CANADA AND THE EMPIRE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 111, 7 November 1906, Page 10

CANADA AND THE EMPIRE.

COUSIN PIERRE. (By J. Ramsay Macdonald, in tho London Chronicle.) Our Cousin Pierre — in other words, the Fiench-Canadian— is tho first who meets us as we enter the Dominion of Canada through its great gateway, the at. Lawrence. Wo scan his houses through our glasccs as we glide up the , river, and wo recognise in their white | walls, green shuttcis, and high-pitched roofs the hand and the (.bought of the alien. The feeling that we aie entering a foreign land is heightened when we find that the emissary whom the Labour people of the Dominion has sent to met-L us introduces himself with an enquiry as to whether we can speak French, and proceeds to convoy to us the welcome of the Dominion in deplorably broken English. In fact, it is our Cousin Pierre who greets us. As the days go by wo got to understand him better, and as be talks to us about Canada and the Canadians wo begin to see that the white houses and tho broken English fit in admirably with the British Empiro, and are not at all bad sentinels for the Eastern outposts of the now British nation of Canada." THE FRENCH CANADIAN. Our Cousin Pierre is not sorry that he is only a cousin — and a mere political ono at that. He thinks too much of his own race to wish for a closer connection with ours. He is a Frenchman. When ho takes you over tho Heights of Abraham he tells you wheie "your soldiers defeated ours." lie thinks ot France just as the New Englander thinks of England — only with much more affection. But, strangely enough, the France of to-day is not his. To him, France is something that is not now — the land of a simple Catholic faith, where Freemasons are not, and where the cures act as censors of literature and of morals. We have heard it often said that the France of the French Canadian is tho France of the pre-Rc-vohition days. But that is inadequate. It is a France which nover was. The magic of sorrow and bereavement has touched the Normandy and Brittany of Pierre's forefathers, and these provinces havo become a dieamland, where the fiiith rules in mediaeval grandeur and where French is spoken. And here the unimaginative British Imperialist comes to grief. "Pierre takes no pride in the Empire ; Pierre did not 'maffick' : Pierre on his high days and holidays flies the French nag ; Pierre will not speak English if ho can help it ; therefore," argues tho Imperialist, "Pierre is a potential traitor within our gates. '' Poor Pierre is nothing of tha kind. Indeed, if decay and ruin arc to come upon our Empire, I should not wonder that Pierre will bo the last man found fighting in the last ditch for a British Canada. To understand why that may be so we must enquire further into his mind. HIS RELIGION AND HIS POLITICS. He is a Catholic, the most obedient of Catholics. Our trade unionist shoemaker friend, -who camo to lead 113 up the St. Lawrence, was to go next Sunday morning to msss at h?lf-past five. Ho willingly hands over a teg alar part of his subsiarcc to the Chuich. He bemoanoc! thi.it there were so many bad men about new, so many bad books, co many bad causes. In his mind tho rock upon which Quebec stands, with its Basilica and Archlepiscopal palace crowning it, bids defiance to the waters of free thought and vice swelling at its i'ect. And the carnal base upon wh-Mi that rock rasts io the liberty which the Church enjoys undci 1 tho 'British Constitution. Pierre cares nothing about our sentiment of Empire ; but he glories in the law and liberty of our Empire. You must take him io the Citadel or to ths Dufferin-teiraco, and get him to talk politico there, if you would unckretand him. No more dramatic gcmp and ro-ainoiy ii> there in the universe for him. Below lie th-e stsnnvers linking him to tb-s Old World. The din of trains and the smoke of factories cpms up the heights to his perch. Ho can fancy he fc3i; the deep ijtpcam of emigration flow w-eatwards, and with t1.2 moincing claui our of an invading army, the language, the haete, the pride of the Auglo-.Saxon spem to rush up the hilly streets to Gw^ep him off his fwt. ft is a conquest mor« terribb to think of than that of General Wolfe. Particularly doo> he dread the terrible ruthktisnr.tft of the United States. Ho fcai'3 that the flood-gates of the south may one day hs opened upon him, andj ha and h'3 rao3, religion, and language ,be ov^nvhohmd in the turgid tide of Yankct'isni. • From t1.2 west also tome evil portents. Tha fiticini of emi-

gation to the prairis doss not give out the sounds 1 of the French tonifue. Towns are rising up in the night, the das«rt is becoming populated; and that to him means that the power is departing from French 1 Canada by tho St. Lawrence. Even Quebec itself, toward the north, ia being invaded. TII2 French Canadian lumberman and trapper is meeting the prospector by the Quebec lakes and rivers, and Labrador, it is whispered, may soon bo invaded by a railway 1 . This is all a nightmare to Pierre . His Church, and race tried to entrench themselves in the North-West, but they were beaten ; it ia doubtful if they will retain a. firm hold of the new (settlements in the north of Quebec. Tho race for wealth, tho triumph of materialism, the power of free-thought, which all Ihcrs change* imply, have no attractions for eimplemindad, uneducated Pierre. THE BRITISH FLAG. What is he to do on this rock island of his with thoee wild floods of evil, these menaces of the new hive, careering around him? He may fly the French flag to CiitiEfy his hsart, but when his instincts of self-preservation are roueed as they now are, his tricolour is but a toy. He clings for safely to the pole which bears the Union Jack at its top. There alone >do-j& he hope to be protected. '• You muct band yourEelves together," said a Quobec cure to his flock the- other day. "The times are evil. Cling to your land, obey your Church, cultivate your language, and remember that the British flag is your safeguard." There are moments, however, one has to confess, when Piorre himself shows 6igns of change. He is not always the devoted child of his Church. He* sighs, for education. He ie tempted to pluck tho fruit of the tree of knowledge of the world. His trade unionism is particularly enlightening to him. At first the 'Church sided with his employers. From Mon&signeur to cure the ecclesiastic influence hastened to keep Pierre out of I rude combinations. The Labour leadetfi .were attacked from tho pulpits, and strikes were condemned. Sinister thoughts began to enter • Pierre's, head about the illations between his faith and capitalism, and he screwed up his courage to speak indspeudently to his cure, and even to walk out of the church when sermons^ drifted into anti-trade union channels. CATHOLICISM AND LABOUR. Now, the Church has seen the error of it& ways. It has .surrendered, but has not' yielded. It wants to appoint chaplains to trade unions, and the boot and rJioe operatives in Quebec have accepted from the Capuchins a spiritual adviser who attends every meeting of xhe union and t.ikes part in the business. When I called on one of the Archbishops I was a c u.iired that the Church and Labour were now one. But, in spite of all. that, Pierre, re a trade unionist, has discovered flawß in his Church, and he ennnot forget them. Undoubtedly he v ''1 drink more freely of this cup of libsrty before he is done. In 1896 he voted Liberal,

against the mandate of his spiritual advisero, and since then the priests have bwn practically out of politics. Sinca 1900 he has come into conflict with his Church upon Labour matters and Socialism, and' his Church is bowing to the j inevitable. All this is> nothing eke than Uie process of emancipation. | But, in spite of all that, to-day Pierre- i is frtill a Frenchman and a Catholic, believing that his nationality and his religion are the most precious of his possessions. It sounds a paradox. But it truth dawns upon on© with a noonday clearness as our Cousin Pierre- unfolds his mind to one in whom he has confidence. Pierre is pro-British becausa he is tremendously French. Because he means to be French to the last, he will die« ratLer than euffer British dominion to vanish fiom Canada. He wants to live within theEmpire, because he is determined to remain what he is, to all intents and purposes a free citizen in the independent Frsnch and Catholic State of Quebec. After all, it is appropriate that he should be the first to greet us as we enter the gateway of the- St. Lawrence, for he reveals to us the only basis upon which our Empire can stand — liberty to be different, not coercion to be the same.