WHERE LARGE FAMILIES ABOUND

New Zealand Tablet, 15 August 1912, Page 43

WHERE LARGE FAMILIES ABOUND

M. Leroy Beaulieu, one of tire best-known French economists, recently said, / Give': us 10,000. FrenchCanadians and we will re-people France/ In this sentence (says Eugene Rouillard in the course of an article in Extension he has stated the truth of the situation. France has deliberately restricted its birthrate; the French-Canadians have not. As a result the French-Canadians have grown quantitatively as well as qualitatively. In 1754 the last census under French regime was taken the French in Canada at that time numbered 55,000. v Guiltless of any race-suicide tendencies this number has doubled every twenty-five years, so that now the French-Canadians number 3,300,000. Of this number 1,600,000 are in the Province’ of Quebec; 232.000 in the Province of Ontario; 60,000 are scattered through the western Canadian provinces, and 200.000 Acadians inhabit the Maritime' Provinces of the Dominion. About 1,200,000 have settled in the New England States. When we compare the increase as regards numbers among the French-Canadians with the situation in France there is but one explanation to be. made. The French-Canadians have kept the faith. The early French settlers had to endure all the hardships of pioneer life. During these early days the French clergy constituted themselves the guides and protectors of their people. They instructed them; the sound principles of morality they taught became interwoven into the very fabric of the social life of the French-Caha-dians. Even to-day this deep attachment between people and clergy exists, and the salutary influence exerted is everywhere felt. - , Thus spiritually fortified, the French-Canadians have victoriously withstood the forces that have weakened others. Their faith is pure; their morals uncorrupted, and their home life reflects Christian ideals. It must not be imagined that there cannot be found individuals of French-Canadian birth or descent who have departed from the ways of their fathers, but the number is so small as to be almost negligible here. The one fact stands out that the French-Canadians as a race have preserved their purity and integrity; and in proof of this it is but necessary to point to the big birth-rate among them. In 1890 the Government of the Province of Quebec passed a law granting a piece of land to every head of a family that could boast of twelve or more children. This grant was later changed to a cash premium. Until 1905 a total of 5,414 families received the premium. Of this number 150 families had, 14 to 18 living children; in some cases where one or the other of the parents was married twice, the number of living children ranged from 18 to 27 children. Since the foundation of Quebec in 1608 there have been entered upon the parish registers up to 1883, a total of 2,900,000 births, or 67.25 per one thousand population. FrenchCanadian families of eight and ten children are not uncommon. The average size of a family is five children. The fact that the French-Canadian families have not yielded to, any considerable extent to the tendencies of the times, one can not repeat often enough is due entirely to their splendid Catholic faith. The fear of God has actuated them in their lives. The dread of poverty, so frequently associated in the minds of some with the existence of a .large family, has not influenced them to thwart the laws of nature or to outrage the laws of God. Their reward has been a progeny that is .physically, mentally, 1 and morally equal, if indeed not superior, to any people on the face of the earth.