Liberal-Conservative Party of Canada

“ During the first session after the formation of the Liberal-Conservative party the two great questions which had long distracted the united province of Canada—the Clergy Reserves and the Seigneurial Tenure—were settled on terms which were accounted satisfactory by all moderate and reasonable men. Both the measures which the Government introduced to adjust these matters were opposed at every stage by Brown, Dorion, and other professed champions of the popular will. ”

“ There can be little doubt that the Liberal party was injured by the uncompromising hostility which was shown to the movement of 1874. Young men, enthusiasts, bold and original thinkers, began to [Pg 241] look upon Liberalism as a creed harsh, dry, tyrannical, unprogressive and hostile to new ideas. When the independent lodgment afforded by Canada First disappeared, many of them drifted over to the Conservative party, whose leader was shrewd enough to perceive the strength of the spirit of nationalism, and to give it what countenance he could. ”

“ The capital of Canada is no bed of roses for any active or generous man, and thus the senior member found it, hence his positive objection to being again a candidate. In the last general election Mr. Mackintosh, by the unanimous wish of the Conservative party, contested Russell against Mr. W. C. Edwards, the largest manufacturer and most popular Liberal in the county, and was defeated by a narrow majority, owing mainly to the feeling against the government among the French-Canadians, aroused by the execution of Riel. ”

“ In the sphere of economic legislation, Liberalism still has perhaps its greatest work to do. The welfare of the common man at the common task is its first consideration.
Government of the people, for the people, and by the people is the essence of Liberalism.
The application of these principles to the problems of Canadian politics in relation to provincial, national, imperial and world-wide interests is the work of the Liberal party in Canada.
On the evening of Tuesday, January 14th, 1919, Sir Wilfrid Laurier delivered his last public address. ”

“ The National Progressive Party is not a group; it is a business majority. It contains the people who produce the majority of the nation's wealth for consumption and export and therefore enable the nation to pay its bills. It is Liberal because it advocates free-trade and is opposed to big monopolies, and there is no other Liberalism in Canada left worthy the name. ”

“ They are worthy of a highly-civilised, wealthy, and prosperous community; but, in fact, the economy with which they are managed is not one of the least remarkable features about the Montreal institutions. Party animosities have now been softened: but there is no doubt of the satisfaction with which the Liberal Canadian points to the fact that those who were imprisoned and persecuted by the Government, for rebellious acts or tendencies, have since been called to office, and have served the Crown in high official positions. ”

“ Never had a political leader in Canada such a duty of broad revision within his party. King neglected the opportunity. The Toronto Globe realizes what a squeezed lemon the Liberal party has become between the other two groups and calls for a working alliance between the Liberals and Agrarians to upset the Government. The Mail and Empire paternally points out that it is the duty of Liberals to enlist, Quebec included, under the hegemony of the party which has already incorporated Liberals and is ready to save that party from obliteration by the free-trade group. ”

“ After the tragic death of Sir John Thompson in 1892 Canada struggled along politically under several Conservative Premiers which undoubtedly prepared the way for Sir Wilfrid Laurier's great victory four years afterwards. Then, surrounded by the men who had been so many years in opposition with him, he evolved those practical principles of Liberalism which kept his party firmly in power until he advocated free trade in 1911. Since that time both Liberals and Conservatives have come to the conclusion that a protective policy is the one best suited for Canada's growing needs and future prospects. ”

“ There was, however, this difference, that while in Peel's case, and still more in that of his followers, the British party tradition proved overwhelmingly powerful, in Canada, where tradition was weaker, and the need for sound administration far more vital, the movement became dominant in the form of Liberal-conservatism. In other words, in place of small violently antagonistic parties, moderate men inclined to come together to carry out a broad, non-controversial, national programme. ”

“ Canadian political parties had originally been formed on the plain issue whether or not the majority of the people were to be allowed to rule. In Upper Canada the governing party, known as the 'Family Compact,' composed chiefly of representatives of the Crown and men who had inherited position or caste from their Loyalist fathers, had been attacked by a motley and shifting opposition, sober Whig and fiery Radical, newcomers from Britain or from the States, and {19} native-born, united mainly by their common antagonism to clique rule. ”

“ If the Liberal leader is now as anxious to serve the nation of his birth as he was when he twice refused large salaries and comparative ease for the sake of continuing to do Canada's work, would it be high treason either to himself or to his party to call a Liberal convention out of which he would father a resolution of federation of historic parties based upon such a compromise as Macdonald created in the federation of provinces? ”

“ George Brown, a Scotch Presbyterian, and which having first insisted on the secularization of the Clergy Reserves, became, when that question was out of the way, a party of general opposition to French and Roman Catholic influence. ... A change had thus come over the character and relations of parties. French Canada, so lately the seat of disaffection, became the basis of the Conservative party. British Canada became the stronghold of the Liberals. ”

“ After 1854, and for ten years, the political history of Canada is a reductio ad absurdum of the older party system. Government succeeded government, only to fall a prey to its own lack of a sufficient majority, and the unprincipled use by its various opponents of casual combinations and {301} alliances. Apart from a little group of Radicals, British and French, who advocated reforms with an absence of moderation which made them impossible as ministers of state, there were not sufficient differences to justify two parties, and hardly sufficient programme even for one. ”

“ At that time it seemed as if the long-desired boon of responsible government were going to prove a failure in Canada, for the representatives of the people were split up into so many different groups—French and English; Reformers and Conservatives, both moderate and extreme, none of whom could arrive at any means of working harmoniously together. Any one of the numerous parties, standing alone, was sure to be outvoted; and it sometimes happened that opponents would unite to drive a third party from power, but not to give strength to any government. ”

“ It is sometimes said that it is vain to expect a high ideal in public life, that the same principles that apply to social and private life cannot always be applied to the political arena if party government is to succeed; but this is the doctrine of the mere party manager, who is already too influential in Canada as in the United States, and not of a true patriotic statesman. It is wiser to believe that the nobler the object the greater the inspiration, and at all events, it is better to aim high than to sink low. ”

“ The complete returns gave 133 Conservatives to 88 Liberals. As usual, the popular vote was more equally divided than the parliamentary seats, for the Liberals secured 625,000 and the Conservatives 669,000 votes. The Liberal majority of only 5000 in Quebec, 3000 in the maritime provinces, and 20,000 in the prairie provinces was overcome by the Conservative majority of 63,000 in Ontario and 9000 in British Columbia. ”

“ Would Montreal like to be put under the generous rule of the Quebec politicians? Our friends here are prepared to consider dispassionately any scheme that may issue from your party in Lower Canada. They all feel keenly that something must be done. Their plan is representation by population, and a fair trial for the present union in its integrity ”

“ A number of bold and ardent French Canadian spirits conceived that the opportunity was a favourable one to make another effort for the triumph of the principles for which they had so long and unsuccessfully battled, to set aside all party divisions and to rally under one standard all patriotic souls, Liberal and Conservative, in order to secure the predominance of the provincial influence over the hybrid alliances by which a majority was constituted and maintained in the Federal parliament. ”

“ The result of the Globe's propaganda amounted to this, that for twenty years the Conservative leader found himself in a large minority in his own province of Upper Canada, and dependent upon Lower Canada for support—truly an unsatisfactory state of affairs to himself personally, and one most inimical to the welfare of the country. It was not pleasant for a public man to be condemned, election after election, to fight a losing battle {33} in his home province, where he was best known, and to be obliged to carry his measures by the vote of his allies of another province. ”

“ The historic task of Liberalism—the promotion, by negative and positive means alike, of individual freedom with full opportunity for self-development—has been less urgent in Canada than in many other lands. Civil liberty Canadians inherited from their fathers overseas. Political liberty was the achievement of the generation before the Dominion was formed. Social liberty, the assuring for each man genuine equality of opportunity, has in great measure been ensured by the wide spaces of a virgin continent. ”

“ Whilst he is thus obnoxious to the Assembly and people of the province, he is by no means popular with the Assembly's enemies — the anti-popular party.
In Canada, there can be no middle term, no neutral ground in politics. The social equality of the people converts them into a state of natural democracy, whilst on the other hand, the forcible maintenance of power in the hands of a minority, renders them from their mere weakness, intolerant of any countenance given to the governed many. Fear, in short, must always render a minority clad with undue powers, tyrannical. ”

“ The pernicious habit of looking upon men with too much contempt to take the measure of their strength, is as bad in politics as it is in a physical struggle. But the party known as the government party in Upper Canada, was generally far too self-important and too great to calculate how many dark-looking clouds it takes to make a storm. ”

“ Let the wise candidate win the men who believe that the country is [Pg 300] higher than party, and there is, I think, only one thing that these men will not forgive—lack of faith in the country. They have no doubt that it is worth while to preserve the unity, dignity, and independence of Canada. ”

“ Whatever undercurrents of opinion there might have been against a whole-hearted support of the Empire in the struggle, such as manifested itself openly in practically all the belligerent European countries, found little expression in Canada. Political party issue sank for the time being out of sight, and the popular voice, as expressed through the newspapers of diverse shades of opinion, and through the popular political leaders, was practically unanimous. And that voice demanded that Canada should strain every resource, should offer every available man, in Britain's support. ”

“ To expect, in fact, that men with such opposite characteristics, apart even from their other elements of 729 discord, should harmonise, when the party weaker in legislation was the stronger in civilisation, when the party that stood still had the power of making the other stand still also, was to expect an impossibility. And this was exactly the nature of the contest so long carried on in Lower Canada. ”

“ Party government in Canada ensures unity of policy, since the premier of the cabinet becomes the controlling part of the political machinery of the state; no such thing as unity of policy is possible under a system which gives the president neither the dignity of a governor-general, nor the strength of a premier, and splits up political power among any number of would-be party leaders, who adopt or defeat measures by private intrigues, make irresponsible recommendations, and form political combinations for purely selfish ends. ”

“ In 1874 the Liberals were in power both at Ottawa and at Toronto, and Mr. Brown may not have been free from the party man's delusion that when his party is in power all is well, and agitation for change is mischievous. Canada First threatened to change the formation of political parties, and seemed to him to threaten a change in the relations of Canada to the empire. ”

“ That their unpatriotic stand will lead to a coalition of the English-speaking majority no one who is aware of the violence of party feeling in Canada will expect, and the only hope, in the opinion of many, of preserving the Dominion from the disaster of French domination lies in the success of the Government party in the next appeal to the country, or in annexation to the United States. ”

“ The subject of our sketch is a striking example of what can be achieved by natural talent, indomitable energy and force of character, coupled with political sagacity of a high order, and a ready appreciation of men and opportunity. After the provincial elections of 1881, it seemed as if the Liberal party in Quebec had been irretrievably beaten. They had been literally swept from the polls throughout the entire province, and mustered only fifteen representatives in the House of Assembly. ”