CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY

=Borden, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Laird, P.C., K.C.M.G., K.C., LL.D.=,

Premier of Canada (Ottawa, Ont.), eldest son of Andrew Borden and Eunice

Laird, was born at Grand Pré, Nova Scotia, on June 26, 1854. He was

educated at Acadia Villa Academy, Horton, and for a time a Professor in

Glenwood Institute, N.J. His great-great-grandfather went to King’s

County, Nova Scotia, with early settlers from New England, in 1760, and

upon returning to Massachusetts gave his land in Nova Scotia to his son,

the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Upon returning to

Nova Scotia, Sir Robert studied law and was called to the Bar in 1878.

He first practised at Kentville, N.S., and later moved to Halifax,

succeeding the late Sir John Thompson, then Prime Minister of Canada, in

the firm of Thompson, Graham and Tupper. Before removing to Ottawa he

was head of the law firm of Borden, Ritchie & Chisholm, of Halifax, and

for ten years was President of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society. He

was made a Q.C. in 1900; an Honorary LL.D. of Queen’s University in

1903; an Honorary LL.D., St. Francis Xavier University in 1905; an

Honorary LL.D. of McGill University in 1913. In 1896 he was elected to

the House of Commons from Halifax in the General Elections, and

re-elected in 1900, but was an unsuccessful candidate at the General

Elections in 1904. Upon the retirement of Edward Kidd, M.P., for

Carleton, Ont., he was elected by acclamation in his stead at the

by-election held on February 4, 1905, and was re-elected by a large

majority at the general elections in 1908, when he was also elected in

Halifax, N.S. He later resigned his Carleton seat, preferring to

represent Halifax. At the General Elections of 1911, he was again

returned for Halifax, and continued to represent that constituency up to

the present time (1918). On February 6, 1901, he was chosen leader of

the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, and upon the resignation

of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his Cabinet on October 6, 1911, following the

defeat of the Liberal Government on the question of Reciprocity with the

United States, he was sent for by His Excellency Earl Grey and was

entrusted with the task of forming a Cabinet. With a very large majority

at his disposal, he found the task an easy one, and was successful in

gathering around him men who have since carried on the government of the

country in one of the most critical periods of its existence. At the

time the first Borden government assumed office the world war was

unthought of except as a vague speculation, which few students of world

finance and world politics believed would ever become a fact, and the

new Premier did not foresee that before him lay the most difficult task

that had ever confronted a Canadian Government. In the summer of 1914

the conflict which ultimately developed into a war between the Central

Empires and most of the other civilized powers, came like a bolt from

the blue. On August 4, 1914, there was great curiosity in the

chancelleries of Europe as to whether the overseas dominions of the

British Empire would stand behind Great Britain. Germany, on the day she

started the war, believed that they would not, and it was prophesied in

Berlin that Canada would seek separation from the Empire. Sir Robert

Borden at once gave the answer by placing the entire resources of the

Dominion at the disposal of the Motherland; and on receiving an

intimation from the late Lord Kitchener, that men were the first

necessity, immediately called Parliament together to vote the necessary

money. His government commenced the training and equipment of a first

volunteer expeditionary force of 35,000, with provision for its further

extension at need. This expeditionary force was partly trained at

Valcartier camp, Quebec, and partly at Salisbury Plains, England, and

first went into action at the second battle of Ypres in the spring of

1915. In the words of Viscount French, at that time Commander-in-Chief

of the British forces in France, it “saved the situation” and barred the

way to the Channel Ports from the Germans. In 1915 Sir Robert, who had

been honored with the title of G.C.M.G. shortly before the outbreak of

the conflict, visited Great Britain and France and, convincing himself

that the struggle would be very long and difficult, pledged Canada to

provide an aggregate of 500,000 trained men should the need arise. He

and his government also made arrangements whereby Canadian manufacturers

should engage largely in the production of munitions, the credits for

such contracts being financed by the Canadian administration. The same

policy was pursued in connection with contracts for food supplies, with

the result that throughout the war there was a continued trade expansion

and financial opulence that enabled Canada to make sacrifices that would

otherwise have been impossible to her. During his visits to the front

Sir Robert kept himself fully in touch with the needs of the Canadian

army, and resolved to make it a first consideration in all his policies.

A trip to Great Britain and France in the early part of 1917 convinced

him that, in view of the dark outlook for peace, it would be necessary

for Canada to adopt the policy of conscription, which had already been

reluctantly adopted in Great Britain by Mr. Asquith, and had become the

policy of the United States, which had recently entered the war. It was

clear to Sir Robert that this policy could only be effectively imposed

by consent of both parties in the House of Commons, and on his return to

Canada in May, 1917, he announced conscription as his policy and an

abandonment of party government. He was at first stoutly opposed both in

the ranks of his own party and by his political opponents. Nevertheless,

after long and patient negotiations he was successful in winning

practically the entire body of English-speaking Liberals to his way of

thinking, and conscription carried in the House of Commons in the latter

part of July, 1917, by the greatest majority ever given so momentous a

measure. He then proceeded to form a Union Government almost equally

representative of Conservatives and Liberals. Early in December of 1917

this government, with Sir Robert as Prime Minister, appealed to the

people, and was supported by almost the entire mass of English-speaking

constituencies, giving him the largest majority that any political

leader has ever enjoyed in this country. As a result of the adoption of

conscription, Canada was enabled by the time peace was declared to

fulfil her pledge of sending 500,000 men to aid in the war against

autocracy—a contribution which has made this country famous throughout

the world. Already, on January 1, 1912, Sir Robert had been sworn in as

a member of the Imperial Privy Council, the highest office that up to

that time had been held in the Motherland by a Canadian. On his arrival

in London in June, 1918, he was invited by the Prime Minister, Hon.

David Lloyd-George to become a member of the Imperial War Cabinet, a

post which he held during the duration of the war. This was followed in

November of 1918 by an invitation to become one of Great Britain’s

Imperial representatives at the negotiations preliminary to and

coincident with the Peace Conference to resolve the disasters of the war

and at once proceeded overseas. Sir Robert’s Imperial services have been

such, and his legal attainments are so well known that at the time of

writing his elevation to the peerage as a colonial representative on the

legal committee of the Privy Council, which is the Court of Appeal for

the whole Empire, is being strongly advocated in the Motherland. In his

private relations Sir Robert is greatly beloved, and though his duties

have brought him in contact with all the leading figures of Great

Britain, France and the United States, he is a thorough democrat in

bearing. His favorite recreation is golf and he has played with many

world-famous statesmen, though he does not claim to be a champion. He is

an Anglican in religion and a member of many clubs on both sides of the

Atlantic. In September of 1889 he married Laura, daughter of the late T.

H. Bond, of Halifax, and never fails to acknowledge the great aid and

assistance that has been rendered him by Lady Borden in building up his

illustrious career. They reside at 201 Wurtemburg St., Ottawa.

[Illustration: THE LATE RIGHT HONORABLE SIR WILFRID LAURIER]

=Laurier, the late Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfrid, P.C., G.C.M.G., K.C., D.C.L.

(Oxon.), LL.D.= (Ottawa, Ont.), son of the late Carolus Laurier, P.L.S.,

and his wife, Marcelle Martineau; born at St. Lin, Quebec, on November

20, 1841, and educated at mixed schools in his native parish and at

L’Assomption College. As a law student he entered the office of the late

Hon. R. Laflamme in 1860, and studied at McGill University; received

B.C.L. in 1864 and was called to the Bar in the same year; was appointed

a Q.C. in 1880, and became head of the law firm of Laurier & Lavergne.

In the earlier years of his professional career he edited and

contributed to several newspapers. In May 13, 1868, he married Miss Zoe

Lafontaine. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly for Drummond and

Arthabaska in 1871, and resigned to contest the same riding for the

House of Commons at the general elections in 1874, and was elected; was

sworn in a Privy Councillor and appointed Minister of Inland Revenue in

the Mackenzie administration, on October 8, 1877, and on going back for

re-election, was defeated by D. O. Bourbeau, who obtained a majority of

forty. Later he was elected for Quebec East, a seat vacated by I.

Thibaudeau, and was re-elected for the same Riding at the general

elections of 1878, 1882, 1887, 1891, 1896 and 1900, and also elected for

Saskatchewan, N.W.T., at the general elections of 1896; was re-elected

to the House of Commons at general elections of 1904 for Quebec East and

Wright, and elected to sit for Quebec East; in 1908 was re-elected for

Quebec East, and was also returned for the City of Ottawa, and again

elected to sit for Quebec East; in 1911 he was elected for both Quebec

East and Soulanges; and in 1918 for Quebec East. In October, 1878, he

resigned with the Mackenzie Government, and was elected leader of the

Liberal Party in the House of Commons in 1887. He issued a call for a

Dominion Liberal Convention in 1893, which was held at Ottawa. Upon the

defeat of the Tupper Government at the general elections, June 23, 1896,

he was called on by Lord Aberdeen, Governor-General, to form a ministry

on July 8, 1896, on which date Sir Charles Tupper resigned office; was

sworn in as President of the Privy Council, July 11, 1896, and formed

his Ministry, July 13, 1896. He was appointed by a sub-committee of the

Privy Council to arrange for the settlement of the Manitoba School

Question and an agreement was reached in November of the same year. On

the occasion of the celebration of Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s Diamond

Jubilee at London, Eng., June, 1897, he represented Canada, and was

created a Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St.

Michael and St. George; was received in audience by the Sovereign and

accorded the leading place in the great Jubilee State Procession of all

the Colonial dignitaries. Oxford and Cambridge Universities conferred

upon him the degree of D.C.L. (hon.) during this visit. He was sworn in

an Imperial Privy Councillor July 6, 1897; was made an honorary member

of the Cobden Club, and received from it a gold medal in recognition of

his services in the cause of international free exchange; was presented

by the President of France with the Star of a Grand Officer of the

legion of Honour, at Havre, July 29, 1897, being the highest but one of

that order; was received in audience by His Holiness the Pope, August

12, 1897. While in England he succeeded in securing Her Majesty’s

Government’s assent to the denunciation of the commercial treaties with

Germany and Belgium, which stood in the way of Canada’s new tariff,

extending a preference to the United Kingdom. On his return to Canada he

was accorded public receptions at Quebec, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa,

and received from Toronto and Queen’s Universities the honorary degrees

of LL.D. In November, 1897, he went to Washington in the interest of

better relations between the two countries, and was a member of the

Joint Commission which met at Quebec, August 23, 1898, to discuss

questions affecting jointly Great Britain, Canada and the United States.

He welcomed the present King, then Duke of Cornwall and York, to Canada

in September, 1901, and accompanied the Royal Party through the

Dominion; was invited, and attended, the Coronation of King Edward VII,

in 1902, sailing June 14, arriving in Liverpool June 21, and in London,

June 22. The Coronation, fixed for June 26, was postponed on June 24,

but took place on August 9. On June 30 he attended a Colonial Conference

at London, and on July 26 received the freedom of the City of Edinburgh,

and was honored with the degree of LL.D. by the Edinburgh University. He

was entertained by the City of Glasgow, July 28, visited the continent,

and sailed for Canada on October 7, arriving at Quebec, October 17, and

at Ottawa, October 18, receiving a great civic welcome at the City Hall.

On New Year’s Day, 1904, he was presented by His Excellency the

Governor-General, with the Fenian Raid medal for services as a volunteer

in 1866. In 1907 he attended the Imperial Conference at London, Eng., as

a representative of Canada, and was accorded the freedom of London,

Bristol, Liverpool and other cities; and in 1911 he attended the

Imperial Conference in England and represented Canada at the coronation

of King George and Queen Mary. Following the defeat of his Party at the

polls on September 21, 1911, on October 6 he tendered the resignation of

himself and Cabinet to Earl Grey, and advised His Excellency to call

upon Mr. R. L. Borden, to form a Cabinet. From that date until his death

on Feb. 17, 1919, he continued to lead the Liberal Party, and in 1917

celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday. He again led his party in the

general election of December, 1917, but was defeated owing to the fact

that many followers had parted company with him on the issue of

Conscription. Sir Wilfrid’s end came suddenly as a result of an effusion

of blood to the brain. He was stricken while preparing to go to church

on Sunday, Feb. 16, and passed away the following afternoon. The death

of no Canadian had previously evoked such tributes as were printed and

uttered, not only in Canada, but throughout the British Empire and the

United States. His remains were accorded the honor of a State funeral in

Ottawa on Saturday, Feb. 22, 1919, which was the most impressive

function of its kind known on any continent since the death of Lincoln.

* * * * *

=Ames, Sir Herbert B., K.B., LL.D., M.P.= (Montreal, Que.), born June

27, 1863, at Montreal, of which city he has been a life-long resident.

He is the only son of the late Evan Fisher Ames (who founded the shoe

manufacturing concern of Ames, Holden & Company in 1856), and of

Caroline Matilda Brown, his wife, who was a native of New York City. Mr.

E. F. Ames came to Canada from Conway, Mass., which district he

represented in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1852. He established

himself in Montreal, and became one of the leading Canadian

manufacturers. Sir Herbert Ames was educated in the schools of Montreal,

subsequently entering Amherst College at Amherst, Mass., graduating from

there with the degree of B.A. in 1885, and having had conferred on him

the further title of LL.D. in 1915. When in college he was a member of

the Alpha Phi Fraternity. In August, 1885, after leaving Amherst, he

entered the firm of Ames, Holden & Company, at Montreal, remaining in

that business until 1893. He next interested himself in municipal reform

and became President of an organization of young men known as the

Volunteer Electoral League, which body was largely instrumental in

bringing about the reformation of the City Council. In 1898 Mr. Ames was

elected a member of the Montreal City Council for St. Antoine Ward, and

served his constituency for eight years. During that period he was a

member of the Police Commission, of the Road Commission and for four

years served as Chairman of the Board of Health. In 1895 Mr. Ames was

named a member of the Council of Public Instruction of the Province of

Quebec, which body supervises the entire school system of the province.

Mr. Ames was first elected a member of the House of Commons, Canada, in

1904, having a majority of 650. In 1908 he was again elected by 850 of a

majority, and in 1911 elected for the third time by a majority of over

2,000; again re-elected in December, 1917. On the formation of the

Borden Government, in 1911, Mr. Ames was appointed to the important

position of chairman of the Select Standing Committee on Banking and

Commerce, to which all bills pertaining to Banks, Trust and Loan and

Insurance Companies are referred for examination and report. In 1903 he

was a member of the National Committee to entertain the Chambers of

Commerce of the Empire, and with them travelled throughout the Dominion.

In 1909, as representative of the Montreal Board of Trade, Mr. Ames

attended the meeting of the Chambers of Commerce at Sydney, Australia.

He has travelled extensively throughout Australia, Japan, Egypt, India,

Europe, the United States and West Indies, and has given much time and

attention to the discussion of trade questions, tariff and treaties with

other countries. In 1896 he wrote and published a monograph entitled

“The City Below the Hill,” being a sociological study of the District of

the City of Montreal, in which such questions as wages, rents, health

conditions, etc., were carefully received. At the request of the

Department of Commerce and Labor of the United States Government, Mr.

Ames prepared an article on the same subject which appeared in the

journals of this department. At the present time Sir Herbert Ames is a

Director and Vice-President of the Ames, Holden, McCready Company. He is

also one of the three gentlemen composing the Canadian Board of the

Gresham Life Insurance Company, and also a Director of the Dominion

Guarantee Company. He is a member of the Mount Royal Club, the Montreal

Club, the Montreal Curling Club, the University Club of Montreal, the

Rideau Club, Ottawa. On May 19, 1890, Mr. Ames was married to Louise

Marion Kennedy, daughter of Sir John Kennedy, C.E., of Montreal, and

they occupy a residence on the slopes of Mount Royal. He is an elder in

the Presbyterian Church, a Director in the Y.M.C.A., a governor in

several benevolent institutions. At the outbreak of the great War, Mr.

Ames was asked by His Royal Highness, the Governor-General of Canada, to

assume the position of Honorary Secretary of the National Canadian

Patriotic Fund, which provides for the wives and dependent relatives of

soldiers serving in the armies of the Allies. On behalf of the Fund he

has visited all parts of Canada, speaking and organizing, and the marked

success to his initiative and effort. Through this great national

benefaction there will have been raised and expended during the war

period no less a sum than $45,000,000. On June 3, 1915, Mr. Ames had

conferred upon him the Honor of Knighthood by His Majesty the King, and

in 1916 was made a Knight of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem

in England. On December 1, 1918, the Government of Canada created by

Order-in-Council a National War Savings Committee for the encouragement

of thrift and the promotion of investment of small savings in government

securities. Of this Committee Sir Herbert Ames has been appointed

Chairman.

* * * * *

=Robertson, John Ross=, journalist. The direct descendant of Duncan R.,

chief of the clan of Robertson of Strowan, 1347; eldest son of the late

John Robertson, wholesale dry goods merchant, Toronto, and Margaret R.,

daughter of Hector Sinclair, Stornoway, Island of Lewis, Scotland. He

was born in Toronto, Dec. 28, 1841, and educated at Upper Canada

College; married, 1st, in 1871, Maria Louisa (d. Aug., 1886), daughter

of Edward Earle Matthew Gillbee, Northamptonshire, Eng., grandson of the

late Rev. Dr. Edward Gillbee, Vicar of Barby, near Rugby, descendant of

the noted Anthony Gilby, one of the translators of the first edition of

the Geneva or “Breeches” Bible, 1560; 2ndly, 1888, Jessie Elizabeth,

daughter of George B. Holland, a prominent insurance man of Toronto.

While still at college he occupied his spare hours in acquiring a

knowledge of the printer’s craft, and was a fairly rapid compositor;

commenced a small office which he established in his father’s residence,

John St., Toronto, and with a few fonts of type he issued to the boys at

Upper Canada College a paper under the name of the “College Times,”

which later took the name of the “Boys’ Times,” a monthly publication

that existed 1857-60. He also published in succession to the “Boys’

Times,” during a year at the Model Grammar School, a newsy paper for

boys called “Young Canada.” Picking up a general knowledge of setting

type and small job work in city offices, his face was a familiar one in

the old “Christian Guardian” office, where occasionally he used to work

off odd jobs, the composition of which he did in his own office; in the

“Globe” Office, where in 1859, when opportunity offered, he sometimes

used to feed one of the Hoe single cylinder presses when printing the

inner pages of the four-page “Globe,” for the inside was always printed

the afternoon before the morning issue; in the “Leader,” where he at

times worked off on a small job cylinder Hoe press, the “Grumbler,” the

weekly that he issued in 1860; the following year he equipped a

newspaper and job office, and issued “Sporting Life,” the first paper in

Canada to be devoted to athletic sports, and subsequently continued the

publication of the “Grumbler,” a weekly satirical paper, at one time

edited by W. J. Rattray, W. A. Foster, and the late Chief Justice Thomas

Moss. He worked on the reportorial and advertising staff of the

“Leader,” when Charles Lindsey and Charles Belford were editors and

Ephraim Roden, City Editor, continuing at the same time the management

of his printing office. He also issued for a year, Robertson’s Canadian

Railway Guide, the first of its kind in Canada, and early in 1865 joined

the Toronto “Globe” staff as city Editor, in May, 1866, becoming one of

the founders of the “Daily Telegraph,” a journal that had a high

reputation among the newspapers of Canada. Owing to political

complications it ceased publication in 1872. Prior to this, in December,

1869, Mr. Robertson, then of the “Daily Telegraph,” made a trip to the

North-West, accompanied by Mr. Robert Cunningham of the “Globe.” They

travelled by rail from Toronto to the end of steel at St. Cloud, Minn.,

and there with a French half-breed guide and a two-horse farmer’s

sleigh, fully equipped, began a journey of about 400 miles over the

prairie. Snow storms raged and the thermometer ran from zero to 20

below. The travellers camped every night in the woods along the Red

River, and arrived in Fort Garry after a perilous journey of ten days,

to be locked up by the so-called “President” Riel, in Fort Garry for a

week, and only allowed out to see their friends in the town, under a

guard. They both secured interesting information, but were ordered out

of the territory, as Riel thought they were “dangerous characters,” so

they left Fort Garry for Pembina, U.S., the boundary post, one day when

the thermometer was about 40 below zero. They declared they would not do

the trip again for the whole North-West. Mr. Robertson, after the “Daily

Telegraph” ceased publication, proceeded to London, Eng., where for

three years he acted as resident correspondent and business

representative of the Toronto “Daily Globe.” On his return to Canada,

1875, he assumed the business management of the “Nation,” edited by the

late Prof. Goldwin Smith. It is said that during his managership of the

“Nation,” his friend, Mr. Goldwin Smith asked his opinion as to the

opportunities offered for an independent daily evening paper in Toronto,

and that this conversation led up to the establishment of the “Evening

Telegram,” which first saw light in April, 1876. It is said to be the

only daily paper in Canada that has paid its way from the start. Mr.

Robertson continued to conduct it until his death, May 31, 1918. “The

immediate success of this paper,” said the “Globe,” in a sketch of his

career published during his lifetime, “is ample evidence that he has

graduated from a good school of journalism. Neither accident or luck had

aught to do with his success. He launched out in new and original lines,

and the good fortune that attended his efforts was the outcome of his

energy, enthusiasm and experience, reinforced by a persistence and

resource that would admit of no failure; it is these qualities that he

brings to his every undertaking, and on the “Globe” he left behind him a

reputation that is worthy of his later achievements.” This was publicly

demonstrated by his Masonic career and his management of that great

charity—the Hospital for Sick Children. From the first he has held high

rank in the Masonic order. He entered the Craft in 1867, and was W.M. of

his Mother Lodge, King Solomon’s, in 1880-1, and of Mimico, No. 359, in

1879-80. After having served successively as Grand Senior Warden, as

District Grand Master of the Toronto District in 1886, he became in 1890

Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Canada, and was subsequently chosen

Grand First Principal of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Canada, 1894-5,

and Provincial Grand Prior, Ontario Centre, Sovereign Great Priory of

Canadian Knights Templar, 1882; was Grand Representative of the Grand

Lodge of England in Canada, having been appointed to succeed Sir John A.

Macdonald in that office on the latter’s death, 1891; indeed, every

honor at the disposal of his fellow-craftsmen had been accorded him. In

September, 1902, in commemoration of the coronation of His Majesty King

Edward, the Duke of Connaught (q.v.) then and now Grand Master, was

pleased to confer the honorary rank of Past Grand Warden of England upon

several eminent personages, including the subject of this sketch. For

many years Mr. Robertson was president of the Canadian Copyright

Association and rendered important services in that regard, and also

Vice-President and President of the Canadian Associated Press, and Hon.

President of the Toronto Press Club. He was present, with his wife, by

invitation, in Westminster Abbey, at the coronation of King Edward and

Queen Alexandra. As an author of Masonic works, Mr. Robertson is well

known, having written the “History of the Degree of the Cryptic Rite in

Canada,” etc. (1888); “History of the Knights Templar of Canada, from

the Foundation of the Order to the Present Time” (1890); “Talks with

Craftsmen” (1893); “Freemasonry in Canada,” 2 vols., 1,000 pages each

(1899). He was a contributor to the U.C. College Memorial Volume, 1893,

edited the “Diary of Mrs. John Graves Simcoe, wife of the First

Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, 1792-6” (1911), as a press notice

said, “The book of the year, a superb work,” and the author and compiler

of “Robertson’s Landmarks of Toronto” (7 vols.). In 1888 the ambulance

system in Toronto was unsatisfactory, and with a view to making it

efficient, he imported from London, Eng., a modern ambulance, fully

equipped, and presented it to the city. There are about sixty ambulances

in Canada made from this model. The presentation marked a new era in

this branch of humane work. He later gave a collection of 4,000 Canadian

historical pictures to the Toronto Public Library, the largest

collection of its kind in the world, valued at $150,000. In January,

1917, he acquired and presented to the Public Library a magnificent

ornithological collection of birds and game of Canada, done in

water-color by William Pope, an English sportsman and artist, who

resided for forty years at Port Ryerse, Ont. This collection of

water-colors is pronounced by eminent Canadian biologists to be equal of

and in some respects superior to, the work of Audubon. Mr. Robertson

later added to this another collection of Canadian birds, exquisite

reproductions in color of hundreds of birds that are not in the Pope

Collection, so that the entire collection is unparalleled in Canada. He

founded and gave three magnificent silver cups, made by eminent British

silversmiths, from special patterns, for the promotion of cricket,

hockey and bowling; but it was as chairman of the Board of Trustees of

the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, that he will be most gratefully

remembered. For thirty-five years he carried the chief burden of this

important charitable institution, bringing to its needs not only much

money of his own, but aiding it with the full force of his powers as a

financier and organizer. He took an active part in the management and

visited the Hospital every day. His gifts to the Hospital amounted to

about half a million dollars during his lifetime, for he completely

equipped the Hospital buildings on College St. and on Elizabeth St., and

built and founded, in connection with the Hospital, the Lakeside Home

for Little Children, at Lighthouse Point, Toronto Island, with an

accommodation for 250 patients and an entire hospital equipment; here,

during the summer months, the suffering little ones are won back to

health and strength with the aid of the cool breezes which sweep across

Lake Ontario. Included in his benefactions to the Hospital he erected,

equipped and presented to the Hospital (as a memorial of his first wife)

a five-storey nurses’ brick residence, containing 125 rooms, which has

been declared to be the most perfect building of its kind ever erected;

in July, 1911, he presented to the Heather Club an extension to the

pavilion for tubercular children in connection with the Lakeside Home.

He built and established a complete plant for the pasteurization of

milk, on the Hospital grounds, College St., Toronto, the only one of its

kind in the Dominion. By his will the whole of his estate will

ultimately go to this philanthropy. He was an all-round amateur athlete,

and has been sometimes called “The Father of Amateur Hockey in Ontario”;

was President of the Ontario Hockey Association, 1899-1905. He sat for

East Toronto in 1896-1900 in the House of Commons as an Independent

Conservative, pledged to oppose any Government which would attempt to

establish separate schools in Manitoba, to support the “National

Policy,” and to vote for the general good of the country. According to

Sir Charles Tupper (q.v.) he was in all respects “a model member,” and a

devoted Imperialist. In religion he was a Presbyterian. In February,

1917, Mr. Robertson was offered in the New Year’s honors a knighthood

and a senatorship, both of which honors he gratefully declined. A

well-known politician said, “It is the first time in the history of

Canada that anyone declined a knighthood and a senatorship in the same

day.” He was a member of the National, Victoria and Arts and Letters

Clubs; Constitutional (Conservative) Club, London, Eng. “A born

journalist”—“Canada,” of London, Eng.; “A truly independent man”—D.

McCarthy, Q.C., M.P.; “Possesses a heart as big as that of an

ox”—Hamilton “Spectator”; “The good angel of many of Toronto’s

charitable institutions”—Hamilton “Times”; “No man need desire a more

noble monument than these Hospital buildings, which would keep Mr.

Robertson’s memory green if all other achievements were

forgotten”—Toronto “Globe”; “He has risen step by step until he is

to-day recognized as one of the keenest, most practical and successful

publishers of the Dominion. The blind goddess had nothing to do with his

success”—Ottawa “Citizen.”

* * * * *

=Hearst, Hon. Sir William Howard, K.C.M.G., K.C., M.P.P.=, Prime

Minister of the Province of Ontario, was born on February 15, 1864, in

the township of Arran, Bruce County, Ontario, the son of William and

Margaret (McFadden) Hearst. His father was a farmer, and the subject of

this sketch was educated at the public schools of Arran Township and

later at Collingwood Collegiate Institute. Subsequently he studied for

the legal profession at Osgoode Hall, Toronto, and was called to the Bar

of Ontario in 1888. He commenced the practice of law in Sault Ste.

Marie, Ont., where he became prominent in municipal affairs and active

as a speaker in the Conservative interest. He was an unsuccessful

candidate in Algoma East in 1894, but in the Ontario Legislative

elections in 1902 he helped to organize a group of newly defined

constituencies in Northern Ontario for Mr. (afterward Sir) James P.

Whitney, and by his effective methods largely assisted in placing them

in the Conservative column. When the Whitney Government was formed in

1905 Mr. Hearst was appointed Government agent in connection with the

guarantee loan furnished to the Lake Superior Corporation, under the

provisions of which the Government had a voice in the management of the

corporation until the loan should be liquidated. In this capacity Mr.

Hearst proved a business success but resigned the office in 1908 to

contest the riding of Sault Ste. Marie for the Ontario Legislature. He

was successful and in September, 1911, when Hon. Frank Cochrane resigned

the Portfolio of Forests and Mines to become Minister of Railways and

Canals in the first Borden cabinet, Sir James Whitney tendered the

vacancy in his cabinet to Mr. Hearst. The latter accepted and was

re-elected by acclamation by his constituents, whom he has ever since

continued to represent. On the death of Sir James Whitney in 1914, he

was asked to form a Government, all his former colleagues accepting

office under him. He was sworn in as Prime Minister and President of the

Council on October 2, 1914, this being practically the last official act

of Sir John Gibson, as Lieutenant-Governor. Following the death of Hon.

James Duff in December, 1916, he also assumed the post of Minister of

Agriculture, retaining it for two years until the elevation of Hon.

George Henry to the cabinet in 1918. In connection with his profession

as a lawyer he was created a K.C. in 1908 and was elected a bencher of

the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1912. On February 13, 1917, he was

created a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George.

The Premiership of Sir William Hearst has been marked by energetic

administration and progressive legislation. He took office at a time of

peculiar difficulty in Canadian affairs, when the great war had been in

progress for two months and when it was becoming evident that it would

be necessary for a vast and united effort if it was to be successfully

prosecuted. Perhaps his most radical step was his act of 1916, to

prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors throughout the province of

Ontario. Subsequent orders-in-Council by the Federal government gave

this act the effect of absolute prohibition. In 1917 he introduced and

carried an act to confer the Parliamentary franchise on women. Under his

leadership a comprehensive measure previously enacted providing for

compensation to workmen for injuries was put into successful operation

and extended. An important measure of his provides for loans to

settlers, and he has also taken practical steps to deal with the housing

problem. The policy of Sir James Whitney and Sir Adam Beck of government

control and operation of the water powers of the province, known as the

Hydro-Electric system has been amplified under Sir William Hearst. In

connection with the war he visited the battlefront to personally

ascertain the needs of the situation. Under his administration the

Orpington Military Hospital in England was built as the gift of the

people of Ontario. As Minister of Agriculture he organized measures for

increased food production to meet the needs of soldiers and civilians

overseas; and is taking active measures to assist in reconstruction, by

helping returned soldiers to settle on the land. In religion Sir William

is a Methodist. On July 21, 1891, he married Isabella Jane Dunkin of

Sault Ste. Marie by whom he has four children, Lieutenant Howard Vernon

Hearst and Lieutenant Irving Hearst, both of whom are on active war

service; and Misses Isabel and Evelyn Hearst. Sir William resides at

Toronto.

* * * * *

=Meighen, Hon. Arthur, K.C.= (Portage la Prairie, Man.), was born June

16, 1874, at Anderson, Blanchard Township, Perth County, Ont., and is

the son of Joseph and Mary Meighen, of St. Mary’s, Ont. He was educated

at St. Mary’s Collegiate Institute and Toronto University; received

degree B.A. (Tor.), 1896; graduated with honors in mathematics. Taught

High School, Caledonia, Ont., 1897-98. After graduating as a Barrister,

he entered business for himself, 1902, and built up a large practice at

Portage la Prairie. Bencher Manitoba Law Society since 1908; Bencher of

Upper Canada Law Society since 1914. Having a capacity for public life,

at the solicitation of his friends, he accepted the nomination as

Conservative candidate for the Constituency of Portage la Prairie, Man.,

and was elected by a majority of 250. In 1904 Mr. Crawford, Liberal, had

been elected by a majority of 358. In the general elections, September

21, 1911, when the Laurier Administration was defeated at the polls on

the question of Reciprocity with the United States, Mr. Meighen was

again elected by a majority of 675 over his opponent R. Patterson. When

the position of Solicitor-General became vacant, June 26, 1913, Sir

Robert Borden invited Mr. Meighen to accept that office, and at a

bye-election held July 19, 1913, he was returned by acclamation. In

August, 1917, he became Secretary of State for Canada and Minister of

Mines, and as such devised and installed the organizations in Canada and

overseas for the holding of the war election of that year. On the

formation of the Union Government in the autumn of 1917 he accepted the

portfolio of Minister of the Interior, and was re-elected by a handsome

majority at the general elections which ensued. As a parliamentarian he

has been a success, and is held in high esteem by members on both sides

of the House. As a debater he is considered one of the ablest, and

always commands the respect of his colleagues when he rises to speak on

any important subject. Mr. Meighen was married June 1, 1904, to Jessie

Isabel Cox, to whom were born three children, Theodore Roosvelt Meighen

(1905), Maxwell Charles Gordon Meighen (1908), and Lillian Meighen

(1910). In religion he is a Presbyterian; in politics, a Conservative.

Clubs, Portage la Prairie, Rideau, Ottawa. Address, 21 Cooper St.,

Ottawa.

[Illustration: MAJOR-GEN. SIR. ARTHUR WILLIAM CURRIE

Victoria, B.C.]

* * * * *

=Cockshutt, William Foster, M.P.=, and Financial Agent (Brantford,

Ont.), is the son of I. Cockshutt, merchant of Brantford, and E. Foster

Cockshutt, was born in Brantford, October, 1855, and educated at the

Brantford and Galt Collegiate Institutes. Mr. Cockshutt’s chief public

efforts have been exercised in the direction of Imperial Unity and

Empire Trade development. He has been associated largely with Boards of

Trade and has attended several Congresses of the Associated Boards in

London, England, Montreal and Sydney, Australia, and in this direction

has been able to exercise considerable influence in Empire trade

co-operation. In the year 1909 he visited in this connection the

Commonwealth of Australia, making a very extensive tour of that great

country, and delivering addresses at all the important centres on the

theme of Empire Trade and Defence, and received much credit for the work

accomplished there. He also made an extensive tour of India, visiting

most of the cities of that great member of the Empire, and studying the

conditions of the country as well as trade matters and has taken part in

two extended campaigns in Great Britain, addressing many large meetings

at the important centres, including London, Manchester, Newcastle,

Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Torquay and many other towns and cities, for

which he was honored by letter from the then leader of the opposition,

the Honorable Arthur Balfour. Mr. Cockshutt was a member of the first

Hydro-Electric Commission of Ontario, appointed by the Municipalities

and labored in that work for nearly three years. The report of the

Commission has been a standard reference for development in this line

ever since, and was really the basis of the development that has taken

place more recently at Niagara Falls. He has travelled in most of the

great countries of Europe, made many tours in the United States and the

West Indies and Mexico, as well as having visited all the principal

cities of the Dominion and has addressed meetings in a great number of

them. He was first elected to the House of Commons in 1904, where he

served until 1908, being defeated in that year and re-elected in 1911,

and is at present serving throughout the present long Parliament. He is

ex-President of the Cockshutt Plow Co.; has been six times a delegate to

Chambers of Commerce of the Empire and is connected with a large number

of industrial enterprises, particularly in Brantford and also in other

centres, and has served on many industrial boards. In 1891, married M.

T. Ashton, daughter of Rev. Robert Ashton of Brantford, Principal of the

Mohawk Institute and has six children, Ashton, George, Eric, Maude,

Clarence and Phyllis. In politics he is an Independent Conservative and

is a member of the Anglican Church; has been a representative of the

Church of England at many important gatherings and a member of the Huron

Synod for close on to twenty-five years, been elected and re-elected to

the Provincial General Synod on many occasions and is still an active

member of all these Church organizations; is also Chairman of the

Orphanage situated on the outskirts of Brantford, known as the Jane

Laycock School; has taken considerable interest in local hospital work.

Mr. Cockshutt had the honor of being the official representative of

Brantford at the funeral of King Edward the Seventh; is Hon. Colonel of

the 125th Battalion, C.E.F., and is a remote relative of the late

Florence Nightingale, the distinguished woman who did such great work

for the British Army during the Crimean War and was one of the first

women to relieve soldiers of their sufferings on the battlefield. Mr.

Cockshutt took great interest in the recruiting of the 125th Battalion

at present overseas and has the honor of being the father of three sons,

all of whom are serving in the army at present and have all reached the

front at least once. His son, Major Ashton Cockshutt, now of the 125th

but formerly of the 10th Battalion, 1st Contingent, was a fully

qualified Lieutenant in the 103rd Calgary Rifles when the war broke out

and immediately enlisted and went overseas with the first Contingent,

training during the winter at Salisbury Plain, crossing to France in the

early spring, saw heavy fighting at St. Julien, Festubert, and Givenchy,

was wounded on June 6, 1915, and after convalescing at various military

hospitals was given furlough back to Canada and after a long hard

struggle regained his health and immediately re-enlisted with the 125th

Battalion and is now serving at Bramshott Camp. Another son, Lieut.

George Cockshutt, also enlisted early in the war with the 19th Overseas

Battalion, was a qualified Officer of the Dufferin Rifles, he served the

19th at the front for many months and was invalided home in September,

1916, owing to ear trouble and at the present time is serving with the

205th Machine Gun Section, and now overseas with 1st Tank Battalion. The

third son, Lieut. Eric Cockshutt, was at one time Captain of the Cadet

Corps of Upper Canada College, Toronto, and upon going to McGill

University, Montreal, later joined the Officers Training Corps of that

University, was accepted as a candidate at the Royal Artillery School at

Kingston, March, 1915, and after duly qualifying, trained at Petawawa,

going overseas from there with a draft, took further training at Ross

Barracks and Woolwich and then crossed over to France and served with

the First Divisional Artillery, First Canadian Brigade, and is at

present serving with the 2nd Howitzers. Mr. Cockshutt is a member of the

Brantford Golf and Country Club, the National Club, Toronto, and also

connected with the Empire Club and Imperial Institute. His recreations

include golf, tennis and skating, and he has spent many summers in the

Highlands of Canada occupying an extensive tract of land on the shores

of Lake of Bays.

* * * * *

=Jetté, The Hon. Sir Louis=, Chief Justice and late Lieutenant-Governor,

was born at L’Assomption, P.Q., on January 15, 1836. He is the son of

the late Amable Jetté, who married Miss Caroline Gauffreau, the daughter

of a wealthy planter of Guadaloupe, in the West Indies. Finishing the

full course of study at the College of L’Assomption, he became a member

of the Provincial Bar, establishing himself as a legal practitioner in

the city of Montreal, where in a few years he came to be recognized as

an astute advocate as well as a prospective candidate for political

honors. In 1870 his legal fame was enhanced by the part he took

professionally in the famous Guibord Case, and by his service before the

Privy Council in England in behalf of the Provincial Government of

Quebec. At length, in 1872, he was elected member for Montreal East,

defeating Sir George E. Cartier, the French-Canadian colleague of Sir

John A. Macdonald. When the Liberal Leader, the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie

was Prime Minister, Mr. Jetté was offered the position of Minister of

Justice, but accepted in preference a place on the Bench. This he

retained for twenty years up to 1898, when he was appointed

Lieutenant-Governor of his native province. While still practising his

profession in Montreal, he became Professor of Civil Law in Laval

University and a Dean of its Faculty, having been honored by the same

with the degree of LL.D., as well as by Bishop’s College University with

a D.C.L. and by Toronto University with an LL.D. In 1891 he was

appointed Chairman of the Royal Commission charged with the

investigation of affairs connected with the Baie-des-Chaleurs Railway,

finally refusing to agree, however, to the decision of his two

colleagues. The several other offices he has filled are many and

important. After his term as Lieutenant-Governor had expired, he was

given a second term. And at the end of his second term he was appointed

Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench, retiring in 1911. Few

Canadians have had so many honors conferred upon them as has Sir Louis

Jetté. These include his university degrees; his knighthood from the

King of England; his Legion of Honour from France, of which he is a

Commander; the many addresses he has received from his fellow-members of

the Bar, as well as from the people; not to speak of his receptions by

King George and his late royal father, King Edward, and His Holiness the

Pope. He has been associated with the Société de Legislation Comparée;

with the Société d’Histoire Diplomatique of Paris (France); was a member

of the Alaska Boundary Tribunal; a Director of the Montreal Polytechnic

School; a member of the Council of Public Instruction, and an honorary

member of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. In his earlier

years he was a contributor to certain city journals, having been editor

of one of them known as “L’Ordre.” His “Observations Relating to the

Code of Civil Procedure” proves him to be possessed of a wide vision and

keen insight, both as a lawyer and a literary expositor. The encomiums

which have been passed upon his services as a public servant go to show

Chief Justice Sir Melbourne Tait was in no way astray in his high

estimate of Sir Louis Jetté’s mental culture and administrative

astuteness, not only as a public speaker, but as a writer and overseer

of what is in line with justice and dignity of rule. He was married in

1862, to Miss Bertha Laflamme, daughter of the late Touissant Laflamme,

and sister of the Hon. R. Laflamme, the distinguished barrister and

advocate of Montreal. Lady Jetté, who is an authoress in her own right,

having written a Life of Madame d’Youville, won a further good name for

herself and her distinguished husband for the hospitalities they were

always pleased to extend to their guests at Spencer Wood during the two

terms and more of Governor Jetté’s residence there as Governor.

* * * * *

=Kennedy, William Costello=, Member for North Essex in the House of

Commons of Canada, is a resident of Windsor, Ont., and a prominent

figure in the oil and gas industry of the Essex Peninsula. He was born

at Ottawa, Ont., August 27, 1868, the son of William and Julia

(Costello) Kennedy. While he was yet a boy his parents moved to Toronto

to reside and he was educated in the Separate Schools and De La Salle

Institute, of that city. He began his business career in 1887 as a clerk

in the offices of the London and Canadian Loan and Agency Company,

Toronto, at that time one of the best known financial corporations of

the province. With this company he remained until 1897 when he accepted

an offer to go to Windsor, Ont., and engage in the oil and natural gas

industry. In 1903 he became President of the Windsor Gas Company and

continued in that office until 1917. At the present time he has many

interests in the city of his adoption. He was President of the Board of

Trade for the years 1909 and 1910, and a member of the Windsor Board of

Education from 1913 to 1918; and also a councillor of the municipality

of Ojibway during the same period. From early manhood Mr. Kennedy had

been a Liberal in politics and in 1917 when Sir Robert Borden formed a

Union Government and decided to carry out the policy of conscription

without submitting the question to the Canadian people through the

medium of a referendum, he was one of those Liberals who stood back of

Sir Wilfrid Laurier in opposing such a course. Though at the time it was

supposed that he was facing almost certain defeat he accepted the

Liberal nomination for North Essex. He was opposed by Col. Wigle, who

was generally regarded as a very strong candidate. In the two months’

campaign that ensued Mr. Kennedy made many friends by his sane and

reasonable methods of electioneering and when the ballots were counted

on December 17, 1917, it was found that he had been elected by a

handsome majority, which was not annulled by the vote of the soldiers

overseas, details of which were received later. During the parliamentary

session Mr. Kennedy made his maiden speech as a legislator in the budget

debate, and made a very fine impression on friends and political

opponents alike by his brilliant handling of financial questions. Old

parliamentarians were agreed that it was one of the most promising

initial speeches ever made at Ottawa, and ever since the member for

North Essex has been regarded as an important factor in the future of

his party. His recreations are golf and motoring, and he is a member of

the following clubs: Detroit, Detroit Athletic, Essex County Golf,

Windsor and Ontario, Toronto. In religion he is a Roman Catholic and on

May 8, 1907, married Glencora, daughter of George W. Bolton, Detroit,

Michigan.

* * * * *

=Mitchell, Robert Menzies, Hon.= (Weyburn, Sask.), is a native of Port

Union, Ont., where he was born October 28, 1865, the son of James

Mitchell, a farmer, and Elizabeth Rodger, his wife. His father came of

Scottish ancestry, some of whose descendants settled in Canada and some

in Australia. Madame Melba, the great Australian prima donna, whose

maiden name was Nellie Mitchell, is a cousin of the subject of this

sketch. The latter was educated at Orangeville High School and Trinity

Medical School, Toronto, graduating M.D., C.M. in April, 1892. He at

once commenced the practice of medicine at Dundalk, Dufferin County,

Ont., and remained there until 1899, when he settled at Weyburn, Sask.,

and continued in active practice there until 1907. He was Chairman of

the Weyburn Public School Board for ten years, and of the High School

Board for five years. In August, 1908, he was elected to the

Saskatchewan Legislature as a Liberal for the constituency of Weyburn,

and has been re-elected at each ensuing election. He was Chairman of the

Private Bills and Railways Committee of the Legislature for six years,

and was chosen as Deputy Speaker in 1916. Shortly afterward he was made

Speaker, and on his return to the House after the general elections of

1917 was re-elected to that office. Though a Liberal his fairness and

impartiality in the conduct of debate has made him universally popular

among politicians of all shades of opinion. He is a member of the

following fraternal orders: A.F. & A.M., I.O.O.F., and C.O.F.; of the

Weyburn Club, and the Assiniboia Club, Regina. His recreations are

football and curling, and in religion he is a Presbyterian. On August

17, 1892, he married Margaret, daughter of Donald and Flora McKinnon,

Badjeros, Ont., and his two sons have both served their country with

honor in the great war. R. C. Mitchell, born July 11, 1893, went

overseas with the First Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1914, and D. J.

Mitchell, born February 15, 1895, became a member of the Royal Air Force

a year or so later.

* * * * *

=Lemieux, the Honorable Sir François-Xavier=, Chief Justice of the

Superior Court of Quebec, was born at Levis on the 9th of April, 1851,

the son of Antoine and Henriette (Lagueux) Lemieux. From the Levis

College he entered the Quebec Seminary and afterwards graduated from

Laval University, in 1872, taking the degree of LL.B. In the same year

he started on his career as a lawyer in the city of Quebec, taking rank

almost immediately as an efficient pleader in the criminal courts of the

Lower St. Lawrence districts. His eloquent fluency and finesse as a

defender brought him into a lucrative practice; and there were in time

few prominent cases of criminality brought into court in which his

services were not sought after. Nor did his legal acumen in winning

cases arouse any envious feeling against him among his legal brethren,

since in 1896 he was elected Batonnier of the Quebec Bar, and in the

following year Batonnier-General of the Provincial Bar. Turning his

attention to politics, he sat as member of Levis in the Legislative

Assembly for nine years, and afterwards as member for Bonaventure, for

three years. As an orator, he has a marvellous faculty on the hustings

of carrying any large audience with him in his argument. At length the

widest fame came to him when he was called upon to defend Louis Riel,

the rebel leader of the half-breeds and Indians in the North-West, in

1885. The charge of high treason against the culprit was sustained, but

his legal defender was nevertheless acclaimed as one of the shrewdest

lawyers that could have been engaged to defend him. Subsequently, in

1892, he was chosen to defend the Honorable Honore Mercier, Premier of

Quebec, before the criminal court, under charges of maladministration.

Mr. Mercier was honorably acquitted. Five years after the subject of

this biography was appointed Puisne Judge in the district of Arthabaska

and afterwards in Sherbrooke. From Sherbrooke, he was finally removed to

Quebec where he holds the office of Chief Justice for the Province of

Quebec. The literary talents of Sir François have been proven by his

lectures and essays. His acumen as a judge has been openly acknowledged

by his professional associates. He is a citizen well worthy the honor

conferred upon him by King George and by Laval University, in the one

case of Knighthood and in the other an LL.D. His father-in-law, the late

Justice Plamondon, was a judge of the Superior Court of Quebec, Miss

Diana Plamondon becoming his wife in 1874.

* * * * *

=Turgeon, The Hon. Adelard, LL.D., C.M.G., C.V.O., Knight of the Legion

of Honour of France= (Quebec City), President of the Legislative Council

of the Province of Quebec, and a Governor of Laval University, was born

at Beaumont in the Province of Quebec, on December 19, 1863. He is the

son of Mr. Damase Turgeon, and was educated at Levis College and at

Laval University. Called to the Bar in 1887, he opened a law office in

Levis, but afterwards entered into partnership in Quebec with the

prominent legal firm of Roy, Langlais & Godbout. His career as a

parliamentarian was inaugurated by his election as member for

Bellechasse in 1890, a constituency which he continued to represent up

to 1909, when he retired from the Legislative Assembly to take his seat

in the Legislative Council and assume the high office of Speaker or

President of that body. While a member of the Assembly his eloquence

became an attractive feature in the many important debates in which he

took part, alike as Member and Minister. As an administrator and

public-spirited citizen, he has taken high rank as a publicist, having

retained the favor of Bellechasse from term to term for over a decade.

During the Tercentennial Celebration at Quebec in 1908, he was honored

by the Prince of Wales, now King George V, and was shortly afterwards

chosen as one of the members of the National Battlefields Commission,

which has ever since been engaged in laying out and beautifying one of

the most spacious public parks in Canada. In 1897 he was called to join

the Marchand Government as Minister of Colonization, holding the same

office in the Parent Cabinet, until he was chosen to act as Minister of

Agriculture and Provincial Secretary. In 1905, the Parent Administration

was transformed into the Gouin Administration, and in the latter Mr.

Turgeon accepted the portfolio of Lands and Forests, holding the same up

to 1909. On resigning his seat in the Assembly as a challenge to some of

his detractors, he was re-elected against Henri Bourassa by the electors

of Bellechasse as an acknowledgement of his mature administrative

abilities, and a warrant to his resuming his place in the Gouin Cabinet,

as well as preparing the way for his being called to the high office of

President of the Legislative Council. During his public career, he has

held many important positions outside of his parliamentary functions,

among these being President of the Quebec Land Company, Vice-President

of the Provincial Securities Company, Director of the Quebec Transfer

and Cartage Company, and member of the Comptoir Mobilier-Franco-Canadien

Company. He was one of the founders of the Society of L’Union Liberale,

and prominently connected with various political clubs. In July, 1887,

he married Miss Eugenie Samson, the daughter of Mr. Etienne Samson, of

Levis. As President of the Upper Chamber of the Provincial Parliament,

Mr. Turgeon has his residence within the precincts of the Parliament

Buildings, wherein his hospitalities form a prominent feature in the

social life of the community when parliament is in session, as well as

at other times.

* * * * *

=Rhodes, Hon. Edgar Nelson, K.C., B.A., LL.B.= (Amherst, N.S.), son of

Nelson A. Rhodes and Sara D. C. Curry. Born at Amherst, N.S., on January

5, 1877. Educated at Amherst Academy, Horton Collegiate Academy, Acadia

University and Dalhousie University. Degrees: B.A., Acadia; LL.B.,

Dalhousie. Member of the Board of Governors of Acadia University.

Married, July 12, 1905, to M. Grace, second daughter of Hon. W. T.

Pipes, K.C., Attorney-General of Nova Scotia. He is the father of the

following children: Edgar N. Rhodes, Jr., born on April 19, 1906, and

Helen S. Rhodes, born on October 18, 1907. Appointed a King’s Counsel in

May, 1916, by the Provincial Government of Nova Scotia. President

Brooklyn Lumber Company, Ltd.; director Nova Scotia Trust Co., Ltd.;

British America Nickel Corporation, Ltd.; Amherst Boot & Shoe Company,

Ltd., and Amherst Pianos, Ltd. Has been, since its inception, a member

of the Dominion Executive and of the Nova Scotia Executive of the

Canadian Patriotic Fund; also an Honorary Vice-President and member of

the Dominion Council of the St. John’s Ambulance Association. First

elected to House of Commons at General Elections, 1908; re-elected, 1911

and 1917. Elected Deputy-Speaker at the opening of the 6th session of

the 12th Parliament, January, 1916. Was one of the Canadian

representatives at the Imperial Parliamentary Conference in London,

1916, and accompanied the members of that body on their visit to the

Munitions plants, The Fleet, and to the front. Elected Speaker of the

House of Commons, January 18, 1917. Re-elected Speaker at the opening of

the first session of the 13th Parliament, 1918. Member Rideau Club and

Country Club, Ottawa. A Unionist. Amherst, N.S.

* * * * *

=White, Rt. Hon. Sir William Thomas, P.C., M.P.=, Finance Minister of

Canada, is a Canadian statesman whose meteoric rise to fame during less

than a decade, has attracted more than national attention. He was born

at Bronte, Ont., November 13, 1866, the son of James and Elizabeth

(Graham) White. His father was a farmer and his early education was

obtained at Oakville public school and Brampton High School. Later he

entered Toronto University and graduated in 1895 with the degree of B.A.

and honors in classics. During his university career he won two

first-class scholarships and a gold medal. Subsequently he took up a

course of law at Osgoode Hall, Toronto and was called to the Bar of the

province in 1899, but never practised. During his period as an arts and

law student he supported himself, first as a reporter on the Toronto

“Telegram,” where his writings showed singular eloquence and ability;

and later, as one of the assessors of the Civic Assessment Department.

The knowledge of real estate values and of financial questions which he

had gained in the latter capacity, as well as his general abilities, led

a group of Toronto capitalists to tender him in 1900, the General

Managership of the National Trust Company, which they had recently

formed. This post he held for nearly eleven years and during that

interval attained a high status in the financial community. Though a

Liberal in politics, he had never been known as an active politician. In

the summer of 1911, when Sir Wilfrid Laurier, then Prime Minister,

appealed to the country to ratify the Knox-Fielding pact calling for

reciprocity in natural products between Canada and the United States,

Mr. W. T. White, as he was then known, was one of eighteen prominent

Toronto Liberals who issued a manifesto against the proposals of their

former political chieftain and decided to support Mr. Robert Borden. He

himself took the platform against the pact as liable to disturb the

equilibrium of trade at a time when Canada was enjoying unexampled

prosperity. The result of this and other appeals was that many thousands

of voters, previously Liberal, abandoned the party lines and defeated

the Laurier administration by a large majority. When called upon to form

a government in the latter part of September, 1911, Mr. Borden felt that

it was due to the large number of Liberals who had supported him, that

they should be represented in the Cabinet. On consultation with the

leaders of the group, known as “Borden Liberals,” they were unanimously

of the opinion that Mr. White was the best available choice. Despite the

fact that he was without previous political experience, the Conservative

Leader decided to offer him the most important portfolio in the Cabinet,

that of the Ministry of Finance. On Mr. White’s accepting the office, a

seat was found for him in the House of Commons by the elevation of Mr.

George Taylor, M.P. for Leeds, and formerly Conservative whip, to the

Senate. At a by-election held on November 4, 1911, Mr. White was elected

to Parliament by a considerable majority, despite the fact that the

election was marked by severe personal attacks on him, because of his

so-called “desertion” of the Liberal party. Mr. White answered the

challenge by the statement that he “believed that there was no healthier

sign of the times than that an honest man should change his party in the

interests of his country.” His maiden speech in the House of Commons,

which was delivered on Nov. 29, 1911, was awaited throughout the country

with great interest, and at once stamped him as one of the coming men in

Canadian politics. Since then his budget speeches have proclaimed him as

a financier of masterly intellect. Had Mr. White known in 1911 that the

task lay before him of financing Canada’s contribution to the

prosecution of the greatest war the world has ever known, he would

possibly have declined office. When in 1914, Germany made war against

all Europe, and Canada decided to support the Motherland, perhaps the

gravest task of all fell on the Minister of Finance, because up to that

time Canada had been a heavy borrower from the Motherland, and these

sources of supply would naturally be cut off if the war continued for a

lengthy period. In fact, in 1914, many eminent financiers believed that

the financial resources of the world would not stand the strain of a war

of more than six months’ duration. The Canadian Minister of Finance

however laid his plans for a long war; and in addition to the task of

financing Canada’s magnificent military effort, applied himself to the

problem of keeping up Canada’s trade at a figure that would enable her

to continue as a belligerent. He had also the task thrust upon him of

acting as banker for Great Britain, France, Russia and other

belligerents, who made the finance department at Ottawa the clearing

house for their enormous financial dealings with the merchants and

manufacturers of the United States. During the first year of the war

Great Britain was able to render financial assistance to Canada and

others of the overseas dominions; and Mr. White floated some large loans

in the United States. But it was already apparent that Canada must

shortly finance herself. In 1916 he visited England and fully acquainted

himself with the situation, and in the same year was created a Knight

Commander of St. Michael and St. George, in recognition of his war

services. Sir Thomas decided to test Canada’s own resources and floated

a large war loan the bulk of it being taken by Canadian capitalists,

although a certain number of small investors were also attracted to it.

Up to 1917, however, there were only about 60,000 holders of Canadian

bonds in this country. In the summer of 1917, when Canada seemed to face

a serious financial crisis, Sir Thomas decided to try the experiment of

a great popular loan to be known as the Victory Loan, on the lines of

the popular loans floated during the American Civil War, by the

celebrated financier Jay Cooke. He collected a superb organization,

embracing all the leading financiers, newspapers and selling agencies of

Canada and asked the people to lend their government $300,000,000, to be

spent entirely in Canada for war purposes. The result passed all

expectations, for the loan was over-subscribed by more than one hundred

million dollars, and about 875,000 became holders of Victory Bonds.

Canada was enabled to do this by the fact that Sir Thomas and the Borden

administration as a whole had, by adopting the policy of financing

British credits in this country, secured enormous war orders for

agricultural supplies and munitions for her farmers and manufacturers,

so that the flow of money during the war reached unexampled heights. The

first Victory Loan of 1917 was fruitful of good results, because it

enabled Canada to continue this policy on a more extended scale, so

that, though this enormous sum was invested in bonds, and added to the

savings of the people, a few months later the average of deposits in the

savings banks of the country was larger than it had been before the

first Victory Loan was floated. In the latter part of 1917 the health of

Sir Thomas broke down as a result of his stupendous anxieties and

labors, but after a vacation of several months in California he returned

to this country restored in health. In the autumn of 1918 he decided to

float another Victory Loan, asking, as in 1917, for $300,000,000, but

setting the real objective at $500,000,000. The result was another

enormous over-subscription, nearly $700,000,000 having been subscribed.

That such a showing should have been made by a country so limited in

population as Canada, is the best proof of his skill as administrator of

the nation’s finances during the most trying epoch in the history of the

world. So thoroughly has Sir Thomas the confidence of his leader, Sir

Robert Borden, that when in November, 1918, he left Canada for an

indefinite absence as a member of the European Peace Conference, he

appointed the Minister of Finance Acting Prime Minister, to take charge

of the hazardous task of re-organizing the country on a peace basis. Sir

Thomas is a profound student and thinker and a public speaker of rare

ability. Among his activities prior to his removal to Ottawa were those

of a member of the Board of Governors of Toronto University and Trustee

of Toronto General Hospital. He is a Methodist in religion, and a member

of the Rideau Club, Ottawa, and the York and Toronto Clubs, Toronto. On

Sept. 20, 1890, he married Annie Isabel, daughter of Ellis Silverthorne,

Jarvis, Ont.

* * * * *

=Price, Sir William=, the prominent capitalist of Quebec City, who has

been engaged in military operations during the European War as Colonel

of the 171st Battalion, at Valcartier, and later as an officer at the

front, is a son of Mr. Henry Ferrier Price, who married Miss Florence

Rogerson. He was born at Talca, Chili, on August 30, 1867. His uncle was

the Hon. Senator E. J. Price, on whose death he became leading partner

of the firm of Price Brothers & Company, in 1886. He was educated at

Bishops College School, Lennoxville, P.Q., and later at St. Mark’s

School, Windsor, England. He has been prominent in the public life as

well as the business circles of Quebec, having been a member of

parliament for one of the electoral divisions of the place and

afterwards Chairman of the Harbor Commission. It was while he held the

latter office that he took service as one of the organizers of the

Valcartier Military Camp, earning high praise from the Governor-General

and the Militia Department, and finally receiving his knighthood at the

hands of King George. As Colonel in Command he raised the 171st

Battalion, which he took over to England in 1916, continuing his

services with the army as one of the officers of a Railway Construction

Battalion in France, after the 171st had been absorbed in other

battalions, in terms of what is known as the Territorial System. No

citizen of Quebec has earned higher credit for patriotic effort than Sir

William. Setting aside his many business duties and resigning a

lucrative government position, he ably fulfilled the duties assigned to

him as a soldier. The responsible positions he has held as a business

man and a public-spirited citizen have been manifold. Besides being

President of the Price Brothers & Company, he has been Director and

Honorary Chairman of the Union Bank; a Director of the Quebec Railway,

Light, Heat and Power Company; Vice-President of the Canadian

Lumberman’s Association; as well as being President of the Metis Lumber

Company, the Jonquiere Pulp and Paper Company, the Gravel Lumber

Company, and President of the Canadian Export Co. Nor did his business

engagements hinder him from taking an active part in civic and

charitable enterprises to which he has given beneficently of his means.

At one time he was a Governor of the Jeffrey Hale Hospital, President of

the Board of Trade, Director of the Trans-Canadian Railway project, an

energetic supporter of the movement in favor of the National

Battlefields Park, and President of the Quebec Turf Club. As far back as

1887, he took a practical interest in local military affairs, having

been a lieutenant in the Eighth Royal Rifles, and being raised to his

captaincy before his withdrawal from that company in 1903. As a prelude

to his activity as a military organizer at the Valcartier Camp, he

raised two companies for service during the Boer War, and encouraged

rifle practice by presenting the Price Cup for competition at the

targets. As a parliamentarian he had a term of three years; but his

earlier defeat in the Rimouski constituency was repeated by Quebec West

in 1911. As has been well said of him, he has proved himself to be a

citizen of whom any community might well be proud. He was married in

1894, to Miss Amelia Blanche Smith, daughter of Mr. R. H. Smith, another

of Quebec’s most prominent and worthy lumber merchants. His family

consists of four sons and two daughters. Sir William has since his early

days been an enthusiast as a “portageur,” and a keen sportsman. He owns

two salmon-breeding rivers and extensive hunting grounds. While

soldiering abroad, he continued head of his firm, which has in its

employment several thousands of employees.

* * * * *

=Kemp, Hon. Sir Albert Edward= (Toronto, Ont.), son of Robert Kemp, an

Englishman, and Sarah A. Kemp, his wife, a Canadian; born at

Clarenceville, Que., August 11, 1858, and educated at Clarenceville and

Lacolle Academy. For many years the subject of this sketch has been one

of the leading manufacturers of Canada, and a successful business man.

Since 1895 he has devoted considerable time to questions of public

interest. In 1879 he married a Miss Wilson, of Montreal. He was

President of the Canadian Manufacturers Association in 1895 and was

re-elected in 1896. He was elected President of the Toronto Board of

Trade for the year 1899, and re-elected in 1900. In 1898 he was

appointed a delegate by the Board to the British Association, at its

annual meeting held in Bristol, also to the Fourth Congress of the

Chambers of Commerce of the Empire, held in London, June, 1900. He is a

member of the Board of Regents of Victoria University, Toronto; a member

of several Orders, among which is included the Orange Order, and many

National and Philanthropic Societies. Mr. Kemp was first elected to the

House of Commons at the general elections in 1900, and again returned in

1904. In 1908 he was defeated, but was re-elected at the general

elections in 1911 by a very large majority. Upon the resignation of Sir

Wilfrid Laurier and his Cabinet on October 6, 1911, following the defeat

of the Liberal Party at the polls the previous September, he joined the

Borden Government as Minister without Portfolio, and was sworn in a

member of the Privy Council for Canada on October 10, 1911. After the

outbreak of the war he was called upon by his Government to assume many

important positions, among which was included the Chairmanship of the

War Supplies Purchasing Commission, a position that required the keenest

foresight, courage and action, and which practically demanded all his

time. It later developed that the Government made no mistake in placing

him at the head of this Commission, and great credit is due him for the

manner in which he conducted its affairs. Upon the resignation of Sir

Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia in the Borden Government, in November,

1916, Mr. Kemp was asked by Sir Robert Borden to accept the position as

Minister of Militia, and accepted, and on December 14, 1916, was

re-elected by acclamation by his constituents in East Toronto.

Subsequently he was asked to accept the post of Overseas Minister,

resident in London, and in this capacity he served throughout the

momentous period of 1918, when he was directly in touch with Canada’s

Army in France. In social life he has many friends, and is always ready

to receive them in a manner that draws them closer to him. As a public

man there is a great future before him, and he has won praise for having

accepted office at the most critical moment in the history of Canada.

When the greatest war the world has known draws to a close, and the

history of the noble sons who fought and worked with the Allies in their

different nations is written, the name of Hon. Albert Edward Kemp will

come in for a full share of credit for the able and systematic methods

adopted in helping the Motherland to continue to wave the flag that

stands for freedom and justice. In religion he is a Methodist.

[Illustration: E.J. BEAUMONT, KITCHENER

M.G. BRISTOW, OTTAWA]

=Cameron, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Douglas, K.C.M.G.=, ex-Lieutenant-Governor

of Manitoba (Winnipeg, Man.), was born in Prescott County, Ont., June

18, 1854, the son of Colin and Annie Cameron, and was educated at the

High School, Vankleek Hill, Ont. He was engaged in farming in the

Province of Ontario from 1871 to 1880, afterwards moving to Winnipeg, in

1880. He engaged in various occupations until the fall of 1883, when he

entered the lumber business under the firm name of Cameron & Company;

later, Cameron & Kennedy. The business was incorporated as the Ontario &

Western Lumber Company in 1892, and was later changed to the Rat Portage

Lumber Company, and he has acted as General Manager since 1892, and

President since 1894. He is also President of the Maple Leaf Flour

Mills, a Director of the Northern Crown Bank, and a Director of the

Manitoba Bridge and Iron Company. In 1902 he was elected to the Ontario

Legislature for Fort William and Lake-of-the-Woods, and was defeated in

the general elections of 1905 and 1908; was also an unsuccessful

candidate for the House of Commons for Winnipeg in the Federal general

elections in 1908. On August 1, 1911, he was appointed

Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Manitoba, which office he filled

with the greatest satisfaction until succeeded by the present incumbent,

Sir James Albert Manning Aikins, K.B. He was a Councillor for Rat

Portage in 1891, and Mayor from 1891 to 1894; was appointed a K.C.M.G.,

December 31, 1913. In 1910 he was appointed Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel

of the 79th Highlanders, and has been very active in connection with the

Militia since the outbreak of the war, as well as in Patriotic work. He

married Margaret Cameron Ferguson, of Vankleek Hill, in 1880, to whom

were born two sons and one daughter; is a member of the Manitoba Club

and the St. Charles Country Club, and as a recreation is an admirer of

horses. Sir Douglas is a staunch Liberal in politics, and is considered,

by the leaders of his party, as one of the ablest statesmen in Canada.

In religion he is a Presbyterian and an active worker in Church and

Social Reform movements.

* * * * *

=Bégin, Louis Nazaire, Cardinal Archbishop of Quebec=, was born on

January 10, 1840. He is the son of Charles Bégin, of Levis, his mother’s

maiden name having been Miss Luce Paradis. His earlier education was had

in the schools and colleges of the Quebec district, up to the time of

his leaving for Europe, to prepare himself as a priest and professor.

Ordained in Rome in 1865, he returned to Quebec to assume the duties of

Professor of Theology and Church History in Laval University, with

collateral duties for a time as Prefect of Studies in what is known as

Le Petit Séminaire. It was in 1885 he was appointed Principal of Laval

Normal School at the time that institution occupied the premises of the

old Chateau Haldimand, over the site of which the spacious Chateau

Frontenac now extends its massive wings. Three years after, he was named

Bishop of Chicoutimi, eventually returning to Quebec to take up his

residence in the Archbishop’s Palace as Coadjutor of Cardinal

Taschereau, under the title of Archbishop of Cyrene. From 1894 to 1898,

he continued to be the Administrator of the Archdiocese of Quebec,

during the declining years of Cardinal Taschereau. On the death of the

latter, he succeeded him in the See of Quebec, the ceremony of his

official investiture in 1899 being an historic event of the greatest

interest to the whole province, as was the later celebration of his

election as a Cardinal under the title of Saint Vitalis. The details of

the distinguished ecclesiastic’s career form a brilliant page in the

annals of Canada. Alike at home and abroad, His Eminence Cardinal Bégin

has ever been known to fulfil his duty towards his Church and as a loyal

citizen of Canada. Frequently he has been called to foreign parts to

share in celebrations, such as the solemn coronation ceremonies of Our

Lady of Guadalupe at Mexico City, in 1895, where he preached one of the

memorial sermons, as well as at Rheims, during a like celebration in

1896, and at Grosse Isle in 1909, when he was the principal speaker at

the unveiling of the monument erected to the memory of the Irish

immigrants who had fallen victims to the typhus epidemic in 1847. He has

also been several times a guest at the Vatican, having enjoyed the

confidence of the three successive popes, Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict

XV, from the last of whom he received his red hat. He has ever been a

participant in all the public movements that tended to improve the

social and educational conditions in his diocese, having taken a leading

part in the founding of one of the leading newspapers of Quebec, known

as “L’Action Catholique” and having likewise obtained the restoration of

the Cathedral Chapter of Quebec, an institution that had become extinct

from the days of the Conquest. He was prominent in the enterprise of

unveiling a monument to the memory of Bishop Laval, as he has also been

in the various efforts put forth towards beautifying the city with parks

and monumental structures commemorative of historic events. He is a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and has been honored by

scholastic degrees of the highest merit, bestowed on him by the

University of Innsbruck, in Austria, as well as those he has received

from Laval and the Gregorian University of Rome. He virtually began his

professional career as a teacher of the young, and has never lost his

zeal in promoting, as a Member of the Council of Public Instruction, the

reforms that make for a right pedagogy in school and college work. His

pen has been an active one in adding to the literature to be found in

the library collections of his Church, such as “La Règle de Foi” and the

“Culte Catholique” not to speak of his writings on Canadian historical

topics, as for instance, his “Chronologie d’Histoire du Canada,” his

pastoral letters on the “Three Hundredth Anniversary of the Foundation

of Quebec,” and his address on the “Second Centenary of the Death of

Bishop Laval.” So wide is his knowledge of human affairs, so urbane is

he in his manner and so just in his decisions, so charitable is he in

his approach to the two sides of a public question, that he has more

than once been called upon to act as arbitrator between employer and

employees. During the many years of his episcopate he has organized over

fifty new parishes, and has never failed to urge the building of

spacious churches and school-houses and convents in the most of them.

The events of his life have been for the most part the events of his

native province and of Canada as well. Even during his travels abroad he

always seems to have had in his mind the maturing of a policy of

betterment for his people, and the fostering of good will among the

various elements of the populations of Canada.

* * * * *

=Langelier, The Honorable Sir François-Xavier=, Statesman, and

Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, comes of very distinguished ancestry, and

is one of the most respected, capable and learned of French-Canadian

gentlemen, who has taken a leading part in the public life of Canada,

and by his brilliant achievements, ripe scholarship and administrative

ability, has served as an inspiration and shining example to all who

would win a high place in the confidence and esteem of their

fellow-countrymen. His parents were Louis Sabastien Langelier and Julie

Esther (Cassault). Paternal ancestor came to Canada from Fresquiennes,

near Rouen, Normandy, 1652; mother’s family from Granville, France; born

at Ste. Rosalie, Province of Quebec, Dec. 24, 1838. Educated at St.

Hyacinthe College and Laval University (LL.B., 1860; LL.L., avec grande

distinction, 1861; LL.D., 1878), and Paris, France; D.C.L. (honorary)

Lennoxville, 1903; married, first Feb., 1884, Virginie Sarah Sophie

(died May, 1891), daughter of the late I. Legare, Quebec; secondly, May,

1892, Marie Louise, daughter of late Frederic Braun, late Civil Service,

Ottawa; advocate, 1861; was one of the leaders of the Provincial Bar;

K.C. (Province Quebec), 1878; also created K.C. by Dominion Government,

1880 (Marquis of Lorne); Batonnier (district Quebec) 1887;

Batonnier-General of the Province, 1888; practised his profession

successfully in the city of Quebec, where he was many years, from 1866,

a member of the law faculty, Laval University, and subsequently, Dean of

the Faculty and a member of the Council of the University; was also

Vice-President of the Canadian Bar Association; President of the

Institute Canadien and President of the Council of the Arts and

Manufacturers’ Association; served as Mayor of Quebec, 1882-90; entered

political life as a Liberal, and a free trader; was in turn a follower

of Mackenzie, Blake and Laurier; unsuccessfully contested Bagot (Local),

1871; subsequently successively sat for Montmagny and Portneuf; sat for

Megantic (House of Commons), 1884-87, and for Quebec Centre, 1887-1898;

was Commissioner of Crown Lands and Treasurer, successively, in the

local Administration of Sir H. G. Joly de Lotbinière, 1878-89; one of

the signers of the address from the Liberal party to the Pope, 1896,

resulting in the appointment of a Papal ablegate to Canada; a puisne

Judge of Supreme Court of Province of Quebec, Jan. 14, 1898; delegated

to perform the duties of the Chief Justice for the District of Quebec,

June 6, 1906; as Chief Justice, became a member of the Board of

Arbitrators, appointed 1891, for the settlement of accounts outstanding

at Confederation between the Dominion and the Provinces of Quebec and

Ontario; acted as Administrator of the Government of Quebec during the

absence of Sir L. A. Jetté, 1903; knighted by his late Majesty King

Edward, 1907; and made a Knight of Grace in the Order of St. John of

Jerusalem in England in 1912; appointed Lieutenant-Governor, Province of

Quebec, May, 1911; died February 8, 1915; has served as a Royal

Commissioner on several occasions; was prominently identified with the

movement for the organization of the Anti-Alcoholic League and its first

President, 1907; was also President of the special committee appointed

in connection with the tercentenary of the foundation of Quebec, 1906.

Elected F.R.S.O., 1908; President, 1910; in addition to other legal

productions, is the author of “Traite de la preuve, en matiere civile et

commerciale,” and of “Cours de Droit Civil de Quebec.” Is the father of

the following children: Juliette, Braun, who took service in the present

war, was wounded three times, got the military cross for his bravery,

and was promoted captain in the 22nd Batt. French Canadians; Françoise,

Marc and Gerard. His Honor is a member of the following clubs: The

Quebec Garrison and The Canadian. In religion, a Roman Catholic.

* * * * *

=Lynch, Hon. William Warren, B.C., Q.C., D.C.L., LL.D.=, was born near

the Village of Bedford, County of Missisquoi, Province of Quebec, on

September 30, 1845. His father, Thomas Lynch, came from the County of

Cavan, Ireland, about the year 1830. He served during the Canadian

Rebellion in the Shefford Troop of Cavalry, and died at Knowlton, Brome

County, on March 19, 1883. His mother, Charlotte R. Williams, was born

at Stukely, County of Shefford, Province of Quebec, in the year 1805.

Her parents were descendants of U.E. Loyalists, who came from the State

of Vermont at the close of the American Revolutionary War. She died in

1885. Mr. Lynch, after taking advantage of the elementary schools in the

vicinity of his birthplace, went to Stanbridge Academy in 1858, then a

most flourishing institution, under the direction of Hobart Butler,

M.A., where he prepared himself for a university course. During his last

years at Stanbridge he acted as assistant teacher to Mr. Butler, and

then entered the University of Vermont, Burlington, in August, 1861, but

owing to the Civil War, which had shortly before broken out, the

university course was considerably affected, and Mr. Lynch did not

continue his studies there. In September, 1862, he entered the Arts

Course of McGill University, Montreal, having secured one of the

scholarships offered at a competitive examination. His health failing,

he was obliged to abandon his studies before the Christmas examinations.

He then engaged in school teaching in winter, and worked on his father’s

farm in summer. In 1865 he was admitted to the study of the law, and

pursued his studies in the office, first of S. W. Foster, of Knowlton,

and afterwards of John Monk, of Montreal. He took his degree of B.C.L.

at McGill in May, 1868, and secured the Elizabeth Torrance gold medal,

and was admitted to practice in June. The following year he commenced

the practice of his profession at Knowlton, and subsequently removed to

Sweetsburg, the chef lieu of Bedford District. In the fall of 1870 he

assumed the editorial control of the “Observer,” which was started at

Cowansville, an adjoining village, and which became an influential organ

of public opinion in the district. In June, 1871, during the provincial

elections, which were then in progress, he went to Knowlton to report

for his paper the proceedings of nomination day. There were then two

candidates in the field, and to the surprise of Mr. Lynch, and without

his interference, both candidates withdrew, and he was declared member

elect for the County of Brome. During the Fenian troubles of 1866 Mr.

Lynch took an active part in the formation of a company of volunteers at

Brome, of which he became lieutenant, and remained such until his

resignation in 1871. During the Fenian raid of 1870 he was at the front

with his battalion. In keeping with the promise made to his electors, he

became a resident of the County of Brome, returning to Knowlton in the

fall of 1871. He has held successively the offices of school

commissioner and chairman of that body for a number of years; and was

also the Mayor of the Township of Brome, and Warden of the County. In

May, 1874, he married Ellen Florence, eldest daughter of J. C. Pettes, a

successful merchant of Knowlton, by whom he has two children. He is a

member of the Masonic fraternity, and was some years since, deputy grand

master for the District of Bedford. Mr. Lynch early in life identified

himself with the Conservative party, to which he has ever borne faithful

allegiance. He took an active part in the political discussions in the

Legislature of Quebec on the subject of the dismissal of the De

Boucherville Government, by M. Letellier, and it was upon a motion made

by him that the Joly Government were defeated on October 30, 1879. He

was made a Q.C. by the Joly Government in 1879, which was subsequently

ratified by a similar title conferred upon him by the Federal

authorities in 1881. When M. Chapleau assumed office as premier of the

province, he invited Mr. Lynch to the council as Solicitor-General,

which appointment was subsequently ratified by the electorate of Brome.

On the abolition of the office of Solicitor-General, Mr. Lynch was

appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands, on July 31, 1882. In September,

1887, his constituents tendered him a reception in the shape of a

picnic, which was attended by a large number of public men, and at which

a presentation of a handsome sum of money was made to him by his

political admirers and friends. He then went to Montreal to resume the

practice of his profession, in partnership with the present Mr. Justice

Archibald and Mr. Geo. G. Foster, K.C. Shortly after, he was appointed

by the Dominion Government a Commissioner, in conjunction with the late

Mr. Justice Burridge, then Deputy Minister of Justice, and Mr. Dingman,

of the Department of the Interior, to settle the Indian title to certain

lands in the Township of Dundee, County of Huntington, and continued to

hold that office during the successive administrations of Messrs.

Mousseau, Ross and Taillon, and until the defeat of the last-named

administration in January, 1887. During the session of 1887 he was named

by the House of Assembly one of the Commissioners to perfect the

revision of the provincial statutes. He was one of the leaders of the

Opposition to the Government of the late Honore Mercier until his

appointment to the bench in July, 1889, as Judge of the Superior Court

for the District of Bedford, his native district. He has always taken a

warm interest in educational matters, was twice President of the

Provincial Association of Protestant Teachers, was for some years a

member of the Protestant Committee of the Council of Public Instruction,

and was the first President of the District of Bedford McGill Graduates’

Society. In June, 1883, the University of Bishops’ College offered him

the degree of D.C.L., but owing to absence it was not conferred. In

1904, McGill University gave him the degree of LL.D. He is a devoted

member of the Church of England and has often been a delegate to its

synods. Since he became judge he has devoted his leisure to the

promotion of various matters of local concern, such as good roads,

historical societies and the Knowlton Conference.

* * * * *

=Parmelee, William George, LL.D., D.C.L.= (Quebec City), English

Secretary of the Department of Public Instruction, and Joint Secretary

of the Council of Public Instruction of the Province of Quebec, was born

at Waterloo, in the Eastern Townships, in 1860. He is a son of Rufus E.

Parmelee, whose father had come originally from the United States. On

the mother’s side, the subject of this sketch is of Scottish descent. He

received his early education at Waterloo Academy, finally graduating as

a teacher from the McGill Normal School of Montreal. He afterward became

head master of the Model School Department and, later, a Professor of

the Normal School. Previous to his holding these positions, he had been

a member of the staff of St. Francis College, Richmond, P.Q., from 1881

to 1885. From McGill Normal School he was selected for his present

position in 1891; and for more than a quarter of a century he has been

in touch with the educational affairs of Quebec. He has proved himself a

departmental administrator of widely recognized professional acumen. The

academic honors that have been bestowed upon him from the time of his

extra-mural course at Queen’s University, from which he graduated in

1889, stand as an endorsation of his scholarship, these including a

D.C.L. from Bishop’s College in 1902, and an LL.D. from McGill

University in 1911. He has likewise been honored by being chosen more

than once, President of the Teachers’ Association of his native

province; President of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec for

three several terms; President of the Young Men’s Association; a

delegate to the Federal Council of the United Empire Educational League

in London, England, and later on as a delegate to the Imperial

Conference on Education in the same centre. Taking an interest in local

military affairs he was awarded a Captaincy in the 8th Royal Rifles

Company, and later on received the honorary rank of Colonel. Nor has he

neglected literary pursuits in his spare moments, having had published

two of his papers read before the Literary and Historical Society, and

entitled, “Wolfe as a Man and a Soldier,” and “The Fraser Highlanders.”

He has also won high literary credit as joint-collaborateur with Dr.

Arthur Doughty, the Dominion Archivist, in six volumes dealing with the

“Siege of Quebec.” In 1886 he married Miss Louise Foss, of Waterloo.

Their family consists of four daughters.

[Illustration: HON. P. E. BLONDIN

Ottawa]

=McCorkill, The Hon. Justice John Charles= (Quebec City), was born in

the town of Farnham, P.Q., on August 31, 1854. His father was Mr. Robert

McCorkill, of Farnham and the Eastern Townships. His mother’s maiden

name was Miss Margaret Meighen. His wife is a daughter of the Hon.

Senator Leonard of London, Ontario, their marriage having taken place in

1884. From the district elementary school, he entered the classes of the

McGill Model School, and in time obtained a certificate to teach from

the McGill Normal School. For a period he acted as Principal of the

Montreal British and Canadian School, thereafter taking his degree of

B.C.L. as a preliminary step to his becoming a lawyer. At first he

became a partner in the Greenshields legal firm, but subsequently

removed to the Bedford District and finally opened a central office at

Cowansville. While rising to a high rank as an advocate, he was

encouraged to enter the political field, and after suffering defeat

twice in succession, was at length elected to the Legislative Assembly

as the representative of Missisquoi. In time he was appointed

Legislative Councillor for the District of Bedford, where he was so

appreciatively known as a public-spirited citizen and an able lawyer,

who had held the position of Batonnier of the Bar and other offices of

rank. In 1903, he resigned his seat in the upper chamber of the

Provincial Parliament, to become Provincial Treasurer in the Parent

Administration, and was elected to the Legislature by the Constituency

of Brome. This office he held for three years, up to the time of his

appointment as a Judge of the Supreme Court for the District of Quebec.

While Treasurer, his term was marked by important legislation, such as

the revision of the taxation laws relating to banking institutions and

succession duties, which resulted in a surplus for the province of

half-a-million dollars. After the date of his appointment to the Bench,

he was made a Joint Commissioner with the Hon. Mr. Mathieu and Mr. L. J.

Gauthier, to revise the Municipal Code of the Province of Quebec. His

record as a legal practitioner and advocate, as well as a financier and

public-spirited citizen, has been a full one, wherever he has resided,

in Montreal, in the Eastern Townships, or in the city of Quebec. For

several years he was Mayor of Cowansville, where he was also President

of the Missisquoi Historical Society. He has been President of the

Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, and is a member of the

Council of Public Instruction. Even in military affairs he has taken an

active part, having been Captain as well as Major in the Militia between

the years of 1879 and 1887. His literary tastes have expressed

themselves in the historical papers he has written from time to time.

Altogether the Hon. Justice McCorkill may truly be spoken of as

possessing a forceful and clear-visioned personality, able and willing

always to share in the civic and provincial advancement of the community

in which he lives or has lived.

* * * * *

=Taschereau, The Hon. Louis Alexander= (Quebec City), Minister of Public

Works for the Province of Quebec, is the son of the Hon. Justice

Taschereau, who married Miss Josephine Caron, the daughter of the Hon.

Justice Caron, formerly Lieut.-Governor. He was born on the 5th of

March, 1867. He was educated at the Quebec Seminary and Laval

University, graduating as a Licentiate of Law in 1889, preliminary to

his entering upon his professional career as partner of Sir Charles

Fitzpatrick, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Later he

became associated with what is now the legal firm of Taschereau, Roy,

Cannon, Parent & Casgrain. As a lawyer, Mr. Taschereau came at once to

be recognized as one of the leading legal practitioners of the district,

among his successes being the part he took in the Gaynor and Greene

extradition case in 1902. In addition to his duties as an advocate he

took part in civic affairs, and for a time held a seat as an alderman of

his native city. In 1900, he was elected for the constituency of

Montmorency in the Legislative Assembly, and has continued ever since to

be its representative. Seven years after, with his skill in debate, duly

recognized by his parliamentary associates, he was selected to take his

place in the Gouin Administration as Minister of Public Works and Labor.

His administrative ability has been in keeping with his statesmanlike

insight and foresight, and his skill in debate. His advice is ever in

demand when any legal technicality has to be examined and explained to

both sides of the Assembly. In fact, he has taken a high place as the

Premier’s ally in all matters pertaining to the progress of the

province, while he has won the highest credit within parliamentary

circles and beyond them, for the efficiency of the Department in his

charge. He has been a member of the Battlefields Park Commission since

the day it was organized, and is likewise a Governor of the Catholic

Church Society. He is a nephew of the late Cardinal Taschereau,

Archbishop of Quebec. In 1891 he married Miss Adine Dionne, daughter of

the Hon. E. Dionne, of the Legislative Council of Quebec, by whom he has

had three sons and two daughters. Altogether he has made a record for

himself in his native city and province as an able advocate, an astute

governmental administrator, and a loyal citizen. Sprung from a

distinguished and talented family, his career as a public man has added

to its fame.

* * * * *

=Ross, James Gibb= (Quebec City), Senator of Canada, was born in

Carluke, a village of Lanarkshire, in Scotland, on April 18, 1819. He

came out to Canada in 1832, in company with his elder brother, John

Ross; and, after attending one of the private schools of Quebec for a

year or two, he entered the business office of his uncle, Mr. James

Gibb. At this time the firm of James Gibb & Company was one of the

largest of the wholesale grocery and provision houses in what has always

been known as the Lower Town of Quebec; and there the Scottish lad laid

the foundation of his business career, which was eventually to place him

among the wealthiest merchants of Canada. In 1843, Mr. Thomas O. Gibb,

son of Mr. James Gibb, returned to Quebec, after finishing his school

education in Edinburgh; and in the same year a company was formed in

which Thomas O. Gibb, John Ross, and James G. Ross were the partners,

until the first mentioned of the three died in 1845. Eventually, on Mr.

James Gibb’s death, the two Ross brothers took the business name of Ross

& Co., and as such continued in active operation up to the year 1868. By

this time the firm had amplified its business by other branches of

trading; and in 1868 the older of the two members of the firm withdrew

to conduct a business of his own, for the most part confined, as it was,

to the grocery and provision trade. With him was associated his youngest

brother, Frank Ross. At the time of the Senator’s death, in 1888, the

firm of Ross & Co. had developed into one of the wealthiest business

concerns in the country, having depots for the distribution of their

wares in nearly all the larger cities of Canada and the United States.

With millions at his command, the sole partner of the firm took an

active interest in shipbuilding and railroad construction. Nearly every

branch of industry was enhanced by the money advances of the

multi-millionaire. The shipping interests, especially, felt the effects

of his business acumen, especially when he took in charge for sailing

purposes the ships the building of which he had assisted with advances

of money, but which, for market reasons could not for a time be sold.

The railroads which came in for assistance included the Quebec and Lake

St. John Railway and the Quebec Central, both of which may trace their

success as paying concerns to the financial foresight of Senator James

G. Ross, who thus both directly and indirectly aided the colonization of

the country and its trading interests by the assistance he extended to

their promoters. Nor was it easy for one so prominent in the commercial

interests of the ancient capital to refuse to be nominated as a

candidate for parliamentary honors. On two several occasions he was

called upon to contest the electoral division of Quebec Centre, once in

the Conservative interest in 1872, against Mr. Cauchon, afterwards

Governor of Manitoba, and a second time as an Independent, in 1878,

against Mr. Malouin. In both instances he was defeated, though

afterwards he was considered worthy to succeed the Hon. David Price as

Senator, in 1884. He was unmarried; but in the families of his two

brothers, John and Frank, he is notably represented to-day by Mr. John

Theodore Ross, the only son of the former, and Frank W. Ross, surviving

son of the latter, both of whom have evidently in them the desire

inherited from their uncle, James G. Ross, to advance the interests of

their native city. The Hon. Senator Ross was a prominent citizen other

than in business and political circles. He took an interest in school

improvements and church advancement. He was for many years President of

the Quebec Bank, a Director of the Quebec High School, and an elder in

Chalmers Church. As may well be said of his beneficent uncle, James

Gibb, Senator James Gibb Ross was a liberal benefactor to the

institutions of Quebec, both before his death and after it. He

accumulated his millions in Peter Street, and every Protestant

institution in the city of his adoption benefited by his wealth in some

way or another.

* * * * *

=Gouin, The Hon. Sir Jean Lomer, K.C.M.G., LL.B., LL.D.=, Premier of the

Province of Quebec, was born at Brondines, of the County of Portneuf, on

March 19, 1861. He comes from a French-Canadian stock whose lineage can

be traced as far back as 1662. His father was J. N. Gouin, M.D., who

married Miss Victoire Seraphine Fugère in 1852. In his earlier years,

their son Lomer became a pupil of Sorel College, thereafter entering as

an under-graduate the College of Levis, and afterwards graduating at

Laval University. His collegiate honors include the degree of LL.D.,

received successively from Laval in 1902, from Bishop’s College

University in 1913, and from Toronto University in 1915. He was called

to the Bar in 1884, after studying law under the late Sir John Abbott

and the Hon. B. Laflamme. He had thus been a student under the

supervision of a Prime Minister of Canada and of a Minister of Justice.

During his partnership with Judge Pagnuello and the Hon. Premier Honore

Mercier, whose daughter Eliza he married in 1888, he came into

prominence in the law courts of Montreal, being finally elected

Batonnier-General in 1910, after having served a term as Alderman of

that city, and elected a Member of the Local Legislature. In 1900 he

became Commissioner of Public Works in the Parent Administration for

four years. Resigning his place in the Parent Cabinet in 1904, he was

called to the premiership the year after, holding the portfolio of

Attorney-General up to the present time. During the general election of

1916 his administration of public affairs was upheld by a majority never

before vouchsafed to a Quebec premier; while the list of honors

conferred upon him since his advent to power is perhaps one of the

longest on record. He was knighted by the reigning Sovereign of the

Empire at the Quebec Tercentenary Celebration of 1908, and was made a

K.C.M.G. in the year 1913. Ever animated with a desire to see his native

province an advancing factor in the general progress of the Dominion of

Canada, as well as of the British Empire, he has been diligent in

promoting the public works that have to be fostered within the counties

and parishes, as well as in the cities and larger towns, in line with

the general advancement of the commonwealth. He has done his best to

improve the educational conditions of the communities, not forgetting

likewise to improve the highways and the industrial activities all over

the province. His zeal in establishing and liberally subsidizing

Industrial Schools and Technical Colleges has become a proverb in all

the provinces; while, in view of his support of a provincial grant of

one million dollars to the Canadian Patriotic Fund during the time of

war, his reputation as a broad-minded Canadian citizen has been placed

beyond all questioning. Senator David has pronounced a eulogium on

Premier Gouin that places him in rank with, if not beyond, those who

have preceded him in the Quebec premiership. Within these war-times he

has advocated a National War Service in the most fervent terms,

illustrating Senator David’s estimate of his statesmanship as that of a

highly capable servant of the State, in his impartial judgment,

prudence, eloquence, and administrative acumen. His share in the Bonne

Entente mission to Ontario in 1917, to plead, with others, for a closer

mutual understanding between the two leading races in Canada, has given

an éclat to his statesmanship. He would see Canada a unit while aiding

the mother lands in Europe by force of arms, and thus uphold the

prestige of the British Empire. And the various offices Sir Lomer Gouin

has held from the day he entered public life in 1891, indicate the

strenuous part he has played as a public-spirited Canadian. In 1891, he

was President of the National Club in Montreal, which was virtually “the

Executive of the Liberal Party” in the Montreal district. That year he

was defeated in his first election contest. Six years after he was

elected representative for the St. James Electoral Division of Montreal,

and thereafter has been member for his native County of Portneuf. He has

continued to be a Member of the Council of Public Instruction since

1898; became President of the American Fish and Game Protection

Association in 1910; was Chairman of the Ottawa Inter-provincial

Conference in 1906, and afterwards a delegate to a like Conference in

1910. As from one “learned in the law,” his edition of the Municipal

Code is a standard work; while no one has so well at his command the

details of parliamentary law-and-order as he has, as leader of the House

of Assembly. The record of his regime is concisely given in a neat

little volume published in 1916, under the title of “Le Gouvernment

Gouin et Son Oeuvre.” Another volume referring to the federal subsidies

in favor of the provinces was published in 1903, giving the amplified

record of an address delivered by Sir Lomer under the heading of “The

Actual Question.” These volumes, together with the reports of his

speeches from time to time, indicate how Sir Lomer Gouin has ever had in

mind the public interest—seeing to the improving of the conditions in

his native province, even to the widening out of its area as in the case

of the annexation of the District of Ungava, building government works,

and highways, and bridges, and never forgetting to urge it to keep pace

with its sister provinces in the federacy which includes them all within

the Dominion of Canada. In seeing to the advancement of the province he

has in charge as premier, he has made fame for himself as a loyal

statesman and dignified scholar, duly honored by the King and his

country’s seats of learning. He was married to Miss Alice Amos, his

second wife, in 1911. By his first wife he has had two sons—Leon, who

is practising law in Montreal; and Paul, who is a lieutenant on active

service.

* * * * *

=Drayton, Sir Henry Lumley, K.C., K.B.=, Chief Commissioner, Board of

Railway Commissioners for Canada, was born in Kingston, Ontario, April

27, 1869. He is the son of Philip Henry Drayton, who came to Canada with

the 16th Rifles of England, and Margaret S. (Covernton) Drayton. He was

educated in the schools of England and Canada. On September 14, 1892, he

married Edith Mary Cawthra, daughter of the late Joseph Cawthra,

Toronto, and has three daughters. Sir Henry Drayton was called to the

Ontario Bar in 1891 and soon became recognized as one of the leaders in

the legal profession. In September 1893, he was appointed Assistant City

Solicitor for Toronto, and when he resigned in September, 1900, he was

presented with a gold watch in recognition of the valuable services he

had rendered to the city in his legal capacity. He immediately

(September, 1900), formed partnership with Charles J. Holman, K.C., and

in January, 1902, was appointed Counsel to the Railway Committee of the

Ontario Legislature by the Chairman, the Hon. John Dryden. The following

year he was appointed representative of the Ontario Government for the

purpose of adjudicating upon and paying, on behalf of the Government,

the claims of workmen of the different Clergue Companies operating at

Sault Ste. Marie, and on January 29, 1904, he was appointed County Crown

Attorney for the County of York, on the recommendation of the Hon. J. M.

Gibson. In 1905 he was appointed Counsel on Civic Bribery Investigation,

Toronto, the Civic Investigation Court House in 1906, the Public School

Board Investigation, and also the Civic Investigation into the Medical

Health Department. January the 20th, 1908, he was created K.C. He

resigned his position as County Crown Attorney in 1909, and the

following year, April 25, 1910, was appointed Counsel for the

Corporation of the City of Toronto. May 11, 1911, he was appointed as

representative of the Ontario Government a member of the Toronto Power

Commission. When on July 1, 1912, he was appointed Chief Commissioner of

the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada the Toronto City Council

presented him with an illuminated album. In July, 1913, he was appointed

Commissioner to deal with the question of Control of Ocean Freight

Rates. In 1917 Sir Henry Drayton was appointed a member of the

Drayton-Smith-Acworth Commission which investigated the Canadian railway

situation. When the work of the Commission was completed and their

report presented to the Government, he, as his fee for his able services

on the Commission, was presented with a cheque for $15,000 by the

Dominion Government. He refused to accept payment and returned the

cheque. Acknowledging the receipt of the returned cheque the then

Minister of Railways and Canals, Hon. Mr. Cochrane, wrote in part as

follows: “I can assure you that your very patriotic attitude in this

matter is most sincerely appreciated by the Government at a time when

every dollar which can be saved is of material importance to the

successful prosecution of the war.” In very many other ways since the

war commenced in 1914, Sir Henry Drayton has rendered valuable

services—financially, as a member of committees and in the direction of

transportation, supply and other matters. He is ever to the fore to do

all he can to help Canada successfully bear the burdens—financially,

commercially and otherwise—that this war has forced her to carry and no

one has ever rendered such services more freely and willingly. Sir Henry

Drayton is a member of the Toronto, Toronto Hunt, Ontario Jockey,

Rideau, Ottawa Royal Golf, Country (Ottawa), Connaught Park Jockey

(Ottawa), and the Kaministiquia (Fort William) Clubs. His address is 233

Metcalfe St., Ottawa.

[Illustration: S. R. PARSONS

Toronto]