“That’s Laurier,” they cried. “That’s Canada. Give them a cheer,” and they did it right heartily.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier was obviously delighted. He kept his hand moving up and down to and from his cocked hat, thus giving a military salute of the Royal pattern and not raising his hat as lesser mortals might do.
When Sir Wilfrid reached the Cathedral, another honour awaited him. The Lord Mayor of London and other dignitaries, no matter how gorgeous their attire, were sent around to the smaller north or south doors; but Sir Wilfrid’s carriage was directed by the police to none other than the Royal and crimson carpeted entrance at the main west door, where the Bishop of Ripon received him on behalf of the Anglican Church. As he passed up the steps into the Cathedral, his uniform, slashed with the blue band of a Knight of the Grand Cross of St. Michael and St. George, came into full view, and made him a most notable figure.
Some of the notable expressions regarding Sir Wilfrid’s achievements in 1907, in Great Britain were penned by the late Sir Charles Tupper, ex-Premier of the Dominion of Canada and formerly for some years High Commissioner at London, England. Writing in the Nineteenth Century, May, 1907, Sir Charles expressed himself as follows:—“My distinguished successor in the Prime Ministership of Canada has during these past few memorable days asserted with a persuasiveness all his own that the British Empire ‘rests upon foundations firmer than the rock and as endurable as the ages.’”
A noted English writer has said: “I have seen and heard many colonial public men, but Sir Wilfrid is the only one who would have become a national figure had he been transplanted to Westminster. I have never seen him in the Canadian Parliament without wishing that instead he was at Westminster, for then it would be easy to decide as to the leadership of the Liberal party.”
In office or out of office, he is the most considerable figure in Greater Britain. Such was the estimate of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, made by one of the premier political observers of England, Mr. John L. Garvin.
On the occasion of Sir Wilfrid’s sixty-sixth birthday the London Morning Post said: “No other statesman could have accomplished so much in the short space of a life-time as the great French-Canadian who combines an imaginative eloquence unsurpassed in British history with the charm and courtesy of a cultivated Frenchman.”