point, a failure to agree, followed by the publication of the deliberate judgments, would not have meant war. Canada, which had never involved Britain in war with the United States on her own behalf, and had been involved in a war of Britain's was quite as near and quite as aware of the danger and quite as eager to avert it as Lord Alverstone. The Canadian government would not have dreamed of pressing insistence to the point of war, but neither were they prepared to make all the concessions for the sake of peace, or to yield to an argument or a bluff which might with equal force be urged in every difference between the two countries and compel surrender before discussion began.

The Alaska lisière was never again so important. With the decline soon after of the Yukon gold-fields, access through its ports became of less moment. Dyea and Skagway soon became as dead as Tyre and Sidon. The controversy was of significance more for its incidental effects, the occasion it gave for bringing Canadian and United States public men into intimate contact, its effect in demonstrating that the national current in Canadian opinion would not necessarily run thereafter in the same channel as the imperial; and the impulse it gave to independent control of foreign affairs.

Sir Wilfrid did not carry out the threat of his October speech. After discussion, he did not press for publication of the correspondence; there were, it was agreed, some comments which it might be as well for international and imperial amity not to make public. As for the treaty-making powers, no immediate and

formal demand was made. Nothing was more foreign to Sir Wilfrid's ruling bias than to urge any policy on general and theoretical grounds; not until a concrete issue arose would the demand for wider powers be renewed. When the occasion did arise, in the Waterways treaty with the United States, in the trade conventions with European powers, in the immigration negotiations with Japan, Canada's control over foreign relations was to be quietly, un-dogmatically but surely and steadily advanced.

CHAPTER XIII

THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATION

Laurier as Leader-His Objectivity and Freedom from Resentment-Three Challengers-Israel Tarte-A Lively Past Quebec and Ontario Critics-Tarte's Campaign for Protection-Laurier Acts-Andrew Blair-Railway Rivalry and Railway Policy-Attempts at Co-operation-The Grand Trunk Pacific-Blair's Opposition-Lord Dundonald and the Militia-Indiscretion and Dismissal -The Montreal Railway Plot-Its Failure-The Elections of 1904.

I

N the Laurier government's second term of office

three men put to the test the question who was to

be master. Supported by powerful forces in the country, they raised within the cabinet or within the outer administration, the banner of defiance. Israel Tarte, backed by the embattled manufacturers, challenged Wilfrid Laurier on the issue of protection. Andrew Blair, backed by railway promoters and ambitious newspaper magnates, challenged him on the transcontinental railway policy. Lord Dundonald, with all the force of imperialist sentiment and militia zeal behind him, raised the question whether the cabinet or military officers were to be supreme in determining the country's policy. When the smoke had cleared away, there was no longer room for question.

One challenge proved serious. His health, sustained by unceasing care, broke down during his visit to Europe in 1902. In the following session, he concluded

that it would not be possible to go on, and wrote out his resignation for Council. He was persuaded to withhold it, and found reprieve.

When Wilfrid Laurier had first taken the reins of office, there were many who doubted, even after his nine years of party leadership, whether he would be more than the titular head of the government. They did not think it possible that a man so courteous could show himself firm when firmness was called for. Could a leader who had made his fame by his oratory develop the qualities needed to control a ministry and to guide a distracted country through difficult days? The men nearest him in parliament had little doubt, and to many observers outside its walls his skilful handling of the school issue had given the answer. For the others, his first months in power completed the demonstration. A leader in office, with power to bind and to loose, has in any case a surer seat than a leader in opposition, with only hope and disappointment to divide. It was not long until the critics had shifted their attack, and begun to complain of Laurier's masterful and self-willed ways.

The Laurier administration contained many men of strong will who had for years been autocrats in their own fields. Yet from first to last the prime minister was first in fact as in form. His authority was more than once challenged; on one occasion he was forced to compromise after a public announcement of his policy, but to the end he remained the one indispensable man in the government.

As prime minister, Sir Wilfrid was not a hard taskmaster. He did not intervene in the details of the administration of his colleagues. He believed in giving every minister wide latitude and large responsibility. A Whig by conviction, he was not eager to govern overmuch, and this theoretical leaning was reinforced by the quality of his temperament. He had little of Blake's devouring and constructive interest in detail. "I'm a lazy dog," he was accustomed to say to his friends in his last years. The saying did not do justice to himself even in the days of failing health, much less in the years of unrelenting effort he had given to party and to country in his prime. He gave conscientious and punctilious care to every question that came before him as minister; day and night he sat patiently through endless debates. But it was true that he was not deeply and vitally interested in more than a few questions, and that in this indifference there was rooted a certain indolence and easy-going trust. He would often defer dealing with a rising question or disciplining a colleague whose public policy or private conduct called for a check, until a crisis forced action. Unfailingly and scrupulously honourable in his own dealings with men and women, he was tolerant of other men's failings when they did not directly affect the State.

Nor was he hasty and arbitrary in determining general policy. In cabinet councils he never played the dictator. Each minister in turn would state his point of view on this side and on that, while he himself sat silent or with only a guiding or inquiring word, until