PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED

announced in the House that the government had resigned and that Mr. Alexander Mackenzie had been called upon to form a ministry. So ended under a dark cloud of public suspicion the great administration under which Confederation had been inaugurated and the country launched upon the flood of its larger destinies.

On the dissolution of parliament and the appeal to the electors which soon followed the formation of a new administration, overwhelming defeat at the polls fell upon Macdonald and his party. He himself narrowly escaped rejection in his old constituency of Kingston, and his whole following in the new parliament barely numbered forty-five in a House of two hundred and six members. As with Palmerston in 1858 opponents thought and loudly proclaimed that his political career was ended. Confident in his own integrity of purpose, and in the strength of his hold upon the popular mind; confident too in his plans for the future of the country, and convinced that the country would yet have need of him, Macdonald bowed to the storm, faced the situation with undaunted courage, and took up with cheerfulness the work of leading the Opposition. To this task he was called by the absolutely unanimous vote of his small band of followers in parliament.

THE

CHAPTER X

THE NATIONAL POLICY

1873 TO 1878

HE early sessions of the first Liberal administration of the Dominion were not marked by any factious opposition on the part of Macdonald. Many useful measures were brought forward by the government in the wisdom of which he fully concurred, while to others he proposed amendments increasing their value but not destroying their principle. Never had his vigour of intellect and splendid buoyancy of spirit shown to greater advantage than when leading an almost forlorn parliamentary hope. He had offered, when defeated, to resign the leadership of his party, but his followers with absolute unanimity had refused even to think of serving under any one else. Consummate tactician that he was, he abstained from exposing the weakness of his party-following in the House by frequent divisions, and devoted himself to careful legislative criticism, to study of the electorate, and to patient waiting for that revulsion of popular feeling in his favour which he was confident would

come.

Raillery, rather than the more violent methods urged by some of his friends, marked his attacks

on the government. "Give the Grits rope enough," was his reply to such suggestions, "and they will hang themselves." To say that the event justified his predictions might perhaps not be altogether fair to his Liberal opponents, against whom circumstances worked which had no connection with any defects of policy or errors of judgment on their part. Still, in the light of events, Macdonald appeared to his friends to have spoken in the spirit of prophecy; and there is little doubt that his dictum was founded on a certain insight into the characteristics of the Liberal party of his day as well as a profound understanding of the temper of the Canadian people. A great general's success often depends as much upon his power of anticipating the errors of adversaries as upon any combination of his own. So it was in the battlefield of politics with Macdonald.

The leading members of the Liberal party of that day, it is generally admitted, had high ideals of political purity and honesty in administration, though the rank and file were probably as ready as any other to win elections by such means as came to their hands. Macdonald himself would perhaps have agreed that Alexander Mackenzie and Edward Blake had standards of political morality stricter in some particulars than his own. At any rate they claimed them, and on that claim had come into power. But they were cautious even to timidity. No temper could be less fitted to win popularity

DISCONTENT IN THE WEST

and secure power in the young and ambitious Dominion during the early years of Confederation. Macdonald clearly foresaw that their attitude on more than one great public question foredoomed them to failure in the task of satisfying popular desires.

The refusal to carry out the terms of the agreement to build within ten years a transcontinental railway, alienated the West and drove British Columbia to the verge of secession. Mackenzie himself, than whom no more high-minded and indefatigable man ever served a British colony, lacked Sir John's skill in cabinet making and in the arts by which a political majority is held together. Nor did he ever secure in an equal degree the loyalty of colleagues. Discontent became rife among his followers; dissensions became frequent in the cabinet and were more than once fought out on the floor of the House. Meanwhile Macdonald was not relying alone upon the mistakes of his opponents. He was steadily shaping a large constructive policy and skilfully appealing to the electorate on lines adapted to stir popular enthusiasm. To the development of the NorthWest and the fulfilment of the bargain with British Columbia, he stood pledged. To these planks of his platform he was soon to add another of even more vital consequence, and greater attractiveness. In this he was singularly favoured by the circumstances of the time. Though the reciprocity treaty