FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17325, 27 May 1918, Page 6

FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR.

Liko the bulk of the southern Irish, tho ronoa-yaiiadians have ostentatiously displayed their indifference, and even hostility, to measures for the prosecution of the war whenever those measures i mailed tiny personal sacrifice on their own ptfrt. Tho reasons for their disloyal attitude in tho s hour of trial are explained by tlu. Rev Harold Hamilton, D.j)., in an article which he contributes to tho February Nineteenth Century and After. In Quebec, the central homo of their peculiar - aiionalism, the French-Canadians havf\ ne teds us, developed a type of their own! its chief ideal may bo summed uv> in he words Pons autres." which mean just what Sinn .Fein means in Ireland, and well express all that they stand for-'our-!v ? S .u t',' Hamilton points out that the British flag has relieved the x 1 rench-Canadians of all 1 Osponsibil'ity for themselves as a nation in the world of nations. Not having ha-I to fear dangers from without, they liav,. not felt the need of combining with the English-speaking Canadians for mutual promotion. On the contrary, their chief pre-oocupatkm has been to defend tho rights, or supposed nghts. of French-Canada against EnglishUanada. ' The feelings wliich in other peoples aro called patriotism, or love of country, are in the French-Canadians directed towards their church. Koinan Churcli is the one organisation which includes all French-Canadians, and 111 Quebec, at least, very few others. It serves as a sort of framework, or, to vary tli© metaphor, as a kind of cement to hold them all together." In the province of Quebec the church is practically estab- ! u°i —^ las t^le of an established church, with none of the corresponding responsibilities or limitations. It collects its tithes from tile French by Process of law. All ecclesiastical , property, botli Roman and non-Roman, 1S a oxcm I JI - from municipal taxation, a ? u a vas:tl y disproportionate amount of tho ecclesiastical property is Roman. Nor does the power of the church end there. "It is not too much to say," remarks Dr Hamilton, "that the hierarchy controls the entire intellectual life of the people as completely as the German Imperial Government controls the thoughts of the Germans." The press, the theatres, the schools, and tho universities are alike under ecclesiastical domination. "If a French newspaper aire views of which the hierarchy disapproves, it is put under tho ban, and it may as well cease publication, for no one will read or buy it. If a play is produced of which the ecclesiastical authorities disapprove, it- is similarlv proscribed. Not long ago the theatrioal lessees in Montreal askeid the Roman archbishop to appoint a censor of plays, for it was better to submit to this control than occasionally to incur a heavy loss." The State does not directly concern itself with education, and as far as the Roman Catholics are concerned the bishops, assisted by a few priests and laymen, form tho executive committee. Ihe training of the teachers, the choice of text-books, tho courses_ of instruction, the conduct of examinations, and the arrangements for inspection from the elementary school to the post-graduate classes in tho universities, are entirely controlled bv selected meimbers of the Roman hierarchy. The average French-Canadian boy: enters this system in his early yeaxs, and he breathes the same atmosphere as long as his education lasts. History, it may be mentioned, is taught in the schools, with a text-book in which the whole history of Canada is written from a _ French-Canadian and Roman Catholic point of view. "Les Anglais" are the bad People who do all -the dirty tricks, and generally act the villain towards the good "Francais." That is why French-Canadians were ready to believe all the wild stories of British treachery and cruelty rife in Continental Europe during the Boer war. The teaching of tli? Roman Church in Canada intensifies the differences which spring from race and language, and tends to keep the French-Canadians as a race apart, even from the French of modern France. Its clergy have created a "national hot-house," in which they have forced the growth of a special type of "nationalist," in whom tho old French chivalry which bade men hazard their lives in defence of the weak has been replaced by a studious care for "nous autres." This type is unprogressive and self-centred, but it is devoted to the Church and docile to tho last degree. "The Conscription Act." says Dr Hamilton, "hal touched the French leaders on a sensitive spot. It means that their hope of dominating Canada is gone for good, and even their stronghold in Quebec is threatened. The. French parish priests and the Nationalists realise that they are at the crisis of their fate. Either they must rebel and make their bid for independence now. as some of the- clerical papers have urged that they should, or else if the 'habitants' sul> mit to conscription and go to fi?ht in France beside the English-Canadians, the hothouse system is ruined, and it is not unlikely that popular feeling among the French will become more favourably disposed towards tho English, and that Canada in the future will come to occut-v the_ place in their thoughts and which the ecclesiastical authorities have ' hitherto usurped."