Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics

by John Wesley Dafoe

THE LAST YEAR

The events of 1917 were both an end and a beginning in Canada's political development. They brought to a definite close what might be called the era of the Great Parties. Viscount Bryce, in a work based upon pre-war observations, in dealing with Canadian political conditions, said:

"Party (in Canada) seems to exist for its own sake. In Canada ideas are not needed to make parties, for these can live by heredity, and, like the Guelfs and Ghibellines of mediaeval Italy, by memories of past combats; attachment to leaders of such striking gifts and long careers as were Sir John Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, created a personal loyalty which exposed a man to reproach as a deserter when he voted against his party."

For these conditions there were reasons in our history. Our parties once expressed deep divergencies of view upon issues of vital import; and each had experienced an individual leadership that had called forth and had stereotyped feelings of unbounded personal devotion. The chiefships of Laurier and Macdonald overlapped by only four years, but they were of the same political generation and they adhered to the same tradition. The resemblances in their careers, often commented upon, arose from a common attitude towards the business of political management. They conceived their parties as states within the state. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say they conceived them as co-ordinate with the state. Of these principalities they were the chieftains, chosen in the first place by election—as kings often were in the old times; but thereafter holding their positions by virtue of personal right and having the power in the last analysis by their own acts to determine party policy and to enforce discipline. Their personalities made these assumptions of power appear not only inevitable, but proper. Personal charm, human qualities of sympathy and understanding; an inflexible will which, except in crises, worked by indirection; the prestige of office and the glamor of victory; and the accretions of power which came from the passage of time—half their followers towards the end of their careers could not remember when other suns shone in the firmament; all these influences helped to transform party feeling into that blind worship which drew from Viscount Bryce his mordant comment.

This venerable but archaic political system did not survive the war. Beside the loyalties inspired by the war tribal devotion to a party chief seemed a trivial concern. Canadians, who gave first place to the need of getting on with the war, viewed with consternation the readiness of elements in both parties to put their political interests above the safety and honor of the commonwealth. The movement for national political unity was born of their concern and indignation. This development was almost as displeasing to the Conservative partisans as to the Liberal "legitimists," who upheld the right, under all circumstances, of Laurier to regain the premiership; and it was their inveterate and unthinking opposition that had much to do with the ultimate disruption of the union. They did not realize, until they got into the elections of 1921, that their party had disintegrated under the stresses of war.

A study of the origin, achievements, failures, downfall and consequences of Union government might be of interest, but it does not come into a survey of the life of Laurier. These matters are related to the influences that are now making over Canadian politics; they concern the leaders of to-day, all minor figures in the 1917 drama. Because the Union government passed without leaving behind it tangible and visible manifestations of its power, there are those who regard it as a mere futility—a sword-cut in the water, as the French say. But of the Union movement it might well be said: Si monumentum requiris circumspice. The spirit behind the movement passed with the war, but it left the old traditional party system in ruins. The readjustments that are going on to-day, the efforts at the realignment of parties, the attempt to newly appraise political values, and to redefine political relationships—all these things are testimony to the dissolving, penetrating power of the impulses of 1917.

But the task of attempting political reconstruction in a new world was not imposed upon Laurier. The signing of the armistice was the signal for the release of new forces; it was a great turning point in the world's history. But for Laurier the tale of his years was told. There was something fitting in the departure of the veteran with the turning of the tide. He had been a mere survival on the scene following the elections of 1917 which put into the hands of the Union government a mandate to "carry on" for the remainder of the war—which at that time gave promise of stretching out interminably. That election set bounds to his ambitions, wrote finis to his political career. "Unarm; the long day's work is o'er." He continued to hold his rank in a party which waited upon events, knowing that the task of rebuilding and reconstruction must fall to younger hands. The serenity of mind which had sustained him in all the changes of a long and varied life did not desert him; and he looked forward with fortitude to the end now approaching. He had come a long way from the humble beginnings in St. Lin, 77 years before. Childhood; happy, carefree boyhood; a youth of gallant comradeship with the young swordsmen of a fighting political army; the ardors of a career in the making full of delights of battle with his peers; the call to the command; the conquest of the premiership; the long, crowded, brilliant years of office with their deep anxieties, crushing responsibilities, great satisfactions, substantial achievements; the bitterness of unexpected defeat; the gallant fight to win back to power ending by a stroke of fate in disaster; the final disruption of his party and the loss of old friends who had followed him in victory or defeat; these recollections must have been much in his mind during this year of afterglow. The end was fitting in its swiftness and dignity. No lingering, painful illness, but a swift stroke and a happy release. "Nothing is here for tears; nothing to wail."

The End