CHRONICLES of CANADA Edited by George M

F 6 Universal Bindery Lid. BOOKBINDING - GOLD LETTERING Edmonton, Alberta Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofcana30wron CHRONICLES OF CANADA Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton In thirty-two volumes 30 THE DAY OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER BY OSCAR D. SKELTON Part VIII The Growth of Nationality ii, V ” ' " "f /kttRvvKn taaow.cî^ vc! us i'f# .H ..H bna. g.'i lyv .M-S-rmflO ' ' '^ HO VAC HKT LTi^JUAJ aiH'-lJlW 51 HOT iajia X' aweo va a? SIR WILFRID LAURIER ‘IN ACTION’ After an instantaneous photograpli taken during an address in the open air at Sorel, 1911 THE DAY OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER A Chronicle of Our Own Times BY OSCAR D. SKELTON Copyright in all Countries subscribing to the Berne Convention UNTVEBS!77 t r'KAS'' THE UNUfEBSiTX OE ALBEEXA I I PREFATORY NOTE i :n conformity with its title, this volume, lave for the earlier chapters, is history rather ihan biography, is of the day, more than of the nan. The aim has been to review the more ;ignificant events and tendencies in the recent )olitical life of Canada, In a later and larger lyork it is hoped to present a more personal ind intimate biography of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. O. D, SKELTON, Kingston, 1915. CONTENTS Page PREFATORY NOTE .... vii j I. THE MAKING OF A CANADIAN . I II. POLITICS IN THE SIXTIES . l8 I ! III. FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT . 32 IV. IN OPPOSITION, 1878-1887 ; . 53 V. LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION, 1887-189S . 91 j VI. LOOKING TO WASHINGTON . lOI VII. AN EMPIRE IN TRANSITION . 126 I 'VIII. THE END OF A RÎGIME . 153 ’ IX. NEW MEN AT THE HELM . 169 X. CANADA’S NEW PLACE IN THE WORLD . 176 ] XI. THE COMING OF PROSPERITY . 218 i XII. CANADA AND FOREIGN POWERS . 249 1 jXIII. NATION AND EMPIRE . 270 ,XIV. FIFTY YEARS OF UNION . 321 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . 331 INDEX ...... 333 ix ILLUSTRATIONS ;SIR WILFRID LAURIER IN ACTION . Frontispiece instantaneous photograph taken during I After an an address in the open air at Sorel, 1911. jSIR ANTOINE AIM6 DORION . „ Facing page 12 From a photograph. { 'PRIME MINISTERS OF CANADA, 1867-1916. 36 photographs. ! From i'pOVERNORS-GENERAL OF THE DOMINION S? 48 } From photographs by Topley. [vice-regal CONSORTS .... 79 64 ,1 From photographs by Topley. |hONOR6 MERCIER . , . 99 90 From a photograph. j piR WILFRID LAURIER 128 .... 99 From a photograph by Topley. I irHE LIBERAL GOVERNMENT FORMED BY MR LAURIER IN 1896 . ” 168-9 1 From photographs. 1 ipIR ROBERT BORDEN .... 194 From a photograph by Montminy, Quebec. I ÎR WILFRID LAURIER IN ENGLAND, 1911 99 294 i From a photograph. 1 CHAPTER I i THE MAKING OF A CANADIAN Wilfrid Laurier was born at St Lin, Quebec, i^n November 20, 1841. His ancestral roots were sunk deep in Canadian soil. For six generations Quebec had been the home of Laurier after Laurier. His kinsmen traced ;i:heir origin to Anjou, a province that ever bred shrewd and thrifty men. The family jiame was originally Cottineau. In a marriage povenant entered into at Montreal in 1666 the lirst representative of the family in Canada Is styled ‘ Francois Cottineau dit Champ- iauriet.^ Evidently some ancestral field or garden of lauriers or oleanders gave the de- scriptive title which in time, as was common, Jjecame the sole family name. The Lauriers pame to Canada shortly after Louis XIV took the colony under his royal wing in 1663, }n the first era of real settlement, and hewed put homes for themselves in the forest, first pn the island of Jesus, at the mouth of the 2 SIR WILFRID LAURIER Ottawa, and later in the parish of Lachenah on the north bank of the same river, whei they grew in numbers until Lauriers, wit Rochons and Matthieus, made up nearly a the parish. Charles Laurier, grandfather of Wilfri Laurier, was a man of strong character an marked ability. In face of many difficulti( he mastered mathematics and became a sel taught land surveyor, so that he was able 1 make the surveys of the great Pangma seigneury at Lachenaie. Early in the nin teenth century he settled his son Carolus on farm just hewn out of the forest, near the litt village of St Lin, a frontier settlement nestlir at the foot of the Laurentian hills north Montreal. He himself continued to reside . Lachenaie until far on in years, when he we; to live with his son at St Lin. Carolus Laurier followed in his fathei footsteps, surveying and farming by tur as opportunity offered. He had not f father’s rugged individuality, but his han some figure, his alert wit, and his amiat and generous nature made him a welcor guest through all the French and Scotti settlements in the north country. That ; had something of his father’s progress^ EARLY DAYS AT ST LIN 3 liess is shown by the fact that he was the |rst farmer in the neighbourhood to set up threshing machine in his barn, to take I jhe place of the old-time flail. It was his i|beral views that gave the first bent to his shall pn’s sympathies ; and he was, as we jee, progressive enough to give the brilliant ad the education needed for professional suc- jess, and far-seeing’anSTBroad-minded enough 5TeaTSeTiTrw*grei^ thoroughnEnow- edge of English speech and Engh ^ Yet it was rather to his mother that Wilfrid Laurier, like so m^ notable men, owed ^ aWlities and his temperament.^ M ^rtineau, kin to the mother”^ of the poet jlricchetTe, was a woman of much strength of iHaHHer^ o1 fine mind a,nd artistic talents. [ |he lived only five years after her son was [iorn, but in those few years she had so knit ilerself into his being that the warm and tender laemory of her never faded from his im- ] pressionable mind. The only other child of )jhis marriage, a daughter, Malvina, died in ipfancy. Carolus Laurier married again, his jjecond wife being Adeline Ethier. She was ihuch attached to his children and they tp her. ] i)f this second marriage three sons were born : j , 4 SIR WILFRID LAURIER Ubalde, who became a physician and died Arthabaska in 1898 ; Charlemagne, a me chant in St Lin and later member for t; , at Ottawa, who lived until ai county 1907 ; j Henri, the prothonotary at Arthabaska, wl passed away in 1906, Carolus Laurier hir ^ self lived on in his little village home for j years after the birth of his eldest son, and 1 ^ wife lived nearly twenty years longer. ^ It was a quiet, strength-shaping count ^ home in which the future statesman’s boyho< ! ^ was cast. The little village was off the beat i | yet i track of travel ; not had the railway join ^ it to the river front. There were few distra f | tions to excite or dissipate youthful energii Roaming amid the brooding silence of t i | hills, fishing for trout, hunting partridges ai } j rabbits, and joining in the simple villa } ^ the took his boyish pleasures ai games, boy i ^ built for his manhood’s calm ,, and power, t \ home had an intellectual atmosphere qui j out of the ordinary, and it enjoyed a fi measure of that grace or native courtesy whi I is not least among Quebec’s contributions \ ^ the common Canadian stock. j | He had his first schooling in the elementa ’ parish school of St Lin, where the boys learn I ^ their A-j5-C, their two-times~twOj and th r j EARLY DAYS AT ST LIN atechism. Then his father determined to ive him a broader outlook by enabling him to ee something of the way of life and to learn |he tongue of his English-speaking com- patriots. Some eight miles west of St Lin ‘‘Jin the Achigan river lay the village of New plasgow. It had been settled about 1820 ipy Scottish Protestants belonging to vari- ous British regiments. Carolus Laurier had (arried on surveys there, knew the people Ivell, and was thoroughly at home with them. The affinity so often noted between Scottish ’îjnd French has doubtless more than a mere ^nlistorical basis. At any rate, son, like father, ’^lioon found a place in the intimate life of the ^jjjlurrays, the Guthries, the Macleans, the nênnetts and other families of the settlement. ^Îjlis experience was further varied by board- ^jpg for a time in the home of an Irish Catholic qiamily named Kirk. Later, he lived with the 'jîjilurrays, and often helped behind the counter jn John Murray’s general store. ^‘'1 The school which he attended for two years, ^|1[852-53 and 1853-54, was a mixed school, for |i)oth boys and girls, taught by a rapidly shift- Nbg succession of schoolmasters, often of very '’] Unconventional training. In the first session ^ Ihe school came to an abrupt close in April, 6 SIR WILFRID LAURIER owing to the sudden departure of Thompsc the teacher in charge. A man of much greai ability, Sandy Maclean, took his place t following term. He had read widely, and v, almost as fond of poetry as of his glass. I young French pupil, who was picking English in the playground and in the hoi as well as in the school, long cherished t memory of the man who first opened to hin vista of the great treasures of English lettei The experience, though brief, had a lasti effec^t."” Perhaps the English speech becai rusty in the years of college life that follow at L’Assomption, but the understanding, a the tolerance and goodwill which understar ing brings, were destined to abide for life."^ was not without reason that the ruling moti of the young schoolboy’s future career was 1 be the awakening of sympathy and harmo \ between the two races.

Load more