their own acts to determine party
policy and to enforce discipline. Their personalities made these
assumptions of power appear not only inevitable, but proper.
Personal charm, human qualities of sympathy and understanding; an
inflexible will which, except in crises, worked by indirection; the
prestige of office and the glamor of victory; and the accretions of
power which came from the passage of time--half their followers
towards the end of their careers could not remember when other suns
shone in the firmament; all these influences helped to transform
party feeling into that blind worship which drew from Viscount Bryce
his mordant comment.
This venerable but archaic political system did not survive the war.
Beside the loyalties inspired by the war tribal devotion to a party
chief seemed a trivial concern. Canadians, who gave first place to
the need of getting on with the war, viewed with consternation the
readiness of elements in both parties to put their political
interests above the safety and honor of the commonwealth. The
movement for national political unity was born of their concern and
indignation. This development was almost as displeasing to the
Conservative partisans as to the Liberal "legitimists," who upheld
the right, under all circumstances, of Laurier to regain the
premiership; and it was their inveterate and unthinking opposition
that had much to do with the ultimate disruption of the union. They
did not realize, until they got into the elections of 1921, that
their party had disintegrated under the stresses of war.
A study of the origin, achievements, failures, downfall and
consequences of Union government might be of interest, but it does
not come into a survey of the life of Laurier. These matters are
related to the influences that are now making over Canadian
politics; they concern the leaders of to-day, all minor figures in
the 1917 drama. Because the Union government passed without leaving
behind it tangible and visible manifestations of its power, there
are those who regard it as a mere futility--a sword-cut in the
water, as the French say. But of the Union movement it might well be
said: Si monumentum requiris circumspice. The spirit behind the
movement passed with the war, but it left the old traditional party
system in ruins. The readjustments that are going on to-day, the
efforts at the realignment of parties, the attempt to newly appraise
political values, and to redefine political rela
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