's policy was fiercely attacked as inadequate and verging
upon disloyalty by the Imperialists. The Conservative opposition,
after one virtuous interlude in 1909 when they showed a fleeting
desire to take a non-political and national view of this matter of
defence, could not resist the temptation to profit by the campaign
against the government's policy; and they joined shrilly in the
derisive cry of "tin pot navy." These onslaughts from opposite camps
were a factor in the elections of 1911; especially in Quebec where
twenty-seven constituencies (against eleven in 1908) elected
opponents of Laurier.

POLICIES THAT ENDURE

Sir Wilfrid fell; but his Imperial policies lived. During the
campaign the old country Imperialists had been very busy from
Rudyard Kipling down--or up--in lending aid to the forces fighting
the Liberal government; and its defeat was the occasion for much
rejoicing among them. Mr. A. Bonar Law, M. P., doubtless voiced
their views when he predicted under the incoming regime, "a real
advance towards the organic union of the Empire." All these hopes,
like many which preceded them, were short-lived; for Sir Robert
Borden, once he got his bearings, took over the Laurier policies and
widened them. In that significant fact the clue to these policies is
found. They were not personal to Laurier, owing their coolness
towards perfervid Chamberlainism to his lack of English blood as his
critics held; they were in fact national policies dictated by the
necessities of the times. To the casual student of the development
of Imperial relations for the decade following 1896, it might seem
that the Liberal conception of an Empire evolving steadily into a
league of free nations was only saved from destruction by the
fortunate circumstance that Sir Wilfrid Laurier was during those
years the representative of Canada at successive Imperial
conferences; but this would be, perhaps, to put his services too
high. Canada's public men have never failed her in the critical
times in her history when attempts were made through ignorance or
design to turn her aside from the high road to national sovereignty;
as witness Gait in 1859, Blake in his long duel with Lord Carnarvon,
Sir John A. Macdonald in 1885, when he resisted the premature demand
for a Canadian contingent for service in the Soudan, Tupper in the
early nineties when his vigorous resistance to the proposal that
Canada should pay tribute for protection had something to do