Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/452

 444 REVIEWS OF BOOKS July Correspondence of Sir John Macdonald. Selections made by SIK JOSEPH POPE. (Toronto : Oxford University Press, 1921.) THOUGH scrappy and irregular Sir John Macdonald's letters are indis- pensable to the student of Canadian history between 1850 and 1891. The letters sent to Macdonald are in some ways more useful than those written by him ; they are often more outspoken as well as longer, and they come from most of the leading men in Canadian public life. Both together show Macdonald's interest in provincial and imperial politics as well as in the affairs of the Dominion ; he was never too busy to advise a provincial conservative leader, and he clearly believed in the divine mission of a conservative party through the whole empire supporting what the French would call a policy of ' resistance ' and maintaining monarchy. There are interesting topics only mentioned, of which one would like to know more. The suggestion that the United States might acquire Manitoba and cut Canada's spine sends, in 1884, a ' Mr. Pew ' across the scene as villain, who remains mysterious. Despite his varied interests, it is sur- prising how seldom Macdonald showed real care for constitutional matters. For all his work as the chief ' Father of Confederation ' his leading ideas were mainly political or personal. There is little evidence that he saw any such thing as an imperial problem ; responsible government developed by Canadian federation was the final stage, and any steps to further imperial unity could be taken easily by the judicious use of ' honours ', by imperial preference, and (possibly) by the presence of a few Canadian peers in the house of lords. The last suggestion, however, was made to and not by him. At the time he showed this blindness to one very real difficulty. Canada was even then beginning to feel that she ought to have a voice in making treaties that concerned her, and Macdonald was in so strong a position that any suggestion made by him would have received earnest consideration. His strength in Canadian politics and for over thirty years he dominated them quite as much as Gladstone did British seems largely to have consisted in his knowledge of the power and weakness of friends and opponents, in his consummate skill as a tactician, and in thefactthat he was neither before nor behind his time, but merely of it. Sir Joseph Pope is steeped in the Macdonald tradition, and the short notes he contributes show a good deal of bias. He is not content with giving Macdonald credit as the leading figure in the federal movement from 1864 ; Macdonald must also be the parent of the federal idea, although he freely expressed a preference for a legislative union that would never have attracted French Canada nor the Maritime Provinces. Sir Joseph Pope splits a hair by quoting Lord Haldane's remarks that the union of Canada is not federal ; therefore it is legislative, and therefore Macdonald owed nothing to earlier advocates of federation. This may be law ; it is not history, for the idea of a united British North America was of course much older than Macdonald. Another instance of party feeling can be found in the passages on the Canadian Pacific scandal ; apparently Sir Joseph Pope does not believe, despite all the evidence, that the government's fingers were smirched. Opposition to his hero is faction, to support him is patriotism.