Читать книгу The Fair Dominion: A Record of Canadian Impressions онлайн

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My third acquaintance was a member of the Quebec Parliament, who started to chat quite informally, and having ascertained that I was fresh from the old country took me to his house, that I might drink Scotch whisky, and be informed that French Canadians loved the King and hated the Boer War. I think when a French Canadian does not know you well, he will always make these two admissions—but not any more—lest you should be unsympathetic or he should give himself away.

That is why, since the position of French Canadians in Canadian politics will some day be of the greatest importance, we ought all to be thankful for the existence of Mr. Bourassa. Mr. Bourassa is represented—by his opponents—as the violent leader of a small faction of French Canadians, as a trial to moderate men of all sorts, including the majority of his own French-Canadian fellow-citizens. All this is very true. In Canadian politics, as they stand at present, Mr. Bourassa stands for just that and very little more. Politically he is an extremist and a nuisance. But disregarding for a moment immediate practical politics, Mr. Bourassa stands for much more than that—stands indeed for the real essence of French Canada. He is the French Canadian in action, shouting on the house-tops what most of them prefer to dream of by the fire-side, insisting upon bringing forward ideas which the others would leave to be brought forward by chance or in the lapse of time.