1876. He has travelled a good deal in Britain and on the continent of

Europe, and has profited professionally a good deal thereby. He has always belonged to the Episcopal church. On June 30th, 1886 he married Julia Augusta Barrett. * * * * * =Mercier, Hon. Honoré=, Premier of the Province of Quebec.—Among contemporary Canadian statesmen, a foremost place must be assigned to the present premier of the province of Quebec. The Hon. Honoré Mercier is not only a man of mark by reason of his position at the head of the government of one of the most important provinces of the Canadian confederation, but he is a remarkable man in every sense of the term. Speaking of him some years ago, while he was yet in opposition and little known beyond the limits of his own province, an eminent public writer said:—“He is certainly a man of much promise on whom this country, quite as much as any party, can build hopes of great usefulness.” This estimate is being daily realized. The great central figure in a new _régime_ which commands the confidence and sympathy of an ever increasing parliamentary and popular majority in the province of Quebec, Mr. Mercier already fills a great space also in the eyes and hopes of the Canadian people as a whole. His fame as a popular leader, as a man of rare energy and ability, and as an exceptionally bold and successful political tactician, is no longer merely local. Within a remarkably brief period, it has extended all over the dominion, and his name is now almost as familiar from Halifax to Vancouver as that of Sir John A. Macdonald, whom he is said to resemble in many respects as a strategist and a parliamentary athlete of the first rank. From comparative provincial obscurity, he has sprung into a general prominence and importance with a rapidity almost without parallel in Canadian history. This circumstance is not so much due to his surprising success as the head and front of the great so-called national movement in the province of Quebec which followed the execution of Riel, and obliterated to a large extent much of the old party lines there, as to the bold and original stand which he has taken in defence of provincial rights and interests; and which has identified him, so to speak, with the cause of all the provinces of the Canadian confederation, against what are termed the encroachments and centralizing tendencies of the federal power. The subject of our sketch is a striking example of what can be achieved by natural talent, indomitable energy and force of character, coupled with political sagacity of a high order, and a ready appreciation of men and opportunity. After the provincial elections of 1881, it seemed as if the Liberal party in Quebec had been irretrievably beaten. They had been literally swept from the polls throughout the entire province, and mustered only fifteen representatives in the House of Assembly. It is beyond our purview to discuss the means by which this result, as well as the party’s disaster at the federal elections in the following year, came about. Suffice it to say that the cause seemed hopelessly lost, and that the Conservatives appeared to have tightened their hold more firmly than ever on the province of Quebec, which had so long been the sheet-anchor of Toryism in Canada. Even the most ardent Liberals, the most persevering champions of the party, were discouraged, and if they continued the fight, it was more out of a sense of patriotism and for the honour of the old flag than with any hope of victory, near or remote. There was one of the number, however, who did not despair at this dark hour of the party’s fortunes. This man was the Hon. Honoré Mercier. With undaunted courage, with wondrous tenacity of purpose and implicit confidence in the future, he began the work of reorganization on the very morrow of defeat. The task of collecting the scattered elements of the party and of leading them to victory seemed a herculean if not an impossible one to accomplish. But Mr. Mercier did not falter in it, and in the short space of four years he successfully achieved what, under other circumstances, would have taken at least a quarter of a century. Under his skilful leadership the vanquished of 1879 and 1881 have become the victors, and Mr. Mercier now reigns supreme in the province of Quebec. Throughout his whole career he seems to have been actuated by two grand ideas, one of which was to enlarge his policy and the basis of his party, to close up the breaches in it, to gather around him patriotic men without distinction of origin or party, and to throw open to all a broad ground of conciliation; and the other, which has been perhaps the most fruitful, to conquer the hearts of the people and to make his cause a popular one in the fullest sense of the term. Few public men have been better endowed by nature for the purpose. Still in the hey-day of life and manly vigour, Mr. Mercier combines great physical gifts with large magnetic personal influence. His face is of the Napoleonic type, and suggestive of extraordinary mental power and force of character. He looks in every sense of the words a man born to command; but, behind the mask of imperiousness, lies a fund of geniality and good nature which has earned for him the respect of his adversaries and the undying devotion of his friends through good and evil fortune. Much of his popularity no doubt is due to his political capacity, but still more of it may be ascribed to the generosity of his character and the fidelity of his personal and party friendships. From his very first appearance in the public arena, it was clear to every one that he was essentially a popular leader; but recent events have proved that he possesses in an eminent degree also all the qualities of a successful political leader,—ability, tact, diplomacy, decision of character, foresight, the statesmanlike breadth of view which soars beyond the triumphs of the hour to grasp the necessities of the morrow, and that loyalty which inspires confidence and renders alliances durable. As an orator, it may be fairly said that he has few equals. Few public speakers of his day excel him in the art of swaying an audience, whether cultured or illiterate. He touches their feelings or appeals to their reason with a force and a logic that always tell. A brilliant lawyer and a perfect master of parliamentary fence, he has also been described as belonging to that class of men who are always ready for duty, always equipped for a fight, and his blows invariably tell with sledge-hammer force. At the same time it must be conceded that he is a manly fighter, never taking an unfair advantage of an adversary, and always showing the courteous and polished Frenchman’s aversion to unnecessarily wound the feelings of others. His astonishing industry also constitutes one of his chief claims to the admiration of his friends, coupled with the courage and pluck which has carried him to victory against what at one time appeared the most desperate odds. He has lived a busy life, divided between journalism, law and politics; but it is mainly in his public capacity that his assiduity and powers of application have come to be most known and appreciated. Whether as leader of the Opposition or of the Government, he has been and is an indefatigable worker, always at his post and accomplishing more in a day than other public men usually do in weeks. Another secret of his great prestige among his fellow countrymen is to be found in his acute and rapid perception of the drift of popular opinion in his province, and the people’s growing confidence in the earnestness of his patriotism. As already stated, Mr. Premier Mercier is still in the full prime and vigour of life, his age being only forty-seven. He first saw the light in Iberville county, in the year 1840. He comes of a family of simple farmers, or _habitants_, as they are styled in Lower Canada, originally from Old France, but settled for several generations in the county of Montmagny, below the city of Quebec. His father was not wealthy, and had to provide for the wants of a large household; but he was a man of energy and foresight, and thought no sacrifice too great to arm his children for the battle of life by means of a liberal education. At the age of fourteen years, young Mercier was sent to the Jesuits’ College in Montreal to complete his education, which he finally did after a brilliant course of study; and, even to the present day, the premier of Quebec reverts with pleasurable recollection to his early struggles after knowledge, and loses no occasion to testify his affectionate and grateful regard for the masters who first taught his “young idea how to shoot.” The ardour with which he took up the cause of the Jesuits during last session of the Quebec legislature, and championed it to victory in the passing of their charter bill, is largely explained by this feeling, strengthened by the conviction that the legislature had no warrant to refuse to one religious order the ordinary privilege of civil rights which it had so freely granted to others. Like the vast majority of his French Canadian fellow countrymen, the premier of Quebec is, of course, a Roman Catholic, and imbibed a lively faith in the doctrines of that church from his parents and the teachers of his youth. That faith has not diminished, but increased with his maturer years. Still there was a time, and not yet very remote either, when, on account of his political liberalism and alliances, his orthodoxy was more than once seriously questioned by his political foes to his personal and party detriment. However, this has all passed away. It is now conceded by Papal authority that a man may be a Liberal in politics and yet a good Catholic; and the Lower Canadian clergy have come to understand that Mr. Mercier is not only a sincere Catholic in theory and practice, but that the interests of their church are as safe in his hands as in those of the self-constituted champions who proclaim their zeal for the faith from the housetops. At the same time, he is no narrow-minded bigot. There is probably no public man in the dominion free from religious or sectional bias. He never asks “the brave soldier who fights by his side in the cause of mankind, if their creeds agree.” A French Canadian in heart and soul, and a thorough son of the soil, still strict and impartial justice to all classes, races and creeds; undue favour to none, seems to be the motto upon which he has always acted in the past and desires to act in the future. Now, to return to the career of our subject. Some time after leaving college, young Mercier decided to make the law his profession. He accordingly entered the office of Laframboise & Papineau, at St. Hyacinthe, and was admitted to practice in 1865. But, three years before this event, he may be said to have entered public life, towards which the ardent young man felt himself irresistibly attracted. In 1862, at the age of twenty-two years, he became editor-in-chief of the _Courrier de St. Hyacinthe_, and made his mark as a vigorous and trenchant political writer. This was before confederation, during the Sandfield Macdonald-Sicotte administration. To that government, with its liberal and moderate policy, and its programme of conciliation between Upper and Lower Canada, the young journalist gave a warm support. But in the excited state of public opinion in the two provinces at the time, the task of pacification which it had undertaken was beyond its strength, and after a short and stormy existence, it succumbed. At this stage in Canadian history the political situation was exceedingly strained. Not only were parties in the legislature about evenly balanced, but Canadian politics were complicated by such burning and difficult questions as the Separate Schools, Representation by Population, and the construction of the Intercolonial Railway. Finally, despairing of reducing this apparent chaos to order, Mr. Sicotte retired, and Sandfield Macdonald reconstructed the cabinet by taking in from Lower Canada Mr. Dorion, now Sir A. A. Dorion, chief-justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench of the province of Quebec, and by openly repudiating the principle until then recognized of the double majority. Mr. Mercier who, in the _Courrier de St. Hyacinthe_, had sustained the Sicotte administration, went over to the opposition with his leader. He continued, with Cartier and a group of moderate liberals, to form part of the opposition, which he then regarded as a national opposition, and his powerful pen in the _Courrier de St. Hyacinthe_ contributed immeasurably to the defeat of the ministerial candidate when the seat for St. Hyacinthe became vacant by Mr. Sicotte’s elevation to the bench. When the confederation scheme was broached in 1864 as the only means of cutting the Gordian knot of the political deadlock between the united provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, Mr. Mercier, who had supported Cartier in his opposition to the Macdonald-Dorion ministry, felt himself unable to approve his alliance with George Brown for the establishment of confederation, believing that the realization of the latter would be the death-warrant of the French Canadian influence, that the project was only another expedient to retain power in Tory hands, and that behind it, in the mind of Sir John A. Macdonald, lurked a long-meditated design to force a legislative union upon the provinces. His views, however, in this respect, were shared only by a small minority, and he resigned in consequence the editorial chair of the _Courrier de St. Hyacinthe_. But, later on, in 1865, when the project was regularly discussed in parliament, Mr. Mercier’s objections to it found expression through an opposition on the floor of the house; weak in numbers, it is true, but resolute and untiring in their efforts to render it less obnoxious to the French Canadians, and more favourable to the rights of the provinces. All or nearly all of the causes of friction which have since developed between the central and the local governments in the working of the new constitution, were then exhaustively ventilated by the liberals. They demanded, with Mr. Holton, that the Federal Act should expressly recognise the sovereignty of the provinces, and that only restricted and delegated powers should be conferred on the central government. They protested against the mode of constituting the Senate, the principle of the nomination of the lieutenant-governors by the federal ministry, and the right of veto upon the acts of the Provincial legislatures. To every assault upon the integrity of the scheme, Cartier invariably opposed the stereotyped reply that the Federal Act was a “sacred compact,” and that not one line of it could be altered without provoking a breach with the other provinces. This _non possumus_ style of argument was successful in procuring the rejection of all the amendments proposed in the parliament of united Canada. But it found no echo in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, whose legislatures, while approving the confederation principle, refused to ratify the scheme in all its details. The whole question, with the right of amendment, seemed to be thus thrown open anew, and the hopes of the Lower Canadians, who looked to extract the most protection for their province from the project, once more revived. Meanwhile, while these events had been transpiring, Mr. Mercier had resumed the editorial direction of the _Courrier de St. Hyacinthe_ in the month of January, 1866, having formed with Mr. de la Bruère, now speaker of the Quebec Legislative Council, Mr. Bernier, now superintendent of Education in Manitoba, and Paul de Cazes, his brother-in-law, a syndicate whose programme, in view of the adoption of the new constitution, was to give it _fair play_ and to endeavour to make the most of it, after Lafontaine’s example in 1840. The opposition of the Maritime provinces having re-opened, _de jure_, the right of amendment, Mr. Mercier and his colleagues hailed the event with gratification; but, to their surprise, in February, 1866, _La Minerve_, of Montreal, and other newspapers, began to spread the rumour that the question would not be again submitted to the Canadian legislature, and that Cartier had consented to refer the settlement of the difficulties to Imperial arbitration. Thereupon, the managers of the _Courrier de St. Hyacinthe_ published an article in which they distinctly declared that, if the principle of arbitration was accepted, they would go into opposition. A fortnight later, Cartier proposed to refer the pending difficulties to Imperial arbitration, and there was nothing left to Mr. Mercier and his colleagues of the _Courrier_ but to execute their threat and transfer their talents and influence to the opposition. They were unanimous on the subject, and the article announcing their determination was prepared by Mr. de la Bruère. But, before it could be published next morning, Messrs. de la Bruère and Bernier, who have ever since remained Conservatives and attached to the fortunes of Sir John A. Macdonald, suddenly changed their views and refused to allow it to appear. A rupture ensued between the partners, and Mr. Mercier and Mr. de Cazes withdrew from the _Courrier de St. Hyacinthe_, this time for good. There is reason to believe that the turn of events at this stage so disgusted Mr. Mercier with politics that he resolved to abandon them altogether. At all events he retired from public life, and during the next five years devoted himself exclusively to the practice of his profession as a lawyer, only reappearing on the scene in 1871, after confederation, on the formation of the _Parti National_. As the occasion and objects of this movement in the province of Quebec may be either forgotten or not well understood at the present day, it may be useful to recall that the attitude of the Conservative government of Sir John A. Macdonald on the New Brunswick Separate School question in 1871, as later on the Riel question in 1886, provoked a split among his Conservative following from Lower Canada. A number of bold and ardent French Canadian spirits conceived that the opportunity was a favourable one to make another effort for the triumph of the principles for which they had so long and unsuccessfully battled, to set aside all party divisions and to rally under one standard all patriotic souls, Liberal and Conservative, in order to secure the predominance of the provincial influence over the hybrid alliances by which a majority was constituted and maintained in the Federal parliament. In other words, the promoters of the national movement held that in a confederation honestly and properly worked, the representatives of the people should above all regard themselves as plenipotentiaries of the provinces, and that instead of dividing into conservatives and liberals, it was their first duty to group themselves by provinces for the common defence of their provincial or national interests. At the head of the new party were such men as Messrs. Holton, Dorion, Loranger, Laframboise, Jetté, Mercier, F. Cassidy, L. O. David, and Béique, in the Montreal district, and Messrs. Letellier de St. Just, Joly, Thibaudeau, Langelier, Pelletier, and Shehyn, in the district of Quebec. Their platform included protection, complete provincial autonomy, and decentralization, vote by ballot, the trial of election contestations by the law courts, the abolition of dual representation, suppression of the Legislative Council, economy in the public expenditure, and the suspension of the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway until the resources of the country warranted the completion of that great work without saddling the people with the burthens of a ruinous debt. Mr. Mercier threw himself heart and soul into this movement, which promised to realize his dearest aspirations. He lent powerful assistance to the election of his friend, Hon. F. Langelier, for Bagot county, and in the following year, at the general elections of 1872, he was himself returned as the federal member for Rouville. On the meeting of the Dominion parliament in 1873, he took an active and leading part in the exciting debate on the New Brunswick Separate Schools question, and, with Hon. John Costigan from that province, then plain Mr. Costigan, he also eloquently defended Rev. Father Michot, a Catholic priest, whose goods had been destrained, and person imprisoned for debt by the authorities of New Brunswick, because of his refusal to pay tax towards the support of the Protestant schools. The result was that the government was beaten by a majority of thirty-five through the French Canadian vote, supported by the Liberals of Ontario; but Sir John A. Macdonald refused to recognize this adverse decision as a ministerial defeat, and announced his intention of referring the question of the New Brunswick schools to the Imperial government. A cabinet crisis was thus averted for the moment, but it was destined to be not long delayed. The last echoes of the fierce debate on the school question had hardly died away, when suddenly and almost without a note of warning, the astounding revelations which have since passed into history under the title of “The Pacific Scandal,” were sprung upon the parliament and country. In the midst of the most intense excitement all over the dominion, parliament adjourned in May, 1873, and between that date and the following August, when it was to meet again, Mr. Mercier was one of the most active in stumping the province of Quebec against the government, and in promoting the petition to the governor-general against the alleged intention to prorogue the house. To the prayer of this petition, however, Lord Dufferin did not deem it advisable to assent, and parliament was prorogued on the very day of its reassembling in August. But it was called again towards the end of October, and, after a seven days’ debate, which will remain forever memorable in Canadian annals, Sir John A. Macdonald announced that he had placed his resignation in the hands of his excellency. Two days later, the Liberal government of Mr. Mackenzie was formed, followed two months later, in January, 1874, by a dissolution of the Dominion parliament. At the general elections which ensued, Mr. Mercier had intended to again offer as a candidate for the county of Rouville in the interest of the new Liberal ministry; but, as another Liberal candidate of much local influence, Mr. Cheval, also proposed to run, he withdrew from the field rather than create a division, which might throw the constituency into Tory hands. In 1875 he once more reappeared on the scene in Bagot, which he stumped in favour of Mr. Bourgeois, now a judge of the Superior Court, with whom he had formed in 1873 one of the strongest law partnerships in the country. In 1878, when Mr. Delorme, the Liberal member for St. Hyacinthe, and now clerk of the Quebec Legislative Assembly, retired from the representation of that county, Mr. Mercier manned the breach in the Liberal interest; but was defeated by Mr. Tellier, the Conservative candidate, who carried the seat by the narrow majority of six votes. But for that disappointment he was consoled in the very following year by the brilliant victory on the same ground, which ratified his entry into the provincial government, and was the prelude to a new and more important phase of his public life. In March, 1879, when Hon. Mr. Joly, the then Liberal premier of Quebec, invited Mr. Mercier to fill the cabinet vacancy created by the death of Mr. Bachand, his ministry was virtually in a moribund condition. It did not command a large enough majority, and above all one sufficiently solid to survive the restoration of Sir John A. Macdonald to power at Ottawa, after the fall of the Mackenzie government. Coming events were already casting their shadows before; the Letellier question, as it was called, had waxed in bitterness; and there is little doubt that Mr. Joly and his colleagues foresaw clearly the near approach of their own official death. But they had resolved, for the honour of the cause and its future interests, to fight it out bravely and worthily to the end. They needed the help of a sturdy and experienced spirit for the purpose, and Mr. Mercier, who did not hesitate a moment about undertaking the task, was a few days afterwards elected to the Quebec legislature for St. Hyacinthe by the large majority of 307 votes. As solicitor-general in Mr. Joly’s cabinet, Mr. Mercier’s official career was too brief to permit of his displaying more than the qualities of an admirable law officer of the Crown; but, on the floor of the Quebec Assembly, he at once took a foremost place as an orator, debater and legislator. After the fall of the Joly cabinet, Mr. Mercier momentarily entertained the idea of retiring from public life for good and all, not that he despaired of the righteousness in his own mind of the cause which he supported, but more probably because this last attempt of the Liberals to capture and hold Quebec province, in which he had been called to take a too tardy part, had strengthened his long rooted conviction, that that party as then constituted in Lower Canada, were acting on too narrow and defective a basis to make successful headway against the existing combination of Tory interests and prejudices. Accordingly, having in the meantime removed in March, 1881, from St. Hyacinthe to Montreal, where he had formed a new law partnership with Messrs. Beausoleil & Martineau, he announced his intention to not come forward at the general elections of that year. This announcement produced a most powerful sensation throughout the province, but especially among his constituents of St. Hyacinthe, who, regardless of their party divisions, rose as one man to beg of him to reconsider his decision, which he finally did after long and earnest reflection, when he was returned once more to the legislature by acclamation. About this period of his career, or shortly afterwards, occurred the incident of the coalition, which came very nearly splitting up the Liberal party. Enlightened men in the ranks of both parties in the province felt that the existing state of things could not continue much longer; that their public men were wasting their energies in fruitless contention; and that ruin, political and financial, stared Quebec in the face unless the politicians on both sides clasped hands to forget old feuds and to form a strong coalition government on the broad national ground which might fearlessly apply the heroic remedies demanded by the critical nature of the situation. Mr. Mercier was all the more open to the advances made him from the other side, both during the administrations of Mr. Chapleau and his successor, the late Mr. Mousseau, in favour of this new departure, that he had strenuously advocated a policy of conciliation and union for the national good throughout his whole public life. He probably made a mistake in supposing that the hour was ripe for the fruition of such a policy, and that nothing more was needed to a general conviction of its necessity. But even so, the error was a generous one, prompted by patriotism. The proposals for a coalition, however, did not emanate from Mr. Mercier, but from his adversaries, that he only consented to entertain them upon certain well defined and strictly honourable conditions, and that in the entire business he was true to the controlling idea of his career as to the absolute necessity of union for the salvation of his native province. In the beginning of the session of 1883, Hon. Mr. Joly resigned the direction of the provincial Liberal party, and Mr. Mercier was unanimously chosen to succeed him, on Mr. Joly’s own motion, as the leader of the opposition. In this new and important role he at once found fitting opportunity and scope to display the great qualities which in so brief a period have placed him in the foremost ranks of French Canadian statesmen. Within the short space of three years he successively showed what an able and intrepid leader can do with the support of a small but disciplined and trusty band of parliamentary followers, to retrieve the fallen fortunes of his party, and to defend and lead to victory a popular cause the moment circumstances placed it in his hands. During the first portion of his task, Mr. Mercier maintained a struggle which cannot be otherwise characterized than as heroic. With a following in the House of Assembly reduced to fifteen members against fifty, he kept in check three successive governments of his adversaries, and if he did not succeed in defeating the two first by a vote, he at least forced them to take flight. One after the other, Messrs. Chapleau and Mousseau were compelled to retire from the field, admitting themselves to be too grievously stricken to continue the fight any longer against so sturdy an opponent, whose scathing denunciations of their policy and administrative methods were gradually arousing public opinion from its apathy with regard to the financial and political dangers that seemed to threaten the safety of the province. During this period, too, as well as during the rule of the succeeding Ross administration, Mr. Mercier not only exerted a mighty influence on current legislation, but proved himself the fearless and ardent defender of provincial rights, and lost no occasion to condemn in forcible terms what he had characterized as the grovelling and ruinous subserviency of the provincial conservatives to the overshadowing influence of Ottawa. His sympathy with the cause of constitutional liberty also found strong expression on more than one occasion in support of the Irish Home Rule movement and against coercion, and the various resolutions of the Quebec legislature on the subject either owed their paternity to him or in a large measure their adoption. From the session of 1886, the last of that parliament, the Ross ministry emerged woefully crippled by the sustained vigour of Mr. Mercier’s assaults, and with the outlook for the general elections complicated and darkened for the success of the Tory cause by the Riel affair. Still, even under the circumstances, it is doubtful whether, with the influence and active assistance of the Ottawa government, and in the usual way, Mr. Ross would not have carried a majority of the constituencies but for the split in the conservative ranks and the astounding energy and ability thrown by Mr. Mercier into the campaign, which preceded the general elections, and which was probably the most anxious and exciting ever fought in Lower Canada. As the accepted leader of the new National party formed in that province out of a combination of the liberals and conservative bolters, he not only directed the whole movement, but personally traversed the province almost from end to end, addressing as many as one hundred and sixty public meetings, and everywhere making his influence felt for the promotion of the cause. The elections came on in October, 1886, and resulted in a victory for the Nationals. But for several months afterwards the country was kept in a painful state of ferment by the refusal of the Ross government to recognize their defeat or to call the legislature. It has been charged that they spent the interval in endeavouring to seduce the few National Conservatives elected from their allegiance to Mr. Mercier; but, if so, they failed, and the circumstance only tends to further attest his tact and skill as a political manager and strategist. Finally they were compelled by the force of public opinion to meet the representatives of the people in January, 1887, when Mr. Mercier and his supporters met with a triumphal reception at the provincial capital, and the popular verdict rendered against the Tories at the polls in October was ratified by a majority of nine in the House of Assembly on the first vote for the election of the speaker. Still the Ross ministry would not resign until Mr. Mercier rendered their humiliation more complete by taking the control of the house out of their hands, and carrying the adjournment against their will, amid one of the most exciting scenes ever witnessed in legislative halls. In a few more hours the Ross administration had ceased to exist. Mr. Mercier was called upon by the lieutenant-governor to form a new cabinet, and in less than twenty-four hours more, with his usual decision and promptitude, he had made his choice of his colleagues, and announced it to the legislature and the country, both of which received it with marked satisfaction. He also demanded and obtained an adjournment of both houses until the following March, in order to allow of his own re-election and that of his colleagues (which took place in each case by acclamation), and to get time to prepare his programme for the regular work of the session, when the speech from the throne was delivered, and he publicly appeared for the first time as leader of the Government and the Assembly. Considering the shortness of the time at their disposal for preparation, the policy formulated by the new government constituted a very satisfactory instalment of the reforms which Mr. Mercier and his friends had advocated while in opposition. Its principal planks were the restoration of the finances to a sound basis, the readjustment of the representation, and the better protection of provincial rights and autonomy. The measures proposed for the purpose by ministers, with the exception of that relating to the readjustment of the representation which was held over for more exhaustive study until another session, were all sanctioned by the house, and by the end of the session the government’s majority had materially increased in the Assembly, while in the Crown-nominated branch, the Legislative Council, much less partisan obstruction was encountered than had been anticipated. Its close left him more firmly seated in the saddle than ever, and with an addition to his prestige and popularity, which has been since largely increased by the marvellous success of his administration as evidenced in the settlement of the long pending dispute with Ontario, respecting the division of the Common School Fund, and the unusually advantageous negotiation of the new provincial loan of three and a half millions. These and a number of other happy incidents of his official career thus far have been attributed by his adversaries to good luck; but there is far more reason to think that they are ascribable to good management. In his profession, Mr. Mercier has risen to the highest honours. He is actually the attorney-general as well as the premier of Quebec. He has been twice _bâtonnier_ of the bar of the Montreal district, and the respect entertained for him by his legal colleagues is so great that they unanimously elevated him not long since to the still more distinguished eminence of _bâtonnier-général_ of the bar of the province. It is not given to man to pierce the veil that conceals the future from human ken, but, judging of Mr. Mercier’s future by his past, there is reason to confidently hope for much solid and lasting good to the province of Quebec and indirectly to the Dominion, from his continuation at the head of the public administration of that important member of the Canadian confederation where his presence has already worked a marked change for the better. That he has been the object of serious misrepresentation in the past there can be no manner of doubt. Heralded to the world as the apostle of an advanced radicalism which in reality has no representative in this country, he has not only preached, but practised a different gospel, and in office has proved himself to be unusually moderate and conciliatory, as well as a man of broad and generous views, free from sectionalism, and exceedingly anxious to do justice to all races, classes and creeds, yet fully determined to work out the regeneration of his native province on the great lines of reform which he has ever regarded as essential to that desirable end. Alarmists, for partisan purposes, may affect to believe that he is unfriendly to the rights and privileges of the English speaking minority in the province of Quebec; but he has done nothing yet to warrant that impression, and in the speech which he delivered at St. Hyacinthe, on the 16th June last (1887), during the great demonstration there in his honour, he emitted no uncertain sound on the subject. On that occasion he made use of the following language, which should, it seems, dissipate the last remnant of apprehension, if any be entertained, as to the fair-minded spirit by which he is actuated:— We have endeavoured during the last session to remove the regrettable prejudices which our enemies have succeeded in creating in the hearts of the Protestant minority against us, and especially against myself. We did not concern ourselves with the injustice of which we have been the victims, and we have always been just and sometimes very liberal towards Protestants. We were determined to revenge acts of injustice by acts of justice, and to answer injuries by acts of kindness and words of courtesy. All the English Protestant members of the legislature, with the exception of one, have systematically and invariably voted against us, and have refused to grant us that “British fair play” of which Englishmen so much boast. This conduct on the part of the minority has not made us deviate from the right path—the path of justice; we have been just towards the minority as if it had been likewise just towards us, and we will continue to give it that “British fair play” which its representatives in the legislature have so constantly refused to accord to us. But let the Protestant minority permit me to say now, before this immense audience, composed for three-fourths of French Canadians and Catholics, that the National Party will respect and cause to be respected the rights of that minority; that the National Party desires to live in peace and harmony with all races and creeds; and that it intends to render justice to all, even to those who refuse to render it in return. In private life the premier of Quebec is a charming conversationalist, and one of the most genial of companions. He has been twice married, firstly, to Léopoldine Boivin, of St. Hyacinthe, who died leaving one daughter; and lastly, to Virginie St. Denis, also of St. Hyacinthe. Madame Mercier is one of the most distinguished members of French Canadian society, and fittingly adorns the prominent position to which she has been called by the side of her eminent husband. * * * * * =Chamberlain, David Cleveland=, Insurance and General Agent, Pembroke, Ontario, was born at Point Fortune, province of Quebec, on the 22nd July, 1838. His father was Hiram Chamberlain, and his mother, Elizabeth Minerva Hayes. The family removed from Point Fortune in 1842, to a place on the Ottawa river, a new settlement in the township of Westmeath, in Renfrew county, then known as the Head of Paquett’s Rapids. Though at the time the place was little better than a wilderness, Mr. Chamberlain, sen., began to manufacture lumber, and successfully carried on this business until his death, which occurred in Quebec city in 1854, from cholera. He left a family consisting of a widow and six children, the subject of our sketch being the eldest. After securing some education at the public school, David engaged himself as clerk with Alexander Fraser, a lumber merchant, who, by the way, subsequently married his sister, and with this gentleman he remained until 1868, when he removed to Pembroke, and began business on his own account as a merchant. He continued to trade until 1876, and then gave up mercantile pursuits, adopting in lieu thereof a general insurance agency. Since then he has worked hard, and has succeeded in building up a profitable business in that line. He now represents in that district of country twelve of the principal English and Canadian fire insurance companies, and the Standard Life Insurance Company of Scotland, doing business in Canada. Outside of business, Mr. Chamberlain has taken a part in the world’s work. He is a member of the Oddfellows’ organization; has been a school trustee; was for twelve years a member of the High School board; treasurer of the township of Westmeath; and at present is treasurer of the school moneys of the town of Pembroke. He belongs to the Methodist denomination; and in politics is a Liberal-Conservative. On January 10, 1860, he married Martha Maria Huntington, daughter of Erastus Huntington, and has a family of five children living. * * * * * =Angers, Hon. Auguste Réal=, Judge of the Superior Court, Quebec, was born in the city of Quebec on the 4th of October, 1838. His father, F. R. Angers, was a lawyer who occupied a distinguished position at the Quebec bar. Justice Angers studied at Nicolet College, in the province of Quebec, and entered his father’s office to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1860, and practised his profession with marked success in the law firm of Casault, Langlois and Angers. In 1874, he was made a Queen’s counsel. When the Hon. J. E. Cauchon resigned his seat in 1874, the electors of the county of Montmorency elected him to represent them in the provincial parliament. In the same year the Hon. M. de Boucherville was called upon to form a new cabinet, and he offered the portfolio of solicitor general to Mr. Angers, whose brilliant reputation had marked him as a future minister. He accepted, taking the oath on the 22nd of September, and therefore becoming a minister without ever having occupied a seat in parliament. In 1875 Mr. de Boucherville taking a seat in the Legislative Council, the leadership of the Assembly fell into the hands of Mr. Angers, who became attorney-general on the 26th January,