England, Canada and the Great War. Louis Georges Desjardins

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СКАЧАТЬ one in the Province of Quebec knew that participating in the war would entail heavy financial sacrifices, and that the taxation of the country would have to be largely increased to meet the new obligations we had freely decided to incur for the salvation of the Empire and of Civilization.

      The Government of the day proposed the financial measures they considered necessary to raise the public revenue which the circumstances required. Those measures were unanimously approved by Parliament. The taxpayers of the country, those of the Province of Quebec like all the others, willingly and patriotically accepted and paid without complaint the new taxes into the public treasury. During more than the three first years of the war, I visited a good part of the Province of Quebec, and addressed several large public meetings. Everywhere my attention was forcibly struck by the prompt willingness of my French Canadian countrymen to bear their share of the financial sacrifices Canada was called upon to make for the triumph of the cause of the Allies.

      CHAPTER IV.

      Recruiting By Voluntary Service

      No stronger evidence could be given of the determination of the country as a whole, and over all its component parts, to support Great Britain and her Allies to final success, than the truly wonderful record of the voluntary enlistment of more than four hundred thousand men, of all walks in life, to rush to the front.

      Recruiting in the Province of Quebec indeed started very well. Several thousands of French Canadian youth rallied to the colors. I hope and trust that, sooner or later, it will be possible to make a more satisfactory statistical record of the number of French Canadians who enlisted. I am fully convinced that the total is somewhat much larger than the figures usually quoted. It would surely be conducive to a better understanding of the case, if such statistical information was carefully prepared and made public. It is easily conceivable that the pressure of the work of maintaining the splendid Canadian army renders it perhaps difficult to attend actually to the details of that compilation. So we can afford to wait for the redress of figures which may constitute a wrong to the race second in numbers but equal to any in patriotism in Canada.

      Pending my remarks upon certain causes which have contributed to check recruiting amongst the French element in the Province of Quebec, I consider it important to mention those which were easy to ascertain and comprehend.

      It is a well known fact that early marriages are a rule in the Province of Quebec much more than in the other Provinces of the Dominion. As a natural consequence, the available number of young unmarried men for recruiting purposes was proportionately less. I myself have known parishes in our Province where half a dozen of unmarried young men from twenty years of age and upwards could not be found.

      It was easily to foresee that a comparison would be made between the number of Canadian-born volunteers in the English-speaking Provinces and that from the Province of Quebec. The degree of enthusiasm for enlistment in the other Provinces between the foreign born and the Canadian born has also been noticed. It has generally been admitted that most naturally the young men recently arrived in Canada were more strongly appealed to by all the sacred ties still binding them to their mother land. When generations have, for more than a century, enjoyed all the blessings of peace and lived far away from the turmoil of warlike preparations and military conflicts, is it to be much wondered at that the entire population is not at once permeated with the feeling of the dangers ahead, and do not rise rapidly to the full sense of the duty she is suddenly called upon to perform.

      My daily personal intercourse with hundreds of my French Canadian compatriots allowed me to realize that many of them, even amongst the leading classes, were over-confident that the Allies representing at the beginning the united effort of England, France and Russia, soon to be reinforced by Italy, breaking away from the Central Powers, would certainly be equal to the task of being victorious over German militarism. Repeatedly, before public meetings and in very numerous private conversations, I urgently implored my hearers not to be so deluded, doing my best to convince them that it would be a fatal error to shut our eyes from the truth, that the military power of Central Europe, comprising the two great Empires of Germany and Austria, Bulgaria, with the help of Asiatic Turkey, and the undisguised support of baneful teutonic influences and intrigues at the courts of Petrograd and Athens, was gigantic, and that the terrible conflict would surely develop into a struggle for life and death between human freedom and barbarism.

      This feeling of over-confidence was passing away, when it became evident that to triumph over the modern huns and their associates was no easy task; that the goal of freeing humanity from the threatening universal domination would require the most determined effort of the nations who had heroically undertaken to reach it.

      CHAPTER V.

      Intervention of Nationalism

      The great struggle being waged with increased intensity, it was daily becoming more and more evident that the Allied nations were bound to muster all their courage, perseverance and resources to successfully fight their determined foe. It was just at the thick of this critical situation, calling forth the devotion and patriotism of all, that the "Nationalist" campaign of false theories and principles was launched with renewed activity in the Province of Quebec.

      Mr. Henri Bourassa, ex-member of Labelle in the House of Commons, was, and still is, the recognized leader of the "Nationalist School" in our Province, and wherever it finds adherents. His personal organ, "Le Devoir," is daily expounding the doctrines of that School.

      In October, 1915, Mr. Bourassa issued a pamphlet of over four hundred pages entitled: – "What do we owe England?" – in French: – "Que devons-nous à l'Angleterre?"

      In the long overdrawn and farfetched argumentation of this volume, the author's effort is to try and prove that Canada owes nothing to England, that all those who favour the Canadian participation in the war are "revolutionists," that we are unduly paying a large tribute to the Empire.

      In 1916, Mr. Bourassa supplemented his first book with a second pamphlet, entitled: – "Yesterday, To-day, To-morrow," in French: – "Hier, Aujourd'hui, Demain," in which he amplified the views expressed in the preceding volume.

      I undertook to read Mr. Bourassa's works, and I must say that I was astonished at what I found therein. I felt very strongly that his erroneous views – without questioning their sincerity – were bound to pervert the opinion of my French compatriots, to enflame their prejudices, and to do a great deal of harm in promoting the ever dangerous conflict of race fanaticism. Over forty years of experience of public life had taught me how easy it is to introduce a prejudice in a man's mind, but how difficult it is to destroy it when once it has taken root.

      CHAPTER VI.

      What Do We Owe England?

      To this question raised by Mr. Bourassa, and argued at length by himself in the negative, I answered by a chapter of my book: – "L'Angleterre, le Canada et la Grand Guerre" – "England, Canada and the Great War."

      Great Britain, ever since she came to the conclusion that the days of the old colonial policy were passed, and agreed that we should freely govern ourselves, with ministerial responsibility, within the powers set forth in our constitutional charter, has scrupulously respected our political liberty. We have administered our own affairs at our own free will. The Imperial Government never attempted to interfere with the development of our federal politics. They would surely have declined such interference, if it had been asked for.

      As long as we form part of the British Empire, it is evident that we owe to England that loyalty which every colony owes to her mother-country. Granted by the Sovereign Power ruling Canada the freest institutions, having the best of reasons to be fully satisfied with our relations with Great Britain, we are in duty bound to СКАЧАТЬ