OBITUARY.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1964, 22 January 1914, Page 5

OBITUARY.

DEATH OP LORD STRATHCONA. By Telegraph-Press Association-Copyright London, January 20. Lord Strathcona is dead. ,'Trom fur-trader to High Commissioner" might serve as title to a life of the late Lord Strathcona. A poor Scottish, emigrant, Donald Alexander Smith by name, he joined the service of tho Hudson Bay Company in his eighteenth ' year: Queen Victoria had then' been but a;year on tho throne. Among the immense frozen solitudes of tho groat Northwest, where foot of white men seldom came, he travelled on his business as a trader, bargaining, planning, bartering. At the end o£ ten years he was promoted to be an agent of the company in the even more inhospitable district of I.abradoi, What sort of life he led the following true anecdote will show. Afflicted ones by the terrible snow-blindness, ■ which threatened life-Ion? loss of sight, ho started with two Indian?, in mid-winter/ on a. tramp of 1000 miles, to Montreal, for treatment. Half dead with the exer. tions of the journey, he canio before tho resident eovornor of the company. Sir

t-iforge SiniDJOn. The governor heard his tale, and asked abruptly: "Who cave you leave to quite your post?" "Who could?" replied the agent, "iinco no man lives within a thousand miles of me."

If it be but a choice between your eyes and the service of the company," thundered the gCTPrnor, "get back to your post, as quickly as you can. He got hack,' although' both his Indians- died upon the way of exhaustion, fear, and hunger. Never -afterwards would he describe that journey. "It is too terrible," he would sav.

Without church or priest within a thousand miles. Smith married bv the rites of Labrador, a young half-caste widow, who, after a-formal re-mari-iage, is now Lady Strathcona. In thirty rears Smith rose from agent to chief factory, and at last, in 1868, to governorship of the great company. When its lands were bought in .18(i!) for a million and a half dollars by the Government, he reconciled its rough traders to the -transfer, convincing them that their interests would be. protected. By his diplomatic exertions he' Saved to the British Crown the province of Manitoba, then,rine for secession. He remained the head" of the company, and began to cherish his dream of a Canadian-Pacific railway. He entered Parliament to push this'scheme, and when he learned that his political part;', tho Conservatives, with Sir • John Macfionald as- Premier, had accented from financiers great subsidies in cash, ho deserted it, and caused its downfall. "For the honour of the country," he declared, "no Government should exist that has a shadow of suspicion resting upon it." His subsequent return to MaeDonald's party was the occasion of its leader's famous saying, "I'm entitled to the support of ■lily friends when I'm right. What I want is friends who will support me Vlien I'm wrong."

Tor financial reasons the Government was unable to construct the railway, and .%•.syndicate of four men, of whom Smith was.one, was formed to carry nuj: the enterprise. When money failed "the syndicate. Smith prevailed unori the Canadian Government, despite the opinions of the Opposition and a - majority of tko Ministerial narty, to lend the companv 22,500,000 dollars cash. The loan saved the_railway, and on -November- 7, 1885, at. Craigel.lachie, Smith, drove a golden spike: into the cedar tio upon which the rails met-from east to west. "The development of lands in the northwest- territory which he had bought in earlier days made him a weulthv man, and the record pf his life since 18S6 has been described as "a bewildering alternation of magnificent gifts and magnificent honours. A million dollars, at various times to M'Gill University, Montreal: a million the Royal Victoria College for the Higher Education of Women ; .flj million dollars tMwujds itlie:foundation of- musical scholarships „fdr. Canadians in . London—these- were but a few of his ..benefactions. At 'the "Coronation of Kin" Edward VII.. he. distinguished himself l>y a magnificent. endowment d'f the London hospitals. In 1896 he was granted tin* Grand Cross of St. Michael and St. George; in 1697 the barony which <\avc him his title; and in 1903 a "reminder" by. which that title is permitted to descend in the finale lane in default of wale heirs. In 189G he was appointed the first High Commissioner for Canada in London, and in 1900 organised at his own expense the Strathconn Horse, a body of twenty-eight officers- and 512 men, enrolled from all over the Canadian West, fir serrice in the South • African War. The motto, "Perseverance," which he selected for the cont-of-arms conferred on ijhini in 1897 was allowed to be descriptive (>f his life. Tn manner he was kindly : fend,' unaffected, and to the King and Queen was always known as "Uncle Don-

FAMOUS FRENCH JOURNALIST.

• Paris, January 20. Francis de Presseuse, journalist, one of tho foremost champions of Dreyfus, and promoter of the Entente Cordia'le, is dead.