FIGHTING JOE MARTIN IN BRITISH COLUMBIA Peter Jeff ry Brock Bachelor of Arts Univereity of British Columbia, 1967 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILWEXI' OF THE REQUIREMEM'S FOR THE DLiX3RE.E OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of History @ Peter Jeffry Brock 1976 August 1976 All righta reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole Qr in part, by photocopy % or other means, without permission of the author. T!~,r,e: Peter Jeff l*,r Rrock %gee: '.'aster of Arts Title of Thesis: Pi~htingJoe !:artin in Sritish Zoluqbia %airperson: 1brtin Kitchen ~,$d;:.!,~ohnston Senior Supervisor Robin Fisher Hart in Xobin Zxternal Examiner Professor, Shon Yraser University PARTIAL COPYRIGHT LICENSE I hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis or dissertation (the title of which is shown below) to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for 'such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its 'own behalf or for one of its users. I further agree that permission for multiple copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my writte* permission. Title of Thesis /~issertation: FIGHTING JOE WRTXN IN BRITISH COLUMBIA Author : (signature ) PETER JEFFRY BROCK (name ) 21 Julv 1976 (date) B-?cause there are no Martin pzpers, the material in This LC...-' ' , ,L;., I 5 $5 ti:.czd prlmri l y on newspaper sources and printed pvernmen? p--::-2:-:s zi~ho~ghsome insights have been gained fr-cm a small body of ti n !,t ..--I ,ors found in the cot lections of his principal corresponients. Iwish to ?s:cnowled~ethe help and advice of 3.C. ...bQST?, .'i3T.,,. ............................................ iii Th?s thesis is essenti.,a:l;- ri. :kzrti.nl.zation of the 3ritish rriany interesting themes th2t T omitted, such as Tlartin's rel.2tionship with the radic3.l l-abour movement of his tjme, but the tgmnny of rel-evance pre- cllided srch ar! 11ndert~JiJn:. 5: felt h~mperedbzr the absence of work on the other mni n ch'?ract,ers of the era: Turner, Cemlin, I'cTnnes, C~rter-Cotton, '31r1;2s, and cspeci:l.ll;. Jxnes hnsmrli.r xre near?y historical blanks. The news- papers I fo..mcl confusinc ,mrl rr.ls.l.ezdin=: In the bsginn!.ng T put & lot of effort into trying to m~kesense out of the stories, but towards the end I concluded th2.t the stories were sonetimes intendod to be publicity releases I for railwq pronoter*~,and so not distinguished for their accuracy. There were no f7arti.n papws. The L~urierpapers were by far the largest collection of ?'artin's writinp that were zvs3 1-zble. Some sources that could have been of ?reat help were reluctant to rehase the mriterial that I asked for: The Xsqxinalt and Vaneimo Railway in Victoria and the Jmea J.Hill Xamorial Lib- my in St Paul. sent little or nothing; and the documents sent by the C.P.9. Oorporat e Archives in Xontrcal seemed to be incon-plete. ?'his work reall-y soes bepmd the direct evidence that could be c<t,ed. T did not even flnd any concrete proof that the G.P.R. and the Great fTort,hernwere in conflict with one another, but ;iven the objectives of each ~nlltvay, and the Hi11 - Van Home rivalry, including the manner in which Hill spUt away from t,he C.P.17. in 1884, the inference that the two companies were .in con?] ict seems comp2et ely reasonab1.e. Roth Margaret Ormsby and Martin Robin .,. s:q~est that pwcrfu.7. outssde I.nterest,s had the power to rmke, or !m(zake, the ;ovsmrzent of the day in ?ritish Colimbin, but they give few specific emmples. I have put tojether the S. P.?.. - Grext Northern fizht wfth the Omsby - ?ob:!n ~.llilsionsand tried to construct a reasonable case for tho plitical manifestations cf the corzl,p~xystri..q,nle from the viewpoint of 'r' 1..;htins' ,Joe '%r%in. T hope that everyone who comes to know Joseph !Tartin the rebel dl?. see a little hit of hirn in t-hemselvos. Both Martin Robin and Margaret Ormsby, the authors of the two general histories of British Columbia, characterize the period at the end of the ninteenth century as a time of confusion and tumult culminsting in the introduction a formal party system and a return to stability under 1 the new administration of Richard &Bride and the Conservatives in 1903. The early studies of Edith Dobie and W.N.Sage have focused on the creation of political groupings after Confederation and on the Smithe dynasty of Premiers from 1883 to 1898, largely dismissing the end of the era in a 2 paragraph or two as a time when "group government was breaking down". Later writers like C.F. G.Stanley, J.T ,Saywell, and others, have attributed much of the upheaval to the new Lieutenant Governor who appointed a nurnber of Premiers who had little support fromthe established political channels of the province and so precipitated a constitutional crisis which brought 3 about his own dismissal by the Governor General. But all of theee views neglect to include the effects of the railway boom then gathering force in the West and the powerful presence of Joseph Martin, The period of the Smithe dgnasty coincides with the appear- ance of the Canadian Pacific Rsilw and its growth into being the dominating economic power in British Columbia. The period of tumult which followed Martin's arrival on the coast can best be understood by tracing his activ- itkes in organizing a behind-the-scenes revolt against the domination of the C.P.R. and its political friends. With the backing of the Great Northern Railway of the United States, VIrt3.n brought about %hedismissal of the 2 Lieutenant Governor, seized cont~olof the embryonic provincial Liberal Party, plunged the established political figures of British Columbia into a series of scandals thereby upsetting the traditional patterms of the province, and for the first time in the province's history, brought a Conservative Party government into power which struggled to restore order* And all these events were a product of the railway struggle for control of the mineral wealth of the Kootenays for use in the developing trade with the Orient. Fifteen years earlier, Martin had led a similar fight against the C.P.R. in Manitoba at the time hen the Great Northern was trying to 4 establish a branch line into Winnipeg. Elected to the Manitoba Legislature in the spring of 1883, Martin plunged into local politics with vigmr, espousing the farmers' cause against the C.P.R. monopoly there, and, with Thomas Greenway, he became a leading light in the formation of the Manitoba Liberal Party. After bitter fights, lasting some years, the Liberals defeated Premier Norquay and his Conservatives and in January, 1888, with Greenway becoming Premier, Nartin became Attorney General, Minister of Education, 5 and Cdrtvnissioner of Railways. Prime Minister ilacdonald was facing growing pressure not to interfere in Manitoba politics and to allow the abrogation of the C. P.R. Ts monopoly position in the West (in return for substantial compensation, of course), so that when Greenway and Martin arrived in ' Ottawa in April of 1888, bcdonald acceded to their demands and the two 6 Manitobans returned home as heroes, A line connecting Winnipeg into the '7 1 Great Northern system was completed a few years later. In 1889 Martin launched into his campaign to deny the local French state funding for their parochial schools. The next year he intro- 3 duced his set of bills creating the Manitoba Schools ~C&estionwhich bedevil- led Canadian politics for the next decade. He defended his legislation through to the Privy Council in London and went into federal politics in 1893 to fight the Conservatives and their Remedial Bill in the Dominion House, but in the general election of 1896 his old fight with the C*P.R. caught up with him and the railway company orchestrated his defeat in his 8 home power base of Winnipeg. This time, however, the C.P.R. saw the wisdom of trying to control their Manitoban bete noir rather than simply fighting him: they offered him a job, Martin was in a rather isolated position, He had earned the hatred of the ~onservativesby fighting them so vociferously in Manitoba and Ottawa, but he had also earned the hatred of many Liberals. He had tried to seize the Premiership from Creenway but lost his attempted coup to Cllf ford Sifton and others who eased him out of party and power in Manitoba. During his Ottawa fight against the federal Conservatives he had alienated many Quebec Liberals who resented his actions against the Manitoban French, and so Prime Minister burier was not keen to help his former Western Liberal lieutenant. Martin was passed over for Sifton in the appointment of the new Minister of the Interior and he bitterly declined a consolation appointment 9 to the Bench, It would surely have appeared to Martin that his political career was finished, so, in the best Liberal tradition, he accepted the highest paying offer that was available; namely, company solicitor to the 10 Canadian Pacific Railway, Perhaps the C.P.R. was as surprised that Hartin would accept their offer as Hartin would have been that they would have made it, but nevertheless, having come to terms on employment, Martin was dispatched to 4 their most remote area of operations; British Columbia.