A Telephone for Each Language.
Hon. Joseph Royal, a brilliant politician, sat in the House at the time I am writing of, and was afterwards elevated to the Lieut.-Governorship of the Northwest Territories, as was Charlie McIntosh, the urbane editor of the Ottawa Citizen, who was one of the cleverest writers on the Canadian press. Hon. A. A. C. Larvière, afterwards a senator, also came from Manitoba, where, in the local legislature, he had been a Cabinet Minister. He once nearly had to defend himself against the very grave charge of having two telephones in his office, but he was saved the trouble by Kenneth Mackenzie, an out-and-out Grit, who came to his rescue and claimed the minister was perfectly justified in having two telephones—one to talk through in English and the other in French—and this convinced the House.
Old-timers often compare present day members with those of Parliament when there were notable outstanding figures like Macdonald, George Brown, Tilley, Tupper, Mowat, Howe, Cartwright, Chapleau—and wonder whether their successors are of lighter calibre, or if the people have grown up nearer to their standard. If I were asked my own opinion, I would truthfully say, I really don’t know. But Parliament during the time I was at Ottawa and was able to take observations was composed of great men—the pick of the intelligence and progressiveness of the Dominion—men of whom any country might be justly proud. Most of them have gone; but their work, the completed Canada, remains, and is their best monument.