Strange New Country by Meggs Geoff;

Author:Meggs, Geoff;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Strikes, Lockouts, Salmon, British Columbia, Fraser River, History, 20th century, Canning, Cannery, Fishing
ISBN: 9781550178302
Publisher: Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd.
Published: 2018-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Soldiers of the Queen

Henry Bell-Irving had spent all day Monday in a state of barely controlled rage. With the fishermen finally split and victory within his grasp, he was unable to mobilize support from his own business and political allies. The Sunday settlement with the Nikkei had been linked to a guarantee of protection against violent attacks from union pickets. The Nikkei fleet was now poised to sail, but appeals to Ottawa and Victoria to deploy the militia had been received in silence.

The demands of canners, dominated by Conservative supporters, were of little interest to Liberal Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier in Ottawa. Laurier no doubt felt he had spent enough time that year seeking to calm the province’s roiled political waters. BC’s new lieutenant governor, Henri Joly de Lotbiniere, was still cleaning up the chaos left by Thomas McInnes. Let the locals sort out their own affairs, the prime minister decided. Ottawa made no response to demands that the fisheries vessel Quadra be deployed in support of the canners.

Nor was newly elected Premier James Dunsmuir keen to come to the rescue. Although his father Robert had used the militia to suppress at least two miners’ strikes, Dunsmuir’s unsteady political coalition in Victoria could not afford to turn the initiative over to labour-friendly members of the legislature, whose voters were demanding expulsion of Asiatics, not support for their use as strikebreakers. Indeed, the Throne Speech delivered just days earlier had promised strong government pressure in Ottawa to curb the “the alarming increase of the Japanese population.”109

Attorney General David Eberts, a fellow Conservative, had done his best to support Bell-Irving throughout the dispute. It was Eberts who hired three special constables recommended by the canners at the beginning of the season, and it was Eberts who hounded Chief Constable R.B. Lister for news of the dispute and ordered him to be prepared to read the Riot Act as early as July 11. Lister seemed unable to appreciate the urgency of the situation, stubbornly reporting general calm along Steveston’s docks. Dr. Duncan Bell-Irving told Eberts July 20 that the special constables were “unable to cope with the situation” and “useless.” A telegram the next day went further, declaring the “utterly useless” police were “treated with absolute contempt.” Only the militia would do, he fumed.

Even after Rogers humiliated Bell-Irving’s strikebreakers on the Steveston dock, Lister reported July 21 that he had seen “no disturbance” in Steveston apart from that minor confrontation. There was no reason for great alarm, although the strikers were “no doubt all of the lowest grade of society.” Controlling four hundred to five hundred picketers across hundreds of square kilometres of ocean was an impossibility, Lister wrote. In any case, he had offered protection when requested, “which is only twice.” This was not information that supported the costly deployment of armed militiamen.

Eberts’s anger blew into fury when Lister reported from his office in Vancouver that he had authorized a deputy to read the Riot Act on Sunday if pickets interfered with fishermen headed for the grounds.

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