Part 2

EZEKIEL AT A LEDGER-- RT. HON. SIR GEORGE FOSTER

A HALO OF BILLIONS-- RT. HON. SIR THOMAS WHITE

CALLED TO THE POLITICAL PULPIT-- HON. NEWTON WESLEY ROWELL

AN AUTOCRAT FOR DIVIDENDS-- BARON SHAUGHNESSY

THE PUBLIC SERVICE HOBBYIST-- SIR HERBERT AMES

THE SHADOW AND THE MAN-- HON. SIR SAM HUGHES

THE STEREOPTICON AND THE SLIDE-- LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR ARTHUR CURRIE

A COAT OF MANY COLOURS-- SIR JOHN WILLISON

WHATSOEVER THY HAND FINDETH-- SIR JOSEPH FLAVELLE, BART.

NO FATTED CALVES FOR PRODIGAL SONS-- HON. SIR HENRY DRAYTON

THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN RAILROADING-- EDWARD WENTWORTH BEATTY

A BOURGEOIS MASTER OF QUEBEC-- HON. SIR LOMER GOUIN

A POLITICAL MATTAWA OF THE WEST-- JOHN WESLEY DAFOE

HEADMASTER OF THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL-- MICHAEL CLARK, M.P.

THE SPHINX FROM SASKATCHEWAN-- HON. J. A. CALDER

A TRUE VOICE OF LABOUR-- TOM MOORE

THE MAN WITHOUT A PUBLIC-- SIR WILLIAM MACKENZIE

THE IMPERIAL BRAINSTORM-- BARON BEAVERBROOK

CONCLUSION

THE MASQUES OF OTTAWA

THE UNELECTED PREMIER OF CANADA

RT. HON. ARTHUR MEIGHEN

Once only have I encountered Rt. Hon. Arthur Meighen, Premier of Canada by divine right, not as yet by election. I was the 347th person with whom he shook hands and whom he tried to recognize that afternoon. His weary but peculiarly winning smile had scarcely flickered to rest for a moment in an hour. For the eleven seconds that it was my privilege to be individually sociable with him, he did his best to say what might suit the case. He seemed much like a worn-out precocious boy, of great wisdom and much experience, suddenly prodded into an eminence which as yet he scarcely understood.

I was introduced as--say, Mr. Smith.

"Oh?" he said, wearily. "Yes, I've read your articles. Er--Tom Smith, isn't it?"

But Tom was not the name, I had scarcely time to say, and it made no difference. I should like to have shoo'd away the crowd and let him call me Jake just for a few minutes to get the point of feeling of this young man--though he is nearly 50--on how it feels to be Premier without a general election.

There may not be as much finality, but there is sometimes as much wisdom, in the choice of a leader by a small group as in his election by the people. Majorities frequently rule without wisdom. In accepting the gift of an almost worn-out Premiership and a year later entering the most significant general election ever held in Canada, at least since 1878, Arthur Meighen falls back upon his courage without much comfort from ordinary ambition. He faces a battle whose armies are new, pledged to hold what he has against two enemy groups, and to hold more than John A. Macdonald fought to get, without the sense of one great party against another such as Macdonald had. No Premier ever went into a general election with so little intimate support from "the old party", with such a certainty that whichever party wins as against the others cannot win a working majority without coalition, and with the sensation that the party he leads is already what remains of a coalition.

Whenever I see Meighen I feel like hastening home to "cram" on citizenship for an examination. I behold in him picnics neglected and even feminine society deferred for the sake of toiling up a political Parnassus. In his veneration for constituted authority I can comprehend something of the Jap's banzais to the Mikado before he commits harikari.