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toba to restore to the minority the following alleged rights :

(a) The right to build, maintain, equip, manage, conduct and support Roman Catholic schools in the manner provided for by the said statutes which were repealed by the two acts of 1890 aforesaid.

(b) The right to share proportionately in any grant made out of the public funds for the purpose of education.

(c) The right of exemption of such Roman Catholics as contribute to Roman Catholic schools from all payment or contribution to the support of any other schools.

For all practical purposes they required that the statutes repealed by the legislation of 1890 should be re-enacted so far as Roman Catholics are concerned, and that the system of education embodied in the act of 1890, and declared by the Judical Committee to adequately supply the wants of the great majority of the inhabitants of the Province should be annihilated. To conceal the fact that they were acting politically in their deliberations, the Committee of the Dominion Government which heard the appeal assumed for the time being the state and trappings of a judicial tribunal. The trick, however, was too transparent, and deceived very few. It is pretty well understood throughout the Dominion that the only question for the committee to consider was whether it was more important that some rights by way of special privilege formerly belonging to the Roman Catholic minority should be restored than that national schools should be maintained in Manitoba. The decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council left them free to act as they might see fit. They have chosen to side with the Roman Catholic church and against the whole people of Manitoba.

MANITOBA'S REPLY.

Manitoba's answer was submitted to the Provincial Legislature on June 13th last, and adopted on the 19th day of the same month. It was pointed out that the remedial order demanded the restoration of the old school laws which had been found inefficient ; that the policy of 1890 had been adopted after a careful examination of the system previously prevailing; that, under the old system, many people grew up in a state of illiteracy; that, apart from the objections to separate schools on principle, the weight of school taxation and the sparseness of settlement made it impossible to carry on a double system of schools. It was urged also

that the Ottawa authorities had demanded the restoration of the old system without obtaining full and accurate information as to its working, and the Province expressed its willingness to co-operate with the Dominion Government in making a thorough investigation of the whole subject. Legal difficulties were referred to. Hasty action was deprecated, and a strong appeal was made to the Dominion Government to exercise the greatest care and deliberation in dealing with a question of so vast importance affecting the religious feelings and convictions of different classes of the people of Canada and the educational interests of this Province, which is expected to become one of the most important in the Dominion.

Upon receipt of the Manitoba Government's reply the Dominion Government, after a short delay, announced itself as being committed to the policy of remedying the alleged wrongs of the Roman Catholics. The announcement was made in Parliament that Manitoba would again be requested to act and that in the event of a refusal on the part of the Province the Dominion Government would call Parliament in January, 1896 and introduce legislation to force compliance with the Catholic demands. The request to Manitoba has been made but the Provincial Government has not as yet made any reply. Should the reply be a refusal the questionwill then be for the Parliament of Canada to deal with and that body must decide whether or not it will attempt to coerce Manitoba.

CHAPTER II.

THE OLD SYSTEM.

In discussing the many and important issues embraced in the present controversy the first requisite must be an intelligent comprehension of the system which formerly existed and which it is sought to restore by means of the remedial order.

For this purpose it is not necessary to consider the condition of the Province educationally previous to the Union.

Before Manitoba became a portion of the Dominion there were no school laws within its boundaries, and no public schools. There were, in the words of the late Archbishop Tache, a number of schools for children. They were denominational schools, some of them being regulated and "controlled by the Roman Catholic Church, and others by various Protestant denominations."

The origin and history of these schools are well known. They were carried on by the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Presbyterian bodies, but they were in all cases purely private enterprises supported by fees and out of church funds. The Roman Catholics had no interest in the Anglican or Presbyterian schools, nor had the latter any interest in or control over the schools of the former. There was no public system, nor was there any educational law. There was no exemption of denominational schools from taxation for public school purposes, for the plain reason that there was no public school tax. The Roman Catholics possessed no privileges in respect to education either by law or practice previous to the Union of which they have since been divested by legislation. Such was the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of Barrett vs. the City of Winnipeg, and for that reason there is no object in making any extended reference to the schools existing before 1870 in the territory which afterwards became the Province of Manitoba.

THE EDUCATIONAL ACT OF 1871.

Interest does attach, however, to the system of schools established at the first session of the Provincial Legislature, in 1871. In that year an Act was passed empowering the Legislature to appoint not less than ten nor more than fourteen to be a Board of Education for the Province, of whom one half were to be Catholics and

the other half Protestants. The Board was divided into two sections, Protestant and Catholic, with one Superintendent of Protestant and one of Catholic schools.

The moneys granted for educational purposes were granted evenly, one half going to Protestant, and the other half to Catholic schools. In 1875 the Board was increased to twenty-one, twelve Protestants and nine Roman Catholics, and the division of the educational grant was re-arranged, each section receiving a share proportioned to the school population. It was provided that the establishment of a school of one denomination in a district should not prevent the establishment of a school of a different denomination in the same district. Each section was given control over the management and discipline of the schools of its faith, and the power of prescribing the books to be used in the schools under its care. There was this saving clause, however, "provided always "that for the Catholic section of the Board, in the case of books "having reference to religion and morals, such choice shall be "subject to the approbation of the competent religious authority." In this matter the Archbishop was by the school law of Manitoba placed in a position of complete supremacy so far as the Roman Catholic section was concerned.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC SECTION.

The meetings of the Roman Catholic section were from its first organization and nearly always afterwards held at the Archbishop's Palace in the French town of St. Boniface. The minutes of these meetings were kept in the French language. The members of the section were nearly all Priests, and, in nationality, French. The Archbishop of St. Boniface presided over the Roman Catholic section. The law provided that he should exercise a supervising. and veto power in the choice of all books bearing on religion and morals, and in practice his powers were much more extensive.

TEACHERS CERTIFICATES FOR THE PRIESTS AND SISTERS.

The schools themselves were at an early date placed almost completely in the hands of the late Archbishop, his French priests and ecclesiastics. On the 4th of September 1879 a resolution was passed by the Roman Catholic section "that the members of the "Clergy and of the religious communities who desire to consecrate "themselves to education be granted certificates on the recom

"mendation of the Ecclesiastical authority who will submit the "necessary examinations." What these examinations were it is impossible to tell, but on the 19th of August 1880 the late Arch bishop submitted the following report :—

"In accordance with the authority received from the Catholic "section of the Bureau of Education by a resolution adopted at "its session of the 4th of September 1879, I recommend that "certificates be granted to the persons hereinafter mentioned :— FIRST CLASS CERTIFICATES

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