Martin Marches On

Now Martin's worst fears have been realized and there is a Conservative administration. So Joseph Martin relinquished the Liberal leadership on June 3, 1903. Not only did he believe that the Vancouver Liberals were planning on disposing him but he had also just been released from hospital following a painful operation on his leg. When Martin lost his Vancouver seat in the general election on October 3, it was anti-climatic. The people were tiring of Martin's brand of politics and elected a solid slate of Conservatives.

The next day, Joseph Martin told reporters of the Vancouver Daily Province that he had quit "for all time". He was "disgusted with politics" and "so much abuse from my enemies and so little thanks from my friends". The second part of the statement was probably true though the first wasn't.

Martin then turned his attention to the federal political scene. In 1905, he dropped his Liberal affiliation though. He explained that Prime Minister Laurier's attempts to impose separate schools on the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan meant that the Liberals "no longer believe in provincial rights".

As with most British Columbia politicians at the time - and probably much of the province's population - Martin strongly opposed the presence of Asians.  He ran unsuccessfully as the candidate for the Asiatic Exclusion League in the federal constituency of Vancouver City in 1908. In his private life, he asserted covenants in the property he owned in the Hastings (Vancouver) townsite forbidding its sale or lease to Asians.

Martin had retained his legal practice and still had a variety of clients. In April 1905, he hired by the City of Vancouver and appointed counsel at the sum of $2,500 a year. It wasn't a full time position, Martin consulted only important cases.

In December, he resigned to take the position of general counsel in British Columbia for the Great Northern Railroad and its subsidiary, the Vancouver, Westminster and Yukon Railway. In early 1906, he presented the Vancouver Board of Trade's case against CPR freight rates to the Board of Railway Commissioners.

(Events seem to have full circle. If you remember, way back when Joseph Martin first started in politics he blasted the CPR for its monopoly in the West then he was hired by that railway and brought to B.C. Now he is attacking them again!) 

Martin earned a comfortable income from his legal practice and his investments in real estate but he wasn't happy with his situation in B.C. In early 1909, he announced he was leaving to spend the rest of his days in London, England since "there is nothing there a person can not have." His "undoubted ability for affairs" and "integrity of purpose" was praised by the Vancouver Daily Province. However, they also noted that "his defects of temper" "made him almost impossible as any member of government and a constant source of disquiet, if not of confusion, as a member of a party".

Joseph Martin didn't go to England to live out his days on a countryside estate doing nothing though. Within days of arriving in Britain, Martin had secured the Liberal nomination for a by-election in Warwickshire, Stratford-on-Avon Division. He called for abolition of the House of Lords, votes for women, a land tax, and free trade. He didn't win. But he did make enough of an impression that he got the Liberal nomination in St. Pancras, East Division. He won the general election of 1910. In the British House of Commons though he appears to have displayed the same characteristics and temperament that so marred his career in Canada. Nevertheless, he managed to hold onto his position as a member of the house until the dissolution of the war extended parliament in 1918.

He did return to Vancouver in 1914. He began attacking the provincial Liberal party who were in opposition at the time. He ran as an independent in the provincial election of 1920 but he lost, though not badly. By the early 1920s, Martin's health was failing and he died on March 2, 1923 of influenza complicated by diabetes. Ironically, Joseph Martin had just started to take the newly discovered treatment for diabetes: insulin.

The Victoria Daily Times noted that:"The fact that during the last few years of his life he played no very active part in politics was due to no fault of his own, but rather to his sinister record as a disruptive force, which made all parties fear his support as much as his opposition."

Fighting Joe was a character who stormed through B.C. politics and left his mark. Love him or hate him, he was a memorable politician.

As you know, the information I am getting on the premiers is from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography website. And they have so much there, I have to say thank you for being so thorough.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Joseph Martin, history, Premier, politics Liberal, St. Pancras, diabetes,

A Short and not so Sweet Term

On Friday, I told you that Joseph Martin had resigned his position in the provincial government after he had embarrassed the administration of Charles Semlin. Instead of retiring gracefully, Martin patched things up with former political foe, James Dunsmuir, and when the assembly came back for another session, the Manitoban was seated on the opposing side.

Martin attacked Semlin's government on numerous issues and in late February 1900, despite an earlier promise to support a government sponsored redistribution bill, Martin sided with the opposition to defeat the legislation and Semlin's administration.

A few days later, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Robert McInnes asked Joseph Martin to form a government. A position that he accepted and took office on March 1, 1900. To show you how disliked this man was, members of the legislature disregarded usual grievances towards each other and voted almost unanimously no confidence in Martin. That didn't stop the brash Jospeh Martin as he prepared his election platform.

 Among his election platform points, Martin advocated government ownership of railways and began to arrange the construction of the Coast-Kootenay railway. He accepted the principle of the eight-hour work day - he recognized the labour problems in the Kootenay mines. He also said he would re-enact a statute concerning Asian labour, which the federal government had disallowed. The executive of the Vancouver Liberal Association was quick to endorse his policies but the provincial association was unanimously opposed to his premiership and the introduction of party lines.

Martin initially attempted to appoint only Liberals when forming his cabinet. Smith Curtis, his friend and former legal partner from Portage La Prairie, became minister of mines while James Stuart Yates of Victoria became commissioner of both lands and public works. Neither men had a seat in the assembly.

As weeks went by, Martin hadn't filled his cabinet and even his friends began to complain. When Martin appointed a Fraser Valley farmer with no previous legislative experience, George Washington Beebe, as provincial secretary, it didn't evoke a strong response. However, the appointment of a small shopkeeper - Cory Spencer Ryder - as minister of finance and agriculture, Liberals called the selection "an insult to the intelligence of the people". (I wonder if Martin was trying to pack the cabinet with men he knew wouldn't disagree with him and would run the province the way he wanted.)

Criticism of Ryder's appointment kept rising so Martin replaced him with the more credible John Cunningham Brown, a postmaster from New Westminster. Martin then called for an election on June 9. Martin and his forces were soundly defeated even though they campaigned vigorously. Martin did win in Vancouver but not in Victoria where he also ran and only five of his followers were elected. B.C.'s thirteenth premier had a very short term - less than four months - and McInnes called on Dunsmuir to form the administration.

Since today is B.C. Day, I should show the provincial flag!

Martin became the de facto leader of the opposition but, as the press noted, he was still friends with Dunsmuir. Joseph spoke in favour of the government's railway legislation but dismissed as "poppycock" suggestions that he was the "guiding spirit of the administration". 

His position in the Liberal party continued to be contested yet in February of 1902, at a provincial Liberal convention, the party lines Joseph Martin favoured were adopted and he was voted unanimously as leader. As such, he claimed to be the leader of the opposition. Conservative Richard McBride also claimed that title and the two men were battling over the possession of the opposition leader's chair in chamber. I mean, literally battling over the chair - the two politicians had a shoving match. 

Martin continued to support Dunsmuir's administration for he feared that if Dunsmuir were defeated, a strictly Conservative government would be formed. His fears were realized when, in November of that year, Dunsmuir resigned and was replaced by well known Conservative, Edward Gawler Prior.

What a fellow Joseph Martin was! I still have more to tell you about this fiery individual and his career. That will have to wait until Wednesday.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

And, once again, thanks goes to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography website for the above information.

Karen Magill, Joseph Martin, history, Premier, politics Liberal, James Dunsmuir, feisty,

More Martin

I go for a run every morning around 7 am. A few days ago, I was passing someone's house and noticed what I first thought was a dog in the yard but on closer inspection, I realized it was this cutie. As soon as he noticed that I had stopped and was trying to take photos of him, the raccoon came closer and started playing in the grass. These are the only two photos that turned out.

So now, Joseph Martin is out of the federal government and his provincial government career in Manitoba seemed to be over. In a surprising move, the CPR offered Martin a position (they probably wanted to neutralize their sometime opponent). Even more surprising was that Martin took the position and became the company's solicitor in British Columbia.

The British Columbia press, though, didn't exactly throw out the welcome mat. I guess his reputation had preceded him! John Houston, an editor, urged Manitobans to" keep Martin and send on your blizzard". Only Hewitt Bostock of Victoria's Province seemed to look favourably on Martin's arrival, which occurred in Vancouver on March 5, 1897.

Soon his law practice was under way but, typical of Martin, it wasn't without controversy. In 1899, for an example, the benchers suspended Martin for a week. He was prosecuting in a civil suit with the understanding that if he won he would share in the proceeds. This process is called champerty and, although Martin had legalized it in Manitoba, it was still against the rules of the Law society of British Columbia. Martin pushed for its legislation and in 1901, the assembly passed the necessary amendments to the Legal Professions Act.

The allure of politics beckoned to Martin and he didn't waste any time getting back into the political arena. At this time, although British Columbians supported Liberal or Conservative parties federally, provincial politics were much more loosely defined. A person either supported the administration in power or opposed it. In 1898, Joseph Martin ran successfully for a provincial seat representing Vancouver. He criticized the present government of John Herbert Turner and its links with railway and mining magnates Daniel Chase Corbin, Frederick Agustus Heinze and James Dunsmuir. New premier, Charles Agustus Semlin, offered Martin the position of attorney general, which Martin initially turned down (as I have previously stated, it is possible that Martin felt he was going to win the leadership of the party) but later changed his mind and accepted the position.

He was attorney general and minister of education starting August 15, 1898. Martin introduced reforms while in office, one of the most important being the Torrens system of land registration. (I had to research this one. This system was invented by Robert Torrens in which the government keeps a master record of all land and their owners.) But, as we have seen in his past behaviour, Martin had a problem being a team player and it was difficult predicting his actions because he had a propensity to change his mind.

Joseph Martin also blurred the line between his public and private responsibilities. This brought him into conflict with his legal clients and cabinet colleagues, especially the minister of finance, Francs Lovett Carter-Cotton.   

As I mentioned when I wrote on Charles Semlin, our twelfth premier lost faith in Joseph Martin. On July 1, 1899, Semlin asked Martin to resign reportedly because he had neglected departmental business to work on his own legal practice, had revealed confidential cabinet business and the whole Rossland affair. (I wrote about the episode in an entry on Charles Semlin.) Martin resigned as attorney general and vowed vengeance on those who had been responsible for his overthrow, namely Carter-Cotton.

This was not the end of Joseph Martin's B.C. political career, far from it. From what we've learned about that man, he was not a man to take slights - real or imagined - lightly. Monday I will tell you more.

Would you be surprised if I told you that I got this information from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography website? I thank them.

I hope you find the beauty around you and have a great weekend.

Karen Magill, Joseph Martin, history, Premier, politics Liberal, Manitoba, Charles Semlin,