There is always a temptation to the biographer of a prime minister to relate his hero to the events of his period as first cause and controlling spirit--the god of the storm; whereas prime ministers, like individuals, are the sports of destiny; things happen and they have to make the best of them. The performances of the Laurier government may be divided into two classes, those due to its own initiative and those which were imposed by circumstances. The ratio between the two classes changed steadily as the administration grew in age. After the impetus born of the reforming zeal of opposition and the natural and creditable desire to fulfil express engagements dies away, the inclination of a government is not to invite trouble by looking around for difficult tasks to do. "Those who govern, having much business on their hands," says Benjamin Franklin, "do not like to take the trouble to consider and carry into execution new projects." This is a political law to which all governments conform. Even the great reforming administration of Gladstone which took office in 1868, had earned five years later the famous jest of Disraeli: "The ministers remind me of one of those marine landscapes not very unusual off the coast of South America; you behold a range of extinct volcanoes; not a flame flickers upon a single pallid crest."
Fifteen years of Liberal rule in Canada furnish a complete field for the study of the party system under our system. In 1896 a party stale in spirit, corrupt and inefficient, went out of office and was replaced by a government which had been bred to virtue by eighteen years of political penury. It entered upon its tasks with vigor, ability and enthusiasm. It had its policies well defined and it set briskly about carrying them out. A deft, shrewd modification of the tariff helped to loosen the stream of commerce which after years of constriction began again to flow freely. There was a courageous and considered increase in expenditures for productive objects. A constructive, vigorously executed immigration policy brought an ever expanding volume of suitable settlers to Western Canada which in turn fed the springs of national prosperity. This impulse lasted through the first parliamentary term and largely through the second, though by then disruptive tendencies were appearing. By its third term the government was mainly an office-holding administration on the defensive against an opposition of growing effectiveness. And then in the fourth term there was an attempt at a rally before the crash. The treatment of the tariff question, always a governing factor in Canadian politics even when apparently not in play, is an illustration of the government's progress towards stagnation. The 1897 tariff revision "could not," says Professor Skelton, "have been bettered as a first preliminary step toward free trade." "Unfortunately," he adds, "it proved to be the last step save for the 1911 attempt to secure reciprocity." After 1897 Laurier's policy was to discourage the revival of the tariff question. Tarte's offence was partly that he did not realize that sleeping dogs should be allowed to lie. "It is not good politics to try to force the hand of the government," wrote Laurier to Tarte. And he added: "The question of the tariff is in good shape if no one seeks to force the issue." With Tarte's ejection there followed nearly eight years during which real tariff discussion was taboo. Then under the pressure of the rising western resentment against the tariff burdens, the government turned to reciprocity as a means by which they could placate the farmers without disturbing or alarming the manufacturers. By what seemed extraordinary good luck the United States president, Republican in politics, was by reason of domestic political developments, in favor of a reciprocal trade agreement. It seemed as though the Laurier government as by a miracle would renew its youth and vigor; but the situation, temporarily favorable, was so fumbled that it ended not in triumph but in defeat.