olid, serious and impressive with homely common sense as Sir Lomer
Gouin, the Premier of Quebec. This man spoke slowly, massively, almost
gutturally like a Saxon, in fluent but accented English. He was far
less excitable than the Premier of Ontario on the same subject:

THE RACE UNITY OF CANADA
PREFIGURED IN
THE BONNE ENTENTE

Three hundred public-spirited men of whom eighty came from Quebec were
as one family on this.

At one in the morning the concomity broke up. Not a drop of vin or
liqueur in any form had been served. The enthusiasm was, therefore, as
natural as the tide of the St. Lawrence, which in the form of the great
lakes and Niagara does its best to put its arms round the neck of
Ontario before it cuts through the heart of Quebec. To the pure
imagination it was somewhat as though a procession of St. Jean Baptiste
had suddenly dreamed it was an Orange Walk.

This unusual Entente was held between the rancours of the bilingual
dispute of 1916 and the Quebec revolt against conscription in 1917.
Those present who doubted the sincerity of passionate speakers anchored
a timidly steadfast hope to the practical, broad-angled Premier of
Quebec, who, had he sat between Mr. Bourassa and the Premier of
Ontario, would have inclined his ear to Ontario.

Nothing is more certain than that four French-Canadian leaders, had
they been given or had they asked for the opportunity and had acted
together, could have put a different face on Quebec's relation to the
war. Four men namable in that capacity are, Sir Lomer Gouin, Sir
Wilfrid Laurier, Ernest Lapointe, and Cardinal Begin. Of these, Gouin
was at that time the most able. For ten years he had been
uninterruptedly Premier of Quebec with a moral guarantee that he could
occupy the Premiership by an overwhelming majority until he should be
gathered to his fathers.

Again and again rumour slated Sir Lomer for Ottawa. He wisely
declined. He had a peasant's attachment to "le pays" and its white
villages. In Quebec he was the Chief of Ministers, the little elected
father of his country. In Ottawa he would have been perhaps a grand
Minister of Public Works building docks in Halifax, customs houses in
British Columbia, post-offices on the prairies, armouries in Ontario
and court-houses in Quebec. Yes, there would be surely armouries in
Ontario.

I met Sir Lomer but once, in his office in the Parliament Buildings.
There was no particular reason for seei