CANADA’S YOUNG PREMIER.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1921, Page 5

CANADA’S YOUNG PREMIER.

A SHORT SKETCH. The Premier of Canada, Mr. Arthur Meighen, has lately been thrown into the limelight' at the Imperial Conference because of his advocacy of the big Dominion’s opposition to a renewal of the alliance between Britaia and Japan. Mr. Meighen is fortysix years old —very young for a statesman—and has been described as slight, clean-shaven, keen, smart, and “one of i those men who when his two score years ■ have reached to three score will still retain’ his two score freshness of vision, 1 the hopefulness, the optimism and the buoyancy of young manhood.” According to a Canadian writer, Mr. Meighen is apt to suffer by comparison with some of hie great predecessors. Msn sometimes say that he lacks the bigness, the genius and the magnetic personality which made Macdonald and Laurier the idols of millions. He is a sound, logical speaker rather than an inspired orator. He is a practical, straightforward man of business, a master of detail, an expert in figures, seen at his best in quiet negotiations and in committee. In the Manitoban country city of Portage le Prairie, once the outpost of white fanner settlements in the West, the writer referred to noticed with interest a few month* ago a modestly inscribed shingle announcing the offices of Arthur Meighen, lawyer. The announcement further informed him that loans and mortgages could be arranged there, a very usual addition to Canadian rural lawyers’ announcements. Ontario born, brought up in the country | town of St. Mary's, Arthur Meighen was the prize boy in the home town school. He went from there to Toronto University. A year of teaching followed. He then settled in Winnipeg and plunged into business, and while working .hard at business he studied law. He had already proved at Toronto his bent for figures, taking honors in mathematics. He started hi* professional life at Portage le Prairie, and soon won such a position that within . a few years he was elected to the Dominion House. At this time Canada and I the Dominion Parliament were absorbed iin great railway battles. There were i long controversies between the Dominion Government and the Opposition over ' railway rights and contracts. As lawyer in a big farming district, Arthur Meighen knew all about the farmers’ side 'of the case. He had steeped himself in i this railway question. So when this young member arose in the Dominion House to speak in an important railI way debate men realised that here was 1 one who spoke with authority. “Bor- | den has at last found a man,” Sir [Wilfrid Laurier, then Liberal Premier, said, as he listened to Meighen’s sea thI ing and incisive oration. JYom the day lof that speech Arthur Meighen never ! looked back. His knowledge secured him I almost in a day a position of authority jn the ranks of his own Party. Sir Robert Borden came into power in 1911 and Meighen was already one of the Cabinet possibilities. He had played a big part in the campaign against Laurier’s reciprocity scheme. Two years later he was made Solicitor-General, When the Coalition Cabinet was formed during the war he was one of its leading members. It was during the war that he visited London. He was one of the picked Empire speakers at the mighty demonstration at the Central Hall, Westminster, after America came into the war.