Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

[1869] do not bind us to any particularTHE CHARTER 45the stock must be subscribed, if I can managetime within whichto have thepresent increase placed under the same provisions, I feeldisposed to fall in with Macpherson's views. There aredifficulties to be surmounted with regard to the notice andother things, but I navigated the bill through the BankingCommittee without the weak points being detected, and it ispossible the additional million may be included and passedwithout much trouble. You will understand that I have gotthe bill through Committee providing for four instead of threemillion capital, but can have the additional million struck outwhen passing through the House, if thought advisable. Someof our friends think that, in order to occupy the position weshould hold in Upper Canada, our stock should be four million."Apparently the directors approvedof this eleventh-hoursuggestion, and the bill was advanced two or three stages untilit came before the Committee of the Whole on March 28.Then Sir George Etienne1Cartier, the Quebec leader in theGovernment, rose in his place and instructed the membersthat the bill must stand until the Government's financiallegislation was disposed of. Mr. McMaster writes: "Whetherthis may have been done for the purpose of securing mycontinued support and that of others who have bills beforeParliament, or that he has got his instructions from King, Icannot say but I need not tell you, my disappointment isvery great." To understand this fully, it must be rememberedthat he was aJLiberal supporting the financial legislation of a*Sir George Etienne Cartier, Bart. (1814-73), was a native of St. Antoine, P.Q.He studied law and began to practise in 1837. He took a prominent part in the rebellionof 1837 and was obliged to flee to the United States. After his return to Canada heentered public life, and became the valued colleague of Sir John A. Macdonald and aprominent leader of his own race. In 1849 he was elected to the House of Assembly,entered the Cabinet in 1855, and from 1858 to 1862 he and Sir John A. Macdonald werejoint Prime Ministers of Canada. Pre-eminently a practical statesman, he was alwaysa great supporter of railway construction as essential to the development of Canada,and rendered great services to the cause of Confederation. He was also the author ofmany practical measures of reform affecting his native province, such as the abolitionof the seigniorial tenure and the codification of the civil law.