As to his statesmanship, it is written in the history of Canada.... Although my political views compel me to say that in my judgment his actions were not always the best that could have been taken in the interests of Canada, although my conscience compels me to say that of late he has imputed to his opponents motives which I must say in my heart he has misconceived, yet I am only too glad here to sink these differences, and to remember only the great services he has performed for our country--to remember that his actions always displayed great originality of view, unbounded fertility of resource, a high level of intellectual conception, and, above all, a far-reaching vision beyond the event of the day, and still higher, permeating the whole, a broad patriotism--a devotion to Canada's welfare, Canada's advancement, and Canada's glory. Sir John Macdonald had been prime minister of the Dominion for twenty of its twenty-four years. In the next five years the Conservative party had four different leaders {155} and the Dominion four prime ministers. The first was Sir John Abbott, who had lived down the memory of his early views in favour of Annexation and had become 'the confidential family lawyer of his party.' A little over a year later, ill-health compelled him to resign in favour of Sir John Thompson, an able and honest administrator, who grew in breadth of view with experience and responsibility. All Abbott's astuteness and Thompson's rigid uprightness were soon required to deal with the revelations of rotten politics which presently claimed the country's attention. It had long been believed that the department of Public Works, under Sir Hector Langevin, was a source of widespread corruption, but it was not until Israel Tarte, a member of the House of Commons and a _bleu_ of the _bleus_, made charges to that effect during the session of 1891, that the full measure of the evil was understood. In the investigations and trials which followed it was made clear that huge sums had been extracted from contractors in the service of the Government and used in wholesale bribery. These revelations, as a London newspaper remarked, 'made Tammany smell sweet.' But the public indignation at these proofs {156} of the sinister side of the Government's long hold on power was weakened by similar charges brought and proved against the Liberal Government of Quebec, under Honore Mercier. The lieutenant-governor summarily dismissed Mercier, the Church set its face sternly against his ministry, which it had erstwhile approved, and the people of the province voted him out of power (1892). The effect on the public mind of this corruption at Ottawa and Quebec was an apathy, a lowered standard of political morality, since it gave point to the common saying that 'one set of politicians is as bad as another,' by which good men excuse their unpatriotic indifference to public affairs.