Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/193

 saw logs, since commuted for $150,000 a year; a guarantee for the intercolonial railway. Mitchell was very active in obtaining these. It is observable also that he favoured the federal principle with Sir [q. v.], as against Sir John Alexander Macdonald's avowed leaning towards legislative union. The British North America Act received the royal assent on 29 March 1867.

On the proclamation of the dominion (1 July 1867) Mitchell was sworn of the privy council of Canada, and became a member of the cabinet with the portfolio of marine and fisheries. Thereupon he took up his residence in Ottawa. On 25 Oct. following he was raised to the senate by proclamation. He sat in that body till 13 July 1872, when he resigned in order to assist the administration in the commons. Elected by his old constituency, he continued to represent it in the second, third, fifth, and sixth parliaments. After the Macdonald government fell (6 Nov. 1873), he removed to Montreal and assumed the editorship of the ‘Herald’ newspaper. From that date he owned no party ties, though he advocated liberal principles both in the house and in his organ. He suffered defeat in the elections of 1891 and 1896. On 1 March 1897 he received an inspectorship of fisheries for the Atlantic provinces.

Mitchell's six years of ministerial life as inspector of fisheries were of permanent benefit to the dominion. To the guardianship of two thousand miles of coast on the Atlantic was immediately added the care of the great lakes and rivers, and, after 1871, the Pacific coast from the straits of Fuca to Alaska. His legislation regulating such subjects as navigation, pilotage, lighthouses, quarantine, fisheries, and the like, proceeds broadly on the assumption, since disputed, that the dominion is vested as well with proprietary right in as with legislative power over them. His department soon became one of the most important in Canada. The annual yield of the Atlantic fisheries alone rose from $4,186,000 in 1849 to $10,250,000 in 1873.

Mitchell's reputation rests mainly on his conduct of the fisheries negotiations with the United States. The presence of American fishermen on the British North American coasts and bays caused international complications in his department. ‘The shortest way,’ he says, ‘to avoid fishery troubles is for the United States to cease trespassing … or make a fair bargain.’ Otherwise, he recommended the strict enforcement of the Canadian rights. After trying other means with small success, he in 1869 commissioned six provincial cruisers to protect the fisheries.

The English government, however, did not acquiesce except under conditions which Mitchell declined to accept. When in 1871 the Washington treaty was under discussion between the United States and Great Britain, Mitchell's influence led to the insertion of articles whereby the Canadian fisheries were thrown open to the United States for twelve years in consideration of a sum to be ascertained by an arbitration board (arts. xviii–xxv.). In 1876 Canada was awarded $4,500,000. The Canadian right was thereby clearly established, and its value placed beyond question.

In July 1899, as he was leaving the parliamentary buildings, Ottawa, he was stricken by paralysis. He seemed to recover, but on 25 Oct. following he was found dead in his rooms in the Windsor Hotel, Montreal. In 1853 he married Mrs. Gough, a widow of St. John, New Brunswick; she died in 1889.

Mitchell was the author of several pamphlets, including:
 * 1) ‘A Review of President Grant's Message,’ Montreal, 1870, which concerns the fisheries; and
 * 2) ‘Notes of a Holiday Trip,’ Montreal, 1880, a reprint of letters to the ‘Montreal Herald’ on Manitoba and the north-west territories.



MIVART, ST. GEORGE JACKSON (1827–1900), biologist, third son of James Edward Mivart (d. 1856), hotel proprietor, of Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, London, was born on 30 Nov. 1827. He received his early education at the grammar school, Clapham, under [q. v.], and at Harrow. He subsequently studied at King's College, London, with the view of graduating at Oxford, but, having joined in 1844 the Roman catholic church, he proceeded to St. Mary's College, Oscott. His change of faith is said to have been prompted by a taste for Gothic architecture, and finally determined by a study of Milner's