so strong as the bond created by common dangers faced in common.
To-day there are men in South Africa representing the two branches of
the Canadian family, fighting side by side for the honour of Canada.
Already some of them have fallen, giving to the country the last full
measure of devotion. Their remains have been laid in the same grave,
there to lie to the end of time in that last fraternal embrace. Can we
not hope, I ask my honourable friend himself [Mr Bourassa], that in
that grave shall be buried the last vestiges of our former antagonism?
If such shall be the result, if we can indulge that hope, if we can
believe that in that grave shall be buried our contentions, the sending
of the contingent will be the greatest service ever rendered Canada
since Confederation.

Meanwhile another war, much less honourable than that on the plains of
Africa, was {193} being waged against the Government on the hustings of
Canada. The general elections of 1900 gave countless opportunities for
the unscrupulous and reckless appeals to racial prejudice and for the
charges of disloyalty which have unfortunately marked so many Canadian
political contests. Sir Wilfrid Laurier had to face the attacks of
extremists in both Quebec and Ontario. In Ontario he was denounced for
hesitating to send the first contingent, and particularly for retaining
in his Cabinet Mr Tarte, who was reported to have made anti-imperial
speeches in Paris. Blissfully unaware that before the next general
election they would be lauding the same Tarte to the skies, the chiefs
of the Opposition made their war-cry for Ontario, 'Shall Tarte rule?'
Concurrently in Quebec the prime minister was denounced for sending the
contingent at all, both by Conservatives and by one of the ablest of
his former followers, Henri Bourassa, who had broken with his leader on
this issue and on other more personal grounds. Even the veteran leader
of the Opposition, Sir Charles Tupper, played a double role. 'Sir
Wilfrid Laurier is too English for me,' he declared in Quebec, and
inveighed against the prime minister, whom he characterized as {194} an
advocate of imperialism. But at Toronto, some time later, he strove to
explain away these words and to convince his hearers that Sir Wilfrid
was 'not half British enough.'

Nevertheless, when polling day came in November, the Government was
sustained by an enlarged majority. In Ontario it lost fourteen seats,
but it gained in the mar