Premier of Canada

“ The Canadian people are free and loyal, loyal because they are free.”
With this pledge Wilfrid Laurier took office as Canada’s Premier. The boy of St. Lin was still preaching his growing conception of Canada and her place in the Empire.
The task of this first French-Canadian Premier was not an easy one. Had he been merely a son of his race, had he been merely a convert to the English-speaking conception, had he been merely the champion of a cause or the balance-wheel of politics, his influence might have maimed the national progress of the Dominion for a century. ”

“ Certainly in Canada any well-considered policy that will promote commercial and industrial development will be welcomed by the whole body of the people. Reference was made in an earlier part of this paper to the attitude of the French-Canadians to this and other matters. It is fortunate in many ways that the destinies of the Dominion should be wielded at the present time by a French-Canadian Premier. ”

“ On May 26th, 1910, he resigned his position as Premier owing to a division in the ranks of the Liberal members of the Legislature, although as leader he had carried the general elections of 1905 and 1909. Under his regime as Premier all Provincial institutions were established as in the older Provinces of Canada, and in addition to the University he founded a Normal college for teacher-training. He also encouraged railway expansion and the development of the agricultural and coal-mining industries, and since 1909 has been a member of the Conservation Commission of Canada. ”

“ No nation in the world has a better chance than Canada for sound economic justice to all that makes her the world's young leading democracy. But economics isn't everything. Good-night."
THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN PREMIER RT. HON. SIR ROBERT BORDEN Here is a modest, honourable man who saw his duty to the nation and the emergency never more clearly than he knew his own defects. Canada never before had a mediocrity of such eminence; a man who without a spark of genius devoted a high talent to a nation's work so well that he just about wins a niche in our Valhalla—if we have one. ”

“ The Governor-General of Canada, as also the governors in the other self-governed colonies, does not, as so many of the people of the United States imagine, govern the country, acting with absolute power under the direction of the Government of Great Britain; for in every way, except for the purposes of imperial advice and the declaration of war, Canada is practically an Independent Dominion, as sings the empire poet, [167]
"Daughter am I in my mother's home, But mistress in my own." ”

“ Here in this Dominion of Canada, your Prime Minister is the only man that has anything like the power of our president, and even he has to do what parliament says—or get out. Talk about self-government! They’ve got it in England, and you’ve got it in Canada, a sight more of it than we have.
“There’s another sensible thing I like about your British ways. Whether you make much better laws or much about the same, if a man breaks them you get after him, and give him his medicine quick. We call ourselves hustlers! ”

“ While it is in alliance with the Liberal party of the Dominion and lends its support to the Liberal administration, it does so in the full conviction that the principles of that party are in the best interests of the country, and that the government at present in power is not only the best which could be chosen from our parliamentary representation, but in point of ability, honesty and progressiveness is equal, if not superior, to any which Canada has yet possessed. ”

“ With an available acreage estimated at over one hundred millions, and a rapidly increasing population, he would be a bold pessimist who would deny the coming greatness of the Canadian west as a dominant factor in the world's wheat markets. Under such conditions, it is well that the government of the Dominion rests in the hands of a strong administration, led by a statesman of commanding ability and exceptional breadth of view. Courage and wisdom to build not merely for the present were never more vitally necessary to the well-being of Canada. ”

“ Constitutions and systems of government are good or bad according to the kinds of people to which they are applied, the stage of development which they have reached, and the particular circumstances existing at a given time inside and outside the land. It was only with much hesitation that representative institutions had been given to Canada; and one governor and another, bearing in mind the conditions which had preceded the War of Independence, had laid stress on the necessity of having a strong Executive, and on the growing danger of colonial democracy. ”

“ It is for you, Electors, to give the answer.
You have one day in four years, on which your sovereign voice can be heard. To this day you have now come. Let the great voice of the people thunder, let its breath drive away all those men of narrow and retrograde views who look in the history of old Europe to find the future of young Canada; and who seeks to impose upon a society perfectly democratic, the forms, the semblance, the budgets, the taxes, the patronage and the corruption, the centralization and arbitrary power, of a monarchical government. ”

“ Standing here, on United States ground, beneath that flag under which we are proud to live, I repeat that no people was ever more loyal than are the Canadas to their Queen; and it is the purpose of the present Ministers of Her Majesty's Government to make the people of Canada so prosperous and happy, that other nations shall envy them their good fortune. ”

“ For years they stuck so closely to their nation-building that they had no time to stand back and view the size of the edifice of their own structure, but all that is different to-day. When four hundred thousand people a year flock to the Dominion to cast in their lot with Canadians, there is testimony of worth. Canadians know their destiny is upon them, whatever it may be; and they are meeting the challenge half-way with faces to the front. In the words of Sir Wilfred Laurier, they know that "the Twentieth Century is Canada's." ”

“ Three years later, the Dominion was startled by the sad announcement, on the 6th June, 1891, that the voice of the great prime minister, Sir John Macdonald, who had so long controlled the affairs of Canada, would never more be heard in that federal parliament of which he had been one of the fathers. All classes of Canadians vied with one another in paying a tribute of affection and respect to one who had been in every sense a true Canadian. ”

“ When the great procession passed before the Queen of England on the day of the "Diamond Jubilee"—when delegates from all parts of a mighty, world-embracing empire gave her their loyal and heartfelt homage—Canada was represented by a Prime Minister who belonged to that race which has steadily gained in intellectual strength, political freedom, and material prosperity, since the memorable events of 1759 and 1760. ”

“ That is the belief that binds Canada's loyalty to the monarchical idea—though Canada would as soon call it the presidential idea as the monarchical idea. She does not care what name you tag it by so long as she delegates to the selected and elected few the power to rule. She believes the selected few are better than the unwinnowed many as rulers. She would sooner have a mathematical school-teacher as finance minister than a saloon keeper or ward heeler. She believes that the rule of the select few is better than the rule of the thoughtless many. ”

“ There being only thirty thousand inhabitants in the whole province, small as the Parliament was, the people, if not fairly, were at least sufficiently represented. It is somewhat doubtful, nevertheless, that a constitution which gave only a quasi-sovereign to Upper Canada, neither directly, nor, as the Governors of Canada now are, indirectly responsible to the people, could have been the very image and transcript of the British Constitution. There was a misty resemblance to that celebrated and unwritten form of government, in the erection of three estates—King, Lords, and Commons—and no more. ”

“ Under the inspiring influence of responsible government Canada has developed in 1902, not into an independent nation, as predicted by Lord John Russell and other British statesmen after him, but into a confederation of five millions and a half of people, in which a French Canadian prime minister gives expression to the dominant idea not only of his own race but of all nationalities within the Dominion, that the true interest lies not in the severance but in the continuance of the ties that have so long bound them to the imperial state. ”

“ We belong to a great world Empire. This connection we value and mean to cherish, but our Imperial relations do not in the slightest degree infringe upon our liberties. The Government of Canada is autonomous. Forty-six years ago the four provinces of Canada were united into a single Dominion with representative Government of the most complete kind. Canada is a Democracy, and in no Democracy in the world does the will of the people find more immediate and more complete expression than in our Dominion. ”

“ The critical period into which we have just entered has aroused to the full the patriotism and loyalty which have always actuated the Canadian people.
From every province and indeed from every community the response to the call of duty has been all that could be desired. The spirit which thus animates Canada inspires also His Majesty's Dominions throughout the world; and we may be assured that united action to repel the common danger will not fail to strengthen the ties that bind together those vast Dominions in the possession and enjoyment of the blessings of British liberty. ”

“ The liquor traffic, for instance, is subject to the local option of restriction; religious liberty prevails; education is practically free and unsectarian; the franchise is enjoyed by all citizens; members of the parliament are paid for their services; and though the executive department of the government is under the control of a governor-general appointed by the queen, the laws of Canada are made by its own statesmen, and a state of practical independence prevails. ”

“ Will Canada achieve a ‘more secure, equitable and prosperous world’ through blanket generalizations about the ‘increasingly jingoistic rhetoric of ruling party politicians, bureaucrats and military top brass’? ”

“ As each province has a legislature of its own to manage its local affairs, it is as if England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland had separate parliaments in addition to that at Westminster. Canada has thus become really a daughter-nation of Great Britain. The mother-land leaves her free to manage all her own local affairs.
For fuller details concerning Canada, her educational equipment and natural resources, see Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, MacKenzie, Yukon, Ungava, Labrador and Franklin. ”

“ All I can do is to assert that his lordship is very accurate; and, having made this assertion, I ask, what chance, therefore, is there of good government, if the power, or any portion of the power, be left in the hands of those who have in every way proved themselves so adverse to good government, and who have wound up such conduct by open rebellion.
The position of the Executive in Canada has, for a long while, been just what our position in this country would be if the House of Commons were composed of Chartist leaders. ”

“ The net result was that on the American continent the Executive, having insufficient force behind it and in the old colonies no popular goodwill, was increasingly weak, and the people were more and more unsettled. The democratic communities became more democratic, and from those communities individuals brought themselves and their ideas into the sphere of French conservatism, adding to the uncertainty and confusion [100] which attempts to introduce English laws and customs had already produced in Canada. ”

“ IV Before digging down to the subterranean springs of Canadian loyalty, we must take emphatic cognizance of several facts. Canada, while not a republic, is one of the most democratic nations in the world. Practically every man of political, financial or industrial prominence in Canada to-day came up by the shirt-sleeve route in one generation. ”

“ In the course of the coming decades—perhaps in four or five, or less—Canada will probably have determined her destiny—her position among the communities of the world; and, for one, I have no doubt the results will be far more gratifying to our national pride than the results of even the past thirty years, when we have been laying broad and deep the foundations of our present system of government. ”

“ Still, as the outlook in Canadian affairs may be regarded as flamboyant, it is worth while quoting the comment of the most critical and conservative newspaper in the world,—the London Times. The Times says: "Without doubt the expansion of Canada is the greatest political event in the British Empire to-day. The empire is face to face with development which makes it impossible for indefinite maintenance of the present constitutional arrangements." ”

“ 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. ”