“No, we are mostly English members, and although some of the Frenchmen speak in French, and all things by law are read in both languages, the Frenchmen generally stop the reading and consent to take it as read. Laurier for twenty years has always spoken in English; perfect English. Lemieux speaks in English. In fact, to get the ear of the House one must speak in English.” “Are the French-Canadians as loyal as the English-Canadians?” “Yes, but in a different way. We are loyal because it is born in the blood; they are loyal from gratitude, and because they know England gave them freedom. They are more loyal than we should have been to France if that fight on the Plains of Abraham had been won by the French.” Sir Wilfrid Laurier I do not know as I know Mr. Fielding or Mr. Lemieux, but Sir Wilfrid Laurier is a great personality. He struck me as a wonderful type when I first went up in a lift with him at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal, although I did not then know who he was. There is a rugged strength about his face that impresses. He is a scholar and a gentleman, speaks perfect English, and has great charm of manner. He said in the Dominion House of Commons: “I would say to Great Britain, ‘If you want us to help you, call us to your councils.’” Another time, when talking of Lloyd George’s Budget, W. S. Fielding remarked: “I have made thirteen Budgets, the only man who ever did such a thing, I should imagine; and I know from experience people always grumble. They grumble at everything and anything. To-day at Ascot (1910) a man was abusing Lloyd George’s Budget. ‘There are a few thousand people in the Royal Enclosure,’ I said, ‘and I should think every one of them disapproves. They are rich, and it hits them. There are tens of thousands of people over there on the race-course. They are poor, and they are glad. Was not Lloyd George right, therefore, to consider the millions?’” Mr. Fielding possesses an enormous power for work. On one occasion, after a _tête-à-tête_ dinner with me, he went home about eleven, and finding letters and documents awaiting him, sat up till five a.m. and finished them, also deciphering long Government telegrams in code. Next morning he began work at ten again. Quiet, gentle, reserved, Fielding strikes one as a delightful, grey-headed old gentleman of honest, homely kindliness. He never says an unkind thing of anyone. Toleration is his dominant note, and yet with all that calm exterior he has proved himself the greatest treaty-maker of his age, as well as the most successful handler of budgets and manœuvrer of great Government loans; but he failed over Reciprocity. This chapter would be incomplete without mention of the late Canadian “Ministre des postes,” M. Lemieux, of whom Fielding said: “He is one of the cleverest men in Canada.”