FIRST FRENCH-CANADIAN PREMIER He was the first French-Canadian to become premier; and his personal supremacy was shown by his long continuance in power. From 1896-1910 he held a position within the British Empire which was in its way unique, and in this period he had seen Canadian prosperity advance progressively by leaps and bounds. The chief features of his administration were the fiscal preference of in favour of goods from Great Britain, the despatch of Canadian contingents to South Africa during the Boer War, the contract with the Grand Trunk railway for the construction of a second transcontinental road, the assumption by Canada of the imperial fortresses at Halifax and Esquimault, the appointment of a federal railway commission with power to regulate freight charges, express rates and telephone rates, and the relations be tween competing companies, the reduction of the postal rate to Great Britain from 5 to 2 cents and of the domestic rate from 3 to 2 cents, a substantial contribution to the Pacific cable, a prac tical policy of settlement and development in the Western terri tories, the division of the North-west territories into Alberta and Saskatchewan and the enactment of the legislation necessary to give them provincial status, and finally (1910) a tariff arrange ment with the United States, which, if not all that Canada might claim in the way of reciprocity, showed how entirely the course of events had changed the balance of commercial interests in North America.
During his first visit to Great Britain on Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee (1897), he received the grand cross of the Bath, and secured the denunciation of the Belgian and German treaties, thus obtaining for the colonies the right to make preferential trade arrangements with the mother country. His personality made a powerful impression in Great Britain and also in France, which he visited before his return to Canada. Some of his speeches in Great Britain, coming as they did from a French-Canadian, and revealing delicate appreciation of British sentiment and of the genius of British institutions, excited great enthusiasm, while one or two impassioned speeches in the Canadian parliament dur ing the Boer War profoundly influenced Canada and had a pro nounced effect throughout the empire.
At the general election of 1911 the Liberals were defeated over the reciprocity agreement with the United States and the naval question, but Laurier remained leader until his death. At the out break of the World War in 1914 he eloquently defended Great Britain's cause and supported the urgent measures adopted for the maintenance of Canadian troops. However, he strongly op posed conscription on the ground that it was a departure from the enactments of the Military Service Act, and a still wider departure from the principles of constitutional government. When Sir Robert Borden was invited to attend continuous meetings of the war cabinet in London, Sir Wilfrid expressed his desire to facilitate public business in Canada in order to make the absence of the Premier possible. He declined, however, to enter the cabinet in the Coalition government. In 1918 Sir Wilfrid took part in the debate on hereditary titles and honours in Canada and opposed them. He died in Ottawa on Feb. 17, 1919.
A skilful party-leader, Laurier kept from the first the respect of his opponents; while enforcing the orderly conduct of public business, he was careful as first minister to maintain the dignity of parliament. In office he proved more of an opportunist than his career in opposition would have indicated, but his political courage and personal integrity remained beyond suspicion. His jealousy for the political autonomy of Canada was noticeable at the Colonial conference held at the time of King Edward's coronation, and marked his diplomatic dealings with the mother country. But he strove for sympathetic relations and general legislative and fiscal co-operation between the two countries. He strove also for good relations between the two races in Canada, and between Canada and the United States. Although he was classed in Canada as a Liberal, his tendencies in England would have been considered strongly conservative ; an individualist. he opposed the intrusion of the State into private enterprise, and showed no sympathy with State operation of railways, telegrophs and telephones, or with kindred proposals for the extension of the obligations of the central government.