THE FRENCH LANGUAGE IN THE NORTH- WEST.
House resumed adjourned debate on the proposed motion of Mr. McCarthy for second reading
of Bill (No. 10) to further amend the Revised
Statutes of Canada, chapter fifty, respecting the
North-West Territories; the motion of Mr. Davin
in amendment thereto, and the motion of Mr.
Beausoleil in amendment to the amendment.
Mr. MULOCK. Mr. Speaker, in considering
the proposition embraced in the Bill of the hon.
member for North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy), I feel
that it is impossible to limit the discussion to the
mere matter involved in that Bill. If the proposition before the House was, from beginning
to end,
the question whether or not the French language
should be discontinued as an official language in
the North-West, the discussion would be reduced
to narrow limits, and I fancy a rather satisfactory
conclusion would be arrived at. But when we
577 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 578
consider the utterances of the hon. mover of this
Bill, both without the House and within it, I feel
it is impossible to consider the question in that
narrow light, but we must bear in mind the object
the hon. gentleman has in view and all its consequences, far-reaching as they may
be, and consider
whether or not it would be wise to meet his view
as presented in this Bill. I find that in a speech
delivered by the hon. gentleman in the village of
Stayner on 12th of July last, that the hon. gentleman, before an admiring and appreciative
audience,
dealt with the general question of the French
language in Canada; and quoting from the
Empire
of 15th July, I find the following words attributed
to him:
"To-day thousands of dollars worth of French literature has been printed for which
there is no use; but the
Lower French Canadian has got what he wants. He has
got it in the law that there shall be two languages, and
he has made a blow at the new Province. When the dual
language is abolished in the North-West, there is plenty
more to be done by-and-bye. Let us deal with the question of the dual language in
the North-West, and let the
people deal with French in the schools of the English Provinces; and when these two
questions have been dealt
with, we will have accomplished something, and paved
the way for the future."
And further, in his closing peroration, in order
to convince his admiring friends that he meant
business on that occasion, he used this closing expression:Â
"Now is the time when the ballot box will decide this
great question before the people; and if that does not
supply the remedy in this generation, bayonets will supply it in the next."
Again we were favored with an expression of the
views of the hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr.
McCarthy) on 12th December last. He, on that occasion, delivered an address in Ottawa,
and a printed
copy of that speech has been distributed pretty
generally, and I have been favored with a copy. In
that address I find the hon. gentleman referred
to the report of Lord Durham in 1840, and quoted
from it with appreciation. Referring to Lord
Durham's report, he quoted:
"First, and above all things, then, he held that the
French language must be stamped out."
Then the hon. gentleman goes on to declare what
the vested rights of the French Canadians are in
respect to their language, and returning again to
Lord Durham's report, he quotes from it, substantially as follows:â
"Lord Durham realised that so long as they were permitted to be educated in their
schools in the French language, to be instructed in the literature of France instead
of in the literature of England, they would remain French
in feeling, and no matter what they might call themselves, they would be French to
all intents and purposes."
Those words I have read are, I presume, quotations
by the hon. gentleman from the report of Lord
Durham, and then he goes on to comment on them
himself:
"Is there any shadow of doubt that Lord Durham was
right?"
He appears to take the position that the French
Canadian should not be permitted to be educated
in French, or indulge in French literature, or in
French at all. Such was the report of Lord Durham, such was the utterance of the hon.
gentleman.
He proceeded to say:
"Is there any shadow of doubt that between these two
races, of all races in the world, if they are ever to be
united, it must be by the obliteration of one of these
languages, and by the teaching in one of these tongues."
There we have the hon. gentleman for North
Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy) taking the ground, clearly
and unmistakably, that there must be an obliteration of the language, either of the
French Canadians or the English-speaking people of Canada.
He took that ground on the 12th of December, he
took it on the 12th of July, and he took it in this
House in introducing this measure, comparatively
harmless in itself, to deal with the question of the
French language in the North-West Territories. In
view, therefore, of his utterances I feel we cannot
discuss this question in the limited sense of its
having reference to the North-West Territories only,
but in regard to the broad proposition taken by
my hon. friend that, in order to secure the unity
of a country and the development of a proper national spirit in our land, we must
obliterate the
French language and literature and all that is dear
to the French Canadian people of Canada. That I
understand to be the hon. gentleman's proposition; and giving him credit for honesty
of purpose,
which I am willing to do, the hon. gentleman
endeavors to justify his position by laying down
a proposition. In his address to this House,
in introducing this Bill, the proposition he submitted was substantially this: that
there
must be unity in language in order to have unity
in a nation, and that in order that a nation may
realise all its possibilities there must be but one
language. Let me say that the hon. gentleman
rested that proposition entirely on a misapprehension, as was pointed out last night
by the hon.
member for Assiniboia (Mr. Davin), of the meaning of Professor Freeman's article from
which he
quoted. Professor Freeman on that occasion stated
most distinctly and positively that for all political
purposes unity of language was not necessary.
He was the only respectable authority the hon.
gentleman gave; the others were anonymous, with
the exception of Professor Max MĂźller, who cannot be considered as having dealt with
this subject
politically. Professor Freeman, the only authority on whom the hon. gentleman depends,
proves nothing at all in support of his proposition.
But even if Professor Freeman did take that view,
I will offer to the House some facts of history as
against the opinions either of Professor Freeman
or of the hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr.
McCarthy). I will lay down a proposition and
endeavor to prove it by facts, not opinions. I
think the facts of history will justify one in
making this assertionâthat, as a rule, every nation
of any note has at its earlier or later periods been
composed of races speaking two or more languages.
I think I can further assert with confidence that
history does not disclose the case of any great
nation, which has acquired enduring greatness, and
in which there is but one language spoken. I will
address myself to arguments in support of that
first part of my proposition. Suppose we unfold
before the mind's eye a map of Europe, and see
what is the condition of affairs in the great nations
of Europe to-day. If the object of the hon. member
(Mr. McCarthy) is the development of this country,
if his object is for the good of this country, if
it can be made manifest that countries have been
great, and can be great, and that the greatest
countries on the earth to-day are those in which
more than one tongue is spoken, surely there is no
necessity for the advanced views of the hon. member of North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy).
During
579
[COMMONS] 580
the debate yesterday, there seemed to be some
reference made and some distinction drawn as to
whether certain languages in different countries
were used officially or by toleration. Whilst there
is quite a difference, yet, so far as the attitude of
the member for North Simcoe is concerned, that
distinction does not enter into the question, because
he proposes to obliterate a language, not to have
it tolerated, and his efforts seem to be directed to prevent us from even thinking
in a
foreign tongue. Although I think there is
little difference in treating the question as a
matter of philology or politics, I will mention a few
of the great nations in Europe in which, as a matter
of permission, various languages are freely tolerated
and exist according to law. First of all, we have
Spain. In Spain there are two languages tolerated,
the Spanish and the Basque. In Sweden there are
four languages, the Swedish, the German, the
Finnick and the Latin. In Switzerland there are
four languages, French, German, Italian and Roumansche. In France, the French, Italian,
Breton
and Basque; and in the Netherlands, Flemish,
Dutch, French; and in Great Britain, although
the different languages have largely disappeared, yet still there are traces of those
that
have been tolerated there. We have in the Channel
Islands the French language, and in the Island of
Man the Manx language. The remains of the Erse
language, I am glad to see, is being revived in Old
Ireland; and the Gaelic, in Scotland, was until
recently the only language spoken in some parts of
the north and north-west. We have these languages in addition to the dominant Anglo-Saxon
in Great Britain. For the purposes of this illustration I think we can fairly draw
on the history of
our own land, and prove from our own experience
that a common language is not absolutely necessary
to a nation's greatness.
Mr. MULOCK. The hon. member for North
Perth (Mr. Trow) reminds me not to forget the
Welsh. I am glad he reminded me, for the Welsh
is a language which is not only tolerated, but which
is also the official language of Wales up to the
present day. Then, we come to Austria. While
German is the dominant tongue in Austria, she
tolerates a vast number of languages other than the
dominant oneâfor instance, the Hungarian, the
Bohemian, the Czech, and others. In fact, next to
Russia, there are a greater number of different
languages and dialects spoken and tolerated according to law, in Austria, than in
any other
country in Europe. Let us take Germany, which has
undergone many changes philologically. Although
the dominant tongue to-day is German, there are
many dialects of the old Sclavonic, the Polish and
other languages. Russia permits, according to law,
about 100 languagesâamong others, the Finnish,
the Caucasian and the Sclavonic. So, we therefore
see that those nations of Europe which I have
mentioned are nations in which at no time has
there been a common language as a matter of
law or custom. If my hon. friend's proposition is
right, and if he is correct in his contention, then
these nations have all been failures and not one of
them is working out its own destiny properly. I
will now state to the House those nations of
Europe which may be said to have a homogeneous
language. They are but fourâItaly, Portugal,
Denmark and Greece. These are the only nations
in Europe to-day in which we may say there is but
one language. I am giving part of my case away
when I admit that these four countries are homogeneous in regard to language. Whilst
I may say
that Italy has been homogeneous in language for
1,200 years, many tongues have come and gone, but
the Italian is a sort of a compromise which has
come to be the dominant tongue. But there was
no Italian unity because of the uniformity of the
Italian language. Italian unity is but yet in its
infancy, and if the unity of language is destined to
develop a nation, as my hon. friend says, how
comes it that for 1,200 years unity of language in
Italy entirely failed to develop such a result. I
have given these facts from a philological standpoint, and now I will address myself
to the subject
from a political point of view. More than one
official language is tolerated in the following countries: Switzerland has the French
and German,
and Spain the Spanish and Basque. The latter is
spoken in several provinces in the north of Spain
and the south of the Pyrenees. The Basques are a
hardy race, and even in Spain, which is so far
behind us in political advancement, they allow the
Basques to maintain their own separate Parliament,
and conduct their own deliberations in the Basque
tongue, which is unintelligible to the ordinary
Spaniard. In Austria the official language is
German. In Hungary, Magyar, Bohemian and
others. In Great Britain the official languages are
French in the Channel Islands, and Manx in the
Isle of Man,ânot forgetting, of course, the dominant tongue. In the Isle of Man, to
this very day,
it is the law that all the official proceedings of
their small Parliament, the Tynwald, shall be
published in the English and Manx languages; and
at the close of the Parliament, in order that the
people shall know the decrees of Parliament, it is
the duty of the Governor, accompanied by the high
dignitaries and the people, to go out to a neighboring hill, to read the decrees in
the two languages,
that all men may know the laws that are to bind
them. Further, in Great Britain, if we presume to be official languages those which
are
tolerated in the schools, we have the Welsh
language recognised in the Government schools in
Wales, and, recently, the Irish language taught in
certain of the public schools of Ireland. So much
for the history of language so far as Europe is
concerned, which I think sufficiently sustains the
proposition I have laid down, that unity of language is not essential to national
greatness, I go a
step further, and I say that unity of language does
not necessarily produce national unity or national
greatness. In support of that proposition I will
call attention to the state of Greece. Greece is a
country which, I think, will specially illustrate
the proposition of my hon. friend (Mr. McCarthy),
if such a proposition as his can be established at
all. Greece is composed of many little provinces,
but at all times the people spoke the Greek dialect,
and Greek was substantially the language of
Greece for all time. But yet, Sir, there was no
unity of national spirit in Greece at any time.
Greece from time to time was welded together by
outside influences; but there was no cohesion in
Greece itself by reason of language or anything
else; and whenever some strong influence from without was withdrawn, the Greeks fell
to destroying
each other. Did you ever hear of a Greek boast
581 [February 13, 1890.] 582
ing that he was a Greek? The boast of a Greek
was that he was a Thessalonian, a Spartan, or an
Athenian; not a Greek; but if they had been influenced only by community of language,
we
should never come across the phrase in Grecian
literature, I am a Greek, in preference to, I am an
Athenian. Take another prominent instance:
take the case of Germany at a period when she
may be considered to have been homogeneous
in language. Germany has undergone many philological changes; I speak of the old Roman
Empire,
founded by Charlemagne in the eighth century.
That empire became practically German in the
thirteenth century, in consequence of the influence
of the Teutonic knights. For a short period they
succeeded, by great force of character, in establishing the German language and displacing
the
Sclavonic. Thereafter, from the fourteenth
century to the Peace of Westphalia, three hundred
years afterwards, Germany was considered as
illustrating that which my hon. friend depends on:
it was a country homogeneous in language, and
should have been a united and powerful land,
bound together by that strong national spirit, to be
developed, according to my hon. friend, only by
community of language; but what does history
tell us? Can my hon. friend point to a nation in
ancient or modern times that, for three hundred
years, was more torn by internal dissensions-by
wars, rebellions and fratricidal disturbancesâthan
that empire. Why, Sir, government became an
absolute impossibility in that country. If community of language would accomplish
anything, it
had its community of language. But what did it
accomplish. It accomplished the Treaty of Westphalia. The Germans, speaking German
as they
did, could not live together, and they dissolved
the partnership, Prussia taking one section
of the empire, and Austria taking the southern portion. If national unity of spirit
or
greatness were to be secured, and placed
on an enduring basis by community of
language, there of all cases was one, even
in modern times, that should have had the result
boasted of by the hon. member for North Simcoe.
They have not since been able to agree, though
speaking the same language, and in our own time
we have found those two German - speaking
peoples falling upon each other, until at last
Prussia expelled Austria, her sister country, from
the German Confederacy as the result of the war
which ended with the battle of Sadowa, in the last
third of a century. Now, suppose we adopt the
policy of the hon. gentleman, and go in for an
obliteration of the French language. That is the
proposition we are face to face with. The hon.
gentleman has thrown down the gage of battle to
the French Canadian people. This Bill is but a
commencement, a skirmish before the great battle
that is to go on all along the line later on. But
suppose that attempt, absurd as it is, should succeed, do you not think that before
making it, we
might well turn up the pages of history again, and
See with what results such attempts have been
followed? In the consideration of this question it
might probably be instructive to remind the House
that when the French and Anglo-Saxons first came
together, and an attempt was made to make one
language prevail over the otherâI refer to the
period succeeding the Norman Conquestâfor 300
years French was the language of the royal family,
the courts, the schools, and, as much as possible, the churches.
Mr. MULOCK. And the nobility. Every
effort was made to impose the French language
on the Anglo-Saxon people. The result at
the end of 300 years, at the time of Edward the
Third, was that the French and the Anglo-Saxons
had become strangers to each other. The lawyers
in the courts were not understood by the witnesses,
the jurors drawn from the Anglo-Saxons could not
understand the witnesses. At last, it became
absolutely impossible to carry on business. The
Anglo-Saxon language at that time was in a far
greater danger of extinction than it is to-day, because at that time the subjection
of the Anglo- Saxons in Great Britain was most complete. The
Normans were a strong and powerful race, and, of
course, the times were more barbarous than the
times in which we live, although my hon. friend
would have us go back to those times. The relative
position of the dominant and the subject classes
was far more dangerous to the predominance of
Anglo-Saxon institutions than can possibly be said
to be the case to-day; but under the most discouraging circumstances one force prevented
the
extinction of the Anglo-Saxon language. The
people had that vitality in themselves that enabled
them to resist the threatened danger, and at last
the French language had to be withdrawn as an
official language, and in less than half a century
it almost ceased to be spoken-
Mr. MULOCK-and to-day we have nothing
left from that invasion except some advantages to
our literature and our vocabulary. My hon.
friend says "hear, hear," and I suppose he would
draw the conclusion that that ought to take place
here if we ceased to permit the French language
to be official. But that conclusion cannot be
drawn, because there was no compulsion put upon
the people to abandon the use of French; the
matter was left to the voluntary action of the
people. The only legislation on the subject was
that the law was changed to the extent of making
the Anglo-Saxon language the language of the
courts, and shortly afterwards it was taught in the
schools; and not by coercion, but by toleration,
the Anglo-Saxon assumed its pre-eminent position
and has maintained it ever since. Well, Mr.
Speaker, let me remind the hon. gentleman of
another case, namely, the case of Poland. Russia
made every possible attempt to persecute the
language of the Poles out of existence; and, without being tedious, I may say that
the pages of
history disclose that the persecution to which the
Polish language was subjected made that language
more dear to the Polish people and more studied,
and has added more to its dissemination and permanence than anything else could have
done.
And the same can be said of the Bohemian
language; and as a singularity of the tenacity of
language under coercion, I may point to the case
of a small race or tribe called the Wenders who
live in the vicinity of Elbe, who are Prussians
politically, surrounded on all sides by Germans.
An attempt was made to obliterate their language.
Their population consists of but a few villages,
surrounded on all sides by people speaking the
583
[COMMONS] 584
German language, and yet the result of the attempts
to destroy their languageâI am speaking now of
comparatively modern timesâwas, as set forth
in a letter from their pastor to the mayor,
that the pastor could no longer understand his
flock, nor the flock the pastor. They did not
give up their language; they simply ceased to
attend the schools; they ceased to learn in
German, which was an unknown tongue to them;
and nothing was accomplished except to keep them
in ignorance and to develop a bad feeling. Now,
does the hon. gentleman suppose that by the
methods he is advocating, methods of force and
coercion, he can accomplish what he has in
view? Let me remind him of the consequences,
politically, of such attempts. Schleswig-Holstein
at one time constituted two duchies of
Denmark. The people spoke German. King
Christian IX attempted to force upon them a
change of language. What was the result? They
became disaffected. They got encouragement from
a foreign power, Prussia; they rose in rebellion;
they were lost to Denmark and became Prussian.
Such was the natural consequence of interfering
with one of the institutions of the people. Let
me refer to another historical case of modern
times, within the political life almost of the hon.
gentlemanâthe case of Lombardo Venetia. That
was once a part of Austria, and their language
Italian. Austria, not profiting by the experience
of Denmark and other experiences, endeavored to
destroy the Italian language of Lombardo Venetia,
and to impose upon the people the German
language. What was the result? The people,
just as in Schleswig-Holstein, rebelled, and they
found sympathisers, as all disaffected countries
can, from without. Italy and France came to the
rescue, and the result was, instead of Austria accomplishing what she was aiming at,
destroying
the Italian language, she lost both those two
great Provinces, which became, in 1859, and still
are, part of the empire of Italy. Now, what has
happened in the case of these two great countries
which, under coercion, transferred their allegiance
to another flag, will happen wherever the same
attempt is prosecuted. Does not the hon.
gentleman see that he is proceeding in the
most direct way possible, in the light of the pastâ
which is the only guide to us to-day in these
mattersâto destroy this Confederation by causing
our French Canadian subjects to become disaffected and to seek sympathisers outside,
and to,
perhaps, ultimately part company with the Canadian Confederacy. Does he desire that
result?
There can be nothing accomplished by force.
Acts of Parliament and Orders in Council will
not make men love one another. We cannot
change men's nature by Acts of Parliament or
Orders in Council. If we could, I should be the
first to vote for an Act of Parliament to change
many things in the constitution of my hon. friend,
the mover of this Bill. I would with both
hands go in for making him a man of different
opinions. Suppose, as a matter of experiment, we
were to do to him what he is seeking to do to the
French Canadians, only the converseâsuppose we
were to pass an Act of Parliament to make him a
French Canadian Catholic, would we succeed in
making him one? He has gone back on his Celtic
origin, and I am sure that no attempt by force
would accomplish such result; and if he would be
tenacious then of his own views, can he not picture
to himself the effect of repression and coercion
upon those to whom he seeks to have applied
that treatment? Let me refer to a case briefly
touched upon by the hon. member for Assiniboia
(Mr. Davin) last night, the case of Alsace.
Alsace, at one time, was a part of Germany, but
became French, Alsace and Lorraine having been
transferred to France by the Treaty of Westphalia.
Alsace was German in language and race, but by
being treated with kindness by the French people
and not persecuted, came to love France which had
conquered her; and during the Franco-Prussian
war, when attempts were made to recover Alsace,
as was stated eloquently last night, she was one of
the most loyal supporters of France which had
conquered her two centuries before; and to-day
the Germans, in endeavoring to do what my hon.
friend is seeking to accomplishâto repress the use
of the French language in Alsaceâhave eliminated
the sympathies of the Alsacians, many of whom
have left the country, while those who remain are
so disaffected that they can be only kept in subjection by the presence of a large
standing army.
Such is the effect of endeavors to change the
language of a people by coercion. History shows
that where attempts are made to destroy a language, the people often construe those
attempts as
assaults upon their religion. For example, a movement is going on at present by which
Canada is
profiting. We have coming to Canada the Mennonites and Lutherans from the Baltic.
Why
are they coming here? Because Russia has been endeavoring to cause them to give up
their own
language, the German, and to adopt the Russian,
and these Mennonites and Lutherans have conceived
the idea that this is an attempt to coerce them into
joining the Greek Church. They construe it as an
assault upon their religion; and there are many
instances in history where similar attempts have
been similarly construed. We cannot, therefore,
blame the French Canadians if they, too, should
come to the conclusion that this movement is an
assault on their religion. However much men
may protest to the contrary, if the French Canadians get this idea into their heads,
we cannot
blame them, in the light of precedents which justified such conclusions in the past.
I wonder that
hon. gentleman has not discovered that he cannot
rule the hearts of the people by force. If you
desire them to abandon any of their institutions.
you must leave it to them to do so voluntarily,
Does not Ăsop's fable of the traveller and his coat
assist us in this question? The more violently the
wind blew upon him, the more closely he wrapped
his coat about him, and only threw it off under the
benign, loving and beneficent rays of the sun.
What are the duties of a parental Government
with regard to its subjects? Is it not the duty
of the Government to publish its decrees in a language known to all who may be bound
by them?
Clearly, there can be no more self-evident proposition than that, and this is a proposition
which
ought not to be required to be made good by
argument in the present day. Even the barbarians admitted the soundness of it; and
we have
numerous instances in history where the barbarians, up to the time of the Christian
era, and
since, published their decrees, their laws, and their
history, in the languages of all the people, in
order that all the people might know them. It
585 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 586
might assist my hon. friend if I gave him a still
higher authority. Even if the authority of the
barbarian does not bind him, let me quote from
Holy Writ one verse in reference to the history of
King Ahasuerus. We find that:
"He sent letters into all the King's provinces, into
every Province according to the writing thereof, and to
every people after their 1anguage, that every man should
bear rule in his own house, and that it should be published according to the language
of every people." Â
I am only quoting those authorities of which there
is actual evidence to-day. I am sure my hon.
friend will not question the tradition of this
book, but I will not quote the ordinary historians,
though. I may refer him to the reign of King
Ptolemy V, of Egypt, who, though a powerful
Greek ruler, distributed his laws amongst his
people in different languages, and had them inscribed upon stone; and these laws,
which were
inscribed upon stone, are in existence to-day in
the various languages of the people. Tracing the
practice of nations, barbarian nations and those of
later date, you find an invariable practice to make
known to the people in their own language the
laws which were to be binding upon them. The
hon. gentleman (Mr. McCarthy) has been born too
late. He should have been born long prior to the
barbarian people.
Mr. MULOCK. Before the Flood. What does
he ask us to do now? He asks us to dispose of
this question without any knowledge of the conditions of the people of the North-West.
We do not
know whether they will understand English or
not. It may be that nine-tenths of them do understand English; but suppose there is
a proportion
who do not understand English, what then? The
hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Denison)
said last night that a great number of them speak
Cree, and therefore the laws of the North-West
should be printed in Cree; and the hon. member
for Muskoka (Mr. O'Brien) said it was only a
local question which should be settled in the North- West. I ask if it ought not be
settled after hearing the facts of the case, and settled by those who
are most competent to judge? Should we be
called upon in this court to deliver judgment
before we hear the evidence? The hon. gentleman
would not ask such a decision from an ordinary
court of the land. Then, why should he ask it
from this, the highest court and tribunal in the
land? If this is to be settled according to the
views of the people, the proper tribunal must
be the North-West representatives or some
other tribunal, after learning the facts of the
case. But the hon. gentleman went further.
He intimated that no man could be a loyal
citizen practically unless he spoke the dominant
tongue of the country. In making that statement
he has, no doubt, inadvertently cast a slur upon
many of the loyal citizens of the British Empire.
Would he accuse of disloyalty the Highlanders of Â
Scotland, the Welsh, the people of the Channel
Islands, and here in this country the Scotch
population of Cape Breton, Cornwall and Glengarry, and other parts, and the Germans?
We
have found that even the Indians were to be
trusted in the hour of need, that they were true
to our institutions, and we can point with pride
to the pages of Canadian history to obtain facts
to disprove the assertion of the hon. gentleman.
We have records in our history which are dear
to the Canadian people. Who does not recollect
Tecumseh and Tyendinaga, whose remains lie
in a chapel in the constituency represented by
my hon. friend from South Brant (Mr. Paterson).
Those men represented the loyalty even of the
savage tribes of Canada in our early troubles,
and though not speaking our tongue, were loyal
to Great Britain. If all the other citizens of
the Empire who do not speak the Anglo-Saxon
language have been true as they have been, what
is there to be found in the pages of history since
the French Canadian people became citizens of
Canada to make my hon. friend doubt their loyalty
to British institutions? Their loyalty was sorely
tried. Shortly after 1759, the date so frequently
referred to by my hon. friend as that of the
conquest of the French Canadian people, within
twenty years from that every effort was made
to cause them to change their allegiance from
Canada, and with what result? I cannot conceive
the loyalty of a people being subjected to greater
strains than that to which the French Canadian
people were subjected to during the events which
immediately succeeded the Treaty of Paris. What
were the events which were going on across the
border at that time? The thirteen colonies were
in revolt, and were anxious to destroy British rule
in America, and they were anxious to get the
French Canadians to throw in their lot with them.
At that time, General Washington issued a proclamation appealing to all the passions,
the fears,
the cupidity and the prejudices of the French
Canadian people, to throw off their allegiance to
Great Britain and to join the Union. That appeal
was made accompanied by threats of invasion; the
invasion followed, and the war continued for a
length of time; and who were the strongest to
help to sustain the British arms and British institutions during that period? Where
did the French
Canadians make default or prove themselves unworthy citizens of Great Britain during
that time?
The records of the attitude of the French Canadian
people under those trials, ought to be sufficient
to save them from the insults which are now heaped
upon them. Let me read some of the appeals which
were made by General Washington to the fears,
the passions and the prejudices of the French Canadians at that time, to induce them
to throw off
their allegiance to Great Britain:
"We rejoice," said General Washington, "that our enemies have been deceived with regard
to you; they have
persuaded themselvesâthey have even dared to sayâthat
the Canadians were not capable of distinguishing between
the blessings of liberty and the wretchedness of slavery;
that gratifying the vanity of a little circle of nobility
would blind the people of Canada. By such artifices they
hoped to bend you to their views, but they have been
deceived. * * * * Come, then, my brethren, unite with us in an indissoluble union;
let us run
together to the same goal. * * * * Incited by
these motives, and encouraged by the advice of many
friends of liberty among you, the grand American Congress have sent an army into your
Province, under the
command of General Schuylerânot to plunder, but to protect youâto animate and bring
forth into action those
sentiments of freedom you have disclosed, and which the
tools of despotism would extinguish through the whole
creation. To co-operate with this design, and to frustrate
those cruel and perfldious schemes, which would deluge
our frontiers with the blood of women and children, I
have despatched Colonel Arnold into your country, with
a part of the army under my command. I have enjoined
upon him, and I am certain that he wlll consider himself
and act as in the country of his patrons and best friends.
Necessaries and accommodations of every kind which you
may furnish he will thankfully receive and render the
587
[COMMONS] 588
full value. I invite you, therefore, as friends and brethren to provide him with such
supplies as your country
affords, and I pledge myself not only for your safety and
security but for ample compensation. Let no man desert
his habitationâlet no one flee as before an enemy. The
cause of America and of liberty is the cause of every
virtuous American citizen whatever may be his religion
or descent. The united colonies know no distinction but
such as slavery, corruption and arbitrary domination may
create. Come, then, ye generous citizens, range yourselves under the standard of general
libertyâagainst
which all the force of artifice and tyranny will never be
able to prevail."
This proclamation was circulated broadcast among
the people of the Province. In every household,
in every hamlet, this insidious document found its
way, to induce them to throw off their allegiance.
But they resistedâthey resisted at the point of the
bayonet, which is to be their fate in the next generation, according to the threat
of the hon. member
for Simcoe. As though that was not trial enough
to their loyalty, we find old France itself sending
out an emissary to beseech them in the name of
France, in the name of the land they came from,
in the name of the literature which, he says, makes
them unworthy citizens, in the name of all that
is dear to them; the King of France beseeches the
people to throw in their allegiance to the American
colonies. They did not do so, but they drove the
invaders from the country, with the help of the
English people. For some twenty years, until 1812,
they continued quietly to enjoy the blessings of
peace under the British flag; and if ever their
loyalty was tested it was in 1812. On that occasion the peculiarities of the situation
were marked.
England was engaged in a European war and a war
upon the Continent, in each case one of her opponents being France itself. There was
England on
the one side, and France and the United States
upon the other. On which side did the Lower
Canadian people range themselves at that time?
Did they then prove themselves unworthy subjects
of Great Britain? No, Sir; but they arrayed themselves by the side of Great Britain,
and by the
side of Canada, against the institutions of France
itself, against their mother land; they arrayed
themselves in support of British institutions in
Canada. Therefore, I say it is the duty of all
who are true to history, who propose to give
credit where it is due; it is the duty of
all who are not of French Canadian origin; it
is our duty, in the name of our loyalty, to
repudiate these slurs upon the nationality of
French Canadians, and to say, that in their hands,
as I believe, our institutions are as safe as in the
hands of the hon. member for North Simcoe, or of
the whole nation, if it were of his way of thinking.
I find nothing in French Canadian history, since
their union with Canada, to justify the charge
that they cannot be considered loyal and worthy
citizens of our country. On the contrary, I
think their whole record is the most complete refutation that could be produced of
a large part of
the argument of my hon. friend. Now, Sir,
languages will come and go, languages will die,
and perhaps it may be, in the flight of time, that
the French Canadian language will disappear
from this country. But, if is to disappear,
let it disappear in a way that will be a
source of strength and not a source of weakness,
not as the outcome of force and violence, but as
other languages in the past have disappeared. If
time permitted I could read from the pages of
history to show how nations, in the great struggles
for supremacy, according to the spirit of their
times, have extended their sway, and their
language has, for the time being, accompanied
their influence. We remember how the Greek
States extended their sway from the Mediterranean
to the confines of India, and carried with them the
supremacy of the Greek language. We read how
Rome extended her sway throughout western
Europe, and the Latin language, for the time
being, became the language of the people. But as
their influence decayed, so their language decayed.
Sir, the fact that the growth of language, the
development of language, appears to be an incident
to a nation's supremacy, to a nation's energy, proves
to my mind, that its existence depends upon the
people themselves, it does not depend upon
coercive measures. Sir, I think the very fact
that there is a diversity of language is not a
danger, but it is a circumstance that must give
value to the language itself, as an institution prized
by a people. They must consider it a prize calculated to induce them to redouble their
energies
and their resources in all these directions that will
make their country great, and with the decline
of their greatness their language must also decline.
Therefore if languages have to go down, let them
go down as they have done in the pastâgo down
as nations have gone down. But let them remain
as incentives to people and to races to develop
their energies, and, in this light, I conceive that
diversity of language, instead of being a source of
weakness, may be made an occasion of great
national strength, developing, to make an application of the theory, a spirit of emulation
amongst
our French Canadian people, amongst all our people
of different nationalities, so to promote their
influence that their language may maintain its
permanency. Entertaining these views I am not
prepared to consent, as far as my voice goes, to
any violence towards any of the institutions of
this country that are dear to our people, and
that are not contrary to the best interests of
Canada. If the hon. gentleman, in introducing
this measure had limited the whole case to the
question involved in the enacting clause of the
Bill, I think he would have done his cause infinitely more good than by the manner
he has
adopted, and to a great extent he would have
avoided much of the bitterness that has been imported into this country. If I may
venture, even
at this late hour, to read him a bit of advice, it
would be that, if his motive is, as I am bound to
assume that it is, the welfare of Canada, then,
before this debate is closed, and before it is too
late, let him make clear exactly where he stands
upon this question, let him make clear any
ambiguity as to his ulterior object, and deny
that this is the commencement only of a war
upon a race that is not entitled to be so treated;
or admit that it is, as he declares, and seems
to say, an attempt to obliterate the French language and the French literature from
Canada?
If so, Mr. Speaker, there should be but one answer
from the people's representatives here. We are
sent here to save the Union, not to destroy it.
The hon. gentleman saysâand I wish to give him
credit for good faithâthat he is in favor of making
this a British colony. But he is adopting a course
little calculated to make British institutions permanent in Canada. Such being my
conclusion, I feel
589 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 590
unable to agree with the hon. gentleman in the
legislation he asks, and I shall, therefore, cast my
vote in the direction I have indicatedâto have this
matter settled by the people's representatives in
the North-West, who are best able to settle it, or
by such other tribunal as may be suggested after
they shall have the fullest opportunity of enquiring
into all the conditions of the country; believing, as
I do, that neither the North-West Council nor any
other tribunal to which it might be relegated by
this House, will betray the trust reposed in it, but
will act justly towards all the people without fear,
favor or affection.
Mr. GIGAULT. Harmony prevailed in this
country. French and English-speaking subjects
were working hand in hand for the prosperity of this
country, by that means endeavoring to strengthen
and secure the safety of the British Empire.
Thanks to the wisdom and prudence of Canadian
and British statesmen, burning questions which
had created animosity in the past, had been
removed from the arena of politics. The French
language and the Separate School questions had
been settled by the Constitution of 1867. Every
one hoped that those questions would not be
agitated any longer. But a cloud, threatening our
tranquility, has appeared on the horizon. The
Bill presented by the hon. member for North
Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy), is objectionable chiefly
on account of its preamble which shows the intention
of the hon. gentleman. Moreover, we have his
speeches outside of and inside this House, and we
know what is his aim and what is the chief aim of
the school of which he is the head. I believe that all
persons who wish well to Canada should seek to stop
the crusade which has been organised, and which is
being made by the hon. member for North Simcoe.
By the preamble of the Bill, that hon. gentleman
says that unity of languages is absolutely necessary
for national unity. Mr. Speaker, the British legislators have not been of that opinion.
At the very doors
of the English metropolis the French language is
spoken, namely, in the Channel Islands. What do we
see in India? There the English Government, so far
from compelling the inhabitants of that colony to
speak the English language, compels the Government officials to learn Sanscrit and
the vernacular
languages of India. What do we see in the Cape
Colony? The Dutch language was not spoken there
before 1882, but in that year a law was passed in
the British Parliament allowing the debates to be
made in that colony either in English or Dutch. In
the Mauritius Islands the debates are conducted
either in French or in English, and last year an
ordinance was enacted by which the French language may be used before the courts of
law in the
Seychelles Islands. So, the policy which the hon.
member for North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy) is following here, is contrary to all the legislation
which has
been passed, and which is now being passed by the
British Empire. The policy followed by the hon.
gentleman is not a British but an American
policy. He was not formerly an admirer of
American institutions, but to-day he seems to
abandon the British spirit in order to imitate
American institutions. The hon. gentleman has
been kind enough to remind us that the French
Canadians are a conquered people, and he stated,
at the same time, that the Treaty of Paris did not
secure to us the use of our language. The hon.
gentleman should not forget that, if the Treaty of
Paris does not secure to us the use of the
French language, there is the international law,
a law common to all nations, which secures to us
some rights and gives us some privileges, and it is
such that it secures justice to the conquered as
well as to the conqueror. I am not propounding a
new idea. The Quebec Act was framed upon
the report of the then Solicitor-General of England
(Wedderburn). He made a report to King George
III; and what principle does he lay down at the
beginning of his report? He says:
"Canada is a conquered country. The capitulation
secured the temporary enjoyment of certain rights, and
the treaty of peace contained no reservation in favor of
the inhabitants except a very vague one as to the exercise
of their religion. Can it, therefore, be said that by right of
conquest the conquerer may impose such laws as he
pleases? This proposition has been maintained by some
lawyers who have not distinguished between force and
right."
The hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy)
will please note these words, that "the proposition
that the conquerer may impose such laws as he
pleases has been maintained by lawyers who have
not distinguished between force and right." Does
the hon. gentleman wish only the law of force to
prevail here? Further, the Solicitor General adds:
"It is certainly in the power of a conqueror to dispossess those he has subdued at
discretion, and when the
captivity of the vanquished was the consequence of
victory, the proposition might be true; but in more
civilised times, when the object of war is dominion,
when subjects and not slaves are fruits of victory, I hope
men are not going to be treated as slaves. No other
right can be found in conquest but that of regulating the
political and civil government of the country, leaving
the individuals to the enjoyment of their property and
all the privileges not inconsistent with the security of
the conquest."
These are the principles laid down by the then
Solicitor General of England, principles which
have guided the British Parliament in legislating
for her colonies. What has been the effect of
that legislation? It has been such that England has preserved a strong hold upon her
possessions, which to-day are more than 8,000,000
square miles in extent, and the population of
which numbers more than 200,000,000 of loyal
and devoted British subjects. Such has not
been the success of other European countries in
the government of their foreign possessions, for
they have acquired possessions and colonies and lost
them, because they were not faithful to the principles
laid down by Solicitor General Wedderburn.
These ideas are not only those of that English
legislator, for we have some other eminent authorities which are accepted all over
the world, and
which endorse the proposition I uphold. Montesquieu, in his work entitled the "Spirit
of the
Laws," says:
"One of the great principles of the spirit of conquest
ought to he to render the condition of the conquered as
much better as possible: this is to fulfil at once the law
of nature, and a maxim of state.
"It may sometimes be necessary to change the laws of
the conquered people; it can never be so to deprive them
of their manners, or even of their customs, which are
often all they have for manners. But the surest way of
preserving a conquest is to put, if it is possible, the conquered on a level with
the conquerors, to grant them the
same rights and the same principles."
So we find that the author of the "Spirit of Laws"
clearly says that we ought to put the conquered on
the same level as the conquerors, and grant them
the same rights and the same privileges. That is
the way we in this Dominion wish to be treated.
591
[COMMONS]
592
The French Canadians do not want favors;
they want only the rights which are proper to
every man. In the discussion of this matter we
should not yield to prejudices, we should demand
only the triumph of fair play, of justice, and
of the principles which should guide the rulers
of nations. The member for North Simcoe (Mr.
McCarthy) says that he does not wish to interfere
with the rights granted to the French people under
the British North America Act. Can we hope that
he will be faithful to this promise? That gentleman has twice approved of the North-West
Territories Act, and yet to-day he disapproves of what
he approved of yesterday. If he changes so often,
must we not suppose that he will forget the
promises he made in his speech, and that, faithful
to those different speeches he has made in Ontario
and elsewhere, he will continue on with his
crusade against the French language, and against
the Separate Schools. There is another strange
accusation which has been made by the member for
North Simcoe. He goes so far as to say that we
should not read French literature. Does he not
know that we have always had here Governors and
representatives of the British Empire, who are not
ashamed to read French literature? If we judge
them by the manner in which they speak French,
we must come to the conclusion that they have
read a good deal of that French literature; and
yet these gentlemen have remained loyal to the
Crown, have remained true friends of the British
Empire, and have always been found ready to
protect the best interests of Great Britain. The
member for North Simcoe has alluded chiefly
to the report of Lord Durham, and he
states that Lord Durham was an eminent
statesman. But eminent statesmen generally make
laws which remain a long time on the Statuteâ
book. What do we see with respect to the
law founded upon the report of Lord Durham on
the French language? A few years after that constitution was adopted, it was found
necessary to
abrogate the clause which permitted only the use
of the Eaglish language, and that abrogation
showed that Lord Durham, far from being an
eminent statesman, was a short-sighted legislator, whose views could not be accepted.
I have
heard, with a good deal of pleasure, the speech
made by the hon. member for West Assiniboia
(Mr. Davin). The remarks which he has made are
certainly such as we should all take pride in, but I
cannot approve of the conclusion to which he has
come. It is this Parliament which has the right to
frame laws and a constitution for the North-West
Territories, and so long as that right rests with
this Parliament we should not shrink from the
duty and the responsibility which devolves upon
us. We ought to frame laws which we think just
and fair. We ought not to forget that the inhabitants of these Territories have their
eyes upon us,
and wish us to do justice to them. Some members say that the majority in this case
must decide.
I do not agree with that, Mr. Speaker. Justice
and right are and will be justice and right, whatever may be the decision of the minority
or of the
majority, and there are certain rights and certain
principles which cannot be set aside for the sake
of the majority or for the sake of any decision
which can be made by them. The legislation I
advocate has already been sanctioned by our constitution. In order to protect the
English minority
in the Province of Quebec, we have made special
provisions in the constitution to respect their feelings, and to hinder agitators
from interfering with
their rights. There are similar provisions in our
constitution to protect the Catholic minority of
Ontario, and the Fathers of our Confederation have
acted wisely in putting the questions which affect
these minorities in such a way that they are protected from the passions of the people
which may
be inflamed by agitators for sordid motives. A member of this House has rightly said
that, if there had
been no agitation on the Jesuit question, the dual
language question would never have been agitated
in the North-West. In fact, in the North-West
the people were quiet until the member for North
Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy) thought fit to pay a visit
to the inhabitants of that portion of the country.
Another hon. gentleman said that if we allow
foreigners to come to this country, we are not going
to make laws for the purpose of rendering official
the languages spoken by those foreigners. Does
that hon. gentleman contend that the French
Canadians are foreigners and aliens to this country?
Does he forget that we are the members of a race
which discovered and civilised this country?
Surely that hon. member, when he made that assertion, did not reflect and did not
consider the
position we have occupied in Canada. Mr. Speaker,
I will conclude my remarks. The hon. member for
North Simcoe says that the Treaty of Paris does
not secure to us the use of our language; but there
is one thing to which I can appeal for the preservation of that language: It is British
fair play.
We have appealed before to it, we have before laid
our complaints at the foot of the Throne, and we
have been successful enough to obtain justice. I
hope that the same fair play will continue to be extended to us. We have not to deal
with this
question as the members of a certain race or class;
we must consider and deal with it in a manner to promote the best interests of this
country; and, according to British legislators, the best policy to be followed with
respect to different creeds and races is
to respect their feelings, and I hope that policy
will continue to prevail.
Mr. CURRAN. (Translation) Mr. Speaker, I ask
your indulgence on this occasion when a question of
so much importance is engaging our attention if I
make the few observations I am about to address
to the House in the language attacked by the hon.
member for North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy), the
proposer of the Bill now under consideration.
I seize this opportunity to speak in the French
language as one of the representatives of the Irish
Catholics of the Dominion, who have also been attacked, in an unjustifiable manner,
by the member
for North Simcoe. That gentleman sought to establish by some authority that the Irish
Catholics
in Canada are not the friends of the French Canadians, and not only are we not their
friends, but
that we are their bitterest enemies. I think I
speak with a knowledge of the subject, when I
state that if in a distant past, when our immigrants reached this country poverty-stricken,
totally ignorant of the French language, unable to understand those with whom they
were thrown in
contact or to make themselves understood by
them, certain difficulties did arise, that to-day not
only as between the Irish Catholics and the Protestants, who have never had any difficulty
as to
593 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 594
language, but as between the whole Canadian people whatever their origin or creed,
with the exception of those who make a trade of appealing to
prejudices, to the detriment of Canada's future, there
never did exist in our country a stronger sentiment
of unity or a stronger desire for the moral and material progress of our people, than
that which exists
to-day. Were a stranger to enter into our deliberative assembly now and find us occupied
in
the discussion of this question, what opinion must
he form of us? We are here in a new country; we
need to develop our immense resources, agricultural, industrial, mineral, and all
the exhaustless
wealth that Providence has placed at our disposal;
we have a country extending from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, and sparse as is our population, we have
made such progress as to challenge the admiration
of the world; and here we have this prosperity
placed in peril by the discussion of questions in
the Parliament of Canada utterly devoid of interest to all with the exception of the
fanatics who
have provoked the debate. What can be the object of these agitators? Can any patriotic
motive
inspire them? The march of events within the
past few years is not unknown to us. We know
how the question was raised and precipitated into
the arena of public discussion, and I may ask, is
there one worthy citizen, whatever his race may
be, who will be found to state that the authors of
this agitation are animated by honorable motives? The question now before us has
been represented, on the one hand, as purely
local, and, on the other, as one of general interest;
to me it appears that had this question been raised
opportunely it should have been dealt with from a
purely local point of view; but when we consider
not only the preamble of the Bill now before us,
in which the hon. member for North Simcoe
attacks all the French Canadians hold most dear,
but the violent and outrageous speech in which he
introduced it, it is difficult not to comprehend the
motives that inspired this legislation. As has been
well stated already, the people of the North-West,
without distinction, the earliest settlers, and those
who at the cost of great sacrifices went in there
for the purpose of colonising those vast regions,
were living in peace and security, building up the
country by their united efforts and extending to
each other a helping hand and not one word was
heard concerning the abolition of the French as an
official language. But for reasons best known to
himself, a man who proclaims himself an apostle of
equal rights for all, arouses an agitation for the
purpose of depriving those who have made so many
sacrifices of the right to speak their own language,
or to have it officially recognised in that section of
the country. Is there any justification for the
hon. gentleman's conduct? Not a single individual
in the region referred to has raised the question,
but we have this self-constituted patriot, who
declares his desire to form here one British nation
by a single dash of his pen, and who appears to be
an admirer of all that was odious in the penal
legislation of days gone by, laws that bring a blush
of shame to every Englishman's face, going into
that country to arouse there passion and prejudice,
and not only to disturb those who were living there
in peace and harmony, but seeking to disjoint all
friendly relations between the people of the older
Provinces. Mr. Speaker, we cannot discuss this
question in ignorance of the state of affairs that
exists around us. We have to deal with things as
they are. It is all very well to say, here is a local
question that concerns the progress of the North- West Territories solely. That cannot
hold, the
position has been complicated in such a manner by
its mover that we cannot avoid its determination
in the broader sense, nor the inevitable conclusions
to which the presentation of the question leads us.
Some have said this is merely a monetary question
involving the expenditure of public moneys, whilst
nearly all have urged that not only are the people
of the North-West interested but all Canada is
involved. One thing is certain, on a subject of this
kind a proud race will never allow their noblest
aspirations to be interfered with by mere monetary
considerations. Therefore, when we discuss this
question, which, if it does not interest all Canada,
at all events involves the sympathies of a million
and a-half of French Canadians, we cannot do otherwise, in view of the onslaught made
by the member for North Simcoe, than to respect and uphold
the sentiments of a chivalrous people who have
done so much for the development of our country,
and we must above all be careful not to trample
upon their sacred rights. What is the history of
this legislation? I have no desire to prolong the
discussion by reiterating what has been so eloquently said by those who have traced
in glowing terms
the history of our French Canadian compatriots. I
shall confine myself to the amendment introduced
by the Hon. Senator Girard when the Bill for the
North-West Territories was discussed before the
Senate. The hon. Senator caused the insertion of
the French language amendment and there was not
one dissentient voice. That amendment was unanimously confirmed by the House of Commons.
I
have carefully noted the attitude of the press on the
subject in Ontario and Quebec as well, at that time.
Not a single newspaper, either English or French,
not a single organ of either political party published a syllable of condemnation
of that legislation. On the contrary, it was everywhere conceded
that not only was an act of justice being done to
the French inhabitants of the North-West, but
that the best means was being adopted to induce
French Canadian immigration to the Territories
and prevent their exodus to the United States. No
doubt the strongest inducement for them to go
there was to say to them: " You will enjoy there
all the privileges you possess in the Province of
Quebec," and that, Sir, was the motive that
prompted the Girard amendment. Well, Sir, from
that date until last summer no complaint was heard
either in the press or on the platform or elsewhere,
nothing was ever hinted that the progress of the
Territories was being retarded by the official use of
the French and English languages. The hon.
member from Simcoe, in all his speeches, has held
himself responsible for that legislation, and that
he had made no move for years until he commenced
his agitation in Ontario and then proceeded to disturb the minds of the people of
the North-West
Territories. Until the hon. gentleman's crusade,
nothing was heard against the legislation that he
now seeks to have repealed. Under such circumstances, we naturally ask ourselves:
What is the
object of this agitation? What interest can it
promote? The hon. gentleman tells us in one of
his speeches that the French Canadians desire to
establish another Province of Quebec in the Territories. Have they ever sought, either
in Parlia
595 [COMMONS] 596
ment or in the press, to discourage immigration to
that region, either of British, German, Swedish, or
any other worthy settlers? Have they not always
sought to encourage such immigration? Have they
sought, in any manner, to disturb the harmony existing heretofore in the Territories?
We shall have
to wait a long time for any proof of such assertions.
In concluding these few observations which I make
in French, so as to show that we, the Irish Catholics and the French Canadians and
the Protestants
of this country likewise understand each other, I
beseech those hon. members who seek to agitate
the people to let us wage our political warfare on
the legitimate ground of politics; to let us make
our endeavors so that harmony may prevail among
all races; to allow us to work together for the maintenance of the bonds that unite
us. Under those
conditions we shall see the country neither agitated nor threatened, but united; we
shall have a
country where every French Canadian, every Irish
Canadian or any other Canadian may live in peace.
It is a fortunate thing that we should have, as
leaders of the French Canadian members of this
House, statesmen who shall lead their compatriots
by way of a wise and conciliatory policy and
establish the reign of harmony and peace, and in
that path I shall always follow them.
It being six o'clock, the Speaker left the Chair.
After Recess.
Mr. ROBILLARD. Mr. Speaker, if this Bill
had been moved by an ordinary member, I would
have sat in my chair and given a silent vote; but
as the hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy) is the mover of it, I beg to address
a few
words to the House as a Canadian from Ontario,
speaking French, if you like; for I call myself a
Canadian, and it is the only name by which I
call myself. The hon. member has been going
through the country, and has very seldom lost an
occasion to throw mud at us. Sir, the very
preamble of his Bill I look upon as an insult to
any French Canadian in this country. The idea
that the fact of my speaking French is a barrier
between me and my English-speaking neighbor I
deny. It is true, Sir, we speak French, but we
are learning English as fast as we can, and we are
proud of it. Why should we not be? I say that
every sensible French Canadian would wish to
have his children learn English as well as French.
I would not be doing my duty to my child if I did
not allow him to learn English, because if he did
not he would not have a fair start in the world
with the children of my English-speaking neighbors.
But when I hear men like the hon. member for
Muskoka (Mr. O'Brien) say that they are not
attacking our language, I may say to him that
people do not feel the insult that is given to others.
That hon. member is not so sensitive as the hon.
member for North Simcoe, because he has taken
up the cause of people who have never asked him,
people who do not suffer; for I challenge the hon.
gentleman to show that there was ever a complaint
in the North-West on this subject before he went
up there himself to sow the seed of dissension. As
the hon. gentleman knows, the people of the North- West do not pay that paltry sum
of $400 or $500
which the use of the language there costs. I do
not know the amount for which the hon. gentleman
is on the assessment roll, but I venture to say that
his share of that cost does not amount to a mill. I
say that the preamble of this Bill itself is a false
pretension and a false proposition. Although I
speak French and am a Roman Catholic, I can
live at peace with my English and Protestant
neighbor. I do not care whether he is an Orangeman, a black Presbyterian or a Methodist,
I can
go and walk with him arm-in-arm on Sunday
morning, and he drops into his church and
I into mine, and we can escort each other
back to our homes afterwards in a friendly and
neighborly way. The time is past when people
may hate each other for God's sake. My hon.
friend from North Simcoe professes to do all this
for love of the poor French Canadians; he wants
to get us out of the crushing power of the clergy
in Lower Canada; he is sorry to see us going to
the States, and he invites us to go to Ontario; but
what does he say? If you come into Ontario, you
must shut your month; you are not allowed to
speak your language. I know something of what
I am speaking about, for I had the honor to
represent a county in eastern Ontario, where
people often come from Lower Canada, and I have
always been proud and glad to see them, because
they have been peaceable and respectable and moral
citizens, though they could not speak a word of
English. According to the idea of the hon. member
for North Simcoe, these people may send their
children to school, but the school must be taught
by an English teacher. The hon. member, with
his great love for the French Canadians, would
not allow one to teach a school in Ontario,
no matter how efficient he might be. The
hon. gentleman will not deny that fact, for
I have his own words for it in a speech he
made in December last in the city of Ottawa.
You know, Sir, he is one of the fathers of this
Imperial Federation scheme. I will not say much
about Imperial Federation, because it has not yet
assumed a practical shape, and I think it will be
a long time before it does; but, Sir, he is the
father of another partyâ a party that made a great
racket in Ontario and in the capital of this Dominionâwhat they call the Equal Rights
party, but
what I call the Unequal Rights party, from the
way they put it in practice. Under the wing of
that Equal Rights agitation, under the pretence
of British fair play to the French Canadians, he
said he would not allow a French Canadian to
teach in a French county, were he ever so clever a
man, because, there being French blood in his
veins, the tendency of this teaching would be
to Frenchify and not to Anglicise the people. That
is the way he shows his great liberality. I would
like the hon. gentleman to show his affection
and love to his wife in that way. I would like
to see him come to her with sweet and warm
words in contradiction with his acts. Acts
are stronger than words. Let him act towards
his wife as he does towards us; let him lose
no opportunity to trample on her feet, to hurt
her feelings, and to deprive her of her rights, and
he will soon come to the conclusion, to which I
and the rest of my countrymen have come, that,
although his words may be sweet and warm, his
heart is cold. I might give him the advice which
I gave my wife when I took her. I said to her:
Here I am; I wish you to try and make yourself
happy with me, with all my faults, as you find
597 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 598
them out, and you will stand a better chance of
correcting me, and will be happier, than if you used
the broomstick. I say to the hon. gentleman that
I acknowledge we have faults, but no more than
other nationalities, and if he had more intercourse
with us, if he would show himself more liberal
and to have more heart and more love for us,
and use his energy and great talents to seeing
if he could not make himself happy, even if we
did sometimes hurt the drum of his ears with a
French word. I am not going over arguments that
have been used before, and used better than I
could hope to apply them. As far as community
of language is concerned, that question has been
discussed by men who have better command of the
English than I, but I may say,
en passant, that no
later than last summer, when I was in Switzerland,
I attended the great feast of the vine-growers,
which takes place only once in every twenty- five years; and at that feast, which
was
held in a little town on Geneva Lake, there
attended about seventy-five thousand people,
speaking French, Italian and German. One would
say "Good day" in German and the other would
answer in French or Italian, or
vice versâ, and
they seemed the most happy and contented people
I ever met. Therefore, it seemed to me not necessary that there should be unity of
language in
order that a people might be happy and contented.
I do not know what the hon. gentleman is driving
at. He has gone through the different Provinces
exciting sectional feelings; and I am sorry to see
such a course taken in a new country composed as
this is of different nationalities, who have been put
here to work shoulder to shoulder in the chariot
of progress, instead of working against each other.
It is not by raising sectional or racial feelings that
we can progress and prosper; and, therefore, I look
upon such proceedings, whether conducted by the
hon. member for Simcoe or anybody else, as fraught
with danger in a community like this. I am
not a pessimist. I have faith in the future of
my country.. And why? Because I believe
there are enough men of good, sound sense,
and broad, Christian, patriotic views, to crush
out the fanatics, no matter where they come
from. Were it not for that belief I would despair
for my country. We can tolerate the fanaticism
of ignorant people, for they know not what they
do, but when we find men of education raising
these issues, I cannot explain their motives. I ask
myself, what does the hon. gentleman mean? Does
he expect to govern by coercion? and if he could
do so, would it be desirable? If he meant civil
war, I could understand him; but he must remember that in that case we are 1,500,000
of
French Canadians whom he will have to exterminate, for we will not run away. We are
here to
stay, and stay we will. Therefore he will have to
exterminate us, and that will be a very big undertaking. We have stood a great deal
of pressure,
and I am certain we will survive the McCarthy
pressure. A good deal that I had to say has been
better said before, and, therefore, I intend to be
short; but, before taking my seat I wish to say that
the hon. gentleman's mode of showing his love to
the French Canadians is a very singular one, and
Mademoiselle la Canadienne will look for another
beau besides the hon. gentleman. I must protest,
in the name of peace, in the name of harmony, and
in the name of my country, against the proposition
of the hon. gentleman, and intend giving my support
to the amendment of the hon. member for Berthier
(Mr. Beausoleil). The amendment of the hon.
member for Assiniboia advances a principle which
I cannot admit, that because a majority ought
to govern they can alter our constitution as well;
and if this amendment of the hon. member for
Assiniboia were adopted, there would be nothing to
prevent a majority in this House going to the foot
of the Throne and saying: We have admitted the
principle that the majority ought to rule, by leaving
to the majority of the North-West to decide as to
the abolition of the French language, and, therefore,
as we are the majority in the Confederation, we
can decide to abolish it in the Province of Quebec
or in any other Province. I do not want the
Federal Government to relinquish this power which
it has. I think it was the well-considered view of
the Fathers of Confederation, when they left that
power to the Federal Government, and that is the
only safety which the minority in any Province
possesses. Therefore, I will support the amendment of the hon. member for Berthier
(Mr.
Beausoleil), and will vote against the two other
amendments. If another amendment were to be
moved, leaving this matter over until after the
election, but without divesting ourselves of the
power which this Parliament possesses, I would
support that, but otherwise I will support the
amendment of the hon. member for Berthier.
Mr. DAWSON. The hon. member for North
Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy), in the preamble to his
Bill, declares that:
"It is expedient in the interest of the national community of the Dominion, that there
should be community
of language among the people of Canada, and that the
enactment in the North-West Territories' Act allowing
the use of the French language should be expunged
therefrom."
The hon. gentleman has made a very able speech,
but I do not think he has made good his proposition.
He has failed to establish that community of language is essential to the prosperity
of any country.
In the British Empire there are three hundred
millions of people, speaking many different languages, and, certainly, not one-fifth
of that number
speak the English language. Yet, the British
Empire on which the sun never sets,âthis great
empire with all its diversity of languages and of
peoples is prospering. Judging from this, a community of language is not essential
to the prosperity of a nation. With regard to this particular matter, I may be pardoned
if I give a brief
history of the settlement of the French in the
North-West. It is well known that the French
of Lower Canada spread themselves over the
North-West Territories long before the English
had come even to Hudson's Bay, that they were at
Lake Winnipeg, that they were on the Red River,
where Manitoba now is, and that they were on the
plains of the Saskatchewan a hundred years and
more before the English had even come as far west
as Lake Winnipeg. In regard to the rights of
those French people, who were there at that time,
those rights were secured to them in the same way,
by the Treaty of Paris and the capitulation of
Montreal, as they were secured to the people of
Lower Canada. It is expressly stated in the capitulation itself that it extended to
the "countries
above," meaning the settlements on the Saskatchewan and the other portions of the western
country.
599
[COMMONS] 600
The French Canadians inhabiting what was then
known as Canada, including that territory, were
all put in the same position by the Treaty of Paris.
I believe that that will not be called in question.
What the French did in that country, rendered the
subsequent settlement of it possible. Verandrye,
who was then celebrated as much as the great
African explorer, Stanley, is to-day, had as great
difficulties to encounter as Stanley has had in
Africa, in a country which was unknown, which
was peopled by savage tribes, where his followers
were on one or two occasions nearly exterminated
by the natives; but he showed great fortitude and
made his way through that unknown country until
he planted the colors of France at the Rocky
Mountains. It must be acknowledged that the
French have done a great deal for the settlement of
the North-West. It has been stated by an hon.
member that that country was for a long time
treated as a Crown colony. This was not precisely
the case. It was a colony, but not a Crown colony.
It was a colony under a proprietary government,
the government of the Hudson's Bay Company,
something like the proprietary governments that
were formed at one time in the States to the south of
us, in Pennsylvania for example, and in Maryland,
in which latter proprietary rights were given
to Lord Baltimore. That was the sort of colony
it was, and that colony flourished and grew. At
the time that the North-West Territories fell to
Canada there was a large population of French
there. In fact, I may say that the population was
almost entirely French and Indian. There were a
certain number of English and Scotch settlers, but
the majority of the people were French, descendants
of those who were engaged in the fur trade, some
being descendants of the Scotch who, in the year
1780 or earlier, went in very large numbers to the
North-West and spread their establishments, not
only along the Saskatchewan, but to the Arctic
seas and to the shores of the Pacific ocean. By
whose aid did they go there? By the aid of the
French. By whose assistance was British Columbiaâthat Province of which we are so
proudâ
secured to England, if not by that of the French
voyageurs? I think enough has been said to show
that the prosperity of nations does not depend altogether on the community of language.
That has been
shown in the very able speech of my hon. friend
the member for Assiniboia (Mr. Davin), and also in
that of my hon. friend from North York (Mr.
Mulock). They have entered into that question
and I think their arguments are quite enough to
upset those of the hon. member for North Simcoe
(Mr. McCarthy), so I shall not delay the House
upon that subject, except to say that, even in
England itself, there were differences of language,
and indeed many different languages were spoken
within a comparatively short period. There were
the French, the Welsh and the Gaelic besides other
languages, and I think it was not much over a
century ago that a number of Highlanders who could
hardly speak a word of English leagued themselves
together in several regiments under the name of the
"Black Watch." Very little English was spoken
amongst them, and yet that Black Watch fighting
for England became as celebrated in European
warfare in modern times as ever the Macedonian
legions were in ancient history. As to the loyalty
of the French, I do not think much requires
to be said. They have shown their attachment to
British institutions on many occasions and have
been ready to shed their blood in defence of the
British flag. Let me mention one case that we know,
of the battle of Chateauguay: I am proud to say that
the son of the hero of that battle was on my staff
for many years in the North-West, De Salaberry.
Sir, that De Salaberry was French essentially, and
he won a great battle under the British flag. I
think, Mr. Speaker, that this matter had better
be left for time to settle. What necessity is there
for bringing it up now? What have the people of
the North-West to complain of? A few documents
will be published in French in order that the
French people may understand them. There is
still a considerable French population there, and I
think that the matter might be left to settle itself.
No doubt English will largely preponderate, as
English settlement flows in. Those who cannot
speak English now will, in the course of time,
learn to speak it, and the whole country will
become English. We hear much about an exodus of
French who are said to be leaving Lower Canada,
and I would be very glad indeed to see them going
up to the Saskatchewan and settling in that country. The French make excellent settlers;
they
are our best pioneers in a new country, and they
get on in harmony with all people. There is no
more peacable people, no better settlers, no more
admirable people for settling a new country than
the French Canadians. They are a moral people,
a good people, and good workers. I say that time
will cure all this, and, in my opinion, the matter
had better be left to the people of the North-West
Territories themselves. Let them work out their
own destiny. Throw the country open to the
French and English, but do not throw disabilities
on any class of the community. Allow the French
to grow and prosper. Let them use their language
for a few years. It is only for a few years; in the
North-West Territories it will die naturally of itself,
and the whole French population will be engulfed
by the larger English element. Of course, the
French language will endure permanently in Lower
Canada, but in that western country which is now
filling up with another population, the French
language cannot be expected to last a great while.
In the meantime, I think it had better be left to its
own course.
Sir HECTOR LANGEVIN. I do not wish this
debate to close without saying a few words,
especially in answer to the speech of the hon.
member for North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy). The
hon. gentleman has taken upon himself the task of
legislating by himself, alone, without being asked
to interfere in any way. He wants to legislate
for half the continent. There was no petition from
the people of that country to interfere in their
favor. They had their own representatives here,
and those representatives, coming fresh from the
people, were certainly the natural defenders of that
population. However, the hon. gentleman being a
member of Parliament, thought he had a right, and
I suppose he had, to interfere and introduce the
Bill now under consideration. Now, Mr. Speaker,
what is the reason that the hon. gentleman brings
that Bill before Parliament? It is for the purpose
of preventing a portion of the population of the
North-West from using what God has given them,
the French language. It is their mother tongue;
they know no other language than that. But the
601 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 602
hon. gentleman, with his Equal Rights principles,
says: "You shall not say a word, unless you utter
it in a language which you do not know. Equal
Rights! my good friends." If those are the Equal
Rights of the hon. gentleman, I do not think that his
political career will last very long. Fanaticism has
never lasted, and this is fanaticism in all its vigor, in
all its force. What has that population in the North- West, that speaks French, whether
they are a
thousand or whether they are one hundredâwhat
have they done to the hon. gentleman that he seeks
to prevent them from using their language-more
than that, knowing in their own tongue the laws
that are enacted for their protection, or which
they have to obey? The only thing that they have
done to the hon. gentleman is this, that their blood
is not his blood. It is not their fault if they have
not the blue blood of the hon. gentleman. Their
blood is the blood that their good mothers gave
them, and that blood is French. They were born
so; they had nothing to say when they were born.
When Providence brought them into the world
they came with French blood, and when they could Â
speak, they spoke French. They came from
different parts of this continent, especially from
Quebec. They went up there knowing that the
subjects of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen
had the right, under the laws of the Kingdom,
to speak in French, provided they did not
speak treason. These men have not spoken
treason. The hon. gentleman has never stated
that in his Bill, or in his speech. He
dare not say so; because these men, I may tell
the hon. gentleman, from first to last, up there,
and in all the Provinces of the Dominion, are as
loyal subjects of the Queen as the hon. gentleman
is, or his children, or his ancestors. We do not
boast of our loyalty as French Canadians; because
it is in our hearts; it is in our veins. It is a duty
on our part; because we are well governed and
well protected by the laws of England, and by our
Most Gracioiis Queen. It is a question of love with
us, and we love our Queen, and we love our
country; we are loyal to our Queen and loyal to
our country. Why should we be treated differently from you, Englishmen; from you,
Scotchmen; from you, Irishmen; from you, Scandinavians; from you, Germans? Is your
blood better
than ours? Is your birth better than ours? Were
your ancestors better than ours? Mr. Speaker, I hope
that the hon. gentleman will excuse me if I say,
no. They are as good as ours; but ours are as
good as theirs. Sir, I feel keenly on this question;
because my race is a sensitive race; it is a proud
race. I do not speak of the others. I have no
doubt that they are as proud and as sensitive as
mine. But we do not like to be attacked; we do
not like to be sneered at and to be humiliated,
especially by the hon. gentleman, who has no
right to speak in that way, or to sneer at us.
The hon. gentleman tries to find standing ground,
and the position he takes is this: that the use of
the two languages is expensive. That is one of the
reasons he offers for his action. Expensive in what
manner? At this time there is no French Canadian who speaks his language in the North-West
Assembly, but a French Canadian spoke it in the
last Legislative Assembly, and others will speak it
in the Assembly after the next election, because
there must be some, the hon. gentleman may depend
on that; for although he may choke some French
Canadians, he cannot choke enough to have the
race disappear. French Canadians are quite able
to defend their rights, and they will defend them;
and to think that he will succeed in having a race
numbering a million and a half or a million and
three-quarters, with as many on the other side of
the line, disappear and wiped from the land of
their ancestors is a delusion on the part of that hon.
gentleman. He had better learn a little French,
which he does not know, and study our history,
and he will learn from it that no attempts of that
character have ever succeeded. But the hon.
gentleman spoke of the expense; and what is the
expense? The translation and publication of the
journals and ordinances of the North-West have
cost since that institution existed there $22,000.
Sir HECTOR LANGEVIN. Of that amount,
the French translation and publication have cost
$4,000 in thirteen years, which is equal to less
than $400 a year. If that is what is on the hon.
gentleman's conscience, if that is what is troubling
his patriotism, let him understand this, that
henceforth I will pay $400 a year out of my own
pocket for the translation of the laws and journals; so that this country which the
hon. gentleman loves so well, and which he is convulsing for
the sake of $400 a year, need not be called upon
to pay this amount, and, if the hon. gentleman is
afraid it will not be paid, I am ready to enter into
a contract with him or with the North-West
Council that the $400 will be paid on the first of
January each year. But that is all a sham. It is
not for that purpose the hon. gentleman has taken
action-âhe has another purpose in view. He
wants to tyrannise over the French Canadians of
this country, he does not like them, he hates them
â-he hated them from the moment he came into
Parliament. He showed it onceâhe must remember itâin a certain place where we were
all congregated, and from that moment he saw that having
shown his hatred to our race he could never recover
the good graces of that race, unless he made the
amende honorable. He did not wish to do that, he
would not apologise; but he said: "I will be an
enemy to that race so long as I sit in this House."
But others have adopted the same course, and they
have not succeeded any more than the hon. gentleman will succeed on this occasion.
The object,
however, of the hon. gentleman is disclosed in the
preamble of his Bill. He seeks to introduce the
thin end of the wedge, and, if he succeeds in that,
then he will go a little further and seek to destroy
the race from the North-West to the Atlantic. I
defy the hon. gentleman to do it; that is more
than his strength can accomplish, and he will not
succeed. He may destroy a few French Canadians
in the far-away North-West, but he may be sure of
this, that, if he closes the mouths of our people in
the Legislative Assembly of the North-West, if he
prevents French Canadians having the rules of the
House, and the journals of the House, and the laws
of the country in their own language, they will do
as they have done elsewhereâthey will do without
them. One day they will be twenty times more
numerous than they are to-day. They will be
growing quietly, and one day justice will be done
to them by the force of circumstances. That is
what we have seen from one end of the country to the
other. We have seen it from the time this country
603 [COMMONS] 604
came under a British rĂŠgime. After the cession of
this country by the French to the English, our people
had no right to use the French language in courts of
justice. The position was exactly that which the
hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy) wishes
to establish in the North-West. He has gone back
a century. Who would have thought that a young
legislator, such as he is, would have gone backward instead of going forward and endeavoring
to
do some good for his country and assisting its;
prosperity? The hon. gentleman has, however,
gone back to that ancient time. What was the
position then? The people were prevented using
their language in the courts of justice, English
alone being used. But French Canadians or
Frenchmen at that time who had passed under the
sceptre of the King of England could neither
understand nor use the English language; and
what did they do? They had law-suits and difficulties, as neighbors must sometimes
have, and
they had debts to collect. They said to themselves:
"We cannot go before the judicial tribunals; we are
not understood, we do not speak English but
French, these judges are English and do not
understand our language." What did they do? They
did this: When two neighbors had a difficulty they
went to their priest and asked him to hear the
case and decide between them. The case would
then be argued before the priest, and he would
give judgment, and they submitted to that judgment. And the judicial tribunal did
not see
them. A little later the American revolution took
place. England remembered that the French
Canadians were the large majority of the people
of Canada, that they were not properly treated,
that it was an injustice to them to treat them as
they had been treated under the English regime,
and that they had shown no disposition to act
disloyally, and, therefore; the British Government
restored them to their rights, they gave them
their liberties and all the rights they could expect
until responsible government was brought about,
sometime later on. That was the result. In
England they did not say, that because those
60,000 or 70,000 French Canadians have not our
blood and do not speak our language we will treat
them as if they were pariahs, worse than the
Chinese who come into the United States are
treated. No. They said: We will treat them as
British subjects, and restore to them their liberties,
franchises and rights to which they are entitled.
The hon. gentleman in order to strengthen his
case, which he saw was very weak, tried to show
that from the beginning we had not the legal right
to use the French language in our Legislative Assembly. The hon. gentleman went as
far back as
the capitulation of the country to show this, but
he ought to have remembered that when the capitulation took place, we had no Parliament
and no
Legislature, and, therefore, the question of language in the Legislature could not
come to the
minds of the French Generals who made these capitulations with the British Generals.
It was out of
the question at the time and nobody thought of it.
But, let us consider what is granted in these capitulations. Among other things the
French people, who had to submit to the fate of war, are
guaranteed that the privileges of their race in
Canada shall be preserved. Among these privileges
surely their language must be one of the most
sacred. The hon. gentleman (Mr. McCarthy)
says, howover, that those men should have gone
to school immediately and learned that beautiful
English language which he speaks so well. Well,
the people themselves did not think so, and they
do not think so now. They think that the French
language, which is the language of their mothers
and their fathers, should be preserved intact
by them, and that is what they have done,
from the beginning of Canada as a British
colony. That is what they have done up to this
very day and that is what they intend to do for the
future. We intend to keep our language sacred,
and we intend speaking the French language
notwithstanding all the attempts of the member for North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy). I
may tell
him that we would speak that language even if this
Parliament refused us the use of the French language in our courts or in the Legislature.
We would
speak it as we spoke it notwithstanding the prohibitory law which the hon. gentleman
invoked in
showing that up to 1841 there was no legislation
on that question. He told us that in 1841 when
the Union of the Canadas took place the French
language was prohibited, and when he told us this
he was smiling and rejoicing and would have
laughed had he dared. He rejoiced to see that the
Parliament of England, after the rebellion in
Upper and Lower Canada, declared that English
should be the only language. The hon. gentleman
passed very lightly on the rebellion in Upper
Canada, and he spoke only of the rebellion of the
French Canadians in the Province of Quebec. I
will deal with that later on. He points out to us
that in the Act passed at that time we find the
language mentioned, and that the Act provided
that the English language only should be used in
Parliament. Well, the Union of the Canadas
took place. The first Parliament was called
together and it met under that law which
said that the English language was the only
language to be used. What was the first
Act of that Parliament? It was to elect a
French Canadian, the Hon. Mr. Cuvillier, as
Speaker of that House, and why did they elect a
French Canadian to be the Speaker? It was because they saw on the benches all around
a large
number of French Canadians returned as their
representatives by the people of Lower Canada- French Canadians, some of them not
speaking a
word of English, elected by the people, although
the people knew that that law was on the statute
book stating that not a word of French should be
spoken in the Parliament under the Union. Mr.
Cuvillier was elected, the members began to speak,
and strange to say (to the horror of the hon.
member for North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy), no
doubt) French speeches were delivered in that
Parliament. The French Canadians used their
own language as was their birthright. There was
a law of the Imperial Parliament telling them that
the English language only was to be used, but
there was a law above all that, the law of nature,
which told them that the French language should
be used, and they used it. In a very short while
after the Parliament of the United Provinces of
Canada met, it passed a law on the 18th September,
1841 (5 Victoria, chapter 11, which was entitled
"An Act to provide for the translation into the
French language of the laws of this Province, and
for other objects relative to them." We, there- fore, see that although the Parliament
of Eng
Â
605 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 606
land said that English alone should be used,
the then Parliament of Canada passed a law
to say that everything connected with the laws
of the country would be translated into French.
We see, therefore, that notwithstanding the
English law, the French language was used in
Parliament by the members, was used in the translation of the laws of the country,
and in 1844, or
a few years afterwards, a petition was sent to the
Queen in England, praying that that portion of
the Union Act, which prevented the French
language being used legally in Parliament, should
be abrogated. That petition was granted, and the
men of that day were patriotic enough, were just
enough, and were liberal enough to pass a law
unanimously giving that right to their fellow-subjects, the French Canadians. The
hon. gentleman
(Mr. McCarthy) goes on and says that the only
time when the Parliament of England permitted
or allowed the use of both languages was in the
Confederation Act of 1867. I am proud, Mr.
Speaker, to think and to know that I was one of
the Fathers of that Confederation Act, and that I
used the little influence I had with my colleagues
and with the Government of England, when we
were sent there as the representatives of Canada,
to secure that that clause should be inserted in the
Act of Confederation. It was inserted so that we,
the French Canadians of this country, should have
the same rights in that respect as our friends and
fellow-countrymen, and that we could use the
French language in Parliament, as you, the English
speaking members, can use your own language.
Does not the hon. gentleman now see that I, a
French Canadian, having every drop of blood in
my veins French, am, notwithstanding, trying to
speak his language, and trying to be understood
by members of this House. I could make my
speech in French, but I know that I would not
be understood by all members of this House,
and I wish to be understood by them all.
I wish them to understand that I am speaking this
evening on behalf of my countrymen of French
origin. These are not the only countrymen I have,
for I consider that all the members of this House,
whether they belong to one race or to another, are
my countrymen as well. If we wish to be one
people, if we wish to be a nation, we should do
what has been done in the three kingdoms. You
find a number of languages, a number of dialects
in the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; but
how many languages are spoken under the shadow
of the great and noble flag of England? It is the
glory and the joy of the British Empire that all
nationalities are welcome under that glorious flag,
and that it covers and protects them all. I
remember reading in the history of my family of
one of my ancestors who fought in Canada for the
French while they were the possessors and rulers
of this country, and who afterwards fought for the
Kingdom of France in Virginia. He had been sent
there with others, and was made a prisoner by
Colonel (afterwards General) Washington, and was
kept there chained within his cell. But he escaped
and came back to Canada. The war in this country
having resulted in bringing down the flag of
France and bringing up the flag of England, what
did he do? Did he conspire against the
flag and the King of England? No; he had
loyal blood and a loyal heart; he had principles,
and his principles and convictions told him that
now that this country was under a new flag he
should fight for his new Sovereign as he had fought
for his old Sovereign the King of France; and, as
my hon. friend from North York (Mr. Mulock)
said, he fought against the thirteen colonies which
rose in revolt against England. Although a Frenchman, speaking French, and having
only French
blood in his veins, he fought against the French
army on the frontier commanded by Lafayette,
and in the face of proclamations from the King of
France, and appeals from Bishop Carroll to the
religion of the French Canadians. The French
Canadians had hardly seen the French flag depart
across the frontier or taken down from the Quebec
fortress, when they recognised their duty to fight
for their new Sovereign. They did not love their
new Sovereign then; they had not time to know
him or to love him; but they fought like good
and loyal men, and they carried the day, and
this country has remained to this day one of
the brightest gems of the Crown of England
through the arms and the blood of my ancestors
and the French Canadians generally. If those
French Canadians, so much despised by the hon.
member for North Simcoe, had not been there
to defend this country and to keep it as a portion
of the British Empire, where would the hon.
gentleman be to-day? He would not be here to
fight us and despise us and try to put us under his
feet. No. I do not know where he would be; but
at all events he would not be here to fight that
battle that will end in his defeat, he may be sure of
that. I cannot imagine that the hon. gentleman
has not some other idea than fanaticism in a movement of this kind. He would have
us believe that
his object is to make this country a happy country,
a country where the people from one ocean to the
other, and from the North Pole to the American
frontier, will speak English. Well, the hon.
gentleman will have gone to his grave, and all his
children, and all his grandchildren, and all his
great grandchildren will have gone there too, and
even after that there will be three or four million
French Canadians speaking French. He need not
try that; he will not succeed. It was tried before
when we were a great deal fewer in number than
we are now, and it did not succeed. The hon.
gentleman spoke of the report of Lord Durham.
Well, Lord Durham was a very able man, but we
know how he went out of this country. He had
not finished his work of examining the state of the
country, and he left it in a huff because he was not
sustained in England in the disposition he had
made of certain political prisoners whom he had
exiled to Bermuda against all law, the same thing
as the hon. gentleman is trying to do. The hon.
gentleman says that in that report the reasons
given by Lord Durham were these:
"I expected to find a contest between a Government
and a people; I found two nations warring in the bosom
of a single State; I found a struggle, not of principle, but
of race; and I perceived that it would be idle to attempt
any amelioration of laws or institutions until we could
first succeed in terminating the deadly animosity that now
separates the inhabitants of Lower Canada into the hostile divisions of French and
English."
Â
The hon. gentleman read that, but he took great
care not to speak at all of the struggle that was
going on at the same time in the Province of Upper
Canada, now the Province of Ontario. He knew
perfectly well that the cause of the struggle in
Upper Canada was that the people were not
607
[COMMONS] 608
allowed to govern themselves, but that there were
a certain few called the Family Compact, who had
all the places, all the power, and who ruled the
country as they pleased, and the people had no
voice or power. That was the cause of the trouble
in Upper Canada, and the hon. gentleman did
not say a word about it. But the state of
affairs was exactly the same in Lower Canada. There was no fight between the races.
The immense majority of the people were French,
but men were sent from England to govern us, and
our people had no right to have a voice in their
own government. They had to submit to having
all their judges and executive councillors and legislative councillors of one stripe;
Legislative Assembly, they could not even do what
they thought proper with their own money. That
brought about a struggle. The cause of that
struggle was a good one; but, according to the
authorities on matters of that kind, a people has
no right to rise in rebellion unless they have the
strength and the means to enforce a recognition of
their rights. Our people had not that strength.
In Upper Canada as well as in Lower Canada they
rose and fought, and were defeated; and they
should have expected defeat, because they had
neither the money, the ammunition, nor the guns.
Well, in England our people were not heard. The
constitution of Lower Canada was suspended, but
not that of Upper Canada. The Upper Canadians
were treated better than we, because, I suppose,
we were nearer the sea and could be got at
better; but that would have been a strong
reason to have done the contrary, and have left us
our constitution and taken it from those who were
further away from the reach of England. But
that was not done. We did not complain: we are
a race which has suffered a long time, and we have
been in the habit of suffering, but we never lose
heart. We always cling to our principles and our
ideas, we know what are our rights, and when the
time comes to assert them, we assert them. To-day
is the time when we must assert them against the
hon. gentleman who seeks to have the majority of
the House set them aside. I hope this House will
not consent to that, but will show the hon. gentleman that his ideas of persecution
and fanaticism
are not those of the majority of the people, and
will show that the majority speaking the English
language are not disposed to do usâwho are in the
minority, but a large minorityâan injustice. We
have confidence in the majority; we are not beggars
here, we are not asking favors, but what we ask
is the continued enjoyment of the right we possess
by nature and as British subjects. We have the
right to speak our own language. What harm would
it do the North-West for the thousand or soâ-âI do
not know how many French Canadians there are
in the North-Westâto be allowed to speak their own
language. How much would the North-West be
depreciated, how much would it lose, by allowing
those French Canadians who have gone there confiding in the law of Parliament, confiding
in the
protection given them by the British laws, to speak
their own language. Supposing two or three of
them should be elected at the next elections to sit
in the Legislative Assembly there, these men will
not speak in both languages. After I have spoken
in English, I do not intend repeating my remarks
in French, though I have the right to do so. I
would never think of doing that, because I know
that the great majority of members understand
the broken English I am speaking now. These
two or three men will not prolong the sittings of
that House, and if they have anything to say, they
will say it in their own language, and that is all.
Then, what harm can be done to that country? In
what way will that country suffer by allowing that
right? But the hon. gentleman says: "There will be
so many French Canadians there, and I do not like
that. I do not want French Canadians to be there."
But he cannot help himself. The law may be
passed, but the French Canadians will go there.
They are in the habit of going everywhere. They
went there long before the English people did,
and when that country was purchased by us from
the Hudson Bay Company, we found a large
majority of French Canadians there. But nobody
complained of that and we took them in. Now the
majority is English speaking. Why, then, should
you maltreat the French Canadians? Why should
you not treat them as friends and brothers? I
think you should treat them as you would wish to
be treated if you were in the minority. Supposing
the majority here were French and that instead of
the hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy), a
French member would get up and say that in the
North-West there were only a thousand or five
hundred English speaking men, and that the
others were all French, and ask that these Englishmen be forbidden to speak their
own language,
would you find that just? Would you agree to
that? Would you say that was proper treatment?
No. You would say it was oppression, you would
speak of rebellion and of the rising of thousands of
men from other Provinces to protect these five
hundred.
Sir HECTOR LANGEVIN. And I would say
that you were right, in claiming justice for your
compatriots as we do for ours. The people in the
North-West, never thought of this question until
the hon. gentleman, after his fiasco here last Session, thought that as he had had
very little success
then, he would try something bigger, in order that
his name should continue to be before the public,
and that he might have the chance of doing something. Well, the hon. gentleman went
up there
as a missionary. He said to the people of Manitoba,
that they were oppressed, that the French language
should disappear, that those Frenchmen were a
nuisance, and that they should abolish the French
language. More than that, he said that the
separate schools should disappear. Then he
went on to the North-West, and tried to impress
the same views upon the people there, and I have
no doubt that if the two languages had been used
in British Columbia, the hon. gentleman would
have exercised his efforts on these people too.
But he was saved of the trouble, as the two
languages do not exist there. The Province was
settled, and had its constitution before it entered
Confederation. But the hon. gentleman, nevertheless, wishes to impress upon this Parliament
the
necessity of interfering in this matter. Well, that
is a most dangerous proceeding on his part. The
weapons he uses can be used by two and not only
by one, and if injustice is done anywhere, that is
generally followed by injustice elsewhere. I hope
there will be no such injustice done. I would be
the last man to retaliate; and if injustice should
609 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 610
be done to my countrymen in the North-West, I
would prefer to suffer a thousand years, than to
retaliate by doing injustice to others. I want to
be well understood. The minority in the Province
of Quebec speak the English language. The
minority speaking the English language are divided into two sections, the Roman Catholics
and
the Protestants. The French are there in a large
majority. Well, for nothing in the world would I
consent, with any influence I might have on my Â
French Canadian countrymen, that they would do the
smallest injustice to the other races in my Province.
I know that, though there may be one or two men
who, at the moment when they are excited and are
in all their glory or in all their glorification, may
make threats of that kind, hon. gentlemen need
not attend to these threats or these amplifications,
but may be assured that the people of the Province
of Quebec, as a whole, the masses of the people,
would never consent to anything of that kind. If
there were any chance of that being done, I would,
even during the Session of Parliament, leave my
seat here and go down into the Province and call
meetings, and say: Do not commit an injustice,
though injustices were committed towards you at
the beginning of the colony, that has gone by; we
are treated properly, our institutions are protected,
our language is protected, and notwithstanding
what the hon. gentleman wishes, it will be protected and will continue to be used,
our religion is
safe, we may pray and adore God as we please; but
we wish our neighbors to have the same freedom to
speak their own language, the English language; we
wish to have their institutions protected as ours are;
we wish them to have their own temples and to adore
God as they please, and they must be protected accordingly in doing so. If occasional
exceptions to
that occur, they occur not only in our Province but
in other Provinces. They are momentary ebullitions which are to be deplored not only
in our
Province but in the other Provinces; but the sense
of justice always takes the lead, and soon the
remedy comes and the protection is extended as it
was before. I do not wish to delay the House too
long, but, as I do not intend to make several
speeches on this question, no matter what the
number of amendments may be, I wish to say a
few words further. The hon. gentleman in order
to show how kind he is to our race, how kind he is
to his neighbors, what good-will he has towards us,
what a great heart he has towards his French
Canadian friends, subjects of the same power, says:
"Let hon. gentlemen remember that when this country
was ceded to the British Crown there were not more than
60,000 or 65,000 French Canadians"â
He is sorry to see that we are now a million and a
half,â
"I think that number includes, though I am not quite
certain those who dwelt on the banks of the Illinois, and
who did not become a part of the Dominion of Canada."
Here comes the beauty of his speech:
"However that may be, instead of encouraging them
in the use of their language, had a policy being pursued
of inducing them-not by any harsh means at all, not by
any aggravating measuresâto speak the English tongue,
I want to know whether to-day, instead of the difference,
the cleavage of race which we see going on, and which is
becoming more and more pronounced, and which is
calculated to rend this Dominion in twain, if some stop
is not put to itâI would like to know whether we would
see the spectacle that we see to-day? I think it is
perfectly plain that we would not see it. I think no
injustice would have been done"â
Of course not.â
â"and that in one generation, or in two at most my
hon. friends that now represent the Province of Quebec,
or their ancestbrs, would have been speaking
English "â
What do I speak to-day?
â"and would have been English in deed, English in
sentiment, just as much as those who have gone to
the other side of the line, no matter what country they
come from, whether from Austria, from Italy, from
Germany, or any other country in Europe, who
have now become assimilated and form part of the
American people, not merely in name, but in truth and
in fact."
Well, Mr. Speaker, the kindness of the hon.
gentleman surpasses anything I could have
imagined. He is so good; he is so kind; he
would have wished to choke us, not by any harsh
means, not by any aggravating measures, but only
by a choking process. That is all. The hon.
gentleman must know that the French Canadians
have contributed, and do contribute, largely, and
within their means, and according to their numbers, to the prosperity of this country.
They do
it in their own way. They do not do it in English;
they do it in French. I wonder if an act done in
French is not as good as if it were done in
English. I wonder if the hon. gentleman, when
he gives something to charity, or puts some money
on the plate on Sunday, for the poor, does not as
good an act as my hon. friend, on the other side,
who speaks French. The hon. gentleman may
be sure that the day will come, when he speaks
French, when he will see that I am right. I am
convinced that he is learning French now. He is
now against us because he does not know French,
because he does not understand the acts of our
people; he does not know what literature we
have; he cannot read it, he cannot appreciate it,
he cannot understand it, and, therefore, we must
forgive him a great deal on account of that
ignorance, a word which I do not use in any bad
sense, but in reference to his ignorance of that
language. The hon. gentleman says that, if such
a policy had been pursued as he indicates, it would
have made the French Canadians speak English.
That is what he wants to do now, but this we will
not allow him to do, to adopt a principle that may be
used afterwards from one end of the Confederacy
to the other. That will not be allowed. I am
sure the large majority of this House do not intend to break this Confederation into
two or three
parts. They do not intend to destroy this
country. This hon. gentleman speaks of uniting
the country; he says he wants a united people all
speaking the same language; and yet he is doing
his best to divide this country, to divide us as to
races, to put the French and Catholics on one side,
and the Protestants on the other side. He will not
succeed in that attempt. I know a great many
Protestants who will not agree to that, and I know
many Catholics who will not allow it. If we intend
to prosper in this country, and to see our institutions succeed, we must be united,
and we must not
be quarrelling as we have been for the last few
days, and must not divide our people by races.
The hon. gentleman thinks that by his Bill he is
destroying us. He will see, before many days or
many hours are over, that his little scheme has the
contrar effect, that it is uniting us on both sides
of the case against him, that it is uniting us as
one man. And what good will that do? that
611
[COMMONS] 612
what the hon. gentleman wants? He never
thought of it. He thought we would be divided
in politics. There is no politics in this. It is a
question of race and nationality. It is a question
of self-preservation, and if he thinks that we are to
allow the hon. gentlemen on the other side, who
have the same sentiments, the same aspirations
and the same blood as we have, to be choked, he
will find himself mistaken. We will go together
to preserve our autonomy, our language, our institutionsâeverything which is sacred
to a nation.
Our forefathers have been buried in the Province
of Quebec. There are the very grounds where we
go and pray for their souls, as good Catholics, and
does he think that we will abandon that country,
that he is going to chase us away without a struggle?
We would be untrue to our blood. The hon.
gentleman wants us to abandon our language, he
wants us to change our names as well, because our
names cannot remain as they are. My name, Langevin, is a French name. I do not know
how he
would call me in English. But he may be sure
that we will not repudiate our names, we will not
repudiate our blood, we will not repudiate our
ancestors. We do not want the hon. gentleman to
despise us. We would deserve to be despised, we
would be unworthy of our blood, if we allowed
him to do so. Mr. Speaker, I wish to mention
another point, but I will do so briefly, because my
hon. friend from Montreal Centre (Mr. Curran)
has alluded to it in a very eloquent way, and in
French, this afternooon. French is not his own
tongue, but he wished to show that he, of another
race, he, an Irishman, had the same feelings that
we had, and that he would not allow us to be
trampled upon, as the hon. gentleman wishes. The
hon. member from North Simcoe quoted The
Month, as follows :â
"While freely admitting that the French Canadian is
behind his English speaking neighbor, not only in farming, but in commerce, trade"â
What did the writer in The Month know about
that? He never saw it.â Â
"trade, and all kindred branches, we must not take
for granted everything that this same English speaking
neighbor says of him. One of the most striking and
curious things in the social life of Lower Canada is the
latent hate which the French and English speaking races
have for each other. It is a sad thing to say, but truth
requires that it should be said, that English speaking
people, no matter whether they are English, Irish or
Scotch, have rarely a good word for their French neighbors; and it is still sadder
and more unaccountable that
of all of those English speaking people, the Irish are
those between whom and the French there seems to be
the least rapport, and the greatest enmity."
Well, Mr. Speaker, there is not a word of truth
in that. This is as false as a place that I will not
name.
Sir HECTOR LANGEVIN. I have lived all
my life in the Province of Quebec, except, of
course, during the time that I have lived in Ottawa,
and enjoyed the confidence the majority of this
House and the people have had in me and in my
colleagues. I know that the two races âwhen I
say the two races, I mean not only the Irish, but
the Scotch and the English in the Province of
Quebec, as well as the Frenchâagree very well;
they live alongside each other, and the hatred that
is mentioned in this magazine, and that the hon.
member for North Simcoe brings up here as evidence of a necessity of changing our
language, does
not at all existâfar from it. The hon. gentleman
from Montreal Centre gave some examples, and I
will give some more. When Irish immigrants were
coming into this country, and when a ship fever
broke out among them, and they were detained at
the quarantine station at Grosse Isle, and the
living cargoes of these ships were landed, what did
the clergy of the Province of Quebec do? We saw
that Cardinal Taschereau, then only a priest,
went to their assistance. He had no business to
go, because he was then at the Seminary at Quebec,
but he offered his services, and a number of others
along with him, to rescue these poor Irishmen. A
number of Sisters of Charity, also speaking French,
went to Grosse Isle to attend to the wants of
these poor, sick people, and a number of them
lost their lives while caring for these poor
Irishmen, women and children. And when these
men and women, the fathers and mothers of poor
orphans, were gone, what became of these children? Were they left there on the island
to die?
No. French Canadian families adopted them,
they were well taken care of, and they became
French Canadians. The hon. gentleman calls that
absorption of race. I wish we could see more of
such an absorption of races, not only among the
French, but among the other races. I believe if
a thing of this kind occurred in Ontario, and that
French Canadians were the sufferers, I am sure
that their orphans would be well taken care of and
adopted into English-speaking families. So much to
show the hatred of the races. We adopted their
children when they were orphans; we came to
their rescue when they were suffering. More than
that, when our people suffer, when French Canadian families are in want, and there
are any Irish
families in the neighborhood, the hearts of the
Irish people beat with sympathy for our people,
and the Irishman and his wife come to the relief
of the French Canadian families. That is the
hatred that exists in the Province of Quebec. I
hope that before this debate is through we will
hear a few words from the members of the Province of Quebec who speak the English
language,
and who are Protestants. I hope that they will
come out and express their opinions and say how
we treat them, and how we treat the English, Irish
and the Scotch in our Province. Let them come out.
I do not know how many of them will speak, or
whether any of them will do so, but I hope they
will speak in order to repel that assertion of the
hon. member for Simcoe. The hon. gentleman, at
the end of his long speech, asked:
"Now, are we going to perpetuate this system of
things? Are we going to permit it to grow into what
might be called a vested right: so that by-and-bye a
French Canadian can urge, and with some degree of
truth: 'I have left my own home in the Province of Quebec
and have gone and settled in the North-West Territories
relying on the faith of an Act of Parliament, by
which it was said I should be allowed to have my language.'"
Vested rights by law! As if a man had not a
right to speak his own language. Who gave the
hon. gentleman a better right to speak English
than a French Canadian to speak French? The
French were here long before the ancestors of
the hon. gentleman. They all spoke French, and
they increased largely in numbers. I suppose it
was the design of Providence that it should be so,
and they have multiplied to such an extent that
the hon. gentleman is frightened, and they con
613 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 614
tinue to speak French, and will continue to do so
for a long time to come. The hon. gentleman
makes his speeches in English, but he does not
want to allow another member to speak in French.
Why does he not try to prevent the German from
speaking German, and see how that will be received. The hon. gentleman said this:
"I will only say, in conclusion, that while I have
thought it right at this early stage to make a statement of
the reasons which have actuated the course I am taking,
I desire here, as I have done elsewhere, to disclaim any
feeling of hostility of any kind against the French
Canadian race or the representatives in this House. I
desire to say that I have no such feelings.
"Mr. BERGERON. Thank you.
"Mr. MCCARTHY. My only desire is to promote the
welfare of us all, and I think our truest interest will be
found in trying to create and build up in this country one
race with one national life, and with a language common
to us all."
How can he create one race, how can he make of
the French race, to which I belong, an English
race? These are only words which sound well;
but, if the hon. gentleman will allow me to say it,
there is no truth in them. They are verily only
catch-words. I hope the hon. gentleman will not
succeed in his motion. I hope there will be sufficient justice in this House to prevent
such an event,
and that hon. members will be far-seeing enough
to discern that this measure is only calculated to
divide this country, to create disunion, and that if
it is persisted in, events may occur which may
cause this House to regret its action for many
years. We have created this Confederation; we
have prospered under it. We may have disagreed
as to the methods of raising moneyâthat is a
matter of opinion; nevertheless we have prospered
under this Constitution. We have large prospects.
We have become an united people from the Atlantic
to the Pacific. Up to the time of Confederation
we did not even know the leading men of other
Provinces, and they hardly knew more than two
or three men from our Province. We had no
intercourse with them; there were barriers between
them and us. All these have disappeared.
Now, men in Halifax call themselves Canadians as
do the men in British Columbia. I went to British
Columbia when they were just getting the political
machine into operation. They were uncertain as
to the future, and did not know what was coming.
I went there for the purpose of assuring them; I
went there for the purpose of knowing the people
in the country. I succeeded to this extent, that
they accepted the new Government with pleasure;
they knew there must be something good in it for
them when they became a member of this great
Confederation. I hope we will show that good
feeling among ourselves, that union and harmony
which will induce our neighbors in Newfoundland
to unite their fortunes with ours. I hope the time
will come when they will do so, and then this great
Confederation will comprise all British soil from
the Atlantic to the Pacific. But in order to accomplish this result we must not tyrannise
over one
race or another. Let our neighbors speak the language they think proper. We are all
subjects of
the Queen, and we are equally loyal whether we
speak one language or another. We do not want
to change our relations, but we desire to maintain
British institutions. Our constitution is modelled
on the constitution of Great Britain. We have the
same Queen, the same flag, the same aspirations.
Why, then, should we make a large portion of our
  Â
population unhappy, and create dissensions in our
midst? I apologise to the House for occupying so
much time, but I feel keenly on this matter, and I
thought, under the circumstances, I should express
my opinion, and having said so much I resume my
seat.
Mr. LAVERGNE. This question is of so much
interest to the French Canadian people that I feel
it to be my duty to take part in this debate. I do
not wish to occupy much of the time of the House,
but I feel I would not be doing my duty if I gave
a silent vote on this matter. The hon. member for
North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy) in introducing this
Bill, gave a history of the establishment of the
French language in this country. He quoted from
old documents, and went as far back as the time
of the cession of this country to England. He
might have completed his history by saying that
this language, which he seeks to wipe out, was established here two centuries before
the time of the
cession. This language was the language of the
country in the 16th century. The hon. gentleman,
in speaking of the Treaty of Paris of 1763, told the
House that this treaty did not contain any provision which guaranteed us the use of
our language.
But he has told us that since the cession, we have
practically enjoyed the use of that language,
and that finally, in 1844, the right to its
use was embodied in our legislation. What
was the conclusion at which the hon. gentleman arrived on these facts? His conclusion
was, that we were not entitled to use it.
I must say I was rather surprised knowing the
hon. gentleman's ability, to find him arrive at such
a conclusion from such premises. I draw an entirely
different conclusion from them. If we have enjoyed
those rights for a century, if they have been
embodied in our legislation since 1844, I think we
have a perfect title. I know the hon. gentleman
does not profess a great deal of love for us. He
admits that being bound by the treaty we should
enjoy the rights which were guaranteed to us by
Great Britain and no more. Very likely if the
hon. gentleman had been employed to assist in
making the treaty, he would not have granted the
rights we obtained. He would rather have favored
deportation, and our fate would have been the one
allotted to the Acadians. Fortunately for us the
hon. gentleman came too late into this world. The
British Crown thought it their bounden duty to
deal fairly with us and treat us generously, and it
was part of their policy to give us the rights to which
we were fully entitled, for they well knew that
if they wished to form a nation here, the people
must be allowed to use their own language.
In fact, Sir, although the French people were not
very numerous and were scattered over the country
it was impossible to govern them without allowing
them their own language. It is very sure that if
these rights had been refused to them, the Union
Jack which now floats on the Citadel of Quebec
would have been removed not very long after the
cession and the Stars and Stripes would have replaced it. I say, Sir, that although
the hon. gentleman, Mr. McCarthy, said it was a big mistake on
their part to grant those privileges, yet I maintain
that from a. British standpoint it was an act of
wisdom that the British should have done what
they did. We have enjoyed these rights for over
a century, we have grown to be a people of over
615 [COMMONS] 616
a million living in this country, and our existence
is very evident, although it may not please the
member for North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy). I may
say that I feel quite at home in this country; I
believe that I am entitled to feel at home in this
country, and I will add to this assertion a French
phrase which no Englishman can disclaim:
Honi
soit qui mal y pense. The hon. gentleman in order
to show the disadvantage of the dual language has
quoted to us part of the report of Lord Durham
or of Mr. Buller as we may choose. It has
already been read by the hon. the Minister
of Public Works and I will not cite it, but
it was quoted by the hon. gentleman (Mr. McCarthy), to show that there was a struggle
between
the two races at that time. I say, Sir, that it is
not a fair argument, and that it does not give a fair
idea of the actual situation in this country. But
if we go back to this time, what do we see that the
French people were fighting for? They were
fighting for their love of British institutions. They
were fighting to obtain their rights, and as a result
of that fight, they finally succeeded in obtaining
responsible Government. It was no wonder that
Lord Durham found the people a little excited at
that time, but the quotation does not represent the
situation of the country either then or at the present time. To show the inconvenience
of the dual
language, the hon. gentleman (Mr. McCarthy), has
cited certain extracts from the newspapers or
magazines. I may say that I believe the hon.
gentleman in his researches for the truth, was
sincere, but I also say, that if he had the intention
of misleading this House, he could not have sought
information from better sources to attain this
object. One of his quotations was the following,
which I will read with your permission:â
"'We are Englishmen speaking the French language,'
said the late Sir George Cartier, the colleague and close
personal friend of Sir John A. Macdonald. Before this he
was the undisputed leader of the French Canadian element
in Canada; three years later he was unmercifully beaten
at the polls for Montreal East by an obscure young
lawyer by the name of JettĂŠ. The crushing defeat was
the French Canadian way of punishing Sir George for his
ultra-loyal speech and the misrepresentation it embodied.
Not that French Canadians are not well affected to the
Empire as things go; only it must be understood they
are well affected as French Canadians."
I say, Sir, that this extract, as well as the other
which has been cited by the hon. gentleman, is a
tissue of falsehoods. We all know very wellâand
it does not take a very long memory to recall the
facts of the election between Sir George Cartier
and the Hon. Mr. JettĂŠ. I may say, by the way,
that Mr. JettĂŠ was not an obscure lawyer and this
is one of the first falsehoods in the quotations.
Mr. JettĂŠ was one of the leading barristers of the
Province of Quebec and very shortly after he was
made a judge of the Superior Court and he has
added honor to the bench in the administration of
justice. This, however, only shows the sources
from which the hon. gentleman has taken his
information. The defeat of Sir George Cartier
cannot in any way be assigned to the reasons
which are mentioned in that article. Gentlemen
from Montreal know exactly the cause of that
defeat, and if I recollect well the terminus of the
Canadian Pacific Railway had something to do
with it,and Sir George Cartier had, besides, perhaps,
a little quarrel with some high dignitaries of the
church, which helped to bring about that result.
His defeat was in no way connected with the
reasons which are given by that writer. Again,
Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman made the following quotation from the Month:
"While freely admitting that the French Canadian is
behind his English-speaking neighbor, not only in farming, but in commerce, trade
and all kindred branches,
we must not take for granted everything that this same
English-speaking neighbor says of him. One of the
most striking and curious things in the social life of
Lower Canada is the latent hate which the French and
English-speaking races have for each other. It is a sad
thing to say, but truth requires that it should be said,
that English-speaking people, no matter whether they
are English, Irish or Scotch, have rarely a good word for
their French neighbors; and it is still sadder and more
unaccountable that of all those English-speaking people,
the Irish are those between whom and the French there
seems to be the least rapport and the greatest enmity."
This was written in 1885, and although I am not
an old man, I can give evidence upon this point,
and I can, from my own knowledge, declare that
this statement is a complete falsehood; I live in
Arthabaska, surrounded by the Counties of
Megantic, Drummond and Richmond, where there
is a mixed population, and which counties are
fair sample of the condition of things existing in
counties inhabited by people of different races. I
speak from experience, when I say that
there are no better friends than the English
and the French in my section of the country.
I know as a practicing lawyer that when there are
discussions or quarrels, they are not between English-speaking and French-speaking
people, but
between English among themselves and French
among themselves; and that statement will be corroborated by every member who resides
in those
sections of the country. It will be corroborated
by the hon. member for Stanstead (Mr. Colby), the
hon. member for Compton (Mr. Pope), and the
hon. member for Richmond (Mr. Ives); in fact,
Sir, by all the members who represent what are
called English counties, in which there is a mixed
population. This was given as an argument to
show the great inconvenience of the dual languages,
and when we come to examine the facts, we find
that they turn the hon. gentleman's argument
against himself. The hon. gentleman has spoken
of the Hon. Mr. Mercier, and he has told us that
he represented the opinions and feelings of his
countrymen. I presume, Sir, that is not altogether
admitted by hon. gentlemen on the other side of
the House. However, I say that the hon. gentleman could not find any argument there;
what he
brought as an argument would, in that instance,
turn against him also. Mr. Mercier did not receive a very strong support in the English
counties in the general election of 1886; but
since that time the Protestant and English
minority in the Province have manifested their
approval of the course of Mr. Mercier on more
than one occasion; and if Mr. Mercier, under
provocation, has not always measured his
words, in his legislation he has given entire
satisfaction to the English minority. I go
further, and I say that he has given them
their full share of the patronage and favors,
and I am glad he has done so, and I think
that in every Province the minority should
be treated in a particularly considerate manner.
Now, when Mr. Mercier came before the people in
1886 what was the result in the County of Megantic, for instance? He was in Opposition
at that
time, and the candidate opposing his policy, Mr.
Johnson, was returned by a majority of 280. The
617 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 618
election was annulled, and another election took
place, when Mr. Mercier put another candidate in
the field, and that majority of 280 against him was
turned into a minority of about 150. Take the
County of Ottawa, which may surely be considered
an English county. Mr. Cormier, in the general
election, was returned by a fair majority, but the
election was annulled, and in the election that
followed Mr. Mercier's candidate was returned
by a majority of 1,200. In Brome, the Hon.
Mr. Lynch, in the general election, was returned
by a majority of about 300. Mr. Lynch was
appointed a judge, and an election was held last
fall. Mr. Mercier put into the field a candidate
who had many disadvantages. He was not a resident of the county while his opponent
was; he had
also the disadvantage that, although a prohibitionist, he had against him the Dominion
Alliance, who
chose to support the other candidate, in which, I
may say by the way, I think they acted very unfairly. What was the result of that
election?
Notwithstanding those disadvantages, the majority
of 300 against Mr. Mercier was reduced to 116. I
will take a still more recent election to show that
the policy of Mr. Mercier has been supported by
the English minority of the Province of Quebecâ
the election in Quebec West. Mr. Murphy was
elected in the general election of 1886 by a majority
of 5, and this winter he came before the people
once more, when he was returned by a majority of
nearly 200; and if we consult the returns we shall
find that in the three English polling sub-divisions
he polled a very much larger majority than he had
done in 1886. Now, Sir, that is the expression of
the sentiment of the English minority in the Province of Quebec, and it is no argument
to say that
Mr. Mercier has been aggressive towards the English people; but we have a right to
deduce from
these facts the conclusion that once more the
argument of the hon. member turns against
himself. Now, Sir, I will not enter into a discussion of the arguments based on phrenology
or on the formation of the French skull or the
Saxon skull; I think the hon. member for
Assiniboia (Mr. Davin) did entire justice to that
part of the subject. I must say that I regret very
much that this question has come before the
House, for two reasons: As was said by the hon.
member from the North-West, who spoke yesterday , this measure should not have come
from the
quarter from which it has come. It comes before
us under bad auspices. We know, Sir, what are
the aims of the hon. gentleman who has brought
it forward, and if I may judge from the facts and
the arguments brought before us, I do not think
he ever expected to carry the legislation he is presenting to this Parliament. We
know that he has
been more cautious in his expressions in this
House than he has been elsewhere, but we have a
right to go beyond this House. The speech which
he has made in this House is very different from
what he said in this city before the Equal Rights
Association. Let me read a few lines from that
speech. In the beginning he says:
"I have to thank you most cordially for approving of
my course in Parliament, on the question of the Jesuits'
Estates Act, and still more for your endorsement, if I
may consider you have endorsed it, of the policy I am
now promoting, and which I shall continue to promote,
viz., the abolition of the dual language system and of
Separate Schools in Manitoba and the North-West Territories."
I will read another short extract from that speech:
"We have no hostility to Quebec; their good is our
good. They are being extirpated from the landâare being driven away in hundreds of
thousands by the iniquitous tithe law imposed by the Act of 1774âconsecrated
by the Act of 1867. What does history teach us? It is
a poor farming country in Quebec or possibly it is farmed
by a poor class of farmers. The people are already overburdened, and they are fleeing
by hundreds of thousands
from these burdens. I saw a statement the other day
that two hundred heads of families in Rimouski have
disappeared across the borders within a few months. Is
it to be wondered at? Do you think that people will
continue for centuries to be tied down by tithe, fabrique
assessments, &c., when there is a land of freedom for
them across the border? If it is an object to us to keep
our people here, I want to see the French Canadians kept
here so long as their interests are not antagonistic to the
rest of the Dominion, and this can only be obtained by
doing away with laws of this kind."
And the hon. gentleman obtained loud cheers at this
moment. If this is meant for provocation, it does
not reach us, we would simply despise it; but if it is
meant as an argument in favor of the legislation the
hon. gentleman is calling for now it is very unskilful.
It has been pretended that the use of the French
language in the North-West Territories practically
is of no consequence; but if it is of no importance,
I should say, why do they not leave it alone? I
should say that it would die out of itself through
not being used; and later on, if the proportion of
French in the population of the Territories goes on
decreasing, and the French language is practically
of no use, it might then be the time to ask for
legislation; there would then be no protest from
any quarter against it, and these disagreeable
discussions and fictions would be avoided. We are
now asked to pass this legislation. I am convinced
now, after hearing the hon. gentleman's speech on
that question, that to do so is perfectly impossible.
It might, and I do not say that it will not,
ultimately result in becoming a question of provincial rights or a question of autonomy;
but I
say for the present, although I am not quite ready
to view the question as my hon. friend for Berthier does, although I am not quite
ready to say
that I am going to support his amendment, this
question is now premature, and for this reason I
shall certainly oppose the Bill.
Mr. MILLS (Bothwell). We have heard so
many criticisms on the Bill and the speech of the
hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy),
that I confess I feel some reluctance in rising to
discuss or criticise the speech which that hon. gentleman addressed to the House.
I may say at the
outset that the preamble to the Bill and the speech
which was delivered in its support are of
far greater consequence than the Bill itself. I regret the speech of the hon. member
in introducing
the Bill which we are now called upon to consider.
That speech points, not simply to the disuse of the
French language in the North-West Territories,
but to its total disuse throughout the Dominion for
social and literary as well as for official purposes.
The hon. gentleman declared that we can only become politically united in one State
by having but
one language. The Bill of the hon. member, though
but of little practical importance, is accompanied by
a speech that the House cannot at all ignore. The
hon. gentleman has evinced the most bitter hostility
to all his fellow-countrymen who speak the French
language, and who are of French origin. He, it
seemed to me, in that speech, was far more anxious
to wound the susceptibilities of his friends and
619
[COMMONS] 620
fellow-countrymen who speak the French language
than he was to secure a more permanent union of the
various Provinces that are united in one Federal State. The hon. gentleman said, in
addressing himself not only to the French members
in this House, but to the French people throughout
the country: You are a conquered race; you have
no right to aspire to equality, and at best you
are but Gibeonites in the midst of Israel. The hon.
gentleman quoted the observations which I made
some thirteen years ago on this particular clause
which he proposes to strike out from the North- West Territories Act, and I supposed
the hon.
gentleman had quoted those observations with
approval. I said then that the question was one
that the Government thought it was better should
be left to the Council that was about to be
established. Why? Because we thought then
that it was not necessary that we should decide in
advance of actual settlement whether there should
be two languages or one used. We did not
think it was wise to propose the use of both
French and English in those Territories until we
were quite sure that there would be both French and
English colonists found there. When that Bill went
to the Senate an hon. Senator, representing, I think,
the Province of Manitoba, proposed this particular
amendment, and I will say now that if that
amendment served to conciliate any section
of the half-breed population, if it prevented those
people from being misled by mischievous persons,
then it was a prudent provision, and it has proved
infinitely cheaper than gunpowder and police.
I say that at this day, after that clause has been
thirteen years upon the statute book, it is not
possible for our French countrymen to complain
that any impediment has been put in their way
in emigrating to or in settling in the North-West
Territory; and if to-day there are but few
French people colonising the North-West Territories, it is not because they have been
put in an
inferior position by the legislation on the statute
book. Thirteen years have gone by since that
provision first became a part of the law. During
that period racial jealousies have been kept dormant.
There has been little expense to the country in
consequence, and the statement made by the hon.
Minister of Public Works this evening shows that
the cost of public printing in both English and
French in the North-West Territories has been
something less than the cost of maintaining three
policemen during the same period of time, and the
cost of furnishing those who speak the French language with official documents in
their own tongue has
been less than the maintenance of a single policeman. I venture to say that, so far
as any burden
upon the public treasury is concerned, this House
cannot for a moment attach any serious importance
to the question the hon. gentleman has raised. There
has been no murmuring of Grecians against Hebrews,
there has been no complaint that there has been
partiality shown or wrong done or negligence exhibited towards any portion of the
population. The
sources of discontent in this particular were cut off,
at the very beginning, and what we proposed at the
start might now perhaps be carried out without
fear of injustice and without any serious objection. In fact, I have heard no objection
stated,
unless it be in the speech which the hon. gentleman who moved this Bill addressed
to the
House. The hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr.
McCarthy) spoke as if it were an offence against
British institutions that any of Her Majesty's
subjects should speak French. He assumed that
the speaking of French was at variance with allegiance to the British Crown. He reminded
the
French Canadians that this is a Britich colony,
that they are a conquered race, and cannot
thefore stand on a footing of equality with Her
Majesty's subjects who speak the English language. That it was an unwarrantable presumption
on their part to aspire to the rights of freemen,
unless they were willing to lay aside their mother
tongue. He said the use of the French language
was not guaranteed by the Treaty of Paris, that it
was not mentioned in the Act of 1774, or in the
Constitutional Act of 1791; that, in fact, there
was no authority to use the French language in
Canada until the year 1848, and that the calamity
which was then inflicted upon the country was
repeated in the Confederation Act of 1867, and
care must now be taken that the evil then introduced should not be further extended.
It seemed
to me that the hon. gentleman forgot that we
have no Act of Parliament authorising us to stand
upon our feet instead of upon our heads, and yet
the great majority of the people of this country
have the ill-manners to do so without the authority
of an Act of Parliament, and they manage to get
along with a considerable degree of comfort. I
would like to know what constitutional rule the
hon. gentleman has in view when he comes to the
conclusion that French could not be lawfully spoken
in a Colonial Legislature without the express permission of an Act of the Imperial
Parliament.
Why, Mr. Speaker, the great majority of Her
Majesty's subjects do not speak Englishâthey
cannot speak English. A law requiring them to
speak English would doom them to silence.
When a Legislative Assembly was granted
to the people of Lower Canada, it was granted
to people who spoke only French. The vast
majority of those who were elected to the Local
Legislature to represent those people knew only
French. French was the only means of communication between the representatives and
the
represented, and it would have been a mockery on
the part of the Crown to have issued letters
patent authorising some one on its behalf to call a
Legislative Assembly and to doom that Assembly
to silence after it was called together, because no
member might have been capable of speaking the
English tongue. It is clear that that Assembly
did not understand that any such permission from
the Imperial authorities was necessary to authorise
the use of the French language. It was the only
language they knew. The people of the Province
spoke French at home; they heard French spoken
at church; they used the French language in the
market; and I do not know why the rule of
convenience should be abrogated in the Legislature
or by the Government, when it is followed in every
other sphere of life. I might remind the hon. gentleman, that the most influential
oration that any
man ever made, on the most splendid theme which
could inspire oratory, was delivered to Jews and
Greeks, Parthians and Medes, Elamites and dwellers in Messopotamia, and they all managed
to
hear him in their own tongue. There was no
violation of the principle of nationality; but,
although it was then proposed to establish a
common brotherhood between men of altogether
621 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 622
different races, it was never suggested that they
should undo the mischief which had been done in
the reign of Peleg. To secure the desired union they
were to bring men together on a common platform
although the relation proposed was much closer
than that of common citizens of the same State. The
hon. gentleman assumes that, when Canada became
a British Province, its people lost the right to use
the only language they knew, because its use was
not guaranteed to them by the articles of capitulation or the treaty of peace. He
assumed that it was
an unwarrantable presumption for the people of
Canada, without such authority, to use that language. Well, I have always understood,
that the
subjects of Her Majesty are sworn to bear true and
faithful allegiance to Her Majesty, but I have
never heard that they were sworn to speak the
English language. I do not know, if we were
put to the test, how many of us who can speak
no other language would be able to pass the
ordeal, if we were put on trial for an improper
use of the Queen's English. There is no constitutional rule of which I am aware making
the use of
English an indispensable accompaniment of Parliamentary Government or of allegiance
to the British Crown. A man may be a British subject put
on trial for treason and convicted without knowing
a word of English. He may talk Italian in Malta,
French in the Province of Quebec, Dutch at the
Cape, Hindoo at Calcutta, and Chinese at Hong- Kong, without in any degree sacrificing
his
rights or lessening his obligations as a British
subject. The law does not extend his responsibilities beyond his powers. The hon.
gentleman
himself had no voice in saying who his parents
should be, or in determining the place or time
of his birth or the language of his childhood
and education. All these matters were determined
for him by the supreme authority of Providence,
and thisis his vindication in regard to his nationality
and the use of the language which he employs.
There are upon the Royal Arms certain mottoes, and
it happens that they are all in French. One of them
means in English "God and my right." That traces
the rights of men to their original source. That
source, high above every human authority to the
contrary, is the one to which every free man
traces his right to resist wrong and oppression. It
is from that source that the French Canadian
derives his right to speak the language of his
fathers, and any law which attempts to deprive him
of those high rights which belong to him, in the
manner in which the hon. gentleman proposes to
wipe out and obliterate the use of the French
language, would be a law doing violence to those
very objects for the maintenance of which a
Government exists. The hon. gentleman speaks
of the conquest of Canada as something which
made the French Canadians less than ordinary
British subjects. He spoke as if they were
Helots among Spartan freeman. He says practically to them: How dare you talk about
your
rights? Do you not know that you are a conquered race? This matter is very important
because the notion has gone abroad that, in consequence of Canada having been a conquered
country,
the same right does not exist to use the French
language in the Province of Quebec that exists
to use English in the Province of Ontario. There can
be no difference in that respect. The views with
regard to conquest and the rights acquired by con
quest that have been sedulously propagated of late are
altogether erroneous. It is true, as Lord Mansfield
has said, in a very important judgment, that you
may put your enemy to the sword and confiscate
his property as an act of war and during war. This
in theory was the law. This may be theoretically
the law still, although Turkey, sixty years ago, in
making war upon Greece, acted upon practices that
fell far short of this absolute rule, and humanity, it
was held, justified the interference of the great
powers of Europe. Now, what may be done as an
act of war and during war is a wholly different thing
from what may be done after the war is consummated. If the country surrenders, if
articles of capitulation are signed, those parties who were enemies
and aliens before, at once become subjects, and
their persons and property is entitled to protection
at the hands of the new sovereign. The person and
the property of the new subjects do not stand in
any different position from the property and the
person of those who were subjects by birth. The
Sovereign succeeds to public property. The ancient
law continues until he expressly changes it. For as
long as the conqueror fails to create a legislative
assembly he has a right of government, subordinate,
of course, to his right as an integral part of Parliament. But if the sovereign chooses,
by letters
patent, to authorise the calling of a legislative
assembly, the moment those letters patent are
signed, and before that legislative assembly is
called, he has exhausted his power. The subjects
of the country he has acquired by conquest then
have the right of representation, and after the right
of representation is given, they stand in no different position from the subjects
of the same sovereign
in a colony formed by occupation and settlement
of those from the parent country. And when that
assembly is established, without any Act of Parliament, without any expressed power
being given
by the Imperial authorities to do so, its members
may speak English or French, Dutch or Italian,
just as the assembly itself sees proper. It is for that
assembly to determine what shall be the language
employed. In this regard the Crown has no power
except as a part of that assembly or as a part
of the Imperial Parliament. Thus, in the Ionian
Islands, English, Greek and Italian were in use
as long as the islands were under the British
protection. The Island of Corfu is largely settled
by Italians; other islands were mainly peopled by
Greeks. English merchants were found in all of
them and when a Government was given them, all
three languages were used, and they were used
because it was convenient. The public authorities,
did not feel that it was necessary, to deny to these
people, the rights or practices which were felt to
be necessary to every section of the community.
Unless, then, for the purpose of giving offence, the
hon. member's reference to the French of Canada
being a conquered race is wholly without relevancy.
Language, under our constitutional system, in
legislation, in the courts, and in the admimstration
of Government, is regarded as a vehicle of thought,
as an instrument for conveying intelligence. It
is used as a means to an end, and it is never
regarded as a symbol of sovereignty, or of subjection. That is true in every colony
where representative Government has been established. I
would like to know what the hon. member for
Simcoe hopes to gain by insulting two-fifths of
the population of this country. Is it to the
623 [COMMONS] 624
advantage of this country that one race should
be arrayed against another? Can it promote the
well-being of the country in any sense, that
Frenchmen should find it impossible to live with
those speaking English? Will it be easier for this
House to follow the only rational common sense
rule in this matter, the rule of convenience, if once
the passions of the population are excited, and men
are disqualified thereby to reason? Does he think
Frenchmen will remain unmoved by his insults?
If the hon. gentleman insists upon treating the
French population of this country as the Jews
were formerly treated, he must expect that they
will act as the Jews are said to have acted. And
then what Shakespeare has put in the mouth of
Shylock might be used by the French Canadians in
this country. The French Canadians may say:
"I will take this course, for if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge.
"He has scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains,
cooled my friends, heated my enemies, and what is his
reason?
"I am a French Canadian. Hath not a French
Canadian eyes? Hath not a French Canadian hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to
the same diseases healed by the same means, warmed
and cooled by the same winter and summer as an
English-speaking Canadian is? If you prick him will
he not bleed? If you tickle him will he not laugh? If
you poison him will he not die? If you wrong him shall
he not have revenge? The villiany you teach him he
will execute, and it shall go hard, but he will better the
instruction."
Such, to my mind, is the state of feeling which the
hon. gentleman, by his speech, and by the preamble
to his Bill, is doing his best to awaken. Lord
Macaulay said on one occasion, that whenever he
had mastered a new language he always felt as if
he had acquired a new sense. The hon. gentleman
proposes to act towards the French population of
this country in much the same way that the brother
of Robert, Duke of Normandy, acted towards him.
He proposes to put out their eyes. He says: Forget
your mother tongue, forget the orators and statesmen, the novelists and historians,
the poets and
philosophers of France. and then you will begin to
qualify yourselves for becoming good British
subjects. If you understand the language, in
which they spoke or wrote, if you appreciate its
beauties, if you admire its expression or its wisdom,
or its elasticity, then it is impossible that you
can be a loyal subject, it is impossible that you
can be devoted to the maintenance of the federal
union. That is the position that the hon. gentleman has taken. I cannot help asking
myself:
Does the hon. gentleman understand the character
and bearings of the demands that he is making on
behalf of the State? Does he know that he is demanding of the French Canadians sacrifices
that
are dearer than life itself? Does he not know that
he is asking for the destruction of one of the most
important rights for the existence of which governments are maintained? The state
is not an end,
the state is the means to an end. Part of the duties
of a state is to protect life, liberty and intellectual
freedom, not less than the general public welfare.
It has not right to undertake to destroy the mental
vision of one section of a population with the
design of creating it anew. It is no part of the duty
of the state to destroy the capacity for studying
one field of literature, nor to attempt to create the
capacity for studying another field of literature.
There may be forces at work in a stateâsocial and
intellectual-which operate to create one nation
out of two or more older ones. History, however,
is plain that when these changes are brought about
and a new order of things is created out of old conditions, there are many forces
and factors which
work in the direction of resisting and transforming
old nationalities into new ones, but these forces
operate slowly. The circumstances under which
they operate are wholly different from anything we
have in modern civilised society, and that result
was not to absorb one race by another, and to perpetuate one of two races, or one
of three, but
to form a new race, a new nationality, out
of the materials which these old races furnished.
It can be shown that the factor of the hon. gentleman is the very weakest of all the
influences or
forces that might be employed for the purpose
of accomplishing the end which he has in view.
Look at the condition of things in this country.
You have three great sources from which intellectual life is drawn, the United Kingdom,
the United
States and France. Our English speaking population receive their inspiration largely
from the literature of the mother country and of the adjoining
republic. Our French fellow-countrymen rely more
largely upon French sources of culture, literature
and information. The time may come when one of
these sources of inspiration may be dried up; I
will not undertake to speculate upon it, or to say
that such will be the case; but this I do say, that
no Legislature in the British Empire has any right
to undertake such a task on behalf of any portion
of the population. If such a state of things does
come about, it certainly will come about from a
condition of things wholly different from that which
the hon. gentleman proposes to establish. It will
arise from causes very different from those which
the hon. member asks us to put in operation. The
proposition of the hon. gentleman to convert all
the people of this country into English by simply
terminating the official use of French in the first
instance and its use for every other purpose hereafter, reminds me of an incident
related in one of
Captain Marryat's novels. I remember the case of
old Mr. Simple who invented a machine for the
reformation of character.
Mr. MILLS (Bothwell). Forty years have
elapsed since I read the book. The old gentleman
invented a machine which acted upon the principle
of suction and pressure. It was applied to the
heads of reprobates and was designed to make them
men of exemplary lives. He was a great believer
in phrenology, and by the application of the
machine to conscientiousness, veneration and
benevolence, applying the principle of suction, he
drew out those organs to their proper dimensions,
and then by applying pressure to bibativeness, destructiveness and other carnal propensities,
he pressed them down and diminished their size to such
an extent that he made every person to whom he
applied his machine a perfectly model character.
So complete was this machine in his estimation that
he hoped practically to put an end to the controversy about the relative merits of
faith and
works. The hon. gentleman proposes something
like that in his Bill. The process is equally summary and simple, by which he hopes
to make a
625 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 626Â Â Â
single race into a single state. The speech of the
hon. gentleman, shows how very general and sweeping is the revolution he proposes
to accomplish, and
yet there can be no doubt whatever about the very
humble beginning of this new policy that is suggested
in the Bill which the hon. gentleman has submitted to the House. Where a people are
without
education, literature or history, the experiment of
doing away with a language might be made with
more success, and I tell the hon. gentleman he had
better begin his experiment with the aborigines of
this country, rather than with our French population. He will have no literature to
contend
against, and, if the hon. gentleman's view is correct,
he should make it a crime to publish a book, newspaper, or periodical, in, say, the
Algonquin language.
The hon. gentleman might insist that all the Indian
children should learn English instead of Cree or
Ojibbeway or some other Indian tongue. He
might make it a crime to give them instruction in
any language except English. But if the hon. gentleman is going to succeed even with
the Indian
population he would require to make it a criminal
offence for a missionary to undertake to learn the
Indian language with a view to speaking it. He
ought to insist on his speaking English and nothing
else to the Indians. What does the hon. gentleman propose? If he applies the same
principle
to the Indian population as he proposes to apply
to the French population, he will have missionaries, traders and schoolmasters speaking
to Indians only English. And by that process he would
expect to make Indians Englishmen. I think the
hon. gentleman might discover some impediment
in the way. I know no reason why the schoolmaster and missionary should be allowed
to talk
Algonquin and state officials should be denied that
privilege. I do not know why men should learn
their duty to their Creator in Algonquin and be
compelled to learn their duty to the State only in
the English. It would indeed be a mockery to pretend you were going to convert the
Indian into an Englishman by providing that the
magistrate who tries him for some petty crime shall
conduct the proceedings in English. It seems to
me that if the hon. gentleman is to succeed he must
adopt a policy more thorough than that marked
out in his Bill. I do not know, but I am inclined
to think, that the hon. gentleman will scarcely be
able to get all his ordinary supporters to sustain
him in adopting such a policy as I have indicated, and yet it is not an unreasonable
one,
if the experiment is to be tried at all with
any hope of success. If the hon. gentleman cannot succeed where there is no history,
no press, no
literature, no philosophy, daily read and studied
to be overcome, how can he hope to succeed when
these subjects fill the minds of old and young, delighting the one and affording solace
to the other? The
hon. gentleman says that language makes the
nation. I do not agree with him. The hon. gentleman confuses cause and effect. The
same forces
which operate through a long period of years,
which serve to change people of different races or
tribes into one nation, also serve to modify their
language in the same way. The two things have
a common origin and are operated upon by the
common cause, so that which makes a new nation
also, at the same time, makes a new language. I
should like to know whether the hon. gentleman
supposes that he could bring about the fusion of
the English and French in Canada, looking at
the number of each and the comparative vitality
of the language of each, without producing
a language very different from either. I do not
know if the hon. gentleman undertakes to prove
that two millions of French and three millions of
English could make one people with one language,
the English, at the end. I am perfectly satisfied
it would be neither English nor French, though
it might be a blending of both. The hon. gentleman has but to look at the Latin races
of
Europe to see what the effect of fusion is. If such
could be accomplished the language would be a
wider departure from English than the modern
Italian is from its Latin parent. There is a principle
known in mechanics illustrated by the parallelogram of forces. You have various forces
acting
upon a body at the same moment of time from
different directions. It obeys them all, but it does
not take the direction from any one of them,
the direction taken is the combined action all of
those forces acting upon it; and, if you undertake to bring about fusion of races,
you will simply
apply that law to a condition of things in the
intellectual and mental world. You have a new
condition of things if you succeed, and it is one
wholly different from that which existed in the
one case or the other. There is an illustration of
this in Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. Sir Walter
tells us of the influence of Norman and Saxon
upon each other, and how out of their fusion
modern English came forth. He shows that certain
Norman words take the place of certain Saxon
words and the reverse; and how the names of
animals used for the purposes of food repeat the
history of the early relation of the two races.
They are in the care of the Saxon when they are
in the field and receive Saxon names. When they
are slaughtered and brought to market and find a
Norman consumer they have Norman names. And
so the pig becomes pork, the ox becomes beef, the calf
veal, and the sheep mutton, and these words repeat
the history of the relation of these two races quite
as well as the ordinary history of these races.
The hon. gentleman forgets that it was a whale
and not a cod that swallowed Jonah, and so if he
will insist upon three millions of people in this
country, swallowing two I am afraid that the individual who attempts that feat would
be a different
looking personage afterwards from what he was
before. Now the inadequacy of the means that are
employed, and that the hon. gentleman's Bill
suggests, becomes perfectly obvious. The official
use of a language is limited and that official use
cannot secure that unity of races which the hon.
gentleman seeks and without which he says there
cannot be political cohesion. The business of the
modern state is so restricted that the official use
or disuse of a language can have no appreciable
effect upon its general vitality. Suppose the hon.
gentleman were entrusted with the power to do
what he thinks ought to be done, suppose he goes
into a French settlement for the purpose of administering justice; he sends a judge
who knows only
English, he is among a people who speak and know
only French; the causes are heard, witnesses are
called who know only French, lawyers are employed
who know only English, if a jury is summoned it
must be a jury who would know only French; how
is the hon. gentleman going to carry on the administration of justice? Is be going
to employ any
627 [COMMONS] 628
number of interpreters? If the hon. gentleman were
to adopt such a policy I may say the people would
not have a very great deal of confidence in the
administration of justice. It would be made very
cumbrous, much more costly, much more distrusted.
Then these people amongst whom he establishes
this English institution, this official use of the
language, go to church on Sunday and hear a
sermon in French, they read newspapers that are
printed in French, they read French authors,
Lafontaine's fables, BĂŠranger's poems, Lamartine's
history or St. Simon's memoirs, Victor Hugo or Prevost-Paradol; all these and hundred
others are
daily read and studied. I would like to know what
chance there is for success when those mighty dead
are encamped around the people for their protection and for the perpetuation of their
language as
the Angels of the Lord are encamped around those
who fear Him. It is true that there have been
many tribes scattered throughout Europe of one
race, settling within the territories of other tribes
and absorbed by them. It is said the Ostrogoths
and the Lombards became Italians, the Franks and
Burgundians became French; certain Slavs and
Wends who settled in Prussia became Germans,
but in every case the absorption of these made the
race by whom they were absorbed different in
language from what it was before. But these
tribes were without a history and without a literature. They had no past unceasingly
influencing
the present, and projecting itself into the future,
They were subject to new environing influences.
They were cut off from their kindred and entered
upon the heritage of a new world of thought and
feeling, of hopes and desires, as completely as if
the world in which their primitive character had
been formed no longer existed. M. Bluntchli in
writing on this subject says, with reference to the
action of the Roman Government in undertaking
to denationalise tribes within the provinces of the
Empire:
"Language is the most peculiar possession of a people.
It is the strongest bond which unites its members and the
chief means by which it reveals its character. For these
reasons, a state cannot deny to a nationality its language
nor prohibit its literature. It is, on the contrary, the
duty of the state to give free play to a language, and to
promote it, and the general interests of civilisation are
not injured thereby. The supression of the native languages of the provincials by
the Roman authorities, was a
fearful abuse of power of the Government."
And in reference to that abuse, the hon. gentleman asks us, perhaps not in his Bill,
but certainly
by the preamble of his Bill, and by the speech by
which it was supportedâto do the same thing.
The same writer says, with reference to the English
Government in the last century in India:
"The English Government made one of the most serious mistakes, when in 1773, it wished
to force the forms
of English law and judicial procedure in Bengal on the
Hindoos, who were unprepared for it."
From that policy the Imperial Government has long
since withdrawn. It has for years regarded language
as a mere instrument of the state and not a badge
of either sovereignty or humiliation. There can be
no doubt which is the wiser, the more magnanimous
course to adopt. There can be no doubt whatever
which policy will most largely contribute to the
contentment of the people. The ties of family are
stronger than the ties of nationality, the ties of
nationality are, for the most art, stronger than the
ties of state. This is a condition of things that is
ordained by Providence. The hon. gentleman (Mr.
McCarthy) may complain of it, but he cannot alter
it, and it is as true in this country as it is true in
Switzerland, Austria or Russia. Let me invite the
House to two or three sentences from Bluntchli
and also from Niebhur. Bluntchli says:
"If the moral or intellectual life of a people is attacked
by the power of the state, its members are driven to the
most determined resistance. Men can have no juster
cause for resistance to tyranny than the defence of
nationality. Legality may suffer in the struggle, but law
is not injured."
And Niebhur has not hesitated to maintain:
"Common nationality has higher claims than political
relations which unite the different nations of one state."
The speech of the hon. gentleman had but little relevancy to his Bill. He quoted authorities
to
show that by one language the people were
made one nation. I am not going to contest the
soundness of the doctrines he read from Freeman
and from Muller. There is a very ancient authority, however, which says that at one
time the people were of one language and one speech, not in a
very advanced condition of society, that they deliberately abused their advantage,
that the unity of the
race was broken, and that language was diversified
by Divine interference. The race was broken
up into classes, and they were scattered over the
world, and sent to school. The currents of that
division have flown into a great many channels,and
men have gained more advantages from the divison,
than they have endured misfortunes. The limitless
capabilities of the human intellect have been shown;
through many vicissitudes, the race has, in each
class, learned much, and all have been advanced
to a higher elevation, to a purer atmosphere, and
a wider field of vision. Those differences in language and nationality have frequently
prevented combinations which, if accomplished, could
only have resulted in working folly and mischief.
The hon. member wants a united Empire; he
insists that the whole British Empire should be
united in one confederation. Well, if the doctrine
he has laid down, with regard to Canada, is sound,
it is equally sound when applied to the whole
Empire; and so we must have three hundred
millions of people speaking the same language.
I am inclined to think, if it were a question to
be determined by a majority, that the Hindoos
would have their way, and instead of all of us
abandoning French and learning English, we
should have to give up both French and English,
and learn Hindoo. We have, according to this
view, not simply to undertake to establish English
at the foot of the Rockies, but a common language
at the foot of the Himalayas as well. The hon.
gentleman insists on a unity and cohesion which
is denied by Providence to modern states. Ancient
governments were united; ancient governments
counted men as nothing; the individual had no
rights as against the state; but in every modern
state there is an element of clay as well as of iron;
there is an element of dissolution as well as of
strength, and that element is the individuality of men.
You recognise the individual as having rights distinct, and separate, from the state;
you recognise
his right, when those rights are encroached upon,
to stand up in their defence, and you put in jeopardy the existence of the state itself
for the purpose of maintaining them; and without respecting
those rights the state itself cannot endure. Why
should we unite for the purpose of maintaining a
government unless it is going to serve some purpose
629 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 630
that will contribute to our progress, material, intellectual or moral, or in some
way promote our
happiness? If we unite for the purpose of government, it is in order that we may,
through the
agency and instrumentality of government, accomplish something for ourselves. Now,
does the Bill
give effect in any way to the doctrine which the
hon. gentleman says is necessary for the establishment of a united state? The hon.
gentleman
says that unity is vital. Unity is well nigh
vital to the existence of a nationality, but all
experience shows that unity is not absolutely
necessary to the maintenance of a state. The
hon. gentleman, by his policy, proposes to confine
his efforts at reform to remote regions where few
men dwell, and he allows the barrier which he says
threatens the permanence of the state to exist
here at the capital. Let us go far away from the
seat of war, in order to conquer. Could there be
greater infatuation? The hon gentleman, when he
was speaking, heard cries of "ecoutez," on this
side of the House, and he thought this a word of
treasonable import, a word that endangered the
unity of the state. If hon. gentlemen on that
side and on this had said "hear, hear," we should
have been in no danger; the permanency of the
union would have been in no way threatened;
but to say "ecoutez" was a very different thing,
and calls for the serious consideration of every
member of the House. Now, the hon. gentleman
has quoted paragraphs from Freeman and Muller,
but those quotations do not sustain the argument
of the hon. gentleman. His contention is not
theirs. The hon. gentleman confounds nation with
state. Professor Freeman and Professor Muller do
not do so. They could not say what the hon.
gentleman says without being contradicted by the
condition of things existing in almost every country
in Europe. The Gypsies are a nation; the Jews are
a nation; the Poles are a nation, but neither Gypsies,
Jews nor Poles are a state. The United
Kingdom is composed of English, Irish, Scotch and
Welsh; there is one state, but there are four nationalities. England has an immense
predominence in
wealth, numbers in literary and legal force over
Wales; the Union has existed for eight hundred
years, and there is no probability of Wales being
absorbed as a part of the English nation and losing
its national identity, Welshmen are still Welshmen
and not Englishmen; they are still two nationalities
in one state, not less united politically because they
are still two nations. The political bonds between
Ireland and England are exactly or very nearly the
same as thosebetween Wales and England. Ireland
perhaps is not so well united as Wales, but the line
of cleavage is not between those who speak Erse and
those who speak English. Mr. Parnell reckons a
much larger number of English-speaking Irishmen
among his followers than those who only speak
Erse. The truth is that the line of cleavage is
through the English-speaking population, and it is
due to other causes than difference in language.
The Crofter and the Cockney, though not able to
understand each other, may nevertheless entirely
agree in political sentiment. The hon. gentleman
quotes this sentence from Max Miiller:
"A common language is a common bond of intellectual
brotherhood, far stronger than any supposed or real
community of blood. Common blood without a common
language leaves us perfect strangers. A common language, even without common blood,
makes the whole
world feel akin."
Now, I do not question that, as Professor Muller
uses the expression; but I altogether dissent from
the use the hon. gentleman has made of it. Professor Muller is considering man as
a social being,
not as a member of that highly official organisation
known as a Federal State. Why, Sir, the English
people and the people of the United States speak
the same language. Are they politically united?
Are they drawn together, or have they, for the
past century, been drawn together in the way the
hon. gentleman has spoken? Are England and the
United States more inclined to unite politically
than England and Wales, than England and the
Highlands of Scotland? The hon. member cannot
answer without destroying his argument. We in
Ontario speak English, and so do the people
of New York and the people of Virginia; but
is the hon. gentleman more inclined to a union
on the banks of the Potomac than on the banks
of the Ottawa? If the hon. gentleman's argument has any value, the hon. gentleman
himself
would prefer a union with the United States to a
union with the people of the Province of Quebec.
Switzerland has, as several hon. gentlemen have
stated during this debate, three nationalitiesâthe
German, the French, and the Italian, who are
all loyal to the republic. Many centuries ago
these different nationalities found their way through
the glens and valleys of the Alps, and if race
and language were the strongest considerations
they would have formed parts of Italy, France and
Germany. But for four centuries they have been
a united country. The French population of
Switzerland have not been less loyal to that government because they have on the western
border
a people speaking the same language; the Italian
population of the south have not been less loyal to
that country because they have on the southern
border a people speaking the same language and of
the same race. If you had to apply the hon.
gentleman's doctrine to Switzerland, how long, I
ask, would that union last? Suppose the German
population were to insist that the union has no
value because the people do not all speak the one
language? I would like to know whether the
French, sooner than be denationalised, would not
seek a union with France and the Italian population a union with Italy? There can
be no doubt:
whatever of what would be the result in this respect. The hon. gentleman read from
Professor
Freeman the statement:
"As in the teeth of community of language there
may be what, for all political purposes, are separate
nations, so without community of language there may be
an artificial nationality, a nationality which may be good
for all political purposes, and which may engender a
common national policy."
That is precisely what we have here. Such, too,
is the position of Austria, of Switzerland, and of
the United Kingdom. The hon. gentleman will
see that in the very quotation which he makes
from Professor Freeman the fact is statedâand
it would be impossible that he could say otherwiseâthat it is possible for people
of different
nationalities to combine together and to form one
state. It is true that where there is but one
language there is less friction than where there are
several. It is true that there may be less danger of
division and of certain forms of party strife where
all the people are of one nationality than where
they are of several. But that is not the question
which is presented for our solution. The question
631 [COMMONS] 632
is not whether Sweden is in a better position politically than Switzerland, whether
Italy is in a better
position than Austria. We may all admit that a state
whose people are all of one nationality has less difficulty in Government than where
they are of different
nationalities; but the question is, having different
nationalities, whether it is a wise thing to undertake to enter upon a policy of changing
their
nationality and of remodelling many nationalities
into one? Suppose Austria, which is composed of
many nationalities, which has Poles, and Czechs,
Hungarians, Bosnians, Tyrolese, Dalmatians and
Germansâsuppose Austria were to undertake to
convert all these different nationalities into Germans, I would like to know how long
the Austrian
Empire would be likely to endure? In my opinion
it would not last a year. There can be no doubt
whatever that the result would be the very reverse
of establishing a united population. Instead of
having an empire federated together of different
nationalities, you would have that empire broken
into fragments and several independent states
springing out of its remains. Governments are
dear to men in proportion as they preserve to them
what they most dearly prize, and a man must be so
environed that he must feel that he has laid his
nationality aside before it case become to him a
matter of indifference. There have been periods in
the history of Europe when other grounds of union
were sought than those of nationality, when religion
was made the basis of political unity and when
every man, who in faith, differed from the established
religion, was held to be an alien and treated as
such, and was denied the ordinary rights of a subject or a citizen. Now, that is true
in Mahomedan
countries to-day. James I and Charles I regarded
unity of religion as necessary to the existence of a
state, just as the hon. member for North Simcoe
regards language, and they tried to mould the
people of England into their way of thinking.
They were resolved to treat those who dissented
from the state religion as aliens and foreigners
having no claims to the rights and privileges of
subjects. Did this policy crush out dissent? Did
it secure that unity of opinion deemed essential
to the unity of the State? Not at all. The
result was that the prisons and the fleets
were filled with some of the most exemplary,
industrious and intelligent portion of the population; hundreds were driven to Holland
and thousands to the wilds of North America. The Kingdoms was rent by civil war, the
king was executed,
and a new order of things established. There are
claims on men stronger than the claims of the state.
There are rights which the state has no right to
invade, and which, if it attempts to invade, it is a
man's right to defend. It is not often that a man
comes to the point in his relation to the State
where the roads part, but when he does, if he is a
man of high character, he takes a counsel of conscience and his self-respect and obeys
his Maker
rather than the law which would degrade him. In
the hours of trial he finds a higher law written
upon his heart, obedience to which makes him the
more a man, and the cause of justice and freedom
are promoted by his triumphs if he succeeds, by
his misfortunes, if he fails. What the hon. gentleman proposes to-day to do away with
here is permitted elsewhere. What the hon. gentleman thinks
is a bad thing here, English ministers and statesmen
of all parties have for many of years taught was
necessary elsewhere. I need but refer to a few
instances. At the Cape Colony there are
two races: the Dutch and the English.
Both languages are used in the legislature as both
are used here. In the courts, the law provides
that the superior court judges may permit the use
of both languages and that the judges and magistrates of inferior courts must, that
the barristers
and attorneys have the right to use both languages;
and it also provides that if one-third of the electors
in any judicial district ask for the conduct of the
judicial business of the district in both languages,
their request must be granted. Then, if you look
at the Island of Mauritius, that island was without
a representative government of any sort until 1885.
The Governor then was authorised by letters
patent to provide for the election of a council.
The voters' list was prepared and the Governor,
in sending home to the Colonial Secretary a copy
of that list, tells him that 3,300 on the list are
Roman Catholics, 450 Protestants, 295 Hindoos
and Mahometans, and 15 Chinamen. The Colonial
at Secretary that time, our present Governor General, when he received that report
from Governor
Henessey, wrote him a despatch which contains
this paragraph. He asks:
"Whether the notices regarding the registration of
voters were published in any language besides English and
French? If not I should fear that many of the Indian
population, who are entitled to be registered, may have
been altogether unacquainted with their privileges."
Showing that the Colonial Office not only encouraged publication in English and French,
but also
suggested the propriety of publishing in all the
languages spoken by those who would be entitled
to vote, and the Governor replying to that in
a despatch written some two or three months
later, said that the notices with regard to the
voters' lists had been published not only in English
and French, but in Tamul-Urdu and Chinese. So
that the House will see that no party in the United
Kingdom takes the view of the hon. member for
Simcoe. Public men have long ago recognised that
differences of language are not incompatible with
the Union of the State and that any attempt to
fuse different races by such heroic measures as the
hon. member for Simcoe advocates would have the
very opposites effect. The rule of convenience is the
rule which governs. It is held that every man who is
a British subject, and entitled to be a voter is entitled to know in the only language
he understands
what his rights are. That is a question of convenience and it is treated in every
instance as a question of convenience. The English language is not
regarded as the mark of a British subject par excellence. A foreign tongue is not regarded as a
mark of inferiority, but as an instrument of communication which the Government have
a right to
use when they can best promote their relations
with the people by using that language, whether It
be Dutch, German or French, or any other tongue.
The hon. gentleman always forgets how very
slowly a language dies. If you have a large
settlement where marriages may take place, where
public worship may be carried on, a century may
go by without absorption taking place. A few
years ago, I visited a German settlement north
of the city of Philadelphia, a German settlement
which had been established over a hundred years
ago. Those people have learned English in the
schools, they talk English, you do not distinguish
633 [FEBRUARY 13, 1890.] 634
them from the rest of the population, but in their
own intercourse they still speak German. A
fragment from that settlement came into the
county of Waterloo, I think more than sixty years
ago, and I believe they still speak German. It is
therefore a mistake to suppose that a language dies
readily because it is not officially used. The fact
is that the official use of a language makes very
little impression upon its vitality. The interference
of the state in the direction of repression and discouragement will make no difference.
If you have a
poor population coming amongst you, and they are
compelled to go into families where they have to
speak English, in time they may abandon their
own language and speak yours, but it is a very
different thing when you have a colony of a number
of people speaking their own language in that place.
The 19th article of the constitution of the Austrian
Empire provides that:
"All tribes in the state have equal rights, and each
has an inviolable rights to maintain its nationality and language."
It is clear from that that the Austrian Empire is
not organised politically on the unitary principle
advocated by the hon. member for Muskoka (Mr.
O'Brien) and the hon. membr for North Simcoe
(Mr. McCarthy). Even in the despotic government of Russia, there is no attempt to
denationalise the various populations in the great majority
of instances, except for political offences. The
people of Finland, who were for 500 years under
the government of Sweden, where Swedish was
the official language, when that became a Russian
province after the Treaty of Tilsit, not more than
one in ten spoke Swedish, have not been interfered
with in the use of the Finnish language by the
Government of Russia. Justice is administered
and the government is carried on in that language.
There is no attempt to impose the Russian language
upon that people. The education of the people
and the schools and all their affairs are carried on
in their own language. The Russian Government
has fostered the national tendencies, and Finland
is loyal to Russia, because Russia has encouraged
her to be Finnish, and has not insisted upon her
becoming Russian. She has been weaned from any
desire to reunite with Sweden, by giving full play
to her national instincts and her national aspirations. In regard to this a modern
Russian author,
Tikhomirov, says:
"It is difficult to picture two social types so unlike as
Russia and Finland. Finland is an honest hardworking
citizen, whose life is lucrative, based on reason, but
always monotonous and sometimes sad. Russia is a reckless student, sometimes, drunk,
sometimes starving,
capable of every folly, but capable also of sublime things,
and always more concerned with great problems of
humanity, than with paying his landlady. These two
characters so wide asunder harmonise the better the
less Russians and Finlanders meddle with one another's
affairs; this is in fact the modus vivendi of the two
peoples. We may lay it down that as long as Russia does
not prevent Finland from living according to her own
taste, that country will remain her faithful ally. In the
Crimean war Finland fought bravely for Russia; in the
last war against Turkey the Finlanders fought valiantly
for Russia upon the far off plains of Bulgaria."
The satisfactory result that this Russian writer
represents as having been accomplished in Finland by which its loyalty has been secured
to the
Russian Government, has been attained by means
the very opposite to those which the hon.
member for North Simcoe (Mr. McCarthy) proposes to apply to the French population
in Can
ada, for I have not been discussing so much the
particular provision of the hon. gentleman's
Bill, as the matter of his speech and the preamble
to his Bill. There is one instance in modern Europe where the views of the hon. gentleman
have been applied; I refer to the case of the
United Netherlands between 1816 and 1830. It
is well known that, after the fall of Napoleon and
his exile to Elba, the members of the Congress of
Vienna came to the conclusion that it was desirable to establish a somewhat strong
state on the
north-eastern borders of France, and they consequently made a provision to unite Belgium
and
Holland. At that time Holland had a population
of 2,280,000, and Belgium a population of 3,380,000.
They were given equal representation, and provision
was made for a government in most respects was
satisfactory to the population of each country.
When Napoleon escaped from Elba, it was thought
desirable in the emergency to confer special powers
upon the king, but he continued to exercise those
powers for many years after the emergency had
passed. During the period in which he exercised
that power, the king forbade the use of the French
language. Half the population knew nothing else.
The king insisted that justice should be administered in all the courts in Dutch,
and the result
was that all the judges in the Belgian section were
compelled to resign, and nearly all the lawyers had
to abandon their profession. The king also provided that no one should be licensed
to teach in a
public school unless he could speak Dutch, and
consequently half the teachers in his kingdom had
to resign. Private schools were then established
in the Belgian section of the kingdom, and then the
king issued a new decree forbidding private schools
to be established without the king's license and so
they were shut up. Then the king thought it necessary not only that the people should
speak one language in order to have united government, but that
they should have only one faith, and so German and
Protestant professors were appointed in Roman Catholic colleges which had been established
for the
education of Roman Catholic students. The King
of the Netherlands had, at all events, the courage of
his convictions. He did not try to enforce these
provisions in a far off corner of the country where
there were few Belgians, but he made these regulations in a country where there were
400 Belgians to
the square mile. The result was to establish two
geographical parties. One-half of his kingdom was
arrayed against the other half; and in one-half
60,000 men were soon under arms fighting for the
rights which the king had disregarded. The result
was that two states were established where there
was one before. The English Government which was
at first anxious for this union, exhibited an equal
anxiety for its abolition, because if Belgium had
not received the active support of England, it would
assuredly have become a Province of France. The
condition of affairs which existed there is well
shown in the life of Lord Palmerston by Sir Henry
Bulwer, who was the British Minister at the time.
He says:
"The language of society, language of the bar, the language of the great portion of
the people of all ranks, was
French; but this did not signify. It was in vain that a lawyer had consumed the best
years of his life in the study of
his profession. He was to teach himself a new tongue, or
the capital of his labors was to be wrested from him. Some
quitted the bar, others, induced by long habit, still continued at it, but prepared
themselves to see the honors,
635 [COMMONS] 636
the applause and the practice they had been accustomed
to receive, transferred to others who had been so fortunate as to be born on the north
side of the Mordyke. The
loss of these persons was not merely that of an honorable
livelihood; it is necessary to penetrate our own minds
with a sense of those high feelings of pride and ambition
which animate men who have reached the head of their
profession, in order to appreciate the extent of that
injustice which this foolish and tyrannical ordinance
inflicted."
Now, the hon. gentleman proposes a half century
later to try the same experiment in a British colony.
I do not believe, if his experiment could be carried
out, that it would be a whit more successful than
the experiment of the Dutch King in the United
Kingdom of the Netherlands. I may say that the
revocation of 1848 made a great change in the
treatment of nationalities. They then came to the
front. States were based on dynastic and class
interests and paid no regard to race in fixing territorial boundaries. But since 1848,
no attempt
has been made to mould different races into
one except in Austria, and she fell into line
after disasters of Sadowa. About thirteen years
ago this clause of the Bill which the hon.
gentleman proposes to repeal, was introduced for
the first time. The opinion I then expressed, I
think, is an opinion that ought to have some force
to-day. Of course, it is only a question of time
with regard to the matter, because it is one about
which the people of the North-West Territories must
legislate when they become a Province. The present assembly of the North-West is not
a constituent assembly, it is simply a legislative assembly.
It has no power to alter the constitution under
which it carries on the limited amount of legislation that it may at present accomplish.
But I
could not help observing that the hon. member for
Muskoka (Mr. O'Brien), instead of referring to the
members from that territory in this House to ascertain the opinion of the country
upon this subject,
refers to the opinion of a Legislative Assembly in
the North-West Territories who have no power to
deal with the question at all. Now I think that
in many of these things the people must be
assumed to be qualified to exercise the powers of
self-government. They may go astray. I do not
always approve what has been done in this House.
I do not often agree with the policy of the hon.
gentlemen on the Treasury benches, but I do not on
that account deny the right of the people of this
country to self-government. My own opinion is
that if we regar this question as a matter of convenience, there ought to be no great
difficulty in
dealing with it. We are seeking to settle that country, we are seeking to secure immigration
into that
country. Hon. gentlemen on the Treasury benches
occasionally issue pamphlets printed in Scandinavian, in German, in French, for circulation
upon
the continent of Europe to invite people to settle
there. The hon. member for Muskoka and the
hon. member for Simcoe vote an appropriation for
the purpose of bearing the expense of printing,
translating and publishing these pamphlets. I
would like to know whether those hon. gentlemen
say that you have a right to publish a pamphlet
in Scandinavian and send it to the other side
of the Atlantic for those people to read to
induce them to come here, but that you have no
right whatever to give them anything Scandinavian
to read after they arrive in this country. Now, let
me suppose that to-day there are 20,000 Norwegians coming out and forming a settlement
in the
North-West Territories. You have provided municipal institutions there. They elect
a council. If
they do, they must select some of their own people,
or they must go outside and invite somebody to
come in and represent them. How are they going
to carry on their business when they do not know
a word of English? Are they going to meet and
keep quiet, or are they going to speak privately to
some one who understands English and have their
words translated into English, and published when
none of them understand a word of it? It is perfectly obvious that if you have a diffused
population, if you have English and others mingled together, that the one readily
absorbs the other. You
may provide that there shall not be a continuous
settlement of people of any nationality other than
those who speak English, if you think that is the
proper course to adopt. If there is a French population in the North-West diffused
through the English
speaking population, and they are in the minority,
it is impossible but that they will learn to understand each other. If you have several
thousand
people from the Province of Quebec speaking French
and knowing nothing else, forming distinct colonies
or settlements, it would be a matter of convenience to translate your public documents,
and
for your public proceedings in that locality to
be conducted in French, and I do not believe that
you delay the general use of the English language
by one hour by adopting that policy. I do not see
how you can, for it is the private and unofficial use
that determines the general use of the language.
Now, the hon. gentleman knows that he has not
taken even the first step towards the unity of the
population of the North-West from a linguistic
point of view, by simply providing for the official
use of the English. The hon. gentleman, if he
does anything, must go further, and he must prohibit the introduction of French books,
and the
circulation of French newspapers, the use in the
schools public and private, he must prohibit the
use in the pulpit, he must prohibit the use everywhere, of the French language, or
his interference
is an ineffective and an impertinent interference.
If the hon. gentleman is not prepared for that, then
he had better leave the laws of societyâ those
forces of which I have spokenâwhich, after all
govern these things, to operate freely in the way in
which they operate most effectively. In my opinion,
the question of the use of a language, or of more than
one language, in a territory, depends entirely upon
whether you have a mixed population or whether
you have settlements separate and distinct from
each other, and it seems to me that you have in the
North-West Territories, no expression of opinion
upon that question which would warrant legislation
such as the hon. member for North Simcoe proposes. I think the question should be
determined
on the lines and according to the principles which
I have mentioned. Now, Sir, I may say this: The
hon. gentleman has delivered several speeches on
this subject outside the House, and one in it. It
seems to me that his labors have produced conflict of
race, and I may go further and say, conflict of
religion as well. It is possible that a section of
the population sympathises with the hon. gentleman
in the object with which he has set out; it is
possible to break up the union, to repel immigration, to delay settement. It is possible
to make
here geographical parties and so prevent the people
of this country from acting in political unison;
637 [FEBRUARY 14, 1890] 638
but, unless the hon. gentleman goes so far as to
regulate the domestic use, the use in business, the
use on the public platform, the use in the pulpit,
the use in the press of the language, it seems to me
that he has not taken the first step to carry out
that policy which he marked out in his speech and
in the preamble to the Bill he submitted to this
House; unless he is prepared to undertake this
formidable responsibility and carries it to a victorious conclusion, he will not have
hastened the
general use of English by a single hour. The hon.
member and they who support him have made their
new departure for the more perfect union of our
people, filled with envy, hatred and bitterness towards two-fifths of the population.
Sir JOHN A. MACDONALD. It is twelve
o'clock, and the hon. gentleman for Norfolk (Mr.
Charlton) has just risen to speak. I am quite sure
he will make a speech of considerable length, and
it will most likely be replied to, and as there is
not the slightest chance of our having a division
to-night, I will agree at once to the suggestion that
the debate be adjourned. I will also suggest that
it be made the first Order of the day for to-morrow.
Mr. MITCHELL. I think the hon. gentleman
had better name Monday, because there are a great
many members to speak yet.
Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned.
That the debate be made the first Order of the day for
to-morrow.
I will simply say, in reply to the hon. member
for Northumberland (Mr. Mitchell) that if a great
many members are going to speak we shall require
Friday and Monday, too.
Motion agreed to.
Motion agreed to; and House adjourned at
11.50 p.m.
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