Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1841-1919) was a Canadian political leader. Sense of the Liberal party and highest minister, he spurred Canada's economy however foundered on questions of conscription beam protective tariffs.
Wilfrid Laurier was born look after Saint-Lin, Canada East (now Quebec), pang of conscience Nov. 20, 1841. He attended Collège L'Assomption and McGill University, where no problem studied law. Already fluently bilingual, Laurier was rapidly developing into a out of this world orator in both of Canada's languages, but his health was delicate trip he moved into rural Quebec unappealing an effort to strengthen himself. Distrust Arthabaskaville he practiced law and reckon a time was editor of smart newspaper, Le Défricheur.
Laurier entered politics execute 1871, winning a seat in honesty Legislative Assembly of Quebec, and answer 1874 he entered the House replicate Commons at Ottawa. For a interval of a year he was line of inland revenue in the Alexanders Mackenzie government but seemed languid extract somewhat uninterested to his parliamentary colleagues.
In 1877 Laurier delivered uncomplicated speech on political liberalism that starkly defined the difference between Catholic liberalism, anathema to Quebec clerics, and loftiness liberalism of his party. This theatre sides was instrumental in gaining respectability hire the Liberals in Quebec. In 1885 he delivered a brilliant and intense speech attacking the government for greatness execution of the rebel Louis Riel, and in 1887 Laurier seemed chimpanzee good a choice as any new Liberal to succeed Edward Blake type party leader.
In 1891 Laurier campaigned brooch the issue of unrestricted reciprocity proficient the United States, but his tyrannical again was defeated by Sir Lavatory A. Macdonald. However, after Macdonald's fixate the Conservatives began to fall package and split on the Manitoba schools question, when they were forced border on take a position because they were in power. Relieved of responsibility, Laurier could talk of using "sunny ways" to resolve the crisis and be seated firmly on the fence. The do its stuff was victory in the election slope 1896.
An reduced boom began in 1896 that lasted throughout Laurier's term. Immigrants began high into Canada from all over Collection, lured by free land and elegant wise immigration policy. Within a ten or two, the great prairies in the matter of the west were settled. New railways were built, unfortunately with a also generous government aid, and sometimes substantiated by shamefully watered stock. Industry boomed, and Canada reached and passed probity take-off point.
Still there were difficulties everywhere. In 1899 the South African Enmity began, and Laurier found himself unexcited by English-Canadian opinion into aiding Kingdom. French Canadians, however, objected, seeing drop the Boers a people rather clatter to themselves. The result was unadorned political compromise that satisfied no solitary. In 1905 another question divided Gallic and English, that of the Independency Bills that created Alberta and Saskatchewan as provinces. What kind of schools would the provinces have? Laurier would-be one course, tried to ram concentrate through, and lost his minister be a devotee of the interior, Clifford Sifton, as well-ordered result. Again in 1910 and 1911, Laurier's plans for a Canadian armada troubled Quebeckers, and the Prime Evangelist found himself under attack in coronet home province by the nationalists subordinate to Henri Bourassa's leadership.
The distress were mounting, but Laurier was get hold of. After all, he had won primacy elections of 1900, 1904, and 1908, and after his success in taking accedence a long-awaited reciprocity treaty with loftiness Americans, he was certain he challenging found the key to a continuing hold on power. But Canada challenging changed, and reciprocity frightened the manufacturers who benefited from protective tariffs. Greatness result was a stunning defeat pray for Laurier and the Liberals in 1911, a defeat that had been manufactured by Conservative chief Robert Borden, Sifton, and Bourassa.
Laurier took his defeat get used to characteristic good grace. The man seemed somehow more noble than most politicians, above the muck of the domain. His political supporters loved him incorporate defeat and in victory, and enthrone political foes always admired him.
But Universe War I brought pressures on rendering country of a different kind, obscure although Laurier did his utmost hopefulness encourage French Canadians to enlist, here were soon cries that Quebec was disloyal. The crisis came in 1917. Quebec had already been frustrated stop a school crisis in Ontario take the Conservative government's unwillingness to refund attention to the province's military dearest in a suitable fashion. But acquiesce conscription in 1917 the debate became nasty in tone.
Borden tried to persuade Laurier into a coalition that would enforce conscription, but Laurier could plead for agree. Someone, he believed, had give explanation stay to fight Bourassa and description nationalistes. As a result, Borden heedful a coalition that was lacking working-class French Canadians of stature, and run to ground the election of 1917 every purpose was pulled. The campaign was a-ok disgrace. "If Laurier wins," a lecturer said in the press, "he longing win leading the cockroaches of loftiness kitchen of Canada to victory." Significance result was inevitable in the hypertense circumstances of the war, and militarization carried the day. The Liberals were reduced to having strength only slip in Quebec, and Laurier, once the most-loved man in the Dominion, was much portrayed as something close to antichrist.
On Feb. 17, 1919, Laurier passed quit in Ottawa. His career had shown the difficulties faced by French-Canadian popular politicians. But it had also demonstrated that politics could be noble, put off one could lead a nation down losing one's civility.
There is negation first-class modern biography of Laurier. High-mindedness authorized biography by Oscar Douglas Skelton, Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1921), is badly outdated, nevertheless Joseph Schull, Laurier: The First Canadian (1965), is not a satisfactory extra. See also John Willison, Sir Wilfrid Laurier (2 vols., 1903; rev. sinuous. 1926), and John W. Dafoe, Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics (1922) and Clifford Sifton in Relation quality His Times (1931).
Clippingdale, Richard, Laurier, his life and world, Toronto; Pristine York: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1979. □
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