An offer by Sir Robert Borden to Sir Wilfrid Laurier to join him in a national government would have been unwelcome at any time excepting perhaps in the first months in the war; but in the form in which it finally came, in May, 1918, it was trebly unacceptable.  Sir Wilfrid was asked to help in the formation of a national government to put into effect a policy of conscription, already determined upon.  Although history will no doubt confirm the bona fides of Sir Robert’s offer, it cannot but be lenient to Sir Wilfrid’s interpretation of it as a political stroke intended to disrupt the Liberal party and rob him of the premiership.  From his viewpoint it must have had exactly that appearance.  Laurier’s position in Quebec had been undermined in the years preceding the war by the Nationalist charge that his naval and military policies implied unlimited participation, by means of conscription, in future Imperial wars.  He had always denied this; and when Canada entered the great war he, to keep his record clear, was careful to declare over and over again that Canadian participation by the people collectively, and by the individual, was and would remain voluntary.  As the strain of the war increased the feeling in Quebec in its favor, never very strong, grew less.  There began to be echoes of Bourassa’s open anti-war crusade in the Liberal party and press.  Sir Wilfrid, watching with alert patience the development of Quebec opinion, began cautiously to replace his earlier whole-hearted recognition of the supreme need of defeating Germany at all costs by a cooler survey of the situation in which considerations of prudent national self-interest were deftly suggested.  The “We-have-done-enough” view was beginning to prevail; and Laurier, intent upon the complete capture of Quebec at the impending elections, while he did not subscribe to it, found it discreet to hint that it might be desirable to begin to think about the wisdom of not too greatly depleting our reserves of national labor.  To Laurier, thus engaged in formulating a cautious war policy against the day of voting, came the invitation from Borden to join him in a movement to keep the armies of Canada in the field up to strength by the enforcement of conscription.  Every aspect of the proposition was objectionable to Laurier.  It meant handing back to Bourassa the legions he had won from him, and with them many of his own followers.  No one was justified in believing that Laurier with all his prestige and power could commend conscription to more than a minority of his compatriots.  Sir Robert Borden’s proposal meant the foregoing of the anticipated party victory at the polls, the renouncement of the premiership, and the loss, certainly for the immediate future and probably for all time, of the affection and regard of his own people as a body.  The proposition doubtless looked to him weird and impossible, and not a little impudent.  The argument that the proposed government could better serve the