But of course this is a merely hypothetical argument. There may never be a Farmer Administration in Ottawa. And if there ever should be, we may trust to conservative and progressive old C.P.R. to do its share of injecting a "sense of responsibility" into a Farmer Cabinet to help it measure up and settle down, even if some farmer should buy C.P. shares enough to get himself elected as a director. As it stands to-day in the estimation of the travelling public, who may or may not care a copper about the personality of its rugged and efficient lawyer president, the Canadian Pacific is the one greatest proof that Canada needs no revolution which will interfere with the morale of that system. In fact so long as the C.P.R. holds its own an economic revolution in Canada is impossible.
A BOURGEOIS MASTER OF QUEBEC
SIR LOMER GOUIN
Early in January, 1917, a remarkable dinner was held in Toronto, the first of its kind ever held in that city of Orange Walks. Protestants and Catholics sat side by side. They applauded the same sentiments. Orator after orator dug into the mines of national idioms. They cracked jokes and told stories and worked up climaxes. The three hundred rose again and again with glasses of orangeade, and Apollinaris, toasting—Quebec, Ontario, and United Canada. They waved napkins and cheered and sang again and again "For he's a jolly good fellow". A Methodist minister sat at the back of the room next a Congregationalist preacher and pretended to unwrap a de luxe cigar. Orangemen sat at the same table with Catholics. Macs hobnobbed with 'eaus. They autographed one another's menus. The books of songs were bilingual—French and English. "God Save the King" was sung in both languages. "O Canada" was done in French. Methodist orators vied with French speakers. Col. George Denison sat next Gen. Lessard. They fraternized as soldiers. The Methodist local-preacher Premier of Ontario sat with the Roman Catholic Premier of Quebec. Sentiment ran high. But no French-Canadian was so emotional as N. W. Rowell, who glorified the heroes of Courcellette; and no Anglo-Canadian was quite so stolid, serious and impressive with homely common sense as Sir Lomer Gouin, the Premier of Quebec. This man spoke slowly, massively, almost gutturally like a Saxon, in fluent but accented English. He was far less excitable than the Premier of Ontario on the same subject:
THE RACE UNITY OF CANADA PREFIGURED IN THE BONNE ENTENTE
Three hundred public-spirited men of whom eighty came from Quebec were as one family on this.
At one in the morning the concomity broke up. Not a drop of vin or liqueur in any form had been served. The enthusiasm was, therefore, as natural as the tide of the St. Lawrence, which in the form of the great lakes and Niagara does its best to put its arms round the neck of Ontario before it cuts through the heart of Quebec. To the pure imagination it was somewhat as though a procession of St. Jean Baptiste had suddenly dreamed it was an Orange Walk.
This unusual Entente was held between the rancours of the bilingual dispute of 1916 and the Quebec revolt against conscription in 1917. Those present who doubted the sincerity of passionate speakers anchored a timidly steadfast hope to the practical, broad-angled Premier of Quebec, who, had he sat between Mr. Bourassa and the Premier of Ontario, would have inclined his ear to Ontario.
Nothing is more certain than that four French-Canadian leaders, had they been given or had they asked for the opportunity and had acted together, could have put a different face on Quebec's relation to the war. Four men namable in that capacity are, Sir Lomer Gouin, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Ernest Lapointe, and Cardinal Begin. Of these, Gouin was at that time the most able. For ten years he had been uninterruptedly Premier of Quebec with a moral guarantee that he could occupy the Premiership by an overwhelming majority until he should be gathered to his fathers.
Again and again rumour slated Sir Lomer for Ottawa. He wisely declined. He had a peasant's attachment to "le pays" and its white villages. In Quebec he was the Chief of Ministers, the little elected father of his country. In Ottawa he would have been perhaps a grand Minister of Public Works building docks in Halifax, customs houses in British Columbia, post-offices on the prairies, armouries in Ontario and court-houses in Quebec. Yes, there would be surely armouries in Ontario.