Would that be agreeable to you, gentlemen, to have only one hour of English in your school, and that confined to reading, composition and grammar, and nothing else, and just one hour—and more than that if it pleased the Superintendent of Education to say that you should have English for one minute only each day, would you be satisfied with that? That is Regulation No. 17 in all its simplicity!
Are you surprised, gentlemen, that the French-Canadians of Ontario have strenuously protested and intend to continue to do so, and have asked the support of the Province of Quebec under conditions of that kind? We have sought the support of our French-Canadian friends in the Province, and we have got it; but I for one am very much more anxious to have the sympathy and the help of the English-speaking people of the Province of Quebec. If I accepted the invitation to come here within half an hour after getting the telegram from my good friend Mr. Paradis, it was because I thought that I might contribute in some small way to assist my English-speaking friends in the Province of Quebec to a proper understanding of the real meaning and object of this very troublesome question.
Perhaps you may think it impertinence on my part, but will you not allow me to say that you owe it to yourselves first of all to look carefully into this matter. To-day it is a question in Ontario, but to-morrow it may be a question in Quebec. Don't you owe it to yourselves to consider this most carefully? But, to put it on a higher ground—because I have unbounded confidence in the feelings of justice and fair play of the Protestants in the Province of Quebec—don't you owe it to us French-Canadians, in both Provinces, to come to our assistance in the Province of Ontario, where we are seeking the preservation of our most elementary rights? I think you owe it also to Canada, to Confederation, to take a part in this matter. I am not trying to convince you of something which is not right or just or fair, but convince yourselves, gentlemen, look into these questions, and if you are not satisfied with the explanations that I have given, come to me, or go to some one else in whom you may have more confidence, and find out—learn about it all. Permit me also to say to you, with all the solemnity and earnestness of which I am capable, that it is your duty, because the present is as grave and as dangerous a situation as ever arose in Canada. I say Quebec is as much a partner in Confederation as the other provinces. Confederation is a partnership in which we are all jointly and severally responsible for the performance of duties and obligations assumed by every one of the provinces, and for that reason I am sure—I hope at all events—that you will agree with me, that it is incumbent upon you to look into this very serious matter and do what you can to bring about a just settlement of it.
Nay more, I say in the interests of the Empire—and I am one of those who believe in some form of a united Empire—though no one seems to have yet found the formula, yet I hope it will be found some day—is it not necessary that we should first have national unity, Canadian unity, before we can seriously consider Empire unity? How are you going to bring it about? And is national unity, in Quebec, in Ontario, in Canada, or the British Empire, dependent upon unity of language? How shall we have a united Empire if all parts must speak the English language? How and when are you going to change the 144 dialects of India into English? Then there are Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, and other places where French is spoken. And what about South Africa? Here is a colony which a few years ago was under arms against England, and did everything it could do to break the British power. When the time came for England to deal with the Boers she treated them not with her ancient generosity only, but with a measure overflowing—she treated the Boers in a way in which we are not treated in the Province of Ontario. To-day in the Boer States the Boer language and the English language are on an absolute equality. They do not have to ask a superintendent or any one else for one hour a day in the school to learn their national language. And are we, the French-Canadian people, the descendants of the race who colonized not only this country but a large portion of the North American continent, who explored it from Hudson's Bay to the Gulf of Mexico and from the St. Lawrence to the Rocky Mountains, to leave behind us and bury for ever, a history which has never been surpassed anywhere in the world, for courage, devotion and heroism; are we the descendants of these men, in this Canada of ours, to be deprived of the use of the language of our forefathers? Are we to be told that in order to have a united Canada and a Empire we must forever renounce and deny our origin, our traditions and our beloved language? I ask you, gentlemen, is there any man in the city of Quebec, any Protestant or English-speaking man, who would not despise me if I threw all this to the winds? If I did so I would richly deserve your supreme contempt and you would not be slow in extending it to me—and yet this is what we are asked to do.
And was there ever a time, gentlemen, less than the present, when Frenchmen any where in the world, let alone in Canada, could be asked to forget their origin and their language? When the France of 1915 and 1916 has compelled the unbounded admiration of the whole world for her sublime courage and devotion. And yet we are asked, we who speak the same language as the men, our full brothers who have fought so nobly in the trenches in Flanders, whose defence of the Verdun forts is the finest and most glorious event of the present horrible war, to forego our French language and all that it carries with it, we are told that our children cannot learn it, and must despise it and allow it to die an unnatural death in Canada. I ask you, my English-speaking friends of the Province of Quebec, will you not come to our rescue and look into this question? I believe that there is not one who has done me the honor to listen to me to-day, and who will take the trouble to seriously ponder over the matter, but will say: Yes, I am going to help our French-Canadian friends in Ontario to solve this question and obtain justice and British fair play.
I hope the appeal which you have permitted me to make to you will bear some fruit, and that the interest, the influence and the sympathy of the English-speaking minority in the Province of Quebec will be aroused, and that you will take such steps as you may think proper to bring about a solution of a question which, I repeat, is of the very gravest character, a question which, if not solved promptly, will bring about—I dare not say what—I would rather let you draw your own conclusions. We French-Canadians of Ontario have done all we can in the Province of Ontario to enlighten public opinion. But all in vain. There is not one English newspaper in the Province of Ontario which has printed or paid the slightest attention to any of the arguments which for four years we have advanced. All our literature has been thrown in the waste-paper basket—not one newspaper has taken the trouble to investigate the question. Our arguments have been met with nothing but contempt and abuse.
Now, I say again, I, for one, wish to appeal as earnestly, as solemnly as I can, to you English-speaking Protestants and Catholics of the Province of Quebec, for your help and succor in the solution of this momentous situation. I wish to again offer you my most grateful thanks for your very kind attention and indulgence.
The Honorable Mr. JUSTICE McCORKILL:—Mr. Chairman and Senator Belcourt, fellow-members of the Quebec Canadian Club. When I left the Court House to come here, I had not the faintest idea that I was going to be singled out for the duty of moving a vote of thanks for the lecturer of to-day. I came here because I am a Canadian, because I think I have a proper appreciation of the French race and the French language, and thirdly because I have known Senator Belcourt for a good many years. We were students at the same time—I am sorry to have told you that, because you will think that he is older than he really is—and I knew that what we would hear to-day would be worth hearing.
The English Canadians of the Province of Quebec have been puzzled—I mean the English-Canadians native-born, those who have been brought up with the French-Canadians, who have spoken with them in their language, who have played with them in their school grounds, as I have done, on the lacrosse fields, who have served with them in the ranks of the militia, and in the Legislature.
I am sorry that I was not given warning of the task that was before me. I came here determined to listen, and I have listened. Nothing has gone through my mind as to what I am to say, except to express my humiliation to think that we English-Canadians here have listened to a French lecturer who can speak our language as well as his own, as well as we can ourselves. Of how many of us could the same be said with regard to the French language?