Wilfrid Laurier

“ Sir Wilfrid Laurier The length of Sir Wilfrid’s public career alone challenges admiration and respect. He had been almost half a century in active politics; forty-six years a salient figure in Parliament; a leader of the Liberal party for thirty years; Prime Minister for fifteen years. He saw generations of men and generations of statesmen. He saw Confederation in its cradle and watched it grow to nationhood. Since he entered public life England has had three Monarchs, while the figures of Disraeli and Gladstone, of Salisbury and Campbell-Bannerman have passed across its national stage. ”

“ The first and most wise step was the selection by Sir Wilfrid Laurier of the strongest possible colleagues to form his Cabinet. No abler body of men ever presided over the destinies of Canada—a fact admitted, even by opponents. It was truly a great combination which instilled much needed confidence in the people. To form it Sir Wilfrid had to go outside the ranks of the men who had fought the battles of the party in Opposition in the Dominion House, and who no doubt expected preferment. ”

“ For half a century Wilfrid Laurier fought the battles of Canadian democracy—for responsible government, for social justice, for equality of opportunity, for freedom for the common people—the ordinary, everyday folk—in the age-long fight between entrenched and aggressive self-interest and altruistic common interest.
“The happiness of the masses of the people is the underlying consideration of government,” he said to the students of the University of Toronto, in an address in December, 1913. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Western Daily Press of Bristol, England, stated:—“Sir Wilfrid Laurier is in himself an excellent illustration of the success of the British plan of making various great parts of the Empire responsible for the control of their own affairs. There was a time when the race problem in Canada was one affording cause for gravest anxiety; that belongs to the past; and the world is familiar with the fact that Sir Wilfrid, the first French-Canadian who has been Premier of the Dominion, is a man probably without a rival in the confidence felt in him in this country.” ”

“ Canada was then the favourite investment field of the Empire.
Under Sir Wilfrid Laurier a new Canada arose. The country found itself and for the first time realized its immense possibilities. It was an era of the full dinner pail, the first golden age in Canada’s history. Every legitimate industry from the Atlantic to the Pacific, speaking generally, prospered. Manufacturing institutions were enlarged and enlarged again and again to meet the demands. The farmers shared in the prosperity probably better than any others. ”

“ The Tribune:—Among Canadian statesmen of our day Sir Wilfrid Laurier ranked first. The Canada of the present is in a large measure his work. His horizon was spacious. His loyalty to his own race, religion and section did not prevent him from pursuing a broad national policy.
The Sun:—Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s public life of nearly half a century, covers the development of Canada from a colony into something very like an independent nation. The 15 years in which he served as Premier saw the greatest growth of the Dominion in railroads, trade and agriculture for any period in its marvelous history. ”

“ Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s message to the students of the University of Toronto in 1913 is recalled as one of the most inspiring utterances of his long career. On that occasion he said:
“My young friends, go out into the world to service. Make the highest thought of service your inspiration. Problems there are—big problems. To-morrow and the day after to-morrow, it will be your turn to grapple with them. Serve God and your country. Be firm in the right, as God gives you to see the right. You may not always succeed. Progress is often punctuated with reverses. ”

“ For the distinction of the British Empire consists not in the conquests of its arms, but in the reconciliation of its statesmanship, in the generous wisdom which has shown that the British flag can shelter and respect the traditions, the sympathies, and the consciences of races that are not British by blood or history. This is what was in Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s mind when he pointed with pride to the great British act of the present government. (The Great British Act was the Constitution granted to South Africa, or the Transvaal.) ”

“ A STUDY IN CANADIAN POLITICS PART 2. LAURIER AND EMPIRE RELATIONSHIPS Part 3. FIFTEEN YEARS OF PREMIERSHIP LAURIER: A STUDY IN CANADIAN POLITICS THE CLIMB TO POWER. THE life story of Laurier by Oscar D. Skelton is the official biography of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Official biographies of public men have their uses; they supply material for the definitive biography which in the case of a great man is not likely to be written by one who knew him in the flesh. ”

“ Sir Wilfrid Laurier was a true Canadian, a great British citizen. If he had one aim in life which stood high above all others it was to contrive a happy, a United Canada. “You are aware,” he said, in that superb speech delivered at Quebec in 1894, “that in the eleventh century certain men started out from Normandy, Anjou, Brittany, and Angouleme to capture England. Duke William of Normandy was their leader, and our present sovereign is the last scion of a royal race that dates back to William the Conqueror. ”

“ Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s ability to remember faces which had presented themselves to his view, perhaps, years previously, was something to marvel at. Many men possess this power but few have ever held it in greater proportion than did the late statesman. ”

“ In fact, in his anxiety to miss none of such delightful and auspicious events as court sessions and public meetings he often ran foul of the school authorities.
Wilfrid Laurier’s mother died when the boy was but six years old. His earlier years were spent under the constant supervision of the village curé. He knew no language but the French. St. Lin slept quite a distance from the centre of the earth—Montreal. It heard only echoes of the outer world. But like every other French-Canadian village, it had its church, its curé, and its dream. It prayed for a French-Canadian Messiah. ”

“ There came the second crisis, and if that second crisis had not been faced with the courage, genius, and imagination of Liberalism, there would have been no men of Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s race and blood at yesterday’s lunch, and the Colony which is proud to count in its ancestry the heroism of a Montcalm as well as the heroism of a Wolfe would have sent no representative to the capital. ”

“ Those who think of political life as a continuous strife, would be surprised indeed, if they knew of the close friendship that existed between Sir Wilfrid and some of his opponents on the opposite side of Parliament. He was elusive in many ways, difficult to measure by our accepted standards. For many years to come the recollection of his personality has impressed itself upon audiences and upon individuals in every part of Canada will remain to keep his memory green. ”

“ His dignified and courtly bearing as he walked to his seat was that of the French Empire period. Like Gladstone, Disraeli and other great men, his dress was always distinctive without being obtrusive. At all times he looked every inch the type of a statesman and a leader that appealed to the imagination of a people. His great strength as a leader lay in his personal charm and manner. Between Sir Wilfrid and his followers there subsisted the most intimate relations. ”

“ Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the French Roman Catholic Premier, of a self-governing federation, in which British Protestants are in the majority, has expressed more faithfully and more truly than any statesman who has spoken yet, the temper of the new imperial patriotism fostered into self-consciousness by the South African war. ”

“ Appeals to classes, to interests, and to sections—whether to farmers, to labour, to the manufacturers, or what not—are not the appeals that Liberalism makes. For that appeal is to all good citizens. It is to the civic sense of the whole country.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier has not had an approach of an equal during the last generation. It is not easy to exactly define in what his personality consisted. ”

“ During the fifteen years of his Premiership Sir Wilfrid Laurier, with the exception of his Imperial Conference trips and his western tour of 1910, and during election campaigns, was scarcely ever away from his post at the Capital. As leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition he was daily in his office attending to a large correspondence, looking after the details of party organization, receiving many callers who sought advice or assistance, and keeping abreast, through books and periodicals, of all national problems and world movements. ”

“ That function is to keep abreast of the times, to be in harmony with the spirit of the times, and to be prepared to face the problems of the times with high heart and high hopes, with unconquerable courage and unfaltering faith. Liberal beliefs are no effete and petrified dogmas. They are a living, energizing, vitalizing force. They are that—or they are nothing.
It was Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s distinction, as it was Gladstone’s to take this view of Liberalism. ”

“ He was stamped as an orator in his speech-making address to the throne, in 1871, when he spoke on the timely topic of “National Industry.” It is interesting to have the testimony of one of his contemporaries who thus describes Sir Wilfrid at that time:
Tall, slender frame, pallid face, brownish hair, supple, approachable, steadfast and convincing look, slightly a dreamer, a sort of pleasantness about his facial expression, modest and yet distinguished, a certain demeanour of confidence or of melancholy which tended to call forth sympathy. ”

“ Having heard one day, to what a degree she still remained faithful and devoted to him, he made his way to Montreal, got married on the following day, returned immediately to Arthabaska, and came a few weeks later to get his wife. Their union was a beautiful instance of unity of aim and interest. Lady Laurier proved to be a helpmate in the fullest sense, and to her love and devotion to him throughout life Sir Wilfrid paid many a proud and touching tribute. ”

“ Every once in a while during the past fifty years or more some one comes along with a new scheme to reconstruct the British Empire and when each architect finds his plan not workable he charges those who do not support it with disloyalty.
A charge made against Sir Wilfrid Laurier is that in the Imperial Conference of 1911 he opposed a scheme of Imperial reorganization proposed by Sir Joseph Ward, of New Zealand. ”

“ There is a crisis, and we must fight on as fought the pioneers of the early days in Canada, the strong, stern men who kept in sight their goal of Canada’s best interests against all difficulties and obstacles. Let our motto be the same as theirs—‘Fortitude in Distress.’ There are breakers ahead, but we shall reach the shore if we fight on. We can bring to pass in Canada what was prophesied by a distinguished American once—that the twentieth century would be the century of Canada.”—Sir Wilfrid Laurier at Winnipeg, December, 1917. ”

“ LAURIER, SIR WILFRID (1841– ) , Canadian statesman, was born on the 20th of November 1841, at St Lin in the province of Quebec. The child of French Roman Catholic parents, he attended the elementary school of his native parish and for eight or nine months was a pupil of the Protestant elementary school at New Glasgow in order to learn English ”

“ To Canadians, whatever their politics, it gave a deep sense of satisfaction to recognize in their own Prime Minister, a man who seemed to embody the flower of civilization. Knighthood, though it be a bauble, never sat more fittingly on a modern man, than on him. Among all the men who constituted the Royal entourage, on both occasions, only one was his equal in this peculiar quality of high physical distinction, and that was Viscount Crichton, afterwards the Earl of Erne.
In so far as possible, Sir Wilfrid Laurier confined business to business hours. ”

“ The Royal tour of 1901 at times put the serenity of Sir Wilfrid to a severe test. He was a man who enjoyed manifestations of popular good-will as well as anybody; and as a politician was not oblivious to the necessity of avoiding offence to any well-meaning supporter. ”

“ The crowning happiness came with his marriage, May 13, 1868, to Miss Zoë Lafontaine of Montreal. To both, the marriage brought ideal companionship and fulfilment. To the husband especially it brought a watchfulness that at last conquered the illness that had threatened, a devotion which never flagged—for Lady Laurier is still {17} to-day much more a 'Laurierite' than is Sir Wilfrid—and a stimulus that never permitted contentment with second best. ”