Secret Craft: The Journalism of Edward Farrer

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

This fascinating book concerns the annexation activities of Edward
Farrer. An Irish writer, fabricator, and journalist, Farrer was also an
agitator for the breakup of Confederation, with strong ties to the
Liberal Party. Cumming, a former editor with the Canadian Press and
professor at Carleton’s School of Journalism, has constructed a good
biography of a man “regarded as a mercenary, ready to write any policy
line for pay.” Anti-British, anti-Roman Catholic, and anti-French,
Farrer “was condemned as a traitor, who had sold out his adopted
country to American annexationists.”

Through an analysis of Farrer’s writings (including passages from his
works reprinted here), Cumming covers topics such as the Jesuit Estates,
Laurier, Macdonald, the McGeery scandal, Western separation, the Patrons
of Industry, and the Manitoba schools issue. He shows how Farrer led the
Toronto Mail from “party support” to a corporate position of
“independence.”

This well-written and thoroughly researched book is generously
illustrated with cartoons from 19th-century sources.