ance in 1908, though the new Nationalist group gave some trouble. In the West, the Rutherford government still held control of power in Alberta, and Premier Scott had secured a new lease of power in Saskatchewan in the election of August, 1908.

Elsewhere the prospect for the Liberal party was less encouraging. In New Brunswick, where Mr. Blair had been followed by a rapid succession of Liberal or faintly coalition premiers,-James Mitchell, Henry Emmerson, L. J. Tweedie, William Pugsley, Clifford Robinson, the end of a twenty-five-year Liberal régime came with the decisive victory of Douglas Hazen, the Conservative leader, early in 1908. In Ontario, after Oliver Mowat's retirement, Arthur Sturgis Hardy and George W. Ross in turn endeavoured to carry on, but despite their ability and the quality of the new men they gathered around them in the cabinet, the fight was a losing one. After thirty-two years' unbroken power, the electors were prepared to listen to the cry, "It is time for a change," and the more so since in the last years of Liberal government, when numbers were desperately close, disreputable machine methods gained the ascendancy. The Ross government was swept out of power in January, 1905, and in June, 1908 a Conservative victory with 86 seats to 19 made it clear that Sir James Whitney's progressive administration assured him in turn of a long vista of office. In Manitoba, the Greenway government had gone down to defeat in 1900, and though the Roblin government was

fast building up a reputation as the most shamelessly and colossally corrupt administration in provincial record, it was still able to secure or to count a majority of the voters. In British Columbia, after a period of chaos in which Joseph Martin played a spectacular part, the non-party basis of government, with its instability and constant personal intrigue, was abandoned, and a frankly Conservative government under Richard McBride held power from 1903. The provincial swing was distinctly toward the Conservative camp.

It was not, however, the indirect influence of Conservative gains in the provinces that the Laurier government had to fear so much as the attacks made upon its own conduct of public affairs. Its administration of the country's business was constantly and vigorously under fire in this period. The sessions of 1906, 1907 and 1908 were largely scandal sessions, and the general election that followed was a scandals election. The government was attacked as wasteful, demoralized, corrupt, false to all the principles and promises of the sanctimonious Liberalism of Opposition days. The government forces retorted in kind. If half what each side alleged of the other was true, Canadian public life had sunk below the depths it had reached in the nineties. How much fire was behind the campaign smoke?

So far as the conduct of parliament itself was concerned or at least of the Commons, for the Senate changed not-there was no question that the years had brought a marked and welcome raising of standards.

The amenities of debate were better observed, personalities were less extreme, the possibility that the other side of the House might not all be imbeciles or scoundrels more freely recognized. At times when a long session had frayed men's nerves or the discussion of scandal charges had come close home, there were outbursts which did the House little credit, but they were fewer than of old, and rarely shared in by the front benches. How much of the change was due to the lessening use of whiskey, how much to the guidance of a notable succession of Speakers, J. D. Edgar, Thomas Bain, Louis Brodeur, N. A. Belcourt, R. F. Sutherland, and later, Charles Marcil, it would be difficult to assess. There was no doubt that it was in very large part due to the character and example of the leader of the House. His dignity and courtesy pervaded the whole Commons; the standards of a great gentleman became part of the traditions of parliament. The influence of Mr. Borden, always fair and always more interested in principles than in personalities, made strongly in the same direction.

As regards administration, a stock-taking did not reveal such steady progress. There was much to set to the government's credit. It had shown an energy and a competence in many fields in refreshing contrast to earlier days. In the administration of the Treasury, in immigration and settlement, in agriculture, in the post-office, and in less degree in the public works, the country had received progressive and careful service.