The Masques of Ottawa | Page 2

Pie
Crusts", the wives have their own play--"Petticoats and Power". The
stage here is a triangle--Rideau Hall, Chateau Laurier, the
Parliamentary Restaurant. At the cafe tables women from all the
counties and electoral districts of Canada--many of them
French--chatter about the great masquerade up at the Castle, the
little-king show which at its best is worth more to Canada than the
Senate. The homes of Ottawa are little shows whose players imitate the
manners and the accents of the fine people in the Castle, the Restaurant
and the Chateau.
"Nothing but a prinked-up panorama!" says the rugged Radical in a
coonskin coat, member of a deputation with a railway ticket as long as
his pocket. "Poor show! What we want down here is more plain
farmers' wives----"
He pauses. This man's first cousin broke away from the farm a
generation ago because farmers' wives were too plain, and farmers did
so little reading, and the big thinkers and doers all seemed to live in
town. As he talks, up dashes a sleigh, jangling its bells and dangling its
robes, and from behind the bearskinned driver alights a company that
makes his coonskin coat feel clumsy and uncomfortable. He glances up
at the great pile of walls on the hill. The hill is alive with fine people. In
one of the sleighs a lady bows and smiles--at him! He touches his cap
and takes his pipe from his mouth.
"That lady?" he replies to his sleeping-car mate. "Oh, that is the wife of
a Senator, used to live in our town. Clever little woman she is, too.
They tell me she's writing a novel and that Lady Byng is taking her up.

Lady Byng--oh, yes, she writes novels. Good idea. Likely her books
won't be quite so rough as some of our Canadian novels are. I like style
in a book, all that fine manners stuff; takes your mind off the humdrum
of everyday life. Byng--say, that was a wise appointment if ever there
was one. My way of thinking, Lord Byng has 'em all beaten since
Dufferin. Kings' and queens' uncles and cousins and brothers don't suit
this democratic nation like a man who got acquainted with this country
before ever he set eyes on it, through the boys he commanded out
yonder. Great man! Fit to be Governor-General of a great country, and
I won't deny it. No snobbery. Seventh son of an earl, all his life a
soldier and a worker. A real man, such as any of us could present to our
constituents with pleasure and pride. Tell you what--listen!"
His sleeping-car mate feels a heavy clutch on his arm.
"Remember the old debate we used to have about 'The pen is mightier
than the sword'? Well, say--when you get the pen and the sword united
in one outfit--what about it? Oh, it's a great show, sure enough. I used
to think government was a plain, plugshot business of trade statistics,
card indexes and ledgers. But I've come to the conclusion that this old
town has to make it a good bit of a social compromise and a show, or it
can't be carried on, no matter who does it."

CONTENTS
THE UNELECTED PREMIER OF CANADA-- RT. HON. ARTHUR
MEIGHEN
THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN PREMIER-- RT. HON. SIR ROBERT
BORDEN
A POLITICAL SOLAR SYSTEM-- RT. HON. SIR WILFRID
LAURIER
THE GRANDSON OF A PATRIOT-- HON. WILLIAM LYON
MACKENZIE KING

NUMBER ONE HARD-- HON. T. A. CRERAR
THE PREMIER WHO MOWED FENCE CORNERS-- HON. E. C.
DRURY
EZEKIEL AT A LEDGER-- RT. HON. SIR GEORGE FOSTER
A HALO OF BILLIONS-- RT. HON. SIR THOMAS WHITE
CALLED TO THE POLITICAL PULPIT-- HON. NEWTON
WESLEY ROWELL
AN AUTOCRAT FOR DIVIDENDS-- BARON SHAUGHNESSY
THE PUBLIC SERVICE HOBBYIST-- SIR HERBERT AMES
THE SHADOW AND THE MAN-- HON. SIR SAM HUGHES
THE STEREOPTICON AND THE SLIDE-- LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR
ARTHUR CURRIE
A COAT OF MANY COLOURS-- SIR JOHN WILLISON
WHATSOEVER THY HAND FINDETH-- SIR JOSEPH FLAVELLE,
BART.
NO FATTED CALVES FOR PRODIGAL SONS-- HON. SIR
HENRY DRAYTON
THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN RAILROADING-- EDWARD
WENTWORTH BEATTY
A BOURGEOIS MASTER OF QUEBEC-- HON. SIR LOMER
GOUIN
A POLITICAL MATTAWA OF THE WEST-- JOHN WESLEY
DAFOE
HEADMASTER OF THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL-- MICHAEL

CLARK, M.P.
THE SPHINX FROM SASKATCHEWAN-- HON. J. A. CALDER
A TRUE VOICE OF LABOUR-- TOM MOORE
THE MAN WITHOUT A PUBLIC-- SIR WILLIAM MACKENZIE
THE IMPERIAL BRAINSTORM-- BARON BEAVERBROOK
CONCLUSION

THE MASQUES OF OTTAWA
THE UNELECTED PREMIER OF CANADA
RT. HON. ARTHUR MEIGHEN
Once only have I encountered Rt. Hon. Arthur Meighen, Premier of
Canada by divine right, not as yet by election. I was the 347th person
with whom he shook hands and whom he tried to recognize that
afternoon. His weary but peculiarly winning smile had scarcely
flickered to rest for a moment in