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Updated: May 6, 2025
But they will get produced some day, for I believe he's an extremely clever fellow in his way in everything except the diplomatic 'trade' which his father would have him take up, and got him into, through Heaven knows what influence. No; Du Laurier's no fool, and is said to be a fine sportsman, as well as almost absurdly good-looking.
The courtesy, grace, charm, literary and artistic ability that go with it are merely accessories; they are the feathers on the arrow that help it in its flight from the twanging bow-cord to the bull's-eye. Laurier's mind was typically French with something also Italianate about it, an inheritance perhaps from the long-dead Savoyard ancestor who brought the name to this continent.
For ten years he remained Laurier's chief lieutenant in Quebec, but he never in any sense of the word became a Liberal, though in 1902, just before he was thrown from the battlements, he busied himself in reading lifelong Liberals out of the party.
Before Sir John Macdonald's Conservative administration was defeated there was a long series of victories by the Liberals in the provinces, and before Sir Wilfred Laurier's Liberal government was defeated the Conservatives had captured the most of the provincial governments.
This was probably the only expedient which held any prospects of avoiding party disruption; but after its rejection Liberals in disagreement with Laurier still sought for an accommodation. There was a continuous conference going on for weeks in which all manner of suggestions were made. They all broke down before Laurier's courteous but unyielding firmness.
Their day was over and their power gone. Laurier reigned supreme. These commitments and considerations furnished the background to the drama of Laurier's premiership. Much that took place on the fore-stage is only intelligible by taking a long vision of the whole setting.
Sir Joseph Ward, of New Zealand, acting as the mouthpiece of the imperial federationists, urged the establishment, first of an Imperial Council of State and later of an Imperial Parliament. His proposals met no support. "It is absolutely impracticable," was Laurier's verdict.
He knew that the bishops, chagrined, humiliated, enraged by their election experience, were only waiting for the announcement of settlement to open war on him. It would then depend upon whether or not they were more successful than in June in commanding the support of their people. In Laurier's own words: "They will not pardon us for their check of last summer; they want revenge at all costs."
A fortunate combination of circumstances took him out of the struggle for a place at the Montreal bar and gave him a practice in the country combined with the editorship of a Liberal weekly, a position which made him at once a figure of some local prominence. Laurier's personal charm and obvious capacity for politics marked him at once for local leadership.
There were others who admitted Laurier's personal charm and grace but doubted whether he had the political strength to control a party of conflicting elements and to govern a country where different race and diverging religious and sectional interests set men at odds. Here again time proved such fears to be groundless.
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