Conrad Black: If bitter enemies can bury the hatchet, there’s hope yet for this country

Investment magnate Stephen Jarislowsky Photo by Dave Sidaway/Montreal Gazette

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One of the benefits of advancing years is that some of the people with whom one has had disputes, even strenuous and at times vitriolic disputes, may develop a form of comradeship of vanished animosity. It isn’t necessary for either party to change the opinion or attitude that led to past abrasions, but time does heal most wounds and sometimes former adversaries see the whimsical or even amusing aspects of former disagreements and develop a respect for each other. One such person with whom I crossed swords many times but have lately come to like is the well-known and highly successful Montreal money manager Stephen Jarislowsky.

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Because I have been a writer of articles since I began my newspaper publishing career as a rural editor of a weekly newspaper in the Eastern Townships of Quebec 60 years ago, I developed some capacity for invective. And because controversy, especially if it is sensible or at least somewhat original, generally has an audience, I have had a fair amount of experience exchanging barbs with others.

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In my early years as a somewhat publicized businessman, nearly 50 years ago, I resolved to try to make commerce a little more interesting for the average person. The strategies, and often the personalities, are in fact quite interesting, and I felt that commerce and those who practice it had done themselves a disservice through their aversion to public scrutiny and frequent lack of panache in defending their activities. The generally leftist media tended to portray the business community as greedy dullards. Some are and so are a lot of other people. But I’ve always believed that the importance of commerce has been underestimated because of its absolute centrality to the generation of prosperity for everyone, as well as because it so often presents opportunities for imaginative strategic planning and execution.

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If I had to do it all over again, I would certainly be somewhat more discrete, but I think my beliefs were at least justifiable even if my pursuit of them was sometimes impetuous. It was not long before I encountered Stephen Jarislowsky, a highly intelligent and confident man with an extraordinary background who was a pioneer in using stock positions acquired with the money of his investors to crusade for his ambitious notions of corporate governance. We found ourselves in some disagreements, although ultimately, we both wanted the stock prices of our shares to rise.

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Stephen was born into a Jewish family in Berlin in 1925 and his parents had the good judgment to move to safer places in good time. Stephen went to school in the Netherlands and France and attended Harvard, Cornell and the University of Chicago. He was exceptionally intelligent and became a very capable multi-linguist and served as a counter-intelligence officer with the United States Army in Japan, as Japanese was one of the languages in which he was fluent. Afterwards, he wished to make his way in finance and take advantage of his diverse cultural background, so he moved to Montreal. As many readers would know, his business, Jarislowsky Fraser, has been hugely successful and now manages approximately $40 billion in assets.