council-decision of which they sought his ratification. With his position virtually stripped of veto authority the function of a governor-general who lacked tact, insight and a judicious capacity for adaptability would soon become the theatre of humiliation; but Lord Lorne always maintained the dignity of his intelligence and of his office. Some persons who looked only at the surface, said that he was weak and without opinion, but under an unobtrusive and dignified exterior there was deep conviction and a strong man.

It may seem, also, to the wise ones with the keen eyes and the apt capacity for discovering discrepancies, that, in the opinions expressed by me on political topics in the foregoing part of this book, I fly in the face of convictions which I recently recorded in another volume* dealing with the last forty years of our political history; but the critics will permit me to forestal them by saying that the views I held then are precisely the same as those which I entertain now; that, while I cannot approve, or believe that any honest and thoughtful man can approve, of many of the public acts done under stress of political exigency by the present administration, I nevertheless believe the policy of Sir John Macdonald's party as compared with that of its opponents, to be, on the whole, the most desirable now for the country, and that for the successful leader of the government himself, I have much regard, although a sense of duty has compelled me to enter a protest against many views entertained by him, and to condemn what I believe to be the incapacity of one of his colleagues and the

The Life and Times of the Right Honourable Sir John A. Macdonald.

notorious wrong-doing of another. Any just reader of my pages must see that, in expressing preferences for one party, I am simply making choice between what I regard, whether rightly or wrongly, as two evils, and that my yearning is for the upgrowth of a political power among us that will not make politics a dishonourable and a dishonest trade.

While this development has been taking place in the provinces constituting the confederation, the lonely colony of Newfoundland, which has held aloof from union, has shown emphatic signs of retrogression. The population still cling to the coast line, and turn their faces to the sea for bread. Every year shows improved facilities for taking fish, but each season reveals a falling off in catch, and on portions of the coast where two fishermen in a punt, provided with nothing but a pair of lines each, in one season took a " voyage" worth £200, there is now nothing to be had for the improved facilities of net, seine, bultow and trap. As the buffalo on the plains has disappeared, less from the number of animals killed than from the intrusion of civilization upon their solitude, so is the scarcity of cod, disturbed year after year upon its feeding and breeding grounds,. less the result of the number of fish taken than of the presence of nets and seines, the ringing of grapnels, and the disturbance caused by masses of fishing gear. Mr. T. B. Browning has contributed during the present year a number of thoughtful and vigorously written papers upon the colony to the Toronto Week, and among many valuable suggestions contained in the series, I find the following, which, as bearing upon the question.

of fishery decrease, is worthy of serious attention. "If civilized nations, France among the number, are no check unto themselves, can no check be put upon them? Fishery, whether by bultow or hook-and-line, cannot be pursued without bait; bait for the Banks cannot be got except from the shore, and from part of it under the sole control of Great Britain. If gentler methods fail of effect, enforce prohibition of the sale of bait to the French, an undertaking within jurisdiction, and quite practicable to-day; prohibit also its catch within the three-miles limit, and then put a clamp on France that will either render her Bank fishery unprofitable, or, what is more to be desired, bring her to reasonable terms in its prosecution." Taking the most favourable view, there is little hope of a conspicuously successful future for the colony, but if the creatures herded in huts around the rocks would but turn themselves from the profitless waters to the land, the reign of hunger would be at an end, and the depopulation, which must soon commence, be averted.

R

CHAPTER VIII.

PRIVATE AND SOCIAL RECORD.

IDEAU HALL, the official residence of the governor-gene

ral, stands on the banks of the Ottawa in the lower suburb of the city. It is built of a bluish-grey limestone taken from the foundations of the town, and it presents an appearance of sober beauty, standing in the midst of a grove of trees whose greenage endures the season's round. But though its colour, like that of most of the residences in its neighbourhood, arrests and satisfies the eye tired of tawdry brick, insipid white and yellowish limerock, and sullen sandstone that seems to conceal a mystery which has the atmosphere of a murder, its architecture would give no special delight to Mr. Ruskin, nor suggest itself to Madame de Stael as "frozen music; "frozen music;" for it was once a private residence, and since its selection as the viceroy's dwelling, has received several expansions and alterations untrammelled as well as unguided by orders Doric, Corinthian, or Gothic, whether antique or maeso. Far on its way to the north as is the capital of Canada, it does not escape frequent broiling periods in July, and the evergreens about Rideau Hall afford really small comfort in the sultry season, so that its inhabitants, like all others in the city who have the time and the means, depart for cooler regions. But in winter, when bitter winds blow from the Pole, and Ottawa and the country about it are

covered with four feet of snow, the grounds of Rideau Hall are a genuine bit of the icy north; the air is always fresh, dry, and bracing, and when you arise on a calm morning and look through your window, the sun appears to be reclining in a cushion of dense cream-coloured haze, while the air about the city is agleam with minute, glistening frost-points, that adown the valley of the river lie in such volume as to form vast masses of silvery cloud. The stranger who comes from a city lying by the sea or one of the great lakes, steps from his hotel into the exhilarating air of one of those glorious northern mornings, and rashly declares that the "reports"—that is usually his phrase -concerning the intense cold at Ottawa are exaggerating; but before he has reached the Western Block of the parliament buildings his ears will have begun to wave, and he will discover that it is not in the blustery days, but in the deathlike calm, that Jack Frost in the north usually plies the keenest lance, and that in the Canadian capital the air does not chill him or sting so painfully when the mercury is twelve degrees below zero, as it does at his own native sea-coast when winds blow high laden with moist air, and the thermometer stands only twelve degrees below the freezing point. Most of those who visit the capital in winter now are aware of this, and hence it is that the newest comer marvels at the number of seal sacques be sees upon the ladies, and at the men's coats made of all sorts of fur from the patrician phoca of the South Sea to the raccoon, or the buffalo. This latter is not much more than the raccoon to be contemned, or better capable of bringing a disparaging glance, or an elevation of the eye-brow from him who wears the seal garment, with its breast ornamentations of cord