Sir JOHN MACDONALD, the Premier of Canada, though an eccentric leader, is a happy illustration of the most elevated statecraft.

In deference to Sir Robert Peel and the general cause of education his opposition was not bitter or persistent; and the progressive views which have always marked his career led him to support the premier in his repeal of the corn laws, he having been, like his chief, converted to the free-trade doctrines of Cobden.

[Illustration: Canada's Premier on a visit to the Western front in Europe, with a notable group of Canadian officers.

Towards the end of Lord Beaconsfield's second Premiership a younger politician asked the Premier to dinner.

Some time in April prior to the acceptance of the Treaty of Peace by the Premiers of the Allied Powers, the President and Mr. Lloyd George agreed with M. Clemenceau to negotiate the treaties of protective alliance which the French demanded.

*** Only the other day The Daily Chronicle referred to the Premier as "Mr. George," just as if it had always been a penny paper.

During some of the meetings of Premiers at Paris and London I had occasion, in the sittings of the conferences, to speak with the representatives of the new States, especially those from the Caucasus.

Prior to that time the directing body of the Conference was the self-constituted Council of Ten composed of the President and the British, French, and Italian Premiers with their Secretaries or Ministers of Foreign Affairs, and two Japanese delegates of ambassadorial rank.

The Premier at last saw that the country was practically unanimous on the question of Tripoli, and although personally averse to all adventures in the field of foreign affairs which interfered with his political action at home, he realized that unless he faced the situation boldly his prestige was gone.

The debate on the Address degenerated into a series of personal attacks on the Premier by members who, not without high example, regard this as the easiest road to fame.

Ne dites iamais vostre aduis des affaires que l'on ne vous l'ait demandé, si toutesfois vous n'estes le premier en authorité, & que ce ne soit point à contre-temps, ou sans apparence de quelque auantage.

Miss Arlington's father was looking for an apartment for the young couple, and I've let him the premier for twelve years on the understanding that he puts electric light and heating into the whole hotel.

Peel, however, was himself the controlling intellect of the government of which he was the head, and was doubtless superior in attainments and political genius to Wellington, to Earl Grey, and Lord John Russell,premiers like him, and prominent as statesmen.