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Show A GOOD EXAMPLE. Catholic, exchanges are full of lamentations la-mentations over the way the good Catholics of France have been tricked and deceived by their representatives in the Chamber of Deputies, who are alleged to have violated the pledges given to their constituents In voting for the expulsion of the religious orders. or-ders. These good Catholics we hear so much about must be a very weak-kneed weak-kneed lot, and their representatives must be well aware of that fact or they would not dare to break their pledges in such a fashion. We never hear of such a thing in this country or in England or any of her dependencies. depen-dencies. The people of old France are prone to treat with disdain their relatives, the French Canadians of the province prov-ince of Quebec. They might well study and immitate the sturdy courage cour-age and self-reliance of these de scendants of the most adventurous spirits who ever left tne shores of France. Let a Canadian politician truckle for a minute to the Orange enemies of the church and he learns to his cost what it means to solidify the French vote against him. The political graveyard of Canada is full of the corpses of those who once thought they could pull the wool over the eyes of the French Canadians, who have time and again proven themselves to be endowed with the, political instinct which gees to make the ruling class in every self-governing community. Some fifteen years ago a bill known as the Jesuits' estate act was introduced intro-duced into the Dominion Parliament by a French member which was fiercely fierce-ly opposed by the ' Orangemen and evangelical Protestants, who called on their representatives to defeat it. But the French Canadians insisted on it as a measure of justice a hundred years delayed, and when it came to a division in the House only thirteen members opposed it "the devil's thirteen" thir-teen" they have been nicknamed ever since. The Catholics of France, a Catholic country, should hide their heads in shame when they contemplate contem-plate the way In which their despised Canadian cousins rammed the Jesuits' Estates Act down the throats of a vast Protestant majority. The causes of. both were just, but the Canadians were brave fighters while the Catholics Catho-lics of France are cowardly poltroons. The French Canadian member who would go back on his people or his church would never be heard of again in the political arena. o |