vernment as sheer business,
when it is often a passing show. Foster's Business Conference that
never met would have caused him to discharge the department for
incompetency. Sir Thomas White had no desire to lift his eyes unto the
hill Flavelle, the super-Minister who for years had been a critic of
his own party, and now believed it more inept than ever in spite of the
great work of the Finance Minister. Sir Sam Hughes had never wanted
Flavelle. There was a good reason. Sir Sam had started the munition
industry in Canada as a branch of war, not as a department of mere
business. Flavelle was all business. War was business. There was the
rub. The nearer the war came to a climax, the more men like Flavelle
at home became part of the machinery. Foster never could have salaamed
to this super-man of trade and commerce. Did even Sir Robert Borden
ever feel comfortable with him? Back from Europe in a fit of impulse
more powerful than he had ever known, impressed by the success of
Coalition in England, Sir Joseph wanted to see it established in
Canada. The nation was united for munitions; why not for national
business? The Premier was away in the West. Sir Joseph wired him
asking permission to urge coalition at a certain public dinner. There
was no response. Evidently the Government wanted no advice from a man
who had nothing whatever to do with it and represented merely big
business.

Something must have caused the Premier to treat Sir Joseph coolly.
Afterwards at the bacon investigation there was cause for a change in
temperature. The Premier had been negligent about some documentary
evidence extenuating to the Flavelle presentation of the case. The two
had warm words. Sir Joseph told the Premier one thing which, as it was
repeated to me without reference to use in publication, had better be
omitted here. But it was scathing. Sir Joseph is no mean master of
the kind of language that hurts. But he has the Christian
spirit--which in this case he laid aside. I should like to know what
the Premier said to Sir Joseph; and precisely what were the Premier's
opinions, before and after, concerning the baronetcy.

In his quiet moments Sir Joseph does not rebuke himself more than he
regrets the moral myopia of other people. I think he is somewhat
disillusioned as to what it is worth to gain a good deal of the world
at the risk of a lot of people thinking he has lost his soul. He does
not believe that his soul w