38. JESUIT ESTATES ACT. This meas ure, passed by the legislature of Quebec in gave rise to an agitation which occupied public attention throughout all parts of Canada during the following year and for a time threat ened to bring about a reconstruction of political parties. Under the French regime, which ended in 1763, the Jesuits had owned considerable landed estates at various points in the valley of the Saint Lawrence—particularly at Quebec, Montreal and Laprairie. After the conquest of Canada by the English the religious orders were permitted to retain the property which they held under grant from the French Crown or by other legal title, with the exception of the Jesuits. This order had been banished from France, 1767, and was suppressed generally by the papal brief Dominus ac Redeniptor (1773). Although General Amherst brought influence to bear upon the government to secure for him self the estates of the Jesuits in Canada, his efforts proved unsuccessful. Despite personal pressure and the papal brief the robes' at Montreal and Quebec were not immediately molested by the British authorities who re frained from taking over their property until the death of Father Casot, the last remaining member of the Society. This event occurred in 1800. Once possessed of the Jesuits' estates the Crown had to determine what should be done with them, and after a certain amount of indecision it was decided that their income should be used for the support of education in the province of Lower Canada. In vain the Roman Catholic bishops maintained the legality of the Church's claim to the property. The government stood its ground and appropriated the revenues.
From having been originally assigned to Lower Canada, the Jesuits' estates passed at Confederation (1867) into the hands of the province of Quebec. It was found, however, by the local government that their actual value was impaired by the ecclesiastical claims which stood against them. The bishops did not cease to protest against their retention by the state and the Jesuit order, revived under papal war rant, defended the justice of its own title. Had these lands been situated in a Protestant com munity the representations of bishops and Jesuits might have carried little weight, inas much as they could not be vindicated by an appeal to the courts, but where the mass of the population was Catholic the reiterated claims of the Church had their effect upon the market. After Confederation the rent of the property decreased until it became almost negligible in comparison with the valuation, and when the government sought to effect a sale no purchaser could be found. In 1887 after the question had been put off by several preceding administra tions, Mr. Merrier, a French Nationalist of pronounced views, endeavored to effect a final settlement of it. Whatever the motives which actuated him, to criticize them would be to raise a matter of opinion. He introduced a bill which gave $400,000 to the Roman Catholic Church as compensation for theproperty which the Crown had seized in 1800.. This sum was,
for the moment, to constitute a special deposit which eventually should be distributed by the Pope in return for a relinquishment of all claims to the Jesuits' estate! that had been ad vanced by the bishops or by the Jesuits them selves. As a matter of fact the Pope divided the money between the Jesuits, the bishops and Laval University, but in the meantime this rec ognition of his right to allot what were consid ered public funds among members of his own Church drew forth cri's of remonstrance from a large number of Protestants. A simultaneous grant of $60,000 to Protestant schools in Quebec did not allay the feeling of hostility.
It should be observed that two distinct ques tions were raised by the agitation which pro ceeded from the Jesuits' Estates Act. The first had its root in the opposition of religious sys tems; the .tt_,11,1 ?\ due to Federal char acter of the Canadian constitution. In 1888, Colonel O'Brien, a Protestant member of the House of Commons, proposed that the Dominion Parliament should disallow the action of the Quebec legislature in appealing to the Pope and setting aside $400,000 as a subsidy to Roman Catholic institutions. The debate which fol lowed was marked by a series of able and ag gressive speeches from all quarters of the House. The chief supporter of Colonel O'Brien's motion was Mr. Dalton McCarthy, while against him were ranged the Premier, Sir John Macdonald, and Mr. Laurier, the leader of the Opposition. On the one side an appeal was made to the alleged political misdeeds of the Jesuits throughout the whole course of their history and to their expulsion from the chief countries of the civilized world. On the other, it was maintained that the Dominion Parliament could not, without extreme danger, disallow provincial legislation and that "the subject-mat ter of this act was one of provincial concern, only having relation to a fiscal matter entirely within the control of the legislature of Quebec.° The vote of 188 to 13 against Colonel O'Brien's motion conveys but a faint idea of the public interest in this debate and in the issues which lay behind it. The fundamental claim of the extreme t 'rot, ,t,i, party was that recognition of papal authorit, and the encouragement of the Jesuits were direct blows at British free dom; while the leaders of both parties united to point out the constitutional dangers which would accompany disallowance.
Outside the House of Commons the agita tion caused by the Jesuits' Estates Act led to the formation of an °Equal Rights° party which was recruited from the ranks of the more pro nounced Protestants. It proved impossible, however, to break down existing political lines by giving central importance to an anti-Catholic movement. Despite many public meetings and an active campaign in the newspapers, the at tack upon the Jesuits' Estates Act has left no lasting trace upon party organization in Canada.