lmost
the end of Laurier should have found the member for Prince ready for
action or advice. But there is no record that, at this time, his
counsels were sought by the Liberal party, or that he thrust himself
into the limelight. Three months after the Armistice, Laurier was
dead. Even then King was not mentioned as his successor. Four months
later he was chosen, when not even he quite understood how it was done.
King did nothing to reform his party along new lines, or publicly to
state what he considered its reasonable position to be as between the
Union party and the Agrarians. A broad manifesto from the new leader
at such a time would have been useful. Never had a political leader in
Canada such a duty of broad revision within his party. King neglected
the opportunity. The _Toronto Globe_ realizes what a squeezed lemon
the Liberal party has become between the other two groups and calls for
a working alliance between the Liberals and Agrarians to upset the
Government. The _Mail and Empire_ paternally points out that it is the
duty of Liberals to enlist, Quebec included, under the hegemony of the
party which has already incorporated Liberals and is ready to save that
party from obliteration by the free-trade group.

Beneath the conventional assurance displayed in each of these organs of
public opinion one detects an under-current of uneasiness, by no means
mitigated by the farmer victory for the Commons in Medicine Hat, which
the _Globe_ construed as a triumph on parade, and the Agrarian turnover
in Alberta which the _Mail and Empire_ with all its sturdy
protestations cannot honestly interpret as other than a calamity. Each
of the historic parties feels itself confronted by a new sort of menace
comparable to nothing in the history of Canadian politics. Two parties
which ten years ago were in opposition are now flung together by the
fear of a common danger and refuse to admit it. _The Globe's_ hope is
that Farmerism will become the new Liberalism. _The Globe_ is right.
But the captains may not be of _The Globe's_ choosing and the planks in
its platform are not those which _The Globe_ in its days of sanity
would have accepted for the good of the people. It is the intention of
Farmerism to absorb all there is of Liberalism. Mackenzie King knows
it. He knows that the Liberals will suffer more than the Government
from the plough movement. Yet he is invited by _The Globe_ to try the
trick of the bird swallowi