preceding the election, Mr. Laurier had visited every province of the Confederation, and had even devoted months to arduous campaigning in the far western communities. Everywhere a new national spirit was born into the Liberal party, and a genuine enthusiasm for the leader developed.

But it was a hard, stern, eventful, and even tumultuous contest. Sir Charles Tupper, with characteristic courage, opened his campaign at Winnipeg; and at the very seat of the Government which had enacted the school legislation, and in the very face of the people most concerned, maintained the expedience and justice of the remedial policy. He stumped the eastern provinces, and made a tremendous campaign in Ontario. His vigour and endurance were phenomenal. Now and then he had to face hostile meetings in Conservative strongholds, but his spirit never was daunted and his energy never abated. He touched the dormant party spirit of the old Macdonald legions, and measurably overcame even the divisive and destructive work of Mr. Clarke Wallace and Mr. D'Alton McCarthy. We could almost see the restoration of party unity proceed under his hand. It is the fortune of a leader who meets defeat to receive dispraise and ingratitude, and while it may be that with all his bold constructive genius, Sir Charles Tupper lacked the more persuasive qualities of leadership, this at least is true that no braver man ever led a party into battle, and no more gallant

fight was ever made to save a field than his in 1896. Mr. Laurier had never possessed such exceptional physical stamina as belonged to Sir Charles Tupper, and the unusual length and arduous character of the campaign tested his endurance to the utmost. But for six weeks his voice was hardly still, and everywhere his sympathetic eloquence, his candour and directness, his moderation of statement and abstention from all mischievous appeal to passion and prejudice, impressed the soberer elements of the community, and baffled the efforts of his opponents to stampede the business interests and shift the contest to grounds which provided surer footing for the Administration. In Quebec as in Ontario he held to an undeviating course upon the school question, and faced the menaces of the ecclesiastics and the envenomed assaults of their political agents in the courteous and respectful but still unyielding spirit which he had manifested on the floor of Parliament. While he would not bow to clerical dictation, he refused to utter a word which could excite the prejudices of other religious communions against that to which he belonged, and feed the sectarian fires which were burning all too fiercely.

The result of the polling was a decisive, if not an overwhelming victory for the Liberal party. In Ontario the Liberals carried forty-four out of ninety-two seats, while four seats were carried by Conservative opponents of the remedial policy, and three by Patrons of Industry in general sympathy

with the Liberal leaders. Nova Scotia elected eleven Liberals and nine Conservatives; New Brunswick five Liberals, eight Conservatives, and one Independent; and in Prince Edward Island three out of the five seats were carried by Liberal candidates. Manitoba, in whose behalf the battle against coercion was waged, returned a Conservative majority, but still elected Mr. D'Alton McCarthy and two Liberal representatives. The Territories and British Columbia gave seven out of ten seats to the Liberal party, while in Quebec, out of a total representation of sixty-five, only seventeen Conservatives secured election. To the Liberals of Quebec, maligned, misrepresented, and misunderstood from the very birth of Confederation, faithful through long years of adversity to the essential principles of civil and religious liberty, we owe the deliverance of Manitoba from the policy of federal coercion and the pacific settlement of a quarrel which threatened the integrity of Confederation and menaced the selfgoverning rights of all the western communities.

H

CHAPTER XXV

THE SCHOOL SETTLEMENT

ARDLY was the new federal Government well seated in office before negotiations were opened with the authorities of Manitoba for such amendment and modification of the provincial school legislation as would remove established grievances, and reconcile the Catholic ratepayers of the province to the Public School system. The provincial Ministers met Mr. Laurier in a cordial and conciliatory spirit, and a basis of compromise was arranged without difficulty. They held unflinchingly to the ground that no system of Stateaided Separate Schools could receive recognition, and Mr. Laurier freely conceded that this was a demand which he was not entitled to prefer, and which indeed was not sanctioned by the judgment of the Privy Council. The agreement as finally reached, and as embodied in the statutes of Manitoba, provides that when authorized by a resolution passed by a majority of the trustees of the district in which the school is situated, or upon a petition presented to the trustees by the parents or guardians of ten children attending a rural school, or of twenty-five children attending a city, town or village school, there shall be religious teaching.