Document Information

Date: 1866-11-09
By: Montreal Herald
Citation: “The School Question” True Witness (9 November 1866).
Other formats: Click here to view the original document (PDF).

THE SCHOOL QUESTION.—A public banquet was given to Mr. Cartier by his friends in Montreal, on Tuesday last week. In returning thanks for the honor done him by the enthusiastic drinking of his health, Mr. Cartier made the following important announcement. We copy from a report in the Montreal Herald:—

“On the School Question for Lower Canada, as now under consideration, he said: I will say here with pleasure what I have already had the opportunity to proclaim in Parliament: that the Protestant minority in Lower Canada need not fear the local Parliament of the Confederation. My word is given, and I repeat, nothing will be done of a nature to restrict the privileges, or rights of that minority. I take all Protestants here as witnesses to this statement. The word I have given will be carried out—it is the word of a man of honor. . . . In saying that the Protestants of Canada shall have all possible guarantees, I must say also that the Catholic minority of Upper Canada shall have the same guarantees; and give you also my solemn word—the Catholic minority of Upper Canada will be protected like the Protestant minority of Lower Canada.” (The Italics are our own.)

Nothing in the form of a pledge more ample than this can be wished for. Mr. Cartier has given his solemn word of honor that, on the School Question, the Catholic minority of Upper Canada shall have, under Confederation, precisely the “same guarantees” as shall have the Protestant minority of Lower Canada. More we have no right to ask; less we cannot be expected to accept.

Let but these pledges be carried out in their spirit, and to the letter, and M. Cartier will deserve well both of Protestants and of Catholics. And indeed, in so far as Mr. Cartier is concerned we have no reason to doubt that these pledges will be carried out. But Mr. Cartier is not sole master of the position; he has colleagues, Upper Canadian colleagues, whose endorsement is necessary to give these pledges effect. For Lower Canada the pledge of Mr. Cartier is amply sufficient, since Mr. Cartier is a Lower Canadian minister; but we should like much to hear what the Upper Canadian section of the Cabinet has to say upon the matter—and hitherto unfortunately, that section has observed an ominous silence on the subject. At the Ministerial Banquet at Hamilton in Upper Canada, Mr. J. A. Macdonald, who was present, and who has never certainly displayed any personal ill-will towards the claims of Her Majesty’s Catholic subjects in his section of the Province, gave no hint that it was the intention of the Cabinet of which he is a member, to secure for the Catholic minority of Upper Canada, under Confederation, and on the School Question, precisely ‘the same guarantees‘ as those which Mr. Cartier has pledged himself to procure for the Protestant minority of Lower Canada, under the same circumstance, and on the same important question of Education.

This reticence is ominous; nor is this all. We know from past experience, and from their present declarations, that the so-called Liberal party in Upper Canada are as averse as ever to Catholic claims; and that such claims will never be conceded without strenuous opposition from the party of which Mr. George Brown is the representative. The Toronto Leader also, a Ministerial journal, gives us no reasons to hope that a change for the better has taken place in the opinions of the party that it represents; and therefore, though we would not suspect, even, Mr. Cartier of any intention to deceive, we may be permitted to express our fears that, with the best intentions in the world, he has promised more on the Upper Canadian School Question than he will be able easily to perform.

And if such be the case, and if he be destined to encounter opposition from his Upper Canadian colleagues on the Upper Canada School Question, and with regard to the promised guarantees to the Catholic minority in their section of the Province, it is our obvious duty and interest to strengthen his hands, and to tender to him our best support.