98 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



Haultain, old man ! we ain't going to have no 

 ca-clatachism." 



With the pioneer's fatal gift of sympathy and love 

 of individual justice Mr. Haultain had granted to 

 the territories the system of separate schools. 



In his single-hearted devotion to tolerance he had 

 failed to perceive the subtle danger of the tolerance 

 of intolerance, v^^hich however he recognized long 

 before it fell like a gyve on the freedom and future 

 of the race in the form of the " Ne Temere " canon 

 of the Roman Catholic Church. That night he 

 frankly acknowledged his error, and announced his 

 intention of thinking and working for the one 

 National School, in which all the children of the 

 many sects and nations which pour into Canada 

 might receive their education together. The an- 

 nouncement cost him the Roman Catholic vote in 

 Saskatchewan. In making it he risked the honour 

 of political leadership in the province which his 

 genius had formed, and he lost. But when the 

 day came that he passed quietly out of the Saskat- 

 chewan Chamber of Legislature to take up the ofhce 

 of Chief Justice of Saskatchewan, there was not a 

 successful politician throughout the provincial or 

 dominion parliaments that might not have envied 

 the vanquished leader his dignity and reputation. 



But as I said, it is in the history of the people 

 of the provinces, and especially during the pioneer 

 phase, that one finds the evidence of the power 

 and accomplishment of Mr. Haultain. On the 

 night of the Lipton meeting I am afraid I thought 

 that, as he was so much finer than all the others, 

 he ought to have been a great deal finer than himself. 

 And driving home across the prairie I could only 



