issue was the incorporation of Roman Catholic Institutions, and "The Ladies of Loretto" was singled out for special controversy. Mr. Benjamin had voted for the latter measure and Mr. Bowell was now called upon to pledge himself to an opposite course. He refused. He took the high and patriotic ground that, in a country like this, occupied by a heterogeneous population, it was impossible to govern successfully along such narrow lines. He argued that it would be unjust to take away rights and privileges which had been acquired by law, and contrary to what he understood to be the principles of the Conservative party. Prejudices were, however, actively aroused, and, as is always the case under such circumstances, a deaf ear was turned to the voice of reason and toleration. Mr. Bowell was defeated.

It is an extraordinary coincidence that at the very threshold of his political career he should have been confronted by the same phase of religious controversy that met him when he assumed the Premiership. Mr. Bowell knew that his position upon the issue of 1863 meant certain defeat; yet he refused to do violence to his sense of justice, regardless of the course of expediency which his ambition for a seat in Parliament might have suggested. In 1867, he was elected to the first Dominion Parliament. In the years which had intervened between his first candidature and this contest, the bargain of Confederation had been consummated, and its provisions had been accepted by the people at large. The electoral riding of North Hastings was composed then, as it is to-day, of strongly Protestant elements, and on general principles Separate Schools found no favor in the community; but they realized that these concessions formed a part of the basis of Confederation, and they accepted them as being outside the pale of useful controversy. Thus, Mr. Bowell entered Parliament without compromising the principles which he had laid down in his first appeal to the people of Hastings.

I have neither the space nor the disposition at this time to follow him through his twenty-five years in the House of Commons. It would be too long a story. Suffice it, that his restless energy took him quickly into the active business of the House. His natural fondness for details and fearless methods of analysis soon made him a conspicuous figure in the shaping of Parliamentary measures. Later on, when his party had passed into

opposition, and it was numerically weak in the House, it is said that he became a veritable thorn in the side of the Government. Early and late, on the floor of the House and in the Committee rooms, in the press and on the hustings, he carried on a vigorous and unceasing fight for the principles of his party, and when Sir John Macdonald was returned to power in 1878, no one was surprised that Mackenzie Bowell should be given the important portfolio of Minister of Customs in the new Government. It is worthy of mention that he was, in 1895, the sole survivor in office of the Cabinet of 1878 -six of his colleagues of 1878 having died and the others being in various spheres of life outside. For thirteen years he served as Minister of Customs; for a year as Minister of Militia; for two years as Minister of Trade and Commerce; and for a year and nearly five months-December 21, 1894, to April 27, 1896-as Premier and President of the Council. When the late Sir John Thompson assumed the Premiership, in December, 1892, Mr. Bowell was asked to take the leadership of the Senate, and he assumed it with reluctance. This took him out of the House of Commons, where he had sat for twenty-five years in unbroken representation of the North Riding of Hastings. It was in the year following this change that he made his famous visit to Australia, and paved the way for the Colonial Conference of 1894— which gathering may yet come to be regarded as one of the most significant events in the modern history of the British Empire. On December 14, following the tragic death of Sir John Thompson, he was called to the Premiership, and on the 1st of January, 1895, he was knighted by Her Majesty. His Ministry was made up as follows:

No reference to the career of Sir Mackenzie Bowell would be complete without incidental treatment of the part which he has played as a volunteer and as an Orangeman. It was in 1857 that he joined with two others in the organisation of the Belleville Rifle Company of sixty-five men, taking the personal rank of Ensign. At that time all that the Government furnished in Class B were the arms, the uniforms being purchased almost wholly by the officers. In 1860 his Company was re-uniformed and the officers bore the additional expense of providing a band. In 1864 the Belleville Rifle Company, with other similar volunteer organizations, was called out for service along the Canadian frontier, in order to prevent raids being made upon the United States by Southerners who were making this country a base of operations. The Belleville Company was stationed at Amherstburg, Ontario, for four months, and on returning home in May, 1865, the Ensign decided to retire. When the Fenian Raid occurred in 1866 the military spirit again took possession of him. The Captain of No. 1 Company of the 15th Battalion could not leave for the front, and Mackenzie Bowell, regardless of business and domestic care, volunteered to take his place. He was accepted and put in charge of No. 1 Company as Captain. The Battalion served at Prescott until the Fenian trouble was over. Subsequently the 49th Battalion was organized, No. 1 Company being composed of the old Rifle Company organized in 1857, and Mr. Bowell was made Senior Major. He continued in that rank for five years and for two years afterwards was brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. He then permanently retired retaining the senior rank. Sir Mackenzie Bowell's experience as an Orangeman dates from 1842, when, at nineteen years of age he was initiated into that Order. It would be a long story to trace his rise from the ranks to the high offices, and many facts of interest in that relation must be passed over. Beginning at the humble post

of Tyler, he passed step by step upward until he became Provincial Grand Master. This he held for eight years, and then succeeded the late Hon. John Hillyard Cameron, as Most Worshipful Grand Master. While in that office he was sent as a delegate to Great Britain, and was there elected as the first President of the Triennial Council. In 1878, after having occupied the first Chair for eight years, he retired from office in the Orange Order.

It may not be amiss to hint at the qualities which I believe brought Mackenzie Bowell into great public prominence. It was my privilege to study his character from a point of advantage for a number of years, and I know that I shall have the concurring judgment of all those who know him best, when I say that he owes very much to his prodigious energy, his masterly grasp of detail, his urbanity of manner and his spotless integrity of life. In short, he has been a very capable man, who has commanded popular trust. He stands for what the world recognizes as "a good all round man," gifted with acute sagacity in many things, and bringing a robust common sense to bear on all things. It was Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton who said: "The longer I live the more I am certain that the great difference between men, between the great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination, an honest purpose once fixed, then death or victory. This quality will do anything in the world; and no talents, no circumstances, will make a two-legged creature a man without it." A hundred apt illustrations of this truthful observation could be drawn from our everyday life in commerce, in education, in religion, and in politics; but it has no more conspicuous exponent than Sir Mackenzie Bowell.

Towards the close of April, 1896, Sir Mackenzie resigned the Premiership, and Sir Charles Tupper, Bart., was called upon to form a Cabinet. I know that it would afford interesting reading if I were to detail the circumstances which came under my personal observation during those days of trouble and excitement in December, 1895, and January, 1896, but it would not be proper that I should do so now, nor would such a statement serve any useful purpose. It is sufficient to say at this time that Sir Mackenzie came out of the ordeal without a stain on his good name, and passed into quieter avenues of public life with the knowledge that he had the

sincere sympathy of a vast majority of the people of Canada. No one realized more deeply than himself that he lacked some of the qualities which make a political leader strong; but it was not one of his failings to flinch from the dictates of duty nor to depart from his strict notions of fair play and justice. It can never be denied that he was moved in his general conduct by high patriotic considerations; nor that he yielded his full energy to the promotion of measures which he conscientiously believed were for the public weal. Speaking of his life as a Cabinet Minister, it may be said that he was not an intolerant man swayed by narrow views; on the contrary it may be maintained that he brought a broad-minded judgment to bear on all matters coming within the scope of his administration. He was not even a strong partisan, as has often been said by those who judged only from superficial evidences. He was an uncompromising Conservative so far as general policy was concerned; but I never knew him to allow party considerations to influence him in his friendships, in his notions of right and wrong, or in his conceptions of what was for the best good of the public service.