The Masques of Ottawa | Page 7

used to say for Joe Chamberlain; more clearly than all, Mr. Rowell himself, who for two years in the Cabinet had a monopoly of that great subject to which he had devoted clear thinking, concise language, and some diplomacy.
The author of "Polly Masson" might have drawn from the new Premier on this subject some such confessions as are suggested in the following imaginary, but not improbable interview.
Mr. Meighen, intensely revising his manifesto for the cables looks up and says:
"Er--what did you remark?"
"That you were about to say----"
"Was I? Oh, yes--about the Round Table. On three legs. Hasn't even as much stability as the Canada First minority--most of whom are not in Quebec. These are the negligible but uncomfortable extremists."
"Ah! Then you are of the moderate majority?"
"You mean I used not to be. Well, events move fast. Men change with them. I have been called a Tory."
"Yes, a tariff Tory."
"A moderately high tariff--sufficient unto the day."
"Quite so. But not a tariffite in sentiment."
"Tariffs are not properly sentiment. They are business."
"But Joe Chamberlain sentimentalized the tariff. He was even willing to have free trade in the Empire to get an Imperial zollverein against the rest of the world."
"Why mention Chamberlain? Are you--twitting me?"
"Because he afterwards wanted an Imperial Cabinet. And if I'm not mistaken you began to learn parliamentary speeches from one George Eulas Foster only a few years after he stumped England for the Chamberlain idea."
Meighen smiles; that wan but wholesome illumination of a thought-harassed face.
"Hasn't the old flag been some sort of issue in every Federal election since Confederation?" he is asked.
"Of course. No Federal election can be held in this nation, except by virtue of the B.N.A. Act, and every election carries with it an inferential challenge to amend the Act. Macdonald settled that--by a grand compromise with Quebec."
"But--as a Canadian first."
"Granted. But he also said in 1891--mm--now what did he say?"
"A British subject I was born----"
"And a British subject I will die. In his day--well said."
"You will not say that in 1922?"
"Probably not. Subjects do not vote in true democracies. Events change men----"
"And parties. Even Premiers?"
He turns his spindling anatomy about in the chair, suddenly rises and darts to a bookshelf, seizes a book and flicks over the pages.
"After all," with a yawn, "we have now and then to go back to Laurier, the biggest if not the greatest autonomist of all Premiers--though Sir Robert Borden years ago spoke at Peterborough quite as broadly, if less eloquently. Here it is--spoken during the war by Laurier. 'We are a free people, absolutely free. The charter under which we live has put it into our power to say whether we should take part in such a war or not. It is for the Canadian people, the Canadian Parliament and the Canadian Government alone to decide. This freedom is at once the glory and the honour of Britain which granted it and of Canada which used it to assist Britain. Freedom is the keynote of all British institutions?'"
The clock ticks louder. It is time to go.
"Tell me, Mr. Meighen, is it not after all the mandate of Canada's part in the war that stands behind the attitude you are bound to take at this Conference?"
"You mean that if Canada had not gone to war magnificently as she did, the war--might have been lost?"
"Essentially that. Hence the new nationhood of Canada born of the war. You, or any other leader, even as Tory or as clear Grit, would not foist upon this free nation any issue which does not do justice to the sense of nationhood begotten by the war. Would you?"
"I will say--no."
"Then as to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance?"
"Canada must be free, because she has a vital interest in the American aspect of such an Alliance that even Britain has not. This nation is the electric transmission transformer between Britain and the United States. There is a Pacific zone of policy in which Canada has a big stake."
"I see. Now as to the next election?"
The Premier rises: now thinner and more intense than ever.
"My friend--just this. The solidarity of the British Commonwealth League of Nations is at the root of the welfare of the civilized world. In every nation of this League, no matter by what party label the Unionist cause is identified in the baggage room, it is a matter of vital importance to the solidarity of the League that such party should remain or go into power. So--I hope to get from the Conference such a reasonable endorsation of Canada's stand on the main issues that our party here----"
He pauses and gazes fixedly at a large map of Western Canada. The visitor imagines that he is looking at Portage, his home town.
"Er--you were saying, Mr. Meighen?"
"Medicine Hat," he answered vacantly. "Somehow, you know--I wish Kipling had never made that remark