Lemieux is an extraordinarily strong character. Of medium height, inclined to be stout, sallow of skin, clean-shaven, with slightly grey hair, standing up straight like a Frenchman’s; great charm of manner, not fulsome, but gracious, and at times commanding. He gets excited and marches about the room, waving his hands—nice hands, broad, but small for his sex—and pursing his mouth. A man of strength, and a gentle, kindly being. Very ambitious, and yet, as he says truly, “What is success, when once attained?”
One night I was to dine with him. Nothing would do but he must fetch me in a taxi. We went to the “Ritz,” where he had ordered an excellent little dinner, and where a lovely bunch of roses and lilies was beside my plate. When he went at five to order the dinner, he had ordered the flowers and a pin!
The day after his arrival at his London hotel his little jewel-case was stolen. He told me almost in tears. “Recollections, souvenirs, gone, my wife’s first present to me—a scarf-pin. Her great-grandmother’s earring. My ring as Professor of Law, gone. I feel I have lost real friends—friends of years and friends I valued. Their worth was little, their sentiment untold.”
A treaty between Canada and Japan allowed free emigration. At once ten thousand Japanese descended on Canada. Yellow peril was imminent. Lemieux was sent to Japan. After delicate manipulation he got the treaty altered, so that only four hundred Japanese should land in a year, a regulation that brought him much renown.
Then the Lemieux Act, which means amicable discussion between parties before arbitration, was brought in. One representative from each side and one representative of the Minister of Labour meet; everything is sifted to the bottom and published, with the result that few cases ever go to arbitration, but are generally settled by this intermediate body. It works so successfully that Roosevelt sent people from the United States to study its working, and the sooner Great Britain does something to settle her strikes along the same lines the better.
Yes, Canada impressed me, charmed me, and as I am proud to reckon, after ten years, two of the late Cabinet Ministers among my best friends, not forgetting one of the leading spirits in agriculture, I have followed the remarkable development of Canada with interest. She will expand even more in the next ten years. Canada is a land to reckon with. She can produce wealth, and as long as the Socialist does not enter to destroy that wealth, and distribute it, Canada will forge ahead. No one was more surprised than the Liberal Cabinet at their overthrow in 1911; they were more surprised even than Borden at his great victory.
CHAPTER XXII
PUBLIC DINNERS
AT a public dinner the photographer said, “The people at the bottom tables buy the photos, the people at the top table steal the pencils.”