Document Information

Date: 1905-04-14
By: Canada (Parliament)
Citation: Canada, House of Commons Debates, 10th Parl, 1st Sess, 1905 at 4552-4644.
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PROVINCIAL AUTONOMY IN THE NORTHWEST.

House resumed adjourned debate on the proposed motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier for the second reading of Bill (No. 69) to establish and provide for the government of the province of Alberta, and the amendment of Mr. R. L. Borden, thereto.

Mr. A. A. BRUNEAU (Richelieu). (Translation). Mr. Speaker, the constitution grants us the right to speak French in this House, and I hasten to avail myself of this privilege, for, considering the turn political events are taking in this country, if we are to believe Mr. Crawford, who spoke the other day at the Annual Banquet of the Orangemen in Toronto, it is evident that our right to speak French in this House will before long be questioned. When that time comes, in order to justify such an injustice, the constitution will not be appealed to; but it will be stated that we speak English as readily as French, that we are not in the habit of speaking French here and that it is a source of expense to publish a French edition of the ‘Hansard.’ Of course, the proposal will be rejected, but the occasion will be a favourable one to stir up national prejudices against the so-called French domination; for, as soon the rights of our race are acknowledged, the cry of French

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domination is sounded. It was sounded, even in 1875, against Mr. Alexander Mackenzie, who was attacked by a few Tory newspapers, in connection with the organization of the Northwest Territories, as will be seen in a moment, although with less violence than we see exhibited to-day by the Toronto ‘News’ and the Toronto ‘World.’

At that time, the school question was a live issue and was a subject of great anxiety for Catholics over the whole world. Look into the newspapers of those days, Mr. Speaker, and you will find the proof of that statement. In the United States, in the state and the city of New York especially, Catholics were energetically vindicating their rights. An Oblate priest, the Reverend Father Warren, was anathematizing Catholic parents who sent their children to public schools. Those sermons had been commented upon in the European, American and Canadian press. We were ourselves, in Canada, greatly agitated over the New Brunswick school legislation of 1871. That question had been discussed in this House for three consecutive sessions. It was used as a political machine in the province of Quebec, by the Ultramontane school, by Messrs. Langevin, Masson, Baby and Mousseau. The representatives of the people felt the necessity of putting an end to national and religious strife, if the federal system, then at its inception and based on good faith, was to be maintained. That is why the school legislation relative to the Northwest was carried through this House post haste. In the Upper House, the Bill was carried by a vote of 24 against 22, on an amendment moved by the hon. Mr. Aikens, exactly to the same effect as that of the hon. leader of the opposition. But the question was such a burning one, the public mind was so deeply agitated over the school legislation of New Brunswick, and the stand taken by the Hon. George Brown was so uncompromising, that such legislation could not pass unnoticed by the public press.

In recalling the discussion to which this question gave rise thirty years ago, in the newspapers, I think I am supplying fresh argument in support of this Bill, further proof that the Bill of 1875, in the minds of its promoters, was to settle the question once for all. Then, it should be remembered that, at the time, those who had taken an active part in bringing about confederation were still in public life. Scarcely eight years had elapsed since the passing of the compact, and the spirit of conciliation which inspired the fathers of confederation had not yet completely died away. I shall show that the law of 1875 was approved in Ontario and in Quebec by the two leading political organs of Sir John A. Macdonald. As regards the French Canadian Conservative newspapers, they claimed credit for their own party for the establishment of

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separate schools in the Northwest, while the Liberal newspapers, pointed to that legislation as a proof of the Mr. Mackenzie’s breadth of mind. The ‘Globe’ the Montreal ‘Herald’ approved of the Bill introduced by the Mackenzie government, without any restriction, that is to say, without making any special mention of the separate schools question.

‘Le National,’ organ of the Liberal party in Montreal, on the 16th March, 1875, under the heading ‘Always just,’ expressed itself as follows:

None of the honest and truthful organs of the party which boasts of its high principles, has yet called attention to the fact, quite remarkable as it is, that the hon. Mr. Mackenzie, in his Bill for the establishment of the Northwest, has made provision for separate schools.

If the Prime Minister had not shown himself so wise and just in that respect, what an uproar would there not have been from the organs of those who voted against Mr. Bourassa’s amendment when, at the time the confederation scheme was adopted, he requested that all minorities be dealt with in the same way as the hon. Mr. Mackenzie has just dealt with the settlers of the Northwest.

Conservative newspapers will be fair and truthful by the time oysters grow a beard.

The Montreal ‘Gazette,’ on the date of March 17th, 1875, under the heading ‘The Northwest Territories,’ wrote as follows:

THE NORTHWEST TERRITORIES.

The Bill introduced by Mr. Mackenzie for the organization of the Northwest Territories is one of the most important that has been submitted to parliament since the union. We take it there is no serious intention of asking the House to accept this measure this session. Its importance is so great, that to attempt to pass it into law at the fag end of a session, when members are impatient to get to their homes, and intolerant therefore of debate, would be a great mistake. But its introduction has been a wise proceeding, as it will give ample time for its fair and full consideration before another session. The Bill seeks to fix the constitution which is to govern these vast territories in the future. Sir John Macdonald, without committing himself directly to the opinion, expressed some doubts as to whether this is a wise proceeding. His suggestion was that it would be better that the parliament of Canada should keep within its control the determination in the future of the precise form of government suited to these Territories as they became more developed, and as population flowed into them. There is doubtless some force in the view, but upon consideration it will be found, we think, Mr. Mackenzie has adopted the wise course. Looking to the encouragement of immigration into the Northwest there can be little doubt of the importance of having the character of the institutions under which, in the future, these immigrants will have to live, settled in advance. It will avoid all disputes and difficulties, all questions of negotiations about terms between unorganized but tolerably large communities and the government of the Dominion,

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and it will thus render at least improbable any of those complications which have harassed the political discussions of the last few years. With the form of government settled in advance, and with the machinery provided for its coming into practical operation without further legislation, and by the force simply of advancing settlement any immigrant settling in the country will do so with the full knowledge of the institutions under which he is to live, and will assume, therefore, a voluntary allegiance to those institutions. But if it is wise to do, as Mr. Mackenzie proposes doing, then it certainly be wise to allow ample time for the consideration of the measure by which he proposes to do it. The establishment of the system of government which in the future is to prevail in these vast territories is a work which cannot be other than difficult. At the very outset we had evidence of how important this delay is. In the Bill, as prepared, the government had omitted all reference to the important subject of education, and all provision for the avoidance of those difficulties which at this moment are doing so much harm in New Brunswick. True, after it was printed Mr. Mackenzie discovered the omission and submitted a manuscript clause to cover it.

The ‘Gazette’ wanted time to consider the measure; but it approved of its principle, and even, as may be seen, of the clause establishing separate schools. According to that newspaper other matters such as those dealt with in the clause relative to separate schools had possibly been overlooked, and for that reason it wanted the discussion of the measure to be postponed until the session of 1876.

Under the heading ‘The Work of the session,’ the ‘National’ on the date of April 10th, 1875, referred once more to the question in the following terms:

Peace is restored in the Northwest Territories, and hence it has deemed necessary to organize them. The government has set to work at once, and to-day there is in our statute books, an Act which grants to that vast territory a constitution providing for its immediate requirements. The headquarters of the government will be Fort Pelly. Those of our readers who follow closely what appears in our columns will remember that in the constitution granted to these provinces is included—and we called attention to the fact some time ago—a clause establishing separate schools. However, Conservative newspapers in the province of Quebec have refrained from commenting on the subject. Of course, they refer to the policy of the government only when an opportunity offers for abuse; and one of the leading organs of the Conservative party, the Toronto ‘Leader,’ has viciously assailed the hon. Mr. Mackenzie and the Catholics, by contending that the Prime Minister was being led by the latter who were not worthy of the rope of the hangman. When we read such stuff published in a Conservative newspaper, we cannot be surprised at witnessing in our times this alliance between Catholics and Orangemen.

On the first of April, 1875, in the course of a violent article against French domination,

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The ‘Daily Telegraph,’ of St. John, N.B., stated:

It is owing to their influence that we see the best lands in Manitoba reserved for a few half-breeds, and the new province of Saskatchewan saddled with the perpetual curse of a separate school system.

The Ottawa ‘Citizen’ did not at the time make such a fuss, as it is doing to-day. On the 9th of April, 1875, the day following the prorogation of parliament, it expressed itself in these terms:

The Bill to amend and consolidate the laws respecting the Northwest Territory received very little opposition, the chief objection to it involved a very large annual outlay for officials, &c.

Was ‘the chief objection’ separate schools? No. In 1875 and 1878, at the time of the general election, the Mackenzie government was accused of having prematurely taken up the task of organizing the Northwest Territories, with a view to finding positions for their friends.

But I shall request hon. members to look into the ‘Mail,’ which was the organ of Sir John Macdonald at the time, and, to their great satisfaction, no doubt, they will find that the legislation of 1875 was highly approved of by the great Toronto newspaper. ‘Tempora mutantur!’

The ‘Mail’ of April 19th, 1875, approved of the Mackenzie Act in the following terms:

SEPARATE SCHOOLS IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.

It is amazing that to some men experience brings no wisdom. There is Mr. George Brown who used to ride so high a Protestant horse in the old days in Upper Canada. He wound up his agitation against separate schools by guaranteeing their continued existence and support by means of a clause of the British North America Act based upon one of the resolutions of the Quebec conference to which he was a consenting party. By their Northwest Territories Bill the present government provide that separate schools may be established in those Territories. The proposal we regard as eminently wise, and with the experience which he had had, Mr. Brown should have been the last man to oppose it. Yet he had not only opposed the principle itself, but appealed to the British North America Act as containing sound legal objections to the course proposed to be taken by the government. He said: He thought this provision was quite contrary to the British North America Act. Nothing was more clear than that each province should have absolute control over education. He thought that was the only principle on which this Union Act could continue. If the Dominion government interfered with local matters we should get into inextricable confusion with the provinces. The safe way for us was to let each province suit itself in such matters. This country was filled by people of all classes and creeds, and there would be no end of confusion if each class had to have its own peculiar school system. It had been said this clause was put in for the protection of the Protestants against the Catholics,

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The latter being the most numerous. But he, speaking for the Protestants, was in a position to say that we did not want that protection. In this case it was proposed that the national machinery should be used for the imposition and collection of taxes upon persons of peculiar denominations for the support of schools of their kind. It was an attempt to enforce upon that country peculiar views with regard to education.

The ‘Mail’ goes on :

We fear Mr. Brown is no better lawyer than his friend Mr. Alexander Mackenzie. We do not doubt that Senator Miller took the correct view when he said that the clause referred to by Mr. Brown applied only to the provinces which were in the union at the time the Act was passed. Every one may see how fortunate a thing it would have been if the school question had been put on a stable basis in New Brunswick, and if by the Northwest Act the government should have prevented future burnings on educational matters in the great new country which belongs to us in the far west, they will have done a good work indeed. We cordially endorse their action in this matter.

Such was Sir John Macdonald’s policy ; such was the policy he stood up for in 1890, when in this House, on the 17th February, he uttered the following words which I find at page 748 of the Hansard :

You might remember, Sir, that when the Hon. George Brown brought his immense force and ability and unsurpassed energy to lead the Reform party of old Upper Canada, his whole aim was oppression to the French. Every speech he made, every article that he wrote in the ‘Globe,’ every resolution almost which he moved, was a denunciation of the French law, the French language and the Catholic religion ; and because we, the Conservatives, opposed him with all our might and all our vigour, we were in a minority in our province. Again and again have the best and the strongest of our Conservatives been defeated at the polls, simply because we would not do injustice to our French fellow-countrymen. Again and again have we been put in a minority because we declined to join in that crusade against the French Canadians, against the Catholic religion, and against French institutions. Again and again have I been misrepresented and called the slave of popery, and told that I had sold myself to the French of Lower Canada and was sacrificing my own race, my own religion and my own people, because, without a moment of hesitation, without swerving for an instant, I and those who followed me—for even when I was not the nominal leader, I greatly directed the course of the Conservative party—declined, from no personal motive or desire of popularity—the popular cry was raised against the French Canadians in Upper Canada then as it is in Ontario to-day—to do an injustice to our French Canadian fellow-citizens.

And a little further on, same page :

Does the hon. gentleman not remember when the agitation was raised in Upper Canada on a very specious cry—the question of representation by population . . . that the Conservative party opposed that cry, specious and

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popular as it was ? And why did we oppose it ? Because the avowed object was to crush and oppress our French Canadian subjects.

On the day following the publication of the article in the ‘Mail’ to which I have just referred. The Toronto ‘Daily Leader’ published a letter from one Charles Durand, a French Protestant, presumably in answer to the ‘Mail,’ under the heading : ‘Is the Conservative party in favour of the separate schools in the Northwest ?’ In Mr. Durand’s opinion, the only good political deed to be put to the credit of Mr. Brown since 1875, was the vote he had cast in the Senate against that clause of the Bill granting separate schools to the Northwest. That extremest even went so far as to blame Mr. Brown for permitting the establishment of denominational schools in Ontario, at the time of confederation. It is useless to add that this correspondent severely criticised those poor separate schools.

On the 21st of April, 1875, the ‘Leader’ took up once more the subject of separate schools in the Northwest, stating that the Conservative party of Ontario was in great majority opposed to such an objectionable system.

On the other hand, the Chatham ‘Planet’ expressed itself at the time in the same sense as the hon Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) did a few days ago.

Separate schools was a vexed question for twenty years, and now let us have peace.

On April 23rd, 1875, the ‘Minerve,’ that good principled organ, fearing lest it should lose its old vantage ground, religion, and forgetful of ministerial responsibility, claimed for the Conservative party credit and honour for having established separate schools in the Northwest Territories. The article reads as follows :—

Liberal newspapers are endeavouring to take advantage of the fact that separate schools are in existence in the new western province, and are claiming credit on this account for their leader. They forget that this clause was strongly objected to in the Senate by the leaders of the Grit party, Messrs. George Brown, Christie and Letellier, and had it not been for the assistance given by Conservative senators it would have been defeated.

The Toronto ‘Mail’ and the majority of the Conservative newspapers in Upper Canada have approved of this clause and of the principle of separate schools therein contained. The ‘National’ quotes from the ‘Mail,’ the organ of Sir John, in the following terms :

The article of the ‘Mail’ is just here reproduced by the ‘Minerve.’ On the 26th of April, the ‘Minerve’ realizing that the Mackenzie government had deprived it of its favourite weapon, again referred to the subject, in the following hypocritical fashion :

The ‘National’ persists in claiming credit for its masters on account of the clause of the Northwest Bill which provides for the

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establishment of separate schools in the future province of Saskatchewan. Our pious contemporary forgets that Mr. Mackenzie’s original Bill did not contain a single word on the subject. It was later on only that the Prime Minister agreed to have that clause added in compliance with representations which were made to him. The Bill was already printed.

The ‘National,’ on the next day, made the following reply :

The ‘Minerve’ states that we persist in claiming credit for our party for the establishment of the clause in the Northwest Bills which provides for separate schools in the future province of Saskatchewan.

Well, yes, brother, we stick to our statements because they are true and well grounded. On giving notice of the introduction of the Bill, concerning the Northwest Territories, the hon. Mr. Mackenzie added, in the midst of applause, that the new Act would ensure to the various denominations a system of schools in harmony with the interests of each one of them.

The members have heard, as we have, the statement made on that occasion, and are in a position to support our claim. The Bill, it is true, has been submitted to the House without that clause concerning the schools, but Mr. Mackenzie explained that the matter had suggested itself to him on going into the question of taxation and that, in Committee of the Whole, he would introduce a clause establishing separate schools. The clause was introduced verbally instead of being written into the Bill. To the hon. Mr. Mackenzie, therefore belongs the credit of having enacted this new statutory provision.

Is Mr. Masson, Mr. Mousseau, Mr. Baby, or any of their friends the originator of that clause? The ‘Minerve’ refers also to representations made to the Prime Minister. We are not of opinion that any such representations have been made, but it is quite certain that in this respect, as well, Conservatives cannot claim any credit for themselves. The opposition, however green it may be, would not have offered any suggestions to the Prime Minister on a subject which afforded such a fine opportunity for making political capital. Instead of suggesting to the minister the propriety of settling beforehand the school question in the Northwest, Mr. Masson would certainly have moved an amendment in that direction and claimed credit on that account for his party.

The ‘Courier de St. Hyacinthe,’ another high principled organ of those times, now took a hand in the fray and flew to the rescue of the ‘Minerve.’ On the 26th of April, 1875, the old goddess, with complacency reproduces the ‘Courier’s’ little song :

The Toronto ‘Mail,’ the leading organ of the Conservative party in Upper Canada, unhesitatingly endorses the principle of separate schools contained in the Act organizing into a new province part of the Northwest Territories. On the other hand, it condemns the opposition made to it by George Brown, who, as is known, took a decided stand against the adoption of that protective clause introduced as an afterthought in the Prime Minister’s Bill. The famous treaty-maker, guided on this occasion by the doctrines which have always

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inexpired his paper, and by his own hatred for all that pertains, from far or near, to the Roman Catholic church, would have put Catholics in the Northwest under the same unfavourable conditions which militate against New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Fortunately that proposal of the old chieftain has not been agreed to. Its adoption would have been a grievous political mistake which would have allayed the progress of settlement in those far-off regions, and which would have become a source of embarrassment for the Dominion government.

On April 28th, 1875, the ‘Minerve’ deals with the subject once more, apologizes for the Toronto ‘Leader,’ and claims that the ‘Mail’ is the organ of Sir John and that the Conservative party is in favour of separate schools. The Toronto ‘Leader’ dealt with the subject in a sense directly opposite to that of its ultramontane, ally, as may be seen by a perusal of its columns.

The ‘National,’ on April 24, 1875, exposes, in the following terms, the falsehoods of the ‘Minerve’ :

SEPARATE SCHOOLS IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORIES.

The tanners’ apprentices of the ‘Minerve’ have not been particularly well inspired in the matter of a short editorial on the subject of separate schools in the Northwest Territories. It is stated therein that we are indebted to Conservative senators for the clause which provides for the schools and that Messrs. Christie and Letellier have opposed the Bill.

In the first place, Mr. Christie, as Speaker of the Senate, has no right to express an opinion except by means of his casting vote in case of an equal division ; then Mr. Letellier, being one of the ministers, could not reject in the Senate a principle endorsed by the government and set forth in a Government Bill. Besides, Mr. Letellier took exactly the opposite stand to that alleged by the ‘Minerve.’ He approved strongly of the school clause. The amendment supported by Mr. Brown to the effect that the future legislature of the Northwest be left with an entirely free hand as regards educational matters, was moved by a leading Conservative, Mr. Aikens, and endorsed by nearly all the Protestant senators who belonged to the opposition.

The ‘Minerve’ winds up by a most laughable blunder. After having stated that the liberals are not the originators of the school system introduced in the Northwest, it contradicts itself by quoting from the ‘Mail’ a few lines wherein the writer congratulates the government on having safeguarded the interests of the various denominations, and on having prevented difficulties such as those which occurred in New Brunswick.

In this review of the session’s work for 1875, the ‘Journal de Quebec,’ the organ of the Hon. Mr. Cauchon, one of the ministers of the Mackenzie government, made the following statement :

Before concluding, we cannot omit calling attention to a fact which shows to what degree partisanship may blind itself : Mr. Mackenzie had introduced a Bill for the purpose of reorganizing the Northwest Territory. In the course of the discussion on that matter,

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remembering all the difficulties which had arisen from the New Brunswick Act abolishing separate schools, he announced that he was going to embody the principle of those schools in the new constitution granted to that vast Northwest Territory. That proposal, which nobody expected, and which was well received by the great majority of the House, was an act worthy of praise and gratitude while it was, at the same time an indication of the progress of the spirit of toleration in the minds of Protestants throughout the Dominion. Previous to him, no minister had thought of this measure of justice and conciliation ; and how was it received ? His opponents said : ‘ That provision was not in the Bill when first introduced and consequently the idea is not his own ; he has acted under outside pressure.’ As if the idea should be scorned because it had not suggested itself to the Prime Minister’s mind at the outset. But did that generous suggestion originate with the opposition ? If so, when and by whom was it made and to whose pressure did Mr. Mackenzie submit ? Even admitting that the suggestion was made to Mr. Mackenzie which is untrue, should he not have credit for having carried it out cheerfully and for having accomplished what nobody else had yet accomplished ?

Moreover, that action on the part of Mr. Mackenzie is a proof of his kindly disposition towards religious minorities in all the provinces of the Dominion, and of his willingness to assist them wherever the impassable barriers of the constitution are not in the way.

The separate schools in the Northwest were considered so well established for all time, that Mr. P. A. Tremblay, an ex-member of this House for the county of Charlevoix, in 1878, in a political pamphlet intituled ‘ The government of the Dominion during the years 1874-75-76-77-78, wrote as follows in connection with separate schools in the Northwest :

Sir George Cartier and Mr. Langevin have not done anything comparable on behalf of the Catholics of Manitoba, who, under the law organizing that province, are subjected, like the Catholics in the province of New Brunswick, to the arbitrary rule of the majority.

The extracts I have quoted from the newspapers of 1875 are very instructive. They show that the two recognized organs of the English-speaking Tories of the province of Quebec, endorsed the establishment of separate schools in the Northwest in the interest of peace, immigration and settlement. As for the organs of the French-speaking Tories, such was their sense of approval that they claimed credit for their party on that account, while the Toronto ‘ Leader,’ and a few other Tory newspapers in Ontario and New Brunswick, raised the cry of French domination, exactly in the same way as the Toronto ‘ News ’ and the Toronto ‘ World ’ are doing to-day, though the former showed less wrath and did not publish such offensive cartoons against Catholics and French Canadians.

Those extracts, moreover, corroborate the statement made by the Prime Minister, that

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the Act of 1875, as understood and interpreted at the time, was final, because its object was to prevent any re-occurrence of the agitation brought about by the school question in New Brunswick. We may judge, Sir, from what is going on to-day, how wise our legislators of the year 1875 have proven themselves to be.

The political events of the last thirty years show that the British North America Act of 1867 did not adequately safeguard religious beliefs, vested rights, the rights of minorities and the principle of the equality of all races and religious denominations under the constitution. Sir John Macdonald stated, however, in 1890, at the time the House was discussing Mr. McCarthy’s Bill prohibiting the use of the French language, in official matters in the Northwest Territories :

We have a constitution under which all British subjects are on a footing of absolute equality as regards language, religion, property and personal rights.

Unfortunately the school difficulties in New Brunswick and Manitoba, which in both cases, resulted almost in civil war, have caused such dissatisfaction among the French and Catholic inhabitants of this country, that they have been led to take, and still take a different view from that expressed above by Sir John Macdonald ; and the open breaking of the constitution of the Northwest Territories, in 1892, as regards separate schools, has put a great many of the Canadian subjects of His Majesty under the painful impression that, in order to obtain justice and the recognition of their rights, it is indispensable that detailed and minute compacts and agreements be entered into. To prevent in the two new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, a recurrence of events similar to those which took place in New Brunswick in 1871, in Manitoba in 1890, in the Northwest Territories in 1892, such should be the main object of the legislation now under discussion ; for, in my humble opinion, the land question and the money question, all-important though they be as regards the administration and establishment of these new provinces, are only of secondary importance as compared with that which concerns liberty of conscience and religious equality under the law. It is necessary, then, that the foundations on which we are building up these two great provinces, whose future is bound to be so brilliant, should be broad, strong, capable of upholding all nationalities and creeds which our vigorous immigration policy directs, from year to year, by hundreds of thousands, to those vast and fertile Territories. By establishing, or rather by guaranteeing to them in the constitution which we are granting, a system of separate schools, that which exists to-day, and is operated to the satisfaction of the parties interested, we are ensuring to them a future of peace, of good

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will and of harmony. The development and settlement of these immense prairies demands the adoption of some such policy. In fact, it is the very argument which was brought forward in 1875 in support of that clause in the Northwest Territories Act. When the Bill was introduced in the House the Hon. Mr. Blake spoke as follows:

He (Mr. Blake) believed that it was essential to our obtaining a large immigration to the Northwest that we should tell the people beforehand what those rights were to be in the country in which we invited them to settle. It was interesting to the people to know that at the very earliest moment there was a sufficient aggregate of population within a reasonable distance, that aggregation would have a voice in the self-government of the Territories, and he believed the Dominion government was wise (although the measure might be brought down very late this session, and it might be found impossible to give it due consideration) in determining in advance of settlement what the character of the institutions of the country should be in which we invite people.

The ‘Nouveau Monde,’ the organ of the Ultramontane section of the Conservative party in the province of Quebec, taunted the Mackenzie government for having prematurely organized the Northwest Territories. On January 20, 1876, the ‘Globe’ vindicated the action of the government, for the ‘Globe’ did not utter one word against the school legislation of 1875:

The tide of immigration has already set in, and in order to prevent effectually those acts of lawlessness which characterize all new settlements where population precedes the establishment of authority, it was best for all parties that a settled government should be organized. It is inevitable that a greater and greater degree of self-government should be accorded to the people of the Northwest, and nothing shows more clearly the reactionary tendencies of the party whose organ ‘Le Nouveau Monde’ is than their illiberal position on this question.

Immigrants who have come since 1875, to settle in the Territories knew in advance what were the ‘laws and what was the character of the institutions of the country’ in which we invited them to settle. No one has settled there under false pretenses. Last summer, one of my constituents, a young well-to-do farmer, anxious of trying his luck in the Territories, came to me for advice, and I remember distinctly that he inquired about the school system in the Northwest. I advised him to go, gave him letters of introduction for the member from Alberta (Mr. Oliver) to-day Minister of the Interior, and for the member from Saskatchewan, to-day the hon. Senator Davis. He has taken up a farm there, but I am satisfied that he would not have gone at all, if he had not been in a position to give religious instruction to his children.

In such a delicate question as this, the hon. member for East Grey forgets that Catholics are bound to have religious instruction given to their children; he forgets that

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Catholics reject any system of education wherein a religious teaching different from theirs is given, or wherein no religious doctrine is taught. That view, after all, cannot be so objectionable since eminent writers and Protestant statesmen, such as Guizot, Jules Simon, Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, Chamberlain, Balfour, Sir John Macdonald, have stood up for denominational schools. I respect the views of the hon. member for East Grey, but for one who poses so much as an enemy of coercion, how is it that he is trying to coerce me into sending my children to schools which my conscience condemns?

When it comes to administering the oath, regard is had for the conscientious objections of the Quakers. They are not forced to take the oath; they are allowed to make, instead, a solemn declaration. Large sums of money have been voted towards assisting the Mennonites and Doukhobors to come to this country, when it is a well known fact that they will not take any part in the defence of the country, even in case of necessity. Such facts go to show that, at times, the House has taken into account the religious scruples of various denominations. It seems to me Catholics and French Canadians are entitled to as much consideration as Quakers, Mennonites and Doukhobors. In establishing a system of separate schools, we are ensuring to all minorities, whether Protestant or Catholic, the protection and regard to which they are entitled. In so doing, I believe we are keeping within the scope of the powers granted by the British North America Act of 1867.

I have no intention, for the purpose of proving my statement, to enter into a discussion of the constitutional features of the case, by a study and comparison of the clauses of the British North America Act. I shall be content to follow the practice of courts of justice—and this parliament is, indeed, the highest tribunal in the country—and quote, in support of my views, those of statesmen, jurists, &c., who have been always considered in this House, and rightly so, as thoroughly competent authorities on such matters.

Lord Kimberly in moving in the House of Lords, on May 23, 1871, the second reading of the Bill amending the British North America Act, and under which we are to-day granting a constitution to these two new provinces, spoke in the following terms:

The Bill was intended to remove doubts which had been cast on the validity of certain Acts of the Canadian parliament. The Act of confederation of the North American provinces gave power to the parliament of Canada to establish provinces in territories admitted, or hereafter to be admitted into the Dominion of Canada, and to provide for the representation of such provinces in parliament, but an Order in Council was necessary, and prior to the issue of such an order in July last the Canadian parliament passed two Acts providing for the temporary government of Rupert’s Land and

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the Northwestern Territory, and to establish the government of the province of Manitoba, formerly known as the Red River Settlement. The law officers of the Crown were of opinion that these Acts were valid, as not being beyond the powers of the Canadian parliament, but doubts having been expressed, the Canadian parliament had addressed the Crown for an Act in the imperial parliament confirming their validity. The Bill would give the Canadian parliament power to establish new provinces and provide for the constitution, &c., thereof much in the same way as the United States government dealt with territories.

Let us then see what are the rights of the federal government of the United States, as regards the admission of territories into the union and their organization into states. Under what terms is the Washington government empowered, by the constitution, to admit these territories into the union.

Cooley, one of the best exponents of the constitution of the United States, answers this question in the following terms, in his treatise, ‘Principles of constitutional law’ (edition of 1898) page 183 :

The practise of the government, originating before the adoption of the constitution, has been for congress to establish governments for the Territories, and whether the jurisdiction over the district has been acquired by grant from the states, or by treaty with a foreign power, congress has unquestionably full power to govern it, and the people, except as congress shall provide therefor, are not of right entitled to participate in political authority, until the territory becomes a state. Meantime they are in a condition of temporary pupilage and dependence ; and while congress will be expected to recognize the principle of self-government to such extent as may seem wise, its discretion alone can constitute the measure by which the participation of the people can be determined.

As regards the admission of a state, Congress has full discretionary powers ; and I respectfully submit that under the British North America Act, we have exactly the same power as the United States Congress, as regards the organization of a territory into a state.

On February 28, 1890, (see Hansard page 912) the Hon. Mr. Mitchell spoke as follows :

When this parliament creates a province or a number of provinces in the Northwest, parliament will define and particularize in the constitution of those provinces the powers they will exercise. I differ with the hon. member for Bothwell (Mr. Mills) as to what rights can be accorded to these provinces, the hon. member for Bothwell taking the ground that we cannot give less or more extensive powers to the new provinces we create than are possessed by the old provinces under the British North America Act. With all due deference to the hon. gentleman’s view, I do not agree with it ; but I admit that it is a question open to discussion.

Moreover, it must be stated that if the hon. leader of the opposition does not agree to-day with that view of Sir John

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Macdonald, he has renounced on several other questions, as well, the views held by his old leader.

The opinion expressed by Sir John Macdonald is evidently based on the Act of 1871, concerning the establishment of provinces in the Dominion of Canada. The Act was passed by the imperial government in order to remove doubts as to the power of the Canadian parliament to establish provinces within the territories admitted, or which may be later on admitted, into the Dominion of Canada, and to provide for the representation of these provinces in the said parliament. Such is the very wording of the preamble. Section 2 gives us the right to establish new provinces and to grant them a constitution. It is evident that Sir John Macdonald had that section in mind when he stated that we had a right to grant to the future provinces of the Northwest such constitution as we thought fit. Now, in 1875, we granted separate schools to the Territories. That Act was subsequently, and on several occasions, discussed before this House ; it was amended, revised and it never suggested itself to the mind of any one to alter, or strike out of the constitution of the Northwest Territories, the clause establishing separate schools. To do so, after a lapse of thirty years would be iniquitous from the standpoint of justice and law.

Besides, that law is satisfactory to Catholics as well as Protestants, and we should thereby consider ourselves relieved, since our duty consists in making the people happy and satisfied.

A grievance, however, was voiced in 1894 ; it was that of the Catholic minority, and it was rebuffed in quick order by the Conservative government. But, to-day, who are those agitating against that clause of the Bill which embodies the present school law of the Northwest Territories, in the constitution of the new provinces ? Are they the representatives of the west ? Are they the representatives of the Territories wherein we are carving two new provinces ? No, the great majority of the House are in favour of that legislation. Those who are voicing that grievance are the advocates of the so-called provincial rights, whose self-constituted champion, the hon. member for East Grey, on that occasion, got ahead even of his chief, the leader of the opposition.

For the sake of provincial rights, do you say ? But, there are no such rights in existence as yet. Surely, this is only a pretense ; hon. members, in this House, are fully aware that this is not the true reason, the real motive of the opposition which has been carried on against the Bill. I have no hesitation in stating so ; this is only a pretense, a means of preventing the establishment of a school system, the principle of which is found objectionable, because separate schools imply the teaching of religion and of our national traditions, the gradual

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development of our race and our influence in the Dominion.

In 1889, Mr. Dalton McCarthy took up the policy advocated of old by Mr. Geo. Brown, or rather that advocated by the oligarchy and family compact, in the years following the conquest, when every effort was made to anglicize us at all cost, by inducing us to renounce what we regarded as our national heritage, our institutions, our tongue and our laws, under the fallacious pretext of national unity. The by-word was then: ‘Let us abolish the separate schools and the use of the French language.’ That is the object, not openly stated perhaps, but quite apparent on the part of several. They do not all speak out, of course, as does Mr. Crawford, who for one, wishes to do away with the constitution. This agitation is carried on, moreover, with a view to injuring the government, for the west is satisfied. I may be permitted to lay before the House the following correspondence published a few days ago in the Montreal ‘Witness,’ being letters exchanged by William Drysdale, of Montreal, and Mr. James Short of Calgary. It may have the effect of cooling the untoward zeal of some hon. members, of allaying their fears and showing them how unwarranted and ridiculous is the agitation which they are carrying on about a question concerning which the people of the Northwest, be they of the Catholic minority or of the Protestant majority, remain perfectly calm:

Mr. Drysdale wrote to Mr. Short, on the date of March 13:—

May I ask you to give me some idea of the school question? Where are we at? I cannot make anything out of the question, absolutely nothing. What do you think would be best under the circumstances for the Northwest, for the new provinces? Do Catholics in the Territoires demand the same privileges as Protestants in Quebec?

Mr. Short, of Calgary, answered as follows:

Your letter of March 13 is somewhat a surprise to me. I do not know anything of the privileges enjoyed by the Protestant minority in the province of Quebec. As regards separate schools in the Territories, I may say that advantage has not been taken of them to any great extent. One per cent only of the schools in the Territories are Catholic separate schools. The school system here is such as cannot be taken exception to. There is only one series of text-book; the inspectors are the same for all establishments; the standard of qualification for teachers is uniform; the standard of classification for schools, whether Protestant or Catholic is also uniform.

Under those circumstances, no such drawbacks as those resulting from the Ontario system of separate schools, are felt here. There is no agitation carried on in the Territories in respect to schools and no change whatever in the present system is called for.

Besides, the people of the west themselves will be called upon to express their views, within a few days, and to state whether or not they approve of the school policy of the government, as the latter have taken up the

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challenge of the opposition and opened one of the counties concerned, in connection with the election of the new Minister of the Interior.

The people of the west are going to speak out. We will be in a position to judge of the effect of the foolish boast of the opposition and of their mean appeals to religious and national prejudices.

The people of the west are going to speak out. We will know what is the result of the agitation started by the hon. member for East Grey, for he is the man who, by his letter to the Orange lodges, fanned the flame of bigotry. These appeals to the prejudices of the people have their object: that of enlisting the aid of religious bigots. They are miserable political expedients, which may meet with some temporary success, and by means of which those in power may be made to suffer to some extent; but they are unworthy of any one who has a true love for his country and his fellow-citizens. At any rate, as these prejudices have no solid foundation they are bound to disappear very soon before the brilliant light of justice and truth.

The discussion carried on in the French Canadian newspapers, ‘La Presse,’ ‘La Patrie’ and ‘Le Canada,’ is of an altogether different character. These papers have remained calm, in the face of the storm of abuse, of vile insinuations, let loose against our race, our religious institutions. Quebec is being sarcastically represented as given over, hands and feet bound, to the Catholic hierarchy. What was the Jacques Cartier club of Montreal, the essence of Toryism in our province, thinking about when it undertook to have those petitions which we have heard about sent from all quarters, from all counties. What was its object? To embarrass the government. The motive was a different one, but the object was the same, in the case of that Conservative club, as in that of the hon. member for East Grey. To regain power, such is the highest aim of our opponents in their political warfare. To fan the flame of prejudice, to set one against the other the various races, the various provinces, to promote racial hatred, to let loose the demon of religious antagonism, such are the means they have recourse to in order to overthrow the government. Such is the ungracious task which the majority of the Conservative party have set themselves to, under the fallacious pretense of upholding provincial rights, in the case of the hon. member for East Grey, and under that of ensuring a full measure of justice to the Catholics of the Northwest, in the case of the Jacques Cartier club.

It is no use trying to hide the fact. The separate school is objected to, on the ground that it is an impediment to the unification of the various races inhabiting this country. Do you wish for a proof of this? Listen to Mr. Willison, editor of the ‘News’ who spoke in the following terms at the Toronto meeting on the 21st of March last.

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THE UNIFICATION OF RACES.

The western problem is of immense interest and of enormous signification.

We are entrusted with the task of assimilating men of many creeds and various nationalities to find for these elements one common tongue and one common patriotism. Should we fail to make use of the national schools for this vital work of unification and consolidation, we shall be guilty of deliberate treason towards the community. That result is being accomplished through the young statesmen of the west, and we are here tonight to tell the Ottawa politicians and the Quebec hierarchy to mind their own business.

Let me say to Mr. Willison, in all frankness, that the unification of races is a delusion. All attempts to make us renounce our national characteristics are bound to fail, whether at his hands or at the hands of others, and whatever be the means taken for that purpose, even if it be the abolition of our separate schools. Every effort has been made, and what has been the result? Although separated from our old mother country by the breadth of the Atlantic ocean, although deprived by the fate of war of our old flag, although more than a century has rolled by, we in spite of a most painful and prolonged abandonment, have remained Frenchmen, have remained Catholics; and that persistence of that patriotic attachment to, French sentiments and ideas, is certainly one of the most striking facts in the history of all nations. Henry IV used to say that natives of Gascony would thrive everywhere; but what would he not have said of the French Canadians, had he known them. The 60,000 settlers, given up by France to England in 1763, now number 1,322,115 in the province of Quebec; 158,671, in Ontario; 45,161, in Nova Scotia; 79,979, in New Brunswick; 13,866, in Prince Edward Island; 16,021, in Manitoba; 4,600, in British Columbia, and 8,958 in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon; that is altogether 1,649,371. And we are nearly 2,000,000 in the United States, who are working our way over there in all directions. We have five representatives in the Ontario legislature, and one cabinet minister. Our political influence in that province is such, today that, according to a member of the press gallery, with whom I had a talk, the other day, if no change occurs in the meantime, we will, twenty-five years hence, be holding the balance of power in that province. Is that the result of the denominational teaching in our separate schools? I could not say. But what I do know it is that if we have our faults as all other people have theirs, we have, thank God, a deep respect for divine and human laws. We are in favour of harmony. Our wish is to live peaceably with other races; we respect them; we are loyal subjects of His Majesty, but as for unification, never. Listen to these words of Sir George Etienne Cartier which I find in the Debates on Confederation, page 59.

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Objection had been taken to the scheme now under consideration, because of the words ‘New Nationality.’ Now, when we were united together, if union were attained, we would form a political nationality with which neither the national origin, nor the religion of any individual would interfere. It was lamented by some that we had this diversity of races, and hopes were expressed that this distinctive future would cease. The idea of unity of races is Utopian—it is impossible. Distinctions of this kind will always exist. Dissimilarity, in fact, appeared to be the order of the physical world and of the moral world, as well as of the political world. But with regard to the objection based on this fact, to the effect that a great nation could not be formed because Lower Canada was in great part French and Catholic, and Upper Canada was British and Protestant and the lower provinces were mixed, it was futile and worthless in the extreme. Look, for instance, at the United Kingdom, inhabited as it was by three great races. (Hear, hear.) Had the diversity of races impeded the glory, the progress, the wealth of England? Had they not rather each contributed their share to the greatness of the empire? Of the glories of the Senate the field and the ocean, of the successes of trade and commerce, how much was contributed by the combined talents, energy and courage of the three races together? (Cheers.) In our federation we should have Catholics and Protestants, English, French, Irish and Scotch, and each by his efforts and his success would increase the prosperity and glory of the new confederacy. (Hear, hear.) He viewed the diversity of races in British North America in this way: We were of different races, not for the purpose of warring against each other, but in order to compete and emulate for the general welfare. (Cheers.) We could not do away with the distinctions of race. We could not legislate for the disappearance of the French Canadians from American soil, but British and French Canadians alike could appreciate and understand their position relative to each other. They were placed like great families beside each other, and their contact produced a healthy spirit of emulation. It was a benefit rather than otherwise that we had a diversity of races. Of course, the difficulty, it would be said, would be to deal fairly by the minority. In Upper Canada, the Catholics would find themselves in a minority. In Lower Canada, the Protestants would be in a minority, while the lower provinces were divided. Under such circumstances, would any one pretend that either the local or the general governments would sanction any injustice?

It is for the very reason that the scheme of confederation appeared to us as a barrier against unification, that we have accepted it under certain conditions, for confederation is a compromise. On February 3, 1865, Sir A. P. Taché, in introducing the Bill, stated:

Our position requires mutual toleration. Our existence will be a long succession of compromises.

On the same day, Sir John A. Macdonald spoke as follows:

This is a treaty between the various colonies, each clause of which has been thoroughly

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discussed and carried by means of mutual concessions.

The resolutions show at their very face that they are a compromise.

On February 6, 1865, the Hon. Mr. Campbell said:

It is the result of discussions, agreements and compromises between various parties.

On the same day, Sir John A. Macdonald said again:

The whole plan of confederation, as worked out by the conference and submitted by the Canadian government for the approbation of the people and the legislature, has the character of a compromise.

Sir George E. Cartier accepted the principle of representation based on population; Sir John A. Macdonald gave up his principle of legislative union. And if the federal system is to be continued, it is necessary that our statesmen, our law-makers in this country, inhabited by the people of various nationalities and creeds, and whose numbers will go on constantly increasing, principally in the Northwest, in the two provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, it is necessary, I say, that they should, that we should, be inspired by these principles, by these generous and broad-minded dispositions, that we should continue to mutually make these concessions to which Sir John Macdonald referred in 1865.

Such is the policy which inspired the Bill now under discussion in this House. It is the outcome of an honourable compromise, insuring justice to the minority, respect for vested rights, confirming them and safeguarding them for the future. As it is, we prefer it to the amendment moved by the hon. leader of the opposition which, were it to be adopted, would hand over to the local legislature, that is to the majority, the rights of the Catholic minority in the two new provinces of the Northwest. As for us, representatives of the minority in the Dominion we object to the rights of our own fellow-churchmen being left without any safeguard to an uncertain future. We are justified in having greater apprehensions, greater fears, greater cause for alarm than had the Protestant minority of the province of Quebec at the time of confederation. In 1865, the Protestant minority of Lower Canada claimed protection, through a petition addressed to parliament previous to entering confederation. And that, notwithstanding the fact that French Canadians had always shown themselves broad, generous and liberal towards them. Never have the French Canadians in the province of Quebec attempted to interfere with the rights of the minority. Far from that, since the day we obtained, subsequent to the parliamentary contests of which you know, Mr. Speaker, the full and complete administration of our affairs, we treated our fellow-citizens of another race as friends

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and brethren. From 1791 up to this date, we have, on several occasions, sent to parliament to defend our interests many an English-speaking or Protestant member. We have given them their share of parliamentary honours, they have had their proportion of patronage, of government positions, from those who had suffered so much at the hands of the family compact. But we are fretful; and we believe we are justified in so being, considering the treatment which has been meted out to us at certain periods of our history. That is the reason why, as far as I am concerned, I cannot agree to support the amendment of the hon. leader of the opposition, and leave the new legislatures have a free hand in the establishment and selection of their school system. Are these apprehensions warranted? We are told: Trust the majority! Our answer is this: Similar promises have so often been broken, that we now want greater security. I shall explain. In 1890, have not separate schools, in Manitoba, been abolished in spite of the guarantees which Catholics were confident of holding under the constitution? Has not the separate school system been abolished in spite of their good faith, in spite of the compact and the solemn promises made at the time Manitoba entered the confederation; in spite of the pledges given to the Catholic and French minority of Manitoba, that if they gave their consent to the abolition of the legislative council of that province, which was considered as the protector of their rights, they would have no reason for regret? All those facts have been eloquently set forth in this House, on March 13, 1896, by the ex-Minister of Finance (Mr. Foster) to-day the member for North Toronto.

We are fretful? How could we be otherwise? In 1892, has not the Northwest legislature broken the constitution as regards the separate schools of the Catholic minority? Has not their appeal for disallowance been rejected, in 1894, by the Minister of Justice, Sir John Thompson? How could we banish all apprehensions for the future, when we have these facts fresh in our minds, facts which are recorded in history and which are part of that series of grievances to which our race has been subjected. For we are not making any mistake about it. The reason for giving to the legislatures of the new provinces absolute control over the school system is not, in my opinion, a desire to comply with the constitution. It is because certain bigoted persons fear lest the Catholic religion should be taught in the schools, and lest our tongue and influence should spread.

Allow me to add, Mr. Speaker, that we would be entirely justified in taking a rather dark view of the future, as Catholics or French Canadians, should the control of the school system be left to a legislature which has already deliberately broken the

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constitution in that respect. Have we not seen, during a period of ten years in the province of Ontario, a great political organization such as that of the Conservative party under the guidance of a distinguished gentleman like Mr. Meredith loudly demand that separate schools be abolished, in spite of the constitution. Under those circumstances, I cannot conceive how hon. gentlemen may hope to enlist our aid in support of a policy which would be the death blow to our race.

As for us, we have always acted in a totally different way towards those of our fellow-citizens who speak another tongue. Nevertheless, it has been insinuated in this House, by the hon. member for North Toronto, I believe, that if the Protestant minority in Quebec was fairly dealt with, it was because we were compelled to do so under the constitution. Nothing could be falser.

As early as 1865, Sir George Etienne Cartier took pleasure in pointing out the breadth of mind of his fellow-countrymen in order to satisfy the people of the other provinces that our record was a guarantee for the future, and that the minority would always have in the province of Quebec its share of justice, and liberty. In 1890, at the time of the discussion of Mr. McCarthy’s Bill for the abolition of the French language in the Northwest Territories, Sir John A. Macdonald gave us credit for a spirit of toleration. And in 1889 or 1890, when certain firebrands attempted to make trouble about the settlement of the question relating to the Jesuits’ estate, effected by Mr. Mercier, Sir Henri Joly de Lotbinière, a Protestant, whom the French Canadian Liberals had carried to power, in 1878, in spite of the Protestant population itself, Sir Henri Joly went through Ontario to show in what manner the Protestant minority was dealt with. In fact, we are not only tolerant, but tolerant and generous to the extreme, as was recognized by the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher). The hon. member for Beauce (Mr. Béland) has shown that in eleven counties in the province of Quebec, where French Catholics are in the majority, Protestant members are elected. Besides, in the Senate, in the judiciary, in municipal councils, everywhere in fact, the Protestant English-speaking population receives more than its share from the hands of the people. See how liberal we are: in 1898 some members of the Quebec legislature, and amongst them English-speaking Protestants, wanted that our legislative council be abolished as a means of relieving the bad state of the provincial finances. Some English-speaking members objected to this on the ground that the legislative council, was, in their opinion, a safeguard for the minority. The great majority of the members took their wish into account and the legislative council was maintained solely for that reason.

Such is the way in which our Protestant fellow-citizens are dealt with by us.

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Nothing in the constitution compels us to grant them a larger number of senators, a larger proportion of public money, a larger number of judges, of municipal councillors, a greater proportion of patronage, than their numbers entitle them to. However, we take pleasure, in the interest of harmony and of union, to act liberally towards them in that respect.

And when we venture to ask for Catholics in the Northwest, not, indeed such generous treatment, but merely the same school law as that enjoyed by the Protestant minority of Quebec, we are threatened with a general ransacking of the country, we are threatened with extermination by the bayonet, as suggested by the hon. member for Victoria and Haliburton. We are even threatened with the breaking up of confederation. Let us put to shame these men who fan the flame of racial hatred. Let them read once more the testimony of one of their accredited representatives, the Hon. Mr. Weir who spoke as follows in Montreal, on March 24 last:

I, the son of Scotch parents and a Protestant, have always, in this province, seen our rights respected, and I challenge any one of them to say that he has been unfairly dealt with by Catholics.

So, when, in the province of Ontario, we hear politicians raising the cry of race and religion in order to prevent citizens of the Northwest Territories from enjoying as we do and as the people of Ontario do, rights to which they are entitled logically and under the constitution, should we not cry out shame to them and stigmatize them with our wrath? Have not the citizens of the Northwest the same right as they have, and as we have, to bring up their children as they think fit?

Strange coincidence, on every occasion since 1867, when the recognition of our rights as a minority has been, to our mind, unjustly opposed, it has always been by means of amendments advocating the maintenance of provincial rights, and exactly similar to that moved by the leader of the opposition, in spite of the assurance given by the fathers of confederation that the Dominion government would always be a protector of minorities. In 1872 and 1875, at the time the New Brunswick school question was being discussed, 1875, in the Senate, against the clause establishing separate schools in the Northwest; in 1890, at the time of the discussion of Mr. McCarthy’s Bill for the abolition of the French language in the Northwest; amendments similar to that moved by the leader of the opposition were introduced, so exactly similar, in fact, that I wonder whether the hon. member has not copied them verbatim.

Exception is taken to separate schools in the Northwest because that system, it is contended, has not dispelled ignorance in the province of Quebec. The hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) has pointed out some of the causes which have delayed the progress of education among the French Canadians. Let me add what follows:

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The British oligarchy was not content with confiscating the Jesuits’ estate as well as those of the Franciscans, all of which had for their object the promotion of education among French Canadian children. They were not content with turning into military barracks the Jesuit college, where had been formed the minds of the most distinguished Canadians of that early period of our history; not only did they attempt to rivet on our people such an unpopular school system as that of the Royal Institution, which, during a period of forty years maintained only 84 schools, but they permitted the school system established by our legislature to go to ruin. They petitioned Her Majesty, complaining that the Quebec seminary was opening classes for the education of young Canadians and that only Catholic teachers were admitted therein; they interfered in every way with the school legislation, through their hold on the legislative council of our province, they rejected the Bill passed at the session of 1835-36, which provided for the establishment of normal schools for the purpose of forming teachers, who were sadly wanting at the time. Not only that, the oligarchy wished to take possession of the estates of the Sulpicians. However, Lord Durham and Mr. Poulett Thompson realized the importance of that institution, and the latter, by a special Order in Council, confirmed the Sulpicians in their rights. We have reason to believe with Mr. Chauveau that the decisive influence which the ‘church authorities and the Quebec hierarchy,’ to use the words of the Toronto ‘News’ and the Toronto ‘World,’ were in a position to exert at that critical period, did not escape the mind of that statesman.

Dr. Meilleur in his book ‘Memorial de l’éducation,’ published in 1876, makes the following answer to our detractors:

The Canadians, after having been deprived of a great part of their means of instruction which had been so liberally conceded to them by the Church and by Catholic France were, no doubt, greatly discouraged, and rather anxious as regards the educational institutions which remained to them, considering that the Seminary of Quebec, and especially that of St. Sulpice in Montreal, were threatened similarly with confiscation. For a long time the rural parts of the country suffered from this painful state of things, and children were in great numbers deprived of the benefits of education.

In 1815, there were only 19 schools actually opened, and in 1822, 32 in Lower Canada. Besides, the war of 1812 had greatly contributed to delay the progress of education, and 12 to 15 years were hardly enough to relieve the straitened circumstances in which that costly rather than useful war had thrown us. However, previous to the establishment of the present system of primary education, the large cities of Lower Canada were fairly well provided with schools, besides the seminaries, of which there was one at Quebec and two in Montreal, where young men of good disposition received a classical instruction entirely adapted to their needs, and to the pecuniary

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means of families, of those, at any rate, which were well-to-do.

The clergy and the heads of families have not relented for one moment in their endeavours to remedy the inadequacy of these institutions; however, it was an easy matter for them to do it effectually without a standing law, and especially without any assurance that our educational establishments would be respected and spared in the future.

That assurance was given to us by the special Order in Council passed, in 1839, confirming the seminary of St. Sulpice of Montreal in the full possession of the estates which they hold since 1667, from the King of France for religious and educational purposes; and permanent assistance has been offered to us for educational purposes, by the primary schools Act passed in September, 1841. Although burdensome and inadequate to meet our requirements, that assistance has nevertheless been of great encouragement to the friends of the good cause. It came into force in May, 1842 only; and unfortunately under very unfavourable auspices. That law was very defective, and, besides, was made dependent on and subservient to another new Act establishing rural municipalities in Lower Canada. This last Act, which was very unpopular in this country, took effect at the same time, but its provisions, which were distasteful to the people, were of a nature to delay the putting in force of the educational Act. The putting in force of this Act was a very quiet affair.

However, this encouragement and this assurance were sufficient to ensure the building of educational establishments all over the country. In fact, it would be difficult to point to a country wherein more zeal has been shown for education and wherein greater efforts and sacrifices have been made generally for its promotion from that time in Canada. It is wrongfully, therefore, that the Canadian people and its venerable clergy have been accused of being opposed to education; and the more so, when such a charge, unjust and offensive as it is, is being unblushingly made against us by the very people whose masters have deprived us of the estates destined to the education of our children.

However, in spite of these disadvantages, we are in a position to answer proudly to those who brand us as ignorant, bigoted and slow: Compare what our position has been, what it is to-day in politics, agriculture, arts, literature and sciences, industry and commerce. In politics, Papineau, Lafontaine, Morin, Dorion, Cartier, Taché, Mercier, Chapleau, and the last but not least, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, compare favourably with any English-speaking statesman of this country. The French Canadians were the first in America, to claim, as early as 1773, responsible government. To them is due the granting of the constitution of 1791. They, it is who, from that day until 1841, fought and suffered the capital penalty for the sake of political franchises which we now enjoy and which some are to-day trying to use against us. Listen on this point to the testimony of a statesman who, as Governor General of this country has left in our history a name which never will be forgotten. Lord Dufferin, speaking in beautiful French

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at Windsor, on August 18, 1874, in answer to the address of the St. Jean Baptiste society, expressed himself as follows :

But that is not the only ground on which we are indebted towards the French race. It should not be forgotten that to its breadth of mind, to its love of liberty and to its exact appreciation of the civil rights contained in germ in the constitution originally granted by England to Canada, that we owe the development of that parliamentary self-government of which our country is so proud, and justly so ; and I may assure you that for an Englishman, there are few things more agreeable to note than the dignity, the moderation and the political skill with which French public men in Canada lend a helping hand to their English colleagues in the application and working out of these great principles of constitutional law and practice which are at the foundation of the free government of this country.

In agriculture, according to the census of 1901, the habitant of the province of Quebec compares favourably with the Ontario farmer. In the dairy industry, the mainstay of Canadian farming, he stands as follows (see the Statistical Year-book of Canada, 1903, page 376) :

If you wish to have an idea of our progress in farming, read the last number of the ‘Canadian Magazine’ (March, 1905, page 429) :

Enough evidence has been given to show the magnificent development which agriculture is attaining in the province of Quebec. It is a transformation so thorough, so vast, and so rapidly brought about, that it almost confounds the intellect.

A small people, almost unknown to the rest of the world, who had up to that time led a patriarchal life, attending solely to the cultivation of wheat and passing a happy existence in their isolation, are suddenly, through an upheaval in general economic conditions, compelled to turn all their attention and efforts to agriculture in a direction absolutely new to them, the creation and carrying on of the dairy industry. Silently, without noise or bustle, and with a quiet courage and reliance upon their own powers and resources, they undertook the task, and after a relatively very short period of time they have become one of the most expert in the new industry and one of the most important purveyors of dairy products for the other continent. And when we consider the immense resources of this small people by reason of the expansion they are capable of giving to the manufacture of butter and cheese, may we not reasonably ask whether a time shall not come when they will monopolize this industry and reap the advantages it affords.

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Finally, looking at things from all points, if we consider that the population of the province of Quebec exercises the same spirit of industry, the same bold spirit of energy, the same working and business intelligence in all their undertakings and in all the various sources of activity existing in the favoured land which they occupy, and if we further take into consideration the moral qualities for which they are distinguished, their powers of expansion, their deep-seated attachment to their native land, and the abiding conviction that they have a providential mission to carry out on the soil of America, we are justified in coming to the conclusion that a brilliant future is in store for this favoured people.

In literature, sciences, arts, we have Garneau, Ferland, Crémazie, Fréchette, Chauveau, Raymond, Gérin, Baillargé, Laflamme, Hébert. And I see at this very moment on the floor of this House, a man whose literary talents, whose real worth as a journalist equal, to say the least, those of any of our English-speaking fellow-citizens. Who will deny that Mr. Tarte is not on a par with Mr. Willison, of the Toronto ‘News’ ?

You contend that our school system retards our progress ; open our Statistical Yearbook for 1903, at page 650 ; you will find that the census of 1901, contradicts your contention :

The province of Quebec shows a great decrease in the number of illiterates. In 1891 the province had 40.98 persons in every group of 100 who could not read ; in 1901 there were 29.57 persons in each 100 group. In 1891 those under five years formed 14.71, and in 1901 14.41 of the number of illiterates. This leaves a net of 20.27 in 1891 and of 15.16 in 1901 of illiterate rates over five years of age in each group of 100.

Much has been said, outside of this House, about the Quebec hierarchy, in order to set the Protestant spirit at war with the system of separate schools. Allow me, Mr. Speaker, to pay homage to that hierarchy of which we are proud, we French Canadians, allow me to thank them for having taken us as wards at the time of the cession, and for having formed men who have defended our rights whenever an opportunity offered. It is to that hierarchy, to those church authorities, scorned and slandered by the Toronto ‘News’ and the Toronto ‘World’ that our unfortunate poet Crémazie paid his tribute of gratitude, in the following lines :

Si nous avons gardé pur de tout alliage,

Des pionniers français l’héroïque héritage,

Notre religion, notre langue et nos lois,

Si dans les premiers jours de notre jeune histoire,

Nous avons, avec nous, vu marcher la victoire,

Nous vous devons encor ces glorieux exploits.

Car fécondant toujours le sol de la patrie,

Des grandeurs de la foi, des éclairs du génie

Vous gardiez ce dépôt, source de tous les biens,

Où puisant les leçons des histoires antiques,

Nos pères ont appris ces vertus héroïques

Qui font les nobles cœurs et les grands citoyens.

May I be allowed to add that this hierarchy, faithful to their traditions of loyalty, are

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still working to-day for the development and progress of this country and towards its national unity. There is no one in Canada who has used his influence to such an extent, or is still using it to-day, as the ‘hierarchy and church authorities of Quebec,’ for the purpose of checking or reducing the exodus of my fellow-citizens towards the United States. The Catholic hierarchy advise their folks, in case they should wish to quit their native parish or the province of Quebec, to settle in any of the provinces of the Dominion, whether Ontario or the Northwest, but never in the United States or in foreign countries. Is not that playing the part of patriots? Is not that a task of a nature to consolidate national unity? I think I have shown that:

1. 1. In 1875, the school legislation of the Northwest was unanimously approved of in this House; there was not one dissentient voice; and it was endorsed outside of the House, by the Toronto ‘Mail,’ by the Montreal ‘Gazette,’ by the French Conservatives and Liberals, by the silence of the ‘Globe’ and the ‘Citizen.’ It was considered settled for ever in the interest of religious peace and of the future settlement of the Northwest.
   2. Our jurisdiction and our powers, as regards the constitution which we are granting to-day to the two new provinces, carved out of the Territories which are still under our tutelage, are those possessed by the Washington government over the United States territories, that is to say an absolute jurisdiction, a discretionary power.
   3. The vested rights of the minority for thirty years back, the object of the legislation of 1875, the motives which brought it about, the progress of the country, liberty of conscience, the respect and protection which the federal government owes to people of all races and all creeds, all these circumstances impose on us the moral obligation of maintaining the present school system of the Northwest.
   4. In doing so, we assert the principle contained in the constitution of 1867, which was an actual compromise based on the toleration and mutual concessions which people of various races and creeds, called upon by Providence to live in close proximity, owe to one another, in their own interest. National unity will not suffer thereby, for, as I stated, only a few weeks ago, in speaking to the motion proposed by the hon. member for Victoria and Haliburton, imperial federation and national unity can only be brought about by the spread of a national feeling. And national feeling, I added, consists in loyalty to the Crown and loyalty to the empire; in the love of the country and of the institutions under which we live; it consists in doing away of all ill-feeling between the various sections of the population; it consists in the observance of treaties and of existing compacts.

And so to those who would, for the furtherance of mean party purposes, fan the

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flame of national prejudice, I submit to their consideration and to that of the whole House, those admirable words, those great truths uttered one day before the Marquis of Lorne, in the course of a lecture on patriotism, by one of our most distinguished public men, the Hon. Honoré Mercier:

Canadians who do not speak our tongue are not enemies, they are merely competitors; they have ceased being our enemies on the day, when obeying the laws of civilization, England, under the noble inspiration of an illustrious Queen, invited us to partake of the banquet of political liberty. From that day, we have become partners, and have solemnly pledged ourselves to forget old-time hatreds, to sacrifice them in the interest of the new institutions, as the precious token of a happier future. Let us not lose sight of these facts, if we are desirous of maintaining the tranquility which followed the tempest of 1837. Linked together as the branches of the same tree, the various races inhabiting Canada are bound to accept that mutual responsibility of their existence, the result of circumstances, rather than of their own choice they are to live on the same sap, and our soil is rich enough to supply it in quantity. And seeing that some of them are compelled to renounce the idea of reigning over the remains of others, they should all join hands, with a noble and generous frankness, and work together towards attaining the objects which Providence keeps in store for us. The general interest of Canada, which is our common country, should supersede these of race and caste; we should not forget, we, inhabitants of a country destined to be the cradle of a great people, that though French, English, Scotch, Irish, we may be, we remain Canadians and that title should be sufficient cause for pride and a worthy enough object for our legitimate ambition. We are descended from the strongest races in the world, and we are called upon, not to perpetuate the old-time hatreds, but to constitute a grand nation, whose prospects are beautiful and whose aims are providential.

Mr. W. F. COCKSHUTT (Brantford). Mr. Speaker, it would be difficult at this stage of the debate to introduce anything new or to shed further light upon the subject under discussion. I feel, however, that in a historic debate of this nature, it is well that each member, so far as he is able, should express his views on a matter of such great importance as that contained in the proposition placed before the House by the First Minister. It is not likely that in our time we shall again be called upon to set aside territory to form two such great new provinces. The Dominion does not contain such another fertile belt as that contained in the two proposed provinces out of which to form other provinces of like value, like fertility and like resources. The right hon. gentleman, in introducing this measure to the House, dwelt very fully upon that matter, in a way that commended itself to both sides of the House, inasmuch as we all realize that a great heritage has been given to us, and that we ought, so far as we are able, to develop

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it in the very best possible way, starting it on its course under the best possible circumstances, and endeavouring to see that it is not restrained in any way from putting into force those elements of life that it contains.

There is no doubt that many features of this measure deserve our very careful consideration. In the first place, with regard to the naming of the two provinces which have been set up, no fault can be found. As to the division of the territory, there is little new that can be said. The objection raised by the ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton), as to the dividing line between the two provinces, and his suggestion that it would have been wise to have placed it some sixty miles further east, is worthy of notice. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the territory to say whether or not that would be a desirable move. I think the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. McCarthy) also dwelt upon that point. Therefore, if these two gentlemen think it desirable that that should be changed, I think that even yet it might be wise to reconsider that feature of the Bill.

A further difficulty which has arisen in connection with the division of the territory is the claim set up by the sister province of Manitoba to a share in the vast heritage that lies to the west of her. I think Manitoba is worthy of better consideration than it has received so far at the hands of hon. gentlemen opposite. I think the contentions which Manitoba has set up for further territory are valid, and that they should by all means be considered with a view to satisfying the demands of that comparatively small province. Manitoba should not be left to feel that she has a grievance on her hands; but, judging by the reports which we receive and the utterances of her public men, we are forced to the conclusion that Manitoba really considers that she has not been properly treated in the division of territory at present being dealt with by this House. If that is the case, and I rather think it is, it should not yet be too late for hon. gentlemen on the Treasury benches to see to it that nothing is allowed to stand in the way of Manitoba receiving that justice which she has a right to expect. Manitoba, it is true, has been a province for a good many years. The right hon. the First Minister has stated that up to the present he has not known that Manitoba desired her boundaries extended, though on further information from the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Roche) the other day, the right hon. gentleman admitted that a petition had been received a few years ago praying for their extension. This petition, it appears, was not favourably received at the time; it was pigeon-holed; and the matter was not dealt with. What could be more natural, now that the territory is being divided, than that Manitoba should

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renew the claim which she had made on a previous occasion, when the right hon. gentleman had not heard her prayer? Manitoba is surrounded by immense areas with at present a comparatively sparse population. In the territory to the north of Manitoba, between the province and Hudson bay, there is probably not more than one person to five square miles. Whatever the population is, its rights ought of course to be considered; and if the people have any good reason for not wishing to link their fortunes with Manitoba, that ought to be considered. But in this debate no reason has been given why the territory of Manitoba should not be extended to the north and also to the west. My own view, formed from reading of the wishes of the people of the Northwest, has been that there should be only one new province formed, and that the balance of the territory between it and the province of Manitoba should be given to Manitoba. We know that the matter of provincial government is an item of serious cost to all the smaller provinces of the Dominion. There is nothing that can be said against the division of our territory into larger areas. The cost of our government is heavy; this country suffers from an excess of provincial governments, and it would have been good policy, in dividing these vast areas in the west, to have avoided the mistake of the past of having a number of small provinces each supporting its own House of parliament and dealing with matters within its own boundaries, and thus imposing upon the people, in addition to the federal taxation, a large tax for the support of the local government for which they are responsible.

The drawback in our system of having too many local legislatures and governments, is one we might easily have avoided in the Territories. No one would have been the sufferer, so far as I can see, and I really think that the prayer which the province of Manitoba has seen fit to send this government has not received the attention from this House to which it is justly entitled. I think that Manitoba has a very serious grievance, and I trust that hon. gentlemen opposite will not persist in turning a deaf ear to her prayer for increased territory. Whether or not we have got at the bottom of the reasons which have prevented that province from having her claims given that attention which they deserve, I am not quite sure, but I trust that the statements in the press in that connection are not well founded. I trust that it cannot be shown that the school laws of Manitoba are the ground on which her request for increased territory has been refused. If that should be the case, I think that a situation is being created which will lead to serious trouble. If Manitoba is deprived of her rights simply because she has not established that class of educational institutions, which some hon. gentlemen in this

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House and the government favour, the matter becomes a very serious one. That would be a very serious attitude to assume towards that province, whose school system was established after the most careful consideration, and whose right to establish that school system has been vindicated in the highest courts, not only of Canada but of the British empire. But if that present school system exists in Manitoba, who is responsible? I submit that the sole responsibility rests with hon. gentlemen opposite, because in the year 1896 they refused to the Manitoba minority in that province the privilege for which they were then asking. What was the course pursued by hon. gentlemen opposite in that connection? I had the honour of being then, as I am now, a supporter of the Conservative party, but I was not enthusiastic with regard to the position taken on the Manitoba school question by the Hon. Sir Charles Tupper who then led the Conservative party. I never lifted up my voice on behalf of that policy. Not a word did I speak during the election of that year in favour of it. I had for a long series of years paid very close attention to the career of the hon. gentleman who at that time was leading the Conservative party, and I consider that in the annals of Canadian public men the name of Sir Charles Tupper will be handed down to posterity as one of the most distinguished statesmen this country has produced. But on that occasion I was not one of those who were enthusiastic with regard to Sir Charles Tupper’s policy on the Manitoba school question. I am glad now to be able to say that I was not enthusiastic with regard to that policy and did not support it, and therefore my course at present is clear and straightforward. The same convictions which I had then animate me still. I have not found it necessary, in the course of my public career, to vary my attitude on this question. If I have attained in my neighbourhood any reputation of any description in public matters, it is because, in dealing with public questions I have always treated them as questions upon which I had formed convictions and upon which I never hesitated to give expression to those convictions. Whether with regard to separate schools or the tariff or the railway policy of this country or any other question, I do not believe that I can be accused by any hon. gentleman opposite with ever having hesitated to speak my beliefs; and should it ever become necessary for me to part with my convictions, I trust I shall be then also out of public life, for I have no desire to remain in public life if I cannot do so without sacrificing what I believe to be just and right and in the best interests of the country.

We have been invited to set up in business two new provinces. The right hon. gentleman who leads the government has given us an invitation to the christening, but I am sorry to say an unseemly wrangle

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has arisen as to who shall be the godfather of the twins. This certainly is a matter which should have been settled before this House and country were invited to attend the ceremony. We have been thrown into a debate the like of which perhaps has never occurred in this House before on more than one or two occasions. I was hoping that such a discussion would never occur in this House in my time, but as it has been provoked by hon. gentlemen opposite, we must not be afraid to face the difficulty and to state our convictions and beliefs. Hon. gentlemen opposite have accused this side of the House with being bigoted and partisan and unwilling to listen to the prayer of the minority. But I think the cause of this debate is to be found in the speech of the right hon. gentleman in introducing the Bill. If you will refer to that speech, you will see the reason why we are debating this question at such great length and dealing with a matter, concerning which opinions are so conflicting and passions cannot fail to be aroused. The right hon. gentleman, in that speech, dwelt at great length upon the school clauses of the Bill before us. That in fact was the principal item that he dealt with. Into that feature of the measure he threw the whole force of his advocacy; and I must say that from his standpoint he made a very able argument and one that no doubt carried conviction to the minds of many of his followers. In order that I may not be charged with having misrepresented the right hon. gentleman, may I be permitted to read the words he used, which will be found on page 1444 of ‘Hansard’:

Before I proceed, let me make a few observations to show the origin and object of all this legislation concerning separate schools. You find in this legislation the terms constantly recurring of Protestant or Catholic. I need not say that the Christian religion is not only a religion founded on moral laws, prescribing moral duties, but it is also a religion of dogmas. Dogmas from the earliest times have occupied just as strong and commanding a position in the faith of all Christians as morals themselves. The reformation created a cleavage between Christians. The old section remained Roman Catholics; the new called themselves Protestants. Between the Roman Catholics and Protestants there is a deep divergence in dogmas. Between the various Protestant denominations there are but small differences in dogmas; the differences are more matters of discipline than of dogma. Therefore the old legislature of Canada, finding a population of Catholics and different denominations of Protestants all mixed together, finding only one cause of cleavage between them in Christian faith, that is dogmas, allowed religious teaching to be had in the schools of our country, so that every man could give to his own child the religious tenets which he held sometimes dearer than life. That is the whole meaning of separate schools.

In that language of the right hon. gentleman we have a special plea for the teaching

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of dogma in the public schools in this age of ours. I certainly did not expect to hear in this House a plea of that nature. I had hoped that in this twentieth century we had arrived at an era when those dogmas would not again be the dividing line between the various denominations, but apparently the right hon. gentleman thinks differently. Let me ask him to cast his attention back to what happened only in the century just finished. In 1829, in the British House of Commons, the Catholic Emancipation Bill was introduced by Mr. Peel. That was not a hundred years ago, but still in that time the Roman Catholic Church was suffering under the disabilities which had afflicted it for generations. But in the year 1829 all these barriers were swept away. I have here upon the desk the report of the debate that took place in the British House on that occasion. In reading it I have noticed how the various Protestant bodies in England decided that they would lay aside those differences and would emancipate for all time the members of the Roman Catholic Church from those disabilities under which they had laboured for generations. Surely that is a step of which the hon. gentlemen opposite would approve. Surely gentlemen will not forget that advances have been made along this line in many various ways during the past few years, and that in recent times these advances have been greater than ever before. Are we in this House to say that the conditions of the past shall continue, that those divisions that have existed between the peoples of the world in past generations shall be continued for all future time? When the Almighty first created this vast universe, He set up the various nations of the earth and He divided them by various natural barriers, which, in those days, were considered insuperable, and which for ages and for generations remained the dividing lines between the nations. The Almighty stretched out vast mountain chains that divided one nation from another; He caused vast rivers to flow between countries, and these constituted natural boundaries; He set the mighty oceans to divide the various nations of the earth. All these divisions existed for ages and generations, but those who read the history of the past will see that, according to the divine working from the day of the creation down to the present time, the Almighty has, by one great system of evolution, caused these separations between the nations to gradually and by one means after another disappear and vanish away. Mountains that for generations had stood between nations on the continent of Europe have been tunnelled, so that now these nations are no longer hedged in by the mountains that originally separated them. These vast oceans on both the east and west of this vast continent are now traversed as freely as people would cross a small lake in the days gone by. All this by the mighty hand of Him who

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created the universe has brought about the result that these nations have approached more closely to each other; the barrier of religion, the barrier of race, the barrier of language, the barrier of climate—everything that tended to keep these peoples separate has gradually disappeared before the march of civilization, and to-day we find that these people, instead of being separate, are now constant visitors to one another. And thus we see that through an all-wise plan the nations of the earth and the religions of the earth have day by day come closer to one another. It is a gradual and slow process, but no one looking at the records of the past can fail to see that although the process is slow it is none the less sure. And yet, although it has been a matter of time, these barriers have one by one disappeared; and I ask you, Mr. Speaker, in the light of the history of the past, is it too much to expect that in the generations to come a further approach shall be made between those who differ in race, in religion and in creed? I, Sir, for one, believe that we have here but the beginning of that vast rapprochement made by the various tribes, tongues, nations and religions of the world. Is it right then, in view of the fact that the races are being drawn closely and more closely together; is it right, in view of history of the past and of what is happening and has happened in this country during the last few years, that we in setting aside these two new provinces should say that for all time there shall be no nearer approach than is contained in these two school clauses in that Bill? I think this is a responsibility that this House should be very slow to fasten upon these new provinces.

I am not in a position to discuss the constitutional questions that have been raised with regard to our power to place upon these new provinces the restrictions which this Bill contains. I have heard these clauses argued pro and con. The question has been ably argued, but I must say that as a layman the argument has not been convincing to me. It has not been an argument that I should say was absolutely certain one way or the other. So far as I have been able to judge, there has been no better argument upon the constitutional points than that enunciated by my esteemed leader (Mr. R. L. Borden). I believe that upon the constitutional question his speech has perhaps carried as much weight as that of any gentleman who has spoken on this great question. Whether or not he has the correct idea with regard to all our powers in dealing with these new provinces, I am not in a position to say; but if there is such a great element of doubt in this matter, it seems to me that this government has taken a very unwise course in thrusting upon this House a discussion such as this, not yet knowing even in their own minds whether or not they have the power to put these clauses in force if they are included in the Bill. I believe hon.

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Gentlemen opposite are creating a situation from which it will not be easy to escape. We have been told by hon. gentlemen opposite that the proposition which is now being proposed to this House is one that is for the benefit of all the parties concerned, that it is for the peace, order and good government of those provinces that are being constituted. So far as I am able to judge, the restrictions, light though they may seem, and narrow though they may appear to be, as hon. gentlemen view them, I believe that they are in the wrong direction with regard to these provinces. I believe that we have not the power to place these restrictions upon those provinces; and even if we have the power to impose these restrictions, I doubt very much if we have the ability to enforce them should these provinces say that they are not going to carry them into effect. What could the hon. gentlemen opposite do to enforce the clauses provided in the Bill if the Northwest Territories say they are not going to enforce them? I know nothing short of force of arms that would compel these Territories to enforce these clauses, provided they did not see their way to do it. In viewing the British North America Act and its amendments, I cannot for the life of me see how hon. gentlemen can contend that even if they succeed in putting these clauses in the Bill they can enforce them upon the provinces. Whether there is some light on this subject that has not yet been given to us, I am not in a position to judge, but I must say that the attitude of the cabinet in this matter is not one that has been reassuring to the country. I have watched the members of the cabinet from day to day, and I think it is not the cabinet that should have brought down a Bill of so great importance to this people and to this House. The cabinet is exceedingly weak, particularly with regard to the representation of Ontario. Last night I had the opportunity of sitting in this House and hearing one of the most excellent discourses that have been delivered on the Bill, that is the speech by the hon. member for York, N.B. (Mr. Crocket) and by actual count during a good part of that speech there were only from five to six gentlemen sitting on the whole of the government side of the House, including from one to two cabinet ministers at various times. Now, hon. gentlemen opposite have insisted that minorities should be considered; but I must say that the scant treatment they have given to the minority in this House has not been such as might reasonably have been expected from a party that is so strong. I contend that at least ministers of the Crown should most of them be in the House, and listen to the various arguments that may be advanced with regard to legislation which is so important and in which this country is so deeply interested.

We have had various exhibitions since this debate began, and I must say that I think we have witnessed one of the most dramatic

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episodes that have happened in the history of this country. In the first place, we had the speech of the right hon. gentleman to which I have already referred at some length. Then we had the retirement of the Minister of the Interior. That in itself was a comparatively serious matter, or at least I viewed it so on that occasion. But that matter, so far as I have been able to sift it out and to arrive at a conclusion upon it, was not quite so serious from the government standpoint as it appeared to be when it was acted before this House. It appears to me that it was really part of a great tragedy, so to speak, at the time, but it has ended almost in a comedy. The right hon. gentleman and his esteemed ex-Minister of the Interior, whose ability we all admire, acted their parts remarkably well, and I, as a new member of the House, was completely taken in. I really thought that the exhibition was genuine, and it was not until some time after that I was able to ascertain that after all it was a play to the gallery and to the country. This House sat with bated breadth and whispered humbleness, and with ears strained, while the First Minister made the announcement, the serious announcement, that that right hand of his, the famous Minister of the Interior, who has been called, and probably rightly so, the Napoleon of the west, was to retire from his cabinet on account of disagreement over the school clauses of the Bill. When the First Minister made his announcement in the most solemn tones, and when the ex-Minister of the Interior rose to make his explanations and his exhibition, I thought a crisis had arrived in the history of the government and of this country. After the ex-minister made that exhibition he moved over from the First Minister two seats further east, in this House, and we thought that never more would the First Minister and the ex-Minister of the Interior come together. The First Minister might have said to himself: Where are you going, ex-minister? It puts me in mind of that little fairy tale that was told by one of the papers recently in which an old man sitting in one of the lanes in England was represented as calling to a boy passing along the road and saying: ‘Where be’st going George?—Be going nowheres. Oh, thee must be going somewhere, lad.’ ‘No, I haint, I am coming back.’ That is like what we have seen in this House. We have seen that the ex-Minister of the Interior is not going anywhere, he is simply coming back; and he has taken the clauses the right hon. gentleman introduced as an amendment to his measure, and accepts them as a full, complete and satisfactory offer to the Northwest Territories. He says, I am ready to accept these and to unite with you again, and give you my voice and my vote. That is what we have seen going on between these two hon. gentlemen in relation to these particular clauses. Now we have not been able to discover any great difference between

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these clauses. I am sorry the Minister of Justice is not in his seat at this moment, because I would like to have put to him a question that he might tell us what is the difference between the new clauses and the old clauses, wherein is this great capitulation that is said to have been made by the First Minister to the ex-Minister of the Interior and his following from the west. I must say, Mr. Speaker, that so far as I have been able to gather, I do not see any material difference between them. As I read the two, the separate schools that were contained in the original clauses are retained in the substituted clauses, and I cannot read them in any other way. I could not see, after the ex-Minister of the Interior gave that very able exposition, that there is any material difference between the original and the new clauses of the measure.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I wish to say plainly, so that there may be no question where I stand, that according to my reading of Canadian history and of the constitution under which we are united as one Dominion—and I believe what is the opinion of a vast majority of those who live in the section from which I come—when separate schools were introduced into this country, so far back I think as 1840, they were introduced only in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. So far as I have been able to gather from the history of this subject, and so far as I have been able to understand the meaning of the various Acts that have been passed, I find that Ontario undertook to bear this disability for the sake of Quebec, and Quebec undertook to bear this disability for the sake of Ontario. There was a mutual understanding and a friendly arrangement entered into between the two provinces and neither of which has shown a disposition up to the present time to go back upon it. It was understood to be a settlement for all time. It was said that if separate schools were introduced into Quebec and Ontario it would be a settlement of the question for all time. That settlement was made, those provinces entered into that arrangement, the Catholics of Quebec agreeing to give the Protestant minority separate schools, and the Protestants of Ontario to give in like manner separate schools to the Catholic minority of that province. That I believe was the agreement and arrangement entered into in the early days of confederation. That was long before these western provinces came into confederation, long before they were thought of, even the provinces down by the sea had not at that time joined us. So it could not have been possible for the provinces which then accepted separate schools to know that this school question was going to become one for the whole Dominion, and that no matter what additional territory might be brought into the Dominion this bargain that was entered into between the two provinces I have named was likewise to be extended

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to all the sister provinces and all the new Territories that might be added from time to time to this vast confederation. I say that I believe that was not the intention, I believe that was not the view of those who formed confederation. I believe that at that time they never supposed that the question would be raised as regards the new provinces; it was never supposed that the province of Quebec could extend this arrangement into the new Territories and new provinces that might be from time to time added to the Dominion of Canada.

I do not believe that it was the case, and therefore, holding that view as I do, I am here to say now that as far as I am concerned I believe that separate schools are in the province of Quebec and are in the province of Ontario to stay for all time to come, unless it may be that that millenium which I endeavoured to picture to the House a little while ago should come earlier than we at present expect. But, whether or not this rapprochement will take place between these various bodies remains to be seen. I intend to refer presently to the extract which I have read from the speech of the right hon. gentleman, but before entering upon that, I desire to mention that in this debate we have been told almost by every speaker that consideration for the minority is something that we should keep constantly in view. I do not know by what class of reasoning hon. gentlemen opposite can arrive at the decision that the Roman Catholic population of this country are the minority. I intend in this connection to read to the House the statistics as prepared by that estimable authority, the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher), and as presented to this House in the year 1901. I am going to read the figures contained in this report which show the religious populations of the Dominion of Canada. I find on page 154 of the Census of Canada, 1901, that the various denominations in the Dominion of Canada at that date are set down as follows:

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In all we have there enumerated 21 denominations. Amongst these we have Protestants 11,612 and there are in addition unspecified sects representing a population of 48,247. The right hon. gentleman, to whom I have already referred, went on to show that inasmuch as the differences between the Protestants were small as compared with one another, while the differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants were great, he could properly divide this country into two great classes—Roman Catholics and Dissentient sects, the latter, as mentioned by the hon. Solicitor General (Mr. Lemieux) composing over 60 per cent of the population. Now, surely that is a strange class of reasoning. Here we find that the Roman Catholic Church is put down in the census as containing almost three times as many adherents as the largest of the other denominations in Canada. By what class of reasoning, by what right of reasoning can hon. gentlemen opposite say : We are the minority? I say that the Roman Catholics of this country are the majority, the vast majority as is proved by a careful examination of the returns showing the populations of the various denominations. Now I think that all this sympathy that hon. gentlemen opposite are working up in regard to minorities is a farce. This is an argument that has led many hon. gentlemen astray in discussing this question. They have said : Let us consider the views of the minority ; let us guard and safeguard the interests of the minority. The right hon. First Minister, after having set apart these 2,200,000 of his Roman Catholic fellow-citizens on the one side, goes on and puts the other 60 per cents together classing them as dissentient sects, classing them as Protestants, and telling us there is very little difference between us. It will make interesting reading for our Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Anglican and Congregational friends to tell them that there is very little difference between them and the Doukhobors, Mennonites and all those other religions contained in the list that I have read, many of them so peculiar that they cannot even be specified. The right hon. gentleman places the 60 per cent all in a common lot, he casts us together into one common scrap heap, to fight it out while the other 40 per cent, forming the vast majority of any one denomination in this country, in solid phalanx march forward taking every advantage, as they know they do, of that solidity which no church or no denomination in this country possesses to the extent that the Roman Catholic Church does. That is the view that hon. gentlemen opposite should take if they want to debate this question from a standpoint that will appeal to the different denominations of this country. Let us cast aside this fallacious argument of consideration for the minority. I say it is no

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Minority. Do not shut your eyes to that fact. I am here to say and I say it in admiration of that church, which I believe to be the most zealous and the most earnest of churches, that day in and day out, night in and night out the fires on the Roman Catholic altar truly, figuratively and genuinely may be said to never be extinguished, to never go out and this fact is symbolic of the church itself. It has a united front, an irresistible front, and the fact that it is marching through this country conquering and to conquer shows to me and shows to you that it does not need consideration as a feeble minority. That is the view in so far as I understand it that is held by many of the Protestant denominations of Ontario. It may be right in your estimation, or it may be wrong, but I give it as my genuine conviction that in so far as minorities are concerned, if that is the only ground upon which you make your appeal, there is not a single denomination amongst those contained in the list in this census book which is less entitled to consideration than those for whom so much has been said on this occasion. They are not feeble, they are not weak, and therefore, this argument in regard to extending to them a tolerance and a forbearance that would not be extended to other bodies in this country is not one which is well founded, and I believe that hon. gentlemen opposite have fallen into a worse error because they have based their arguments upon false premises and have therefore been led to false conclusions.

That, so far as I understand, is in a nutshell the attitude of the Protestant denominations of Ontario. It has been charged across the floor of this House, that Ontario is exhibiting intolerance. For my part I believe that charge to be false. I believe the same tolerance exists in Ontario to-day as has always existed, and as has always been extended to the people of all religious convictions. That tolerance is just as marked to-day in Ontario as ever it was, so that it is neither right nor just that a charge of intolerance should be levied against my native province. Why are the English-speaking members of the cabinet from Ontario silent, when they hear this aspersion cast on the province they are supposed to represent? Why are they not on their feet to defend Ontario? Who have we in the cabinet from the province of Ontario to repel these insults? The Postmaster General and the Minister of Customs are the only members who seem to grace the seats of this House as representing Ontario ; the most populous province in the Dominion, the province that pays almost one-half the taxes of this country. When the most important legislation that has probably ever been submitted to parliament is being discussed, we find that these two ministers in their speeches have taken the part against Ontario. The Postmaster General treated

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us to an argument that he dared not put up in his own county of York. Only yesterday in the columns of the ‘Globe’ Mr. Tarte asked: Why does not the Postmaster General stop all this fanaticism in Ontario? Fanaticism indeed. The Postmaster General cannot control the feelings of his province, because he is not in touch with his province, and neither is the Minister of Customs, my hon. good friend and neighbour, quite so much in touch with the province of Ontario as he appeared to think he was when he spoke. I have the honour to come from the same town and from the same county as the Minister of Customs. All our lives we have been strong friends, but when it comes to debating matters of this nature and of such importance, I feel I am justified in criticising the action of even my closest friend, and in asserting the principles which I believe in. I am reluctantly compelled to criticise the action of the Minister of Customs in the two speeches he has delivered on this important subject. I do not think these speeches were calculated to allay the feeling in the province of Ontario or in the county of Brant. I do not think the Minister of Customs set me, as a junior member from that county, or set this House the good example that we would have expected from a minister who has been thirty-two years in parliament. I do not believe that the utterances of the Minister of Customs represent what I esteem to be the true feeling of the various Christian and Protestant denominations of the province of Ontario. I believe that no country under Heaven is blessed with a people having stronger religious principles, more ready to stand for what is right and true and just, and more ready to exhibit religious tolerance, than, is the banner province of Ontario. That province has received a vast amount of criticism in this debate, criticism which I believe is not justified. No one in the province of Ontario is asking that separate schools be removed from that province. That is not the question. We know they are there; we are willing to bear the burden, and we bear it in good faith and with true heart because we know we are helping our fellow subjects in the province of Quebec, and we will not go back on fair and square terms. We are ready to bear that burden still in our own province, but what we contend is that when we are creating two provinces in the Northwest; two provinces the like of which the sun does not shine on in this or any other country, we should be careful to give them a fair start in the race of life. We should not handicap them by placing upon the statute-books of this country a provision which prevents them dealing with a matter, which so far as I understand the constitution of the country, they alone have the right to deal with. The Minister of Finance, who I am glad to see is in his seat, has given us an exposition of the difference between the national and the

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proposed separate schools, and he tells us that the question resolves itself simply into the one-half hour’s religious instruction at the end of the day. I hope I do not misinterpret what the Minister of Finance said in that respect, but I have his words by me if it is necessary to read them. Well, Sir, it is unfortunate for the Minister of Finance and his friends on the other side of the House, that this little matter as he calls it is big enough to separate. It is unfortunate that that name ‘Separate’ which has been responsible for much heartburnings and strong language during the last fifty or sixty years, should be introduced for so small a cause. The half hour’s religious instruction at the close of the day which divides the national schools from the religious schools may not be of itself a very great matter but it appears to be sufficient to separate, and that is the real grievance. The First Minister told us in his speech, that comparatively small barriers separated the various religious bodies in this country. But, Sir, if these small matters separate, they are sufficient to cause division and division is not the less regrettable. If the division is sufficiently marked to cause the establishment of separate schools, then it is something which we do not want, and as I have shown from the census report we cannot afford to set up separate schools in these new Territories where so many different creeds are represented. Take a farm say of 100 acres, two fifths of which is set apart in one high enclosure, containing a Roman Catholic church; all of the other 60 acres is divided into various fields of different sizes, but every one of them is fenced off the one from the other, and though the First Minister may argue that the fences are small and light and that breachy cattle could go over them if they wished, still they are separated and divided and no longer in the same field.

So these barriers, small though they may seem, mark a separated and divided people; and what we are here to-day to preach is not separation, but union, not division, but co-operation; and with that on our banner, we are not afraid to appeal for the support, not only of the province of Ontario, but of the Dominion of Canada. We are not of those who say: We will not associate with you; our children shall not play with yours; we won’t play in your yard, and you shan’t play in ours. We are not of those who say: Though you are good enough to speak to and to talk with, when it comes to going to school together, we cannot stand it, and for evermore there must be separation and division. Is that intolerance on our part? We want to come nearer. Many of my best friends belong to the Roman Catholic Church; I myself profess to be a Catholic; every Sunday I pray for the good estate of the Catholic church. Is it any intolerance in me that makes me wish to associate with my Roman Catholic

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fellow-citizens? I am ready to do it, always have been ready to do it. I am ready to have my children associate, both at school and at play, as they do associate with the children of my fellow-citizens, belong they to what church they may. Is that intolerance? Is that a lack of forbearance? Is it not rather the endeavour to meet on one common plain and one common platform all the various faiths and religious denominations that compose this great country? The model school system of the Northwest, as it has been held out, and as I believe it is, is one that possibly will be continued. The amendment of my hon. friend the leader of the opposition does not say that separate schools may not exist there. It proposes to give full freedom of action to those provinces to establish just such schools as they want. It may be, indeed, that the difference between the two classes of schools will be greater than the Minister of Finance admitted; but we are going to trust those people—that is the policy—to do what they in their judgment, and in the best interests of the territory committed to their hands, see to be just and right and true. Is there any intolerance there, any lack of forbearance there, anything that would trammel the action of those two great provinces? Our friends opposite, notably the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) and the hon. the Solicitor General (Mr. Lemieux) evinced a very sudden liking for the British system of education. That was surely a strange position, for the hon. gentleman is usually anti-imperialist in every respect. Whenever we wish to draw the ties closer, the hon. member for Labelle refuses, and says, we do not wish to come any closer. But he develops suddenly a very great liking for British institutions, and on a matter that is very poorly chosen, and which, of all others, has led to more friction and is at present causing more heartburnings than have been experienced in the British Islands in a generation. And yet the hon. member for Labelle tells us that the British system is what he would imitate. I have always looked upon the hon. member for Labelle as the Henry Labouchere of this House. When anything imperial is proposed in the British House, Mr. Labouchere opposes it; and I have always looked upon the hon. member for Labelle as the counterpart in this House of Mr. Labouchere in the British House, because he is always opposed to anything imperial. On the educational question, Mr. Labouchere has a record. I had the pleasure of sitting in the British House when a fierce and acrimonious debate took place on this very question, in which Mr. Labouchere made light of the very system that the hon. member for Labelle admires. Lord Hugh Cecil had held the attention of the House while he argued that religious instruction should be given in the schools of

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Great Britain, and spoke of the desirability of training the young in the way they should go, and keeping them out of the way of the evil one who went about seeking whom he might devour; and Mr. Labouchere, not in the House, it is true, but in his paper, ridiculed the idea and hit it off in these words :

Oh, strait is the way to the panther’s den,

And wide is the panther’s throat,

And the kid that is caught in the narrow way

Is saved from the sin of the verb to stray

And the trouble of being a goat.

That is the way Mr. Labouchere hit off the religious aspirations of Lord Hugh Cecil when he was asked those very things which the hon. member for Labelle said he would like to see introduced into this country—denominational schools. The system of denominational schools, as it exists in Great Britain to-day, is a system which, with all due regard to British intelligence and British sense of right and justice, is a system which never can be successfully introduced into a young country like this. Consider the figures I read to you from the census; and I have other figures with reference to the new territory now being set apart, which are almost identical with the figures I gave respecting the whole of Canada. The Roman Catholics are the principal body, even in the new territories, in point of numbers. They beat the Methodists, the Presbyterians and the Anglicans, all of which come pretty close. If that is the case, how are we going to introduce into that country denominational schools? It is an impossibility. Both the Finance Minister and the Minister of Customs entered a plea for that system. It sounds very well; it is pleasing; but what I submit to this House, and what this country knows, is that it is impracticable. The First Minister tells us that the divisions are small between us. They may be small, but up to the present they have been insuperable, and we are to-day divided into fifty or sixty sects in this country; and although we are all put together, sixty per cent of the population, to fight and scrap and settle our differences, how are we going to introduce any system of denominational schools into this country and carry it to a successful issue? We cannot do it. The authorities of the various Protestant churches have never carried out, and are not to-day in the province of Ontario carrying out, what the hon. member for Labelle and the hon. Solicitor General recommended to the consideration of this House.

That cannot be done. The introduction of denominational schools into this country is not practicable. There are too many differences among us, and all we can do for the present at least, is provide for the inculcation of Christian ethics into the youth of our country. Let those essentials of Christian religion to which all agree, to

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which all denominations accede, be taught from day to day by every teacher in our schools. There are certain things on which we can all unite. The differences between our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens and ourselves are not so great, but that we can lay down a few moral and Christian ethics which may be safely taught to the youth of our country, regardless of denomination. Is there any denomination would deny the right of the teacher to instruct our youth to speak the truth? Can we not unite on a thing like that? Speak the truth. That will tell on the character of our people in the future. There is something on which we can unite and which can be inculcated every hour of the day—speak the truth. Then there is another moral duty—reverence the aged. That is something surely that all denominations can agree on, and that is not as fully impressed on the youth of our country as it should be. So I might go on and enumerate many of the Christian ethics which could be taught without the reading of scriptures or the introduction of prayers or the teaching of any dogma. The essentials of Christian religion upon which all are agreed are the forces we wish to see implanted in the youth of our country. I believe that that is the best solution of this difficulty, and I think our Northwest provinces are to be congratulated on the fact that up to the present they have closely got to a system of national schools. I believe there is no better system which can possibly be introduced into the Territories of our Northwest.

At six o’clock, House took recess.

After Recess.

House resumed at eight o’clock.

…….

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PROVINCIAL AUTONOMY IN THE NORTHWEST.

Mr. COCKSHUTT. Mr. Speaker, before resuming the debate, may I say that I regret very much that my knowledge of the French language did not permit me to follow the argument of the hon. member for Richelieu (Mr. Bruneau) this afternoon, and that is the reason that I have not made any allusion to it. I should perhaps have made this explanation at first, but it slipped my memory. When the House rose at six o’clock I was endeavouring to show the difference between the system that is proposed for the new provinces and the system at present in vogue in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. I was drawing attention to the fact that the hon. the Minister of Finance had pointed out that there was a very slight difference between national schools and the proposed separate schools, the difference consisting in half an hour at the close of the day for religious exercises. To this he said that he thought there should be no serious objection; and, Mr. Speaker, I submit that this in itself is not sufficient to justify any serious objection, provided it could be satisfactorily carried out. But I endeavoured to show that there is no way in which it can be carried out without the various Christian and Protestant denominations clashing with one another. Hon. gentlemen opposite, I pointed out, were holding up to us this system and advocating its introduction into the Northwest as being a satisfactory solution of the question. Now, Sir, I have taken the trouble to look up one or two authorities in connection with the British educational system, and I do not think after looking it over that we can very well recommend its introduction into the Northwest, nor do I think that it could be introduced to the satisfaction of the citizens in those two great provinces. I have taken the opportunity of writing to a gentleman resident in one of the chief cities of the Dominion, a man who stands very high in the commercial world, and is also recognized as a great educational authority. He did not see fit to allow me to use his name, but he wrote me giving his view of the British educational system as at present in existence, and with your permission I will read a few words from the letter. I may say that this gentleman is eminently fitted to judge both of our system and of the British system, as he crosses the Atlantic twice a year frequently, and almost every year once.

The Educational Law passed by the Balfour government some two or three years ago has received the most determined opposition on the part of non-conforming religious bodies.

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So far have they carried their opposition that what was called ‘passive resistance’ was organized in every community in the kingdom where it was proposed to force the people to conform to a religious system against which their consciences protested. They refused to pay the taxes levied for educational purposes. In some cases ministers of the gospel were subjected to distress sales in order to collect the amount, even allowing their furniture being sold to satisfy the claim, and England, from the land’s end to the Scottish border, has been in state of turmoil ever since on this question. In my opinion this legislation is the greatest blot upon the English statute-book that has been seen since the day of Magna Charta.

That is the opinion of a gentleman well qualified to judge of the British educational system and of the manner denominational schools are working out in Great Britain. Now it so happens that I belong to the church that has a preponderance of numbers in the British isles, but I am free to state that so far as I am able to judge of the legislation latterly put upon the statute books of Great Britain, it is not wise, and it is not in the interest of the great church to which I belong. So far as I am personally concerned I would be glad to see that speedily changed, and that the various dissenting bodies, as they are classed in the old country, should receive the very same consideration that the church of England receives in the British isles. I see no reason why that should not be allowed. Now the denominational system of schools, I understand, is that which prevails in Great Britain, and I do not believe it is satisfactory. But I have taken the trouble to consult still another authority on this subject, a gentleman who does not belong to this country. I will read a quotation from the Hon. Sir John Gorst, who is considered one of the best educational authorities in Great Britain, and this is what he says:

In the first place, so far as the mass of the youth of a country is concerned, the public instructor can only play a secondary part in the most important part of the education of the young—the development of character. The character of a people is by far its most important attribute. It has a great deal more moment in the affairs of the world, and is a much more vital factor in the promotion of national power and influence, and in the spread of empire, than either physical or mental endowments. The character of each generation depends in the main upon the character of the generation which precedes it; of other causes in operation the effect is comparatively small.

Another article which appeared in the ‘Nineteenth Century’ from the Hon. Mr. Gorst, a member of the same family, reads as follows:

The assertion that our entire system of education is totally wrong from beginning to end will probably scandalize both the conventional conservative and the progressive-minded educationalist. The vast majority of people either cling to the conviction that the system itself is adequate, or believe that its principles only

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require extension to meet the growing necessities of a rapid increase in population and commercial competition. Such persons can be induced to tinker with the existing machinery, but they are unable to grasp the idea that the whole foundations of our educational system are absolutely false in principle; that most of the great educationalists and teachers of the past have expended their genius in building up this system upon altogether wrong lines, and that their efforts have had the effect of retarding, instead of encouraging, the intellectual development of the race.

Again at page 845 the article says:

The whole theory upon which our educational method is based is, in fact, utterly absurd and hopelessly unsuited to the ordinary conditions of life. If we wish to establish a rational system we must go to the root of the evil and build up an entirely new edifice upon fresh foundations.

These are the opinions of English educationalists upon the denominational schools which at present exist in the old country, and they show that the contention of hon. gentlemen opposite that it is wise to introduce such a school system into our Northwest is not well founded. We have been told by gentlemen on the other side of the House, especially by members coming from the Northwest, that we are not acquainted with their school system and are therefore not qualified to deal with it. We may not be as well versed as they are in the regulations governing these schools, but during this debate we have learned a great deal and we have had circulated amongst us a synopsis of the school ordinances of the Northwest, so that we are more or less familiar with the subject. I believe myself that these schools are well adapted for the Northwest Territories and I think that if the new provinces re-enact these they would be doing a wise thing, but I do not believe, Sir, that this parliament has the constitutional right to force a school system on the new provinces. While we may not have a full knowledge of the educational laws of the Territories, we perhaps have a better idea of what separate schools are than these members from the Northwest on the other side of the House have, and in this connection, I direct their attention to the history of separate schools in Ontario, particularly for the last sixty years. We have been told by the Minister of Finance and by some of his colleagues, that the educational clauses in this Bill will be a final settlement of the question for all time to come. Upon what authority do these gentlemen make the statement that this will be a final settlement? Who is there in this House or out of it who can say that henceforth and for ever there will be no complaint with regard to educational matters in the Northwest Territories if these two small clauses are incorporated in the Bill? I have here the history of the ‘fight’ as it is called, that has taken place in Ontario

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during the past sixty years on this educational question, and to those gentlemen who think that this will be a final settlement I commend this history. In 1840, now sixty-five years ago, the first squabble over separate schools began in Ontario. The first law was introduced on or about the year 1840, and I will read so that hon. gentlemen may see what has happened :

The first attempt to frame an educational Bill was made in 1840, when the matter was left to a committee of the House composed of fifteen members from Lower Canada and eight from Upper Canada. The Bill this committee submitted was a crude affair, but in it the principle of separate schools was imbedded. Provision was made that ‘any person, by merely dissenting from the regulations, arrangements and proceedings of the common school commissioners could establish separate schools.’ The introduction of this principle provoked a prolonged and bitter controversy lasting till 1863.

From 1840 to 1863, there was a bitter controversy over the introduction of separate schools into the province of Ontario, a struggle lasting for twenty-three years. I point out to these gentlemen opposite that from the first introduction of separate schools in Ontario, year after year there has been introduced into the legislature various amendments with small beginnings until in the year of our Lord 1905, that system is unrivalled in any country in the world. So far as I know no country has a system equal to that which at present prevails in Ontario and Quebec. As I said before, these separate schools are here and they are here to stay. We are willing they shall stay, but at the same time we point out to our brethren in the Northwest what the term separate school means, so that they may learn from past experience what is likely to happen. If hon. gentlemen opposite think it means only half an hour at the close of the day they will soon wake up to find out their error. The history of separate schools shows that the system far from losing its grip has been making a steadfast onward advance. I commend to hon. gentlemen opposite the conditions of the present day in the old land of France. I am sorry to say that not many of our French compatriots are now in the chamber, but I have remarked that although these hon. gentlemen have held up to our eyes the system in vogue in the British Islands, they have not one word of commendation for the school system of France. As though it were the irony of fate, while we are discussing this question in this House, a similar discussion is going on in France, but in an opposite direction. There, the system of union between church and state which has been in existence for five centuries is now being destroyed; religious orders are being driven out of the old land of France, and where will they find a resting place? We welcome them to Canada, but we welcome

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them to enter this Dominion as common citizens of a common citizenship and to become British subjects the same as ourselves. We welcome them to our shores as we welcome all nationalities. But I ask you, Mr. Speaker, would it be an enlightened policy at the present moment to introduce and plant in our soil institutions, be they ever so estimable, that have become dead in the old countries of Europe? I know it may be said that I am speaking from a narrow point of view. I am ready to have that said now. I believe I have had as great experience of life as the average man of my age. I have had the opportunity of travelling in many lands; I have visited many countries in my time; I have visited many countries the language of which I did not know and the religion of which was strange to me. I have had the privilege, Mr. Speaker, of worshiping with all classes and all denominations, as much perhaps as most of the men who sit around this chamber. I have had the privilege—yes, I say privilege, advisedly—of worshipping in the Roman Catholic Church. I have visited purely Roman Catholic countries, where I have heard the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion gone through in the churches, and I have been inspired with the fervour of the worshippers, their religious zeal, and the reverence that they show to their Maker in their own way. I have been inspired by that worship. I have seen it in such countries as Mexico, Cuba, Italy, France, Switzerland. I have witnessed that worship in all these countries and have said to myself : These brethren—I am ready to call them so—can teach me a lesson; they have more fervour and more religious zeal than I ever aspire to have. I regret to say that many of our Protestant bodies are far behind the Roman Catholic Church in this respect—that they have not the same reverence and zeal, and are not so constantly on the watch tower. While this is to be regretted, I cannot for one, see why we should treat one religious body with any more tolerance or favour than we treat another religious body. I am ready that the religious body with which I am connected shall receive common treatment with all the other religious bodies in this country. But I do submit that in a country with such a variety of population, such a variety of religions, and such a variety of creeds as we have, we cannot afford to set up all these divisions, and to say that all these may prosper and thrive and have their separate schools. We cannot do that, and therefore we must devise a system that will make them all good citizens, true citizens, and citizens of one common country and one common empire. I believe this will be best attained by a national system of schools. That may not be the ideal system, but is there any better that can be devised? The Northwest makes the best approach to that

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—so I am informed and believe to be the case—that is to be found in any of the provinces of Canada. The Territories have a system which I think may well be perpetuated. We on this side of the House are not opposing this Bill with a view to that system not being perpetuated; but we point out that hon. gentlemen opposite are making a mistake if they think that national schools are what are provided for in the Bill, when they only have half an hour for religious instruction at the close of the day. Hon. gentlemen treat the distinction between the two classes of schools at present existing in the Northwest as so small as to be no distinction at all. I think the Minister of Finance spoke of them in that sense, so that soon the separate schools would disappear. I think the hon. member for Centre York (Mr. A. Campbell) has expressed the same view, for this is what I find in one of the Toronto papers :

Archie Campbell, M.P., has written to L.O.L. No. 900, Toronto Junction, to reassure that lodge on the subject of the school clauses of the Autonomy Bill. Mr. Campbell says he would oppose the Bill if separate schools, such as we have in Ontario, were to be established under the law. But he is convinced that such schools can never be instituted. In fact, if the law be passed in its present shape the few separate schools that are now there—(in the Northwest)—will disappear and at the end of five years there will not be a separate school left. They will all be national schools.

Now, is that the view of hon. gentlemen opposite, that they are passing this legislation with the view of having the few separate schools at present in the Northwest disappear? Yet that is the language of one hon. gentleman who sits behind the government, and who apparently is supporting their action on this very important question. I hope that is not the motive; I do not think it would be honest.

We have heard something, Mr. Speaker, about clerical interference. I suppose I may be said to be clerically interfered with when I submit two or three resolutions which I have received. I submit these resolutions now, because I have had no other opportunity of doing so. The following resolution of the Ministerial Association of Brantford, the city from which I have the honour to come, has been sent to me and a copy, I believe, was sent to the hon. the First Minister :

Moved by Rev. W. T. Graham, seconded by Rev. T. A. Wright.

Whereas the Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier has introduced a Bill in the House of Commons, creating two new provinces, and in said Bill there is a clause fastening separate schools on said provinces for all time to come.

And whereas we believe this is calculated to breed strife and disintegration in our Dominion, and is not helpful in the building up of a new country,

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And whereas it is an interference with provincial rights, and a violation of the principle of the separation of church and state.

Therefore, we the Ministerial Alliance of the city of Brantford protest against such action and request the government to leave the question of education to the control of the new provinces.

Carried unanimously.

I have also the following resolution from the Baptist Union :

Resolved that we, the Baptist ministers of the city of Brantford, protest against the attempt of the government at Ottawa to fasten upon the new western provinces a separate school system, and that the whole question of education be left in the hands of the provinces; and that a copy of this resolution be sent to the Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and to W. F. Cockshutt, the member of this city.

Rev. W. T. Graham, President. Secretary, J. H. Kelly.

Mr. HYMAN. Might I ask the hon. gentleman, is he in accord with both of those resolutions.

Mr. SAM. HUGHES. Is the member for London in accord with them ?

Mr. HYMAN. The member for London can take care of himself.

Mr. COCKSHUTT. These resolutions are in accord with the argument that I have already advanced. The hon. member for London, I think, has not been in the House while I have been speaking, or he would understand pretty well where I stand on this question. So far as I have spoken, I have endeavoured to express my own convictions, and I only hope that when the hon. member for London rises to address the House, he will express his convictions as honestly and candidly as I have expressed mine.

The hon. gentleman has not told us whether those were in accord with his views, so that I have no opportunity of knowing what his views are, and consequently no opportunity of combating them. I do not wish to take up the time of the House to any greater extent, as I have already spoken longer than I intended. Before closing however I wish to say that I consider that the consultation which was held between the right hon. the First Minister and the representative of the Roman Catholic church at present in the city of Ottawa was not in good judgment or sound policy, and will not receive the approbation of the majority of the people of this country. I believe that it is competent for every gentleman in this House to consult his own church authorities and to listen, to what extent he pleases, to those who are his spiritual advisers, especially in a matter of such great importance as the present; but I do believe that in all cases the gentlemen who are consulted, whoever they may be, should be citizens of the Dominion.

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Mr. ZIMMERMAN. When did the interview take place between the Prime Minister and the gentleman referred to?

Mr. COCKSHUTT. My hon. friend asked me a question I am not able to answer; but if he had been attending to his duties in the House, he would have heard the charge made on several occasions in the First Minister’s presence and would have known that the First Minister did not deny it.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. He gave it the most definite denial.

Mr. COCKSHUTT. If he did, I certainly did not hear it. I was here when the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) twice repeated the question, and he said : if the right hon. gentleman will deny it, let him speak now. The right hon. gentleman kept his seat and did not speak. Will my hon. friend himself deny that such an interview took place? If he will, I shall accept his statement. He is in the inner circle and I am on the outside edge, and I shall accept his statement if he will say there was no such interview. If not he should not interrupt me. I have no desire at all to hurt the feelings of my hon. friend from Hamilton (Mr. Zimmerman). Personally we are the best of friends and I hope he will take the opportunity of speaking his mind on the subject before us, and to anything he may have to say with regard to the views I have advanced, I shall give my profound attention. He has questioned my statement, and I do not wish, in the absence of the First Minister, to say anything which I would not say if he were present. I do not wish personally to antagonize a single member of this House. There is not one who, so far as I know, is not friendly to me, and to whom I have not friendly feelings. I have not the honour of being acquainted with all the members, but in this debate I am speaking what I believe to be right and true, I am giving expression to my own convictions, I am willing that every other hon. member should have the same freedom, and I trust that I shall listen to them with the same respect and attention as they have kindly given to me.

I have endeavoured to point out to hon. gentlemen some matters they have lost sight of with regard to the population of the Northwest Territories. I have pointed out that the Roman Catholics are not in the minority but are larger, stronger and more aggressive than any other denomination, and therefore they are not entitled to come to us, more than any other class, and ask for full consideration to minorities. They are not a minority, and therefore we should not be charged with refusing to do the minority justice. Certainly I would have no desire to do anything of the kind. In fact I have been charged with taking the weak under my wing, and I am always ready to

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shield the weak, so far as I am able. But no one can doubt that the Roman Catholic church is well able to take care of itself. It is doing so today, and is making perhaps more rapid progress than any other body. But what I want to impress upon the House is that in carving out these two new provinces in the Northwest, we should be careful to give them a clean bill of rights. We should keep back nothing which is due to them. We should rather be inclined to be generous, and I am not aware that the financial terms have been found fault with. But I would like the new provinces to get more land and less cash. I would treat these provinces with generosity. I would give them a clean bill of rights and not withhold from them one jot or tittle of what they are entitled to. They are young provinces, just starting on their career, and are entitled to the very best send-off which the old provinces of Canada can give them. Let us send them off with a clean bill of rights. Let us give them the right to place on their statute-books any laws with regard to education which they may judge proper. Let them go out into the world with that charter of right and that freedom which belongs to the great western plains of which they are the young offspring. If we do that, we shall have no cause for regret, but if we attach a string to the right to which they are entitled, we will be creating a constant source of friction. We will not be finally settling this great question, but will make of it a thorn in their side just as it has been in the side of some of the older provinces. I ask that the same mistake which was made in Manitoba should not be made with regard to these great provinces in the west. We are all striving for the best advantage of Canada according to our best light and knowledge. I give hon. gentlemen opposite that same freedom to express their views which I ask for myself, and I believe they are expressing their convictions just as I am giving expression to mine. We are striving to start out those new provinces on their race for life in a way which we will never have to regret, and we are endeavouring to set up there a citizenship that throughout all time will enjoy the full rights and privileges which are enjoyed by any or all of the older provinces. I believe that we are entering upon an era the like of which we will never see again in this country. We will never again have the opportunity of establishing and starting out two such vast provinces as those two we are now creating. Should we not then do the work heartily and generously? After all we are striving to do what we believe is best in the interests of our country ; and in that view and in the belief that the amendment moved by the leader of the opposition is the one best calculated to promote peace and good will, I propose to support it. That amendment I shall take the liberty of reading so that there may

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be no misapprehension as to the stand I take on this question :

Upon the establishment of a province in the Northwest Territories of Canada as proposed by Bill 69, the legislature of such province, subject to and in accordance with the provisions of the British North America Acts 1867 to 1886, is entitled to and should enjoy powers of provincial self-government including power to exclusively make laws in relation to education.

That is a charter of rights that I believe will bring no trouble on this Dominion; it is a charter of rights that should receive the sanction of members on both sides of this House. Whether you are in favour of separate schools or whether you are against them you are not called upon to pronounce under that amendment; you simply say that by the constitution educational matters are left in the hands of those who govern the province, and that with these two provinces they shall remain. We will not be party to taking these rights away from them. That is the safest and best course; and I believe, in the light of all that has taken place in this debate, that if any other course should be pursued by us than that of allowing these new provinces full autonomy, with all the rights to which they are entitled under the British North America Act, hon. gentlemen will be creating a situation in this country that will be both critical and difficult to overcome. I trust that ere it is too late the government may see fit to withdraw those clauses from the Bill. Let us have a unanimous voice on this great question; let us send this constitution to the Northwest Territories as a free gift from this parliament, given generously, given unanimously, given by all parties. We are all striving for the one end, we are all wishing for the common weal, and, although we may take different courses, I believe that the great bulk of men, both in this House and in this country, are striving to make good that prayer which we, Mr. Speaker, every day use in this House :

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven.

Mr. J. CRAWFORD (Portage la Prairie). Mr. Speaker, I do not know that I shall be able to strike the pace set by the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt), who has just taken his seat, for, in the first place, I doubt if I shall be able to speak as loudly as that hon. gentleman has done. The hon. member (Mr. Cockshutt) made a remark to the effect that the right hon. the Prime Minister has associated with foreign individuals. I do not know that I would have any objection to the leader of the government visiting any foreign representative of any church or any state. I think, for instance, if I were in Rome myself I would be only too pleased to call on the Pope. Then, too, what do we find amongst our friends of the opposition today? Do we find a condition of things different to that

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which exists among members on this side of the House? Only a few days ago the representatives of the Conservative government of Manitoba visited the representative in Ottawa of the Pope, and only yesterday in Rome the late leader of the Conservative party, Sir Charles Tupper, is reported in the Montreal ‘Gazette’ to have visited the Pope in Rome.

Some hon. MEMBERS. Too bad.

Mr. CRAWFORD. I do not know that I should take any great exception to the fact of the Hon. Sir Charles Tupper paying a visit to the Pope when he is in Rome, but I think our hon. friends on the other side of the House should be liberal enough to extend to other people the same privilege. I shall read the article to which I have referred :

Received by the Pope.

Rome, April 13.—After an audience in which he dwelt on the ecclesiastical affairs of the diocese of Antigonish, Bishop Cameron presented Sir Charles Tupper to the Pope, recalling his constant defence of the rights of Canadian Catholics. The Pope, speaking in Latin, said he knew of the struggles sustained by Sir Charles and praised him warmly and putting his hand on Sir Charles’ shoulder he gave him his special blessing.

I do not like to see hon. members on the opposition side of the House or anywhere else try to make capital out of something in which there is nothing, and that is practically what is being done in a very great part of the discussion that has taken place in this debate. They have gone far from the question before the House, they have taken up a great deal of valuable time, both of the House and of the country. I should like to tell the people of Canada that we are squandering their money here today by thousands, almost by hundreds of thousands, in continuing this debate. Yet every member has decided weeks ago the position he will take on this Bill. Members opposite know their position as well as we do, but they are continuing this debate day after day simply for the purpose of having their words printed in ‘Hansard’ to spread over this country, not for any good or any benefit which it will do to this country. I do not intend to go into the legal aspects of this question. I have listened with a great deal of interest to the discussion from day after day, and I have come to the conclusion that even those whose minds have been educated along legal lines have failed to come to any fixed opinion as to what our powers really are in connection with the matter now before us. I might, as others have done, quote the opinions of eminent men, the opinions of Hon. Edward Blake, Hon. George Brown, Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, Sir John A. Macdonald, and a great many others. The last opinion which I have noticed is that of Mr. Christopher Robinson, and if hon. members

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will examine his opinion they will certainly come to the conclusion that there is no definite opinion given in it. There is a haze over the whole thing. The great majority of hon. members opposite admit, the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) has just admitted, that the whole question is in a haze, so far as they are concerned. That being the case, I feel that what we want to bring to bear on this question now is good, sound judgment, good, common sense and good business ideas. I feel that in dealing with this or, in fact, with any other political question, when you get away from good business ideas you are getting away from the subject altogether, and you are not liable to treat it in the manner it ought to be treated. I think that questions of a political nature require to be dealt with on business principles and along business lines the same as any other question. When you treat a question on any other lines you are not treating it according to your best judgment. Now this is admittedly a very important quetion, and I think hon. members on both sides should be prepared to drop all narrow political ideas and deal with it on its merits. I will not attempt to examine the British North America Act, as many hon. members have done, if I did so I might come to a conclusion different from that of any other hon. gentleman in the House. But I will say that, using my own judgment in regard to these school clauses, I have come to the decision that it is a matter we have a right to deal with in this parliament. We are granting autonomy to these Territories and the question of provincial rights comes up. Some say that everything within the boundaries of those provinces should be handed over entirely to the new legislatures, and that if we are granting them autonomy we should grant it without limit. Well, that might be all right and it might not be. I think we should deal with this question not only as regards the interests of the provinces themselves, but as regards the interests of the whole Dominion of Canada. While there are some subjects that might properly be left to the exclusive juris- diction of the provinces, there are others which should not be left to them. We are in a different position standing in this parliament from what we would be if we were members of a provincial legislature. If we were residents of that Territory we would look at this question from a provincial standpoint altogether; whereas representing as we do the whole Dominion, we must take a broader view of the situation, and we must consider the effects not only on the provinces, but on the whole Dominion. As I say, there are some matters that we can afford to leave to the provinces and others that we cannot, and education is one of these matters. The subject of education is not one that, at this time, I think we should leave entirely to the provinces. We are all aware that the educational question

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has been a disturbing one, as the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Cockshutt) has said for the past sixty years. Possibly no other question that has ever come before the people of Canada has created more friction and disturbance than this educational question. The fact is, that if we were to deal with it now in a particular way it would very likely be referred back to this parliament. If it is not settled properly now it will again disturb Canada from one end to the other in the near future. Now, I take this position, that if we can settle this question for all time, I think it is up to us to do so, to take hold of it and deal with it in a strong way.

The hon. gentleman (Mr. Cockshutt) has admitted, as indeed about every hon. gentleman who has spoken has admitted, either tacitly or directly, that the school laws in the Northwest Territories are good laws. I think the hon. gentleman said that the school legislation in the Northwest Territories is of the best. He also said that it would be well to perpetuate that law. I think that every hon. gentleman in this House admits that the school laws of the Northwest Territories are the best that were ever placed on any statute-book in the Dominion. Now, if that is the case, and it is not possible to put any better laws on the statute-books, why should we not fix them there for ever? That is the way I feel about it myself. Many allusions have been made to the school legislation in Manitoba. I think I can safely make the statement that if the school law now prevailing in the Northwest Territories had been on the statute-books of Manitoba previous to 1890, we would never have had any Manitoba school question. Now, what were the conditions in regard to Manitoba school legislation? The trouble was that the children were not getting proper educational facilities, and that is the reason the law was changed. They have now practically the same law that exists in the North-west Territories. We find that the law in the Territories has been in successful operation for fourteen years, it is plain and free from doubt, and that is very important. Hon. members opposite have taken the position that there is no difference between the original school clauses of the Bill and the clauses as they now stand amended. I think there is a good deal of difference. The original clauses of the Bill were very in- definite. Under those clauses it was open to the people to have such school laws as they had in Manitoba, or they could have the old school laws that were in existence in the Territories previous to 1890. There was just that doubt about it, but the amended clauses make it more definite, the law can now be clearly understood, and there can be no question as to what law the people in the Northwest Territories will have in the future.

Now these school laws as they are in the Northwest Territories and as they are intended to be continued by this legislation

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are not at all the kind of school laws that the people particularly of Ontario have in their minds. I think, if I am allowed to do so, I am justified in charging the opposition in this House and I will go further and say that I think I am justified in charging the newspapers, particularly those published in Toronto, with the responsibility to a very large extent for the feeling that prevails to-day throughout the province of Ontario on this question. The minds of the people of Ontario have been poisoned by misrepresentation as to what the real conditions are and as to what the intentions of the government are in connection with this legislation. The idea which has taken hold of the minds of the people of Ontario is an exaggerated one. They have the idea that it is the intention of the government to establish in the Northwest Territories schools of the character that we had in the province of Manitoba before 1890; that is to say, schools entirely under the control of the church. Under the law which prevailed in Manitoba prior to 1890 there was a Catholic school board. I may say that the members of that board were practically priests and some prominent members of the church. They controlled the schools and those who were employed as teachers were nuns and priests; in fact, they had scarcely a properly qualified teacher in their schools in Manitoba previous to 1890. The idea that the people of Ontario have to-day is that it is the government’s intention to establish Roman Catholic church controlled schools entirely free and independent of the state. That is the idea that the people of Ontario have in their minds but the fact is that the conditions which have been reported to them do not really exist. It is hardly necessary for me to repeat what this school law really is. If this Bill goes through it will establish not what I claim are separate schools. In fact, the name ‘separate’ should hardly have been used in connection with them. We propose to continue in the Northwest Territories what they have already got—Catholic public schools and Protestant public schools, no matter whether they are Catholic or Protestant, which are public schools and which are free to all classes of children, having the same text books, the same qualified teachers, under the same control, and that control entirely in the hands of the government and not in any way connected with the church. I feel as strongly on this question, I think, as any person in Canada at the present time. I think that possibly my Orange feelings or proclivities are just as strong as those of the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule).

Mr. SPROULE. The hon. member has a bad way of showing them.

Mr. CRAWFORD. And if there was anything in the nature of a prejudice in connection with it I should have it, being an Orangeman. If I thought there was being

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established in the Northwest Territories what the people of Ontario have in their minds to-day, that is Roman Catholic church controlled schools, I would oppose it as strenuously as any one. I would not stand for it a minute. But, we have nothing of that kind. The very opposite is the condition and I am prepared, as I think every Orangeman in Canada should be prepared if he lived up to the constitution of the order, to act generously in this matter. Orangemen are ordered by their constitution to be generous and generous more particularly to their Roman Catholic friends, and their attitude will be in accordance with that obligation if they live up to the spirit of their constitution. Their constitution requires that they shall be generous to all classes of the people and more particularly to the Roman Catholics. I feel that at the present time we ought to be a little generous and that we are not going too far when we grant to the minority in the new provinces the kind of schools which they have at the present time. If their conscientious ideas or their feelings are such that they would like to be separated from the Protestants, or from all those other classes of people that the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) spoke about, I do not see any reason why we should not respect that feeling. I never imagined until I heard that hon. gentleman speaking to-day that a Presbyterian, or a Methodist, or a Baptist was not a Protestant. The hon. gentleman tried to play upon words and he tried to tell the people of Canada that Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Plymouth Brethren and members of the Salvation Army were not Protestants. I never knew that before.

Mr. SPROULE. I think the hon. gentleman (Mr. Crawford) is doing my hon. friend from Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) a great injustice. Perhaps he did not understand him. My hon. friend was quoting the distinctions that were made in the census. They were not his own.

Mr. CRAWFORD. He told us on the floor of the House that he was expressing his own opinion. He said he was giving his own honest opinion.

Mr. SPROULE. He was quoting the different religions as given in the census.

Mr. CRAWFORD. What is the use of playing upon words? He stated that he gave his own honest opinion here to-night and he said that the Catholics were in the majority. What is the opinion and the idea that some of our people have as to the kind of schools that are being established in the Northwest Territories? Here is what the ‘Christian Guardian’ says. I shall just give a part of the article:

Toronto, March 3.

Let none of our readers mistake the real issue. This is no mere political question,

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if it were we would not have touched it. It is no mere question of provincial interest.

You will notice there that they do not consider it to be a question of purely provincial interest. They say that ‘it is no mere question of provincial interest.’ It is a question that affects the whole Dominion and for that reason we have a right to deal with it and settle it for all time to come if we possibly can.

If it were, the provinces most concerned might safely be left to deal with it, and people outside might differ in view but be undisturbed in spirit. The question touches the whole Dominion.

The ‘Christian Guardian,’ a most important paper representing the Methodist Church, claims that this is not a provincial issue, but that it is a question that interests the whole Dominion and consequently this parliament has a right to deal with it.

The question touches the whole Dominion and touches the Dominion to the end of time. And it touches it essentially and vitally, touches it at the deepest core of its national and social life. It is the question as to whether, in the great and rapidly growing provinces of the Northwest, bound to have in another generation a population that will outbalance that of all the rest of Canada put together, there is to be fastened a demoralizing, disintegrating educational system, setting race against race, and creed against creed, neighbour against neighbour, and man against man. It is the question as to whether mediaevalism is to triumph over modernity, and narrow and arbitrary ecclesiasticism over personal liberty and popular government. It is the question as to whether we are to have in this free and democratic country a state church, and that church the Church of Rome. It is the question whether public funds are to be administered for the propagation of sectarian dogmas, and public men to become the puppets of an arrogant and aggressive hierarchy.

That is the real issue, and that alone. It is sought to confuse it with other issues, and to cover it up with arguments on these issues, as specious as they are ingenious.

Here is one of the leading papers of Canada trying to poison the minds of the people of Canada by saying that there is something different altogether being established and continued in the Northwest Territories from what there really is. I believe, Sir, that these newspapers throughout Canada deserve censure, and I have no doubt that they will be censured by the people of the country in the near future. I have here a resolution by the provincial master and members of the Orange Lodge of Ontario west. They are practically in the same position, and I do not think they are living up to the principles of the constitution at all, because they are trying to spread a wrong impression broadcast throughout the country. They say :

And so we are called upon to-day to enter our earnest protest against the unjustifiable

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action of the bishops striving to shackle the west for all time in matters of education.

What do they know about the bishops and their action in the west?

We desire to go on record, as citizens of this country, uncontrolled by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, who have been on record for forty years, in favour of a system of non-denominational public schools, where every child shall secure a good secular education at the general expense, and where the religious beliefs of the pupils will be fully respected.

We must also draw attention to the fact that the present parliament of the Dominion has no mandate from the people of Canada to adopt vital legislation of this kind. The electors had no opportunity to express themselves upon this issue in the late general elections.

Let me tell the House here what happened in the district that I represent. In 1890 I was representing a western Manitoba district in the Manitoba legislature, and in that district there were possibly not ten Catholic votes. A large proportion of the population were Orangemen. I supported the Manitoba public school law of 1890, and in 1892 I went back to the people for re-election, and what happened? Why, I was turned down and a man who opposed the Greenway government for passing that legislation was elected in my place. That was the answer I got at that time and my hon. friend (Mr. S. J. Jackson) who sits beside me was in a somewhat similar position, for instead of getting a majority of a couple of hundred as he used to get, he was elected by only one vote. In 1896, Mr. Boyd represented the district which I represent here to-day, and when the remedial legislation was before this parliament Mr. Boyd supported Sir Charles Tupper in trying to coerce Manitoba, in trying to establish in that province a system of what I say were Roman Catholic schools in earnest. Mr. Boyd went back to the people after leaving Ottawa and he was returned by a larger majority than ever, and not by the Catholic vote either, but by the Orange vote.

Mr. SCHAFFNER. What majority was Mr. Greenway returned by when you were turned down?

Mr. CRAWFORD. He had a good fair majority; I do not remember exactly what it was.

Mr. SCHAFFNER. How many opposition members were returned?

Mr. CRAWFORD. I think there were eight.

Mr. SCHAFFNER. Out of a total of forty members?

Mr. CRAWFORD. Yes, but I think there were only four opposition members in the previous House, so that the opposition was strengthened. Therefore, so far as my

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district is concerned, if the result in former years is any indication, the school question will not figure there at all. Indeed I fancy that generally throughout the west very few votes will turn on this question. It is the people of Ontario down here who are agitating; the people who are nearer the field of action are not agitated at all. It is something like what happened at the time of the Northwest rebellion. Down here in Ontario and in the eastern provinces, the people thought we were all being murdered, and the people of the locality I lived in at that time had the same idea. I went out west with some of the boys, leaving my wife at home, and when we got amongst the Indians I telegraphed her to come west because there was less trouble there than there was in Neepawa.

Mr. SPROULE. Might I ask the hon. gentleman, what significance or importance he attaches to the hundreds of signers of petitions which I sent him from his own riding, protesting against this legislation? Does he think that these petitions were signed out of mere idle curiosity?

Mr. CRAWFORD. I may say to my hon. friend (Mr. Sproule) that the Orangemen there are nearly all Conservatives, at all events a large majority of them are; a few vote Liberal, a few voted for me. Therefore I say to my hon. friend that nearly every man of them, if he thought it would hurt the Liberal party would sign these petitions and send them in here as quickly as they possibly could; they would sign not considering the question or the issue at all, but just as a pure matter of party and not principle.

Mr. SPROULE. As an Orangeman, I want to ask him this, and I ask him as a brother—

Some hon. MEMBERS. Hear, hear.

Mr. SPROULE. It seems to be a matter of amusement for some hon. gentlemen, but I am asking a direct and pertinent question. Is the hon. gentleman aware of a circular ever having been sent to the Orangemen of Canada for any political purpose? If he is I have never known of it.

Mr. CRAWFORD. I am not aware of it and I am not saying that there was, but I am saying—

Mr. SPROULE. The insinuation is that this was sent for that purpose.

Mr. CRAWFORD. Well, if you want to take that insinuation out of it you can do so, but I was not making any insinuation. I was stating what I believed to be a fact, that if my hon. friend (Mr. Sproule) did so it would be accepted in that way and not for any strong reasons affecting the question itself, but as a matter of politics. This Orange resolution states further :

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Therefore, the mandate of 1896 is the final expression of the public mind of the school question. It was clear and emphatic and understood by the government of the day, which is still the government of the Dominion. This right worshipful grand lodge respectfully directs the attention of the government to the verdict of the people in 1896, and urges a compliance with their will upon this great question. The complete separation of church and state is a principle for which our fathers contended many years ago.

I read this resolution for the purpose of showing the members of this House and the people of Canada, that a great majority of those who have taken an interest in this matter outside this House seem to have their whole object and aim to create an impression altogether from the actual state of affairs. The whole idea of this resolution by the Orange society is that the church and state is being connected in some way, but there is no evidence whatever of that.

There is no connection, so far as the school legislation is concerned, between church and state. That is a vital point, and when the people of Canada come to understand it and see it in that light, they will accept it, and say that we have done well. In this connection, I wish to read a portion of an article which appeared in the Toronto ‘Globe’ :

If it be a Protestant separate school attended also by Roman Catholic children, the latter are entitled at half-past three to withdraw from the school if their parents or guardians so desire it. If it be a Roman Catholic separate school, the Protestant children at half-past three are in like manner entitled to withdraw, and thus for one-half hour after school closing religious instruction may be given in the school building. This class of school being wholly under state control is really misnamed a separate school, for during school hours it differs in no respect from a public school. A more correct designation would be to call this class of school a Protestant public school or a Roman Catholic public school rather than a separate school, there being nothing in its administration to prevent the youth of all denominations attending any one of these classes of schools.

Now, there is no question in my mind but that the church is entirely without control over the schools except from half-past three to four o’clock. Were it otherwise, I would not be prepared to support the provision. The reason I accept the provision in the Bill as amended is that it is clear and definite, and we know exactly what we are getting. That is the advantage of the amended Bill over the other. The other was not clear, in my opinion ; but this Bill is clear, and it establishes in the new provinces about to be formed a system of schools which is in fact superior to any other system of schools in Canada at the present time, and admitted to be so by our friends on the other side of the House.

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Will the hon. gentleman allow me to ask him a question? Will he explain to the House the difference between the original clause and the clause as it is amended?

Mr. CRAWFORD. It has been discussed a great deal, and it seems to me that we have all formed our own conclusions. If I thought for a minute that it would have any effect on the hon. gentleman, I would spend half an hour or so in trying to explain this clause to him; but what is the use of my trying to do so? I am not talking to the hon. gentleman at all; I am talking to the people of the country, who have been deceived in this matter. I might talk here for a week without making any change in my hon. friend.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. The people of the country would like to know.

Mr. CRAWFORD. The hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) referred at considerable length to the province of Manitoba. He spoke of the littleness of Manitoba. Now, I happen to come from the province of Manitoba, and I do not appreciate the manner in which a good many hon. gentlemen in this House refer to that province. Manitoba may be small in territory, but it is a great and important province. Manitoba has done more for Canada, I think, than any other province in the Dominion.

Mr. LENNOX. Will the hon. gentleman mention any member on this side of the House who has said anything disparaging of Manitoba in any sense or form?

Mr. CRAWFORD. When hon. gentlemen refer to Manitoba as being little, as being only a postage stamp, and that kind of thing, it is belittling that province. I was saying that Manitoba, if not so large in territory as some other provinces, is big in other ways, and it is of very great importance to the people of Canada. Manitoba, by her wheat and her rich soil, has done more to advertise Canada than any other province. Manitoba has been the great factor in opening up and developing the territory which we are now dividing into provinces. The early pioneers in Manitoba have been of untold value to the Dominion of Canada. Without the development and the prosperity that we have in the Northwest Territories to-day, the eastern provinces would not be in their present prosperous condition.

I may say that I am just as much in favour of seeing the boundaries of Manitoba extended as any other hon. gentleman in this House. I would certainly have liked to see Manitoba’s boundaries extended somewhat to the west; but, owing to the conditions that have been brought about

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in Manitoba in the past few years, we could not expect an extension in that direction. The hon. member for Eastern Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff), speaking here the other evening, referred to the dread which the people in the territory just west of Manitoba have of attaching themselves to that province, owing to the enormous debt at present resting upon it. There is no doubt that those people would hesitate very much before they would agree to subject themselves to a heavy increase of taxation, and the conditions in Manitoba to-day have had a good deal to do with creating a feeling on their part against uniting with us. Knowing these conditions myself, I could not very well expect an extension of the boundaries of the province in that direction. But I would like to say that we are going to get an extension to the north and the east. I do not value that extension very much. It is largely a matter of sentiment. When we take up this question with the government here, whatever party may be in power, we shall have to consider not only the extension of the boundaries of Manitoba, but the question of a greater subsidy on account of the territory which we may bring in, but which would practically be better without.

The territory to the north of Manitoba I think, to a very large extent will cost more to govern it than it is actually worth. Still we are entitled to the whole of that country to the north and ought to have it and will get it. We want different treatment from what we have had from the federal government in past years. Take the history of Manitoba, and who is responsible for the littleness of that province? Certainly not the Liberal party but our Conservative friends. Go back to 1870, when Manitoba was brought into confederation, and what did they give us? A very small territory. Later on we were not satisfied, and about 1881 we got an extension of the boundaries. The federal government made believe that they were giving us something great but they were actually giving us territory which it was not theirs to give. They gave us a section of territory which really belonged to the province of Ontario, and Ontario proved her right to it and held it. Many appeals were made by us to the late government for increased territory and subsidy, but they were all turned down. In 1884 a very strong appeal was made to the late Conservative government. And what did we get? Had we got the treatment which is being meted out to these new provinces, we would have been satisfied; and I may just say that if we had received that treatment, the provincial rights cries which we have had in the west would never have been heard. In 1884 we were given, in lieu of the lands, $100,000 and our swamp lands. That was considered a final settlement. The province

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of Manitoba was given to understand then that she need never go back for anything more, and the Manitoba legislature accepted that settlement and passed legislation agreeing to it. I venture to say that if we had received different treatment, if we had received any kind of liberal treatment, the province of Manitoba would never have been the disturbing element in the Dominion which she has been.

Then we had another disturbing question, the question of monopoly. Hon. gentlemen will remember that a monopoly was given the Canadian Pacific Railway, which deprived the province of Manitoba of the right to grant charters for railways built in that province for some 20 years. That caused an agitation which far exceeds the school agitation and almost resulted in open rebellion.

We then had this settlement called the Better Terms Deal in Manitoba, over which there was very strong agitation. The Liberals fought hard against it, but our Conservative friends who occupied the Treasury benches in that province agreed to it and practically accepted it as a final deal.

Later on we had the school question, but all those agitations were not due to the Liberal party. The whole responsibility must be charged to the Conservative party which was then in power here and in the province of Manitoba, and which had the support of our hon. friends opposite.

In connection with the land situation, I would just say that I believe the government are making the best possible arrangement. The lands possibly belong to the provinces and so do the timbers and the minerals. The provinces are not getting their timber or mines and there has not been a word said about that, although one would fancy those came within provincial rights, but the only questions that seem to be causing any agitation are the control of the lands and the school question. I think it would be a great mistake for this parliament to leave the control of the lands entirely in the hands of the provinces. As I have said, so far as Manitoba is concerned, there would never have been any question of provincial rights if the same liberal terms had been given Manitoba which are now being extended to the Territories. And the reason I claim that it would not be wise to leave the control of the lands to the new provinces is this, namely, that a different system of management would no doubt likely take place very soon. What would this mean, not only to the provinces themselves, but the whole Dominion? In the consideration of this question we must bring business ideas into operation. We must consider not merely the two provinces themselves but the whole country. The building up of the Northwest Territories should not be retarded in any way. We cannot afford to allow any obstacles to be thrown in the way of immigration because

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that would be a detriment to the whole Dominion. Take the province of Ontario, what does it mean to Ontario to-day to have 100,000 or 200,000 people going into our Northwest? It means the building up of more factories down here and the employment of more labour. We are prospering now and cannot afford to take any chances. We cannot afford to run the risk of having that land policy changed, which is really our great drawing card at present. We must continue our present policy. We must let the people of the world know that the policy in operation now, we are going to continue for some time to come. If we were to change that policy we would very seriously retard the flow of immigration, and those new provinces would not go on and prosper as they ought to do. I think that the leader of the opposition went so far as to say that some kind of a deal might be made with these provinces, under which homestead conditions might still exist, but I say that if we are to hand over those lands to the provinces, we must give them out and out. Either we should part with the sole control or keep it. But if we keep control and carry on the system now in operation, it is hard to realize what that will mean to Canada and what it means at present. The opposition claim that possibly the management would be as good under provincial control as under Dominion control. That might be, but what has been our experience in Manitoba? We had no free lands in Manitoba but we had a lot of cheap lands, and what happened there? instead of keeping these cheap lands for the settlers which would be some inducement for settlers to come into the province of Manitoba, very shortly after the change of government took place the policy of the Liberal government of Manitoba of holding the lands and giving them to the settlers was departed from and these lands, of which there were nearly one million acres, were turned over to companies, to speculators, at a low price and now, instead of these lands being sold to settlers at $1.50 to $3 an acre, as they were under the Manitoba Liberal government’s scheme of immigration, they are held by speculators and companies at from $5 to $10 an acre. This raising of the price of lands has practically stopped immigration into Manitoba and there is that same danger in the west. Only last fall the Manitoba government turned over 256,000 acres of land to a company at $1.56 an acre and within a few days, almost before the lands were transferred, they were resold for $4 an acre and possibly these lands, which are fairly fit for settlement, are held to-day for from $6 to $10 an acre. The same conditions might be permitted in the new Territories. The people of Canada cannot afford to take any chances in a matter of this kind. The prosperity of the whole Dominion depends largely on the management of the lands in that western country, and any change in that management would

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mean a stopping of immigration. A stopping of immigration into this country would mean the stopping of trade and the stopping of trade would mean probably the loss of millions of dollars annually to the people of Canada. We cannot afford to let anything creep in that will change the present conditions.

Mr. SPROULE. Is the hon. gentleman aware that the present government sold 250,000 acres of that land for $1 an acre to the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company, and that the company is selling to the outside public at from $5 to $10, so that just what he thinks would be ruinous has taken place?

Mr. CRAWFORD. The hon. gentleman is a little off in his ideas as to that transaction if he compares it with the transaction that I have been mentioning in Manitoba. In Manitoba these transfers of land have been made without any conditions at all. In the sale of the 250,000 acres in the Territories which were sold to this company, conditions were attached. The company is obliged to place so many settlers in each township. It is part of the bargain and they put up a guarantee of $50,000 that they would do this.

Mr. SPROULE. Did they live up to it?

Mr. CRAWFORD. I understand they did.

Mr. SPROULE. That was not the evidence given before the committee here. When the officers were asked the question : Have they complied with that? The answer by the agent was : I do not think they have; we have not made an actual count but we do not think they have. Yet they were selling the land. Where there were twenty settlers to be put in each township the inspectors did not ascertain that these twenty settlers were put in the township before handing the land over, but if they found in a certain district that the aggregate number of settlers would amount to twenty in each township they regarded that as a compliance with the terms and the land was given over.

Mr. CRAWFORD. Possibly, what the hon. gentleman (Mr. Sproule) says is correct; but it has nothing to do with the deal; that is a matter of management afterwards, and if our business heads here are not doing their duty and not making these people live up to their agreement they are not doing what is right and I would not defend them for a minute. So far as the transaction is concerned, it is altogether different from the transaction I am referring to in Manitoba. There is no comparison whatever. Let us look at the policy of the Conservative party in years gone by. Look at a map of the Territories to-day and you would almost think that the whole country was given away to railways as bonuses and to land companies for colonization purposes.

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The only transaction on the part of this government to which the hon. gentleman can point is that one transaction of 250,000 acres, and to that settlement conditions were attached. But when the Conservatives were in office they were continually giving away the lands of the country and to-day in a charter which is still alive for the construction of a railway there is provision for a land grant of 12,800 acres a mile, about 60,000 square miles of land grant given by the Conservative government to this railway company. The whole management by that party seems to have consisted of dealing with companies, destroying the condition of things in the country, destroying the prospects of settlement. When I went to the west twenty-nine years ago the country was free to a very large extent; we could get homesteads and pre-empt adjoining land, but in a few years when the Canadian Pacific Railway was given a land grant by the Conservative party what happened? Every other section, some fifty or sixty million acres, was reserved from settlement and it was a hardship to the people of that country to bring those conditions into existence, and it drove thousands of people out of that country owing to the fact that settlement was so sparse that they could not establish schools and they were so scattered that the country was hardly habitable. Settlement was scattered and there was no prospect in the near future of getting near neighbours. I know different ones who left the country on that account, owing to the condition brought about by the land policy of our friends opposite who were then in power. The only transaction under this government to which my hon. friends can refer is this one of 250,000 acres and settlement conditions are attached to it.

I have occupied all the time that I feel I should occupy in this debate. I do not know that I have changed the opinion of many members of the opposition. I may say that I did not expect to do it when I started, and I do not suppose if I continued till morning that there would be any different result. If it costs Canada $30 a minute to run this parliament, as I have heard it said, I think perhaps I have squandered about all the money I ought to at this time. I would say in conclusion that I have no hesitation in taking the position I do on this matter. The school law is good, in fact the best law possible, as some of our friends opposite have claimed. Now if that is the case, why should we not continue it, especially if by so doing we can cut out this agitation that has been going on for the last sixty years? In view of all the facts that I have set forth, I have no hesitation in supporting the government on this Autonomy Bill.

Mr. F. L. SCHAFFNER (Souris). In rising to place myself on record on this important Bill, I may say that after so many long and judicial addresses, I feel that I

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can add very little to the subject. Being a western man, this Bill appeals to me, and were it not for that fact I think I would be satisfied to give a silent vote. A great deal has been said about the importance of this so-called Autonomy Bill; some members have gone so far as to say that it is the most important Bill that has been introduced into this House since confederation. Well, I acknowledge its importance, and I think that members on the other side of the House have failed to understand how important it is to that great Northwest. I am glad to know that while the members of this House may differ on details in connection with this Bill, they are unanimous in the opinion that the time is ripe for autonomy. I believe that that great western country has reached its majority. I believe, in view of the position that country holds to-day in the eyes of the world, in view of the large number of people who are going in there to settle, that the time has come when we should give to those Territories a full measure of home rule. I readily admit the government was inspired with a very popular sentiment when it gave this question its attention.

Now, I am glad to follow in this discussion my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Crawford). I have known that hon. gentleman for a great many years, we have always been great friends, and he is a wonderfully great friend of my father-in-law, who always takes a great deal of pains to vote for him. I agree with him on a good many points, but I must disagree with him on others. I agree with him in his satisfaction in hearing that Sir Charles Tupper has received the blessing of the Pope. I can only say that it adds one more honour to the many honours that have been given to that great man, and I only wish that we could all receive the same honour. In rising to address the House on this question, I would like to be brief, but feeling so strongly as I do on this question, I shall have to ask the patience of the House for a considerable length of time. I am sorry to take up so much time of the House at this late hour, being a new member, but it seems to me customary to put on the new members late in the evening.

Now, I intend to deal with this question from a national standpoint. I would like to say here that I represent a constituency containing about twenty towns, in every one of which there are a number of Roman Catholics, and I am glad to be able to say that up to this moment there has been absolutely no demand for two sets of schools. I like the expression ‘two systems’ of schools better than that of ‘separate schools,’ because I think it is more applicable to the west. The term ‘separate school’ always seems to convey the idea either of a Protestant school or of a Roman Catholic school. I do not like to look at the subject in that way. Perhaps I

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am wrong; I have not lived in Quebec and I have not lived in Ontario; I have lived in Nova Scotia and I have lived in the west; and when I come to speak on clause 16 of this Autonomy Bill, I prefer to speak of two systems of schools rather than of a separate school. The hon. member for Portage la Prairie began by complaining that members on this side of the House were taking up too much time. Well, we have only put up one man to every one of their men; we will not be able to keep that up, however, though I wish we could. But when he talks so much about justice to minorities, he does not seem to be so well disposed to do justice to the minority on this side of the House. Now, this Autonomy Bill contains twenty-five clauses, which may be divided into four groups, namely, the number of provinces, the financial terms, the school question, and the ownership of the lands. As concerns the number of provinces, I cannot at all agree with the hon. member for Portage la Prairie. If Manitoba was not to be extended, then I would be in favour of two provinces to the west, and I think that would meet the views of a large majority of the people in the western country. But, Sir, we are settling the status of that great country for the last time, at least in so far as the country adjoining the American boundary is concerned. And I can see no reason why there should not have been two great provinces. He says he is satisfied that Manitoba cannot be extended westward, he is quite willing that it should be extended northward. He says these lands are not much good, that they would be expensive to administer. I think that it is in the power of this government to make the division up there just where they see fit. As regards the sentiment of the residents in the Territories, it has been said that they are strongly opposed to coming into the province of Manitoba. Now, I want to say to my hon. friends opposite that there is another sentiment. There was a time when Manitoba took in Port Arthur and Fort William. We then had a territory of 150,000 square miles. If we had an area like that, we would have something like our reasonable rights. I know the other provinces are fair enough to treat us justly, in order that we may compare favourably in regard to size with the other provinces. I cannot accept the statement of the Prime Minister that before Manitoba boundaries could be extended he must consult Ontario and Quebec.

Neither can I accept the statement of the right hon. leader of the government (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) that size is not always indicative of worth. It may not be, but other things being equal I say that size is indicative of worth. If the government had extended Manitoba a little to the westward and then made one province between the western boundary of Manitoba and the eastern boundary of British Columbia we would

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have had two provinces that for size, fertility, and undoubted possibilities would be unparalleled in the world. I believe it was coming to Manitoba and I would like to take up a little time to-night in telling you why I believe it was coming to Manitoba. Some hon. gentlemen have compared Manitoba to a postage stamp. Well, what is a postage stamp? A postage stamp occupies a very small space on the corner of a letter. but it is the postage stamp that makes the letter go. There is no question about that. I can prove beyond a doubt that Manitoba has made that great western country go. It has been the port of entry and it has been the experimental farm for the whole Northwest. I see upon the other side of the House the hon. member for Winnipeg (Mr. Bole), and if I am not mistaken he will bear out what I have to say. I claim that the Dominion of Canada had the right to extend the borders of Manitoba, and being from Manitoba and being particularly interested in that country which has been my home for about 22 years, I am sure hon. members of the House will excuse me if I try to prove why we should have our territory extended westward. As I said before, it has been the great experimental farm. Twenty-five years ago our hon. friends opposite did not have very much use for Manitoba and the west. They absolutely opposed any expenditure of money in that country. They opposed to the hilt the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. I assure you, Sir, that the Canadian Pacific Railway has done great things for that country notwithstanding the fact that freights were high in those early times. Perhaps they had to be high because the country was sparsely settled and they had to go all around the north shore of Lake Superior before they reached a country that would give them any business. I would like to call the attention of the House, because I am exceedingly anxious to prove what I say, re the opinions expressed in former times by leaders of the Liberal party as to the value of that country. It was only the untiring energy of men like Sir Charles Tupper who never gave up, that carried through the great project of the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. We heard the hon. Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) in loud tones the other night announce the prosperity of this country, but I say, without fear of contradiction in this House, that if that western country is prosperous to-day it is due to the Liberal-Conservative party. When these hon. gentlemen talk about the prosperity of the country it reminds me very much of the time when we were boys on the farm. One boy would crawl under the barn and the other would go and find a hen’s nest. When he had found the hen’s nest we would run to our mother and say: Look at the hen’s nest we have found. The boy who had crawled under the barn and had nothing to do with the finding of the hen’s nest would claim the right to share the credit.

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While the Liberal-Conservative party were building up that country the Liberals were under the barn. The Liberal-Conservative party were laying the foundation of that prosperity. The hon. gentleman who spoke last (Mr. Crawford) told us that the government had sold 250,000 acres. He said that they sold 250,000 acres of our best land at $1 an acre, their view apparently being that land is not worth now any more than it was at the time the Canadian Pacific Railway was built. That land to-day cannot be bought for less than $10 an acre. But what position did the leaders of these hon. gentlemen take when Sir Charles Tupper was trying to put through this road? Did Mr. Blake or Mr. Mackenzie give him any encouragement? As you know the Canadian Pacific Railway were to receive 20,000 acres of land per mile. Mr. Blake, as reported in ‘Hansard’ of 1875, page 541, said:

With reference to the 20,000 acres of land subsidy, the hon. member for Cumberland calculates it at $2 an acre. I do not believe the House will accept that calculation. I am quite sure if the hon. gentleman proposed that a negotiation be entered into with the contractor for the release of that land, he would find him quite willing to get rid of it at a much less rate than he has valued the land at. It is an entirely absurd calculation to say that these 1,700,000 acres are worth $2 an acre to this country. Even valuing them at $1 would be in my judgment an excessive valuation.

That is what the Liberals thought our great western country was worth when Sir Charles Tupper was trying to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mr. Mackenzie said:

My right hon. friend said: You are going to give 50,000,000 acres of land. Mr. Mackenzie said: Yes, only I do not place their value at $5 per acre. I wish I could say they were worth $1 per acre.

In reply to this Sir Charles Tupper said:

Whatever value may be obtained for them over one dollar per acre, and I hope it will be greatly over that rate, will be obtained not in their present position, but in consequence of the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Then they were not satisfied with that. They proceeded to the consideration of the question as to what would be the position of the road when it was completed. You know the old expressions which were used in connection with the road by the Liberals of that day. Mr. Mackenzie said:

Then comes the consideration of what would be the position of the road after it was completed, suppose we were able to fill the obligation which hon. gentlemen opposite undertook and suppose we finish it in seven years, we have Mr. Fleming’s authority, and I think he is very much within the bounds, that until 3,000,000 are drawn into that uninhabited country it is quite impossible to expect the road to pay its running expenses.

That is what they said. They said it would not pay for the axle grease. I say

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that the Liberal-Conservative party deserve considerable credit for the manner in which, in the face of determined opposition, they carried that project to a successful conclusion. Now, I believe these men were honest. They were mistaken beyond a doubt, but it seems to have been the policy of the Liberal party not to have been very much faith in the western country until very recently. Now, if the House will have patience with me I propose to give hon. members a little information that may be of some value to them and to their sons who go out to that country, because, I am glad to say, that we have in the west the sons and daughters of Quebec and Ontario and of every other province in this Dominion and that there are no better settlers in the world than the people from this eastern country. But, Sir, what are the conditions to-day and what were they 25 years ago? As I have said Manitoba was the experimental farm. The farmers who went into that country knew that the country was fertile, but they did not know that the season was long enough to enable them to ripen wheat. They were afraid their labours would not receive very much return. By experiment it has been found that by cultivating and tilling the soil the prairie is changed from a non-conductor or reflector of heat, that the prairie will absorb and retain heat and that we are able to grow wheat and never think anything of frost. That is an experiment that the people of Manitoba have had to work out for the benefit of the whole western country. These are some obstacles which the farmers had to contend with. I speak from experience. After raising their crop they had to take it sometimes 50 miles with a yoke of oxen and sell it for 40 cents a bushel. That was done for a good many years and that will illustrate some of the hardships that the people had to go through. As to our schools, people were afraid to go into that western country because the country was so sparsely settled that it was almost impossible to have schools.

What would we do if we were obliged to have two kinds of schools? A great many gentlemen who have spoken on the other side of the House, and some on this, (and they may be honest in their opinions), have told us what they think is good for the west. But, Sir, the people of Quebec and the people of Ontario do not understand how different are the conditions in the west, from the conditions prevailing in the east. I may digress to refer to a trivial matter now, but if there is any one here who was in Manitoba in the early days he perhaps would not consider it very trivial. When we went into that country the mode of conveyance was the Red river cart rather than the Pullman car, and sleeping on the floor prevailed rather than on spring mattresses. We had the mosquito too, but he has degenerated since the early days when he was as big as a small grasshopper and

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had a business end like a hornet’s. We found out too that 40 below zero was cold, but you did not feel it. I point these out as some of the things the pioneers in that western country had to experience, in order to prove to the people of the east that Manitoba and the Territories were worth something. In view of what the people of Manitoba have suffered, is their province not deserving of better treatment at the hands of this government? I say here honestly, that this government did not consider the whole question before they decided that Manitoba could not be extended westward. One reason they have given for not extending Manitoba to the west is, that Manitoba has incurred a debt and that the man on one section of land is liable for a certain debt from which the man on the other side of the line is free. Let us look at that from a business standpoint. I admit that Manitoba has a heavier debt than the Northwest Territories, but Manitoba has assets to show for it. When a business man is considering his financial position he considers his assets as well as his liabilities, and if he has assets that more than balance his liabilities he thinks himself pretty well off. That is a sound business principle and it applies to the province of Manitoba. I wish my hon. friend from Lisgar (Mr. Greenway) were here because he would understand something of what I am speaking about. When Mr. Greenway was premier of Manitoba, he offered a very great sum of money if he could get a 10 cent rate on wheat from Winnipeg to Port Arthur. We were paying 14, 15 and 16 cents per hundred, on wheat from Winnipeg to Port Arthur, and a difference of even one cent per bushel means a great deal to the farmer. When the Roblin government came into power they got a ten cent rate and they got it without costing that country a cent. I want to compare the freight rates on the Canadian side, which have been secured by this business transaction of the Roblin government, with the wheat rates on the other side of the line, and then I will ask if there is not some reason why Manitoba should have a debt. If this government had investigated the matter and explained as they should have done to the people why Manitoba should be extended west, before five years had elapsed these people would have been entirely satisfied and we would have had two great provinces. Here are the freight rates on wheat. From Winnipeg to Port Arthur, 421 miles, the rates on wheat is 10 cents per 100 pounds or 6 cents per bushel. From Brainerd, Minnesota to Duluth, 119 miles, note the difference, the freight is 10 cents per 100 pounds. From Gretna to Port Arthur, 500 miles, the freight is 12 cents per 100 pounds, and from Pembina to Duluth, 414 miles, the rate is 15 cents. I could give many more examples of this, but one illustration is just as good

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as a dozen, and it shows that the Roblin government have been able through the Canadian Northern Railway, to have the freight rates greatly reduced and thus benefit the farmers. I would point out to hon. gentlemen opposite that Manitoba now has only 73,000 square miles of territory, and I am absolutely in earnest when I tell the government that in the case of Manitoba they have not nursed their child as they ought to have done. I hope my words will have some effect on them and that when they reconsider this matter—as I have no doubt they will reconsider the school clause they will extend our province to the west. The two clauses in this Bill which have been most discussed have been the land clauses and the educational clauses. I cannot agree with my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Crawford) with regard to the lands. He is the most generous man I have ever heard of in this House from Manitoba; he is willing to give everything to the Dominion government, but it seems to me that a representative of Manitoba is not doing his duty when he speaks in that way. I believe that the western provinces should own their lands just the same as Quebec, Ontario and the maritime provinces own their lands. The arguments on the other side of the House, from the Prime Minister down, have been attempts to find excuses for retaining these lands to the Dominion, rather than to show the country what would be the best disposition of these lands. My hon. friend (Mr. Crawford) said we did not say anything about the timber or the minerals, but I take it for granted that if we owned these lands we would own the timber and the minerals as well. I believe that the western provinces are just as well able to administer their lands, yes, and better able than the Dominion government which is so far distant. I want to be fair, and I will admit that there may possibly be a little something in the argument that for the time being immigration might be interfered with, but if I understand it aright, the immigration policy of this government takes in the whole Dominion and is not applicable to the west alone. I believe that those western provinces would be deeply interested in getting immigration into them, and they would certainly better understand their needs than would the people down here. I wish to quote now from a statement made by the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Sifton), a gentleman very close to the government, who, in addressing the Toronto Club, said, as published in the Winnipeg ‘Tribune,’ April 11, 1905:

I may say that if there is anything further done it should be in connection with the far northern territory. I have expressed it as my opinion, and I repeat it, that the care of the Dominion northern lands should be cast upon the provinces. Though circumstances have forced the Dominion government to take charge

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of large tracts of sparsely settled territory, this policy is not in accordance with the spirit of the constitution. To give the task to the provinces will relieve the Dominion government of a responsibility with which it is ill able to cope, because its members cannot have the personal knowledge necessary to make the work efficient.

These are the words of the hon. member for Brandon, addressed on the 6th of this month to the Canadian Club in Toronto. If that hon. gentleman thinks that the province could manage those northern lands better than they could be managed here, I cannot understand why the province could not better manage all the lands. It seems that the Dominion must keep control of all the good lands, but that any land which is not quite so good it is willing to give to the control of the province.

Now, I want to give some figures to show the progress of Manitoba and the Northwest in recent years. Last year we grew 86,000,000 bushels of grain; and this year there will be ready for crop about 2,500,000 acres. That is a very large tract of land. The immigration which came into the country from the United States last year amounted to 48,000. The cash receipts from the sale of Dominion lands amounted in 1896 to $174,509, and in 1904 to $1,681,824. The land sales by companies having land grants amounted in 1896 to $361,338 and in 1904 to over $5,000,000. I produce these figures to show that it is not probable that this country is going to give those two new provinces any money grant that will adequately compensate them for their lands. I would like to show you, by a comparison with land values in some of the western states, how the lands in the Northwest may be expected to increase in value. In Illinois, in 1850 land was worth $10 an acre; to-day it is worth $61.12. In Iowa in 1850 it was worth $7.87; now it is worth $53. In Minnesota in 1850 it was worth $9.38; to-day it is worth $39.05. Is there any reason why our lands should not increase in value in the next thirty years in the same proportion? If they do, consider our public lands as worth $50 an acre, and then you will have some idea of what you are doing when you retain the lands and profess to give these provinces a generous recompense for them. We can hardly at the present time make a true estimate of the value of those lands. In 1881 we had 232 miles of railway in that country; to-day we have 6,000 miles.

In Winnipeg in 1900 the total assessment was $25,000,000; in 1894 it was $48,000,000. The building permits in 1900 were 530; in 1904 they were 1,737. The buildings erected in 1900 were 658, in 1904 they were 2,224. The actual money spent in the city of Winnipeg on improvements in 1900 was $1,333,463; in 1904 it was $12,000,000, of which over $9,000,000 was expended in permanent improvements. The population of Winnipeg according to the last returns given

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about a month ago was 97,000; I suppose that to-day it is or will be in the very near future 100,000. I think I can name the cities of Montreal, Toronto, Halifax and St. John, and say without fear of contradiction that there was not spent in all these cities last year $12,000,000 in permanent improvements. Winnipeg is the third largest banking centre of Canada. The ‘Financier’ a leading financial journal of the United States, says that bank clearings more than anything else reflect the financial condition of a country. Well, in 1900 the bank clearings of Winnipeg amounted to $106,956,000, and in 1904 they amounted to $258,631,000.

I think I have given ample proof of the great prosperity of that western country; and that prosperity has come because of the sound national policy and railway policy of the late Conservative government. There is nothing that I believe more strongly. I believe that, as the saying is, right down to the hilt, while at the same time I am willing to give hon. gentlemen opposite credit for all they have done. I give them credit for what they have done to promote immigration; but they could not have got immigration if they had continued to use the doleful language which they formerly used. It was after the Conservative government had opened up the country and had secured low freight rates, that this government were able to bring in immigrants, because low freight rates are the inducements that attract people into the country.

I have heard here a great deal about Roman Catholics being 41 per cent of the population of this country. Why, Mr. Speaker, I have heard more about Protestants, Orangemen, Roman Catholics and the hierarchy during the short time that I have been in this parliament than I ever heard in my life before. This is not to me a matter of Roman Catholics. I am glad and proud to say that my best friends and some of my warmest supporters, in the town in which I live, are Roman Catholics. And I want to say further that in the town in which I live, the town of Boissevain, we have six schools and a number of Catholics. My best and warmest political, and I may say business friend is a Roman Catholic. Perhaps in mentioning this; I am indulging in sentiment, but the right hon. First Minister spoke of sentiment in introducing this measure, and there is no doubt sentiment is a great force. Well, his little girl and mine played together, they went to school together, they had their parties together, and I do not believe that they knew which one is Protestant and which one is Roman Catholic. Yet for all that each one was true to her church. Now, I believe that that is the kind of thing a national school builds up. I am prepared to go a good deal further perhaps than many in this House. I go a long way in favour of separation between church and state. I say there should be absolutely no connection between the two. I

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cannot understand how the First Minister and the Secretary of State and the Minister of Justice can support the Bill, but knowing as I do the principles of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Railways, I cannot understand for one moment how they can advocate a system which connects the church and state.

I think I have said all I need about the ownership of the lands. I believe we should own our lands. We have been the pioneers and have had to work out and solve the problem of life in that western country. We have had to educate our children under great difficulties, with schools only here and there, and the little red school was not only a school but the church on Sunday, and we went to church in wagons drawn by oxen. But suppose we had to establish separate schools for the Catholics, Protestants, Galicians, Mormons and all these other denominations, in what position would we be? That is why I say that the people in this eastern country fail to recognize the dissimilarity of existing conditions of the east and the west, and thus do not understand the spirit and feelings which we put into this question. I have no ill-feeling towards Roman Catholics. I have never had but the warmest and best feelings towards them because they are in every town in my constituency. But there has not been one of them in that whole constituency who has ever asked for separate schools. They do not want them and will not have them. A good deal has been said about the hierarchy and the priests keeping up this agitation. I know nothing about how much the priests or the hierarchy have to do with it, but I am going to show you right here to-night what men who stand high in the present government say about the hierarchy and the bishops. I know nothing about the matter myself, but will give you their words. Coming back to the school question, the word ‘constitution’ has been a familiar word to this House the past week or two. I suppose to be loyal we must respect the constitution; and if the constitution says we must have two systems of schools in the Northwest we must abide by it. But lawyers disagree as well as doctors, and when lawyers disagree on the constitutional phase of this question who is to decide? I have been a regular attendant during this debate, and have been a pretty close observer, and I do not know yet what the constitution says on this question. I do not know yet what difference there is between the two clauses—the one first brought down and the one brought down subsequently, and I must come to the conclusion that if doctors disagree so also do lawyers. We are told that the doctors’ mistakes are buried six feet under ground. That is sometimes cast up against us by the lawyers. But I have heard also that the lawyers’ mistakes sometimes swing six feet in the air, so that in

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that respect there is not very much difference. I was speaking about the difficulty in understanding the constitution, and to complete my argument I shall refer to two opinions. They have been quoted before, but they are to the point and they are the opinions of gentlemen who belong to the party opposite. The first one I shall read is that of Sir Louis Davies, and I read it because it appeals to me. In 1891, in discussing the charter of the Northwest Territories in this House, he said:

My opinion is now, and has been for years, that when the time comes to erect the Territories into provinces, you cannot withhold from the provinces so erected the right to determine for themselves the question of education.

That is all I ask. I do not ask you to establish national schools although I believe in national schools. All I ask you is to leave the question, as Sir Louis Davies says, to the provinces themselves.

I would be the last to favour this parliament imposing upon the people there any system of education, either free or separate. I only claim that when a Bill is introduced to erect those territories into provinces that Bill should contain a provision enabling the people of the different provinces so created to decide what system of education they will have.

That is very plain and distinct. The late Hon. Mr. Mills, in the same debate said:

When the people of the Territories, or any portion of the Territories, are sufficiently numerous to constitute a province—when, in fact, they attain their majority in regard to local matters and when they propose to set up for themselves—this parliament has no right to exercise control over them. It can give good advice, but it has no right to give commands.

When the Territories have a sufficient population to entitle them to become a province, they must decide for themselves whether they will have separate schools or not.

Then we have the opinion of Mr. Christopher Robinson to the same effect, and we have besides an opinion which I respect very much, that of the leader of the opposition. It must be admitted that the preponderance of opinion is in favour of the provinces controlling their own educational affairs. The common sense view must be that if we are going to strain the constitution in either direction, it should be in the direction of provincial rights. The question to me is whether or not the policy of the Dominion government, in compelling new provinces to maintain separate schools, or if you like more than one system of schools, is a sound one. Should the provinces which have the controlling voice in this parliament to-day—the maritime provinces, Quebec and Ontario—combine to force on that great country a certain educational policy? I say no. It must be admitted that the sentiment of the constitution is that our education is purely a matter of local concern and it should be left to each province to determine for itself

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the sort of educational system to be adopted. The main question is, as the ‘Globe’ has said, whether each province is to be allowed a free hand in the management of its local affairs or not. This system of schools which the government is attempting to force on the Northwest is unpractical and wholly unsuited to the conditions that now exist and must continue to exist in that country. In Ontario you have different religions, but your people are essentially one people, and if that is true of Ontario it is true to a very much greater extent of Quebec. In Quebec, you have almost one religion, one language and one race. The people who have been brought up under these influences can possibly not realize the disadvantage of establishing the same condition of affairs in that great western country where we have so many different people coming in. It seemed to be assumed by some speakers in this debate that the only people in this country are Roman Catholics and Protestants, but we have also the Galicians, the Doukhobors, the Mormons, the Greeks and people of other religions. If we must have a separate school for Roman Catholics or Protestants then these other peoples have the same right to claim that privilege for themselves.

I shall call to the attention of the House the views which have been expressed by hon. gentlemen opposite a few years ago. The man on the street can express and act upon a certain opinion to-day and to-morrow express and act upon an opinion directly opposed without comment, but I say when the leader of a great party, when the executive and the members of a government take that course we have good reason to ask why and how they changed their opinion to this extent. The members of the government and their supporters can talk as loudly and as long as they like, but in 1896 they took a position diametrically opposed to the position they are taking to-day. I am not in sympathy with Sir Charles Tupper’s Remedial Bill. As the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Sifton) said at that time—and I am going to read his words to you—the schools in Manitoba were a disgrace to that country, a disgrace to any country, and that was not so very long ago. I say that to-day we have as good—I shall not say any more than that—as good schools as there are in the Dominion of Canada. A great deal of stress has been laid by gentlemen opposite on the fact that there are in the Northwest to-day practically national schools, meaning, I presume, national schools as opposed to clerical schools. What influence has brought about the improved condition that we have to-day? Has it been the influence of clerical schools or of national schools? If it has been as they admit, the approach so nearly the national schools, is not that argument good. And if you carry that to a logical conclusion you should establish one system of schools to which the children of

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the Roman Catholic, of the Protestant, of the Greek, of the Mormon and of every other person, can go to and receive an education that will fit them for going out into the world and meeting the great competition that people encounter to-day. I must admit that I am not familiar with the conditions in Quebec and perhaps for that reason I cannot sympathize with our Catholic friends to the extent that I should in the desire for the teaching of religion in schools. Do these gentlemen ever consider how short a period of life of a child, that is of a child of the masses—and it is the masses we are talking of here, we are not talking of the man who is worth $100,000 or $25,000 and can educate his children where he likes, we are talking about the poor child—do they ever consider, I say, how short a time the child of the masses has in which to gain his secular education. The child cannot start before the age of seven or eight years and generally he or she has to leave school at about fourteen or fifteen. That is not a very long time and am I asking too much when I say that there is the church and the Sunday school and the parents and that these children during the short time they are in the school for five or six days of the week should devote their time absolutely to secular education? Is that not a fair proposition to put to the citizens of this country? I would like to read you a quotation from the words of an hon. gentleman who at one time sat high in the ranks of the Liberal party, the Hon. Mr. Tarte. I am not sure that he is in the party to-day, I do not know where he is, but speaking in Montreal a couple of years ago he said:

French Canadian artisans and mechanics going over to the United States of America, were sadly handicapped when put side by side with American workers, as their education, received in church schools in Quebec, did not fit them to compete with men educated under a public school system. In large works they could seldom rise to foremen’s positions for this reason.

I presume that Mr. Tarte was correctly reported in this. I have said that while I respect my Catholic friends I cannot sympathize with them when they say that they must have religion taught in the schools. In the province of Manitoba in my own town we have six schools, but we have no religion, there is no dogma taught in them, we do not even read the bible but I believe we have moral teachers. As a trustee I think that is one of the things we ask. We do not ask whether a teacher is a Catholic or Protestant. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) laid stress on the fact of the teachers of Nova Scotia being allowed to wear a certain garb. We do not ask what kind of garb they wear, we do not ask whether they are Catholic or Protestant, we simply ask that they pass a proper examination, that they shall be of good moral character, and that is all we

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ask before we put them into our rooms to teach. Is there any objection to a system like that? I believe it has worked well and I believe further that if the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Customs will come up into Manitoba and live there for five years after having passed this Act they will come back to this parliament and ask parliament to rescind it, that the school established by it is not a good school and not in the interests of this Dominion. I believe in religion, but I believe that our Sunday schools and churches can best impart that.

We had a hot contest in Manitoba and I was surprised to hear my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Crawford) say that he went back into that beautiful county of Neepawa after Mr. Greenway introduced and passed this measure and was defeated. At that time out of forty members only eight members of the opposition were returned and although my hon. friend was defeated he was defeated by one of the most popular men that ever lived in the west, the late Hon. John Davidson, who had a great many friends in Neepawa.

Mr. CRAWFORD. I defeated the hon. gentleman twice before, and the only issue was the school question.

Mr. SCHAFFNER. He defeated a very good man. I say this without fear of contradiction, that no government could live in Manitoba for a week, if it gave the people any chance to express themselves, that would ever think of establishing a different school system from the one they have just now. I have often heard it said that 40 per cent of the people of this country are Roman Catholics, but I want to say that nothing like 40 per cent of the people of this country want two systems of schools, and I know what I am saying. I know that is the case with the Roman Catholics of Manitoba. The cities of Winnipeg and Brandon are the only places in which there are two systems of schools—there is not one in my constituency. In the large towns most of the Catholics go to the national schools. Since I came to Ottawa I have made it a point to inquire, I have spoken to a great many Catholics, and I have not found one man or one woman to tell me that they did not prefer the national schools, because they believed that their children got a better education to fit them for the work of life. Of course, in Quebec the circumstances are different; there they are practically of one religion and one people, although there seems to be no disposition to disturb the Protestants in their separate schools. But take the Dominion as a whole, the conditions are better adapted for national schools. I say positively that the people in the Northwest, the people in my constituency, who are French Canadians—and there are men in my constituency closely related to some of the members of the present provincial government in Quebec,

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Cousins—there is not one of them who wants a separate school. I think that is pretty good evidence that the Catholics do not want separate schools.

Mr. FIELDING. If they do not want them, they will not have them. If the Catholics in the Northwest do not ask for them, there will be no separate schools.

Mr. SCHAFFNER. Of course not. On this point I will read something to my hon. friend from Mr. J. J. Gregor, of Lacombe:

We notice the statement has been made in the House of Commons by the advocates of separate schools for the new provinces that the system now in vogue under the Dominion Act of 1875, has been satisfactory. This, in one sense, is correct, but it has to be borne in mind that with very few exceptions the schools are public or common schools. The portion of the ordinance permitting separate schools, either Protestant or Roman Catholic, is a dead letter.

The Minister of Finance says that if the Catholics do not want separate schools, they will not have them. But that is not the question. What we complain of is that the government are trying to force a system of separate schools upon that country.

Mr. FIELDING. I understand the hon. gentleman to argue that the Roman Catholics of the Northwest do not want separate schools. Then they will not have any separate schools, because this measure provides that they can only get separate schools when they ask for them.

Mr. INGRAM. Then why not leave it to the provinces?

Mr. FIELDING. That is another question.

Mr. SCHAFFNER. I have great respect for the Minister of Finance, who comes from my native province, and I have great respect for his ability; but I do not think that the Minister of Finance believes down in his heart that what he has said just now is an argument against my contention.

Mr. FIELDING. I think it is a very plain argument.

Mr. SCHAFFNER. If they do not want separate schools, why do you give them?

Mr. FIELDING. They will not have them if they do not want them. This Bill gives Roman Catholics the right to have separate schools if they want them. My hon. friend says they do not want them, then they will not exist.

Mr. SCHAFFNER. I say that they do not want them; but I carry my argument out to a logical conclusion, and I say do not force upon them what they do not want. If they do not want them, why does this government spend weeks and weeks of time, and raise all this turmoil throughout the country by trying to force upon them something they do not want? Now, I want to

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say a little more about the trouble we had in Manitoba:

The local government has undertaken to remedy this state of affairs and the people’s representatives who support them deserve the lasting gratitude of the people of Manitoba of every race and creed. It is to be hoped that the electors of this province without distinction of politics will uphold them in this patriotic movement and that the day is not far distant when the children of those who now oppose the national system will bless the government—

That is what the Roman Catholics are doing in the Northwest to-day.

—who has afforded them the benefits of a sound national education, untinctured with sectarianism or bigotry. Let us never forget that national schools more than national banks or national tariffs are the life blood of the nation and that the men who are instrumental in building up a nation’s prosperity or cause a nation’s woe are the men who are trained in the schools of the nation. Education lies at the foundation of the prosperity of any country.

Now you will remember that in 1895 the member for Brandon came down into the county of Haldimand to help defeat Dr. Montague. Mr. McCarthy, on introducing Mr. Sifton, spoke as follows:

In Canadian history there has been no circumstance of significant as the Attorney General of one province appealing to the electors of another to respect the rights of the country from which he comes.

Mr. Sifton in his opening remarks said that in any remarks he might make regarding his Catholic fellow-citizens and their clergy, there was no personal feeling. No one could do a thing more injurious than to insult another’s religion.

I believe that sentiment.

Some sections of the country are so sparsely settled that no school could be formed because the Catholics were not liable for public school taxes or the others for separate school taxes. In others, the efficiency of both schools was destroyed because the grounds were really not enough for one school.

The people of the province wanted to work out their own destiny and make the country one of which they and the whole Dominion might be proud of.

Five years ago the educational system would have been a disgrace to the South Sea Islands. Now it was the only one the certificates of whose teachers were recognized by Ontario. No greater harm could be done to the Roman Catholics of Manitoba than to enforce the remedial order and restore the former conditions.

Now, the hon. member for Brandon tells us there that it was in the interests of the Roman Catholics of Manitoba that he was trying to establish national schools. I do not think he stands on the same platform today, in view of the compromise to which he has consented. I cannot understand how any man of his ability can so far depart from what he believes to be in the interests of the people, unless it is, as he says, in order to prevent a crisis.

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There was a crisis. The worst crisis that could happen would be the defeat of the present government, but I tell you that once they are defeated there will be no crisis. There are men on this side of the House who are perfectly willing and perfectly able to take up the work and carry it on as they did in the past. Then he says:

It was for them that the government of Manitoba had endeavoured to enforce the Act and remove the stigma of illiteracy that formerly hung over them. Let them not think that there was an attempt to repress the Catholic minority. Outside of a few centres—

I do not know whether the hierarchy or the authorities are controlling their priests or not, but this is what the hon. member for Brandon says, and I suppose I have a right to take his word for it. He says that:

Outside of a few centres the great bulk of the Catholic people desired to be let alone so that they might be able to secure the advantage of the public schools.

Continuing, Mr. Sifton told how, upon assuming charge of his department, he had sent out a French graduate of McGill to explain to the French Catholics the advantage of the public school system. He was instructed not to go about it secretly, but tell the priests first that he proposed to talk to the people. After three years the report was that of 91 separate schools prior to 1890, 24 had been disbanded and the children now attended the public school, whilst others had accepted the public school system.

There had been no complaint against the system in Manitoba. It was a principle of the Canadian confederation—

And here is a principle that I would like to ask the government to bear in mind.

It was a principle of the Canadian confederation that when a province had power to do a certain act the other provinces should not interfere, even when they did not agree to it, so long as the act in question did not affect the general power of the Dominion. That was the Liberal platform, and when Sir John Macdonald was alive the platform of the Conservatives also.

Conditions were changed now. Would the remedial order have been made—

Here is a very pertinent question, and I hope the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) and the hon. Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) will give me their attention. The hon. member for Brandon put this question to the people:

Would the remedial order have been made if Quebec had five votes in the Dominion and Manitoba 65?

Would this question have been introduced during this session if Quebec had five votes and the great Northwest 65?

There was not a member of the government that was not ashamed of it.

We have heard of a few hon. members on the other side of the House who are ashamed of this.

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There was not a member of the government that was not ashamed of it, not one that wanted to make it, not one French or English, that did not know he was trading sound constitutional principles for votes. By re-electing Dr. Montague would declare they approved of the attempt to restore separate schools in Manitoba.

The Northwest was the hope of the Dominion. If it did not develop and become populous and wealthy, it would be a sad thing for Canada. Its people were laying the proper foundation for the future and were met by a most unjustifiable attempt to destroy the school system and place the province in a position where it would be impossible to carry on efficient work.

Now I come to what the hon. member for Brandon says as to a compromise.

It was declared that they would fight the system to the bitter end (the Catholics) and they are fighting the system to the bitter end. We took hold, and when the government undertakes to reform abuses that have lasted for twenty years, that have grown up and have entwined themselves into the institutions of a country, and in which a large number of persons are peculiarly interested, it requires to be done with a strong hand, and we passed the public Act which provided that there should be one system of schools, that there should be no distinction between one man and another, that the law would know no man’s religion—

That means the separation of church and state.

—but give each and every one the same privileges. But we have not done all we want to by a good deal, we are getting on as fast as we can, and if they leave us alone down at Ottawa we will bring the school system of Manitoba to a higher degree of perfection than it is at the present time.

Why cannot that hon. gentleman, whom I respect and who has great ability, stand by us to-day on this important question? When he resigned why did he not stay resigned rather than make this compromise, which, according to his own statement, he did not believe in at that time and which he has told us here the other day he did not believe in? It was only a matter of how much he could compromise to save the government. Governments are nothing compared with the establishment in that great country of a proper system of schools. There should be one system of schools looking to no man’s religion and giving every one the same privileges. He continues:

I want to speak of another point. I want to tell you people here, my friends and fellow-citizens, because I am an Ontario boy, that there is no difficulty in Manitoba, that there is no enmity between the Roman Catholic people and the Protestant and that if the Roman Catholic people of Manitoba were left alone, if the priests of Quebec would leave them alone, inside of three or four years, they would accept our school system and come to be educated by it the same as the Protestant people.

I don’t think a greater outrage could be perpetrated on the Roman Catholic people of Manitoba than to force upon their children the system under which their fathers have grown up in ignorance and illiteracy. We are

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not here to persecute anybody or do any one wrong. We take the ground as members of the government of Manitoba that it is our duty to provide a system of education that will educate the people instead of allowing them to grow up in ignorance.

In the case of Manitoba the Act has been decided to be constitutional. It does not interfere with any one else in the Dominion of Canada.

Then he goes on to say:

I notice that a day or two ago the members of the Dominion government in speaking of the people of this constituency said: You have to make a compromise of this kind wherever there are Roman Catholic and Protestant people.

In the province of Prince Edward Island, there are no separate schools. In Nova Scotia, there are no separate schools. In New Brunswick and British Columbia, there are no separate schools. In the United States there are no separate schools. There are no separate schools in Switzerland or in the cities of Belgium, and wherever you find progress, excepting in Quebec and Ontario, which made a compact at the time of confederation.

What does that sentence mean? It means that in the opinion of the hon. member for Brandon, the constitution, as applied to schools, refers to Ontario and Quebec only.

Wherever you go to find a progressive system of education, you find it in such a system as we have adopted in Manitoba.

What does he say about the clergy?

Is Dr. Montague particularly interested in looking after that particular matter? I don’t think he is. I don’t think he cares two straws in promoting the interests of the Roman Catholic Church in a matter of this kind. Why is it then that he takes such an interest in it? It is because the Roman Catholic clergy are a well known organized body, and because they have political influence in Canada, which is not to be sneezed at.

During the last 100 years, you will find that whenever a constitutional Act was prepared of an organized character, you will find that something is drawn which indicates the hand of the clergy is there—

Here is a sentence that I call to the attention of this House:

The language may be the language of the Canadian politician, but in every case the voice is the voice of the church.

Have you heard anything similar to that? Has there been anything similar in what has transpired recently in connection with this matter? I do not know, but I must say that it seems that the sentiment which the hon. member for Brandon expressed at that time applies equally well to what has been going on in this country during the last two or three months, and that in this case it is the voice of the church which is heard. Now, I have here also what the hon. Minister of Militia (Sir Frederick Borden) said at that time. I went into this matter very fully to find what each of these hon. gentlemen said at that time, but I will not take up the time

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of the House in order to present these opinions. I have read the opinions of the hon. member for Brandon. I will, however, give the House a quotation from a speech by the right hon. leader of the government. The right hon. gentleman said in connection with this Manitoba Act:

The position I took on this question, I took on the floor of this parliament, I took in the province of Ontario, I took in the province of Quebec, I maintained it everywhere, and it was this, that though the constitution of this country gave to this parliament the right and power of interference with the school legislation of Manitoba, it was an extreme right, a reserved power, to be exercised only when all other means have been exhausted.

When Sir Wilfrid Laurier was opposing the Remedial Bill in 1896, his cry was for an investigation to learn what the people of Manitoba wanted. When two years ago the leader of the opposition advocated provincial autonomy for the Territories, the First Minister answered that he desired to have a larger representation from the west in this House so that he might get a fuller expression of opinion from that country. Well, the Territories got additional representation, and I would like to know to what extent these gentlemen were consulted in reference to this Bill. The Minister of the Interior was not consulted, the Minister of Finance was not consulted, Mr. Haultain was not consulted, and the reason which the Prime Minister gave for postponing autonomy was not carried out. It is interesting to note that when the Prime Minister introduced this Bill, his speech occupies forty-two columns of ‘Hansard’ and twenty-two of these columns are devoted to the school question. The whole time of the Prime Minister was taken up in addressing the members on his own side of the House and trying to convince them. It was a most eloquent address, and I have read it over and over again, and at its conclusion every man on the other side of the House with one exception battered his desk and clapped with the greatest enthusiasm. This indicated that they were absolutely and entirely satisfied with the first draft of the Bill brought down to this House. You can talk as much as you like about a compromise, but the first Bill brought into this House was the Bill the Prime Minister wanted passed and it would have been passed if the government had been able to pass it. Well, Sir, the scene was changed and the play on the other side of the House, from the date of the introduction of the Bill, to the present hour, is worthy of the stage. When the member for Brandon (Mr. Sifton) arrived in town he censured the Prime Minister for not consulting him on this important question, and there is no doubt but that the Bill was drafted by a set of men who were not familiar with the conditions in that western country. The only man we had who had the ability to stand up for the west was not

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Consulted. As soon as the member for Brandon resigned apparently his friends followed him. The Liberal members were exceedingly enthusiastic the first day, but when Mr. Sifton stepped out the western members stepped out with him. Mr. Sifton came back and he announced that a compromise had been made, and that the Bill had been changed. He told us that he was opposed to separate schools, and in effect his statement was, that rather than turn his party out of power he would sacrifice his principles and stay with the game. Talk about a hero. I got letters and resolutions stating that they were proud of Mr. Sifton and that there never was a greater hero in the country, because every one has respect for a man who sticks to his principles no matter what these principles may be. The Orange lodges were extolling Mr. Sifton, and I got letters asking me to back up Mr. Sifton, and I was ready to back him up but I am sorry he deserted us in the fight. I see my hon. friend from Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) here, and I listened to his address with a great deal of interest. I may say here that whether we are Grit or Tory, or whether we are Catholic or Protestant we must all be glad that the keynote of every speech here is loyalty to the British Crown. We may differ for a little while on educational questions, but so long as we are loyal there is no danger but that everything will come out right in the end. I would like my hon. friend from Labelle to come up into my country and stay there for ten years, and I can tell him he will come back to Quebec the best defender of national schools in the country.

Mr. BOURASSA. I simply ask my hon. friend to come and spend fifteen days in the province of Quebec, and that will be sufficient to make him the best friend of separate schools there is in the country.

Mr. SCHAFFNER. Now, Mr. Speaker, I shall have very great pleasure, when the time comes, in voting for the amendment of the hon. leader of the opposition, which reads as follows:

Upon the establishment of a province in the Northwest Territories of Canada as proposed by Bill (No. 69), the legislature of such province, subject to and in accordance with the provisions of the British North America Acts, 1867 to 1886, is entitled to and should enjoy full powers of provincial self-government including power to exclusively make laws in relation to education.

In closing, I want to say that the schools are clearly a matter for the people of the provinces themselves. If they say separate schools, all right; if they say national and public schools, all right; if they say both kinds, all right. Let them take their own responsibility and bear their own burden. Let the people of the new provinces settle their own school matters, as they have the undoubted right to do.

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Mr. GRANT moved the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.