Next day I found him still more interesting. He spoke with bubbling frankness and uncontrolled fervour about many things and certain people, chief among whom was John D. Rockefeller, Jr. He described the young magnate's trip into Colorado during a recent great strike, an itinerary planned on purpose that the son of John D. Rockefeller might get a first-hand knowledge of what conditions actually were, what the labour leaders thought, and what sort of people they might be. With graphic interest he described the young financier's reception by the miners, the speech he made, the big dance in which he took part, the camps and mines he visited; a picture of capital conciliating labour such as seldom comes to notice outside the pages of a novel. He made no effort to eulogize himself. He was absorbed in generous admiration for the other man and with enthusiasm for the glorious chance that Rockefeller seemed to have to make a new Magna Charta of brotherhood between Capital and Labour. In this he was a tremendous idealist. In many respects one was forced to regret that the world somehow did not seem quite so full of brotherly intention as Mr. King said that it was.
"The common ground of both capital and labour is humanity," he said over and over in various form. "The antagonism of each will be forgotten when both unite in an effort to forward the interests of the whole community without which neither can prosper."
"Right!" I felt like screaming, had there been a moment to do so.
"Bravo!"
The idea found expression in his book which he was then engaged in writing. And it is doubtful if any book on the subject of political economy was ever the source of greater happiness to its author than "Industry and Humanity" was to Mackenzie King. On the merits of democratic statesmanship as revealed in that book, Mackenzie King should be Premier of Canada in 1922. Alas! men are often greater in what they say than in much they are able to do. Mackenzie King is a species of rather emotional idealist. He has studied economic humanity somewhat at the expense of his perception of human nature.
During the evening King talked with equal gusto upon his intimate knowledge of a certain popular song writer in Chicago, the story of whose life he told with vivid strokes of descriptive pathos; and upon his still more intimate acquaintance with the late William Wilfred Campbell, poet, whom he had seen in the same moment feed his pigs in a near suburb of Ottawa, and create a line of poetry—which King quoted—"The wild witchery of the winter woods." He was seized with the idea that a Foundation such as the Rockefeller should subsidize poets and song-writers. The pity of it always is that the world is far too desperately cynical in high places to accommodate such generous impulses. Mackenzie King's fervent advocacy of a reform sometimes creates more antagonism than the cold attacks of an adversary. His passion for the betterment of humanity often outruns his judgment. His statements smack of exaggeration even when they are absolutely true. He lacks a sense of proportion and a capacity for restraint. "Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." But a political leader must do both.
Had he expected the Liberal leadership, the close of the war and almost the end of Laurier should have found the member for Prince ready for action or advice. But there is no record that, at this time, his counsels were sought by the Liberal party, or that he thrust himself into the limelight. Three months after the Armistice, Laurier was dead. Even then King was not mentioned as his successor. Four months later he was chosen, when not even he quite understood how it was done. King did nothing to reform his party along new lines, or publicly to state what he considered its reasonable position to be as between the Union party and the Agrarians. A broad manifesto from the new leader at such a time would have been useful. Never had a political leader in Canada such a duty of broad revision within his party. King neglected the opportunity. The Toronto Globe realizes what a squeezed lemon the Liberal party has become between the other two groups and calls for a working alliance between the Liberals and Agrarians to upset the Government. The Mail and Empire paternally points out that it is the duty of Liberals to enlist, Quebec included, under the hegemony of the party which has already incorporated Liberals and is ready to save that party from obliteration by the free-trade group.
Beneath the conventional assurance displayed in each of these organs of public opinion one detects an under-current of uneasiness, by no means mitigated by the farmer victory for the Commons in Medicine Hat, which the Globe construed as a triumph on parade, and the Agrarian turnover in Alberta which the Mail and Empire with all its sturdy protestations cannot honestly interpret as other than a calamity. Each of the historic parties feels itself confronted by a new sort of menace comparable to nothing in the history of Canadian politics. Two parties which ten years ago were in opposition are now flung together by the fear of a common danger and refuse to admit it. The Globe's hope is that Farmerism will become the new Liberalism. The Globe is right. But the captains may not be of The Globe's choosing and the planks in its platform are not those which The Globe in its days of sanity would have accepted for the good of the people. It is the intention of Farmerism to absorb all there is of Liberalism. Mackenzie King knows it. He knows that the Liberals will suffer more than the Government from the plough movement. Yet he is invited by The Globe to try the trick of the bird swallowing the snake!
The essence of Liberalism has always been liberation; emancipation. But the farmers are out to smite all the shackles from all of us. They intend to stop short only of Bolshevism. An ex-Cabinet Minister of Alberta predicts that the farmers will sweep the country at the next election and steer it down the rapids of economic ruin. He cites Drury and Co. as examples of a certain sort of cunning whereby they did not at first show their real hand, in order to get people to feel that Agrarianism is not half so bad as painted and then—the broadening out into the People's party. The farmers are not notorious for sheer cunning; neither for stupidity. They are naturally hesitant about being as radical in office as they were on the stump. As an economic group they are no different from the old Free Trade Liberals, except that they seek to govern as a class on behalf of that particular group. Meanwhile the nation more or less opposed to farmerism is disintegrating itself into more groups. Labour is out for a species of self-determination; a Labour Party. A veteran Liberal statesman recently asked me this question:
"Suppose that in industrial centres like Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton and Winnipeg, Labour puts a candidate into every constituency; that in smaller factory centres which dominate essentially rural ridings they do the same. In each of these more or less labour-dominated fields suppose we have the possible four candidates. Is the Labour-Unionist in doubt over his own candidate going to vote Liberal, Liberal-Conservative, or Farmer?"
"As a man of long experience in elections—suppose you answer that?" I suggested.