The failings of human nature, the differences of temper, of the qualities and defects of heart and soul, are such that harmony and good-will amongst men in private life are too often difficult to secure. The Divine precept, so frequently broken, should, however, always rule the relations between man and man. It should, with still more constant application, rule the relations between different races Providentially called to live together on the same soil, under the same Sovereign authority, enjoying the same institutions, the same liberties, protected by the same flag. That the house divided against itself is sure to fall is true of the nation as well as of the home. National and family happiness and prosperity are alike dependent on the feelings of real brotherhood which prevail in both. Any good hearted man appreciates how much kindness of speech, courtesy of dealings, cordiality of manners, contribute to reciprocal good-fellowship, brotherly in the home, inspiring in the daily intercourse of citizens, patriotic in the nation at large. The more a Sovereign State is inhabited by numerous ethnical groups, like the British Empire and the American Republic, the more important it is that the freedom of expressing one's opinion on all matters of public interest should be used with fairness, with respect for those holding different views, with due regard for the feelings which are the natural outcome of racial developments, of cherished recollections, of legitimate hopes.

Such are the principles, I am most happy to say, that I have admired and try to practice in the exercise of my rights as a citizen of the Province where I saw the light of day, of Canada where I have lived and hope to live all my years, of the British Empire whose loyal subject I have been and am determined to remain to my last moment.

How then could I have helped being shocked when I came to read the following lines I translate as follows from page 121 of Mr. Bourassa's pamphlet:—"Yesterday, To-day, To-morrow":—

"Were the French Canadians to persist in their obstination to rot in colonialism and to consider that it is for them the happiest and the most glorious condition of existence, the English Canadians would force them out of it. Our countrymen of the British races have grave defects: they are IGNORANT, PRETENTIOUS, ARROGANT, SHORT-SIGHTED, DOMINEERING. They are, more than ourselves, ROTTEN WITH MERCANTILISM. They seem to have lost some of the best qualities of the English people, to have developed their faults and acquire many of the vices natural to the worst category of Yankees. But they have not, LIKE US, totally ABDICATED the PROUD CHARACTER and the PRIMORDIOUS RIGHTS of the British peoples. When the war is over, they will claim, like the Australians, the New Zealanders, and the Indians (les Hindous), a readjustment of the powers of government."

Thus, in a few lines the Nationalist leader, in appealing to his disordered imagination, has succeeded in slapping, in one single stroke, with dynamical outrages, the faces of the English-speaking Canadians of the three great British races, of our neighbours, the Yankees, and of his own compatriots, the French-Canadians. How could he expect that such vitriolic language would promote, in the Dominion, that harmony of feelings never before so essential as at the very time he was writing that injurious paragraph of his work, surely not intended to help winning the war so full of the greatest consequences, for good or ill, for the World, the British Empire, Canada, and our own Province of Quebec.

So far, Mr. Bourassa, having gone back on the admiration he was wont to profess for England, in his early youth, had reserved all his assaults for the English people. But the heart of man, once under the sway of an unlimited and unsatisfied ambition, is bound to drop to the lowest depths of the extremist's aberration. In the above quotation, he fires his battery of Kruppic dimensions—loaded with poisonous invectives, at the three great British races, English, Scotch and Irish, living in Canada.

Had his charge been intended for the English race alone, he would have been very particular in so saying. But, let there be no mistake about it, he deliberately wrote our countrymen of the British races. Wanting, I suppose, to prove his impartiality, he remembered that the United Kingdom is peopled by three illustrious races represented all over the globe by many millions of worthy sons, everywhere to be found hard at work for the intelligent development of the resources of the countries they live in and are rearing their children. More than four millions of them are Canadians by birth or born in Great Britain. Many more numerous they are in the United States where they form the solid stock upon which the future of the Republic is firmly grounded.

With the same thrust, Mr. Bourassa strikes at the Yankees who, we may hope, have not trembled too much at the blow. He charges them with having infested his poor countrymen of the British races with many of the vices natural to the worst category of "Yankeeism." Kind, cordial, courteous, indeed he was in such a mood of tender sympathies for the Canadian British races and their contagious cousins the Yankees of the most corrupted class!

However, the finest flower of the whole bouquet—the rose par excellence—is the one he has gallantly presented to his French-Canadian compatriots. He tells them with the sweetest tones of his charming voice that they are pleased and happy to rot in "colonialism." But, evidently wishing to speak to them a few encouraging words, he mildly reminds them that they are less rotten with "mercantilism" than their countrymen of the British races.

A man can be suffering less than his more sickly brother without, for all that, being in very good health. It is a poor consolation for the French Canadians to hear from the Nationalist leader that they are less infested with the mercantile virus than their brothers of the British races.

All those who have followed with some attention Mr. Bourassa's course for the last twenty years, know that he is an equilibrist of the first class. Having favoured the French Canadians with the flattering compliment as above, he turns about and lashes them with the sweeping slap that, contrary to the stand the Canadians of the British races cling to with an obstination which he deigns to approve, they, the degenerated French Canadians whom he pities so much, "have totally abdicated their proud character of old and the primordial rights of British subjects."

So, in Mr. Bourassa's opinion, his French Canadian compatriots are infested to a high degree both with the colonialist and mercantile corruptions. Hence, his fear that they are threatened with a premature national death if they do not at once listen to his brotherly warnings.

I have already answered the Nationalist leader's charge that the French Canadians are stupidly rotting in "COLONIAL ABJECTION." The same reasons refute his assumption that "COLONIALISM" is an abject status for a people.

A people, a race, who would enjoy living under the German autocratic colonial rule—for which the Nationalist leader has so little dislike—would indeed prove some disposition to rot stupidly in abjection. But the divers peoples, the different races, who appreciate all the beneficent advantages of the present British colonial rule, are of very superior stock. They know, from the clearest conception, that Monarchical democratic institutions are as much different from Imperial autocratic tyranny, as true broad patriotism is far above narrow and fanatical "Nationalism."

I have only to say a few words about the "ROTTENNESS OF MERCANTILISM" against which, according to Mr. Bourassa, the French Canadian are not sufficiently protected.

Going back to my recollections of the last sixty years, if there is a complaint which through all my life I have heard almost daily, with deep regret, it is that the French Canadians were not striving with sufficient energy and perseverance to achieve a better and larger position in the business world. Their leaders, religious, political and civil, to induce them to increased exertions, have always pointed to the example given them by their countrymen of the British races: by the clear headed and far-seeing English business man, the sturdy and hard working Scotch, the enterprising and witty Irish. Thank God, I have well enough understood my duty to do my humble but patriotic share to favour this progressive movement. Never, in so wisely advising the French Canadians, any one supposed for a minute that he was leading them to the infested pond of mercantile corruption. The change wished by all was becoming more urgent. All were looking for the best means to carry it out. Our leaders, having at their head, by right and merit, our religious chiefs under the authority of a prince of our Church, his Eminence the Cardinal-Archbishop of Quebec, took the initiative with an ever increasing interest in the success they considered so important.

The establishment of a permanent school of high commercial education and of several technical schools was most favourably approved. Political economy is even, in a certain measure, taught in several of our classical colleges for secondary education. The necessity for our young men of knowing the English language, to succeed in commercial, industrial and financial pursuits in Canada and in the neighbouring Republic, is more and more generally admitted. The French Canadians, fully enjoying the undoubted right to do so, aspire to achieve an advantageous and honourable position in commerce, in industry, in finance, in transportation, in mine working. The more we realize this goal of our legitimate ambition, the more we are also intensifying our efforts to promote agricultural progress and the improvement of our country roads.

If, in all the branches of our national activity, we obtain the success we hope for, one single man alone amongst us shudders at the idea that the French Canadians will blindly destroy their race with a mortal dose of the cursed "MERCANTILISM" so dishonourable to the British races.

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?