[Illustration: SIR WILFRID LAURIER Speaking at Strathroy, Ont., September 19th., 1908] _Sir_ WILFRID LAURIER BY PETER McARTHUR “NOW IS THE STATELY COLUMN BROKE, THE BEACON LIGHT IS QUENCHED IN SMOKE, THE TRUMPET’S SILVER VOICE IS STILL, THE WARDER SILENT ON THE HILL!” 1919 J. M. DENT & SONS, LIMITED LONDON TORONTO PARIS: J. M. DENT ET FILS DEDICATION This book is dedicated to my fellow-writers of the Canadian Press. The merits of the book are due to their efforts for I have helped myself lavishly to their best brains. I have long been of the opinion that a genius is a man who knows a good thing when he steals it, and this is the first time I have had a chance to steal on an ambitious scale. I have stolen much, and if I had had more time, I would have stolen more. PETER MCARTHUR. TORONTO, MARCH 19TH., 1919. ERRATA. Page 119, line 17, word “conquer” should read “contend” Sir Wilfrid Laurier The length of Sir Wilfrid’s public career alone challenges admiration and respect. He had been almost half a century in active politics; forty-six years a salient figure in Parliament; a leader of the Liberal party for thirty years; Prime Minister for fifteen years. He saw generations of men and generations of statesmen. He saw Confederation in its cradle and watched it grow to nationhood. Since he entered public life England has had three Monarchs, while the figures of Disraeli and Gladstone, of Salisbury and Campbell-Bannerman have passed across its national stage. He witnessed the rise of Cavour and saw the sword of Garibaldi flash, and he sympathized with their aspirations for an United Italy. He saw the German States confederated by Bismarck into blood and iron, saw France, his Motherland, crushed and bleeding at the feet of the Teuton conqueror, and lived to see the structure which Bismarck reared crumbled into utter dust. Since he entered public life, Russia has had two Emperors, emancipated its slaves, fought three great wars, overthrown the House of Czars and plunged into anarchy and ruin. France has been an Empire and a Republic, and countless rulers and statesmen have appeared and vanished from her national life. During that period the United States has developed into a great power, fought four wars, and the figures of Lincoln and Grant, of Blaine and Garfield, of McKinley and Roosevelt, have left their imprint and passed away. Meanwhile the British Empire has grown and expanded in size and strength and liberty, and Canada, from the feeble infancy into which the Fathers of Confederation tried to infuse the vitality of unity, has become the