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TRADITION TRADUCED

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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 9, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 47.

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TRADITION TRADUCED.

By The Examiner

FEW persons in this country who read the brief statement in the daily press of last week, that the Canadian Government had paid the Jesuits' claims, understood the significance of the act. In fact there has been little interest in the great popular upheaval that has been going on in the Dominion for the past half year discoverable in the United States, and yet events of grave importance have been taking place. The initiation in the new order of things was taken two years ago, when the Legislature of Quebec passed an act incorporating the Society of Jesus in the Province. This action made little disturbance in Quebec, for the Province was so thoroughly Catholic in sentiment that any measure to promote the interests of the Romish Church would meet with little opposition and heavy support. But although Quebec did not become dangerously factious over the passage of the act, the Dominion at large was fired with indignation. The Province of Ontario took the lead in the fierce opposition to the act. The liberal and independent press clamored for a subversion of the act by the Dominion Parliament, and the Orange Order showed signs of resorting to violence unless the odious claims were canceled.
In due course of time the question came up in Parliament. According to rule the act was to lie before the chief Dominion Government for one year before final action was taken upon it. But popular feeling was so intense that efforts were made to hurry things on. These efforts were successful, and discussion of the act was put upon the order of the day. The issue was a constitutional one, involving the decision of the character of the Quebec act as to whether it affected the whole Dominion or only the special Province. On this the Parliament was divided. Those in favor of disallowance based their argument on the fact that any recognition of the pope's authority in Canada was anti-national; furthermore, the payment of the claims was a violation of the national policy, inasmuch as it placed one religious body in an inequality relation to other denominations.
On the other hand, those favoring allowance maintained that the act was purely local, it did not recognize the authority of the pope, reference being only made to him, as it were, for 'politeness' sake; he "was simply called upon to act as an arbitrator between the disputants in a matter in which the interests of the church were involved." A question of this kind coming up under our government would have been referred to the Supreme Court; but Canada having no such institution, the matter must be settled by a "parliamentary division." The division was taken, and out of a total vote of 201 only 13 voted for disallowance. The Quebec act was thus sustained, and the sum of $400,000 was to be paid to the Jesuits, and the Laprarie Common restored to them, upon the condition, however, that the Order abandon totally and perpetually all claims to the estates which became in 1791 the property of the crown when the Order was suppressed. Sixty thousand dollars were paid to the Protestants as a "sop." The confiscation by George III. was made just eighteen years after the suppression of the Order by Clement XIV., in 1773. In 1804 Pius VII. re-established the Order. Upon this act the Canadian Jesuits based their present claims.
The Parliament's action can be explained on no other than on party grounds. The ruling consideration in the minds of the supporters of the act was the acquisition of political patronage from the French Catholics, whose numbers and influence are not to be treated lightly. The Prime Minister's observation that the government did not recognize any civil obligation for the payment of the claims, but simply a "moral obligation," will not bear close examination. The facts viewed impartially show that the Parliament has acted at variance to the traditional Constitution under which it exists, and has given a weapon into the hands of the Canadian Catholics that may at no late day be turned against it.—The Examiner.