to such a law under a government representing but one of the political parties is another. Inevitably there would be accusations of unfairness; the party in office would be charged with discriminating against the party out of office; men eligible for military service would resent, and possibly resist, their compulsory drafting by officials whom they regarded as of the camp of their political adversaries. Therefore, both for the purpose of keeping the war-time election as free as possible from discord, and for the purpose of obtaining through that election the largest unanimity in support of the Military Service Act, Sir Robert almost from the day of his return from the Imperial War Conference last summer laboured to form a Union Government.

Parliament had come to be too generally looked upon as a party arena where gladiators of two opposing camps contended. Extremes of partyism that would have been ruled out a generation previously had come to be recognized as legitimate in parliamentary warfare. Measures designed for the public good and for identifying the country with the Empire were treated by the Opposition, whatever its party complexion, as mere manœuvres to catch votes, and Opposition strategy was too often directed to frustrating those measures, even when their merits were recognized. In a country of intelligent and loyal people this state of affairs was bound to come to an end no matter how artfully party strife might be egged on. In the general election of 1911, the issue being the reciprocity pact with the United States, many Ontario Liberals left their party and voted against reciprocity, less on economic grounds than because they regarded the agreement as too strongly committing Canada's tariff fortunes to those of the United States, thereby thwarting the Imperial preference policy then occupying the thoughts of many of the Canadian people. On the other hand, the economic argument in favour of the pact had great weight with the people of the Western Provinces. In Saskatchewan and Alberta the vote was strongly in favour of the pact, though in Manitoba and British Columbia it was overwhelmingly against the pact. Economic considerations count for more with the West to-day even than they did then, but observers of that part of the country would grievously wrong it if they mistook its leaning towards reciprocity with the United States to mean alienation

from the Empire. Together the provinces of the West have sent more men to the front per thousand of population than any other province of Canada has sent. So far from being wedded to any particular party, notwithstanding the seeming bondage of Saskatchewan and Alberta to Liberalism, the serious business of Western politics is the building up of the West. What with the revolt against the excesses of partyism in Ontario, the racialism of Quebec, and the economic preoccupation of Western Canada, the time was at hand when the destinies of the Dominion could not be determined simply by a contest between Grits and Tories, made the most of by players of the lone hand in Quebec. The war and Canada's keen participation in it, Sir Robert Borden fortunately being Prime Minister, hurried to completion the leavening process of union that for some time before had been silently working among the parties and sections in Canada, and inaugurated, every loyal British Canadian hopes, a new and more splendid era in the history of the country.

The greatest difficulty confronting Sir Robert's compulsory service policy, and his efforts to unite both political parties in support of it, came from Quebec. Almost from the first that province had been worse than listless towards Canada's part in the war. According to an official report the number of FrenchCanadians who had enlisted in Quebec by the end of last winter did not exceed ten thousand, whereas some five thousand French-Canadians in other parts of the country had offered themselves and been accepted. From the first the efforts to obtain volunteers in Quebec were discouraged. Recruiting meetings were attended by disturbers, speakers were howled down, and young French-Canadians who showed any disposition to enlist were made to feel that if they donned the uniform they would get the cold shoulder from their friends. A few of the newspapers and some of the men of influence in the province reprobated this conduct; but for the most part the press excused it, and other men, prominent in the public life of the province, used ingenious if not ingenuous arguments to prove that the blame for the disturbances really rested on the government. Men who were looked up to by the younger generation publicly urged that the European war was no concern of Canada's, and that Canada ought to keep out of it until she found herself in danger of invasion.

The man who made himself most conspicuous in this way was Mr. Henri Bourassa, editor of Le Devoir, a French evening paper published in Montreal. Mr. Bourassa was not a member of the last parliament, nor has he been elected to the new parliament, but he is the recognized leader of the Nationalists, a political group which had its rebirth in a former controversy in the Quebec Liberal party over Canada's part in the Empire's defence. Mr. Bourassa was a member of the House that was elected in 1896, when Sir Wilfrid Laurier took office. Sir Wilfrid had no more admiring disciple than this somewhat restless and brilliant man. But the South African war came between them. In October, 1899, Mr. Bourassa resigned his seat in order to go back to his electors and submit his anti-Imperialist views to them. He was returned by acclamation. From that time until he left the Dominion Parliament in 1907 he was not a thoroughgoing supporter of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's. He was against Canadians participating in the South African war, he was against the measure for establishing a Canadian navy in 1910, and he is against Canada's taking part in the present war. In his newspaper he opposed the volunteering stage of recruiting and more strenuously opposed the drafting stage.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier, as the leader of an all-Canada party, felt that he must play his cards skilfully to make that party a winning one at the polls. The strength of some successful party leaders lies, not in their parliamentary management, their adroitness, or their personal magnetism, but in the compelling soundness of their public policy. Other successful party leaders owe little of their mastery to their statesmanship and much to their skill in handling men and groups. Sir Wilfrid Laurier belongs to the latter group. It is not to be said that he takes no account of public policy, but in his philosophy party generalship comes first.

In the case of the South African war Sir Wilfrid could say to his English-speaking followers that the men who desired to volunteer to serve the Empire had been permitted to do so; to his French-speaking followers he said that he had not sent any troops to fight Great Britain's battles; that he had simply allowed those who wanted to form a contingent to do so, and that he had left Great Britain to bear the cost. It was only under strong pressure from English

speaking Canada that Sir Wilfrid had gone even that distance.

In his Naval Service Bill, which he introduced into the House early in 1910, and which became law in that session, Sir Wilfrid went farther, but his caution increased as he proceeded. In introducing the measure he said: 'When Britain is at war 'Canada is at war.' When he moved the second reading of the Bill early in the following February he qualified that statement by saying: 'If England is at war we are at war ' and liable to attack. I do not say that we shall always be ' attacked, neither do I say that we would take part in all 'the wars of England. That is a matter that must be guided 'by circumstances, upon which the Canadian Parliament 'will have to pronounce, and will have to decide in its own 'best judgment.' He saw no cause for war arising between the United Kingdom and Germany. In the course of the ensuing debates on the Bill he said in answer to a question: 'Undoubtedly, when England is at war Canada is at war, 'but it does not follow that Canada is bound to take part in 'all the wars in which England is engaged. These wars may 'be very far from Canada. These wars may be of such a character that Canada might have no interest in them. They might be of serious moment or they might be insig'nificant.'

About the time that the Laurier Naval Service Bill was introduced into the House (January, 1910), Mr. Bourassa's paper Le Devoir came into existence. It was out-and-out against the new measure, against Canada's taking part in the Empire's naval defence or in Great Britain's wars. So far from repenting of the separatist ideas he had expressed more than eight years before as a member of parliament opposed to the sending of Canadian volunteers to aid the British forces in South Africa, Mr. Bourassa had evidently become more confirmed therein. In his editorials and speeches he did much to stir up Quebec feeling against the Laurier Naval Service Act. His activity put reviving breath into the Nationalist Party. When the seat for the French-Canadian constituency of Drummond and Athabasca became vacant a Nationalist candidate was returned in the by-election of November, 1910. That was disconcerting to Sir Wilfrid, for the constituency had a long Liberal record. It opened

his eyes to the seriousness of the reaction of his Naval Service Bill upon French-Canadian opinion. The negotiations which were entered upon at that time by the Canadian and American Governments on the subject of reciprocity set a new series of events moving which swept him ten months later to defeat at the polls. Had he foreseen that a general election would so soon be forced upon him he would probably have brought in a Naval Service Bill of a different character. As it was, though tenders for the construction of the warships were called for and received before Sir Wilfrid found himself nearing the rapids of a general election, his government did not give out the contracts. Consequently, in the election campaign of 1911 his Quebec supporters were able to tell the voters that the new navy was still a thing on paper and that they were not to be drawn into Great Britain's wars. But the Laurier Government's inaction in regard to its naval programme did not save the situation, and in the general election of September 21, 1911, Sir Wilfrid was beaten.

His defeat did not weaken his faith in his system of party campaigning. On the contrary, it confirmed him therein. In his Naval Service Bill, careful though he had been not to tip the scales to the British side, he had not weighted the other side enough to suit a large volume of French-Canadian opinion, worked upon as it had been by Mr. Bourassa, Mr. Monk, and others. After the 1911 election, in order to live down his Naval Service Bill, Sir Wilfrid showed himself colder than ever towards proposals to commit Canada to measures of Imperial defence. In the session of 1913 he opposed Sir Robert Borden's Naval Aid Bill to enable the Canadian Government to strengthen the Royal Navy by a gift of three battleships. The Bill passed the House only after a long and extremely bitter party fight; it was defeated in the Senate by Sir Wilfrid's majority there. This time Sir Wilfrid Laurier did not let himself be outdone by Mr. Bourassa as an assertor of Canada's 'autonomy,' and his opposition to the Borden Naval Aid Bill undoubtedly went far to rehabilitate him in the eyes of the Quebec voters who had forsaken him in 1911. It is probable, however, that any gain he had made in Frenchspeaking Canada was more than offset by loss in Englishspeaking Canada.

In other controversies dealt with by the last parliament,