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Art. 2.-TWO DOMINION STATESMEN.

I. SIR WILFRID LAURIER.

SIR WILFRID LAURIER, as was the case with at least two of his predecessors in the premiership of the Dominion of Canada-Macdonald and Mackenzie-began his political career with neither material nor social advantages in his favour. Macdonald was the son of an emigrant, who was a wage-earner at Kingston, Ontario, almost to the end of his working life. Mackenzie was a stonemason, who, like the parents of Macdonald, emigrated from Scotland; and he was at work at his trade until he became actively interested in politics. Laurier was the son of a land surveyor, Carolus Laurier, who earned only a meagre income by the practice of his profession. He was born in 1841, at St Lin, a picturesque and typically French-Canadian village, in the county of L'Assomption. His mother, who was of Acadian descent, died when Laurier was only four years old.

Until Laurier made his first communion, he attended the parish school at St Lin. The next three years of his life were passed at a Protestant school at New Glasgow, a small town eighteen miles from his birthplace. At the end of his schooling (1854) he entered the College of L'Assomption. He remained there for the full classical course of seven years. At the age of twenty, he began his short career at the Bar, entering the office at Montreal of Rudolphe Laflamme, who was afterwards a member of the Liberal Administration at Ottawa (18741878). While in Laflamme's office, Laurier took the law course at McGill University, and achieved some distinction as a student. He was admitted to the bar in 1864, and in 1880 was raised to the rank of Q.C.

Laurier practised law first in Montreal, and later at Arthabaska. He was, however, at no time really prominent among the lawyers of the Province of Quebec; nor was he ever, from the point of view of income, more than moderately successful in his profession. Ten years after the completion of his studies at McGill, he was elected to the House of Commons (1874), and politics thereafter were his absorbing interest. During the greater part of his life he lived on his salary ($1250) as a Member of Parliament, with the addition, during his

Premiership, of a Premier's salary ($7500), and during his last phase, as Leader of the Opposition, of the salary of $5000 paid since 1904 to the holder of that position.

Laurier's career in Dominion politics extended over forty-five years. It is a career, in this respect, without parallel in the history of Canada. It is, moreover, without parallel in the history of the Oversea Dominions, as regards its permanent influence on the relations of all the Dominions with Great Britain. Laurier had no part in Confederation. He was beginning his career as a lawyer when the British North-America Act (1867) was passed by the Parliament at Westminster. But no Canadian statesman of his time had more influence on the relations of the Dominions and Great Britain in the twenty-five years that preceded the Great War, than the French-Canadian Premier of 1896-1911.

The long career of Laurier at Ottawa easily divides itself into three well-marked periods. The first extends from 1874 to 1896. Except for four years (1874-1878) the Liberals were in opposition during this period; and for nine of these years (1887-1896) Laurier was leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, and national leader of the Liberal party. The second period extends from the general election in 1896, to the defeat of the Liberals, on the Taft-Fielding reciprocity agreement, at the general election in September 1911. This was the Laurier era, as the period from 1867 to 1891 had been the Macdonald era. It was the era during which Laurier left his mark on the relations between the Dominions and Great Britain, and, through the British preferential tariff of 1897, on the foreign commercial policy of Great Britain, and also on the trade policy of four of the five Oversea Dominions. The third period extends from the formation of the Borden Government, in the autumn of 1911, to Laurier's death in February 1919. It was marked by the division of the Liberal party over the Conscription Act, and generally by disruption and misfortune without parallel in the history of Liberalism in Canada.

Laurier was thirty-three when, in 1874, he entered the House of Commons. He was returned at the general election in that year by Drummond and Arthabaska, the riding in which he had practised as a lawyer;

in which he achieved the only prize in his profession that ever fell to him-election as batonnier by the Bar of the county; and in which also he had unsuccessfully attempted to establish a Liberal newspaper, published in the language of the province. It is the riding, moreover, in which Laurier established his first home; for in 1868 he was married to Miss Zoe Lafontaine, and until the end of his life his country home was in Arthabaska.

Politics were not a new interest with Laurier when he first entered the House of Commons as a supporter of the Liberal Government of 1874-1878-the Government which had been returned to power as the result of the widespread popular indignation at the grave scandal arising out of the granting, by the Macdonald Government, of the first charter for the Canadian Pacific Railway. In his earlier years in Montreal, and as a lawyer and a newspaper editor at Arthabaskaville, Laurier was a Radical, at times an extreme one; and it was in this period of his career that his Radicalism, especially in the domain of ecclesiastical politics, brought him into collision with the authorities of the Catholic Church.

Before he was elected to Parliament he had served one term of three years (1871-1874) in the Lower House of the Legislature at Quebec. It was his first and only service in provincial politics. In one important respect it was a helpful and memorable term; for, while he was a member of the Legislative Assembly, he greatly distinguished himself by a speech that was remembered to his credit as long as he lived. It was on the relations of French-Canadians in Quebec with the people of the sister provinces-Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia and on the relations of the Dominions with Great Britain.

In 1871, the year in which Laurier made what became known as his 'United Canada' speech, Confederation was still in some degree an experiment. Not all the old British North-American provinces at this time had thrown in their lot with the newly-created Dominion. Nova Scotia was still complaining that it had been hustled into Confederation against its will; British Columbia was driving a hard bargain with Ottawa; and there were still some unsettled and disturbing questions, mostly affecting provincial rights, arising out of Confederation as

organised and worked under the British North America Act of 1867. Laurier's speech sounded the key-note of many subsequent speeches on the same subject, made, some in Canada, some in England, after he had established his position in Dominion politics, and, as a political leader, had become as acceptable to the English-speaking provinces as to Quebec.

At this time Laurier was on the back-benches in the Legislative Chamber. His speech, as remarkable for its grace of style as it was for its frankness, brought him into a prominence that extended beyond the boundaries of the French province. He ranked thereafter as an advocate of a united Canada-as a French-Canadian who was opposed to a continuance of the old racial and religious divisions between French and English-speaking Canadians. He showed himself also an admirer of British political institutions and British civilisation, who from his study of English history could state the grounds on which his admiration was based; and an outspoken upholder of the tie between the Dominion and Great Britain.

Laurier's Quebec speech-his first speech that was of more than provincial interest-together with his distinguished personal appearance, his genial temperament, and his grace of manner, soon made him acceptable to his fellow-members from the English-speaking provinces in the House of Commons of 1874-1878. He had the instinct for parliamentary procedure which is characteristic of French-Canadians, and a love for the usages and traditions of Parliament; and he possessed these qualities to a degree that was remarkable even among the men of his province. Moreover, he was a polished and graceful speaker and formidable in debate. He was equally attractive whether speaking in the House of Commons or on the platform in the constituencies. In some respects he was not the intellectual equal of Blake or Cartwright, but he could hold the attention of the House as well as either of these contemporaries; and from his earliest years at Ottawa he was always careful not to weary his audience-a remark that could not uniformly be made of either Blake or Cartwright.

In the Parliament of 1874-1878-the only Parliament in the period 1867-1896 in which the Liberals were in

power-Laurier's success was almost immediate. In a comparatively short time his mental equipment for parliamentary life, and its obvious value to the Liberal party at this juncture in its history, were recognised by Mackenzie and his colleagues of the Cabinet. In October 1877, Laurier was appointed Minister of Inland Revenue; and from 1877 until 1918, the last session in which he attended the House, he was a front-bench member. His seat for Drummond and Arthabaska was regarded a safe one at the time when he received his portfolio as minister; otherwise Mackenzie, whose administration was at this time much assailed, might not (to use an Ottawa phrase) have opened' the constituency. But the Church had not yet settled its account with Laurier for his contumacy while he was engaged in the practice of the law at Montreal, and while he was editor of a newspaper at Arthabaskaville. It opposed his return; and, when he sought re-election, he was defeated by a majority of forty. This failure, however, involved no break in his parliamentary or ministerial career. A vacancy was created for Quebec East. Laurier was successful there; and he represented this constituency continuously for forty-two years.

It was about this time that Sir John A. Macdonald and his followers of the Conservative Opposition began the agitation for a tariff for the protection of Canadian industry. There had been tariffs for the protection of home industries during the era of the United Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada (1841-1867). The first of these tariffs was enacted in 1858, the second in 1859. There were duties as high as 20 and 25 per cent. in these tariffs; and the duties were imposed avowedly for the protection of manufacturers in Upper and Lower Canada. But between 1866 and 1878 most of these protectionist duties had been eliminated, because the Maritime Provinces were then hostile to protection. During the lifetime of the Parliament of 1874-1878, there were few duties in excess of 17 per cent. Notwithstanding much pressure from the manufacturing interests, the Mackenzie Government, in which Sir Richard Cartwright was Minister of Finance, refused, in the session of 1877, to call upon Parliament to enact any protectionist duties. Mackenzie's refusal to accept the principle of protection,

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