The South African war was most unpopular with the French-Canadians,
but the unpopularity did not extend to Laurier. They agreed in
theory with Bourassa but they recognized that Laurier had yielded to
force majeure. Indeed the very violence with which Laurier was
assailed in Ontario strengthened his hold in Quebec. It is not easy
for a proud people to stomach insults such as, for instance, the
remark in the Toronto News, that the English-Canadians would find
some way of "emancipating themselves from the dominance of an
inferior people whom peculiar circumstances had placed in authority
in the Dominion." The election of 1900 gave Laurier fifty-eight
supporters in the province of Quebec out of a total of sixty-five
seats. The Rouge-Bleu coalition had not come off officially,
Chapleau's death in 1898 having removed the necessity of formally
recognizing his services, but the coalition of Bleu and Rouge
elements had taken place; and it held so firmly that when some of
the architects of the fusion tried later to undo their work they
found this could not be done. Dansereau was the first to go. Mr.
Mulock, the postmaster-general, entirely oblivious of the fact that
Dansereau was one of the main wheels in the Quebec machine and
seeing in him only an entirely incapable postmaster, fired him in
1899 with as little hesitation as a section boss would show in
bouncing an incompetent navvy. Tarte and Laurier tried to patch up
the quarrel, but Dansereau preferred to return to journalism as
editor of an independent journal whose traditions were Conservative.
He was to be, five years later, one of the leaders in that curious
conspiracy, the MacKenzie-Mann-Berthiaume-La Presse deal--the details
of which as told by Professor Skelton read like a detective yarn--which
was turned into opera bouffe by Laurier's decisive and timely
interference. In 1902, Tarte, in Laurier's absence and in the belief
that he could not resume the premiership on account of illness,