Two:
Frederick Haultain
Forgotten
Statesman
"If
the Prairies ever come
to the time for monuments
to their statesmen, the
first choice should be easy
to name," said H.A. Robson,
a Chief Justice of Manitoba
and one-time leader of the
Manitoba Liberal party,
writing in 1944 of Frederick
Haul-tam. Such a challenge
directed at Western Canadians
today would certainly fail
to evoke his name because
he seems mainly forgotten
even in Saskatchewan. The
first edition of The
Canadian Encyclopedia, published
in Western Canada in 1985,
does not devote a single
line to the individual who
more than anyone achieved
provincial status for Saskatchewan
and Alberta in 1905.
Grant
MacEwan laments this ignorance
in his biography of Haultain,
which was published in 1986,
noting that he was stunned
to see in a publication
celebrating the seventy-fifth
anniversary of Alberta that
Haultain was not even mentioned
among twenty-five early
pioneers. To overcome such
slights of a man who was
one of the region’s "best
candidates for statesmanship"
was partly why MacEwan wrote
a study of Haultain’s life.
Haultain,
"the unsullied hero of the
West standing up to the
insensitivity of Ottawa,"
according to historian David
Hall, was, at various periods,
premier of the North-West
Territories, leader of the
opposition in the Saskatchewan
legislative assembly, chief
justice for Saskatchewan,
and chancellor of the University
of Saskatchewan.
The
western period of his life
began in 1884 when he stepped
off a four-horse stagecoach
in Fort Macleod, a small
ten-year-old centre in the
District of Alberta in the
North-West Territories.
He had been born twenty-seven
years earlier in England
into a family which had
as Protestants fled France
in 1572, becoming over two
centuries chiefly officers
in the British navy and
army. His parents moved
to Peterborough from Britain
when he was three. There
his father, only a year
after coming to Canada,
was elected as a Clear Grit
member for Peterborough
in the legislature of the
Province of Canada. Later
the family would move to
Montreal for a number of
years where the father was
secretary of a Presbyterian
missionary society before
they all returned to Peterborough.
Frederick
initially wanted to follow
the family tradition of
military service, but apparently
financial difficulties caused
him to abandon such a career.
He graduated in classics
at the University of Toronto
and was called to the Ontario
bar. His father’s death
shortly after his admission
to practice touched him
deeply. The shock appears
to have been a major reason
why he opted for an adventuresome
life on the western frontier.
He chose Fort Macleod because
a university classmate who
had settled there invited
him to come out to discuss
a partnership. None was
forthcoming when he arrived,
so Haultain’s lawyer’s shingle
soon went out in the tiny
community. In considering
his prospects, he doubtless
thought of the $40 in worldly
possessions left in his
pocket after the long train
trip from Kingston.
Life
in Fort Macleod, the district
headquarters of the recently-established
Mounted Police, was anything
but dull. A flood of people
was arriving in Western
Canada from all over the
world, some of them bringing
with them contraband goods
and illegal habits. Haultain
was appointed Crown Prosecutor
for the area soon after
his arrival.
He
became fast friends with
James and Mary Macleod.
Col. Macleod, another giant
of the West and the renowned
former Mounted Police commissioner
after whom the town was
named, had become the territorial
judge for the district.
His deep respect for Indians,
personal courage and wisdom
as both policeman and judge
did much to avert violence
over many years. When he
died in 1894, leaving Mary
to support five children
without any pension whatsoever,
Haultain would help gather
money for them and for one
period even took one of
the sons, Norman, to live
with him in Regina. He raised
money from local ranchers
to send him to the same
Toronto boarding school
attended by his father.
Vast
cattle ranches were being
established in the foothills
south and west of Macleod
as a result of the virtually
simultaneous completion
of the western railway and
arrival of refrigerated
ships capable of moving
large quantities of beef
to Great Britain. Haultain
wrote to his mother the
spring following his arrival
for a week-long vacation
at the Cochrane ranch near
what arc now the Waterton
Lakes: "Ranch hours are,
breakfast at 4.30!!! dinner
at twelve and supper at
six.... I have been living
a very pleasant life here
with nothing to do but wander
about and do as I please.
There is a very large supply
of novels in the home so
that I have plenty of reading.
My allowance is two and
a half novels a day, which
I get through religiously,
besides riding about, shooting,
walking and smoking...."
In
his second year in the West,
the North-West Rebellion
erupted briefly near Prince
Albert. Members of the Blackfoot,
Blood and Piegan tribes
near Macleod were clearly
irritated and restless.
The women and children of
local pioneers were moved
to much larger Calgary.
Haultain, like every other
able-bodied man, found himself
participating in drill exercises
by day and patrolling the
town streets at night. Fortunately,
no violence broke out in
the Macleod area and life
quickly returned to normal.
Clients
began to appear at the door
of his one-room office.
His sense of fairness was
such that even when he acted
for the plaintiff in a libel
action against, among others,
The Macleod Gazette,
the editor of the paper
wrote afterwards that he
had "conducted the prosecution
in an impartial and able
manner and we echo the feelings
of all when we say: ‘Well
done, sir; you did your
duty well." Clients with
all kinds of problems came
more and more frequently
thereafter.
So,
it appears, did mothers
with daughters of marriageable
age, but unsuccessfully.
In fact he would not many,
and then only secretly,
until he was forty-nine
years of age and living
in Regina. The entire sorry
subject speaks volumes about
his character.
Briefly
put, Haultain clearly became
infatuated with Marion Mackintosh,
almost twenty years his
junior and daughter of a
territorial Lieutenant Governor.
She, however, married a
Regina wine and tobacco
wholesaler and eventually
returned with him to his
native England where he
abandoned both her and their
daughter, Minnie, to abject
poverty. Discovering this
a few years later, Haultain
supported the two of them
until she married again,
this time an American who
also abandoned them. Marion
and her child were soon
again depending on money
from Haultain.
The
prairies’ historian Lewis
Thomas wrote of the situation:
"Haultain
was now a forty-nine year
old bachelor, and it appears
that a single-minded devotion
to politics and a degree
of emotional immaturity
handicapped his relations
with women. His infatuation
with Marion Mackintosh appears
to have blinded him to the
weakness of her character
and her subsequent erratic
behaviour."
Evidently,
Marion’s conscience finally
got the better of her and
she agreed to marry Frederick
and settle in Regina after
her health recovered in
England. They did many in
1906 but she never came
West, much to her husband’s
inner sadness. He maintained
his affection for her until
her death in 1938. Throughout
32 years of marriage, he
continued to send much of
his income to support her
at various locations.
As
Grant MacEwan notes, the
idea of keeping the marriage
secret for so long was clearly
distasteful to him, but
he worried about gossip-mongers,
especially while he was
in politics. "Nobody," asserts
his biographer, "could accuse
him of legal or moral wrongdoing
in the matter, and nobody
could criticize him for
his years of sacrifice to
ensure the best medical
attention and care for his
ailing wife."
Nor
would his code of honour
permit him to many again
until Marion’s death in Guelph, Ontario, in 1938.
His marriage to a Montreal
widow, Mrs. W.B. Gilmour,
occurred only after Marion’s
death when he was 80 years
of age.
Haultain’s
political career began in
1887, three years after
his arrival, when he was
elected to the council of
the North-West Territories
for the Macleod district.
He defeated a Lethbridge "favourite son" candidate,
C.P. Coneybeare by 301 votes
to 156; thereafter until
1905 he was never again
opposed by anyone. He soon
became a positive and effective
force on the Regina-based
council. The governmental
situation he and the other
democratically elected members
then faced was described
colourfully by Frank Oliver
in his Edmonton Bulletin:
"While Canada as a whole,
and the different provinces
of which it is composed
are united under a system
of responsible government,
the North-West is under
a despotism as absolute,
or more so, than that which
curses Russia. Without representation
in either parliament or
cabinet, without responsible
local government, the people
of the North-West are allowed
but a degree more control
of their affairs than the
serfs of Siberia."
The
new member for Macleod was
soon leading the crusade
for responsible government
against both the Ottawa
government and its local
lieutenant governors, who
presided over the council
and continued to take instruction
from the federal minister
of the interior on all matters,
including the spending of
funds. The population of
the territory, which the
1885 census placed at 48,362,
was rising steadily, and
the move to responsible
government was beginning
to gather real momentum.
The
Macleod Gazette reported
in 1888: "The first question
that Mr. Haultain referred
to was that of self-government,
and he literally wiped the
floor with the Ottawa authorities
over their new North-West
Bill. He said that we had
been dealt with like a parcel
of political children. For
three years the old council
had sent memorials to the
government demanding self-government,
and each time the memorial
had been acknowledged in
the usual way of politicians
or statesmen. It was now
necessary to unite, and
express a strong opinion
in that direction not only
through representatives,
but by meetings all over
the country.... We had asked
for bread, and they had
given us a stone; we had
asked for a legislative
assembly, and they had given
us the shadow of self-government."
In
1888, an Ottawa measure
by Sir John’s government
permitted the council to
become a legislative assembly
presided over by an elected
speaker in place of the
lieutenant governor. An
advisory council of four
was to be elected henceforth
from its members to advise
the lieutenant governor
on spending matters. The
new lieutenant governor,
Joseph Royal, chose Haultain
as a member of the council
and he became its first
chairman. He and other council
members, quickly recognizing
that the final spending
decisions still rested with
Royal, sent a resolution
to Ottawa deploring the
denial of financial responsibility
to the territorial West’s
elected representatives.
When Ottawa in effect ignored
the resolution, the entire
executive council resigned
protesting that they were
no longer willing "to accept
responsibility without the
corresponding right of control."
Royal
then named more compliant
individuals to replace them,
hut when it later became
clear that the council’s
financial control applied
to locally-raised revenues
only and not to federal
grants, Haultain and thirteen
other full democrats in
the assembly defeated the
new council in a confidence
vote. Another message was
then sent by the assembly
to Ottawa demanding full
responsibility for all territorial
spending. The constitutional
crisis, wrote MacEwan, "became
the favourite topic of conversation
in towns and villages and
over farm fences across
the country.... It was bitter
political fighting but remarkable
in that it could be conducted
without sacrificing friendships,
without loss of honour,
without accusation of dishonesty,
‘kickbacks’ and graft. The
leading figures -- Joseph
Royal, Frederick Haultain
and Dr. Brett could participate
to the full without being
in any way less the gentlemen."
Shortly
thereafter, the assembly
voted by a majority of fifteen
to six to deny advisory
council members the right
to serve on assembly committees.
Prime Minister Macdonald
soon got the message and
amended the North-West Territories
Act to remove both the lieutenant
governor and all non-elected
persons from the daily business
of the assembly. The issue
of a four-man council was
resolved in 1891 when the
assembly passed a measure
creating a four-person executive
committee in its place.
Haultain as the acknowledged
assembly leader became its
first chairman in late 1891.
He would remain in substance,
if not in name, the premier
and spokesman of the North-West
Territories until 1905 except
for a short period in 1892-93.
Haultain
dominated elected public
life in the region by force
of his character and intellect
and his vision for a proud
and democratic West. When
Hugh Cayley of Calgary resigned
as deputy chairman of Haultain’s
executive in 1892 to lead
the perhaps inevitable group
of assembly dissenters,
Haultain and his cabinet
resigned immediately after
they narrowly lost a confidence
motion. The respected speaker
of the assembly, James Ross,
quickly resigned his position
in order to vote with Haultain;
Cayley’s group could no
longer obtain a majority
in favour of their choice
for speaker. The assembly
was soon prorogued rather
than dissolved for an election
by Royal acting on Cayley’s
advice. The affair expired
when a member of the Cayley
faction died and a supporter
of Haultain was elected
in a fiercely contested
by-election. The lieutenant
governor then invited Haultain
to resume his position as
leader of the assembly and
government.
In
1898, a year after the Laurier
government in Ottawa granted
the final vestige of full
responsible government to
the territories, R.B. Bennett,
the future prime minister,
was elected to the assembly.
The new Calgary member,
although only 28 years old
and a resident of Western
Canada for only about a
year, quickly appeared to
be gunning for Haultain’s
job as premier. The issue
he chose to attempt to topple
the "punctiliously honest"
premier was an alleged discrepancy
of $20,000 in the public
accounts for 1896. The territorial
auditor, J.C. Pope, explained
to an assembly committee
that $45,000 had been promised
by Ottawa in 1895 so that
sum was entered as a credit
but only $25,000 was actually
received by the year’s end.
That
would have been the end
of the matter, but the headline
of Regina’s newest newspaper,
The Standard, soon
roared: "Cooked accounts
-- how the territorial treasurer
made $20,000." A select
committee of the assembly,
which was immediately struck
to investigate the matter,
reported that Bennett was
the source of the statements
published by the paper and
that his allegations were
without foundation. Thirteen
assembly members voted to
support the committee’s
conclusions and three, including
Bennett, voted against.
The Calgary member’s quest
for the premiership thus
ended quickly.
Haultain
showed his mettle later
when a brisk movement developed
in Manitoba to annex part
or all of the territory
which now comprises much
of eastern Saskatchewan.
Events climaxed in 1901
when he met at Indian Head
east of Regina to debate
the issue with Rodmond Roblin,
premier of Manitoba. Roblin
made an effective case for
annexation, but Haultain
appealed strongly to the
shared experiences of the
local residents to join
his western vision of a
new province stretching
to the Rockies. "If you
form part of what I would
like to see -- one big province
in the West you will have
unlimited resources; you
will be able to do things
no province in Canada has
even been able to do and
you will have no need to
ask your brother Manitoba
to help you." The appeal
to local pride appears to
have carried most of the
audience of 1,000 and the
annexation movement soon
died out.
Haultain’s
most important accomplishment
in politics was winning
provincial status for the
territories. His five-year
campaign began formally
on May 2, 1900 when he spoke
in the assembly for four
hours on the unsatisfactory
constitutional situation
of the territories. Along
with his speech, the assembly
sent a draft bill to Ottawa,
intended to grant provincial
status. The federal Interior
Minister, Clifford Sifton
of Brandon, whose brother
Arthur served as Haultain’s
minister of public works
between 1899 and 1903, sent
the limp reply that the
entire subject would have
to be considered fully.
This caused Haultain, who
admired both Siftons, to
query how "such a man [could]
become a mere tool of the
Ottawa government."
Everyone
but the Laurier cabinet
appeared to understand that
Regina’s surging population
faced a critical need for
new services. When Laurier
and Sifton again refused
to move, Haultain decided
to attend the founding Conservative
Convention in Moose Jaw
in early 1903 to present
his case. Though a steadfast
opponent of party politics,
he let himself be made the
honorary president of the
organization by Senator
James Lougheed, R.B. Bennett
and others. He objected
to the nomination of Conservative
candidates for the upcoming
territorial elections, but
applauded the call by the
party’s national leader,
Robert Borden, for immediate
provincial status for the
region.
The
full consequences of his
first entry into partisan
politics were difficult
to detect at first. Clearly,
Haultain was convinced that
the good of the territories
and entire country now required
the defeat of the Laurier
government; on the other
hand, some Liberals both
in Ottawa and in the territories
now wanted the most popular
public figure in the West
defeated because he had
publicly identified himself
with a competing political
party. The first partisan
attack came in late 1903
when the federal government
offered Haultain an appointment
as a judge, with the hope
of removing him from a political
arena in which he was the
dominant player. His political
opponents also wished to
discredit him by creating
the false impression that
he had sought such an appointment.
The ugly affair ended when
Haultain refused the offer,
saying that he had no intention
of "deserting the ship."
The entire incident only
solidified in the premier’s
mind the view that political
parties corrupt public life
and reinforced his opposition
to the introduction of federal
party names and divisions
to the provincial sphere.
In
mid-1904, Haultain, aware
that a general election
was coming, wrote again
to the prime minister, noting
that the assembly’s submission
and a draft bill of 1901
to him were still unanswered.
Laurier responded only after
the Commons had been dissolved
for the election to say
that, if re-elected, his
government would grant provincial
autonomy. Haultain campaigned
hard for Borden’s Conservatives
regardless, believing they
were more sincere on the
issue. In fact, the election
proved an easy victory for
Laurier, who had become,
in popular opinion, the
embodiment of both national
development and national
unity. Laurier won 139 of
214 seats in the House of
Commons, including 7 of
the territories’ 10 seats,
7 of Manitoba’s 10 and all
of British Columbia’s 7
seats. Although Haultain
was disappointed by the
election results, Laurier
did honour his provincehood
pledge with the creation
of two provinces, Saskatchewan
and Alberta, which officially
came into being on September
1, 1905.
It
seemed to be a virtual certainty
that Haultain would be offered
the premiership of one of
the new provinces. In the
end, however, in the words
of Saturday Night magazine,
"this strong, straight,
able man who has locally
directed nearly every good
thing that has been done
for the Territories [was]
to be ousted from any share
of the government of either
of the two new provinces."
Walter Scott, the provincial
Liberal leader, was called
on by Lieutenant Governor
Forget to form the first
government of Saskatchewan,
the province Haultain chose
for his future political
activity. Certainly, Haultain’s
support of the Conservatives
was detrimental to his candidacy
for the premiership, but
it may also be assumed that
his unqualified opposition
to the treatment of natural
resources and separate schools
in the autonomy bills worked
against him.
Why,
if Haultain was such a popular
premier of the greater territories,
did he subsequently lose
the 1905, 1908 and 1912
elections in Saskatchewan
as leader of a provincial
rights party? It has been
suggested that the patronage
and power of the Walter
Scott provisional government
and the influence of the
Laurier government and its
Interior Department played
significant parts. Or, as
J.W. Brennan suggests, it
may have been the tendency
of new immigrant settlers
to vote for the party that
had brought them to Canada.
Haultain’s opposition to
separate schools also provoked
a letter by Archbishop Langevin
to Catholic voters in favour
of the Liberal party. Balloting
irregularities and corrupt
returning officers were
reported as well.
When
he lost in the 1908 provincial
election, Haultain was quite
content to return part-time
to the practice of law in
Regina. His ninth election
campaign in 1912 he considered
to be the most vicious of
all, largely because of
the doings of the two old
political parties. By that
year, there were half a
million residents in the
province, many of them newcomers,
who found themselves looking
at headlines in the Liberal
papers such as: "Endorsement
of the Haultain Conservatives
Would Mean Surrender to
the Eastern Trusts," and
"Haultain would demean the
province." This time he
and his non-partisan followers
could win only seven seats
against the 40 Liberal MLA’s
elected.
Late
that year, Prime Minister
Borden appointed Haultain
Chief Justice for Saskatchewan,
which post he filled with
distinction for the following
25 years. John Diefenbaker
remembered him as "an amazing
person, a cultured man who
never lost the common touch
and an eminently just judge...."
Four years later, he was
knighted by the King. In
1917, he was elected as
the second chancellor of
the University of Saskatchewan,
a post he retained until
1939. That year, at the
age of 80, he retired from
both positions and moved
to Montreal, the home of
his new bride. He received
also an honorary chieftainship
from Saskatchewan Cree Indians
and the name Winter Star.
When he died in 1942, the
provincial Chief Justice
and former Premier, W.M.
Martin said: "No judge in
Western Canada was held
in higher esteem by his
brothers of the bench and
the members of the bar."
Haultain’s
biographer, Grant MacEwan,
a one-time Liberal leader
in Alberta and a federal
Liberal candidate in Manitoba,
quotes fellow Liberal John
W. Dafoe, editor of The
Winnipeg Free Press, writing
in 1937: "The most interesting
‘if’ in the history of the
West is, what would have
happened ‘if’ Haultain had
won and not lost his controversy
with the Laurier government
thirty-two years ago?" MacEwan
goes on: "It takes very
little imagination to
see Haultain, if premier
of Saskatchewan in 1911
and willing to adjust to
such degree as the federal
arena seemed to demand,
being summoned to Ottawa
to become Prime Minister
Borden’s minister of the
interior. Then, if his judgement
and skills were still adequately
recognized, he would, in
due course, have been a
candidate for the party
leadership in the 20’s and
probably prime minister."
Instead,
Haultain has become a forgotten
giant of Western Canada.
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