And Mr. Bourassa, instead of heartily joining with all the leaders of his race—Cardinal, Archbishops, Bishops, priests, statesmen, political men, judges, professional men, merchants, manufacturers, financiers,—to favour, as much as possible, the commercial and technical training of his compatriots, sneers at such efforts which, in his candid opinion, are only plunging them in the irremediable depths of "MERCANTILE CORRUPTION"!
Are not such abominable teachings a curse to all those of the race to which they are addressed with an unsurpassed cynicism?
CHAPTER XXIX.
How Mr. Bourassa Paid His Compliments To The Canadian Army.
With a most admirable unanimity—nemine contradicente, as Parliamentary procedure says—the Canadian Parliament decided at once, at the very outbreak of the hostilities, to organize a great army to go and defend the Empire of which the Dominion is an important component part, and Civilization in peril from the Teutonic crushing wave of barbarism, let loose over Belgium and France. In the most evidently constitutional ways, the Canadian people, as a whole, as they had the right and the bounden duty to do, approved the decision of Parliament.
When Mr. Bourassa issued the pamphlets referred to, some four hundred thousands volunteers had already enlisted. A large number of them—over one hundred and sixty thousands had reached the western front—some the eastern—where they fought valiantly, heroically, on French soil, against the German hordes. Thousands of them had fallen on the field of honour, resting with imperishable glory, for them and for us all, in that ancestral land which we, and ever will, cherish.
More than one hundred and twenty-five thousands were on British soil, being trained for the military operations of the following spring.
The rest of the army, in numerous thousands, was still with us, getting organized for the noble task, and waiting to cross over the Atlantic to go on the field of battle.