nd the
planning of mercantile marine for export; all very well, and if we are
to pay our bills by exports, very necessary. But the common consumer
has many a time, long before the war and often since, found himself in
the jaws of a nutcracker in the shape of some combine or trust or
confederacy of middlemen; and if there was any sphere of government to
deal with these things it was the great Department of Trade.

This has nothing to do with party politics. Any party up to date has
been capable of neglecting the people in these matters. But it is
quite as important as the abolition of patronage.

We have ceased to expect any such function from a Minister so old, so
eloquent, so Imperially-inspired as Sir George Foster. There is always
something else to do. The party must be led in the House. Sir George
was the House leader. Magnificent! No man ever rose at a desk in
Parliament who could more superbly play upon the bigotries and the high
patriotic emotions of even a remnant party. The man is a genius.
There must be the valley of dry bones for Ezekiel. And the bones must
come together and walk. Sir Robert Borden on such occasions was a mere
interested gargoyle. Patriotism demanded that the party's desks be
thumped. Sir George saw that they were thumped without stint.

Twice during the Opposition period Sir George was dead and buried by
the Grits; once over the Union Trust land investigation; again in a
libel suit which he lost to the _Globe_ when Rowell was against him.
None of these things defeated the able author of Resurgam! who was made
Minister of Trade, went for a six-months' journey in the Orient trying
to convert the yellow races from rice to Canadian flour, and afterwards
got his title. So when the people, in 1917, asked Ezekiel for a
prophecy, the Minister of Trade stoically advised them to eat less,
save more, waste nothing, wear what their grandmothers wore if
possible, and hope for the best. In the matter of fixing prices Sir
George had as much wisdom as most, though he made a very awkward
attempt to adjust the price of wheat and only then at the instigation
of the British Government.

The world by this time was full of upsetting anomalies to Sir George.
Even government was perverted. He had no desire for Unionism; to sit
at Council with even win-the-war Liberals--once plain Grits. It needed
political philosophy to make colleagues of such men as Calder, the Grit
enemy of Toryism in the Wes