Edward Blake

honourable the Dominick Edward Blake , C.P. (born the October 13rd 1833 and deceased on March 1st 1912) was a Canadian politician which was Prime Minister for Ontario of 1871 with 1872 and chief of the Liberal party of Canada of 1880 with 1887. He is the only not-temporary liberal chief not to become Prime Minister of Canada.

Born in the Canton from Adelaide, Middlesex, province of Ontario, in October 1833; one of the most remarkable pupils of the Université of Ontario where it obtained, without effort all degrees and honors that one could there grant; admitted with the Bar in 1856 and made the Council of the Queen in 1863, three or four years were enough for him to become one of first lawyers of High-Canada; at the end of ten years it did not have superiors, and today one generally agrees to give him the first place.

Elected for South-Bruce with the legislative Parliament of Ontario in 1867, he became Leader of the opposition almost at once, reversed the government of Mr. Sandfield McDonald in 1871, and had to form a ministry, in which he took the position of president of the Council, without wages. The following year, the abolition of the Dual mandate obliging it to make the choice between the two legislatures, it renonçait in the honourable place which it occupied with the head of its province, to go, with his/her friend McKenzie, within the House of Commons, to fight the government of Sir John. It did not miss people who blamed their audacity and their presumption, and however, two years after, the preserving fortress fell under their blows, and Thon. McKenzie raised there the flag from there reform.

Mr. Blake could have been the Chef of the opposition while entering the House of Commons, but he did not want the being; he was satisfied, to go to the most pressing requests of one hundred ten to a hundred and fifteen deputies, to form part, during a few months, of the McKenzie ministry, without wallet and wages. Against the majority of the politicians who would take well the wages without the wallet, if it were possible, Mr. Blake, takes only the responsability to him and leaves side the wages.

It was said that the private reasons pled by Mr. Blake were not the only ones who prevented it from accepting the post of head of the opposition; it was claimed that he would have realized that the old liberals of the High-Canada saw it of an evil eye preceding the old ones so quickly. It appears certain that Mr. Blake, like all the men with great aspirations, wants to arrive with an idea, with a flag with him.

It has high and strong size, a superb face which one would say cut in a block of marble, a beautiful figure with the rich dye, with the vigorous features, the calm and reflected aspect of a thinker: all at his place indicates the power and indicates a higher nature. Its installation is nonchalante, its gracious and modest manners; it gets dressed like a good American farmer with the state with the Vermont; it is curious to see in the Room, the head pressed on its desk and glaze of a black felt hat on wide board; it would be always said that he sleeps, but when he rises to speak, it is seen that its spirit took care. Silence is done then and the Room lends an attentive ear to the words which fall from its eloquent mouth.

It is not one of these powerful orators whose shouts make tremble the panes and whose impassioned declamation raises an audience; he does not speak with the heat and the violence which characterized the eloquence of his/her father; not, it is a parliamentary speaker the made-to-order of Russell and, it is the statesman to the broad ideas, the raised theories, invincible logic, with the traditional language, whose each word deserves to be collected and meditated. Its speeches resemble these immense oaks whose head touches the skies and of which the vigorous roots plunge in the entrails of the ground, or with these coats of arms on the surface polished and impenetrable that carried the ancient warriors. Its speech on the election of Peterborough is a model of logic and argumentation; the admirable Philippique S that he pronounced with London and with Bowmanville are masterpieces of high reason and patriotic eloquence. It is not astonishing that Mr. Blake wishes the establishment of a federation of all the countries which compose the British Empire with a large Parliament where the colonies would be represented.

When Mr. Blake proclaims that it is time that, in relations with England and country foreign, one thinks initially of interest Canadian, all men which in the future believes of Canada are with him, but when he concludes that the federation would give us the National policy which it wishes, one is not there more. At all events, we applaud the patriotic efforts which it makes to develop this national spirit without which a nation cannot exist.

Let us leave these great ideas, these generous feelings to bear their fruits and are quiet on the quality of these fruits. Mr. Blake is married and father of several children, his control is excellent, it is sober like a judge of formerly and almost as puritan as his friend McKenzie. It is gracious but not very conclusive; it carries out a simple and withdrawn life; the dignity and the independence of its character make him scorn the small means that the politicians too often employ to make themselves popular; he wants owe success only with his intellectual superiority and the excellence of his principles; under this report/ratio it resembles the hon. Mr. Dorion; it is not astonishing that they have much regard one for the other.

Mr. Blake was Minister for justice in the Gouvernement McKenzie and chief of the liberal party after the death of Mr. McKenzie. 11 did not have the consolation to lead its party to the victory in the federal Parliament as it had done in the local Room, it could not succeed in making accept its program on the question of the tariff. Protection had not made its time yet; accepted by the conservative party and adopted by the government and the Parliament after the elections of 1878, it was to live and will live until another financial crisis bursts.

Beaten in two general elections, Mr. tired Blake, désappointé, decided to give up the direction of the liberal party, and even with the general elections of 1890, he refused to stand as a candidate. Overcome or victorious, with the head of a majority or a minority, Prime Minister or chief of opposition, Mr. Blake was always the same one, the first in the great debates on the questions of constitutional law, legality and justice.

It is a large lawyer able to discuss in front of the largest courts of the world the causes of the order more raised and always ready to put its talent at the service of freedom, justice and the right violated. It proved it in various circumstances, especially when in the middle of the agitation produced by the execution of Riel, it undertook to plead the cause of these Métis poor without worrying about the evil which its courage was to cause him among the fanaticized population of Ontario.

One found these fine wordss on the lips of Mr. Blake all the times that the province of Quebec required justice. They make its praise and give an idea of its nobility of soul, but they also explain, perhaps, partly, its political failures. It is obvious that Mr. Blake has more once, while wanting to be right, decreased its political value in its province. When, for example, he denounced in the terms most vehement powerful associations orangists, how much counties he did lose?

He went in the English Parlement where he représenae an Irish and catholic county, he belongs to the glorious phalange which fights to give to Ireland the political freedom which the British subjects in the whole world enjoy. Scot and Protestant, it fights for the catholic Irishmen, as it fought for the Métis, the Canadian-French and the catholics of Canada.

References

My contemporaries, LO David, 1894

External bond

Biography of the '' biographical Dictionnaire of Canada in line ''

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