in Queen's
Park when many of his good offices there are mainly forgotten. It was
rather pitiful to observe how incapable Mr. Rowell was of giving vent
to his great talents in that Legislature. He did not understand the
lingo. Most of it was too piffling and small. He knew Ontario better
from the angle of corporation law. He made a poor showing as leader,
for there were no great issues in which he could lead; though he did
initiate a great deal of useful welfare legislation. He made one
heroic effort to understand New Ontario in the rough when he donned
overalls and went down in some of the mines. But it was all too much
in the rough. One imagines there must have been many a moment when he
wished he had never taken that leadership with so precious little to
lead, and yearned for some larger way. But it was a long, long trail.
And Laurier was now a strange old man. Whichever way he looked he was
in a blind alley.

The Coalition gave him a way out. The old chief's attitude towards the
war made Laurier Liberalism still more unpalatable. Rowell was deeply
stirred by the war. He could see in the upheaval of old and new world
ideas the sort of grand realignment which he could understand; the
assertion of true Liberalism in true democracy. Any average speech of
his during the war demonstrates that he was among those few leaders of
thought whom the struggle lifted into a larger conception of manhood in
the State.

Again, honesty to himself suggests that Mr. Rowell did not suffer such
pangs at his severance from Laurier as did men like Carvell, Guthrie
and Clark, who had fought under the old man in Commons. At the Liberal
Win-the-War meeting in 1917, he threw off all disguises and fervently
proclaimed that he had chosen to take office under "the greatest
Premier in the world." The statement smacked not so much of
insincerity as of a sense of emancipation. Mr. Rowell was no longer
labelled a Laurier Liberal. He was a free agent in a new great
conflict of force. He was stirred as never he had been. Of all the
Liberals who took oath under the new administration he was the
strongest, and the most difficult to assign a competent task. He was
made President of the Council and Minister of Information. The
peculiar advantage of the latter was that as real information was the
last thing that seemed to be wanted by anything resembling a
Government, there was very little for Mr. Rowell to do at his desk and
very muc