His Work for Canada and His Services to Montreal AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE CANADIAN CLUB OF MONTREAL April 7th, 1913 BY JOHN BOYD Author of The Memorial History of the Life and Times of Sir George Etienne Cartier (To be issued in connection with the Cartier Centenary Celebration, 1914) Issued by the CARTIER CENTENARY COMMITTEE MONTREAL 1913 The accompanying address has been registered in accordance with the Copyright Act by John Boyd ....

The great interest that has been aroused in the Cartier Centenary movement was shown by the large gathering which assembled at the Canadian Club luncheon in the Sailors' Institute on Monday, April 7th, 1913, to hear Mr. John Boyd speak on "Sir George Etienne Cartier, His Work for Canada and His Services to Montreal." The speaker's references to the work that Cartier had accomplished for Canada, and especially to the great services that he rendered to the City of Montreal, were enthusiastically a

The greatest work in which Cartier participated, and in which it is freely acknowledged he played a determining part, was of course the establishment of Confederation. The idea of a union of all the provinces of British North America did not originate with Cartier, any more than it originated with Macdonald, Tupper, Tilley, Brown or the other great Fathers of Confederation. Proposals to that effect had been made long before, and the idea was one that had arisen in many minds as a desirable consu

Confederation having been accomplished, Cartier's energies were directed to measures for the strengthening and defence of the national fabric. He was largely instrumental in determining the route of the Intercolonial Railway, and in having that road, which it is admitted has been a most important factor in consolidating the Dominion, completed. One of the most important measures of Cartier's public career, was undoubtedly the one which, as Minister of Militia and Defence, he presented to Parliam

No review of Cartier's career, however summary, would be complete without some reference to the alliance that existed between him and that other great Canadian statesman, Sir John A. Macdonald, an alliance which was for a long period a most important factor in the public life of Canada. In his great painting "The Fathers of Confederation," the artist Harris most appropriately places Macdonald and Cartier conspicuously in the centre of the group, and the names of those two great statesmen must fo

The aim of Macdonald, Cartier, and the other great Fathers of Confederation, was to establish broad and deep the foundations of a Canadian nationality, based on the broadest principles of justice, tolerance, and equal rights. All their public utterances during the Confederation negotiations, testify to this fact. Macdonald's conception was that as the Dominion progressed it would become, to use his own words, year by year less a case of dependence on our part, and of overwhelming protection on t

Having reviewed the great work which Cartier did for Canada in general, permit me to emphasize the eminent services which he rendered to Montreal. It is doubtful whether many Montrealers of the present generation fully realize the importance of Cartier's services to this city, and for that reason this portion of his career should be of special interest to citizens of this great metropolis. From 1861 until 1872, Cartier was one of the representatives of Montreal, first in the Parliament of United

What were the lessons of Cartier's life? They may be summed up in the three words—patriotism, duty, and tolerance. He loved his country and sought to promote its interests, he wore himself out in the discharge of his public duties, he was a man of the broadest views and the utmost tolerance. As Sir Adolphe Routhier has well remarked, to most public men public life is a career, but for Cartier it was an apostolate, a patriotic mission, and to fulfill that mission he sacrificed everything, even th

Canadians do well to honor the memories of those great men who laid broad and deep the foundations of Canadian nationality, and who accomplished great works for the welfare of the Dominion. In the leading cities of Canada, stately monuments attest the recognition of a grateful people of the services of that great Father of Confederation, and that illustrious Canadian statesman, Sir John A. Macdonald. Brown and Tilley, too, have their monuments. Sir Charles Tupper is still happily with us in pers