Early in January, 1917, a remarkable dinner was held in Toronto, the
first of its kind ever held in that city of Orange Walks. Protestants
and Catholics sat side by side. They applauded the same sentiments.
Orator after orator dug into the mines of national idioms. They
cracked jokes and told stories and worked up climaxes. The three
hundred rose again and again with glasses of orangeade, and
Apollinaris, toasting--Quebec, Ontario, and United Canada. They waved
napkins and cheered and sang again and again "For he's a jolly good
fellow". A Methodist minister sat at the back of the room next a
Congregationalist preacher and pretended to unwrap a _de luxe_ cigar.
Orangemen sat at the same table with Catholics. Macs hobnobbed with
'eaus. They autographed one another's menus. The books of songs were
bilingual--French and English. "God Save the King" was sung in both
languages. "O Canada" was done in French. Methodist orators vied with
French speakers. Col. George Denison sat next Gen. Lessard. They
fraternized as soldiers. The Methodist local-preacher Premier of
Ontario sat with the Roman Catholic Premier of Quebec. Sentiment ran
high. But no French-Canadian was so emotional as N. W. Rowell, who
glorified the heroes of Courcellette; and no Anglo-Canadian was quite
so stolid, serious and impressive with homely common sense as Sir Lomer
Gouin, the Premier of Quebec. This man spoke slowly, massively, almost
gutturally like a Saxon, in fluent but accented English. He was far
less excitable than the Premier of Ontario on the same subject:
THE RACE UNITY OF CANADA
PREFIGURED IN
THE BONNE ENTENTE
Three hundred public-spirited men of whom eighty came from Quebec were
as one family on this.
At one in the morning the concomity broke up. Not a drop of vin or
liqueur in any form had been served. The enthusiasm was, therefore, as
natural as the tide of the St. Lawrence, which in the form of the great
lakes and Niagara does its best to put its arms round the neck of
Ontario before it cuts through the heart of Quebec. To the pure
imagination it was somewhat as though a procession of St. Jean Baptiste
had suddenly dreamed it was an Orange Walk.
This unusual Entente was held between the rancours of the bilingual
dispute of 1916 and the Quebec revolt against conscription in 1917.
Those present who doubted the sincerity of passionate speakers anchored
a timidly steadfast hope to the practical, broad-angled Premier of
Quebec, who, had he sat between Mr. Bourassa and the Premier of
Ontario, would have inclined his ear to Ontario.
Nothing is more certain than that four French-Canadian leaders, had
they been given or had they asked for the opportunity and had acted
together, could have put a different face on Quebec's relation to the
war. Four men namable in that capacity are, Sir Lomer Gouin, Sir
Wilfrid Laurier, Ernest Lapointe, and Cardinal Begin. Of these, Gouin
was at that time the most able. For ten years he had been
uninterruptedly Premier of Quebec with a moral guarantee that he could
occupy the Premiership by an overwhelming majority until he should be
gathered to his fathers.
Again and again rumour slated Sir Lomer for Ottawa. He wisely
declined. He had a peasant's attachment to "le pays" and its white
villages. In Quebec he was the Chief of Ministers, the little elected
father of his country. In Ottawa he would have been perhaps a grand
Minister of Public Works building docks in Halifax, customs houses in
British Columbia, post-offices on the prairies, armouries in Ontario
and court-houses in Quebec. Yes, there would be surely armouries in
Ontario.
I met Sir Lomer but once, in his office in the Parliament Buildings.
There was no particular reason for seeing him except the pleasure of
encountering a descendant of the people who so gallantly fought under
Montcalm so that posterity could enjoy a city in part exclusively
English and for the most part idiomatically French. A few evenings
previous I had talked on the Terrace to a glowing Nationalist, a young
expert in cynical idealism, who spoke very curtly about the Premier.
An ardent patriot, he talked freely and interestingly, as we gazed out
at the blue-hazed domes of the noble hills that mark the valley of St.
Lawrence. The roofs of Old Lower Town were sizzling in heat. Drowsy,
lumber-laden bateaux and ocean-liners crept and smoked about the docks.
Beyond the grey-scarped citadel the vesper bells of parish after parish
clanged a divine discord into the calm of the great river.
"What do you think of Gouin?" I asked him.
A cynical smile flicked over the Nationalist's face. For a moment he
did not answer.
"Pardonnez-moi," I mumbled. "I am Anglais."
"Oh!" he said, sharply, laughing. "Have you seen the Montcalm suite in
the Chateau here? Do so. The C.P.R. discovered an old bed and some
creaky chairs said to have been used by the great general. They placed
them in a suite of rooms which they rent to curiosity-hunting Americans
who sentimentalize over history at twenty-five dollars a day. Such is
Quebec when she is commercialized into a highway for tourists."
"But what has that to do with Sir Lomer Gouin?"
"Directly--nothing. Sir Lomer is not even a director of the C.P.R., or
of the Bank of Montreal, though one never knows what he may do with his
money and his talents when he gets tired of manipulating elections."
"Oh, you mean that Gouin--does not reflect the idealism of Quebec; its
love of the land that bore our fathers, its poetic isolation among the
provinces----?"
He blew a shaft of cigarette smoke.
"Sir Lomer," he said, "is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the
Province of Quebec. His chief duty is to go about inspecting and
improving properties and to sit at directors' meetings declaring
provincial dividends instead of deficits."
I remarked that since Quebec is so prosperous and so large and populous
with so many cradles, the Premier need not perhaps vex himself deeply
about ideals such as the French language in schools outside the
province.
"What!" was the reply, as a glass banged upon the table. "Would you
cage us in here like Indians on a reservation? Has the French-Canadian
nation no rights outside Quebec?"
"What would you do?" I asked him. "What could you do?"
"Secede!" he exclaimed. "Become the Sinn Fein of Canada."
"What about the Pope of Rome?"
"Has as much to do with Quebec," he laughed icily, "as the President of
France. If the Pope should issue instructions to the bishops of
Quebec, asking the clergy to educate the people of Quebec on their duty
to go to war or to vote for either of the old line parties, the people
would openly disregard them. We would as much resent the interference
of Rome in our affairs as the American colonies did the tyranny of
George the Third."
Here was the superb inconsistency of the French mind wedded to a single
magnificent idea. This Nationalist admitting the possibility of
secession, made sure that it would not be to the United States which
puts the French language on a par with Choctaw. When I suggested as a
recipe for national unity that French and English be learned by both
English and French all over Canada, he flouted the idea of
French-Canadians learning more English than they needed in business,
and of English-Canadians learning French at all. He fervently held to
the Keltic notion of making a preserve of the French-Canadian race,
language, literature and customs whatever may become of the religion;
yet he objected to penning the race into a reservation like the
Indians. He observed that in 1911 the Nationalists bucked reciprocity
with the United States.
"I think we should become an independent republic," he said as he
plopped a fresh cigarette. "We have the main part of the St. Lawrence.
No, you will not find Gouin say so. Gouin is a Tory prefect. He plays
politics, not nationalism."