Document Information
Date: 1866-09-14
By: Montreal Herald
Citation: “The Attorney-General in the Confessional” Montreal Herald (14 September 1866).
Other formats: Click here to view the original document (PDF).
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL IN THE CONFESSIONAL.
(From the Globe.)
The complaint was that when the Canadian Parliament did meet—the Government were not prepared with their measure for the completion of Confederation. Let us see how Mr. Macdonald attempts to meet this. He goes on to say :—
“When Parliament did meet, the Government found there was not only a perfunctory necessity to carry the resolutions for the Local Governments, but also to adopt measures for sustaining the public credit, which he trusted every Canadian would always strive to do, no matter at what cost. It was deemed important to proceed with their financial scheme, first because there was a party in the House which declared that while they would support the Government on Confederation, they would oppose it on every other question. Indeed, they did not wait for the Local Constitutions to be disposed of, before they commenced a series of hostile attacks upon the Government.”
There were members of the Legislature, it seems, who had no confidence in the Government—no feith in their general measures—but who were earnestly desirous of the succes of Confederation—and their patriotic anxiety for that measure was traded upon by Government, was used as a lever to force through money schemes of which neither Parliament nor the country approved! That was the reason for the postponement of Confederation, was it? The constitutional resolutions were used as a piece of party trickery to force through the Banking scheme, was it?—and the Tariff?—and the robbery of Upper Canada of $191,901 as Seignorial Tenure Indemnity? and the Buffalo and Goderich Almagamation Bill?—and the monstrous expenditure of $500,000 more on the Ottawa Building?—and $100,000 of Secret Service money?—and grants for old slides to members of Parliament; grants for repairing piers and roads below Quebec; and twenty other deeds of jobbery and extravagance? That was the design in pushing off Confederation to the last moment, was it? We had a suspicion of this all along, almost amounting to certainty; but now we have it from the lips of the Attorney-General. A pleasant piece of information this certainly for the weak brothers of the Liberal party, who were dragged through the mire by this trick and made to vote for things they had all their lives denounced! Pleasant, too, it must be for our future fellow subjects in the Lower Provinces to know that Confederation has been thrown off for a year and endangered for all time to serve a miserable party trick! And the one hundred and fifty select Conservatives of Kingston cheered lustily when “Canada’s Statesman” gloried in his shame and boasted that he tricked the House!
The Attorney-General confesses that this was the game intended from the very commencement of the session; but it is clear they had not the capacity to carry it out. The House met on the 8th June—but until the 26th June was the Budget opened—not until the 17th July did the Tariff pass through committee—not until the 24th of July was the first dose of supplementtary estimates considered—and not until the 7th August was the last dose swallowed—precisely three days before Parliament broke up! Then, as to the Bank Scheme, it was not submitted until the 2nd August; nay, in its amended shape, it did not make its appearance until the 7th August—one week before the prorogation; and assuredly it was not the pressure of business that prevented the financial or any other measures being proceeded with. On the 8th June the House rose at 4 o’clock, having sat but one hour.
—On the 9th it did not sit.
—On the 11th it sat five hours.
—On the 12th it sat an hour and a half.
—On the 13th it sat forty minutes,
—On the 14th it sat two hours and three quarters.
—On the 15th it sat three hours.
—On the 16th it did not sit.
—On the 18th it sat ten hours.
—On the 19th it sat two hours.
—On the 20th it sat three hours.
—On the 21st it sat two-and-a-half hours.
—On the 22nd it sat five hours.
—On the 23rd it did not sit.
—On the 25th it sat three hours.
—On the 26th it sat eight hours.
—On the 27th it sat six hours.
—On the 28th it took a holiday.
—On the 29th ditto.
—On the 30th ditto.
—On the 2nd July, ditto.
—On the 3rd, it re-assembled and sat for seven hours.
—On the 4th it sat seven hours.
—On the 5th it sat six-and-a-half hours.
—On the 6th, it sat four hours.
Here we have the record of the first month’s sittings, and it will be seen that during the entire thirty days, the House sat in all but 78 hours! Day after day was frittered away—the members killing time as they best could—waiting for business all from the sheer imbecility of the Administration.
In support of his allegation that the delay in presenting the Confederation Resolutions to Parliament was only a trick to carry the scandalous financial scheme of Government the Attorney-General went on to state that the resolutions were framed by Mr. Campbell and were ready “weeks, he might say months, before the opening of Parliament; so that whether their policy was right or wrong it arose from no want of preparation, for the resolutions were prepared long before they were submitted by the Government.”
Now, what can the country think of men who could deliberately concoct such a trick as this?—and how infinitely worse is their conduct when we remember the studied fabrications told night after night to Parliament as sham excuses for the delay of the measure. Several times early in the session, the House was distinctly told by the Attorney General that the Confederation Resolutions would be brought down immediately, that everything else must stand aside for them, and that Parliament would not be kept together longer than was necessary to carry them. On the 19th June in reply to Mr. Sandfield Macdonald, the Attorney-General declared that the resolutions would be submitted “on a very early day.” For a week later, members were repeatedly assured that Mr. Macdonald and Mr. McDougall were working at them and they would soon be ready. On the 30th of June, a sketch of the scheme prepared by these gentlemen was sent formally to the public through the Globe; but it was so utterly indefensible that it was speedily withdrawn and another substituted to-morrow.” On the 6th, he said “it would be brought down as soon as practicable.” But not until the 13th of July, was the scheme formally submitted. And now we are told that all this was trickery from first to last; that there never was any intention of fulfilling any of these promises; that Messrs. Macdonald and McDougall were never at work on the scheme at all; that the scheme sent to the public through the Globe was but a part of the trick—and that in fact the resolutions were cut and dry all the time in Mr. Campbell’s pocket, waiting until the financial scheme was forced through the House. Which side of this infamous tale shall we believe?—that the whole Government were parties to such a deception, or that their leader concocted all this—wrote them all down knavish tricksters to escape the charge of imbecility?
And what will the Maritime Delegates say to all this? Were all the assurances given to them, too, parts of the same trickery—we beg the Attorney-General’s pardon—“policy?”—that is the word. Was the promise that the Canadian Delegates should sail at the end of June all a sham? Were the replies to telegrams from Halifax to St. John only a little only of the Attorney-General’s humbugging? When a second promise was made them when Messrs. Tupper and Archibald were assured in Ottawa that the Canadian Delegates would positively sail by the steamer of the 21st July—was that, too, only a trick to help through the Banking Scheme, and the Seignorial Tenure job, and the secret service money, and the slides, and the piers, and the road jobs for Bas Canada?
And have the Government been playing the same little game with the Colonial Minister in London? It would almost appear so. In a recent official announcement in the Government organ at Halifax, it is stated that at an interview held by the Maritime Delegates with the Colonial Minister, at the Colonial Office, on the 31st July, Lord Carnarvon stated “that as he had received no reply to a telegram he had sent by the Cable to Lord Monck, and that as there was no intelligence of the Canadian Delegates having passed Londonderry, he would be compelled to abandon the hope of taking action the present session on the subject of Confederation.” Now, was this only a little more humbugging? It appears that Lord Carnarvon had been advised that the Canadian Delegates were to sail by the steamer of the 21st July, and that he expected to hear from them at Londonderry; but they made no sign.
Could anything more lamentable than all this be imagined? Is it possible for tongue to utter or pen to write worse of Mr. Attorney-General Macdonald than he here tells of himself; aye, boasts of it as a clever trick that the Conservative party of Upper Canada will admire.”