Canada Always by Arthur Milnes

Author:Arthur Milnes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2016-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

By Bruce Yaccato

Though Laurier was born just four years after the trauma of Britain’s brutal quashing of the 1837 Rebellion, by the time the underwhelming new MP arrived in Ottawa in 1872, he proclaimed himself to be a British Liberal. The reverence with which he held the creed’s greatest practitioner, William Ewart Gladstone, burned bright as ever when Prime Minister Laurier rose in his place to eulogize his hero in 1898.

Laurier was a fervent and faithful disciple of Gladstonian Liberalism even when it came to suffering electoral defeat twice on one its central tenets, that of free trade. The two men shared fiscal prudence, a disdain for foreign entanglements in the name of Empire, and intolerance for injustice. They were also among the best, if not the best, prime ministers their respective countries enjoyed. The luminous praise of the mentored almost deifies his mentor, attributing to him “the eye of a God.” No mean orator himself, Laurier places Gladstone “in the front rank of orators in his or any country in his age or any other.” The “marvellous fecundity of his mind” and “unrivalled genius for business” made him, in Laurier’s view, “undoubtedly” the greatest man of his time, over even Lincoln and Bismarck. Some may question Laurier’s qualifications for the judging of business genius, as he was not known for his grasp of economic policy. It was once said that “the only figures Laurier understands are figures of speech.”

Despite the reverence and similarities in substance, it is interesting to note how different were the styles in which they conducted their politics and lives.

Laurier had immense personal charm, his famous “sunny ways” would lead author Lucy Maud Montgomery to observe that, for a time, he was “little lower than the angels.” His mentor, however, was more feared and revered than loved. His wife once chided him, “It’s a good thing you’re such a great man, otherwise you’d be such a bore!”

The two men met only once, at Hawarden Castle, Gladstone’s Welsh estate, in 1897. Laurier had just moved into the Prime Minister’s Office the year before, while his host would be in his grave the next. Though it would seem like an aspiring fresco painter meeting Michelangelo after the Sistine Chapel opened, the event is little written about, possibly because the two were polar opposites in personality. Gladstone was like the bull in the proverbial china shop; Laurier was more like the china. It could be said that Sir Wilfrid was a somewhat delicate figure despite his height, perhaps even a fastidious neat freak. Gladstone was a horse who revelled in strenuous walks and hikes, and especially in deforesting all before him with his incessant chopping down of trees. Even Laurier’s reference to their meeting seems curt and slightly chilly, especially in contrast to the soaring praise in the rest of his remarks. “I had the privilege to experience and appreciate [his] courtesy of dignity and grace….”

Whatever their fleeting personal relationship, their lives and careers shared equally striking parallels. They would both execute a complete 180 degree turn from their youthful beliefs.

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