XLIX After Failure as a Grocer, He Becomes the Ablest Administrator Quebec Has Ever Had.

“THE busiest man in Canada,” exclaimed a friend in close touch with the government, when I told him that I desired to meet the Hon. S. N. Parent, Premier of the Province of Quebec.

“Parent, you know,” continued my informant, “is not only Premier of the Province, but is also mayor of the City of Quebec, minister of lands, mines and fisheries, president of the company that is building a seven-million-dollar bridge across the St. Lawrence, director in the Quebec Railway Light and Power Company, director in the Grand Trunk Railway, and a lawyer with the largest practice in the Province.”

This information as to his surprising range of activities, bespeaking a man of remarkable achievement, made me more than ever anxious to talk with Mr. Parent, and I said so to my friend.

“Well,” he exclaimed, “the premier is personally one of the most approachable men alive, but all day long in the ante-rooms of his various offices there are crowds waiting to see him. He never appears in the streets of Quebec on foot, but always in his cab, for the simple reason that if he were walking so many persons would stop him that he would be hours getting to his destination. His lieutenants hedge him in, but once past them you are all right.”

“What would be a good time and place to call on him?”

“In answer to that I will give you an outline of his movement for his business day, and you may judge for yourself. Promptly every morning at half-past seven he arrives at his law office in Lower Town and sees clients there until ten o’clock, when he goes to the City Hall to take up his work as Mayor. Here he keeps in close touch with every detail of city administration.

“It has been said that not a nail is driven on public property without his knowledge. This, of course, is an exaggeration, but it is the truth that he is the first mayor Quebec has had in sixty years who has been able to run the municipal government without an annual deficit in the treasury. And yet with all his economy he has instituted numerous public improvements. On the strength of this work for Quebec he has several times been reëlected Mayor and has held the office for eleven years.

“After an hour at the City Hall he is driven to Parliament House, where he transacts the business of the Province until half-past one. Here, in addition to his general work, he gives special attention to the land and fisheries department, which he has made the most important in the provincial government. He has so developed it that it yields a larger income than any other.

“Mr. Parent takes a light luncheon at half-past one, and remains in Parliament House until four o’clock, when he returns to his law office, where he gives himself up to cases and to his financial interests until seven. Now comes a dinner which is hardly more hearty than his luncheon, and after this he attends the meetings of committees, which assemble in the evening chiefly to suit his convenience. This schedule is as regular as clockwork. The Premier makes a point of letting nothing interfere with it. Exactly at the times and places I mention you can find him.”

Armed with this knowledge, and with a letter of introduction, I sought the Premier at the House of Parliament—a stately building of massive stone, standing out against the sky on the heights of the “Gibraltar of America,” and commanding a huge panoramic view of the Lower Town, of the St. Lawrence and St. Charles rivers, of the Isle of Orleans, the wide valley of St. Anne and the sweeping lines of the Laurentian Mountains.

The ante-room was crowded, as I had been told it would be, but an attendant at once took in my letter and almost immediately returned.

“The Premier cannot see you to-day,” he said, “but will be very glad to meet you at this office at twelve sharp to-morrow. If you would accept a little word of advice,” he added, official manner giving way to French-Canadian courtesy, “I would say that it would be well to be exactly on time. By five minutes past twelve, if you are not here, the Premier will be engaged with some one else, and then your opportunity will be gone. He never spends time in waiting. This is what you might call one of his peculiarities.”

I was on time. At precisely twelve an official passed out of the inner room and I was invited in. As the Premier swung about in his chair with the quick glance and motion that are characteristic with him, I saw a man with a high forehead, a prominent nose, keen gray eyes and a small mustache. His age is fifty-three, but he appears much younger.

“I am interviewing the most successful men in Canada,” I said, “and so, naturally, have called on you.”

Mr. Parent smiled, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, but made no comment.

“Would you mind telling me how you made your start toward success?”

The light of reminiscence came into the Premier’s eyes and his smile was more pronounced. After a very brief pause he said:

“You flatter me by the use of that word success; but if you want to know how I began my career I will assure you that I began it with a failure. My father was a merchant across the river in Beauport, where I was born, and before I was old enough to appreciate how much I did not know I branched out into business for myself. I started a grocery store. It failed, and I decided that I was unfit to be a successful grocer.

“A fair education gained at the normal school enabled me to obtain a place in a law office of S. B. Langois here in Quebec. After I had been with him a short time he strongly advised me to take up law as a profession. I was beginning to feel a pronounced inclination in this direction, and, stimulated by his encouragement, I began to study hard. I took the course at Laval University, and after graduation commenced to practice chiefly at first in the police courts.

“Gradually my clients increased in numbers and my cases in importance. Politics had always interested me. I became somewhat active in this field, and, although I have never tried to practice the art of oratory, for which I have no gift, I was elected to the County Council of Quebec in 1890. Three years later I was made Mayor of the city and not long afterwards Premier of the Province. My career since then has been largely official and a matter of record.”

“It is said that you have given the province and the city the best business administration they have ever had. You know more about business now than when you ran the grocery store, for instance.”

“Oh, yes,” laughed Mr. Parent, “a great deal more. For one thing, I have learned that the price of a business success is eternal vigilance. I have found that the only way to conduct affairs of a municipality along strictly business lines is to watch the committees—to watch their every move. It is in these bodies that the financial leaks are most likely to occur. Not having to carry the main responsibility for public expenditures, committees are inclined to be too generous, too confident of the resources of the treasury. I have no doubt that this is as true in your country, the United States, as in Canada.

“We have ten committees which are meeting constantly. During the eleven years I have been in office I have not missed a single meeting, which is one of the main causes, I think, of whatever success I may have had as a public administrator.”

“Your position as the representative of a large population of both French and English must have its difficulties,” I remarked.

“These are not nearly as great as you might imagine,” quickly replied the Premier. “I don’t pretend to try to please everybody, but I do try to treat all alike. I myself, as you know, am of French descent. French was the language of my childhood, but whether a man is English, or Scotch, or French-Canadian, whether he is a Protestant or Catholic, has absolutely no weight with me in my attitude toward him in the discharge of my official duties.

“We French hold to our language and customs because we are proud of them, but there is complete sympathy between the two races in the Province of Quebec. The Anglo-Saxon Canadian admires the French-Canadian because of his honesty, industry and thrift, and the latter admires the former for virtues too numerous to mention. A union between the two, already close, is constantly becoming closer, and it gives me pleasure to think that perhaps I have done something to advance this movement for the common good.

“We are all working for the prosperity and progress of the province and city of Quebec. In this connection the possibilities are so great that even if we were inclined to racial prejudices, which is not true, we would realize that we could not afford to entertain them.

“Quebec is on the threshold of a new era. The great bridge across the St. Lawrence will bring important improvements in the railroad facilities of the city. The harbor, already one of the finest in existence for vessels of large tonnage, will be made even better by the extension of the dock system and by other projects now in hand. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, which is about to be built across the continent, will have its eastern terminus at Quebec, and will bring to us for export to the markets of the world a vast quantity of the products of the great Northwest. All this will mean a remarkable stimulus to our city.

“As for the province as a whole, the fertility of the soil, particularly in the neighborhood of Lake St. John, warrants the prediction that it will become the granary of Eastern Canada. The enormous water powers within our boundaries, harnessed for the generation of electricity, will mean the rise of many industries. There is, moreover, an immense wealth of money to be gathered from the many thousands of miles of territory which offer pulp wood for paper making. Year by year the pulp industry is extending, but it is as yet at the very beginning of its development. It will bring many millions of dollars to the province and its people. Young men now at the outset of their careers will grow rich from the new industrial activities.

“But in Quebec we have not yet been educated up, or down, to the idea that the most desirable thing in the world is wealth. We have other standards of success. None of us have what would be considered from the American point of view great riches, and we are well content that this is so. Money, of course, is an excellent thing, and we have no prejudices against its possession, but we are in no feverish haste to acquire it. For example, none of our professional men or politicians are very rich. Political life here offers practically no financial opportunities. The politician who attempted corrupt practices would find himself in an isolated position. There would be no coterie to support him. He would be subjected to adverse opinion that would quickly terminate his career. In my administration of public affairs in the province and city of Quebec there has not been, I am happy to say, five cents’ worth of scandal.

“No, as yet, at least, we are not worshippers of the golden calf. All we want in our careers and community is a healthy progress. We desire to keep the city of Quebec, for instance, abreast of the times, to infuse her veins with new blood, but certainly not at a sacrifice of the flavor of the past which makes her the most interesting and picturesque city on the continent. We respect the old, and intend to keep it and the new in harmonious balance.”

“How were you impressed with Mr. Parent?” inquired my friend when I informed him that I had had my interview.

“Excellently well,” I answered.

“I knew you would be. He is a high grade man, and is very representative of the French-Canadians of this generation. He believes in progress, but not in haste. He has good intentions, and the ability to carry them out. He is much more of a listener than a talker, but when he says a thing, or makes a promise, you may depend upon it.”

“You have found, haven’t you, that his political opponents admit that they respect him? I thought so. It has been said here in Quebec that in his character there is the combination of the canniness of the Scot, the progressive energy of the Englishman, the conservatism and sentiment of the French-Canadian, and the geniality of the Irish gentleman.”