Document Information
Date: 1867-01-05
By: The Montreal Herald
Citation: “The School Laws in England”, The Montreal Herald (5 January, 1867)
Other formats: TBA
THE SCHOOL LAWS IN ENGLAND.
—The following is from the correspondence of the Minerve, written by a gentleman, who is a personal attaché of Mr. Cartier, and therefore showing what is in the mind of that gentleman. It will be seen that according to this writer either all the promises which have been made to the Lower Canadian Protestants will be falsified, or the two Canadian liberals—in a minority of the Canadian delegation, as he says, of two to four—will eat up their words or be overridden by their colleagues, and Upper Canada, which was to escape by Confederation from Lower Canada domination, will see one of its most cherished institutions overturned by Lower Canadian votes, given at a distance of three thousand miles. If neither of these two scandals shall be perpetrated, we are told that there will be no Confederation. “I remember well,” says the correspondent, “certain Canadian journals have lately made a great noise apropos of an extraordinary mission which the clergy of Canada had confided to Bishop Horan. The venerable Bishop of Kingston they said was about to come to England to watch the conduct of the delegates and protest against what these powerful writers of hyperbole called the treason of the Catholic Ministers of the Crown. I can assure you that Bishop Horan has never doubted the sincerity of the efforts of our Ministers in favour of the Catholics of Upper Canada. He knows, and all the Canadian Episcopacy knows also, that those Ministers ask nothing better than to be useful to a cause interesting not only to religion but to freedom. There is here an ecclesiastical dignitary from the Maritime Provinces—Mgr. Connolly, Archbishop of Halifax ; but I can tell you that his relations with the delegates confirm my conviction that the Catholic Episcopacy is perfectly satisfied with the conduct of our Ministers, and awaits with confidence the event of Confederation. One thing you may be sure of in any case—it is that our Canadian delegates, rather than sanction an act which would give to the Protestants the privilege refused to the Catholics, will return home without any plan of Confederation. When the Separate School bill was discussed last session, all the Lower Canadian Ministers favoured the measure, while among the Upper Canadian Ministry, Mr. Bell’s bill had no other friend than Mr. A. MacDonald. These Ministers were therefore divided in the proportion of five against seven. But the Canadian delegation consists of two members out of the five adversaries of Mr. Bell’s bill, and of four from the other seven—a shading of differences which it is well to attend to.”
The correspondent goes on to intimate that after all it is very likely that Mgr. Horan is in London, or will be there ; but then he thinks if he is or should be it may be to make arrangements with some one about the Bishopric of Rimouski, which is to be created, and which the correspondent appears to suppose likely to interfere in some way with the Bishopric of Kingston.