No need of Canada has been greater, none has lain nearer Sir Wilfrid Laurier's heart, than the lessening of misunderstanding and hostility between the men of the different races and tongues and creeds that make up the Dominion. It is a task which has been the more difficult because not merely was there a difference of races, but one race was of the same blood as the people of the United Kingdom and the other of its hereditary foe. It was always easy for politicians of the baser sort, or for well-meaning but rigid and doctrinaire extremists on either side, to stir up prejudice and passion. It was a statesman's task to endeavour to bridge the gulf, to work for better feeling between Britain and France, to emphasize the future which all Canadians hold in common, to urge the men of each race to seek that knowledge of the other which is the first and longest step towards harmony. In training and temperament Sir Wilfrid Laurier was uniquely fitted for the task of interpreting each race to the other, and though it was a task that was never completed, he had the satisfaction of achieving a marked advance.
The share of Canadian statesmen in working out the unique political achievement which we call the British Empire has not yet been fully recognized. When the history of its upbuilding comes to be written, it may well be that the names of Baldwin and LaFontaine and Howe, of Brown and Galt, of Tupper and Blake, of Macdonald and Laurier, will stand, in this regard, higher than those of Peel and Disraeli, Gladstone and Salisbury, and even Durham and Elgin. Some in England opposed the grant of self-government, believing that it led to separation. Some, reconciled to separation, urged it. Canadians, though not always seeing the path clear, both demanded self-government and trusted it would make union all the firmer. It fell to Sir Wilfrid Laurier's lot to carry out this traditional Canadian policy through an exceptionally critical era of development. He steadfastly asserted Canada's right to full nationhood, and as steadily faced each new responsibility that came with added rights. He often incurred the hostility of ultra-imperialist and of colonialist alike, going too slow for the one and too fast for the other. Many autonomists failed to recognize how manfully and how effectively he had stood at the London Conferences for self-government, until at last practically all the Dominions swung into line. Many imperialists failed to recognize how hard he had struggled to bring Quebec into harmony with the rest of the Dominion on imperial issues and particularly on the naval question. A wise opportunism, that met each issue as it arose and dealt with it in the light of long-held principles, kept the nation advancing steadily and advancing abreast.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The primary sources to which any student of the period covered in this work must refer are too numerous to specify here. Foremost come Hansard and the Sessional Papers. Such autobiographies as those of Sir Richard Cartwright, Reminiscences, Sir George Ross, Getting Into Parliament and After, Sir Charles Tupper, Recollections of Sixty Years in Canada, and Charles Langelier, Souvenirs Politiques, are as few as they are valuable. For the years since 1901 see Castell Hopkins, The Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs. This work, now in its fourteenth volume, is a mine of orderly information.
A most complete historical summary of the period is found in Canada and its Provinces. See the various monographs, especially in volumes vi, vii, viii, ix, and x. Indispensable for any survey of the period up to 1900 is Sir John S. Willison's work in two volumes, Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberal Party, which shows the ripe, balanced judgment and the literary skill of the distinguished Canadian journalist at his best. David's Laurier et son Temps, and his earlier sketch in Mes Contemporains, give brilliant impressionistic portraits of Sir Wilfrid Laurier by an intimate friend. See also Sir Joseph Pope, Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald, and Castell Hopkins, Life and Work of Sir John Thompson.