England, Canada and the Great War Part 22

Where one only sees _depraved_ beings more contemptible _than all those which any other country_ could produce or _forge_, the two others, so much superior in every way, admire, the first, THOSE WHO WENT TO DEFEND THE MOST JUST OF ALL CAUSES, THAT OF CIVILIZATION, OF RIGHT, OF HUMANITY; the second, THE SUPERNATURAL BEAUTY OF SACRIFICE THAT THEIR BROTHERS IN ARMS HAVE MADE OF THEIR LIVES TO THE JUSTICE OF G.o.d.

The pamphleteer cruelly attacks those who, to-morrow, will face with unfaltering courage the guns of the enemy to defend Civilization and avenge the martyrs of barbarity.

The sacred orator blesses the mortal remains of our sons who have fallen on the field of honour, on the soil of France, where our forefathers were born and bred, with the fervent prayer of their grateful country that knows they died heroically "FOR A GREAT CAUSE" TO DEFEND WHAT IS MOST VENERABLE ON EARTH: "OUTRAGED JUSTICE."

The following pages from a very eloquent Pastoral Letter by Bishop Emard, of the diocese of Valleyfield, will, I am sure, be read with most respectful interest by all. They are as follows:--

"Dear Brethren, we certainly have the right, and we even consider that it is for us all, citizens of Canada, loyal subjects of England, a duty to demand from G.o.d the success of the arms of our Mother-country and of her Allies in the present war. If we are not called upon, as a matter of faith, to pa.s.s judgment on the true causes of the war, and to divide the responsibilities respecting the calamity which covers Europe with blood, we are surely allowed to think and to say that all the circ.u.mstances actually known sufficiently prove that right is on the side of the peoples who have checked the invasion, and discouraged the overflowing of the enemy from his territory, in order that the sentiment of justice may serve to support the devotion of our soldiers, in this great conflict, called the struggle of Civilization against barbarism.

"The Church of Christ, always the same by her doctrine, has been marvellously const.i.tuted by the Divine Wisdom, to adapt her externally everywhere and always, to the infinitely varied circ.u.mstances consequent on the diversity of peoples, of governments, of social relations. She has never ceased to practice, by Her Pastors and her faithful children, the great lesson given by Christ: "=Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to G.o.d the things that are G.o.d's=," and to claim with the Apostle all the rights as well as accept all the duties of citizens and subjects."

After recalling that from the day _Divine Providence, in Her mysterious designs_, allowed Canada to pa.s.s from the French to the English Sovereignty, _the Church, by Her Bishops, has declared that, henceforth, it was the duty of the French Canadians to transfer to the British Crown, without reserve, the cordial allegiance which the King of France had hitherto received from them_, and that since then until the present days, the Canadian Episcopate has remained true to his course, Bishop Emard proceeds as follows:--

"We are then, very dear Brethren, in perfect communion of sentiments, action and language, with our venerable predecessors of the Canadian Episcopate, in asking you to-day to address to Heaven fervent prayers for the complete and final success of England and her Allies in the frightful war which is covering the earth with such unheard of horrors."

The Clergy, never forgetting Peter's word respecting the submission all are in duty bound to practice towards Kings as well as towards all those holding civil power, was always faithful in obeying the Episcopal directions never ceasing to deserve the eulogium which the Bishops expressed to the Pope in their favour.

"The French-Canadian people, so taught by words and examples, have given in all our history the admirable spectacle of a constant fidelity which circ.u.mstances more than once rendered highly meritorious. Such are the true religious and national traditions of our country. They have in our own days, as in the past, found the exact expression suggested by the situation.

"On the other hand, it appears to us a well established fact, and the most serious minds so proclaim everywhere, that the British Empire, together with France, martyred Belgium and their Allies are actually struggling for the defence of the peoples'

Rights and true Liberty. (Card. Begin.) Therefore, very dear Brethren, it must be acknowledged that Canada, herself threatened by the possibilities of a war fought with conditions heretofore unknown, has acted both wisely and loyally in giving, in a manner as generous as it was spontaneous, all the support in her power to the mother-country, England.

"The Catholics, and especially those of French origin, have not remained behind in this manifestation of true patriotism. If it was well to make a comparison between the other groups, from the standpoint of the free and generous partic.i.p.ation of all to the European war, it would be necessary, in the respective figures obtainable, to take into account several elements which are perhaps not sufficiently considered.

"But this is not the real question. It is sufficient to show and to note for historical authenticity that, with the encouragement and the blessings of their Pastors, and true to their constant tradition, the Canadian Catholics, as a whole, have, in this frightful conflict proved the perfect loyalty which is the sound expression of true patriotism, and which is blessed by the Church and by G.o.d.

"Thousands and thousands of our young men, for a large number of them at the cost of particular and most painful sacrifices, and in many cases, without being able to give to their race the benefit of their chivalrous devotion, have gone, oversea, to fight and die for the cause which was proved to them n.o.ble and urgent.

"Moreover, all over the country, the courage of our soldiers was echoed and answered by many active and important works characterized by charitable solidarity, and this universal co-operative and sympathetic movement must be supported by the sentiments of faith and piety.

"Since we are, at all costs, engaged in a disastrous war, the causes of which we have not to discuss and judge, but the consequences of which will necessarily reach our country, and since our Canadian soldiers are battling under the British flag, with the clear conscience of an honourable duty loyally and freely accepted, it is just, it is legitimate that our prayers do accompany them on the very fields of battles to support their courage, and that these prayers ascend to Heaven to implore victory for our armies."

Evidently the venerable Bishop of Valleyfield is far from believing, like the publicist whose errors we must all deplore, that in organizing a powerful army "_to go overseas to fight and die for the n.o.ble and urgent cause so proved to them_," the Canadian Parliament "_were forging for us a militarism without parallel in any other civilized country, a depraved and undisciplined soldiery, an armed scoundrelism, without faith nor law_."

The blessings of the Head of the Canadian Church and those of the whole Episcopate have consolated our brave volunteers for the outrages thrust at them, and have inspired them with the great Christian courage to forgive their author. The only revenge they have taken against their accuser has been to defend himself and his own against the barbarous Germans.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

RASH DENUNCIATION OF PUBLIC MEN.

A long experience of public life, whether by daily observation, begun in my early youth, when the Union of the Provinces was finally discussed, carried and established, or, subsequently, during many years of active political life as a journalist and member of the Quebec and Ottawa representative Houses, has taught me to judge the actions of responsible men, whether ministerialists or oppositionists, with great fairness and respectful regard. At all times the government of a large progressive country peopled by several races, of different religious creeds, is a difficult problem. It should not be necessary to say that in days of warlike crisis, of previously unknown proportions, like the present one, the task becomes almost superhuman. Anyone taking into serious consideration the very trying ordeal through which, for instance, the rulers of Great Britain and France have been, and are still pa.s.sing, since early in 1914, cannot help being indulgent for those who have the weighty and often crushing burden of the cares of State. Let so much be said without in the least contesting the right of free men to their own opinion about what is best to be done. But it was never more opportune to remember that the honourable privilege of const.i.tutional criticism must have for its only superior object the good of the country by improved methods.

We have reason to congratulate ourselves that this sound view has widely prevailed rallying almost as units great nations,--our own one of them--previously much divided in political thoughts and aspirations, for the n.o.ble and patriotic purpose of winning a disastrous war they were forced to wage, in spite of their most determined efforts to prevent it.

Public men, nations rulers, like all others are human and liable to fail or to be found wanting. Unconscious inefficiency, however desirable to remove, cannot be fairly cla.s.sed on the same footing as guilty failures.

The first may, more or less, injure the bright prospects of a country; the second stains her honour which an exemplary punishment can alone redeem.

But it is said with much truth that there are always exceptions to a general rule. That of the human heart to be fallible in public life, as well as in other callings, has met with only one solitary exception in Canada: the saintly Nationalist leader who will never have his equal, "nature having destroyed the mould when she cast him."

Considering the outrageous language he thrusted at the Canadians of the three British races and at our heroic volunteers, it is not to be supposed that he was so tender-hearted as to spare the public men, not only of Canada, but of all the Allied Nations.

When he affirmed that the real and only cause of the war had been, and was still, the voracious greed of capitalist speculators, especially of the two leading belligerents, Great Britain and Germany, united together to profit to the tune of hundreds of millions out of the production of warship building and materials of all sorts, was he not charging all the statesmen and leading politicians of all the peoples at war, of having bowed either consciously to the dictates of traitors to their countries, or of having been stupidly blind to the guilty manipulations of financial banditti?

It would take many pages only to make a summary of the injurious words he has addressed to the Canadian public men of all shades of opinion--with the only exception of the Nationalist--on account of the support they have given, in one way or another, to the Dominion's partic.i.p.ation in the war. He qualified as a _Revolution_ the policy by which we willingly decided to take part in the wars of the Empire whenever we came to the conclusion that England was fighting for a just cause.

On the 23rd of April, 1917, he wrote as follows:--

"_Very often we have shown the evident revolutionary character of the Canadian intervention in the European conflict._"

After repeating his absolutely absurd pretention, according to the sound principles of Const.i.tutional Law, that Canada could have intervened in the war as a "_nation_" he found fault with all and every one because "_we are fighting to defend the Empire_." He went on and said with his natural sweetness of language:--

"_The politicians of the two parties and the whole servile and mercenary press have applied themselves to this revolutionary work.... For a long time past the party leaders are the tools of British Imperialism and of_ BRITISH HIGH FINANCE."

And not satisfied with having thus slashed all the party leaders, all the chiefs of the State, he turns round, in an access of pa.s.sionate indignation, and charges not only all the leading social cla.s.ses, but even the Bishops, the worthy leaders of the Church, as the accomplices of the Imperialist revolution. He thrusts the terrible blow as follows:--

"_But what the war has produced of entirely new and most disconcerting, is the moral support and complicity which the_ "IMPERIALIST REVOLUTION"

_has found in all the leading social cla.s.ses_. BISHOPS, _financiers, publicists and professionals went into the movement with a unity, an ardour, a zeal which reveal the effective strength of the laborious propaganda of which Lord Grey has been the most powerful worker prior to the war_."

So that there should be no mistake about its true meaning, he favoured his readers with a very clear explanation indeed of what, in his opinion, has transformed our meritorious and loyal intervention in the war into a guilty revolutionary movement. He wrote as follows:--

"_But what the Imperialists wanted, and what they have succeeded in obtaining, was to bind Canada to the fate of England, in the name of the principle of Imperial solidarity and--as we shall see in a moment--to the cause of_ 'UNIVERSAL DEMOCRACY'."

Thus, in the Nationalist leader's opinion, it is a great crime to help England and her Allies to win a war the loss of which would most likely have destroyed the British Empire, involving our own ruin in the downfall of the mighty political edifice to be replaced, in the glorious shelter it gives to human freedom, by the triumphant German autocratic rule and its universal domination. It is, to say the least, an extravagant notion to pretend that the war has afforded the Imperialists the opportunity--eagerly seized--"_to tie Canada_" hand and foot, "_to the fate of England_."

If I am not mistaken--and I am positively sure I am right in so saying--Canada was bound to the fate of England the very day when--by Providential decree, in that instance as well as with regard to everything earthly--she pa.s.sed under British Sovereignty. The worthy leaders of our Church so considered--and have since unanimously considered--at once taking the sound Christian stand that the French Canadians were, in duty bound, to accept their new political status in good faith, and to loyally support their new mother country whenever circ.u.mstances would require their devoted help, whilst revering the old as every child must do, if he is blessed with a good heart, when separated by unforeseen events from the home of his happy youth.

I must acknowledge that with some of our French Canadians of the first cla.s.s and standing, the word "Democracy" savours with soreness. Well read in all that pertains to the great epoch of the first French tremendous Revolution, they abhor, with much reason, the extravagant and false principles of the BOLSHEVIKISM of those days, which culminated in the frightful period of the "terrorism" which, for three long years and more, kept its strong knee on France's throat, her fair soil flooded with the innocent blood of her children. They are apt to be laid to the confusion that democratic government is in almost every case, if not always, synonymous of revolutionary inst.i.tutions, in as much as it cannot, they believe and say, be otherwise than destructive of the principle of "Authority," certainly as essential as that of "Liberty,"

both as the necessary fundamental basis of all good governments.

Knowing this, the Nationalist leader, who has evidently abjured his liberalism of former days, which he was wont to parade in such resounding sentences, multiplies his efforts to capture the support of the few members of our most venerable Clergy whom he supposes labouring under the aforesaid delusion. He would not lose the chance of trading on their feelings and sincere conviction, in boldly declaring that his good friends, the cursed Imperialists, had managed to drag the Dominion through the mire of the European war by blandishing before the eyes of the Canadian people, so enamoured of their const.i.tutional liberties, the supposed dangerous spectre of "_universal democracy_."

If, in reality, democratic government could not help being either the "French revolutionary terrorism," of 1792-95,--which even frightened such a staunch friend of Political Liberty as Burke--or the Russian criminal bolshevikism of our own trying days, we would be forced, in dire sadness, to despair of the world's future, as Humanity would be forever doomed to ebb and flow between the sanguinary "absolutism"

either of "autocratic" or "terrorist" tyrants.

Happily, we can, in all sincerity, affirm that such is not the case. Is it not sufficient, as a most rea.s.suring proof, to point at the wonderful achievements of free inst.i.tutions, first, under the monarchical democratic system of Great Britain and her autonomous Dominions; second, under the republican regime of the United States.

After many long years of earnest study and serious thinking, I cannot draw the very depressing conclusion that the two basic principles of sound government--Authority and Liberty--cannot be brought to work harmoniously together for the happiness and prosperity of nations, as far as they can be achieved in this world of sufferings and sacrifices.

Such a conclusion would also be contrary to true Christian teachings, the Almighty having created man a free being with a responsible and immortal soul.

Nations who, forgetful of the obligations of moral laws, indulge in guilty abuse of their liberties, are, sooner or later, as individuals doing alike, sure to meet with the due Providential punishment they have deserved. But, also like individuals, they can redeem themselves in repenting for their past errors, due to uncontrolled pa.s.sions, and by resolutely and "FREELY" returning to the path of their sacred duty.

The Nationalist leader also deplores, as one of their guilty achievements, the fact that the "_war had ended all equivocals and consummated the complete alliance of the two parties_," to favour, as he a.s.serts, of course, the enterprises of the dreaded Imperialism.

True to the kind appreciation he has pledged himself to make of the inspiring dark motives actuating the conduct of public men, he sweetly added:--