ued against extending the life of this Parliament, and who in the
matter of sending men to fight, in organizing the whole nation for war,
in conserving national unity, and in making an election a smaller matter
than the honour of a nation was opposed to the Government. If the
amendment should carry, and the Referendum show a majority against the
Government measure by omitting the soldier vote and piling up the vote
from the Province which had given birth to the Referendum, then when the
author of that measure should be returned to power on a no-conscription
issue what chance was there for Canada to win her part of the war with
the lion Laurier and the lamb Oliver lying down together--and a little
child--Macdonald from Pictou--leading them?"

Not as a climax, but as a mere personal note midway in his speech, he had
said:

"I have a little toddling grandson on my farm out West to-day whose
father was killed with a gunshot wound in his neck two weeks ago. I say
to you, sir, on my soul and conscience I support this Bill, because I
believe it to be a part of the necessary machinery which can save that
little fellow, born a Canadian, and thousands of others like him from
ever going through what his father and his uncles have gone through."

Parliamentary debate has risen to much higher levels of oratory, but
seldom to such a height of accusing vindication and personal affection
for the accused from whom an insurgent is driven to sever his allegiance.
Clark can always make some sort of big human speech with a natural knack
of getting at the vitals of a subject in simple, dignified language and a
searching logic--once you admit his major premiss. That one speech flung
into bold relief, almost as the No Man's Land under a flare of a great
barrage, the issues between men who for so many years had been political
confederates.

A couple of years later I again met Clark when he was speaking guest at
an Empire Club luncheon. His topic was--the Empire. His brand of
political ideas was vastly different from those of the average man in his
audience, and he knew it. The Club had invited him, because he was
Michael Clark. He said not a word about trade. He uttered no
propaganda. He talked simply and strongly about the race that had made
the Empire which to him was a commonwealth of neither trade nor conquest
but of liberating ideas.

I don't think that any of the Chamberlain-Foster school could have
uttered quite so broad an