The School Question in Canada
A PRESS dispatch from Ottawa, Canada, under date of March 3, says:— Not only is Premier Laurier confronted with a cabinet crisis, which has already caused the resignation of one minister, and may cause others to give up their portfolios, but Canada faces an outburst of religious fury that may shatter the confederation itself. The difficulty grows out of the incorporation into the bill for the organization of the northwest provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, of an alleged provision for the maintenance from the public funds of separate Catholic schools. The dispatch further says:— The storm now brewing looks serious for Canada. Because party lines have practically been wiped out, religious animosities—always present, even though generally latent, in this country—threaten the most dangerous kind of a division both in Parliament and among the electorate. One member of the Dominion Parliament is quoted as saying:— Rifles will be used in the northwest if the premier does not back down. Protestants will fight to a man. A revolution is certain unless the educational clause is withdrawn from the bill. It is further stated that “this is not the first time that the question of separate schools has agitated Canada, but the question has never been so serious as now.” A later dispatch states that the premier, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, “has advanced a view that possibly his own retirement is what the situation calls for, that he had decided to make way two years ago, when his health had been undermined, and that should there be further resignations, his own might accompany them. . . . It is evident that Sir Wilfrid will be forced to modify the educational clauses in his bill which practically forces separate schools on the prospective new Canadian provinces.” The present experiences in France, England, and Canada, where the plan is being tried of a partnership between the state and the church in the matter of education, ought to be a warning against any step in this country looking in the same direction. It is the teaching of the Author of Christianity, as well as the experience of history, that it is for the interest both of religion and of government that the two should be kept entirely distinct from each other.