sequent to his accession
the Liberal leadership. 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 password.

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 associate 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 reconstituted 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 constituency, 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 l