of a man who could not lead. It was time
for a leader. It is not surprising that Mr. Rowell should have stepped
out of the Administration when Meighen went to the head of it. He
could not comfortably serve under Meighen. Ambition is a tyrant.
Self-sacrifice is usually easiest when great moral issues are
uppermost. For more than one session he would not even retain his seat
in the House. His retirement opens Durham, a safe constituency under
Rowell, and may weaken the Government.

But what if it does? Mr. Rowell took office as a Coalitionist to win
the war. The war is won. But his work--is only nicely beginning. How
is he going to finish his work for this nation? He has not said. Not
by making sundry speeches about the League of Nations.

If this country is to go ahead on its own native steam, it must be wise
enough to find a big public place for the great talents of N. W.
Rowell. And if Mr. Rowell, or any other disciple of opportunity in
public affairs, wants to give Canada what she has a right to expect
from him, he will do well to make his needed money now at corporation
law, and when he comes back to public life have a constant eye single
to the glory of his country.

To evolve men of that stamp is not easy. Rowell, like Meighen, is a
product of the older studious days when youths buried themselves in
books for the sake of getting on in the world without reference to mere
money. He is now at an age when the best he has made of himself might
be of incalculable good to the country if he could help the Government
to go back to power and go with the National Liberal-Conservative Party
as conscientiously as he entered the Unionist Government.

Conscience; Oratory; Opportunity. The greatest of these is Conscience;
the least, Opportunity.

AN AUTOCRAT FOR DIVIDENDS

BARON SHAUGHNESSY

Canada has a national habit of veneration for the C.P.R. just as England
used to have for Kitchener in Egypt. The travels of H. M. Stanley in
Africa were not more wonderful than the everyday lives of Sandford
Fleming's engineers routeing that great new line through the Rockies; and
the legend of Monte Cristo scarcely more fabulous than the exploits of
Van Horne in getting the money or the work done without it. The man who
bought supplies for Van Horne (when there was money) and wrote letters or
sent telegrams when there was none, got a finer preparation for being a
great railwayman than most Premiers ever got fo