The care with which Laurier chose his colleagues, and his indifference to personal appeal, should have been proof sufficient to the public that he was a prime minister who looked forward and planned for the future.  And the plan?  Why to stay in power for the longest possible period of time.  It is as natural for a government to want to stay in power as it is for a man to want to live; nor is there in this anything discreditable.  A prime minister is sure that he desires to retain power in order that he may serve the country as no rival could conceivably serve it; and even if the desire fades and is replaced by a lively appreciation of the personal satisfactions which can be served by the office, no real prime minister notices the transformation.  The ego and the country soon become interblended in his mind.  A prime minister under the party system as we have had it in Canada is of necessity an egotist and autocrat.  If he comes to office without these characteristics his environment equips him with them as surely as a diet of royal jelly transforms a worker into a queen bee.

Laurier saw that an efficient government, harmonious in its policies and ably led, would afford a contrast to the preceding administration that must forcibly impress the Canadian people.  He, therefore created a government of all the talents.  Anxious for discreet handling of the difficult fiscal problem he turned to Nova Scotia for W. S. Fielding.  Foreseeing the possibility of grave constitutional problems arising he put the portfolio of justice into the hands of the wisest and most venerable of Liberals, Sir Oliver Mowat.  Recognizing that a backward and stagnant west meant failure for his administration he placed the department of interior, which had become a veritable circumlocution office, under the direction of the ablest and most aggressive of western Liberal public men, Clifford Sifton.  The time was to come when other values were to hold in relation to cabinet appointments; but in the beginning efficiency was the test, at least in intention.  It was thus Laurier proposed in part to build foundations under his house that it might endure.  And to insure that virtue should not lack its reward he proceeded to buttress the edifice by a second line of support.

In the general election of 1896 the Liberal strategy had been to give the party managers in the English provinces an apparent choice of the best weapons, but with all these advantages the results showed that they had barely held their own.  The majority came from Quebec where Laurier had apparently to face the heaviest odds.  The natural inference was not lost upon Laurier.  If he was to remain in power he must look to Quebec for his majority.  A majority was necessary and he must get it where it was to be had.  This decision was at first probably purely political.  The consequences were not fully foreseen, that to get this support a price would have to be paid—­by the Liberals of the other provinces.