he Finance Minister a friend of the common people. The "vicious
circle" of higher wages and higher cost of living was offset by Sir
Thomas White's virtuous circle of money raised in Canada, spent in
Canada, for goods needed by Canada and the Allies at the front. The
formula was 5 1/2 per cent with no taxes, and the best security in the
world--if the war was won, which of course it would be if people bought
Victory Bonds.

In this era of the patriotism of the pocket, common reason almost
tottered from her throne. Ordinary financial logic was forgotten.
Economic delirium took hold of the nation. A broker in those days
could talk in language more mysterious than the polite attentions of a
juggler who pulls an egg from your pocket. Newspapers were full of
jargon that sometimes seemed more fantastic than the theories of the
Holy Rollers. The citizen who could not cash a Victory Bond to pay a
debt was considered behind the times, and the banker who told you that
it was better to sell bonds than to borrow on them at the bank was
regarded as an oracle, even though you could not begin to comprehend
his logic.

But the Finance Minister was as calm as Gibraltar. He was the man
behind the curtain and the show. He was seldom absent from the
Orders-in-Council convention, commonly known as Parliament. He was
again and again acting Premier. He cared little for Imperial
Conferences. His war was at home. His firing line was all over
Canada. He was the most stay-at-home and sedulous of our ministers.
He worked while others slept or sailed the seas. No Victory Loan
advertisement proof escaped the eagle eye of this ex-newspaperman
before it went to press. He scanned and corrected every syllable.
Every advertisement was a sermonette from the Finance Minister.

An independent writer visiting Ottawa in the fall of 1916, wrote
concerning the Finance Minister:

"One of the best evidences of Ottawa's frame of mind is the way it
talks about Sir Thomas White--and the way Sir Thomas talks about
himself. Sir Thomas White has probably rendered more real brain
service to this country in his few years of office than any one man who
has held office as a Minister--I am not now speaking of Prime
Ministers, whose functions are particular and peculiar--since
Confederation. To Ottawa, Sir Thomas is little short of a miracle.
The frame of mind on both sides of politics regarding Sir Thomas is not
unlike that of the farmer who saw a two-hu