HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE, M.P., 
 Orcnd Matter Loyal Orange Avisodation of Britiih Ameriea. 
 
HON, N, CLARKE WALLACE 
 
 Grand Master Loyal Orange Association of British America* 
 
 t 
 
 HIS ACTION ON THE "REMEDIAL BILL" 
 AND WHAT LED UP TO IT. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. C E. PERRY, 
 
 Past Grand Chaplain and Past Grand Organizer* 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX BY REV. W* W. COLPITTS, 
 Of Manitoba and North- West Conference. 
 
 AUTHOR'S EDITION. 
 1897. 
 

 "■ ' ' ''j i 
 
 
 EMMANUU 
 
 174595 
 
r.? 
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 The Hon. N. Clarke Wallace, a sketch of whose life 
 appears in these pages, is the eighth Grand Master of the 
 Loyal Orange Association of British America. The 
 Grand Orange Lodge was organized in Canada in 1830. 
 Since that time we have had a number of eminent men at 
 the head of the Association, but none more influential 
 and truly loyal to the great principles of our noble 
 Association than Brother Wallace. The warrant author- 
 izing the erection of this Grand Lodge was signed by 
 Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, who, at that time, was Grand 
 Master of the United Kingdom, and brother of William 
 IV. The first Grand Master of British America was 
 Ogle R. Gowan, M.P. He swayed the sceptre from 1830 
 to 1846. He was succeeded by George Benjamin, M.P., 
 who occupied this honorable position for ten years. Then 
 George L. Allen came into power, and for three years 
 
viii author's preface. 
 
 ruled the Order. The next to assume the insignia of this 
 high oflfice was John Hillyard Cameron, M.P. Among 
 the tokens of respect accorded this ruler was the nam- 
 ing of one of the influential lodges of the city for 
 him, Cameron L. 0. L. 613. Following Cameron was 
 Mackenzie Bowell, M.P., who held the office for eight 
 years. Henry Merrick, M.P. P., was Bo well's successor, 
 and then W. J. Parkhill, M.P. P., occupied the position 
 for four years, and has now the honorable distinction of 
 being Grand Treasurer of British America. 
 
 This brings us to the subject of this sketch, Hon. N. 
 Clarke Wallace, who now finds himself at the head of an 
 Order greatly increased in numbers, in intelligence and 
 , influence. It is a matter for congratulation that our 
 principles are bein^^ better understood, both by adherents 
 and outsiders ; and men are discovering that the Orange 
 Order does not exist simply to provoke Roman Catholics 
 to ire. It has been a matter of general remark that 
 recent Twelfth of July celebrations have been characterized 
 with that decorum that is befitting a great and growing 
 organization whose chief profession is to " Fear God and 
 honor the King." 
 
 There are now under the jurisdiction of the Grand 
 

 AUTHORS PREFACE. IX 
 
 Lodge of British America, 1,680 Primary Lodges, 250 
 District Lodges, 90 County Lodges, 10 Provincial Grand 
 Lodges. Sixty of these Primaiy Lodges are in the ancient 
 colony of Newfoundland. During the year 1896, 40 new 
 lodges were organized, and 9,302 persons were received 
 into the lodges, and after deducting all losses there 
 remains a net gain of 8^845. The Association owns pro- 
 perty to the amount of $1,200,000. The expenditure last 
 year was $31,868 ; of this amount there was over $29,000 
 given to the widows and orphans of deceased O^^ngemen 
 who belonged to the Grand Lodge Benefit Fund. In this 
 regard we are under great obligation to our present Grand 
 Master, N. Clarke Wallace, for successfully pressing 
 through Parliament the " Orange Incorporation Bill," by 
 w^iich we are able to hold our property and administer 
 our funds legally for the good of all concerned. 
 
HON. N. CLARK B WALLACE. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 BY REV. C. E. PERRY. 
 
 N. Clarke Wallace is the son of the late 
 Nathaniel and Ann Wallace, both of Carney, in the 
 County of Sligo, Ireland. The former came to 
 Canada in 1834, the latter in 1833. They were 
 married in Woodbridge (then called Biirwick) in 
 1839. From this union there sprang seven children, 
 five sons and two daughters. 
 
 The subject of this sketch is the fourth child, and 
 was bom on the 21 t of May, 1844, in Woodbridge, 
 where he has ever since resided. He married Belinda, 
 seventh daughter of the late James Fillmore, of 
 Ottawa, on the 7th of June, 1877. They have living 
 four sons and three daughters. The eldest son, a 
 lieutenant in the 36th Battalion, is seventeen years of 
 ^ge. The youngest k a little girl of nearly fpiu' years. 
 
 After attendance at the Pullic School and six, 
 
12 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 months' training in the Weston Grammar School, 
 Clarke Wallace engaged in the honorable occupation 
 of teaching school, and for more than five years prose- 
 cubed this work to the mutual advantage of teacher 
 and scholar. Whilst so employed, he had ample time 
 and opportunity to see how under proper inspection 
 the Public School can be made a power for good ; and is 
 it too much to say that here, employed as a teacher of 
 youth, he imbibed those principles that he afterwards 
 so grandly enunciated on the floor of the House of 
 Commons, when a political party sought to win the 
 approbation of the hierarchy by breaking down the 
 Public School system of Manitoba ? 
 
 At the close of his engagement, he joined his 
 brother, Thomas F. Wallace, in the business of gen- 
 eral n.erchants in Woodbridge, v%^hich they established 
 at Christmas, 1867. Succeeding in this venture, ten 
 years later they built the Woodbridge Roller Flour 
 Mills, which they bill continue, in addition to the 
 general merchandise, both of which they have built 
 up to large proportions and have made profitable by 
 their enterprise and industry. 
 
 Both Thomas F. and N. Clarke have taken an . 
 active interest in all public enterprises, the former 
 having been for many years, and is now, reeve of 
 the town and chairman ot the Public School Bo/ird, 
 
'-^ i - .- V ■ 
 
 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 13 
 
 as well as mauager of the great Woodbriige Fair. 
 The latter was first deputy-reeve of Vaugnan from 
 1874 to 1878, and warden of the County of York 
 the latter year, when he was also elected a member of 
 the Dominion Parliament for the West Riding of 
 York, the first Conservative elected in a straight 
 contest for twenty-four years. He had on this occa- 
 sion a majority of 202. He was re-elected in 1882, 
 in 1887, and again in 1891, each time by increased 
 majoritie-5, the last by the noble majority, 806. 
 
 On his appoint rient of Controller of Customs of 
 Canada, in L^ecember, 1892, he was re-elected by 
 acclamation. This important office he retained till 
 December, 1395, when the Bowell Government in an 
 unwise and unprincipled attempt to capture the 
 Roman Catholic vote, determined to coerce Manitoba 
 and force Separate Schools upon an unwilling f .*o- 
 vince. N. Clarke ♦Wallace found himself face to face 
 with either endorsing their plans and supporting 
 their measures or resigning his position of power and 
 emolument. He was rot long in reaching a conclu- 
 sion, but immediately resigned and gave the Govern- 
 ment Remedial Bill the most determined and active 
 opposition in the House of Commons, and with the 
 aid and co-operation of a few other resolute men, 
 succeeded in compelling the Government to witlidraw 
 
14 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 « 
 
 the bill. When the battle was transferred to the 
 country in the general election of 1896, he fought on 
 the side of Manitoba and the Public School with 
 remarkable ability in many constituencies beside his 
 own, and no doubt helped to turn the scale in favor 
 of freedom. 
 
 In West York, though opposed by two candidates 
 of widely divergent views, thus placing him between 
 two fires which it was alleged would take away from 
 him all the votes of both political parties, he secured 
 the largest majority ever recorded in the history of 
 this country, viz., 4,068. The country was not un- 
 grateful. It saw a man for principle sacrifice power, 
 give up large salary, and turn in this matter against 
 the party under whose banner he had won so many 
 victories, rather than see a young and rising province 
 against its will put at the feet of Rome, and the 
 verdict of posterity will join with that of West York 
 in its splendid majority. 
 
 He has always taken a very active interest in 
 parliamentary affairs; in no sense was he a mere 
 " figure-head " or " voting machine," to do, and to 
 do only, as he was told. He was chairman of the 
 Committee of Parliament that investigated the opera- 
 tions c^f combinations injurious to trade, afterwards 
 introducing and carrying through parliament a bill 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 15 
 
 to prevent their mischievous practice. This bill, 
 though emasculated by the Senate, had still sufficient 
 force to break up those in existence at that time 
 (1889), and which were rapidly extending. 
 
 In 1890, he introduced and carried successfully 
 through parliament " The Orange Incorporation Bill," 
 which had been tried but without success in the old 
 Parliament of Canada in 1857 and 1858, in the Local 
 Legislature of Ontario on several occasions, and in the 
 Parliament of the Dominion by John White, M.P., and 
 by Hector Cameron, Q.C., M.P, On all these occasions, 
 notwithstanding the able support of its friends and 
 the righteousness of its cause, so many were afraid to 
 provoke the ire of Rome that the bill was invariably 
 lost, until N. Clarke Wallace, who could neither be 
 cajoled nor intimidated, pushed it to a successful 
 issue, and thereby won the everlasting gratitude of 
 every true patriot and loyal Orangeman. 
 
 In 1884, Mr. Wallace was chairman of the Public 
 Accounts Committee of Parliament. In the stormy 
 times of 1891 and 1892 he conducted the proceedings 
 of that committee when it became the centre almost 
 of parliamenta I y business, and the Investigations that 
 took place there from day to day c^iuseu the most 
 intense interest and excitement in the country. Here, 
 us elsewhere, his was the master hand that guided. 
 
16 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 In the Loyal Orange Association Mr. N. Clarke 
 Wallace has from his early years taken the most 
 active part. It may be truly said, " He was born in 
 the purple ot* that order." The first Orange Lodge, 
 No. 28, was established by his father and a few other 
 active spirits in 1847, having its place of meeting 
 over his father's cooper shop. He served first as 
 secretary after his initiation in 1866, then in succes- 
 sion to his father and his brother George in the 
 Primary District and County Mastership. The latter 
 position he held for very many years. He became 
 Grand Treasurer of Ontario West in 1876, and 
 retained that office for five or six years. 
 
 In 1885, he was by the votes of his brethren elected 
 to the position of Deputy Grand Master of British 
 America. In 1887, he was further promoted to M. W. 
 G. M. and S. of the Order, succeeding Bro. W. J. Park- 
 hill, whom he tried to induce to retain the office 
 longer. In 1888, he attended the meeting of the 
 Triennial Council at Carrickfergus, Ireland, repre- 
 senting the Orangemen of Canada, and was there 
 elected Vice-President. In 1891, he was elected in 
 Toronto, President of that Great Council of the 
 Orangemen of the World, and was re-elected to that 
 position at the Triennial Meeting of that body held in 
 W^estminster Hall, London, England, in July, 1894, a 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 17 
 
 position he still holds, as well as the office of Grand 
 Master of British America. The latter position he 
 has held during the most stormy and trying times 
 that the Association has experienced, and yet grate- 
 fully we record the fact that to-day, having emerged 
 from those trials, and overcome the difficulties by 
 which it was environed, it is stronger in Canada than 
 it ever was before, and its principles and practices 
 more widely esteemed. 
 
 Mr. Clarke Wallace is a member of the Church of 
 England, and was for about twenty-five years super- 
 intendent of the Sunday School in Woodbridge, until 
 acceptance of the ControUership compelled him to 
 be continuously from home. He is a strong man, 
 vigorous morally, mentally and physically ; his strong 
 good native sense makes him much sought after at 
 public gatherings, and as chairman or speaker he 
 always adds to the enjoyment of the occasion. And 
 it is earnestly hoped that his life and health may be 
 spared many years to his family and his country, 
 and should another crucial point in his history ever 
 b*^ reached, may he a,gain be able to imitate Israel's 
 great law-giver, who refused to be called the son of 
 Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer afflic- 
 tion with the people of God than enjoy the pleasures 
 of sin for a season. 
 
/ ' 
 
^ r 4 
 
 ? /.•■■• ■»- 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 BY REV. W. W. COLPITTS, 
 
 And should it be asked, " Why this brief sketch of 
 an honored life ? " several reasons may be given. 
 First, now that the " Manitoba School Question " may 
 be regarded as fairly and honorably settled so far as 
 Dominion politics are concerned, and our country 
 saved from being set back centuries educationally, we 
 think a good purpose is served to have placed before 
 every true patriot and faithful Orangeman in a 
 suitable form some description of the man whose 
 picture adorns this work, and whose public life is 
 here so briefly sketched, and who under God was 
 largely instrumental in defeating that tyrannical and 
 iniquitous order usually styled the " Remedial Bill." 
 And though the matter is still fresh in most minds, 
 yet a brief review of the same may be of some good 
 to those into whose hands these pages may fall. 
 
 It is now nearly fourteen years since the writer 
 first crossed the Louise Bridge that spans the Re(j 
 
20 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 River, and a few moments afterwards stepped upon 
 the platform at Winnipeg. A little later he saw Fort 
 Garry, and though the work of dismemberment had 
 then begun, yet there were still the old buildings, and 
 part of the wall and the gateway through which 
 Wolseley marched his troops, to find the place evacu- 
 ated, for Riel and his rebels had quietly slipped away. 
 What a throng of sensations crowded his mind as he 
 gazed at the building where Scott had been confined, 
 and from which he had been led forth to be shot to 
 death — a man whose chief crime was that he was 
 an Orangeman ! Thirteen years' intimate acquaint- 
 ance with that great w^estern country — out there 
 when Riel led that second rebellion that sent him to 
 the scaffold that he earned years before, and that a 
 too patient people were so slow to accord him, the 
 writer can trace the present agitation on the " School 
 Question" back to those times as one can trace a 
 river back to the hills from whence it springs. The 
 same iron hand, though often in a velvet glove, that 
 sought to grip firmly the political destinies of what 
 was to be a great country, and mould and shape it 
 after the sweet will of the hierarchy, is seen to-day 
 at the throat of all free education and free discussion 
 as well, as witness the suppression by ecclesiastical 
 mandement of a French paper in Quebec that dared - 
 
>. , - ■ ■^: , 
 
 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 21 
 
 to express itself independent of Romish dictation, and 
 Archbishop Langevin now, as Archbishop Tache then, 
 arrogates to himself the right to control the schools 
 which the children of Roman Catholics attend. But a 
 little time ago, in Montmorency County, a reporter of 
 the Herald was put to the door by a priest to whom 
 he had gone to obtain information concerning public 
 instruction in his parish, and told him, " The laity 
 have nothing to do with the schools. The questions 
 of education concern the bishops alone." 
 
 The attitude which Monseigneur Langevin has 
 taken is based on this idea, that the parents have 
 nothing to do with the conduct of the schools. It is 
 he and he alone who is the judge of such a matter. 
 When it comes to paying the taxes, however, it is the 
 father, the mother, the whole family, who are con- 
 cerned. The whole question, in short, resolves itself 
 into the point whether the children belong to their 
 fathers and their mothers; whether those who pay 
 their taxes, by their money, for the teachers, the con- 
 struction of the school buildings and their mainten- 
 ance count for nothing. 4 
 ' His Grace is violently opposed to a loyal trial of " 
 the policy of conciliation offered by the Green way 
 Cabinet. Will His Grace shoulder the school ex- 
 penses which he would oblige the Catholics of Mani- 
 
22 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 tolia to pay, while all the other inhabitants of that 
 province receive their public subsidies, to which the 
 Catholics contribute their share ? The result of the 
 deplorable attitude of Mgr. Langevin is easy to foresee. 
 The few Catholic schools which he would have them 
 maintain will be absolutely inferior, hundreds of 
 children will be deprived of education, and the 
 Catholic population, already poor, will be crushed 
 under burdens too great for their resources. His 
 Grace will be the cause when Catholic immigration 
 will not direct itself to Manitoba, and when even the 
 population which is already there will decline day by 
 day. ' ' 
 
 Mgr. Langevin is a young man without large ex- 
 perience of life. He will carry in the sight of history 
 responsibilities before which wiser and more experi- 
 enced men shrink. He may live long enough to 
 realize the fault he is committing at this moment. 
 ' If it be asked, "Why not give the schools over to 
 the control of the clergy ?" we answer that a celibate 
 clergy who put away from themselves the joys and 
 responsibilities of paternity, from the very nature of 
 things can have but little sympathy with the child, 
 and less for the parent. And there is little fear of 
 any difficulty arising in arranging the Public School 
 nervice where no denomin^-tional distiwptioi:^ is paad^, 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 2^ 
 
 at least as far as the parents are concerned, if they 
 are not pushed to make objections by the clergy. For 
 what parent is not glad to see his child have a fair 
 chance to secure an education untrammeled ? And 
 who that has ever had an opportunity to judge but 
 has seen that Separate Schools intensify denomina- 
 tional bigotry, and frequently engender hate, until 
 the terms " Papist " and " Heretic " become a battle- 
 cry as soon as they meet off their school grounds ? 
 But let the children sit at the same desk, con the 
 same lesson, recite to the same teacher, be Catholic or 
 Protestant, and when they come to go out into the 
 world they will carry with them mutual esteem and 
 respect. But Manitoba under the Norquay Govern- 
 ment did have Separate Schools, and a fair trial was 
 made to meet the wishes of Mgr. Tache. Why were 
 they not continued ? We answer without hesitation, 
 because they were most inefficient in every regard, 
 unless their proficiency in the dogmas of the Church 
 be accepted as education. First, they were not pro- 
 perly supervised or inspected. And what " Separ- 
 ate School " ever was ? On this point Hon. Israel 
 Tarte, speaking at Cornwall, Dec. 6th, says ; " When 
 the Norquay Government was defeated, the position 
 was this. During the whole time that the Separate 
 School law had been in force, Mr. (now Senator) 
 
24 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 Bernier was Superintendent of the Separate Schools. 
 But would you believe it, he never once visited one of 
 the Public Schools, but he drew his salary of $4,000 a 
 year regularly. But not only that, but in one year 
 alone he got $8,000 for certain translations of English 
 into French on account of Separate Schools. I say 
 after investigation, that the Separate School funds 
 were shamefully misapplied or misappropriated, just 
 as you choose to put it. For my part, I call it fraud, 
 pure and simple. If an investigation were to be held, 
 and I hope it will, it will be shown that I am not too 
 strong in my language. Such an investigation, too, 
 would show that the educational system of these 
 Separate Schools was the most inefficient ever pre- 
 tended to be given to a Christian community. And 
 there is no doubt on the minds of those who liave 
 lived in Manitoba and closely watched succeeding 
 events in this regard, that when a full investigation is 
 made the hon. gentleman's opinion as expressed here 
 will he abundantly confirmed. 
 
 Is it not a fact that the Separate School always closes 
 its door to efficient inspection ? Not long since, at 
 Ottawa, when the Govemi*^ent sent special inspectors 
 to examine these schools, thev met with determined 
 resistance. Of course, the resistance took a passive 
 form, but they were told by the ecclesiastics In charge 
 
Hon. n. clakke Wallace. 25 
 
 that they had received their orders to retire when the 
 inspectors entered. We are shut up to the conclusion 
 that efficient inspection is not to be tolerated by the 
 Roman Catholic clergy, they having no desire that 
 their schools, conventual or otherwise, should have 
 their teaching and methods of government published 
 to the world. And this, I take it, is really the great 
 objection that Mgr. Langevdn has to the present 
 settlement. Then he sees further the old regime that 
 has relegated to ignorance and comparative seclusion 
 so many young people of the Church over which he 
 reigns, that has put its iron heel of suppression on 
 everything like mental and material progress, must 
 now give way. That this is no fanciful statement, I 
 point the reader to St. Boniface and other French 
 settlements in Manitoba, that had tlie first hold com- 
 paratively on the country, that made finest selections 
 of soil and were secured in their titles, but which have 
 been altogether outstripped in the race by those who 
 had not these advantages. " When I contrasted," says 
 Mr. Tarte, ** St. Boniface with the modern city of 
 Winnipeg, I could almost have cried. Winnipeg is a 
 modem city with 40,000 people ; St. Boniface, which 
 had the stiirt in the race, has probably a population of 
 1,400. It is going back instead of moving forward. 
 The late Archbishop had tlie idea of I'ountling a great 
 
26 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 French-Canadian colony, which should l)e isolated 
 from all other peoples and interests. Quite fatal. He 
 obtained large tracts of land, and held them against 
 all outsiders. Look at the result to-day. I felt sick 
 at heart to think of the way my countrymen had 
 been handicapped.'* 
 
 And handicapped they were in those schocis that 
 existed in Manitoba previous to the Free School Act, 
 passed by the Green way Government. lor any 
 system of education that only proposes to teach what 
 to think, and not how to think, must in the very 
 nature of things dwarf the intellect. For these 
 schools, true to the traditions of the Church all 
 down the centuries, as seen in every land where their 
 hand was laid with authority upon the education of 
 the people, repressed, sternly repressed, fair investiga- 
 tion both in science and religion. Italy itself has at 
 last grown tired of priestly domination in its schools, 
 and abolished the old system. And is it to be sup- 
 posed now, when France, Italy, and many other 
 Roman Catholic countries are throwing oft' the man- 
 acles, that a young and vigorous province like Mani- 
 toba is going quietly to submit to have the cast-oft 
 shackles riveted to her ankles ? 
 
 But let not the reader imagine that we wish for a 
 moment to deprive our fellow-countrymen of any 
 
BON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 27 
 
 privilege that we enjoy ourselves, and we think that 
 the settlement now offered Manitoba gives to the 
 ecclesiastic all the privileges that he ought to ask. 
 And we are glad that there is no discrimination 
 between Protestant and Catholic, and that all the 
 schools are to be inspected by an inspector that 
 knowis no denominational difference, We continue, 
 as of yore, to advocate " Equal rights to all, special 
 privileges to none." • 
 
 There have been two rebellions in the North-West, 
 and none know better than the hierarchy the 'causes 
 that led up to them. It is to be hoped that blind 
 zeal and religious fanaticism will not so provoke the 
 public mind as to lead to results that cannot fail to be 
 disastrous to those who appeal to racial and sectarian 
 prejudices. I am glad to believe that, so far as 
 Dominion politics is concerned, the Manitoba School 
 question is settled. 
 
 " They " (writes one a little time ago) " can tight 
 within that province to their heart s content, but if 
 Langevin or Lafleche, or Cameron, or O'Brien, or 
 anyone else attempts to bring the matter within the 
 arena of Federal politics again, he will be worthy 
 of the execration and contempt of all Canadians. 
 And I believe their efforts will be met with such a 
 storm of resentment as will make clear even to the 
 
28 Hon. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 hierarchy that Canada is for Canadians, and not for 
 Rome." 
 
 I believe that Canada has reached a new era in her 
 history. We have a Premier, a French- Canadian, who 
 combines in his person the best of both types of 
 Canadian public life. The French people are follow- 
 ing him rather than the Church. Once having tasted 
 of liberty, they will not easily become enslaved 
 again. And in this way Wilfrid Laurier may become 
 the saviour of French Canada. The movement for 
 better schools in Quebec at the present time is tlie 
 direct result of the people's victory over the priest at - 
 the polls in June last. I expect turmoil and storm, 
 and we may see temporary reaction, but I believe the 
 power of Rome, Canada's worst public foe, is broken, 
 and the day is coming when the splendid vivacity and 
 brilliance of the French mind will be set free to unite 
 with the more sturdy qualities of the English-speak- 
 ing sections of our people. As a result of this move, ' 
 there will grow up in this North land a nation 
 remarkable for its high mental and moral character, 
 and which shall give to the world the finest example 
 of democracy, governing itself in the interest of all 
 its citizens and of all the world. 
 
 At present I look to Wilfrid Laurier as the liope of 
 Canada, for I think lie will be able to attract to his 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACBJ* 29 
 
 Side such men as N. Clarke Wallace and others of 
 that class who prefer righteousness to power gained 
 at the sacrifice of principle. Thus aided, he may 
 help us to resolve our personal and national pre- 
 judices into a larger unity, and will be able to give 
 to the world an example of assimilated thought and 
 purpose in national life such as we have never had. 
 
 A second reason for this sketch of the life of Hon. 
 Clarke Wallace lies in the stimulus that it is calcu 
 lated to give every man of principle to stand by his 
 colors. 
 
 The Orange institution has long been regarded as 
 a kind of caudal appendage that would wag with 
 deliglit whenever the political party was patted on 
 the liead. Astute politicians in nmstering forces and 
 counting numbers, previous to elections, always 
 seemed to think that Rome was one and indivisible, 
 and as goes Rome so goes the country. Other peoples 
 would break into factions, and could be flattered or 
 cajoled as circumstances demanded. And it must be 
 admitted that there was too good reason to believe 
 that this was not far from the truth. But the last 
 Dominion election was a wonderful awakening to 
 many who had their little dream. Sir Charles 
 Tupper, trained as he was in the home of a Baptist 
 clergyman must from his earliest boyhood liave had 
 
f 
 
 30 UON. N. CtARTtE WALLACE. 
 
 principles inculcated at utter variance with those 
 recently avowed on the platform and in the House of 
 Commons. But he saw the exigencies of his party — 
 a party by the way that had on its roll honored 
 names, and claimed the adherence of men of whom 
 Canada may well be proud — and he chose in an evil 
 hour to ally himself with the hierarchy, and stooped 
 to do their bidding and coerce Manitoba. Had he 
 but listened for a moment, surely the shade of his 
 once Great Chief would have whispered, "You cannot 
 check Manitoba." He evidently thought that his 
 own party in the House would stand by him. Did he 
 not know that some of his political associates were 
 pledged men, pledged to stand by religious liberty to 
 all classes and give to every child the opportunity of 
 obtaining a common school education ? What of such 
 pledges ? Was he not familiar with men who had 
 for the sake of honor and salary broken the most 
 solemn pledges, and thrown the most sacred declara- 
 tions to the winds, characterizing them as the 
 offspring of moments of weakness ? Sir Charles was 
 no stranger to the elasticity of the ordinary political 
 conscience, and had reason to believe that those 
 around him would, for the sake of continued office 
 and salary, join him in the high bid he was making 
 for the Catholic vote. What then must have been 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. .SI 
 
 his surprise and chagrin, when Sir Wilfrid Laurier 
 moved the " six months' hoist," to see Hon. Clarke 
 Wallace step boldly forth and second the motion, 
 and that, too, in a short speech that will be remem- 
 bered for many years — remembered for its outspoken 
 manliness, remembered as coming from the lips of a 
 man who was thereby leaving office and emolument 
 that he might thereby preserve a conscience void of 
 offence toward God and man ? 
 
 The days of heroism are not all past. There are 
 yet, when circumstances demand it, men who will so 
 far forget all selfish considerations as to stand fear- 
 lessly forth for the right when to do so brings not 
 only loss of pecuniary kind, but contumely, misappre- 
 hension and scorn. 
 
 ** Here is a hero staunch and brave 
 
 Who fighti3 an unseen foe ; 
 Who puts beneath his feet 
 
 Selfishness, base and low ; 
 Who stands erect in manhood's 
 
 Might, undaunted, undismayed; 
 A braver man than draws the sword 
 
 In fray or in raid. 
 He may not win a hero's name 
 . Nor fill a hero's grave, 
 But truth will place his name 
 
 Among the bravest of the brave.*' 
 
32 
 
 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACil. 
 
 That speech delivered by Hon. N. Clarke Wallace 
 on Tuesday, March 3rd, in the House of Commons, 
 had a wonderful effect not only on those who heard 
 it, but as it came to us in the west, it seemed as if 
 from the very ranks of the enemies of the Public 
 Schools there had stepped forth a champion for 
 Manitoba's rights, who would make his voice heard 
 for good. And so it proved. 
 
1- ^;-- -^ . r 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE, M.P., 
 ON THE REMEDIAL BILL. 
 
 Ottawa, Tuesday, March 3rd, 1896. 
 
 Mr. Wallace — Mr. Speaker, I am sure that 
 members of this House will set aside party feeling 
 for the time to rejoice that we have the pleasure of 
 having again with us the present leader of the House, 
 the Hon. Secretary of State (Sir Charles Tupper). 
 Though political lines divide us, we all recognize, 
 I hope — at any rate the Conservative party in this 
 House and throughout the Dominion recognize — the 
 splendid services rendered to Canada prior to Con- 
 federation and since then, by that honorable gentle- 
 man, and recalled to our minds so vividly this 
 afternoon. For my part, I have always admired his 
 splendid courage, which has brought the Conservative 
 party and the country as well through many difficult 
 crises. I recall one particularly, that during the 
 construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and I 
 remember with pride and pleasure the indomitable 
 courage exhibited by the Hon. Secretary of State 
 during that trying period, He, like our other great 
 
34 HOX. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 leader, Sir John Macdonald, always had faith in our 
 country and its possibilities. But, while I say that, 
 and while I have followed the honorable gentleman 
 during many years in this House with very great 
 pleasure, and though to-day I closely adhere to the 
 doctrines of the Conservative party, as I understand 
 them — to the principle of Protection and those oth^^r 
 and large principles leading to the confederation of 
 the Empire and closer connection with the Motherland 
 — I regret that on the question he has brought before 
 the House to-day I am unable to follow him. The 
 honorable gentleman called to mind the fact that 
 Canada before Confederation was divided on racial 
 and religious lines, and that at Confederation those 
 lines disappeared, and the questions which had seri- 
 ously divided the old provinces were left to be settled 
 by the various provinces, and, as he very aptly said, 
 we have been a happy family ever since. I regret 
 that, by this bill, which, I presume, was left to him 
 as a legacy, a pledge to bring which before the House 
 was made before he became a member of the House 
 and a member of the Government, he should take 
 such action as must divide the country on racial and 
 religious lines. I believe that while these questions 
 were kept in the domain to which they properly 
 belong, that of the provinces, the provinces have 
 always settled them fairly and satisfactorily, and 
 each province has been satisfied and has done its part 
 to upbuild the Dominion. That being so, I all the 
 more regret that a bill should be brought forward 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 35 
 
 which will revive these racial and religious questions 
 in the House of Commons and in the Dominion, and 
 plunge us again into those very difficulties which 
 Confederation was intended to overcome. Now, sir, 
 with reference to another matter alluded to by the 
 honorable leader of the House, I have a few words 
 to say. He referred to the people of bigoted and 
 fanatical impulses, and he said the man who pro- 
 moted a war of races or creeds is an enemy to 
 Canada. I quite coincide with that statement ; I 
 believe that those who promote these difficulties are 
 enemies to Canada. But, while that is my belief, I 
 repudiate the implication that those who are opposing 
 this bill are open to be characterized by any such 
 words. It is not upon us who may think proper to 
 oppose this bill that the charge can be thrown that 
 we have done anything to promote racial or religious 
 strife. If we oppose this bill, as I shall oppose it at 
 every stage, at the same time I repudiate the implica- 
 tion that I am responsible for bringing this question 
 before the Parliament of Canada. Sir, this is a very 
 serious matter. The leader of the Government has 
 told us, this afternoon, that this is the most important 
 question that has come up since Confederation. 1 
 agree with him in that view, and I go this far in 
 saying that before that question was ever brought up 
 to be fought over in the Parliament of Canada, and 
 to create disturbance of a kind which we all must 
 deprecate and deplore, I say, that every effort should 
 have been made to prevent it. This is a new form of 
 
 - - r ^ --- - 
 
36 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 legislation, it is something unknown heretofore. It 
 is true, there is a provision for it on the statute-book, 
 there is a reserved power ; and the highest courts 
 have declared that we have the power to enact some 
 sort of legislation to remedy grievances, if grievances 
 exist. But I say that before we undertook to legis- 
 late in this way, every resort should have been 
 exhausted, every effort should have been made to 
 avoid it. I cannot agree with the statement that 
 every effort has been made to have the Province of 
 Manitoba settle this question themselves. I am forti- 
 fied in that opinion by the documents that have been 
 presented to the House, by the drastic order that was 
 made last March, asking the Province of Manitoba 
 practically to re-enact a system of Separate Schools 
 which previously existed, and which were found to 
 be wholly unsuitable to the circumstances and condi- 
 tions of the country, which were found to give a very 
 inadequate education to the children, and which was 
 productive of very poor results in every direction. 
 So I say that, for my part, though I shall oppose this 
 bill, I shall not quietly rest under the implication 
 that, by opposing it, I am promoting racial and 
 religious disturbance in the country. On the con- 
 trary, I say that the full responsibility of so doing 
 will rest upon the Government who have proposed 
 this legislation, who have thrust it upon the Con- 
 servative party ; because the Conservative party, as I 
 know it in the Province of Ontario, have not been, at 
 any time in m^ recollection at any rate, in accorcj 
 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 37 
 
 with the principles of this bill. Now, w^hat are the 
 facts of the case ? We have been told to-day that 
 there is a legal obligation, that there is a constitu- 
 tional order, as it were, and we were told by the 
 honorable leader of the Government, that it is not 
 a question of Separate Schools, but of the constitution. 
 Well, sir, when that matter was first brought before 
 the House of Commons, by way of resolution declar- 
 ing in favor of the creation of a court to investigate 
 these matters, a resolution moved by the Hon. Mr. 
 Blake, and seconded, I think, by the present leader of 
 the Opposition, there was no legal obligation contem- 
 plated then, nor is there to-day, for enforcing any 
 legislation that may be enacted. Sir John A. 
 Macdonald, who was then the leader of the Govern- 
 ment, asked Mr. Blake about this poii.t, when the 
 latter brought in the resolution : 
 
 "Of course, my honorable friend; in his resolu- 
 tion " — 
 
 (the resolution upon which the Act of Parliament was 
 
 founded) - 
 
 — "has guarded against the suspicion that such a 
 decision is binding upon the Executive." 
 The reply was: 
 
 " Such a decision is only for the information of the 
 Government, the Executive is not relieved from its 
 responsibility. The answer of the tribunal will be 
 simply for the information of the Government. The 
 Government may dissent from that position." 
 And that is the position of affairs in this case. An 
 opinion has been given by the Judicial Committee of 
 
38 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 tlie Privy Council, but that opinion is not a decision 
 binding upon us. In that decision the Privy Council 
 declared the constitutional powers of the Government 
 but did not declare a policy at all. But, Mr. Speaker, 
 because we have the power to legislate, does that 
 imply that we are under an obligation to legislate ? 
 It then becomes, sir, a political question. We have 
 power to-day to legislate upon insolvency, but we are 
 not doing so. We have power to-day to pass a 
 prohibitory liquor law, but that does not make it 
 compulsory on this Parliament to enact a prohibitory 
 liquor law. And so, in this case, it is clear we have 
 the power to enact some sort of legislation, though it 
 is questionable whether we have the power to go as 
 far as this bill goes, and such was the indication of 
 the Privy Council, not in the line of the bill we 
 have before us to-day, but some sort of legislation. 
 But, for my part, I am not disposed to split hairs on 
 that matte^', because I am opposed to the principle of 
 Separate Schools altogether. I do not believe they are 
 good ^or any country, and experience has proved that. 
 The Province of Manitoba, in their wisdom, abolished 
 the Separate School system after nineteen years' 
 experience, and, after five or six years' experience, 
 have twice, I believe, reaffirmed their adherence to 
 that system, and on the last occasion by a majority 
 almost unanimous, because both political parties in 
 the Province are conmiitted to the maintenance of the 
 Public School system. Therefore, I say, that the 
 people of Manitoba, who have the greatest interest ii^ 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. .S9 
 
 this matter, whose whole legislation would be affected 
 by this bill, if passed, have, by an almost unanimous 
 vote, decided that they are in favor of a Public as 
 against a Separate School system. But we are told 
 that the rights that w^ere granted previous to the 
 union have been infringed upon by provincial legisla- 
 tion. But, Mr. Speaker, the Privy Council, in the 
 case of Barrett against the City of Winnipeg, decided 
 that there was no infringemc..^. of rights previous 
 to the union; that there were no rights existing, 
 either by law or practice, that had been interfered 
 with. They further declared, that the legislation of 
 1890 establishing a Public School system was quite 
 within the powers of the Local Legislature. They 
 have reaffirmed that in their later decision, so that 
 the fact stands to-day, that the Local Legislature of 
 Manitoba, who, in their wisdom, have enacted a 
 Public School system, and abolished the Separate 
 School system, were acting (juite within the powers 
 which the Manitoba Act gave them. But we are told, 
 that rights and privileges were affected, and that 
 there was a grievance. But, Mr. Speaker, while there 
 may have been a grievance, it does not follow that 
 either a moral or a political wrong has been done. 
 The legal grievance referred to in the bill, consists in 
 the ab(3lition of a privilege heretofore granted, irre- 
 spective of whether tha^ privilege was founded on 
 justice or reason ; and the privilege has been with- 
 drawn. But a privilege was also given to the Pro- 
 testants of Manitoba that they should have Prot^^stant 
 
40 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 schools, because it said Protestants and Koman Catho- 
 lics. That privilege has been withdrawn from the 
 Protestants, so they have exactly, as I understand it, 
 the same grounds for grievance as the Roman Catho- 
 lics. But is it a grievance ? Is it a grievance that 
 the children of the Roman Catholic population have 
 supplied to them now efficient schools in place of 
 inefficient schools ? Is it a grievance that there is a 
 better system of education in the Province of Mani- 
 toba for all the children of the Province, both Protes- 
 tant and Catholic, than there was before ? Because 
 where two schools were established before, and where 
 the population was not sufficient to properly maintain 
 those two schools, there is one efficient Public School 
 to-day. But we are told : But these are Protestant 
 schools, and therefore you are doing an injustice to 
 the Roman Catholics by compelling them to send 
 their children there. To that I have to reply that 
 we have the opinion of the Privy Council exactly to 
 the contrary. The Privy Council, in their first 
 judgment oi Barrett vs. City of Winnipeg, said as 
 follows : 
 
 " They uinnot consent to the view which seems to 
 be indicated by one of the members of the Supreme 
 Court, that the Public Schools under the Act of 1«SJ)0 
 are in reality Protestant schools. The Legislature has 
 declared in so many words ; that the schools shall be 
 entirely unsectarian, and that principle is carried out 
 throughout the Act." 
 
 There is the evidence of tlie Privy Council after 
 
 examination as to what the law was, that the schools 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 41 
 
 are entirely unseetarian, and therefore there is no 
 such thing as compelling the children of Roman 
 Catholics to attend Protestant schools. In their late 
 decision the Privy Council reaffirmed, in almost similar 
 phraseology, their decision. They said : 
 
 " It is true that religious exercises prescribed for 
 the Public Schools are to be not distinctly Protestant, 
 for they are to be non-sectarian, and a parent may 
 withdraw a child from them." 
 
 So the schools now established, according to the 
 statement of the Privy Council which examined into 
 the question, are strictly non- sectarian. 
 
 Who are asking for the repeal of this Act ? They 
 are not, as I have shown, the people of Maniii'^ba, 
 because they are almost a unit in favor of its main- 
 tenance, and we have the best evidence to show, not 
 only that the Protestant population but a large sec- 
 tion of the Roman Catholic population are in favor of 
 the Public School system, because they know, as we 
 know here, that where a Public School system is only 
 in vogue there are more efficient schools, and better 
 progress is made by the pupils, a result that every 
 parent desires. Who, then, are they who are asking 
 for the repeal of the Public Schools Act of Manitoba ? 
 They are not, I affirm, the people of the Province of 
 Ontfirio. They are not the people of the great pro- 
 vince and of the Territories to the west of Manitoba. 
 I do not believe there is any province that would 
 willingly desire to interfere in the affiiirs of Manitoba, 
 because we had evidence in the Province of Quebec 
 
», ^ 
 
 42 hON. N. CLARkE WALLACE. 
 
 during the last bye-elections, when the strongest efforts 
 were made to secure the support of the electorate on 
 the plea that Separate Schools were to be re-estab- 
 lished in Manitoba, that the Government failed to 
 receive support on that ground, though, as I say, 
 strong appeals were made to the people. So we may 
 safely conclude that the people of the Province of 
 Quebec are not interested, as they should not be 
 interested, in forcing Separate Schools on the Pro- 
 vince of Manitoba. Then who are they who are forcing 
 these schools on the Province ? We have evidence 
 here, I am sorry to say, that the hierarchy are inter- 
 ested in doing so, and have interested themselves very 
 much. I will refer to that matter more particularly 
 later on. But, Mr. Speaker, I wish to call attention 
 to this fact, that if they succeed in forcing a Sepa- 
 rate School system on the Province of Manitoba 
 against the wishes of the people of that province, 
 they are not going to stop there. They will immedi- 
 ately demand that the same system be applied to the 
 Territories as they are formed into provinces, and 
 they will even make their demand without waiting 
 for the formation of the Territories into provinces ; 
 and we have evidence before us to-da}'^ that the Legis- 
 lature of the North- West Territories, or rather the 
 North- West Council, passed a school Act during the 
 last session of the council, but through some means 
 which we do not quite understand, although we know 
 the fact, the signature of the Lieutenant-Governor 
 was not given to the Act, and, tht^reforo, it did not 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 43 
 
 })econi(3 law. I have not lieard ot* any proper reason 
 given why the Governor did not affix his signature to 
 the document, which it was (juite within the power 
 of the North- West Council to enact, and therefore I 
 say there has been a miscarriage of law in some 
 respects, and we are told, and it has not been contra- 
 dicted, that this course was taken because of the 
 strong opposition of Archbishop Langevin, to the 
 measure, and in consequence of his protest. We do 
 know that the same course was attempted with 
 respect to legislation passed by the North- West 
 Council some years ago. I have here a copy of the 
 protest of Archbishop Langevin's predecessor, Arch- 
 bishop Tach^, sent to the Government against that 
 law, and calling on the Government to disallow it ; 
 but Sir John Thompson, who was then Minister of 
 Justice, refused to disallow it because the Council of 
 the Territories, he said, had not exceeded the powers 
 conferred on them by the Canadian Government ; 
 and as, therefore, the law was intra vires, he had not 
 the r\iy:ht to interfere. A strong feeling was aroused 
 against him by Archbishop Tache, because he refused 
 to disallow the Act. The same state of things pre- 
 vails to-day, and this explains the fact that the Act 
 passed by the North- West Council is not a law on the 
 statute books to-day. Not only will the hierarchy 
 go to the North-West Territories, if this bill is carried 
 in this House, and have the same law to establish 
 Separate Schools enacted there, but they will get 
 power to go back to the legislatures which have 
 
44 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 declared that they do not want Separate Schools. 
 They will go to British Columbia. Why not ? If 
 this law is right for Manitoba it must be right for 
 British Columbia. 
 
 An hon. Member — No. 
 
 Mr. Wallace — An hon. member says " No." I pre- 
 sume he thinks they would not want a Separate School 
 system there. 
 
 Mr. Amyot — It is not in the constitution. 
 
 Mr. Wallace — They will go and ask to have the 
 constitution altered. 
 
 Some hon. Members - Oh, oh. 
 
 Mr. Wallace — Why not ? If they have the right 
 to force this school system on Manitoba, they w411 
 claim the right to force it on British Columbia and 
 Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward 
 Island. We will then find ourselves in this position, 
 that every year there will be interference with the edu- 
 cational legislation of the various provinces. I hold 
 that we should approach this subject with the greatest 
 care — or rather we should not approach it at all — 
 because then; will be difficulties, and no man can see 
 Tthere the ditiiculties will end. Hon. gentlemen say 
 that the pa.s.'a.)^e of this Act now will settle the ques- 
 tion. TIhj very Act of itself is evidence to the con- 
 trary. What does the last clause say ? It reserves 
 t<i the Dominion Government further power, and the 
 power may be given as soon as it is shown that the 
 powers conferred by this bill are inade(|uate to the 
 proper carrying out of the terms of the Act. We 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. , 45 
 
 were told that the Separate Schools were granted to 
 the Province of Manitoba, First, because there was n< 
 treaty and by that treaty they were entitled to Sepa- 
 rate Schools. Mr. Speaker, there was no treaty that 
 gave them that right. There were four treaties, so- 
 called, or bills of rights, made up there. Two of 
 these were by a convention or a mass meeting of the 
 people ; there was one, at any rate, made by the pro- 
 visional government of Louis Riel, and the fourth 
 was said to be made, but I think the evidence is con- 
 clusive that the fourth so-called treaty, or bill of 
 rights, was a forgery. But, even if it were not a 
 forgery, and even if these third and fourth treaties 
 were in existence, the then Governor-General of 
 Canada, Sir John Young, refused to treat upon the 
 basis of these, because they were the product of a 
 rebellious government. He consented to treat upon 
 the basis of the first and second, which were from a 
 convention of citizens assembled in Winnipeg, and 
 this convention sent these Bills of Rights down here, 
 and had them brought before the people, and it was 
 the second of these which was the basis upon which 
 the Manitoba Act was founded. Therefore there is 
 no treaty. In the second Bill of Rights, and in the 
 first and third there is no mention of Separate Schools 
 of any form. In the fourth one, this bogus one, 
 which we claim, and which the evidence amply proves 
 was a bogus one, there is mention of Separate Schools ; 
 but that was never considered by Sir John Young or 
 by the Government of that time. Now, we are told. 
 
46 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, that by tlie law they should have Sepa- 
 rate Schools. But, sir, the decision of the Privy 
 Council, to which I have already alluded, does not 
 bear out that proposition. The decision of the Privy 
 Council does not make it compulsory in any way that 
 there should be a Separate School Act. Indeed, I 
 should say that the Privy Council does not give a 
 decision at all, but simply expresses an opinion to the 
 effect that : If the Parliament of Canada chooses to 
 enact such legislation within certain restricted limits, 
 it has power to do so. I claim that this Parliament 
 of Canada is as free as air to-day not to enact a 
 single line of legislation upon this matter. It becomes 
 a political question, and for the future prosperity of 
 this Dominion, for the future quietness of this 
 Dominion and its peace, I think that the Government 
 should stay their hand even now, and decide to with- 
 draw this bill. I say that, because the bill will 
 provoke disaster, it will provoke (quarrels, it will set 
 province against province, and race against race, and 
 religion against religion, and it will be of no benefit 
 whatever to those whom it is intended or designed 
 to serve. I say, sir, that the Government in this 
 matter have made a great mistake, and that it is not 
 too late yet for them to retrace their steps. Mr. 
 Speaker, there is not a line in the Public Schools Act 
 of Manitoba that interferes with the liberty of either 
 the parent or the child. It does not interfere in any 
 way with the liberty of the people to educate their 
 children in religious subjects as they may please. It 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 47 
 
 does not interfere in any way with any of the privi- 
 leges that it is proper they should enjoy. Therefore 
 the conscientious convictions of Eoman Catholics 
 amount to this. They say : We want our children 
 educated in the dogmas of our Church in the Public 
 Schools. F>ut, sir, I say that we have no right to 
 teach the dogmas of any Church in the Public Schools 
 of the country. If w^e acknowledge that right we 
 must concede it to every religious denomination. We 
 nmst give the same rights to the Presbyterians, to the 
 Methodists, to the Baptists, to the Mennonites and to 
 all the religious denominations in that country. Then 
 we would find ourselves in this position. One school 
 teaches what another school denies, in one school the 
 dogmas of one Church are taught, and in another 
 school the dogmas of another Church directly in oppo- 
 sition to it are taught. Sir, I say that they have no 
 right to do that at the expense of the State. Each 
 Church should do that at its own expense. I say it is 
 not the duty of the State to engage in such w^ork, and 
 I say that the State which undertakes to do it is 
 making a great mistake. Moreover, Mr. Speaker, 
 what is the experience of all countries in this respect ? 
 We know that in almost every country where they 
 have tried it, they are endeavoring to abolisi., or have 
 abolished it to-day. 
 
 The Separate School system — the ecclesiastical 
 system it may perhaps be more properly called — 
 has always been a failure in educating the people. It 
 is not the object of these ecclesia.stical schools to 
 
48 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 educate the people in the ordinary branches of educa- 
 tion, but the object is to inculcate the dogmas of their 
 ChurcJi ; and the history of all countries proves, that 
 they have always failed when they have undertaken 
 to teach, not only the dogmas of their Church but to 
 give a general education. Why, sir, look at our own 
 country. We go to foreign countries, and we see the 
 failure of such education there, but come down to our 
 own country, and what do we find ? I have here a 
 copy of the Montreal Gazette having information 
 bearing on the question, but before I refer to that, I 
 will speak of the failure of such an educational 
 system in other countries. They have tried the 
 education of the people by the Church in all countries, 
 and it is not confined to the Roman Catholics, because 
 the Church of England, and the Methodists, have all 
 had more or less of the idea in their minds, that their 
 school should be a church school. I repeat that it has 
 been a failure, wherever that has been tried. In 
 Belgium, which is almost exclusively a Roman 
 Catholic country, they have made the schools non- 
 sectarian. They have taken away the sectarian 
 schools and established non-sectarian schools in their 
 place. In Italy they have done the same thing, and 
 they had great need for it, and I am told they find 
 the most satisfactory results from the change, because 
 Italy, which was the cradle of the arts, had degener- 
 ated until almost half of the people were illiterate. 
 Now Italy has adopted the system of non-sectarian 
 sc]kk)1s and the people are getting a good educu- 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 49 
 
 tion. In Ireland the same result has been found. 
 They have established a system of national schools 
 there. In every province of Australia, the non- 
 sectarian S3^stem of schools has been established. 
 Then again, in the United States, our nearest neigh- 
 bor, we know that the greatest efforts have been made 
 by the archbishops, and bishops, and priests, and all 
 the dignitaries of the Church to attempt to fasten 
 upon the states of the union a sectarian system of 
 education. But, I believe that in every State of the 
 American union to-day, the non-sectarian is the 
 system of schools established by law. Here in 
 Canada, in the Province of Nova Scotia, in New 
 Brunswick, in Prince Edward Island, and in British 
 Columbia, we have non-sectarian schools and the 
 people get along without Separate Schools. In the 
 Province of Ontario we have sectarian schools, but the 
 fact is, that two- thirds of the Roman Catholic popula- 
 tion are to-day being educated in the Public Schools. 
 My honorable friend beside me says " No." Well, I 
 make the statement, and I make it on good evidence, 
 and I would ask that honorable gentleman to produce 
 proof to the contrary. In the Province of Ontario 
 two-thirds of the Roman Catholic pupils are educated 
 in the Public Schools, and there is no interference 
 with their religious convictions there. They get the 
 same fair-play as the Protestant pupils. I have the 
 evidence of Roman Catholic people in the locality 
 where I live that they are the strongest advocatos of 
 the Public School system under which they were 
 
50 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 educated themselves, and they are good members of 
 their Church, too. In the Province of Quebec we 
 have a system of Separate Schools, or rather of 
 religious schools, and I will read an extract from the 
 report of the Superintendent of Education for that 
 province, as published in the Montreal Gazette. In 
 his report for 1895, Mr. Boucher de la Bruere says : 
 
 " The country schools are not as good as they 
 might be. The children leave them without having 
 received a sufficiently lasting impression to make them 
 wish to increase their knowledge. ... To quote 
 from one inspectors report, the slow increase in 
 efficiency is due to the apathy of most of the members 
 of the School Board — too many of whom are unable to 
 read — to the indifference of parents to the miserable 
 salaries paid to teachers, which makes it difficult to 
 obtain competent ones. ... In one district, 
 another inspector declares, where 166 schools were in 
 operation, 38 teachers were without certificates, and 
 ^Q the year before. . . . Most of the teachers are 
 entirely ignorant of the first principles of pedagogics, 
 have no system in their work, and content themselves 
 by making their pupils learn their books by rote. 
 . . . The pupils recite their lessons fairly well, but 
 without understanding their meaning. . . . As it 
 is declared that the average salary to teachers is, in 
 some districts, $108 for ten months' work, and as 
 some must get considerably less than this, and as 
 these small wages are not always promptly paid, it is 
 not difficult to understand what is behind the teachers 
 indifference. ... To put it briefly, the people, in 
 too many cases, do not appreciate their duty to their 
 children in the way of education. They are content 
 to fit them to be hewers of wood and drawers of 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 51 
 
 water for their more fortunate or better educated 
 fellow-citizens." 
 
 In the face of that, I think it is not unfair to ask 
 those priests who have interested themselves so much 
 in the educational affairs of the Province of Manitoba 
 to pay a little more attention to the educational 
 affairs of the Province of Quebec, where it is so badly 
 needed. I have also a report in my hand upon the 
 operation of the Separate School system in this city of 
 Ottawa. In response to a complaint which was made, 
 the Hon. Geo. W. Ross, Minister of Education for the 
 Province of Ontario, appointed three commissioners to 
 visit the Separate Schools in this city, and gave them 
 full powers to investigate and report. In that report, 
 the first thing that attracts my attention is that the 
 teachers, whose duty it is to teach loyalty to the 
 children under their care, were themselves disloyal, 
 disobeying the instructivons of the Minister of Educa- 
 tion, who had ample power conferred upon him, and 
 who delegated ample power to these commissioners to 
 make the inquiry they did. Here is a portion of their 
 report : 
 
 " On arriving at this school the next morning, 
 Brother Director Mark informed them that ' his 
 higher superiors had given instructions that he was 
 not to allow the commissioners to examine the 
 classes.' They next visited La Salle school. Here 
 they were received by Brother Director Philadelphus, 
 who said ' he had orders not to allow the inquiry in 
 this school.' -^ - 
 
 " The commissioners retired, and having doul)ts as 
 '4 
 
52 HOy. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 to the extent of the resistance to be offf red, they 
 returned to La Salle school, and were informed by 
 Brotlier Philadelphus, that *as soon as the commis- 
 sioners entered a room, a brother in charge would 
 leave his class. The pupils would be allowed to 
 remain, and be at the disposal of the commissioners. 
 Nothing would be said to them (pupils), to set them 
 against the commissioners, the teacher would not 
 answer any (juestions the commissioners might ask 
 him. He (teacher) would give them no information 
 regarding his class. In fact, the resistance to the 
 inquiry meant everything short of using force.' This 
 view of the official instructions to the Brothers was 
 confirmed by Brother Director Mark, on whom your 
 commissioners called a second time, and both gentle- 
 men assured the commissioners that the same order 
 had been issued to all the Brothers in the city." 
 
 These gentlemen found they could not resist the 
 
 commissioners, but would have to submit. Then the 
 
 commissioners proceeded to examine the classes, and 
 
 they say : 
 
 " Thus, in a class of fifty-one boys of an average age 
 of over ten years, working in multiplication with a 
 multiplier of three figures, not one had the correct 
 answer to 7x8x2-3x7-7, written on the black- 
 board in this form. In a class of thirty-one boys, of 
 an average age of eleven, none had the right answer 
 to 7x8x4-6-2x9. In the other classes only a few 
 pupils got the correct result." 
 
 I might go on all through this book and show, per- 
 haps, not as bad a state of things as this, because it 
 could not be worse, but a general want of progress in 
 these schools. For instance, in a cbiss of tifteeii 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 53 
 
 pupils, seven failed to give a single correct answer ; in 
 a class of thirty-nine pupils, ten failed to give a single 
 correct answer; in a class of twenty-four pupils, 
 eleven failed to give a single correct answer ; o^nd so 
 on. But I will not take up the time of the House in 
 detailing these facts. I will simply say that all 
 through this book is to be found evidence of the utter 
 failure of the Separate School system in the city of 
 Ottawa. If that be the history of these schools here, 
 we do not need to go to the Province of Manitoba for 
 evidence of the inefficiency of the Separate Schools 
 there. We have the evidence furnished by the 
 Manitoba Government, by the inspectors there, by all 
 those in authority, that the whole system of Separate 
 Scliool education in Manitoba was utterly inefficient 
 — that the pupils did not get that education w^hich they 
 might properly be vrjxpected to get, and therefore the 
 system was changed and the Separate Schools were 
 abolished. 
 
 Now, I said a moment ago that I thought those 
 gentlemen, tl . members of the hierarchy in the Pro- 
 vince of Quebec and in other provinces who were 
 interesting themselves so much, might well devote 
 their energies to Improving their own schools, instead 
 of attempting to force upon Manitoba a system of 
 Separate Schools, which is not wanted by the people of 
 that province. The utterances of these gentlemen 
 are, in my opinion, utU'rly uncalled for, and are sub- 
 versive of the freedom of the peoph; of Canada ; and, 
 if they are not so already, such uttorancos should 
 
54 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 be made contrary to the law. In every election 
 that takes place an attempt is made by these gentle- 
 men to interfere and force their views, illegally, as I 
 contend, on the people of the country. I will just 
 read to you a small portion of a letter w^ritten by 
 Bishop Cameron, of Antigonish, during the recent 
 election contest in the County of Cape Breton. In 
 this letter he says : 
 
 " And yet we meet the appalling spectacle of a mul- 
 titude of men who are loud in their prayers of liberty 
 and justice and religion arrayed against remedial 
 legislation, the only available means under the consti- 
 tution of redressing that wrong, and then doing all 
 they can to perpetuate the monster evil, subversive of 
 religion, justice and liberty, in order to attain their 
 own selfish ends. In defiance of God, and to our 
 shame, among those hell-inspired hypocrites. Catholics 
 are to be found." 
 
 Now, Mr. Speaker, I object personally to be put in 
 that class even in such good company. 
 
 Mr. Foster — Your objections may not hold. 
 
 Mr. Wallace — I think they will hold with the 
 people of Canada. Now, we have another gentleman, 
 Archbishop Langevin, w^ho makes a statement as to 
 the duty of Catholics, with which I have not so much 
 to do, except to say that no archbishop has the right, 
 under the laws of this country, to interfere with the 
 free exercise of men s voting power. He has the right 
 to exercise his IVanchise without interference from 
 anybixly, but the hiws of this country prevent an 
 employer from intimidating an employee and prevent 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 55 
 
 one man interfering with another. And they apply 
 exactly to this case. Archbishop Langevin says as 
 follows : 
 
 "It has been said, falsely, that the Catholic hie- 
 rarchy in this Dominion of ours, is to settle the school 
 question. No, the Catholic heirarchy — you know it, 
 and I can say it plainly — the Catholic hierarchy lead 
 the Catholics in their religious convictions, and all 
 those who do not follow the hierarchy are not 
 Catholics. When the hierarchy has spoken there is 
 no use for any Catholic to say the contrary, for if he 
 does he is not longer a Catholic ; such a man may 
 carry the title, but I declare this as a bishop : I say 
 to-night, and I say it with plain authority, a Catholic 
 who does not follow the hierarchy on the school 
 question is no more a Catholic, and who will be the 
 one to entitle such a one to the name of Catholic ?" 
 
 Now, I contend that that is an intolerable species 
 of intimidation. The Roman Catholic bishops have 
 no right to intimidate any voter by any such penal- 
 ties. We know that the members of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, like the membei-s of every other 
 Church, desire to be in good standing with their 
 Church; and therefore, when they are read out of 
 that body, when they are deprived of those advantages 
 which the Church says it confers on members in good 
 standing, because they do not choose to follow the 
 dictates of that Church upon any (|ueation, that is 
 an intolerable interference with the liberty of the 
 subject. 
 
 15ut we Jiave still further an ultimatum from the 
 
56 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 Rev. M. M. Paquet, from Lav^al University, who writes 
 to the press as follows : 
 
 " Rev. L. A. Paquet, of Laval University, in con- 
 formity to the desire of the episcopal authority of his 
 diocese, Archbishop Begin, and with his express 
 approval wrote to VEvenement a two-column letter 
 on February 18tli, from which the following is taken : 
 
 " Is it not infinitely better, therefore, that, having 
 the right and the occasion, the central power should 
 raise up a rampart of religious justice and protection, 
 that will resist all winds and all tempest ? I may add 
 that, given a party spirit which so profoundly divides 
 our public men, it is not from a particular political 
 group that we can look for the force of union necessary 
 to rally under the same banner all Catholics. The 
 hierarchy alone can hope to produce this union by 
 calling upon our legislators, and especially upon those 
 whose conscience it controls, to rise for a moment 
 above the temporal interests which animate them to 
 forget their political divisions and, taking the judg- 
 ment of the Privy Council of England as their starting 
 point to make it a solid basis of a truly remedial law. 
 To the ecclesiastical power, then, belongs the right to 
 judge whether the interference should take place in 
 the form of command or of counsel." 
 
 It evidently has taken the form of command in 
 some cases : 
 
 " And when the interference takes an imperative 
 form, as in the case of the Manitoba schools, only one 
 thing remains to be done by the faithful, and that is 
 to ol>cy." 
 
 An lion. Member — That strikes you. 
 
 Mr. Wallace — No, but I am afraid it does strike 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. ' 5? 
 
 some in this House, because I remember hearing that 
 the hon. member for Ottawa County (Mr. Devlin) 
 who went down to Cape Breton, was one of the 
 loudest there in his desire to resent any attempt at 
 interference. 
 
 Mr. Devlin — Were you there ? 
 
 Mr. Wallace — I was not, but I was told it by a 
 member of Parliament who was there ; and we are 
 now told by the public press that the hon. gentleman 
 is now in the position of Davy Crockett's coon who 
 exclaimed, " Don't shoot. Colonel, I will come down." 
 And the hon. gentleman has come down. Mr. Paquet 
 went on to say : 
 
 " And when that interference takes the imperative 
 form, as in the case of the Manitoba schools, only one 
 thing remain.^: to be done by the faithful, and that is 
 to obey." 
 
 Now, I see that the functionaries of the Roman 
 Catholic Church claim that it is the duty, not only of 
 the electors but of members of Parliament, to obey 
 them, and that is another interference or attempted 
 interference with vhe rights and freedom of the 
 Canadian people, which should not be tolerated, and 
 will not be tolerated either. 
 
 Now, a good deal has been said about a commission 
 to investigate this matter; and I think the hon. 
 member for Winnipeg (Mr. Martin) was loudest in his 
 demand for a commission. Why, what does he want 
 a commission for ? Is it to get at the facts ? I am 
 told he is the author of this Act of hSDO, which we 
 
58 ' HON. N. CLAUKE WALLACE. 
 
 are called on to abolish, and surely he made a full 
 investigation before framing that Act. If he did not, 
 he should have, before he undertook to pass that law. 
 We heard that he made an investigation and that he 
 found the Separate Schools were very defective — not 
 only defective but utterly useless — and should be 
 abolished, and they were abolished accordingly ; and 
 I cannot see exactly why he should demand a com- 
 mission or what good a commission could do him. I 
 suppose his intention is to enlighten his fellow-mem- 
 bers on this subject. But there is another way of 
 proceeding. While I think a commission is utterly 
 unnecessary, I believe that a convention or a meeting 
 of the two governments, or of representatives of these 
 two governments, would have smoothed away many 
 of the difficulties which are now presented to us. But 
 some say : But you are opposed to Separate Schools 
 altogether. So I am. I do not think this bill should 
 have been brought into the House of Commons at 
 all. I do not think that a Separate School Bill should 
 be passed anywhere. But, if the Province of Manitoba, 
 after passing a Separate School Bill, choose to reverse 
 their decision, that is a thing with which the other 
 provinces have no right to interfere. The Confedera- 
 tion Act gives the various provinces power to establish 
 Separate Schools if they so desire, and I presume it is 
 not the business of any other province to interfere 
 with them if they embody that desire in the shape of 
 a statute. So that, if there are any grievances of any 
 kind — which I Ciinnot see, for m}^ part — the people of 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 59 
 
 the Province of Manitoba are the people to remedy 
 those grievances. But they have stated that they 
 will not establish a system of Separate Schools in the 
 country, because they have had experience of Separate 
 Schools, and they have had an experience of a Public 
 School system, and they prefer the latter to the 
 former. 
 
 I am sorry that the question has been brought 
 before the House of Commons, and that it has become a 
 bone of contention in every province of the Dominion. 
 For this aofitation is not confined to the Province of 
 Manitoba, but is going on in every province. At a 
 time when the people of Canada should be, if possible, 
 more united than ever ; at a time when the Old Land 
 is menaced and threatened by enemies who are jealous 
 of her gi^eatness, her power, and her pre-eminence 
 among the nations, instead of bringing in here a pro- 
 posal that must divide the people of Canada, we 
 should carefully avoid all such questions and should 
 join together, as we did in the resolutions passed the 
 other day, and« presenting a united front, should be 
 ready to assure the people of Great Britain that we 
 have sunk our minor differences, and are determined 
 to do our duty as a portion of the great Empire in 
 maintaining its supremacy both on sea and on land. 
 In this view, it is all the more unfortunate that we 
 have this bill and this contentious subject thrust upon 
 the people. I hope the bill will not become law, for, 
 if it does, it will only mark the commencement of 
 litigation and serious disturbance throughout tlie 
 
60 
 
 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 Dominion. The matter does not end with the passage 
 of this bill, for the bill itself provides for further 
 legislation. And we know that the people of Manitoba 
 will resist as strongly as they can, legally and con- 
 stitutionally, the attempt to force upon them a 
 system of education obnoxious to them. They will 
 bring the bill before the courts, testing its constitu- 
 tionality and in every other constitutional way they 
 will resist it. I shall, therefore, have pleasure in 
 recording my vote against the bill and in favor of 
 the six months' hoist, as moved by the hon. loader of 
 the Opposition. 
 
 Then, when two days after, the news reached us 
 that T. S. Sproule, M.P., had followed in the same line, 
 going fully into the history of the whole matter, we 
 felt assured that Manitoba would not be coerced, and 
 coerced she has not been. And now we deem it only 
 right to place that speech so able and opportune 
 beside that the reader has already perused. 
 
 ^^ 
 
SPEECH OF T. S. SPROULE, M.P., ON THE 
 REMEDIAL ACT, MANITOBA. 
 
 Ottawa, Thursday, March 5th, 1896. 
 
 Mr. Sproule — In rising to continue this debate I 
 must first express the regret which I experience in 
 being obHged to differ with political friends with 
 whom I have been associated for a long- time and with 
 whose lines of policy I have usually worked in hearty 
 accord. It is a matter for regret amongst politicians 
 on either side of the House when they find themselves 
 out of accord with the political party with which they 
 have worked many years, and you readily understand, 
 Mr. Speaker, as I have no doubt the House does, that 
 it is a very strong provocation which will induce any 
 member of Parliament to go against his own political 
 party. It is only the conscientious convictions which 
 I hold on this question, and the interpretation which 
 I put upon the constitution that we have heard so 
 much about of late, and the understanding I have 
 with regard to the rights of the majorities and 
 minorities, that induce me to take the stand which 
 
62 
 
 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 I take to-night. But we owe a duty to our country as 
 well as to our party, and there will sometimes come 
 in most men's lives a time when they are obliged to 
 leave party, and stand for what they regard as the 
 best interest of the country. As representatives of 
 the people we are sent here, as far as possible to 
 reflect the views and the sentiments and the wishes 
 of our constituents in whatever part of the country 
 they live. In endeavoring to do that to-night, I am 
 about to speak on the line which I have mapped out. 
 We are asked in connection with this debate, what 
 duty we owe to our constituents ? The hon. member 
 for North Grey (Mr. Masson) my colleague, who spoke 
 on this question last night, said that it is not usual 
 for the Government to submit a question to the people 
 by way of a plebiscite ; but they go up and dow^n the 
 country, and hold meetings; they watch the press of the 
 country, and by that means endeavor to ascertain the 
 sentiments of the people, and then to keep themselves 
 in accord with those sentiments in discharging their 
 duties as legislators or as a Government. Now, if 
 that be the case, and I presume it is a fair exposi- 
 tion of the case, I wonder how hon. gentlemen sup- 
 porting the Government of the day and composing 
 the Government of the day can justify their posi- 
 tion upon this question, or pretend to say that they 
 are in accord with the sentiment of the country. At 
 the outset, I may say that I regret to find that the 
 Government are, in my judgment, so much out of 
 - accord with the sentiment of the country. Wliy do I 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 63 
 
 say so ? How do I estimate or gauge public sentiment 
 on this matter ? I take the press of the country, from 
 one end of it to the other, especially that press which 
 represents the political party to which I belong, and 
 which endeavors to give voice to their sentiments, to 
 defend their policy, to support their conduct ; and I 
 say that the Government must regret to-day to find 
 that there is scarcely an important Conservative paper 
 which is defending them and their policy in endeav- 
 oring to pass the bill that is before the House. If 
 you go from Prince Edward Island in the east to Vic- 
 toria in the west, and look over the Conservative 
 papers in this country, I think you might count on 
 the five fingers of your hand all those that come out 
 and give a straightforward support of this measure, 
 and of the policy of the Government in attempting to 
 pass it. Then I take the independent press of the 
 country. I might mention a few of them, but they 
 are so well known to this House and to the people 
 that it is scarcely necessary for me to do so. But it 
 would not be out of place to ask, in reference to 
 those papers that have supported the Government so 
 strongly in the past, where are they to-day ? The 
 only one that is giving even a half-hearted support to 
 their policy is the Mail and Empire, of Toronto ; and 
 yet it has never, so far as my judgment enables me 
 to understand it, adduced any respectable argument 
 either to defend or justify their course to-day. If w^e 
 leave out of account the Mail and Empire, w^here do 
 wie find the rest of the papers ? Where do we fipd 
 
64 ' HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 the World, the next greatest exponent of the princi- 
 ples of the Conservative party ? We find that it is 
 arrayed against the Government's course on this ques- 
 tion. Where do we find the Toronto News ? Where 
 do we find the Toronto Telegram ? Where do find we 
 the Toronto Star ? Where do we find the Hamilton 
 Spectator ? I might go over the whole list, and I find 
 in almost every instance that those papers are arrayed 
 against the party, and they believe that they are 
 voicing the public sentiment. Then, if they are 
 voicing public sentiment, how can the Government 
 to-day be in accord with that public sentiment ? If it 
 be the duty of the Government to reflect public senti- 
 ment in their legislation, then I ask how can they 
 square this legislation with the sentiment of the 
 country, as expressed by these papers ? Now we are 
 told by the hon. member for North Grey that in 
 order to ascertain what public sentiment is, the 
 Government go out into the country and hold poli- 
 tical meetings. Well, if I take the expression of the 
 public meetings that have been held in this country, 
 do I find any stronger evidence of public sentiment 
 being wdth them than it is as expressed through the 
 press ? I can assure you that the verdict of the people 
 is to the contrary, as expressed in public meetings 
 that have been held for the last two or three years 
 in every part of the country. Why, they have 
 scarcely gone upon a single platform and dared to 
 say that in the end they were bound to pass reme- 
 dial legislation, and asked the electorate of this 
 
 / 
 :?' 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 65 
 
 country to endorse it, and where the electorate have 
 endorsed it. When they went into North Oatario 
 and put up their candidate, w^hat were they obliged 
 to do ? They were obliged to have their candidate 
 keep from the knowledge of the electorate his inten- 
 tion regarding remedial legislation, as they knew, 
 otherwise, that he could not receive the support of the 
 people. I ask the hon. gentleman from North Ontario 
 (Mr. McGillivray) what course did he take in trying 
 to induce the electorate to support him ? He said : I 
 am not going to be pledged in this matter ; but I 
 point you to my record in the past as to what you 
 may expect from me in the future. Have I not gone 
 through two or three political fights in the Province 
 of Ontario ? 
 
 Mr. McGillivray — The hon. gentleman is mis- 
 stating my pccition in North Ontario. 
 
 Mr. Sproule — In what respect, I would like to 
 know, am I misstating the hon. gentleman's position ? 
 I was going on to say that according to what I read 
 in the papers which reported him pretty extensively, 
 his language was to this effect: The electorate of 
 this county know my record, because I have fought 
 two political fights in provincial campaigns on this 
 question. They know the stand I have taken on the 
 question of Separate Schools ; they know what I have 
 said. Now, then, I tell you that I am standing to-day 
 upon the same ground that I have always stood. Now, 
 Mr. Speaker, what was that ground ? Was it in sup- 
 port of a remedial law which would force Separate 
 
66 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 Schools on Manitoba, or was it against it ? Why, if I 
 understand the ground the hon, gentleman has taken 
 in the past, it was that when Ontario and Quebec 
 entered into a compact at the time of Confederation ^ 
 they accepted these Separate Schools as an arrange- 
 ment between the two provinces. They are here to 
 stay, and we cannot help it. But I shall never sup- 
 port their extension into any other province or any 
 other part of the country. That was the record upon 
 which that hon. gentleman sought election, and it was 
 upon that record that the people accepted him. But 
 had that hon. gentleman come out plainly and told 
 the electorate of North Ontario : I am going dow^n to 
 vote for remedial legislation — I am assr ;ed by men 
 who ought to know the situation, that he would 
 have been buried under a majority of nearly a thou- 
 sand votes in his own riding. Is that an evidence that 
 the Government are fully entitled to accept as voicing 
 public sentiment in favor of this legislation ? No ; I 
 say it is not. Then if I go to Card well, what does 
 public sentiment tell me there ? It tells me that the 
 Government candidate who had apparently, at least, 
 come out and admitted that he was prepared to sup- 
 port the policy laid down by the Government upon 
 this question of remedial legislation, was buried under 
 a liopeless mass of votes ; he was buried so far as his 
 political life is concerned, never to rise again, at least 
 in that constituency. But the hon. gentleman who 
 frankly opposed the policy of remedial, legislation, 
 was accorded the support of the majority of the 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 67 ' 
 
 voters of Cardwell, and public sentiment declared 
 against interference with Manitoba. Then the Gov- 
 ernment went down to Montreal Centre and tested 
 public sentiment there. But did public sentiment 
 endorse the legislation they propose to-day? No, 
 sir; but the candidate who was put up to oppose 
 them now sits in this House in opposition to the 
 Government. Then they tested public sentiment in 
 Jaccjues Cartier, and met with the same response. 
 Look also at the result of their efforts in Vercheres. 
 In fact, in almost every constituency where they have 
 tested public sentiment up to the present time, they 
 have been defeated. They went down to Cape Breton 
 to elect the hon. Secretary of State, and by a hercu- 
 lean effort, by dint of exercising all the power they 
 could bring to bear, they did manufacture sufficient 
 public sentiment to endorse their present course. But 
 I say there are many men of intelligence to-day who, 
 as I read in the public press, are observing the signs 
 of the times as indicated in the way we judge public 
 sentiment, and who have come to the conclusion that 
 the voice of the country is against the Government in 
 this attempt to interfere vnth the rights of Manitoba. 
 There is no mistaking it, arid if hon. gentlemen consti- 
 tuting the Government do not believe it to-day, a time 
 will come when they will rucognize it, when at the 
 elections the people will speak with a voice so strong 
 that they cannot misunderstand it, and many mem- 
 bers who now fail to recognize that voice, as indicated 
 by public sentiment, will be left in the laiuority after 
 5 
 
68 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 the votes have been counted, and they will then recog- 
 nize that they misunderstood public sentiment and 
 acted contrary to it. 
 
 Mr. Sproule — Mr. Speaker, in continuing the de- 
 bate on this most important subject, I may refer for 
 a few seconds to the portion of it under consideration 
 when you left the Chair at six o'clock. I was 
 endeavoring to give then what, according to my 
 judgment, was public opinion and public sentiment 
 on this measure, and how far they were in accord 
 with the action of the Government in dealing ^vith 
 this most important measure. There is no doubt 
 that no (piestion which has engaged the attention of 
 Parliament for a great man}^ years in this country is 
 regarded as of as much importance as the one before 
 the House to-day. On this question above all others, 
 you might naturally look to the press of the country 
 for an exposition of public sentiment, and also as 
 manifested by public gatherings, through church 
 assemblies and similar channels. I was endeavoring 
 to show that if we examine the press of the country 
 there can be no mistake as to what public sentiment 
 is, because while the press supporting the (lovern- 
 ment in their policy, their National Policy, their 
 measures relating to the fast steamship line an(i the 
 development of trade, and on ahiiost every other line 
 of policy which has been under consideration during 
 "^ the last fifteen or sixteen years, those journals have 
 ^, been notably silent as regards saying anything endors- 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 69 
 
 ing the measure now under the consideration of the 
 House. On the contrary, there is scarcely a Conser- 
 vative paper in the country but has given out some 
 discordant sound, some note of warning, some sugges 
 tion which might induce the Government to abandon 
 what very many regard as an insane course they are 
 following at the present time and desist from seeking 
 to force on an unwilling province a bill that will take 
 away rights that every province has heretofore 
 enjoyed, which the Province of Manitoba has hereto- 
 fore enjoyed, and which in the opinion of the large 
 majority of the people it should enjoy in the future. 
 So far as my judgment goes, there can be no mistake 
 as to what public opinion is. Then if the Govern- 
 ment are running counter to public opinion and 
 thereby lose the support of their own friends, they 
 should not blame their friends, but rather blame their 
 own blindness that leads them in a channel which 
 compels their friends to desert them. 
 
 Why do I oppose this bill at the present time ? I 
 oppose it because it is making a serious inroad on 
 principles which have been heretofore regarded as 
 sound. What are those principles ? This bill is 
 interfering in the first place with the rights of the 
 Province. There is no one who is ac<|uainted with 
 the history of Canada and has watched closely affairs 
 during the last twelve or fifteen years who failed to 
 regard with a good deal of suspicion anything that 
 raises the (|ue8tion of provincial rights or causes 
 antagonism between any province and the Federal 
 
70 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 Goveriiiueiit, because we have had several fights in 
 this country on that line, and the lesson taught is to 
 avoid in future as much as possible any interference 
 with the rights of the provinces. Only a few years 
 ago we had a very great struggle on provincial rights, 
 it occurring on the Streams Bill. Two or three 
 enactments were passed by the Provincial Legislature, 
 They were disallowed by the Dominion Government 
 on the (juestion as to the right of a province to 
 control streams within its own territories. What was 
 the result ? When the question was taken to the 
 courts, the highest court of the Empire decided 
 against the Dominion. In the meantime a very 
 strong feeling had been aroused. The agitation that 
 had been carried on against the Dominion Govern- 
 ment for interfering with what a great many regarded 
 as the rights of the Province had created a feeling of 
 antagonism against the Dominion Government, which 
 threatened to be very serious. But for the fact that 
 the highest court of the Empire decided against the 
 Dominion Government and in favor of the Provincial 
 Government controlling those rights, we do not know 
 how the agitation would have ended, or what dis- 
 astrous results would have flowed from it. Then we 
 had a struggle as regards the claims of a province to 
 own minerals and timber. This again involved the 
 question of provincial rights, end ended in a decision 
 against the Dominion, and the Province was secured 
 in the rights which it enjoys to-day, and which the 
 people thought they were entitled to enjoy at that 
 
tiON. K. CLARKE WALLACE. 71 
 
 time. That contention also raised a great deal of 
 agiti t/ion. This agitation which went on, intensified 
 and accentuated the feeling that the provinces should 
 know what rights belonged to them, and be accorded 
 those rights without any interference. Then we had a 
 question of provincial rights somewhat similar to the 
 very important question which is now under discus- 
 sion. Hon. gentlemen will remember that we passed 
 the Canadian Pacific Railway Act, and by that Act 
 we practically took away the right of the Province to 
 charter local railways, a right which all the provinces 
 had enjoyed up to that time ; or, in other words, we 
 put a monopoly clause in the charter of the company, 
 which prevented the Manitoba Government from 
 exercising what was the undoubted right of every 
 province, to grant charters for railways within its 
 own territory. What was the result ? A very serious 
 fight took place, a very strong agitation was carried 
 on. It was considered a grievance which at the time 
 was difficult to remove. And what was the result 
 of that agitation, and what was the result of 
 that strife / We were obliged to buy back that 
 monopoly from the Canadian Pacific Railway at a 
 very great cost, for the purpose of appeasing the 
 feeling and the anxiety of Manitoba, and we were 
 obliged to give them back the power which they 
 thought, under the constitution, they should enjoy, 
 and which they complained was unfairly taken from 
 them. Until that was done we had nothing like a 
 settlement of that question. All these things have 
 
72 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 tended to create a feeling of antagonism between the 
 Government of Manitoba and the Dominion Parlia- 
 ment. Then, after that, we had what was known as 
 the Jesuits' Estates Act. That was a question dealt 
 with in this House and discussed at very great 
 length. Upon what ground did we, who voted with 
 the Government upon that occasion, justify the vote 
 which we gave ? It was solely upon the ground — I 
 speak at least for myself — that we were upholding 
 the rights of the Province of Quebec. We got our 
 information upon that question from a source which 
 v/ould be regarded as sufficient authority to satisfy 
 most members of the House. We got our advice from 
 the late Right Hon. Sir John A. Macdonald. We 
 were told that at Confederation the rights of the pro- 
 vinces were laid down, and amongst these undoubted 
 rights were : first, the control of the land within their 
 bounds, to sell that land, to give it away, or to use it 
 as they saw fit. We were told that the right of the 
 control of educational affairs rested with the pro- 
 vinces. We were told that it did not matter whether 
 it accorded with the views of the majority of the 
 Dominion Parliament or not, the right of the Province 
 was to control its educational affairs. We were told 
 that, so long as the provinces raised money according 
 to the ways laid down in the British North America 
 Act, it <lid not matter how they spent it. It was said 
 to us, that the provinces might grant licenses to raise 
 money, or they might sell their lands to raise money ; 
 but, so long as they raised it according to the consti- 
 
fiON. N. CLAtlKE WALLACE. 73 
 
 tution, they could use it for any purpose they desired, 
 no matter whether it was agreeable to outsiders or 
 not. I remember distinctly putting a question to the 
 Rififht Hon. Sir John A. Macdonald about that. I 
 said : Suppose that a Province should pass a law to 
 use money for a purpose which, in the judgment of 
 the Dominion Parliament, and in the judgment and 
 the wisdom of the people of Canada, would be detri- 
 mental to the interests of the Dominion, or to the 
 interests of the other provinces, or even to the 
 interests of the Province itself, would the Dominion 
 Parliament be justified in vetoing that law^ ? And Sir 
 John Macdonald' s answer was : So long as they raised 
 that money in the manner laid down under the con- 
 stitution it is a matter of unconcern to us, and it is 
 none of our business, if they pitched that money into 
 the St. Lawrence or into the fire. And he further 
 said : They have sold a portion of what was their own 
 land, and they have raised money ; they are now 
 using this money on educational lines, and they are 
 entitled to do so, and, whether it is agreeable or dis- 
 agreeable to us, it is the right of the Province, and we 
 must be satisfied with it. Upon that understanding, 
 and believing the right hon. gentleman to be a 
 greater authority than I on provincial rights, although 
 it was against my judgment, and although it was 
 against the judgment of my constituents, I supported 
 the Government on that occasion. And, sir, I 
 remember that the Riglit Hon. Sir John Macdonald 
 said, in answer to the same question : It may come 
 
74 HON. N. CLAUKE WALLACE. 
 
 back to you in the Province of Ontario to-morrow, 
 and how could you be so inconsistent as to oppose the 
 right of the Province of Quebec to deal with her own 
 land, her own i .oney, and her own education, if, on 
 a similar question arising in the Province of Ontario, 
 you were obliged to vote the other way ? Those were 
 the arguments then used by Sir John Macdonald, in 
 the case of the Jesuits' Estates Act. 
 
 Now, sir, I regard this present question as being on 
 the same lines. Manitoba has seen fit to deal with 
 education. It ^* ^ the right of that province to deal 
 with that ma a ^r. It is true., it is said, that Manitoba 
 can deal .v^ith it only within certain limits. I admit, 
 there is a proviso in that, but it has been the gener- 
 ally accepted principle heretofore that every province 
 had the uncontrolled right to deal with education, 
 and every province had used that right according to 
 its will, and there has been no interference with it up 
 to the present time. This is the first time in Canadian 
 history that we have been asked to interfere with 
 that right of a province. We are asked now to 
 endorse a principle, the very opposite of the principle 
 we stood by, when the Province of Quebec was 
 making a fight for her rights. We stood by the Pro- 
 vince of Quebec then on a question which was very 
 unpopular with us, which, in the judgment of many, 
 was wrong ; but we stood by the principle, believing 
 that we stood up for the rights of a province. If 
 that rule is applied to the Province of Quebec, then, 
 why should it not be applied to the Province of 
 
HON. N. CLARltE WALLACE. 75 
 
 Manitoba to-day ? The same that appHes to one 
 should apply to the other ; the same rights the one 
 provir ce has, the other province ought to enjoy. Sir, 
 I oppc se this bill because it prevents the will of the 
 majority from being carried out. The invariable 
 principle is, that majorities must rule. Some say, 
 that iiajorities should not always rule, but they do 
 rule in every walk of life. If you go into a business 
 corpoi ation, the majority rules; if you go to a church 
 meeting, the majority rules; if you go to a township 
 council, the majority rules. 
 
 Mr. Devlin — If you go to Turkey, the majority 
 rules, jOo. 
 
 Mr. Mills (J^nnapolis) — And the majority in 
 heathen r'ountries rules. 
 
 Mr. Sproule — I am talking about civilized life, as 
 we understand it in the British Empire. I say that 
 in eve^y part of the British Empire it is regarded as 
 the coirect principle that the majority shall rule, and 
 whate>'er decision the majority comes to, it is gener- 
 ally recognized to be right. Now, it does not matter 
 whether you apply the principle to a township 
 council or to a municipal corporation, the principle 
 that the majority rules is the principle that holds 
 good. Why should a rule the reverse of this be 
 applied to the Province of Manitoba ? In the Pro- 
 vincial Legislature there, the majority rules. In 
 this very House the majority rules by their voice. 
 Whethe" the minority acquiesces in the principles 
 promulgated or not, it does not matter; the majority 
 
76 HON. K. CLARICE WALLACE. 
 
 rules. The Province of Manitoba has rights, or she 
 thinks she has rights, which she was entitled to 
 enjoy, and, according to her understanding of her 
 rights, she is dealing with a question in which she is 
 vitally interested. A large majority of her people 
 have come to the solemn conclusion, that it is in their 
 interests and the interests of their province, that they 
 shall in future have a different system of education 
 from what they had had up to the year 1890. And 
 yet to-day we are trying to prevent that majority 
 from ruling in the Province of Manitoba. We are 
 told, that this is something embodied in the constitu- 
 tion, and that therefore it should be held most sacred, 
 and we should not disturb it. There is no doubt 
 there is some show of argument for those who hold 
 that view, and I will deal with it later on. I have 
 here the debates which took place in 1865 and 1866, 
 when they were trying to bring about Confederation, 
 and I have looked at the discussions which took place 
 upon the resolutions on which the British North 
 America Act was founded. I see here one of the 
 eminent men of that day, forecasting what might be 
 the dangerous result, if you insist in taking away the 
 rights of the majorities. And to-day, in the light of 
 experience, it seems to me to be verified to the letter. 
 John Sandfield Macdonald, who was a Roman Catholic, 
 was speaking against that provision of this resolution, 
 which was intended to place upon provinces rights 
 for minorities which could never be changed, no 
 matter what the changed condition of the country or 
 
ttON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 77 
 
 character of the people. He moved a resolution in 
 opposition to that, and, in supporting his resolution, 
 he said : 
 
 " I rise, sir, to propose another amendment. I can 
 assure the House that I never knew a measure of 
 anything like this in importance go through with so 
 few attempts to amend it. Nor do I rise for the mere 
 purpose of putting my amendment on record, for I do 
 feel that the views I am about to express, and which 
 I have ever held since I have been a member of this 
 House may not commend themselves to any consider- 
 able number of the members. I have no desire that 
 the rights of the Roman Catholic minority of Upper 
 Canada should be abridged." 
 
 He had no desire that they should be abridged, but 
 he refused to endorse the principle that the resolution 
 granting them should be perpetual. 
 
 " I have no desire that the rights and privileges of 
 any other denomination shall be interfered with in 
 any respect; but I wish hon. members to bear in 
 mind that the experience w^e have had in this country, 
 not to allude to that of the neighboring State, proves 
 that a denial of the right of the majority to legislate 
 on an^ given matter has always led to grave con- 
 sequences. I need only mention the Clergy Reserve 
 question. This, it must be recollected, was forbidden 
 to be legislated upon by the Union Act ; yet it was 
 the cause of fierce strife and legislation for many 
 years. The original constitution of the United States 
 prohibited the question of slavery from being inter- 
 fered with by Congress ; yet an agitation for its sup- 
 pression was early commenced, and has at last ter- 
 minated in civil war. The agitation of the Clergy 
 
78 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 Reserve (|uestioii produced a rebellion in Upper 
 Canada. I say, sir, that by making a constitutional 
 restriction in respect to the schools of the minority, 
 we are sowing the seeds from which will in the end 
 arise a serious conflict, unless the constitution be 
 amended. The minority will be safe on a question 
 relating to their faith and their education in a colony 
 under the sway of the British Crown ; but if you 
 expressly withdraw that question from the control of 
 the majority, the rights of the minority will not be 
 safe in either section of the Province, if you distrust 
 the action of the majority. It is our duty, sir, to see 
 that a question which affects us so dearly as the edu- 
 cation of our children — a question which has before 
 now created no little excitement in Upper Canada — 
 shall not be withdrawn from the management of the 
 Local Legislature. We ought not to deprive them of a 
 power which they will want to exercise, just because 
 they are deprived of it, and provoke a desire on their 
 part to alter the system. You may rely upon it other 
 religious bodies will be sure to protest against any 
 particular creed having special rights, or an exclusive 
 monopoly of certain privileges, whatever they may 
 be. I should be astonished if anyone in this House 
 would say, either to the Protestant minority in Lower 
 Canada or to the Roman Catholic minority in Upper 
 Canada : " You are not to trust to the justice of the 
 majority." Have they ever known a country where 
 the majority did not control affairs and where the 
 minority had not to submit ? 
 
 And yet we are asked to-day to prevent the majority 
 in Manitoba controlling the affairs of that province, 
 although we have never known a civilized country 
 where it was not the case that the majority controlled 
 and the minority submitted. He goes on : 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 79 
 
 " Does not the majority rule and the minority sub- 
 mit in England and in France ? I have never heard 
 of any case where this was not the case. The minority 
 is safe against undue encroachment on its right, and 
 I am willing to trust to the sense of justice of tlie 
 majority of Upper Canada to preserve the religious 
 and educational liberties of the Roman Catholics of 
 Upper Canada. I am now getting somewhat ad- 
 vanced in years, and I am the more anxious to put 
 my opinions on record, because before long I shall 
 have the satisfaction of saying, though perhaps not 
 on the floor of this House, that I protested against 
 resolutions intended to prevent the free expression of 
 opinion by the majority of the people of Upper 
 Canada, and the exercise of a power which ought to 
 be entrusted to them." 
 
 We can see to-day, in the light of experience, the 
 foresight and intelligence of the late John Sandfield 
 Macdonald in the forecasting what might be the result 
 if the rights of the majority in a province were taken 
 away, and they were not allowed to exercise the 
 rights that belong to every civilized country. He 
 went on to move a resolution as follov/s : 
 
 " That the following words be added to the original 
 motion : ' And that it be an instruction to the said 
 committee to consider whether any constitutional 
 restriction which shall exclude from the Local Legis- 
 lature of Upper Canada the entire control and 
 direction of education, subject only to the approval or 
 disapproval of the general Parliament, is not calcu- 
 lated to create widespread dissatisfaction, and tend to 
 foster and create jealousy and strife between the 
 various religious bodies in that section of th$ 
 Province/ " 
 
80 
 
 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 He goes on to say : 
 
 " If hon. gentlemen think they are going to silence 
 the bitter feelings which have been engendered in 
 Upper Canada in consequence of the attempt to make 
 permanent a certain system of education, they are 
 mistaken ; and I desire to have the expression of the 
 opinion of the members of this House on the subject, 
 whether they think that the restriction in the pro- 
 posed constitution I have mentioned is calculated to 
 bring alx)ut harmony, and whether it is not better to 
 let the Catholics of Upper Canada and the Protectants 
 of Lower Canada protect themselves, or rather trust 
 for protection to the sense of justice of their fellow- 
 subjects." 
 
 An hon. gentleman who opposed that motion said : 
 
 '' Though I am against the Separate School system, 
 I am willing to accept this Confederation, even though 
 it perpetuates a small number of Separate Schools. 
 Under the present legislative union we are pow^erless 
 in any movement for the abrogation of the Separate 
 system ; it is even very doubtful if we could resist 
 the demands for its extension. We will not be in any 
 worse position under the new system, and in one 
 respect we will have a decided advantage, in that no 
 further change can be made by the Separate School 
 advocates. We will thus substitute cei-tainty for 
 uncertainty. I deeply regret that the hon. member 
 should Imve thought it necessary for any purpose to 
 A^ove this resolution." 
 
 • 
 He did not contemplate any further changes, but he 
 
 was willing to accept what was then in existence in 
 
 Upper arid Lower Canada. 
 
HON. N. CLARKE \/ALLACE. 81 
 
 Mr. Devlin — Who held that language ? 
 
 Mr. Sproule — It was Mr. A. Mackenzie. 
 
 Mr. Devlin — The late Hon. Alexander Mackenzie ? 
 
 Mr. Sproule — Yes, I think so. Now, I think I 
 have made clear two things. The first is that it 
 was never contemplated at Confederation to compel 
 any province that came into the union to accept 
 Separate Schools, but only to accept the solemn com- 
 pact made between Upper and Lower Canada, and to 
 act on the understanding that that compact should be 
 carried out. Acting on that understanding, in two or 
 three local elections in the Province of Ontario in 
 . which the school question engaged a great deal of 
 attention, I steadily refused to say one word against 
 Separate Schools in Upper or Lower Canada, because 
 I considered that under the solemn compact made at 
 Confederation, the rights enjoyed by the minorities in 
 the two provinces should be maintained. But I held 
 that it was never contemplated, when Confederation 
 was brought about, that similar rights should be 
 extended to every province that came into the union, 
 and I am justified in that belief by the resolutions 
 that were moved at that time. Some say that we are 
 bound not only to give Separate Scliools to e^ery 
 province that comes into the union, but after it comes 
 in, and it engrafts on its statutes some privilege in 
 regard to schools that may or may not be justifiable, 
 tho t privilege nmst remain there forever. I say there 
 is nothing in the resolutions to wanant that conten- 
 tion. In reading the resolutions assigning to the 
 
82 HuN. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 legislatures of the provinces the subjects which they 
 could control, I find this laid down : 
 
 " The Local Legislature shall have powei bo make 
 laws respecting the following subjects:" 
 
 Among these is : 
 
 " Education, saving the rights and privileges which 
 the Protestant or Catholic minority in both Canadas 
 may nossess as to their denominational schools at the 
 time when the union goes into operation." 
 
 But it says nothing about the same right being 
 extentled to any other province that may come in. 
 That was the solemn understanding come to when 
 these resolutions went to the Home Government as a 
 basis for legislation. But we are told to-day : '* Oh, 
 but the British North America Act says so-and-so." 
 In the Legislature one honorable gentleman got up 
 and contended that the bill that passed the Imperial 
 Parliament shouM not become law until it was sub- 
 mitted to the Parliament of Canada, and the Parlia- 
 ment of Canada had an opportunity of expressing its 
 opinion upon it, and either assenting to or dissenting 
 from it ; and also until there was an appeal to the 
 people upon it. One reason he gave for that view 
 wtis : We know by experience, he said, that it some- 
 times happens that w^e make laws on certain lines ; 
 but if, after these law^s have been made and become 
 constitutional laws, certain provisions are found in 
 them that were never contemplated, we ought to have 
 some opportunity of examining them before we are 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 83 
 
 asked to assent to them. In opposition to that, the 
 Attorney-General, wlio was afterwards Sir George 
 Cartier, spoke as follows : 
 
 " In reply to what the honorable member for 
 Hochelaga has just said, I shall merely tell the honor- 
 able members of this House that they need not take 
 any alarm at the apprehensions and the predictions 
 that the honorable gentleman has made." 
 
 Tliat was the danger of something creeping into the 
 law which it was never contemplated should be 
 embodied in it. 
 
 " I have already declared, in my own name and cm 
 behalf of the Government that the delegates who go 
 to England will accept from the Imperial Govern - 
 ment no act but one based on the resolutions voted by 
 this House, and they will not break faith in order to 
 bring back any other. (Hear, hear.) I will pledge 
 my honor and that of the Government to that effect, 
 and I trust my word of honor will, at least, have as 
 much weight with the House and the country as that 
 of the honorable member for Hochelaga. (Cheers.)" 
 
 And it was accepted on that ground, but there was 
 the resolution, there was what the Provincial Legisla- 
 ture was to have, the right to control education, save 
 only as regards the compact entered into between the 
 two Canadas. But afterwards, in clause 98 of the 
 British North America Act, an improvement was 
 intro<luced that goes even further than that. It says : 
 
 " All the powers, privileges and duties at the union 
 by law conferred and imposed in Upper Canada on 
 
84 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 the Separate Schools and school trustees of the 
 Queen's Roman Catholic subjects, shall be, and the 
 same are hereby extended to the dissentient schools of 
 the Queen's Protestants and Roman Catholics in 
 Quebec. 
 
 " Where in any province a system of separate or 
 dissentient schools exists by law at the union, — " 
 
 « 
 
 That only applied to the two Canadas, Upper and 
 Lower Canada, and it did not contemplate any other 
 province. It did not contemplate that the resolution 
 I have read should extend to any other province. 
 It did not contemplate that it was to extend to pro- 
 vinces comin<^ afterwards into the union. It says : 
 
 " Where in any province a system of separate or 
 dissentient schools exists by law at the union, or is 
 thereafter established by the Legislature of the 
 Province, an a))peal shall lie to the Governor-General 
 in Council." 
 
 That does not give the right to establish them and 
 then say that, once established, they are never to be 
 disturbed afterwards. Now, the delegates who were 
 acting on behalf of Manitoba were not satisfied with 
 what had taken place in New Brunswick about 
 education, and they wanted to pass a law which 
 would go further than the British North America Act 
 went, and secure for themselves greater powers and 
 improve their position. They passed what is known 
 as the Manitoba Act. Here is the clause of that Act 
 applying to the subject : 
 
 '' In and for the Province of Manitoba the said 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 85 
 
 legislature may exclusively make laws in relation to 
 education, subject and according to the follow^ing • 
 provisions : 
 
 " Nothing in such law shall prejudicially affect any 
 right or privilege with respect to denominational 
 schools which any class of persons have by law or 
 practice in the Province at the union." 
 
 They went further than the British North America 
 Act, because that Act only provided that they shall 
 enjoy what they have at the time of the union. But 
 it was changed because of the New^ Brunswick case. 
 The minority had not the right to have Separate 
 Schools in law^, and, therefore, that right could not be 
 given back to them. The minority should enjoy 
 the right which they had on going into the union. Is 
 any right taken away from them w^hich they enjoyed 
 when they came into the union ? Did the Privy 
 Council say so ? The Privy Council did not say any- 
 thing of the kind. The Roman Catholic minority in 
 Manitoba had not that right in practice, because there 
 were no Separate Schools there in practice ; they had 
 what is known as parochial schools, which they 
 might establish to-day upon the same basis. And, 
 therefore, we are not going beyond the bound of 
 reason, when we say tluit they had not the right, 
 under the Act providing for the incorporation of 
 Manitoba into Confederation, to appeal against the 
 Manitoba statute winch did away with Se[)nrate 
 Schools, because they did not eniov the liuht to 
 Separate Schools when they camt* into tlu' union. 
 
86 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 That right was given them after they came into the 
 union. The union was consummated in 1870 and 
 Separate Schools were given in 1871, and the Roman 
 Catholic minority are enjoying to-day all the rights 
 they enjoyed on coming into the union, and no right 
 which they enjoyed then is taken from them to-day. 
 Therefore, they cannot complain fairly on that line. 
 
 We are told that the constitution shows that they 
 shall enjoy certain rights. Now, I would like to ask 
 this House, what are constitutions ? They are only 
 compacts between governments and individuals, made 
 to suit the necessities of the time and circumstances, 
 and, as time goes on and conditions change, as people 
 die and pass ott* the stage of action and others take 
 their places, as the necessities of the time and chang- 
 ing circumstances and conditions may require, those 
 constitutions may be changed. Constitutions are not 
 immutable. At one time one of the provisions of the 
 British constitution was, that there sliould be Church 
 and State. Where is Church and State to-day ? 
 Where would it be to-day, if that constitution never 
 changed ? The old system of Church and State has 
 been done away with by the very descendants of the 
 men who were the strong advocates of it years ago, 
 and who regarded it then as one of the safeguards of 
 the British constitution. But, as time, as conditions, 
 as the circumstances changed, it was a wise act to do 
 avvav witli it. There was a time when a Roman 
 Cath ''ic could not hold any office. But is there any- 
 one to-day who, in his wisdom, will say they have no 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 87 
 
 right to liokl office, as well as any Protestant ? 
 Things have changed, and tliey hold office to-day by 
 virtue of the will and consent of the majority. 
 
 Mr. Devlin — Has the Manitoba Government the 
 right to change the constitution granted to it ? 
 
 Mr. Sproule — Yes, so the British North America 
 Act says. It has the right to change its own consti- 
 tution in certain lines. I shall not specify all the 
 lines, but it has that right. But I say that constitu- 
 tions are only compacts, which only last so long as 
 those compacts suit the situation, the circumstances, 
 the conditions and the age in which they are applied; 
 and, when they are not in harmony with the age, 
 they must be changed. 
 
 Mr. Amyot — Would the Province of Quebec have 
 the right to change the constitution, so far as 
 Separate Schools are concerned ? 
 
 Mr. Sproule — I have shown the honorable gentle- 
 man that, under the solemn compact they have 
 entered into, they are pledged to Ontario to retain 
 those schools, and I do not look at it as standing in 
 the same relation at all. I have given the reasons. 
 It is because that compact was entered into before 
 Confederation, under which that province must have 
 Separate Schools, but, as regards Manitoba, the com- 
 pact was only that they should enjoy what they had 
 on going into the union ; and on going into the union, 
 Manitoba had not Separate Schools. 
 
 The seigniorial tenure was, at one time, a very 
 burning (juebtiou in the Province ol* QuebLC. It was 
 
S(S HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 at one time suitable to tlie wants of the people, but, 
 h 3 time and conditions changed, it was abolished by 
 law. We had a Clergy Reserve fund that gave a cer- 
 tain portion of land for the benefit of the clergy, and 
 that was embodied in the compact between Upper and 
 Lower Canada and formed part of' our constitution. 
 Is it standing to-day ? No, long since the Clergy 
 Reserve lands were taken away from the clergy 
 and used for the purposes of the country, because 
 the changed conditions of the day rendered the 
 change necessary. The constitution of the United 
 States provided that Congress should not interfere 
 wdth slavery. Enlightened public opinion in that 
 great republic, however, demanded that slavery should 
 be done away with, because it was inhuman and not 
 in consonance with the advanced state of civilization, 
 and not in harmony with human feeling and sympa- 
 thy : and, although the American constitution pro- 
 vided that it should not be changed, what did the 
 people do ? They first made a compromise, what is 
 known as the Missouri compromise, and declared that 
 slavery should not go beyond certain bounds. But 
 that was not sufficient ; public opinion was too strong 
 to stand slavery to any extent, however limited, and 
 they abolished slavery, though they were obliged to 
 do it by changing the constitution, though, in order to 
 etfect that change, they had to resort to arms and 
 cause the loss of tens of thousands of valuable lives 
 and millions of money, and though they had to 
 accomi^lish that chanire by one of the t^reatest civil 
 
Hon. N. claUke waLlack. 
 
 80 
 
 Wars the world has ever seen. The constitution, how- 
 ever, had to be cLianged, because the requirements of 
 the time demanded it. What are constitutions, if 
 they are not made to suit the requirements of the 
 times and of the age in which we live ? If the con- 
 stitution of Manitoba became entirely unsuited for 
 the requirements of Manitoba, would it be wise to 
 insist that Manitoba should abide bv it, and not effect 
 a change ? I say it would be most unwise. Because 
 she saw lit to think otherwise, because she seeks to 
 make this change, are we going to abuse her ? No. 
 I would like to ask honorable gentlemen : Suppose 
 that through some inadvertence or malicious design, 
 or from any other cause, you had engrafted upon the 
 constitution of that country a Separate School system 
 that was entirely unsuited to the civilization of the 
 age, entirely unsuited to the rcjuirements of the 
 rising generation, who ouglit to be given a fair educa- 
 tion. It is said that this Separate School system is a 
 good one; but suppose that the Separate School 
 system had been the worst. Merely because that 
 system had been engrafted upon the constitution, 
 must it remain there forever? Would that be common 
 sense or common wisdom ? Would it justify any class 
 of men in abiding by it ? Would not these men rather 
 be justified in so amending the constitution as to 
 bring themselves into harmony with their environ- 
 ments and with the requirements of the country in 
 which they find themselves ? Why is this bill objec- 
 tionable ? It is objectionable mainl}" because it 
 
90 Hon. n. clauke wallacK. 
 
 establishes two systems of educational law, and two 
 systems of education in a country where they can 
 hardly afford to support one system. We hear it 
 often said : Suppose the people of Quebec were to do 
 with their Separate Schools there what the people of 
 Manitoba have done with the Separate Schools there. 
 But the cases are not at all the same, and the com- 
 parison is not a reasonable one. You can only com- 
 pare things that are, to some extent, alike. I go to 
 the Province of Quebec, and I find the people settled 
 on narrow lots that extend a mile and a quarter in 
 length, but are only, if I remember well, forty rods in 
 width. A family lives on the front of each lot, and 
 the front of the lots is like a continuous village. The 
 people are congregated in large numbers in a small 
 space. If the people want two schools they may be 
 quite able to support them, for they are numerous 
 enough and wealthy enough to do so. But compare 
 that with the conditions in Manitoba. Half of the 
 land is kept as a reserve, and not settled at all in 
 some places ; the people can get 160 acres each, instead 
 of eighty acres each, and there are only four families 
 in a mile, instead of from eight to sixteen. Is it to 
 be supposed that the same rules are applicable to the 
 people of Quebec that are applied to the people of 
 Manitoba? Tsot at all. The Provincial Goveniment, 
 in their wisdom, decide that the conditions were such 
 that it is impossible to impose two school systems 
 upon the people, that the people are too weak and 
 cannot maintain them in efficiency. That is the 
 
 #•• • 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 91 
 
 reason why they did not wish to perpetuate the two 
 systems there. I have here a pamphlet that deals 
 with the subject, and it shows that the population 
 there is sparse and scattered. Reading this pamphlet, 
 one gets an idea of what it means for such a popula- 
 tion to attempt to maintain two school systems. This 
 pamphlet takes 198 school sections and shows that in 
 1894 the average attendance in no single one of them 
 reached ten. Some of them are as low^ as live, and 
 the line of figures runs nine, five, eight, seven, six, 
 seven, nine, and so on. Everv one of them is below" 
 ten. What would be the condition in that country if 
 you were to insist upon the establishment of another 
 school system amongst these people who are struggling 
 to maintain one system of schools ? Would such a 
 thing be wise ? A few years ago we had an appeal 
 from Quebec. I remember that a number of Protes- 
 tants from one part of that province came here and 
 asked this House to provide means to transport them 
 to the neighborhood of Calgary so that they might 
 settle together where they could keep up their schools 
 and churches. As an evidence of the difficulty of 
 maintaining these institutions where populations were 
 sparse, they show^ed us a map of that country 
 where the Protestants, one by one, had been bought 
 out by th3 Roman Catholics until they had become 
 distributed in very small numbers, yet in much larger 
 numbers than can be found in the settled country 
 districts in Manitoba. And they said : We are unable 
 to keep up our societies, we are unable to maintain 
 
92 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 our churches, we are unable to support our scliools, 
 because we are so few in number. When they were 
 asked : Why do you not attend the schools of the 
 majority, as the Roman Catholics of Ontario attend 
 the Public Schools there ? the answer was : If the 
 schools in Quebec were of the same nature as the 
 Public Schools in Ontario wiiere the object is to give 
 a secular education and not teach the religion of any 
 particular Church first, we would send our children 
 to them. But in those schools they teach principles 
 that are regarded as inimical to the belief of a Protes- 
 tant denomination. Therefore, we cannot send our 
 children to their schools, and we are too weak to keep 
 up our own schools. Is not that the condition in 
 Manitoba ^ And if the (?ovemment came to the 
 conclusion that this condition of things overburdened 
 the people, and decided that it would be better to 
 give them one system of national schools where 
 religion was not taught, where the tenets of no 
 particular Church were taught, have they not strong 
 reason for doing so ? For whatever may have been 
 said, I have never seen it proven tha,t any religious 
 creed or the tenets of any particidar Church were 
 taught in tliese schools. They go through the foria 
 of reading the Lord's Prayer, and they occasionally 
 read a passiige of Scripture ; but they have never 
 introduced any catechism or the teaching of the 
 dogmas of any Church. They have made a system 
 of national schools in which the chief desire is to givt^ 
 tlie rising generation tliat tH^eulai* education which is 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 93 
 
 necessary to lit them for becoming good citizens. We 
 are asked to compel the people of Manitoba to go 
 back to the dual system, and to carry on that dual 
 system under two sets of laws, one set of schools 
 under the control of their own laws, and one under 
 laws passed by this Parliament. Wliat must be the 
 result :* It must engender a feeling of strife and 
 resentment in the minds of the majority which, if 
 aroused now, may not die out within the lifetime of 
 the youngest member of this House. We are told 
 that we should pass this bill and settle the question 
 finally. If I could hope that this would be a final 
 settlement of this question, I confess that I should be 
 inclined to do a great deal that I would not otherwise 
 do. But I regard it as only the commencement of 
 this figlit, if this is forced upon the people contrary 
 to the will of the majority there. 
 
 Now, I object to Separate Schools on principle. 
 But while saying that, I have no feeling against those 
 who regard Separate Schools as the right schools. 
 The principle w^hich I regard as right in this country 
 is to bring the children up together in one school, 
 where they will learn, through the associations of 
 youth to love and respect each other, where they will 
 play together, where they will learn to tolerate etich 
 other's eccentricities, and learn that human nature is 
 human nature in one, the same as the other ; where 
 they will grow up together, having inculcated in their 
 minds the same principles of education, science and 
 knowled;:e that must be useful to them tbruuiihout 
 
04 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 life. I regard it as a correct principle in the interests 
 of the State that in school the children shall see 
 nothing of the diversity of religion, though that may 
 remain, and the Church has the right to teach it, but 
 that it shall not keep the children apart in two hostile 
 camps as is now being done. This is essentially why 
 I oppose this bill. I do not care whether it is a weak 
 bill or a strong bill. The bill has in it the principle 
 of forcing upon an unwilling province Separate 
 Schools which were <lone away with because the 
 people regarded them as unsuitable to the require- 
 ments of the situation or the condition of things in 
 their country. Then again I oppose it because 1 
 think the State ought to control education. I believe 
 the trend of the age is toward the State controlling 
 education. Those of us who remember our schoolboy 
 days will no doubt recollect when we went to what 
 were called pay schools, and we paid so much a month 
 for the support of the teacher. There was not much 
 difference in the amount of religion taught in those 
 schools and that taught to-day ; but they were pay 
 schools kept up by voluntary subscriptions, and kept 
 up by those who wished to educate their children. 
 The State in its wisdom afterwards thought it 
 necessary to take over the control of education 
 because there was a large number of poor children in 
 the country whose parents were unable or too careless 
 to give them an education, and this made it possible 
 for a very large percentage of them to grow up in 
 ignorance. Believing that education ought to be the . 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE:. 95 
 
 birthright of every citizen of the British Empire, and 
 that intelligence is the best guarantee for good 
 citizenship, the State thought it right to give them an 
 education, and therefore, it took the schools of the 
 country under its eont'^o). Instead of having pay 
 schools, instead of having parochial schools, instead 
 of having church schools, we have what is known as 
 free schools controlled by the State. As soon as the 
 free school system was introduced in Upper Canada 
 it was regarded as the best system yet devised for the 
 people, and it has been controlled by the State from 
 that time to the present. Now, then, I said that the 
 trend of the age is tow^ard the State taking control of 
 education. Why do I say so ? Because the day of 
 private schools and parochial schools has passed away. 
 ] am strengthened in that opinion by the history of 
 other countries as well as our own. I need not cite 
 the case of Upper Canada, because no one w^ould 
 pretend to stand up to-day and say that we should 
 revert to the old system of allowing churches to keep 
 up their schools and private individuals to keep up 
 their schools, instead of the State doing it. But we 
 have gone further than that by taxing ourselves for 
 the education of children whose parents are not able 
 to pay for it, by giving money out of the public 
 treasury to support j30or schools where the people are 
 not able to tax themselves for it. In the Province of 
 Ontario the development of our educational system 
 has been along that line for the last thirty or forty 
 years, until it is a recognized fact to-day that no one 
 
96 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 would pretend to deny. I say again that the trend 
 of the age is toward free schools, as shown by what 
 ''has taken place in other countries. I take a work 
 that I held in my hand, and in it I find facts drawn 
 from the history of other countries which strengthen 
 my conviction in that regard. According to the 
 " Encyclopedia Britannica," Vol. 8, page 712, I find 
 that all over Europe education is passing from the 
 control of the clergy into the hands of the State. 
 Europe is older than our country ; it has learned, as 
 every country learns, by the experience of the past, 
 and their experience has taught the wisdom of taking 
 the control of education from under the hands of the 
 clergy, fronx under the hands of the Church, and 
 transferring it to the control of the State. The* same 
 is said to be true even in Mexico, and Central 
 America, and in South America. Then w^hen I come 
 to look at some other countries I find that in Ireland, 
 that benighted country, where it is sometimes said 
 the people are steeped in ignorance, they have a 
 system of national schools. Under the National 
 School system of Ireland, Roman Catholics and 
 Protestants are educated together. They have learned 
 by experience the folly of keeping children apart 
 when they are educated, because separate education, 
 instead of harmorizing opposing sentiments and 
 feelings, tends to accentuate them, tends to make 
 them worse. Therefore, the wisdom of the Adminis- 
 tration of Ireland has led them to devise wliat might 
 be regarded as a national school system. Australia 
 
 J. 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 97 
 
 has also come to the same conclusion, because the 
 Common School system of Australia is based on 
 the principles of perfect religious freedom, and the 
 non-establishment of any particular form of religious 
 belief. I need not give the history of the United 
 States in regard to this question, as it is doubtless 
 well known to members of this House. Although 
 attempt after attempt has been made by the Roman 
 Catholics, and in all honesty, in all sincerity, to bring 
 the educational affairs of that country under the 
 control of their Church, as they have no doubt a 
 perfect right to attempt to do, I say that great country, 
 which is regarded as in the forefront of advancement 
 and civilization to-day, has never accepted the princi- 
 ple of Separate Schools, and has never allowed educa- 
 tion to pass from under her control. To-day her 
 schools are free to every child of the State, and the 
 children must be educated together in all State-sup- 
 ported schools. Denominational religion is not taught 
 in her schools, but the principles of religion that are 
 common to all, are inculcated in many of them. 
 
 I know something about the schools in the United 
 States, because I passed some time in her educational 
 institutions ; and although the State teaches some of 
 the doctrines of religion that are common to all 
 creeds, the same as are taught in many parts of this 
 country, I heard no objection from any Roman 
 Catholic. And although, as I say, application has 
 been made from time to time for Separaiie Schools, 
 the State has never abandoned her control of 
 
98 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 education. No doubt some honorable gentlemen will 
 remember that two or three years ago the question 
 was asked of one of the high dignitaries of the 
 Roman Catholic Church of the United States, Mons. 
 Satolli, Would the Church in the United States ailow 
 the children of Roman Catholics to be educated in 
 what were commonly called godless schools? and the 
 answer w^as that, under the circumstances thev could 
 do so — under the circumstances they were at liberty 
 to send their children to the Public Schools. The 
 Roman Catholics do not enjoy the privilege of 
 Separate Schools there, as they do here. Now, then, 
 in Mexico also, free Public Schools have been estab- 
 lished, and whoever sends a child to the parochial 
 school is fined. Experience has proven the wisdom 
 of preventing parochial schools from controlling the 
 education of the country, and the State has made it a 
 punishable offence for anyone to send a child to a 
 parochial school. On this question I find some facts 
 quoted by Dr. Sidney. In the Republic of Central 
 America children between the ages of eight and 
 fourteen years are required to attend Public Schools; 
 education is free, compulsory, and under State 
 control. Then I come to South America, to the 
 republics of that continent, with their fifty millions 
 of population, and what system do we find there ? 
 Until twenty years ago the education of the children 
 was carried on in parocliial schools and under the 
 control of the clergy ; but experience has shown the 
 unwisdom of that system of educatiop, and they have 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 99 
 
 changed it. Their schools now are public, under the 
 State control, and compulsory. The education of 
 that great country is to-day closely modelled after 
 the system prevailing in the State of Michigan. In 
 that great country of fifty millions of people, wdioever 
 sends a child to a parochial school is fined, and the 
 parochial schools have been closed. Free schools 
 have been established in Uruguay and Venezuela, 
 under a system much the same as that prevailing in 
 other republics I have mentioned. Then we come to 
 New Brunswick, and we find that they have practi- 
 cally State schools. They have State schools in the 
 Province of Nova Scotia. They have State schools 
 in Prince Edward Island. Then, I say, I am justified 
 in the conclusion that the trend of the age is toward 
 
 - the State controlling the education of the country. 
 Why, I ask, should Manitoba be compelled to go back 
 
 . to what is really an obsolete, an unsatisfactory, and 
 an unsuitable condition of things for the needs of 
 that province ? For that reason, again, I am opposed 
 . to this bill. Now, sir, we are told we have a right to 
 legislate because there is a grievance. What law has 
 ever been passed restricting a man's rights that does 
 not leav^e a grievance behind it i Is there any law 
 that restricts us in any walk of life that does not give 
 rise to some grievance, if we are to consult our own 
 feelings when rights have been taken away from us ? 
 
 ' But if, in the interest of the State, in the interest of 
 humanity, it is necessary even to create a grievance 
 by taking away certain rights, the State is Justified 
 
100 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 in taking away those rights in the interest of the 
 whole. And though there may be a grievance behind 
 it, it is no justification for going back to the old 
 condition of things simply because it is a grievance. 
 Was there not a grievance in New Brunswick when 
 the Provincial Government took control of the schools 
 and changed the system ? The Minister of Marine 
 and Fisheries fought that question eloquently in this 
 House, declaring there w^as a grievance and a very 
 serious grievance. But when Sir John Macdonald 
 was appealed to, he refused to give back what they 
 regarded as their rights, because, he said, it was the 
 right of a province to control that matter, and he 
 informed them it was their duty to go to the highest 
 tribunal, the people, and fight out the question there. 
 He told them to go first to the Provincial Legislature, 
 and then to go to the people, because the people had 
 the powder to change the representation in the Legisla- 
 ture. He told the representatives of the minority to 
 go before the people and convince them that their 
 demand was a right and just one, and, he said, there 
 was sufficient justice in humanity to grant what is 
 right. 
 
 Mr. CosTlGAN — Perhaps the honorable gentleman 
 will permit me an explanation, as he referred to me 
 by name. He has stated that the late Sir John 
 Macdonald, when appealed to by the minority of 
 New Brunsw^ick, told them that he could give them 
 no relief, but to go to the Legislature. I think the 
 honorable gentleman will find that they were sent, 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 101 
 
 not to the Legislature, but to the courts, and the 
 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. 
 
 Mr. Sproule — I read the discussion a few days ago. 
 The contention is that the courts of justice offer no 
 redress and, therefore, the people hav^e to come here 
 for redress, and that the British North America Act 
 contemplated that we should come here for redress. 
 But the understanding, as expressed by Sir John 
 Macdonald, was that you must go b^xk to your own 
 legislature, and if you do not obtain relief there, then 
 appeal to the electors, because they can put out the 
 members of the Legislature ; but, in Sir John 
 Macdonald's opinion, we had no right to interfere. I 
 read the debate in this way, and I am in the judgment 
 of those who have read it as well as myself. 
 
 Will Manitoba settle this question if left alone ? I 
 believe, if Manitoba w^ere left alone she would ulti- 
 mately settle it ; perhaps the minority would not get 
 all they expect or claim, but the Province would 
 settle it as satisfactorily as it was settled in New 
 Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and 
 the other provinces. I have sufficient respect for the 
 judgment and fairness of the people of that great 
 country, many of whom went there from Ontario and 
 Quebec, to believe that they do not want to act 
 unfairly to any of the people there, and if left alone 
 they would settle the question in a way that would be 
 satisfactory to the minority after a time. The 
 minoiity are taking advantage of the law which 
 exists there to-day, and I find they are bringing the 
 
. : ' V- 
 
 102 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 schools under the control of the law in increasing 
 numbers every year. I have, therefore, the right to 
 assume that not very great dissatisfaction exists 
 there. 
 
 Who are clamoring for this law? Are the people of 
 Manitoba clamoring for it ? It is true that a largely 
 signed petition has been sent here asking for the 
 change, and I cannot shut my eyes to that fact ; but 
 it was got up, I am credibly informed, by the hie- 
 rarchy, and was signed by people who were asked to 
 sign it, and they sent down the petition. This was 
 all right. But the greater clamor comes from the 
 Province of Quebec, many of whose people know little 
 of the situation, whether Separate Schools joined with 
 national schools can be worked or not. They are 
 forcing the issue, and they are the party who are 
 forcing the fight on the situation to-day. I do not 
 believe, if they knew the situation as well as the 
 people there do, if they knew the difficulties that 
 Manitoba has to contend with, they would fight 
 strongly and insist so vigorously in forcing on an 
 unwilling people a measure that is not desired there, 
 and compel them to restore the school system which 
 was abolished because it did not suit them. 
 
 There are some features of this contest that attract 
 my attention at the present time, and which must 
 attract public attention. One is the voice of the 
 bishops and clergy on the question. We all under- 
 stand that it is a serious offence to interfere with the 
 riorht of a member of Parliament in the discharore of 
 
HON. N. CLAllKE WALLACE. 103 
 
 his legislative duties or to intimidate him. Those of 
 us who know anything about the Roman Catholic 
 religion, are aware that it is a very serious thing to 
 take away from any member of that Church the 
 rights of the Church, to tell a man who believes that 
 through that Church alone he can find salvation, that 
 the ecclesiastical authorities will take away from him 
 the rights of the Church. I believe it :o be a very 
 serious threat when you tell any man discharging his 
 duties as a member of Parliament, or is about to go 
 back to the elect' .>rs for endorsation or otherwise, that 
 if you do so and so the Church will declare you to 
 be no longer a Roman Catholic. I have here a state- 
 ment which was put out a few" days ago, and it seems 
 to me a very serious matter with respect to Roman 
 Catholics in this House. I am sorry to mention it, 
 and I do not do it for the purpose of creating any 
 feeling, because I know" it may make some hon. 
 members who are Roman Catholics feel that I am 
 doing what I should not, as a Protestant do, in speak- 
 ing of it. But I only speak of it because of the 
 sentiments enunciated by the leader of the Opposition 
 the other night. That hon. gentleman said : While 
 I love my Church and revere my Church, and 
 respect my Church, yet in the discharge of my duty 
 as a Liberal in this House, following the principles of 
 Liberalism as enunciated, known and carried out by 
 the great Reformers of the British Empire, I 
 refuse to be controlled in the discharge of my duty 
 even by my Church, because I regard it as the first 
 
 1 : 
 
104 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 duty of a member of Parliament to do his duty to the 
 State, and while I am unwilling to come into conflict 
 with my Church, I believe I know the situation 
 better than they do ; I do not regard it as offensive 
 because they imagine they are right in doing so : and 
 I tliink they are rather objects for sympathy than 
 otherwise. Father Lacombe, a very respectable 
 missionary — I do not blame him for his utterance, 
 because he thought he was doing right, and doing 
 what he conceived to be his duty — declared that no 
 man who opposed this Remedial Bill would be 
 refjarded as a Catholic. He said : 
 
 " If, which may God not grant, you do not believe 
 it to be your duty to accede to our just demands, and 
 that the Government, which is anxious to give us the 
 promised law, be beaten and overthrown while keep- 
 ing firm to the end of the struggle, I inform you, witli 
 regret, that the Episcopacy, like one man, united to 
 the clergy, will rise to support those who may have 
 fallen to defend us." 
 
 Archbishop Langevin of St. Boniface has stated his 
 v^iews in these words : 
 
 " It has been said, falsely, that the Catholic hie- 
 rarchy in this Dominion of ours is to settle the school 
 (juestion. No, the Catholic hierarchy — yon know it, 
 and I can say it plainly — the Catholic hierarchy leaxls 
 the Catholics in their religious conviction, and all 
 those who do not follow the hierarchy are not 
 Catholics." 
 
 And he has instructed them that this was clearly 
 their duty, becauHe tiie Church instructed tiiem in 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 105 
 
 their line of conscience, by telling them that it was 
 their duty to support the bill which gives back these 
 rights to the Church. 
 
 " When the hierarchy has spoken there is no use for 
 any Catholic to say to the contrary, for if he does he 
 is no longer a Catholic. Such a man may carry the 
 title, but I declare this as a bishop : I say to-night, 
 and I say it with plain authority, a Catholic who 
 does not follow the hierarchy on the school question 
 is no more a Catholic, and who will be the one to 
 entitle such a one to the name of Catholic ? Where 
 is the society or government who will give him the 
 right to call himself a CathoHc when I in my authority 
 as a Catholic bishop, declare that such a man has no 
 right to the name." 
 
 Then, I say, the bishop is putting them outside the 
 pale of the Church, and that is a very serious matter 
 for Catholics. Sir, I regard that as a most unfortunate 
 thing, because it is interfering w^ith what most people 
 in this country look upon as the right of every mem- 
 ber of Parliament to do, namely, to follow the dictates 
 of his own judgment in matters where the State must 
 control, and where tlie State must be above the 
 Church, and above religion, and where members 
 believe that they know the condition of things better 
 than the men wlio are attempting to give advice. I 
 do not blame the clergy of the Roman Catholic 
 Church for doing so. I do not blame them for bring- 
 ing every influence they can to bear upon the Church 
 to do so, but I think it is unfortunate that that influ- 
 ence should be brought to bear. A man who has the 
 
106 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 •>. < 
 
 courage of his convictions, and who lias the manhood 
 and the integrity to say in the face of all that, I 
 regard my duty to the State as so and so, and I shall 
 carry it out, notwithstanding the fact that I may be 
 buried under the anathema of the Church, and not- 
 withstanding that the whole Church shall be arrayed 
 against me, and support the party opposed to me ; I 
 say that the man who has the moral courage to say 
 that will be endorsed by the people of this country. 
 They will regard him w^ith respect and honor, and 
 they will look upon him as a greater statesman than 
 they did before. This is one of the features of this 
 contest which makes me to-day so very strongly 
 against this bill. We are told that if we do not legis- 
 late in this case, Quebec may take away the rights 
 from the Protestants of that province. I was glad to 
 hear the lion, member for Three Rivers (Sir Hector 
 Langevin) speak in the generous and manly tone he 
 did this afternoon, when he said that whether the 
 minority in Manitoba got their rights or not, Quebec 
 would never descend to any principle so low. I 
 always had a high opinion of the French-Canadian 
 people. I always regarded them as chivalrous, as 
 honorable, and as disposed to do right to the minority 
 down there. But above and beyond all that, I say 
 that whether we legislate or do not legislate, the 
 rights of the minority are not in danger in that pro- 
 vince. There was a solemn compact entered into with 
 the Province of Quebec in this matter, and I believe 
 that no person would dare to break up tlie original 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 107 
 
 contract which was entered into between the ^.vo 
 Canadas before Confederation, and embodied in the 
 Confederation Act of 1867. And should the people 
 down in that country wish to legislate upon that 
 question, and if they felt as strongly on it as do the 
 people of Manitoba, would the people of Manitoba be 
 disposed to interfere with their rights ? I think they 
 would not. And if the people of Quebec came to 
 this House, would they be inclined to regard with 
 quietness and courtesy any effort that w^as made to 
 interfere with their rights ? I think they would not. 
 They would be the very strongest to create an agita- 
 tion that would be large in its proportions and 
 dangerous in its results if they were not allow^ed to 
 control their rights as they were allowed in the 
 Jesuits' Estates case. They would tell us that any 
 legislation against them was an interference with the 
 rights belonging to their province, and they would 
 not brook any interference. Now, what should tlie 
 Government do with this question at the present 
 time ? I say they should leave it to the people of the 
 Province of Manitoba to deal with as in their judg- 
 ment they think best. That was what they should 
 have done in the first place. While the Jc iicial 
 Committee of the Privy Council said to the minority, 
 You have the right to appeal, what did that mean ? 
 Some my that the Government are now only carry- 
 ing out the judgment of the Privy Council. I do not 
 so understand it. Although that was very fiercely 
 contended a few^ months ago, no member of the Cabi- 
 
-i 
 
 108 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 net to-day will say that the Government is obliged 
 to take this course because of the judgment of the 
 Privy Council. That judgment of the Privy Council 
 was an opinion in the nature of advice to the Gover- 
 nor-in-Council here. It told then that the minority 
 had the right to appeal to them for a hearing of 
 their case. That was ail. They heard that case, and 
 according to their judgment and wisdom they could 
 say either " yes " or " no," you have a grievance and 
 we will change that law, or, we will not change it. 
 It was equally their right to say : We will not inter- 
 fere with Manitoba, or, we will interfere. It was the 
 right of this Government to say : If the circumstances 
 are such that we ought to interfere, then we can 
 interfere with it ; or, if the condition of things are 
 such in Manitoba that they cannot successfully carry 
 on two educational systems, we shall not interfere 
 with it. But, sir, this Government were equally at 
 liberty to say either one or the other. There is no 
 judgment of the Privy Council telling this Govern- 
 ment to interfere or not to interfere. 
 
 Now, w^e are told that if this bill is passed the fight 
 will be over. Well, sir, if I believed that I would be 
 inclined to go a long way. I would be disposed to do 
 many things I would not otherwise wish to do, if I 
 thought the passing of this bill would be a finality in 
 tliie matter. But, sir, can I shut my eyes to the agi- 
 tation going on in the country to-day ? Can I shut 
 my eyes to the unanimity of sentiment in Manitoba, 
 where three elections have been run on that question, 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 109 
 
 and where there has been a majority in favor of the 
 rights of the Province every time ? Can I shut my 
 eyes to the fact, as we are told, that at least 85 
 per cent, of the people of Manitoba are in favor 
 of allowing that province to work out her own 
 destinies according to the law she has placed on 
 the statute book ? Can I shut my eyes to the 
 fact that all over the country there is no defence 
 of the action of the Government by the press 
 of the country who gauge and educate public senti- 
 ment ? Can I shut my eyes to the fact that there 
 has been scarcely a gathering all over this Dominion 
 which says to this Government : Go on and do what 
 you are doing to-day. No, sir, it is the very reverse. 
 I therefore say that I have no right to assume that 
 the passage of this bill would be the end of the con- 
 test. I do not believe that the heart-burnings and 
 the strife that is raised to-day, would all die out in a 
 few months if we force Manitoba to do as she is not 
 inclined to do. I believe that the sentiment of the 
 country does not justify any interference with tlie 
 Province of Manitoba in this matter. I believe that 
 the public sentiment of the country is, that there 
 shall be no interference. 
 
 Now, then, what will be the result to the present 
 Government if they persist in pressing this bill. It 
 must, in my judgment, inevitably result either in 
 their defeat in this House, or in their defeat in the 
 country. It may be said that the country has not 
 spoken. We have oft^n jisked them of late to appeal 
 
110 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 to the country, and we have said that although we 
 believe public sentiment is against you, yet if you 
 appeal to the country, and if the voice of the country 
 says pass that law, you will be justified in doing it. 
 But they have not appealed to the country, nor given 
 the electorate an opportunity to speak. If they are 
 defeated in this House they must appeal to the 
 country, and if then the judgment of the electorate 
 is that the Government shall go on with the measure, 
 then they will be justified. The Government will be 
 fortified with public opinion behind them, and they 
 will be fortified with the support of many friends in 
 this House who are opposing them to-day. Sir, if I 
 know anything about the public sentiment of the 
 country, I say it is all adverse to the policy of the 
 Government in this matter. Mr. Speaker, I can only 
 express regret, as I did at the beginning of this debate, 
 that I am obliged to place myself in opposition to 
 the Government of the day. However, I do not 
 believe that I am in opposition to the sentiment of 
 the Conservative party of this country when I oppose 
 the Government. I believe that the Government is 
 against public opinion, and that I am with public 
 opinion in doing as I am doing now. I believe I am 
 in harmony with the sentiments of the people of 
 Ontario to-day, when I am standing as I am against 
 the Government on this question. I believe that I 
 am also in harmony with the sentiments of the people 
 of Manitoba when I stand up here to oppose the Gov- 
 ernment on this occasion, I believe, too, that I am 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. Ill 
 
 in harmony with the people of the North- West Ter- 
 ritories because the same difficulty is looming up 
 there, and that is another reason which leads me to 
 think that this fight will not be ended soon. If we 
 are successful in forcing Manitoba to-day, the next 
 thing will be to force us to repeal the law which 
 gave national schools to the North- West Territories. 
 The Catholics regard themselves as having a griev- 
 ance there the same as in Manitoba. Archbishop 
 Langevin said so at Edmonton, I believe. He said : 
 We are not reconciled to the laws which have been 
 put on the Statute Book of the North- W^est Terri- 
 tories; the national schools there do not satisfy us 
 any more than the national schools in Manitoba. 
 Therefore, I say that if the parties who are forcing 
 on this remedial legislation succeed in getting it, the 
 fight will commence in the North- West Territories as 
 soon as the bill is passed. The School Bill passed in 
 the North-West Assembly has been held in abeyance, 
 and has not yet received the assent of the Lieutenant- 
 Governor. Why is it held in abeyance ? Because 
 the clergy do not approve of it. Now, I would ven- 
 ture to ask this Government, as the authority either 
 to veto that law or to allow it to go into operation, 
 what they intend to do with it ? Do uL<^y intend to 
 give the people of the North-West Territories the 
 right to control education or do they intend to veto 
 tliat law ? And if they veto it, will they start the 
 fight there which they started on behalf of the min- 
 ority in Manitoba ? Will they continue that fight 
 
^. -- '■' y 
 
 112 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 also for five years, until they secure in the North- 
 West Territories what they wish to secure in Mani- 
 toba to-day ? I say that this justifies us in believing 
 that the fight will not be ended by this bill ; but that 
 the passage of this bill would be only the commence- 
 ment of the fight. The fight must go on, though 
 this Parliament must go to the country, and though 
 dozens of members who support the bill to-day may 
 be left at home by an exasperated electorate. As 
 John Sandfield Macdonald said at the time of the 
 birth of Confederation, if you take from the majority 
 the right to control education, you do not settle the 
 question for ever. It will loom up again. Like Ban- 
 quo's ghost, it will not down ; it will come to the 
 front, and the fight will continue. 
 - Therefore, in the interest of humanity, in the 
 interest of the people of Manitoba, who think they 
 ought to enjoy freedom, as every westerner thinks 
 they ought, I ask you not to exasperate them too far. 
 If you do, the consequences may be something we do 
 not wish to contemplate to-day. We all hope that 
 the consequences may not be serious; but we all 
 know what the feeling of the people of Manitoba was 
 when we were obliged to hark back and repeal the 
 monopoly clause in the Canadian Pacific Railway 
 Act; and if we force this measure upon them, the 
 results may be serious, not only to that country, but 
 to Confederation, because it tends to destroy provincial 
 autonomy. Then I .say, in the interests of all the 
 provinces of this great Dominion, in the interests of 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 113 
 
 the people of that country, who live under a condi- 
 tion of things entirely different from the condition of 
 things here or in the Province of Quebec, let them 
 enjoy the rights they are entitled to ; let them adopt 
 laws suited to their conditions and environments, and 
 carry out those laws according to their will, so long 
 as they are doing no substantial injustice to any 
 portion of the people. For these reasons I am about 
 to vote against this bill. I am sometimes told that, 
 in voting against the Government on this bill, I am 
 voting for the Opposition. Well, it is fortunate that 
 we can sometimes meet, even if we do not always 
 meet. If I think the Opposition are right, I am 
 generous enough and glad enough to record my 
 vote with theirs. I want to see the bill killed ; the 
 Opposition are moving with the 'same end in view, 
 therefore we vote together. I do not regard it as 
 an unmixed evil that I am voting v/ith them. I do 
 regard it as an unmixed evil that I am voting against 
 the Government, which I have loyally supported these 
 seventeen years, because I think they are wrong on 
 this question, and it is my duty to vote as I think 
 right. Feeling, as I do, that the best thing we can do 
 in the interest of the country is to kill this bill, I 
 intend to vote for the motion made by the leader of 
 the Opposition; and I was glad that he made that 
 motion, because it gives us an opportunity to vote 
 straight against this bill, and to kill it, if possible. 
 On other lines I am with the Government. They 
 may see fit to read me out of the party for taking the 
 
114 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. V 
 
 independent step I do. If they do so, that is their 
 right, and they can act according to their own sweet 
 will. But, so long as I occupy a seat in this House, I 
 shall regard it as my right to vote according to the 
 ' dictates of my conscience, and with such under- 
 standing as I have, on every measure that comes 
 before this House. Therefore, regarding this bill as 
 a most obnoxious one, not only as doing away with a 
 system of education that is the very best for the 
 rising generation, but as taking away from the 
 Province of Manitoba the right of control in educa- 
 tional matters, whith it ought to enjoy, I shall have 
 much pleasure in voting for the six months' hoist. 
 
 And so from such men as these, some of them Con- - 
 servatives in politics, some of them Liberals, was the 
 . scheme to coerce Manitoba aborted. It never drew 
 the breath of life, but its birth-pangs were sufficiently ^ 
 acute to bring upon its parents confusion and over- /.= 
 throw. I have great faith in this grand Dominion, 
 and that faith has been greatly strengthened by the 
 recent outspoken voice of the people, who arose in 
 their might and swept from power men who dared to 
 form an alliance with the hierarchy for political gain. 
 Catholic and Protestant, Quebec and Ontario, joined 
 hands to say we will not have these men to reign 
 over us. The fight may be kept up. A tyrannical 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 115 
 
 mandamus may wipe out a few more papers in 
 Quebec, an attempt may be made to throttle free 
 discussion, but the attitude of hostility now assumed 
 by a straggling few must result in final defeat. And 
 this country that has in it all the elements of future 
 greatness will go forth upon its mission. 
 
 S 
 
 --?-■. 
 
I 
 
 \" '■ 
 
 ■, ■* 
 
«■ <. 
 
 CANADA: THE GREATER BRITAIN. 
 
 ■-S; 
 
REV. CHAS. E. PERRY, 
 
 I'att (J rand Chaplain and I'aet Grand OrganUtr. 
 
'\ 
 
 CANADA: THE GREATER 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 A LECTURE BY REV. C. E. PERRY. 
 
 Canada has been greatly undervalued by friends 
 and foes. Many think of it as a country buried in 
 snow. A little while ago when the President of the 
 United States sent his bellicose message to the House 
 of Representatives, the Americans boasted that they 
 could take Canada any morning before breakfast. 
 Their brag reminds one of the boy who was sent to 
 set a hen. Being a long time gone his mother asked 
 what detained him. Hy said that he had placed thirty- 
 six eggs under the hen as he wished to. give her a 
 chance to spread herself. Was the President actuated 
 by a similar desire for the Eagle's extension ? We 
 are often reminded of the numbei's that leave us for 
 the United States. But we have lived to see many 
 return, tired of grasshoppci's, cyclones, blixzards and 
 divorce courts. 
 
; -» - u 
 
 122 - HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 When we consider our great Dominion with its 
 majestic mountains, fertile prairies, grand lakes, 
 magnificent rivers and inexhaustible mines, resources 
 
 , and possibilities, we have no hesitation in calling this 
 
 the Greater Britain that is to be. Canada is forty 
 
 times larger than Great Britain. You might roll 
 
 / England through Canada and not make a dent. 
 
 Drop Ireland into one of our great lakes, and forever 
 
 / end *' Home Rule." Lose Scotland in one of our 
 forests and never know it was there unless the odor 
 
 • of its whiskey should betray its presence. Canada 
 is bounded on the north by the Artie Ocean, east by 
 the Atlantic, south by the United States, west by the 
 Pacitic. In 1790, the United States had in round 
 numbers a population of 4,000,000. Canada at the 
 same time 200,000. In 1891 Canada had reached 
 5,000,000 and the United States 61,000,000. In 1790, 
 for every one person in Canada there were twenty in 
 the United States; now for every one in Canada 
 there are but twelve in the United States. At the 
 World's Fair in Chicago, out of 150 awards given 
 in dairy exhibits, Canada carried off 126. In fruit 
 Canada was equally fortunate and won 96 awards 
 out of 105 against the world. Canada exhibited a 
 cheese at the same fair, of such colossal proportions 
 that broke down the platform built for it by their most 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 123 
 
 skilled artisans. Canada is one of the largest countries 
 in the world, containing an area of 3,500,000 square 
 miles, and is about one-thirteenth of the land on 
 the surface of the globe. Larger than Australia, 
 nearly as largo as the whole of Europe, and exceeds 
 the United States in size by 127,000 square miles, 
 and has as much fertile territory. It stretches 3,500 
 miles in one direction and 1,400 in the other. One of 
 the lakes of Canada (Lake Superior) covers an area 
 of 32,000 square miles, being 400 miles long, almost 
 equal to the size of Ireland, and is the largest body of 
 fresh water on the globe. This lake, with Huron, Erie, 
 Ontario (unsalted seas), with the noble River St. 
 Lawrence, forms unbroken communication for 2,140 
 miles. Canada has also a great coast line both on the 
 Atlantic and Pacific. This is pierced by inlets, bays, 
 and some of the finest harboi's on the globe. Her 
 fisheries are among the richest in the world, and 
 double the annual value of the United States fisheries, 
 and nearly equal to the rest of the British Empire, 
 and is a source of great wealth and is well worth 
 protecting. Our forests are very valuable, containing 
 sixty-nine varieties of wood. The exports of the 
 products of the forest was in one year $21,000,000. 
 An Englishman once remarked to me, " You have no 
 seal mines in Canada t»o compare with those ef 
 
124 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 England." I had the pleasure of informing him that 
 whilst the coal area in his native land was 11,900 
 square miles, ours occupied 100,000. Our mines are 
 only in their infancy, but English and American 
 capitalists are just now awakening to the fact that 
 the most extensive gold mines, and possibly the most 
 productive in the world, are situated in Ontario at 
 Rat Portage and on Lake of the Woods, and Rainy 
 Lake, and Ro^sland, B.C., and it has long been known 
 that the finest gold in the world is found in Nova 
 Scotia. We also have some silver in the Lake 
 Superior region. Lead and copper! The nickel 
 mines at Sudbury are unH vailed in the world. And 
 when the time comes, as is anticipated, to coat the 
 warships with this metal, Canada can supply the 
 world. 
 
 We have struck sufficient oil in Canada to throw 
 light upon the subject. And make the whole ma- 
 chinery run smoothly. We are also a manufacturing 
 people, and from the toothpick to the splendid har- 
 vester we are making so much that tens of thousands 
 are finding employment in our factories. In agricul- 
 ture we are not excelled by any portion of the world. 
 In one year in Ontario 86,000,000 pounds of cheese 
 w&a manufactured. And Manitoba's No. 1 hard 
 "^vheat 19 without a peer. In Ontario alone there is 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. • 125 
 
 invested in agricultural implements $1,000,000,000. 
 In 1844, there were fourteen miles of railway. At 
 Confederation 2,400 ; now the Dominion boasts of 
 over 12,000 miles valued at $625,000,000. In 1868 
 we possessed 8,500 miles of telegraph, now 50,000 — * 
 15,000 miles of telephone wires with 7,292 post-offices. 
 We have 650 regular publications, newspapers and 
 magazines, 70 of which are daily papers, so that the 
 world to-day in miniature is laid upon our breakfast 
 table through the agency 3f the printing press. Our 
 school system is the best in the world, as is proved in 
 the intelligence of our people. The late Rev. Dr. 
 Ryerson travelled through England, Germany and 
 the United States and studied the schools of these 
 countries as he saw them in operation. He then amal- 
 gamated their excellent quplities, and gave us the 
 best system in existence. In 1868, the total trade 
 was $131,000,000 ; in 1883, it had grown to $230,000,- 
 000, an increase of $100,000,000 or an average of 
 nearly $7,000,000 a year. Of our public works we 
 need not be ashamed. The Canadian Pacific Railway, 
 stretching from ocean to ocean, binds in one the 
 different provinces of this great Confederation, and 
 . is the longest railway in the world ; it is the most 
 _ stupendous enterprise ever undertaken and success- 
 fully accomplished by any country of the populatioi^ 
 
126 • HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. - 
 
 of the Dominion. The Intercolonial connecting Quebec 
 with the Maritime Provinces is 890 miles in length 
 and cost over $40,000,000. The Grand Trunk Rail- 
 way was until the completion of the Canadian Pacific 
 
 , Railway, the longest railway in the \7orld under one 
 management, its total length bein^* 3,300 miles. 
 
 Great things are confidently looked for in the way 
 of Asiatic and Australian trade by the Canadian 
 Pacific Railway, and the splendid steamers that con- 
 nect at Vancouver. The route is becoming already 
 the great highway to the East. Trie British Govern- 
 ment, with its usual foresight, is making use of this 
 
 . route for the transhipment of its soldiers to its far- 
 away possessions, and has granted the Canadian 
 Pacific Railway a material subsidy of f 45,000 s'orling 
 annually. Canada has constructed 73 miles oi: lanals 
 at a cost of $30,000,000. The noble bridge that spans 
 the St. Lawrence at Montreal is one of the largest 
 railway bridges in the world, costing $5,000,000, con- 
 taining 3,000 feet of masonry and 10,000 tons of iron, 
 is tv^o miles long and is a triumph of engineering 
 skill and one of the wonders of the world, and is 
 fittingly named after our gracious queen, "Victoria 
 Bridge." The magnificent pile of buildings at Ottawa 
 is a tribute to the goo<l taste and natural aspirations 
 of our Canadian people* If our young people wish t€> 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 127 
 
 leave Ontario, they need not go to any foreign 
 country; we have plenty of room in our own Do- 
 minion. The district of Alberta that takes in the 
 eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, has an area of 
 over 100,000 square miles of beautiful land, and is 
 especially fitted for pasturage. It is twice as large as 
 Manitoba, four times as large as New Brunswick, five 
 times as large as Nova Scotia, and forty times as large 
 as Prince Edward Island, and can excel that province 
 in its staple, a farmer having assured me that he 
 lias raised 750 bushels of potatoes to the acre. Some 
 of the towns of this Dominion have grown with great 
 rapidity and are yet retaining their prosperity. A 
 few years ago on the Petitcodiac River in New Bruns- 
 wick was a small village called the " Bend," now the 
 city of Moncton. It has now a population of 10,000, 
 is lighted with electricity, has its street cars propelled 
 by the same subtle fluid; besides its railway shops, 
 employing seven hundred men, it has a sugar refinery, 
 cotton mills, two daily papers, seven fine churches, 
 and erected a school-house that cost S30,000, and a 
 Y.M.C.A. building to cost $25,000. And so we might 
 speak of Winnipeg whose growth is still more remark- 
 able, and of Vancouver, and many others in the west. 
 Previous to Confederation there were differences in 
 currency and in the tariff' among the several provinces, 
 
 ?■ .' 
 
128 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 SO that in ptissing from one to another petty annoy- . 
 anees were encountered. T. D'Arcy Magee voiced a 
 truth when in 1865, he said, " We want time to 
 grow, we want more people, more famihes to develop 
 our resources. We want more extensive trade and 
 commerce, more land tilled. We of the British North ; 
 American provinces want to be joined ; that if danger 
 comes we can support each other in the day of trial. 
 We come to your Majesty who has given us liberty, ' 
 to give us union, that we may preserve and perpetuate 
 our freedom." That boon was granted. Canada at 
 that time had a population of 3,000,000 ; it has in- 
 creased to more than 5,000,000. The revenue has 
 risen from $13,000,000 in 1868 to $38,000,000. The 
 imports and exports have been increased from $131,- 
 027,532 in 1868 to $218,607,390 or a total increase of ' 
 $87,000,000. 
 
 The number of letters forwarded has increased from 
 18,000,000 to 92,000,000 ^.nd the total newspapers 
 periodicals, books and parcels have increased from 
 18,884,000 to 87,830,000. The development of Mani- 
 toba and the North- West, the creation of Winnipeg, 
 Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Portage la Prairie, and 
 Neepawa, and other commercial centres prove our 
 ability to make a country. So that the Dominion 
 pf Ca^a^la, in the splendor of her cities, in the 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 129 
 
 magnitude of her public works, in the completeness of 
 her educational institutions, in the intelligence of her 
 people and indeed in all that goes to make up the 
 greatness of the nation, Canada to-day occupies a 
 position of proud pre-eminence. Its judicial system, 
 its militar}^ organization, its superior ocean carrying 
 trade, its excellent civil service, its municipal ' Home 
 Rule,' its efficient postal-service, its admirable election 
 laws, its beneficiary system of public charities, all 
 combine to make Canada second to no country in the 
 civilized world. 
 
 And so long as this country continues pre-eminent 
 in virtue, intelligence, and the reward of that which 
 is good — continues to produce such statesmen as the 
 one that these pages desire to honor, we will go 
 forward to abiding prosperity. 
 
 ^ -V 
 

 ■* 'i " \> 
 
 
 /■'•', 
 
DEATH OF HON. N. CLARKE 
 
 WALLACE. 
 
 • 
 
 Hon. N. Clarke Wallace, the member for West 
 York in the Dominion Parliament for the last twenty- 
 four years, and Most Worshipful Grand Master and 
 Sovereign of British North America in the Loyal 
 Orange Association, after a brief illness, following 
 upon a year of failing health, died at his home in the 
 village of Woodbridge on the 7th of October, 1901. 
 His funeral took place at Woodbridge on Saturday, 
 October 12th, and was one of the largest ever given 
 a public man in Canada. About six thousand people 
 attended the funeral, which, in keeping with his posi- 
 tion, was conducted under the auspices of the officers 
 of the Grand Lodge of the Loyal Orange Association. 
 •'Nathaniel Clarke Wallace, born June 21st, 1844, 
 died October 7th, 1901," was the inscription upon the 
 plate of the casket. All business was suspended in 
 Woodbridge. The houses and stores were draped in 
 mourning. The Wallace residence was surrounded 
 by a vast concourse of people waiting to get a last 
 
132 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 look at the face of a man whom in life they loved and 
 respected. Two special trains, comprising eighteen 
 coaches, arrived from Toronto about 2 p.m. These 
 contained a number of members of Parliament, the 
 Mayor and aldermen of Toronto, many distinguished 
 citizens and prominent members of the Orange 
 Association. 
 
 The funeral procession went round the village in 
 order to give every one the privilege of showing their 
 respect in following the body to the grave. The 
 order of the procession was as follows, viz. : Six 
 marshals of the Orange Order, two chaplains, two 
 waggons heaped with flowers, the funeral carriage 
 drawn by four jet black horses, Captain Tom Wal- 
 lace with his bereaved mother following immediately 
 after the hearse; several conveyances carrying the 
 other members of the family and immediate relatives ; 
 L. O. L. No. 28 of Woodbridge, Grand Lodge officers, 
 members of Parliament and ex-members, Toronto 
 aldermen and civic officials, county and district lodge 
 officers. Then followed a large body of Orangemen, 
 with a great number of villagers, farmers, etc., bring- 
 ing up the rear. The chief mourners were the widow ; 
 Capt. Tom Wallace, a son; Lieut. Leonard Wallace, 
 G.G.B.G., a son ; James Wallace, another son ; Olive, 
 Charlotte and Belinda, daughters; Clarke, a son; 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 133 
 
 George and T. F. Wallace, brothers; Mrs. Simpson 
 and Miss Annie Wallace, sisters; Mrs. George and 
 Mrs. T. F. Wallace, sisters-in-law ; Ross Wallace, 
 Mrs. Avery, of Ottawa, Miss Gilmour, Rev. J. Hay lock 
 and Hugh Gilmour, Ottawa. The following were the 
 pall- bearers : Dr. Sproule, D.G.M.B.A., John McMillan, 
 G.M.O.W., Hon. Dr. McFadden, G.M., Manitoba, Dun- 
 can Munro, D.G.M.O.E., Thos. Gilday, G.M., Quebec, 
 Hon. Sir Mackenzie Bowell, P.G.M.B.A., W. J. Park- 
 hill, P.G.M.B.A., E. F. Clarke, M.P., G.T.O.W., Thos. 
 Essery, D.G.M.O.W., Dr. Beattie Nesbitt, W. A. Mc- 
 Culla, ex-M.P, James Armstrong, Mayor Howland, 
 Dr. Perfect, J. K. R. Bristol, J. P. Whitney, M.L.A., 
 leader of the Opposition in the Local Legislature, 
 Thos. Crawford, M.P.P., and D. McKenzie. Other 
 Grand Lodge officers presei^t : Lieut. -Col. Scott, 
 D.G.M.O.W., Rev. Wm. Walsh, G.C., Wm. Fitzgerald, 
 D.G.S.O.W., Rev. H. C. Dixon, Rev. J. McLennan and 
 Rev. Chas. E. Perry, Deputy Grand Chaplains, Wm. 
 Lockhart, G.S.B.A., Wm. Cook. 
 
 The sermon was preached by Rev. Mr. Swallow. 
 He spoke very highly of the departed as a member 
 of the Church of England. Among other things he 
 said, in committing the body to the earth, he believed 
 they could do so feeling that he was at rest in thp 
 Paradise of God. 
 
134 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 The Orange service was conducted by Dr. Sproule, 
 Rev. Wm. Walsh and Rev. H. C. Dixon. 
 
 The following were some of the prominent men in 
 attendance: J. W. St. John, ex-M.P.R, William Lee, 
 G.S.O.W., J. H. Delamere, P.G.M.O.E., Harry Love- 
 lock, CM., Toronto, William McClary, ex-M.R, J. H. 
 Pritchard, P.D.M., Centre Toronto, Thos. Haw, D.M., 
 West Toronto, Alexander Hall, G.M.O.Y.B., Samuel 
 Caswell, CM., Palmerston, J. S. Duff, M.P.P., Edward 
 Tighe, P.G.M., Quebec, David Creighton, O. F. IVIarter, 
 M.P.P, E. J. Humphrey, H. Wilson, RCM., St. Cath- 
 arines, D. M. Jermyn, P.G.M.O.W., Robert Martin, 
 W.M., 791, Dr. A. J. Hunter, CM., R. D. Perham, 
 Montreal, W. H. White, P.C.M., St. Catharines, Geo. 
 Turner, RCM., Thorold, Wm. Nicholson, P.G.M., Ham- 
 ilton, A. Harron, P.C.M., Hamilton, Joseph Peart, 
 P.CM., Hamilton, R. Graham, P.C.M., Hamilton, R. 
 R.kar, P.CM., Peterboro', Hon. E. J. Davis, Col. Sam. 
 Hughes, J. C Clarke, Dixon Craig, ex-M.P., David 
 Turner, D.M., Rev. Peter Campbell, E. A. Colquhoun, 
 M RR. E. A. Little, M.RR, W. B. Northrup, M.RR, 
 Dr. Godfrey, Hon. Geo. E. Foster, E. A. Kemp, M.P., 
 M. Richardson, M.R, W. J. Hill, M.RR, T. R. Purvis, 
 James Purvis, James E. Thompson, D. T. Smith, R. 
 Armstrong. J. Thompson, John Reid, A. J. Bennett, 
 Arthur Mallaby, P.CM., West York, John Bailey, 
 
HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 135 
 
 Central Hotel, Weston, A. H. Birmingham, Robert 
 Birmingham, P.G.S., W. E. Armstrong, T. E. Milburn, 
 F. R Fox, J. S. Williams, John Burrows, A. E. Stew- 
 art, W. Penny, J. Bush, W. Mason, R. Mc Bride, C. W. 
 Plaxton, Barrie, Thos. Bassett, Dr. Howard, F. M. 
 Clarke, Dr. Noble, Major W. J. Wright, D.G.M., Rev. 
 A. McGillivray, W. Walker, Richard Sherlock, Savell 
 Bros., C. Caldwell, R. B. Wallace, John Kennedy, J. P. 
 Rogers, A. R. Williams, Aid. Cox, Aid. Wood, Aid. 
 Graham, Aid. Hubbard, Aid. Lynd, Aid. Woods, Aid. 
 Loudon, Aid. Hodgson, John Richardson, M.P.P., 
 Richard Hynes, John Collins, J. Cochrane, J. R. 
 Phillips, D. Hart, T. G. Hassard, J. R. Wilson, John 
 Ham, James Parson, George Ford, P.C.M., Ottawa, 
 W. J. C'jnron, Town Clerk, Toronto Junction, An- 
 drew McMillin, P.D.M., John Clarke, John Chalmers^ 
 W. Massey, W. H. Smith, W. D. Hunter, Hugh Fer- 
 guson, Orangeville, W. G. McFarland, S. Caswell, S. 
 W. Burns, C. C. James and Miss James, Priccville, C. 
 Simpson, C. C. Robinson, R. H. Cosby, James Fuller- 
 ton, D. T. Smith, R. C. Harris, J. Dunlop, H. Marsh. 
 W. E. Smith, W. Bowerman, W.M. L.O.L. 19, Hamil- 
 ton, Ed. Conlcy, C. H. Noble, John Ferguson, Wm. 
 Baillie, D.M., West York, W Douglas, J. S. Davis, 
 Mayor North Toronto, W. M. Johnston, J. T. Hender- 
 son, W. B. Hurd, H. H. Carter, A. Allen, R. Brown, 
 
136 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 John Boyd, F. P. Rumble, J. P. Rogers, J. G. Mar- 
 shall, R. Willmot, W. H. White, John Muxlow, W. 
 J. Greer, M. Cherry, Jas. Boyd, J. M. Thompson, 
 P.G.M.O.Y.B., R. J. Newman, G.O.R.T.B., J. H. 
 Smith, John Laxton, J. E. Laxton, R. J. Rose, C. J. 
 Booth, H. Playter, R. Harper, A. Stewart, J. N. 
 An^lin, C. Chamberlain, Thos. Clark, John H. Lennox, 
 Thos. Plunkitt, John T. Hall, D.C.M. West York, W. 
 Harris, Wm. Bunting, W. Dunseath, T. R. Bailey, 
 R. W. Elliott, John Gavin, Edward Medcalf, J. J. 
 Clark, D. Clark, F. Lloyd, Blaney Scott, S. B. Weir, 
 H. Devitt, A. R. Williamson, W\ MeClary, ex-M.R, 
 Thorold, J. T. Edworthy, C. J. Wilson, A. H. Monk- 
 man, A. E. Crate, J. B. Hutchinson, J. D. Farquhar, 
 John Slean, A. Bradley, R. Richardson, A. A. Bradley, 
 J. E. Clarke, T. E. Conboy, John Jordan, Frank Scott, 
 Wm. Bain, J. H. Deavitt, Jas. Fulton, John Burgess, 
 L. Duncan, W. H. Code, P. Ellis, W. Maude, C. H. 
 Baillie, A. Kirkpatrick, J. Fawcett, W. Sanders, W. 
 J. Sykes, Levi B. Hurst, Bros. Flynn, Lithgoh, Com- 
 bin, Stutt and Wm. Boke, of Weston, Bros. John 
 Buchanan and Boke, Lambton Mills, Bros. Lucas, 
 Martin and MoHatt, Little York, Thos. A. Dull', 
 G.O.B.A., J. S. Leighton, S.O.M.B.F., John Woodhouse, 
 P.D.M., A. Irwin, D.M., Geo. Synies, jun., CM., West 
 York, Geo. Symes, sen., P.C.M., Bro. Brown, W.M, 
 
HOX. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 137 
 
 920, W. J. Irwine, C. Yeatman, H. Yeatman, Marshall 
 Bros., Rowntree Bros., Dr. McVittie, W. Peterman, 
 Mayor Armstrong, W. J. Wads worth, A. Fawcett, 
 Bro. Brown, W.M. L.O.L. 328, New Toronto, S, Fitz- 
 gerald, T. J. Armstrong, A. B. Rice, and hundreds of 
 others. 
 
 Bro. Wallace lost two brothers. Charles died in 
 1885 and Robert in 1893. I have travelled over nearly 
 all of the Dominion, and have visited many lodges, 
 and having known Mr. Wallace for many years, 
 I am prepared to speak positively of his worth, work 
 and popularity in the country. His life-long fidelity 
 to Orangeism and Protestantism has given him a very 
 warm place in every Orangeman's heart. One of his 
 last speeches, perhaps the best he ever made in the 
 House of Commons, was on the Coronation Oath, in 
 which he protested against any change. Since the 
 death of the late Grand Master, condolences have 
 been pouring in on the family from the Atlantic to 
 the Pacific, and wreaths were sent from all over the 
 country, showing the respect the people of all classes 
 had for the Hon. N. Clarke Wallace. Thanks are 
 due Bros. Burkholder, of Woodbridge, and Burnett, of 
 Brampton, who were in cliarge of the remains, and 
 Bros. Humphrey and Ranks, who assisted. 
 
 Mrs. Wallace and family have the sympathy and 
 
138 HON. N. CLARKE WALLACE. 
 
 prayers of all Orangemen of the Dominion. I was 
 pleased to hear that Captain Tom Wallace received a 
 South African medal from the Duke of Cornwall and 
 
 York. 
 
 Hon. Clarke Wallace's majority over Mr. A. Camp- 
 bell in the last election, November 7th, 1900, was 874.