1916-05-11

[Stage Direction]
[Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.] '
, WAR SUPPLIES-GROCERIES.
Mr.. MACDONALD:
1.	Who were the persons or firms who tendered for the supply of groceries called for by the Department of Militia in Vancouver?
2.	What was the amount of each tender?
3.	To whom was the contract awarded?

Mr. SINCLAIR:: 1.	How many tons of freight were exported through the port of Halifax during the calendar year 1915, to the British Islands, the British Possessions and to foreign countries, respectively?
2.	What are the corresponding figures concerning the imports through said port?


Mr. REID:: No information is obtainable for the calendar year 1915. According to shipping returns to. customs, the figures for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1916, are
as follows:
Vessels departed-[DOT]
Great Britain	
British possessions	
Other countries.. Vessels arrived-
Great Britain	
British possessions	
Other countries..
Tons mea-Tons weight, surement.
264,049	291,902
171,155	2,387
105,129	26,988
85,732
73,193
109,622


THE BILINGUAL QUESTION.
[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the proposed motion of Sir Thomas White: "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair for the House to go into Committee of Supply;" and the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Lapointe (Kamouraska) thereto; resumed from Wednesday, May 10.
Hon. CHARLES MARCIL (Bonaventure):: Mr. Speaker, at this advanced stage of the session, with a general desire prevailing among the members to retire to their peace-
ful vocations, I do not intend in the present debate to enlarge upon the arguments which have already been submitted to the House; and, ar far as possible, I shall curtail within reasonable limits the arguments which I shall have the honour to submit to the House in support of the motion .by the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Ernest Lapointe).
I wish in the first place to congratulate the hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Nickle) on the very interesting statements he gave us last night in his retrospective view of the parliamentary history of Canada, with all of which, of course, I do not agree, and especially with that part in which he undertook to explain the present educational policy of Ontario and the action of the Education Department; but to both of those portions of his speech I shall have occasion to refer later on in the course of my remarks.
The House has reason to congratulate itself on the high plane of the debate so far. This House is a reflection, so to speak, of the Canadian people; this question concerns every	home in	Canada, and it is one of those questions which we can discuss dispassionately and to the advantage of Canada as a whole. Education is a sacred cause, not only in Canada, but in all countries of the world, and I am glad that in discussing education we have not drifted into a discussion of religion. Thank Heaven, the present discussion is in no way tinged with a religious aspect, and, however we may disagree on religious matters, we can discuss at least this great educational question without passion, and in the best interests of the country.
It is admitted, of course, that the English language is the great universal language being spoken throughout the English colonies, dominions, and possessions all over the world. It must also be admitted that French is one of the great languages. The man who can speak the English language has a great advantage, bht so also has the English Canadian who can speak the French language. Our boys from the West and the Maritime Provinces who are now in France and Flanders would find it a great advantage to be able to speak French in the great work they are carrying on; but they have not that advantage. We in Quebec have had that advantage. We have been brought up in the older part of the country, along the banks of the St. Lawrence. The people of my race have

been there for eight or nine generations. I am myself somewhat of a bilingualist, and I think it a great advantage to be able to speak both French and English. Were it not for that fact I should not have the honour of addressing myself to the House of Commons to-day, in favour of what I believe to be a deserving minority in the largest province of the Dominion. It will be admitted that the French members from Quebec and other provinces set a splendid example of courtesy by their conduct in the proceedings of this Douse. Under the Constitution they could easily do all their speaking in French; they could move all their motions in French; put all their questions in French; in fact, transact all their business in the House in French. You can realize at once, Mr. Speaker, the position in which we should be if the French members exercised in that respect the rights and privileges which they have under the Constitution. But the people of Quebec, and the French people of the Dominion at large, are reasonable. They are a moderate and a conciliatory people. With the spirit that has always animated the French race, we want to be courteous to the majority. We speak the'language of the majority, not so well probably as1 the English people themselves, but we try to master it as well as we can. We had an example in the member who moved this resolution of what a "little study and a little work will do when a man really wants to acquire a better educational equipment. The horn, member for Kamouraska has set an example in learning the English language, which, I think, ought to be imitated, as far as possible, by every member of this House.
Coming now to discuss this question, let me read the terms of the motion, to show how moderate it is and how far removed from any aggressive spirit towards the English-speaking people of Ontario, or of the other English-speaking portions of the Dominion:
That all the words after " that " in the main motion be struck out and the following substituted therefor.
" It has long been the settled policy of Great Britain whenever a country passed under the sovereignty of the Crown by treaty or otherwise, to respect the religion, usages and language of the inhabitants who thus become British subjects :
" That His Majesty's subjects of French origin in the province of Ontario complain that by recent legislation they have been to a large extent deprived of the privilege which they and their fathers have always enjoyed since Canada passed under the sovereignty of the British
Crown, of having their children taught in French.
" That this House especially at this time of universal sacrifice and anxiety, when all energies should be concentrated on the winning of the war, would, while fully recognizing the principle of provincial rights and the necessity of every child being given a thorough English education, respectfully suggest to the Legislative Assembly the wisdom of making it clear that the privilege of the children of French parentage of being taught in their mother tongue be not interfered with."
Following my leader, I concede at once that it rests entirely with the province of Ontario to deal with this ' question; that the province of Ontario is supreme in this matter, and that the policy which has been followed by the present Government in not disallowing the Act of the legislature is merely in keeping with the traditional policy of the Liberal party followed in this House since Confederation. Upon that point we are perfectly agreed. But this is the High Court of the land; we are here to promote the happiness, the prosperity, and the contentment of the Canadian people. I think that this Parliament is employing its time well in trying to remove any of the difficulties that mankind inherits, whether those difficulties be material or educational, or whatever their nature may be. It has been well said that Canada is one of the most difficult countries in the world to govern. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister will no doubt agree with that statement as have some of his illustrious predecessors. The governing of this country is a difficult task as it is inhabited by various races, nationalities, and creeds, but I believe that in the last few years great headway has been made towards a better understanding amongst the different classes of the people. V, cannot hope that we shall always see eye to eye on all questions. When the great issue of the war confronted us, we might have expected that when France and England, our two great mother countries, were united for that most sacred of all causes, the cause of civilization and humanity, all Canadians would have been united, but even upon that issue we were disappointed to find disagreement. Similar instances have occurred in other parts of the wor.d and I suppose human nature is so built that there never can be perfect agreement.
On this question of education, I think the consensus of opinion in this House and throughout the country is that it rests entirely with the province of Ontario, and it is to that province that we are making our appeal. As many of our fellow-members

from the other provinces may not be familiar with what the French Canadians desire to attain and what they are complaining of, I will read a brief summary prepared by the French Canadian Educational Association of Ontario, showing exactly what they ask for and what they do not ask for, so that the House can readily understand the precise nature of the question at issue.
What the French Canadians are Asking.
1.	The respect of their rights for the education of their children in schools supported with their money.
2.	The efficacious teaching of the two official languages of Canada during the whole primary course in the schools or classes attended by their children.
3.	The teaching of their children through the natural vehicle: the mother tongue.
4.	The grouping by schools or classes of the children to which their parents wish to have the two official languages taught.
5.	Competent teachers capable of teaching the two official languages of Canada to take the management of schools or classes attended by the children whose parents require teaching of French and English.
6.	Their part of school grants voted each year by the Legislative Assembly.
7.	One inspection, Catholic and Franco.En-gljsh, of separate schools attended by their children.
8.	One inspection, Franco-English, of public schools attended by their children.
9.	The granting of certificates to bilingual teachers who have sucessfully passed the examinations required by the Department of Education.
If there is anything in this plain statement of what the French Canadians of the province of Ontario are. asking, that is not already enjoyed by every other class in that province, I would like to have it pointed out to me later on in the course of the debate. The Association also makes this statement:	[DOT]
What the French Canadians do not Want.
1.	The French Canadians of Ontario do not want schools exclusively French.
2.	They do not wish to force English speaking children or others to study the French language.
3.	They do not ask for the introduction of a third school system in the province.
4.	They do not wish on the one hand to expel anybody from the province; but on the other hand they will not allow themselves to be treated as intruders. They have paid for every inch of territory they possess.
5.	They do not want to put up with the confiscation of their school grants which they have been subjected to for the past three years, because they have insisted on having their child, ren taught efficiently in both the official languages of Canada.
There is one point upon which both parties to this controversy are agreed. The Government of Ontario wants every child in that province to have an English educa-

tion, and I have not yet met a member of the minority who is not of the same opinion. No child in the province of Ontario can be said to have a proper education unless he has been given a thorough English education. To bring up a child in this province without giving him an English education is to handicap him for the rest of his life. The Government of Ontario wants an English education for the children; the French Canadian people of Ontario ask for the same thing. The only point of difference is as to how much tuition in French is to be given to the child. The Ontario Government proposes under Regulation 17 to give in certain schools a certain amount of teaching in French, and in other schools where the teaching of French did not exist previous to 1912, there is to be no French taught at all, so that the line of cleavage is as to the amount of French teaching that is to be given. The province of Ontario is not asked to institute a new system; it has allowed the teaching of French from time immemorial. The Postmaster General, who yesterday delivered a very interesting speech, has in his nature somewhat of the bilingual; a native of the province of Ontario, he has become a distinguished citizen of the province of Quebec. He has become familiar with both languages; he knows the mentality of the people of Ontario; he knows the mentality of the people of Quebec. My mind wandered back to the days when the United Empire Loyalists in the first Legislature of' Ontario passed a resolution on behalf of one member of that Legislature, Mr. Baby, who represented the French settlement of Essex, providing that the Orders of the Day and the Votes and Proceedings of the House be printed in the French language for the benefit of the French settlers along the Detroit river. What an example of generosity shown by the United Empire Loyalists who were the first to settle in Ontario, who opened and paved the way for the great and glorious province that Ontario has now become.
The hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Nickle) referred in his usual dispassionate manner to the early constitutional history of this country, to the capitulation of Montreal, to the capitulation of Quebec, to the Quebec Act, and to all the other privileges which were granted to us by Great Britain. As I said in my opening remarks, I did not intend to delay the House upon this subject, because those points are more or less familiar to us all. England has never committed any injustice

on the French Canadians of the province of Quebec or of the rest of Canada, and I am proud to-day, Mr. Speaker, facing you in this British House, under the aegis and protection of the British flag, to declare that Great Britain has given to the French-Canadian people an overflowing measure of justice upon all occasions. Sometimes an error of policy may have been committed, but the British statesmen themselves have always been the first to correct it. In 1774, they may have somewhat restricted the Quebec Act. In 1841, the Union Act was looked upon as an error at that time, but I wish to read a few extracts from the statements of some of the Governors General, showing how valuable it was in the interest of Canada, in the interest of the Empire, in the interest of the retention of British power on the North American continent; it was, that the French language should be maintained here upon an equal footing with the English language. The hon. member for Kingston referred to those very speeches, and I shall quote one or two extracts showing what was the original British policy towards Canada and what was intended to be done with the two races inhabiting this country.
The Governors General of Canada, since Lord Elgin, have all, Lord Dufferin included, proclaimed the necessity of knowing both official languages in our bilingual country. Lord Dufferin, formerly Governor General of Canada, ex-Ambassador of England to Italy and France, one of the great statesmen who honoured the Empire in the last century, said in a speech that became famous:
It is true that the racial differences existing in Canada complicate to a certain extent the problems statesmen have to solve from time to time; but the inconveniences resulting from this state of affairs are more than counterbalanced by the many advantages derived therefrom. I do not believe that ethnological homogeneity is a flawless boon to a country. It is unquestionable to say that the less attractive side of the social character of a great portion of the population on this continent is the uniformity offered by many of its divers aspects ; and I believe Canada should be happy to rely on the co-operation of different races. The mutual action of the national idiosyncrasies introduce in our existence a variety, a colour, and an eclectic impulsion that would otherwise be impossible to attain. It would be an utterly impolitic policy to strive for their disappearance.
Lord Grey, Governor General of Canada, while visiting Victoria school, Quebec, in October, 1910, pointed out to the pupils:
-that it was just as much in the interest of English-speaking Canadians to learn French as it was for the French to learn English.
Lord Elgin, writing to Lord Grey from Montreal, on May 4, 1848, said:
I am very anxious to hear that you have taken steps for the repeal of so much of the Act of Union as imposes restrictions on the use of the French language... I must, moreover, confess that I, for one, am deeply convinced of the impolicy of all such attempts to denationalize the French. Generally speaking, they produce the opposite effect from that intended, cause the flame of national prejudice and animosity to burn more firmly.. . You may perhaps Americanize, but, depend upon it, by methods of this description you will never anglicize ,-the French inhabitants of a province.
Lord Grey writes, in answer to Lord Elgin, on June 1, 1848:
I quite agree with you as to the impolicy of the attempt. . .. Therefore, though I confess I am sorry to alter the Union Act as regards the languages, I shall almost immediately yield to their wishes by bringing up a Bill to effect the desired changes. You will receive an official announcement of this intention by this mail.
Lord Elgin to Earl Grey, Montreal, June 1, 1848:
Let me also remind you of the importance which attaches to the passing of a measure to remove the restrictions imposed by the Act ot Union on the use of the French language.
I shall say no more about that point. I think we all agree that it is an advantage, an asset, to -Canada to possess two languages. Those members of this House who have travelled in Europe-and there are many-know that when they go to England, to France, to Italy, to Austria, to Germany, to Switzerland, or to any other part of Europe, they are rarely met by a man of some education who does not know two, three, or -more languages. We are about to enter on a campaign for the extension of our foreign trade. I listened with interest to the instructive statements made to the House the other day by the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster). We wish him success in the campaign he is undertaking to make known our goods abroad and to bring trade from other countries. He will be the first, I have no doubt, to tell the House of the great advantage it would be for the people of Ontario, or any part of Canada, to have among their employees men who can write the French language. For French is used universally in Russia, Switzerland, in Italy -practically by every non-English-speaking nation on the continent of Europe. The hon. member for Kamouraska gave us yes-

terday tihe astounding statement that when the Turkish plenipotentiaries reached Berlin those wishing to be understood by the gathering had to address them in the French language. So we are not asking the great province of Ontario to adopt that which is unworthy of her; we are not asking her to go back on the traditions of the British race, of which they are the main stock upon this continent. We are asking only a reasonable privilege for French Canadians. We are not asking them to impose the learning of France upon their children, but asking only that the 250,000 French Canadians who are good law-abiding citizens of that province, should be allowed, while learning the English language at their own expense, to have tihe privilege of imparting to their children the French language. Is there anything unbecoming in this? Is there anything un-British in this'appeal? Is there anything unfair?
Look at the way the Maritime Provinces have dealt with this question. Look at Prince Edward Island; look at New Brunswick; look at Nova Scotia. And, in passing, let me pay this tribute to Nova Scotia -that it has at all times been in the. vanguard in educational progress in the Dominion of Canada, and has furnished leaders of thought in educational affairs to the rest of the Dominion. I need only to refer to President Falconer of the University of Toronto; to the late Principal Grant of Queen's University; in Montreal to Sir William Dawson; and many others. The province of Nova Scotia is small in population and area, but, blessed with a splendid educational system and led by men with broad views who have' played a large part in this matter, it has settled this question without difficulty. I was reading the other day the report of the Minister of Education of Nova Scotia, and was glad to see that the report on the bilingual system was published in French. In 1871, shortly after Confederation, this House was appealed to in connection with the New Brunswick school question. That question was removed from the Federal arena, and, under the guidance of wise men, they have solved it to the satisfaction of the Acadian minority in that province. What a satisfaction it must be to-day for a member from New Brunswick to have it said by a member of the minority that in that province they have been given justice and fairplay.
I have a higher opinion and a higher idea of the province of Ontario than is held by many others. I do not look upon Ontario

as a province that would wilfully do anything wrong or would commit a wilful injustice at the expense of a minority. I have every faith in the province of Ontario. I have not visited that province so much during tihe last fifteen years, as I used to do in the old days; but in those old days I used frequently to visit Essex, Kent, Oxford, Toronto, and various other parts of Ontario. I went through the whole province sometimes with ministers of the Crown and with men who occupied leading positions in the affairs of the province. Upon all those occasions I was received as one of the family, and, as a citizen of Quebec, was always welcome to the hearts and homes of the people. I found in Ontario a degree of advancement, progress, and material industry and prosperity which unfortunately, we do not enjoy in the province of Quebec. No one need tell me that a people so progressive in all such matters would be backward in this, which is not by any means a new principle.
The province of Ontario has allowed the teaching of French from time immemorial. The older members of the House remember the late Hon. R. W. Scott, who died at an advanced age, and who was the author of the Separate School Act of Ontario. On many occasions he explained to me the difficulties which he had in bringing about the passage of that measure; but when it was finally adopted in 1863 by a majority of the Canadian Parliament, in which majority were found 25 Protestant members, it was a recognition of the rights of the Catholic minority in the province of Ontario. Such a measure redounds to the honour of that province. What has been done upon the religious ground can also he done upon the racial ground.
Has it not sometimes struck you, Sir, as most extraordinary that at a time when, for the last three months, at Verdun, within a few miles of Paris, France has been pouring out the blood of her children to repulse the hordes of the German invaders, to save the civilization of Europe, as in other days Charles Martel saved it at Poitiers from the invasion .of the Mussulman-does it not seem strange to you that in this, the premier colony of the Empire, we should be begging, craving, almost on our knees, to be allowed to give to our children the language which those heroes speak around the walls of Verdun?
I cannot believe that the Government of Ontario has finally closed this question. I

look to the province of Ontario for better treatment, and following up the requests that have been made, I hope that reconsideration will be given to this subject as it easily can be given. The minority are not unreasonable. In a statement that I have just read, they express their willingness that this grievance should be submitted to arbitration. They are willing that their school system in the city of Ottawa, which is the most important in this respect in the whole province, should be taken over at once by the Department of Education of , Ontario. They are willing that the commission that they have themselves elected should withdraw altogether on condition that the appointed commission should also withdraw, and that then the Department of Education of Ontario should take over the handling of the schools. They are willing that that arrangement should continue until judgment is given by the Privy Council. But whatever that judgment may be, whether it be favourable to the minority or not, the final and the ultimate application of that judgment will rest with the people and the Government of Ontario. The citizens of Ontario are strong; they are numerous; they are rich. A bountiful Providence has given them all the elements for the constitution of a great people. They have shown a noble spirit in the recruiting which is being carried on in their chief city. The city of Toronto has sent almost 30,000 men, almost 10 per cent of all the soldiers that have been sent from Canada. I envy the magnificent example set by the city of Toronto in having sent 30,000 men to the front - to defend the rights of oppressed nations in Europe. The Legislature of Ontario was opened two months ago by the Lieutenant-Governor of that province, and in the speech from the Throne he used this language:
Hitherto the relations of the European powers to each other have heen regulated and controlled largely by treaty engagements, by international laws and usage and by good faith. In consequence of the repudiation of such restraints and obligations in the pursuit of unlimited and unscrupulous ambition, the world has been plunged into a general war. The British people have therefore been compelled to take up arms to vindicate their honour, to enforce the guaranteed rights of the small nations and to protect the Empire from attack.
This is what the boys of Toronto, and this is what the boys of the old province of Ontario, with those of the other provinces, have gone to Europe to do. We ask the people of Ontario who have remained at
home if they cannot do for a small minority in Ontario what the boys are striving to do for other minorities in Europe. We are fortunate in this country at the present time to be far from the scene of conflict. We have not been afflicted as unfortunate Belgium has been. Our soul has not been rent and tom as has been the glorious soul of France. We enjoy the blessings of peace. We are blessed by a bountiful Providence, and if it is necessary to the happiness, and the greatness of a people, surely the premier province of this Dominion is able, on a question like this, to show an example. Even if there are men in the province of Quebec who have so far forgotten their duty as to be backward in the present movement, is that any reason why the province of Ontario should not give us an incentive in the work that we have undertaken of cementing and bringing together the various elements of the Canadian people? This question remains in tihe provincial arena; but the present Government and the members from Ontario in this House can exercise a great influence in its solution, and I hope that we will be able to do it before this debate is closed, or if not then, within a reasonable time, so that an end will be put to this unfortunate agitation.
The member for Kingston (Mr. Nickie) referred last night to the determination on tihe part of the Government of Ontario to see to it that every child in Ontario shall learn the English language. He said that Regulation 17 had been adopted to deal with recalcitrant schools, schools in localities where the English language lhad not been properly taught. For my part I am prepared to submit to the strongest measure that can be adopted by the Legislature of Ontario for the purpose of seeing to it that a fair and reasonable English education is given to every child within the province. But if I am prepared to do that in the interests of the child and in the interests of that province and of this Dominion, I ask from that province that they do not tear from the mouth of that child the mother tongue that has been given to him by nature and by God, because the man who is truly loyal to the instincts of his heart and this origin will never be unfaithful or disloyal to his Government, or to his Sovereign. We have found loyalty characterizing the French Canadian people in	all	the history of the race
in this country; in Ontario, as in other parts of the ' old provinces, of Canada. What have the French Cani

adians done in Ontario? They came, the sons of the first pioneers of this country, mostly as shantymen; in some cases as navigators. They came through the wilderness, they followed up the Ottawa river, through the Great Lakes, and on beyond the head of lake Superior; La Verandrye to the Rockies; others to New Orleans. But those who settled in Ontario were the descendants of poor people, who found their way to Ontario through the wilderness. They did not go there in a Pullman car, with all the conveniences of a modern railway. They did not go into Ontario and take up land on which they could growr wheat on 100 acres in a year or two. They came into Ontario with the wives and their young children, with their strong arms, knowing that they were still upon British soil. They opened up the northern part of Ontario, they followed the wafer routes . of travel. They established themselves along the Detroit river. They settled the eastern part of Ontario, and to-day they are loyal people and law-abiding citizens of Ontario. For many years a French Canadian was thought to be worthy of occupying a seat in the Cabinet of the province. Unfortunately at the present time they have no representative, but that is a mere accident. To-day these people are as good settlers, and in fact they are as good citizens of Ontario, as any to be found in that province. They are ratepayers in Ontario. The money which they pay goes to the maintenance of Ontario. They do not ask for their children the privileges which are given to the Englishspeaking children of Ontario. The Englishspeaking children of Ontario can go to the primary schools; they can go to the secondary schools; they -can go to the high schools; they can go to the collegiate schools; they can go to the universities. The English child of Ontario can do that. He will find English taught wherever he goes; but the French child-what do we ask for him? We merely ask that introduction to the English language which he learns in the elementary school, and that he be allowed at the same time to improve the French that he inherits from his parents. He can go to the high school, but on the understanding that he loses his French. He can go to the collegiate institute on the same footing. There is no course of French study in the high schools.
Mr. CURRIE; There is a course of French in the high schools, and every collegiate institute has to teach it.
	,


Charles Marcil: It is a subject for an
hour or so a week.


Mr. CURRIE:: No, more than that; the same as English.


Charles Marcil: Then I stand corrected,
because it has been represented to me otherwise.


An hon. MEMBER:: Do not believe all
you hear.


Charles Marcil: gained by speaking upon this point at any further length, and I will now summarize. The settlement which the minority ask for is not an unreasonable one. They ask the Government of the province of Ontario to givie their children an English education, to pass regulations to that effect, and to see that those regulations are enforced. But at the same time they ask that with their own money their children slhall be taught enough French to enable them to keep up the French language, which to them is as dear as life itself. It is useless to ask a man to give up his language, or the ideals that are dear to 'his heart. As Lord Duf-ferin has said, it is one of the assets of Canada and adds to the variety of life in this country to have these different languages spoken by people united by the common bond of the English language, which will always remain the language of an overwhelming majority of the Canadian people. The French language adds a charm to our varied life. Think of the stranger, the European, perhaps, who comes from other lands to visit Canada. Where will he direct his steps to find something historical, something romantic, something interesting, in the past history of Canada? We all know where he will go. He will go to the cradle of Canadian civilization, down to the banks of the St. Lawrence, down by the sea, where Canadian history began, where British history on this continent began, and where took place the cementing of the two great nations that has brought about the expansion of this broad Dominion -the creation of this great Empire on the North American continent. There are here in this House representatives from the West, representatives from the East, and representatives from the centre of Canada. They know what the French race has done for this country. They have learned in the histories they read at school what the pioneers have done for this country; what has been done by the missionaries and those who came here as the forerunners of civilization. They know also that the French race in their loyalty and devotion to the service of the King of England have never been wanting. Governors of Canada have testified, one after another, to the loyalty of the French population, not only in Quebec, but in Ontario as well. The King of England himself, when Prince of Wales, visited the Plains of Abraham at Quebec, and was gratified at the great spectacle that at a given moment Canadians
	^	; jfj
could present. What was that spectacle? It was a gathering together of representatives of the whole of Canada on the Plains of Abraham. Ontario was represented on that occasion by the late Sir James Whitney, one of the great men who have represented that province; and other distinguished men from all parts of Canada met there upon common ground, to bury the differences that had in the past separated and disunited the Canadian people. They were there trying to establish a bond of friendship and amity.
I do not wish to close my remarks without alluding to a matter that is not referred to in the motion before the House. Allusion has been made here to the position of the French minority in Manitoba. The natural spokesman for the French people of Manitoba is the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Molloy), in whose constituency live the great majority of French-speaking people of that province. But, being ill and unable to be present, he asked me two or three weeks ago if I would act in bis place and bring before the House in this debate the position of the French minority in Manitoba. I do not ask for any different treatment for the French people in the province of Manitoba than for those in the [DOT] province of Ontario. We have precisely the same appeal to make to Ontario that we have to Manitoba, and vice versa. But I am sorry for this: in Manitoba the old sore seems to have broken out again. We thought it had healed for all time to come. After all the trouble and anxiety that both political parties had had, not only in Manitoba but throughout the Dominion, we thought that this question had been settled forever; but, unfortunately, it has broken out again, and why? Because the Government of Manitoba has repealed one clause of the Laurier-Greenway agreement, an agreement which had been brought about by the joint action of the Dominion Government of that day and the province of Manitoba. The clause repealed is very brief, apd reads as follows:
When ten of the pupils in any school speak the French language, or any language other than English, as their native language, the teaching of such pupils shall be conducted in French or such other language, and English upon the bilingual system.
That was the clause of the Laurier-Greenway agreement, which was put into effect in the bilingual schools in Manitoba, and which has been in effect for the last fifteen years. It has been repealed now by the

Legislature of Manitoba, by a vote of thirty-six to eight. Included in the minority of eight is the sole English-speaking Protestant Don in the legislature, the six French, Canadian members belonging to either political party, and the one Ruthen-ian representing the district of Gimli. Those eight representatives protested against the repeal of that clause, which they thought was in the interest of the French minority in the province of Manitoba, who occupy a unique position. In 1720 there were no white people out West when Pierre de la Verandrye wended his way from the lake of the Woods into the province of Manitoba, planted at Massacre island the first Christian cross erected on that part of the North American continent, and paved the way for the pioneers and settlers who came after him. In 1870, when the province of Manitoba was about to become united to the Dominion, delegates from Assiniboia and the Northwest Territories negotiated with the representatives of the Dominion and were granted their rights and privileges. The Manitoba Legislature met and those rights were confirmed. In 1890 the school law was passed and the separate schools were abolished. Then we had the long appeals to the Dominion Parliament, the Remedial Bill of 1896, and finally the appeal to the people of Canada, who decided against coercive measures, and I think the Canadian people would decide now, or at any other time, against coercive measures of any kind. In 1896'that question was settled and would probably have remained settled for all time. I do not refuse to any man, no matter from what land he may come, the advantages that he may have, the satisfaction that he may enjoy in retaining his language and the traditions of the race from which he has sprung; but, because of the arrangements entered into between the French and Scotch representatives of Assiniboia, because of the Manitoba Act, because of the judgment of the Privy Council, because especially of the Laurier-Greenway agreement, which was a scrap of paper, it is true, but which was a treaty, so to speak, between the Dominion and the province of Manitoba, which was placed upon the statute book of Manitoba, and which was an undertaking by that province to give the minorities certain rights, the French Canadians of Manitoba feel that they have peculiar rights different from the rights of those who have come into the province latterly. I understand that so long as the
French Canadians were alone and claimed the privileges, no great objection was taken, but later on, when people of other nationalities came info Manitoba, the situation became more complex, as those other nationalities took advantage of the clause, and that, I understand, not having read the debate, was the reason given for the repeal of the clause. In the absence of the non. member for Provenoher (Mr. Molloy), and at his request I shall read to the House the resolution adopted at a general meeting of representatives of all the French Canadians in the province of Manitoba, held at St. Boniface on the day after the introduction of this Bill in the Manitoba Legislature, to indicate to the House the position taken by the French Canadians of that province. The resolution, which was moved by Mr. Talbot, member for La Veranarye, reads:
Whereas the French and Catholic population in Manitoba are, according to natural law, by right of their title as first occupants, under solemn treaties, under the British North Am-, erica Act, pursuant to the solemn pact expressly entered into between delegates from the territory of Assiniboia and the Northwest Territories and delegates from the Dominion of Canada, by virtue of the Manitoba Act and subsequent legislation, entitled to rights and privileges that have been violated by the legislature of Manitoba ;
And whereas the French and Catholic minority in the province of Manitoba has enjoyed its national and religious rights until there was enacted in Manitoba the law of 1890, by which the minority's constitutional rights were wiped out of the statute-books of the province ;
And whereas the French and Catholic minority had its constitutional rights confirmed by the highest court of the British Empire;
And whereas in 1897 a general arrangement known as the Laurier-Greenway agreement was * entered into between the Governor in Council and the Lieutenant Governor in Council in) Manitoba, which agreement restored to the French and Catholic minority of this province a part only of its constitutional rights:
And whereas the said minority was never a party to the said agreement and never accepted it as a complete and final settlement, but only as a partial satisfaction of fits claims;
And whereas the present Prime Minister of Manitoba, the Hon. Tobias Crawford Norris, was, at the time the said agreement was entered into, a member of the Legislature of Manitoba, and a supporter of the party then in power, and therefore made himself a party to the contract by voting in favour of it;
And whereas since that day the minority in Manitoba has never ceased to claim the full and complete acknowledgement of its constitutional rights;
And whereas the present Executive Council of this province, with the support of a.majority of the members, has submitted to the Legislative Assembly a Bill abolishing once more the rights of the Catholic and French minority in this province, setting at defiance the solemn treaties confirmed by the highest court of the British Empire;

And whereas such an action is tyrannical, unconstitutional and contrary to all true notion and fair definition of British fair play;
And whereas Great Britain and the British Empire are now engaged in a war solely to uphold the honour of the signature G?eat Britain has appended to a treaty;
And whereas a treaty made and signed in Canada should not be considered as a mere scrap of paper in this country any more than in Europe, unless there be two different codes of honour;
Be it therefore resolved that:
The Catholic and French Vigilance Committee appointed at St. Boniface at a public meeting held on February 9, 1916, for themselves and for their co-religionists and compatriots of the province of Manitoba, solemnly proclaim their absolute attachment to the constitution of their country;
They vigorously protest against any legislation such as is now submitted and they express their unflinching determination to resist any law that may be enacted in violation of their rights and privileges as defined by the constitution of the country.
They further solemnly pledge themselves to use at their discretion and according to their judgment all constitutional and necessary means to prevent the said Act being put into force.
This question in the province of Manitoba, to which I understand the Prime Minister has referred, is not now before the House, but we are told that the Ontario question is not before the House, that this Government having refused disallowance, it has passed out of the Dominion arena, and the Manitoba question has not yet come into it. I was anxious to show that, in fighting the cause of the minority of Ontario, I did not overlook that of the province of Manitoba, and I think what is fair treatment on the banks of lake Ontario should be fair treatment on the banks of the Red river. We are asking merely for the same recognition of those rights enunciated in this resolution as have been recognized by the highest court of the Empire and by all Imperial and Canadian legislation. Nevertheless, those rights have been set aside. I am not going to discuss the merits- or demerits of the case, because I did not listen to the argument. When the present amendment is disposed of I intend, at the request of this minority, to submit the following resolution, which has been drafted by them for presentation to this House. I am prepared to submit this resolution to-morrow, or at any time that the Government may decide. I will read the text of the resolution:
Whereat, on the advice contained in the judgment delivered on the 29th January, 1S95, by the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on the appeal of Brophy and others v. the Attorney General of Manitoba,

Her Majesty was pleased to pass the Imperial Order in Council dated 2nd February, 1895 ;
And whereas the Government of Canada in 1895, 1896 and 1897, under the respective leadership of Sir Mackenzie Bowell, Sir Charles Tupper and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in conformity with the terms of the said judgment and Imperial Order in Council, has taken action thereunder, which resulted in the enactment by the Manitoba Legislature of the statute being 60 Victoria, chapter 24, sometimes referred to as the Laurier-Greenway settlement;
And whereas the said Legislature, by an Act passed at its last session, has repealed section 258 of the Public Schools Act of the said province, which, prior to the consolidation of the statutes of the said province in 1902, was section 10 of the said statute 60 Victoria, chapter 24 ;
And whereas the repeal of said section 258 prejudicially affects a large portion of the Roman Catholic minority of the said province, by depriving them of a right which they deem essential to the proper education of their children and the suppression of which, moreover, grievously affects the working of the other clauses of the said settlement;
And whereas it is desirable, especially at this critical period in the history of the British Empire, to avoid any cause of inward strife and to promote a feeling of union between the various elements of the .nonunion ;
Be it resolved: That this House record its regret that the Legislature of Manitoba has at its last* session repealed said section 258 of the Public Schools Act, thereby recalling legislation passed after a long and disquieting agitation with the object of relieving a grievance of a large section of His Majesty's loyal subjects in said province.
If the Government will afford me opportunity, I am prepared to move this amendment on the next occasion when the motion is made for Committee of Supply. In view of the statements that have been made; in view of the fact that this question is not yet in the Federal arena, no application having been made for disallowance of this measure; and seeing that hon. members are anxious to save time and to get through this session as soon as possible, I would prefer to take the earliest occasion to bring this matter forward. In doing so I shall fulfil a promise made 'to my hon. colleague from Provenoher (Mr. Molloy), with whom, I am sure, we all sympathize in his illness. It will be my duty to make an appeal to this House for a small minority in the province of Manitoba. They may number only 30,000 in that province, but they are descendants of the first pioneers, those men who were trusted in that province by the Federal Government when the power of the Dominion was first extended to 'that territory. Those people had faith in the word of this Parliament when the Manitoba Act was passed; they had faith in the Privy Council of Great Britain when it declared that justice

should be done to them; they had faith in the Laurier-Greenway agreement, a treaty solemnly ratified by the province of Manitoba and placed upon its statute-books. They had a right to believe that the small concession accorded to them, of giving to their children, along with an English education, a knowledge of the French language, the first European language to be heard in the western part of Canada, would be respected. But it has been repealed. I do not know what the intentions of the National Government are with regard to it, whether they intend to recommend some legislation concerning it, or whether the matter lies there the subject of an appeal for disallowance.
I lay these facts and views before the House, and in doing so I feel in my heart and soul that I have fulfilled my duty as a Canadian, as a British subject, and as a representative of the people, anxious to promote harmony, good will, concord and a better understanding between the various elements comprising this Dominion. I hope that in the statement I have made, which is much longer than I expected, not one word has passed my lips which can wound the feelings of any member of this House. If such a word has escaped me, I apologize therefor. I submit these facts to my fellow members of this House, firm in my resolve to sustain the constitution under which I was born, and the flag' under which I was reared, and with faith that British fair play will be accorded to. all parties in Ontario and 'Manitoba in the settlement of these unfortunate differences.


Mr. J. W. EDWARDS (Frontenac):: I desire to preface my remarks on this subject with a personal reference. When I was considerably younger than I am now, I spent several years in the very useful though not very remunerative occupation of teaching school. Most of these years I spent teaching in the public schools of Ontario, one in the county of Essex, where I happened to have as pupils a few French children who could not speak any English, while I was in the position of not being able to speak any French. And, strange as it may seem to some hon. gentlemen opposite, these children made satisfactory progress under these conditions. I also was principal for a matter of two years and a half of one of the largest schools in the province of Manitoba. I merely mention these facts for this reason -that perhaps, because of my close connection with the teaching profession, I have
given to educational matters in the Dominion of Canada considerable thought and attention, and have specially given considerable thought and attention to educational affairs in the province of Ontario and in the province of Manitoba.
I tru^t that I shall be able to say what I have to say moderately and fairly and without giving offence to any one in this House. But I candidly confess, Sir, that in stating that I am undertaking a rather difficult task. For, as a resident of Ontario, it is by no means easy to sit in one's seat and hear the Government and the English-speaking people of my native province characterized as tyrannical, oppressive, and all that sort of thing. Under these conditions, it is not very easy, perhaps, for one to speak as moderately as he would wish to do. But I assure you I am going to do the very best I can to handle this matter fairly and in a moderate manner.
Outside this House, and in the House too for that matter, this subject has been discussed particularly upon two lines. Men who are in favour of the bilingual system have assumed that the rights of the French Canadian minority in Ontario have been interfered with, not only their constitutional and legal rights, but also their natural rights. May I be permitted to glance very briefly over history, as was done by others who have preceded me in this debate. I find that in the terms of capitulation after the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, and after the fall of Montreal a year later, and in the Peace of Paris of 1763, not one word appears with regard to the French language or the use of that language in Canada. In 1774, the Quebec Act was passed, in which I find no reference whatever to the question of language. There was provision made, and, I think, ample and generous provision, for safeguarding the interests of Roman Catholics in Canada at that time.
The next great event affecting the history of Canada, and affecting to a very large extent this question, was the American revolutionary war, immediately following which there was a large influx into the province of Quebec and the other provinces, of United Empire Loyalists. I believe that about 50,000 of these came into Quebec. Some 10,000 came in 1783 and 1784 into Ontario alone. Many settled in Nova Scotia, many in Cape Breton and along the St. John river in New Brunswick. The result of this settlement-and every encouragement was given to these people to

come in-was a good deal of jealousy and antagonism between the two races, the French and the English. Following this, and as a result of this I think, was the passing of the Constitutional Act of 1791, by which a separate Government was given to each province. The population of Ontario in 1791 was about 20,000 all English; and the population of Quebec at that time was about 125,000, of whom a little more than one-third were English. In passing on from the Constitutional Act of 1791, all I have to say is that in that Imperial Act there was no reference whatever to the question of language or language rights.
We come next to 1840, the passing of the Act of Union, which came into effect in 1841 and by which the two provinces were brought under one Government. It was provided in this Act that the English language only was to be used in the parliamentary records. While this was modified some years later, it is of importance to remember what the conditions were at the time of the adoption of the Act of 1840, if we are to properly understand the British North America Act of 1867. The population of Upper Canada in 1841 was 465,357, of whom 14,763 were French. The population of Lower Canada or Quebec was at that time 698,000, of whom 524,307 were French. In other words, the population of the two' provinces which were brought together by the Act of Union for parliamentary purposes, to do their parliamentary business in one parliament, was 539,074 French and 624,283 English. That is, at that time' the respective populations of the two principal races were practically the same in the two provinces. Just previous to the Act of Union of 1841, there had been troublous times in this country resulting in a rebellion in 1837. The people of the province of Quebec or Lower Canada and the people of Ontario or Upper Canada had many grievances to complain of, and it does seem to me that if at that time, when they were asking consideration of their grievances, this matter of language had been regarded by them as one on which they had a grievance, that would have been one of the things that would- have been taken up and that would have been especially referred to in the Act of Union of 1840. But it was not so taken up. The Act of Union came into effect, and, as I have already said there was in it a distinct provision for the use of the English language in the records of the House, which was not changed for a number of years. To sum up in regard to this period from 1763 fMr. Edwards.]
to 1840, I make the statement that in all the Acts that were passed, either in this country or by the Imperial Parliament, there was not one line, there was not one word, there was no controversy, no demand, in regard to the use of the French language in the Dominion of Canada.
While in all this legislation which had been passed from time to time the question of language was not made a basis of settlement in any Act in regard to teaching in schools, separate schools were recognized and were authorized in this country on denominational grounds. We find that in almost every Act from 1774 right down to 1867.
The Quebec Government, in this controversy, or since this controversy started, has undertaken to advise the Government of the province of Ontario, and has actually passed legislation permitting some of the people of Quebec to apply some of their money to assist certain of their compatriots in Ontario in fighting Regulation 17. I am going to place on Hansard some figures to show why, in my judgment, the province of Quebec should not presume to offer advice to the province of Ontario on educational matters. I do not do this with any intention or desire to wound the feelings of any person; I am simply going to give you facts which you can obtain, as I have obtained them from the census records of this country. According to the census of 1901, there were only 10.23 per cent of the children of school age in the province of Ontario who could neither read nor write. By the same census, there were in the province of Quebec 22.08 per cent of the children of school age who could neither read nor write. Then take the census figures of 1911. Of children, 5 years and over, who could neither read nor write at that time,, there were only 6.51 per cent in Ontario, while in the province of Quebec there were 12.66 per cent.
The right hon. leader of the Opposition has said that he would be satisfied if in Ontario Regulation 17 was repealed and conditions restored as they were, previous to 1912. What were the conditions previous to 1912? I have already stated, and I think it is fair to state, the relative positions of the provinces of Quebec and Ontario in regard to education of the children as indicated by the literacy or illiteracy of the children in (each province. But I wish to go further, and to call to the attention of this House the fact that in the province of Ontario we find the greatest number of

children who can neither read nor write in those counties in the province of Ontario where the French Canadians are in the largest number. For instance, in the county of Nipissing, according to the census of 1911, there were 26,277 French out of 74,130 people. In that county 15.23 per cent of the children of school age could neither read nor write. In Prescott county, with a population of 20,124 French out of a total population of 26,968, 15.48 per cent of the children of school age could not read nor write. In Russell county, with a population of 22,475 French out of a total population of 39,434, 13.77 per cent of the children of school age could neither read nor write. In Glengarry, with a population of 8,710 French out of a total population of 21,259, 13.70 per cent of the children of school age could neither read nor write.
Now, I ask this question: Why should the county of Prescott show 15.48 per cent of children of school age who cannot read or write, and the county of Russell 13.77 per cent, while Dundas county, very close to Prescott and Russell, shows only 4.75 pier cent of children of school age who cannot read or write, and Carleton county only 6.93 per cent? Why should North Waterloo, for instance, where there are 25,352 German-Canadians out of a total population of 33,619, show only 4.26 per cent of children of school age who cannot read or write, and Prescott, where there are 20,124 French Canadians out of a population of 26,968, show 15.48 per cent of children of school who cannot read or write?


Mr. PROTJLX:: Has the hon. gentleman the figures for Frontenac?


John Wesley Edwards: In Frontenac they are 6-57.


Mr. PROULX:: Addington?


John Wesley Edwards: I have not the figures for Addington here. Why should Ottawa, the capital of Canada, show a greater number of children who cannot read or write than any other city in the province of Ontario? That is a fact, and one surely worthy of consideration. I ask in all seriousness was it not time for the Government of the province of Ontario, in face of conditions such as those I have mentioned, and which no man can dispute, to look seriously into this matter, not merely on behalf of the English-speaking children, but more strongly on behalf of the French-speaking children in the province of Ontario, who
were evidently not getting the education which they should receive.
I want to call Attention to this further fact, that out of sixty-five constituencies in the province of Quebec only two are up to the Ontario general average, so far as literacy of the isehool children is concerned, and in one of these only twenty-nine per cent of the population is French Canadian. That is most significant, it seems to me, and I think I am perfectly right in saying, coming as I do from the province of Ontario, that under these conditions we have a right, not to accept the dictum of the Quebec Government, or of the people of the province of Quebec, on educational matters. I say that without any desire to give offence, and simply on the facts which I have given.
The figures which I am going to give now will show the reason why Ontario shows a high record in regard to the education of its people. In Ontario we have 12,016 teachers, and we spend $12,104,422 a year on education. In Manitoba they have 2,341 teachers, and they spend $5,023,891. In ' Quebec they have 14,937 teachers, and all it costs them there is $6,794,333. While they have that number of teachers in the province of Quebec, their salaries are not so large; there may be good and sufficient reason for that, and I do not care to gc into that, the figures are there to speak foi themselves.
I want to carry this matter a little further. Some may say:	"You are dealing
only with the children of school age from 5 years upwards." Let us take the figures of the Canadian-born males of 21 years and over, that is, men who have the right to vote in this country, and what do we find? Illiteracy of Canadian-born males of 21 years and over in Canada amounts to 9.55 per cent. That is a comparatively small percentage. The percentage for Ontario and Manitoba is only 4-91 who cannot read or write. The percentage for Quebec of males Canadian-born, 21 years and over, who can neither read nor write is 15-64, as against 4-91 for the province of Ontario, and against 9-55 for the Dominion of Canada as a whole. That is to say, that in that regard Quebec stands lowest of all the provinces of the Dominion, and the only parts of the province of Ontario that rank with Quebec's general average in this respect are the counties of Prescott, where 21-75 per cent of the voters can neither read nor write, Nipissing, where 14-78 of the voters can neither read nor write, Rus-

sell, where 18.66 can neither read nor write and Glengarry where 14.46 can neither read nor write. The only county in the province of Nova Scotia which ranks at all in this class, I need hardly tell this House, is the county of Richmond, which has an average of 23-45 who cannot read or write. These are figures to which hon. gentlemen must give consideration. They are significant. It cannot he said that it just happens so that the counties which show the high percentage of illiteracy are counties where French Canadians predominate in the population. It is something we should think about, and that the Government of Ontario should think about. In Ontario 95 per cent of the voters can read and write. That is a high percentage. Am I using too strong language when I say that as a representative from the province of Ontario, where 95 per cent of the voters can read and write, I do not feel very much like accepting -advice from the hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil), for instance, or from the hon. member for Kam-ouraska (Mr. 'Lapointe), especially when I find that over 20 per cent of the voters in their respective constituencies can neither read nor write the language which falls in such beautiful musical melody from their eloquent lips? Am I going too far when I say that I do not feel much like accepting the advice of the hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux), who for so many years represented the constituency of Gaspe, a constituency where over 33 per cent of the voters could neither read nor write? May I call attention to the fact also that over 25 per cent of the voters in Laval and Temiscouata can neither read no'r write; that Three Rivers shows a percentage of 181 per cent who can neither read nor write and that Wright, which is represented by the seconder of this resolution, has over 23.08 per cent who cannot read the beautiful speeches made by the hon. member for that county, nor write to him asking for a job.
It cannot be said, Mr. Speaker, that this degree of illiteracy is due to the British-born immigrants who come into that province or to any part of Canada, because the same census figures give us information to the contrary. So far as literacy is concerned, the British immigrants in this country rank higher than the native population in any province. There is only 3 per cent of British immigrants, 21 years of age and over, who cannot read or write. Nor can it be ascribed to the foreign-born immigrants who come to Quebec and other parts

of Canada from all parts , of the world, for it is the fact that they show a greater degree of literacy than the average in many constituencies in the province of Quebec. There are in the province of Ontario, or were at the laist census, 202,000 French Canadians. We have been told that they number 250,000 at the present time. I am not in a position to dispute these figures; I state what there were in 1911. There was about the same German population in the province of Ontario as French Canadians at that time. In 60 out of the 86 constituencies there are more German Canadians than French Canadians; and let me also add this, that in all these years they have made no demands such as have been made by the 202,000 French Canadians in this province. I am not exactly right in saying that, because there are not 202,000 French Canadians making those demands. The demand has originated in the city of Ottawa, where they have not tried the regulation, where they have never tried to see whether it would work or not. As regards the French population of Ontario, what certain agitators in the city of Ottawa demand does not apply to the French Canadians in the province of Ontario generally. But I would like to ask this question of those who favour this legislation: Are those who demand bilingual schools for the French willing to accede to a similar demand from Germans, Austrians, Italian and other residents of this country? There has been considerable skating around that matter by hon. gentlemen opposite. The hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux), I think, intimated that they lost their rights to their mother tongue when they crossed the ocean. He would not be prepared to give them the right to their language. If I am correct, the hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil) said that he would not deny the foreign population coming into this country the right to the use of their language.


Charles Marcil: I said it was natural for a man to adhere to his native tongue, but I said that the French settlers on the Red river in Manitoba were very different from those who came to Canada latterly, because they had a treaty and legislation in their favour and the others had not.


John Wesley Edwards: I have no wish to misquote the hon. gentleman. I understood the hon. member to say that he was prepared to move a resolution in this House rather deprecating the abrogation of section 258, and if that meant anything it meant that he

would like to see section 258 restored, If section 258 is restored, you have the restoration, not of bilingualism, but of poly-lingualism in Manitoba. Would my hon. friend favour the Laurier-Greenway agreement of 1897 being applied to all the other provinces in Canada?
Mr, MARCIL: There is no reason to apply it in Quebec because the French people in this Dominion are in a very different position from that occupied by Germans, Austrians and others. They have rights according to the constitution and the others have not.


John Wesley Edwards: Do I understand that
my hon. friend would approve of applying that regulation to all the provinces?


Charles Marcil: I do not believe in making German, Austrian or Italian official languages.


John Wesley Edwards: Then the hon. gentleman is directly at issue with his leader, who was responsible for establishing that system in Manitoba in 1897. If his leader was wrong, then it is quite possible that his leader and himself are wrong now. I think it is not only possible, but that it is extremely likely. What are the conditions as far as the West is concerned? You are either in the position, in so far as that section is concerned, of repudiating what your leader did in 1897, or of saying that it is a proper thing for the whole country. What position are you put in then with regard to these western provinces? The foreign-born residents of the four western provinces are as follows:
Manitoba.
Nationality.	Number.
French	 30,444
Germans	 34,530
Austrians	 39,665
Poles	 12,310
Jews	 10,741
Russians	 8,841
Scandinavians	 6,419
Alberta.
French	'	 19,852
Germans	 36,862
Austrians	- 26,427
Scandinavians	 28,047
Russians	 9,421
Polish	 2,243
Saskatchewan.
French	 23,251
Germans	 68,628
Austrians	-	 41,651
Scandinavians	 33,991
Russians	 18,413
Polish	 3,785
British Columbia.
French	 8,907
Germans	 11,880
Austrians	 7,015
Scandinavians	 15,968
Russians	 6,896
Chinese	 19,568
My right hon. friend who leads the Opposition says: Let us face this issue like men. This issue is one that applies to more than the province of Ontario. You are laying down a principle that you cannot confine to the limits of Ontario. 1 ask the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition if he is prepared, at the head of his party, to go into these western provinces, into .Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, and ask the Governments to place on the statute-book the Act which he himself placed on the statute-book of Manitoba in 1897? They dare
4 p.m. not go into these provinces and advocate anything of that kind. Neither the right hon. gentleman nor his supporters in this House will dare, for political reasons, to go into Saskatchewan or Alberta and demand of these provinces anything like the privileges which are granted to the French Canadians in the province of Ontario by the Ontario Government.


Mr. LAMARCHE:: Has my hon. friend any statistics as Tegards the Algonquin or any other tribe of Indians in Canada?


John Wesley Edwards: I do not want to mix the Indians with the whites.


Paul-Émile Lamarche: We are much obliged to you.


John Wesley Edwards: You are quite welcome. In 1896 the slogan of the Liberal party in this country was, "Hands off Manitoba." I will again place on Hansard the section of the LaurierjGreenway agreement, although it was read by my hon. friend from Bonaventure.
When ten of the pupils in any schools speak the French language or any language other than English as their native language, the teaching of such pupils shall be conducted in French or such other language and English upon the bi-lingual system.
That is the law that is called the Laurier-Greenway agreement of 1897. The Hon. Dr. Thornton, Minister of Education in the Norris Government is responsible for these figures: On June 30, 1915, there were in Manitoba 2,727 school-rooms of which 1,042 were urban and 1,685 rural. There were 126 French bilingual schools with 234 teachers, 61 German schools with 72

teachers and 111 Ruthenian and Polish schools and 114 teachers. That is in 421 school-rooms or one quarter of the province we have this bilingual condition. The enrolments in these schools were 16,720 or one-sixth of the total school population of Manitoba. The population of Manitoba was 465,614 at the last census of whom 58 per cent was of British origin and 42 per cent was divided into twenty different nationalities. In that province, under this Laurier-<Green-way agreement, 36 schools could demand three languages, 5 could demand four, and in 110 there was such a marked admixture of nationalities that the arrival or departure of a family any day might change the teaching from one language to another. In nearly one-quarter of the schools conducted on the bilingual plan, French, German, Polish, or Ruthenian children were receiving instruction in those languages or some other non-English tongue. In the Strathcona schools there were 1,237 pupils of whom 97 were English speaking, representing 12 different nationalities, each one of which had the right to demand the teaching of their own language in the school under the Laurier-Greenway agreement. I venture to say that never in the history of Canada was such an intolerable curse fastened upon any province in this Dominion. Manitoba had a system fastened on it by the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition which outlawed the English language in that province, which eliminated and proscribed the teaching of the English language and substituted therefor a conglomeration of tongues, a system which made national unity impossible and which encouraged national disintegration. That was the state of affairs brought about by the sunny smile of the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition. The advocates of bilingualism assert that the French in the province of Ontario are deprived of their legal constitutional and natural rights by the tyranny of the Government. They assert that Regulation 17 is ultra vires of the province. I assert that the passing of Regulation 17 is within the constitutional rights of the Provincial Government of Ontario, and in support of that statement I can cite as brilliant an array of legal talent as, I think, ever sat on the bench in Canada. For instance, Hon. Mr. Justice Lennox, at one time a member of this House; Judges of the first Appelate Division, the highest Court of Appeal in Ontario; Hon.

Mr. Justice Garrow, Hon. Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Hon. R. M. Meredith; Hon. Chief Justice of Ontario, Sir William R. Meredith; Hon. Justice McLaren, Hon. Justice Magee, Hon. Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir Glenholme Falconbridge; Hon. Justice Hodgins. A number of other judges also declare that the Ontario Government is within its rights in passing Regulation 17.
I also wish to place on record the opinion of Senator Belcourt, who, I believe, is acting as counsel for tho-se who are fighting against Regulation 17. I wish to quote his opinion, expressed at the first congress of the French-speaking people, held at Quebec in June, 1912. His opinion was delivered at a time when I think that hon. gentleman-and many of his friends in Ontario-had not been swept from sound constitutional grounds by the rising tide of fanaticism. His words have all the greater force because they were evidently uttered with keen regret. He said:
The true fact, regrettable as it may be, is that for the federal domain and the provincial domain of Quebec, there is but the constitution which defines equality of both languages at the Dominion Parliament, at the Quebec Parliament, before the Federal tribunal or courts; and also before the courts of the province of Quebec is the French language on an equal footing with the English language.
Section 133 of the British North America Act, which proclaims equal rights of the French and English before the Federal House, the Federal courts and before the Provincial House of Quebec and the provincial courts, and in section 93 of the same Act, which gives to each province the exclusive power to legislate in matters of education, constitute the sum total of the rights officially recognized in favour of the French Canadian people of the Dominion of Canada; these are the only rights recognized in favour of our race; they are the only rights which cannot be stripped from us without the intervention of the Imperial Parliament; they are the only rights which the constitution and the law formally guaranteed to us; they are the only rights which the law will permit us to exact and about which it gives us the means whereby to exact the same.
In the face of such a statement I do not see how- any one can successfully contend that Regulation 17 is ultra vires of the province of Ontario.
I wish to deal a little more closely with Regulation 17. I do not wish to say that hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House who have spoken have said anything which they did not believe or honestly mean, but I am surprised at the statements that have been made, as they would seem to (indicate that some hon. gentlemen do not understand the matter at all. What has Ontario

done in connection with this matter? In the first place it took into consideration that there were ovot 300,000 French Canadians in Ontario, and about a like number of Germans. Then by legislative Acts it proceeded to deal with these people in a generous manner. It appointed a commission to inquire into conditions existing in those parts of the province where the French and German elements were in great numbers. It made provision for educating French and German children through the medium of their mother tongue, though, strictly speaking, they were not entitled to that privilege under the Constitution. I maintain that Regulation 17, as it exists to-day, is not a restriction, but a concession, and I cannot say that too emphatically. It is not a restriction, but a concession, to the French Canadians in the province of Ontario, and to the German Canadians also. The provincial Government of Ontario says: We recognize the fact that there are in this province a number of French and German Canadians; soi far as you French Canadians are concerned, we think you should have teachers who understand English as well as French; we will put our hands into the public treasury of Ontario and take out money that belongs not only to French Canadians!, but to German Canadians and to all the people, and with that money we will establish and maintain training schools, in order that French teachers may qualify and do better work in the schools where both French and English are used. The provincial Government established four of these training schools. This Government, which has been characterized as oppressive and tyrannical, went further. It said: In order to induce you to take advantage of those schools we will pay your travelling expenses and your board while you are training there. This tyrannical and oppressive Government did not stop there. It went further and said:	We recognize the fact that the
teacher who can speak both languages should command a higher salary; that salary may be higher than you French Canadians could pay; we will therefore again put our hands into the public treasury and bonus these schools to assist in paying these teachers their salaries.
It strikes me that this Government, which is characterized as oppressive and tyrannical and as trying to blot out the French language in the province of Ontario, is adopting very peculiar methods for that end. The Government has gone to all this
trouble, not to blot out the French language, but to assist the French in having their children taught their own language, and the English language as well.


Edmond Proulx: 
John Wesley Edwards: I am not a lawyer, and I am very often at a loss to follow the turnings of a legal mind. Perhaps that is my fault. The hon. gentleman can call it what he likes-bonus, grant, or anything else. I say that there are bilingual schools in the province of Ontario whose expenses t>" ''-'-"'[DOT]nment of the province helps to pay by taking money out of the public treasury.


Edmond Proulx: Regulation 17 provides
for that, but I do not know of one case where it has been done.


John Wesley Edwards: It does not make any
difference about Regulation 17. The fact remains that the Government of Ontario has established training schools at the public expense, and pays out of the public treasury the travelling expenses and board of teachers qualifying at those schools. The Ontario Government has given to those schools a special grant that no other schools in Ontario have received. That is a fact, and it is a fact that does not indicate that the Government of Ontario is oppressive or tyrannical, nor does it indicate any desire on their part to blot out the French language in that province. The Ontario Government goes further, and says:	French
shall be made the language of instruction and communication in those schools in Form 1." If a French child is in Form 1, in which he will remain for two and a half to three years of his school course, that child shall be taught in the French language. The regulation does not stop there, and here I want the attention of the hon. member for Wright (Mr. Devlin), who intimated to the House that that ended the matter so far as that child was concerned. The hon. member was not correct in that statement. After those two and a half or three years, during which instruction and communication are carried on entirely in the French language, one hour a day, or more if the inspector thinks it desirable, is set apart for teaching

grammar, reading, and composition in the French language. I have been surprised that hon. gentlemen should take exception to that one hour a day, and that they should consider it an insufficient provision for the teaching of French. I have been a school teacher for many years, and I have never been able-and I do not believe any other teacher in Quebec, or Ontario, or anywhere else has ever been able-to devote one hour a day to any one subject. A school day consists of five actual teaching hours, and if you devote one hour a day to French you should surely give one hour a day to 'English. In that case you would have three hours left to devote to' seven or eight other subjects. Hon. gentlemen do not know what they are speaking of when they refer to this one hour a day as a restriction. It is a concession; more than that, it is a liberal and generous concession. It is idle, it is folly, it is worse than folly, it is criminal-for hon. members to try to make the people of this country believe that they are being restricted, and that their language is being blotted out under the regulations that we have in the province of Ontario at the present time. When a French child of seven or eight years of age first goes to school (he knows nothing of the English language, and the Government of Ontario recognizes that fact by providing instruction and communication in French for two and a half or three years. At the same time, the child hears his mother tongue spoken at home. Practically for the rest of his school life up to form 4, he receives instruction in French for one hour a day, or more if the inspector thinks it advisable. That hour is used in perfecting his knowledge of the French language; and, as I said before, he hears that language spoken at home. The result is that when that child leaves that separate school, he will have a knowledge of English and also a knowledge of his mother tongue. Will any man here seriously tell me that a child under those condition?,, when he leaves that separate school, will have his mother tongue blotted out? It is utter nonsense to say anything of the kind, and I cannot understand how hon. gentlemen opposite who, I presume, have given this matter consideration, can make such a statement.
We have in the province of Ontario 269 bilingual schools, almost half of the school rooms being in the city of Ottawa. Those schools which have adopted and tried out
tMr. Edwards.]
Regulation 17 have, according to the reports of the inspectors, made satisfactory progress. The hon. member for Bonaven-ture (Mr. Marcil) says that this regulation is impracticable. How does he know that? Is he merely taking the statement of Sam Genest, of the city of Ottawa, that it is impracticable? Is he going to take the statements of men in this city who have never tried out the regulation, who have set the Government of Ontario at defiance, who say that they have never given and will never give the regulation a trial? It is idle to say that the regulation is impracticable when in other parts of the province it is working out satisfactorily. Here in the city of Ottawa it is impracticable because the people will not put it into practice.


Charles Marcil: Why, in Regulation 17,
insert the words " when necessary"? Clause 4 reads:
In schools where French has hitherto been a subject of study-
That is previous to 1912. Why is the word " hitherto " inserted? Why these two restrictions?


John Wesley Edwards: Suppose you had a school fifteen miles out in the country. Last year there were no French children, there. This year two or three families moved in. That would be a case where it would be necessary, where it had not been previously necessary. Is that clear? In regard to the word " hitherto," hon. gentlemen have stated-and I suppose they are honest in making the statement-that if new schools were to be established in a settlement where a number of French were, the children of those people could not have the French language taught. The right hon. leader of the Opposition made that statement; the hon. member for Bonaventure also made it. I say that those hon. gentlemen are absolutely wrong. If, fop. instance, some French settlers were to go into New Ontario and build a school, and if the French children were to go to that school, that is a case where it is necessary to adopt these bilingual regulations, and Regulation 17 steps in there and makes provision for those very changes. There is no "hitherto" in Regulation 17; it says very clearly:
In the case of French-speaking pupils French may be used as the language of instruction and communication.
That does not apply only to the schools which are now in existence or those which

have existed; there is nothing to restrict it to the present or to the past; it applies just as much to schools that may he formed ten or fifteen years from now in New Ontario or in any other portions of the province as it applies to schools that exist or that have existed. Why, then, harp and quibble on the word "hitherto" if that is the case? I say that is the case. My statement is perhaps no better than that of hon. gentlemen who have stated the contrary, but at least I 4m honest in stating that is my opinion, and I believe I am absolutely right in my statement.
Mr. MARCH.:	Seeing that theTe is
divergence of opinion between the minority and the Government, does not the hon. member think that some means should be found of bringing the matter to arbitration and having the case heard over again? Does he not think that it is in the interest of Canada, and in particular of Ontario, that this difficulty should be removed if possible? If the minority is under a wrong impression, does he not think that it should be brought to understand the regulation?


John Wesley Edwards: It will behoove my hon. friend and other members of this House to occupy their time in getting people in the city of Ottawa to try out this regulation ' rather than encourage them by .speeches in their defiance of the laws of the province of Ontario. 'Give the regulation a trial. What right have I, what right has any member of this House, to say that the members of the Ontario Legislature passed that regulation without giving it their serious consideration? There were members -there of both parties, of the French race as well as of the English race, and when this regulation was introduced as a resolution it passed without one dis-sentinent voice and went on record as the unanimous voice of the people of Ontario through .their representatives in Parliament. Yet you ask me, because two or three fanatics and hare-brained senators over there-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: Order.


John Wesley Edwards: In what respect am I not in order? .


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order. I must remind the hon. gentleman that it is not in- order to speak disrespectfully of gentlemen who occupy seats in the Upper Chamber.


Charles Marcil: The hon. member may be in the Senate some day.


John Wesley Edwards: If I ever do get there, I hope they will have a more select crowd than at present. I withdraw the word " harebrained." I may explain that the senator I had in mind was Senator Cho-quette, and surely no man of sane mind could act and speak as he does. I, as one from the province of Ontario, resent his actions and words in the Senate-while I have, of course, the greatest love and respect for the Senate of the Dominion of Canada.
Now, I wish to draw to the attention of the members of this House something that has not been previously drawn to their attention. Why is it that the Government of Ontario found it necessary to pass this Regulation 17? I have already given figures that indicate that in certain parts of the province the literacy of the people is not as high as it should be. Take any county in eastern Ontario-Prescott, Russell, Stormont or Glengarry. Following each census, the number of French Canadians in these counties has steadily increased. And what has happened in these counties? Here, let us say, is a school section in the county of Prescott, or Glengarry. A number of French Canadians come there and settle. After a time they become, sixty per cent, seventy per cent, eighty per cent, of the population of that school section. It is but natural that they, the majority, should ask to have a French teacher, one of their own race, for that school. I say one would expect that, and nobody can find fault with them for it. And it is perhaps only natural that they should tell that French teacher: We want you to devote more time to French and less to English. As a matter of fact this is the condition that the commissioners have found, that in many of the schools of eastern Ontario less and less time was given to the study of English and more and more to the study of French, until there were actually schools in eastern Ontario where not one word of English was taught from morning until night. And the natural outcome of that was this: suppose that there are two or three English-speaking settlers in that section. They find themselves in a position where their children cannot get an English education. Many people so placed have been obliged, because of these intolerable conditions, to sell their farms at half or two-thirds their value and move to the West. I say that

has happened not in one or two cases but in hundreds of cases. That is the sort of thing that caused the Ontario Government to take action. They say in effect: we do not want to deny to the French Canadian his right to the French language; we will make provision for your child getting an education in the French language; but we insist that you shall not be in a position to drive English-speaking settlers out of any part of this province by denying them the right to the English language. And this, I say as a representative of Ontario, is right and just, and I am ready to stand by it. There is no attempt, no desire, on the part of the English-speaking people of the province of Ontario to deprive the French Canadians in this province of their use of their language. Let hon. gentlemen well consider the facts in this matter. During the first two and a half or three years of the child's school life he is taught in French exclusively; and during the remainder of the four or five years of his school life a part of his time is devoted to French. Average that and you will find that more than half the child's time is devoted exclusively to the French language.


Charles Marcil: Will the hon. member
allow me to ask him a question for information? I understand that Dr. McKay, Superintendent of Education for Nova Scotia, says that the best way to carry on bilingual instruction is to have that instruction extend through the whole course, and not have it stop with the first form. What is the hon. member's opinion on that point?


John Wesley Edwards: In that respect I cannot understand the position of hon. gentlemen opposite. They keep repeating that at the end of two and a half years the instruction in French stops. But it does not stop. There is direct and specific provisions for continuing the instruction in the French language-in grammar, reading, and composition-for an hour a day, or more if the inspector thinks it desirable.


Charles Marcil: But suppose that in that hour you have four subjects-you can only give ten or fifteen minutes to each. I was talking with an eminent educationist the other day who pointed out to me the disadvantage of this division of the time.


John Wesley Edwards: It is plainly set forth what that one hour a day is to be devoted to-to grammar, reading, and composition
	,
in French. You cannot take any part of that hour to teach geography, arithmetic, or anything else; that hour is to be given to French. Does it make any difference to you or to me whether we use French or English to learn multiplication or division? I suppose that if you were told in French that the city of Quebec was on the Ottawa river, it would be just as much on the Ottawa river as if you had been told it in English. There is not only ample provision for safeguarding the French in the province of Ontario, but I say most emphatically, speaking as an old teacher, that there is generous provision in this regulation, and that, instead of this being a restriction, it is a generous concession to our French Canadian fellow citizens.
Under section 93 of the British North America Act, power is given to the Provincial Legislature to make laws relating to education, subject to limitations imposed by the first subsection, which reads as follows:
Nothing in any such law shall prejudicially affect any right or privilege with respect to denominational schools which any class of persons have by law in the province at the Union.
Whether or not the legislation is prejudicial should be determined in the first place by the people's representatives in the legislature ; and if there are any who do not believe in that it should be determined finally by an appeal to the courts-to the Privy Council if necessary. Why introduce it in this House? Why not abide by the decision as the English-speaking Protestants in Ontario have in times past abided by decisions which were such as they did not like? For instance, after 1842, and- from that time on, when there were forty-two representatives from Ontario and forty-two from Quebec in the United Parliament, the first act of the first Parliament was to appoint a committee on education, with fifteen from Quebec and eight from Ontario. They introduced the principle of separate schools. In 1848, 1850, 1852 and 1853 particularly, there were sweeping demands made and concessions granted in regard to the rights of Roman Catholics in the separate schools of Ontario.
Notwithstanding the fact that the majority of the members from the province of Ontario were opposed to this legislation, it was adopted, because there were sufficient members from the province of Quebec, with a few from Ontario, to put that legislation through in spite of the opposition of the majority of the Ontario mem-

bers. It went through against the wishes of the people of Ontario; but the people of Ontario have stood loyally by these Acts and have submitted. Why then should we have 200,000 of a certain class of people in this province undertaking to dictate to two and a half million people of the province of Ontario? I say further, that the only law of Upper Canada at the Union which conferred rights or privileges re denominational schools was the Statute 26 Victoria, chapter 5, which authorized the establishing of separate schools by Protestants, Roman Catholic and coloured people. Religious belief was recognized as a distinguishing feature, but language was not so recognized. Race was not recognized as a distinguishing feature, except in regard to the coloured people. From time to time attempts were made to secure more adequate teaching of English in the schools in Ontario, and on March 22, 1911, the Ontario Legislature passed a resolution which has already been put upon Hansard. Following this resolution, in June 1912, Regulation 17 was published. That was amplified or changed, although not materially, in 1913. No objection was made, either in 1912 or in 1913, to Regulation 17. It lay on the table of the House through the whole session; it was there and no objection was taken to it; and no person thought of such a thing, apparently, as bringing it to Ottawa and throwing it into the Federal arena. How is it that the feeling against Regulation 17 seems to come up just about this particular time? Why was it that the people allowed Regulation 17 to lie undisturbed through our session here in 1912-13? Where were the hon. member for Kamouraska, and the hon. member for Wright, that they did not get up? What was holding tne member for Bonaventure to his eeat, that he did not then rise and move this resolution? Why is it that in 1913 and 1914 we had no trouble about it? Why was there no discussion in 1914 and 1915? Why is it that it comes on now, in the session of 1915-16? Is it because there is an election coming on in the province of Quebec within a few days? Is that the reason?


An hon. MEMBER:: No politics.


John Wesley Edwards: No politics in this? No politics in this? I think I am right in saying that when the Government move to go into Supply and a member moves a resolution such as this, if the resolution carries in this House to-day, or whenever it is voted upon, this Government goes out
of power. I may be right in my interpretation of the rules or I may not, but if I am right what does, it mean? It means that this House unanimously agreed to an extension of one year in1 the life of this Parliament in order to avoid an election in war times. It means that hon. members are asking this House to vote for a resolution which will put the Government out of power and force an>
election on the country. And for what? For something that this Government has done? No, for something that the province of Ontario has or has not done. It is absolutely ridiculous, it should never have been brought into this House at this time, when it means just what I have said.
It is idle for hon. gentlemen opposite, or for hon. gentlemen on this side of the House to rise day after day and say we should bend all our energies to the winning of this war and forget our party politics and differences. I maintain that this is not an evidence of forgetting party differences; it is not an evidence of unity. I charge it against the right hon. gentleman who led the Liberal party in this country for twenty-eight years that he has backed up a resolution here put before this House, which, if it carries, will make unity ih this Dominion of Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific an absolute impossibility for months to come; which will divide the people of this country along racial lines as they have never been divided since Confederation. I say, in the face of that-and the right hon. gentleman must know that this is the case
that he is taking upon himself a responsibility which I should not want to take upon myself, in asking the House to support this resolution, and to tear this country to pieces along racial lines.
In 1896 the slogan of the Liberal party was " Hands off Manitoba." That was the battle cry of the right hon. gentleman and his party at that time. Should not that apply equally to the province of Ontario as to the province of Manitoba? Apparently the old battle cry still obtains so far as Manitoba is concerned, because in this resolution it is still " Hands off Manitoba," but " Hands on the province of Ontario." What right has the right hon. gentleman to ask members of this House to support a resolution of this kind, which is placing hands on Ontario? You can cover it with all the words and all the eloquence that you are capable of-and I place no limit on the matchless eloquence of the right hon. leader of the Opposition; I only regret that he possesses * that



eloquence in a case like this, because of the power that it gives him-he may use all the eloquence he is capable of in saying that this is not an interference with Ontario; but if it-is not an interference with the rights of Ontario, if it is not an admonition to the province of Ontario, if it is not offering advice to the province of Ontario, if it is not telling Ontario what it ought to do and what it has not done, and is not blaming that province for its action, then what in the name of heaven is it? Why is it brought in here? You may affirm as often and as strongly as you like that you believe in the provinces handling their own affairs, but if you believe in the provinces handling their own affairs, give evidence of that belief. You would have given better evidence of that belief by not bringing before this House sucn a resolution as this. The hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Graham) about a month ago made a speech in the city of Quebec in which he advised interference. If his speech meant anything at all it means tms, tha1 he was encouraging those who were back of this movement in their agitation, encouraging them to believe that they had a grievance, encouraging them to believe mat if the Laurier Government was in power it would deal witn this matter in a manner satisfactory to those who profess to have a grievance. The rignt hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) stated, about the beginning of the war-and the sentence he used impressed itself upon my mind as I am sure it did upon the minds of the people throughout this country-that he did not desire to and he would not open the doors of office with a bloody key. That sentence echoed through this country from ' end to end. It was a very commendable sentence. But I ask him what kind of a key he is trying to use at the present time in order to open the doors of office? Is it a key bright with honour, or is it a key which will bring discredit on the career of the right hon. gentleman in years to come? The hon. member who just took his seat spoke of what the city of Toronto and the province of Ontario had done in recruiting. He credited the city of Toronto with having enlisted some 25,000 men. Let me tel] the hon. gentleman that he can pretty nearly double that for the city of Toronto alone. Let me call attention to the words so eloquently and so justly spoken by the hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. Maroil) of the people of the province of Ontario. He has said that on the battle line in

Flanders, standing side by side^ with the soldiers of France, who, I venture to say, are making a record in this war before which the records of even Napoleon's veterans will sink into the shade, are thousands and thousands of the sons of the province of Ontario. Let me ask you, Sir, and you men who represent French constituencies, if when the province of Ontario has shown this disposition, this spirit, if to-day the blood of her heroic sons is being poured out on the plains of Flanders in the defence of France and Belgium and England, in this great struggle for freedom and justice, .if they are to-day fighting alongside of France in this great war of liberty, surely hon. gentlemen opposite can trust the men who represent the people of Ontario to deal justly and fairly with the French children in that province. Are they giving proper recognition to what has been done by Ontario's sons on the battlefield, to the sacrifices they have made, when they come to this House and charge the people of the province of Ontario with being tyrannical and oppressive, and with tearing the tongues out of the mouths of French Canadian children, speaking figuratively, as the hon. member for Bonaventure did. Is that the sort of language which should be used towards a province which is making the sacrifices that Ontario, is making? I am a humble son of that province, and as a native I am proud to say that it has been fair and just and equitable in all its dealings with the minority in the province, whether French, or German, ot anything else, and in time to come it will manifest that same generous spirit which it has manifested in the past towards the people who compose the minority.
I ask the pardon of this House if I have transgressed too much upon its time, but I think I can place some of the blame on those hon. members who asked questions, proper questions, which I have endeavoured to answer, and I trust they will not find fault with me for doing so.


Paul-Émile Lamarche: Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to>
take up much of the time of this House in dealing with the resolution which has been so weld and ably discussed by its mover and by hon. members on both sides of the House who have taken part in the debate. I feel that it is my duty, however, to state here, as fully as I can, the reasons why I give to this resolution my unqualified support.
The speaker who has just taken his seat, my hon. friend from Frontenac (Mr. Ed-

wards), opened his speech by saying that under the circumstances it would be very hard for him to be moderate, and he has, I think, given a fair illustration of the truth of his prophecy. Not only will I try to be moderate, but I. assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I will be moderate. Surely my.hon. friend from Frontenac will be astonished at the fact that we French Canadians have spoken in this debate moderately, because it is well recognized that in this squabble we are' the under dog. Mr. Speaker,. I have not devoted any part of my time to studying the different censuses, or to trying to assort the ignorance of this country into races, counties, and denominations, and that is the reason why I am not able at present to follow the figures given by my hon. friend from Frontenac. I remember, however-and I am sorry that I have not the documents in my hand-that when the statements just made before the House were published, not very long ago, the figures were repudiated by the proper department of the Quebec Legislature. I believe that some of the newspapers of this country will again repudiate the figures, since they have assumed more importance by being brought before this House. If I am unable to follow him in the statements he has made as to the proportions of ignorance or illiteracy, I believe that every one who has listened to the dehate which has taken place on this resolution will admit that there are in this House to-day representatives of the French Canadian race who surely know how to read and write and talk, either in French or rn English. Although I have differed on many questions from the right hon. leader of the Opposition, I was proud yesterday that one of my race could master the English language so well as to excite the admiration of both French and English in this country. Taking for granted, for the purposes of discussion, that the figures brought before the House by the hon. member for Frontenac are correct, what do they show? They do not show that the French Canadian people are not able to learn any subject of study as well as the Englishspeaking people. They do not prove that the French Canadian student cannot follow the courses in any school as well as his English competitor. They perhaps show that the results were due to non-attendance in the schools; and, if that is the case, the proper remedy is not to blot out French altogether from the schools, but to make necessary laws for compulsory 237i
education, and force every child in the province of Ontario to attend school; and the same thing might he suggested to the legislation of the province of Quebec.
My hon. friend from Frontenao was scandalized because such a question as this has been brought before this House because, he says, it is so remote from federal politics. He said it bad been brought here only to serve the purposes of the political followers of certain leaders. I remember that only a few years ago certain questions were brought into the federal arena for discussion not only in this House but also before public opinion in this country. Certain questions were brought up, and I am told that to those questions many members on this side of the House, at least, owe their seats. Were those questions foreign to federal politics, or were they solely within the province of the local legislature? We all remember the famous question of the Ne Temere decree. We all remember the turmoil which was raised in certain parts of the Dominion on account of the presence of the right hon. leader of the Opposition at the Eucharistic Congress. We all remember that, Mr. Speaker; and can it be said to-day that those questions were not more foreign to the federal arena than the question of education?
The question of education is a question which is dealt with separately in the British North America Act. There are three sections dealing with legislative powers: One section, 91, which enumerates the different subjects upon which this Parliament has power to legislate; the second, section 92, which enumerates the different subjects over which the provincial legislatures are supreme, so far as legislative powers are concerned; and there is a special section, section 93, devoted to education. In that section it is provided that provincial legislatures are supreme, so far as education is concerned-supreme in the sense that the Federal Parliament cannot legislate except in an exceptional case; the case of a remedial Bill. But they can legislate only within certain limits.	The subject is
limited by a special proviso dealing with certain guarantees given to denominational creeds in this country. It is true that this guarantee contemplates religion. But I maintain that the	French-Canadian
Catholics have in that section certain rights as well as their English-speaking cocitizens of the Catholic creed.
If we go beyond the limit of Confederation, if we go back beyond the year 1867,

we find that education in Upper Canada was governed by the law of 1363, and that law of 1863 enabled the Catholics of this province to have their school matters regulated absolutely by a board of commissioners and by their own inspectors. The board of commissioners and inspectors were empowered to determine the kind of schools to be established and how those schools might be governed. They had the power also to say whether the schools would be totally English or totally French, or whether they would be French and English, that is, bilingual. That right existed before Confederation, and by section 93 of the British North America Act * all these rights have been preserved. Therefore, I say that the legislation passed by the province of Ontario is not only unjust, not only oppressive, but is also ultra vires.	_
But it is not my intention to deal with that matter. The general terms in which this resolution has been worded allows, in my opinion, no serious objection to be taken as to the advisability of bringing it before the House. Its conclusion, if adopted, cannot be considered as binding in any way on the Legislature of Ontario. The subject-matter of the resolution is treated as a question of general policy in the light of British principles, which we all know, and which we all try to apply in this country as well as everywhere else. Furthermore, this resolution does not deal in any way with the constitutional or judicial aspects of the question. This enables me to say that even if all the contentions of our English-speaking friends in Ontario were maintained by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England, this motion would still be in order, because it is the duty of this Parliament to discuss all matters which are connected with the good government and welfare of this country at large and with the welfare of any portion of it, because this Paraliament is the national forum where, naturally, according to British principles, these questions must be aired.
I am a lawyer by profession, and I have learned the principles of law in the office of a gentleman who occupies a seat on the treasury benches; I mean the hon the Postmaster General (Mr. Casgrain). I have not been able to follow him always in politics, but I have always thought that he was a very good lawyer, and I still think so*. In order to illustrate that I am sincere, I am going to invoke his high authority on the very question that is be-

fore the House to-day. I would have preferred that the Postmaster General himself should have done it. He 'has very cleverly outlined the course which parliamentary procedure should take by attempting to show that this question should not come before this House, but in this case, Mr. Speaker, I must abide by the decision given by yourself yesterday, when you explained at length the doctrine applicable to such a case as this. I am at liberty to do so, especially as the Postmaster General has upheld yo-ur decision by his own vote. It having been settled by yourself, Mr. Speaker, and your position having practically been endorsed by the Postmaster General, that this is the proper place to discuss this question, and the Postmaster General having thought to put aside the question and not to deal with it upon its merits, it is my duty to the country at large to show what ihia position with regard to it is, lest some people might unjustly represent that the Postmaster General does not think the same way as we 5 p.m do upon it. I do not want him to suffer any harm from that. I will quote the opinion of the Postmaster General on the question of schools in Ontario given to the New York Times Magazine of February 13, 1915. I will give an extract from a legal opinion written by him, because I say that the Postmaster General passes not only in Montreal, but all over Canada as a high authority on these questions :
In Ontario, where there are 250,000 French Canadians, the difficulty is with the act of the provincial Legislature in hindering the teaching of French in some of the schools and actually prohibiting it in others.
I commend these words to the hon. member for Frontenao and the hon. member for Kingston:
Until 1912 the schools in the French sections of Ontario were bilingual, as much attention being paid to French as to English. But in that year it was enacted that thereafter in all schools then established French should be used exclusively only for French children during the first two years of their schooling and that beyond that age the language in all forms should be English except for one hour a day.
Now, since 1912, many new French Canadian settlements have been established in the province of Ontario, and of course they have their schools, but the provincial authorities iui ve, ruled that by the wording of an Act of 1912 no French whatever can he taught in the schools opened after that law went into effect.
When France ceded Canada to Great Britain it was stipulated in the treaty between the two mother countries that the French in Canada should retain all their civil, religious, and social

rights. And, furthermore, the British Nortn America Act, which is, in part, the Constitution of Canada, recognizes French as one of the two official languages of the country. So Ontario is violating both constitution and treaty. Two cases growing out of this very serious school disturbance, with its incidental strikes of teachers and pupils and protests of parents, are now pending in the courts and will be taken to the Privy Council of England for settlement. I believe that the final ruling will be in favour of the French Canadians, for the Privy Council has never failed to uphold our rights.
I agree entirely with the Postmaster General in the opinion he gave as a lawyer outside of this House, but I cannot agree with him in the opinion he gives as a politician sitting on the treasury benches.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: What my hon. friend
read from was an alleged interview with me in the New York Times, and it was not at all a legal opinion that I gave at that time. I may tell my hon. friend and this House that what I said was not correctly reported in the New York Times, although a good deal of what appeared in that interview I did say.


Mr. PUGSLEY:: Perhaps the minister
would state in what respect the interview was incorrect?


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: I certainly will. I gave the reporter of the New York Times the contentions of the French Canadians in Ontario, on the constitutional rights in the matter of the French language, and not my own contentions on the question..


Paul-Émile Lamarche: According to the Rules of the House I have to accept the explanation given by the minister, and I can only regret that he has waited so long to give it. He has allowed this country and his compatriots to be guided by what I still consider the good legal opinion circulated by the New York Times. My hon. friend says he was misquoted. This interview seems to have been well prepared; it is even accompanied by a very good picture of the hon. gentleman. Unless he thinks that the photograph is not as good as the original, I am sure he will not deny thrt part of the interview.
As a consequence of the enactment of Regulation 17 a great deal of discussion has taken place in this country, and recently a petition was sent to the Executive of Parliament asking the Governor General in Council to grant disallowance of a statute which elevated to the dignity of the law Regulation 17. I have not studied very carefully the report laid on the Table
by the hon. Minister of Justice; but from what I can gather at a first perusal, some of his conclusions seem to me extraordinary. A great part of the report is taken up with allegations and arguments to the effect that this Government can not grant disallowance of a regulation, but only of a statute. We knew that; the people of Canada knew that; the 500,000 petitioners knew it; and the best evidence of what I say is that they never asked for it. What they asked was that the statute elevating Regulation 17 to the dignity of a law be disallowed. I agree with the right hon. leader of the Opposition that in every case disallowance is ineffective in practice, inasmuch as the Government which has passed the law complained of can the very next day pass a similar one; nevertheless, I wish to go on record that had I been a minister of the Crown I should have voted for disallowance. The reasons given by the Minister of Justice for not granting disallowance can be put under two heads: first, a law can hardly be disallowed that is within the legislative power of a province, and this law is alleged and seems to be within the rights of the province of Ontario, dealing as it does with education; secondly, if this law is ultra vires, the proper remedy is not to seek disallowance, but to apply to the courts. As a consequence, a law being either intra vires or ultra vires, the fathers of Confederation have put this provision in the.Act for no purpose. I do not believe that that explanation will be accepted in toto by the population of Canada, or at least by the numerous petitioners who have petitioned the Government. However, I do not wish to deal with this point any longer. The question is between the Executive and the petitioners, and they will probably have an opportunity of settling it one day or the other.
I was very pleased yesterday at the clever and admirable speech of the hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Nickle). He and I do not always see eye to eye, particularly in this case. But I have the greatest for him, and for two reasons: first, because in this Parliament he always discusses any kind of question in a very moderate tone and on a very high plane; secondly, because I know-and I am sure in this case as well as in many others'- that the bases of his opinions are his personal convictions, and not mere petty questions of politics. On several occasions,

of Study in the class. But where this is so permitted, the time assigned to it is one hour. But the inspector can, without giving any reason, and whenever he chooses, reduce that hour to three minutes or to one minute.
This " privilege,!' as it is called, is limited in another respect. Article 4 of this regulation provides:
In schools where French has hitherto been a subject of study, the public or the separate school board, as the case may be, may provide, under the following conditions, for instruction in Frencfti, reading, grammar, and composition in Form I to IV. (See also provision for form V, public school regulation 14 (5) addition to the subjects prescribed for the public or separate schools.
I have already given the interpretation, which I think is the right interpretation, to this clause, an interpretation sustained by the practical interpretation given by Mr. Colquhoun in the Windsor case. And in the face of these things I can only conclude, and I state without fear of contradiction, that the privilege of having French taught as the subject of study can exist only in the schools where French was taught before the regulation was passed. My hon. friend from Frontenac has cited Regulation 15. That regulation provides for the teaching of German and French. But my contention is that, since the passing of Regulation 17, although the other regulation remains on the statute-book, one part of it at least has become inoperative, that part dealing with the French language. The only part of Regulation 15 which is still in force is the part which deals with German. We are to-day confronted with this state of things. Around Verdun, in France, on the one side people talking the German language are directing shells and gas against another people whose language is French. And to-day in this country, or at least in Ontario, we find privileges given to the language of the Huns which are refused to the language of those who are defending the altars of civilization.
I believe that no matter how you twist this regulation, no matter how cleverly you put it, you can come to only one conclusion, that its object is the gradual proscription of the French language in the province of Ontario. The hon. member for Frontenac calls it a concession, and says that the French Canadians never had as many privileges as those contained in Regulation 17. On the other hand, it is pointed out that there are people in Ontario who think that too muoh is given to the French

Canadians by this regulation. Then the matter can be easily settled. If, on the one hand, it is thought that the French Canadians get too much; if, on the other hand, the French Canadians do not like this regulation, do not care for this present from the Greeks, the matter can be easily settled by abolishing the regulation altogether, and then both sides-call them extremists if you like-will be satisfied. If you refuse to do that it is because you do not believe that you have given to the French a concession.. The hon. member for Frontenac has a very peculiar way of dealing with a problem of this kind. On the one hand he says: " This state of things was arrived at after proper resolutions had been passed in the Legislature of Ontario, and nobody made any complaint, even the representatives of your race did not make any complaint; therefore, you have no right to come and say that this regulation is oppressive or abusive." On the other hand, after dealing with the matter from other aspects-, he comes back to the same subject, and, notwithstanding this former statements, says: " Why are you condemning this? \ou do not know its effect; you have not tried it out." If we try it out we accept it. If the hon. member for Frontenac claims that we have accepted a state of things by reason of silence, if we try it out he surely will come and say: ** Not only have you accepted it, silently, by not raising a voice against it, but you have accepted it practically, because you have used it."
I was very glad to (hear the Prime Minister yesterday say that if ever there was a motion proposing interference by the Federal Government in the provincial politics of the province of Quebec, he would be the first to raise his voice in protest against it. I believe, however, thht he will never be put to that test, because in the province of Quebec the minority, which is English-speaking, is our star witness in this case. That minority is in a position to teach the people of Canada at large that the French Canadian majority knows something about justice, about tolerance, and about equity.
It has been insinuated, even affirmed, that the French Canadian population contain a greater proportion of illiterates than any other race in Canada. I have always thought that, if we know how to apply justice, if we know how to deal with questions of that kind in such a way as to deserve the compliment of being the province which

has understood better than any other the spirit of the Canadian Confederation, possibly it was because many of our men had given some time to the study of the treaties and to the study of our constitution and of such books as would instruct them in the science of justice. But even if we have to admit that there are among us so great a number of illiterates, compliment my race all the more, because then it has not acquired that science of justice by tuition or by education, but has possessed it naturally from birth.
The best test to apply to this regulation is to transpose it. I would recommend every member from Ontario who does not share my views to take a copy of this regulation to-night and to make just a few amendments in it. First, instead of Ontario legislation, make it Quebec legislation, and instead of the word " French " insert the word " English," and read it. If you are satisfied after perusing only once the regulation so amended-, I will be very much surprised.


Mr. BRODER:: Have you any bilingual
schools in Quebec?


Paul-Émile Lamarche: 
Mr. HUGH CLARK:: Would you have
had bilingual schools then?


Paul-Émile Lamarche: I can answer the question of my hon. friend. I do not know the laws of the United States, but I have been in certain parts of that country and I know that there they give privileges to the French schools which are denied to-day by the province of Ontario, and that notwithstanding the fact that the French were not the founders of the United States. The authority for the statement I make is not commonly known. The statement came from the lips, or rather from the pen of Sir Guy Carleton, Governor of Canada for many years. He stated that without the French Canadians

it would have been utterly impossible to keep this Dominion under the British Crown. Those who have read history know that. It has been written not only in French books-, but in all Canadian histories worthy of the name. We pride ourselves upon it. We do not like to brag about it too often; but under circumstances like these I believe it is not only our right but our bounden duty to do so.
Is it to perfect the system of education that the regulation was passed? I always thought that the possession of two languages was an achievement compared with the possession of only one, and until it is proven that to learn French is an absolute obstacle to the acquisition of a knowledge of English I will maintain that the striking out of one of the two languages, instead of perfecting the system of education, is handicapping it. I will go further. It is a well known principle of pedagogy that in order to get the best results in a school it is not sufficient to pour instruction into the mind of a pupil. Some other things must be done. The teacher must first ascertain the adaptability of that child to receive instruction, and the -adaptability of the child to receive instruction is always found in following the law7 of nature, in following racial inclinations. That principle has been laid down -by men of experience -and of worldwide fame. It is interesting to read a page from the works of perhaps one of the greatest philosophers of the world, and surely one of the greatest philosophers of the English nation-Herbert Spencer. I do not think that Herbert Spencer could be prejudiced by this school question. He was dead long before this by-law was passed. Here is what he says:
The education of the child must accord both in mode and arrangement with the education of mankind as considered historically; or in other words, the genesis of knowledge in the individual must follow the same course as the genesis of knowledge in the race. In support of this doctrine two reasons may be assigned, either of them sufficient to establish it. One is deducible from the law of hereditary transmission as considered in its wider consequences. For if it be true that men exhibit likeness to ancestry both in aspect and character,-if, passing from individual cases in which the traits of many dead ancestors mixing with those of a few living ones greatly obscure the law, we turn to national types, and remark how the contrasts between them are persistent from age to age-if we remember that these respective types came from a common stock, and that hence the present marked differences between them must have arisen from the action of modifying circumstances upon successive generations who severally transmitted the accumulated effects to their descendants-if we find the differences to be now organic, so that the French

child grows into a French man even when brought up among strangers-and if the general fact thus illustrated is true of the whole nature, intellect inclusive; then it follows that if there be an order in which the human race has mastered its various kinds of knowledge, there will arise in every child an aptitude to acquire these kinds of knowledge in the same order. So that even were the order intrinsically indifferent, it would facilitate education to lead the individual mind through the steps traversed by the general mind. But the order is not intrinsically indifferent; and hence the fundamental reason why education should be a repetition of civilisation in little. It is alike provable that the historical sequence was, in its main outlines, a necessary one; and that the causes which determined it apply to the child as to the race.
At six o'clock House took recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Paul-Émile Lamarche: Mr. Speaker, when
the House rose at six o'clock, I was trying to demonstrate that any attempt to 'abolish the French language, gradually or otherwise, could not be justified on the ground that the language itself is objectionable; furthermore, that its abolition could not be urged because it is a political obstacle in this country, and also that such a policy could not be invoked in the interest of making the -system of education more perfect. Is assimilation in the interest of harmony in any country in the wor'd and, in particular, in this country? International law has no fixed code but we find its piinciples in the different authors, in the reports of different conferences, and in the meetings of great men from different nations who from time to time gather around the same table and discus-s dispassionately the causes of international trouble and also the means of preventing it. The last movement in that respect emanates from The Hague and it was inaugurated not before but since the war began. I have received, in my capacity of secretary of the Canadian branch of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, several documents of great importance. The last that I have received is a document entitled:
Durable Peace

Official Commentaries on -the Minimum Programme.
I believe some explanations are necessary to indicate to this House what the purpose of this association is. Since the beginning of the war, many peace articles have appeared in the press, and in the Parliaments of belligerent nations, as well as in those of neutral nations, talks about peace have been heard. We have also read reports of discussions as to what should be the treaty

of peace at the end of this war. The members of this Association are representative of most of the civilized nations of the earth. 1 will tell you what nationalities are represented officially or otherwise, on the International Board of this Association. There are the United States of America, Germany, Russia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, Roumania, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela. I am translating because this document is written in French, that being the diplomatic language of the world. These people got together and worked out what is called the " Programme Minimum " containing five different propositions. These people maintain that if the treaty of peace which is to be signed at me end of this war'is to provide for a durable peace and not a temporary one, no matter what the different clauses are, at least these five conditions have to be embodied in it'. What is the first article? I will translate:
The states shall guarantee the nationalities comprised within the limits of their territory-civil equality, religious liberty and the free usage of their language. .
And the free usage of their language. In the minds of these great men, of these unprejudiced patriots of different countries, the free usage of their language is to be a source of peace, harmony and happiness amongst the nations and amongst the different nationalities composing those nations. They also believe that the absence of these guarantees, or the non-respect of these guarantees, would be a source of trouble, discord and war. Are we in this country to be deaf to such appeals? I was glad this afternoon to hear one of the speakers who preceded me quote certain extracts showing that England and France had made proposals for the adoption of both the English and French languages in both countries as soon as possible. That idea is only in harmony with the wishes of this conference which is representative of all nationalities and all civilized countries. If that is true of any national minority in any country, I believe that here in this country we have more than one reason to adopt this principle of international law as developed in later years. We have other reasons because here not only would it be in the interest of peace and harmony, not only would it prevent discord and trouble and ill-feeling, but it would be the best way for the English
majority to show that they not only ruled the country but that they appreciated what was in it. It would also enable the English majority to be in harmony with all English majorities throughout the whole Empire. After listening to this argument, moderately presented to this House and submitted to the public opinion of this country, I believe that the province of Ontario should hestitate before deciding to continue to be the exception in the British Empire and that it will readily abide by this principle of international law, of natural law, of British fair play, and will do its bit towards harmony in this country just as in the province of Quebec we have always done our bit to promote harmony amongst the people of our Dominion.
If I have touched upon all these subjects, if I have brought forward all these reasons, I do not wish to have anybody believe that we French Canadians in this country-think that this Regulation 17 is the last stroke at our language in this country, that our language will perish and that our national identity will disappear. I am confident that the French language is in this country to stay forever. Why? No matter how many laws are passed by Provincial Legislatures, no matter how many regulations are passed, I maintain that ypu cannot turn a Frenchman into an Englishman by process of legislation. I maintain that you cannot muffle a whole race by statute and that you cannot gag a rising generation	by
enacting a regulation on education- why? Simply because nature is stronger than the will of man. This is a natural law. We follow the law of nature, even when we do not think it; the work is being done even without an effort. Having read the history of this country and learned that at the Conquest there were in this country only 60,000 French-speaking citizens, and remembering the many efforts that have been made to have the French language disappear from our laws and from our practice, who can say with any appearance Oif sense, now that we are a people of two million and a half, that a by-law will endanger our national identity! No, Mr. Speaker, no man believes that. But this by-law does render less happy the lives of a number of law-abiding citizens of this country, and when you take away happiness from a portion of the people you are taking it away from the country at large, and you are doing an unpatriotic act. I believe that the more obstacles you put in

the way of the the expansion of a nation, or in the way of its retaining its identity, the more you assure to it its perpetuation. This has been shown in the history of most nations where this problem has been dealt with. Do you want an example? Centuries ago descendants from the same stock, men of French origin, came into the new world. Part of them went towards what is now called Canada; the other part towards what is now called New Orleans. Both these parties were surrounded later on by an Anglo-Saxon population, and tooth encountered the same dangers of assimilation. And what was the result? In New Orleans the French language and the French identity of the early French settlers to.as practically disappeared. On the other hand, in this country the French language and the French identity of the first settlers is stronger' and more robust than it was at the time of the foundation of this* country. What is the- reason for this? It is because the settlers in New Orleans had no obstacles in their way, and because our national life has found the food that has given it its robustness and its strength. From the time of the Conquest the French language has been preserved, only because those who possessed and loved it have fought tooth apd nail to keep it intact for themselves and their children.
Some of our Ontario friends say that English ought to be known by every person in this Dominion, and I entirely agree with that. Let me in a few words state our position in regard to the English and French languages. We consider a French education as a duty, and the acquisition of the English language as a necessity. We will not budge from our duty; we will remain Frenchmen. But we realize the necessity of a knowledge of English in all walks of life. The lack of it would be a serious handicap in the race for material success in life, not only in this country, but on the whole continent of America. We want every one of our children to know as much as possible of the beautiful English language. But we also want the country at large^^ to know that, no matter what it costs, we will learn and keep learning the language that we have inherited from our fathers and mothers. Some speaker said yesterday: In matters of education, hands off Ontario, hands off Manitoba. I agree with that. But the legislature should also preserve untrammelled the rights of the subjects of a British country, "no matter of what origin

they are. We who are in possession of the French language, who consider it a treasure from the Atlantic to the Pacific, say to every one that the possession of that language is not limited by physical or by legal boundaries. We who are French Canadians also say: Hands off the French language.
A great deal has been said about this matter having been, brought up as a political question. I am not here to speak for any one except myself. As far as I am concerned I would consider it a crime for any one to mix with the petty questions of politics a cause which to every French Canadian is sacred. From the high plane of the speeches that have been delivered in this House yesterday and to-day, I do not believe it has been in the mind of any one in this House to make this a question of politics. Personally I have been taken to task by certain papers that I respect in our sister province, and whose main asset seems to be the great imagination of their editors. They have said that I had a resolution ready to put before the House, and that this was done because the leader of the Opposition vras forced by a wing of his party to abstain from moving one, and that I was going to talk as the agent of the leader of the Opposition, and as the agent of the Liberal party. Let me tell you, Sir, that I am no more the agent of the Liberal party than I am a piece of the Tory machine. I am an Independent in this House, and I am an Independent because these are my convictions, and because this was my programme when I faced my electorate. I was elected here on condition that I would judge every question on its merits, and vote in favour of any motion, Bill or measure of any kind coming from the Liberal party, if it was good, and against any motion, Bill or measure coming from the Conservative party if I considered it bad. The small place I occupy in this House as representative of the county of Nicolet belongs to me. My vote also belongs to me, and I shall use both the way I please, without consulting any one. My judges will be the people whom I represent, the people of my race, and the public opinion of Canada. I am satisfied with them as judges, no matter how my words may be construed in this House to-night. But if I am an Independent, whether I support or combat any motion, measure or Bill coming from the Liberal or Conservative party, I have no hesitation in declaring that my hand is extended loyally to any public man in this House who has the

strength and the courage to get upon his feet and defend his race and his language, and that my hand shall be withdrawn the moment I discover that others are ready to betray their race and their language. That is my position so far as politics are concerned.
Before closing my speech, I wish frankly and sineerely to make a moderate but forceful appeal-first-, to my compatriots both on your left and on your right, Mr. Speaker, and ask them by their votes, if not by their speeches, to show that they sympathize with those of their own race who are suffering. Only a few days ago I received a letter, which cannot be read without the greatest emotion, from one of the members of this House who unfortunately is too sick to come here. I refer to our friend the hon. member for Joliet'te (Mr. Guilbault). Our poor friend has no longer the use of his limbs, but his 'big heart is strong enough to drag his sick body into this House in order that he may vote in favour of the resolution of my hon. friend from Kamouraska. He begged me in his letter to make arrangements to have him carried here even if the -consequences should be fatal. I went to see him in the hospital and endeavoured to dissuade him from that idea, but I promised him I would be his interpreter in this House in favour of the resolution when he wanted to support by his vote.	I am telling you
this, Sir, because I want to commend this example of one of my compatriots to my other compatriots * in this House, especially to those who perhaps are inclined to be weak-kneed. This is an example that they ought to follow, and when they hear that a man who is not physically strong enough to stand up has -the courage to ask to be carried here in order to give his vote in support of the resolution, those who are of more robust health will surely do no less.
Since yesterady it has been gossiped around the House that the great objection to voting for this resolution on the part of those who are sincere supporters of the Government, is that the -resolution is not in the proper form, because, being moved as an amendment to the motion to go into Supply, it may be considered as a motion of non-confidenoe in the Government. So far as I am -concerned, even if that were the case, I would -sooner vote non-confidence in any government than vote nonconfidence in the French language. But it is not the case, and those interested will find
the proper authorities in Hansard of 1900, under date of the 13th of March, page 1824, and also in Hansard of 1893, in the debate of the 21st of March, page 2401.	.
I wish also to make an appeal to all generous English-speaking members of this House, whether on the Conservative side or on the Liberal side, representing any of the provinces of Canada, to show their broad-mindedness towards the French minority by supporting this1 resolution. I make a special appeal to those Englishspeaking members who owe their seats in this House to -a generous French-Canadian majority.
In a few months from now we shall be called upon to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary -of 'Confederation. The buildings erected for the purpose of enabling the nation to send its representatives there to debate on serious -questions has been destroyed. Let us not permit the country or the world to understand that the same disaster has happened to the principles laid down by the Fathers of Confederation.


Mr. H. B. MORPHY (North Perth):: Mr. Speaker, on the understanding that this debate is to be brought to a close tonight, I will not take up the time of the House for more than a few minutes.
The resolution under discussion i-s the result of an agitation outside of this House, an agitation which has caused a great deal of bitter feeling in the province of Quebec, and which, from its inception, as judged by the platform utterances and the newspaper comments, was in pursuance of a principle which it was contended was based upon a legal right which the French-Canadian people of Ontario Claimed were being taken away from them. Although the agitation "was promoted and fanned throughout the country upon that claim, I notice that the resolution itself makes no claim to a legal right; but that it is absolutely admitted by the speakers on both sides of the House that there can be no just claim by the French Canadian people of Ontario to any legal right to the use of their language in the school system of that province. That being so, we have made it clear that those agitators outside of the House who have been pretending that there has been a deprivation of right have not stated the fact; and up to this time in this debate no speaker has contended that such a right exists, but every one who has spoken of it has admitted that there is no such right. The next thing that we have made


Mr. J. A. ROBB (Huntingdon):: This
debate on education can do no harm if .u helps to stir up a greater interest in education, not only in Ontario and Quebec but throughout the whole of Canada. I think the hon. member for Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) who spoke this afternoon was not quite fair to my province. In quoting statistics, I think he proved too much. He brought home forcibly to this Parliament what has been debated in the different Protestant church assemblies throughout the country for the last few years, and that is the fact that the Anglo-Saxon birth Tate in this country is not as great as the French Canadian birth rate-or, as the figures show it, that the birth rate of the province of Quebec is greater than that of any other province. Consequently, there are more children between the age of one and five years in the province of Quebec, in proportion to population, than there are in any other province. Everybody knows that children between one and five years of age can neither read nor write. That is the explanation of the statistics which the hon. gentleman gave this afternoon.


Mr. GLASS:: Did not the hon. membeT state that this percentage applied to those of school age, and not to all children including those from one to 'five years?


James Alexander Robb: I did not so understand
him. Nor can that be right. I noticed that the hon. gentleman quoted the census of
1901. But the census of 1911 gives the percentage for the whole Dominion of children between the ages of seven and fourteen years who did not attend school at all as 20.17. The province of Prince Edward Island has the smallest number. The province of Ontario comes next, Nova Scotia next, and Quebec comes next. Quebec is only fourth in the list of all the nine provinces in the percentage of children 'between the ages of 7 and 14 who do not attend school. Or in other words, we stand fourth in general education in the Dominion of Canada. The province of British Columbia has 24 per cent; Alberta, 37T7 per cent; Saskatchewan-, 33-29 per cent; Manitoba, 25 per cent; Ontario, 15 per cent; and Quebec, 19 per cent, between the ages of 7 and 14 not attending school. But the commissioners, after reviewing these - statistics, make this reference to education throughout Canada, which is very interesting and very satisfactory to the people of the province of Quebec:	.
In table 6 the percentage of the population 5 to 20 years of age attending school is given by age, periods and by sex for Canada and the provinces. For children under 6 years of age, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Ontario show the greatest proportion attending school, and the smallest percentage is shown by British Columbia and Alberta and New Brunswick in the order named.
In a country where over 20 per cent of the children between the ages of 7 and 14 never enter a school door, there is much to be done, and no apology need be offered for introducing a school debate in this House. During the few days prior to the introduction of this resolution, some very good friends wanted to know what attitude I would take, and they advised me that it would be well tor me to keep out of it; but that is not my conception of the duty of a public man. I want to say that neither in this House nor out of it has any one of my French-Canadian fellow-citizens asked me what attitude I would take upon this proposed resolution that was to come before Parliament; and if I take an attitude here to-night it is not because of any idea of how it will affect me politically, but because I consider it is a duty to my fellow-citizens of French-Canadian origin, ,with whom I have lived for 40 yeaTS, and lived upon the best of terms, and whom I have found to be good neighbours and good friends. I would be an unworthy representative in this House if I were afraid to take a stand upon an issue of such importance. After having listened to the debate, the introductory speeches of those

who proposed and seconded the resolution, and the speeches made yesterday and today, I am encouraged to believe that the spirit of conciliation will prevail and that here in the capital city of Oanada, where for some months children of school age who should have been attending school, have been walking and playing on the streets, the parents of these children will be satisfied and the children will be able to return to school and obtain such education as will qualify them for the duties of citizenship Every person admits that an uneducated people are a menace to the state, that children, to become useful citizens, must have such education as will qualify them to discharge their duties not only in their native province, but in all the provinces of Canada. I have had an experience of 20 years in school work in my home city, where I have been connected with the school board, and where the Protestants have a splendid system of elemen: tary and advanced education; where our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens, our Frenchspeaking fellow-citizens, have a college for boys, a normal school for girls and a system of primary and elementary education that would be creditable to any city or town in the Dominion of Canada. You, Mr. Speaker, are a product of the Valleyfield schools, and I want to say here to this House that the people of Valleyfield, irrespective of race or religion or political sympathies, are proud to know that you, one of our boys, educated in our schools, have been qualified to take a position which to-day places you as the first commoner of the land.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: Hear, hear.
(Mr. ROBB:	Now, Sir, I am not going
to discuss this from a legal or a constitutional point of view. I am not a lawyer. I want to discuss it from an experience of 40 years in a bilingual community, where the people live together and try to respect each other's principles' and prejudices. We hear many people in Canada who say that we should have but one language and one school. But when you ask them what language or what school, invariably they say: " Our language." Now, I want to speak frankly, in the few observations I have to make, to my friends from the great province of Ontario; what would be the position of the English-speaking minority in the province of Quebec if the influence and example of the English-speaking majority in the sister provinces should appeal to the

French-speaking majority of the province of Quebec, and they should start in to hamper and to hinder the education of the English-speaking minority of that province? This school trouble, so acute in Ontario, is largely between the Irish or Englishspeaking Catholics and the French-speaking Catholics. I, a Protestant, a Presbyterian, want to appeal to my English-speaking Roman Catholic friends of the province of Ontario, I want them to remember that in the province of Quebec there is an English-speaking minority, where in many places the English-speaking and the French Catholics are about evenly divided. I want to ask them if they expect that their compatriots, the English-speaking Catholics in the province of Quebec, can hope for any better 'treatment from the French-speaking majority of that province than is given to their compatriots, the French-speaking minority in the province of Ontario?
The census of 1911 gives Ontario a population of 212,442 French-speaking citizens. They are the descendants of the pioneers of civilization in this country. When the redman roamed at will, did as he liked, for the redman's law at that time was might is right, I want my friends to remember that many of the French Canadian missionaries sacrificed their lives because they were freely offering education to the redman, who had as little regard for education as he had for life. In the opinion of the red man, I repeat, might was right. Unfortunately, that theory is not yet altogether extinct as we have witnessed in Alsace-Lorraine, and in Poland, where the Germans, as well as the Russians, have deprived the people of those countries of their rights, their liberties, and their language. It is because we do not believe in that theory or principle because our British ideals are those of freedom and liberty that we are to-day at war, and that 300,000 Canadians, representing the best blood of our nation, are to-day in arms ready to sacrifice their lives that they may restore to Belgium, to France, and to Alsace their rights and their liberties. Can we who remain at home here in Canada not do as much? Can we who remain at home here not give and take? Is it not possible for sober-minded.citizens to sit down together and settle this acute difficulty which, as one speaker has said, might break out into rebellion. I think our French Canadian citizens have presented their claims very moderately. As a liberal and a supporter of the Liberal party, I stand upon

this issue exactly where my distinguished leader stands; where the Liberal party stood in 1896. We stand for provincial rights. As a citizen of the province of Quebec I have no right, nor do I desire, to dictate to the province of Ontario, or to meddle at all in the domestic affairs of that province. But, as a representative of the English-speaking Protestant minority of Quebec, I wish to appeal to my English speaking fellow-citizens in the province of Ontario. I wish them to remember that we, who are the great majority in the province of Ontario, are but a minority in the province of Quebec. Can we hope to expect any better treatment for our children from the Fiench speaking majority in the province of Quebec than we, who are the English speaking majority in the province of Ontario, are ready to give to our French speaking fellow-citizens who go to that province? I am encouraged by the debate here to-day to hope that the people will take a sober view of this trouble, and that before this Parliament meets again this subject will be settled to the satisfaction of all interests. Let us remember, we who are the majority in the Dominion of Canada, the golden rule, and do to others as you would that others should do to you. Those who say that there should be but one language will remember that the Book of Genesis tells us that at one time in the history of the world, after the flood, there was but one language and one speech throughout the earth. Was the world any better then? Is it a disadvantage for men to have two languages? Happily, here in Canada, we have the English language which is the language of commerce, and the French language, which is the language of diplomacy.
I appeal to this Parliament, to men upon both sides, to English-speaking people and French-speaking people, to cease our bickerings. Let us take an example from our brothers who have gone to fight the battles of freedom and liberty. Each day the casualty list that comes to this country registers the names of Englishspeaking Canadians and French-speaking Canadians who have given their lives for freedom and liberty. Let us take an example from those men who are standing shoulder to shoulder for these principles. Let us try to sit down together and see if we cannot settle once and for all this question, and do away with this language agitation which surely is not to the benefit of this country.
Mr. Oliver (Edmonton) and Mr. Mac-donell (South Toronto) rising together,


Mr. SPEAKER:: It is customary for the Speaker, when he sees an hon. member, to have some idea as to whether he is in favour of the resolution before the House or opposed to it. I do not know what the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) will do, nor do I know what the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Macdonell) will do. I promised the hon. member for Edmonton to see him after the hon. member for Huntingdon, and if the question can be settled this way, I can promise the hon. member for South Toronto that I will see him next.	[DOT]


Hon. FRANK OLIVER (Edmonton):: I intended to say that 'I took part in this debate with very great regret, but, in view of what has just occurred, it would seem as if I were somewhat insistent in taking part, thanks to your kind decision. It is a fact, however, that I do regret most sincerely being compelled to take part in this debate, because I am compelled to oppose the resolution offered in such eloquent terms by my hon. friend from Kamouraska. I regret the fact from many points of. view. I did what I could to prevent the question from coming before this House. I voted to keep it from coming before the House.
I noticed that my right hon.
9 p.m. friend the Prime Minister and my hon. friend the Postmaster General (Mr. Casgrain) agreed with me that it was undesirable that it should come before the House, but, unfortunately while they spoke one way, they voted the other; and the question is here to he dealt with.
One of the reasons why I regret so much having to take part in the debate is that the question is one which might very well be accompanied by acrimonious discussion. That was the reason why I did not desire to have it come before the House. I am bound to say, however, that in view of the tone which was given to the debate by the mover of the resolution, by his seconder, by the right hon. leader of the Opposition, and indeed, I may say, by all those who have taken part in it, it does not appear to me that the result which I feared is likely. Instead of injury arising from the free discussion of this matter, by a frank consideration of the facts of the case from different points of view, as suggested by my honoured leader, we shall in all probability arrive at a better mutual understanding of what must be admitted to be a very difficult question.
I do not wish it to be understood that I take the ground that was taken by some of those who have spoken., that because



this is a provincial matter it should not be discussed in this House. I take it that this Parliament is the highest law in this Dominion, and that nothing can occur in any part of the Dominion but that this Parliament has the right to discuss it, and, if a substantial injustice is being done, then it is the duty of this Parliament to discuss it. So far as the question that is immediately before the House is concerned, I am not prepared to say that it is of sudh a character, or that it is not of such a character. I do not propose to deal with it from that point of view. I have been greatly impressed by the eloquence with which the cause of those who supported the resolution has been presented, and I can assure them of my most sincere sympathy in the views they have expressed and the reasons that are behind those views. They are influenced by tradition, by sentiment, by every feeling of the human heart that is entitled to respect. For that reason it is still more my regret that I cannot see as they do. This Canada is a big country, and being a big country, there are various conditions in its various and distant parts. So, while the principles of toleration, of conciliation, even the principles of liberalism which have been appealed, to so- eloquently by my friends, may be entirely applicable to>
the conditions existing in one part of the country,-as they propose to apply them, they may be altogether inapplicable to the different conditions existing ini another part of the country, supposing we wanted to apply them in the same way. I would like if, when they speak of conciliation, when they speak of toleration, they would be good enough to remember that the conditions here are not the conditions there, and that a certain set of principles which might be perfectly right and good, as they propose to apply them to -conditions here, may be entirely wrong and to the disadvantage of the country, if they were to be applied in the same way under conditions that exist yonder.
I am here as a representative of the West, as those who have spoken up to the present time are representatives of the East. There could be nothing brought out more clearly than that which has 'been brought out by this debate and that is the difference between the east and the west. The claims that have been made on behalf of this resolution have been based upon conditions as they exist here, the result of occupation and settlement for hundreds of years. Certain conditions have grown up, with

or without the sanction of law, which are entitled to be respected by every one, which secure the reverence of many and which are to be defended as earnestly and as honestly as these gentlemen have defended them to-day. This outlook that sees the past, -and looks at the future only in the light of the past, fails to take nete of the fact that in the West we have an entirely different condition. It seemed good to the men of light and leading, in what is now eastern -Canada, many years ago that they should not he compelled to restrict their activities to the valley of the St. Lawrence or to the shores of the Gulf, but that they should extend their dominion to the western sea. That brought about their control of the prairies and the distant mountains in order that there might be built up a greater Canada, a Canada that would be worthy the ambitions, -the energies and the activities of those men already settled on -the banks of the St. Lawrence and on the Gulf. I.t is as one of the representatives of the conditions' that have arisen in the West, as the result of the foresight and enterprise of the men who played their part here, that I desire to speak to-night -and it is because of the difference in conditions that I am compelled to refuse to support -the resolution -of my ,hon. friend (Mr. Lapointe).
Speaking of population, stress has been laid on the number of French speaking people in Quebec and of the French speaking population ef Ontario. There is a population west of the lakes to be considered, and if I have the support of other representatives from that, part of the country, and I believe I have, then in what I desire to say, I, as well as they, speak for nearly 2,000,000 people. We speak for more than a quarter of the population of this Dominion at the present time. But that is not the heavy part of our responsibility. We speak for a part of the people of Canada, but we speak for a part of Canada which in time to come will be the heart of Canada and where the greatness of Canad-a will b-e built and demonstrated, if ever it is demonstrated. The heart of Canada for generations, for centuries, has been on the banks of the St. Lawrence and along the lakes. But, it is only a truism to say that in the years to come the -heart of Canada will lie between the Bed river and the Rocky Mountains. It i-s on the population that will occupy that country, it is on the conditions under which they will occupy that country, the

conditions under which they carry on their affairs in that country, that the greatness of Canada will depend. That fact is based upon the material possibilities which, by the bounty of the Creator, exist there to an extent and to a degree to which they do not exist in other parts of Canada; and because of that condition we must expect occupation and development to correspond. The development of the country is the result of the exertions of the people, and the success of the people depends in everything upon the education of the children. And so this question, which is so important to the minds of our friends here from eastern Canada-and they are certainly able to express that importance in the most eloquent language- is no less important to us who are charged with the responsibility of directing in some measure the development of that western country, the heart of Canada that is to be.
I do not wish to take exception to what my hon. friends have said, but if I took exception at all it would be to the attitude they have assumed, that theirs is the only point of view. There is another point of view, the point of view that I have feebly tried to express; and it is entitled to just as much consideration-I say it boldly and unshrinkingly-entitled to just as much consideration, and is just as sacred a point of view in the interests of this great country as is theirs, let them express it with all the eloquence they may, and though my expression be as feeble as it is.
The provinces west of the Great Lakes-I will take the liberty of speaking of the four provinces, and if I should trespass in any way there are plenty of representatives of those provinces here to-night to correct me -I speak of the four provinces with their possibilities of population, and the need of education amongst that population. Surely, if the task that is before the handful of people scattered over .those prairies and through the mountain valleys is to be discharged to the credit of themselves and to the benefit of this great Dominion, we must have educational efficiency to the last degree. We cannot achieve the success we ought to achieve, or realize the expectations we hold ^regarding the success of our efforts, unless we have the highest mark of educational efficiency amongst the population that is born and bred and reared in that country. That is an idea that is abso-dutely grounded in and-may I say-dominates the mind of the people of that coun-
239i	*
try. It is as sacred to them as are the language and the traditions of their race to our friends from the East who have spoken here yesterday and to-day. What is it that strikes the eye of any traveller through the Northwest as he passes by train or by road through the country? Wherever he finds a knot of people settled in village, town or city, the landmark, that strikes his eye is the school, the biggest building in the place, and the best that the money of the people can afford. It is just as much the landmark in our western provinces as are those beautiful churches and spires in tlie province of Quebec, and represents, again I repeat, just as sacred an idea. The problem of securing efficient education to the population born and raised in that country is the greatest, the most important, the most pressing and the most thoroughly appreciated problem that is before those who are charged with the leading of public thought in that country. Unless the settler who goes into that country with ambition, with energy, with hope and expectation for his own material success-but still [DOT] more, in the huge majority of cases, for the success, material and moral of his children-unless he gets reasonable facilities for their fair education he will not submit to the disabilities of pioneer life. He will find some easier way; he will drift into the towns for the sake of the education of his children. So I say that the problem of establishing facilities for the efficient education of the rural population of those Prairie Provinces is the great problem, not only for those provinces, but, in the long run, for this Dominion itself. I appeal to all men of fair mind in this House if the men who are charged with the responsibility of providing those facilities should be hampered or hindered in any way; if, on the contrary, they should not be encouraged and supported in, every way possible. The man who leaves his original location and moves on to the western prairies in the expectation of establishing himself with prosperity for himself and his family there, 'has ambition, energy and 'hope, and he leaves the old condition, wherever it may be, with' the intention of securing and establishing a new condition in the country to -which he goes. Therefore may I say to our friends wfeo, have spoken so eloquently and so ably of traditions, of historic rights, that many of the people of the West-I do not say all, because there are exceptions to every rule-but I would not hesitate to say that the vast majority

I
can afford, under such, circumstances, to have imparted successfully to their children.
Mr. Speaker, I have already stated, and I will repeat, that I do no-t wish, in anything I have said, to suggest interference in the discussion of school questions in the province of Ontario, in the province of Quebec, or in any other of the eastern provinces. I recognize that under the conditions which prevail in these provinces they have their difficulties, their limitations, and their frictions that must be allayed and adjusted. I do not propose to discuss them; I leave them to those who are 'better posted and more interested than I am, although, of course, 1 am interested in the wellbeing of eastern Canada just as the people of eastern Canada are interested in the wellbeing of western Canada. But while I am willing to accept the conditions, as discussed, in regard to the school systems of eastern Canada, I appeal to our friends who have brought this resolution forward to recognize the limitations, the conditions, the aspirations, and the ambitions of western Canada, and to give us the same consideration in dealing with the problems that are under our administration as we are willing to give them in regard to the problems that are under their administration. If they insist on applying the standards which they maintain, and which may be perfectly applicable to the conditions prevailing in the country with which they are familiar, to our country, where the conditions are entirely different; or, if they accuse us of intolerance, of sectionalism, or of a desire to wipe out or injure anybody, I say they are not fair, and they are not entitled to adopt that attitude towards us, as we do not wish to adopt that attitude towards them. Let the problems of eastern Canada be dealt with as they may be, but let the problems of western Canada be dealt with as they may be; that is all we ask. If we cannot agree, all I suggest is that we agree to disagree, because I do not wish that any man should have it in his heart ox mind to suggest that I am guilty of any intolerance, or of any racial or sectional prejudice of any kind. Our friends on this side of the House have proclaimed themselves as Liberals. They are Liberals, very good Liberals. I claim to be a Liberal, too; just as good a Liberal as they are, and just as strong for conciliation as against coercion, and for the maintenance of the rights of minorities where those rights can be maintained without becoming wrongs, either

of the majority or of a minority. I am just as ready to go- as far as they will go in maintaining rights; but I am not prepared to maintain what I believe to be a wrong because it is called a right.


Mr. A. C. MACDONELL (South Toronto) :: Mr. Speaker, I apologise to 'the House for rising at this late moment in the debate to add a few words to what has been so well said on both sides. I may say at the outset that I very greatly regret the necessity for speaking on a resolution of this kind. To my mind it is to be doubly regretted that this resolution is now before the House. I think it is untimely and inappropriate, both because of the undesirability of raising the cry that this motion will raise and has raised in the country, and because a matter of still more importance, and one that I think we all have at heart, is engaging our attention and that is the purpose of prosecuting this war with a single aim and a single idea. It is no time for the people of Canada, much less those who are in the Parliament of Canada, to have their attention distracted from the one object of pursuing the prosecution of this war with every possible diligence until we meet with that final triumph which we believe is in store and which will no doubt come to pass provided our united, energies are bent in that direction.
I have no desire to censure anybody. I am going to give you my opinion and I believe it is the opinion of a great majority of the people of this country whether they come from Quebec or 'Ontario or whether they come from the West. The ineptitude of this resolution has been pointed out in this debate by many speakers. I do not desire to go over the arguments which have been presented but they are very apparent. The legislature was sitting at Toronto for months this winter and almost immediately after that House adjourns we find the appearance of this mischief maker in the House. It seems to me that that was the proper place, and that the time to take the case up, discuss it, and fight it if need be, even if conditions existed which would have justified bringing into that House such a resolution as this. If anything were needed to confirm me in the belief that there- is no justification for the introduction of this question into this House, it is the fact that, although the question has been discussed for two whple days, it is quite evident that

members of this House are still very much in the dark. We are at the present time trying a government behind the back of that government. We are making an investigation into matters that we know not of. The 'Government that we are asked to censure, because that is virtually the tenor of this resolution, are not here, they have no representative here, and no means of meeting this argument. I appeal to business men, to professional men, to fair-minded men. Is it right, is it fair, to proceed farther with this investigation behind the back of the Ontario Government without a knowledge on their part of what is being done, without an opportunity of meeting what is being said, because, as has been said in this debate, it may be a matter for conciliation, a matter for getting together? No one knows what the argument of the Ontario Government may be. They may have an argument wThieh will convince my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition, if they had a chance of presenting it-I do not know. But, it must he remembered that the leader of the Oppoisition said: 'Let us face this matter, let us investigate it, let us get to the bottom of it. What kind of an ex parte investigation are we engaged in here? It is purely and simply an ex parte investigation. This afternoon my hon. friend from Nicolet (Mr. Lamarche) was discussing something that took place at Windsor, where, apparently, the schools were disfranchised. They were, he represented, not allowed to proceed wdth the operations of the schools and they were either closed up or threatened with being closed up because of certain objections that were made by the Ontario Government. The hon. gentleman, prefaced his remarks in regard to the situation at Windsor, by the statement that these schools were closed up under Regulation 17. I happen to have a statement of the Minister of Education of Ontario, which appeared in the public press a few days ago, in regard to these very schools at Windsor: 'He says:
It has been contended, that the position of the French language in the Windsor Separate Schools is a proof that the department is preventing French-speaking children in those schools from learning their own language. These schools are not under Regulation 17 and accordingly the right to introduce French teaching into them, whether they were schools in which French had never hitherto been taught, or schools where it had been taught for a time aiid then abandoned, would be determined by Regulation 12 (2) which does not apply unless where French is the prevailing
language. French is not the prevailing language in Windsor, according to every test which can be applied in such matters.
So that after my hon. friend spent a great amount of time and much eloquence in relation to these Windsor schools, we find that they were not under Regulation 17 at all. I do not desire to go into the details of these various classes in which the French language may be taught. We have the one class in which small children who are not acquainted with the English language ,are taught in French until they can learn English. As they grow older they learn English and they continue under English tuition in the higher forms of the schools. It is the duty of the teacher to instruct fhem in that way. I will quote from the Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1914, chapter 266, the provision as to what the duties of the teacher are; they are all stated there. Section 84 says:
It shall be the .duty of every teacher-
And so on . Subsection b:
-to use the English language in instruction and in all communications with the pupils In regard to the discipline and the management of the school, except where it is impracticable to do so by reason of the pupil not understanding English, hut recitations requiring the use of a text-book may be conducted in the language of the text-book.
The Government seems to have done all they could to meet conditions where the pupils are not able to understand the English language. It does seem to me that, having regard to the fact that Ontario is an ,English-speaking province, and that the English language is in use there, they have gone as far as "they could to meet the condition of French children who are not familiar with the English language.
The hon. member for Nicolet this afternoon spoke about other languages in other pountries. He made out a great case of hardship for the French language in Ontario by citing Wales and I think Poland pnd other countries. He pointed out that those countries had their own languages. Of course they have, and so has Quebec her French language; but the Welsh people, or the Poles, do not ask that their language should follow' them into any land to which they go in any part of the world. They have their own language at their own home, and so it is with our French people of Quebec; they have their own language there.


Charles Marcil: Is a Frenchman in Ontario away from his own country?


Angus Claude Macdonell: No more than a
Welshman when he goes to England?


Charles Marcil: Is the descendant of a
Frenchman whose family has lived in the Detroit river settlement for a hundred and fifty years a newcomer to Ontario?


Angus Claude Macdonell: 
Charles Marcil: The treaty of 1763 is the Treaty of Versailles.


Angus Claude Macdonell: Some hon. gentleman, I think the hon. member for Nicolet, stated that in 1774, by the Quebec Act, the French language was introduced into and took a root in the province of Ontario. The answer to that is very plain. Whatever reference there is in the Quebec Act to the French language, that Act has no reference to what is now the province of Ontario, because there was no such thing then as Ontario, scarcely- even a bare settlement in that part of the country. Even had there been we find that, as soon as Upper Canada and Lower Canada were separated and the province of Upper Canada was founded, the very first Act of the first session of the first legislature of that province in 1791 declared that it was a British province and that the laws of England were to be brought into force in Upper Canada in regard to property, civil rights, and so on. So that even if it could be said by implication that the French language was introduced into that territory by the Quebec Act of 1774, that Act was certainly made of no avail by the Act of 1791 which I have just mentioned.
The remark made a moment ago by my hon. friend from Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil) brings to mind the fact that some French people settled in the province of Ontario. Far be it from me to detract for one minute from the courage, the heroism, the adventurous spirit, the enterprise and the splendid character, generally of the French in the early days of this country. They were the great pioneers who opened up this country. To-day, however, we are dealing with living facts; we are dealing, as representative's of the people, with this resolution, and we cannot have our minds led away by our emotions; we must deal with the question according to the necessities and the facts and law of the case. It is very interesting to listen to the story of the settlement of Ontario by the voyageurs and other French settlers; but, as a matter of fact; the province of Ontario was settled by the United Empire Loyalists who came to Upper Canada after the outbreak of the American revolutionary war, and there were very few, if any French in Upper Canada at that time and very few came for a long time afterwards. As the right hon. leader of the Opposition said yesterday, they used the great waterways of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes to go to the far West, but they did not use the shores of the Great Lakes for the purpose of settlement. Although the French came there in certain numbers, the settlement was very scattered, a few going'to Windsor. The French settlement in Ontario is of later date, and I suppose that is why the question of the French language in the schools has not become acute until the present time.
Let us consider the history of the school question in the province of Ontario, because that is the place where the claim in regard to the rights of the French is -made, and it is according to the laws of that province and the laws of the Dominion governing the provinces that we have to decide all rights with regard to education and language. Prior to 1840 there were very few educational facilities in the province of Ontario; it was not until 1863 that the school laws took any definite shape. It is of some importance to understand the facts in connection with the passing of the school law of 1863, and I therefore state the facts concerning it:
In this Bill, that is, the Act of 1863, as accepted and passed were two principal stipu-

lations: First, that Catholics in their schools should have the right of instruction in their own religious principles; second, that these Catholic schools should be as completely subject to governmental regulations as the public schools.-The Bill proved acceptable to its distinguished authors.
What was done in 1863 was the establishment of separate schools in the province of Ontario, with those two principles:	that
the minority should have the right to teach their religion, but subject always to governmental inspection. That Act was passed by the Government of the United Provinces, and that legislation, as hon. gentlemen no doubt know, was made the basis of the school clauses in the British North America Act: and it is worthy of note that that school law of 1863 was agreed to by all the Catholic bishops of the then United Provinces, including the bishops of Kingston, Toronto, and Ottawa, in Ontario, and Quebec, Montreal, and - Three Rivers, in the province of Quebec.
The right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition yesterday mentioned the fact that it was in 1885 that the trouble with regard to the use of the French language in the province of Ontario first arose. That was when Sir Oliver Mowat was in power in that province. Conditions were not satisfactory then, and a commission was appointed in 1889 to inquire into the question. Another commission was appointed in 1893, and another in 1910, and these difficulties were grappled with and largely overcome. In 1910, Dr. F. W. Merchant, Chief Inspector of Public and Separate Schools, was appointed a commissioner to investigate and report upon the English-French schools, public and separate, of the province, and this is a synopsis of his report from a statement given by the Minister of Education of Ontario:
The report of Dr. Merchant, which was completed in 1912, was based upon personal inspection of 269 schools in which the French language was either a subject of study - or was used by the teacher as the medium of communication or instruction. The report dealt with the whole subject as an educational problem. The conditions found to exist have probably not changed materially in the four years that have elapsed since. A summary of this report will, therefore, be a fair index of the problem as it exists at present. The conditions were not satisfactory. Many uncertificated teachers without any professional training, -were in the schools; and of those who held temporary certificates, about 50 per cent came from the province of Quebec. The attendance was irregular, the younger pupils being kept at home during the severe winter weather, the older pupils in spring and autumn.
* That was the condition when the legislature dealt with the matter and passed the 
following resolution in the session of 1911. which is the basis of the portions of the school law of Ontario with regard to the Flench language. I will read that resolution, because it is important; it was carried unanimously, there not being one dissenting vote:
Resolved, that the English language shall he the language of 

instruction and of all communications with the pupils in the public and separate schools of the province, except where, in the opinion of the Department of Education, it is impracticable by reason of pupils not understanding English.
The French members of the legislature voted for that, and this is verbatim the language of the French school laws of Ontario.	*


Charles Marcil: With the horn, gentleman's permission, I desire, with a view to eliciting information, to put to him the same question as I put to the hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Nickle) last night. Did Mr. Racine, who represented Russell, inquire whether the adoption of this resolution would change in any way the regulations with regard to the French minority?


Angus Claude Macdonell: I do not know anything -about Mr. Racine. What the hon. gentleman 'has said affords me another argument. It proves the unfairness of bringing into this arena matters that belong to the province of Ontario. Sir James Whitney is dead, and the records of these proceedings are in Toronto. No doubt the hon. gentleman would be answered if the Government of Ontario were asked the question he asks me. I am not familiar with the details of these matters I was not a member of the legislature. Had this discussion come on in the proper way, had the resolution been put on the Order Paper and- hon. members given an opportunity to consider it and prepare themselves, I believe that the discussion would have been more informing and useful than this which has been thrust thus suddenly upon the House. I desire to read a telegram which has been received from Hon. G. Howard Ferguson, Acting Minister of Education:
Toronto, Out., May 9.
Under our regulations there are only two classes of schools, namely, public and separate. By special regulation, however, the minister is given authority to designate annually the scnoois to which Regulation 17 shall apply and these are called English-French schools. The reason for this, you will observe, is that a school formerly designated and operated under 17 may have acquired a sufficient English training and adopted such methods of teaching that it would not be necessary longer to desig-

nate it as an English-French school. On the other hand, a school that obeyed the requirements of our regulations last year may have changed its attitude this year, and the minister (would feel it necessary to designate it so as to bring it under Regulation 17. In other words. Regulation 17 is only made to apply to schools where it is found French children are not given proper opportunity to acquire knowledge of English. You will therefore see why it is that the particular schools and the number of them may change from year to year. Section 12, subsection 2, applies generally to all bilingual schools, and provides that where French language prevails inspector may permit use of French under certain restrictions, as provided. Necessarily the designated class, which comes under Regulation 17, is excluded from those that come under section 12, subsection 2. Take the case of a new school section growing up. It begins as an English section. With the influx of French people the prevailing language in the locality may change from English to French. When that becomes the case the school has the right to operate under section 12, subsection 2. If it grows intensely French and. the tendency is to deprive children of chance to learn English, then the minister would designate it under 17. It is all wrong to say it is impossible for the French people to secure instruction in their mother tongue in case they immigrate into districts where no bilingual schools had prevously prevailed. As a practical possibility such a thing is scarcely likely to happen because if the French people begin to move into an English community, they pick up so much of the English language by intermingling with the people that it would scarcely be necessary to use any other than the English language for instruction purposes. If you can imagine a whole French community settling down isolated from opportunities of learning English, that school would be designated by the minister as an English-French school and the department would see that ample facilities were provided for pupils to acquire English through the medium of their mother tongue and at same time be given in that tongue.
G. H. Ferguson. -
That explains the matter ve^y fully, and I will not attempt to add anything to it. I leave it to the House and to the country, merely saying that for myself, for the reasons that I have tried to give I will vote lagainsit this amendment. I believe it is not in. the interest of Canada, nor in the interests of the province of Quebec, nor in the interests of the province of Ontario. I believe nothing more unfortunate could have happened to our friends in the province of Quebec than the introduction of this resolution. The nature of the resolution and the way it is put makes it plain to the people that its introduction at this time is entirely inadvisable.
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (South Renfrew):	I can sympathize somewhat
with the statement of the Postmaster General (Mr. Oasgrain) yesterday that he possibly was not acting as many of the people
in his own province would think it better for him to act. There are such times in the life of every public man; in fact that time is always present with him. But the older he grows the more he is impressed with the necessity of hewing straight to the line in this public conduct. It has been suggested to me many times during the past three weeks that were I to vote for any resolution touching on this delicate question I should be preparing material for a first-class political funeral. If sd, blessed are the dead.


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: Only on one condition.


Mr. GRAHAM:: I submit that a man's
conscience is the guide to him whether the conditions are fulfilled or not. While I prize the opinion of my friends as highly as any man can possibly do, while I am heartily thankful for the confidence that has been reposed in me by the people of my native province for a great many years, yet, Sir, I consider that my conscientious duty is paramount to anything else, and in the. performance of that duty I am both going to speak and vote on this question. Were I looking for the plaudits of friends, or possibly for political preferment, I might take some other course; but I have in my mind, - after associations of the past year and a half in certain part3 of this Dominion, something which to me is more paramount than either of these, great and desirable as they may be. If, Sir, by my action, by anything I can say, I can in the slightest degree assist in bringing together the warring factions in Ontario, and thus add to the warring forces of the Allies in the old land even but ten men,' I am accomplishing something for the Empire and for the Dominion of Canada. Sir, I go further. If, by the sinking, if that be the case, of any ambition I may have, I can take away from any number of men in Canada the excuse for not enlisting, I feel that my duty has been performed and I am fully repaid. I know of what I speak, without going into any further details; and if, as the hon. gentleman who preceded me (Mr. Macdonell) has rightly said, the prosecution of this war is the paramount issue now before the Canadian people, I submit that by my action to-night I am taking the strongest step I possibly could to do my best towards the achievement of that end".
My hon. friend spoke as if this resolution were intended to coerce the people of Qn-

tario, or to advise them, or to interfere with them. No such thought is in the mind of any man in this House, and I think the high plane of the discussion on this most delicate question, in which the issues at stake appeal to the very sinews, to the very fibre of men's being, and the fact that there has been such a complete absence of words that might annoy, of sentences that might drritatp, is a striking tribute to the ability and the calibre of the men who form the Canadian House of Commons. A firebrand on cither side on a question of this kind, might have led men of ordinarily mild temperament? to say things which they would not say in cool moments, but 'which they would 'always regret. That has not been the case; but we have discussed in this House up to the present moment a question of the most delicate nature without a harsh word being said, and without anything escaping the lips of members that would bring any blush to those who come after us when they come to read the debates on this question at the present time.
But, Sir, we have no intention of dictating to the province of Ontario. It is merely through this resolution, as the most direct means of exercising our right of expressing our opinions upon an alleged grievance, that the authority, and the only authority that has power to deal with this grievance, may learn what our viewpoint
is,	and, if it be in their minds, can remedy the grievance which is said to exist. You, Sir, made it very plain that this was the case, and I am not sorry now, Mr. Speaker, that your ruling was challenged, because some people might have said that in your .ruling you leaned to virtue's side-or the contrary. But your ruling having been [DOT]approved by the vast majority of this House, we are discussing this matter because the House of Commons, nearly to a. man said that we had a perfect right to discuss it. But I want to refer to the words -which you, Mr. Speaker, used which were approved of nearly unanimously, ard which must convince the members of the altitude of those wh

 are discussing it that ir. is not their intention, that they have no desire, to interfere with the rights o: the province, but merely to express an opinion. The Speaker used these words:
By ruling that this amendment is in order, I mean that this House has the right to discuss
it,	not with the view of depriving a province of what may have been enacted by its Legislature, but merely with the view of allowing the House to express its opinion.

That is merely what those who proposed this resolution, as I understand it, desired to do. Now that the question is here, I am free to admit that I should have preferred that it had not been brought here. Personally, being a citizen of Ontario, I had intended to address a few meetings in this province on thiis very point, to express to the people my own viewpoint-[DOT] whether it would have been approved or not is another question. That being my intention, I should have preferred to have taken up the discussion outside of this House rather than to have it brought here. But it is here, we must face it, and I propose to do so for a few moments and tell the House why I am taking the attitude which I now take. I hope in doing so not to offend any person, though I may say a few plain things to people in both provinces on this question. Perhaps I should not say the people in both provinces; I mean the people speaking both languages; because this is an Ontario affair, and while you gentlemen from outside may discuss it, remember that we in this province are the ones to settle it, and the only ones who can settle it, or who have the right to settle it. My own view is that defiance of law is no-t the proper way to go about getting a remedy of a grievance.
But I will go further, and say that the cause of this irritation is not all one-sided. Let me be frank. I have been through discussions of this kind for a good many years. I have been in the Ontario Legislature, and, perhaps, I know as well as any men on the other side of the House the outlook from that angle on all these questions. Ontario is very jealous of her right to manage her own affairs, and rightly so. Certain laws were passed under the Mowat Administration after heated discussions on this question and on the question of separate schools in two or three elections. Had those laws been adhered to I believe that we would not now have the irritation which exists. One of the difficulties arose, and I say it advisedly, not from the enactments of the Mowat Government and of the Legislature of Ontario, but from the fact that the people interested did not obey the laws of the Ontario Legislature. I could cite several instances. Thus the irritation began. Speaking as a man from Ontario, who has been in the Ontario Legislature, who knows that viewpoint, I say without hesitation that in some schools in the province of Ontario the law was not only ignored, but defied. I do not refer te

the situation of recent date in Ottawa I am not referring to that at the present moment. Irritation consequently arose. It is possible that the authorities of that day were a little too lenient in not compelling compliance with the law, but this is such a delicate question to deal with that in a measure they may be excused. But it is the fact nevertheless that had not some schools that should have remained bilingual at least been made absolutely and totally French, there would not have been the cause for much of the irritation that has taken place in Ontario. I am not saying who is to blame I am simply saying that I know that to have been the case.
Coming to the city of Ottawa, I want to say plainly again that I do not believe that defiance of the law is the proper way to go about getting any grievances remedied. We have certain extremists in Ontario, I admit, but I do not want the people of the province of Quebec to judge the province of Ontario by a few ranters in this province. There are extremists in the province of Quebec, iand I ask the Ontario people not to judge the good people of the province of Quebec by ranters in that province. The men who keep in the middle of the road represent the best men in both provinces, andj>y these the people in each province are to be judged, and by these alone. Ontario people are sensitive. Perhaps I am not as sensitive as some people about the things which are said about the province from which I come, in which I was born, and in which I live. We are not a lot of bigots in the province of Ontario. I resent any suggestion of that kind. We have some; they creep into the best of society. If you could take ours in Ontario with yours in Quebec, and send them to the front where we would be sure they would stay, it would be a good thing for both provinces. But, in dealing with these questions, while we are irritated in each province by the extreme words of ranters in the other, we must keep our heads, and remember that the best in each province is not represented by men of that stamp.
I want to reiterate that, so far as I am concerned, I wonld not vote for a resolution, much less speak for it, which had even the semblance of interfering with the rights of this province or of any other province. If I thought that my action was construed in that way by those who have moved this resolution-I know it is not-I would not- I would not vote for the resolution at all, because Ontario is the only power that can
deal with this question. Some person may say to me-I have seen the insinuation in some newspapers in Quebec and in some in Ottawa that the Ontario Government is made up of bigots and fanatics, and that the legislature in general is of the same calibre. I have no brief for the Ontario Government, as .you can weli understand; hut I know Premier Hearst, and nobody can make me believe that Hearst has the least semblance of a bigot in his make-up. I am acquainted with the man. I know the Hon. Thomas McGarry, and I know him to he broadminded, a man who- hews to the line and tries to do the right thing. I was associated for years with the Hon. W. J. Hanna in the Provincial Legislature, and there is not a man in Canada who can make me believe that Hanna is a fanatic, or has the semblance of a fanatic in his anatomy, or is a man who would do anything wrong as between men in the way of encroaching upon their rights. These men are not bigots. These men have a duty to perform. But, lest I may he misunderstood-I have mentioned only three because they are the three I know best-the others, I have every Teason to believe, are in 11 p.m. the same category. Coming to the Opposition, I know N. W. Rowell. Rowell is not a bigot; he is one of the broadest-minded men in the Dominion, and one of the Ablest men as well. I know many of his followers who were in the Ontario Legislature when I was there. I know Charles Bowman, a man of German descent, who, like his father, is a credit to the province of Ontario. There is not an iota of bigotry in the make-up of Mr. Bowman. Another I think of is Mr. Sam. Clark, of Cobourg, a man of all men, open-hearted, broadminded, and with a heart that would take in everybody in the Dominion of Canada and have some room left. This question must not he discussed on the supposition that the men in the Ontario Government or in the Ontario Legislature are narrowminded. I do not admit that; I resent it, because, knowing these men, I know they do not view their public duty from that standpoint.
Let me deal for a moment with the question of disallowance. I need not say that I am not in favour of the disallowance of this Act. There have been very few Acts passed the disallowance of which I would favour. Sir Allen Aylesworth, Minister of Justice in the former Government, once made the statement that in his opinion a

province had a right to do wrong if it wanted to. That was possibly putting it broadly, but to a large extent, the powers given to the provinces under the Act of Confederation enables them to do that, so long as some great public right is not interfered with. I know of legislation for the disallowance of which petitions came to the federal authority in the time of the Administration of my right hon. leader that bore upon their face evidences of injustice. The Minister of Justice then took the ground that the people of Ontario had the power to punish a Government that would pass that kind of a law and that the matter was their business and not ours. I think that is fairly sound logic and sound constitutional practice, although the law would allow them to take another view. But, there is another reason in this case why I would be absolutely against disallowance. If the grievance now claimed does really exist, disallowance would not help one iota. Those of us who are older remember the disallowance of provincial Acts many years ago, with what result, Sir? These Acts wena immediately re-enacted by the Ontario Legislature, disallowed again, and re-enacted again, until they went to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. No real remedy could be afforded, particularly in a case of this kind, by disallowance. It would only add to the irritation, and the Government did exactly right in not thinking of disallowing,, this Act. Further than that, they would have been compelled to take the strong ground that 'this Act was so injurious that it should be disallowed, although it was absolutely within the purview of the Ontario Legislature, which nobody does dispute, or nobody can dispute, if he looks upon the matter dispassionately.
But you say: " Then, that being the case, this question should have been referred to the courts and finally decided." If this were a question of commerce, if this were a question of some minor importance, -of something that dealt only with the heads ,and not the hearts of people, I would say that a decision by the courts would settle it. But this is a question far and beyond and above anything in the way of a commercial transaction or of a commercial dispute. It is something that touches the beings of men, something that touches their history and their traditions, and no decision of any court, no matter what it may be, can alleviate the irritation that exists. I say to those who are prosecuting that case and taking it to the courts that, no matter what 
the decision may be, the people of Ontario will have to deal with the question ultimately.


Mr. BURNHAM:: May I ask the hon. gentleman if he means that it would be desirable to test the opinion of the country at large upon this matter?


George Perry Graham: I am not objecting to it, but I do not suggest it. My hon. friend has a constituency where he thinks . he could use this question fairly well, as he did the ne temere decree. I say that a decision of the court, no matter on which side it was, would not alleviate the condition or remove the irritation. Why do I say that? Supposing that those who make the complaint of this law were upheld and the decision were in their favour, * think you that, if the Ontario Legislature did not believe in the justice or wisdom of the decision, they would not and could not find a hundred ways of getting around it without violating it? Everyone knows that. They need not pass any legislation to implement the decision. They could do several things, refuse to grant money and that kind of thing. That would not help. I say to the French people of Ontario : suppose the decision were against you, then where would you be? I am not a lawyer, but my judgment is that if the case goes to court it will be decided in favor of the Ontario government. This being so, an appeal to the courts would not lessen the irritation; it would but add to it, no matter what the decision might be.
What is the only remedy? You say to me: ''Why should we have anything to do with this question in the federal Parliament"? That has been decided by almost the unanimous vote of the House, and I will not discuss it. But, if there be a grievance, I do not know. Is it claimed that there is a grievance? It is. If any man imagines that he has a grievance, he is as much troubled in his heart as if he had a real grievance, because to him it is a real grievance. One thing I do know is that for some reason hundreds of children to whom we owe an education are walking the streets, or have been, and are not getting it. I do not know what the situation is to-day. We owe-'a duty to these children, and those on either side who are preventing an arrangement being brought about by which these children can proceed on their course to manhood and womanhood are taking a grave responsibility. There is a grievance, or an alleged grievance, I am not sure which it is. It exists in the minds of a lot of people

at least, and we in Ontario ought to be big enough to find some way to do justice to the children of Ontario if not to the children in the other parts of the country. What is to be that way? It cannot be by law, it cannot be by coercion, it cannot be by disallowance, it cannot be by court decision ; it must be through some friendly and conciliatory method on the part of both parties. It will not do to say: "You have no grievance; there is the law." That makes no difference to the man who thinks he has a grievance. iStoniething ought to be done. Are we not big enough in Ontario to devise a method 'by which a remedy can be found?
I said that I did not know whether there was a just cause for a grievance or not. This much I do know, that, having sat in this House, I have heard men, learned in the law, on each side if the House say there is no cause for a grievance be- . cause the amendment to the Ontario law does not mean that those who claimed to have a grievance insist it does mean. The acting Minister of Education said that these amendments to the Act are not intended to deprive children of French-speaking parents of any privilege they had. Mr. Rowell has said the same thing. Their remarks appeared in the same newspapers. That is the Ontario side of it. Hon. gentlemen in this House have said the same thing. Eminent men on this side of the House, whose ability both as statesmen and lawyers no person will question, declare just as emphatically that these amendments can bear an interpretation which does deprive the children of French-speaking parents of the privileges that they have always enjoyed. Who is right? I do not know. There should be some person to say who is right as between these two opinions. I know a most eminent lawyer in Canada who has said that this Regulation 17 is weak, and if it is apparently capable of two constructions, surely there is some method by which that weakness can be removed and the law made clear so that there can be no dispute that it means what the Ontario Government and legislature say it means, xf that be done the cause of grievance is removed, so far as I am concerned. If some enactment can toe passed that will make it so clear that lawyers cannot differ, and everybody will know that this legislation means what the Ontario Government says it means, there will be no cause, I think, for the grievance among those who are now complaining. Lawyers may laugh
at that, but lawyers make good fees out of these very differences. If these differences did not get into legislation we should have fewer lawyers. Not being of that profession myself, I cannot appreciate these technicalities but I do know that they exist. Prominent legal men have said to me that the interpretation put upon these amendments by the leader of the Opposition and by the horn, member for Kamour-aska is not a strained one. Now, this resolution only suggests, nothing more. It does not ask; it does not adviise; it merely expresses the opinion that, that being the case, it would be wise if all doubt were removed by having the legislation of Ontario made so clear that nobody could say that it did not mean what the Ontario Government says it means. That is not a very big demand. Knowing the members of the Ontario Government, I believe that if the Minister of Trade and Commerce, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the member for East Toronto, and the member for South Toronto-Ontario men, who have the right to sit down and discuss it directly with the Ontario Government-I believe that if they were to sit down and discuss this matter with Premier Hearst, this grievance would be removed in twenty-four hours. I know the men of whom I 'speak, and I say in all fairness to the members of the Ontario Government that I *have never found any of them showing the least symptom of bigotry, or a desire to interfere with amy man on account of his religion or origin. That being true, I urge upon the Government and the members from Ontario the wisdom of sitting down quietly with the members of the Ontario Government, and pointing out that *if they will make clear what they say is their intention, much of t'he trouble will be removed. If that can be done-and it seems to mfe very simple-there will have been accomplished by this discussion, conducted as it has been without any irritation, harshness or abuse, something that will be worth all the money that has been expended in the holding of this session of Parliament, if it accomplished nothing else. Let ns look at our hearts at the present moment. The greatest necessity in this hour, in the face of an enemy who has appeared almost unbeatable, is that all hearts in iCanada should beat as one. If friendly conference by men from Ontario with the authorities in Ontario can bring about a state of affairs whereby the present friction, no matter from what cause, will



no longer exist, and hundreds of children . now going uneducated will return to the schools, and we in -Canada, no matter from what part we come or what our race or origin, -can say that we have no grievance against each other, we shall be in a better position than we have been in for the last eighteen months to face and overcome the enemy, because the people of the Empire will be united.


George Eulas Foster: Mr. Speaker, I have a very few words -to say in connection with the question that has been debated now for two days, -and the discussion of which, I suppose, is now nearing its end.
I have listened attentively to every speech that has been made, including the speech which has ibeen made by my hon. friend who has just taken his seat (Mr. Graham); and I -acknowledge to this House and to myself that now, just at this moment, I -am more mystified as to why this resolution was ever brought here than I have been at any other time during this debate. I have been trying to find out what it was brought here for, I have diligently scanned the arguments, and listened to most of them as they have proceeded from those who have spoken; and I cannot yet see, from anything that has been said by my right hon. friend who is the father of the resolution, or by my hon. friend who has just taken his seat-taking them as the two principal exponents-what in the wide world this resolution was ever brought here for, if it was not brought here for mischief. It seems to -me like the foolish prank o-f a -mischievous boy. My hon. friend who has just taken his seat spoke of firebrands. He has been on tenterhooks ever since this resolution came into this House lest some word should be spoken which would set a fire going that would blaze up all over this country. Was it necessary, in order to make a protest to the Ontario Government, that you should contemplate firebrands and- conflagrations, and bring tinder into this House which would contribute to it?
IMy right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) says: "I do not want to dictate; I have not the -least idea of giving Ontario advice; all I want to do is to make a plea and have a hearing." Good gracious, Mr. -Speaker'! Could he not have made the same ple-a without a resolution? Could not everybody in this House have said what everybody 
has said on a motion to go into Supply, without bringing in any resolution at all as an amendment to that motion? Then why was the resolution brought? That is what mystifies me. How is it with the rest of you on each side of this House?


An hon. MEMBER:: It synchronizes.


George Eulas Foster: There is another thing which shows the absurdity of trying to try out a question of this kind in a forum which is uninformed, and cannot possibly be informed on the very kernel of the question. My hon. friend from Nico-let (Mr. Lamarche), in that excellent speech of his -as to form and clearness, although jl do not agree with everything he has said here this afternoon, charged the Ontario Government with various wrongdoings. Who is there here to answer for the Ontario -Government? Is the Ontario Government at the bar of this House when charges are made that deeply affect its honour, its s-pirit of -fairness, and its objects? Is there any one at the bar of this House to speak on behalf of the Ontario Government, to give the reason for its acts, to explain what is not -clear or defend what is wrongly attacked? I am satisfied that there is an answer to every charge that has been made; but no man in this House who has not grown up in the atmosphere of the Ontario Legislature, who has not gone from an Ontario constituency to enact the legislation which' pertains to that House under our -Constitution, no -matter how able he is, can take up a question like this, which has a growth of thirty	years in the province,	andbe at even advantage with reference to it, know	its genesis,	its	developmentand the	truth that	ie	in it.	Alawyer can	take a brief	and	make a	very
good case out of it; but there is no man on either side of this House-and the debate we have had here has shown it-who is capable of taking this educational problem, that has been before the Legislature of Ontario and the various Governments of Ontario for these many years, and thoroughly understanding it, can do it justice or speak with authority with reference to it. So almost every man who has spoken has had a different idea of its purport, none know certainly.
My right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition is consumed with a spirit which impels him to make a plea. To what God is he praying? If he wants to make a plea which shall be an effective one, let

him put his plea upon the altar of the being who is able to grant it or refuse it. My right hon. friend the other night seemed to be under the impression that such a deity was my hon. friend who sits here by my right (Mr. Eogers). At the very end of one of his most impassioned pleas, he said, turning to my hon. friend: "Will you grant me that?" The man to whom he ought to have gone was that good, fair, impartial man, Mr iHearst, the (Premier of Ontario, by long knowledge of whom my hon. friend (Mr. Graham) felt himself justified in saying with reference to 'him:
He is no bigot; he is an honest man who tries to do even justice to every one in his province."


George Perry Graham: I am afraid my hon. friend is going further than I said.


George Eulas Foster: That is the man to whom you should have gone with your plea, and not to my hard-hearted though large-hearted friend who comes from Manitoba. That is the one thing that seems to me to show the absurdity of bringing this question here, where there is nobody to answer for it or to say whether or not he can or will grant the plea.
Row, ;I want to pick a bone with my hon. friend (Mr. Graham). In the interest of the very people whom he has been championing here to-night, was it a fair estimate to make of that French-Canadian character which began to develop upon the shores of Canada 150 years ago, for him to say that because a French child some-v.here in Ontario is alleged, for a little while, in learning grammar and geography, to be kept from using his own language or having his own language uttered to him, therefore that grand race shall refuse to fight for the country that they have adopted and the country that they love? I have formed no such opinion of my French Canadian friends in this House or in this country of Canada, and I think that my hon. friend was ill-advised when he supposed that before you could get recruits in Quebec you must fix up this small trouble on the streets of Ottawa, where the children aTe pacing the streets instead of being in the schools-on account of whose fault? . Because somebody chose to be disobedient to the law-nothing less and nothing more than that. The greatest crime that a man can commit in a democratic country is to refuse to obey the laws that the democracy imposes upon him.


George Perry Graham: That is what I said.
239i


George Eulas Foster: That is done in the streets of Ottawa; and yet I have not heard a single expression of regret as to that side of the question .from my right hon. friend who had so much to say with reference to the faults of many people in Ontario.
My hon. friend from Nicolet (Mr. La-marche) uttered, I think, a heresy this afternoon when he stated that the law should not be appealed to, that the courts should not be appealed to, in order' to get rid of a law which was oppressive, because by doing so you proclaimed your adhesion to the law. There are only three ways of getting rid of a law.' One is to go to the law-giver and convince him that the law is an improper one and get him to amend it or to get it out of the way.


George Perry Graham: Hear, hear.


George Eulas Foster: My hon.
friend said: "hear, hear". A brave man and a man who honestly wants to get what he says he wants to get goes to the man who has the power of giving it, and does not stand three or four hundred miles off and make long shots through a foreign substance and wait until by similar long shots in the opposite direction, he gets a reply from somebody who has nothing to do with the matter. In my boyhood days, if I wanted something from my mother, I went straight to her and asked her for' it and I got it; I did not run around to all the Aunt Sallys in the. neighbourhood.
The other ways of getting rid of an obnoxious law is either to have it annulled in the courts if it is illegal or to reverse it through the electors.
There was another little heresy of my hon. friend, and I think a heresy uttered by one or two others, including the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. iE. Lapointe). Just here let me state what I thought while this debate was going on. If I were a young man like some of those Englishspeaking men, around me, I would study from this very moment straightforward until I could speak French just as well as some of my French friends speak English in this House. The ability to speak two languages gives a man power. I am, however digressing a little; what I wanted to do was to compliment my hon. friend from Kamouraska on the excellent English in which he addressed himself to his subject. My hon. freind, however, as to that little heresy of his, has taken comfort to himself and solace for his conscience in try-

mg to find a reason for the bringing of this question into this House. "We have a right to bring it here", he says; and it is here properly, because the Speaker said they had the right to bring it here.


George Perry Graham: I said more than that.


George Eulas Foster: I remember a lesson of my Sunday-sehool days to the effect that there are some things that are right, but which may not be expedient. Some scripture character gave utterance to that many long years ago. Because the Speaker said that under the rules of Parliament, when a motion is made to go into Supply you can bring in an amendment with regard to almost anything under the sun, that does not excuse my hon. friend from bringing in a firebrand motion; and I think he felt a little of that fire burning in his own conscience when he turned to the Speaker's decision and the support given to the Speaker in this House as a solaoe to him for having this firebrand question brought into this House.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend, perhaps, does not mean to toe unfair-[DOT]


George Eulas Foster: I will not be unfair.


George Perry Graham: I was answering the argument of the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Macdonell) that we were trying to do something in the way of giving advice or instruction to the Ontario Legislature which we should not do, and I read the paragraph of the Speaker's ruling based on the fact that we were merely asked to express an opinion. I did not give the reasons that the hon. gentleman has given at all.


George Eulas Foster: I accept the hon. gentleman's explanation and if I have done him an injustice I am sorry for it. But the hon. gentleman said he would rather the resolution were not here. Why did he say that? .


George Perry Graham: For the same reason that I said a good many other things-because it is true.


George Eulas Foster: It is true my hon. friend would rather it was not. iiere. Will he say that, in order to make the plea which he has made, a very effective and straightforward plea, it was necessary that this motion should have been introduced? Could not he have said every word he has said even if this resolution had not been introduced.


George Perry Graham: Does my hon. friend
want an answer?


George Eulas Foster: Yes.


George Perry Graham: That answer was given
in almost the next sentence I spoke, when I said that as a citizen of Ontario I would have preferred to go elsewhere to discuss this matter, and I intended to do it. But, as it is here, I propose to support it.


George Eulas Foster: What kind of
a soldier is my hon. friend, to load himself up with unnecessary impedimenta when he goes into the field? He could have done all the fighting he had to do without this resolution. He did not wish it, he did not need it; and yet he has lugged it in. My hon. friend paid a high compliment-and not too high-to the members of the Government and Legislature of Ontario. I know these men, and I believe what he said, that they are honest men; they are not bigots, but fair-minded men. These, then, it seems to me, are the men to whom he should go. He never has expressed such high confidence in the men who sit on the treasury benches in this House. And yet, desiring honestly to do a great .thing for the cause which, he says, commands his sympathy, he deliberately turns away from the men in whom he has confidence and comes to press an impossible task upon men in whom, he has expressly declared over and over again, he has no confidence.
Disallowance is no good, he says; disallowance is no good, said my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) over and over again; disallowance will not do what is desired, said others in this debate, over and over again. iHow is it-and here is a question that troubles me-that for week after week, for month after month, an agitation has been carried on, paper and ink have been freely used, and thousands upon thousands of people were led to sign a petition to this Parliament, asking for disallowance as a remedy for a grievance which is alleged? My right hon. friend, whose hand is upon the strings of the whole country, and especially upon the strings of Quebec, should have advised his friends that this was only provocation and embarrassment. But all .that time there was no word from him advising-


Wilfrid Laurier: No, no.


George Eulas Foster: -those in whom-


Wilfrid Laurier: No, I never advised,'-because I never was consulted, iand never knew. If I had been consulted a different course would have been, taken.


George Eulas Foster: My right hon. friend is about as innocent a youth for an old politician as I have met in a long time.


Wilfrid Laurier: I will admit mo such imputation. I say here on my honour that I never heard of these petitions, I never was consulted about them. The hon. gentleman can take my word or not as he chooses.


George Eulas Foster: My right hon. friend is quite wrong:	I had no intention
of suggesting doubt of his statement that he did not know these things. But the mystery deepens. How a man like my right hon. friend, who has been forty years in politics', who knows the ropes, who keeps even with the current of public thought- how all these things could have gone on and he never have heard of it surprises me. There is another thing with regard to my right hon. friend. In all his speech I did not hear a single word of condemnation for the firebrands, for the violators of law on the other side of the question, and not only the violation, ibut the denial, and and the flouting of it under iny. right hon. friend's front windows. He must have known that. Where, in Ottawa or elsewhere, did my right hon. friend say a word on behalf of the majesty of the denied law, a word as to the short-sightedness of the men who fight the'law on any such lines?
My hon. friend from South Renfrew (Mr. Graham)-I must get back to him because I like him so well-I think, has got on strange ground to-night. With long years of experience, with high standing in his party-some time, it is rumoured, to be the leader of his party-what strange heresy is this he has been preaching here to-night? He has invited both sides to this dispute to evade the judgments of the courts of the land and pay no heed to them.


George Perry Graham: I have not invited them, hut I have stated facts which everybody knows.


George Eulas Foster: What solid ground can we go upon if we are to follow the hon. gentleman? Up to tlhe present time I think we have had solid ground m this, that whenever legislation was enacted

 which was supposed to be wrong, gradually it went up from court to court until at last it
got to the highest tribunal, and when that highest tribunal pronounced its judgment every oitizen bowed /to that judgment. Is that not the only safety that we have in a country like this? My hon. friend to-night scouts such doctrine as that, goes to the one side, the enacting- power, and says: "If the Privy Council says you are wrong, you will evade their judgment, and you will find some way of perpetrating that [DOT]wrong again." He goes to the aggrieved party, and says: "If the judgment goes against your wishes, you will not be satisfied, and you will not bow to the law." That is not good doctrine in a country like ours, -but perhaps it is only a temporary aberration in my hon. friend.


George Perry Graham: That is all.


George Eulas Foster: I know he will come back to his right mind.


George Perry Graham: Ask any lawyer, and he will tell you it is true, just the same.


George Eulas Foster: I am 6orry, myself, that this resolution ever came into this House. I say that for all purposes which have been avowed by my right hon. friend and my hon. friend who has just spoken, for all purposes of making a plea, of expressing their sentiments, there was no necessity for bringing this resolution. But the resolution was brought, and just the last few words of my hon. friend gave me a clue as to why it was brought.	He has been pointing the
moral and adorning the tale. Nothing in that resolution of advice, or anything of the kind he says; but when he comes to apply it, as he did a moment or two ago, he says: "Just let the Minister of Trade and Commerce and the Minis,ter of Finance or one or two other members of the Government take this message from us and go down and use their influence with the Ontario Government, and they can settle it in a minute." And, if they do not happen to be able to settle it and the Ontario Government say, "We stand by what we have done," then my hon. friend would have got what he wanted-a chance to blame the Government and to trumpet it all over this country that they did not do what they might have done. That gives a pretty good indication of why this resolution was brought in.


George Perry Graham: Does the hon. gentleman really mean to say that was my motive in making that suggestion? I absolutely deny

that I had anything of the kind in my mind; I treated this question from a higher standpoint.


George Eulas Foster: Then my hon.
friend is very unfortunate in making the application in the way he did, because his last argument included laying this burden of duty on certain members of the Government, and that if they would take it up and go down to Toronto the whole matter would be fixed and everybody would be satisfied.


George Perry Graham: I will go with them if
they will take me.


George Eulas Foster: We would be glad of your company.
I listened to the speech that was delivered here by my hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) with a good deal of interest. The (position of the west was strongly put by him. I am sorry this resolution was brought, (because it makes a pathway for succeeding resolutions. Once you open the pathway to a resolution' which involves an interference with a legislature which is acknowledged by hon. gentlemen themselves to have enacted within its powers a law which they would not ask to be disallowed, the very moment you open a path with reference to the province of Ontario, you open it for every province in this wide country. I repeat what my right hon. friend the leader of this Government (Sir Robert Borden) said, that if that is to become a habit and a practice in this House, no province is safe from the reproof, the admonition and the interference of a majority in this House which may choose to interfere with its just rights of legislation. If it is possible to do that with the province of Ontario, it is possible to do it with the province of Quebec, and the province of Quebec is the last province in this Dominion which, from its own standpoint and holding to its own ideals, should have helped to brush out a path for action such as that into this Dominion Parliament, into this House of Commons-the very last. Here, with reference to the other provinces, we may be divided; but something might occur with reference to the province of Quebec on which the vast majority of the Dominion would feel one way, whilst Quebec had felt and legislated another way, and then you would have, not a resolution which can be defeated as this will be defeated in this House, but a resolution which might pass this House and

impose interference with the action of the province of Quebec.
Then, what in the wide world is the use of framing a resolution with a mandate in it unless you are determined to carry out the mandate? A mandate looks for a remedy. The remedy in this case is the amendment of the law. We pass the mandate-put it as mildly as you please, we pass it. We are no men, we have not been serious and in earnest, if, having commenced, having put our hand to the plough, we do not see the end of the furrow; and, if the Government of Ontario does not take our suggestion, then there will be a duty laid upon us to use something more than suggestion. Otherwise, it is futile to bring a resolution of that kind, and futility is the chief characteristic of this action of my right hon. friend.


Mr. F. F. PARDEE (West Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, the subject which is before this House is so important that, although there has been some considerable discussion of this resolution, I feel it due to myself as a member from the province of Ontario that I should not cast a silent vote upon this question. Let me say further, Sir, that I propose to give reasons, as shortly and clearly as I may, why, in my opinion this resolution is properly here, and why, in my opinion it should be supported.
The hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) who has just sat down, has found fault with the fact that this resolution is here. Why is it, he says, that a resolution of this kind should be before this House? Let me say to him that, in the first place, this House can only speak by resolutions. Let me say to him, in the second place, that we are here as representatives of the whole of the Dominion of Canada, and as such we have a right to have put before us and to have aired any grievance which any portion of the people of the Dominion of Canada may suffer; and it is for us to say then whether or not, that grievance having been put before us as representatives, not of any province but of the whole Dominion, it is fit >and' meet that we should take some action in regard to it.
The resolution that is presented to the House to-night by the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Ernest Lapointe) is not without precedent, and I would give to the House a precedent established in 1872, which I take from the Journals of this House. At that time Mr. Colby, a Con-

servative membber for Stanstead, there having been some trouble with regard to a school law in the province of New Brunswick, moved:
That this House regrets that the School Act recently passed in New Brunswick is unsatisfactory to a portion of the inhabitants of that province, and hopes that it may' be so modified during the next session of the Legislature of New Brunswick as to remove any just grounds of discontent that now exist.
The question went to a vote, and in those days they were no pigmies as they are not to-day, but big 'broad-minded men, who sat in the House of Commons representing this Dominion, men who had quite as much appreciation of provincial rights as any man in this House has to-day. Amongst the men who voted for that resolution, I find, were Blake, Cartwright, Hincks, Howe, Mackenzie, Tilley, Tupper, and Sir John A. Macdonald, Could we, I ask, in all sincerity, have a better precedent than was there laid down by the very men who were responsible for the foundation and confederation of the Dominion of Canada. There you had men, who recognized that a grievance existed in a certain portion of the Dominion, who were here as representatives collectively of the whole Dominion, bringing the matter before the Legislative Council of New Brunswick, and asking, as this resolution to-night asks, with all humility and with all respect that the Legislature look into the grievance, and give at least some aid towards its removal.
Sir, there are two things in the Dominion of Canada that are uppermost to-day. One is the winning of this war, and the other is the unity of the races in the Dominion of Canada. No country can be great, no country can prosper, where there is not unity among the inhabitants. Of provincial rights, let me say this: I was brought up in the cradle of provincial rights, and my father before me. No man ever held stronger views about provincial rights than he, and those views he translated into positive and concrete action in the province of Ontario. I inherited them, and I feel as strongly in regard to them as any man could feel. But I challenge any man on the other side of the House to show me wherein provincial rights are by one jot or tittle infringed in this resolution. Further, I say that to raise the question of provincial rights in this debate is to go far afield of the question at issue. The hon. member for Kamouraska, the mover of this resolution, stated his position in language so plain that nobody could misunderstand his
meaning. He started his speech by stating that had disallowance- been moved in this House he would have been one of the first to oppose it. He further said:
Indeed, I personally believe that disallowance would have been unwise; the remedy might, perhaps, have increased the disease. Coercion of any kind will not settle the difficulties.
I am a true Liberal and a believer in provincial rights. I will go so far as to admit that to be effective and successful any final settlement of this question must be made in Ontario and by Ontario herself. But, Sir, is it not the right of this Parliament, while declining to interfere with the provincial legislation of Ontario by the exercise of the power of disallowance or otherwise, to appeal to the rulers of that province for a generous and peaceful settlement of this disturbing question and for a redress of the grievances of the minority?
I ask, could anything be more simple, and at the same time more forcible, or could anything show a greater appreciation of what the mover of the resolution conceived his position to be? Granting all the provincial rights that Ontario possesses, he said, will you not consent to make some effort towards the peaceable settlement of the grievance which we think exists. That is all he asks. It is plain, simple, direct, and is the plea of a minority to a vast majority. It puts in words a plea to which the House surely cannot fail to pay heed, so far as the passing of this resolution is concerned, a plea for some effort towards settlement of this very great difficulty.
My hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce has talked about a mandate, and the right hon. the Prime Minister has talked about admonition arid direction. I defy any man who reads that resolution through to show me where the mandate is, where the admonition is, or where the direction, or even the hint of direction to the province of Ontario or to its Legislative Assembly is. The resolution reads:
That this House especially at this time of universal sacrifice and anxiety, when all energies should be concentrated on the winning of the war, would, while fully recognizing the principle of provincial rights and tne necessity of every child being given a thorough English education, respectfully suggest to the Legislative Assembly the wisdom of making it clear that the privilege of the children of French parentage of being taught in their mother tongue be not interfered with.*
A grievance there undoubtedly is. Everybody in the province of Ontario knows that fckat grievance exists. I am not saying that it is right or that it is wrong, but I do say that to pass this resolution would only do justice to those who suppose that they have a grievance. If it should be proved, after due inquiry, that
V

they had no grievance, the passing of this resolution would prejudice nobody. If that is so, then why cavil? Why not at least let us say as men, having the best interests of the country at heart, that it being a matter of common knowledge that the grievance is there, we will pass this resolution, and if we do, can we possibly, in any way whatever, or by any stretch of imagination, be said to be admonishing the Ontario Government or infringing upon provincial rights? Although no man will uphold provincial rights more strongly than I, where provincial rights are not being entrenched upon, and where a civil request is made, no demand, it would not in the least prejudice the best interests of our country, which we are supposed to be here to uphold, if we adopt this resolution. May I say to some hon. gentlemen who sit on the other side of the House, that were they to vote for the resolution as it stands, they would only be upholding the traditions of Sir John Macdonald, whose principles they profess to so greatly admire? The passing of that resolution will mean that there will be greater unity in Canada and a closer adhesion of races and peoples.
I have been told by my friends, some of them political, some of them otherwise, that, as a member for an Ontario constituency, for me to vote for the resolution means political oblivion. All I have to say is that if the time ever comes in this House why I cannot give good reasons for the faith that is in me, for the measures I support, I sincerely hope that I shall not continue to be here. I can do little less than satisfy ipy own conscience as a man, and if I do vote for the resolution, and if it does mean political oblivion, I only have to say that the passing of political parties, or the passing of any one member of a political party, makes little difference, as they are sure that they have done full and complete justice to the cause which they are supposed to have at heart, and if they pass out they do so feeling satisfied with the course which they have pursued. Ever since I have been in public life-and it is not a matter of yesterday-at periodical times, there have been raised racial and religious questions within the province of Ontario. Well do I know whereof I speak, but I want to say this, that if we here to-night, with this resolution before us, can, by the elrer-cise of a little moderation, and by setting aside all party associations, pass this resolution and bring about a stifling of these racial cries which are rending Canada from time to time, we will have done full justice

to ourselves, and we will have done a benefit to Canada as a whole and to thr provinces collectively and individually.


Hugh Clark: Mr. Speaker, it does not often happen, but when it does happen I doubt if there is anything more solemn than to hear a man delivering hie own funeral oration. There has Ibeen more solemnity in the funeral oration just delivered than there was in that of the hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Graham). That hon. gentleman took a melancholy pleasure in the prospect that his attitude upon this question was going to mean his political funeral. I think he hopes to escape the funeral by getting away to some place where that funeral is not going to occur. Any person reading the resolution before the House must marvel at the character of the speeches that have been made in support of it. We heard a great deal yesterday, last night and today, about the right-the inalienable right -of the French Canadians to the use of their language in the public schools of Ontario. There is not one solitary word in the resolution about rights. The word is ''privileges". I venture to say that if the minority have enjoyed these privileges, as quoted in the resolution, in a province such as Ontario, that province surely is not open to the censure of being intolerant and that this Parliament is not in a position to advise the legislature to exercise justice and tolerance. The fact that these privileges have been enjoyed so long shows that the Government of Ontario has always been tolerant or these privileges would not have existed so long as they did as privileges.
We are asked to convey an admonition to the Ontario Government. Why? Not because there is a grievance. The resolution does not say there is a grievance. The hon. member (Mr. Pardee), who sat down just now, said that there is a grievance but the resolution does not say there is a grievance. The resolution says that some people say there is a grievance and because some people say there is a grievance we are asked to give an admonition to the Ontario Government. I know some people say there is a grievance. My right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid LaurieT) must have heard of this griev-vance but why should we be asked to adjudicate upon this matter upon hearsay evidence of that sort? The hon. member (Mr. Lapointe), who introduced the subject, should have been sure that there was a grievance, he should have made the reso-

Int.ion state there was a grievance, but instead of that he simply states that some people in the province of Ontario say there is a grievance. I am not going to deal with the question at any length. This is a difficult question of long duration. As long ago as 1885 complaints were made of the bilingual schools in Ontario. In 1885 first, and in 1889 next, the Government of Sir Oliver Mowat, who was praised yesterday by the leader of the Opposition as a man of great breadth of view and toleration, had to take the matter in hand through his Minister of Education, Sir Geo. W. Ross. No man questioned the toleration of these men. The question had to come before them and it did come before them. It was brought up in the House and an attempt-a rather feeble attempt indeed-was made to remedy it. The condition of these schools became worse instead of better.
When the present Government of Ontario came into power these conditions had to be met. Representations were made. It was not that the Protestants were suffering to any great extent. As a matter of fact it was Bishop Fallon who complained that efficient education was not 'being given in these English-French schools in his diocese of Essex. A commissioner, Dr. Merchant, was appointed. No man will say that he was a man of intolerant views. He examined into these schools, and his report bore out the contention of His Lordship Bishop Fallon. And the conditions were met. I was glad to hear my hon. friend from South Renfrew pay so high a tribute to two or three members of the Ontatrio Government. He might have added that at that time there was at the head of the Ontario Government Sir James Whitney, a man whom French Canadians have certainly no right to regard as intolerant. No man had a finer regard for French Canadian character than Sir James Whitney. It was under him that French Canadians in Ontario received representation in the Ontario Cabinet, with full ministerial powers. That did not argue that Sir James Whitney was an intolerant man by any means. And it was while the French enjoyed this privilege of having a representative in the Government of Ontario that Regulation 17 was passed, in June, 1912. At that time Sir James was Premier, and Hon. Dr. Reaume was his Minister of Public Works, acting also in an advisory capacity with Sir James. I hope, therefore, that no one will allege that this Regulation was passed with any idea of being intolerant in any degree whatever.
My right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition expressed regret that this Government had not appealed to the province of Ontario to remedy this legislation. Similar legislation is in effect in Manitoba. My right hon. friend has considerable influence with the leader of the Government there. It is a Liberal Government and friendly to himself politically. I should like lo know whether he has used his good offices with Premier Norris of Manitoba to prevent the French-Canadians of Manitoba being placed under worse disabilities, ae. they call them, than the French in Ontario. If he has not done this in Manitoba why does he regret that this Government have not used their good offices with the Government of Ontario? I do not believe there is one solitary government in the Dominion of Canada, outside of that of the province of Quebec, that would pass such legislation and regulations as the Government of Ontario have passed with respect to the teaching in bilingual schools. I should like my right hon. friend to use his influence in having similar legislation oassed in Alberta or Saskatchewan. I know the answer he would get from Saskatchewan and other provinces in this country, where he has more influence perhaps than in Ontario. I say it does not lie in the mouth of any hon. gentleman opposite to charge the Ontario Government with being intolerant in any degree whatever. If we liked to make an appeal against certain legislation passed by the Government of Quebec this session I do not think the Speaker could rule us out of order. We should have a mighty good precedent anyway. Reference has already been made to that Act of the Government of Quebec, by which the School Boards in the province of Quebec were allowed to contribute up to five per cent of their taxes towards opposing educational legislation in the province of Ontario. The legislation could properly be disallowed by this Government. And yet I have no intention in the world of asking to have that done. I do not care what the province of Quebec does with their money. They collect it, and they can spend it amongst newspapers and lawyers, fighting this legislation, if they like. I am not going to object to that at all. At the very time that legislation was being passed in Quebec, a Quebec minister, the Minister of Justice, was passing through this House legislation the object of which was to make it a crime for any man in one province to assist in the violation of the law of any

other province. While we were passing that, the Government of Quebec were passing legislation allowing funds to fee raised for the violation of the legislation of Ontario; for that legislation can have no [DOT] other meaning.
My right hon. friend has great admiration for his people, and I do not blame him for it; it is very creditable to him. He wants to see this thing righted. He brought in this resolution, or the hon. member for Kamouraska did, as a motion of want of confidence in this Government, and then he asked the people behind him to vote as they pleased. Is he doing his full duty by the French Canadians of Ontario when he does that sort of thing? Why does he not command his whole force on the other side of the House to vote for the resolution? He could, if he. would. I never saw the time yet when his will was not law with his followers on that side of the House. They always vote, at his command. They "live in his mild, magnificent eye." There is nothing that he can ask that they would not do. If he demands their support for this resolution he will! get it. And if he is sincere in trying to have this resolution passed and remedial legislation enacted, for the benefit of his compatriots in Ontario, he will .command the full support of uis followers on that side of the House.
My hon. friend the member from Nioolet (Mr. Lamarche) has declared that this law is ultra vires. I think it is too late to do that now. He should have told it to the courts before they declared that it was not ultra vires. It was up to him to do it. With his superior judgment one would have thought he had foresight enough to offer his opinion to the court before judgment was delivered.
It is too late to-night for me to speak at any great length, and I am not going to do it. I hope I shall not be accused of having any grudge against the French language, because I have not. I like the French language. Its music, its melody, its poetry and its rhythm appeal to me. But I like it as a language. I do not accept it as a fetish, or revere it as a religion, as my hon. friends from Kamouraska and Wright apparently do. French is a language that all of us on both sides of the House ought to know, no matter what our nationality. Hut I will say this, that hon. gentlemen who attempt to make capital against the Government of the province of Ontario by alleging that the French Canadian people nave grievances in that province, are not 
doing themselves any good and are stirring up strife which they will find it very hard (to subdue later on.


Edmond Proulx: Mr. *Speaker, I wish to eay a few words on this question, and, as the hour is getting late, I will be very brief. I do not purpose discussing constitutional rights; I will take (the broad ground taken yesterday by my right hon. leader, .that by the law of nations the French race-call it a conquered race if you like; I prefer to say that this country was ceded by France to England -had the right to keep its language. When the question was discussed in 1890 on a motion to abolish the French language in the legislature of the Northwest Territories, an eminent lawyer, a man who later became Minister of Justice and afterwards a judge of the (Supreme Court of (Canada, Hon. (David Mills, said that he thought it was not necessary for Chevalier de Levi6 to stipulate in the articles of capitulation *anything with regard to the French language; that when their usages and civil *and religious liberty were accorded to the French people, that meant also their language, because those usages and that civil *and religious liberty were . preserved in that language.
In regard to the question of the teaching of French in this province, the French language was taught many years before *Confederation, and, although the Confederation Act does not expressly stipulate that the French language has. a legal status in Ontario, still section 133 states that *French is an official language in the country, and, that being the case, it should *certainly have a right to be taught to the citizens of that province. That was the interpretation held by the 'Council of Public Instruction before 1867. As my hon. friend from Wright (Mr. Devlin) mentioned yesterday, the followihg letter was written on the 24th of April, 1857, by the Superintendent of Education, Dr. Ryerson, to the trustees of a school section in the township of Charlottenburg in the county of *Glengarry:
Gentlemen:
I have the honour to state in reply to your letter of the 16th instant that, as the French is the recognized language of the country, as well as the English, it is quite proper and lawful for the trustees to allow both languages to be taught in their schools to children whose parents may desire them to learn both.
My hon. friend the Postmaster General (Mr. Casgram) read last night a resolution adopted hy tbo Legislature of Upper Can-

ada in 1792 ordering that the records of the legislature and the statutes of the province should be published in French as well as in English. The French' language has always been taught in the schools of the province, public and separate.
My hon. friend from Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) this afternoon said that Regulation 17 gave a concession to the French people of Ontario, that it was not a restriction. I differ from him in regard to that. Before Regulation 17 was promulgated full scope was given to the teaching of French in the separate schools of the province. There is nothing in the Separate School Act limiting the teaching of French. In the Public Schools Act there is a section which says that the teaching must be in the English language unless the pupil cannot understand that language, in which case the teacher can impart instruction in the mother tongue of the pupil. Regulation 17, however, applies both to public and separate schools, and it applies more to separate schools in practice, because all the schools that were classified in 1912 as English-French schools were separate schools, which were inspected before 1912 by a French Canadian inspector. The list of schools which was made in 1912 for the inspectors was never enlarged, and there is no public school included in that list. Therefore Regulation 17 limits the teaching of French in the separate schools of Ontario, whereas, before the promulgation of that regulation, there was no limitation and the teacher could impart all the instruction necessary in the mother tongue of the pupil.
My hon. friend from Kingston (Mr.Nickle) last night put a wrong interpretation upon paragraph 4 of Regulation 17. He contended that the word " hitherto " did not imply that French could not be taught in a school established since 1912. To appreciate Regulation 17, we must see how it operates, and I can give two cases of schools established in my county since 1912 which are not attended by any English-speaking pupils, and still the Department of Education will not recognize them as schools where French can be taught, because, they are not schools where French was a subject of study before 1912 when Regulation 17 was promulgated. The trustees of those schools appoint teachers who impart instruction in French, but as those schools are considered to be outside the law, they do not receive the legislative grants nor the grants from the county council.
My hon. friend from Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) this afternoon tried to create the impression that the Government was bonus-ing the English-French schools of Ontario. Instead of bonusing them, the Government is starving them, becauses, since 1912, some of the English-French schools of Ontario have not received any grants from the Government nor any grants from the county council, because the latter grants are paid on the reports of the inspectors; and, the inspectors not reporting, the county treasurer has no authority to pay the grants collected by the county council. It is true that the last paragraph of Regulation 17 permits the Government to make a special grant to a school on the report of all the inspectors approved by the chief inspector. (Reading):
An English-French school, which is unable to provide the salary necessary to secure a teacher with the aforesaid qualifications, shall receive a special grant in order to assis* 'n doing so.
I do not, however, know of a case since 1912 where such a grant has been made by the department. When this regulation was promulgated, the Government appointed two sets of inspectors, English-speaking inspectors and French-speaking inspectors. There was no necessity for this. Before 1912 the bilingual schools were inspected by bilingual inspectors, but when this regulation was made inspectors were appointed, as I have stated, and precedence was given to the English-speaking inspectors. I say that the French-speaking inspectors were better qualified to visit these schools because they knew English as well as French. When the Government made all inspectors equal in 1913 they gave control to the chief inspector of the province. For a teacher to teach French outside of the first course he must have the approval of the chief inspector. This puts the English-French schools under the control of the chief inspector, and he is the only person who can say, outside the first grade, whether there should be one hour or one minute devoted to French teaching in the schools. I will not go into the question whether it is preferable to teach the child in its mother tongue or not-that has been very well discussed by my right hon. leader and others. But perhaps I might give my own experience. My family moved to Ontario when I was six years of age. When I began to go to school the only school available was one entirely English. I learned to read English, but I did not know the value of the words. A

I will not go over the whole matter. I will only say that they reported to the department in 1913 that Regulation 17 was taken to mean that French could not be used as the language of communication and that it was regarded as an attempt to gradually eliminate the French language from the schools. So you see Mr. Speaker, it was not clear, and is not clear yet, and it is very important that it should be made clear. I was sorry to see that while some hon. gentlemen opposite, the Postmaster General for example, ex-presed the opinion that Regulation 17 was unfair, they declined to help us to remonstrate or to induce the Government of Ontario to afford a remedy to the grievances of the minority.


Hon. C. J. DOHERTY (Minister of Jus-tict):: I do not propose to detain the House at this late hour for more than a few moments, but there are one or two things I would like to say before registering my vote upon this resolution.
In the first place, in passing, I would make one observation with regard to some of the things that have been said by the hon. member for Nicolet (Mr. Lamarche) in connection with the report addressed to His Royal Highness upon the question of disallowance. I noted that the hon. gentleman premised his observations by saying that he had not carefully read the report. He might have dispensed with the explanation, for when he proceeded it became quite self-evident that he had not done so. He was pleased to criticise some of the reasons advanced in support of the conclusion which was reached. He admitted that he did not think that disallowance would have been of any use, and then in a somewhat extraordinary consequence he said that if he had the responsibility he would have advised disallowance. I think that in face of the numerous opinions which have been expressed upon that question I may safely leave the reasons in that report to the judgment of people who may consider the matter of sufficient importance to carefully read the report before proceeding to discuss it.
Upon the question of the resolution, as it is before the House, we have certainly had an interesting debate. I have listened to the greater part of it with great interest.
I have learned a great deal; perhaps I may be among these whom the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition thought would be better and wiser men 
by reason of this discussion.
1 a.m. I want to point out the one question upon which it seems to me we are called upon to vote, and the one question upon which I desire to make it perfectly clear that I express an opinion by my vote. That is the question of the propriety of this House sitting in judgment upon the Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, or of any other province, and proceeding, as has been pointed out so forcibly by my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce, to try that Legislative (Assembly and find it guilty without it being heard or had opportunity of being heard of action that has been described in terms of varying degrees of strength. The hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat described it as a crime. The hon. member for Nicolet said that this was the opportunity to make the injustice which the Legislative Assembly of Ontario had perpetrated ring from one ocean to the other. This House is asked to solemnly pronounce that that injustice has been proved, as has been pointed out, without the slightest opportunity of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, the elected representatives of the people of Ontario, elected with an express mandate to deal with' subjects of this kind, having had the slightest opportunity to be heard. The hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) justified the bringing of this matter before this House on the ground that this House is the high court before which it was proper that all grievances Should be tried out, and we are asked in our capacity as members of that high court of Parliament to pronounce that the Legislative Assembly of Ontario had been guilty of grave injustice, though th'ey had not had an opportunity to [DOT]be heard. I can conceive of nothing more fundamentally unjust than the condemnation of a man, or of a body of men, who [DOT]have not been heard and who have had no opportunity of being heard, and the clearest demonstration that we are stepping beyond any attribute that belongs to us, when, we undertake to pronounce that judgment, is to be found in the fact that there is no possible method by which we could have that [DOT]alleged culprit before us to say one word on his own behalf.
We have had the Legislative Assembly of [DOT]Ontario on trial before this House for two days, and the Legislative Assembly has not been represented here and has not been heard, and yet we are asked to pronounce the judgment I have mentioned. The right

bon. gentleman who leads the Opposition says:	Oh, this is a very harmless thing;
this is the mildest of suggestions," and, when honourable gentlemen come to support their motion that this House make this mildest of suggestions, they find it necessary to produce proof of this alleged injustice, of this alleged wrongdoing on the part of the Legis-alleged wrongdoing on the part of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Unless we are prepared to say that they have established it, there is absolutely no basis for us going to the Legislature of Ontario with the suggestion. I must do the justice to the hon. member for West Lamtoton (Mr. Pardee) of saying that he at least tried to avoid the grave responsibility of pronouncing that serious verdict against a party unheard, but in order to do so he found himself reduced to say:	"I do not know
whether they are right; I do not know whether they are wrong; but we will pass this resolution, and when we have passed it we will go to Toronto and see whether, upon the inquiry we will make, there was any occasion for us to pass it." That is putting this high court of Parliament in a dignified position indeed. I have been elected a member of this Parliament to represent those who send me here and to take my share in the legislation and the administration of those matters that are confided to this Parliament, and therefore I cannot help asking myself what mandate I have to determine, according to my views, what is the proper system of education for the province of Ontario or what the representatives of the people of Ontario, elected with an express mandate, should declare to be the proper system of education for that province.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: Would my hon. friend be prepared to vote upon a resolution in this House in favour of Home Rule?


Charles Joseph Doherty: The hon. gentleman
thinks he has struck me on a tender spot; but I would point out to the hon. gentleman that relations between this Parliament and His Majesty the King are somewhat different from the relationship between this Parliament and any of the legislatures of this country. When a Home Rule resolution was passed and this House decided to make a humble address to His Majesty the King, it put before him that in the judgment of this House it was a matter of interest to the Empire as a whole and every one of the Dominions, including Canada, that that particular matter should be taken
up and considered. We were really dealing with a question that in a manner affects this entire Empire, but to suggest that there is anything analogous between our then going to His Majesty the King and putting before him that every portion of the Empire was interested in seeing the British constitution given practical effect to throughout the entire Empire, and this Parliament, occupying the position it does, addressing the legislature of the provinces, this Parliament being the creature of the same statute that created those legislatures, and this Parliament having allotted to it an exclusive field of legislation, and they having allotted to them, in the most express terms, another exclusive field, is something that is absolutely without foundation. If the hon, member wants to iput me on the horns of a dilemma he will have to ask me another question.


Charles Marcil: Before deciding not todisallow this Act, did the Minister not have before him the answer of the Ontario Government on this question?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Most assuredly I did.


Charles Marcil: The Government therefore has been heard?


Charles Joseph Doherty: His Royal Highness in Council heard the Government of Ontario, and hon. gentlemen do not complain of what His Royal Highness in Council did after having heard the Government of Ontario. But they come to this Parliament,, that did not hear the Government of Ontario, and they ask Parliament to take-action. I think this hon. gentleman also-will have to find some other question before I get very much embarrassed.


Charles Marcil: I understood the minister to say that the Legislative Assembly of Ontario had been put upon trial without, having been heard.


Charles Joseph Doherty: In this House most assuredly the Legislative Assembly of Ontario has been put on trial for two days and there has been no opportunity of it being heard, and in the very nature of things it would not be possible to give it that opportunity. And I believe that is a conclusive demonstration of the fact that this high court of Parliament is proceeding to act in a manner that is fundamentally opposed to the most simple rules applicable to any British court of justice.
Now perhaps I shall be permitted to go-back to the subject I was endeavouring to

abbreviate as much as I could when I was interrupted. I asked myself what mandate I had to express my views a3 regards the best system of education for any province, or in that connection jpy views in regard to the jealous care which should be given to the respect of every right, or every believed right-I am prepared to go so far as to say of every prejudice-that can be reasonably considered without injury to the common weal, of every minority. I am free to say that as a general principle I am not here to judge whether it is complied with in one place or in another place; but I am quite prepared to say that in my judgment there is nothing more sacred than the right of the minority within a democracy unless it be the sacred trust reposed in the majority to see that the right of the minority is preserved. I am not here to apply any principles of that kind although they are principles that I think would meet with general assent. I am not here to apply them in particular cases. There is no case before this Parliament that this Parliament has, properly speaking, any right to pass upon or adjudicate upon. Nor is there any room for us to determine to what extent these principles have been applied, or have failed to be applied in a particular province. But ;we are asked to take this step in the interest of a minority which is represented as having a grievance. There is no doubt that any possible grievance of any minority is a most important thing. I have always been, I suppose I always shall be, within this country one of the minority. In my [DOT]own province I am one of the minority from the point of view of language. Throughout this Dominion I am one of the minority from the point of view of religion. Since I have mentioned the fact that I am one of the minority in my own province, I might, perhaps, ibe permitted to digress one moment just to say that as one. of the minority I am proud of my own province, in that I .am able to affirm that one does not feel in the province of Quebec that he is subjected to injustice or inconveniences by reason of being in the minority in regard to the recognition of every right to which he is entitled. I say that of course without suggesting that the same is not the case everywhere. I have no case and this House has no case before it to judge.
I have heard much said, and eloquently said, with which I would he in absolute agreement, with regard to systems of edu-EMr. Doherty.!
cation and the consideration that should be given to the feelings of people, in regard 'to proper matters of education. When I shall find myself in a position where I am entitled to express /opinions as to the system of education that should he established or maintained, I phall be glad to express those opinions. But standing here to-night, I, as one member of Parliament, feel that I have no mandate to express opinions with regard to the best system of education for the province of Ontario. I have that right in so far as I am, as a resident of Ottawa, a citizen of Ontario. But, standing here *as a member of Parliament, representing the constituency I do, I cannot see that I have any mandate to pronounce any opinion on that .question, and I ask what mandate have all the other hon. gentlemen sitting in this House? I do not except even the members who come from the province of Ontario. Certainly those who come from other provinces have no mandate from the people of Ontario, and those who come from Ontario have no mandate to deal with that question of education in this House. So here we are asked to pronounce judgment upon the conduct of a province with regard to its legislation concerning education. We, .the. members of this House, most of whom have no mandate from anybody competent to give it, and none of whom have any mandate to act upon this matter are asked to pronounce judgment upon that question.
The discussion we have had may have been useful, but -as my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce has pointed-out, all of that discussion might have been had without this resolution. But we are appealed to to pass this resolution because it is to bring harmony and unity in this country. I would go very far in the direction perhaps of risking over-stepping the proper bounds of my authority, or perhaps to join in the overstepping of the bounds of the proper authority of this House, if I could be convinced that the step that is proposed would be conducive in any way to the creation or maintenance, or the increasing of harmony or unity between the people of this country. But I ask you iMr. Speaker, who have listened to this debate, whether you anticipate that an adjudication by this House that the Legislative Assembly of the .province of Ontario has been guilty of an injustice towards the minority in that province.

[DOT]3805
pronounced in the manner I have described, and conveyed to that Legislative Assembly in the form of a resolution of this House- I ask you whether that is the best method of bringing an appeal to the Legislative Assembly on behalf of the minority in that province? I have always supposed that when you made an appeal you tried to put it in the form that would ensure to yourself the most favourable reception. And what is it that it is proposed to do here on behalf of the minority? It is proposed that there should be presented to that Lgislative Assembly, whose action has been brought in question here, a certificate from the House of Commons of Canada that in the judgment of the House of Commons of Canada that Legislative Assembly had already rendered itself guilty of an absolute injustice to the minority, and that we, this House of Parliament of Canada, seized of the matter in no constitutional way, had been so impressed with that that we had felt called upon to pronounce judgment of condemnation against that Legislative Assembly, and to convey that judgment of condemnation as the best method we could think of of making a plea on behalf of that minority.
The right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) has made a most eloquent speech, and several others have made eloquent pleas on behalf of the French minority, and I have no doubt their voices will go beyond the limits of this House. Who can doubt that the plea which has been made by the rigfiit hon. gentleman, an outstanding citizen of the province of Ontario will receive consideration when it reaches the ears of that Government? Would it not come to them in much better guise in that form than in the form of a verdict of condemnation which.this House is asked to transmit to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as a means of inducing them to remedy such grievances as exist, and, above all, as a means of creating peace and harmony in this Dominion? I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what have we to anticipate if the different legislatures of the different provinces and this Parliament proceed to take up their time in discussing their respective conduct, for the purpose of determining whether the one or the other has been guilty of injustice? Do you , think that would produce a condition of harmony and unity in Canada? And let me point out that it is just as much within the functions of the legislature of Ontario to introduce a resolution complaining of ..injustice of some action of this Parliament within its proper sphere, as it is for this 240


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[Stage Direction]
Parliament to introduce a similar resolution with regard to th<j legislation of the province of Ontario. Let us remember that there is no question of superiority or inferiority between this Parliament and the different legislatures. We stand on a footing of perfect equality; but the subject matters with which we may deal are different. The extent of the sway of our laws is more extensive; but, acting within the scope of their proper legislative authority, the legislature stands our equal in every respect. As we all know, the Privy Council has declared that, acting within the scope of their legitimate authority, each one of those legislatures has all the power and authority that the Imperial Parliament itself possesses. What right, then, have we to sit in judgment on them, more than they have to sit in judgment on us? And if we are going to start the fashion, and if it be followed up, what an aid to harmony and unity!
I sometimes think that those whose cause has been championed here with so much eloquence might very well on more than one occasion have asked to be saved from their friends. This resolutionn that the House is asked to pass is the culmination of a series of actions initiated in another legislative body. Let me say this and I think I may say it as one who is as deeply sympathetic with my French Canadian countrymen as it is possible for any man not of their own blood to be; let me say that if I had been one who desired to put obstacles in the way of their having a favourable hearing from the one authority that can remedy the grievances that are claimed to exist, I would have brought about the very things that have been done by their so-called friends.
We are told that a resolution of this House need only to be passed and that at once peace, unity, harmony will prevail. The legislature of one of the provinces of this Dominion attempted to bring about peace, unity, harmony, and the remedy of the grievance alleged, by telling the legislature of the province of Ontario what ought to be done in regard to this question. Any one who knows human nature would have known in advance that that was the last way in the world to bring about the desired result. You projected into this question at once-and this resolution wants to project the same question into it-the question of who governs Ontario. I think that I will find no one in this House to disagree with me when I say that there is
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[Stage Direction]
nothing of which the different provinces are more jealous than their own right to be governed hy the" representatives of their own selection with regard to those matters which fall within the competency of the provincial legislatures, and there is nothing which is more likely to arouse resentment with regard to a request that might otherwise be favourably received than that it should come with the endorsement upon it of a legislative body which steps entirely beyond its' sphere when it undertakes to give that endorsement. I say that the people on whose behalf we have heard such eloquent and moving appeals have been badly served by their ostensible friends and . that those friends have been badly advised. Speaking in the interest of those on whose behalf these pleas are made and as one who, as I have already said, is thoroughly in sympathy with every legitimate aspiration of the French Canadian people of this country, I do not know of anything more prejudicial that can be done to the cause they have at heart than the methods that have been adopted on their behalf and in their name; and, I think perhaps, not the least prejudicial would be the adoption and production to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the assumed authoritative condemnation by this Parliament of their action in this regard, which we. are asked to pronounce.
I feel that I have detained the House too long at this stage, but I have been moved to make these remarks because I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that if you open the door to this sort of action on the part of this House-you cannot call it a mere suggestion-it necessarily involves the condemnation that we are asked to pronounce I think the hon. member for West Lambton (Mr. Pardee) has a monopoly of his contention that we should condemn first and inquire afterwards. I cannot conceive how anybody can be so blind as to fail to see that if you initiate to-night the course that is proposed, it is a course that may lead this House very far, a course that will not be in the interest of the province of whom the gentlemen who have championed this course claim to be in a special manner the authorized voices. I too come from that province; I too am proud of my birth in that old province; I am proud of the province and of the people that make up its population; I have passed my life amongst them, and I hope to go back again to die amongst them. There is no man in this 
House that has at heart more earnestly and more sincerely than myself-however mis- [DOT] taken I may be in my view as to the best method to serve them-the service of the best interests of the people of the province of Quebec, and because that is true, I stand here to register my vote in a moment against this resolution.
The hon. member for West Lambton found a precedent. He had to go nearly as far back as Confederation to find it, and he read a resolution proposed by the late Mr. Colby, then member for Stanstead, and supported by men whose names naturally carry and will always continue to carry very great weight in this Dominion of Canada. After reading that resolution, he said: " Edward Blake, Sir John A. Macdonald, George Cartier voted for that resolution in 1870, and yet in this good year of 1916 there are hon. members who venture to suggest that it is not desirable that a resolution such as this before the House should be passed now." What was that resolution? I have not the exact words, but I do not question that it was a resolution to the effect that that House believed that the Legislature of New Brunswick passed an Act which was not satisfactory to a certain number of people in that province, and expressed the hope that it would be repealed. Let me say two things about that precedent. In the first place, if I am correctly informed-and I think I am-that resolution was adopted at a time when it still was within the power of the Government of this Dominion of Canada to take action with regard to the particular Act in question, and I can conceive under those circumstances that it might perhaps be a proper thing for Parliament to sound a note of warning, to call the attention of the legislature to the fact that possibly the legislation in question might call for some action on the part of the executive Government of this country, an action for which that executive Government would be responsible to that Parliament. I think, in the first place, that distinguishes the two cases, hut let us suppose it does not. I yield to no man in my respect for those great men whose names were mentioned; but it is permitted to us in the course of forty or fifty years to learn some things, and there is no subject upon which greater progress has been made from what might be described as almost absolute darkness towards a perfectly clear light than the subject of provincial rights, the subject of the relations between this Parliament and the different legislatures.

Why, Sir, any man, who has been called upon to look at the 'succession of cases in which constitutional questions have come before the highest tribunal of the land, can follow and watch them as they "broaden down from precedent to precedent," until from the starting point in which I, as a law student, heard some of the most distinguished lawyers of this country in their time describe the legislatures of the provinces as "glorified municipal councils," we have reached the point where His Majesty's Privy Council have made the declaration I have mentioned, that these so-called "glorified municipal councils" stood on an equality-so long as they acted within their proper sphere-with the Imperial Parliament itself. That is' the progress that has taken place since 1870. I have heard men of the Liberal party-if I am not mistaken I have heard the right hon. gentleman himself-speak of the part the Liberal party has taken in furthering that progress. I am not going to quarrel as to who contributed to bring it about; all I say is, the fact is there-we have progressed; and the fact is that any man who has occasion to take the series of reports dealing with that question of disallowance, as I had occasion to do a short time ago, can watch that progress. The name of Edward Blake has been mentioned. I can watch that progress in Mr. Blake's own reports, from the early time when the people thought that if an act was unconstitutional you necessarily disallowed it, down until 1890, when, in a speech delivered before the House, he declared-and the House with Sir John Macdonald at its head acquiesced-that the fact that a law was ultra vires was, save under very exceptional circumstances, a reason why it should not be disallowed. Because, being ultra vires, it was void, and you did not need to disallow it, and another authority should pass upon that question. I regret that both the late Mr. Blake and myself should find ourselves, on that matter, in disagreement with that distinguished lawyer the hon. member for Nicolet (Mr. Lamarche); but, unfortunately for the memory of Edward Blake and for myself, we do. As I have , said, we have made some progress on the subject of provincial rights, and, even if the cases were absolutely analagous, I would still stand firmly for the proposition stated by the leader of the House (Sir Robert Borden), and elaborated by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster), and which I announced in the opening of my 240i
remarks. You may try to avoid it; you may try to whittle it away or minimize it; you may talk about " respectful suggestions," and about only wanting to make peace; but when you sit here solemnly to take action upon the action of a provincial legislature with regard to a matter which is within its scope, I venture to say that you are not very far from the day when you will go forward more boldly to invade the field of provincial rights. I do not want to reiterate that; I have perhaps said - it too often. You may try to disguise this as you may, you may call it the exercise of the expressive power, as I believe it was called in the course of this debate, or you may call it, as the hon. member for Rou-ville (Mr. Lemieux) called it, a judicial action of the high court of Parliament; but, whatever you choose to call it, it is a pronouncement of judgment by this Parliament upon the action of a provincial legislature, a judgment condemning that action, determining that it was wrong; and that judgment, if we are to appreciate its meaning by the argument which was made in support of it, involving a qonviction of crime, of gross injustice, of ignoring the clear rights of a minority. And all that, we are told, is a matter of no consequence; all that is merely " venturing to make a suggestion;" it is going to " bring about peace and harmony." That is the way that a Legislative Assembly which, I think we may fairly presume, after some consideration, has come ito the conclusion that a particular line of action is right, is to be induced between to-day and to-morrow to change its entire policy, and, in fact, to plead guilty to these very grave accusations upon which this Parliament has pronounced its conclusions. If ever there was a travesty, if ever there was a means represented as being the proper means to an end, but which must necessarily defeat the end for which it is represented they are resorted to, it is the means that this House is asked to take to produce peace and harmony and to bring about the protection of the rights of a minority with regard to whom it is claimed that it is suffering under a serious grievance.
There are other methods. Our provinces, within their scope, are sovereign states; and we are pround to boast that we live under a democratic form of government. Under a democratic form of government the majority must govern. But there are many, many means open to the minority. There are the powerful appeals of my right hon
[Stage Direction]
friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), probably the most distinguished citizen of the Catholic minority in the province 'of Ontario; there are the appeals of my hon. friend from South Renfrew (Mr. Graham); there are the appeals of other hon. gentlemen who have spoken so eloquently Why do not they address these appeals to the legislative body that enacted these laws and is responsible for those regulations and can modify them if they are to be modified? Surely their persuasive eloquence would count for a great deal; surely, the case they have made before this House 'would be listened to there as well as here; and surely, if it were listened to there would be the power there to grant the remedy that is asked for; and if the remedy were obtained in that way it will be obtained in a way that would really conduce not only to the removal of such grievance as may exist, but to the re-establishing upon firm and solid basis of peace and concord where it is threatened, and to maintain peace and harmony in other portions of this Dominion where it might otherwise be disturbed by a belief in the existence of the grievances that are alleged.
As I said at the outset, I have expressed, and desire to express, no opinion of my own upon this legislation of Ontario, nor upon the general question of the best methods of education. I may say this, however. I am a grateful man that I have the good fortune to have been born and brought up in a bilingual province; I am a grateful man that my father saw the advantage it would be for me to be able to speak the two languages that prevail there; I am a grateful man for the possession of the French language and the many treasures that that language has opened to me in the literature of the world. I should like to see everybody else share in tSiese benefits and advantages. But that gives me no right to take upon myself, no capacity as a member of this House particularly, to join with others in pronouncing the condemnation it is asked to pronouncp,-and asked to pronounce in the name of a peace that it certainly would not conduce to, in the name of harmony that, it seems to me, to be the most effective means of disrupting, and in the name of the interest of a minority, very dear to me, for whom I feel sure that it would be one of the most serious obstacles to the bringing about of the remedy of such grievances as' they suffer from. I do sincerely hope that my friends from 
the province of Quebec, those of them who, may have been disposed to think otherwise, will give a second thought before they vote for this resolution, with all that it is bound, to mean in the future to all of our provinces, and to our own dear province of Quebec in particular, before [DOT] they vote for this resolution, which is but another obstacle placed in the way of the harmonious and just settlement of such questions of difference as may exist between the minority in the province of Ontario and the majority of the population of that province.
Mr. G. H. BOIVIN (Sbefford):: Mr. Speaker, -as this is the first time that I have risen from my seat to say a few words in this House since the declaration of war between Great Britain and Germany, you will pardon me if, even at this late hour, I take at least ten minutes of its valuable time to give a reason for the vote which1 I intend to cast upon the resolution which is now before this House. I say that this is the first time I have spoken since the declaration of war, and if I now speak it is because I consider that this is the most important question that has been submitted to this House of Commons since the declaration of war, with the exception of the voting of the money and the aid required by the Mother Country. I say that this is the most important question because, as many other speakers have so ably said, it is a question which will do much for peace and harmony .among the different peoples of this Dominion. As. my right hon. leader (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) said yesterday, one must not run away from these questions. They are bound to come up, they .must be faced fairly and squarely, and from their discussion something will be learned. I feel sure that there are very few hon. gentlemen in this House who have not learned something from this discussion. The Minister of Trade and Commerce, in his very eloquent and able speech a moment ago, gave ns an excellent reason for the introduction of this resolution when he said that .many learned lawyers who were members of .this House had spoken upon.it, and that not one of them had agreed with the other. His exact words, I think, were that a different idea came from every speaker, and that a different interpretation was given by each one of the speakers to the regulation which is being discussed by this House. I expected him to tell us, a better way than this resolution to bring to tli#

knowledge of the Government of Ontario or to the people of Ontario the wrongs which the French Canadians of that province claim to suffer, and to. have the regulation amended. He said there were three ways to get around any law. The first way was a direct appeal to the Government, to the Parliament, or to the party who made the law; and when I made the mistake of saying "hear, hear," those two words of approbation carried him so far away from his subject that he forgot to give us the other two ways.


George Eulas Foster: That is a fact.


Georges Henri Boivin: I am very anxious
to know what the other two ways were. But I think the way adopted by the hon. member for Kamouraska is the best way, after all, because, in spite of the fact that the Government of Ontario and the members of that Government are 300 miles or more distant from the Capital, as the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce pointed out, it did not take long for a reply to come back to some of the remarks made in the discussion yesterday. In the Ottawa Journal of to-night we find an interview given by Mr. Ferguson explaining the working of section 4 of Regulation 17; but for some unfortunate reason, the explanation given by Mr. Ferguson to-day, May 11, is not absolutely the same as the opinion which was read to this House a few hours ago by the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Macdonell), which also *came from Mr. Ferguson. So that not only wae the Minister of Trade and Commerce right when he said -that different men and different lawyers interpret this law in different ways, but he could have gone further and said that the persons who administer this law find it so complicated that they are obliged to interpret it themselves in one way to-day and another tomorrow. Let us see what Mr. Ferguson says:
'"The problem that the government of Ontario has to work out is not how the children shall be educated in French, but how the French children may secure an English education," declared Hon. G. Howard Ferguson, Minister of Lands, Forests and Mines, this morning.
Hon. Mr. Ferguson fully answered the query by Sir Wilfrid Laurier In the House of Commons yesterday as to why the word "hitherto" should appear in Section 4 of Regulation 17.
Hon. Mr. Ferguson said:
Those who raise objection to the use of the word "hitherto" forget that there is only
one official language in this province. The application of the word "hitherto" can best be understood by illustration.
He does not explain the word "hitherto;" he does not say why it is there. He tells us that the application can best be understood by .an illustration, and here is the illustration. He continues:
A bilingual school can only arise from one-or two conditions-either by the gradual growth of French population in an English community, or if one can imagine such a condition, in a new settlement entirely French and segregated' from English surroundings. In the first case where the French people gradually drift into-an English community they acquire a knowledge of the language by intermingling with the English speaking people in everyday life. As a consequence, the children grow up with the knowledge of both French and English. French they learn at home and the English they acquire outside the home. Having this knowledge of English they are capable of' being taught in the English tongue in the school of the locality, and it is unnecessary in such a case to make use of any other language than English as a medium of instruction.
In the case of an entire French community isolated from the opportunity of acquiring English, the department extends the privilege of the use of the French tongue to the extent necessary to enable a child to get a knowledge of English. This in effect is what Regulation 17 does. It was framed with that object in View, after the most thorough investigation and consideration by the best experts in the province, and it has been demonstrated that it works admirably in every place where given a fair trial.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier is entirely in error when he says that Regulation 17 interferes with Regulation 12; subsection 2, which he calls Regulation 15. It was the old Regulation 15. Regulation 12 has been in force for a great many years and is the Regulation with which he apparently finds no fault. It provides that where the French language prevails, the board may, in addition to the course of study prescribed, require instruction to be given in French to such pupils as are directed by their parents or guardians to study French. The investigation and report of Dr. Merchant disclosed the fact that in many schools there was little or no attempt to give children a knowledge of English.
It was to meet this situation that Regulation 17 was passed. In schools where the opportunity of learning English was denied the pupils are now designated by the minister for special supervision. It is this class of school that is called the English-French school and by which Regulation 17 appear. In other words the English-French schools designated by the minister are selected from the whole class of bilingual schools and are brought directly under special officials to ensure to the French children an English training. It is apparent therefore that Regulation 17 does not in any way supersede or clash with Regulation 12, subsection 2, as Sir Wilfrid Laurier appears to think.
That is the statement given to the press by Mr. Ferguson; that is what Mr. Ferguson calls the explanation of the word

" hitherto " by illustration. In communities where the French Canadians come in gradually, the French-Canadian children who learn French in their homes can pick up English on the streets, and when they go to school they can get their education in the English language. If it were possible for a French-Canadian community to be suddenly created in any part of Ontario at the present time, our friend Mr. Ferguson, in his great magnanimity, would allow the children of that community to learn French just long enough to be able to read English, and then they could not learn French any more; all their instruction would be received in English. That is the interpretation which he gives of Regulation 17. Paragraph 3 of Regulation 17 says in all schools,
Where necessary in the case of Frenchspeaking pupils, French may be used as the language of instruction and communication; but such use of French shall not be continued beyond Form 1.
That is two years; it stops there. That covers all schools; that is all the French education that the child can ever get. There is nothing in Paragraph 3 which says that even an inspector can give any more. Paragraph 4 says in schools where French has been hitherto taught:
Such instruction in French shall not Interfere with the adequacy of the instruction in English, and the provision for such instruction in French in the time-table of the school shall be subject to the approval and direction of the Chief Inspector and shall not in any day exceed one hour in each class-room, except where the time is increased upon the order of the Chief Inspector.
I 'believe, Mr. Speaker, that it is not the intention of the right thinking people of Ontario, that it is not
2 a.m. the intention of the vast majority of the people of that province. to deprive the French minority of its language. That is not what they want in their law. I may be wrong in the interpretation and I do not pretend to be a great constitutional lawyer by any means, but I differ with several of those who have risen on the other side to interpret this law. The law must be interpreted as it reads, you cannot go behind it .and search for the intention of the legislators-and that law as it reads means that where French has not hitherto been taught, French will not be taught, and that where hitherto it has been taught it will be taught for an hour a day unless the inspector gives more.


Paul-Émile Lamarche: If my hon. friend will read the section in question he will pro-

bably find that the inspector has the right to give less than one hour a day, but not more. One hour is fixed as the maximum.


Georges Henri Boivin: I was referring to paragraph 4, section 2, which reads as follows:
Such instruction in French shall not interfere with the adequacy of the instruction in English, and the provision for such instruction in French in the time-table of the school shall be subject to the approval and direction of the Chief Inspector and shall not In any day exceed one hour in each class-room, except where the time is increased upon the order of the Chief Inspector.


Paul-Émile Lamarche: He could give one
minute.


Georges Henri Boivin: I quite recognize that the inspector could give less, but I want to be absolutely fair, and I think that upon the order of the chief inspector more could be given. This is my interpretation; it is a difference of opinion with my hon. friend from Nicolet, which goes to show that the law should be carefully reconsidered by the legislature of Ontario who framed it, and couched in language that everyone will understand.
I say that this appeal should go not only to the Government of Ontario; it should go to the people of Ontario at large. I have had occasion several times to visit different sections of the province of Ontario. I have met many citizens of that province, and I have found the majority of them to be broadminded men, proud to be living under the British flag, proud of the liberties which they enjoy, and willing to respect tlhe privileges and liberties of the French Canadian minority in that province. I have found them loyal to their King, to their flag, and to their country. They have on many occasions given proof of their loyalty, but some of them are mistaken when they say that the French Canadian who lives in the province of Ontario has not the same right to teach his language to his children in his own schools, paid for by his own money, as he would have in .the province of Quebec. When New France was ceded 'by France to Great Britain, or conquered, if you wish to use that expression, there was no division line at the Ottawa river. The whole territory was ceded to Great Britain. The inhabitants of that territory, which now comprises part of the province of Ontario, as well as the inhabitants of the province of Quebec became British subjects, and were then guaranteed for the future the perpetuation of their religion,

their laws, and their usages. What can the word "usage" mean when it is applied to a people, if it does not mean their language. It certainly does not mean their dress, for we all dress alike. It cannot mean their religion, because religion was specially mentioned. It cannot mean civil laws, because the civil laws were mentioned. What did the word "usage" mean if it did not mean the mode of expression and the language which the people used? They have enjoyed this liberty for years under the British flag, ,and now a regulation has been passed which they believe takes away from them the right to teach their own language to their own children.
I have been told to-night by some speakers on the other side of the House that the French Canadians of Ontario must not consider that they have the same rights in matters of education as the French Canadians in the province of Quebec. I was told by the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Macdonell) that they have come into this province and that they must accept the laws of the province.
I hope Mr. Speaker, that such a thing will never come to pass as a victory of Germany over Great Britain. I hope that Canada will never become a German colony; but if such a thing could possibly happen, if by any chance the Allied armies could be defeated upon the field of battle, and if Germany, signed a treaty granting to the English-speaking inhabitants of Canada their rights to their religion, their usages and their civil laws, and allowed them to enjoy those rights for fifty or sixty years, and then after that time in a section of Canada that is now very sparsely settled by English speaking Canadians, if German people imported from Germany passed a law wiping out the teaching of the English language in the schools, would not the English Canadians from other provinces assembled in this Canadian Parliament have flhe right to pass a resolution respectfully requesting the legislature of the province in question to amend their law and grant to the English, the right to teach their own language? That is what is happening to-day.
Speakers like my hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver), have compared and placed on an equal footing the French Canadians, the Ruthenians, the Swedes, and other nationalities who have come into Canada. We must not forget that the French race were the founders of this country, that we 'were the discoverers of this country, that we were here first; that after the French had arrived and had hewn their homes out of the forest, that after they had won victories over the savages and had begun to. evangelize them, then the English people began to come and take up their residence in this country. The rights of other nationalities and ours are noc to be compared. Ours are the rights of a conquered people, the same as the rights of the Dutch in South Africa, and the same as are granted by Great Britain to all the colonies she has conquered.
I shall not speak any longer. I merely wish to say that it is a pleasure for me to support this resolution, because, while the vote given upon it to-night, may be an adverse vote, I feel it will have a moral effect. The people and the members of the [DOT]Government of Ontario will read the. debate in the newspapers, and if they are the men I think they are, imbued with the highest ideals and a desire to give right and justice to the minority that reside in their province, they will in due time amend this law, make it more favourable to the French minority, and thus enable the people of Ontario to enjoy that peace, that understanding and that gobd fellowship which exists in the eastern townships from which I come. In that part of Quebec some of the counties have English majorities, some have French. majorities, and in some the population is about equally divided. We never have school troubles, we never have difficulties over race and religion. Our representatives to the different Houses are generally equally divided, one man representing one race going to Parliament and another man representing the other race going to the legislature. We live in the most perfect peace and harmony. I would like to see the people of Canada from one end of our great Dominion to the other following that example, and that is why I am going to vote in favour of the resolution introduced by my hon. friend from Kamouraska.	[DOT]
Mr. D. O. L'ESPERANCE (Montmagny); Mr.' Speaker, I desire to say just a few words in explanation of the vote I intend to give on the question now before the House. Let me say at once that I have the fullest sympathy with every sentiment that is expressed in the motion moved by my hon. friend from Kamouraska (Mr. Lapointe), and which has received such warm support from the right hon. the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier). While listening yesterday to the very eloquent

speech of my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition, my mind wandered back to the great drama, or rather to the great tragedy that took place in the House of Commons twenty years ago.	At that
time I happened to visit the capital for the first time and I was much impressed by everythting I heard and saw. On that occasion it was my privilege to hear the famous speech, which is still ringing in my ears, which was delivered by the leader of the Opposition, and which proved to be the last nail in the coffin of the Manitoba School Remedial Bill, which waL. brought into the House by the Tory Administration of the time. Twenty years have passed over the head of the leader of the Opposition, and I am pleased to say that the speech he made yesterday was just as eloquent as the one he delivered twenty years ago. He received just as much support, he was cheered just as much by his supporters from the province of Quebec yesterday as he was at that time. But while my mind dwelt on the tragedy which took place in 1826, and the comedy now being enacted in this House, I could not help thinking that his eloquence at that time served to kill a practical and constitutional measure that would have brought relief to his compatriots in Manitoba, while to-day that eloquence is used for no other purpose than to create political strife- in this country. But no doubt to-morrow he will be hailed as a hero in that section of the press that has covered him with obliquy and poured the grossest abuse upon him for the last few years, while I and my colleagues, who refuse to be trapped by this political trickery, will be branded as traitors to our race, as traitors to our creed, as traitors to our religion, perhaps as traitors to our own children. But history will record-and history, I submit, is the final judge, and my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition will not and cannot escape that judgment-history will record that twenty years ago, when he could have helped his compatriots he refused to do so. And to-day he is not taking the course that is- the best calculated to help the minority in Ontario. I do not wish to say more. I refuse to support the present motion, not because I am not in sympathy with the sentiments expressed therein. I regret that my compatriots in Ontario have a serious grievance, and I hope and trust that the great province of Ontario will adopt every means in its power to redress that grievance. I shall vote against this motion because it is unconstitutional, and 
is introduced in such a way and at such a time that it can effect no good purpose, and may perhaps do mortal harm to the cause I have at heart.


Mr. R. B. BENNETT (Calgary):: As I
heard the observations of the. hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat I could not but wonder what the verdict of history would be on this Parliament, sitting here at half past two o'clock in the morning to consider a resolution that can result in no action by this Parliament, sitting upon a futile resolution at a time when thousands of our fellow-countrymen are at this very moment, offering their lives upon the plains of France and Flanders in defence of this free Parliament. I wonder if it has dawned upon the minds of the men responsible for the introduction of this resolution that the very existence of our institutions is at stake, and that the question for which our fellow Canadians are dying to-night is whether this shall continue to be a British country, or, as the hon. member for Sbefford (Mr. Boivin) has said, a German colony. That seems to me to be the question that we should consider, and I cannot but think that history will weigh very carefully, and deter= mine very accurately, the position of the gentlemen responsible for the introduction into this Parliament at this time of a question that divides race against Tace, that makes for dissension and not for unity, and that would in the end destroy the Confederation, instead of carrying forward the work of the founders that made possible this Dominion. For the question involved is simply a constitutional one in the first instance. When I think of the labours of the Fathers of Confederation that made possible the uniting of the old provinces' and the creation of this Confederation, I realize that that was done by a system of compromise in which each gave up a little of his rights in order that there should he a united Confederation'. The rights of minorities and the privileges of majorities have been determined by a statute called the British North America Act, which is the constitution of this eoun- ' try, and that constitution allocated to the several provinces and the Dominion the powers they should possess and the legislative jurisdiction they should exercise. It was determined.-and it seems to me very properly-that the power with relation, to education should be exercised by the provinces, subject only to the exercise by this

Parliament of that jurisdiction which may become necessary for the .purpose of giving remedial legislation to minorities, Protestant or Catholic, that may be affected. The observations that have just been made by the hon. member for Montrmagny (Mr. l'Esiperance) Tecall the fact that in days gone by this Parliament was prevented from taking the only legislative action that could ibe taken by it under one of the sections of the constitution to remedy wrongs that had been done to minorities in relation to education. The same forces that twenty years ago prevented these remedies from being granted, that in days gone by called -out ".Hands off Manitoba," are to-day the forces that are crying aloud to the people of this Canada of ours, east, west, north and south, " Hands on Ontario." If it was right that twenty years ago the province of Manitoba should be left to work out its . own destiny, and make its own legislation in regard to education, how much1 more is it right to-day, in the light of twenty years' more experience, that each province should be permitted to work out its own salvation with relation to education of the children within its boundaries.
My hon. friend has referred to a precedent that would indicate that possibly this Parliament in days gone by had interfered with the free exercise of power by the provinces. I was surprised, I was astounded, when the hon. member for Lambton (Mr. Pardee) so dared in this free Parliament to inaccurately discuss what took place in it in 1872. If he were not a member of the legal profession and did not understand the language he read, I might not feel so much called upon to say that if he had turned back the page he read from he would have found that every observation and every statement he made to this House on that point was calculated to leave a false impression. I should like him to understand that when a man reads to this House a precedent dating back to 1872, indicating action taken by this Parliament with reference to a matter of this kind, then at least he should read the whole record, and not mangle it. And it ill became a member of the legal profession, with his long parliamentary experience, not to have communicated to the House that the motion before it at that time was a motion moved by Mr. Costigam for the disallowance of the New Brunswick School Act. That was the question that this Parliament was asked to consider. Had he turned
back he would have found on page 134 of the Journals of the House for 1872, that Mr. Costigan, on the 20th of May, made a motion, seconded by Mr. Renaud, directing the attention of His Excellency the Governor General to certain allegations regarding the New Brunswick School Act, and calling upon him at the earliest possible period to disallow the said New Brunswick School law. That was a proper subject to bring before this Parliament and for this Parliament to consider. It was within the constitutional rights of any member of the House to ask that a motion should be submitted for the disallowance of the measure. After the debate had proceeded, it was moved in amendment by Mr. Graham, seconded by Mr. Bolton, that the Constitution itself should be amended (Journals of the House, 1872\ page 155). Later on, another amendment was submitted, and finally (Journals, 1872, p. 177) the amendment to which reference has been made by my hon. friend from Lambton was submitted, not as a substantive motion, not as a motion asking the House to take direct action, but as an amendment to a motion asking for the disallowance of the statute as a way out, that matter having been properly before the House.


William Pugsley: Will the hon. member >
read the amendment which was passed ?


Richard Bedford Bennett: It was not passed except, with another amendment, and it was seconded by Mr. Bolton:
That this House regrets that the School Act, recently passed in New Brunswick is unsatisfactory to a portion of the inhabitants of that province and hopes that it may be so modified during the next session of the legislature of New Brunswick as to remove any ground of discontent that now exists.


William Pugsley: Was that carried P


Richard Bedford Bennett: That, with another amendment, was carried, and the motion for disallowance, which was the subject matter under discussion in the House, was voted down because the House of Commons, even in that day, declared: "Hands off' New Brunswick." The motion that carried: declared that hands should be kept off New Brunswick, although hon. gentlemen opposite would vote to-night to strangle Ontario.


William Pugsley: That motion was stronger than this one.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It was not only not stronger than this one, but it was not in

the same terms, because the motion submitted. asked for an interference with the right to exercise its power on the part of the Legislature of New Brunswick, and the Parliament of Canada, guided alike by the genius of Cartier and Macdonald, and the logic of Dorion and the gentlemen surrounding him, and the great Blake and Tilley and Tupper, said: " Hands off New Brunswick; let New Brunswick work out her own salvation in fear and trembling as best she may, having regard alike to the rights of minorities and the privileges of majorities."


William Pugsley: Does my hon. friend pretend that Parliament could not have voted down the motion for disallowance without being obliged to adopt the amendment to send a request to the Government and Legislature of New Brunswick to remedy the matter?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am not pretending anything. If my hon. friend wants to look for pretence, he will find it with the gentlemen who are moving this resolution. If he wants to look for it, he need not look far either to the, right or to the left. So far as that question is concerned, it was not competent, in view of the amendments that had been submitted, for that motion to be voted on at that time, because it was realized by Sir John Abbott, then Mt. Abbott, that the amendments that were submitted involved a change in the British North America Act which, as was pointed out, meant an amendment to the constitution which, as was further pointed out, could not be made by that Parliament, and so Mr. Colby, not in amendment to the proposed motion, but in amendment to the proposed amendment, moved:
That the matter be referred to the law officers of the British Crown and submitted to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for determining the rights and powers alike of the Parliament of Canada and of the legislature of New Brunswck.
The point to be decided was a novel point. If there be any doubt about that, let me read the words of that great statesman, the Hon. Edward Blake, who said, as reported at page 904 of the Hansard of that date:
Mr. Blake had considered from time to time since the early discussion of the subject the very difficult question of the proper interpretation of ' the Act with reference to the state of the law existing in New Brunswick on the subject of schools and he was quite free to confess that upon that subject his opinion had fluctuated, and any opinion he might then give would be given with much doubt and reservation. There was much to support in the argument put forth

by the Minister of Justice in his minute of Council. It was a conclusion at which the hon. gentleman might well have arrived and might possibly be a correct one; but he would point out a few circumstances in connection with the Act which would lead to a different conclusion. He quoted from the British North America and School Acts of New Brunswick and endeavoured to show that, although the system of denominational schools was actually established by law, still denominational teaching in the public schools was practically acknowledged, and deeply regretted the course pursued by the legislature of New Brunswick in inserting in the new School Act a clause providing that every school under that Act shall be non-sectarian.
He then proceeded to point out that'the question was properly before the Canadian Parliament to determine what might be the righ'te of that Parliament to deal with remedial legislation, which is an altogether different matter from that now before the House, on the one hand and the rights of the province of New Brunswick to amend its laws on the other. He proceeds further:
In his opinion it was in that spirit alone that the question could be successfully dealt with; but they had been asked to go a great deal further, and he felt-having been one who, upon former occasions, took an humble part in endeavouring to maintain the integrity of the constitution-bound to say a few words upon that subject. It was one thing for the provincial or the Canadian legislature to pass Act of Parliament beyond its constitutional powers, ar, action deserving of the highest reprobation, but it was quite another thing for a provincial or a general parliament to propose an amendment to the constitution.
And. then he proceeds:
But the rights and interests of the provinces would not be worth the paper on which the constitution was written if it could be said that all rights could, as a matter of course, be altered or changed on addresses alone. The Imperial Government would never take away the rights of the provincial legislature at the instance of the Dominion Parliament alone, and no more dangerous error could be fallen into. The proper mode would be not to ask Her Majesty's Government to "lake action, but to ask the local Governments to take action.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Why do hon, gentlemen say " hear, hear " to this when the resolution now proposed violates every principle of constitutional law? The only method by which the constitution of this country could be amended in regard to the rights of provinces would be by a constitutional convention at which all the provinces would unite in asking either for the enlargement or for the curtailment of their powers, and a joint address of this Parliament based upon no such constitutional convention, as Mr. Blake pointed out, would not be heeded

nor obeyed by the Imperial Pajrliament because the rights that have accrued, the .privileges that have been enjoyed and the [DOT]customs that have grown up under the constitution cannot be taken away merely because this Parliament asks them to be *taken away; they can be taken away only by a constitutional convention properly convened for the purpose of considering amendments, which convention would represent the common judgment alike of the representatives of all the provinces, and hon. gentlemen know that that must be so. Mr. Blake says further:
If any constitutional rights were infringed, Parliament had power, under the fourth clause of the Brltiesh North America Act, to interfere, and he quoted the provision giving Parliament the right to make remedial laws when necessary.
The question was properly before Parliament. It was a question involving whether or not there should be an exercise by Parliament of its remedial rights under .the constitution, the powers that iwere asserted in the Manitoba School Act in 1890, the powers that were given by which this Parliament, not clothed with original jurisdiction with regard to education, could exercise its powers under the British North America Act for the purpose of remedying wrongs that might have been done (to Iminorities, whether they be Protestant or Catholic, and it was because of that provision in. the constitution that Mr. Blake pointed out the necessity not of disallowance-he said no, do not disallow; do not refer back to the provincial legislatures alone, but get the opinion of the law officers of the Crown and of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to the end that it may 'be determined whether or not a wrong has been done to which the remedial sections of the Act extend. That is what he asked. I will not trouble the House to-night by reading further from the debate the language used by Mr. Dorion, by Mr. afterwards Sir Albert Smith, a very great lawyer from the province of New Brunswick, who said at that time: "The cry must be: Hands off New Brunswick." This is what Mr. Smith said:
This Parliament might have the power to whip that of New-Brunswick into submission, but New-Brunswick in that event would await her opportunity to avenge the wrong.
Those are the .words of a great Liberal statesman. I turn to the words of Col. Gray, who afterwards was one of the Judges
of the Supreme Court of British Columbia who pointed out what the issue would be. I turn to the words of Mr. Dorion, who pointed out exactly what the difficulties would be and the course that shcmld be pursued. I point out Sir John Macdonald's words with relation to it. I have not time to read them all. But the consensus of opinion was that so far as this Parliament was concerned, it refused to disallow or to intervene, but sent back the Bill that was alleged to have taken away from Catholics their rights, leaving it to the legislature to determine the matter, but first determining by reference to the courts the respective and relative rights and powers, alike of the Parliament of Canada and of the Legislature of New Brunswick.
Now, let me point out what has been done in this case with reference to Ontario. I am not here to argue as to the rights and wrongs of a regulation with regard to education passed by a provincial legislature. The Privy Council has declared that the Legislature of Ontario dealing with a matter within its proper scope, has power as full and plenary as the Imperial Parliament itself may exercise with relation to the same subject matter. That legislature having exercised these powers by passing a statute defining the terms under which English and French shall be taught in their schools, this Parliament has no more power to curtail or enlarge those rights than it would have to declare whether there should be three or four minarets upon a mosque at Constantinople. Let it not be forgotten for a moment by my hon. friend from Shefford (Mr. Boivin) and my hon. friend from Nicolet (Mr. Lamarche) and those other gentlemen who have spoken here, that this very regulation and the powers under which it has been passed are now on their way to the Privy Council for judicial interpretation. The matter is sub judice. The very demand made by Mr. Blake which was acted upon by the Government of Sir John A. Macdonald, that the matter should be sent to the" courts, is (he very remedy which has been sought by hon. gentlemen opposite with relation to this legislation at this present time. Then, ii that be the case, why is it here? Are we here to revise the unuttered judgments of the Privy Council? Are we here to decide what the Privy Council shall say? If we seek a legal remedy in this case, why not leave it to the courts?
Why pass resolutions of regret, the matter is on its way to the foot of the

throne? Since when has it been the settled policy of Parliament to interfere'with suits that are being heard? Who cares for the courts? asked the hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Graham). He declares in terms that the work of the courts is to be revised alike by the majority and by the minority. The courts that we have been taught to respect and honour from our youth, as has been pointed out by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, aje not to be thought of so long as you can get a resolution into Parliament and bring about any action you will. Since when was that a doctrine of the Liberal party? Since when was disregard of constituted authority made the basis of legislative action? It is new doctrine to me that in this twentieth century and in this British country disregard of constituted authority, marchings upon the street, the flying of banners, the defiance of law, shall form the basis of action by the Parliament of Canada? I was appalled when I heard that doctrine asserted in this House. For me, trained in the law -a little-I can only say this; that if that doctrine is to prevail, then to wreck goes every opinion I have as to the security of property and the safety of the rights of individuals in this country. If you can resort to Parliament while a suit is still in progress to determine the constitutionality of a law; if you can pass a resolution in this House to determine whether a statute is ultra vires or intra vires; if you can go to the Privy Council with a resolution of this House to urge upon them in order to influence their judgment, if that is the opinion of gentlemen opposite I say that the sooner that opinion is got rid of the better. I would ask the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald), who is taking voluminous notes, if, when he was engaged in the steel case, or in the Dominion Coal and Iron case, he would have thought it right for the Legislature of the province of Nova Scotia to meet in solemn session and declare what should be done. At least, such action would have been within the rights of that body-that is the difference between that case and this. Property and civil rights lie within the powers of the Legislature of Nova Scotia but property and civil rights are not within our powers, and neither is education. But, in the midst of a war, it is sought to wring from the House a resolution dealing with a case that is sub judice; a cate in which a legal decision has been sought is to be prejudiced by thi6 
Parliament. Since when did all the members of this Parliament become trained jurists? Since when did they weigh finely the constitutional points involved? The hon. member for S'befford (Mr. Boivin) asserte the beautiful doctrine that when two lawyers from Quebec differ About the interpretation of an Ontario statute this Parliament should intervene. Somebody (else urges another doctrine, and others still different doctrines. But constituted authority, the courts of this country, are the tribunals to which we must appeal alike for the preservation of our rights and the declaration of their limitations. No worse doctrine can be taught than that in a democracy you can appeal to the Parliament of Canada to contravene and destroy the value of judicial decisions, especially when an appeal to the highest court is under way. I resent it. And the people iwill resent it. They may not care so *much, many of them, whether this or that fine point is at issue; but they will care if this Parliament is asked to declare for a principle that is destructive of security alike for property and of individuals, and one which this Parliament should not for a moment tolerate.
One gentleman asserted that there was <an interference with the free right of the people to teach their children in French. But look at the contradiction involved in the very terms of the resolution:
That this House, especially at this time ol universal sacrifice and anxiety, when all energy should be concentrated on the winning of the war, would, by fully recognizing the principle of provincial rights and the necessity-
Mark the word.
-of every child being given a thorough English education-
"Every child"-that includes the French population of Ontario. And "a thorough English education"-how can the child get that without being taught English? And, if it comes down to that, look at the remainder of the resolution:
-respectfully suggest to the Legislative Assembly the wisdom of making it clear that the privilege of the children of French parentage of being taught in their mother tongue be not interfered with.
If you arc not going to interfere with the children of French parentage being taught in the French language, how can they get a thorough knowledge of English?
I


Charles Marcil: There are many examples in this House.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am struck with the
fact that the hon. gentleman who moved this resolution spoke [DOT] in English-that is, the language of communication and instruction.
Mr. MARCH.:	And I hope the hon.
gentleman will some time speak in French.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I trust I shall some day be able to speak French as eloquently as the hon. gentleman; I should regard it as a distinction indeed. But what I ask the House is, how is it possible for this child to have a thorough knowledge of English while there is no interference with his being taught in French? Some of his time must be taken from being taught French in order that he may be taught English. Therefore, it comes down to this- what would be a just distribution of the time to be given to French and to English? This is the issue and nothing else. Since when did this Parliament undertake to say how long French or English should be taught in the schools of any province? I challenge any constitutional lawyer on the other side to say that this Parliament has the right to say that three hours shall be given to French in Ontario and only two hours in Alberta, or has the right to say how long shall be given to English in Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, or Ontario. Then it gets down to this, that the Legislature of the province of Ontario, and that Legislature alone, has the right to decide and determine what time shall be allotted to the teaching of French, and what time shall be allotted to the teaching of English; and, if that be so which is admitted in the terms of .this resolution itself, as explained by the hon. member for Bonaventure (IMr IMarcil), with the applause of the right hon. leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) what right has this resolution in this Parliament? What right has it here at all? Has it any? If, then, you say it must be left to the province of Ontario to determine how many hours must be given to French and how many to English, in order that the child may have a thorough knowledge of English and at the same time his French education may not be interfered with, I ask this House why this resolution is here at all under those circumstances? There is only one reason, and that is a reason which, in the midst of war, one hesitates to mention, and will not mention.
Sir, I am not concerned, then, as to how Ontario exercises her legislative jurisdiction; I am not concerned how, under the constitution, New Brunswick exercises her powers. I come from the West, and I, like the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver), am vitally interested in this great question that, while it affects the well-being of the East, affects even more the potential happiness and greatness of a nation yet unborn; for, from the lakes to the Rockies, there will grow up a race of men that will either be divided into the nationalities they represent, or will be taught that the language of communication, of commerce, of business, is English. They must be taught national efficiency, to adopt the words of a friend of mine who sits apposite. National efficiency in this case means that there must be taught, as the language of communication and instruction, in that great undeveloped land between the lakes and the Rockies, the language that we call English. That is all that we demand. The population of French nationality in the province of Saskatchewan is small to-day; but there are 100,000 Austrians and Germans there, meeting together to-day, yesterday, last week, and demanding the right to have their schools taught in German- why? Because of the agitation that is being carried on about bilingualism down here. That is the reason. I happened to visit Regina last year to attend court, and I saw, in a newspaper there, a letter written by the .Catholic trustees of a separate school district, resigning their trust and their office, two English-speaking Roman Catho-lios, because they said they could not longer remain upon a board that bad been dominated by the Germans of that community, in which the language of communication and instruction was sought to be made German. That was the outcome of this agitation. Let that responsibility rest where it belongs, with the men who are trying to interfere with the educational powers of the province of Ontario in this Parliament. If you say to the new settlers who come to us from Austria, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Norway, .from every nation of the world, that they are to grow each group to a little nationality of their own, with' their schools and t'heir languages, their customs, where is your Canada? .Where is your Canada? It would be like the Balkan states. Shall this be a state of little nationalities, or shall it be a great union of a great people, with one language, so far as communication .and instruction is concerned, subject to the rights guaranteed to the people of Quebec under the con-

stitution, or shall there grow up here a nationality, there a nationality, here a settlement of Germans, there one of Austrians!, there one of Slavis, there one of Swedes, there one of Norwegians? That is the problem. Every man in this House from western Canada knows that the largest problem that lies before us is the assimilation of our races and the development' of national efficiency. They	all	know	it. There	is	not aman who studies the question who does	not	know	it, and	I	appeal
to the common sense, I appeal to the patriotism of this House, in this time of stress and pain, not to permit it to be thought that we hold out hopes to these [DOT]people settling on the plains that there shall be federal interference for the purpose of promoting the growth of little nationalities in this great Confederation.
I should like to tell you some of the perils that are now being experienced in Saskatchewan, some of the evils that are creeping in there by reason of this very thing, and of the splendid efforts that are being made to overcome them or grapple with them. The situation is being faced with the dauntless energy with which men are throwing themselves into the heroic task of assimilating this vast cosmopolitan population; but all this effort fails, all these labours will be in vain, if this Parliament, speaking for the people of the Dominion, not realizing the measure of its responsibilities, says to these new citizens: "If your legislature does thus and so, we will tell them that we want this thing changed and fixed so that you will have a continuation of your national existence."
Sir, at this time of the night I have no right to trespass upon the time of this House, but I should like to summarize my position, speaking, like the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver), as one from the West, in these words:
I believe in the maintenance of our Constitution. I believe that the series of compromises that made possible the passing of the British North America Act embodying legislation protecting the rights and privileges of minorities, were wisely made by the Fathers of Confederation. I believe that under that constitutional system, by which plenary powers were given to the legislatures of the provinces to enact laws with relation to education without interference by this Parliament, is- to be found the safest and the surest possible remedy for the differ-
ences and difficulties that we experience in the growth of national sentiment in this great democracy. I go further: I believe that it is wholly unconstitutional, wholly irrelevant, for this Parliament at this time to be endeavouring to interfere with this matter. I am not concerned with what may be done in these provinces, except in so far as there may be a violation by them of the constitutional powers which have been committed to them; and, if I may appeal to the common sense, to the patriotism, and to the reason of this House, to the men of the East, and especially to the men of Quebec, may I say to
them,	in the language of my hon. friend who has .just taken his seat, that nothing could be more dangerous for Quebec than to have it thought that this issue is thrust upon this House at this time, looking towards the coercion of another province, for the advantage of a minority that comes from that province. In my province, where 30,000 men have rushed to the colours, the talk that has already been engendered by reason of this legislation is something to be reckoned with. It makes for bad feeling, it makes for discontent, it makes for lack of harmony, and in the end for the disturbance and destruction of the state. I should like to remind this House, and especially my friends from the province of Quebec who referred to the naturalization laws, that if they lived in the United States they would find that the influence which they exercised upon the body politic would be limited as it is in the New England states, as compared with what it is here under the splendid constitution, which guarantees them a fixed representation in this Parliament and the preservation of their rights, privileges, and liberties. The very debates which I hold in' my hand contain a statement by Sir George Cartier in which he pointed out that if once there be an interference by this Parliament with the free rights of the provinces to pass educational legislation,
then,	as he said, " The rights of my French compatriots in Quebec may one day be interfered with by a Protestant Parliament." So that I do again appeal to them to reflect, to pause, to consider, before they place themselves upon record as being opposed to the doctrine which their fathers who laid the foundations of this Confederation thought right, proper and just. I have no doubt, as a friend of mine said to me tonight, that if the question were only dis-

cussed between some of us who come from the other provinces with some who come from Quebec, much might have been gained, in the way of remedying the grievance if there be a grievance. But when a province endeavours to speak as a whole, when the mass of the population headed and guided by one who for 40 years has sat in this Parliament, then indeed, I say it is evil they do and not good. I am as certain of that as that I stand here this night. Nothing but evil can come from anything that makes the united effort of the great mass of a province project itself against the rights of another piovince. As individuals we love, we admire, we reverence those who come from the province of Quebec. Our relations have always been most happy and harmonious, and always will be; but it is one thing to deal with the individual and with the pressure that a combination of individuals may exercise in the way I have indicated; an effort combined under the leadership of one who for 40 years has sat in this* Parliament and who, as he told us, has been a leader of the Liberal party for 28 years, in good report and ill report is another thing. It is quite another thing for one who leads a great party to ask for the destruction of the rights of a province as they were laid down by the founders of Confederation. In the name of unity of purpose, of harmony, of the greatness of the Dominion that is to be, remember those great plains that are to be peopled by millions, and that one day will say to my friends from Quebec:	" We
have not forgotten your efforts." I would deprecate it, and so would others; but let this country realize, as my hon. friend from Edmonton said, that the shifting of population is already in progress. It will not be in my day possibly; it will not he in the day possibly of any one in this House, but as certain as the sun shines, those great lands between the lakes and the mountains will have a population as great as that which inhabits the central west of the United States. It will have reached 150,000,000 within a reasonable time and I am perfectly convinced that these 50,000,000 living under the protecting aegis of the Union Jack, as British subjects, securing to them liberty and justice and freedom; securing them from the tyranny of minorities which may be greater than the tyranny of majorities-that must not he forgotten, it is a fact in history-securing them from
that, we will, if we are true to the trust that devolves upon us, leave to them a country whose institutions make possible the development of that unity of purpose, that harmony of feeling, that intelligent coordination of effort that brings about national efficiency under one language of communication and instruction which, in this case, must be, because we are part and parcel of the British Empire, the English language.


Mr. E. M. MACDONALD (Pictou):: Mr. Speaker, at this very late hour of the night I owe an apology to the House for attempting to address it at all. But for the impassioned harangue of the hon. gentleman who has just sat down, and who has introduced a note into this debate somewhat out of touch with the high plane on which the discussion has been carried on by other hon. gentlemen, I would not have ventured to trespass upon your patience, and I shall do so only for a few moments. When my hon. friend from Calgary, with that assertiveness which he can command with very little justification, says that my hon. friend from Lambton (Mr. Pardee) misled this House in regard to what took place in this Parliament in 1872, it would not be proper to permit this debate to close without showing conclusively to the House that my hon. friend from Calgary is the one who has attempted to mislead the House. When was it ever said in this or any other Parliament that when a matter for the House had passed a resolution and determined that a certain thing should .be done, it was a question as to how the matter had Ibeen brought to the attention of the House. My hon. friend laid down a very curious doctrine. I am sure that you, Mr. Speaker, never heard of it before. Because in 1872 a certain matter was brought to the attention of this House by virtue of a resolution moved by Mt. Oostigan, in which after certain recitals, this House was asked to come to the conclusion that a certain Act of the Province of New Brunswick *should be disallowed, and because that resolution was amended and the House came to a subsequent conclusive resolution as the result of debate, my hon. friend from Calgary says that my hon. friend from Lambton misled the House when he told the House what the result was which Parliament arrived at.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That was not the
resolution.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: .My hon. friend will find that in his hasty way of looking at this question he has not seen all the books upon the subject. My hon. friend will find on page 179 of the Journals of the House of 1872 the following statement:
Then the main question, as amended, being put, that this House regrets that the School Act recently passed in New Brunswick is unsatisfactory to a portion of the inhabitants of that Province, and hopes that it may be so modified during the next session of the Legislature of New Brunswick as to remove any just grounds of discontent that now exist.
That was the resolution quoted by my hon. friend from Lambton.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Pardon me: I must correct my hon. friend at once. The resolution quoted by the hon. member for Lambton is on page 177 and is the resolution that Mr. Colby moved. The resolution on page 179, which was passed, was not moved by Mr. Colby because it involved two amendments.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend is certainly indulging in very queer reasoning. On page 177 I find that Mr. Colby moved a resolution in the very words which were read by .my hon. friend from Lambton, which I read a moment ago, and which afterwards formed part of the main resolution. Does my hon. friend from Calgary want this House to believe that it was misled when I read the same words on page 179, where, after the words, "Then, the main question, as amended, being put," are to be found the very words contained in the resolution of Mr. Colby, and then, after adding the substantive resolution, the record says:	"it was resolved
in the affirmative." The fact therefore is that in 1872, as recorded on page 179 of the Journals of that year, the House of Commons passed a resolution which contained the words exactly as read by my hon. friend from Lamibton. In 1875 this question came before - Parliament again. My hon. friend read what the Hon. Mr. Blake said in regard to the matter at that period. Let me tell my hon. friend that <in 1875 the Hon. Edward Blake seconded a resolution, moved by Mr. Cauchon and dealing with .this very question of New Brunswick schools. It had no relation to the legislation which my hon. friend conjured up, but was a legitimate and apparently natural sequence to the resolution moved in 1872. For the information of the House, in view of the statement made by my hon. friend from Calgary, I wish

.to read this resolution which was moved by Mr. Cauchon and seconded by Mr. Blake in 1875, and I want this House to judge whether my hon. friend from Lambton was right when he read the resolution of 1872, or whether my hon. friend from Calgary was right. This is the resolution of 1875:	'
Mr. Cauehon moved, in amendment to the said proposed amendment, seconded by Mr. Blake, That the words "That on the 29th day of May, 1872, the House of Commons adopted the following Resolution.
This House regrets that the School Act recently passed in New Brunswick, is unsatisfactory to a portion of the inhabitants of that province, and hopes that it may be so modified during the next session of the legislature of New Brunswick as to remove any just ground of discontent that now exists.
There are the words that my hon. friend from Lambton read. Messrs. Cauchon and Blake, in 1875, refer to this resolution of 1872 in the terms of the following motion:
This House regrets that the hope expressed in the said resolution has not been realized.
That an humble address be presented to Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, embodying this resolution, and praying that Her Majesty would he graciously pleased to use her influence with the legislature of New Brunswick to procure such a modification of the said Act, as shall remove such grounds of discontent.
We thus have the resolution of 1875 quoting the very words read by my hon. friend from Lambton to-night and when the hon. member for Calgary, at this hour in the morning, and in such a debate as this, has the assurance to charge one of his colleagues with having made a false statement I say that he has not the right to do it, and that he has no right to trespass upon a debate of this kind for such a purpose. My hon. friend talks about the great West with his usual eloquence, but he knows just as well as every lawyer in this House that this resolution has no bearing whatever, directly or indirectly, on Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, or any other province in this Dominion except Ontario. My hon. friend knows full well that by a resolution which was pressed in this House by a former Minister of Public Works, the Hon. Mr. Monk, in 1905, it was proposed to create certain rights in Alberta and Saskatchewan with respect to the use of the French language and that my right hon. leader at' that time, dealing with th^t question frankly and fairly, called upon his followers to vote down that resolution. It was voted down, and my hon. friend knows that to-day, when he talks about the interference with the English language in Alberta and Saskatchewan, he is talking

beside the mark. No such question can arise there.
Just one word on the general question. Those of us who speak the English tongue, those of us who treasure the memories of the great British race during all the long years of the history of our Empire, must realize that the foundations of the race and of the Empire were laid by men of various races, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Normans, who came over to England. These men spoke a number of different languages. In the North, and across the channel in Ireland, were the Celts, while in Wales there were the men of the Cymric race. By a consideration of the varying and conflicting interests of the ipeople, and not by acts of hostility, not by speeches such as my hon. friend from Calgary delivered here to-night, but through long years of harmonizing these difficulties and of working together, there grew up the great British race to which we are all so proud to belong, which laid the foundations of our Empire and which carried the British flag to every sea. Whenever a race came under that flag what did they do? Wherever the flag was planted the first essential right that was recognized of the people who came under their government was the right to the language of the people who lived in that land. So the story has come down all through the years. What has occurred in South Africa? After the war, lured by the assurances of the 'Germans, there trekked up into German territory a great number of Boers. They found an illustration there of the difference between British and German rule, because the Germans enforced the principle of uniformity of languages and the subordination of the rights of the Boers to the dominance of the Germans. These men found their way back to British territory, and under the British flag, where the right of their language was accorded to them, and to-day we have the spectacle of the .whole of Africa being saved to the Empire as a result of the recognition of the rights of these Boers to their language in South Africa. When we come to Canada, I know that gentlemen like the hon. member foT Calgary tell us that we must have one language in this land from the Atlantic to the Pacific.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I did not say that.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I did not say that my hon. friend said it; I said gentlemen like my hon. friend. We have heard that, and it is a very pleasant thing to say in
certain quarters. Men of the dominant race will say we should have one country, with one language, that we should have one flag, and there should be no exception to that proposition. But, we in Canada, are fettered in regard to that matter. We do not control this question of language. Those of the class to which I have referred, like to say there should be only one language in Canada.	But that cannot be the
case. Why?-because Imperial enactments and treaties have provided conditions in this country by which men of the French race who were here when our fathers came are given in the courts, and in the province of Quebec certain rights and privileges that can never be taken away. Not only in this Parliament can a man come from any part of this Dominion 'Speaking the French language, representing people who speak that language and having the right to expect that a gentleman shall sit in the Speaker's chair who shall know what is being said when he addresses him on behalf of those who elected him to Parliament, but in the Supreme Court any man who speaks the French language has the right to demand that his plaint shall be heard by a court composed of men who 'Understand the French language. You have the Exchequer Court, which travels from the Atlantic to the Pacific under Judge Cassells and under Judge Audette. Every litigant in this country can hire a counsel who does not understand one word of English, under the law created by the Imperial Parliament, he has a right to have his plaint heard.
When may hon. friend talks about conditions in this country, when he talks as if the men of the French race, whose rights are embalmed in the constitution under which we live, are to be told that there is only to be one race in Canada, he must remember that whatever we would like to do, whatever individuals might desire, the hands of the Canadian Parliament and of the Canadian people are indelibly fettered by reason of these conditions imposed by the British Parliament and by the conditions under which our constitution arose. That being so, what are we going to do in this land? Are we to be continually aggressors against each other? Is it by preaohing such a doctrine that we are going to attain that peace and unity which are so essential to the upbuilding and the future of this country? Is it by preaching division amongst these races that this unity is to be had? No problem with regard to the French



language in the schools arises in any of the provinces of this Dominion except Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba? And why does it arise in Manitoba? Simply and solely because in 1897 this Parliament chose to create certain Tights in that province, which created a 'condition from which you cannot get away. But in all the other provinces of the Dominion than these three there iis no restriction, no danger, for those who worry in regard to this question. The legislatures of every one of our provinces except Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba have absolute, supreme and exclusive rights in regard to every question of education, and this Parliament cannot interfere in any way with those rights, and it does not propose to interfere. What is our situation here? This resolution is not an invasion of provincial rights. This Parliament does not in any way intend to interfere with provincial jurisdiction. On the contrary, it expressly recognizes it. 'Hon. gentlemen in this House who have spoken in this debate, no matter from which side of the House, have all admitted that there is an agitation and there are grievances. Some hon. gentlemen opposite have spoken most admirably on this question, notably the hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Nickle), who dealt with it in a way that was most interesting to those of us from other provinces who were anxious to know the facts. He declared that the people of Ontario were anxious to encourage the teaching of French as well as the teaching of English, and that they believed these regulations would effect that purpose. Hon. gentlemen on this side of the House, in utterances which were notably clear, and free from all passion and prejudice, placed before this Parliament statements which indicated that the rights and privileges of the men of the French race which existed before Confederation, and have since been recognized by statute and regulation in Ontario, have been interfered with and abridged. What is to be done? My hon. friend says, " Let this matter go to the Privy Council and be litigated upon." Is there not a better way in which we can arrive at a full and complete understanding on this question? This House is in a splendid temper, a temper I have rarely seen equalled during all my parliamentary experience. This question has been presented fairly and equitably from both sides, and is it not reason-
able and natural to expect this Parliament, forgetting all questions of party, to say: If we have in Canada these conditions, everybody should recognize them, and so far as we can, we should model ourselves on the lines laid down by the Imperial Parliament; and both racks should go along under this Constitution in amity and friendship. That is the proposition which is made to this House. That is all that is asked for by the mover of the resolution. Realizing to the full that Ontario is supreme on this question, and without any desire to restrict her rights by any legislative action, all we say is that if there are grievances there-should be a rehearing of the case, and an investigation of all the facts, and we would then leave it to the good sense of the people of the province of Ontario to recognize the rights that exist, and deal fairly by all classes of the population. That is the intent and meaning of the resolution presented by the hon. member for Kamouraska. If it meant an invasion of provincial rights I should be the first to vote against it, but there is no desire to invade or attack the supremacy of Ontario. All that is asked is a rehearing, full and fair consideration of the exact conditions, free from prejudice. That and that alone is what is sought by this resolution, and I trust that when this question is taken up by the Legislature of Ontario which alone can deal with it, the men who control Ontario and its educational policy will realize these conditions and endeavour to deal with this question fairly and equitably; that the cause of difference between the races of this country may be removed, and the difficulty settled along lines which are just and equitable, and characteristic of the British fair play which we of the British race have boasted of through all the years of our history.


Mr. J. GIRARD:: (Chicoutimi-Saguenay) (Translation.) Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, I wish to give some explanation of the stand I intend to take on the question now before this House. I wish also to express in my mother tongue the opinion I have formed after perusing the whole of the debate in which the House has been engaged for the last two days. I think a little French, on this question of French, may not be out of place.
The resolution now before the House expresses the unanimous sentiment of every Canadian-be he French or English speaking-because it is a well-known fact that

under the folds of the British flag, of which we are so proud, every subject enjoys the greatest possible measure of freedom-; what is going on in the province of Quebec is the best instance.
But in certain of the- provinces of the Dominion, educational laws have been enacted, in good faith I presume, which are more or less unsatisfactory to the French Canadians. In the resolution which has now taken two days to discuss, Ontario only has been taken to task for enacting, on the subject of education, laws which are not as complete as they should -be. We are all agreed that we must join in an endeavour to obtain the redress of grievances, whatever and wherever they be. I heard no word of dissent as to that. The time has come when the law makers are willing to take action under the law and the constitution.
In Ontario, as I have just stated, there exists a statute which is insufficient as regards French Canadians; but in Manitoba, there was a statute which was also insufficient, but which, such as it was, had been giving our compatriots for some years past a certain measure of satisfaction. Well, a few weeks ago, the Government of that province saw fit to call on the legislature to repeal that statute and, at one fell blow, to deprive the French population of all the privileges they had enjoyed hitherto.
We are appealed to on behalf of the wounded of Ontario, but what about our murdered brethren of Manitoba? Do we really believe that in the latter province so heavy has been the blow that all remedy is hopeless and 'we must be resigned to have the case buried for evermore? That is the conclusion that may be drawn from our two days' debate. If Parliament is entitled to discuss my hon. friend's resolution was it not open to us a few weeks ago, while the Ontario and Manitoba Legislatures were both in session, to submit at both capitals with some chance of success the humble prayer which this House to-day is asked to formulate? But now tjhere is behind the present resolution no possible sanction, and at any rate any chance of 'better conditions is retarded a whole year by the delay in presenting such a resolution.
Would it not have yet been time, before the Manitoba guillotine severed whatever rights remained to us in that province, for the promoter of this resolution, by some such measure, to urge on the provincial Prime Minister before letting the knife
241 i
drop, the desirability of giving a second thought, to ponder over what is legitimate and what is right, and perhaps instil into him some feeling of pity towards our compatriots? Far easier to forestall death than to resurrect. Would it not then have been the part of wisdom to suggest to the Manitoba Government some action along the lines of this resolution; then might have been avoided the massacre of the French race in Manitoba and might have been obtained in Ontario the balance of those rights to which I believe the French 'Canadians are entitled.
Mr. MARCI'L:	Will the hon. member
allow me a question? Why did not the hon.. member himself introduce a resolution to that effect?


Joseph Girard: Why not have inserted if in the present resolution?


Charles Marcil: If the Government allows me to introduce such -a resolution, because as my hon. friend well knows, the rules of the House forbid a second amendment,- but if the Government will consent to suspend the rules, I shall immediately move a resolution, which I shall ask my hon. friend to second.


Joseph Girard: I am ready to do anything that is required of me, in order that what is not right may be made so. Like you, I am a French Canadian; like you I am a staunch believer; I have a wife and children; I am a Catholic, and I' represent a constituency which is Catholic and Frenchspeaking just like yours. But I wish to know why by taking a very skillful advantage of the rules of the House, we have been precluded from having a regular amendment put to us, when it could have been done in the regular course, if this resolution had not been moved in amendment to a motion that the House go into Supply.
I admit, without hesitation, that we have come to a difficult juncture in our national history, when all fair-minded men, all who feel their responsibilities, should unite in an effort to avert the danger with which we are threatened.
But what reason have we to deal to-day with the schools in Ontario only, where French is being commonly taught, and leaving out of consideration the people of Manitoba, from whom everything has been taken away? Is there a secret motive? Along with my colleagues, I am hound by my oath of office, by my allegiance to my language, my faith and my religion, to de-

vote all my energies to see that the rights of all are respected, especially the rights of minorities. I have laboured alongside men, much higher than I, to help the wounded .of Ontario and on behalf of the murdered ones of Manitoba, whom I would bring back to life. Accordingly, I much regret that the resolution which is submitted to us falls so short of what it should contain, and is so unfair as regards those of our compatriots who are suffering the more painful agony, and that the amendment should have come before us through a procedure that precludes its being amended to put it in a more acceptable form, and gives it practically the character of a motion of censure on the Government.
I expected to see the Government censured for not having disallowed the Ontario statute, but I was surprised to hear the chieftains of the Opposition, especially the leader, speak against the principle of disallowance. What purpose did it serve them to trouble so many peaceful citizens all over the country to get them to petition for disallowance, when it must have been known that it was impossible under the circumstances? Why not have introduced the present resolution as a substantive motion that could have been discussed with the same good faith as we are doing now, and modified, if necessary, to make it more comprehensive instead of limited in scope, as is the amendment before us?
Mr. Speaker, I repeat what I have just said; we have arrived at a terrible chapter of our annals. Had we not enough on our hands with the abominable war that shakes the world to its very foundations? We are now threatened with a civil war, necessarily brought about by an injustice which, as I understand, depends on a mere word in a regulation. At the present juncture, knowing the danger of the agitation that is being promoted, I feel it is my duty to appeal to the wisdom of the fair-minded men of both parties in this House and out of this House, to join in an attempt to ward off this menace, and as soon as possible reestablish peace in our great Dominion.
With the present widespread perturbation, I should suggest that new men, independent of the present organization, get together and endeavour to bring about a redress of the grievances complained of by peaceful and diplomatic means, which alone will bring back to Canada the quiet it enjoyed heretofore.
In closing, I want it clearly understood that I am, from a sense of duty as well as

by common sense, intent on working along with all broad-minded citizens against the perpetration of any wrong; I am as loyal to my race as any of my colleagues and countrymen; I desire to give all my endeavours to .secure a remedy for the grievances in Ontario, and especially in Manitoba, but I do not think the resolution before the House expresses these sentiments with any greater force than the declarations I have just made.
I profoundly deplore that the murder of the rights of my compatriots in Manitoba should not have been covered by the resolution, but I hope that the discussion of the last two days will prompt fair-minded men of all classes to go to work and see that permanent justice be granted to those to whom their rights are now denied.
With these words I must state that while I support heart and soul the sentiments expressed in the resolution, I feel that I cannot vote for it on the grounds that it overlooks the rights of a section of out compatriots, because it is too limited in its scope, because it has no sanction behind it, and because, as put before the House, it amounts to a non-confidence motion against the Government, without assigning any reasons therefor.


Mr. A. BELLEMARE:: (Maskinonge)
(Translation.) Mr. Speaker, in the province of Ontario, as we are made to understand, strong condemnation is being expressed in certain quarters against our intervention and our protests in connection with the rights of the French Canadian minority in that province.
In this vast Dominion, if one province is guilty of a very great wrong, such as is apt to disturb the harmony between the races that make up the country's population, it seems to me that it is permissible for this Parliament or for a sister province to record some comments, or make suggestions, without being accused of any disloyalty, or of a desire to dominate. The part of a legislator is to maintain here below peace, justice, and truth.
The world war, which is now being waged, is without doubt the outcome bf injustices similar to those which are to-day perpetrated in the province of Ontario.
In defiance of all right, our schools may be taken away from us, but never will anyone succeed in extirpating from our bosom our French hearts, no more than we should attempt to instil in the heart of an Irishman, an Orangeman, or a Scotchman, our

French ideals, and national aspirations. It the country is to have peace and prosperity, why not be respectful of our mutual rights?
The claim is heard that the Gospel can' be preached and taught in the one language:	what an error! What folly! Are
we not aware that the Gospel is taught both in Catholic and Protestant churches, in this country and elsewhere, in the language of the people? Was not the gift of tongues bestowed on Peter, the Apostle of Christ, so that his teachings might be understood by all the nations of the world? Alas! that a priest, a Catholic bishop, should be so blind as to make common cause with the Orangemen in their attacks upon our race. Does he not realize that the interests of religion, the welfare of the country, the promotion of peace in Canada, forbid him to assail a minority that has acquired rights and shows respect for his high office?
See what is going on in the province of Quebec; there the Protestant minority enjoys the full control of its school grants, and the use of its language not only in its churches, but also in its educational institutions.
It is objected that we are only a handful. A handful, indeed, when the minority accounts for nearly 250,000 French Canadians ! And what if it were true? Not the units and not their wealth give the measure of moral energy. After all, might does not make right, and has not the spectacle been given to the world of twelve apostles, whom we all revere, although despised by all the wealth, the pride and the science of their time, conquering the world.
I do not look forward to our conquering North America, but I claim that justice calls for respect, even when the number of its exponents is insignificant. The brutal element in a wrong is not capable of turning it into a right.
The idea of having only one language spoken in Ontario is a sham and a utopia. It may as well be realized immediately that never will the revindication of our rights be silenced, because the French language was spoken in Ontario long before it was settled by a British majority. In Europe, with the French soldier always pushing forward on the battlefield and the English host never falling back, victory will finally settle with the Allies; likewise in Ontario, where the French Canadian will never give up the rights he has acquired and the fair-minded and honest British
who does not recede, we finally will get the majority in this province to understand the respect due to the minority. The different factions who are attacking the French language will give in at last, justice will triumph, because no language has played a nobler part in the world's destinies, in the triumph of civilization in Europe and Canada. It is spoken in all the courts, sovereigns learn it, speak it, and are not ashamed of it. Mr. Speaker, I could speak longer on the beauties of the French language, and the rights of the minority to continue its use in this province; but on account of the late hour, I conclude in stating that my remarks are founded on justice, that they are made on behalf of my province, and of the minority in Ontario. In giving expression to my opinion, I believe I voice the sentiments of all those who wish for peace, justice, harmony, not only in the province of Quebec, but also in the province of Ontario and all the other provinces of the Dominion. I shall then vote for the amendment of the hon. member for Kamouraska.
The House divided on the proposed amendment of Mr. E. Lapointe (Kamouraska).
YEAS:
Messieurs.
Achim,
Barrette,
Beliemare,
Boivin,
Boulay,
Bourassa,
Boyer,
Brouillard,
Bureau,
Cardin,
Carvell,
Champagne,
Charlton,
Chisholm (Antigonish) Chisholm (Inverness), Delisle,
Demers,
Devlin,
Ethier,
Fortier,
Gauthier
(St. Hyacinthe), Gauvreau,
German,
Graham,
Kay,
Lachance,
Iif or tune,
Damarche,
Lanctot,
Lapointe
(Kamouraska),
Lapointe
(Montreal, St.James), Laurier (Sir Wilfrid), Lemieux,
Loggie,
Macdonald,
Maclean (Halifax), McCoig,
McCrea,
McKenzie,
Marcil (Bonaventure), Marcile (Bagot), Martin
(Montreal, Ste.Mary's) Michaud,
Mondou,
Nesbitt,
Pacaud,
Papineau,
Paquet,
Pardee,
Proulx,
Pugsley,
Rainville,
Robb,
Ross,
Seguin,
Sinclair,
Tobin,
Turgeon,
Verville,
Wilson (Laval)-60.

NATS:
Messieurs.
Ames (Sir Herbert),	Dewis,
Armstrong (Lambton ),	, Macdonell,
Armstrong (York, O.),	Maclean (York, O.),
Arthurs, *	MacNutt,
Ball,	McCraney,
Barnard,	McCurdiy.
Bennett (Calgary),	McLean
Bennett (Simcoe),	(Queen's, P.E.I.),
Best,	Marshall,
Blain,	Meighen,
Blondin,	Merner,
Borden (Sir Robert),	Middlebro,
Bowman,	Morphy,
Boys,	Morris,
Brabazon,	Morrison,
Broder,	Munson,
Buchanan,	Nicholson,
Burnham,	Nickle,
Casgrain,	Northrup,
Chabot,	Oliver,
Clark (Bruce),	Patenaude,
Clark (Red Deer),	Paul,
Clarke (Wellington),	Porter,
Clements,	Reid,
Cockshutt,	Rhodes,
Cromwell,	Robidoux,
Crothers,	Roche,
Cruise,	Rogers,
Currie,	Schaffner,
Davidson,	Scott,
Descarries,	Sexsmith,
Doherty,	Smith,
Donaldson,	Smyth,
Douglas,	Steele,
Edwards, 1	Stevens,
Elliott,	Stewart (Hamilton),
Fisher,	Stewart (Lunenburg),
Forget (Sir Rodolphe),	, Sutherland,
Foster (Sir George),	Thoburn,
Fowler,	Thompson (Yukon),
Fripp,	Thomson (Qu'Appelle),
Girard,	Thornton,
Glass,	Truax,
Gray,	Turriff,
Green,	Walker,
Hanna,	Wallace,
Hartt,	Warnock,
Hazen,	Webster,
Henderson,	Weichel,
Jameson,	White (Sir Thomas),
Kemp,	White (Renfrew),
Knowles, '	Wilcox,
Dal or,	Wil son (Wentworth ),
D'Esperance,	Wright-107.
Amendment negatived.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and the House went into Oommitte of Supply.
Progress reported.

[Stage Direction]
Rill No. 103, for the relief of William Thomas Craig.-Mr. Pardee.
On motion of Sir 'Robert Rorden the House adjourned at 4.10 a.m. Friday. IMr. E. Lapointe.]
Friday, May 12, 1916.