Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics | Page 6

cost of litigation challenging the validity of the law. When
the Privy Council, reversing the judgment of the Supreme Court, found
that the law was valid because it did not prejudicially affect rights held
prior to or at the time of union, the government was faced with a
demand that it intervene by virtue of the provisions in the British North
America act, which gave the Dominion parliament the power to enact
remedial educational legislation overriding provincial enactments in
certain circumstances. Again it took refuge in the courts. The Supreme
Court of Canada held that under the circumstances the power to
intervene did not exist; and the government breathed easier. Again the
Privy Council reversed the judgment of the Supreme Court and held
that because the Manitoba law prejudicially affected educational
privileges enjoyed by the minority after union there was a right of
intervention. The last defence of the Dominion government against
being forced to make a decision was broken down; in the language of
to-day, it was up against it. And the man who might have saved the
party by inducing the bishops of the Catholic church to moderate their

demands was gone, for Sir John Thompson died in Windsor Castle in
December, 1894, one month before the Privy Council handed down its
fateful decision. Sir John was a faithful son of the church, with an
immense influence with the clerical authorities; he was succeeded in
the premiership by Sir Mackenzie Bowell, ex-grand master of the
Orange Order. The bishops moved on Ottawa and demanded action.
There ensued a duel in tactics between the two parties, intensely
interesting in character and in its results surprising, at least for some
people. The parties to the struggle which now proceeded to convulse
Canada were the government of Manitoba, the author of the law in
question, the Roman Catholic hierarchy in their capacity of guardians
and champions of the Manitoba minority, and the two Dominion
political parties. The bishops were in deadly earnest in attack; so was
the Manitoba government in defence; but with the others the interest
was purely tactical. How best to set the sails to catch the veering winds
and blustering gusts to win the race, the prize for which was the
government of Canada? The Conservatives had the right of
initiative--did it give them the advantage? They thought so; and so did
most of the Liberal generals who were mostly in a blue funk during the
year 1895 in anticipation of the hole into which the government was
going to place them. But there was at least one Liberal tactician who
knew better.
The Conservatives decided upon a line of action which seemed to them
to have the maximum of advantage. They would go in for remedial
legislation. In the English provinces they would say that they did this
reluctantly as good, loyal, law-abiding citizens obeying the order of the
Queen delivered through the Privy Council. From their experiences
with the electors they had good reason to believe that this buncombe
would go down. But in Quebec they would pose as the defenders of the
oppressed, loyal co-operators with the bishops in rebuking, subduing
and chaining the Manitoba tyrants. Obviously they would carry the
province; if Laurier opposed their legislation they would sweep the
province and he would be left without a shred of the particular support
which was supposed to be his special contribution to a Liberal victory.
The calculation looked good to the Conservatives; also to most of the
Liberals. As one Liberal veteran put it in 1895: "If we vote against
remedial legislation we shall be lost, hook, line and sinker." But there

was one Liberal who thought differently.
His name was J. Israel Tarte. Tarte was in office an impossibility;
power went to his head like strong wine and destroyed him. But he was
the man whose mind conceived, and whose will executed, the
Napoleonic stroke of tactics which crumpled up the Conservative army
in 1896 and put it in the hole which had been dug for the Liberals. On
the day in March, 1895, when the Dominion government issued its
truculent and imperious remedial order, Tarte said to the present writer:
"The government is in the den of lions; if only Greenway will now shut
the door." At that early day he saw with a clearness of vision that was
never afterwards clouded, the tactics that meant victory: "Make the
party policy suit the campaign in the other provinces; leave Quebec to
Laurier and me." He foresaw that the issue in Quebec would not be
made by the government nor by the bishops; it would be whether the
French-Canadians, whose imagination and affections had already been
captured by Laurier, would or would not vote to put their great man in
the chair of the prime