Macdonald, SIR JOHN ALEXANDER

Macdonald, SIR JOHN ALEXANDER, Canadian statesman, was born in Glasgow, 11th January 1815, and with his parents emigrated five years later to Canada. He was educated at Kingston, called to the bar in 1836, and appointed a Q.C. in 1846. He represented Kingston in the Canada Assembly from 1844 till the union of the provinces in 1867, and in the Dominion parliament till 1878, when he was defeated; but he afterwards sat for Victoria, British Columbia, and for Carleton and Lennox, and was again returned by his old constituency in 1887. Before the union he had been Receiver-general in 1847, Commissioner of Crown-lands in 1847–48, Attorney-general for Upper Canada in 1854–58, succeeding Sir Allan Macnab as leader of the Conservatives and premier in 1856, and again Attorney-general in 1858–62 and 1864–67. On 1st July 1867, when the new constitution came into force, he was called upon to form the first government for the new Dominion, and was minister of Justice and Attorney-general of Canada until he and his cabinet resigned in 1873. He was again returned to power in 1878, and was successful in the elections of 1882 and 1887. In 1878 his success was owing to the adoption of a policy of protection for native industries, which discriminates against the productions of all other countries, not even excepting Great Britain. Sir John was mainly instrumental in bringing about the confederation of the British North American provinces, and in securing the construction of the Intercolonial and Pacific railways; and he was a pioneer of imperial unity. In 1871 he was appointed one of the British Commissioners for the settlement of the Alabama claims. He was made a privy-councillor in 1872, K.C.B. in 1867, and G.C.B. in 1884, and received honours from Oxford and the Canadian universities. He died 6th June 1891. His widow was made a peeress of the United Kingdom, and a bust of Sir John was erected in Westminster Abbey in 1892. See Life by Pope (1894).