it is the immediate business of the two historic parties to
unite against all parties of experiment, especially against the
emancipating fanner?"

He gave this evasive but shrewd reply:

"I am a lifelong Liberal. I have been in the habit of reading
newspapers on both sides of politics. I am now driven to take the
Conservative organ for my daily political food."

I commend that answer to Hon. Mackenzie King. If the Liberal leader is
now as anxious to serve the nation of his birth as he was when he twice
refused large salaries and comparative ease for the sake of continuing
to do Canada's work, would it be high treason either to himself or to
his party to call a Liberal convention out of which he would father a
resolution of federation of historic parties based upon such a
compromise as Macdonald created in the federation of provinces?

The answer is obvious: "Fantastic! Absurd! Impossible!"

Mackenzie King will put up a smoke screen to hide the defection of the
West from historic Liberalism. He will insist that the Liberals want
only a reasonable tariff for revenue while the Government want
protection--when Heaven knows each of them wants substantially the same
thing in opposition to the farmer who wants everything. He will point
with confident pride to the solid Liberal _bloc_ Quebec, when he knows
Quebec is dominated by Lapointe who can demand from him just what he
wants as the price of Quebec's solidarity; and he knows equally well
that Quebec is as much opposed to continentalism as the
Liberal-Conservative Government can ever be. The man who wears the
mantle of Laurier without his Orphean magic cannot lead Quebec.

However, Mackenzie King was put where he is to lead, and he intends to
keep on doing it. If he can regulate a few of his enthusiasms and so
adjust his personality as to make Liberalism as led by him powerful
enough to be the dog that wags the Agrarian tail, he should be set down
as one of the most remarkable men in the history of Canadian politics.
He legitimately chuckles over Quebec. One can fancy him matching that
race-group against the Agrarian _bloc_ and the Government industrial
centres group, and saying to himself:

"Labour may lop a few from the Government; Michael Clark a few from the
farmers--enough to make my friend Mr. Crerar a most excellent colleague
in my Coalition. Excellent fellow, Crerar!"

A low-tariff group, of whom 75 per cent. are Quebeckers, amalgamated
with a no-