to legal action (which
brought in the end a finding by the Privy Council completely
destroying the Nationalist claim that bilingualism was implied in
the scheme of Confederation) various ingenious attempts were made to
apply pressure to Ontario. The most daring, and in results the most
disastrous, was the threat that if Ontario did not remove the
"grievances of the minority" the people of Quebec would go on strike
against further participation in the war. That dangerous doctrine
operating upon a popular mind impregnated with suspicion of the
motives and intentions behind Canada's war activities, produced the
situation which made inevitable the developments of 1917. The
movement against Ontario was Nationalist in its spirit, its
inspiration and its direction. Side by side with it went a
Nationalist agitation of ever-increasing boldness against the war.
Ammunition for this campaign was readily found in the imputations,
innuendoes, charges, mendacities of the Labor and pacifist
extremists of Great Britain and France; they lost none of their
malignancy in the retelling. Bourassa included Laurier in the scope
of his denunciations. Laurier's loyal support of the war and his
candid admonitions to the young men of his own race made him the
target for Bourassa's shafts. Something more than a difference of
view was reflected in Bourassa's harangues; there was in them a
distillation of venom, indicating deep personal feeling. "Laurier,"
he once declared in a public meeting, "is the most nefarious man in
the whole of Canada." Bourassa hated Laurier. Laurier had too
magnanimous a mind to cherish hate; but he feared Bourassa with a
fear which in the end became an obsession. He feared him because, if
he only retained his position in Quebec, Liberal victory in the
coming Dominion elections would not be possible. Laurier feared him
still more because if Bourassa increased his hold upon the people,
which was the obvious purpose of the raging, tearing Nationalist
propaganda, he would be displaced from his proud position as the
first and greatest of French-Canadians. Far more than a temporary
term of power was at stake. It was a struggle for a niche in the
temple of fame. It was a battle not only for the affection of the
living generation, but for place in the historic memories of the
race. Laurier, putting aside the weight of 75 years and donning his
armor for his last fight, had two definite purposes: to win back, if
he could, the prim