THE ADVOCATE 349
VOL. 78 PART 3 MAY 2020
penitentiary and cease from troubling, and there I hope your mind will turn
to the consideration of better things. In your life and conduct hitherto, I
have not seen a particle of common sense. Remove the prisoner.11
Strong words.
Greer, an Irishman and American Civil War veteran, not only has fans in
Vancouver today; he also had supporters in 1891. Many were Orangemen,
and they petitioned the Minister of Justice for his release. Begbie strongly
opposed such clemency, writing to the minister, Sir John Thompson, about
Greer’s “lawless career”. He protested that “Greer is well known to every
Judge in BC with reference to his pretended land claims”, pointing out that
they had been canvased in every court in the province, in two select committees
of the provincial legislature and by a royal commission. “In every
single instance”, Begbie noted, “every tribunal has been satisfied that there
was not in law or common sense or common honesty the slightest foundation
for his claims”.12 Prison was necessary, he said, to make “an example
also to other covetous persons, who might from his impunity be tempted to
set all rights and courts of justice and officers of the law at defiance”.13 More
strong words. Yet the jury and the petitioners clearly disagreed, and it
appears that Greer’s sentence was reduced. Was it, as The Colonist argued,
just because he was an “old timer”, down on his luck—the “little guy” going
up against the big corporation? And was Begbie unreasonable and past his
prime, or perhaps even in thrall to the CPR?
There is a saying that there are three sides to every story: yours, mine
and the truth. The truth may be elusive, but it always helps to have the
whole story—which, at this distance in time, I certainly do not claim to have
unearthed, even after mucking about among the spiders and the mice in the
archives.14 As one student of Greer’s “career” has noted, the record is “so
hopelessly complicated.”15 Still, as Begbie intimated when he sentenced
Greer, their paths had crossed before. Six years earlier he had been the royal
commissioner who investigated one of Greer’s real estate deals, and a couple
of years after that he had to adjudicate a dispute between Greer and the
CPR. But first, a bit of background.
Note: readers whose attention may already be wandering should feel
free to skip the background and go straight to Part III. I will not think less
of you.
II.
The promise in the British Columbia Terms of Union in 1871 of a railway
joining B.C. to the rest of Canada was not only crucial to making confederation
work; it also created opportunities for speculators, not to mention