The change that came over the country was magical. People took new heart. Factories began to fire up. Men got back to work. The waste places of the Dominion became settled with thousands of families from the old lands, a home market was procured and the foreign market was again established. An impetus to the forging of the chains of empire was given when Sir Wilfrid in 1897, and again in 1900, granted the British preference. It is now a matter of history how his pilgrimages to England lifted Canada out of the darkness into the light, how this picturesque Canadian figure dazzled the British people and how under his guidance this Canada became a nation in the eyes of the world. Sir Wilfrid was an optimist. In victory or defeat he never lost sight of his goal, and he never gave up. However, his opponents professed to doubt his loyalty, they had no reason to doubt it. Much misrepresentation of Sir Wilfrid Laurier arose over his action in connection with the Boer war. Yet it is to be remembered that he was the first Canadian Premier to send a Canadian contingent abroad to help the mother country against a common enemy. On this occasion the London Times said: Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the French Roman Catholic Premier, of a self-governing federation, in which British Protestants are in the majority, has expressed more faithfully and more truly than any statesman who has spoken yet, the temper of the new imperial patriotism fostered into self-consciousness by the South African war. * * * * * A Conservative who always recognised the worth of Laurier as a Canadian, requests the republication of some words of the Liberal chieftain during his last appearance in London, stating that in his opinion they take rank with some of the utterances of Lincoln and Gladstone: “As for you who stand to-day on the threshold of life. . . . I shall remind you that many problems rise before you: problems of race division, problems of creed differences, problems of economic conflict, problems of national duty and national aspirations. Let me tell you that for the solution of these problems you have a safe guide, an unfailing light, if you remember that faith is better than doubt and love is better than hate. . . . Banish doubt and hate from your life. Let your souls be ever open to the strong promptings of faith and the gentle influence of brotherly love. Be adamant against the haughty; be gentle and kind to the weak. Let your aim and your purpose, in good report or in ill, in victory or in defeat, be so to live, so to strive, so to serve as to do your part to raise the standard of life to higher and better spheres.” These are not the words of a politician. They arise transcendent above the ordinary dogmas of strife and intolerance. They breathe moderation and kindness and therefore a perfect index of the character of their author. * * * * *