BROWN AND THE ROMAN CATHOLICS
That the _Globe_ and Mr. Brown, as related in a previous chapter,
became associated with Lord John Russell's bill and the "no popery"
agitation in England, may be regarded as a mere accident. The
excitement would have died out here as it died out in England, if
there had not been in Canada such a mass of inflammable material--so
many questions in which the relations of Church and State were
involved. One of these was State endowment of denominational schools.
During Brown's early years in Canada the school system was being
placed on a broad and popular basis. Salaries of teachers were
wretchedly low. Fees were charged to children, and remitted only as an
act of charity. Mr. Brown advocated a free and unsectarian system.
Claims for denominational schools were put forward not only by the
Roman Catholics but by the Anglicans. He argued that if this were
allowed the public school system would be destroyed by division. The
country could barely afford to maintain one good school system. To
maintain a system for each denomination would require an immense
addition to the number of school-houses and teachers, and would absorb
the whole revenue of the province. At the same time, the educational
forces would be weakened by the division and thousands of children
would grow up without education. "Under the non-sectarian system,"
said Brown, "the day is at hand when we may hope to abolish the
school-tax and offer free education to every child in the province."
Eventually it was found possible to carry out Mr. Brown's idea of free
education for every child in the province, and yet to allow Roman
Catholic separate schools to be maintained. To this compromise Mr.
Brown became reconciled, because it did not involve, as he had feared,
the destruction of the free school system by division. The Roman
Catholics of Upper Canada were allowed to maintain separate
denominational schools, to have them supported by the taxes of Roman
Catholic ratepayers and by provincial grants. So far as the education
of Protestant children was concerned Mr. Brown's advocacy was
successful. He opposed denominational schools because he feared they
would weaken or destroy the general system of free education for all.
Under the agreement which was finally arrived at, this fear was not
realized. In his speech on confederation he admitted that the
sectarian system, carried to a limited extent and confined chiefly to
cities and towns, had not been a very great practical injury. The real
cause of alarm was that the admission of the sectarian principle was
there, and that at any moment it might be extended to such a degree as
to split up our school system altogether: "that the separate system
might gradually extend itself until the whole country was studded
with nurseries of sectarianism, most hurtful to the best interests of
the province and entailing an enormous expense to sustain the hosts of
teachers that so prodigal a system of public instruction must
inevitably entail."
This, however, was not the only question at issue between Mr. Brown
and the Roman Catholic Church. It happened, as has been said above,
that on his first entry into parliament, the place of meeting was the
city of Quebec. The Edinburgh-bred man found himself in a Roman
Catholic city, surrounded by every evidence of the power of the
Church. As he looked up from the floor of the House to the galleries
he saw a Catholic audience, its character emphasized by the appearance
of priests clad in the distinctive garments of their orders. It was
his duty to oppose a great mass of legislation intended to strengthen
that Church and to add to its privileges. His spirit rose and he grew
more dour and resolute as he realized the strength of the forces
opposed to him.
It would be doing an injustice to the memory of Mr. Brown to gloss
over or minimize a most important feature of his career, or to offer
apologies which he himself would have despised. The battle was not
fought with swords of lath, and whoever wants to read of an
old-fashioned "no popery" fight, carried on with abounding fire and
vigour, will find plenty of matter in the files of the _Globe_ of the
fifties. His success in the election of 1857, so far as Upper Canada
was concerned, and especially his accomplishment of the rare feat of
carrying a Toronto seat for the Reform party, was largely due to an
agitation that aroused all the forces and many of the prejudices of
Protestantism. Yet Brown kept and won many warm friends among Roman
Catholics, both in Upper and in Lower Canada. His manliness attracted
them. They saw in him, not a narrow-minded and cold-hearted bigot,
seeking to force his opinions on others, but a brave and generous man,
fighting for principles. And in Lower Canada there were many Roman
Catholic laymen whose hearts were with him, and who were themselves
entering upon a momentous struggle to free the electorate from
clerical control. In his fight for the separation of Church and State,
he came into conflict, not with Roman Catholics alone. In his own
Presbyterian Church, at the time of the disruption, he strongly upheld
the side which was identified with liberty. For several years after
his arrival in Canada he was fighting against the special privileges
of the Anglican Church. He often said that he was actuated, not by
prejudice against one Church, but by hatred of clerical privilege, and
love of religious liberty and equality.
In 1871 Mr. Brown, in a letter addressed to prominent Roman Catholics,
gave a straight-forward account of his relations with the Roman
Catholic Church. It is repeated here in a somewhat abbreviated form,
but as nearly as possible in his own words. In the early days of the
political history of Upper Canada, the great mass of Catholics were
staunch Reformers. They suffered from Downing Street rule, from the
domination of the "family compact," from the clergy reserves and from
other attempts to arm the Anglican Church with special privileges and
powers; they gave an intelligent and cordial support to liberal and
progressive measures. They contributed to the victory of Baldwin and
Lafontaine. But when that victory was achieved, the Upper Canadian
Reformers found that a cause was operating to deprive them of its
fruits,--"the French-Canadian members of the cabinet and their
supporters in parliament, blocked the way." They not only prevented or
delayed the measures which the Reformers desired, but they forced
through parliament measures which antagonized Reform sentiment.
"Although much less numerous than the people of Upper Canada, and
contributing to the common purse hardly a fourth of the annual revenue
of the United Provinces, the Lower Canadians sent an equal number of
representatives with the Upper Canadians to parliament, and, by their
unity of action, obtained complete dominancy in the management of
public affairs." Unjust and injurious taxation, waste and
extravagance, and great increases in the public debt followed. Seeking
a remedy, the Upper Canadian Reformers demanded, first, representation
by population, giving Upper Canada its just influence in the
legislature, and second, the entire separation of Church and State,
placing all denominations on a like footing and leaving each to
support its own religious establishments from the funds of its own
people. They believed that these measures would remove from the public
arena causes of strife and heartburning, and would bring about solid
prosperity and internal peace. The battle was fought vigorously. "The
most determined efforts were put forth for the final but just
settlement of all those vexed questions by which religious sects were
arrayed against each other. Clergymen were dragged as combatants into
the political arena, religion was brought into contempt, and
opportunity presented to our French-Canadian friends to rule us
through our own dissensions." Clergy reserves, sectarian schools, the
use of the public funds for sectarian purposes, were assailed. "On
these and many similar questions, we were met by the French-Canadian
phalanx in hostile array; our whole policy was denounced in language
of the strongest character, and the men who upheld it were assailed as
the basest of mankind. We, on our part, were not slow in returning
blow for blow, and feelings were excited among the Catholics from
Upper Canada that estranged the great bulk of them from our ranks."
The agitation was carried on, however, until the grievances of which
the Reformers complained were removed by the Act of Confederation.
Under that Act the people of Ontario enjoy representation according
to population; they have entire control over their own local affairs;
and the last remnant of the sectarian warfare--the separate school
question--was settled forever by a compromise that was accepted as
final by all parties concerned.
In this letter Mr. Brown said that he was not seeking to cloak over
past feuds or apologize for past occurrences. He gloried in the
justice and soundness of the principles and measures for which he and
his party had contended, and he was proud of the results of the
conflict. He asked Catholics to read calmly the page of history he had
unfolded. "Let them blaze away at George Brown afterwards as
vigorously as they please, but let not their old feuds with him close
their eyes to the interests of their country, and their own interests
as a powerful section of the body politic."
The censure applied to those who wantonly draw sectarian questions
into politics, and set Catholic against Protestant, is just. But it
does not attach to those who attack the privileges of any Church, and
who, when the Church steps into the political arena, strike at it with
political weapons. This was Brown's position. He was the sworn foe of
clericalism. He had no affinity with the demagogues and professional
agitators who make a business of attacking the Roman Catholic Church,
nor with those whose souls are filled with vague alarms of papal
supremacy, and who believe stories of Catholics drilling in churches
to fight their Protestant neighbours. He fought against real tyranny,
for the removal of real grievances. When he believed that he had found
in confederation the real remedy, he was satisfied, and he did not
keep up an agitation merely for agitation's sake. It is not necessary
to attempt to justify every word that may have been struck off in the
heat of a great conflict. There was a battle to be fought; he fought
with all the energy of his nature, and with the weapons that lay at
hand. He would have shared Hotspur's contempt for the fop who vowed
that "but for these vile guns he would himself have been a soldier."