Arthur Meighen

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Arthur Meighen (1912) Arthur Meighen Signature 2nd svg

Arthur Meighen PC , QC (born June 16, 1874 in Anderson, Ontario , † August 5, 1960 in Toronto , Ontario) was a Canadian politician . He was Prime Minister twice for a short time . His first term lasted from July 10, 1920 to December 29, 1921, the second from June 29 to September 25, 1926. Meighen was chairman of the Conservative Party from 1920 to 1926 and from 1940 to 1942 . He held several ministerial posts in the government of his predecessor Robert Borden . After serving in the House of Commons from 1908 to 1926 , he sat in the Senate for ten years from 1932 .

Youth and Studies

Meighen was born in Perth County , southwest Ontario, to farmer Joseph Meighen and his wife Mary Jane Bell. Since the son proved to be extremely gifted at school, the family moved to the outskirts of St. Marys and took over a dairy farm. This saved the cost of boarding school accommodation. The high school that Meighen attended in St. Marys now bears his name. In 1892 he enrolled at the University of Toronto . Four years later, he completed his mathematics studies with a Bachelor of Arts .

During his student days he met the future Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King , but the two men did not get along very well from the start. In 1897 he taught mathematics at a grammar school near Brantford , but came into conflict with the head of the school board, whereupon he moved to Winnipeg . He studied law from 1900 and was admitted to the Manitoba Province three years later . In 1904 he married Isabel Cox, with whom he had two sons and a daughter.

Political career

Meighen joined the Conservative Party in 1904 and soon stood out as a gifted speaker and campaign assistant. In the general election in 1908 , he ran in the constituency of Portage la Prairie . His nomination was undisputed, as it was assumed that the liberal incumbent John Crawford would win anyway. But to the surprise of many, Meighen won by a margin of 250 votes and moved into the lower house .

Prime Minister Robert Borden appointed Meighen Solicitor General (Deputy Minister of Justice) in June 1913 . He held this office until August 1917, when he was appointed Mining Minister and Minister for Indian Affairs. In October of the same year he was additionally appointed Minister of the Interior. In 1920 he was minister again for a few months, then foreign minister until the end of 1921. As Home Secretary, Meighen was primarily responsible for the implementation of the controversial conscription and convinced Parliament to approve the nationalization of the Canadian Northern Railway .

Meighen's administration of office was controversial in wide circles. To ensure that the conscription supporters united in the unionist coalition would win the 1917 general election, he drafted electoral laws that influenced the election in favor of the government. Conscientious objectors lost their right to vote, while female relatives of soldiers were allowed to vote for the first time. Soldiers stationed abroad were also allowed to cast their votes for any constituency and could thus be specifically influenced by government officials. In June 1919 he ordered the dissolution of the Winnipeg general strike . The violent crackdown on the part of the police earned the conservatives the hostility of the workers' movement.

First term as Prime Minister

Robert Borden announced his impending resignation in late 1919. The House of Commons gave him permission to choose his successor himself. Borden's choice fell on Meighen, who took over the office of Prime Minister and chairmanship of the Conservative Party on July 10, 1920. Important bills during his first term were a trade agreement with France and the nationalization of the Grand Trunk Railway . Certain liberal members of the unionist coalition returned to their original party, while others joined the new Progressive Party . The country also experienced a severe recession, which increasingly weakened the government.

In September 1921 Meighen called a new election. He tried in the election campaign under the banner of the National Liberal and Conservative Party to appeal to broader groups of voters and to revive the unionist coalition which was in the process of being dissolved. But his party suffered a devastating defeat in the general election in December 1921 . It lost over 100 seats and was only the third strongest force behind the Liberals and Progressives. Meighen and nine other ministers were voted out of office in their constituencies. He remained chairman of the Conservative Party (which returned to its traditional name) and was able to return to the House of Commons in a by-election in Grenville, eastern Ontario in January 1922. The Progressive Party renounced to take on the role of the official opposition, so that Meighen was opposition leader from the end of 1921 .

Opposition leader

Meighen's years in the opposition were mainly shaped by his reaction to the Chanak crisis: Various members of the British government, including Colonial Minister Winston Churchill , had told the press that the United Kingdom wanted to use troops from the Dominions to avoid the neutral zone around the Dardanelles to protect against possible Turkish attacks. Prime Minister King announced that, unlike in World War I, Canada would not automatically follow a British declaration of war on other states. Meighen criticized the government's passivity and insisted that Canada must absolutely be loyal to the mother country. The crisis ended after a few weeks: it led to the overthrow of the British government of David Lloyd George , while Meighen gained a reputation for blindly representing the interests of the United Kingdom.

In contrast to Robert Borden and Wilfrid Laurier , there was a deep personal distrust and hostility between Meighen and King. Meighen looked down on King, whom he called Rex (his nickname in the university), believing him to be unprincipled. King, in turn, viewed Meighen as elitist and aloof. King's liberal government attracted negative attention due to numerous scandals and corruption. The 1925 general election ended with a victory for the Conservatives, but they narrowly missed an absolute majority.

Second term

With the support of the progressives, King was able to continue to rule. Soon after the start of the legislative period, a bribery scandal was uncovered in the Customs Ministry, whereupon numerous progressives began to reconsider their support. When King threatened to lose the vote, he asked Governor General Julian Byng to dissolve parliament, but the latter refused (→ King Byng affair ). King resigned immediately and Byng charged Meighen on June 29, 1921 with the formation of a new government.

At that time it was common for all newly appointed ministers to resign immediately and be confirmed in a by-election. To prevent the government from losing a majority in the meantime, Meighen resorted to a legal but unusual means by appointing the ministers "provisionally" and not having them sworn in. King made a fuss over this controversial measure and got some hesitant progressives back on his side. In the subsequent vote of no confidence, Meighen's government lost one vote.

The governor general had no choice but to schedule a new election. In the 1926 general election , the Conservatives won the most votes, but won fewer seats overall than the Liberals, who had entered into these tactically clever alliances in numerous constituencies and thus created massive distortions in majority voting. Meighen himself was voted out of his Portage la Prairie constituency. He continued the business of government until September 25, 1926 and then had to cede his office to King; on the same day he also resigned as party chairman.

further activities

As a result, Meighen stayed largely out of politics. Instead, he now pursued a career in the private sector. In the Canadian General Securities Limited , an investment company in Winnipeg, he worked as a vice president and consultant. The company expanded and Meighen and his family moved to Toronto to set up a branch there. The 1929 stock market crash nearly bankrupted the company, but Meighen got it back on track. He was also a speaker at non-political events and a member of the Ontario Province Electricity Commission.

Meighen returned to politics in February 1932 after Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett named him Senator . In Bennett's government he was Minister without Portfolio until October 1935 , then opposition leader in the Senate. In November 1941 he received an offer to become chairman of the Conservative Party for a second time because the party was in a serious financial and political crisis. Meighen gave up his Senate seat in February 1942 and ran in Toronto in a by-election for a seat in the House of Commons. However, he was subject to the candidate of the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation , whereupon he finally retired into private life. He died in Ottawa in 1960 at the age of 86.

Honor

According to him, Meighen Iceland named in the Arctic.

See also

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Meighen, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian politician, Prime Minister of Canada
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Anderson, Ontario
DATE OF DEATH 5th August 1960
Place of death Toronto , Ontario