October 5, 1867
RUMOURS AND WHISPERS
With the election behind us and the first meeting of the Parliament a month away, hard news is at a premium while rumours spread as easily as a barn fire. Only time can tell if the rumours will produce any heat to go along with their significant light.
We have several such rumours to report today. The first suggests that Joseph Howe and his party of Anti-Confederates has caucused over the last two days in Halifax and decided to support the Government. Several courses of action were mooted, including refusing to take their seats, but the party has decided that their effect will be better felt if they attend the House of Commons while at the same time seeking a remedy from London.
This seems to accord with the writings of several Anti-Confederate newspapers that have suggested that the government can get a fair hearing with the removal of Hon. Adams Archibald and Hon. Edward Kenny from the cabinet. Whether they are asking for the appointment of two Anti-Confederates to the cabinet in the stead of those two gentlemen goes unsaid. It is a hard bargain for the prime minister. Could he really appoint to his cabinet a gentleman or two who seeks to tear apart the newly minted Dominion?
It is one thing for such gentlemen to sit in the Commons as representatives of their feeling of their fellow citizens. It is another entirely to welcome them into the Queen’s Privy Council.
As it stands, the Dominion cabinet met yesterday in Ottawa and discussed a replacement for Hon. Adams Archibald, Secretary of State for the Provinces. Dr. Charles Tupper appears, on the one hand, as the most likely successor for Archibald, given that Archibald’s defeat reduces Nova Scotia’s representation in the cabinet by one. On the other hand, Dr. Tupper’s majority was a scant 98 votes. Accepting the cabinet appointment would require Tupper stand for re-election in a by-election where a defeat would be most embarrassing for the government.
The second rumour suggests that the Honourable Lemeul Allan Wilmot, who served as Attorney-General of the Colony of New Brunswick and is currently a judge there, is bound for Ontario where he will succeed General Henry Stisted as Lieutenant-Governor of that province.
Given that the prime minister has recently set the date for the meeting of Parliament we accept that the rumour lately reported that Sir John A. Macdonald intended to resign in favour of a court appointment is one of those that was more light than heat.
NEW BRUNSWICK CABINET
Hon. Andrew Rainsford Wetmore announced last week as the new premier and attorney-general for New Brunswick has completed the reorganization of the government in that province. The new cabinet consists of:
- Hon. John Beckwith, Provincial Secretary
- Hon. Richard Sutton, Surveyor-General
- Hon. B. Beveridge, member, Board of Works
- Hon. Alexander Des Brisay, member, Board of Works
- Hon. William Flewelling, minister without office
THANKSGIVING TO BE OBSERVED OCTOBER 10
Members of the Church of England and Ireland in Toronto will observe Thanksgiving on Thursday, October 10, by order of the Lord Bishop of Toronto. Bishop Strachan made the declaration owing to the fact that the Dominion government had not fixed a date to give thanks for an abundant harvest.