CANADIANS who have made their mark in public life have, as a rule, entered parliament when comparatively young. It was in 1849, at the age of thirty-four, that Cartier took his seat in the House of Assembly to represent Vercheres. Late as his debut was, it did not prevent him from advancing with rapid strides towards the treasury benches. His success is easily accounted for when one considers his talents and long preparation for public life. It had never occurred to him, as it does to so many, that it is possible to engage in politics without preliminary studies. He had a high conception of public life, with the many and heavy responsibilities which it throws on the man who is actuated by a nobler aim than mere personal advancement.

He was a born ruler of men. Nature, it seems, endows certain individuals with the gift of command as she adorns others with the genius of poetry. Such men as Cartier are seldom met with in our midst. It is surprising to note how numerous are the ready and fluent speakers among the French population, and how few are fit to lead. To grasp a situation, to foresee the evolution of public opinion, with its bearing on events, are parts of the art of government. Cartier had the mastery of that art to a high degree. It was his good fortune soon to acquire that great authority which eminence in knowledge and talent gives. He was a man of quick resolve, a faculty also seldom found in politicians. Thanks to his aptitudes, the actual leadership of his party fell into his hands before he was officially called to assume it. His influence was so great at the outset that in 1851 he was offered a portfolio in the Hincks-Morin administration. Two years later Lord Elgin and Mr. Hincks pressed him to become a member of the cabinet. It was only in 1855, when Morin was called to the bench, that he was finally persuaded to accept the responsibilities which he could no longer refuse. But before he entered the cabinet he had played the part of a minister in the House. In fact he led the government forces, supporting their measures, fighting their battles, and extending a sort of protection over them.

When Cartier consented to take a portfolio he was at the head of an important law firm in Montreal, and briefs came into his hands in great number from the best mercantile establishments; the Grand Trunk Railway Company, then in its infancy, also entrusted him with its business. From 1855 to the day of his death, in 1873, his name remained with the firm of Cartier, Pominville &; Betournay; but, as it will presently be shown, public 22 duties kept him away from the Montreal court-house and a profitable business. He was admitted to the bar in 1835, and his legal training of almost twenty years was an excellent preparation for parliament. His mind had become permeated with those sound principles of law which gave him such power in debate on the floor of the House. His legal knowledge was also of use in another and a more important field: it helped him to follow closely the tradition of the "coutume de Paris'' in framing the legislation of his native province. To this day the large number of statutes which his activity put through parliament bear the imprint of his strong mind. For twenty-five years Cartier was in power, with but short intervals of opposition. It will not be out of place to show how he succeeded in maintaining himself in office for such a long term, at the head of a party full of conflicting ideas, and in a democratic community antagonistic, by natural instinct, to long-standing cabinets. This success was not due to his sterling merit alone, but to causes which it will be interesting to note, so that his career may be clearly understood.

Cartier's long tenure in office was not due to a lack of talented men, for at no time in the political history of Canada were there in the field more distinguished men than in his day. Not to mention Pa-pineau, La Fontaine, and Morin, who belong to the previous generation, it is possible to rank very near him several able lawyers and clever writers. In the first place stood Cauchon, a fine speaker and a vigorous journalist. He had very few equals as a polemist, and with his constitutional knowledge he would have made his mark even in England. He wielded in Le Journal de Quebec a powerful pen against those whom he was pleased to call the enemies of his race and religion, George Brown and his followers. His ambition was to become the leader of the Conservatives, but Cartier barred the way, and the latter received from this rival but an indifferent support. Cauchon was the leader of the Conservatives in the district of Quebec, where, with the young men of the day, he kept the Liberals at bay—led though they were by such men as Fournier, Plamondon, and Huot. Cauchon wrote the best commentaries on the Quebec Conference resolution, which became the British North America Act. It was this able contribution to the discussion of the confederation scheme that was largely instrumental in gaining the approval of the clergy, who at first were loath to accept the proposed new order of things. With less talent Sicotte also played an important part in parliament among the followers of Cartier, until he left him to form the Liberal Macdonald-Sicotte administration. Chauveau was another prominent Conservative, but his literary attainments finally inclined him towards more congenial labours than those of a member of parliament, and he assumed the honourable and important duties of superintendent of public education. Near these politicians was also to be found the bright and fascinating Lo-ranger, a ready speaker, bristling with irony and sarcasm, who seemed called to advancement in public life, and deservedly so. The men just referred to were Conservatives of a more or less pronounced type.

Arrayed against Cartier, the Liberals had at their head men of whom they were justly proud: Aim£ Dorion, Papineau's disciple, with his brother Eric, surnamed "Enfant terrible and next to them Laflamme, Dessaules, Fournier, Doutre, Daoust, Laberge, Papin—all popular speakers, all with generous, but none the less with misconceived, aspirations. Most of them attained a high position after Cartier had disappeared from the arena. They would probably have conquered him long before he died had they not been handicapped by their radical ideas and compromised by their "clear Grit" allies of Upper Canada, who were then clamouring against the institutions of the Eastern Province. Great admirers of Papineau, holding the liberal ideas which the oppression of former days had fostered, they were ready to fill their sails with the wind of radicalism which during the Revolution of 1848 in France swept all over the world.

The downfall of Louis Philippe and the proclamation of the Republic had produced an immense impression in Canada. As a consequence a democratic party was organized, and the French Canadian Liberal party, led by La Fontaine, was split into two sections. At that time there was no organization bearing the name Conservative in the Province of Quebec. The new faction followed Papineau and Aimd Dorion. Their platform smacked of the French revolutionary notions of 1848; it was akin to Louis Blanc's red-hot tirades against monarchy and its real or pretended abuses.

One cannot read to-day the democratic programme of 1849 without smiling. It was evidently the production of very inexperienced young men, brimful of an enthusiasm which made them accept the Utopian dreams of their French prototypes on social questions. They, however, stopped short of socialism. The reforms which they advocated to bring about the millenium in Canada, comprised annual parliaments, an elective judiciary, even annexation to the United States.

A paper, UAvenir, was started in the interest of the would-be reformers, whose trend of ideas may be gathered from the following extract of their appeal to the public, evolved at a meeting of the Club démocratique of Montreal, the head of the party faction: "Democrats by conviction," said the programme, "and of French Canadian origin, it grieves us to think that the electric fluid of democracy, which flashes over the civilized world, would run through Canada uselessly for want of a conducting wire on the soil of this New World. Without universal suffrage, where is the legitimate and rational consecration of authority ? Will it be the drop of oil from La Sainte Ampoule (the vial used at the coronation of French kings) dripping on his forehead that will transform a man into a monarch and legislator for a whole nation ? It is our misfortune not to look upon sovereignty in that light. We then shall take the liberty of discarding the oily performance of Rheims, and give our preference to the strong and pure consecration which in 1848 burst forth from the soul of a noble people. In former ages, Christianity, sciences, arts and printing were given to the nations to civilize them; now popular education, commerce and universal suffrage will make them free."

It would be unfair to saddle the whole Liberal party with the responsibility of the ultra-radicalism of 1849; many disapproved of it and dreaded its exaggerations. But they had thrown in their lot with these men of anti-British and anti-Catholic sentiment, and in consequence they found themselves out of harmony with the clergy and the great bulk of their countrymen. Referring to these misguided politicians of fifty years ago, Sir Wilfrid Laurier once said,1 "The only excuse of these Liberals was their youth, the oldest of them was not twenty-two. . . . However, they had hardly advanced a few steps in life when they perceived their great error. As early as 1852 they published another newspaper, leaving j'Avenir to the hot-headed, and they tried to find, but not always with success, it is true, the new path which the friends of liberty should follow under the new constitution. . . . The clergy, alarmed at their conduct, which recalled too much the attitude of European revolutionists, declared an unmerciful war on the new party. The English population, friendly to liberty, but also loving order, turned against the new party, which for twenty-five years has remained in opposition."

These were not the only compromising connections of the Liberals. They were unmistakably associated with George Brown, the avowed enemy of Lower Canada, who was at that time fighting for Protestant and English supremacy. Brown's policy of representation by population was a principle just in itself, perhaps, but contrary to the Union Act of 1840, which gave equal representation to both provinces. Dorion accepted population as the basis of representation, and it was this concession to his Grit ally, which drew from Cartier this bitter remark to Dorion: "Your friend Laberge has stated that when you accepted representation by population, you cast the cannon ball that killed the Liberal party."

It has been charged against Cartier that he courted clerical influence, and against the Lower Canadian priests that they threw into the struggle the weight of their spiritual power in favour of the Conservatives. All this was greatly exaggerated for 28 political purposes, but even if the clergy had stepped into the arena, who would blame them to-day? Was it riot simply for them a question of self-defence? Could they remain absolutely neutral when both their national and religious existence were at stake? Could they close their ears when powerful men, riding the "Protestant horse," clamoured vociferously: "No popery and down with French domination"?

It was their dangerous allies and their radical programme that kept Dorion and his friends in opposition so long, and gave Cartier such powerful hold over his countrymen. Had political issues been confined to economic questions, to tariff, trade and commerce, he could not have withstood for so long the assaults of such able men as Dorion, Fournier, Laflamme, Laberge, and a host of others equally brilliant and full of generous aspirations for the welfare of the people, but with ill-conceived notions for reaching the desired goal. It was their misfortune to maintain their' opponents in power. In 1863, Cartier boasted at Toronto that out of forty-two constituencies the Liberals had only carried thirteen.

Time and experience taught a severe lesson to Dorion and his friends, who finally eschewed radicalism. Yet suspicion clung to them for many years, even after confederation, although the contest between the Conservatives and Liberals was then waged on immediate political issues. In 1872, at the suggestion of Messrs. Jettd, F. Langelier, Laurier, Pelletier, Mercier, David, and several younger men of the party, an effort was made to place Liberalism under other colours. A meeting was held at Quebec on March 8th, and resolutions embodying the views of the leaders on strictly political issues, were adopted. A letter was read from Mercier in which he eulogized the clergy and requested them, in the meantime, to consider him and his co-religionists as friends. It was an attempt to dispel all past misunderstandings. The new organization then appeared in the field as Le Parti National, with an organ called Le National, published in Montreal.

Thus the Liberals broke away from all notions repugnant to the great mass of French Canadians. The doubts which still overhung their fortune melted away by degrees, and the day dawned when they appeared just as orthodox as their opponents. By a curious coincidence, the first important victim of the reorganized party was Cartier himself, who was defeated at the general election of 1872.