With this pledge Wilfrid Laurier took office as Canada’s Premier. The boy of St. Lin was still preaching his growing conception of Canada and her place in the Empire.
The task of this first French-Canadian Premier was not an easy one. Had he been merely a son of his race, had he been merely a convert to the English-speaking conception, had he been merely the champion of a cause or the balance-wheel of politics, his influence might have maimed the national progress of the Dominion for a century. As it was, he conceived for himself the rôle of a Canadian. He felt that the great need of Canada for Canada—and for the Empire, too—was Canadians. There were plenty of French Nationalists—he had known them in his youth; he found them again in his maturity. There were plenty of Anglo-Saxon ultra-imperialists—he had already become familiar with fire-brand jingoism. There were plenty of indifferent materialists—he realized the danger of their disease to a young and growing country. But Canadians could unify, Canadians could build, Canadians could become great and strong. A Canada of Canadians “free and loyal; loyal because they are free”—was to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the most potent Imperial asset the Dominion could provide for the motherland. He had studied his history. He knew the fate of empires bound by bonds of brittle iron. He dreaded a crumbling Imperium. He dreaded, too, the idea of a hobbled “sub-nation.” But he had a strong and enduring faith in the assured permanency of an Empire of “free and loyal” daughter Dominions knit together by ties of common interest, common endeavour and common devotion to the cause of democracy and the advancement of Christianity and civilization.
The Liberalism or the Conservatism that continues to be founded on the accident and the prejudice of birth, that believes in “my party and my father’s party, right or wrong,” is the real cause of the discouraging inertia of public opinion that often allows the self-interested few to practically control elections and governments, that prevents or retards reform and makes of a free democracy a bureaucratic tyranny. Liberalism is a positive reasoned belief and every Liberal should be able, apart from opinions as to the Government or the issues of the day, to justify his faith according to cardinal principles of good government.