a French half-breed band, issuing unwarranted proclamations and rashly seeking to rouse the English settlers against the "rebels," until, disavowed and embittered, he was forced to return to Ottawa. Governor McTavish, of the Hudson's Bay Company, ill, resentful of the change, convinced that annexation to the United States was inevitable, supinely bowed to the insurgents' every demand. Louis Riel, a native of the settlement, French, with a Montagnais Indian grandmother, educated at Montreal for the priesthood, but drawn by his wayward temper and heterodox views into other paths, now made himself the champion of the halfbreeds' cause, broke up the surveyors' operations, blocked Macdougall's entry, seized without resistance Fort Garry and the company stores, and set up a provisional government. "Abandoned by our own Government, which had sold its title to the country," he declared they must refuse to accept "a governor whom Canada, an English colony like ourselves, ignoring our aspirations and our existence as a people, forgetting the rights of nations and our rights as British subjects, sought to impose upon us without consulting or even notifying us." William O'Donoghue, a student for the priesthood, of strong Fenian leanings, plotting annexation, and Ambrose Lepine, a half-breed of herculean build and more moderation of temper, backed Riel.

The Government at Ottawa, awakened by this unexpected resistance, took up a conciliatory attitude, sending commissioners, in turn Colonel de Salaberry, Vicar-General Thibault, Donald A Smith, and Bishop Taché, hastily summoned from Rome to shepard his wandering flock, to explain their benevolent intentions, and agreeing to receive delegates from the settlement. Meanwhile Riel's authority had been challenged by a group of Canadians who fortified the home of their leader, Dr. Schultz, and later by a badly organized band of English settlers. Both movements failed. The second was particularly unfortunate, coming just when the great majority of the old settlers, English as well as French, had come together in a convention to support the

demand for terms, and when Donald A. Smith's extremely cautious diplomacy had undermined Riel's authority. The challenge and its failure increased Riel's prestige and, what was more ominous, inflamed his erratic temper. To strike a lesson home, he haled one of the prisoners before a court martial, and after a farcical trial had him brutally shot. It was a fateful blunder. The blood of Thomas Scott called for vengeance. Ontario insisted that no truce or terms could be made with murderers; Quebec, that the execution was a political act, not to be held against individual men. The cabinet at Ottawa tried to follow a double course. To meet Ontario's demands, it sent an armed expedition under Colonel Wolseley to enforce order. To satisfy Quebec, it discussed terms with the delegates from the Northwest, Judge Black, Father Richot, and A. H. Scott, and agreed to grant the community the status of a province, the half-breeds generous holdings of land or scrip, and the church its. schools. By the autumn of 1870 all was quiet on the Red River.

Peace did not so soon follow in Eastern Canada. Here was ample timber to relight the fires of sectarian and racial controversy. Ontario saw only that an Ontario man, and an Orangeman at that, had been brutally murdered at the command of a French Catholic "rebel." Quebec saw only a struggle for the assertion of just rights against scornful neglect in which the execution by constituted authority of a troublesome prisoner was an unfortunate, but minor, incident. Nor was this all. Below the individual issues and the specific incidents of the conflict there waged a clash of wills as to the national future of the West. Ontario, aware of its superior enterprise, eager to find an outlet for home-seekers torival the Western States, and deeply suspicious of French and Catholic Quebec, looked for the building up of new Ontarios in the vast prairies. Quebec, disappointed at finding its position under confederation less influential than had been hoped, proudly mindful that it was daring FrenchCanadian explorers who had opened up the Western country, and anxious to stem the tide of habitant migration to

New England mills, equally naturally hoped that a French-Canadian province would arise in the West to redress the balance.

The specific issue was the punishment of those responsible for the death of Scott. For years this question bedeviled Canadian politics. Both parties sought to turn the passions it raised to political account, and both found that it was easier to arouse passion than to allay it. The Liberals of Ontario, themselves carried away by the popular indignation against Riel, or unable to resist the temptation to turn the normally Conservative Orange vote against the Government, denounced Macdonald for trafficking with treason, and even so cautious and judicial a man as Edward Blake, on becoming premier of Ontario in 1871, carried a resolution through the local House offering a reward of five thousand dollars for the arrest of any or all of the slayers of Scott. The Liberals of Quebec, equally pleased to be able for once to have popular prejudice on their side, attacked the Government for not granting unconditional amnesty for all the incidents in a conflict for which the Government was itself mainly to blame. Macdonald was still more adroit at this double game, exclaiming to an Ontario audience: "Where is Riel? God knows; I wish I could lay my hands on him," at the very time that his agents were paying Riel and Lepine secret-service money to induce them to keep out of the country and avert the crisis their arrest would bring. After the fall of the Macdonald Government had transferred the responsibility for pardoning the offenders to Mackenzie, the responsibility for taking action against them lay with the provincial government-the Conservative forces in Ontario and Quebec were free to follow the tactics of their opponents in attacking from diametrically opposite directions. The Maritime Provinces were throughout little concerned in what was virtually a Quebec-Ontario duel, and in Manitoba itself, where the races were evenly balanced, politicians walked much more warily than in the provinces where one could safely bluster to sympathetic majorities.

Two incidents brought the issue to a

head. In 1873, after long obstruction by those in authority, warrants were issued for the arrest of Riel and Lepine, who had returned to Red River. Riel escaped; Lepine stood his trial, and in November, 1874, was condemned to death. Earlier in the year Riel, who had been elected for Provencher after Cartier's death, made his way east, and when Parliament opened in March, crossed the river from Hull, presented himself at the office of the clerk of the House, took the oath, signed the roll, and walked out before the astounded clerk realized who stood before him. Then after a canny, but unsuccessful, attempt to collect his mileage, Riel disappeared. On April 15, Mackenzie

Bowell, a leading Ontario Conservative and the Orange Grand Master, seconded by Dr. Schultz, now member for Lisgar, moved the expulsion of Riel as a fugitive from justice. Luther Holton, seconded by Malcolm Cameron, moved an amendment to suspend proceedings pending the report of the committee lately appointed to inquire into the claim that a full amnesty had been

tives, moved as an amendment to the amendment that an address be issued for a full and immediate amnesty for all the rebels.

The issue thus raised cut across party lines. Members of the cabinet took opposite sides. Ontario and Quebec lined up in more clean-cut opposition than on any other vote in Parliament before or since. Only one Ontario member voted against the motion for Riel's expulsion, which was carried by 123 to 68; Holton's amendment was lost by 76 to 117; and Mousseau's, which was supported only by Quebec Conservatives, by 27 to 164.

Mr. Laurier had made his first speech in the House of Commons on the day of Riel's hurried visit, seconding, in French, the address in reply to the speech from the throne. He decided to take part in the Riel debate and to speak in English, in order to make his position clear to the majority of the House.

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"I must apologize to the House," he began, "for using a language with which I am only imperfectly quainted; really, I should claim a complete amnesty, because I know only too surely that in the course of the few remarks I wish to make I shall frequently murder the Queen's English."

The greater part of the speech was devoted to the question whether in presuming to act in a judicial capacity the House had observed the rules of judicial proof. No evidence had been formally offered that an indictment had been laid against the member for Pro vencher or a true bill returned against him. It had, indeed, been shown that a bench warrant had been issued, but where was the proof that he was contumacious, that the sheriff had tried to execute the warrant and had failed? In the leading British precedent, Saddlier's Case, the necessity for complying strictly with all the requirements of legal procedure had been fully recognized.

The speech could not turn the House from its purpose, or satisfy the extremists in either province, but its forceful logic and its pointed phrase established Mr. Laurier's reputation in the new field as firmly as earlier at Quebec. A

different angle is presented in a very frank letter written in September, 1874, to his friend Young:

We in the province of Quebec feel rather anxious about this amnesty question. It is not that we have any sympathy for those whom this amnesty is intended to cover. They are not now, nor ever shall be, whatever we may do for them, our friends or allies. But when we were fighting the old enemy, and making a weapon of everything at our hand, we took this Riel question and kindled the enthusiasm of the people for him and his friends, in order to damage the old administration, who were doing nothing for his relief. On the other hand, at the same time you were working the other way in your province, pitching into the government for not bringing to justice these same men. So the duplicity of the government and its double game were a two-edged weapon in our and your hands.

We can now admit that both in Ontario and Quebec we have been imprudent in intensifying the feelings of the people as we have done. But without recriminating on the past, we have to look squarely at the situation.

There is but one solution. Either we must yield to you, or you must yield to us. Either we must bring the accused to trial or must grant an amnesty.

You might say that we should yield, because you are the strongest. I do not believe so; you must adopt our policy, because it is the more liberal policy, and because it must some day be finally adopted; its adoption is only a question of time. Since, therefore, we must come to it some day, better to make up our mind at once and act accordingly.

What I would suggest would be the following: that the Ontario legislature be called early this fall, that the local elections should be brought early next winter, say in January, and that the federal parliament be called only when they are over. If this plan were adopted, the ministry would not be fettered by the coming local elections during the session. It would be left to act according to the best interests of the country and the party, and if it had to countenance any unpopular measure, we would have four years before us to work away the bad feeling. Perhaps you do not

think much of this amnesty question in Ontario, but to us here it is of the greatest importance.

It may have been only a coincidence, but it is worth noting that the Ontario Legislature was called that autumn, in November, that the Ontario elections were brought on in January, and that the Federal House was called in February.

The question continued to trouble Parliament for three years longer. Early in 1875 the governor-general, Lord Dufferin, acting on his own responsibility, commuted Lepine's deathsentence to two years' imprisonment. The Government, while doubtless not unwilling to be freed from the thorny task of itself advising action, could not on constitutional grounds recognize the claim of the governor-general to independent authority, and in 1878 Blake succeeded in establishing his contention that the prerogative of pardoning, like other prerogatives of the crown, was to be exercised by the governor-general on the advice of his responsible ministers. In February, 1875, Mackenzie, on

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the ground that the Government was committed by the actions of its predecessor and of the provincial authorities, moved a full amnesty to all persons concerned in the Northwest troubles, ing only Riel, Lepine, and O'Donoghue; Riel and Lepine were to be amnestied after five years' banishment, but O'Donoghue, who had participated in the Fenian Raid of 1870, was excluded. At the same time, on Mackenzie's motion, Riel, who had been reëlected for Provencher, was adjudged an outlaw for felony, on the basis of a sentence passed by the Chief-Justice of Manitoba, and his seat was vacated. This solution was approved by all parties except the Quebec Conservatives, who demanded immediate and complete amnesty.

In supporting the Government's course, Mr. Laurier insisted that the question could not be settled unless settled in a spirit of leniency. "History has proved to us that there has never been peace or harmony in any country until a free pardon has been given for all offenses of this kind." It was not a question to be decided according to race or religion; all had their preferences,

but must not be carried away by them. Members of Parliament were representatives of the Canadian people, to give justice to whom it was due, without bias or favor. He believed that a full amnesty should have been granted, but as the Imperial Government had advised otherwise, there was nothing to be said. This solution had the further advantage of being a compromise bebween Ontario and Quebec; it should have the effect of burying the past in oblivion and promoting a sentiment of mutual self-respect between the two great provinces of the dominion.

Riel thus passed off the political scene until, twelve years later, he reappeared as the moving spirit in a second Northwest insurrection. In the years that intervened he spent much time in the United States, where he took out citizenship papers, and no little while in Québec, where his presence was an open secret. He appeared in public in Montreal, in 1876, at a church service, interrupting the mass with a claim to be allowed to conduct the service, since he was superior in spiritual attainments to any of the dignitaries present. He was arrested, and, after an examination by medical men, committed to Longue Point Asylum and later to Beauport Asylum, under the name of LaRochelle. After nineteen months he was charged, but again in Washington had to be confined for a short time.

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During the earlier part of this period Mr. Laurier had his first and last interview with Louis Riel. One Sunday he was invited by the curé of a neighboring village to come over for dinner to meet an interesting guest. Mr. Laurier was surprised on entering the study to find himself face to face with the man whom he had helped to vote into temporary exile. He was much impressed by the vigor and daimonic personality of the Métis leader, and found him surprisingly well informed in both American and European politics. When, however, religion was touched upon, Riel's deep-set eyes lit up, and he launched into an excited and jumbled harangue, boasting of the great, but vague, mission for the further revelation of God's will, which a heavenly vision had summoned him to

undertake. From that day Mr. Laurier never had any question as to Riel's insanity, though he had as yet no surmise of the part that the man was fated once more to play on the Western plains.

Long before the controversies over the incidents in Canada's assumption of sovereignty in the West had ended, the question of developing this vast heritage had become pressing. Development meant first and foremost railway building. The Macdonald government had agreed in 1871, as a condition of the entrance of British Columbia into confederation, to begin in two years and complete in ten the construction of a railway to the Pacific coast. There were strong national reasons for hastening to make the West one and make it Canadian, but none the less it was a rash undertaking. Canada then held fewer than four million people, of whom only one hundred thousand, chiefly Indians, lived west of the Great Lakes. Between old Ontario and the prairies there stretched for nearly a thousand miles a rocky and forest-clad Northern wilderness. On the Pacific coast a "sea of mountains" threatened to make the work of surveying slow and the work of construction costly. It was not surprising that difficulty was experienced in carrying the agreement through Parliament, and still greater difficulty in carrying it into effect. When the Macdonald government left office in 1873, construction had not been begun, and the collapse of the company headed by Allan, to which a charter and a large subsidy had been granted, as a result both of political exposures and money-market indifference, compelled a fresh start by the new administration.

Mackenzie was a man of cautious temperament. Times were hard, and after the collapse of the Northern Pacific and other American roads in 1873, money not easy to borrow for a wilderness project. Most people in the East believed the original agreement with British Columbia a rash and unnecessary concession. The question of the best route to follow required long investigation and much debate. Mackenzie therefore announced a policy of