Editing Charles Tupper (section)

==Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, 1883–1895==

===Early years as High Commissioner, 1883–1887===
<!--[[Image:TupperUniform.jpg|thumb|Sir Charles Tupper in [[court dress]], ca 1883]]-->[[File:TupperUniform.jpg|thumb|Tupper circa 1883]]
Tupper remained committed to leaving Ottawa, however, and in May 1883, he moved to London to become unpaid High Commissioner, though he did not surrender his ministerial position at the time.<ref name="ODNB"/> However, he soon faced criticism that the two posts were incompatible, and in May 1884 he resigned from cabinet and the House of Commons and became full-time paid High Commissioner.<ref name="ODNB"/>

During his time as High Commissioner, Tupper vigorously defended Canada's rights.<ref name="ODNB"/> Although he was not a full [[plenipotentiary]], he represented Canada at a [[Paris]] conference in 1883, where he openly disagreed with the British delegation; and in 1884 he was allowed to conduct negotiations for a Canadian commercial treaty with [[Spain]].<ref name="ODNB"/>

Tupper was concerned with promoting [[immigration to Canada]] and made several tours of various countries in [[Europe]] to encourage their citizens to move to Canada.<ref name="ODNB"/> A report in 1883 acknowledges the work of Charles Tupper:
<blockquote>As directing emigration from the United Kingdom and also the Continent, his work has been greatly valuable; and especially in reference to the arrangements made by him on the Continent and in Ireland. The High Commissioner for Canada, Sir Charles Tupper, has been aided during the past year by the same Emigration Agents of the Department in the United Kingdom as in 1882, namely, Mr. John Dyke, Liverpool; Mr. Thomas Grahame, Glasgow; Mr. Charles Foy, Belfast; Mr. Thomas Connolly, Dublin, and Mr. J.W. Down, Bristol. On the [[European continent]], Dr. Otto Hahn, of Reutlingen, has continued to act as Agent in Germany.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/reports/report1883.html|title=Immigrants to Canada – Immigration Report of 1883|first=Marj|last=Kohli}}</ref></blockquote>

In 1883, Tupper convinced [[William Ewart Gladstone]]'s government to exempt Canadian cattle from the general British ban on importing American cattle by demonstrating that Canadian cattle were free of disease.<ref name="ODNB"/>

His other duties as High Commissioner included: putting Canadian exporters in contact with British importers; negotiating loans for the Canadian government and the CPR; helping to organize the [[Colonial and Indian Exhibition]] of 1886; arranging for a subsidy for the mail ship from [[Vancouver]], [[British Columbia]], to the [[Orient]]; and lobbying on behalf of a British-Pacific cable along the lines of the [[transatlantic telegraph cable]] and for a faster transatlantic [[steam ship]].<ref name="ODNB"/>

Tupper was present at the founding meeting of the [[Imperial Federation League]] in July 1884, where he argued against a resolution which said that the only options open to the British Empire were [[Imperial Federation]] or disintegration.<ref name="ODNB"/> Tupper believed that a form of limited federation was possible and desirable.<ref name="ODNB"/>

===Interlude as Minister of Finance, 1887–1888===
1884 saw the election of Liberal [[William Stevens Fielding]] as Premier of Nova Scotia after Fielding campaigned on a platform of leading Nova Scotia out of Confederation.<ref name="ODNB"/> As such, throughout 1886, Macdonald begged Tupper to return to Canada to fight the Anti-Confederates.<ref name="ODNB"/> In January 1887 Tupper returned to Canada to rejoin the 3rd Canadian Ministry as [[Minister of Finance (Canada)|Minister of Finance of Canada]], while retaining his post as High Commissioner.<ref name="ODNB"/>

During the [[1887 Canadian federal election|1887 federal election]], Tupper again presented the pro-Confederation argument to the people of Nova Scotia, and again the Conservatives won 14 of Nova Scotia's 21 seats in the [[6th Canadian Parliament]].<ref name="ODNB"/>

During his year as finance minister, Tupper retained the government's commitment to protectionism, even extending it to the [[iron and steel industry]].<ref name="ODNB"/> By this time Tupper was convinced that Canada was ready to move on to its second stage of [[Industrialisation|industrial development]].<ref name="ODNB"/> In part, he held out the prospect of the development of a great iron industry as an inducement to keep Nova Scotia from seceding.<ref name="ODNB"/>

Tupper's unique position of being both Minister of Finance and High Commissioner to London served him well in an emerging crisis in [[American-Canadian relations]]: in 1885, the U.S. abrogated the fisheries clause of the Treaty of Washington (1871), and the Canadian government retaliated against American fishermen with a narrow reading of the [[Treaty of 1818]].<ref name="ODNB"/> Acting as High Commissioner, Tupper pressured the British government (then led by [[Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury|Lord Salisbury]]) to stand firm in defending Canada's rights.<ref name="ODNB"/> The result was the appointment of a Joint Commission in 1887, with Tupper serving as one of the three British commissioners to negotiate with the Americans.<ref name="ODNB"/> Salisbury selected [[Joseph Chamberlain]] as one of the British commissioners.<ref name="ODNB"/> [[John Sparrow David Thompson|John Thompson]] served as the British delegation's legal counsel.<ref name="ODNB"/> During the negotiations, [[U.S. Secretary of State]] [[Thomas F. Bayard]] complained that "Mr. Chamberlain has yielded the control of the negotiations over to Charles Tupper, who subjects the questions to the demands of Canadian politics."<ref name="ODNB"/> The result of the negotiations was a treaty (the Treaty of Washington of 1888) that made such concessions to Canada that it was ultimately rejected by the [[American Senate]] in February 1888.<ref name="ODNB"/> However, although the treaty was rejected, the commission had managed to temporarily resolve the dispute.

Following the long conclusion of these negotiations, Tupper decided to return to London to become High-Commissioner full-time.<ref name="ODNB"/> Macdonald tried to persuade Tupper to stay in Ottawa: during the political crisis surrounding the 1885 [[North-West Rebellion]], Macdonald had pledged to nominate Hector-Louis Langevin as his successor; Macdonald now told Tupper that he would break this promise and nominate Tupper as his successor.<ref name="ODNB"/> Tupper was not convinced, however, and resigned as Minister of Finance on May 23, 1888, and moved back to London.<ref name="ODNB"/>

===Later years as High Commissioner, 1888–1895===
[[Image:The Old Flag! The Old Guard and the Old Principle!.jpg|150px|thumb|left|"The Old Flag! The Old Guard and the Old Principle!" Conservative Party election poster, with Charles Tupper and Hugh John Macdonald, during the [[1891 Canadian federal election|1891 election]]]]
For Tupper's work on the Joint Commission, Joseph Chamberlain arranged for Tupper to become a [[Baronetage of the United Kingdom|baronet of the United Kingdom]], and the [[Tupper Baronetcy]] was created on September 13, 1888.<ref name="ODNB"/>

In 1889, tensions were high between the U.S. and Canada when the U.S. banned Canadians from engaging in the [[seal hunt]] in the [[Bering Sea]] as part of the ongoing [[Bering Sea Dispute]] between the U.S. and Britain.<ref name="ODNB"/> Tupper traveled to [[Washington, D.C.]], to represent Canadian interests during the negotiations and was something of an embarrassment to the British diplomats.<ref name="ODNB"/>

When, in 1890, the provincial secretary of Newfoundland, [[Robert Bond]], negotiated a fisheries treaty with the U.S. that Tupper felt was not in Canada's interest, Tupper successfully persuaded the British government (then under Lord Salisbury's second term) to reject the treaty.<ref name="ODNB"/>

Tupper remained an active politician during his time as High Commissioner, which was controversial because diplomats are traditionally expected to be nonpartisan.<ref name="ODNB"/> (Tupper's successor as High Commissioner, [[Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal|Donald Smith]] would succeed in turning the High Commissioner's office into a nonpartisan office.) As such, Tupper returned to Canada to campaign on behalf of the Conservatives' National Policy during the [[1891 Canadian federal election|1891 election]].<ref name="ODNB"/>

[[Image:Tupperfamily.jpg|150px|thumb|right|Charles Tupper with his son [[Charles Hibbert Tupper]] and his grandson, March 1891]]
Tupper continued to be active in the Imperial Federation League, though after 1887, the League was split over the issue of regular colonial contribution to imperial defense.<ref name="ODNB"/> As a result, the League was dissolved in 1893, for which some people blamed Tupper.<ref name="ODNB"/>

With respect to the British Empire, Tupper advocated a system of mutual preferential trading. In a series of articles in ''[[Nineteenth Century (periodical)|Nineteenth Century]]'' in 1891 and 1892, Tupper denounced the position that Canada should unilaterally reduce its tariff on British goods.<ref name="ODNB"/> Rather, he argued that any such tariff reduction should only come as part of a wider trade agreement in which tariffs on Canadian goods would also be reduced at the same time.<ref name="ODNB"/>

John A. Macdonald's death in 1891 opened the possibility of Tupper's replacing him as [[Prime Minister of Canada]], but Tupper enjoyed life in London and decided against returning to Canada.<ref name="ODNB"/> He recommended that his son support [[John Sparrow David Thompson|John Thompson]]'s prime ministerial bid.<ref name="ODNB"/>