to deal with it, he spoke what was probably the belief latent in
most of the minds of his compatriots: acceptance of colonial status
with the theoretical belief that some time, so far distant as not to
be a matter of political concern, this status would give way to one
of independence. "The day is coming," he said in Montreal in 1890,
"when this country will have to take its place among the nations of
the earth. ... I want my country's independence to be reached
through the normal and regular progress of all the elements of its
populations toward the realization of a common aspiration." Looking
forward to the issues about which it would be necessary for him to
have policies, it is not probable that he put the question of
imperial relationships very high. Certainly he had no idea that it
would be in dealing with this matter that he would reveal his
qualities at their highest and lay the surest foundation for his
fame.

In 1890 Laurier, as we have seen, believed the Canadian future was
to be that of colonialism for an indefinite period and then
independence. In 1911, the year he left office, in a letter to a
friend he said: "We are making for a harbor which was not the harbor
I foresaw twenty-five years ago, but it is a good harbor. It will
not be the end. Exactly what the course will be I cannot tell, but I
think I know the general bearing and I am content." The change in
view indicated by these words is thus expounded by Professor
Skelton: "The conception of Canada's status which Sir Wilfrid
developed in his later years of office was that of a nation within
the empire." But between the two quoted declarations there lay
twenty-one years of time, fifteen years of prime ministership and
the experiences derived from attendance at four imperial conferences
in succession--another record set by Laurier not likely ever to be