Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/128

 The Green Bag.

Vol. III.

No. 3.

BOSTON.

March, 1891.

SIR JOHN THOMPSON. The Canadian Minister of Justice. THE most distinguished statesmen of Canada at the present time are, with very few exceptions, members of the legal profession. In Parliament that profession predominates in numbers and ability; and barring Sir Richard Cartwright, all the able debaters are lawyers. It is not surprising, therefore, to find in the House of Commons, engaged in the exciting strife of politics, the flower of the Canadian Bar. Of the lawyers in the House, four stand distinctly in advance of their brethren in point of professional ability and eminence. They are Sir John Macdonald, the Premier of Canada, whose name is a household word in his own country; Hon. Edward Blake, a former Minister of Justice, and more lately the leader of the Liberal party in Canada; Dalton McCarthy, the intellectual leader of the section known as the "equal rights" party; and the subject of this sketch, the Hon. Sir John Thompson. Sir John Macdonald and Mr. Blake have been in public life since the Dominion of Canada was organized, and Mr. McCarthy since 1876; but Sir John Thompson, the youngest of the four, entered the House as late as 1885. His experience in Parliament is embraced in a small number of years, yet to-day he stands unrivalled as a parliamentary debater, and is recognized as the keenest in tellectual force on the Conservative side. No public man has risen so rapidly in Canadian politics, and none owes his rise more directly to his rare mental gifts and exceptionally high character. »4

John Sparrow David Thompson was born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Nov. 10, 1844. His father was for a time connected with the public service as Queen's Printer and super intendent of the money-order system, and the future minister was two or three years a reporter of the debates in the local legisla ture of his native province. These circum stances no doubt influenced the young man in his choice of a career. After taking a course in the common schools and Free Church Academy at Halifax, he began the study of the law at an age when most young men who look forward to professional life are sophomores or juniors at the university. In 1865, just as he attained his majority, he was admitted to the bar of Nova Scotia. His early years at the bar were years of hard and constant struggle, but in this time habits of thought and work were formed, which were afterward useful in more respon sible positions. Mr. Thompson was not long in making a reputation for himself as a prac titioner, and he soon began to cope with the leaders of the Nova Scotia bar; they were all his seniors, but they found him no un worthy adversary. In 1877 the Fishery Commission under the Washington Treaty sat at Halifax, and Mr. Thompson was associated with the late R. H. Dana, Jr., as counsel for the American Government. A few months later in the same year a vacancy occurred in the representation of Antigonish County in the local legislature. The Conservatives were then in opposition, and they took advantage