With a remarkable ignorance of the political conditions of the province-too often shown by British statesmen in those days-so great a historian and parliamentarian as Lord Macaulay actually wrote on a tablet to Lord Metcalfe's memory:-"In Canada, not yet recovered from the calamities of civil war, he reconciled contending factions to each other and to the mother country."
"Lord Elgin"
John George Bourinot
Sir Allan MacNab, who was the oldest parliamentarian, and the leader of the Conservatives-a small but compact party-was then invited by the governor-general to assist him by his advice, during a crisis when it was evident to the veriest political tyro that the state of parties in the assembly rendered it very difficult to form a stable government unless a man could be found ready to lay aside all old feelings of personal and political rivalry and prejudice and unite all factions on a common platform for the public advantage.
"Lord Elgin"
John George Bourinot
To call such a quiet, silent country gentleman, such a law-abiding parliamentarian as Sir Edward Grey, to call even him a typical Prussian Junker is a travesty of the facts.
"German Problems and Personalities"
Charles Sarolea