Part 185

=Robertson, Hon. Thomas=, Hamilton, Ontario, Judge of Chancery Division, High Court of Justice, was born in the village of Ancaster, on the 25th January, 1827. At that time Ancaster was the most important business centre west of York. His father, the late Alexander Robertson, of Goderich, a remote descendant of the clan Donnachie, came to Canada in 1820, from Foxbar, in Renfrewshire, which had been the home of his family for several generations, since the time when the misfortunes of Prince Charles, having proved the ruin of so many of his adherents, not a few of the Robertsons had left their beloved Rannoch to seek for better fortunes in the, to them, unwontedly peaceful pursuits of the lowlands. He was married in 1824 to Matilda, eldest daughter of Col. Titus Geir Simons, high sheriff of the old Gore district, who had served in command of his regiment in the war of 1812-13, and fought at Lundy’s Lane, where he was dangerously wounded. Of this marriage the Hon. Mr. Robertson is the eldest child. He was educated at the London and Huron District Grammar Schools and the University of Toronto; studied law under the late Hon. John Hillyard Cameron; became an attorney in 1849, was called to the bar of Upper Canada in 1852; became a Queen’s counsel under patent from the Earl of Dufferin, governor-general in 1873, and a bencher of the Law Society of Ontario, in 1874. He began his professional career at Dundas, whence he subsequently removed to Hamilton, where he enjoyed a large practice, and a widely extended reputation as a leading _nisi prius_ advocate. He was the first Crown attorney for Wentworth, and remained such until 1863, when he was superseded by the appointment by Sandfield Macdonald of the late S. B. Freeman, Q.C., to the clerkship of the peace, whereby he became also _ex-officio_ Crown attorney. At the first general election after Confederation, Mr. Robertson contested South Wentworth with Mr. Rymal, the then sitting member for that constituency, at whose hands he suffered defeat by a majority of twenty-seven votes. Mr. Robertson and his colleague F. E. Kilvert, now collector of Customs for Hamilton, were elected at the general election of 1878, in opposition to Mr. Irving, Q.C., and Mr. Wood, the late members, to the representation of the constituency for which they were then returned, at the general election in 1882, and continued to represent that city until his elevation to the Bench of the High Court of Justice of Ontario of the Chancery Division in February, 1887. In politics he was a Liberal-Conservative and a supporter of the National Policy, which in its main features he strongly advocated in 1867, in his contest with Mr. Rymal in South Wentworth. He was also in favor of compulsory voting, which he suggested as a desirable amendment of the law, both through the press and in letters to Hon. Edward Blake and other persons so long ago as 1870. Hon. Mr. Robertson married, in June, 1850, Frances Louisa, youngest daughter of the late Theodore Reed, one of the earliest pioneers of the Huron Tract, by whom he has three sons and one daughter living.

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=Murray, William=, Sherbrooke, Quebec, was born in the county of Armagh, Ireland, on the 15th day of August, 1845. He came to Canada with his parents when a lad, and was educated at St. Edwards, in the county of Napierville, P.Q., taking a commercial course. He was then apprenticed to the grocery trade in Montreal with Alexander McGibbon, and remained with him from 1861 to 1865. He then went to Sherbrooke, and opened a retail general store, in which he continued till the year 1881. By strict attention to business he succeeded in building up a large trade connection. In 1881, believing that he could increase his business still further, he sold out the retail store and started as a wholesale merchant, and his business at the present time is a large and lucrative one. Mr. Murray has always taken a great interest in municipal affairs, and has been a school trustee since 1876. He was appointed in 1878 by the government a member of the commissioners’ court for the township of Ascot, P.Q., and continued to hold this office until 1887, when, on the coming into office of the Mercier administration, his commission was revoked on political grounds. In 1885 Mr. Murray was elected for the first time to the city council, and was chosen chief magistrate of Sherbrooke in 1887. In January, 1888, his friends again elected him to the city council, and this time by acclamation. He is also one of the trustees of the St. Michael’s cemetery, being elected one of the first members of the board. He is a director of the Eastern Townships Colonization Company, and was elected its president in 1888. As the principal shareholders of this company are in Nantes, France, it will be seen that though not one of their countrymen, his fellow shareholders have the greatest confidence in his financial abilities. He was also one of the founders of the Typographical Printing Company, has been a director since its organization, and in 1877 was its president. In politics Mr. Murray is a Liberal-Conservative, and in religion a Roman catholic. He was married on the 25th of May, 1868, to Amelia Moreau, daughter of Michael Moreau, of Montreal, a descendant of an old French family, by whom he has a family of three daughters and two sons.

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=Young, Edward=, A.M., Ph.D., Member of the Statistical Society of London; Member of the Geographical Society of France; United States Consul at Windsor, N.S., son of Clarke and Sarah Wingate Young, was born December 11, 1814, at the family household, in Falmouth, a village in Hants county, on the river Avon, opposite to Windsor. The Youngs are of Scotch descent; an ancestor, a Scotch covenanter, forced by persecution to leave his native land, settled in Massachusetts, from which colony Edward’s grandfather, Thomas Young, then a youth, came to Falmouth, with his widowed mother, about the year 1762. He afterwards married a sister of the celebrated evangelist, Rev. Henry Alline, called the Whitefield of Nova Scotia, who travelled and preached in Acadia from 1776 until a short time before his death in New Hampshire, February 8, 1783. His journal was published by his nephew, Clarke Young in 1806. The original in shorthand invented by himself, is now in the possession of the consul. A volume of hymns, entirely of his own composition, was published by Mr. Alline, one of which—“Amazing Sight, the Saviour Stands,” may be found, uncredited, in almost every hymnal now in use. The consul’s mother was a daughter of George Johnson—one of a family who came from Yorkshire to Norton about 1762—and of Mary, his wife, a daughter of Benjamin Cleaveland, who came from Connecticut, in 1760, with the New England colony that settled in Norton after the expulsion of the Acadians. “Deacon” Cleaveland, as he was called, was a brother or cousin to Rev. Aaron, great grandfather of President Cleveland, who, in 1755, or ’56, came from Connecticut to become the minister of the Mather (afterward, St. Matthew’s Presbyterian) Church, in Halifax. Benjamin Cleaveland, who died in 1811, published a hymn book, one of the hymns, of his own composition—“O, could I find from day to day, a nearness to my God,”—appears in many modern hymnals. The Cleavelands are noted for their longevity, averaging nearly ninety years at death. One of Benjamin’s daughters died in 1877, aged 101 years and 4 months. The consul is one of a family of five, all living; the oldest, William H., emigrated to Australia, George and Margaret, both unmarried, reside at the old homestead, while the older sister, Mrs. William Church, is also a resident of Falmouth. After receiving the best education the common schools of that day could give, Edward was one of the first pupils at Norton Academy in April, 1829, of whom the “Records of Students” says:—

Though quite a lad, he showed aptness for learning. Subsequently he left the province and became Chief of the Bureau of Statistics at Washington, received the degree of M.A. from Acadia College, and afterwards Ph.D. from Columbian University, Washington. He has proved himself the constant friend of Acadia. As donor for several years of an annual gold medal for proficiency in the higher mathematics, he is remembered with interest, respect and affection.

He lived several years in Windsor, acquired a knowledge of mercantile business, and believing that the United States offered greater advantages to young men, left his native place in October, 1835, went to the west, and settled in Indiana. There he engaged in business and to some extent in politics. His first vote was given for General Morrison, the Whig candidate for president, who failed of election in 1836, but succeeded in 1840. The severe and long continued illness of Mr. Young’s father induced him to return and remain some years in his native province, during which period he was united in marriage to Maria Bishop, of Horton, some of whose ancestors, the Bishops and Gores, of Connecticut, came with the New England colony in 1760. She is a descendant also of Joseph Jencks, a colonial governor of Rhode Island. After his marriage in December, 1840, he resided in Halifax, engaged partly in commercial pursuits, owning some vessels trading to the United States and the West Indies, himself visiting for purposes of trade the West India islands, South America and the Southern ports of the United States. He edited and published, from 1843 to 1845, a weekly paper, _The Olive Branch_, the first temperance paper in the Maritime provinces, if not in British North America, except, for a short period, one published also in Halifax, by Edmund Ward. Sustaining losses by shipping, he removed in 1849 to Boston, where he remained till 1851, when he engaged in permanent business in Philadelphia, as publisher of books and a weekly newspaper devoted to American industries, in copartnership with E. T. Freedly, author of a “Treatise on Business,” and other practical works. Their most important publication was “A History of American Manufactures, from 1608 to 1866,” 3 vols. octavo, edited by his wife’s brother, John Leander Bishop, M.D., who was for three years surgeon of a Pennsylvania regiment during the late war. Not only in the United States but by the London _Times_ and other leading journals of England, by the “Westminster” and other reviews, was the highest praise awarded to the author. Even now it is the standard authority on the early history of manufactures in that colony and in the United States. Dr. Bishop was one of the earliest graduates of Acadia. The hardships he endured during the war hastened his death, which occurred in 1868. Not only as a historian and scholar was he lamented, but as the highest style of a man—a Christian gentleman. A statistical work compiled by Mr. Young, attracted the notice of the Washington authorities, and the superintendent of the census offered him a place in that bureau which he accepted, and removed to Washington in 1861, where as chief of division he superintended the compilation of the statistics of industry, and prepared for publication a voluminous report on the manufactures of the United States, the first of the kind. On the completion of this important work, in 1865, he accepted a place in the revenue commission tendered him by its chairman, Hon. David A. Wells, the celebrated economist, and in the following year and subsequently while Mr. Wells was special commissioner of the revenue, he was assistant or deputy commissioner. How faithfully Mr. Young performed his work, how thoroughly he mastered the then complicated revenue system of the United States, Mr. Wells has ever since taken pleasure in manifesting. The imperfect manner in which the commercial statistics were compiled in the treasury department induced Mr. Wells to have a statistical bureau established which was authorised by Act of Congress, and the bureau organized in September, 1866. In the administration of this important bureau the director failed to give satisfaction, and was afterwards legislated out of office, and Mr. Young, who had resigned and resumed his publishing business in Philadelphia, was induced by Mr. Wells to return to Washington and devoted his energies to the work of the bureau. For a few months as chief clerk, and for more than eight years as chief of the bureau, he so improved it that it was acknowledged to be peer of older institutions of Europe, and the work of its director commended, and the accuracy of his statements acknowledged on the floors of both houses of Congress and in foreign countries. A similar bureau was established in Chili, on a plan prepared by Mr. Young; and one in Japan, partly through correspondence and partly by exhibiting to commissioners sent to examine it, the operations of the Washington bureau, and explaining the details, of which full notes were taken. In addition to the monthly, quarterly and annual reports of the chief of the Bureau of Statistics, as required by law, Mr. Young prepared and published several special reports of great interest and value. In 1871 he published “A Special Report on Immigration,” “A Special Report on the Customs-tariff Legislation of the United States,” and other works. In consideration of these labors, Columbian University at Washington conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The report on Immigration, or more properly “Information for Immigrants,” was welcomed with enthusiasm, as it gave detailed information as to the advantages offered by the sparsely settled states and territories to individuals and families in Europe who were desirous to emigrate to America. Tens of thousands of copies were distributed throughout Europe, not only by the United States government, but by steamship, transportation and other companies, who purchased the work in sheets from the public printer, and distributed it through their agents. Dr. Young had it translated into the French and German languages, also into Swedish; and ten thousand copies in French and about twelve thousand in German were printed and circulated in European countries where those languages are spoken. The result was a great increase each year in the number of immigrants, especially of the more valuable classes, as compared with the arrivals in preceding years. So valuable was it regarded in other countries that the celebrated French economist, Michel Chevalier, in an extended article published in a French periodical, commended Dr. Young’s book, and suggested that a work on the same plan be prepared by the French government, showing the advantages offered by Algiers to those who desired to make their homes in a sparsely settled country. The German government, finding that its people in great numbers were emigrating to the United States, interposed obstacles to the general distribution of this volume full of information. The Marquis of Lorne personally solicited the author to prepare a volume on a similar plan, presenting the great advantages offered by Manitoba and the North-West Territories to those desirous of emigrating to some part of America. The author of the “Special Report on the United States Tariff” was gratified when, during the exciting tariff discussion in the Canadian House of Commons in 1879, his book was observed in the hands of members of both parties, and extracts read therefrom. His greatest work, however, completed in 1875, after years of preparation, was called, “Labor in Europe and America,” 864 pages, octavo, and was republished in 1879, by Dawson Brothers, Montreal, from the original stereotype plates. This is an elaborate special report on the rate of wages, the cost of subsistence, and the condition of the working classes in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, and other countries of Europe, and also in the United States and British America. It is prefaced by a learned and exhaustive review of the condition of the working people among the nations of antiquity and during the middle ages. The following extracts are made from an extended review of this book by a well-known economic writer in Philadelphia:—

The work is a striking exhibit of the industry and research of Dr. Young. He has personally visited many of the countries of Europe (from the Clyde to the Volga), entering factories and mingling among working men to ascertain their actual condition, and his notes of these visits form a very interesting part of the book. He has also pressed United States consuls into his service, and has received valuable information from them. Apparently no source of information has been overlooked. Ancient documents bearing upon the employment and compensation of labor in remote periods have been unearthed, and their contents add greatly to the interest and value of the volume. . . . A work so valuable as this will be in demand in every country in the civilized world, as one of the most elaborate contributions to the literature of labor that has ever appeared.

The press in the United States and in England, and to some extent in continental Europe, highly commended this report, and autograph letters were received from men of the highest standing in all parts of America, including two presidents of the United States, governors, presidents of colleges, and others, particularly from Lord Dufferin, also from men of the high standing of the great and good Earl of Shaftesbury with whom Dr. Young corresponded, when engaged in its preparation. The part that treats of the condition of the working people of Europe, their drinking habits, etc., is read with peculiar interest by those who desire to do good to their fellow men. Terence’s celebrated sentiment, “_Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto_,” was adopted by the author as his motto. Although this book, as well as the other two special reports, is out of print—the plates belonging to the United States government having been destroyed—yet occasionally a copy may be found at a book stand, and standing orders from booksellers in London, Germany and Sweden, are held by a bookseller in Washington, to secure every copy of this work that can be obtained. In 1872 Mr. Young was appointed by President Grant as a delegate to the International Statistical Congress at St. Petersburg, of which body he was vice-president for North America. Here he had abundant opportunities of conferring with many of the leading statisticians of the world. He also improved the opportunity of a prolonged tour of the continent and Great Britain. From all these sources he was able materially to increase his store of general knowledge, as well as to improve the methods of his bureau at Washington, and largely to gather information which he made use of in the work on labor, above noticed. Dr. Young was frequently consulted by the government officials, and on several occasions was confidentially employed by Secretary Fish, who submitted for his examination and report thereon, the “Memorandum of the Plenipotentiaries”—Hon. Geo. Brown and Sir Edward Thornton. He was also instructed to personally investigate on both sides of the line, the probable effect of the Treaty of 1874 (which failed to receive a two-thirds vote in the Senate) upon the industries of the United States. The seal of secresy having subsequently been removed, this report became accessible to the public. Mr. Fish was severely criticised by many of his political friends for being in favor of the Treaty; had they known why he approved of it, as Dr. Young knew, confidentially, his action would have been commended. As Mr. Fish’s permission to disclose has never been obtained, a secret it still remains. This hint Mr. Young gives—Mr. Fish was governed, not by _commercial_ considerations, but by those of a political or patriotic character. Dr. Young’s connection with the Bureau of Statistics terminated in the summer of 1878, after he had devoted to it nine of the most active and best years of his life, rendering it highly efficient and greatly useful, and to the entire satisfaction of every secretary of the treasury from Mr. McCulloch down to 1878. But in the Republic as well as in the Dominion, men are occasionally observed who are willing to sacrifice public good to personal aggrandizement. The secretary was then, as the same able statesman is now, intensely desirous to obtain the nomination of his party for the presidency, and expected that all officers, and the great army of custom house and other employés of the department, would exert themselves in his behalf. The chief of the Statistical Bureau was, as he told the secretary, a _statis_tician, not a _poli_tician. He neither possessed nor desired political influence, contenting himself by voting for the candidates of the party when they were such as he approved, for he was too independent to be a partizan, his motto not being “My country and my party, right or wrong,” as some say, but “My country (or my party), when in the right.” Unwilling to stand in the way of his chief’s laudable aspirations, Dr. Young offered his resignation provided two or three months’ leave of absence with pay were allowed, which offer was accepted, and his connection with the Bureau severed to the surprise and regret of statisticians and statesmen in Europe and America. Both parties in the government of the Dominion solicited his services. Soon after Hon. Mr. Mackenzie, then first minister, invited him to Ottawa to consult as to the establishment of a Statistical Bureau, but before any definite arrangement was made the elections in September, 1878, transferred that able man to the opposition benches. When the ministry of Sir John A. Macdonald decided, in 1878, to establish a new tariff for the protection of Canadian industries they cast about for some one fitted to assist them in constructing the new list of duties. The reputation of Dr. Young as a statistician and a tariff expert justified them in selecting him for the position. He then went to Ottawa, and his experience and knowledge of the theory and working of Protection in the United States enabled him to be of material service to the Canadian government in their novel labors. Although he had nothing to do with filling in the rates of duty, yet he so drafted the tariff as to make it symmetrical, and avoided the inconsistencies of the United States tariff. Its successful operation in subsequent years proved that the design was good and the materials sound, otherwise the blizzards that sometimes are felt, even in Canada, would have injured or destroyed the structure. After the tariff went into operation in 1879, it was expected that a Bureau of Statistics would be established at Ottawa. The ablest presentation of the great need of such a bureau, and the advantage it would confer on the Dominion, was made by James Johnson, now of Ottawa, himself an able statistician, in the Halifax _Reporter_ of April 16, 1879. In concluding his argument he wrote:—