“I must also move quickly,” Carnarvon said. “Our parliament opens again on February fifth. That gives us fewer than sixty days to prepare and settle the bill so that I can introduce it in the Lords as soon as possible after the opening formalities.” He looked to Macdonald. “John A., you’ll be back in London tomorrow. I know you and Sir Frederic get on well.” Sir Frederic Rogers was the senior civil servant, the Permanent Under-Secretary in the Colonial Office. “I would be obliged if you would arrange to call upon him on Thursday and hand him a note, which I shall write, instructing him to take the appropriate steps to do another draft of the British North America bill. The first draft, the earlier one done by my people, was a disaster. You can explain the urgency.”
“Yes, I’d be happy to do that. I know he already has a copy of the Quebec Resolutions.”
“Even so, he’ll need copies for the drafting staff. Perhaps you could take along a half dozen or so — if you have them,” Carnarvon said as he passed the port again. This time all three accepted.
He asked, “So you’re still intending to include as much of the British parliamentary system as possible, having regard to your country’s enormous distance and regional differences, right?”
“And also having regard to the ethnic and language differences,” Cartier was quick to point out. “As, you know, Harry, my Quebec — Canada East, Lower Canada, whatever — is French. We come from the sixty thousand French who were there when your English army defeated us on the Plains of Abraham. We have kept our own language, religion, culture, and code of civil laws. I am satisfied that with the creation of the Province of Quebec our rights and our distinctiveness will be reasonably protected. But only the passage of time will tell if I am right.”
“You shouldn’t have any concern about the French language and rights, George,” Galt retorted. “Christ, man, what more do you want? After all, I looked after that issue during the Quebec Conference two years ago.”
“Well, you made an effort,” Cartier acknowledged. “You took a positive step but, again, only the passage of time …”
“An effort?” Galt snorted derisively. He addressed Carnarvon. “George has a memory as short as a pig’s tit, Your Lordship … Harry. It was I myself who took care of the French problem, not George. The member for Sherbrooke, Quebec — that’s I — I proposed the language resolution at the Quebec Conference!”
Carnarvon thought for an instant that he should intervene. But this situation promised to be educational and entertaining. It might provide him with a valuable insight into the minds and personalities of these colonial leaders, people who clearly displayed their lower-class origins. He puffed on his cigar, sipped on his port, and listened.
Galt leaned forward, glaring at Cartier. “Remember my resolution, George? If you’ve forgotten, let me remind you. It was carried unanimously. Even you voted for it!” Galt shouted.
Carnarvon softly suggested, “I wonder, Alex, if you might be good enough to recite the purport of your language resolution. Can you give me the thrust of what it said?”
Lowering his tone, Galt said, “I can give you the thrust and I can also tell you what the resolution didn’t say.” Eyes intense and fixed on Carnarvon, he put down his port goblet. Clenching his thick fingers together, he spoke. “My resolution was in no way a statement of the general principle that the British American federation was to be a bilingual or bicultural nation. Not at all. Canada West and the Maritime colonies are not French. Quebec is French except for the large English numbers in Montreal and around my Sherbrooke base.
“But there had to be some strong recognition of the French language by the central federal government, because it will oversee the affairs of our national interest.”
Macdonald was becoming impatient and showed it. “For God’s sake, Alex, tell Harry what your goddamn resolution was.”
“All right, all right. By faulty memory I may leave out a word or phrase but this is the way it went. I moved ‘that in the general legislature and its proceedings …’”
“By general legislature,” Carnarvon broke in, “you mean the upper, appointed federal body together with the elected House of Commons, the confederated House — as opposed to the colonial or subservient provincial legislatures. Am I right?”
“Correct. I moved that in the general legislature and in its proceedings both the English and the French languages may be equally employed. And also in the local legislature of Lower Canada and in the federal and lower courts of Lower Canada.”
Carnarvon was perplexed. “Why would you frame your resolution in such a way? It gives French a place in the federal level and obviously in Lower Canada, Quebec, but not elsewhere in the country?”
“Perhaps I can explain.” Macdonald couldn’t resist. “Alex’s motion, his resolution, recognized that a concession should be made to the French-speaking minority in our new capital city of Ottawa in exchange for a like concession to the English minority in Lower Canada.”
Carnarvon admitted, “Perhaps it’s the wine and port, but let’s see if I have it right. The proposed legal status of the French language in your asked-for national parliament will not be extended to the legislature and courts of any of the confederating provinces other than Lower Canada. Am I right?”
“That’s right, sir,” Macdonald continued. “Canada as it now stands — Canada West and Canada East — is bilingual only insofar as the debates and records of its legislature and the proceedings of the courts of Canada East are concerned. The French language had no legal standing in the courts of Canada West, nor in the courts or legislatures of any of the Maritime provinces, even in New Brunswick.”
“Even though New Brunswick has a large number of French-speaking people,” Cartier added.
“But they’re only a minority of the population.” Galt had to make that point.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Cartier agreed.
Macdonald, ever the moderator, decided it was time to move away from the highly sensitive issue of French language and culture. In any case, the conference had put the matter to bed. Rehashing it further over port and cigars in the presence of the Colonial Secretary would only increase antagonism and enmity.
“So, Harry,” he said, “while the conference is going well and the Maritime representatives seem to be getting along with us strange folk, the British in Upper Canada and the French in Lower Canada — we folk who seem to be able to live together notwithstanding our racial, cultural, religious and language differences — I must add that some unforeseen element, emotion, or event may yet appear that will destroy our purpose to unite all the British colonies in America in a single confederation.”
“John, you’re just a bag of wind who can’t resist making a speech.” Galt couldn’t avoid taking the friendly shot across Macdonald’s boozy bow. “And what he didn’t say, Harry, was the uniting all the British colonies will eventually include the North-Western Territories and those on the Pacific coast, Vancouver Island, and British Columbia.”
Macdonald grunted his agreement, saying, “Those two, Vancouver Island and British Columbia, are critically important to us. Without them, and without the North-Western Territories, our goal of a single unified nation from sea to sea will be lost.”
The Colonial Secretary’s cigar was down to a two-inch butt, having been consumed with pleasure as he listened to the three Canadians speaking, each with his own accent. In that splendid library Henry Carnarvon was hearing a hint of the multitude of languages and races that might someday be found in that land so large that an Englishman sitting on his tight, powerful little island with its empire cast all over the world like a golden net could not intellectually grasp or conceive of its enormous