113
J.L. Granatstein
take any action that might weaken Liberalism’s hold on a solid Quebec,
and this moderated attempts to welcome back too overtly the fallen
men of 1917.
King’s opponents were not always charitable in their criticism of
King’s own part in the war, and the new leader felt justified in taking
the extraordinary step of making a very personal speech inParliament
in April 1920 explaining his wartime actions. His work for the Rocke-
feller interests in Colorado, he maintained, was a service to the war
effort for it had ensured harmony between labour and management.
And as for his failure to serve at the front, the explanation was simple
enough. He was 40 when the war broke out, unfitted by his training
for rough work and saddled with onerous family obligations.
28
One who
commented on King’s defence was J.M. Macdonnell, an officer of the
National Trust Company, a wartime artilleryman, and a Conservative.
“I am slow to criticize a man for not having been in France,” Macdon-
nell wrote, “and your answer on that score seemed to be perfectly ade-
quate.” What dissatisfied Macdonnell, however, was that in his speech
King had not explained his support for Laurier and his rejection of
conscription in the 1917 election. King’s reply rehearsed his position
on conscription in detail, stressing the disunity in the country and the
mess that had been made of voluntary enlistment procedures. He con-
cluded with his by now slightly pious appeal for broadmindedness: “It
is ... I believe, due to those who were prepared publicly to advocate
their views, to recognize that all alike were equally sincere in the opin-
ions held.” The Toronto Conservative was still not satisfied, claiming
that there were “insuperable” objections to King’s record, but he add-
ed, “you are not called upon to worry unduly about what I think.”
29
King knew what Tories thought of him, but he could be assured that
there were more voters than Conservatives in Canada.
This simple arithmetical fact was worrying the Conservatives. The
Union Government was desperately weak by 1920, and some would say
it had always been so. No government can be effective in Canada with-
out support from both English Canadians and French Canadians, and
the Unionists had no strength whatsoever in Quebec. Prime Minister
Borden tried to remedy this, talking to notables in the province about
his and their shared concerns for the tariff during a highly political
boat trip down the St Lawrence in the summer of 1919. The politicians
were friendly, but if Borden underestimated the political complications
that conscription had created in 1917–18 they could not.
30
Borden got
nowhere in trying to strike a
rapprochement,
and within a fewmonths
he was tired and worn out, made old by the strain of the war years. The
