Sir Wilfrid Laurier: The Great Conciliator

D.M.L. Farr is a professor emeritus of history at Carleton University in
Ottawa.

This is a slightly revised edition of a biography first published in
1971 as part of Oxford’s Canadian Lives series. Conceived by William
Toye, the series provided short, balanced accounts of the lives of
Canadians who had distinguished themselves in fields ranging from
politics to exploration. Robertson’s life of Laurier was one of the
best titles in the series: well-grounded in its account of Laurier’s
career, sympathetic to the nuances of the problems he faced, and,
overall, lively and well written. It is good to have it brought back
into print. The second edition largely reproduces the first, although
the author has carefully updated the work’s critical bibliography to
take account of books published since 1971. Usefully, when a title is
available in a paperback edition she has so indicated.

Laurier, arguably one of Canada’s three greatest prime ministers, is
probably the most attractive personally. He was polished, even elegant,
in manner, with a warm human sense. He listened to people and gave them
the impression that he valued their views. He discounted emotion in
political discourse and tried to make Canadians see the necessity of
reason and compromise. He possessed an expansive, optimistic vision of a
biracial Canada, one founded on a deep belief in tolerance as a guiding
principle. His downfall, as a result of the racial divisions of World
War I, is the stuff of heroic tragedy.

Laurier’s achievements are difficult to evaluate today, as Robertson
points out in a short introduction to the new edition of her biography.
This is partly because of the decline of the British tradition in
Canada, a current of thought from which Laurier drew his inspiration.
His reputation has also suffered from the undermining, in our querulous
age, of his devotion to the ideal of a bilingual and bicultural Canada.
Pierre Trudeau is most authentically Laurier’s successor, yet his
ideas about Quebec’s place within a larger Canada, expressed as
recently as the 1970s, appear to have fallen out of favor. How much
harder, then, to appreciate Laurier’s views, which were formed in the
context of the late nineteenth century. Robertson has made an honest
effort to place Laurier in the context of his times; her little book
deserves to be widely read by all who love Canada, especially by the
young people who will have the responsibility of guiding it into the
future.