HENRI BOURASSA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 68, 3 November 1911, Page 3

HENRI BOURASSA.

'.S.C., ill the Sydney “Herald.”) when Sir Wilfrid Laurier accepted .o leadership of the Liberal Party loch years ago, and by bringing with .a me undivided support or Quebec, ovo the Conservatives from power icr their eighteen years of otlico, ioello County, Quebec, sent iiiio .nianicnt for the nrsfc time a brilliyoung orator wiio was just beg*ling’’ to win his spurs at tne Bar. A andson of Louis Papineau, the patit rebel in ISiif, lie was dear to the encli-Canadians, of whom Sir Wilfrid ,s tlicn and long afterwards their .tder. .Possessing a magnetic person,iy sincere to a fault, and endowed .m tlie highest gift of oratory, he ,s a valued lieutenant of the amions Premier, and one day mnay ars ago Sir Wilfrid, musing upon e day which had to come soon or m, said to a colleague, “When 1 ss away the King in Quebec ./ill 1c onri Bourassa.” The day has come, .b not as Laurier dreamed it. liourwa reigns not as successor, but as tor.

jjiko most of great politicians, Laur placed little value on consistency. ,e Liberals fought the tight of 189 b d non it under the banner oi frec•ade, but it was their destiny to give oiiada the highest protective taril! in lie world. (Suspected in 1891 of un,io leaning towards the United Slat- , of which its-' opponent, Sir .John ..i.cdonald, made the most, it ueao perhaps tiie strongest Impcrialisparty in the Empire during the .or war, modified since by strange .bursts of nationalism, which at ics verge upon indiscretions. While neiiding I -r support upon the vJathit; province of Quebec, it strained the yalty of its followers by the iMani>ba school agreement. But although is chief thus displayed political ver•itility which placed him in the front auk of Imperial statesmen, Henri lourassa’s breezy sincerity prevented dm from approving of the ends or the aeans. Ho went into Parliament a Nationalist, and when ho could no ongor follow his leader in Imperial stic paths, he retired from Federal jolitics, to strengthen his influence in Quebec.