direct policy and to control events; to take charge and see that developments were in keeping with suggestions from headquarters overseas. What these Canadian parties to the great Imperial drive thought of Sir Wilfrid's dilatory, evasive and blocking tactics is not a matter of surmise. Upon this point they did not practise the fine art of reticence; and their angry expostulations are to be found in the pages of Hansard, in the editorial pages of the Conservative press, in the political literature of the time, in heavy condemnatory articles which found publication through various mediums. Thus Sir George Foster could see in Laurier's statements to the Ontario club nothing but "foolish, even mischievous talk." "If," he added, "they are merely for the sake of rhetorical adornment they are but foolish. If, however, they are studied and serious they are revolutionary." And to the extent that they could they made trouble for Sir Wilfrid, in which labor of love they were energetically assisted, upon occasion, by high officials from the other side of the Atlantic. Laurier had five years of more or less continuous struggle with Lord Minto, a combination of country squire and heavy dragoon, who was sent to Canada as governor-general in 1898 to forward by every means in his power the Chamberlain policies. He busied himself at once and persistently in trying to induce the Canadian government to commit itself formally to the policy of supplying Canadian troops for Imperial wars. In the spring of 1899 he wanted an assurance which would justify the war office in "reckoning officially" upon Canadian troops "in case of war with a European power;" in July he urged an offer of troops in the event of war in South Africa which "would be a proof that the component parts of the Empire are prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder to support Imperial interests." With the outbreak of the South African war, Lord Minto regarded himself less as Governor-General than as Imperial commissioner charged with the vague and shadowy powers which go with that office; and Sir Wilfrid had, in consequence, to instruct him on more than one occasion that Canada was still a self-governing country and not a military satrapy. Professor Skelton does nothing more than barely allude to these troubles; the story, which would be most interesting and suggestive, will perhaps never be told. But some idea of what was afoot can be drawn from the fact that at a public gathering in Montreal in the month of November, 1899, Lord Minto was advised and instructed by an active politician and leading lawyer that under his powers as the representative of Imperial authority he could order the Canadian militia to South Africa without reference to the Canadian parliament!