No American President knew Canada better than William Howard Taft. He had summer home in Quebec and holidayed there for 40 years. While in the White House, Taft successfully negotiated a free trade agreement – later rejected by Canadians in the 1911 election – with Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Despite this defeat, Taft traveled frequently in Canada afterwards was very popular amongst Canadians. He also followed Canadian politics closely after serving in the White House.
On this date in 1921 American newspapers, like the Ithica, New York Journal, carried a column by Taft which examined the current political scene in Canada. It is worth re-producing in full.
“The practical working of so-called responsible government can be seen in Canada during the next three or four months,” Taft wrote. “In December. 1917, Sir Robert Borden went to the country on the issue of conscription against Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his party. Many Liberals joined the Conservative leader and elected a coalition government with a satisfactory majority.”
“The war spirit was high,” Taft continued. “Men forgot party, and the result was as might have been expected. Since that time the war ended, and defections through the formation of a Farmers party and because of failure of the government to invite a general election after the chief reason for a coalition party has ceased have weakened the strength of the government, so that it has only about 20 majority to be depended upon. Sir Robert Borden was obliged to retire on account of his health.”
Taft then concluded his report. “Sir Thomas White, the able, successful and popular finance minister, who has acted as premier during Sir Robert Borden's absence abroad, declined for similar reasons to accept the premiership, and the choice fell upon the present premier, Mr. Arthur Meighen. Mr. Meighen is from the prairie west and is young, vigorous, a brilliant debater and a courageous leader. He has insisted that the government has a mandate to redistribute the constituencies of the Dominion after a census and to give the west and the eastern industrial centers a larger representation and to adjust the changes caused by thee war to present economic conditions by a revision of the tariff and all this before going to the country.”
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.