with
the demise of the Imperial Federation League. Any man fit to be
premier of Canada would have taken pretty much the position that Sir
Wilfrid did. This does not in the least detract from the credit due
Laurier. The task was his and he discharged it with tact, ability,
patience and courage. For his services in holding their future open
for them every British Dominion owes the memory of Laurier a statue
in its parliament square.

PART THREE. FIFTEEN YEARS OF PREMIERSHIP

There have been prime ministers of Canada casually thrown up by the
tide of events and as casually re-engulfed; but Wilfrid Laurier was
not one of them. There may have been something accidental in his
rise to leadership, but his capture of the premiership was a solid
political achievement. The victory of June 23, 1896, crowned with
triumph the daring strategy of the campaign. But popular opinion
regarded the victory as a gift of the gods. The wheel of fortune
spinning from the hands of fate had thrown into the high office of
the premiership one about whose qualifications there was doubt even
in the secret minds of many of his supporters. He was a man of
charming manners and of gracious personality. His carriage on the
platform and the grace and finish of his speaking had fascinated the
public imagination. But what likelihood was there that these
qualities would enable him to deal adequately with the harsh
realities, the stubborn problems which he must face as premier? Most
unlikely, it was generally agreed. The Conservatives, though
profoundly chagrined at the trick fate had played upon them, looked
forward with pleasurable expectation to the revenge that would be
theirs when Laurier, political dilettante and amateur, took up the
burden that had been too great for their own Ulysses. They foresaw a
Laurier regime which for futility and brevity would take its place
in history with the ill-starred prime ministership of Mackenzie. The
average Liberal felt that the government, which would get its
driving force and executive power from someone else--identity not
yet revealed--would have in Laurier a most attractive and genial
figurehead. These illusions long persisted, though there was little
excuse for them on election night and still less a month later when
the Laurier cabinet was in being.

To be a Rouge and to be in Montreal during the three weeks following
the glorious 23rd of June was the height of felicity. After nearly
50 years of proscrip