And, I would also be remiss if I did not note that it was on this date in 1979 that Ed Schreyer of Manitoba became our Governor General.Finally, it is important to note that it was on this date in 1901 that Queen Victoria, our Queen at the time of Confederation, passed into history. In light of this particular anniversary, I have some treats for my political history junkie friends.When Her Majesty died, Winston Churchill was visiting Canada. Here is what he wrote to his mother upon hearing of the Queen’s death: “So the Queen is dead,” he wrote. “The news reached us at Winnipeg and this city far away among the snows – fourteen hundred miles from any British town of importance – began to hang its head and hoist half-masted flags. A great and solemn event … I called the town (during his public lecture there) ‘Great Britain’s Breadshop’; at which they purred. They are furiously British and a visit to them is most exhilarating.”A few days later, in the House of Commons, Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier paid his – and Canada’s – tribute to our fallen Queen.“We have met under the shadow of a death, which has caused more universal mourning than has ever been recorded in the pages of history. In these words there is no exaggeration; they are the literal truth. There is mourning in the United Kingdom, in the colonies and in the many islands and continents, which form the great empire over which extend the sovereignty of Queen Victoria.…
There is genuine grief in the neighbouring nation of 75-million inhabitants, the kinsmen of her own people, by whom at all times and under all circumstances her name was held in high reverence, and where, in the darkest days of the Civil War, when the relations of the two countries were strained almost to the point of snapping, the poet Whittier well expressed the feeling of his countrymen when he exclaimed:
“We bowed the heart, if not the knee,
“To England’s Queen, God bless her.”
What is greatness? We are accustomed to call great, those exceptional beings upon whom heaven has bestowed some of its choicest gifts, which astonish and dazzle the world by the splendour of faculties, phenomenally developed, even when these faculties are much marred by defects and weaknesses which make them nugatory of the good.
But this is not, in my estimation at least, the highest conception of greatness. The equipoise of a well-balanced mind, the equilibrium of faculties well and evenly ordered, the luminous insight of a calm judgment, are gifts which are as rarely found in one human being as the possession of the more dazzling tho less solid qualities. And when these high qualities are found in a ruler of men, combined with purity of soul, kindness of heart, generosity of disposition, elevation of purpose and devotion to duty, this is what seems to me to be the highest conception of greatness, greatness which will be abundantly productive of happiness and glory to the people under such a sovereign.…
Undoubtedly we may find in history, instances where death has caused perhaps more passionate outbursts of grief, but it is impossible to find instances where death has caused so universal, so sincere, so heartfelt an expression of sorrow.… In the presence of these many evidences of grief … from all parts of the globe; in the presence of so many tokens of admiration, where it is not possible to find a single discordant note; in the presence of the immeasurable void caused by the death of Queen Victoria, it is not too much to say that the grave has just closed upon one of the great characters of history.…
If we cast our glance back over the 64 years into which was encompassed the reign of Queen Victoria, we stand astonished, however familiar we may be with the facts, at the development of civilization which has taken place during that period. We stand astonished at the advance of culture, of wealth, of legislation, of education, of literature, of the arts and sciences, of locomotion by land and by sea, and of almost every department of human activity. The age of Queen Victoria must be held to be on a par with the most famous within the memory of man.…
The most remarkable event in the reign of Queen Victoria — an event which took place in silence and unobserved — the most remarkable event in the reign of the late Queen was the marvelous progress in colonial development, development which, based upon local autonomy, ended in colonial expansion.
What has been the cause of that marvelous change? The cause is primarily the personality of Queen Victoria. Of course the visible and chief cause of all is the bold policy inaugurated many years ago of introducing parliamentary constitutional government, and allowing the colonies to govern themselves. But, sir, it is manifest that self-government could never have been truly effective in Canada had it not been that there was a wise sovereign reigning in England, who had herself given the fullest measure of constitutional government to her own people. If the people of England had not been ruled by a wise Queen; if they had not themselves possessed parliamentary government in the truest sense of the term; if the British Parliament had been as it had been under former kings in open contention with the sovereign, then it is quite manifest that Canada could not have enjoyed the development of constitutional government, which she enjoys today. It is quite manifest that if the people of England had not possessed constitutional government in the fullest degree at home, they could not have given it to the colonies; and thus the action of the Queen in giving constitutional government to England has strengthened the throne, not only in England, but in the Colonies, as well.…
She is now no more — no more? Nay, I boldly say she lives — lives in the hearts of her subjects; lives in the pages of history. And as the ages revolve, as her pure profile stands more marked against the horizon of time, the verdict of posterity will ratify the judgment of those who were her subjects. She ennobled mankind; she exalted royalty; the world is better for her life.
Sir, the Queen is no more; let us with one heart say, Long live the King!"[caption id="attachment_5549" align="aligncenter" width="186"]
Queen Victoria[/caption]Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.