He has nobody else to blame but himself for the failure of his political career, due to his misguided efforts in thwarting the happiness and prosperity which our great Dominion would certainly derive from the persevering union of all the citizens enjoying the blessings of her free British institutions, to work out her brilliant destinies by their intelligent labours, their hearted patriotism in peace times, and with their undaunted courage and their self-sacrificing devotion in war days.
After a somewhat prolonged spectacular display in the House of Commons, as member for the electoral division of Labelle, he felt instinctively that he had exhausted what he considered his usefulness, and was doomed to a dismal failure. He retired from the Dominion political arena, to try his luck in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Quebec. No wiser a man by experience, he challenged the Leader of the parliamentary majority to a truly duellist struggle on the floor of the House. He thrusted at his opponent with the vigour of a combatant certain to conquer. All those who witnessed this encounter, must remember how completely overbearing confidence, proudly asserted, was overcome by calm and superior argumentative power, sound and clear political sense. True parliamentary eloquence easily brought to reason pedantic and bombastic oratory. The first throw—le début—went decidedly against the Nationalist leader. A beaten fighter from this very first day, he met with as complete a failure in the provincial political arena as he had done in the federal one. Wisely indeed, he retired from parliamentary life, after realizing that debating power cannot be acquired by demagogic speaking.
The Nationalist leader next limited his efforts to the tribune, to the public platform. All remember the time when he was periodically calling great popular meetings held in Le Monument National, Montreal, where he preached his Nationalist gospel with vehement talking. This new experiment could not last. It soon subsided. And the Nationalist leader is since addicted to pamphleteering of the worst kind as I will show in this book.
Deeply moved by the dangers of a most mischievous campaign, I considered it my bounded duty to do my utmost efforts to prove how utterly wrong were the views which those pursuing it with passionate energy wanted to prevail, and to show the sad consequences it was sure to produce.
Having first addressed myself to my French Canadian compatriots to persuade them how much detrimental to their best future the Nationalist campaign was sure to be, I am to-day laying the case before my English speaking countrymen, at the urgent request of many of them, in order to fully acquaint them with the refutation I have made, to the best of my ability, of Mr. Bourassa's erroneous theories and wild charges against England and all those who patriotically support our mother country in the great struggle she has had to wage after doing all she possibly could to maintain the peace of the world.
I ardently desire that the reading of the following pages, will contribute to the restoration of harmony and good will, for a while endangered by the Nationalist campaign, in our wide Dominion, to whose happiness, prosperity and grandeur we, of both English and French origins, must devote our best energies and all the resources of our unwavering patriotism.
L. G. DESJARDINS.
Quebec, October 1st, 1918.