and the Canadian manufacturers there was a blood feud. It was not
Sir Wilfrid's intention to make the feud his own or even to agree to
it being carried on by Sir Richard. He took for minister of finance,
W. S. Fielding, who justified his choice by successfully steering
the budget bark between Scylla and Charybdis for fourteen years in
succession before the whirlpool finally sucked him down. Where
Laurier went outside his following for colleagues he had equally
definite ends to serve.

The care with which Laurier chose his colleagues, and his
indifference to personal appeal, should have been proof sufficient
to the public that he was a prime minister who looked forward and
planned for the future. And the plan? Why to stay in power for the
longest possible period of time. It is as natural for a government
to want to stay in power as it is for a man to want to live; nor is
there in this anything discreditable. A prime minister is sure that
he desires to retain power in order that he may serve the country as
no rival could conceivably serve it; and even if the desire fades
and is replaced by a lively appreciation of the personal
satisfactions which can be served by the office, no real prime
minister notices the transformation. The ego and the country soon
become interblended in his mind. A prime minister under the party
system as we have had it in Canada is of necessity an egotist and
autocrat. If he comes to office without these characteristics his
environment equips him with them as surely as a diet of royal jelly
transforms a worker into a queen bee.

Laurier saw that an efficient government, harmonious in its policies
and ably led, would afford a contrast to the preceding
administration that must forcibly impress the Canadian people. He,