IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I m iiiiiM ii|||^ | Z2 2.0 1.8 ^^. IIIIIM 1.25 1.4 IIIIII.6 A" O v: ^ /}.

words giving effect to the settlement embodied in the preamble. The Prime Mini.ster, who perhaps finds it difficult to understand that anybody can really care about a principle, tried to laugh the matter off by telling the old story of the Jew eating his pork-chop in a thunderstorm, but his wit was ineffec- tive. In contending that the exerr ' ■ of the veto ought to be confined to cases of legislative extra vires, he and his colleagues lay under the disadvant- age of having recently vetoed an Act of the Manitoba Tjegislature chartering a local railway, which was as clearly intra vires as anything could possibly be, on alleged grounds of Dominion policy, because it infringed on the 472 Canada and the Jesuits. monopoly of the Canadian Pacific Railway. In the division thirteen members only — eight Conservatives and five Liberals — voted for Colonel O'BiIen's motion. One hundred and eighty- eight, comp -ising the leaders and the main body of the Liberal Opposition !!.« well as the main body of the sup- porters of the Government, voted on the other side. The Catholics, French and Irish, were voting, as in duty bound, for the Jesuits and the Pope. The Liberal Opposition took the ground of Provincial self-government. But it is always bidding against the Govern- ment for the Catholic vote, and on this occasion it was specially entangled in two ways. In the first place, the Dominion Government being in the hands of the Conservatives, the Liberals had been embracing the most extreme view of Provincial right. In the second place, they had been hold- ing out a hand for party purposes to French sympathy with the rebellion of the French and Catholic Half-breeds under Riel in the North-West. They had not shrunk from protesting against the execution of Eiel on the two grounds that he was insane and that his offence was political ; the first of which was believed by no human being, while the recognition of the second would put the lives and pro- perty of the community at the mercy of any brigand who chose to pretend that his object was not plunder but anarchy or usurpation. The vote on the Jesuits' Question was controlled by the Catholic influ- ence, much as the votes on the Home Rule resolutions passed by the Domi- nion and local Legislatures of Canada had been contralled by the Irish vote, and as similar votes on similar reso- lutions have been controlled by the Irish vote in the United States. The managers of the party machines on both sides embraced each other, and fondly hoped that the largeness of the majority had stifled in the birth an agitation about a question of principle disturbing to the regular game, and unwelcome to all who look for support to the Catholic vote. They have found themselves mistaken. The people have for once broken away, for the time at least, from the party machines. They understand that the objections to the Jesuits' Estates Bill are based, not, as the Minister of Jus- tice says, upon the preamble of the Act or upon anything merely tecl aical, but upon the broad right of the nation, if it be a nation, to forbid the use of public money for the purpose of sub- verting its civilization and infusing moral poison into its veins. The inten- tion of the framers of the Act, they know, is to have the Pope recognized as lord of the temporalities of a Church which in Quebec is virtually estab- lished, levying tithes and other legal imposts ; and the determination of the people is that in things temporal the Pope's power shall not be recognized at all. The people know also that the Jesuits' Estates Act is not an isolated measure, but a bold and defiant step in the onward march of ecclesiastical aggression. The agitation, instead of dying out, has given birth to the Equal Eights Association, under the auspices of which a widespread aud apparently enthusiastic movement against the endowment of the Jesuits, and against ecclesiastical aggression generally, is now going on. Party in Canada has been strong, as it usually is, in inverse proportion to its reasonableness, and to break its lines at once is very diffi- cult, while the influence of corruption, especially in the form of Government grants for local works, unhappily . is very great ; yet the machine politi- cians are having a very bad quarter of an hour. The Equal Rights Association di- rects its attention not only to the Jesuits' Estates Act but to the sys- tem of separate Catholic schools in Ontario ; to the intrusion of the French language and of French ecclesias- ticism with it into the public schools of the eastern part of the Province ; to the unfair privileges enjoyed by the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec, and to the progress of ecclesiastical aggrandisement and of priestly en- Ci nada and the Jesuits. 473 croachment on the civil power, which, ever since the Ultramontane and the Jesuit supplanted the Gallican, have l)een advancing on all sides. In its opposition to the encroach- ments of the Roman Catholic Church the Equal Rights Association may be regarded as an organ of a continental movement ; for in the United States the people are rousing themselves to action against the same power which, with legions recruited from the igno- rant and half-civilized populations of the Old World, is assailing the funda- mental principles of Protestant and Anglo-Saxon civilization. At Boston, where the Irish Catholics are now almost a match in numbers for the children of the Puritan, a great fight about the teaching in the public schools, in which the Catholics were defeated, has been followed by the proposal of an amendment in the Constitution of Massachusetts, pro- hibiting any grants of public money to sectarian institutions. A grant to Catholic charities, though balanced according to the usual policy of the priest-party by a small grant to Pro- testant charities, has been thrown out by the Legislature of the State of New York, and it seems as if the channel through which the priests have long drawn public money to a large extent would be closed up for the future. In Illinois a similar reaction against the raids of the Catholic vote on the pub- lic treasury begins to appear. Another " irrepressible conflict " apparently is at hand, though this time, it may be hoped, the arbiter will be the ballot and not the sword. Nor is the conflict confined to this continent. Mr. Wise's article in this magazine (July, 1889), shows that it is coming in Australia also. It is coming wherever the Church of the past commands a sufficient force of the children of the past to make war upon modern civilization. The Canadian Equal Rights Associ- ation, however, has to fight two foes in one. It is contending against ecclesiastical aggression and against French nationalism at the same time. The Jesuits' Estates Act is an auda- cious blow struck not only for Ultra- montanism against Protestantism and the civil power, but for French na- tionality under priestly leadership against British ascendency, " La V(irite" is the Ultramontane and Jesuit organ of French Canada. In a recent article that journal says. For us [the French Canadians], con- federation was and is a means, not an end. It is a means of enabling us to dwell in peace with our Enrrlisli neighbours, whilst safeguarding our rights, developing our re- sources, strengthening us, and making us ready for our national future. Let us say it boldly — the ideal of the French Canadian people is not tlie ideal of the other races which to-day inhabit tlie land our fathers subdued for Christian civilization. Our ideal is the formation here, in this corner of earth watered by the blood of our heroes, of a nation which shall perform on this continent the part France has pla3'ed so long in Europe, and which she might continue to play if she would but resume the Christian traditions violently ruptured at the Revolution of 1789. To do that, it is not theoretically necessary that she should become a mon- archy again ; but it is necessary that she should return to Christ. Our aspiration is to found a nation which socially shall profess the Catholic faith and speak the French language. That is not and cannot be the aspiration of the other races. To say then that all the groups which con- stitu^^e confederation are animated by one and the same aspiration, is to utter a sounding phrase without political or his- torical meaning. For us, tne present form of government is not and cannot be the last word of our national existence. It is merely a road towards the goal which Me have in view — that is all. Let us accept the present state of things loyally ; let us not be aggressive towards our neighbours ; let us give them full liberty to pursue their particular ideal. But let us never lose sight of our own national destiny. Rather let us constantly prepare ourselves to fulfil it worthily at the hour decreed by Providence which circumstances phall re- veal to us. Our whole history proves that it is not to be a vain dream, a mere Utopia, but the end which the God of nations lias marked out for us. We have not been snatched from death a score of times ; we have not multiplied with a rapidity truly prodigious ; we have not wrought marvels of resistance and of peaceful conquest in the eastern townships and in the border 474 Canada and the Jesuits. counties of Ontario ; we have not absoi'lied many of the English and Scotch settle- ments planted anion^' iis in order to hreak np our homogeneity— we have not put forth all these efforts and seen them crowned with success to go and perisli miserably in any all-Canadian arrangement. This is the frank expression of a sen- timent which has been gathering strength and taking shape in the French Province during the last quarter of a century. In 1880 the Abbu Gingras pub- lished an address, in which, after the most rampant assertion of the right of the Church to override the civil power, and of the clergy to interfere in elections, together with a thorough- going proclamation of Mediasvalism, and an unqualified defence of the In- quisition, there comes (p. 43) a notable passage in relation to the political situation of the French Pi'ovince. The clergy, says the writer, understand the delicate position in which French statesmen have been placed since the conquest, and that practically it is necessary that they should "resign themselves to a policy of conciliation, more or less elastic." But with union and a common understanding the machine of the Provincial Govern- ment, though it has inevitably one of its wheels in contact with the Federal Government, may be worked for Catholic purposes. This is the device which every Canadian statesman, " though he may not inscribe it on his banner, lest he should provoke unjust reprisals, ought to engrave on the inmost fold of his heart." The autonomy of French Canada is all, the Federation is nothing. With the autonomy of French Canada it is necessary for the present to be con- tent, but a grander vista is opened when the proper hour shall strike. The leaders, and the soul of the national enterprise, are the clergy. After the victory of the Jesuits at Ottawa, a grand national festival was held at Quebec on the day of St. John the Baptist, the national saint of French Canada, in the joint honour of Jacques Cartier, the founder of French Canada, and Brebeuf, the great Jesuit missionary, a monument to whom was unveiled. At the ban- quet, Mr. Mercier, who is the Na- tionalist Premier of Quebec, and as the framer of the Jesuits* Estates Act has received a decoration from the Pope, made a speech in which he preached in impressive terms nation- alism and national unity. "To-day," he said, " the Hed and the Blue [colours of the two old parties in Quebec] should give place to the Tri- colour." It is useless to imagine that wo will ever cease to be French and Catholic. This monument declares that after a century of separation from our mother country we are still French. More than that, we will re- main French and Catholic." Such was the strain of all the speaking and writing on the occasion. A gallant colonel of militia even hinted at a resort to arms. The Papal Zouaves who took part in the ceremony carried side by side with their own flag a flag which in the days of French dominion had been borne in battle against the British. The greetings of the " French Canadian nation " were cabled to the Pope, and the Vatican in return greeted the French Canadian nation. Mr. Samuel Adams and his Boston confederates were in too great a hurry with their revolution. Canada ' had been wrested from the French ; they should have waited till it had been made English, as with its poor, simple, and illiterate population of sixty thousand it might easily have been. After the revolt of the Colonies, England was compelled practically to foster French nationality, and at the same time to countenance clerical ascendency, because it was on the influence of the clergy, who were hos- tile to the Puritans and afterwards to the French Revolution, that she mainly relied for keeping the people faithful to her standard. She gave the French votes, which they of course used to shake ofE British ascendency. Thus Wolfe's victory was cancelled. Not only so, but, where France had only a weakly colony, grew up under the , Canada and the JesuiU. 475 nominal dominion of Great Britain a French nation in a tlieocratic form. The French multipliotl apace, like all rajes whose standard o.' living is low, and the digestive fortes of British Canada were far too weak to do with the French element what the digestive forces of the United States had done with the French element in Louisiana. Lord Durham saw the danger. He even let fall the warning words, that the day might come when the English in Canada, that they might remain English, would have to cease to be British ; in other words, would have to join the main body of the English-speaking race on the con- tinent to save themselves from French domination. He tried to bring about assimilation by means of a legislative union of the two Canadas. The union totally failed ; politics became a bitter conflict between the British and French Provinces, which at last brought government to a deadlock. From that deadlock an escape was sought by Federation, which was thus, in its main motive and essential cha- racter, not a measure of union, but a legislative divorce of British from French Canada. The other British Colonies were brought in. But no real union such as constitutes a nation can be said up to this time to have taken place among them. No Nova Scotian or New Brunswicker calls himself a Canadian. A British Columbian scorns the name. The people of these Pro- vinces are citizens in heart only of their own Province. At Ot tawa they act as separate interests. Their support is obtained, to form a basis for the party Government, largely by a system of corruption operating mainly through Government grants to local works. As to Quebec, she is a member of Federation in the same sense in which Ireland would be a member of the United Kingdom if it had a Parlia- ment of its own, and at the same time sent delegates to Westminster. She acts in her own separate interests, and by her compact vote levies tribute on the Dominion treasury, her own being in so bad a condition that she has already betrayed an incipient tendency to repudiation. She has extorted grants for railways and public work.s to a very large amount. On one oc- casion her members stayed outside the House haggling with the Government till the bell had rung for a 'livision, when the Government gave way. The Tory party has in the main retained her support, though much less by party sympathy than by the means already described. In the meantime in Quebec itself clerical domination has been making way. The substitution of Ultramon- tanism for Gallicanism has exalted the pretensions of the priesthood, and at the same time given an impetus to the movement.^ Ten years ago it ex cited the alarm of Sir Alexander Gait, who saw that danger impended not only over the rights and liberties of the Protestants, but over the civil rights and liberties of the Catholic laity, and sounded the note of alarm in his pamphlet on Church and State. Now comes the Jesuit with what Abbe Gingras calls "the flambeau of the Syllabus " in his hand. Em- ploying the Papal policy of the day, master of the counsels of the Vatican, he prevails over the Galileans and Moderates, over the Sulpicians who vainly struggle against him for the spiritual possession of Montreal, and becomes master of the Church of Quebec. A cosmopolitan intriguer, fettered by no ties of citizenship or political party, acting solely in the interests of the Church and of his Order, he drives on with an almost reckless speed, and is not content without signalizing his ascendency by reclaiming his old estates, trampling the rights of the Crown under foot, and at the same time extorting a legislative recognition of the Pope. The Jesuit has always been more cunning than wise. He hurried James the Second along at a pace which ^ The best source of information on the subject is Mr. Charles Lindsey's "Rome in Canada : the Ultramontnne Struggle for Supre- macy over the Civil Power." Second edition ; Toronto, 1889. 476 Canada and the Jesuits. '!i; proved fatal, aud it is not unlikely that his precipitation may make ship- wreck of his enterprise in Quebec. The Church in Quebec is immensely rich, while the people are poor and the treasury is empty. Besides the tithe, which by a strange u lomaly on this continent of religious equality she legally levies, and imposts ior/abr!que, she owns not a little of the most valu- able land in the Province, and her wealth is constantly growing by in- vestment, for she is active in the financial as well as in the spiritual field. The devotion of the people is guarded by their illiteracy. Ecclesiastical sta- tistics, compiled under ecclesiastical influence, throw not much light on the subject. The journal of Arthur Buies, "La Lanterne", throws more. It gives a letter from a correspondent who, it says, has held high political employment and has lived in a rural district for forty years. This corre- spondent says that among men of from twenty to forty years of age you will not And one in twenty who can read, or one in fifty who can write. They will tell you that they went to school from seven to fourteen, but that they have forgotten all they learned. This " all " — what was it 1 We may judge, says the correspondent of "La Lan- terne", from the fact that the teachers are for the most part young girls taken from the convents because they are too poor to pay their pupils' fees, and with a salary of from ten to twenty louis a year. Those who have passed any time among the habitants confirm this statement, and say that the mayor of a town is not always able to write. The school-books, of which a set is before us, appear to be highly ecclesi- astical in spirit and in the economy of the knowledge which they are calcu- lated to convey. No wonder that miracles in abundance are performed at the shrine of Ste. Anne de Beaupre, while thoy are performed nowhere else upon this northern continent. The antagonism between this civilization and that of British Canada is complete. The French peasantry of Quebec, if they have little to live on, can live on little; their Church sedulously preaches early marriage, their women are good mothers, and they multiply apace. Before their increasing number and pressure the British are rapidly dis- appearing from the Province. In the city of Quebec there are now only about six thousand left. In the east- ern townships, once their almost ex- clusive domain, their numbers are rapidly dwindling, and the Protestant churches are left without worshippers. The Church advances money to the Frenchman to buy the Englishman's farm, which in French hands will be- come subject to tithe and fabrique. The commerce of Montreal is still in Protestant hands, but a Legislature of French Catholics has found its way, by taxing banks and other financial corporations, to the strong-box, just as a Legislature of Celtic Catholics in Ireland would find its way to the strong-box of the Scotch Protestants of Belfast. As matters are now going, the future of the commercial com- munity of Montreal is not free from clouds. If that community has hitherto thought of little but its trade, it will find that without paying attention to questions of public principle trade itself cannot be safe. The weak point in the case of the opponents of the Jesuits' Estates Act is that two years ago an Act incor- porating the Jesuits was allowed to slip through without protest. The explanation is that the Protestant minority in Quebec is so weak and so thoroughly overborne, that it has been sinking into a state of torpid resigna- tion, while the '^vUli^ Province usually takes little notice of anything that is going on in Quebec. The Jesuits' Estates Act seems, however, at last to have aroused the Protestants of Quebec as well as the people of Ontario. Not that it would make any difference with regard to the question of principle if all the Protestants of Quebec, desert- ing the cause of their own rights and interests, hau acquiesced in the Jesuits' Estates Act. The right and duty of the people of the Dominion generally to put a veto on the endowment of : i J Canada and the Jesuits. 477 < Jesuitism and the recognit on of the Pope in legislation would bo the same ; and it would be equally neiessary to uphold the principle that no religious majority in a Province shall have the power to make war on the religion of the minority by endowing propagand- ism out of the public pucse. The French llevolution for the time estranged Quebec with its clergy from Old France. But the estrangement is now at an end, and France is recog- nized as the mother country. France on her part welcomes the returning affection of her daughter, and the old relations, saving the political connec- tion, are renewed. The history of Canada used in the French schools is a history of French Canada alone. Scarcely does it notice the existence of the British Provinces. In a perfectly national spirit it magnifies the victories of the French in Canada over the British, be- littles those of the British, and pre- sents the British in an odious light. It accuses the English of wishing to treat French Canada as they treated Ireland, and ascribes the deliverance of the French to their own patriotic efforts, animated by their religious faith, and seconded by fear of the United States which drove England to concession. It is evidently intended to implant in the heart of the«young French Canadian allegiance to French Canada as a separate nation, love of France, and antagonism to the British con- queror. But the aspirations of the French are not confined to the Province of Quebec. " La Verite," as we have seen, boasts that they have conquered the eastern townships of Ontario. Poli- ticians of Ontario styling themselves Liberals, but under the influence of the Catholic vote, have helped to open the gate; the French have not only inti-oduced their language into the schools but their ecclesiastical system into the localities, and resistance to them now comes late. Their advance is probably 'helped by a Protectionist policy, which, applied to a country like Canada, prodaces commercial atrophy, and sends many of the best of our British farmers out of the country, thus making room for the Frenchman, who is content with pea-soup while the Englishman requires beef. But into the North-Eastern States of the Union also the French have passed by hundreds of thousands. There are said to be one hundred and fifty thousand in ^lassachusetts alone. The French priesthood of Quebec scent a danger to faith from this connection, and " repatriation " has been attempted, it is needless to say, in vain. Apparently the lingual and intellectual unity of the continent, on which the unity of its civilization depends, is in jeopardy from the intru- sive growth of a French nation. It will not be saved by the statesmanship of American politicians, whose treat- ment of the Canadian question vies in feebleness, inconsistency, and vacillation with the treatment of the Irish question by their British counterparts. Thus strangely the struggle between the rival races for ascendency in the New World, which seemed to have been settled for ever on the Plains of Abraham, is now renewed in a different form. The ambition of French nationalism is extended to the Canadian North- West, where there is a population of French Half-breeds under clerical rule, the political power of which during the infancy of the settlement has been sufficient to force bilingualism on the Legislature of Manitoba. But in that quarter there is little hope for the Nationalists. The half-bred population does not increase, and if immigration takes place on a large scale it will soon be overwhelmed. Till now there have been political parties in Quebec, the Bleus or Torie.s and the Rouges or Liberals, connected with the Tory and Liberal parties of Ontario, though in a loose way, and, especially in the case of the Bleus, with more of interest than of principle in the connection. But now, in the person of Mr. Mercier, a Nationalist and Ultra- montane leader, independent of any Dominion party, has arisen. He calls all good Frenchmen to union on 478 Canada and the Jesuits. \ the ground of nationality. " Cessona no3 liittes fratricides, unissons-nons.'' lie says it is time that tho IMuo and the Red should be blended in tho Tricolour. Apparently tho i)e()[)lo an.swor to his appeal. J fo has at all events got power into his haud.s and seems likely to hold it. No one can Itlame tho French for their aspirations, which are natural, or for their attachment to their own mother country, which is natural ahso. An English colony placed in their cir- cumstances would do as they do except that it woidd not put it.self under priestly leadership and rule. But this does not alter the situation. Imperial- ism in the case of Canada has two things to accomplish. It has to se- parate this line of Provinces per- manently from the English-speaking continent of which they are the north- ern fringe, and it has to fuse British Canada and New France into a nation. What chance is there of thus fusing a French Ultramontane theocracy with a communityofBritishProtestanlN? If, as "LaVrritc "says, the ideal of tlio French Canadian people is not the ideal of the British Canadian, and he is making towards a totally different goal, how is it possible that the two elements should really become partners in the founda- tion and development of a nation 1 Where, it may further be asked, is the use of constraining them to ma'. *;he attempt ? What is gained for (Canada, for the mother country, or for humanity, by thus forcing or bribing two antago- nistic civilizations to remain in quarrel- some wedlock within the same political pale? The conflict was sure to come, and it has come. On what field battle will be joined it is not easy to say. The Government, while its organs challenge the people to try the question in the courts of law, itself bars access to the Supreme Court, and has even had recoiirse in Parliament to most ques- tionable strategy for that purpose. The Equal Rights Association is to have an interview in a few days with the Governor-General, but the Gover- nor-General is a Constitutional puppet in the hands of his Ministers, with whom, moreover, his own sympathies as an extreme Tory are known to be, and nobody expects tho interview to have any practical result. Its chief fruit will probably l)e exhortations to peace, which, is an excellent thing, but cannot be permanentl*jr establi.slied without jus- tice. Tho only lists apparently open for tho combatants are the courts of Quebec, in which the Jesuits have brought a libel suit against " Tho Toronto Mail " for admitting to its columns a docu- ment called the Jesuits' Oath. Out of this suit appeals may arise which will bring the (juestion of principle with regard to tho incoi'poration of tho Jesuits before superior arv.l impartial courts. The verdict of a Quebec jury in such a case could obviously settle nothing. It wouM be the verdict of the Jesuits themselves. In the meantime reflections suggest themselves. 1. Imperial Federationists must surely be sanguine if they think that the difficulty of this French nationality will disappear in Federation. To the French Canadians Imperial Federation or anything that would tighten the tie to Great Britain is an object of ab- horrence. They were at first disposed to give the present Governor-General a cool reception because they had been told that he was an Imperial Federa- tionist. In a war with France the hearts of the French Canadians, if not their arms, would be on the enemy's side. Distance is not the greatest of obstacles with which the Federationists have to contend. Australia is in- habited by a single race, and lies in an ocean by herself. How can the same treatment be applied to her and to Canada, divided as she is between two rival races, and at the same time joined to a great continent inhabited by the kinsmen of one of them % 2. Reformers who propose to cut the United Kingdom in pieces and pass it through the wonder-working caldron of Federation will perhaps hesitate for the future to appeal to the triamph- ant success of Federation in Canada as a proof of the safeness of their gious but a object autism ■ .stituti ; and ' Pope. 5, Tl which liuler.s struiuc meat i divisio % followf I "iiity, legihla was tr Confed Domin legislat tajion I Canada and the Jesuits. 479 rs, with ithies as be, and to have ief fruit bo peace, t cannot hout jns- open for ' Quebec, •ought a ,0 Mail " a docu- Out of hich will pie with of the ni partial jbcc jury ly settle ardict of I suggest ts must hink that itionality To the ederatioa en the tie ?ct of ab- ; disposed Greneral a lad been Federa- ance the ns, if not enemy's eatest of rationists a is in- ies in an the same • and to between ame time nhabited n^ to cut the id pass it 3aldron of sitate for triamph- ■n Canada of their ( experiment : not tliat there wouM bo the .sli,ij;hto.st analogy in any respect between a union of the North Amu- ricau Colonies under Imperial tutelage and a dissolution of the legislative unity of the British Islands. 3. Those who think that nothing is easier than the creation and operation of a federal union, no matter what the materials may be, or what may be the prevailing tendencies at the time of federation, have also a le\sou hero set before them. British and French Canada were divided from each other by race and religion ; but there was not on the part of the French Cana- dians towards British Canada any- thing like the active hatred which has been stirred up among the Irish towards Great Britain. Tlio cir- cumstances in which a political ar- rart^ement is made, and the tendea- cie'j prevailing at the time of its in- troduction, require consideration at the hands of statesmen as well as the arrangement itself. 1. We have an inkling in the case of Quebec of the treatment which a Protestant minority would receive at the hands of a Koman Catholic and Celtic Legislature in Ireland. The Jesuits' Estates Act endows out of the public funds, to which Protestants as taxpayers contribute, not only a reli- gious body opposed to Protestantism, but a Society the special and avowed object of which is to destroy Protest- autism and to subvert Protestant in- stitutions, as well as to put civil rights and liberties under the feet of the Pope. 5. The fourth reflection is one to which the attention of British Home Rulers is specially called. Their in- strument for keeping an Irish Parlia- ment in the traces, and preventing divisions of Legislatures frcva being I followed '^j dissolution of national unity, is an Imperial veto on Irish legislation. Now this veiy expedient was tried by the framers of Canadian Confederation. The veto given to the Dominion Government upon Provincial legislation is perfectly general, no limi- tation of any kind being suggested by the British North Aiuorica Act ; nor can there bo any doubt that it was intended to keep the action of tho lof^al Legislature in harmony with the gen'U'al policy of the country, and at tho same time to protect minorities of race and religion in the several Pro- vinces. That such was understood to be its object plainly appears from tho debates on Confederation in the Cana- dian Legislature. Mr. Mackenzie, afterwards Premier of the Dominion, adverting to the possibility of in- justice being done by a Provincial majority of race, s.iid, *' I a^lmit that it is reasonable and just to insert a p ' V '«ioa in the scheme that will put it o ' )f the power of any party to act un'u, tly. If the power that the central Tuthority is t'^ have of vetoing the loings of tht local Legislature is used, it will be ample, I think, to prevent arytiiiug of that kind." "The want 1)1 s'ch a power", Mr. Mackenzie observed, " was a gi'eat source of weakness in the United States, and it was a want tiiaL \V''i' 1 be remedied in the Constitution before very long." The disruption of the American Union by Southern secession was vividly pre- sent to the minds of the architects of Canadian Federation, and led them to fear and avoid above all things weak- ness in the central power. Mr., after- wards Sir John, Rose said, " Now, Sir, I believe this power of negative, this power of veto, this controlling power on the part of the Central Government, is the best protection and safeguard of the system ; and if it had not been provided, I would have felt it very difficult to reconcile it to my sense of duty to vote for the resolutions." Opponents of the measure, such as Mr. Dorion and Mr. Joly, in criticiz- ing it took the same view of the power of veto. One of the ablest and most eminent among the fathers of Confederation was Sir Alexander Gait. Everything relating to the framing of the Con- stitution was fresh in memory when, in 1876, Sir Alexander published the pamphlet on Church and State, al- ready mentioned, as a warning blast 480 Canada and the Jesuits. against the danger with which the civil rights of Protestants and of the laity generally were threatened by ecclesiastical encroachment in Quebec. W th regard to the veto he says : The veto by the Federal Government is the real palladinm of our Protestant liberties in Lower Canada. I have .'ilready shown that our educational rights are only safe under its shelter, and that our representa- tion guarantee will, some day, "dissolve into thin air" without its exercise. Let me now point out that in the firm but moderate use of this vast power safety may yet be found from the undue encroach- ments to which both Protestants and Catholics are exposed. But it is negative only, and if the opportunity for its exer- cise be lost, it is impotent to remedy the evil. Now mark the result. The Jesuits' Estates Act, by which Protestantism and Civil Right are compelled by an Ultramontane majority to pay for their own subversion, is about as clear and as strong a case as could have been devised for exercising this " vast power" and invoking the protection of this palladium. What follows 1 The grand safeguard totally fails. Both the political parties alike, in dread of the Catholic vote, shrink from the application of the veto. Not only so, but they in effect give up the political veto altogether. They proclaim that the veto cannot without violating the principle of self-government be exer- cised except in cases whei*e the Provin- cial Legislature has exceeded the legal jurisdiction, and when the veto in fact would be superfluous, since the Act would be declared void by a court of law. " Quebec must be allowed to do what she likes with her own." She is at liberty to tax he* Protestants if she pleases for the destruction of their own religion. So much for the " vast power", the grand "guarantee", and the " real palladium " ! Would not the very same thing take place so soon as the Irish Parliament did anything calling for the exercise of the Imperial veto, either in the way of oppression of the Protestant minor- ity or of departure from the policy of the Empire] Would not British parties, dreading the Irish and each other, shrink, as Canadian parties have shrunk, from the use of the power, and under the name of respect for self- I government allow timid counsels to prevail 1 There can be little doubt as to the answer to that question if the ' party system continues to exist, espe- cially as the Irish vote in Great Britain is large and would of course be arrayed t on the Home Rule side. The veto k power would prove a nullity, and the i separation of Ireland from Great | Britain would be virtually complete. J GoLDWiN Smith. F.S. Augiist '2nd. — The reception of the petitions against the Jesuits' Estates Act by the Governor-General has now taken place at Quebec. The result was what it was sure to be. His Excellency repeated in substance the speech of the Roman Catholic Minister of Justice, Sir John Thompson, in- cluding the somewhat hazardous asser- tion that the Jesuits in the nineteenth century have always been loyal and quiet citizens. The people might as well have presented their petitions to Apis as to a Governor-General bound to act and speak as he is directed by his constitutional advisers. Apis in- deed would have been neutral, whereas His Excellency's personal sympathies have not been concealed. This inter- view has settled nothing. It was con- fidently reported that the opinion of the British Law Officers had been taken. This would not have settled much either, even as to the purely legal question which is the least part of the matter. The people would hardly have been satisfied without the judgment of their own Supreme Court. G. S. J' RICHARD OLAT AMD BOMS, LIMITED, LONDON AMD BUMOAT. sr Jn the way ;stant minov- the policy of ritish parties, each other, )arties have : the power, ipect for self- counsels to ittle doubt as estion if the o exist, espe- Grreat Britain ■se be arrayed . The veto llity, and the from Great ly complete. iviN Smith. wn Supreme G. S.