these and many more phases of
the changing times bulked larger in the daily life of the people than
the constitutional and political issues with which statesmen and
politicians had to deal and which historians have to describe.

Even in the political and economic change no man and no party had a
dominating share. The Canada of to-day is the creation of millions of
hands, of the known or unknown few who toiled primarily for their
country's advancement, and of the many who sought their own private
ends and made national progress as a by-product. Yet if statesmen
{325} are, on the one hand, not directly responsible for good harvests
or bad, on the other, they are not 'flies on the wheel.' The powers
confided to them are great for good or ill. They may hasten or retard
material progress, and guide, if they cannot create, the current of
national destiny. It is impossible to imagine what different course
the Dominion would have taken had there been no Macdonald and no
Laurier at the helm.

In Sir Wilfrid Laurier's career four guiding principles, four goals of
endeavour, have been steadily kept in view--individual liberty,
collective prosperity, racial and religious harmony, and growth to
nationhood. The end in view was not always reached. The path followed
was not as ruler-straight as the philosopher or the critic would have
prescribed. The leader of a party of many shades of opinion, the ruler
of a country of widely different interests and prejudices and
traditions, must often do not what is ideally best but what is the most
practicable approach to the ideal. Yet with rare consistency and
steadfast courage these ends were held in view. Ever an opportunist as
to means, Wilfrid Laurier has never been an opportunist as to ends.

{326}

The historic task of Liberalism--the promotion, by negative and
positive means alike, of individual freedom with full opportunity for
self-development--has been less urgent in Canada than in many other
lands. Civil liberty Canadians inherited from their fathers overseas.
Political liberty was the achievement of the generation before the
Dominion was formed. Social liberty, the assuring for each man genuine
equality of opportunity, has in great measure been ensured by the wide
spaces of a virgin continent. What legislation is required to
guarantee it further falls for the most part within the scope of the
provincial legislatures; though one most important factor in securing
equa