fortunate circumstance that Sir Wilfrid Laurier was during those
years the representative of Canada at successive Imperial
conferences; but this would be, perhaps, to put his services too
high. Canada's public men have never failed her in the critical
times in her history when attempts were made through ignorance or
design to turn her aside from the high road to national sovereignty;
as witness Gait in 1859, Blake in his long duel with Lord Carnarvon,
Sir John A. Macdonald in 1885, when he resisted the premature demand
for a Canadian contingent for service in the Soudan, Tupper in the
early nineties when his vigorous resistance to the proposal that
Canada should pay tribute for protection had something to do with
the demise of the Imperial Federation League. Any man fit to be
premier of Canada would have taken pretty much the position that Sir
Wilfrid did. This does not in the least detract from the credit due
Laurier. The task was his and he discharged it with tact, ability,
patience and courage. For his services in holding their future open
for them every British Dominion owes the memory of Laurier a statue
in its parliament square.



PART THREE. FIFTEEN YEARS OF PREMIERSHIP

There have been prime ministers of Canada casually thrown up by the
tide of events and as casually re-engulfed; but Wilfrid Laurier was
not one of them. There may have been something accidental in his
rise to leadership, but his capture of the premiership was a solid
political achievement. The victory of June 23, 1896, crowned with
triumph the daring strategy of the campaign. But popular opinion
regarded the victory as a gift of the gods. The wheel of fortune