After Fifteen Years, of Office.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVLI, Issue 13, 27 September 1911, Page 2

After Fifteen Years, of Office.

The Laurier Government Defeated. —A Great Canadian Statesman. Cable ncics from Ottawa on September 22 staled the Canadian general Parliamentary elections hare taken place throughout the Dominion, "resulting in the defeat of the Laurier (loeernment. Ticelce of the members of the Ministry u:<r.t defeated, the only three elected being S'ir Wilfrid Laurier [Prime Minister') M Wwi. Pugsley i Minister for Public Works, and Mr. Frank Oliver [Minister for ■the Interior). Sir Wilfrid Laurier has expressed his tcillingness to lead the position in the new House, and therefore his projected retirement has been deferred indefinitely.

IN the “’American Review of Reviews” Mr. Alexander Harvey gives a brilliant sketch, of the greatest of Britain's Colonial Premiers. The following extracts will be read with special interest: — "Sir Wilfrid Laurier, most illustrious of living Canadians and tire one colonial statesman of international significance anywhere in the- world, anticipated Joseph Chamberlain in urging a preferential tariff within' the- British Empire. Sir Wilfrid made an end of the Tory attitude, to the. United States which once swayed patriotic Canada—AngloSaxon as well 'as French. Sir Wilfrid taught the Dominion to think nationally, to look upon Canada less as .a dependency than as a sister nation with.other dominions forming a great empire. "Ho won for Canada a real treatymaking power, independent of the Gov-

ernment at Home. Downing-street was slow in yielding this last point, but, when it did. Sir Wilfrid took instant advantage of it. His success is explicable only in the light of his incomparable and persuasive personality.

"A graciousness of manner that gives fine expression to the Gallic temperament of the man is, perhaps, next to a genius for statesmanship, the most splendid asset of Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

"Sir Wilfrid's father, the late Carolus laturier, gained local prominence as an operator in land, but he seems to have achieved little wealth. What talent the young man possessed came, like his good looks, from the mother, who is still recalled in local history as one of the belles of the province. The Lauriers belonged to the local aristocracy of rural Quebec. The boy -went at an early age for religious instruction to the priest of the pariah, and by the time he was fifteen he had made his first communion and been confirmed. Even then he had won

celebrity for himself by a wonderful personal beauty and a no less wonderful distinction of bearing. French wa« naturally, his native tongue, but as he neared manhood English became as familiar to him as the other. “The .college in his native parish of Assomption afforded him his academic training, and there he seems to have acquired likewise that mastery of the technical side of oratory to which the French attach rather more importance than do Anglo-i Saxons. Very earlv ire life the youth learned that clearness of enunciation, and that readiness of extemporisation which to this day characterise his public addresses. He went up to that alma mater of great Canadians, McGill University, while yet lie was the merest youth. Nothing seems to have been alien to the genius of his mind, whether science, the arts, or that kind of litera-

ture which is called polite. "Wide as was his reading, however, and eager as grew his intellectual curiosity, he seems never to have wavered in devotion to the faith of his fathers. Ho was as regular.in youth in his attendance to Mass as he remained in the days of his greatness and power. Sir Wilfrid Laurier never permits himself to omit X punctual attendance at church on Sundays and holy days of obligation whether he be at home or abroad, for he Catholic to the core, as were his parents before him. “It was rumoured that the Ohnrcli jtself regarded him with a certain dubousness. There were reports of one or. two discussions—not to call them collisions—with the Archbishop. More than once since there have l>een reports of animated discussions, not to say differences, between Sir Wilfrid and the ArUir bishop.

■ “By the time lie had attained manBicdd, |he |fut'i4i*e Prime Minister of Ithe Dominion was a lawyer in Montreal. It cannot be said that his rise was rapid, but it was certainly steady. He displayed that aptitude for cementing personal friendships which has remained iiis most wonderful asset as a political leader. Handsome in his appearance, exquisite lin his manners, kindly in his Ibearing, the young Montreal lawyer' won respect for his sincerity no less than for his ability. The severest critic of Sir Wilfrid has yet to accuse him of Concealing’ beneath a polished manner the real sentiments of luis heart. A inian may smile and smile and be a Mr Wilfrid Laurier without imputations discreditable to his candour. “His one difficulty' .appears to. have jbeen then and since a lack of the nobust constitution. When Sir Wilfrid nvas thirty' the legislature of his native Quebec had long been a most dignified (but highly' conservative .body.

“No doubt it was Sir Wilfrid’s sense of humour that helped his tact in so 'delicate a dilemma as his race and j'cligi-on on the one hand created for his liberal polities on the other. For he lias an inimitable ’humour—'something ‘quite unlike the storey-telling jocosity »f the American politiean, of 'course, yet absolute in its,sphere and in every' way as effective... His most exquisite ‘device would be described on our 'side of Hie frontier as giving himself away. Sir (Wilfrid Laurier dearly sovt.es to -tell an "audience that whatever his opponents alleged against bis ease is perfectly true. Only the conclusions he draws from the 'circumstances are never disconcerting to himself. ■ - ' >

“Behold the young Laurier, then, a Self-made man at the age of -Thirtythree, wedded already to the Montreal belle, Mademoiselle ■ Zoe Lafontairie, and n member of what may be called the federal assembly .of the Dominion. He livas already, famed as the most brilliant orator in Canada, employing with equal mastery' the two languages, and insisting everywhere that his allegiance.was to Britain. ' It was a new note for a French Canadian, but he sounded it high and clear.”-. ■ . His , rise was' .hailed sympathetically in Paris, whither he proceeded not long after his Ministry’ came into being: —

“He must have had the reflection forced upon him-, as the London “Times” dryly' observed amid the medley of compliments paid him in France, that as a French Canadian and a Catholic he has no reason to prefer the rule of the French Republic to that of the British Empire.

“Such seems to have been Sir Wilfrid’s idea then and long before. xie has emphasised the British connection ever since. Nor has lie lost prestige with ‘his own race thereby.

"’Cine faet emerges clearly. Joseph (liam'berlain’s preferential tariff crusade was based unblushingly upon policies that took shape originally In the brain of the greatest Colonial statesman the British Empire has ever possessed. However, Sir Wilfrid never linked the awkward fa-ct' that he rules a new manufacturing country. He is 1a theoretical free trader only.

’ The political jiarty to which he lias adhered ever since the day, fifteen years back, upon which he assumed the post of Prime Minister, has been called a national policy, a policy' of building up the Canadian State. The aims of Sir Wilfrid are to unify if not to amalgamate the French Canadians and Canadians of Anglo-Saxon origin, to establish the economic independence of the Dominion as against both Great Britain and the United States, to secure for ( anada the position of a kingdom within rhe British Empire as independent, let Its say, as Hungary is of Austria, to CiCiL a protective tariff wall of defence about Canadian industries as a basis for reciprocity negotiation lin the direction of freer trade—let it be repeated that Sir Wilfrid is a theoretical free, trader—to span the Dominion with trans-continental railroad systems, to develop export markets within the British Empire. That is nearly all. The remaining part of ‘the Laurier policy Concerns us vitally. It is reciprocity.”

Laurier Gorerament Defeated. 1 he recent election was fought entirely On tljc Reciprocity question, Sir Wilfrid Lauriey having secured li dissolution two the ci,d of the life of the last Parliament, under ordinary condiin order to appeal to the country n the question of adopting the treaty; which" course tire Opposition pilt up a

great and determined fight. The Laurier Government has held office continuously since 1896, and in the last Parliament, in a House of 221 members, had 133 members to the 87 led by Mr. Borden, one being Independent. The Redistribution Bill was not passed before the dissolution, and the representation is therefore the same as in the last Parliament, 86 being ejected for Ontario, 65 for Quebec, 18 for Nova Scotia, 13 for New Brunswick, 10 for Manitoba, seven for British Columbia, four for Prince Edward Island, seven for Alberta, 10 for Saskatchewan, and one for Yukon. The West, with its enormous increase of population in recent years, was thus to. a certain extent dis : franchised, since it must have had ' u iiiuch larger representation under the redistribution.

- Mr. R. L. Borden, who is, to. succeed, has about him little of the" magnetism.of a Laurier. ; He cannot, draw by the strength of his own personality. Jar ten years has he headed the Conservative cause, and no one can deny that he has led and worked with consummate ability. He fell on evil times. The days of hi*, reign have been days of darkness ‘and dreariness for his party. - For fifteen years they' have been out of power—fifteen years of constant struggling with one of the strongest political tides ever known in the history of the Dominion—and opposed to him throughout, a pastmaster in the art of Parliamentary strategy. His speech is essentially that of the business man, of the lawyer who has a case to argue, and who argues it. There is a directness about his style that is not without its attractiveness. He is rather profuse in denunciation at times; he never calls a spade by a more euphemistic word. Throughout the . length and breadth of the Dominion, the one appeal of the Conservative leader ha* been for “clean polities.” With corruption he will have nothing to do. Me,ha* sounded the Imperial note with increasing intensity as Sir Wilfrid Laurier became less emphatic in his declaration, and he has very firmly repudiated any talk of annexation to the United States," or of cutting the painter.