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Date: 1869
By: William Annand
Citation: Letter from Hon. William Annand to the electors of Hants, at the University of Alberta CIHM Collection, CIHM/ICMH microfiche series; no. 05827.
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LETTER

FROM

HON. WILLIAM ANNAND,

TO THE

ELECTORS OF HANTS.

HALIFAX, N. S.
PRINTED AT THE “MORNING CHRONICLE” OFFICE
1869

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LETTER FROM MR. ANNAND.

TO THE
ELECTORS OF THE COUNTY OF HANTS.

FELLOW COUNTRYMEN,—

I have read with some surprise a small pamphlet which the Honorable Joseph Howe has recently addressed to the “men of Hants,” and I feel assured that you will agree with me, upon a careful reading of this little brochure, that both in matter and style the letters are unworthy a gentleman claiming the first rank as a colonial statesman, and that you will also arrive at the conclusion that they are at once a disgrace to the author and an insult to the intelligence of the people to whom he appeals for confidence and support. This is strong language, but we will see by and bye if it is not warranted by the facts.

Mr. Howe, without consulting his constituents or his friends, and in direct contravention of the policy of the party accepted office under the Dominion Government, and he now asks you to ratify all he has done. The men of Hants remember well that the chief issue put before them by Mr. Howe at the general election in 1867,—”point the first,”—as he termed it, was to “punish the rascals” who had sold the country for eighty cents a head, without consulting the people. They were punished, and strange to say, the very man who raised the cry, without any authority from his constituents, hie party or his friends, proceeds to Canada fifteen months. after, and arbitrarily sells the country over again for a few cents more per head, pockets a commission of $5,000 a year, and then lashes himself into a fury because his old friends and supporters repudiate the transaction. Is there any exaggeration to

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this statement? And if there is not, what cause has Mr. Howe to complain if old companions in arms remain true to their antecedents, and apply his own doctrine of punishment to every “rascal” who ignores the rights of the people, even if he be as great a man as the President of the Privy Council himself. Mr. Howe appears to have cherished the delusion that he was a “one man power” in this country, like Warwick, the king maker, or like Caesar, with his veni, vidi, vici, and that.at the wave of his wand the people would follow anywhere, everywhere, without remonstrance or enquiry. “Men of Hants” read these two letters again, and ask yourselves the question: “Is there a word in the twain that can be construed into an argument, even an attempt at an argument, to justify Mr. Howe in, abandoning the platform of the convention, in bartering away the Constitution of the country, and in taking office without first consulting his constituents and the leading men of the party?” From beginning to end of this strange transaction, this self-sufficient, arrogant, overbearing man, has treated the people of this country as if they were puppets, to be moved at his will, as a people who were born to be slaves.

Mr. Howe is among you seeking your suffrages, begging you to rivet, by your votes, the chains he has forged. You demand his authority for proceeding to Ottawa, and he answers your enquiry by issuing a pamphlet of sixteen pages, filled with personal defamation of five gentlemen who dared to differ with the autocrat, and refused to bow the knee to the Canadian Baal. You ask him to explain his strange conduct while there, and he replies by flinging dirt in the faces of Mr. Goudge, Mr. Weeks, Mr. Jones, Mr. Troop, and Mr. Annand. Mr. Goudge, he says, “was born to measure tapes and laces, not tv rule, provinces, or to conduct revolutions.” Mr. Weeks’ “eccentricity mars his usefulness.” Mr. Jones is not to be relied on, because he has been so inconsistent! but whose greatest offence, it seems, was “declaiming” “more than an hour” after Mr. Howe threw himself down exhausted, “ without having the common decency,” says the much injured gentleman, “ to enquire if I was ill, or to propose to adjourn the

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meeting.” Mr. Troop, after being compared to a cow “ going up an apple tree tail foremost,” is described as “a pompous village lawyer” thrown by accident into the Legislature, who found himself a short time after a member. of the Executive Council and delegate to England, whose greatest achievement, when there, was bargaining for a Directorship in the Windsor and Annapolis Railway. But it was upon the head of Mr. Annand that the vials of Mr. Howe’s wrath descended with all their concentrated force and bitterness, and that is the reason, “men of Hants,” among whom I have many personal as well as political friends, that I address this letter to you. Mr. Annand is accused of “chaffering” for a Directorship in the Windsor and Annapolis Railway, of intriguing with General Williams to bring about Confederation, with “trafficking in the Crown Estate, trading upon his office, getting up bubble companies and cheating honest people out of their money.”

These are serious charges, but were they all as true as they are false, what earthly bearing have they upon the Hants Election? The contest is nut between Mr. Howe and Messrs. Jones, Troop and Annand, but between Mr. Howe and Mr. Goudge—between the man who bargained away the constitutional rights of the people for a few cents a head, and an office for himself, and his opponent who refuses to be a party to the ignoble transaction. It is not Mr. Jones, Mr. Troop, Mr. Weeks, or Mr. Annand, severally or conjointly, who are upon trial, and I need not remind you that were their sins of omission and commission ten times as base and black as Mr. Howe would like to paint them—that it is upon the facts of the case and the great principles and interests involved in this controversy—that you will deliver your verdict in the Sheriff’s Court on Tuesday, the 20th day of April, instant.

I will not attempt to vindicate the character and conduct of the four gentlemen whose names have been associated. with mine, who are so well able to defend themselves; but this I will say in passing: that my young friend Mr. Goudge is not the first one who “measured tapes and laces,” who has lived long enough to take the “measure in Parliament” of men who wore Mr. Howe’s equals and superiors, and that his attain-

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-ments to-day are above tie average ability of the [81 members who sit in the House of Commons. Mr. Weeks may or may not be “eccentric,” but even were it true, Mr. Howe, who commenced life by fastening a quarrel upon the Church, and before. that breach was healed, quarreled with the Baptists, then. with the Catholics, and now with bis Anti friends,—it dues not become the “eccentric” individual who has done these things to charge Mr. Weeks, or any one else, with being “ all things by turns, and nothing long.”

The charge of inconsistency and insincerity preferred by Mr. Howe against Mi. Jones, is enough to make a horse laugh. I will not undertake to say that Mr. Howe never was in earnest in anything he undertook. I believe he was often sincere, and never more so than when employed i breaking up old parties and forming new ones, and in “punishing the rascals” who crossed his path. Inconsistency, is it? Read Mr. Howe’s old Union writings and letters, and then read his anti-Union pamphlets and speeches. Contrast his fierce denunciations of the Canadians, bis threats of councils of war, “What nexts,” sharing the perils of his native land in its darkest hour, and dying on the frontier, with his acceptance of office a few months after, and swearing allegiance to the Dominion of Canada! Tupper’s pamphlet of Howe vs. Howe; killed the people’s petition in 1866 as effectually as Howe vs. Howe two years later destroyed the unity of the party which it would almost appear he had joined only to betray.

Passing by the ridicule of Mr. Troop, which will go for what it is worth, let us examine for a moment the accusation so solemnly preferred against that gentleman, of having accepted of the position of Director in the Windsor and Annapolis Railway company, which Mr. Howe avers was a violation of his oath of office, and inconsistent with his obligations as a member of the government, whose duty it was to “watch the contractors, to stand between them and the public, and to protect the proprietors whose lands were taken.” That is the charge. See how easily it is met and answered. The company and the contractors, I have it on the very best authority, are separate and distinct parties. The contractors engaged

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with the company to build a railway of a certain class for a fixed price, the latter taking, I presume, the usual securities for the performance of the work. Assuming I am correct, and the books of the Secretary, in Water Street, will show if I am not, what becomes of the charge of Mr. Troop “selling his influence,” and “violating his oath of office,” when it is made clear it was the interest of the company, even more than it was the interest of the Province at large, to have a good road? Mr. Howe, in his anxiety to ruin a gentleman who, though “to his faults a little blind,” would not stand idly by and see his country sold over again to the Canadians, ignorantly, if not willfully, represented two separate and distinct parties—the company and the contractors—as one and the same. But if he has any doubt of the fact, or as to the character of the work done, his friend Mr. Northup, when the Legislature meets, has only to ask for the papers, which I feel assured will be promptly brought down. Whether Mr. Troop did or did not receive stock enough to qualify him for a Directorship in the company, is none of Mr. Howe’s business. It is, I believe, the usual practice in the formation of such companies in England; and I think I may hazard the assertion, that if Mr. Troop has been qualified in that way, so have his co-Directors, the Hon, Dr. Parker, W. M. Harrington, Esq., T. D. Ruggles, Esq., and J.B. Oxley, Esq., neither of whom will, I presume, be suspected of lending themselves to the contractors, and combining together against a strict fulfilment of the contract, and the handing over of any other than a good road to the Province.

The bill of indictment preferred against Mr. Annand, although a long, one, is easily disposed of; Mr. Howe .complains that, forgetful of old friendship and years of “honorable labor and mutual co-operation,” he has been violently and coarsely assailed in the columns of the Morning Chronicle. And if so, who is to blame? Who commenced the work of “defamation and slander”? Who was the first to forget “old friendships” and pleasant recollections? Who struck the first blow? Though often sorely tried by a knowledge of the secret and subtle means employed. by Mr. Howe, almost from the moment of his return from England, to destroy, the unity

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of the Repeal party, the Chronicle said nothing offensive of that gentleman—a silence that was rigidly maintained until Mr. Howe rushed into print, and in his celebrated letter of the 6th November last, in reply to Judge Marshall, accused the members of the Local Government of meanly clinging to office, instead of adopting a bold course, alleged to. have been proposed by Mr. Howe, and thus threw away the last chance of repeal.

I was out of the province when the letter containing that slander was published; but the moment I read it I fully understood the game.. It was a declaration of war against the Local Government, who were suddenly called upon to defend the principles to which they were pledged, or go in with Mr. Howe and accept the situation. They did not hesitate for a moment, and out of the overweening vanity, lofty ambition and desire for office that inspired that letter, have grown all the crimination and recrimination which for months past have enlivened the controversy on both sides. I had to choose between two courses—to abandon my colleagues in the administration and join in the intrigue with Mr. Howe for office under the Dominion Government, or adhere to the policy of the party. It did not take me long to make up my mind, and because I was firm and true, when he proved fickle and ids, I am held up to the country as a man actuated by the meanest motives, and unworthy of public confidence and support.

“Up to this hour,” says Mr. Howe, “I have given no personal provocation, and have never retaliated, The proprietors of the opposition papers know that I have never written a line in one of their papers since my return from England.”

I fear that Mr. Howe is losing his memory as well as his temper! Let me refresh his recollection a little, by reminding him of his coarse attacks upon the Attorney General and other members of the administration, at almost every meeting held in the county of Hants; and the defamation he spouted against Mr. Annand,—very like the stuff in the pamphlet—at back woods gatherings, when he was not present. to answer for himself. “Mr. Howe never wrote a line, he says; in the opposition papers. Who penned the articles which appeared in an

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evening journal, from the so-called “Hants Gazette”? Who wrote the letters signed “Windsor,” in the Citizen? And, above all, who inspired the base, black falsehoods and foul insinuations: which disfigure the letters of a petty-fogging attorney, who has: taken shelter under the noble name of “Bright”?

Mr. Annand is accused of advocating confederation in the Morning Chronicle, until he found that “ the merchants, upon whose patronage he depended,” and his “subscribers in the country,” were against the scheme, when he suddenly changed his base, because “his interests stood opposed to his avowed opinions.” I was in England when. the Quebec Convention was sitting, and for some time after the scheme was agreed to, and within a few days after my return home I found myself associated with a body of gentlemen in this city, organized for the purpose of arousing the country and defeating the scheme. The facts are well known, and to no one better than to Mr. Howe himself, whose evidence upon that point should be conclusive. At a large public meeting, held: at Mason’ s Hall, on the 9th May, 1867, Mr. Howe said :

“Some days ; after Mr. McCully and Mr. Annand had differed and confronted each other at Temperance Hall, I was sitting in the Halifax Club, when Mr. Annand came in and asked me to speak to him in private. We went into a corner of the room, when he complained to me that McCully, in his absence, and contrary to his instructions, had committed the Chronicle to Confederation policy. He thought of dismissing him from the editorial chair, and asked my opinion. My answer was: “I have no opinion to give. You are both my political and personal friends. This is a matter which touches your personal honor and pecuniary interests, and you must judge for yourself.” He turned on his heel, and said: “I have made up my mind and will dismiss him.” I smiled, and answered: “You are very like a woman. You make up your mind first and ask counsel afterwards.” A few days later Mr. Annand came over to see me, and told me that he had discharged Mr. McCully.”

Mr. Howe revives the oft-told, and as often refuted story of the so-called “intrigue” with General Williams, upon which

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it is unnecessary, after the triumphant defence which appeared in the Chronicle of the 23rd March, that I should say more then this: That the article of 25th January, 1866, suggesting a new convention, which Mr. Howe says so startled him at Washington, was the counterpart and reflex of an editorial which appeared in the Chronicle on the 15th November, 1865, against which Mr. Howe never remonstrated or even breathed an objection.

General Williams, says Mr. Howe, “made a proposition” to Mr. Annand, but he does not venture to say I accepted it, and yet out of this wretched story Mr. Howe gets up a page of sensational stuff about an “intrigue,” which embraced a single interview, at which no agreement took place, and which led to no result.

Mr. Howe says he “can occasionally trace”? Mr. Annand’s “hand in the resolutions got up for some of the small country meetings which just now he desires to misrepresent as public opinion.” The people who called and directed the meetings know that there is not a word of truth in this statement; but then Mr. Howe, who is a poet as well as a politician, must be excused if he occasionally indulges in the poet’s license of drawing largely on his imagination.

“I think,” says Mr. Howe, “if I get time before the election, I shall he able to prove that, in the case of a somewhat conspicuous and eccentric individual called William Annand, patriotism means trafficking in the crown estate, trading upon his office, getting up bubble companies, and cheating honest people out of their money.”

Take “time,” Mr. Howe, write the letter now, “prove” at once, for the gratification of your Confederate friends, that you equal, if you do not excel, your friend Dr. Tupper in the work of personal defamation. I have been “trafficking in the crown estate,” have I? Where is the evidence? In charge of the officers at the head of the Mines and Land Departments, if any where. Let the books and papers of both offices be searched, covering the entire period I have been a member of the Legislature, and if any transaction is discovered unworthy of o gentleman or a public servant, I will beg Mr. Howe’s pardon

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for all I have said and written as readily as I now dv: ounce – him a foul mouthed slanderer and liar.

“Trading upon my office, getting up bubble companies.” When? Where? I never was connected with any but one company, which it is well known I had no hand in “getting up,” with which my name was associated without my being consulted, and which I now believe was as much a bona fide concern as any one of the scores of companies launched about the same time. I made no trade of my office when I joined the company, and I made no money by it beyond the salary received as a Director, to the duties of which I gave my time. The company, after a period of success which nearly doubled the pride of shares in the London market, was unfortunate, and I, as well as the late Benjamin Wier, shared in its misfortune by retaining a large amount of stock, for the purpose of upholding the the honor and credit of the concern, until it became utterly worthless, There may have been too much money paid for the land and other property, too large sums given for promotion, and there may also have been errors in management, but that it was any but an honest speculation I never for a moment believed. It is true that I accepted a Directorship in the company when I was in the Government, and held the two positions for a few months. This Mr. Howe calls “trading upon my office,” but What will that gentleman say when I remind him that, when in in London several years ago, at the time leader of the Government, he made such good use of his “office” as to establish a branch of a Fire Insurance Company, the “Unity,” in this city, got himself appointed Chief Director, and pocketed the salary, while the concern was solvent, and that was not very long.

“Cheating honest people out of their money.” I have never been rich, and may not always have been as prompt to pay my debts as Mr. Howe, but I would like to see the man who will venture into Court and say that William Annand ever attempted to cheat him out of a farthing. Let the record of the two men—the accuser and the accused—be searched, and the verdict rendered in accordance with the facts.

Mr. Howe attributes a desire on the part of Mr. Annand for

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another delegation to. England, in the hope that he can float on the strength of a public mission” another “bubble” Company in London. Is the man sane? Does he know what he says? I have expressed no opinion respecting another delegation to England, nor will I until the three elections are over. Mr. Howe is very much afraid that I may attract English capital to this Province to develop its mining industry, and he is doing his best to prevent it. He need not be alarmed. The delegation, if one is sent, and the company, if one is formed, will each stand upon its own bottom, All the correspondence I have had with friends in London on the subject of forming. a Gold Company, covering a period of eight. or nine months, might be reading the open street without bringing a blush into-the. cheek of any honest man. The purchase and transfer of mines paying dividends of 10 to 15 per cent. are not things of which any one need be ashamed.

“A searching investigation,” says Mr. Howe, is to be made “into the origin and management” of the Company of which I was once a Director. I am glad to hear it, because there will then be an end of all the doubts and suspicions which unscrupulous and dishonest politicians have endeavoured to attach to their opponents, A petition is threatened by Mr. Howe to the Dominion and Local Legislatures; but I would suggest that the more appropriate place to detect and punish fraud, if there was any, is a Court of Law, within whose precincts I challenge the most searching enquiry.

So far I have been upon my defence: let me add a few words now in the other line. Mr. Howe says he often put a “charitable construction” upon my conduct when he misunderstood me, I confess to the same amiable weakness; but as his “charity” only lasted as long as, we were on the same side, I will be pardoned if I follow so illustrious a leader. You have been told a: good deal about trafficking in the Crown estate, trading upon office, getting up “bubble” companies, cheating honest people of their money, and intriguing with Lieutenant Governors, These are old stories, all told before, and with greater force, by Dr. Tupper. You don’t mind them. Let me tell you something new—some things that occurred on the other side of the water, and some on this—some things that will interest you.

Mr. Howe, when addressing you at your public meetings, has told you a good deal that was said at places where there were no reporters, by Mr. Bright and others, of conversations. between

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gentlemen and friends, which were never intended to be repeated in public. The example is a bad one, but I am driven to follow it. Listen and judge for yourselves:

A short time after Mr. Bright introduced the Nova Scotia petition in» the Commons, the nobleman who had: charge of our case in the House of Lords called upon me at my lodgings, in London, and asked me if it was true that the delegates were not in earnest in asking for Repeal, and that it would be a relief to us if even the more moderate demand for enquiry was refused. I at once indignantly repelled the impeachment of our loyalty, when His Lordship stated that Dr. Tupper, who had several times-met Mr. Howe, was his informant. I lost no time in communicating the substance of the conversation to Mr. Howe, Mr. Troop, and Mr. Smith. Mr. Howe raged and stormed, denounced the story as a lie, complained that he had been “surrounded by an atmosphere of suspicion” (meaning his co-delegates) from the time. we landed in England, and finished off with saying that he would write a letter to Lord Stratheden, which he could show to any one who doubted the sincerity of the delegates. The letter was written, shewn to his co-delegates, and I presume sent to His Lordship.

But this was not all. A day or two after I called upon Mr. Bright, who, fixing his eyes earnestly upon me, said, “Mr. Annand, are you (meaning the delegates) really in earnest, in pressing Parliament for a redress of grievances;” and on my expressing surprise and indignation at the question, he replied, “Well, Dr. Tupper has been here, who assured me that you were not sincere, and the story has been told to Adderly, Cardwell, and many others, and is generally believed among the members of the House of Commons.” Again, as in duty bound, I related the conversation with Mr. Bright to my colleagues, which was met with another burst of passionate invective from Mr. Howe, who, however, although pressed upon the point, took no public means to vindicate the loyalty of the Delegation, but continued to keep up his intercourse with Tupper. There was need for the exercise of a good deal of “charity” then, and I exercised it. I could not believe that my old friend was playing: false, and I dismissed the unworthy suspicion.

Listen again. The debate in the Commons came off, and Mr. Bright’s motion was negatived by a vote of 183 to 87. A few days after, Mr. Howe informed me that he had along talk with Dr.

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Tupper, who told him that it was all d——d nonsense to look for Repeal from a Parliament in which the leaders upon both sides combined to uphold the Confederation of the Provinces. That if Mr. Howe would only accept the situation he (Dr. Tupper) would pledge himself to. use every means in his power to secure better terms for Nova Scotia; and if refused he would join the Antis to break down the Canadian Government, That if Mr. Howe would consent he would waive his own claims in favor of Mr. Howe, who could take the office of Secretary for the Provinces, or some other department, or a Railway Commissionership, whichever would be most agreeable, and that his friend, Mr. Annand, could have one or the other, just.as he and Mr. Howe arranged between themselves. I will not repeat the rough word I used, expressive of my indignation, when Mr. Howe had told his tale, and again I separated from my old friend without suspecting him of secretly favouring Dr. Tupper’s proposition. The “charity” that covers a multitude of sins blinded me again, and it was not until after Mr. Howe began to discuss finance with the Canadians that I remembered the cloud that passed over his brow when I repelled the Doctor’s insidious proposition.

I will not undertake to say that Mr. Howe then: and there meditated treason to his country, You must judge for yourselves after I have referred to two or three movements on this side. Mr. Howe, when he landed from the steamer in the morning, was enthusiastically cheered ; and where do we find him a few hours later? The guest of a prominent Confederate, surrounded exclusively by gentlemen who had received tidings in advance, by telegraph, that he was ready to accept the situation. And where next? Absenting himself from the Convention at which he had himself invited the Dominion members to be present, that he might meet Sir John A. McDonald and bis colleagues at a convivial entertainment. And where next? Closeted with Sir John at Government House, ad- mitting that he had no hope of repeal, and chaffering for “better terms.” And where next? In the country discouraging everybody he met, absenting himself from the Assembly who had invited him to be present to accept the thanks of the House for his services in England. And where next? On his way to Ottawa for “better terms,” and an. office. for. himself, and now on his knees to you “men of Hants,” asking you to approve of all he has done. I do not: even now positively aver that Mr. Howe made

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up his mind to do as he has done before the arrival] of Earl Granville’s dispatch. It is for you to judge calmly by your firesides whether you can trace the links of connection between the sayings and doings in London, and the events which have so lately passed before your own eyes.

I am with much respect,

Yours truly,

WILLIAM ANNAND.

HALIFAX, April. 9th, 1869.