Mr. Parent smiled, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, but made no comment.
“Would you mind telling me how you made your start toward success?”
The light of reminiscence came into the Premier’s eyes and his smile was more pronounced. After a very brief pause he said:
“You flatter me by the use of that word success; but if you want to know how I began my career I will assure you that I began it with a failure. My father was a merchant across the river in Beauport, where I was born, and before I was old enough to appreciate how much I did not know I branched out into business for myself. I started a grocery store. It failed, and I decided that I was unfit to be a successful grocer.
“A fair education gained at the normal school enabled me to obtain a place in a law office of S. B. Langois here in Quebec. After I had been with him a short time he strongly advised me to take up law as a profession. I was beginning to feel a pronounced inclination in this direction, and, stimulated by his encouragement, I began to study hard. I took the course at Laval University, and after graduation commenced to practice chiefly at first in the police courts.
“Gradually my clients increased in numbers and my cases in importance. Politics had always interested me. I became somewhat active in this field, and, although I have never tried to practice the art of oratory, for which I have no gift, I was elected to the County Council of Quebec in 1890. Three years later I was made Mayor of the city and not long afterwards Premier of the Province. My career since then has been largely official and a matter of record.”
“It is said that you have given the province and the city the best business administration they have ever had. You know more about business now than when you ran the grocery store, for instance.”
“Oh, yes,” laughed Mr. Parent, “a great deal more. For one thing, I have learned that the price of a business success is eternal vigilance. I have found that the only way to conduct affairs of a municipality along strictly business lines is to watch the committees—to watch their every move. It is in these bodies that the financial leaks are most likely to occur. Not having to carry the main responsibility for public expenditures, committees are inclined to be too generous, too confident of the resources of the treasury. I have no doubt that this is as true in your country, the United States, as in Canada.
“We have ten committees which are meeting constantly. During the eleven years I have been in office I have not missed a single meeting, which is one of the main causes, I think, of whatever success I may have had as a public administrator.”
“Your position as the representative of a large population of both French and English must have its difficulties,” I remarked.