SIR ANDREW MACPHAIL'S "FACTS." [To THE EDITOR OP THE "
SPECTATOR."]
Slit,—As one who admires the Spectator for the courage it dis- plays on public questions I cannot allow the statements made by Sir Andrew Macphail, in your issue of April 17th, to go with- out reply. Every person in Canada who has a knowledge of the facts would regard his letter as a caricature of the condi- . tions in the Province of Quebec. He says Quebec is not alone among the Canadian Provinces that opposed conscription. The fact is that it is the only Province in Canada that sent an anti-conscription majority to the House of Commons. The other Province to which he refers is evidently Prince Edward Island. That Province has four Members in the House, two of whom are conscriptionists, and two anti-conscriptionists. But Quebec sent 62 anti-conscriptionists to the House of Commons out of a total of 65 Members. Moreover, •there are 2,000,000 French Canadians in Quebec, and there were only 7,000 enlisted for the war out of that enormous population. This statement is from the official records of the Minister of Militia at the time the Military Service Act was put in force. After that Act of conscription was passed you will remember riots took place in the city of Quebec, and the records which had been gathered for the purpose of enforcing the Military Service Act were destroyed by the mob. The young men of that Province, encouraged by their clerical leaders, escaped to the woods by thousands. Some of them took two years' provisions with them so determined were they not to serve in the Army.
The city of Toronto, a part of which I represent in the House of Commons, with a population of 500,000, sent 65,000 men to the war, and they were volunteers. The war record of Quebec is as bad as that of the South of Ireland, or worse, a fact that is as well known to Sir Andrew Macphail as it is to myself. The percentage of desertions and evasions under the Military Service Act was enormously greater in that Province than in any other.
As to the question of education, figures were given in the House of Commons on April 19th of this year showing that while in the Province of Ontario, with 2,500,000 population, there are 30,355 illiterates among the British and Canadian born; in the Province of Quebec, with 2,000,000 of population, there were 70,679 illiterates among the British and Canadian
born. It must be remembered also that the British born form an almost infinitesimal part of the population in the Province of Quebec, so that those 70,679 are nearly all natives of the Province of Quebec. About two years ago Canon Huard, of Chicoutimi, told a representative of the New York Times in an interview, that in Quebec the opinion was held that toe much education was not good for the people of his Province; that all they should have was enough to read their Sunday papers and keep their farm accounts. That Province has not got a compulsory school attendance Act, and it is only within the last year that a uniform system of text-books has been put into use.
I do not desire to go into the other questions raised, but surely a people cannot he called tolerant who do not permit the Salvation Army to hold open-air meetings, and who adopt civic by-laws under which colporteurs selling the Scriptures are arrested. Industrially the Province of Ontario surpasses Quebec) in the volume of its products and the efficiency of its workmen. And when Sir Andrew Macphail says that the Church of Rome does not interfere in politics he evidently forgets those occa- sions when the Bishops have issued their mandments threaten- ing their followers with spiritual penalties if they did not vote as directed by the hierarchy.
I read your review of Mr. Stutfield's book, and I assure yon upon my reputation as a Canadian public man that everything he said was well within the mark. I think it only fair to the other Provinces of Canada that you should, at least, permit me to make this reply to the misleading statements you printed over the signature of Sir Andrew Macpliail.—I am. Sir, &c., H. C. Hamm, M.P.
House of Commons, Canada, May 5th, 1920.
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