Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-06
QUEBEC THE CROSS
That the Dominion of Canada
Is Now Carrying Upon
Her Shoulders.
A SOURCE OF WEAKNESS,
Shame and Danger Under Which the
Victim Staggers Forward.
PERHAPS ULTIMATE DISSOLUTION
Nay BE the Result of the Dangerous Spot in
Her Body POlitic.
A SOURCE OF WEAKNESS,
PERHAPS ULTIMATE DISSOLUTION
A MORAL NUISANCE TO THE COMMUNITY


Canada is now carrying, and only the future
can declare whether or not this burden
under which the victim staggers forward so
stumblingly is to prove the instrument of a
great agony, perhaps even of ultimate dis
solution. Be this as it may-the day will
declare itself-that Province is certainly a
weak and dangerous spot in the Canadian
body pulitiu To the Dominion it is q
weakness as real as those customs barriers
which hamper her in all her trade relations
and say Stand back" to her nearest neigh
bors: as undenable as the yearly exodus of
men and women that keeps her poor and her
population stationary.
Quebec is a source of danger, because, po-
liticallv, il is moral nuisance In the COM
munitv, an infectious plague spot, a can
cerous sore which needs heroic surgical
treatment if it is not TO become increasingly
polluted and polluting spring of corrup-
ion. IL is source OF danger furthermore,
because OF indications of growing restive-
ness on the part of other of the confederated
provinces. a restiveness symtomatic of
rapidlv developing tiredneSs of being dis
craced in the ewes of the world by Quebec.
Nor is the disgrace made the less bitter by
reflection on the facts that that Province
ahsorhs more than her share of the honors
that are going, and that the purse of the
Domision as a whole is much too apt to be
freely bled in order to supply financial de-
ficlencies in that particular provincial
treasury. deficiencies only too often caused
bv the official misconduct of those in au-
thority there.
Politics Questionable Trade There.
IF ever politics has been reduced to
trade and a pretty dishonorable trade at
that, it is so in the Province of Quebec.
Everything connected with the public SER
vice would seem to be more or less openly
for sale. With few noble exceptions, the
politician there appears to have dropped
the terms ''honor" and 'official integrity"
from his list of words as things for which
he has really no further use, and which are
oniv hindrance to mis- advancement. He
is practical in the last degree, and begs
borrows or steals the necessary "boodle" for
his purposes with equal hardihood and
sang froid. He las little conscience and no
sense of shame, or no conscience and little
sense of shame, or no conscience and no
sense of shame. 1t is hard to say which
way of expressing it comes, most nearly to
the truth.
Neither of the two political parties that
keep the Province see-sawing between them
in a constant state of semi-bankruptcy can
are ''tarred with the same stick" Whether
called Liberal or called Tory, both have ex-
hibited equal liberalitv in helping them
selves from the public Golfers, both display
a similar elasticity of conscience in dealing
with contractors or others who have pur-
chaseable favors to ask from Government
The Kind of Politicians That Exist
Now it is q sharp. shrewd, shifty, un-
scrupulouS being Of this kind, one who is
thoroughly at home in all the devious by
paths that burrow through the tangled maze
Of the petty politics of his province, who
has too long held the balance of power in
the Dominion. He holds the key to the
position. and he knows it. He understands
that the more prevailingly he can ingratiate
himself with the hierarchy and the more
adroitlv he can dazzle the eyes of the null
titude, the greater are his chances not only
OF a secure hold on the provincial treasure
bag, but also Of having such ''pull'' with
those in power at Ottawa.
There are three factors, the outgrowth of
the reciprocal influences of which consti-
tute the science. the art and the practical
result of popular self-government as it is
known in Quebec These factors are: The
professional politician, the priest and the
peasant Among them they seem not un-
likely, at times. to ground the ship of state
"p" financial perdition. By priest in
this connection must, of course, not be un-
dcrstood as, necessarily, the individual
ministers of the Roman Catholic Church
who come most directly into contact with
the peasant, but the hierarchy as force,
moral, spiritual and intellectual, established
in Quebec. and which works toward its own
ends in WAYS qussi-religious, quasi political
The priest in this sense is the central and
the chief controlling power In State craft in
that province.
Playing Satan to Liberal Sin.
At present we behold the edifying spec
tacle OF the Tory party, with protesting
hands and uplifted eyes, playing satan to
the Liberal sin, while at the same time indi
cations are not far to seek that the church
authorities are on the ragged edge of dubi-
tation as to whether it would be more poll
tic to throw their influence into the scale on
behalf of the temporal power de facto, or of
that which is the more constitutionally de
iure. Both these forces, the priest and the
politician, rely on Jean Baptiste the peas
ant as the fulcrum whereon to rest that lever
Of their own audacity and astuteness by
which they strive to remove obstacles from
the path Of their respective ambitions
In a competition for the peasant the
priest has naturally the advantage over the
politician, if for no other reason, for this
one that the latter is himself in most cases.
nominallv at any rate, member of the
Church, and therefore spiritual ''son, and
so far under tutelage as an inferior. The
guidance" to which he is subjected, how
ever, differs from that which can be applied
to the peasant He has too much intelli-
Cence and education to be easily imposed
upon, too little awe of the Church apart
from its abilities to inspire him at the polls,
nd ~ nn tha
dictates of his own egotism which can be
either appealed to or made afraid Never
theless, If he does not know by intuition he
speedily learns by experience that he is
persona grata TO his spiritual fathers in pro-
portion to his usefulness, that quality being
guaged according to his availability for ad-
vancing the interests of the Church.
True to the Traditions.
The Church in Quebec is resolutely true
70 her traditions and to the principles,
which account for so much of her success
Herself is the first great object of her care,
the vast system of moral and spiritual agen-
cies which she embraces, including the
financial foundations on which these rest, alb
sorbing her attention. Everything that will
advance her interests she carefully nour-
ishes; whatever tends to injure or retard
them she passively resists or actively antag-
onizes Politicians may come and 60, but
she remains. Hence, ii is that, in addition
TO the privileges and franchises which she
enjoys by nature as it were, she possesses
others of great value which she owes to
grace-the grace of the politicians. Not
free grace exactly, but grace for consider
ation-given or expected
The result of all has been that she is now
enormously wealthy, while of all her vast