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Personality and Politics: A New Look at the King-Byng Dispute*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

J.E. Esberey
J.E. Esberey
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 1973 , pp. 37 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1973

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References

1 Forsey, E.A., The Royal Power of Dissolution in the British Commonwealth (Toronto, 1943Google Scholar), Graham, W.R., The King-Byng Affair, 1926 (Toronto, 1967Google Scholar), and Arthur Meighen, 11 (Toronto, 1963); Neatby, H. Blair, William Lyon Mackenzie King II, 1924–1932 (Toronto, 1963Google Scholar).

2 The years 1917–26 represented a period of flux in Canadian party development. The futures of the three leaders and the three parties were at stake. Similarly, relations with the British government were still unsettled. Canada had begun to assume a new autonomous status but a number of issues remained unsettled, including the specific role of the governor general.

3 The personality model on which the original study of Mackenzie King's personality was based is the concept of the epigenetic “Life Cycle” developed by Erik H. Erikson. Some of the terminology and concepts of this model have been included in this paper. See Erikson, Erik H., Childhood and Society (Middlesex, 1965Google Scholar), and Identity, Youth and Crisis (New York, 1968).

4 It is not possible to document every statement about King's personality with a specific quote. Awareness of many of his attributes is based on a repetitive pattern of incidents and expressions occurring over many years rather than of any one statement. However, to provide an illustration of the type of material on which a statement is based, pertinent quotes are included in the footnotes wherever possible. It is not suggested that these individual quotes constitute evidence of the particular personality aspect by themselves.

5 This feeling of doubt and mistrust can be seen most clearly in Mackenzie King's constant seeking for advice and the fact that he did not wait for the answers before acting or acted directly contrary to the advice when he received it. It is also visible in his reaction to new situations and to the realities of his choices.

6 “I feel honoured beyond measure that you should have faith in me as you have.” W.L.M.K. to Violet Markham, 30 June 1909, King papers, PAC. “The one thing that helps me to retain what faith I have in myself and belief in the possible fulfilment of some of the purposes of my life, as I have seen and felt it, is the belief that you have in me… I say to myself, if you who know me so little… continue to have the faith you have… it is well then to go on.” W.L.K.M. to V. Markham, 3 July 1912.

7 “There are some events in life which give us a faith in a personal God who has an individual purpose in our lives and his own chosen instruments for the working out of his will… Your letter… has renewed this belief in God's purpose in my own life and in you as one specially chosen by Him to manifest this love to the world.” W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 12 April 1913.

8 See Mrs King to W.L.M.K., 6 April 1898. For example, “I have never crossed your life and I do not intend to do so now but I think there are many things to think about.” “I am very weary but that is nothing new for mother, it is only one more lesson not to put your trust in anything under the sun.” “I hope you will not think me selfish when I say I had counted on you to help lift the cloud.”

9 “United we stand, divided we fall.” Mrs King to W.L.M.K., 14 January 1897.

10 Erikson, E.H., Insight and Responsibility (New York, 1964), 121.Google Scholar

11 Even after death they could continue to exercise this role. “If reassurance was needed, he found it outside of politics, for he was sure that ‘dear Mother and Father & Bell & Max the whole family in heaven are guiding and directing me.” Diary, 8 November 1925, quoted in Neatby, King, 88.

12 “Come home and let us talk it over dear boy and feel that wiser old heads than yours may teach you what in the future you will thank them for.” John King to W.L.M.K., 9 April 1898. “We are counting the weeks until Xmas… Oh! what talking there will be Billy. I did not believe I could have felt so lonely after my boy. Father and I have great talks about you and such big hopes.” Mrs King to W.L.M.K., 8 November 1896.

13 “Oh that I could get away from self, that I could cut away these chains which will make me a slave to a self-seeking existence, that I could live always and only for others.” W.L.M.K. to H.A. Harper, 7 June 1896, Harper papers, PAC.

14 Erikson, Identity, 129.

15 Adults by their own example… offer children at this age an eagerly absorbed ethos of action in the form of ideal types and techniques.” Erikson, Identity, 120.

16 By 1900 Mackenzie King had begun to replace his father as provider. A series of actions pinpointed the dramatic reversal of roles. John King was forced to confess his financial muddle and to accept a lecture on financial management and an exhortion to make a greater effort to keep his affairs in order. Mrs King went to Ottawa to help Mackenzie King set up a home which became a rival to the family home in Beverly Street in terms of her time and attention. Subsequently John King was forced to go to his son for more money to pay off his debts and to pay the regular household expenses. The family begged Mackenzie King to use his influence to secure a government position for his father. The wheel seemed to have come the full circle, the father had become the dependent and the son the provider.

17 Mackenzie King's view of Mackenzie was based on the biography written by Mackenzie's son-in-law, Charles Lindsey, which gives a very favourable opinion of Mackenzie's outlook and activities.

18 Mackenzie King's adolescent attempt to step into Mackenzie's shoes by acting as leader in the student strike at the University of Toronto, 1895, had ended unsatisfactorily. Although a relatively minor affair, it had provoked a commission of enquiry and had certain far-reaching consequences as far as King was concerned. He had taken a leading part in proposing a boycott of lectures and in ending th? boycott once an enquiry had been promised. His initial action provoked the hostility of some of the staff while the later action upset many of the students. King's subsequent response was to decry the quality of both the students and the staff of the university. The response also led to a form of avoidance behaviour in which situations resembling the student strike were to create great tension.

19 Erikson, Insight, 125.

20 Erikson identifies religion as the institution that works to verify basic trust (see Identity, 106). There is ample evidence that it occupied such a place in Mackenzie King's life.

21 The pattern suggests strong elements of a search for father surrogates especially with governors general: men who were not necessarily great in themselves but who were clothed in greatness by virtue of their office. The pattern would thus reflect important elements of the original father-son relationship, especially the desire to challenge and defeat the father and to become the dominant element in the relationship.

22 In a rather trivial and elementary form the pattern can be seen developing in Mackenzie King's relationship with Lord and Lady Aberdeen. A casual contact in 1894 [ Dawson, R. MacGregor, William Lyon Mackenzie King: I, 1874–1923 (Toronto, 1958), 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar] is followed up by a call on the Aberdeens in London (ibid., 161) and a stay at the Vice Regal Lodge in Dublin 1912. At this stage Mackenzie King sees himself in the role of confident: “I am enjoying very much my visit here. I have had quite exceptional talks with both Lord and Lady Aberdeen who had given me many confidences and in [sic] the pride I feel in being a Liberal. It is a noble work – this great struggle for the rights of the people and it is a help to me to know that one fights in such noble company and that the wound inflicted are the same however exalted the station. I have been really privileged in the very intimate manner in which I have been received.” W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 19 August 1912. The relation-ship reached its climax in 1916 when the Aberdeens visiting the United States sought Mackenzie King's mediation in obtaining an interview with John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Lady Aberdeen to W.L.M.K., 18 January 1916. Mackenzie King was now confirmed as a man equal, if not superior, to the former governor general. It should also be noted that Lord and Lady Aberdeen resembled the parents of his self-image. They were well-born people of substance yet prepared to “labour in God's vineyards,” they were friends of Gladstone and devoted to the Liberal cause in Great Britain and in Canada. [See Saywell, John T., “The Crown and the Politicians,” The Canadian Historical Review, XXXVII, no 4 (December 1956), 315.Google Scholar]

23 Grey was a man of noble character and refinement. A true Christian gentleman, a man who had chosen to dedicate his life to the service of his fellow men. As students, both had been earnest and serious with a tendency to organize their studies rigorously. They had preached duty and dedication to their sisters; they had known and admired Arnold Toynbee. (At least Grey had known Toynbee, Mackenzie King merely felt close enough to have known him.) They shared an interest in psychic phenomena, a peace-loving outlook, and a commitment to the Liberal cause. (See Begbie, H., Albert, Fourth Earl Grey (London, 1918Google Scholar), various.)

24 If one is to understand Mackenzie King as he saw himself one must see his enthusiasm for Lord Grey and his pleasure in being on the guest list at Government House as some-thing more than crass opportunism or calculated political expediency. It is true that Lord Grey could and did introduce him to useful people. Lord Grey had been instrumental in King's being sent on delicate missions and to international conferences. But this to Mackenzie King was no more than showing a fatherly interest and a recognition of merit. His own father, John King, had pulled such strings and exerted similar pressures to advance him along the road he had to follow. What was important was the fact that Lord Grey could make him an integral part of a warm and loving family circle where gracious living, not penny-pinching poverty, was the characteristic note.

25 The references to these contentions in both the diary and the letters are too numerous for a few quotes to do them justice. The following are typical: “I can say honestly that I have given of my best every day to the work of public service, àt the sacrifice of much that is personal.” W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 12 October 1922. “I am very tired… I have felt the drain on my moral and spiritual powers, though, I thank God, I have striven, above all else, not to make sacrifices in those particulars, and such success as I have had has been due, I believe, to the fact that I have ‘kept the faith’ however faltering at times, the effort may have been” W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 25 August 1930.

26 Diary, 2 September 1921, quoted in Dawson, King, 374.

27 Dawson, King, 374–6.

28 Ibid., 375.

29 Graham, Meighen, 419.

30 I feel that I can write freely to you… Write to me about yourself and those deep spiritual problems… tell me of your life.” W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 5 November 1908. “I tell you this because there is nothing I would not have you know.” W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 30 June 1909. “Never feel that there is any question which you may not ask me… I am anxious that you should know my every thought… There is nothing I would hide from you.” W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 6 February 1911.

31 W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 19 September 1921.

32 W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 29 September 1922.

33 Quoted in Neatby, King, 79.

34 Graham, Meighen, 170.

35 Ibid., 382.

36 This appeal to Buchan through Violet Markham is a repetition of earlier behaviour. In 1913 he had asked her to pass similar explanations of his views to reciprocity and the naval question to Lord Grey.

37 W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 2 December 1925.

38 Even before he knew the results of the election he had written, ‘I have no fear that we shall not be returned as an administration though should it happen that we were defeated it would not occasion me, except on the Party's account, any concern. I should welcome a breathing space; an opportunity to read, reflect, and travel a little.” W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 15 October 1925.

39 King's suspicions of the Conservative party – his belief that they gained office only by bribery, misrepresentation of the issues, praying on the prejudices and self-interest of the people, electoral fraud, and the expenditure of large amounts of tainted money – is a constant theme in his letters. For example: “What was not seen and what contributed more than aught else to our defeat was the money which flowed into every constituency and was used without the least question in widespread corruption and bribery.” W.L.M.K. to P. Larkin, 26 November 1925. “Borden will do anything rather than sacrifice power, and if a way can be found to prevent an appeal to the people he will seek it.” W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 5 March 1913.

40 Neatby, King, 130–57.

41 Ibid., 129.

42 “I am giving you my honest convictions. I was opposed to the change on the grounds of political expediency, and so stated my position strongly in the cabinet. I felt the government was taking a great risk in proposing any changes whilst the people were contented.” W.L.M.K. to V. Markham, 11 October 1911.

43 Montreal Daily Star, 9 September 1925, quoted in Graham, King-Byng, 353.

44 Neatby, King, 82.

45 Ibid., 131.

46 Diary, 30 October 1925, quoted in Neatby, King, 80.

47 Diary, 26 July 1926, quoted in ibid., 147. See also John Buchan to W.L.M.K. 26 July 1926, Buchan papers, Queen's University Archives.

48 Graham, Meighen, 438.

49 Two examples of this are the agreement to call Parliament before holding an election in 1940 and his position on conscription in 1942—44.

50 Canada, House of Commons, Debates (1926Google Scholar) v, 5212, quoted in Graham, Meighen, 437.

51 Miss Markham and Lord Stanhope represented the moderate imperialists willing to con-cede full independence in theory but in a crisis inclined to put the interests of England and empire before the autonomy of the dominions. Lord Grey was an enthusiast for some form of imperial unity and had tried to win King over to his schemes. John Buchan was one of Lord Milner's circle.

52 Neatby, King, 32–7.

53 Ibid., 175.

54 Mansergh, N., The Commonwealth Experience (London, 1969), 230.Google Scholar

55 Ibid., 236.

56 Smith, J. Adam, John Buchan (London, 1959), 440.Google Scholar See also John Buchan papers, various.