unquestioned devotion to his country.

The Conservative party had with difficulty survived the last
election. Deprived of the leader who for so long had been half
its force, the party could not long delay its break-up. No one
could be found to fill Macdonald's place. The helm was taken in
turn by J. J. C. Abbott, "the confidential family lawyer of the
party," by Sir John Thompson, solid and efficient though lacking
in imagination, and by Sir Mackenzie Bowell, an Ontario veteran.
Abbott was forced to resign because of ill health; Thompson died
in office; and Bowell was forced out by a revolt within the
party. Sir Charles Tupper, then High Commissioner in London, was
summoned to take up the difficult task. But it proved too great
for even his fighting energy. The party was divided. Gross
corruption in the awarding of public contracts had been brought
to light. The farmers were demanding a lower tariff. The leader
of the Opposition was proving to have all the astuteness and the
mastery of his party which had marked Macdonald and a courage in
his convictions which promised well. Defeat seemed inevitable
unless a new issue which had invaded federal politics, the
Manitoba school question, should prove more dangerous to the
Opposition than to the forces of the Government.

The Manitoba school question was an echo of the racial and
religious strife which followed the execution of Riel and in
which the Jesuits' Estates controversy was an episode. In the
early days of the province, when it was still uncertain which
religion would be dominant among the settlers, a system of
state-aided denominational schools had been established. In 1890
the Manitoba Government swept this system away and replaced it by