Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Tragedy of Quebec: The Expulsion of Its Protestant Farmers
When I came to Huntingdon forty-four years ago the county, leaving out one of its municipalities, St. Anicet, was as solidly Protestant as any in Ontario. I have witnessed the decline of its Protestant population to the point of being in the minority. The same change, only in a more marked degree, has taken place in all the coun ties east of the Richelieu. Missisquoi, founded by U. E. Loyalists, has ceased to be Protestant. Drummond, wolfe, She?'ord may be said to be Catholic. The transformation has been going on with startling rapid ity during the past fifteen years. Often, when friends deplored the de parture of Protestant farmers, I heard them ask, Did the electors of the other provinces know what is happening to us in Quebec, would they not intervene? I thought of including testimony from residents of different sections as to the extent of the change going on, but desist cd on finding reluctance to putting their names to the information they gave me. This was no re?ection on these friends, for to make them selves known would be, in their several neighborhoods, to expose them to the malignity of the dominant power. The proof of the expulsion of Protestant farmers is abundant without individual evidence. It is palpable to the most unobservant. It is open to question whether this book will help the Protestant farmers. There is, however, no question as to the failure of the policy that has been pursued - the policy of fawning, of silence, of loud talk about tolerance, broad-mindedness, living in peace and harmony, - a policy most agreeable socially, in busi ness profitable, in public life the only road to preferment, but under which the Protestant farmers have gone on disappearing. Agitation on their behalf may fail to help. Them, but cannot make their situation worse. Viewing the immense resources of the church of Rome in Que bec, how its in?uence permeates every channel of life and bends every interest to advance its own, with no encouragement, from the other provinces, no offer to help them, it is not surprising that the Protestant farmers of Quebec have hithertomade no resistance. The expres 5 Onoften heard among them What's the use of butting our heads against a stonewall? We don t like it, so let us get out and leave the pro vince to them, represents their attitude. While Protestants form a smaller part of Quebec than they did, yet at no period have they con tributed so large a proportion of the revenue, either in customs duties or taxes imposed by the legislature. They are the chief taxpayers, yet it is a significant commentary on their policy of tame submission, that they never exercised less in?uence at Ottawa and Quebec. In the h0pe that a plain statement of the case of the Protestant farmers of Quebec will bring them help, and lead to such legal changes as will preserve those settlements that are still substantially intact, I have written this book. Doing so means to me loss of friends and loss of busi ness, so that nothing save a sense of duty actuate's me. I could not find a publisher, even in Toronto, and the printing, poor as it is, was effected at a sacrifice.
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