and _The War with the +United States_, chap. iv. + +[4] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, pp. 130-1. + +[5] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, pp. 169-70. + +[6] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, p. 140. + +[7] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, p. 171. + +[8] See _The Railway Builders_ in this Series. + +[9] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, pp. 289-90. + + + + +{121} + +CHAPTER VI + +BAFFLED HOPES + +Foiled in the great scheme, the government of Nova Scotia nevertheless +went ahead with its policy of provincial railway construction, and in +1854 Howe, to the surprise of many, withdrew from the Executive to +accept the post of Railway Commissioner. His motives were probably in +part a desire to provide for his family, which his personal +extravagance and political honour alike had kept in a continual state +of penury, and in part that disgust at partisan bickering which so +often seizes upon provincial politicians in their hours of reflection. + +He had long had a great desire to enter the Imperial civil service. In +the four years between June 1855 and June 1859 the colonies were +administered by no less than six secretaries of state: Lord John +Russell, Sir William Molesworth, Mr H. Labouchere, Lord Derby, Sir E. +Bulwer Lytton, and the Duke of {122} Newcastle. To each of them Howe +wrote long letters setting forth his claims to office. To Lord John +Russell he says: 'I have exhausted the range of ambitions which that +province [Nova Scotia] affords'; and he asks to be made a permanent +under-secretary at the Colonial Office, a rank corresponding to the +Canadian title of deputy minister. Later in the year, when in London +on a provincial mission, he again approached Lord John Russell, writing +to him two long letters and having at least one interview. 'A colonial +governorship, if there was a vacancy, I would not refuse, but I would +prefer employment in your department here, with the hope that I might +win my way into parliament, distinguish myself by my pen, or by the +intelligent dispatch of public business entrusted to my care. . . . To +win a position here, in the heart of my fatherland, is my highest +ambition.' To this Lord John Russell returned the official answer that +his claims would be kept in mind. + +Later in the year Howe made the same request to Sir William Molesworth. +Sir William wrote back a very civil and straight-forward letter, saying +that the principle of taking colonials into the Imperial service had +{123} just been recognized in the appointment of Mr Hincks to the +governorship of Barbados, and that Howe's own claims would be kept in +mind, but that 'I have not at present, nor do I see any immediate +prospect of my having, any vacancy suitable for you at my disposal +either at home or abroad.' Howe naturally viewed with mixed feelings +the appointment of his enemy Hincks, and replied: 'If Mr Hincks's +appointment be followed up by judicious selection from time to time, as +fair opportunities occur, a new spirit will be infused into all the +colonies. If it be not, it will only be regarded as an indication of +the strength of English combinations which that gentleman has served, +and which others, and myself among the number, have not conciliated by +the freedom with which we have expressed independent opinions. + +'As my letter is to be placed on record, I shall be glad, with your +permission, to chiefly found my claim to consideration on the service +which I have rendered as the exponent and advocate of the new system of +administration that pervades British America, and which we call +Responsible Government.' + +In 1856 come similar letters to Mr Labouchere; and to Mr Blackwood, a +prominent {124} official at the Colonial Office, he thus summarizes his +claims: 'I am quite aware that there are many claimants on the +patronage of the Crown, and I would not wish importunately to press my +own claims. If men of greater worth and capacity are appointed over my +head, I trust that I shall have too much good sense and good taste to +complain. . . . I am quite aware that you have many military, naval, +and civil officers to provide for, and I am also aware of the +advantages which they all possess, in comparison with any colonial +gentleman, from being in England or having friends in the House, or +elsewhere, to press their claims. As I cannot be on the spot, and have +no such aids to rely upon, will you do me the favour, when such matters +may be fairly pressed, to urge: + +'1. That eighteen years of parliamentary and official life ought to +have trained me to comprehend and to administer colonial government. + +'2. That mainly by my exertions, the constitution of my native +province was remodelled and established upon sound principles. + +'3. That a system of public works, devised by me, and now rapidly +advancing, is {125} regarded as so important to the prosperity of Nova +Scotia and of the provinces generally that all parties acknowledge +their value and give me their support. + +'4. That, irrespective of colonial interests or feelings, these works, +by which troops can be conveyed in a few hours from the depot at +Halifax to the Gulf of St Lawrence or Bay of Fundy, and regiments of +militia from the eastern and western counties can be concentrated for +the defence of its citadel, arsenals, and dockyard, ought to be +considered in any comparison in which mere military or naval service +may be supposed to outweigh my claims. When completed, these works may +fairly be contrasted as a means of defence with all that your engineers +have done in the Maritime Provinces for half a century.' + +[Illustration: JOSEPH HOWE. From a painting by T. Debaussy, London, +1831. Reproduced in Chisholm's _Speeches and Public Letters of Joseph +Howe_] + +Attempts in 1857 to approach Mr Labouchere through the +lieutenant-governor, Sir Gaspard Le Marchant, and through his brother, +Sir Denis, a well-known literary man, failed, but in 1858 Lord Derby, +whom Howe had known earlier as Lord Stanley, became prime minister, and +Howe renewed his claim. With statesmanlike intuition he saw the +possibilities of the Pacific slope, now, by the {126} Oregon Treaty, +shared between Great Britain and the United States, and asked for the +governorship of British Columbia and Vancouver Island, which he thought +should be united under the name of British Oregon. Here he could guide +the infant steps of a vaster Nova Scotia; here were mountain and valley +and sea, farm and forest and fisheries; here were international +problems, not only of relations with the United States, but with the +awakening East. Lord Derby's answer was delayed, through no fault of +his own, and when in November Howe brought out an edition of his +collected speeches and public letters, he took advantage of the +opportunity to send presentation copies, with long letters, to Lord +John Russell, Lord Derby, Sir E. B. Lytton, Mr Merivale, the permanent +under-secretary of the Colonial Office, and to several other men of +influence. To the colonial secretary he complained bitterly that 'our +system denies to a colonist, so trained, the distinctions which others +of less experience, with no knowledge of the provinces they are sent to +govern, and intellectually not my superiors, readily obtain.' Lord +Derby was an English gentleman, and he replied in what Howe himself +called 'a very handsome letter,' {127} saying that as he could not +interfere with the patronage of the Colonial Office, he had therefore +left the matter to Sir E. B. Lytton. 'I regret to find by your letter +that you think that you have cause to complain of the conduct of the +Colonial Office, in reference to position in the public service. . . . +I am unable to express any opinion upon the subject, except a very +confident one that Sir E. Lytton cannot have any disposition to +underrate public services, the value of which must be known to all who +within the last twenty years have been connected with the North +American Colonies.' + +Howe's hopes were high. 'I suppose they will now do something with or +for me,' he wrote to a friend. But the governorship of British +Columbia was not for him. Nor indeed could it be, richly though he had +deserved that or any other governorship. The chief interest in the new +province was that of the Hudson's Bay Company; for twenty years this +company's interests and those of Great Britain had been protected on +the Pacific by Sir James Douglas, to whom the governorship rightly fell. + +In 1859 Howe made a last appeal to the Duke of Newcastle, with a like +result. + +{128} + +It is a sad spectacle, that of the great man knocking at preferment's +door, and knocking in vain. Howe was a statesman, with his head full +of ideas of Imperial consolidation. His was a great wild heart, deeply +touched indeed with ambition, 'the last infirmity of noble minds,' but +deeply conscious also of great powers, emotional and intellectual. +Small wonder that he raged as he felt that to reach his goal he had to +crawl through so narrow a portal, had to abase himself before +well-meaning mediocrities like Labouchere or Newcastle. + +He could not do it. In none of his letters do we find the real tone of +the office-seeker. The man who so haughtily wrote back to Molesworth +his opinion of the appointment of Hincks was not the man to commend +himself to an official superior. His very merits closed the door +against him. Government departments usually prefer to let sleeping +dogs lie, to be content with honest administration along existing +lines, and to distrust innovation. To bring a new idea into a +government department is little less dangerous than to bring a live +mouse into a sewing circle. A government department wishes for honest +and able men; but the kind of ability it {129} desires is the ability +which will run in harness, an unoriginative industry, a mind plastic to +the will of its superiors. The Colonial Office had no fancy for a +turbulent, great-hearted, idealistic Howe, with views on Imperial +consolidation, who avowedly wanted office as a means of influencing the +British public, and if possible of entrance into the Imperial +parliament. Colonial secretaries were little likely to choose as their +assistant the man who had taught Lord John Russell his business, who +had first forced Lord Grey to do violence to his cherished convictions, +and later on had accused his Lordship of lack of courtesy, if not of +honesty. + +Moreover, the Colonial Office of the day was, as a rule, in the control +of men who thought the Empire was big enough, if not too big. Honestly +doing their duty in the station to which it had pleased God to call +them, they yet, most of them, had a half-formed thought that the +natural end for a colony was independence, and had no mind for Imperial +consolidation. + +Howe knew all this; he knew that to them he was only a colonial, and +Nova Scotia only a detail; he knew that all his services counted for +less in their eyes than did the claims of {130} some 'sumph' whose +father or uncle could influence a vote on a division. He knew that for +the English statesman of the day, as for the Nova Scotian, charity +began at home. Unfortunately, his knowledge did not turn him to the +idea of building up a great Canada wherein a man could find +satisfaction for his utmost ambition; his larger loyalty had ever been +to England. It was eastwards and not westwards that the Nova Scotian +of his day turned for a career. + +A man in this mood, with no job big enough to occupy his mind, full of +an almost open contempt for his Nova Scotian colleagues, was a very +doubtful asset to a government. Yet he could not be dispensed with, +for in or out of the provincial Executive he was indisputably the +foremost figure in the province. To him the Cabinet turned so often +for advice in hours of crisis that he became known as the 'government +cooper'; and a government which is known to depend upon a power behind +the scenes is invariably weakened. + +In 1854 the Crimean War with Russia had broken out. Great Britain had +enjoyed profound peace since Waterloo, and the mechanism of the War +Office was rusty and inadequate. She soon became hard pressed for +troops, and {131} under the Foreign Enlistment Act Howe was sent, in +1855, by the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia to the United States +with the object of getting men to Halifax, there to be sworn in. It +was a delicate and unthankful task. Men did not come forward with +enthusiasm, and Howe was driven to employ doubtful methods and doubtful +agents. The sympathy of the United States was with Russia, a sympathy +especially shown by the thousands of Roman Catholic Irish who had +arrived in the past ten years. As a result of the attempted +enlistments, Mr Crampton, the British ambassador, was given his +passports by the American government; in New York Howe was mobbed, and +compelled to escape from his hotel through a window. Meanwhile, the +Irish in Nova Scotia had been roused against him. He returned from a +mission on which he had hoped to win Imperial reputation under a cloud +of failure, out of pocket, and with the Catholic vote, for the past +twenty years his sheet-anchor, alienated. + +Other misfortunes followed. Of late there had been rising into +prominence in the Conservative ranks a country doctor, Charles Tupper +by name. In 1852 he had demanded to be heard at one of Howe's +meetings. 'Let {132} us hear the little doctor by all means,' said +Howe, with contemptuous generosity. 'I would not be any more affected +by anything he might say than by the mewing of yonder kitten.' So +vigorous was Tupper's speech that a bystander muttered that 'it was +possible Joe would find the little doctor a cat that would scratch his +eyes out.' In 1855 the prophecy was fulfilled. In his own county of +Cumberland Howe was defeated by Tupper, and throughout the province the +Conservatives obtained a decisive majority. In the next year Howe was +elected for the county of Hants, but before he took his seat events +occurred of which he took a short-sighted advantage. + +The Irish Catholics of the province, whose numbers were now largely +increased by the prospect of work on the railways, were for the most +part hostile to the Protestant population. In face of their undoubted +provocations, an equally narrow and irrational Protestant feeling was +aroused. Late in 1856 this latent bitterness was roused to fury by a +brutal attack by some Irish Catholics upon their fellow-labourers at +Gourley's Shanty, along the line of railway construction. So savage +was the fighting that the military were called out to restore order, +which was not done without {133} bloodshed. Howe saw his chance of +revenge for the unjust treatment he had received at the hands of the +Irish the year before--a chance of forming an almost solid Protestant +party, on the back of which he might ride to power again. Beginning +with justified condemnation of lawlessness and fanaticism, the lust of +conflict and the delirium of the orator soon swept him into a campaign +of attack, and led him to ridicule some of the most sacred tenets of +Catholicism. + +It is a sad spectacle. Howe had noble ideas of religious freedom. In +his early struggle against the Oligarchy, when accused of hostility to +the Church of England, he had said, and said with deep sincerity: 'I +wish to see Nova Scotians one happy family worshipping one God, it may +be in different modes at different altars, yet feeling that their +religious belief makes no distinction in their civil privileges, but +that the government and the law are as universal as the atmosphere, +pressing upon yet invigorating all alike.' A few years later, in his +struggle for one undenominational college, he had taken the same +generous stand. In 1849, at a time of great bitterness, he had +supported, before the English of Quebec, the rights of the {134} +French-Canadian Catholics. 'How long will you be making converts of +the compact mass of eight hundred thousand French Canadians, who must +by and by multiply to millions, and who will adhere all the more +closely to their customs and their faith, if their attachment to them +be made the pretext for persecution? In the sunshine, the Frenchman +may cast aside his grey capote; but, depend upon it, when the storm +blows, he will clasp it more closely to his frame. You ask me what is +to be done with these recusants? Just what is done now in Nova Scotia +on a small scale, and by republican America on a large one: know no +distinctions of origin, of race, of creed. Treat all men alike.' + +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 worship of success, were getting the better of his nobler 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 nobler 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 shore, the +admiral on the station refused to furnish it. 'If I had had any idea +of why he really wanted that ship, 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. + +{137} + +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 attitude 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 nobler 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. + +{139} + +3. A federation is cumbrous, 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 constitution. It galled him +that the Quebec scheme had been completed to the minutest detail, and +published to the world, without any assistance 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 noble, one less noble. 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 ship in his own fashion? In the +circumstances, 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; coarse 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 passed a +measure, instituting compulsory primary education, based on direct +local assessment. In his heart of hearts Howe knew that it was a noble +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 +passion. + +In the midst of it his nobler 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 passed 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 constitutional 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 constitutional +correctness. He held his majority together by the strong hand. In +1866 he succeeded in getting a resolution passed, 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 smashing +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. + +[Illustration: JOSEPH HOWE. From a photograph by Notman, taken about +1871] + +What was Nova Scotia to do? At the first election subsequent to +federation, among the nineteen Nova Scotian delegates, Tupper alone of +the Conservatives was elected. Eighteen others, with Howe at their +head, went to Ottawa pledged to secure repeal. In the local house, of +thirty-eight members two only supported federation. Howe had his +majority; but what was he to do with it? Repeal could come only from +England, and to England Howe went. One good argument he had, and one +only, that Tupper had refused to consult the electorate on a question +involving their {145} whole constitutional status as a province; that, +as he put it, they had been entrapped into a revolution. With the aid +of this he won the support of the great English orator, John Bright, +and had the matter brought up in the House of Commons. But Bright's +motion for a committee of investigation was voted down by an +overwhelming majority. + +Meanwhile Tupper, with fine courage, had followed him to London, and +had made his first call upon Howe himself. Howe was not at home, but +Tupper left his card, and Howe returned the call. Over forty years +later the veteran, now Sir Charles Tupper, told in his _Recollections_ +the story of their interview. + +'I can't say that I am glad to see you,' said Howe, 'but we must make +the best of it.' + +'When you fail in the mission that brought you here,' said Tupper; +'when you find out the Imperial government and parliament are +overwhelmingly against you--what then?' + +Howe replied: 'I have eight hundred men in each county in Nova Scotia +who will take an oath that they will never pay a cent of taxation to +the Dominion, and I defy the government to enforce Confederation.' + +'You have no power of taxation, Howe,' Tupper replied, 'and in a few +years you will {146} have every sensible man cursing you, as there will +be no money for schools, roads, or bridges. I will not ask that troops +be sent to Nova Scotia, but I shall recommend that if the people refuse +to obey the law, that the federal subsidy be withheld.' + +'Howe,' he continued, 'you have a majority at your back, but if you +will enter the Cabinet and assist in carrying on the work of +Confederation, you will find me as strong a supporter as I have been an +opponent.' + +'Two hours of free and frank discussion followed,' writes Tupper. That +very night Tupper wrote to Sir John Macdonald that he thought Howe +would join the Dominion Cabinet. + +On his return to Nova Scotia, Howe found that the extreme repealers in +the local legislature were talking secession and hinting at annexation +to the United States. He could countenance neither. The son of the +Loyalist was loyal at the last. The whole province was like tinder. A +spark would have kindled a fire that would have ruined it, or thrown it +back ten or twenty years. Howe trampled the spark under his feet. + +Meanwhile, in Ottawa, an unrivalled political tactician was watching +the situation. While {147} the fever in Nova Scotia was at its height, +Sir John Macdonald had refused to say a word. Now that the fever had +run its course, now that the one able leader of the repeal cause +realized the _impasse_ into which he had brought his beloved province, +Macdonald saw that it was the time for him 'from the nettle danger to +pluck the flower safety.' He entered into negotiations with Howe, +employing all his art and all his sagacity. Clearly he put the choice. +Nova Scotia was in the Dominion, and the only way out led direct to +Washington. Was not the only possible course for the greatest Nova +Scotian to sink his personal feelings, and to join in giving to Nova +Scotia her due part in a nation stretching from sea to sea and from the +Arctic to the Great Lakes, puissant and loyal beneath the flag of +Britain? + +Against this conclusion Howe fought hard. It meant for him an act of +inconsistency which he well knew his recent allies would stigmatize as +apostasy. But the logic of the situation was too strong for him, and +with noble self-sacrifice he faced it. In January 1869 he entered the +Cabinet of Sir John Macdonald, and by so doing won for Nova Scotia the +better financial terms which removed her {148} most tangible grievance. +By this time most of the leaders of the repeal party were ready for +this step, even though their followers were not. Had Howe sunk his +egoism and consulted them before he crossed the Rubicon, had there been +no telegraph between Ottawa and Halifax, so that he could have come +personally and have been the first to explain to them the improved +financial terms which he had won, and the necessity of his entering the +Cabinet as a pledge of his sincerity, they would probably have been +satisfied. But the telegraph spoiled all, especially as there were men +in the local legislature who were fretting against his leadership. +They felt themselves to be in a false position, from which they could +escape by making Howe the scapegoat. For ten days the only fact that +was made to stand out before all eyes was that the leader of the +anti-confederate and repeal party had taken office under Sir John +Macdonald. The cry was raised, Howe has sold himself; Howe is a +traitor. They condemned him unheard. When he returned to Halifax, old +friends crossed the street to avoid speaking to him, and young friends, +who once would have felt honoured by a word, walked as close before or +behind him as possible that he might hear {149} their insults. He was +getting old; during his labours in 1866 in England bronchitis had +fastened on him; and now the love and trust of the people--that which +had been the breath of his nostrils--failed him utterly. + +Having accepted Cabinet rank, he had to resign his seat in Hants +county, and to appeal to his constituents for re-election. The result +was the fiercest fight in the history of the province. Money was +openly lavished by both sides. Howe fought well, but his health gave +way, and for the first time in his life his buoyancy and courage +deserted him. Finally, at a little village where he and a prominent +opponent were to face each other, Howe broke down, and sent a friend to +ask his antagonist to postpone the meeting. + +'Why must it be postponed?' was the reply. + +'Sir, to speak to-night would kill Mr Howe.' + +'Damn him! that's what we want,' was the fierce reply, symbolic of the +merciless spirit of the contest. + +Howe dragged himself to the platform, too ill to stand. Eventually he +gained his election, but his health was shattered, and he was never the +old Joe Howe again. + +Then came the end. In the Cabinet he was not a success. He +represented a small {150} province with few votes, and even so he +shared the leadership with Tupper. To Sir John Macdonald, too intent +on a few great ends to have any place for unprofitable sentiment, the +weary Titan was of less account than half a dozen Quebec or Ontario +members with less than one-tenth of his ability, but with twice the +number of votes in their control. Howe chafed under Macdonald's +drastic though kindly sway, and by impetuous outbreaks more than once +got the government into trouble. Late in 1869 he was sent to the Red +River Settlement, in the hope of smoothing out the difficulties there. +He did no good, still further weakened his health, and on his return +was involved in a bitter quarrel with one of his colleagues, the Hon. +William M'Dougall. + +In 1872 he shared with Tupper the triumph of carrying in favour of the +Conservative party eighteen of the nineteen seats in Nova Scotia, and +of finally silencing the cry of repeal. In May 1873 his failing health +led to his being appointed lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia. He died +suddenly on the 1st of June 1873. + +Here, with a few words, we close our sketch of this man, the greatest +that Nova Scotia has produced. Judging him not by single acts, {151} +as no one ever should be judged, but by his life as a whole, he may be +called a great man. His honesty of purpose and love of country, his +creative faculty, width of view, and power of will combined, entitle +him to be called a great statesman. He was more than a politician and +more than an orator. He had qualities that made men willing to follow +him even when they did not see where they were going, or only saw that +they were going in a direction different from their former course. +Steering in the teeth of former professions, he bade them have +patience, for he was tacking; and they believed him. True, they were +swayed by his eloquence, and gladdened by his sympathy and his humour. +The fascination of the orator thrilled them; but had they not believed +that at bottom he was sincere, the charm would soon have ceased to +work. As it was, they followed him as few parties have ever followed a +leader. Men followed him against their own interests, against their +own Church, against their own prejudices and convictions. +Episcopalians fought by his side against the Church of England; +Baptists fought with him against the demands of their denomination; +Roman Catholics stood by him when he assailed the doctrines of their +Church. + +{152} + +Though he was merciless in conflict, bitterness did not dwell in his +heart. He was always willing to shake hands, in true English fashion, +when the war was over. If friends expostulated about the generosity of +his language or actions to political opponents, 'Oh! what's the use,' +he would reply, 'he has got a pretty wife'; or, 'he is not such a bad +fellow after all'; or, 'life is too short to keep that sort of thing +up.' He was generous partly because he felt he could afford it, for he +had boundless confidence in his own resources. This self-confidence +gave him a hearty, cheery manner, no matter what straits he was in, +that acted on his followers like wine. + +The one thing lacking was that he had not wholly subordinated self to +duty and to God. He was immersed in active engagements and all the +cares of life from early years. He was capable of enjoying, and he did +enjoy without stint, every sweet cup that was presented to his lips. +He was conscious of great powers that never seemed to fail him, but +enabled him to rise with the occasion ever higher and higher. Small +wonder, then, that he cast himself as a strong swimmer into the boiling +currents of life, little caring whither they bore {153} him, because +proudly confident that he could hold his own, or, at any rate, regain +the shore whenever he liked. + +A thorough intellectual training would have done much for him. The +discipline of a university career enables even a young man to know +somewhat of his own strength and weakness, especially somewhat of his +own awful ignorance; and self-knowledge leads to self-control. +Circumstances put this beyond his reach; but something more excellent +than even a college was within his reach, had he only been wise enough +to understand and possess it as his own. In his father he had a +pattern of things in the heavens; a life in which law and freedom meant +the same thing; in which the harmony between his own will and the will +of God gave unity, harmony, and nobleness to life and life's work. The +teaching of the old Loyalist's life was the eternal teaching of the +stars: + + Like as a star + That maketh not haste, + That taketh not rest, + Let each be fulfilling + His God-given hest. + +But the veins of the son were full of blood and his bones moistened +with marrow. Passion {154} spoke in his soul, and he heard and loved +the sweet voices of nature, and of men and women. Not that the +whispers of heaven were unheard. No; nor were they disregarded; but +they were not absolutely and implicitly obeyed. And so, like the vast +crowd, all through life he was partly the creature of impulse and +partly the servant of principle. Often it would have been difficult +for himself to say which was uppermost in him. Had he attained to +unity and harmony of nature, he could have been a poet, or a statesman +of the old heroic type. But he did not attain, for he did not seek +with the whole heart. And he puzzled others, because he had never read +the riddle of himself. + +All Nova Scotians are glad that he spent his last days in Government +House. It was an honour he himself felt to be his due--a light, though +it were but the light of a wintry sun, that fell on his declining days. +Many old friends flocked to see him; and the meetings were sometimes +very touching. An old follower, one who had never failed him, came to +pay his tribute of glad homage. His chief had reached a haven of rest +and the height of his ambition. When the door was opened, the governor +was at the other end of the room. {155} He turned, and the two +recognized each other. Not a word was spoken. The rugged face of the +liegeman was tremulous. He looked round; yes, it was actually old +Government House, and his chief was in possession. After all the +storms and disappointments, it had actually come to this. The two men +drew near, and as hand touched hand the two heads bowed together, and +without a word they embraced as two children would. Are there many +such little wells of poetry in the arid wilderness of political life? + +On the day of his arrival in Halifax a true and tried relative called. +'Well, Joseph, what would your old father have thought of this?' +'Yes,' was the answer, 'it would have pleased the old man. I have had +a long fight for it, and have stormed the castle at last. But now that +I have it, what does it all amount to? I shall be here but a few days; +and instead of playing governor, I feel like saying with Wolsey, to the +Abbot of Leicester: + + An old man, broken with the storms of State, + Is come to lay his weary bones among ye; + Give him a little earth for charity.' + +That was almost all that was given him. The only levee he held in +Government House was {156} after his death, when he lay in state, and +thousands crowded round to take a long last look at their old idol. + +On the morning after Howe's death a wealthy Halifax merchant, one who +had been a devoted friend of his, saw as he was entering his place of +business a farmer or drover, one well known for 'homespun without, and +a warm heart within,' sitting on a box outside near the door, his head +leaning on his hand, his foot monotonously swinging to and fro, looking +as if he had sat there for hours and had no intention of getting up in +a hurry. 'Well, Stephen, what's the matter?' 'Oh, nauthin',' was the +dull response. 'Is it Howe?' was the next question, in a softer tone. +The sound of the name unsealed the fountain. 'Yes, it's Howe.' The +words came with a gulp, and then followed tears, dropping on the +pavement large and fast. He did not weep alone. In many a hamlet, in +many a fishing village, in many a nook and corner of Nova Scotia, as +the news went over the land, Joseph Howe had the same tribute of tears. + + Vex not his ghost; O let him pass! he hates him + That would upon the rack of this rough world + Stretch him out longer. + +{157} He sleeps in Camphill Cemetery, not far from the pines and salt +sea water of his boyhood, a column of Nova Scotian granite marking his +resting-place; and his memory abides in the hearts of thousands of his +countrymen. + + + + +{158} + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +Besides the two noble volumes, _Speeches and Public Letters of Joseph +Howe_, edited by Joseph Andrew Chisholm, K. C. (Halifax, 1909), the +reader should consult the biography of Howe by Mr Justice Longley in +the 'Makers of Canada' series, and the account of Nova Scotian history +by Professor Archibald MacMechan in _Canada and its Provinces_, vol. +xiii. See also _Recollections of Sixty Years in Canada_ by Sir Charles +Tupper (London, 1914); and, in this Series, _The Winning of Popular +Government_ and _The Railway Builders_. For an intimate study of life +in Nova Scotia there are no books equal to the works of Thomas Chandler +Haliburton. + + + + +{159} + + INDEX + + Acadia College, 76, 77, 78. + Acadians, their expulsion, 4. + Almon, Mr, his appointment to the Executive Council objected to, 80. + American Revolution, its effect on Britain's colonial policy, 32-3. + Annand, William, and Howe, 46. + Archibald, S. G. W., 28; takes his stand on 'no taxation + without representation,' 44. + Assembly, the, representative but irresponsible, 33-4; the + fight for Responsible Government, 50-5, 88-9; Howe's + Twelve Resolutions, 50-4; the struggle with the governor + over Lord John Russell's dispatch, 61-4; the victory of + the Reformers, 88-90. + + Bank of Nova Scotia, founding of the, 37. + Blanchard, Jotham, and Howe, 28. + Blessington, Countess of, her method of aiding impecunious + relations, 38. + Bright, John, and Howe, 145. + British North America Act, the, 136, 144. + Buller, Charles, on the patronage of the Colonial Office, 38-9. + + Campbell, Sir Colin, lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, 61-64, 76. + Canada, the railway question in, 92, 95, 115. + Chandler, E. B., his railway mission, 112, 113, 114. + Chapman, H. S., and Howe, 56. + Church of England, its power in Nova Scotia, 34-6, 55. + Colonial Office, its patronage, 38, 39; and Howe's desire to + enter Imperial service, 128-9. + Council, the, its composition and powers, 33-4, 36, 38; its + influence and integrity, 39; attempts to lower the duty on + brandy, 44; opposes Howe's Twelve Resolutions, 50-4; + changes in its constitution, 54-5, 64-5; the coming of + Responsible Government, 71-74, 88. + Crawley, Rev. Dr, 76; his education campaign, 77. + Cunard, Samuel, his steamship line founded, 94. + + Dalhousie College, 35-6, 76. + Derby, Lord, 121, 125; his 'handsome letter' to Howe, 126-7. + Douglas, Sir James, lieutenant-governor of British Columbia, 127. + Doyle, Laurence O'Connor, and Howe, 28, 50. + Durham, Lord, his Report on the state of Canada, 56-7, 92. + + Elgin, Lord, his Reciprocity Treaty, 142. + Executive Council, 55. See Council. + + Falkland, Lord, lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, 64, + 69, 70, 72-3; his quarrel with Howe, 74, 79, 80, 81-6; leaves + the province, 86. + 'Family Compact' of Nova Scotia, the, 39-40, 58, 108; + the struggle against, 44, 89. See Council. + + George, Sir Rupert D., refuses to resign office, 88. + Glenelg, Lord, colonial secretary, 54-5. + Gourley's Shanty, the brawl at, 132-3. + Grand Trunk Railway, the, 114. + Great Britain, her treatment of the Loyalists, 17; her + restrictive colonial system, 30-3; her control over Nova Scotian + political affairs, 33; her system of Responsible Government, 47-9; + her survey for an intercolonial railway in Canada, 92; + her promise of a guarantee, 99, 112-13, 116; + sends Howe on a recruiting mission to the United States, 130-1. + Grey, Lord, his dispatch instituting Responsible Government + in Nova Scotia, 88; his railway policy, 96, 100; his promise + to Howe of an Imperial guarantee, 96-100; his + evasion, 112-13, 116-18, 129; and Howe's convict scheme, 109-10. + + Haliburton, T. C. (Sam Slick), 28; his theory of government, + 39-43, 108; his voyage with Howe, 92, 93-4. + Halifax, 4; its importance, 7-8, 10, 94; its traditions and life + in the early nineteenth century, 8-10; 'Society' and + Howe, 38, 65-9, 72; and Confederation, 137. + Halifax Banking Company, its financial and legislative monopoly, 36-7. + Halliburton, Sir Brenton, compliments Howe, 22. + Harvey, Sir John, 61; lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, 87, 88. + Hawes, Mr, and Howe's railway campaign, 96-9, 113, 116, 118. + Hincks, Sir Francis, 112; his railway mission, 113, 114-15; + and Howe, 123, 138. + Howe, John, his career and character, 14-18, 153. + Howe, Joseph, his birth and school days, 11-13; his education, + 18-20, 26; his admiration for his father, 15-17, 20; his + apprenticeship, 18, 19; an early drowning experience, + 20-1; resolves to make letters his career, 22, 26; from the + 'Acadian' to the 'Nova Scotian,' 22, 24, 26-9, 81-3; + his marriage, 23; inaugurates 'The Club,' 28; impugns the + integrity of the administration of Halifax, 29, 43, 9; his + great triumph in the prosecution for libel, 44-6; leaps into + fame as an orator, 46, 142-3; elected to the Assembly + determined to obtain Responsible Government, 46, 50, 88-90, 123; + begins the attack on the Council with Twelve Resolutions, 50-4, 37; + his address to the Crown, 54; gives proof of his loyalty, 56, 108, + 130, 146, 147; his defence of Responsible Government in + answer to Lord John Russell, 57-61, 74; his meeting with + Lord Sydenham, 63-4; and Sir Colin Campbell, 64; appointed + to the Executive Council, 65, 72; becomes an object of hatred to + Halifax 'Society,' 65-70; shows his grit and courage, 23, 67-70; + on patronage, 71; resigns the speakership to become collector + of customs, 73; his controversy with Johnston, 74-80, 83; + his agitation in favour of an undenominational college, 75, 76-9, + 133, 141; advocates the party government system, 79; and resigns + from the Executive Council, 80; his quarrel with Lord Falkland + ends with the governor's recall, 81-7; refuses to assist + in forming a coalition government, 87; becomes provincial + secretary in the first Reform administration, 88, 124-5, 135; + advocates the building of railways, 92-4; his voyage with + Haliburton on the 'Tyrian,' 93-4; his policy of state + ownership and construction, 95, 100, 104; his railway + campaign in England, 96-100; his interview with Lord + Grey, 96-8; secures an Imperial guarantee for an inter-colonial + railway, 99-104; on the inferior position of the + colonial, 101-3, 108, 109; advocates emigration to Canada + as a solution of the poverty problem in Britain, 103-4; on + Imperial consolidation, 101-107; his visions of a great + future for Canada, 105-7; his rousing call to Nova Scotia + and his prophecy, 105-8; favours Imperial Federation, + 108-9, 119-20, 137, 144; his scheme of settling convicts in + Nova Scotia, 109-10; on the duty of a government, 111; + his railway plans come to grief, 111-13, 117, 119-20; + evades joining Hincks's mission to England, 114-16, 123; + withdraws from the Executive Council to become a Railway + Commissioner, 121; his efforts to enter the Imperial + civil service, 121-7; the causes of his failure, 128-30; + his disastrous recruiting mission in the United States, + 130-1; the Irish vote fails him in his contest with + Tupper, 131-2, 140-1; his Protestant campaign, 133-4; appointed + Fishery Commissioner, 135; his anti-Confederation campaign, 136, + 137-44; his signal triumph as Canadian delegate to the Reciprocity + convention held in Detroit, 142-3; returned to the Dominion parliament + pledged to secure repeal of the British North America Act, 144; his + mission to London, where he is interviewed by Tupper, 145-146; + enters Sir John Macdonald's Cabinet, 147-8, 149-50; + his heart-rending struggle, 149; lieutenant-governor of + Nova Scotia, 150, 154-5; his death, 150, 154-6; his character, + 16, 23, 25-7, 67-8, 82-3, 113, 114, 116, 120, 134, 139-140, + 151-4; his appearance, 13-14; his popularity, 6-7, 24-25, 151; + his love for Nova Scotia, 1-3, 8, 19, 24, 27-8, 138-9; his poetic + gift, 12, 22, 29, 82-3; his noble ideas of religious freedom, 133-4. + Howe, Mrs Joseph, 23. + + Jackson, Peto, Betts, and Brassey, railway contractors, 114, 117, 118. + Johnston, Hon. J. W., his controversy with Howe, 72-80; + denounces party government, 79; his administration, 81, 83. + + Kincaid, Captain John, and Howe, 28. + King's College, 35, 76. + + Labouchere, H., colonial secretary, 121, 123-5, 128. + Legislature, the. See Council and Assembly. + Le Marchant, Sir Gaspard, lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, 125. + Lytton, Sir E. B., colonial secretary, 121, 126-7. + + Macdonald, Sir John, induces Howe to join his Cabinet, 146-7, 150. + M'Dougall, Hon. William, and Howe, 150. + Mackenzie, W. L., his revolt in Upper Canada, 56. + Metcalfe, Sir Charles, governor-general of Canada, 71. + Molesworth, Sir William, colonial secretary, 121, 122-3. + Murdoch, Beamish, and Howe, 28. + + Navigation Acts, the, 30-2. + Newcastle, Duke of, and Howe, 121, 127, 128. + New Brunswick, the railway question in, 94-5, 111-12, 113. + Nova Scotia, and Joseph Howe, 1-3, 6, 130, 156; early settlements + in, 4-7; trade development of, 10, 33; her political + system, 33-4, 36, 38, 42, 43, 54-5, 64-5, 73-4, 88-90; + religious strife in, 35, 77-8, 132-3; and Colonial Office + patronage, 38; the railway question in, 92-3, 94, 96, 114, + 121; loyalty of, 103; favours a maritime union, 135; her + hostility to Confederation, 137, 144, 146-8, 150. + + Pakington, Sir John, colonial secretary, 114. + Papineau, L. J., his rebellion in Lower Canada, 56. + + Reciprocity Treaty, the, Howe's great speech in connection with, 142-3. + Reformers, their success in 1847, 88. + Responsible Government, Haliburton on, 41-3; in Great + Britain, 47-9; the fight for in Nova Scotia, 50-5, 73-4, 80, 88-90. + Robinson, J. B., and Imperial Federation, 108. + Russell, Lord John, on Responsible Government, 57; his + dispatch conferring greater powers on the Assembly, 61, + 63; and Howe, 121, 122, 126, 129. + + St Mary's College, 76. + South Africa, her objection to Britain's gallows-birds, 109. + Southampton, Howe's meeting at, 2, 96-7, 99. + Stephenson, George, his locomotive, 91. + Sydenham, Lord, his meeting with Howe, 63-4. + + Tupper, Sir Charles, his tilt with Howe, 131-2, 134-5, + 143-4; his efforts on behalf of Confederation, 136, 143-4, + 150; institutes compulsory education, 75, 141; his interview + with Howe in London, 145-6. + + Uniacke, J. B., converted to Responsible Government, 62, + 69; member of Executive Council, 65; his Reform + administration, 88. + United States, and the 'spoils system,' 88; railway development + in, 91; Howe's recruiting mission in, 131; + and the Reciprocity Treaty, 142-3. + + War of 1812, and Halifax, 8. + + + + +{165} + +THE CHRONICLES OF CANADA + + +Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton of the University of Toronto + +A series of thirty-two freshly-written narratives for popular reading, +designed to set forth, in historic continuity, the principal events and +movements in Canada, from the Norse Voyages to the Railway Builders. + + +PART I. THE FIRST EUROPEAN VISITORS + + 1. The Dawn of Canadian History + A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada + BY STEPHEN LEACOCK + + 2. The Mariner of St Malo + A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier + BY STEPHEN LEACOCK + + +PART II. THE RISE OF NEW FRANCE + + 3. The Founder of New France + A Chronicle of Champlain + BY CHARLES W. COLBY + + 4. The Jesuit Missions + A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness + BY THOMAS GUTHRIE MARQUIS + + 5. The Seigneurs of Old Canada + A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism + BY WILLIAM BENNETT MUNRO + + 6. The Great Intendant + A Chronicle of Jean Talon + BY THOMAS CHAPAIS + + 7. The Fighting Governor + A Chronicle of Frontenac + BY CHARLES W. COLBY + + +PART III. THE ENGLISH INVASION + + 8. The Great Fortress + A Chronicle of Louisbourg + BY WILLIAM WOOD + + 9. The Acadian Exiles + A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline + BY ARTHUR G. DOUGHTY + +10. The Passing of New France + A Chronicle of Montcalm + BY WILLIAM WOOD + +11. The Winning of Canada + A Chronicle of Wolfe + BY WILLIAM WOOD + + +PART IV. THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH CANADA + +12. The Father of British Canada + A Chronicle of Carleton + BY WILLIAM WOOD + +13. The United Empire Loyalists + A Chronicle of the Great Migration + BY W. STEWART WALLACE + +14. The War with the United States + A Chronicle of 1812 + BY WILLIAM WOOD + + +PART V. THE RED MAN IN CANADA + +15. The War Chief of the Ottawas + A Chronicle of the Pontiac War + BY THOMAS GUTHRIE MARQUIS + +16. The War Chief of the Six Nations + A Chronicle of Joseph Brant + BY LOUIS AUBREY WOOD + +17. Tecumseh + A Chronicle of the last Great Leader of his People + BY ETHEL T. RAYMOND + + +PART VI. PIONEERS OF THE NORTH AND WEST + +18. The 'Adventurers of England' on Hudson Bay + A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North + BY AGNES C. LAUT + +19. Pathfinders of the Great Plains + A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons + BY LAWRENCE J. BURPEE + +20. Adventurers of the Far North + A Chronicle of the Arctic Seas + BY STEPHEN LEACOCK + +21. The Red River Colony + A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba + BY LOUIS AUBREY WOOD + +22. Pioneers of the Pacific Coast + A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters + BY AGNES C. LAUT + +23. The Cariboo Trail + A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia + BY AGNES C. LAUT + + +PART VII. THE STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL FREEDOM + +24. The Family Compact + A Chronicle of the Rebellion in Upper Canada + BY W. STEWART WALLACE + +25. The Patriotes of '37 + A Chronicle of the Rebellion in Lower Canada + BY ALFRED D. DECELLES + +26. The Tribune of Nova Scotia + A Chronicle of Joseph Howe + BY WILLIAM LAWSON GRANT + +27. The Winning of Popular Government + A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 + BY ARCHIBALD MACMECHAN + + +PART VIII. THE GROWTH OF NATIONALITY + +28. The Fathers of Confederation + A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion + BY A. H. U. COLQUHOUN + +29. The Day of Sir John Macdonald + A Chronicle of the Early Years of the Dominion + BY SIR JOSEPH POPE + +30. The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier + A Chronicle of Our Own Times + BY OSCAR D. SKELTON + + +PART IX. NATIONAL HIGHWAYS + +31. All Afloat + A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways + BY WILLIAM WOOD + +32. The Railway Builders + A Chronicle of Overland Highways + BY OSCAR D. SKELTON + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIBUNE OF NOVA SCOTIA*** + + +******* This file should be named 24932.txt or 24932.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/9/3/24932 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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