STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL, DONALD ALEXANDER SMITH, BARON (182o-1914) , Canadian statesman and financier, was born at Forres, Scotland, on Aug. 6, 1820, the second son of Alexander Smith (d. 185o), a Highland merchant. His mother, Barbara Stewart, of Abernethy, was the sister of John Stewart (d. 1847), a famous fur trader in the Canadian North-West, who gave his name to Stewart Lake and Stewart river. Through him Donald Smith was appointed in 1838 a junior clerk in the Hudson's Bay Company, which at that time controlled the greater part of what is now the Dominion of Canada. Smith was sent to Labrador, and stationed at Hamilton Inlet. For thirteen years he roughed it there, mastering the work of the fur trade, introducing various improvements into the conditions of life, being the first to prove that potatoes and other vegetables could be grown with success on that bleak coast, and varying his business routine with much reading and letter-writing. Then he was for ten years on Hudson Bay, rising in the com pany's service to be a chief trader and then a chief factor.
In 1868 he was appointed to the post of resident governor, with headquarters at Montreal. In the next year Louis Riel's (q.v.) re bellion broke out on the Red river, and in December Smith was sent by the Canadian government with wide powers as special commissioner to endeavour to check the rebellion, and to report "on the best mode of quieting and removing such discontent and dissatisfaction." On arriving at Fort Garry (now Winnipeg) he advised the government that it would be necessary to send troops; in the meanwhile he kept cool in face of a very ugly situation, and it was largely owing to his tact and diplomacy that the lives of the numerous prisoners were saved, that Riel's position was gradually undermined and that the relief expedition under Colonel (afterwards Lord) Wolseley had no fighting to do. Apart from the rebellion, there was difficulty with the company's traders. The company's control over the North-West was to be sur rendered to Canada for £300,000, certain grants of lands and certain trading privileges, and the traders on the spot feared that in the distribution of the money their rights might not be guarded, but Smith succeeded in persuading them to trust him to secure their share, and asserted their claims so effectually that £107,000 was paid to them. During these complications in the North-West
he occupied for a time the position of acting governor: in De cember 1870, he was returned for Winnipeg to the Manitoba legislative assembly, and in March 1871, he was elected as one of the four Manitoba representatives to the Dominion House of Commons. In 1871 Smith was appointed chief commissioner for the North-West. In 1872 he became one of the original members of the first North-West council under the act providing for the government of the territories by the lieutenant-governor of Mani toba and a council of eleven.
The construction of the Canadian Pacific railway had now become a practical question. In 1872 a charter was given by Sir John Macdonald's government to a company, with Sir Hugh Allan at its head, for the construction of the line, with a subsidy in land grants and money, but in 1873 disclosures of corrupt practices in relation to this charter (the so-called Pacific Scan dal) led to the fall of the government, and the company was soon afterwards dissolved. In the debate which ended in the resigna tion of the government, a speech by Smith had a powerful effect. The Liberal government which came into power early in reverted, though timidly, to the policy of government ownership.
Meanwhile Donald Smith, together with his cousin Mr. George Stephen (afterwards Lord Mountstephen), and other Canadian and American financiers, had bought out the Dutch bondholders of the insolvent St. Paul & Pacific railway, an American line, which by 1873 had been completed from St. Paul to Breckenridge, but which lacked funds to proceed farther. After long negotia tions the new owners persuaded the government of Manitoba to build a line from Winnipeg to Pembina on the American frontier. This done, in 1879 the partners formed the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway Company, and by continuing the line from Breckenridge to Pembina united Manitoba with the south and west.