h but for its peculiarly selfish energy and
ruthless characteristics, might have become a monumental contribution
to the human welfare of Canada. No man of common brain or conventional
ethics could have been the dynamic head of such a work. For years,
decades, this astounding adventurer exercised his precarious despotism
over the country that he might make its prosperity a factor in his own
success. In gambling with its securities he hoped to multiply its
wealth without diminishing its happiness. The constructive imagination
and tireless energy that he expended on his great cycle of utilities,
had it been spent by a poet would have produced epics and dramas. But
in all the things he did and the words he said, there is no record of
any sentiment of sacrifice for the good of a nation.

William Mackenzie had his day, while Governments rose and fell. His
day is done. The public which he dazzled and outwardly despised has no
credulity left for any further hero-worship of such a man. "Well, what
does Mr. Mackenzie want now?" was the oft-repeated query of the
bewildered Laurier to Mackenzie agents in Ottawa. No Canadian Premier
will ever ask such a question again. Ottawa has no further
possibilities for William Mackenzie of any interest to the public. The
kind of prosperity created by such men as he is played out in Canada
forever.

The forecast than Mackenzie and Flavelle might form a new two-man junta
to operate National railways was too absurd even to merit denial. Such
a partnership would merely revive the old Schoolman debate of the
Middle Ages--What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable
object? The two mentalities are incompatible. For twenty years the
chief common ground between them was the Canadian Bank of Commerce, of
which Sir Joseph is a director, who long ago discovered that the total
assets of the bank were but a turbine in the Niagara of Mackenzie
finance.

And William Mackenzie who built the conspiracy of enormous interests
with which his name is identified, was never meant to be a railway
operator at all. One might as well expect Lloyd George to be a
successful manager of Sunlight Soap and of Lord Leverhulme.

THE IMPERIAL BRAINSTORM

LORD BEAVERBROOK

Lord Beaverbrook could stroll into an Arab camp and in five minutes be
psychologically persona grata as the man who could make something out of
almost nothing. He could learn the Arab language, adopt their customs,
i