Product Description

The sense of loss which the country has sustained in the death of Sir John Macdonald will, for a while at least, not be favourable to dispassionate estimates of the deceased's character and life-work. At any time it requires an effort to write of a public man with absolute truth and honest fearlessness. The difficulty is greater when one attempts to weigh actions and appraise a career in the presence of a nation's sorrow at the passing away of the distinguished personage, long at the head of the Government of this country, who is the interesting theme of this book. The task is somewhat easier to one, however, who while in sympathy with his subject is at the same time honest with himself, who puts his country first and always, and upon whom party ties sit not at all. If the present writer cannot rise to the pitch of enthusiasm to which Mr. Edmund Collins had attained when he wrote the bulk of the following pages, he is none the less conscious of the gifts and endowments of the subject of Mr. Collins' lively panegyric, or in any way unwilling to do justice to his theme. What he has alone stipulated for, in taking up and carrying down to date that writer's work, is freedom to present facts without doing violence either to history or to the dictum of a calm and impartial judgment, and always with consideration and courtesy towards the other great Party in the State. To this stipulation, the original author being out of the country, the publishers have readily given assent, at the same time authorising and approving the revision which the book as a whole has received. With these few words of explanation, let us at once address ourselves to our task.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #184687 in eBooks
• Published on: 2008-09-10
• Format: Kindle Book