Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics Part 2

The second issue which appeared for a moment to put Laurier's grip on Quebec in peril was the South African war. Looking back twenty-three years it is pretty clear that Laurier's position at the outbreak of the war, that the Canadian parliament should be consulted as to the sending of a contingent, was wholly reasonable.

Those were the days of heady Imperialism in the English provinces; and, vigorously stirred up by Laurier's party foes for political purposes, it struck out with a violence which threatened to bring serious political consequences in its train. Tarte was credited with having declared publicly in the Russell House rotunda: "Not a man nor a cent for South Africa," which did not help matters. The storm was so instant and threatening that Laurier and his colleagues bowed before it. By order-in-council Canada authorized the sending of a contingent. Other contingents followed, and Canada took part in the war on terms of limited liability which were agreeable to both the British and Canadian governments.

The South African war was most unpopular with the French-Canadians, but the unpopularity did not extend to Laurier. They agreed in theory with Boura.s.sa but they recognized that Laurier had yielded to force majeure. Indeed the very violence with which Laurier was a.s.sailed in Ontario strengthened his hold in Quebec. It is not easy for a proud people to stomach insults such as, for instance, the remark in the Toronto News, that the English-Canadians would find some way of "emanc.i.p.ating themselves from the dominance of an inferior people whom peculiar circ.u.mstances had placed in authority in the Dominion." The election of 1900 gave Laurier fifty-eight supporters in the province of Quebec out of a total of sixty-five seats. The Rouge-Bleu coalition had not come off officially, Chapleau's death in 1898 having removed the necessity of formally recognizing his services, but the coalition of Bleu and Rouge elements had taken place; and it held so firmly that when some of the architects of the fusion tried later to undo their work they found this could not be done. Dansereau was the first to go. Mr.

Mulock, the postmaster-general, entirely oblivious of the fact that Dansereau was one of the main wheels in the Quebec machine and seeing in him only an entirely incapable postmaster, fired him in 1899 with as little hesitation as a section boss would show in bouncing an incompetent navvy. Tarte and Laurier tried to patch up the quarrel, but Dansereau preferred to return to journalism as editor of an independent journal whose traditions were Conservative.

He was to be, five years later, one of the leaders in that curious conspiracy, the MacKenzie-Mann-Berthiaume-La Presse deal--the details of which as told by Professor Skelton read like a detective yarn--which was turned into opera bouffe by Laurier's decisive and timely interference. In 1902, Tarte, in Laurier's absence and in the belief that he could not resume the premiers.h.i.+p on account of illness, attempted to seize the successors.h.i.+p by pre-emption, and was promptly dismissed from office by Laurier. Tarte and Dansereau tried to rally the Bleu forces against Laurier, but these were no longer distinguishable from the Liberal hosts into which they had merged.

Their day was over and their power gone. Laurier reigned supreme.

These commitments and considerations furnished the background to the drama of Laurier's premiers.h.i.+p. Much that took place on the fore-stage is only intelligible by taking a long vision of the whole setting.

There was nothing of a.s.sertiveness or truculence in this steady movement by which Liberal policy and outlook was given a new orientation, Quebec replacing Ontario as the determinant. Students of politics can trace the changing influence through the fifteen years of Liberal rule, in legislation, in appointments and in administrative policies. One or two ill.u.s.trations might be noted.

A CHALLENGE AND A CHECK

During the crisis of 1905 over the school provisions in the Autonomy bills erecting Alberta and Saskatchewan into provinces, Walter Scott, M.P., in a letter quoted by Professor Skelton, refers to the "almost unpardonable bungling" which had brought the crisis about.

But Sir Wilfrid did not step into this difficulty by mischance. He knew precisely what he was doing though he did not foresee the consequences of his action because with all his experience and sagacity he never could foretell how political developments would react upon the English-Canadian mind. The educational provisions of the autonomy bill were designed to remove the still lingering resentment of Quebec over the settlement of the Manitoba school question and to further this purpose Sir Wilfrid indulged in his speech introducing these bills in that entirely gratuitous laudation of separate schools which had on Ontario and western Canadian opinion the enlivening effect of a match thrown into a powder barrel. This incident revealed not only the tendency of Laurier's policy but ill.u.s.trated the tactics which he had developed for achieving his ends in the face of opposition within the party. Upon occasions of this kind he was addicted to confronting his a.s.sociates and followers with an accomplished fact, leaving no alternative to submission but a palace rebellion which he felt confident no one would attempt. By such methods he had already rounded several dangerous corners, as for instance his committing Canada to submit her case in the matter of the Alaska boundaries to a tribunal without an umpire--though it was the clearly understood policy of the Canadian government and the Canadian parliament to insist upon an umpire; and he resorted again to a stroke of this character in 1905. Professor Skelton's story of the crisis is the official version, but there is another version which happens to be more authentic.

Following the general election of 1904, the government decided to deal without further delay with the matter of setting up the new provinces. It was known that there was danger of revival of the school question, for during the election campaign a Toronto newspaper had sought to make this an issue, contending that the delay in giving the provinces const.i.tutions was due to the demand of the Roman Catholic church that they should include a provision for separate schools. The policy agreed upon by the government was to continue in the provincial const.i.tutions the precise rights enjoyed by the minority under the territorial school ordinances of 1901.

There was a vigorous controversy in parliament as to whether the autonomy bills in their original form kept faith with this understanding. Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Mr. Fitzpatrick, minister of justice, contended vehemently that they did. Clifford Sifton, who was the western representative in the cabinet and the party most directly interested, held that they did not. Mr. Sifton was absent in the Southern States when the bill was drafted. He reached Ottawa on his return the day after Sir Wilfrid had introduced the bills to parliament. He at once resigned. Fielding, who had also been absent, was credited with sharing to a considerable extent Sifton's view that the bill introduced did not embody the policy agreed upon. The resulting crisis put the government in jeopardy. A considerable number of members a.s.sociated themselves with Mr. Sifton and the government was advised that their support for the measure could only be secured if clauses were subst.i.tuted for the provisions in the act to which objection was taken. To make sure that there would be no mistake that the subst.i.tuted provisions should merely continue the territorial law as it stood, they insisted upon drafting the alternative clauses themselves. Sir Wilfrid, acutely conscious that this const.i.tuted a challenge to his prestige and authority, used every artifice and expedient at his command to induce the insurgents either to accept the original clause or alternatives drafted by Mr.

Fitzpatrick; for the first time the tactical suggestion that resignation would follow noncompliance was put forward. The dissentient members stood to their guns; Sir Wilfrid yielded and the measure thus amended commanded the vote of the entire party with one Ontario dissentient.

The storm blew over but the wreckage remained. The episode did Laurier harm in the English provinces. It predisposed the public mind to suspicion and thus made possible the ne temere and Eucharist congress agitations which were later factors in solidifying Ontario against him. In Quebec it gave Mr. Boura.s.sa, whose hostility to Laurier was beginning to take an active form, an opportunity to represent Laurier as the betrayer of French Catholic interests and to put himself forward as their true champion. "Our friend, Boura.s.sa," wrote Sir Wilfrid to a friend in April, 1905, "has begun in Quebec a campaign that may well cause us trouble." From this moment the Nationalist movement grew apace until six years later it looked as though Boura.s.sa was destined to displace Laurier as the accepted leader of the French Canadians. It was only the developments of the war that restored Laurier to his position of unchallenged supremacy.

In Manitoba also there were evidences of Sir Wilfrid's preoccupation with the business of never getting himself out of touch with Quebec public opinion. For years he sought by private and semi-public negotiations to get the Winnipeg school board to come to a modus vivendi with the church by which Catholic children would be segregated in their own schools within the orbit of the public school system, but failed, partly owing to the non possumus att.i.tude of Archbishop Langevin, who was not prepared to be deprived of a grievance which enabled him to mix in Quebec and Manitoba politics.

The Liberal policy of accepting provincial electoral lists for Dominion purposes resulted in the Manitoba lists being compiled under conditions to which the Liberals of this province strongly objected, and they fought for years to secure a right to final revision under Dominion auspices. Twice they pressed their case with such vigor that the government undertook to pa.s.s the requested legislation but on both occasions resistance in the house by the Conservatives led to the prompt withdrawal of the measure by Sir Wilfrid. In both cases Manitoba Liberals knew quite well that the difficulty was not the opposition of the Conservatives but the opposition of Laurier. They were advised that Laurier was apprehensive of the effect of the proposed legislation upon public opinion in Quebec. He feared the criticism by his opponents that while Laurier would not interfere with Manitoba when it was a matter of the educational rights of the minority he was willing to interfere when it was a matter of obliging his political friends.

There was something too in the charge that the delay in dealing with the matter of the extension of the Manitoba boundaries arose from the same feeling. To transfer the Northwest territories, where the minority had certain const.i.tutional rights in matters of education, to Manitoba where the minority had none would be to put one more weapon into the hands of Mr. Boura.s.sa. The extension of Manitoba's boundaries had to await a change in administration.

THE TALE OF FIFTEEN YEARS.

There is always a temptation to the biographer of a prime minister to relate his hero to the events of his period as first cause and controlling spirit--the G.o.d of the storm; whereas prime ministers, like individuals, are the sports of destiny; things happen and they have to make the best of them. The performances of the Laurier government may be divided into two cla.s.ses, those due to its own initiative and those which were imposed by circ.u.mstances. The ratio between the two cla.s.ses changed steadily as the administration grew in age. After the impetus born of the reforming zeal of opposition and the natural and creditable desire to fulfil express engagements dies away, the inclination of a government is not to invite trouble by looking around for difficult tasks to do. "Those who govern, having much business on their hands," says Benjamin Franklin, "do not like to take the trouble to consider and carry into execution new projects." This is a political law to which all governments conform. Even the great reforming administration of Gladstone which took office in 1868, had earned five years later the famous jest of Disraeli: "The ministers remind me of one of those marine landscapes not very unusual off the coast of South America; you behold a range of extinct volcanoes; not a flame flickers upon a single pallid crest."

Fifteen years of Liberal rule in Canada furnish a complete field for the study of the party system under our system. In 1896 a party stale in spirit, corrupt and inefficient, went out of office and was replaced by a government which had been bred to virtue by eighteen years of political penury. It entered upon its tasks with vigor, ability and enthusiasm. It had its policies well defined and it set briskly about carrying them out. A deft, shrewd modification of the tariff helped to loosen the stream of commerce which after years of constriction began again to flow freely. There was a courageous and considered increase in expenditures for productive objects. A constructive, vigorously executed immigration policy brought an ever expanding volume of suitable settlers to Western Canada which in turn fed the springs of national prosperity. This impulse lasted through the first parliamentary term and largely through the second, though by then disruptive tendencies were appearing. By its third term the government was mainly an office-holding administration on the defensive against an opposition of growing effectiveness. And then in the fourth term there was an attempt at a rally before the crash. The treatment of the tariff question, always a governing factor in Canadian politics even when apparently not in play, is an ill.u.s.tration of the government's progress towards stagnation. The 1897 tariff revision "could not," says Professor Skelton, "have been bettered as a first preliminary step toward free trade."

"Unfortunately," he adds, "it proved to be the last step save for the 1911 attempt to secure reciprocity." After 1897 Laurier's policy was to discourage the revival of the tariff question. Tarte's offence was partly that he did not realize that sleeping dogs should be allowed to lie. "It is not good politics to try to force the hand of the government," wrote Laurier to Tarte. And he added: "The question of the tariff is in good shape if no one seeks to force the issue." With Tarte's ejection there followed nearly eight years during which real tariff discussion was taboo. Then under the pressure of the rising western resentment against the tariff burdens, the government turned to reciprocity as a means by which they could placate the farmers without disturbing or alarming the manufacturers. By what seemed extraordinary good luck the United States president, Republican in politics, was by reason of domestic political developments, in favor of a reciprocal trade agreement. It seemed as though the Laurier government as by a miracle would renew its youth and vigor; but the situation, temporarily favorable, was so fumbled that it ended not in triumph but in defeat.

The disasters of the Laurier railway policy--or rather lack of policy--must always weigh heavily against the undoubted achievements of the Laurier regime. A period of marked national expansion gave rise to all manner of railway ambitions and schemes, and Laurier lacked the practical capacity, foresight and determination to fit them into a general, well-thought-out, practicable scheme of development. Again it was a case of letting the pressure of events determine policy, in place of policy controlling events. He could not deny the Grand Trunk's ambitions, but he obliged it to submit to modifications demanded by political pressure which turned its project, perhaps practicable in its original form, into a huge, ill-thought-out transcontinental enterprise. Equally he could not hold the ambitions of Mann and McKenzie in check. The advisability of a merger of these rival railway groups was obvious at the time, but Laurier let them each have their head, dividing government a.s.sistance between them, with resulting ruin to both and bequeathing to his successors a problem for which no solution has yet been found.

PERSONAL GOVERNMENT

During the years of his premiers.h.i.+p Laurier rose steadily in personal power and in prestige. It is in keeping with the genius of our party system that the leader who begins as the chosen chief of his a.s.sociates proceeds by stages, if he has the necessary qualities, to a position of dominance; the republic is transformed into an absolute monarchy. In the government of 1896 Laurier was only primus inter pares; his a.s.sociates were in the main contemporary with him in point of years and public service. Their places had been won by party recognition of their services and abilities. In the government of 1911 Laurier was the veteran commander of a company which he had himself recruited. Of his 1896 colleagues but few remained, and of these only Mr. Fielding had kept his relative rank in the party hierarchy. All his remaining colleagues had entered public life long subsequent to his accession the Liberal leaders.h.i.+p. Not one had been in parliament prior to 1896. Their entrance into public life, their steps in promotion, their admittance to the government were all subject to his approval, where they were not actually due to his will. To Laurier's authority they yielded unquestioning obedience, and with it went a deep affection inspired and made sure by the personal consideration and kindliness that marked his relations with them. Under these conditions, men of strong, individual views and ambitions, with reforming temperaments and a desire to force issues, did not find the road to the Privy Council open to them; different qualities held the pa.s.sword.

In 1908 Sir Wilfrid, when a discerning electorate had deprived him of a colleague whose political incapacity had been completely demonstrated, became a party to a deal by which he re-entered parliament. An old friend took the liberty of asking Sir Wilfrid why he wanted this a.s.sociate back in the cabinet, only to be told that "So-and-So never made any trouble for me." At least twice in the last four years of his regime Sir Wilfrid, conscious of the waning energies of his party, took advice outside of his immediate circle as to what should be done; on both occasions he rejected advice tendered to him because this involved the inclusion in the cabinet of personalities that might have disturbed the charmed serenity of that circle. Sir Wilfrid preferred to have things as they were, perhaps because his sense of reality warned him that, so far as the duration of time during which he would hold office was concerned, there probably would not be any great difference between a government wholly agreeable to him and one reconst.i.tuted to meet the demand of the younger and more vigorous elements in the party. In 1909, in a letter to a supporter who had lost the party nomination for his const.i.tuency, he gave premonition of his own fate: "What has happened to you in your county will happen to me before long in Canada. Let us submit with good grace to the inevitable."

The inevitable end in the ordinary course of events would have been the going on of the party until it died of dry rot and decay, as the Liberals had already died in Ontario; but fortunately, both for the party and for Laurier's subsequent fame--though it may not have seemed so at the time--emergence of the reciprocity question gave it an opportunity to fall on an issue which seemed to link up the end of the regime with its heroic beginnings and to reinvest the party with some of its lost glamor.

LAURIER: DEFEAT AND ANTI-CLIMAX

THE defeat of the Liberals in September, 1911, raised sharply the question of the party's future and the leaders.h.i.+p under which it would face that future. Speaking at St. Jerome toward the close of the campaign Sir Wilfrid had stated positively that if defeated he would retire. This declaration of intention--no doubt at the moment sincerely made--was designed to check the falling away from Laurier's leaders.h.i.+p in Quebec, which was becoming more noticeable as election day drew near. But the appeal was ineffective.. The effective opposition to Laurier in Quebec came not from Borden or from Monk, the official leader of the French Conservatives, but from Boura.s.sa. Laurier and his lieutenants fought desperately, but in vain, to break the strengthening hold of the younger man on the sympathies of the French electors. In Quebec the custom of the joint open air political meeting is still popular, and at such a concourse in St. Hyacinthe, an old Liberal stronghold, Sir Wilfrid's colleagues, Lemieux and Beland, met a notable defeat at the hands of Boura.s.sa--an incident which clearly revealed how the winds were blowing. Boura.s.sa, fanatically "nationalist" in his convictions and free from any political necessity to consider the reactions elsewhere of his doctrines, was outbidding Sir Wilfrid in the latter's own field. Laurier received the news of the electoral result in a hall in Quebec East, surrounded by the electors of the const.i.tuency which had been faithful to him for 40 years. He accepted the blow with the tranquil fort.i.tude which was his most notable personal characteristic; but the feature in the disaster which must have made the greatest demand upon his stoicism was this indication that his old surbordinate and one time friend was--apparently--about to supplant him in the leaders.h.i.+p of his own people. The election figures showed that whereas Laurier had carried 49 seats in Quebec in 1896, 58 in 1900, 54 in 1904 and again in 1908, he had been successful in only 38 const.i.tuencies against 27 for the Conservatives and Nationalists combined. Laurier, at the moment of his defeat, was within two months of entering upon his 70th year. He had been 40 years in public life; for 24 years leader of his party; for 15 years prime minister. He had had a long and distinguished career; and he had gone out of office upon an issue which, with confidence, he counted upon time to vindicate. He had long cherished a purpose to write a history of his times. The moment was, therefore, opportune for retirement; and it must be a.s.sumed that he gave some thought to the advisability or otherwise of living up to his St. Jerome pledge. But neither his own inclination nor the desire of his followers pointed to retirement; and the next session of parliament found him in the seat he had occupied twenty years before as leader of the opposition. The party demand for his continuance in the leaders.h.i.+p was virtually unanimous. There was only one possible successor to Sir Wilfrid--Mr. Fielding. But he was not in parliament. Also he was in disfavour as the general whose defensive plan of campaign had ended in disaster. His name suggested "Reciprocity"--a word the Liberals were quite willing, for the time being, to forget. He was left to lie where he had fallen. For some years he lived in political obscurity, and it was only the emergence of the Unionist movement which made possible his re-entrance to public life and his later career.

THE REVIVAL OF LIBERAL HOPES

When Sir Wilfrid resumed the leaders.h.i.+p after the formality of tendering his resignation to the party caucus it meant, in fact, that he intended to die in the saddle. Thereafter Sir Wilfrid talked much about the inexpediency of continuing in the leaders.h.i.+p, and often used language foreshadowing his resignation--indeed the letters quoted by Professor Skelton in the latter chapters of his book abound in these intimations--but these came to be regarded by those in the know as portents: implying an intention to insist upon policies to which objections were likely to develop within the party.

Notwithstanding the severity of their defeat--they were in a minority of 45 in the House--the Liberals in opposition showed a good fighting front, and ere long hope revived. The Borden government found itself in difficulties from the moment of taking office--largely by reason of the tactics by which Laurier's supremacy in Quebec had been undermined. The Nationalist chiefs declined an invitation to enter the government, but they controlled the Quebec appointments to the cabinet, and thus a.s.sumed a quasi-responsibility for the new government's policy. The result was disastrous to them; for the Borden government, subject to the influences that had enabled it to sweep Ontario, could not concern itself with the preservation of Boura.s.sa's fortunes. The extension of the Manitoba boundaries was a blow to the Nationalists; they failed in their efforts to preserve the educational rights of the minority in the added territory. Laurier had evaded this issue; Borden could not evade it, and by its settlement Boura.s.sa was damaged. Still more disastrous to the Nationalist cause was the naval policy which Mr. Borden submitted to Parliament in the session of 1912-1913. There was in its presentation an ingenious attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable which deceived n.o.body. The contribution of the three largest dreadnoughts that could be built was to satisfy the Conservatives; the Nationalists were expected to be placated by the a.s.surance that this contribution was merely to meet an emergency, leaving over for later consideration the question of a permanent naval policy. But all the circ.u.mstances attending the setting out of the policy--the report of the admiralty, the letters of Mr. Churchill, the speeches by which it was supported with their insistence upon the need for common naval and foreign policies--made it only too clear that it marked the abandonment of the Canadian naval policy which had been entered upon only four years before with the consent of all parties and the acceptance in principle of the Round Table view of the Imperial problem. Laurier challenged the proposition whole-heartedly. Here was familiar fighting ground. From the moment they joined battle with the government the Liberals found their strength growing. They were indubitably on firm ground. They were helped mightily by Mr. Churchill's attempted intervention in which he belittled Canadian capacity in a manner worthy of Downing street in its palmiest days. Mr. Churchill had the bright idea of coming to Canada to take a hand personally in the controversy. A Canadian-born member of the British House of Commons sounded out various Canadians as to the nature of the reception Mr. Churchill would receive. Mr. Churchill did not come--fortunately for the government. The Liberals fought the proposition so furiously in the Commons that the government had to introduce closure to secure its pa.s.sage through the commons, whereupon the Liberal majority in the Senate threw it out. The Liberal policy was to challenge the government to submit the issue to the people in a general election.

That within eighteen months from the date of their disastrous defeat the Liberals should invite a second trial of strength spoke of rapidly reviving confidence. The government ignored the challenge, for very good reasons. In the sequel Laurier, as with all his policies having to deal with Imperial questions, was amply justified. The policy of Dominion navies was never again seriously questioned in Canada; when admiralty officials, true to form, challenged it in 1918 it was Sir Robert Borden who defended it, to some purpose.

These developments were fatal to Quebec Nationalism as a distinct political force under the direction of Mr. Boura.s.sa. The ideas that inspired it did not lapse. Nor did Mr. Boura.s.sa, as apostle of these ideas, lose his personal eminence. But the electors in sympathy with these ideals began to develop views of their own as to the political action required by the times. Their alliance with the Conservatives had brought them no satisfaction. They had ejected the most eminent living French-Canadian from the premiers.h.i.+p to the very evident injury of Quebec's influence in Confederation--that about represented the sum of their achievements. The thought that they had been on the wrong track began to grow in their minds. The conditions making for the creation of the Quebec bloc were developing. The disposition was to get together under a common leaders.h.i.+p. It was still a question as to whether, in the long run, that leader should be Laurier or Boura.s.sa; but all the conditions favored Laurier. For one thing, he could command a large body of support outside of his own province which it was quite beyond the power of Boura.s.sa to duplicate. The swing to Laurier was so marked that by 1914 the confident prediction was made by good political judges that if there were an election Laurier would carry 60 out of the 65 seats in Quebec. Such a vote meant victory. Sir Wilfrid was slow in coming to believe that an early reversal of the decision of 1911 was possible; but finally found himself infected with the hopefulness of his following. Hard times became a powerful ally of the Liberals and the government suffered from the first shock of the impending railway collapse. The course of the party lay clear before it; it was to see that the conditions in Quebec remained favorable and to await, with patience, the coming of an election which would reopen the doors to office. But not too much patience, for the years were slipping past.

Laurier was in his 73rd year.

THE PARTIES AND THE WAR

Such were the political conditions: a government in a position of growing doubtfulness and a combative and confident opposition--when Canada found herself plunged over night into the Great War. Under the high emotion of this venture into the unknown politics vanished for a brief moment from the land. If that moment could have been seized for a sacred union of hearts dedicated to the great task of carrying on the war how different would the whole future of Canada have been! In the fires of war our sectional and racial intractibilities might have been fused into an enduring alliance. But Canadian statesmans.h.i.+p was not equal to the opportunity. For this Sir Wilfrid has no accountability. There is no question of the correctness and generosity of his att.i.tude as revealed in the war session of August, 1914. From a speech in the next session it might be inferred that he would have gone farther than he did if overtures had been made to him.

In Canada, as elsewhere, the war spelt opportunity for more than the patriot and the hero. The schemer, resolute to make the war serve his ends, appeared everywhere. From the morrow of those first days of high exaltation the two currents ran side by side in Canada: the clear tide of valor and self-sacrifice, the muddy stream of cowardice and self-seeking. There was an influential element in the dominant party which was determined to exploit the war to the limit for political and personal interests. The war meant patronage; it must be placed where it would do the most party good. It meant an opportunity for artificial and perfectly safe distinction; this must be employed for increasing the political availability of friends.

Political colonels began to adorn the landscape. It meant a corking good issue upon which an election could be won; why not take advantage of it? While the government officially was leading a united people into action, these scheming political profiteers were perfecting their plans for appealing to the people on the ground that the government--a party government which had not invited any measure of close co-operation from the opposition--must have a mandate to carry on the war. There is a quite authentic story of a leading Canadian being cheered up on a train journey by a.s.surances from a travelling companion, a friend holding high office, that events were shaping for certain victory; until he learned that the enemy about to be defeated was the "d.a.m.n Grits." The battle of Ypres in April, 1915, saved Canada from an ign.o.ble general election on the meanest of issues. Though some of the conspirators still pressed for an election, it soon became apparent that the proposal was abhorrent to public opinion. Canadians could not bring themselves to the point of fighting one another while their sons and brothers were dying side by side in the mud of Flanders.

The danger of a profound division of the Canadian people in war-time pa.s.sed; but irretrievable damage had been done to the cause of national unity. In considering subsequent events these unhappy developments of the first year of the war cannot be overlooked.

Party feeling among the Liberals had been held in leash with difficulty; now it was running free again. The att.i.tude of the party towards the government was in effect: "You have tried to play politics with the war; very well, you will find that this is a game that two can play at." The strategy looking to a future trial of strength was skilfully planned. There was no challenge to the government plans. It was given full liberty of action upon the understanding that it would accept full responsibility and be prepared to render an account in due time to parliament and people.

The tactics were those of paying out the rope as the government called for it. The att.i.tude of the Liberal leaders towards the war was unexceptionable. Sir Wilfrid's recruiting speeches--and he made many of them--were admirable; and he did not hesitate to point the way of duty to the young men of his own province. Upon things done or not done the att.i.tude of the parliamentary Liberals was increasingly critical; and the government, it must be said, with its scandals over supplies, its favoritism in recruiting, its beloved Ross rifle, gave plenty of opportunity to opposition critics. With every month that pa.s.sed the political advantage that had come to the government, because it was charged with the task of making war, waned.

General elections were due in the autumn of 1916. It became a serious question of Liberal policy to decide between agreeing to an extension of the life of parliament, which the government intended to request, and the forcing of an election. Two lieutenants of Sir Wilfrid toured Western Canada sounding Liberal opinion; their disappointment was obvious when, in a conference with a group of Liberals in Winnipeg, they found opinion solidly adverse to an election. Their reasons for an election were plainly stated--in brief they were that on the details of its war management the government could be, and, in their judgement, should be, beaten. But Sir Wilfrid, with his hand on the country's pulse, could not be stampeded. He saw, more clearly than his lieutenants, the danger to the party of refusing an extension at that time. A twelve months was added to the life of parliament with a reservation in the minds of the Liberals that the first extension would be the last. This meant an election in 1917.

THE NATIONALISTS AND ONTARIO

Mr. Boura.s.sa was acutely conscious of the development of opinion in Quebec favorable to the Liberals, and he sought to retain his hold upon his following by the tactics which in the first place had given him his following--by going to extremes and outbidding Laurier. The chief article in the Nationalist creed was that Canada was everywhere a bilingual country, French being on an equality with English in all the provinces. This contention rested upon a conglomeration of arguments, a.s.sertions, a.s.sumptions, inferences, and it was backed by thinly disguised threats of political action.

The opposing contention that bilingualism had a legal basis only in Quebec and in the Dominion parliament with its services and courts was interpreted as an insult. Mr. Lavergne, the chief lieutenant of Mr. Boura.s.sa, was wont to wax furiously indignant over the suggestion, as he put it, that he must "stay on the reservation" if he was to enjoy the privileges that he held to be equally his in whatever part of Canada he might find himself.

Events in Ontario put the test of reality to the Nationalist theories. A feud broke out between the English-speaking and the French-speaking Catholics over the language used for instruction in separate schools where both languages were represented; and resulting investigation revealed a state of affairs suggesting something very like a conspiracy to minimize or even abolish the use of English in all school areas where the French were in control.

Resulting regulations and legislation intended to put a stop to these conditions gave French a definitely subordinate status. This fired the heather, and later somewhat similar action by Manitoba added fuel to the flames. The Nationalist agitation was resumed with increased vehemence in Quebec; and the Ontario minority were encouraged to defy the regulations by a.s.surances that means would be found to bring Ontario to time. In addition to legal action (which brought in the end a finding by the Privy Council completely destroying the Nationalist claim that bilingualism was implied in the scheme of Confederation) various ingenious attempts were made to apply pressure to Ontario. The most daring, and in results the most disastrous, was the threat that if Ontario did not remove the "grievances of the minority" the people of Quebec would go on strike against further partic.i.p.ation in the war. That dangerous doctrine operating upon a popular mind impregnated with suspicion of the motives and intentions behind Canada's war activities, produced the situation which made inevitable the developments of 1917. The movement against Ontario was Nationalist in its spirit, its inspiration and its direction. Side by side with it went a Nationalist agitation of ever-increasing boldness against the war.

Ammunition for this campaign was readily found in the imputations, innuendoes, charges, mendacities of the Labor and pacifist extremists of Great Britain and France; they lost none of their malignancy in the retelling. Boura.s.sa included Laurier in the scope of his denunciations. Laurier's loyal support of the war and his candid admonitions to the young men of his own race made him the target for Boura.s.sa's shafts. Something more than a difference of view was reflected in Boura.s.sa's harangues; there was in them a distillation of venom, indicating deep personal feeling. "Laurier,"

he once declared in a public meeting, "is the most nefarious man in the whole of Canada." Boura.s.sa hated Laurier. Laurier had too magnanimous a mind to cherish hate; but he feared Boura.s.sa with a fear which in the end became an obsession. He feared him because, if he only retained his position in Quebec, Liberal victory in the coming Dominion elections would not be possible. Laurier feared him still more because if Boura.s.sa increased his hold upon the people, which was the obvious purpose of the raging, tearing Nationalist propaganda, he would be displaced from his proud position as the first and greatest of French-Canadians. Far more than a temporary term of power was at stake. It was a struggle for a niche in the temple of fame. It was a battle not only for the affection of the living generation, but for place in the historic memories of the race. Laurier, putting aside the weight of 75 years and donning his armor for his last fight, had two definite purposes: to win back, if he could, the prime ministers.h.i.+p of Canada; but in any event to establish his position forever as the unquestioned, unchallenged leader of his own people. In this campaign--which covered the two years from the moment he consented to one year's extension of the life of parliament until election day in 1917--he had repeatedly to make a choice between his two purposes; and he invariably preferred the second. In the sequel he missed the premiers.h.i.+p; but he very definitely accomplished his second desire. He died the unquestioned leader, the idol of his people; and it may well be that as the centuries pa.s.s he will become the legendary embodiment of the race--like King Arthur of the English awaiting in the Isle of Avalon the summons of posterity. As for Boura.s.sa, he may live in Canadian history as Douglas lives in the history of the United States--by reason of his relations with the man he fought.

THE BILINGUAL EPISODE

The Canadian house of commons was the vantage point from which Sir Wilfrid carried on the operations by which he unhorsed Boura.s.sa.

Here we find the explanation of much that appears inexplicable in the political events of 1916 and 1917. Laurier was out to demonstrate that he was the true champion of Quebec's views and interests, because he could rally to her cause the support of a great national party. Hence the remarkable projection of the bilingual issue into the proceeding of parliament in May, 1916. The question as an Ontario one could only be dealt with by the Ontario authorities once it was admitted--Sir Wilfrid being in agreement--that disallowance was not possible. Yet Sir Wilfrid brought the issue into the Dominion parliament. If he had done this merely for the purpose of making his own att.i.tude of sympathy with his compatriots in Ontario clear, the course would have been of doubtful political wisdom, in view of his responsibilities to the party he led. But he insisted upon a formal resolution being submitted.

Professor Skelton, in the pa.s.sages dealing with this episode, shows him whipping up a reluctant party and compelling it, by every influence he could command, to follow him. The writer, arriving in Ottawa when this situation was developing, was informed by a leading Liberal member of parliament that the "old man" had thought out a wonderful stroke of tactics by which he was going to strengthen himself in Quebec and at the same time do no harm in Ontario--a feat beside which squaring the circle would be child's play. Very brief enquiry revealed the situation. Sir Wilfrid was determined to have a resolution and a vote. The western Liberals were in revolt; the Ontario Liberals were reluctant but were prepared to be coerced; most of the maritime province Liberals were obedient, but there was a minority strongly opposed. Theoretically the formula that there was to be no coercion, each member voting as his conscience directed, was honored; but Sir Wilfrid had found it necessary to indicate that if in the outcome it should be found that any considerable number of his supporters were not in agreement with him, he would be obliged to interpret this as indicating that the party no longer had confidence in him. Professor Skelton supplies the evidence that Sir Wilfrid pressed the threat to resign almost to the breaking point. He actually wrote out something which was supposed to be a resignation before the Ontario Liberals capitulated. The western Liberals were of sterner stuff; they stood to their guns. No resignation followed. "The defection of the western Liberals," says Professor Skelton, "forced from Sir Wilfrid a rare outbreak of anger." The use of the word "defection" is enlightening, as showing Professor Skelton's att.i.tude towards the Liberals who in those trying times adhered to their convictions against the party whip. He is a thorough-going partisan, which, in an official biographer, is perhaps the right thing.

The writer's activities in encouraging opposition to these party tactics led to a long interview with Sir Wilfrid, in which there was considerable frank language used on both sides. Sir Wilfrid gave every indication that he was profoundly moved by what he called "the plight of the French-Canadians of Ontario." They were, he said, politically powerless and leaderless; the provincial Liberal leaders, who should have been their champions, had abandoned them; the obligation rested upon him to come to their rescue. The suggestion that, while he might be within his rights in thus expressing his individual views, he should not seek to make it a party matter in view of the strong differences of opinion within the party, was rather impatiently brushed aside. Still less respect was shown the observation that it was not desirable that the Liberal party should identify itself with a resolution the carrying of which meant a general election in the height of the war upon a race and religious issue. Sir Wilfrid, in the course of the conversation, touched quite frankly upon the necessities of the Quebec political situation. He advanced the argument, which was put forward so persistently a year later, that it must be made possible for him to keep control of Quebec province, since the only alternative was the triumph of Boura.s.sa extremism, which might involve the whole Dominion in conflict and ruin.

The episode pa.s.sed apparently without disruptive results; but surface indications were misleading. In reality a heavy blow had been struck at the unity of the Liberal party; there began to be questionings in unexpected quarters of the Laurier leaders.h.i.+p. What had happened was only too clear, to those who looked at the situation steadily. Party policy had been shaped with a single eye to Quebec necessities; and party feeling, party discipline, the personal authority of Laurier has been drawn on heavily to secure acceptance of this policy by Liberals who did not favor it. But there is in politics, as in economics, a law of diminis.h.i.+ng returns.

A year later the same tactics applied to a situation of greater gravity ended in disaster. The split which came in 1917 followed pretty exactly the split that would have come in 1916 over bilingualism, had the Liberal members not been constrained by their devotion to party regularity to vote against their convictions.

THE MOVEMENT FOR NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

The movement for national government long antedated the emergence of the issue of conscription; it was, in its origin, Liberal. Its most persistent advocates in the later months of 1916 and the opening months of 1917 were Liberal newspapers, among them the Manitoba Free Press; and there was an answer from the public which showed that the appeal for a union of all Canadians who were concerned with "getting on with the war" made a deep appeal to popular feeling. The most determined resistance came from the Conservatives. The ministerial press could see nothing in it but a Grit scheme to break up the Borden government, which they lauded as being in itself a "national government" of incomparable merit. But that movement was equally disconcerting to the Liberal strategists since it threatened to interfere with their plans for a battle, to end, as they confidently believed, in a Liberal victory. In January, 1917, Sir Wilfrid could see nothing in the movement but an attempt to prevent a French-Canadian from succeeding to the premiers.h.i.+p, and wrote in those terms to N. W. Rowell.

An offer by Sir Robert Borden to Sir Wilfrid Laurier to join him in a national government would have been unwelcome at any time excepting perhaps in the first months in the war; but in the form in which it finally came, in May, 1918, it was trebly unacceptable. Sir Wilfrid was asked to help in the formation of a national government to put into effect a policy of conscription, already determined upon.