In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

PREFACE UNDER FRENCH RULEin Canada the Society of Jesusacquired, by grants or by purchase, well over half a million acres of land along the St. Lawrence River. The question of the disposition of its holdings was a knotty one for over a century after the British Conquest was recognized by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Much of the trouble in later years arose from misinterpretation of the detailed history of the estates duringthe four decades immediately after the Conquest. The capitulatory articles of 1760 in favour of the proprietary rights of the Jesuits initiated the confusion. It becameprogressively confounded by the suppression of the Order by European Catholic rulers a decade before its suppression by the Pope in 1773 ; also by the British decisionto suppress the Order and confiscate its properties, by the efforts of Jeffery, Lord Amherst, to secure possession of the estates, by strong efforts of the people of the province to have the estates devoted to education, and by the extensive provincial investigation of the estates. Between 1800, when the last Canadian Jesuit died and the British government took formal possession of the estates, and 1832, the provincial government, after many vain efforts, finally got control of the revenuesof all the properties, except the college, to be used for education. From 1832 to 1841 the Assembly continued to agitate for the restoration of the college, which was used by Imperial troops as a barracks, and made numerous protests against the management of the estates by a commissioner appointed by the executive and not responsible to the Assembly. The old college was not restored, but renewed pressure, after the reunion of Upper and Lower Canada in 1840, led to a decision in 1856to use the revenues of the other estates exclusively for education in Canada East, a decision that might have been a lasting one had not the Order been restored by the Pope in 1814 and recalled to Canada by Mgr Bourget in 1842 to carry on its dual ministry of education and evangelization. The financial needsofits newly established college,CollègeSainte-Marie, in Montreal made it urgent for the Order to secure the return of the estates or a monetary compensation for their loss. The Jesuits' attempts were blocked not only by successive governments but by a part of the Canadian Church hierarchy that stoutly maintained that the estates rightfully belonged to the Canadian Church after the suppression of the old Order. Rivalries between Collège Sainte-Marie, backed by a part of the hierarchy, and Laval University, supported by an even more influential part, compounded the difficulties involved in the question of the proprietorship of the estates. When a government came to power, led by Honoré Mercier, that was sympathetic to the claims of the Jesuits and committed to a belated compensation for the loss of the estates, the disagreements within the ecclesiastical ranks of the Church in Canada made it necessary to accept the intervention of the Pope himself as an arbitrator regarding the receipt and distribution of the award. The "Act Respecting the Settlement of the Jesuits' Estates" was passed by the Quebec legislature in 1888 without Vlll PREFACE any major dissent, but the matter did not end there. The large amount awarded and the Pope's role in its distribution aroused a political storm in the Dominion the following year which, as the Toronto Globe remarked, could have shattered the union of the provinces. The agitation whichthe Actprovokedwasthe evilfruit ofmisinformation, ignorance, and religious bigotry, and it did indeed seriously endanger the unity of the country. Vain efforts to secure disallowance through the Cabinet, the Dominion Parliament, the governor-general, and the British Crown itself were followed each in turn by mammoth protest rallies, furious political pulpiteering, threats of a third party, and a generousdistribution ofanti-Jesuit,anti-papal, and anti-Catholic tracts and pamphlets. Though voices of moderation ultimately prevailed, such phrases as these were repeatedly used :"insidious encroachments ofRomanism" ;"endowment ofthe Jesuits"; "Jesuit aggression in America"; "a foreign potentate"; "smashing of theConfederation "; "Roman Catholic briars and Jesuitical thorns"; "iniquitous measure"; "papal yoke" and "papal bondage"; "abject servility to the pope"; and "pandering to Rome by both our political parties." Protestant clergymen and other agitators repeated the question, "Which sovereign, the Queen or the Pope?" The agitation was not without a trace of humour, as in such advertisements as: "The Jesuit Question is Agitating the Public but the sensation of the day is how The Wonderful Cheap Man Can Sell a...

Share