In his career as corporation and constitutional lawyer, Methodist layman, Liberal politician, and internationalist, N.W. Rowell reflected and helped direct many of the forces that have shaped Canada.

He was an Ontario farm boy who began a distinguished legal career in Toronto in 1891, and was subsequently associated with many of the economic and social movements which accompanied Ontario's transition to a predominantly urban society. A forceful spokesman for the Anglo-Saxon Protestants of Ontario, he tried to ensure that the new society on the Canadian prairies would be a 'new Ontario,' faithful to the older province’s social and political values.

As a prominent Methodist, Rowell led the liberal forces in the Jackson controversy -- the struggle within that church over 'higher criticism' of the Bible -- and promoted in Canada the Laymen's Missionary Movement program from the 'evangelization of the world in this generation.' He supported the church union movement from its beginning and was the most influential layman in the formation of the United church of Canada in 1925.

Elected leader of the Ontario Liberal party in 1911, he led the fight for prohibition in the 'abolish-the-bar' election campaign of 1914. Not only was he an early supporter of political rights for women, but his advocacy of workmen's compensation, unemployment and health insurance, and mothers' allowances helped move the Liberal party toward the welfare state.

Many saw in Rowell the logical successor to Laurier as federal Liberal leader, but his uncompromising commitment to conscription during the First World War made him unacceptable, especially to French Canadians. In 1917, in the interests of a more vigorous war effort, he joined Sir Robert Borden's Union Government to become one of its most influential members as an energetic exponent of imperialism and Canadian nationalism.

After being part of Canada's delegation to the first Assembly of the League of Nations in 1920, he became the foremost advocate of an active foreign policy for Canada, both in public lectures and in helping to found the League of Nations Society and the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. In 1936 he was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario and the next year was named to head the most prestigious royal commission in Canadian history, established to examine dominion-provincial relations.

This is the first account of the life and activities of the man who, in the judgement of Harold Innis, was 'our greatest Canadian.'

MARGARET PRANG is chairman of the Department of History at the University of British Columbia.

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