THE TREATY-MAKING POWER

all I could to protect the rights and claims of the Dominion."

The Washington Treaty marked the opening of a new era in the history of imperial negotiations. Treaties affecting Canada had hitherto been made for her by the mother country alone, which was alone responsible for their execution. Now for the first time a colonist, acutely alive to the special interests and claims of his own section of the empire, qualified better than anyone else to represent them, and responsible for his action to the electorate of Canada as well as to the Crown, was asked to accept plenipotentiary power, along with colleagues from the United Kingdom, in framing a treaty which affected the empire as a whole in its relation to another great power.

Doubtless the precedent is one which should, and will, become the rule in dealing with the concerns of those vast territories and increasing communities which in various parts of the world are growing to a national status under the British Crown. It is impossible to imagine that these great dependencies of the empire can allow affairs in which they have a supreme interest to be settled without that full voice in arriving at decisions to which their interests entitle them. But it is equally impossible to imagine, in the present condition of the world, any system by which the treaty-making right can be divorced from the power, based on naval and military strength, which executes treaties

and gives them efficiency. Coöperation seems therefore the only possible future of national diplomacy for British people. It implies an increasing breadth of view in the colonial statesmen, as well as a clear grasp of the new relations of the empire on the part of the statesmen of the motherland. Macdonald's experience in connection with the Washington Treaty proves that, for the new tasks laid upon the colonies, men are needed with political courage as well as clear insight. It required a strong man to hold the balance justly between interests which were local and those which were broadly imperial. Canadian opinion has now, as he fully expected, ratified his judgment. But at the moment he accepted great responsibilities and faced great risks.

THE

CHAPTER IX

THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1872

HE first general election after Confederation took place in 1872. The Opposition had gained coherence, their hopes of victory ran high, and the fight was keen. Despite the great work they had carried out in organizing the new federal system, Macdonald and his colleagues had many opposing influences to combat in the constituencies. Many electors were afraid of the gigantic scheme for throwing a railway across the continent, and their fears were sedulously cultivated by the leaders of the Opposition. The "better terms granted to Nova Scotia in order to secure the adhesion of that province to Confederation were almost as sharply criticized as were the railway inducements held out to British Columbia. The supreme object of a united Canada did not appeal to the imagination of the Liberals of the day, or incline them to make such sacrifices for its attainment as it did with Macdonald. Incidentally, of course, the larger line of policy, being in accord with the dominant feeling of the country, helped to keep the Conservatives in power, a circumstance which could hardly be expected to recommend these sacrifices in Liberal eyes, But outside of mere party considerations

there

were serious disturbing influences. The Orangemen of Ontario were angry because the murderers of Scott at Fort Garry had not been brought to justice; the Roman Catholics of Quebec because a full amnesty had not been granted to the rebels. Another religious difficulty had sprung up in the Maritime Provinces. Among the matters specifically reserved for provincial control in the new constitution was that of education. The provincial legislature of New Brunswick in the exercise of its constitutional right had in 1871 passed a law which had the effect of taking away government support from separate denominational schools. These had been practically, though not by name, allowed to share in government assistance under the system which was then abolished. The new law weighed heavily upon the Roman Catholics, and a series of petitions was laid before the Dominion parliament in 1872 praying for its disallowance.

Unluckily for the Catholics of New Brunswick, it was their co-religionists of Quebec who had originally insisted upon education being placed under provincial control, and so even Cartier dared not advise disallowance. Macdonald did his best to mollify Catholic opinion by passing through the House a resolution suggesting that the law officers of the British Crown should be consulted as to the constitutionality of the measure, and urging the province in any case to modify its law so "as to

THE WASHINGTON TREATY

remove any just grounds of discontent which now exist." The law officers of the Crown, to whom the question was preferred, promptly confirmed the constitutionality of the provincial measure, and it was only some years later that a compromise was made which alleviated the position of the New Brunswick Catholics. Meanwhile Cartier's failure to stand by his Church in defiance of the constitution greatly weakened his influence among many zealous and prejudiced voters of his native province.

He was at this time in failing health and, through various causes besides that already mentioned, had lost a large measure of his popularity in his Montreal constituency, which was rapidly assuming a decidedly Rouge complexion. It was evident from the first that he would have a severe contest to preserve his seat, and when the hour of trial came he was signally defeated.

The Washington Treaty, for the Canadian claims of which Macdonald assumed full responsibility, had been diligently represented as a sacrifice to imperial interests. Not merely had this been done by the Opposition in parliament and out of it, but even one of his colleagues, Joseph Howe, then secretary of state, had taken public occasion to criticize the treaty, and had spoken in terms of scorn of "England's recent diplomatic efforts to buy her own peace at the sacrifice of our interests." Under ordinary circumstances so great an indiscretion on the part of a cabinet minister must have