SIR WILFRID LAURIER.*
Fort anyone who desires a rapid and condensed survey of Canadian politics since the 'eighties, Mr. Dafoe's little volume of four essays, reprinted from the Manitoba Free Press, is admirable—for Sir Wilfrid Laurier's political career practically covered the past thirty years ; he was actually Prime Minister of Canada without a break from-July, 1896, to October, 1911. Certainly no Canadian journalist 'is better fitted 'for the task than Mr. Defoe, who was so closely associated with the great Liberal leader and who -has been so.intimately connected with many of the events described. " Was Sir Wilfrid Laurier a great man whose name will endure ? " is a question -which occurs to the British reader. His official biographer,: Professor Skelton, is inclined to over-emphasize the qualities and achievements of his hero. Mr. Defoe wisely -keeps .a .more even keel and the reader can form his own judgment. Sir Wilfrid Laurier had undoubtedly many elements of greatness— his love for his native land and above all for his native Province of Quebec ; his integrity, his political judgment, his eloquence—but it is as an extraordinarily astute politician that most of us of this generation will remember him.
Laurier's attitude towards the British Empire, despite all his gilded phrases, and wonderful they were, was one of lukewarmness—it must be admitted, however, that his task was one of great difficulty and he always had his ear to the soil of his native Quebec Province. That he was a man endowed with exceptional powers of foresight is indisputable. The writer of this review recalls a private discussion with him at the Château Frontenac at Quebec in 1906, when the subject under consideration was the future of the British Empire. These were Sir Wilfrid's words at the time :—
" An Anglo-Saxon Imperialism which leaves out of its reckonings one of the most important sections of the Race cannot be said to rest on the surest foundations. How can you omit from your reckonings the United States with its present population of over eighty millions and fifty years hence double that number ? "
When these words were uttered there was no EnglishSpeaking Union and the coming together again—we are not writing in a political sense—of the American and British people as a result of the War had not yet taken place ; all the more remarkable this prophecy on the part of the FrenchCanadian patriot.
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