ARTICLES

ARTICLES
resigned his Canadian appointment the next day. 155 The impasse was broken. Borden wrote
back the same night that Hutton’s resignation was accepted and that an order-in-council to
that effect had already been passed and forwarded to Minto for approval. 156 It was a remarkable
48-hour turnaround of fortunes.
Three factors had saved Hutton’s career and reputation, and at the same time granted him his
fondest wish of serving in South Africa. Foremost, the decision to send him on active service
was a Colonial Office effort to avoid the controversy of a recall. Chamberlain had become all
too aware of the crisis and of Minto’s efforts to force the Canadian government into a public
position rather than facilitate a quiet recall. By the time Minto signed the Order-in-Council
for Hutton’s recall, therefore, Chamberlain had hit on his own solution. It was not so much that
the Colonial Secretary agreed with the Canadian government’s position as much as he had an
understandable sensitivity to preserve London’s relationship with Ottawa. Without Minto’s
determination to support his friend and to “make a stand,” on principle, Hutton would have
been quietly recalled. 157 The other two key considerations were the persistent influence of
Hutton’s War Office friends and Minto’s consistently strongly worded communications home
praising the GOC’s achievements while denigrating the actions of his government. 158
“Whatever small mistakes he may have made here,” Minto assured Chamberlain, for example,
“his great energy and ability under difficult circumstances deserve recognition.” 159
Hutton’s considerable ego, however, and his resentment towards the Laurier government,
prevented him from quietly thanking his good fortune and sailing for South Africa. The
problem was that he worried the press and public in Canada would assume he was leaving only
for active service, with no knowledge of the government’s “conspiracy” against him. Hutton
therefore used two banquets given in his honour—at the Rideau Club in Ottawa on
13 February and another given by Ottawa District Troops the next evening—to provide a thinly
veiled account of his view of the Canadian political situation and the issues between him and
the government. 160 More, and unnecessary, offence was caused to the government when the
speeches were reported upon in the press. 161 The Military Gazette responded, for example, with
a claim that Hutton was forced out because he was a “standing menace and a continual source
of discomfiture to the wire pullers and managers who manipulate the militia” and because of
his role in “making a Canadian contingent to South Africa an accomplished fact.” 162
Hutton’s actual departure from Canada belied the circumstances of his leaving. He and Eleanor
left Ottawa in a special carriage decked with flowers on 15 February. 163 The Ottawa Citizen
reported a crowd of 2,500 to see him off. “All ranks and classes were there,” it noted, “including
many women who formed part of the Soldiers’ Wives league [who] presented Mrs. Hutton
with two bouquets.” 164 The 43rd Battalion provided an escort accompanied by a regimental
band. At 1600 hours, a militia artillery detachment provided a final salute, signifying the end
of Hutton’s time in Canada. 165 Though he later reflected fondly upon his departure, Hutton
never forgave those he thought responsible for his removal. “I have the deepest and most
profound contempt for the present Canadian Government,” he later wrote, “and have the worst
opinion of their integrity and honour.” 166 “No man of independent value or of any manly
individuality as a soldier,” he spat to Minto, “would ever consent to accept the position of
G.O.C. as it exists at present in Canada.” 167
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